There is a special place not far from here, known by many as Willow River State Park.<\/p>\n
Before I had ever been there, I knew it as Middle Dam.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My grandpa was a retired teacher who fished a lot, and often talked of this place.\u00a0 Surprisingly, for how much he fished, he never once set foot in a boat.\u00a0 His fishing haunts were comprised of various locations in western Wisconsin, mostly in the Hudson\/River Falls\/ Somerset area.\u00a0 For a shore fisherman, it is hard to do better than this area, there is a multitude of streams, rivers and lakes offering access to good fishing for the boat impaired.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Grandpa lived in the Twin Cities, and I would spend much of my summers at his house, and we would travel to the various Wisconsin haunts on many summer days.\u00a0 \u00a0On the trips there and back he would often tell tales of fishing with his son or with some of his students, many of the stories I had heard so many times I think I knew them better than him.\u00a0 One common theme from these old stories was fishing at a mythical place called \u201cMiddle Dam\u201d.\u00a0 Based on the info from these stories [these stories mostly took place in the 60\u2019s], Middle Dam had populations of fish beyond what a ten year old could comprehend.\u00a0 I imagined what a mecca this fantastical place must have been, where giant largemouth would fight over a carefully placed Lazy Ike, where big sunfish boiled the water, where you could easily fill a bucket with crappies the size of plates.\u00a0 \u201cTwenty years ago, Jim and I were at Middle Dam\u2026\u201d was typical to how these stories would begin.\u00a0 The stories would end with limits of bass or crappies that they gave to friends and neighbors.<\/span><\/p>\n This must have been a slow day, there’s only one fish on the stringer! \u00a0This is a rare photo of my Grandpa, R.J. Happe, known by most as Phred<\/p>\n