By Harold Brutlag
While I was growing up in Ottertail County back in the 40s and 50s one of the way anglers amused themselves was to take fish illegally in the spring when the Northerns were making their spawning run in the creeks that fed the lakes. I wasn’t in the crowd that seemed to enjoy out-foxing the game wardens, but my Dad commented about out-running one by the name of Obert Olson one night. I came across the following story about Ole and Lars and that jarred my memory about my dad:
“Ole was stopped by a game warden in Northern Minnesota recently leaving a lake well known for it’s Walleye. He had two buckets of fish.
“As it was during the spawning season, the game warden asked, “Do you have a license to catch those fish?”
Ole replied, ‘No, sir! Dese here are my pet fish.”
“Pet fish?” the warden inquired.
“Ya sur, yew betcha” answered Ole. “Every night I take dese fish here down tew the lake and let dem svim around for a vhile. Den I whistle and dey yump back into dere buckets and I take dem home.”
“That’s a bunch of hooey. Fish can’t do that,” said the game warden.