Smallmouth Island
By John Luthens
There is something inherently wild about a river island: A hiding place from the currents of the modern world, a sense of adventure that echoes along the swirling shoreline in the age-old voices of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
It doesn’t have to be big, and it needn’t be remote. It becomes that much more adventurous if it’s tiny and doesn’t have a given name. A river island, by definition, simply needs to be surrounded by good-old fashioned, flowing H2O. And it is a mandate written down by Tom and Huck, themselves, that one must explore it with the zest of childhood enthusiasm
I’ve christened my hunk of water-bound glory Smallmouth Island, resting in plain view in the Milwaukee River and rising port and starboard below the old woolen mill in the heart of Grafton, Wisconsin. Despite protests from local fisherman who are afraid of letting the cat out of the bag when it comes to some of the finest smallmouth bass fishing in the southern half of the state, I feel the need to share my island’s secrets.
I’m a journalist. I can’t help running my mouth. Besides, I’ve yet to see any of the locals make an attempt at fording the river to reach my sanctum, so they technically have no valid argument. When the trees start budding and the warblers sing, when the driftwood is tangled high on the shores from the early-season floods and the big smallmouth bass roll upriver to spawn along its rocky seams.
When springtime splashes through Grafton and down the Milwaukee River to meet up with summer – I submit that there is no wilder island on the planet:
John Luthens is a freelance writer and photographer from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon or at www.cablepublishing.com or by contacting the author at Luthens@hotmail.com