Beauty is in the eye of the beholder-especially when sightlines are properly adjusted.
To most people, Wolf Lake seems a waterlogged, industrial waste product. Tucked into the far southeast corner of Chicago and an adjoining section of Hammond, the 800-acre vest-pocket lake is surrounded by smokestacks and slag heaps. On its southern shore, a cluster of oil-storage tanks comes down virtually to the water`s edge. A branch line of the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. crosses the lake on a man-made earthwork.
So, too, does the Indiana Toll Road, which connects Chicago with the sand-dune country of Indiana and Michigan. To vacation-bound motorists, Wolf Lake is a final reminder of the gritty reality they are escaping. But on a warm spring day, its shores will be dotted with local sportsmen who can`t fathom why passing strangers take that shortcut across their fishing-hole paradise.
”Why spend hours in a car going someplace else?” said 82-year-old Edward Karel, a retired carpenter, who lives in a nearby trailer park. ”Look how peaceful it is here, how clean that water is.”
Karel dipped his casting rod down toward the lake, which, indeed, offered a sparkling-clear contrast to the rust-belt skyline framing it. His fishing partner, Peter Paul Broadzinski, of Calumet City, was affixing a bit of home- brew bait to a hook.
”We`ve been coming here just about our whole lives, so we figured out the fishes` favorite recipes long ago,” said the 75-year-old Broadzinski, like his buddy a retired carpenter. ”This is what I call `Polish dough balls,` a mixture of mother`s oats, crackling grits and pancake flour.”
Perhaps because they spent their working lives amid the heavy industries that line the border with Indiana, Broadzinski and Karel seemed oblivious to their surroundings, beyond the patch of water directly at their feet.
Or maybe it is that, in such circumstances, the eye and brain acquire a capacity for selective focus.
”I like this spot because I find it relaxing just to sit here and stare at that beautiful church over there in Hammond,” suggested Carl Warren, who was fishing just down the shoreline. The 69-year-old bricklayer, who lives in Lansing, was pointing toward the Indiana side of the lake, where a steeple could barely be distinguished between oil refinery towers that lick the evening sky with enormous flames, like industrial-strength candles on an iron- age birthday cake.
Millenia ago, geologists say, Wolf Lake was part of a much larger Lake Michigan, under which a good part of Chicago`s Southeast Side was submerged. Then the waters receded toward the present shoreline, with the exception of some low-lying areas left behind as land-locked mini-lake reminders of the region`s distant past. At one time, Wolf Lake was flanked by similar bodies of water, such as Duck Lake and Hyde Lake. But around World War II, the others were either filled in for industrial development or simply dried up. Now, Wolf Lake, nearby Lake Calumet and a few small ponds are all that remain.
A variety of fish
When Broadzinski and Karel were young, the two fishermen recalled, their buddies could still hunt and trap through miles of nearby marshes and wetlands. But in recent decades, Lake Calumet was developed as Chicago`s port of entry for ocean-going vessels coming here via the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the region around it was industrialized. For a while, it seemed as if Wolf Lake might similarly be lost.
Standing on a dike in the middle of the lake, Rudy Witos pointed to a series of similar man-made constructions that intersect at right angles, dividing the lake into a series of checkerboard-square ponds. Several decades ago, he explained, Wolf Lake was mined for sand, which was used as landfill for interstate highways then being constructed nearby. Curiously, man`s brutal intervention didn`t ruin the fishing.
”Good weather and bad, I`m out here twice a day,” said the 71-year-old Witos, giving Lake Wolf his endorsement.
Witos, a retired welder, has lived in this far corner of Chicago since 1939. Before all the dredging, he recalled, the lake was too shallow to support a great variety of fish. But in recent years, Illinois and Indiana sponsored stocking programs.
Different fish are comfortable with different depths and temperatures of water, Witos explained, and the lake`s dredgers created sections of varying depths. So now an experienced Wolf Lake fisherman can pretty much predict the aquatic inhabitants of each of those watery checkerboard squares through the seasons of the year.
”Just about now, the perch will be moving in over there, the bass are in behind them, and the northerns should be back over that way,” Witos said, pointing to each of the man-made pools in turn.
In fall, these otherwise placid waters offer an opportunity to thrill the hearts of saltwater fishermen. Wolf Lake connects to the Calumet River and Lake Michigan through a tiny stream, known locally as Indian Creek. In their spawning seasons, some of the ocean-going salmon and trout that have been introduced into Lake Michigan work their way through the creek and into Wolf Lake.
Moving among the pools, those big fish have to navigate a narrows, no more than a few yards wide, between two dikes. By positioning themselves there, the neighborhood`s young people can play Hemingway for a day.
”Last year, I snagged 120 Chinook,” said 18-year-old Grey Boyce, pointing to the site of his victory. ”We smoked them and the family was eating them for months afterwards.”
The value of patience
For most of the year, though, Wolf Lake hosts a more low-keyed outdoorsman. One of the best things about fishing, observed Bob Fortson, is that fish and fishermen observe a kind of non-aggression pact, under which neither species disturbs the other`s peace too often. Most days these fishermen don`t fill their creel.
Fortson, a retired postal worker from the South Side, was giving his grandson, Terrell, an overview of the sport`s virtues.
”Most of the time, you just set your lines and wait,” Fortson explained to the 8-year-old. ”That`s the beauty of it: It teaches you patience.”
Indeed, that very lesson is sustaining the spirits of some Wolf Lake enthusiasts through their present time of troubles. Recently, the city announced plans for a new airport, which, should they come to pass, would rob the neighborhood of its urban Eden. Preliminary studies show runways replacing Wolf Lake`s dikes.
Edward Karel, though, isn`t too upset. Long ago, he learned that politicians aren`t much different from fish: With both, you got to play them slow and easy. While baiting his line with another Polish dough ball, Karel confidently predicted that Wolf Lake will long be an urban sportsman`s delight.
”Isn`t this still Chicago?” Karel said. ”On something as big as an airport, I got to figure it`ll be 30 years before the politicians have finished dividing up the graft and are ready to throw the first shovel of dirt in our little fishing hole.”
