Can you stand another fish tale this week?

It was on this past Thursday and I was busy putting this issue of the Register together, when my friend and fellow Kiwanian, John Huisman, called me. He was all excited.

“Chuck, you gotta get out here, there is someone fishing in the pond, You know, that pond behind my house.”

My first thought was, sure, there is no guy fishing. It is just John pulling an extended April Fools gag on me. After all, that pond was the subject of the Register’s April Fools Day story this year.

“Sure there is John,” I said. “Has he got a big fishing boat he is cruising around in?”

John replied the guy was wading out in the water. And I better hurry and bring my camera before he quits and leaves.

So I did.

And by golly there was a guy wading in the water on the other side of the pond and he did, indeed, appear to be fishing. I had the telephoto lens on and he appeared to be waving at me.

I decided to walk around the pond on the new trail to get a closer view. Maybe get a better photo of him fishing. Maybe a photo of a fish.

So I did.

Turns out it was a guy named Stacy Osmundson, from Blue Earth.

He said he loves to fish, had some spare time that afternoon and decided to try fishing in the pond he had just read about in the Register the previous week, just to see if he could catch a fish in the now infamous pond.

Stacy had even talked to Blue Earth Public Works Department supervisor Jamie Holland about it. Jamie told him to go ahead and give it a try.

It seems Stacy, like Jamie, is quite a fisherman. He has done a whole lot of it.

And, you want to know one of his favorite places to fish?

The Blue Earth River.

Stacy says he has caught a lot of different fish in the river, and he asked me to guess what he has caught the most of when river fishing.

The answer was walleye.

“I have caught a lot of walleye, and some were very big,” he says. “Big northern, too.”

He has a secret spot near Winnebago, where the landowner has given him permission to fish.

While many people think the Blue Earth River just has catfish and suckers and bullheads, that is just not true, Stacy says. There are plenty of keepers in the river if you know where to look.

I have heard that from some other folks as well, including former city councilman Glenn Gaylord. Glenn has told me he has caught many a walleye while fishing the river. But he, too, has his secret spots to fish that he does not tell anyone.

I know they are telling the truth. I fished the river one time, near Winnebago, and we caught some fish, including a northern or two.

Stacy has another local fishing spot he loves.

Lake Guckeen. Yeah, that Lake Guckeen, home of the elusive muskie from the April Fools story. He takes his kayak and fishes there, and goes down the little river that goes out of the lake along the freeway.

“You would be shocked at how many walleyes I have caught in that little river,” he said. And I am pretty sure he was telling me the truth, and not just April Fooling me.

So by now, you are all probably wondering if I am going to tell you the answer to the big question. Did Stacy catch any fish in the infamous pond.

The answer is yes; he did. A little perch. And when I thought he was waving at me across the pond, he was actually holding up the little fish, that he had just caught.

Stacy thinks he will be back, with his kayak, and look for that big walleye that just might be hiding in the pond.

Or that giant muskie.