There’s a small group of men in their 80s – the Curtiss Codgers – who think there’s nothing overly special about the fact that they’ve been getting together annually for more than 75 years to fish in Wisconsin.
The group – whose members all originally hail from Curtiss, Wis. – used to be a little larger. “Spike” passed away a few years back. But John Erickson, Roy Ostenson, and brothers George and Ken Schroeder carry on the tradition, one with roots older than those grounding many of the trees around their summertime haunt.
The Curtiss Codgers continue to gather on Long Lake in northwest Wisconsin to reminisce and fish – a little more of the former nowadays, they’re quick to tell. And they don’t think such a longstanding friendship – about as long as the life expectancy of an average American – is particularly noteworthy, though they did create Codgers T-shirts for themselves back in ’90 as a casual nod toward their group’s longevity.
The ties that bind
When asked how they’ve been able to maintain their fishing tradition for so long, the guys offer a few suggestions:
“We get along together,” says Ken Schroeder, 81. “We all chip in.”
“We’ve never had an argument all through the years,” Erickson, 85, adds.
“Common interests,” Ostenson, 87, says.
Spend a full day at the lake with the Curtiss Codgers and it’s easy to attest to the fact that these gentlemen really do get along well, work together as a team and share common interests. In addition to having grown up together in the Midwest, having served their country during wartime, and having raised families they cherish, they all regard their time spent together fishing with much reverence.
But there’s something swimming beneath the surface, something to this chemistry that runs deeper than the walleyes and northern pikes they pull out of Long Lake.
A story told
It’s not until near the end of a calm, sunny day in northwestern Wisconsin – after the first couple rounds of interviews, lunch and a few hours of fishing – that another distinct possibility begins to emerge. As the Curtiss Codgers give themselves gladly to the process of recalling some of their fondest fishing memories, one important aspect of their group becomes clear: They provide a living history for one another.
As a collective, they form a database of shared memories and experiences spanning eight decades. This becomes evident in the way they tell stories as a unit without thinking about it. If one suggests that another recount a humorous incident from years past, the telling may very well involve all four narrators.
Erickson asks Ostenson to talk about the time he caught two fish at once.
After a brief pause, Ken Schroeder says, “Remember, you had a little walleye coming in …”
“… and I was bringing him in when a big muskie hit him crossways,” Ostenson picks up. “(The muskie) wasn’t even hooked. He hung onto that walleye.”
With a few more details thrown in by the other Codgers and a round of laughs from all, one of their stories is complete.
Retracing steps to common stomping grounds
The men’s current locations, if the dots are connected, form a northwest-to-southeast diagonal line running not far from the western edge of the Great Lakes: Erickson calls St. Cloud, Minn., home; George, 85, and Ken Schroeder each live in suburbs of Chicago, Prospect Heights and Arlington Heights, respectively; and Ostenson settled in Bloomberg, Wis., about 65 miles west of Curtiss, their collective point of origin near the central part of the state.
Ken Schroeder says: “We all originally lived in the same town. Our father grew up in Curtiss. George went to school in Curtiss, and, of course, so did Roy and John.”
Trying to figure out how long they’ve known each other, Erickson says, “Maybe since we were born. There were only about 120 people (in Curtiss) then.”
The three elder Curtiss natives were classmates in a three-room schoolhouse before George Schroeder, as well as his brother Ken, moved to Illinois with the family when his father accepted a job there. But George and Ken Schroeder would return to Curtiss often enough to maintain their local friendships. They stayed with their aunt and her family, which included seven cousins.
Ken Schroeder says, “George had some his age, and I had some my age.”
“We’d both come up every summer for a couple of months,” George Schroeder says. “We’d go fishing and it was wonderful most of the time.”
The summer visits didn’t stop after the Schroeders were out of school. The group of friends continued to get together annually for camping and fishing trips, a practice that paved the way to tradition. In fact, the Codgers say today that only two types of events have kept them from reuniting: newborn children and World War II. Each of the men served his country in the 1940s.
“Well, some of us had to miss once in a while when the kids were born, and then, of course, we missed some during the war,” George Schroeder says.
“Yeah, we had to miss a few years then,” Ostenson adds with a laugh.
George Schroeder, sitting comfortably on a chair inside Ostenson’s modest lake cabin, continues, “We went fishing and we went camping for countless years. We went from having tents on the ground to something deluxe like this.”
The fisherman’s cap … one of many hats
The Curtiss Codgers are far more than just fishermen, of course. They’ve each led rich, eventful lives with their respective families and careers.
