2026-10-05 · Lake Brophy County Park near Alexandria (Douglas County)
No Fish Were Harmed — Lake Brophy Read 'Fishing with Dad' Instead
Thirty-some little kids, their dads and grandpas, a lake with a perfectly good pier, and a sign-up page that said, flat out, no actual fishing. They had the best fishing night of the fall anyway.
Somewhere in the fine print of a Douglas County Library sign-up page there’s a sentence I respect more than most fishing regulations: “No actual fishing will be taking place.”
That’s the whole energy of the thing. A fishing night. At a lake. In a county park that has a fishing pier. And the official position is: put the rod down, buddy, we’re reading.
The setup
On Tuesday evening, Sept. 22, the Douglas County Library and the Early Childhood Initiative of Douglas County held a fishing-themed Fathers Reading Every Day night at Lake Brophy County Park, just outside Alexandria. It was built for kids ages 2 to 6 and “their dads/grandpas/uncles or other Important Adult,” which is the most Minnesota way possible to say whoever’s got the truck keys tonight. It ran rain or shine, with the library’s listing saying only severe weather would call it off.
According to the Alexandria Echo Press, 32 kids and 24 grown-ups showed up: dads, grandpas, uncles, brothers, and, per the paper, “even a few moms,” who I assume came to supervise the dads.
What happened instead of fishing
Honestly? Most of the good parts of fishing, minus the part where I lose a jig to a stump and act like that was the plan.
- Park time. Brophy’s got the playground, the shoreline, the trails, the whole up-north-adjacent backdrop.
- Fishing-themed games. No hooks. Nobody’s thumb got involved.
- A meal from Schatzi’s of Evansville, with the library listing hot dogs or fish sticks. Fish sticks at a fishing night where nobody fishes is the kind of full-circle move I didn’t know I needed.
- Story time. Luke Elliott from the Douglas County Library read Fishing with Dad, and J.J. Lamb, the Brandon-Evansville schools superintendent, took a turn reading too.
Picture it: a superintendent reading a fishing book to a crowd of preschoolers next to an actual lake. That’s like holding a cooking class in a restaurant and only eating the menu. And somehow it works, because a 4-year-old doesn’t need a walleye to believe in walleyes. They just need somebody big to sit down and say, “Okay, listen to this one.”
The part that’s actually the point
I’ve spent a lot of mornings out there pretending the fish were the reason. They’re mostly not. The reason is the quiet in the truck on the way there, the goofy snack, and a grown-up who stops checking his phone long enough to explain what a bobber is.
That’s what Brophy handed these kids on a weeknight in September, with no license, no bait bucket, and no fish. It’s the first chapter. The pier will still be there in May.
Anyway. If you’ve got a little one and a lake nearby, maybe start with a book. Then go lose a jig together.
Sources: Alexandria Echo Press (Celeste Edenloff, Sept. 28, 2026); Douglas County Library event listing; Douglas County Parks, Lake Brophy County Park. Attendance numbers, readers, sponsors, and menu come from those pages. MN Fish On wasn’t there; we just read about it, which is on theme.