Vol. XCI 
AUGUST, 1921 
No. 8 
ON UPPER MISSISSIPPI WATERS 
THE RECORD OF A THREE-HUNDRED MILE TRIP THROUGH THE 
BLACK BASS COUNTRY OF WISCONSIN AND MINNESOTA 
By ROBERT PAGE LINCOLN 
I N the spring of 1920 while in Cali- 
fornia, having a trip on Minnesota 
and Wisconsin waters in view, I had 
occasion to enter a notice in a New 
York paper asking for a partner who 
would be willing to take up the other 
end of the “deal,” stating that the 
trip would in all possibility last over 
two months and probably three, in 
which it was aimed to cover carefully 
the small mouth bass grounds of the 
St. Croix River and the Upper Missis- 
sippi River waters from Pres- 
cott, Wisconsin, to Winona, Min- 
nesota. 
Upon the appearance of the 
notice I at once began to receive 
replies from various men eager 
for a trip of the sort. I had 
never tried this method of ob- 
taining a partner before, but I 
regard it as being a satisfactory 
means toward a common end. 
As we all know, it is easy enough 
to arrange a trip, but perhaps 
the most difficult thing in this 
wide world is to obtain a partner 
who will go wherever you want 
to go, and who is not limited to 
one or two weeks, but is rather 
free, say, for a whole season. 
Naturallyl wanted a single man 
for a partner, myself single; and 
while a single man is more 
crabbed and opinionated than a 
married man, whose temper and 
views on life have been tuned 
down by the heavy hand of the 
dramatic sex, still he is more or 
less free and independent; hoof 
free, so to speak. 
Among the letters I received I 
picked out one and at once wrote 
to Mr. Frank Richard Rix, of the 
thriving town of Ilion, where the 
Remington typewriter has its in- 
ception. I got into communica- 
tion with him and he stated that 
he could go. He told me that he 
was thirty-eight at his last birth- 
day and that he was as bald as a 
billiard sphere. As soon as I discov- 
ered that he was bald it settled the 
question and I wrote that he should 
meet me in the famous mill-town of 
Minneapolis, at the Falls of St. An- 
thony, on the 26th day of May. 
O N arriving in Minneapolis, a mat- 
ter of a week or so before that 
day, I went about looking for a 
boat. A canoe would have been a 
far more poetic method of travel but 
I have always held that there is only 
one craft for fishing and that is the 
flat-bottomed boat; and by that I do 
not mean a scow as heavy as a raft 
of deadheads, and as hard to pull, but 
a neatly built affair that will carry a 
fair load and will not be too hard to 
row from place to place. In such a 
boat one can stand up and move around 
without fear of tipping over or ship- 
ping water. I have always detested 
the regulation clinker boats. They are 
simply impossible from every 
point of view. 
I located a boat builder at 
Lake Calhoun and he showed me 
a type of boat he had long 
specialized in building. This 
type was slightly over thirteen 
feet in length, forty inches at 
beam and fourteen inches deep; 
a flat scrapeboard of three 
inches running the length of the 
boat with a cutting keel-piece 
in back, for the boat in back had 
an upward sweep. This boat I 
was told would be ready by the 
first of June and that it would 
cost me exactly thirty dollars. 
I did not hesitate over the price, 
but told him to go ahead. This 
boat, having a flat stern, would 
readily have carried an outboard 
motor and there were many 
times along the course of our 
trip that I yearned to have one 
of these “egg beaters” (as they 
call them on the rivers) at- 
tached to the back, for it can 
certainly be said that, under any 
circumstances they are a bless- 
ing. But our trip was to be one 
of roughing it; and so we de- 
pended upon oars; the familiar 
“ash breeze” of the olden days. 
MET Mr. Rix on the day set 
and we at once started in to 
make our arrangements as 
to camp outfit and other para- 
phernalia so necessary. It hav- 
The author with large bass caught at Halsted’s Bay 
