Dr. Anderson, my grandfather, enjoyed hunting and fishing as a break from the routine of medical practice. He hunted in the local area around Woodbine with friends.

Granddad would take the family to the northwest corner of Iowa where they often spent summers at Storm Lake in Iowa. Another summer destination was Otter Tail Lake in Minnesota. Storm Lake was a favorite destination as Granddad had family there.

Another favorite was the Cache la Poudre River in Colorado. Margaret Holmes Anderson’s two sisters, Effie Holmes and Mary Elizabeth, had married Onie Galbreath of Ft. Collins. Grandmother and Granddad Anderson would visit there and Granddad would fish the Poudre River for trout. He often sent drawing messages home to his youngest son when the son was not yet able to read. The drawings were “letters” telling “Pete,” as Dad was called, what was happening while Granddad was away from home.

Granddad continued to fish for much of his life. In his later years he took up golf as a means of getting some exercise, he also installed a pool table in the basement of his home in Woodbine. I distinctly recall one drive to the golf course in Dunlap or Dennison, a few miles to the north of Woodbine in 1961. I was visiting on my way home from Army service in Germany. Grandmother Anderson had died the year before and Grandad was now on his own.

Granddad had a reputation for driving fast on any kind of road. The main highway, U.S. 30, to Dennison was narrow and as did most major highways in Iowa had a curb and not shoulder. I glanced at the speedometer (it was reading a bit over 65 mph) and Granddad responded to that glance by noting: “Yeah, I’ve slowed down since your grandmother died! Now that she’s gone, I have to look after myself! While she was here I figured the good Lord would look after me so I could look after her.” Slowed down indeed!! But I suppose that is better than the 75 or so that he used to drive on that highway.

Here are his hunting and fishing collections.

The Duck Hunter

At the Anderson home in Woodbine after a successful duck hunt.

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Fishing

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All Loaded for the Trip to Otter Tail, Minnesota

Off on a summer break to Otter Tail, Minnesota. Granddad is at the wheel, you can see John just behind him and Harry nearly hidden just behind him. Mary is in the left rear seat, looking out the window. Grandmother Anderson is the one who took the picture. Note the way the running boards are loaded with gear and the “Woodbine” banner attached to the rear brace of the car-top. You can also see some gear stored inside just peaking above the top of the door.

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Fishing success, Otter Lake in 1920s

The family made summer trips to Otter Tail Lake in Minnesota. This successful catch by Granddad, Aunt Mary and Uncle John was probably made in the mid-1920s. A nice string of smallmouth bass, northern pike, crappie and walleye.

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Catches in the 1920s

HN Anderson with Walleye and Pike, June 1922

HN Anderson with Bass and Walleye about 1920

The huge stringer of fish in the left photograph appear to be mostly walleye and in the range of a couple of pounds, there may be a few bass among them

The picture on the right is of a string of bass (five lined up above Granddad’s head) and walleye. He has used three rods to catch these fish, and has used a lure. The walleye were probably caught with bait fish that he had brought from home. He had large oval stock-tub behind the garage where he kept the minnows seined earlier for trips such as the ones that caught all these fish.

The number of fish in each of the pictures is typical of how we caught and kept fish in that age. The populations of fish in the ponds and lakes seemed to be inexhaustible. Today we don’t make these displays, instead we record the fish as caught and then released. If they are large, a trophy certificate may be presented as occurred with my fishing trip in June, 2011 to a lake north of Kenora, Ontario, Canada.

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Successes in the 1950s

HN Anderson, 1950s -- off on a fishing trip

Granddad with a nice bass and blue gill, mid 1950s

HN Anderson, early 1950s w fish

On the left the Oldsmobile bought new in 1949 — one of the few non-Ford vehicles Granddad ever owned! He really detested that car. He has his casting rods in hand and is ready to go.

In the middle a nice bass and a blue-gill. Note the “deer-stalker” cap! Grandad always enjoyed dressing the part when he went out to fish or hunt.

On the right, the catch of the day. A nice collection of bullheads (catfish) and good sized blue gills, probably caught in some or lakes near Woodbine. As I prepare this page, I am wondering if the choice to fish for bullheads and blue gills didn’t follow from a decline in other fisheries for bass, pike and walleye.

In the back ground of the right hand photo I can just make out a 1947 or 48 Mercury and a fast-back Pontiac of about the same vintage

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Others also got to go fishing

Aunt Grace and Grandmother Anderson with a nice string of bullheads — good eating tonight! You can see that some of the fish are still wiggling. Warm-water fish were nearly always kept on a stringer such as this in the water beside the boat or just lying in the pond or lake if fishing from the shore.

This picture is probably from the 1950s when Uncle John and Aunt Grace visited Granddad and Grandmother Anderson in Woodbine. Aunt Grace had grown up in Denison, just to the north of Woodbine, so when Uncle John and Aunt Grace made the trip to Iowa from Seattle, it would be to visit both sets of parents.

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Clamming on the Washington Coast

Granddad and Grandmother Anderson made their last visit to the west coast about 1956. I was at the University at the time and they stayed with us in Springfield. Either before or after the visit to us they went to visit Uncle John and Aunt Grace in Gray’s Harbor, Washington. Granddad always liked getting out and about on the beach or golf course. That year, Uncle John took them out to Long Beach, Washington on a particularly low tide so that they could do some clamming. Grandmother Anderson is holding the “clam gun,” simply a long-bladed spade designed to go quickly into the sand as the clam retreated deeper. Granddad is reaching into the hole to retrieve the escaping clam. Leaning against the clam bag are a couple of nice sized razor clams, so-called because their shell resembles a folded razor.

You will see folks in the background digging for clams in the surf. The clams make a small hole in the sand through which they “breath” and extend a neck to filter food from the water. That small hole is also what gives away their location in sand above the water mark or level. The water is very clear and these tell-tale signs are easily recognized even in the surf. The ones clamming in the surf claim that they get more clams and bigger ones as they are not preyed upon by folks as easily.

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Some final thoughts and reminiscences

There are probably other snapshots of Granddad fishing in the collections of other members of the family. You will see in many of the pictures that Granddad is either smoking a pipe or cigar, so far as I know he never smoked a cigarette. His pipe was always with him.

When Granddad and Grandmother Anderson visited us at Walterville in the late 1940s, we went up the McKenzie River and fished the river above McKenzie Bridge. My recollection of that trip is that we caught no fish and Granddad was really frustrated trying to fish the pocket water behind the large rocks of the river. In this part of the river it is falling pretty rapidly and the current is very strong, making it difficult to keep a fly or bait in range of the fish for any length of time.

Sometime in the 1960s Granddad gave me his Shakespeare fiber-glass fly rod and automatic reel. I still have that rod and have fished with it in Oregon and Colorado. This rod was bought with fishing for bass and pike in mind. For that reason, this is a heavy rod with a very stiff action that will wear a person out in a few hours of fishing.

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