2026-09-25 · Hackensack / Birch Lake (Cass County) — city fishing pier
It Started at the Legion — Hackensack Still Hands Kids the Pier
For 29 summers, Hackensack’s Tuesday kids contest has turned the city pier on Birch Lake into a free hot-dog-and-minnow-race classroom — started by a mayor’s dad and his buddies at the Legion, still run by volunteers, still catching and releasing tens of thousands of fish.
Some Minnesota fishing stories start with a sonar unit and a serious face. This one starts at a Legion bar, with a dad and his buddies deciding the kids in town needed something better to do on a Tuesday than stare at the wall.
That was the seed of the Hackensack Children’s Fishing Contest. Mayor Bill Kennedy told LPTV’s Northwoods Experience that his dad and friends cooked it up because they wanted something good for the youth. When his dad passed about fifteen years ago, Kennedy picked up the mantle — the same contest he grew up in, the same one his kids grew up in. Summer 2026 was year twenty-nine. (LPTV / KAWE, July 21, 2026)
The recipe is almost stubbornly simple. Tuesdays, 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at the city fishing pier on Birch Lake. Kids scramble early for first-fish prizes (usually gone in the first sixty seconds). Free hot dogs and pop show up like a civic duty. Minnow races at 11:15. Casting contest at 11:30. Prizes by one. Limited gear for checkout if you forgot yours. Bring a life jacket. That’s the whole operating system. (Pine and Lakes Echo Journal, June 8, 2026)
Kennedy says they average about 900 to 1,000 kids a summer — Hackensack locals, Pequot Lakes weekenders, out-of-state visitors, and the occasional vacation family from as far as Osaka, Japan. Families come back until the kids who once won the casting contest are now adults with their own kids on the pier. Lifetime numbers the organizers publish: more than 27,000 youth participants and more than 80,000 fish caught and released, with more than thirty volunteers showing up every week to make the math work. (LPTV; Echo Journal)
What they pull up is Birch Lake’s everyday menu — perch, crappie, bluegill most of the time, with the occasional largemouth, northern, and late-season bullhead. Kennedy told LPTV the kids have seen fish from about two inches up to a little over two pounds. Nobody’s pretending it’s a tournament weigh-in. The point is a first cast that doesn’t feel like homework. (LPTV)
The 2026 season wrapped on a beautiful Tuesday — Week 10, August 11 — with 87 kids catching and releasing 230 fish. Grand champion that day was Oliver from Shakopee. Extra prizes. Candy. A public thank-you from coordinator Bill Kennedy to the volunteers, the sponsors (Hackensack Chamber cooked the hot dogs that week), and the families who keep treating the pier like a summer ritual. Next season is already on the calendar: every Tuesday, June 8 through August 10, 2027. (Walker Pilot-Independent / walkermn.com, Aug. 18, 2026)
Campfire takeaway: Hackensack didn’t invent a complicated youth program. A few adults at the Legion decided the pier belonged to kids on Tuesdays, then kept showing up for twenty-nine summers with hot dogs, minnows, and enough volunteers to hand a life jacket to the next generation. Birch Lake still does the rest.