Chuck Thompson: Memories of his teachings on fishing & passing it on

Annette Thompson wasn’t too keen on Chuck Thompson after their first date, but he persisted.

She finally relented and told him to come over without telling him her family had moved to the third floor. But a lady coming from the second floor clued him in, and he found her.

That persistence paid off. They were married for 59 years and lived in the same Mount Prospect home for nearly as long. They had two boys, Mark and Mike, four grandkids and two great-grandkids.

Mr. Thompson, 85, died April 28.

That same consistency and persistence made Mr. Thompson one of the greatest fishermen to come out of the Chicago area, up there with Al Lindner, Spence Petros and Mick Thill.

I would put Thompson at the head of that class because he evolved beyond being a great fisherman and became an activist for local lakes.

An example came in a letter to the editor in the Sun-Times on April 13, 2004, when Mr. Thompson explained how the annual shoreline cleanup at Busse Lake began in 1997. He saw garbage in the water while fishing and took action.

‘‘Well, on that day, feeling great, I filled my five-gallon bucket with some of this stuff and carried it to a trash barrel in the parking lot,’’ he wrote. ‘‘I then said to myself, ‘What the heck, I’ve got a little extra time,’ and I took a couple of garbage bags out of my car and commenced filling them with more litter. It felt good seeing that the litter was gone.’’

That’s going beyond fishing.

Make no mistake: Mr. Thompson, who joined the 101st Airborne after graduating from Austin High School, was a great fisherman. He led seminars at outdoors shows in his younger years and was on the U.S. ice-fishing team that won a silver medal in 1992.

‘‘He just had the feel,’’ Annette Thompson said. ‘‘He could feel it in his hands.’’

I second that and would add that he could figure fishing out in his head, too.

Two things stick with me from the first time I interviewed Mr. Thompson 20 years ago.

First, on his way to work, he would stop by places such as Montrose Harbor if he knew the fish were going. Yes, in his suit.

Second, even though he was a great fisherman, Mr. Thompson kept learning. If he saw somebody catching when he wasn’t, he would sidle closer until he figured out why.

A few years later, I ice-fished with him at Belleau and Axehead, north suburban lakes in the forest preserves of Cook County.

A third thing stuck with me then: Most regular fishermen have two or three ways to work a jig. Thompson had dozens of ways to work one, varying speed, depth and action.

I’m still working on trying to learn more — a tribute to Mr. Thompson.

Wild things

Bernard Harrison, brother of Chicago River guide Capt. Pat Harrison, found his first cicada killer wasp tunneling in his yard Saturday. As for me, the neighborhood kids haven’t banged on our door yet to say they found one. They will soon enough.

Stray cast

It took a trade with the White Sox for the Cubs to get a dominating pitching performance? That’s like a bait angler doling a waxworm to a fly-fisherman to tip a Clouser Minnow.

Follow me on Twitter @BowmanOutside.