This week Lewis (Bud) Stenberg came to visit Fishtown. Bud likes to remember his years as a commercial fisherman, and he has to come to Fishtown because in his hometown of Pentwater, Michigan, every trace of the old fishing village is gone. He is the last surviving Pentwater commercial fisherman.
Bud was born in 1921, and except for his service with the Marines in the Second World War, he’s lived in Pentwater his entire life. He began working in his family’s fishing operation at thirteen, working after school and on weekends. Changes in the fishing industry forced Bud and his brother Fritz out of commercial fishing in the mid-1960s, but his years working in factories never erased his love for the independence of his life as a fisherman. “It was in our blood,” he says.
If you ask Bud today how he defines his life, he says it’s his family, the Marines, and being a Great Lakes commercial fishermen.
We’re looking forward to seeing Bud again in Fishtown.
Until then, he has generously shared with us some of his stories and photos about fishing from Pentwater, and we’d like to share them with you, too.
We’ll have more of them for you next week. Click on any thumbnail to see a larger slideshow.
UPDATE: We’ve posted some more of Bud’s Pentwater photos, as a short video, in the post “When Pentwater Had a Fishtown” – click here to visit.
BUD IS ALSO A WW11 VET WITH PALUA ISLAND TOUGH FIGHTING EXPERIENCE THAT HE IS RELUCTANT TO TALK ABOUT
A REAL GENTLE SOUL
I remember the Maggie Lynn going out every morning when I was a little kid. Lots of gulls always came along with her on the return trip!