Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss A trip to Wisconsin

Well we just got back from Wisconsin. Took a week off and went to a family reunion in Wisconsin Rapids and spent a few days in Wisconsin Dells. Along the way though I got a treat I wasn't sure was even going to happen. I haven't been back to my grand fathers hobby farm since I was 16... this is where we spent all our Christmas's and Thanksgiving as a kid.... Lots of awesome memories. The folks there were gracious enough to show us around and even in the house! I have to say it was a bitter sweet feeling and fun but hard too.... I did however manage a couple of pictures of the place and of my boys by the pond.

Good lookin kids complimented by the shirts. Americans and Packer loyalists. Job well done !!!

I think it's great getting to step back in time alittle,and see things from your childhood.

Thanks guys, yes my boys are 100 percent boys that's for sure! My oldest who's in the Army will flat not hesitate to tell you how he feels about certain things...lol Yes step back I did for sure! I am almost 50 and haven't seen the place since I was 16. Of course everything looked smaller lol I remember it all being so big!! My Grandma and Grandpa were the best of the best... I soaked that all in and just paused for a moment as I looked around so many memories were rushing through my head... I never got to see the place again after 16 as I went off into the Air Force at 17 ish and they had to sell the place while I was gone as they just couldn't take care of it anymore... I was crushed when I heard about it. I guess I always kinda pretended it was still ours for a number of years when it really wasn't, but in my mind it was. Other than our own home Grandpas farm literally was the house that built me... I am just so glad my boys got to see it once.

RC

Yup! Just did that. But, about 250 miles north of Wisconsin Rapids, in the suburbs of Oulu, WI, which are the outer suburbs of Iron River, WI, and a few miles south of the south shore of Lake Superior. We try to hold our annual reunion the last week of July because we figure the roads will be open, the ice will be out, and it probably won't snow that week.

It is the area where I grew up, and where most of my family still resides -- somewhere in the area between Duluth/Superior and Ashland. Eleven of 13 of my generation made it to this reunion and as usual we sure had a lot of fun telling stories about our childhood. The cousin who owns the family property where we partied has her father's 80 acres that includes about 1/3 of the frontage on an 80 acre lake. We were so busy telling stories and eating that we didn't have time to go fishing.

I'm lucky because three of the family properties on my dad's side of the family are still owned by cousins. A cousin who is about 3 months younger than me, lives in the city house where my dad was born in 1909, followed by his five brothers and a sister. Two cousins own the original family farm that was homesteaded. It was originally a "square" (640 acres). Some was donated to the Catholic church, 40s were sold off, and then some 40s were re-purchased and new 40s were purchased. It is now more than 1000 acres. The cousins are currently researching the best methods and uses of preserving the land so it cannot be sold or developed. It adjoins a state park.

With each reunion I can tell we are getting older. In three days of partying we went through about a 12 pack of beer. We used to go through more than twice that much in an hour. All of us "boys" are veterans, two disabled. Only my brother didn't go. He got disabled while tying up an ore carrier on a Great Lakes carrier when a steel cable snapped and hit him in back of his legs. He eventually recovered and more than made up for all the hell he could have raised.

Anyway, glad to hear somebody else made it to the Northwoods for a great family reunion. Our boys used to go with us, but they've now got kids and grandkids of their own. My wife has heard most of my family's stories multiple times over the decades, so she visits her sister when I go back in time.

Nice Cat!!

My Grandpas place is in Rudolf WI. And of course I am from Eagle River. We have been down hill skiing many time at Iron Mountain!! Powder Horn Mt. as well. Great place to grow up for sure! At this point I sure don't miss those bone chilling winter days though!! Sure miss catching them big ole Northern and Muskies tho!! Glad to see you had fun...and you couldn't beat the weather!!

RC

I had to look up Rudolf. I guess that would really be considered the center of the state.

I can certainly agree with all the rest of your post. Although, where I live now, gets as much snow, and often more snow than we did on the South Shore. I guess that is why we have so many ski resorts around here. We just don't get quite as cold.

I do really miss the walleye, northern and muskie fishing. But, West Virginia does have incredible fishing and hunting. My ponds are great too. Almost no mosquitoes in this part of WV and VA. And, my wife and I have become snowbirds who overwinter at the beach in very southeastern NC where I don't have to dig a hole through the ice to go fishing, and where I can pick my garden in January.

