# Le Claire



## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Le Claire Iowa, population 3,800, is a neat old river town where Interstate 80 crosses the Mississippi River.

_American Pickers_, a popular TV show is here:









It's the birthplace of Buffalo Bill Cody:









And naturally there's a Buffalo Bill Museum.

The Buffalo Bill Museum is next to the Paddleboat museum.

There's always tugboats pushing barges down the ever-shifting channels of the Big River:








The river is over a mile wide here. There's fisherman working the river for walleyes, bass, and catfish. Sailboats, big boats, small boats, jet skis, water skis, tubes, wakeboards, even people swimming in the Big Muddy.

Gun manufacturer Les Baer is here, just 2 blocks from my motel:


And I'm in the best motel in town. The lobby has a huge 500-gallon aquarium.....with big largemouth bass in it, complete of course, with a couple a dozen minnows to feed the hungry bucketmouths.

Old Victorian homes sit on the river bluff overlooking 1830s buildings turned into restaurants, shops, and nightclubs up and down the river bank. Boy, hard to beat the corn-fed beef steaks at Sneaky Pete's restaurant.

Fullmer's Fish Market sits right on the bank of the river, downtown Le Clair:









Fullmer is a commercial fisherman working the river for catfish, buffalo fish, carp, sturgeon, paddlefish, and turtles. His shop is a treasury trove of old decoys, fishing lures, and the "yard" is full of all manner of commercial fishing relics:








He has a smokehouse and today's specials were buffalo fish, carp and sturgeon. I got the smoked buffalo fish of course.

Uh speaking of smoked fish.....I gotta find some Rolaids.


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