ISSUE 139
June 2018
Catching memories Tournament fishing is a family affair for Jordan, Jeremy and Randy Anderson. (Submitted photo)
Competitive anglers reflect on fishing tradition By Shannon Geisen sgeisen@parkrapidsenterprise.com Fishing: It is one of Minnesotans’ most revered traditions. It is a rite of passage. It is a skill passed from one generation to the next. For those with a competitive spirit, recreational fishing evolves into avid tournament action. Randy Anderson and his sons, Jeremy and Jordan, regularly compete in Park Rapids area fishing tournaments. Growing up in lake country of northern Minnesota, Randy’s love of fishing began at an early age. “I had a grandpa and great-grandpa that would take me fishing way back when,” he said. “They were fishermen, and we did a lot of fishing offshore with a cane pole. Never really had any kind of a boat until I was seven, maybe eight years old. We would rent a boat at a couple lakes where I grew up, and we didn’t know if we could afford it or not.” One outfit charged $1 a day, Randy recalled. A few years later, another boat rental company charged $2 per day. “In both cases, it was just oars and Folgers cans to bail the water out,” he said.
As a boy, Randy used a 20-foot cane pole or a dropline – fishing line and hook tied to a stick. “My great-grandpa started taking me to offshore locations where we caught bass, northerns and the occasional walleye. You don’t forget stuff like that.” Back when it was legal, he snagged suckers out of the current with a treble hook on the cane pole. He’d then ride his bike to his uncle’s gas station with a pail full of suckers to sell as bait. “We seined minnows all the time. They never had any bait shops,” Randy said. He dug up angleworms on the shaded side of old sheds or from under old wood piles. He remembers cracking open a certain plant pod that housed a tiny, quarter-inch worm and using that for bait. “Nowadays everybody’s got to have fancy stuff,” Randy said. Randy and wife LaPalma live on Deer Lake, just west of Nevis, where they raised their sons. With a lake just a few steps away from their home, Jordan, 42, said, “Constantly, where we were at, we were looking at fish or trying to catch them. We had so many good memories – that fed it as well. Just everything we did revolved around the lake. It was just natural since Dad liked to fish.” “He passed on the obsession,” said Jeremy, 39. Deer Lake is part of the Mantrap chain. “It’s a decent fishing lake. It’s not like a walleye lake. It’s more of a panfish, bass type of lake,” Jeremy said.
CATCHING MEMORIES: Page 3
Art Beat Quarterly Regional Guide
Inside this issue... 2 Fight fraud, scams and identity theft 4 How to find retiree travel perks and write a living will 5 Art Beat 8 Cooking with beans
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