5/4/16
Rule #56: If someone sticks a needle in your boob, you have unlimited permission to whine.
"Old Fishing 'Haunts'": Lutheran Hills
I'm trying to remember how long ago this would have been--the rule of thumb anymore, when I try to figure out how many years ago something happened is to add ten years to my best guess! So, when I first started going to Lutheran Hills Campground with Jeff and sometimes Jeff's family, would have been about 30 years ago. I know I was still in graduate school. I was writing my dissertation, because I remember combining a trip to IU's library in Bloomington with a visit to Jeff's family staying at the campground down in the Bicknell, Bean Blossom area. The closest "town" to the campground is, if I recall correctly, Helmsburg. Getting back to Lutheran Hills meant driving down miles of honest-to-God dirt/gravel roads. One of the ways I have to date my experiences there is by recalling that the first time Sue, Jeff, Susan, and I went there, we did so after picking up Jeff from one of his first Mini-Marathons in Indianapolis--in Elroy, my first pickup truck!
[To give you an idea of how things have changed, after picking up Jeff, driving between Indy and the campground, we played a drinking game--whoever spotted water, on either side of the road first got to make everyone else drink! The driver, as I remember, had a waiver--but I'll bet he didn't pass up too many drinks!]
Jeff's family had always gone to Lutheran Hills for vacations. I think the campground was associated with the church they attended in Muncie. We always stayed in the same hillside cabin that had several rooms, one with a few sets of bunk beds. That first time was, I think, the only time just the four of us attended one of these trips. After that, it was the usual Cheers crew, with Billy Burk thrown in for good measure now and then.
The manmade lake itself was very large--probably twice the size of Windigo, so I'm going to estimate it at minimum 10 acres. The deepest water was down by the dam/spillway. One year, we knocked them dead using Rapala Shad Raps along the damn, initially cranking hard to get them down to 8 or 10 feet before making a steady retrieval. They were stacked up along a point that jutted out from the left side as you faced the dam. But most years, Jeff and I plied the cattail-lined shallows with Kelly's Pier-Boys, drinking Bud (me) and Bud Light (Jeff) until it was too dark to tell where to cast. The fish were large for as numerous as they were--1.5--2.5 pounds, usually--bigger when you caught them deeper.
Of course, as the size of the group grew, and the level of power-drinking--if possible--along with it, we were eventually asked not to return. It was, after all, a Christian campground, with everything that entailed. I sure hope we didn't ruin that place for Jeff's family.
A couple of memories:
1. The day I almost drowned! I was fishing with Kirk Mace, a man who admittedly was NOT a fisherman. He and I were in one of the flat-bottomed, V-prow 12-14 foot boats, and as I usually did when fishing with Jeff, when we got close to the area I wanted to cast to, I stood up. Well, I suppose he was thinking that's what everyone did, so when I turned to look at Kirk, he was also standing, except instead of balancing his feet, one on either side of the center of the boat, he was perched almost all the way to one side. Naturally, my instinct was to move to the other side to balance us out. However, in moving from one side to the other, there is an initial moment when you have to increase your weight on the side you're leaving--you know, the side where Kirk was at the moment resting his not inconsiderable weight! The boat flipped instantly. I grabbed my tackle box in one hand and had my pole in the other. Out of sheer laziness, I had not tied my high top tennis shoes, so they slid off, freeing my feet to paddle me to the surface. [Yes, this is the origin of Rule #57.] Kirk, who as a policeman, was trained in rescue asked me if I needed help to which I replied politely, that no, I didn't need ANY MORE of his help!
2. I went down to Bloomington to research for my dissertation at the IU Library and then met up with Jeff's family. I was, however, early by about two hours, so I stopped along the gravel road where there was an old cattle crossing bridge spanning a clear creek, 10--15 feet wide and anywhere from 1 to 2 feet deep. It was lousy with Sunfish and Rock Bass! I had to stoop over to get under the overhanging brush which sometimes cleared the surface of the creek by only 4 or 5 feet. By the time the Birds saw my truck, honked, and I crawled out of the brush, I had a stringer of about 20 keeper-sized fish! I think that sealed my reputation with Grandpa, who always bragged about my fishing skills--blowing them way out of proportion--but who am I to tell my elders that they're wrong?!!
