In my 14th year, I had the joy of spending the summer with my fraternal grandfather, grandmother and great aunt. Pappy, Gramma and Aunt Deana left Chicago when Pappy retired from Argo Corn Products.  I would guess that was in the late 1950’s or very early 1960’s but really do not know.  I just know I loved the place!  By 1965 when I went there, they had gifted their original home and a significant chunk of land to the Luthern camp on the lake.  They kept 5 acres on the edge of the lake along with several small cabins, an old restaurant which they used mostly as a storage room and the main house.

Half of the property was a big open field which I mowed using a riding lawnmower.  The driveway divided the property with the open field on the left and a bit of lawn and a nice hardwood forest on the right.  Nestled against the woods were the three one room cabins which constituted the “Inn” of Pappy’s Inn. These were used by travelers moving through the area on rare occassions, but, primarily were used by hunters and trappers who came to the area for the winter.  Most of the income Pappy’s Inn generated came from the sale of fishing supplies, night crawlers, minnows and food, sodas and ice cream.

The highlight of the day would come when Pappy and I would row out into Ingham Lake with a couple of cane poles to go bullhead fishing.  The former “Mud Lake,” now called Ingham lake did not have a whole lot going for it.  The county conservation corps for some reason had drawn the lake level down.  From our beach to the water, there was about 150 feet of mud flats.  Not something you could walk on, just an unknown number of feet thick Iowa farm land rendered into muck.  Pappy had gone out and dug a row boat sized trench through it to the lake.  Considering it was done from a boat, by hand with a shovel by a man who had to be in his sixties, it is pretty impressive, but, that was Pappy.

So, after rowing out into the lake, we would thread a nightcrawler or a minow onto a hook, set the bobber for about 18 inches and throw out the line.  Might be on a rod and reel, but, just as often, we took cane poles.  Mostly, we caught bullheads.  Mostly they were about three or four inches long but occassionally we would get a nice one or two pounder.  We kept them all because they were considered to be somewhat of a nuisance.  On a nice summer day, you could see huge twenty foot wide swirls of baby bullheads sunning on the top of the water.   Once in a great while we would get a nice big walleye to take the bait.  Then, Pappy would let out a very nice “Ooooo  boy here we go” type of comment and get all excited.  A couple minutes later a nice silvery fish would be flopping around on the bottom of the boat.

We usually fished about an hour or an hour and a half.  In that time, you could normally catch the better part of a 5 gallon bucket full of bullheads.  The next step was not all that fun.  Now, it was time to clean these guys.  Pappy had a special pair of  pliers which were flat for about an inch at the pincher part.  First, you would grab the fish by the gills with your palm covering the head.  Then, a shallow cut around the entire fish just behind the head. After that, I would take the pliers and grab the dorsal fin and some of the skin around it and pull back.  The skin would all come off then a quick gutting and into the basin for final cleaning.  It took about 35 to 40 seconds, rarely more than a minute, to skin and clean one fish.  After a final rinse, they would go into a half gallon milk box.  When the box was full, we topped it off with water and put it in the deep freeze.

While we were there, we had a family reunion of sorts.  I remember about 30 of us gathering around an outside table.  The past several months of bullhead fishing came out of the freezers, were thawed out and the fish rolled in batter and deep fried.  My cholesteral levels are still high, but, boy were they great eating.

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