LENOIR CITY, Tn. -- No fancy fishing poles or assorted artificial lures for the kids who show up at the Crosseyed Cricket, looking to experience the wonder of catching their first fish.

The Crosseyed Cricket has reduced fishing to its old-fashioned elementary level: Give a kid a long cane pole, a bunch of night crawler worms, a bucket and send him or her on their way.

Chances are good that within 15 minutes they will be jumping up and down with glee over having landed their first big catfish or trout.

Jim Lockwood, operator of the colorful little backwoods fishing mecca, campground and turn-of-the-century restaurant and mill, has no dreams of becoming a millionaire.

He will settle, he says, for the joy of seeing thousands of kids from across America catch their first fish.

And, over the years, he has seen plenty of wide-eyed kids grinning from ear to ear as they pull in a 2-3 pound trout or catfish.

"I guess I will never get tired of seeing the look on an excited kid's face as they pop a big catfish or trout from the lake," he says. "Much of the time the mommas and poppas are just as thrilled as the children."

Lockwood's twin-lake operation has created lifetime memories for many thousands of children, but adults comprise much of his fishing clientele, too. And, not only do the kids and adults get to catch some energetic fish, they can have them for supper, too, if they wish.

The Crosseyed Cricket provides a low-cost service (about 35-cents per fish) to filet or cut into steaks any fish caught by anglers. And, customers can have their own freshly-caught fish for dinner at the Crosseyed Cricket's on-site restaurant if they wish.

And lots of parents take advantage of that option, with the Cricket's restaurant _ an old wood-slab building enmeshed around an operational 850s water-wheel mill _ providing a colorful nostalgic aura. The flowers, overhanging trees and rustic setting provide a relaxed atmosphere for both young and old. If the restaurant is crowded and there is a waiting list (usually no more than 15 minutes), patrons can while away the time playing checkers on an oversized checkerboard on the front porch, watching the waterwheel lazily turning while relaxing in an old-fashion swing or just
strolling around the lakes.

The Crosseyed Cricket charges fishermen (and fisherkids) for the total weight of the fish they catch ($3.68 for each pound of trout, $2.56 per pound for catfish).

Entrees the Cricket's restaurant consist primarily of trout and catfish and all the trimmings, and run about $9-$10 ($4-$5 less if you have them prepare the fish you catch). Other items from burgers to steak and chicken are also on the menus, along with a plethora of local desserts (including black-bottom pie). The meal for the restaurant's cornbread is milled right at the site, using the ancient water wheel to provide power for the stone-grinding process. Children's menus are available.

Lockwood decided 30 years ago that he was not cut out to be a forest ranger, so after graduating from North Carolina State University and eight years of traipsing through deep woods in Eastern
Tennessee's Smoky Mountains area, he chucked his career and started looking for a place to set up a fishing camp.

"My wife, Jean, and I looked all over East Tennessee for two years before we finally found this location," he said. "There was just remnants of an old mill and pond and we had to work our
butts off just to get it into shape to open it up. We opened the fishing camp in 1970 and have gradually added on to the place over the years. The old mill wheel was about to fall down when we first got here. We managed to salvage it and shore up the other adjacent cabin and restore them to their 1850s appearance."

The Crosseyed Cricket site is about 10 miles west of Knoxville, down a curvey little road known as Country Lane, hard off of Paw Paw Creek (Melton Hill Lake exit number 364 off Interstate 40). The
Crosseyed Cricket is about 5 miles from the interstate exit, a couple of miles past the Atomic Speedway ("The world's fastest one-third mile long dirt track")..

Each spring the Crosseyed Cricket is the host of a massive onslaught of children as some 3,000 kindergarten and first-grade students from area schools converge at the Cricket's lakes to try their hand at fishing.

"That is some sight to behold, I tell ya," says Lockwood. "But, you know, we have been doing this for a lot of years and we have to have our first kid fall into a lake. get hooked by a fishhook or hurt in any way. We are now getting our second and third-generation of kids
fishing here."

Lockwood says the Crosseyed Cricket restaurant has some 300-400 customers on an average weekend night (half or less than during weekdays).

Anglers usually have no trouble pulling good-sized catfish or rainbow trout from the twin lakes (the trout pond covers about half an acre and the catfish pond takes up about three acres).

"We restock the trout pond each week . . . gotta keep enough dumb, and hungry, fish in there for the customers to catch," said Lockwood. "The trout pond probably has about 1,500 pounds of
trout in it and the catfish pond some 10,000 pounds."

Though the fish caught are usually in the 1-3 pound range, some anglers have brought out some much bigger creatures. "We have had up to eight-pound catfish caught here."

Each winter the fish not caught during the spring, summer and fall are seined out of the ponds and are fileted or cut into steaks and frozen, for later use by customers who prefer to get their
fish delivered by a waiter.

This story was published on 20 May 2002.