Enjoy.

Still have family in Wi., and that's one of the reasons I go up there every year for deer hunting season. My cousin owns this:

http://www.idlehourresort.com/

and it's been in the family since 1952 when Charlie (his Dad) bought the place. There's family in Fifield too.

We hunt out of a house that is North East of Manitowish Waters, South of Presque Isle and North West of Boulder Junction, off of Crab Lake Road.

I just missed you, I was in IRON RIVER at Pinecrest from 7/7-7/29

I wish I could have stayed longer...Had a great salmon trip down in Algoma WI too.. the LBM in the pike chain are getting very abundant...I harvest a good number of them. Every one of them was slap full of rusty crays....I had a large musky eat one as I was reeling it in...

I spent most of my childhood summers and vacations in a cabin that my folks (and me and my brothers) built on a lot adjacent to the Nicolet National Forest. We were a block off of 7 mile lake. I used to know Three Lakes and Eagle River like the back of my hand. Quite frankly, it was these north woods childhood formative years that set and fostered my need for acreage, lake (pond) frontage, and a cabin that I built with my own hands. I go all the way back to stuff like: Skip Wagner at the Black Forest in Three Lakes, the Northernaire Hotel, summer snowmobile races in Three Lakes on the 4th of July. Every bad habit and nasty, spoiled brat, juvenile delinquent trick I learned and practiced has it's roots in those years in the north woods. They were the best years of my life!

BSki that's awesome! My best buddy was manager of the Northernaire for a couple of years!! My mom and dad both used to race 440 chaparrals in Eagle River. How old are you again? OMG I wonder if we ever may have crossed each others path and didn't even know it??? I hung out in Land O' Lakes, Three Lakes, Conover, Phelps, Rhinelander that is to awesome!!! Do you remember Alexanders Pizza place on the corner in Eagle River just down from the Movie's... We hung out there all the time!! That's crazy... Eagle Lake, Catfish Lake, Butternut Lake Walleye fishing...

59 y/o
Most of my time was spent further out on 32 and Old Military road. My best pal worked at Roundy's in town and also at Northernaire one summer. I was supposed to work there with him that summer, but I chickened out (got a girlfriend at home and fell in lust). Audrey's 19th hole saloon on the Northernaire golf course was one of our stops in the circuit. I remember my Mom taking us to Silver Lake in town for swimming when we were squirts. Anvil Lake too, out on 70. Dr K's Clinic, Weasel's, Goose's Disco of the North, WERL radio, Sheltered Valley ski resort. The Butternut/Franklin lodge was one of our home bases. The true home base, though, was Wesley's Resort on 7 Mile. We caused most of our trouble in the Lone Stone Lake/Seven Mile Lake/Butternut and Franklin Lakes region. Back then, there were 30+ snowmobile manufacturers. The bomb was the Cat 634. Today, it would be a lead-sled. John Deere JDX was the rage.

Scott,

I looked at your family's website. The statement above immediately caught my eye.

1969, the draft, and Viet Nam had some positives! Even though I took a lot of funning for it, I was taught how to properly put ice cubes in my "pop". I'd never done that before I left the northwoods.

I like to visit in late July and early August when the ground is not white and there is no ice on the lakes. After all these years of just a few visits per year, I still have difficulty distinguishing between the humming birds and the mosquitoes.

Hey dude,

We probably crossed paths and didn't even know it. Our family properties were/are in Bayfield/Ashland/Douglas counties. Many are pretty close to, or are adjacent to the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. I spent a lot of time hunting and fishing there as a kid.

Are you coming to the conference in October? It has been a while since we've seen you in person, especially with Sunil in morning green-face! We've missed you.

Ken

Likely not, Catman; a lot of real estate between the Nic/Che that you know and the region that I explored. No plans on attending the conference, but thank you for asking.

Ski,

I swam at Silver Lake every summer from 1973 to 1984!!! I loved that little concession stand you could get those Orange push pops!! Man they were good!!! Back then you could actually sun tan on the top of the building there it was one big platform till something stupid happened and they would let anyone else up there...

I am only 49 so you got a few years on me... but it sure is a small world...sometimes.

RC