While walking down the Main drag in Fort Benton, waiting for the annual parade to get roiling, I caught sight of a young man running up to a table in front of the Fort Benton Hardware carrying a good-sized carp. Instantly curious, I approached the table moments after the young fisherman headed back to the river after having his fish measured and recorded. A handful of conversations with the staff and bystanders revealed that the hardware store was hosting their annual fishing contest, with prizes for the largest fish caught on Saturday morning during Summer Celebration. The contest is an annual tradition that has been going on long enough that no one remembers when it began.
“We do it for the kids,” explained Theresa, who is the manager of the hardware store. “Every Summer Celebration, it starts at eight o’clock and goes until the parade starts. Whoever brings back the biggest fish gets a new fishing pole.” This year’s competition was divided into two age groups: from ages 8 to 14 and 7 and under. Theresa explained that she had been working at the hardware store for 12 years and the contest has been a tradition as long as she had been there. She suggested I visit with Mike Layman, the previous owner of the hardware store.
I found Mike waiting for the parade to begin out in front of the hardware store. “We’ve been doing it for 30 years at least.” Mike explained that his father had owned the store before he and his brother took it over. “My dad used to do it (the fishing derby), and he used to give away a gold dollar coin, the one with Eisenhower. That’s how it started.”
Regarding the largest fish that hade ever been caught in the contest, Mike explained that it was “Probably the 30-pound carp.” He added that most of the fish caught for the derby are carp. Though over the years, they have seen all manner of fish caught, including some particularly nice walleye.
When I asked what prompted the hardware store to do the fishing derby year after year, he replied: “We do it to celebrate Summer Celebration and to get the little kids involved. They fish for two and a half hours between the bridge and the boat dock, so it’s all in town. They have a blast. And it’s free. Every kid wins something.”
After visiting with the good folks at Fort Benton Hardware Store, I began noticing the many kids fishing across the road along the shore of the river, casting their lines into the Missouri, in hopes of winning the biggest fish of the morning. It was an increasingly rare piece of Americana. The folks at Fort Benton Hardware are doing their community a favor by keeping the tradition alive.
