Fishing News
St. Louis Day's fishpond has been lure for years
By Karen L. Shaw
CASTROVILLE -- The game is simple, although the opposite of conventional fishing: Grab a rod, to which a laminated paper fish already is attached, and throw its line over the wall of the "fishpond."
Wait a few moments, and the line comes flying back -- without the fish -- but with a prize attached.
Generations of children attending Castroville's annual St. Louis Day celebration have enjoyed this simple pleasure over the years. And for the past 20 of the celebration's 120 official years, Helene Boehme has presided over the fun.
Boehme, 58, remembers playing the game herself during the late 1940s and early '50s.
"I remember this when I was a kid, and I'm almost 60," she says. "The first lady that I remember doing it isn't even living anymore."
Back then, the fishpond was just a canvas tent. Eventually, it evolved into a big, brown booth used until last year. Kept in a storeroom at Koenig Park, it was destroyed by the Flood of 2002.
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