Growing up in a small northern Illinois town, at age 13, with several school-free months ahead, I was often creative in time wasting activities. A favorite was drowning some of my dad's bass lures in the local lake. On my bike ride back home, over my left shoulder, I spotted some kind of action in the shallow stream of water below. Hmmmm, that was interesting I thought as I peddled faster to beat the dark sky that was coming on fast. Tomorrow.

A frog gig, about eight inches across, a small sturdy trident, fastened to a pole about five foot long, borrowed from a rake or broom or some such oughta' do the trick as my mind went over the details of this newly hatched time wasting venture.

The Illinois and Michigan Canal was built in the early to mid 1800s by mostly Irish immigrants. It linked the Great Lakes with the Illinois River and from the Illinois on down to the Mississippi and ultimately, New Orleans. That was a huge deal back then, for commerce, for opening up the new frontier. As other forms of transportation overshadowed the mule drawn canal boats, the canal fell into great disrepair in many places. Some stretches still had good water, others were dry. Locks had broken gates and no longer worked. Such was the nature of the Illinois Michigan Canal in 1967.

My destination, spear laying across the handlebars of my stingray bike, lay west, opposite the morning sun. Hoping my guess was right I pulled up to where the highway crossed the canal and parked my bike.

This section of the I&M Canal had about two foot of water with about a constant 10-12 feet of width. I think it ran dry on both ends as the water wasn't flowing. It went on that way for a good long distance, trees lining both banks forming an overhanging canopy. Clad in tee shirt, shorts and old sneakers, spear in hand, I stepped into the cold canal water. Since it was only about two feet deep the water was pretty clear and that helped me get a verifiable visual on what I had caught a glimpse of the day before. The majestic, lowly, carp, in full carp regalia.

Dozens of them, in all sizes, scattered in torpedo like V's as my, what I'm sure the carp considered alien-like, legs entered the cold water. As I strode forward so did the carp, staying a good 10 feet or so ahead of me. I calibrated, visualized the trajectory and let go in a javelin style heave. I missed, but it was close.

I had subsequently learned that the fishing lake had overflowed from a heavy rain into the canal. Since the carp were up close to the shore, probably spawning, they were swept into the canal and then trapped. Carp is a most foul fish to have in a bass lake. They have a tendency to rut up the bottom of the lake next to the shore at the same time the game fish are nesting. The rutting in the mud by the carp destroys the game fish nests and reduces the overall biomass balance in favor of the carp. This and for other reasons carp were very much a pariah, back in my youthful neck of the woods.

As I practiced, every miss helped me to hone my eye-to-fish coordination. It didn't really take long to meet success. Me, alone, wading the canal in a semi dark canopy, throwing an archetypal projectile, light glittering through the leaves, wondering how far up that tree of evolution I had climbed. Content upon my success as a neo-hoplite, I hoisted my self up the bank, soaking wet, jumped on my bike and headed off for home.

I was sure the raccoons and coyotes were more than pleased with my many successes. Over the coming days that melted into a couple of weeks I became very proficient at my new found skill. Sometimes the carp were so thick in numbers that it was near impossible to miss. Sometimes I'd get doubles, heck, I think I may have even gotten a triple or two. Some of the carp were huge, many were small, some were fast, some were slow, but all were ugly as sin, unless you were their mother, then I suppose an exception could be waived. My most memorable though, were the long shots, the hail marys, twenty or thirty feet away. It was primal.

My ego was such that I had to share my new found acumen. Sometimes a brother, sometimes a friend, side by side chucking speared frog gigs at golden brown scaled submarines, high-fives, chest pounding exhortations of teenage bravado. We were a band of brothers and this our Day of Saint Crispin's. Unto the breach once more we waded, spears in hand, saving the canal from the carpian invaders.

Until one day, we slogged out of the water and looked down.

The leeches were all over. Both legs, from knee to ankle. Heads already embedded. Some blood oozing. One by one we carefully and slowly picked them off. No way was I going to ride blocks to get home with those things on my legs.

That was it. I left never to return. The hoplite defeated by a lowly parasite. The most foul carp sang a kharmic song. "Glub, glub, glub" they gleefully exhorted as they rolled in the mud.

No where, in any depths of my thirteen year old mind, was there even an iota of thought that those were the good old days. Funny how the good old days slip by you when you are living them, only to return much later in a whimsical notion of a memory.

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