Ostenson has been many things in his life – a radar countermeasures specialist during the war, an employee of the federal government and a Boy Scout leader, to name a few – but education has usually been at the center of his endeavors. Currently married with two grown daughters and a son, he spent the bulk of his professional career teaching and administrating in Wisconsin school districts.
Erickson served as a radar officer for the U.S. Navy during the war, but he studied chemical engineering in college. After a year’s worth of work in the private sector, he went back to school, which eventually led to a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and a teaching career. Erickson, who is married and has four grown daughters, taught at universities in both South Dakota and Minnesota before retiring from St. Cloud State University.
George Schroeder, who had three boys with his wife who is now deceased, entered the U.S. Marines within 90 days after the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor. After the war he started his own business, and eventually he became a manufacturer’s representative in the kitchens and bath industry, a position he maintained until about five years ago. Though he is supposedly retired, George Schroeder says, “I’m still going into the office every morning.”
Ken Schroeder, who had three girls with his first wife before remarrying, became a pilot for the U.S. Navy toward the end of the war after doing some work as a draftsman and studying architectural drawing. After leaving the military, he got a degree in electrical engineering and then worked as a consultant within his field until he retired.
Never mind the sirens – the fish are calling and the river is screaming
Though the families of the Codgers have mixed socially – and the guys say they keep each other up to date with familial happenings via telephone – the traditional angling adventure is essentially limited to the boys from Curtiss. However, they welcome the occasional visit to the cabin from Ostenson’s wife, Vivian, who is usually the bearer of fine, home-cooked fare.
“In the last 35 years, I don’t think anybody’s missed one,” Ken Schroeder says of their summertime fishing trips.
The call of the fish – as well as the enduring friendship – is too strong to stay away. The Curtiss Codgers’ tastes in game fish have fluctuated over the years, but their desire to pursue the underwater bite has not waned, even if the amount of time they devote to the practice has. Changes in state regulations and shifts in fish populations have had more to do with their changing patterns than them being particular.
Ostenson says, “For a long time, we just fished game fish like walleyes and northerns.”
“We’d get our share of crappies, too,” says George Schroeder.
Erickson adds, “We were always after muskies, I guess.”
Regardless of what the sought-after species was, the setting stayed relatively similar from year to year. The Curtiss Codgers spent their formative years and many thereafter fishing the Flambeau River in Wisconsin. Some trips would take them further upstream or downstream, but they remained faithful to the Flambeau flowage.
Though the Codgers are quite modest about their angling successes of the past, the pictures – many of which are neatly arranged in albums by Erickson, the group’s de facto records keeper – tell the tales visually. Page after page, pictures preserve the coterie’s camping trips and illustrate how many fish the guys used to pull out of the river.
“Yeah, we caught a few fish once in a while, too,” George Schroeder says with a grin. “We started at five in the morning and quit at 10 at night.”
Stories flow
Ken Schroeder recounts one particularly memorable escapade: “The thing that sticks out in my memory is when we camped by the dam at the south fork of the Flambeau River. That noise of the falls – I think we took that noise home with us.”
George Schroeder adds, “We didn’t think we’d sleep. We were there for a week with that noise.”
Speaking of noise, Ostenson says, there was the time he and Erickson took a trip down the Flambeau River and set up camp not far from one of the banks. They woke up to the sound of the tent being shaken. Erickson thought Ostenson was the one causing a ruckus, and, of course, Ostenson thought Erickson was responsible.
“It turns out it was a bear,” Ostenson says.
Another trip downriver led to a wet week for the fellows. George Schroeder says the boat got swamped at the front end of the trip, and the crew essentially never got completely dry for the rest of the excursion.
The Schroeders remind Ostenson of the time he served as a guide on Sand Lake for a small group of urbanites from Chicago. Ostenson recalls taking them around the lake all day in search of muskies for $1 in pay – an amount probably far too low even for the economic standards of that time, he says.
George Schroeder, pointing out that Ostenson’s work was especially taxing as he powered the craft by rowing, adds, “We didn’t have motors in those days.”
Ostenson says he managed to put one of the men onto a muskie of considerable size, only to have the guy throw up due to his excitement in landing the lunker.
A sinking feeling
Erickson, with a sly smile, reminds George Schroeder of the time “Spike and you were tipping up the boat out here.”
The slightly embarrassed look that creeps across George Schroeder’s face signals that he remembers the day. With some cajoling, he explains: “Well, we went up to shore to urinate … at some point, we went to the same side of the boat and (as water spilled over the edge) it started to sink. We had no drain, no scoops and a boatful of water way on the other side of the lake. Of course we had tackle boxes in there, so we had to use them as scoops.”
