ROBINSON'S CAREER SPANS DECADES ON FLAMBEAU

I was a bit suspicious when the lady from Midway Bar near Butternut laughed at my response to her question.

She had asked me if I had a preference of guides for my float down the upper Flambeau River.

"Please just get us somebody that knows what they are doing," I said.

When the trip was finished, I went back to the bar to settle up, and the lady asked how the day had gone.

"Next time," I said, "I want a guide with more experience."

She laughed again, and her meaning became apparent.

"I could try to get God next time," she said. "He might have more experience than Ed."

Our guide, Ed Robinson, was 83 years old. In many respects, he was in better shape than most 50 year old men. Experience? He told me he had guided for 68 years, including 58 on the Flambeau, and had taken about 4,000 trips down the river. How many muskies had he guided clients to? He figured it was also about 4,000, including 14 one day. However, he added with the honesty that made him so believable, only three of those muskies were legal. Robinson's biggest muskie was 38 pounds, although he saw a 44 pounder caught one day. He also remembers the first fish he ever caught. It was on the Chippewa River near his childhood home in Malone. He found an old hook and rigged it with a willow branch and a piece of string. Then, he dabbled a frog along undercut banks.

Robinson didn't use big boats with triple-digit-horsepower engines. He preferred a handmade wooden boat build for the river by "some guy down in Park Falls." It was flat-bottomed, had about a 4-foot beam and was 171/2 feet long. It had heavy-duty oar locks so Robinson could control the boat in rapids. The Flambeau doesn't have many rapids, and they aren't dangerous. However, navigating them requires concentration.

In the old days, Robinson said, the Flambeau had o only one landing. He launched there and poled his clients upstream for half a day and then floated downstream for the second half. that stretch of river now has four landings, including one recently dedicated in Robinson's name by the Department of Natural Resources.

You could write volumes about Robinson, but he let his river do the talking. I caught a muskie on my fly rod that day, pushing Robinson's total to about 4,001. That's beside the point. I left that day feeling privileged to have fished with him.

-Gil Vernon

LEGENDARY NORTH WOODS GUIDE FUELED OUTDOORS SPIRIT

For more than a half century, colorful fishing guide Ed Robinson of Butternut instilled the North Woods' outdoors spirit in thousands riding his home build wooden flat bottomed green rowboat down the wild upper Flambeau River.

Now, he's joined legends of the river in recent years, the lanky, bespectacled Robinson continued his story filled trips and famous shore lunches despite failing eyesight and poor health. Fighting leukemia the man many regarded as "Mr. Flambeau" died November 30, 1998 at age 84. After a short memorial service, Robinson was buried in Butternut Cemetery.

Although he rarely talked about leaving the river, Robinson planned to keep guiding until his life ended.

"Allah say all the hours spent fishing aren't deducted from a man's span of life," he said. "So you keep right at it".

Citing his legendary career, the state in 1997 named the first boat landing below Turtle-Flambeau Flowage "Robinson Landing" in Ed's honor. For his many contributions to the Flambeau River anglers and recreational angling. Robinson also has been nominated for the national Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame in Hayward.

Some people have also talked about erecting a memorial plaque at Robinson's favorite shore lunch site.

Meanwhile, memorials are being directed to Ida Robinson, Route 2, Box 378, Butternut, 54514.

The people who shared a day with Robinson will hear Robinson's oars dipping into the current when they gaze upon the Flambeau. They'll chuckle while recalling his stories.

And in the river breezes, they'll smell the smoke of his shore lunch campfire.

-Dave Carlson