CAST A LINE, CATCH A CATFISH -- YEAR 'ROUND

Laura Grossheider holds a channel cat that weighs about 4 pounds. The biggest creature caught at Grossheider Lakes was a flathead catfish that weighed 18 pounds.

Myrl Harris of Advance is a regular visitor to Grossheider Lakes. He caught a 6-pound channel cat last year. He uses worms and BJ stink bait.

Cape Girardeans, from the left, Stephen Johnson, Damian Minton and Spencer Williams try their luck fishing. One thousand pounds of catfish are added to the lakes every month from spring until winter.

As people fish outside her kitchen window, Laura Grossheider, 87, looks at a photo album. One photo shows how catfish are "shot into" the lakes from a delivery truck. Also in the album is a Southeast Missourian story that was written about her business in 1979.

For eight months out of the year, 1,000 pounds of catfish -- about 400 of the slick, slithery creatures -- are "shot into" three lakes owned by Laura Grossheider of rural Gordonville.

Delivered from Corning, Ark., the catfish mingle with bass, bluegill and crappie that inhabit the 23 acres of man-made reservoirs known as Grossheider Lakes along Highway 25.

And all year long -- sun, rain, sleet or snow -- fishermen plop down $2 to test the latest sure-fire bait, or to weasel a worm on a hazardous hook in hopes of landing a big one.

Two bucks buys a lot of angling.

"Oh, they can fish all day if they need to," said Grossheider. "Or they can fish until they catch four catfish. There's no limit on the bass, bluegill or crappie."

Grossheider, a sprightly 87 years old, has seen tons of fish yanked from the lakes. And she's quick to stick her fingers into their gills to show off trophy-size catches.

Born on a farm south of Dutchtown, Grossheider moved to the Gordonville area when she married in 1928. At one time, she and her husband, Robert, had a chicken hatchery that produced 3,500 chicks twice a week. That was before they "went fishing."

One day in the early 1950s three friends visited their farm and asked to fish in a pond. They were told it was just a cattle pond and not to expect much.

"But they handed Robert $3, caught a lot of fish and came back the next day for more. Well, we sold the incubators and got in the fishing business," recalled Grossheider.

A pond for breeding fish was dug in 1952. And the three lakes were carved out of the earth in 1953, '54 and '55. They were 16 feet deep in the middle. The Grossheiders went into debt to start their business.

The first catfish were delivered from a breeder in Barlow, Ky. A friend in Commerce let Robert Grossheider skein his lake for crappie. The fish were transferred to Grossheider's lakes. And the bluegill?

"Oh, if you have any pond or lake you always have bluegill," said Laura Grossheider, getting ready to take $2 from a fisherman at the door. "Bluegill just show up. Some people don't know how good they are. I skin and filet them."

The lakes are not restocked with crappie or bluegill because they reproduce so successfully. And since they eat newborn catfish, fresh supplies of the whiskered ones must be carted in. Also languishing in the lakes are grass carp. They don't reproduce there and cost $10 each, but the voracious vegetarians help keep the weeds under control.

Robert Grossheider passed away in 1970 and their children urged Laura to sell the business but she refused.

"I told them there's too much of daddy here. He planted all the pecan trees and built the lakes," she said, pointedly.

Over the years she has made friends with a great many of her regular customers. They come from Sikeston, Dexter, Poplar Bluff. They drive over from Illinois.

Many fishermen like to wet their lines early in the morning. Grossheider says she tries to be up and dressed by 5. There's no night fishing -- angling ends when she turns on an outdoor vapor light.

Most every day of the year at least one person stops by to sit on the grassy edge of a lake and fish. The lakes are separated by levees that can be fished from. Many people bring lawn chairs, even coolers and grills.

During cold winters some people will sit by a hole cut in the ice. The idea of that scares Grossheider. She recalls a couple who moved to Chaffee from Minnesota who used to ice fish. They'd tell her not to worry: "We're from Minnesota."

There are picnic tables, trash barrels and a swing set for kids. Some kids, who get easily frustrated if the fish don't bite right away, play with Frisbees, some play baseball. Kids under 8 fish for free. And some men play horseshoes while their wives do the fishing.

Grossheider doesn't allow fish to be cleaned and cooked on the grounds, and she doesn't sell bait.

"If I sold bait I'd have to get a merchant's license and collect sales tax. And when you're 87 you're too old for all that government interference," she said, her eyes twinkling as she poked the kitchen table with her finger.

A state fishing license is not required at Grossheider Lakes, because it's private property. In an album that contains photos of the lakes being stocked with catfish, is a clipping from the "Speak Out" section of the Southeast Missourian. Some years ago a caller asked if a license was required there. The editor's reply was no.

"I keep that to show a game warden if one stops by, but none ever has," said Grossheider, slipping the yellowed paper back into a laminated page.

The biggest fish ever caught at the lakes was a flathead catfish that weighed about 18 pounds. It was pulled from the cool water by Joe Cole of Cape Girardeau. Grossheider doesn't feed the fish, and she says you can never catch them all.

The best day to fish is one when the barometer is rising, she says, adding that some fishermen turn a soda bottle upside down in a bowl of water, and if the water rises that means the barometer is rising.

Grossheider says fishing isn't good when the wind blows from the east -- "That's when fishing's at its least."

Besides three lakes full of fish, other creatures abound in the area. Frogs croak all night, mallard ducks and Canadian geese cruise in and purple martins arrive every year about March 14 and stay until August.

Picturesque Grossheider Lakes can be a pretty busy place. Some people even have family reunions there.