Ken Schroeder remembers another sinking story from a few years back when he and Erickson decided to take the boat out on the lake in search of fish. He says he was having trouble getting the motor on the small fishing boat to start; he didn’t realize it was in gear.
“I grabbed the starting rope with both hands and yanked,” he says. “This time it started real good. We shot forward, went up the bank and it threw John to the back, so the transom went under and we took on water.”
Just this season Ostenson had a close call when he launched the boat without checking to make sure the plug was in place. He improvised and stopped the leak with his thumb, rendering him unable to operate the craft.
“I hollered and hollered and finally my wife heard me,” he says.
She alerted a neighbor boy who then rowed out to assist.
Afternoon angling
Age hasn’t kept the Curtiss Codgers from convening each summer, and it hasn’t kept them from fishing – even if the pace has slowed.
“The fishing has been something we started years ago, and we’ve just continued with it,” Ken Schroeder says. “We do less fishing and more reminiscing now.”
Erickson adds, “At least the last few years.”
But an early June afternoon on the lake with the group reveals that the art of angling is still quite alive within each one. Though preparations for the outing appeared a bit random, the fishing that followed was more akin to the poetry of motion.
Long, smooth casts are followed by steady-handed reeling and fluid jigging motions. The years of practice are evident. In more than two hours of fishing with continuous casting, only once do lines cross in the water and serious snags are minimal.
Like a true team, the Codgers each know their roles as they skim the waters of Long Lake, and they can switch positions with ease as well. One operates the outboard motor as the others debate where the fish may be biting in current weather conditions. After the engine is cut, another subtly navigates the boat into a narrow cove using mounted oars.
The men tie on different lures that may be effective despite the too sunny and too calm conditions being presented by this early June afternoon: a bucktail spinner, a large-lipped crankbait, a Mr. Twister plastic-worm jig with a spinner.
So far this week the men have landed a few walleyes and a few smallmouth bass, though they have only kept one to eat. The anglers say they now release a vast majority of the fish they catch – on this day only a small walleye from “Snag Bay.” Now such sojourns are mostly for relaxation.
“It’s nice being out on the water,” George Schroeder says. “It’s pleasant and I suppose it’s a great way to get away from the rat race.”
Ostenson says he supposes it’s also “the challenge” of fishing that keeps them interested. After all, even a lifetime of fishing experience is eclipsed by the mystery of when, where and on what fish will bite.
Fishing family
It’s more than the thrill of reeling in a fish, enjoying nature and getting away from it all – reasons enough by most standards – that keep the Curtiss Codgers coming back to Wisconsin every summer, however. They have another strong incentive: They are all part of a fishing family that has stuck together for a lifetime.
As with any family, by definition of the term, there’s a familiarity and history shared by the clan that simply cannot be duplicated. And like any family, they have a name.
“We’d been meeting so long, Roy decided we needed a name: the Curtiss Codgers,” Ken Schroeder says.
Discussion among the group flows effortlessly, whether they’re talking about their children or recounting memories from their own childhood. Conversations swing from debates about the merits of different brands of coffee to deliberations on fishing issues. They’ve witnessed the advent of slot limits and unfettered fish spearing in parts of Wisconsin, though they are not convinced these practices have enhanced the overall angling picture in the state. The coffee question is much more easily dissected: The bag of beans brought by Erickson – who recently joined a coffee club – certainly yields a delicious blend, but the cost is nearly inconceivable.
There are always more stories to be told by the Curtiss Codgers, the best of which are presented by each member in succession like runners passing a baton. And the stories continue to be made as each summer rolls past.
Perhaps the best part of the Curtiss Codgers tale is that the chapters will continue to unfold as long as they keep coming together to fish.
Passing the baton
The Curtiss Codgers could be considered an exclusive club. However, the guys recognize the value of angling as an activity to be enjoyed outside of their “fishing family.” In fact, the men also tell non-Codger stories involving their true family members, from sons and daughters to spouses and in-laws.
What makes fishing a distinctive activity is that it affords its participants the opportunity to spend time together in an environment highly conducive to socialization. Fishing is not fraught with the daily distractions that can dog human interaction: television, traffic, appointments, et al. Fishing provides the perfect forum for getting caught up with a companion’s interests, opinions and goings-on, even if that angling partner is someone seen on a regular basis.
That’s exactly what angling has offered the boys from Curtiss: a chance to stay connected while enjoying a sport in which they all take pleasure.
And as these men have passed an appreciation for fishing on to those they hold dear, it seems likely that the stories of the Curtiss Codgers will also live on for future generations to enjoy.