FENCEROWS...Barbed Wire Bass
By John Luthens
My hometown of Grafton is a nicely developed suburban community about twenty minutes north of Milwaukee. There is a mix of industry, commerce and residential subdivisions, as well as the occasional farm field and undeveloped woodlot.
When civic progress meets natural resources, it can be a tricky barbed wire fence to straddle. You can pick which side to stand on, but jumping back and forth is going to tangle you up eventually. Progress is tenacious that way; but I tend to believe that if the two sides can stand across the fence and talk reasonably, like old farmers chatting from their property lots, then the issues will take care of themselves.
A little common sense, patience and respect can go a long way in slowing down a fast moving world. And regardless of how fast it moves, the expanding world can’t clear-cut everything. Little places are left behind, and sometimes big things come of theses little places.
A case-study in the back-waters of progress involves a certain trail that runs to the mowed fairways of the golf course in Grafton. It drops off a busy intersection, just down the hill from the grade school. It’s not exactly public, because it winds through the lower slopes of some finely manicured residential back-yards.
When I’ve met the occasional golf-frontage neighbor, I’ve always waved, and they’ve always waved merrily back. I’ve even petted the occasional golf-yard dog without being command-attacked. So I’ve reasoned that its o.k. to use the golf course thoroughfare whenever the walking mood strikes me.
The trail parallels small Mole Creek, which is reason enough to walk it. It’s spring-driven water that looks the part of a good little trout creek, especially after a good rainstorm. It looks to have sprung out of northern wilderness, subdivision on the other side of the trail notwithstanding.
The Mole Creek trail banks are lush with green plant life. Wildflowers grow along the far banks; possible offshoots of the lily and cone-flower gardens that the more industrious green-thumbed golfers have planted along their property lines.
I’ve even heard rumors that the DNR has stocked brook trout in the creek, with expectations of natural reproduction. The stream eventually drains itself into the Milwaukee River, and the Ozaukee County Fish Passage Program has been doing some improvements on the lower creek this summer, so maybe the rumors are true.
The Fish Passage program is an organization trying to restore the habitat of the Milwaukee River watershed, in order to benefit the native fish and wildlife. They have removed dam impediments for easier upriver access and have reconnected over 75 stream miles to fish and aquatic life passage. The have championed the environmental side of the barbed wire progress fence.
The stream level drops dangerously low in the summer months, so I’d be surprised if Mole Creek ever supports natural trout reproduction; but if wildflowers can grow along Mole Creek from the seeds of planted gardens, then why not trout from hatchery stock? With a little patience, it might be possible.
Mole Creek rushes over a limestone gravel bottom, and it eventually cuts through an old limestone quarry that has long ago given way to residential progress. The parts of the quarry that weren’t turned over to developers have filled in with water, and the springs that feed Mole Creek also seep into these quarry ponds.
The ponds are really the crux of this column matter. I follow the Mole Creek golf course trail to get within range. Legally, I need to actually wade in Mole Creek to get close shot.
The trail turns into a tall stand of red maples. It’s dark under the shade of the trees, and in the autumn the leaves turn brilliant shades of red and gold. They crunch under your feet, and fly off the trail in the slightest brisk wind. If you were a kid, it would be a nice spot to park your bike and follow the creek into the maple bottoms.
The trees fall away down into a bog. The stream winds down through tangled alders. Fallen logs hide in brushing green ferns, and the air is alive with the smell of swamp muck. The open brightness of a clearing shines ahead through shadows of the willows.
This all exists under the nose of subdivisions and the sound of golf balls whacking off the tee. What a find! Then suddenly… smack into a gnarled barbed wire fence. It jumps out rusted and threading through the live growth of trees.
It’s an old fence, but a fence nonetheless-designed to keep something in or out. I guess since I’m already out, that means me. I’m a believer in respecting private property without permission, but I’ll admit to once or twice stepping lightly over the fence to poke my head through the green intertwined vines to catch a glimpse at the clearing beyond.
In the clearing is one of the quarry ponds, clear and shelving from sandy shallows to a deep bottom. Bluegill and bass swim in swaying weed cover, and the deep darkness of the quarry middle always looked promising.
Compounding my frustration, there are at least four more ponds in the old quarry, and they are all private. Houses spring up from all angles. I learned this from physically getting into Mole Creek and wading through the fenced off reserve. It must have been some sight back in its day, before development and progress fenced it off, and before some enterprising property owners threw in some bass and bluegill to taunt me.
If I were younger, and if my bike were parked about a hundred yards back under an old maple tree, such things as hopping a fence and doing a bit of private pond fishing wouldn’t daunt me. I have, in fact, been there and done that on more than one occasion in my misspent youth.
But I never ventured closer to the ponds than the camouflaged brush cover fence line or the crayfish and minnow shallows of Mole Creek. I did think about the ponds on dark nights, when the moon was right-and I mentally picked the right bass fly poppers to fish every pond.
I never got closer, until last week, that is. It may have been a matter of luck, but I choose to look at it as good Karma. I respected the barbed wire fence of progress, taking the golf-course trail but leaving the private waters alone to their rightful owners. It was all a matter of patience.
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| A long-awaited stone quarry bass is netted | Amanda Luthens hauls in her first fly rod bluegill, with help from resident pond guide Jake Pedersen. |
My daughter’s basketball coach and his family moved into a house on one of the quarry ponds. It turned out they had a son who wanted to learn to fly fish. It all came together, and I finally got to see what was lurking in one of deep old quarry holes.
Jake was a gracious guide. He was of the proper age to have left his bike under a tree and snuck into one of these very ponds. He hardly needed any fly fishing lessons. He knew where the fish might hide. He knew the ways of his newly found private pond, although his family had only just moved in.
He was one of the naturals, casting grasshopper imitations with ease, while I finally got to throw my much anticipated bass poppers.
The Mole Creek quarry ponds captured my imagination for a number of years. In a story like this, sometimes the trail is better than the ending…Sometimes.
I’ll only say it was worth the effort of poking around a growing suburban town, and finding the cracks in between the fences of progress. I finally got to catch my stone quarry bass. And my daughter, who’d unknowingly gotten me into one of the ponds of my dreams, got to catch her first fish on a fly.
Stay on the right side of the barbed wire. Good Karma.