Family takes on Lake Vermilion to camp and find crayfish
SOUDAN, Minn. - Joshua Baumann is on a crayfish mission. The 7-year-old with the curly brown hair and the face full of freckles works along the boat dock, dangling a piece of worm that's tied to a string. The string is tied to a branch he found.
Fishin' on the Stones
Some like the fast pace of Percy Priest Lake. But others prefer the quieter, slower pace of the Stones River. "I love to fish; I've fished all my life," said Dayton Cook of Murfreesboro. "I used to fish on the river when it wasn't flooded."
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The only difference is, there probably won't be someone named Fletcher running the show.
After four generations operating a boat livery less than four miles from the White House--as the fish hawk flies--Joe and Ray Fletcher gave up their contract with the National Park Service last fall to operate the concession.
Fletcher's Boat House, founded by Joe and Ray's great grandfather, lies on federal riverfront--on Fletcher's Cove--in the densely wooded but narrow strip between the Potomac proper and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, in what is now the C & O Canal National Historic Park.
The brothers, who were born in Washington, DC, and lived their early years within a mile of the river, have spent most of their lives working at the family business. At the end of last season they had 45 of the trademark fiberglass-encapsulated, plywood rowboats but their fleet once numbered nearly 100 boats, according to Joe Fletcher, now 63.
Fletcher's also had a fleet of about 30 aluminum canoes for paddling on the canal as well as on the river, and rental bicycles to ride the canal towpath.
"These boats require constant maintenance on top of all the other things we have to do to operate as a business," said Joe Fletcher. "During the season, from early spring into the fall, we're working from morning to night, seven days a week--weekends and holidays included. But, well, you reach a certain time and you say, 'That's enough; I'd like to go fishing myself for a change.'"
A Dynasty Ends
Both men raised their families in the northern Virginia suburbs and have two adult sons each, all college graduates and settled into various careers. No one was interested in continuing with the all-consuming business as Joe and his brother Ray did when their time came about 40 years ago, he said.
The dawn-to-dark routine of rental operations plus issuing fishing licenses, selling snacks, bait and tackle, and dispensing advice is tough enough, Joe adds. But all the regular maintenance and repair work--the river and the public can be tough on boats, he says--has to be done outdoors, making the weather a critical variable in this business.
"It's tough when you get have to get up at 3 . because you hear the Potomac is about to flood and you have to move all the boats plus the floating docks out of her way," said Fletcher, who, with brother Ray, has been through three "100-year floods" in his lifetime.
But neither Fletcher is going away from the river and the cove that bears the family name; they love the Potomac too much to leave it just because they are retiring, he reported.
"Basically, I just wanted to step across the counter and be a customer," he explained, adding that fishing the Potomac is still his passion.
It's a passion for a lot of locals, too. Members of Congress have fished at Fletcher's, presidents, as well, including John F. Kennedy, when he was a senator, and Jimmy Carter. High-powered Washington lobbyists with high-end fly-fishing gear may frequent Fletcher's on early spring mornings before hitting Capitol Hill. Blue-collar workers with beat-up bait casting rods might drop in to fish for a few hours in the evening before heading home.
Families, from the suburbs and the inner city--blue bloods and new arrivals to our country--can show up to fish most any time. And unless they are working the shoreline, everyone at Fletcher's Boat House fishes from the same heavy, some would say outmoded, egalitarian skiffs. There's no launching area for private boats here and no one among the regulars would want it that way.
Time Change
"It's a step back in time," is a phase often connected to the place about this time of year as long-time fishing buddies and newcomers alike gather below the giant sycamores that are coming to bud along the river as white and pink dogwood blossoms peek through the brush along the historic canal.
Curiously enough, however, for a business that won't take credit cards and has no answering machine on its one telephone, Fletcher's Boat House has a Web site (.com). On it you'll find a bit of history about the place, some details about daily and seasonal operations, odds and ends of river lore and even a little whimsy, plus news about regular customers.
"The Web site may be part of the high-tech world that surrounds Fletcher's Boat House," says one of those regulars, Laury Parramore, who works for the . Fish and Wildlife Service in nearby Arlington, VA. "But once you start reading it, you leave the Internet Age and it's as laid-back as life around Fletcher's Cove. It's about what the river's doing these days, what fish are running and who's catching them--how many, how big; you know, important stuff like that."
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With a slight touch of irony, Joe Fletcher notes that his younger son, who chose to follow the world of computers instead of life on the river, developed the Web site several years ago.
The Web site is there to provide fishing information, not to take boat reservations or anything as sophisticated and 21st Century as that, Parramore points out. "Boy, let's hope they never start that!
"Fletcher's is the kind of place where you can show up early in the morning, grab a boat--you might have to bail it--catch and release a bunch of shad or later in the season a big spawning rockfish or two, then get cleaned up and still make it to the office for a day's work," Parramore went on. "It's like a little club down there, or a small town where everybody knows everybody else."
It's just that kind of laid-back but historic oasis-in-the-city character that the National Park Service aims to keep alive, according to Steve LeBel who manages 50 private sector concessions for the agency around Washington, DC. A native Washingtonian, he confesses to being a "river-rat" regular at Fletcher's.
LeBel says Joe and Ray Fletcher's decision to give up the rental operation came as a surprise to the agency. The service, however, right away vowed to keep it going "without changing the character of the place" and to ensure that it would be ready for spring fishing while it seeks a new concessionaire. It would operate under the same historic name, but under some sort of temporary agreement with a new operator.
"Fletcher's is part of the historic fabric of the park and the river, and we don't plan to let that change," LeBel said. "I've fished all over the country and Fletcher's has a rustic charm and an atmosphere you just don't find anyplace else.
"It takes people back to an earlier time; that's what everyone likes about it," he added. "We're doing everything we can to be sure its open when the fish come back."
At press time, even with the Presidential Inauguration looming on his turf, LeBel said contract negotiations with a new operator were well underway and keeping Fletcher's on schedule--the river's schedule--was a priority.
"At this point, it's all about the fish," he said. "We intend to be ready when they are."
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