Education is structured to teach you how to think, and since Dennis Kassube and Jason Mitchell both possess keen fishing and hunting minds they’ve mastered the creative thinking process that enables them to stand out as expert outdoorsmen.
Kassube lives in Big Stone City, SD, and can switch his mindset from walleyes to pike to perch to crappies to smallmouths in an instant. Like all great anglers, he expects to catch fish and does most of the time. He operates intuitively on the water, a trait shared by all great anglers.
Consider my experiences with him on Roy Lake.
This is my all time favorite lake, but she is never easy, and in fact, can be downright temperamental. Clear water’s the reason, and that usually means spooky fish. Perhaps that’s why most of Roy’s big walleyes are nearly always been taken under the cover of darkness.
So it was on a cloudy, drizzly afternoon in late October with the temperature hovering in the low 40s, I wanted to get some big smallies on videotape for our upcoming television series. But when I arrived at Roy Lake Resort, noted the weather, and reached for an extra jacket all in one motion, I was resigned to wait for a better day. Not because I knew the fishing would be off as much as it would be uncomfortable, though both thoughts crossed my mind. When I saw Dennis’s pickup pull into the parking lot, I decided to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“Dennis,” I said, “consider the conditions, the wet air, the high winds and the resultant tall waves, the downright cold temperatures, along with the high probability that the fish won’t be biting. Might I suggest instead your favorite brew, a cold Old Milwaukee and some sparkling conversation until the weather warms a bit?”
He was in no mood for sparkling conversation.
“Naw, we’ll catch some,” said Dennis, with all the assurance of a Randy Moss about to test a gimpy 5 foot 6 cornerback. “I brought some wild chubs….big guys…all about a half-a-foot long.”
It’s no secret live bait works best on cold front fish, but usually small live bait, and it must nearly always be fished deep, along a sharp drop and very slowly. But wild creek chubs are different, and once you fish with them, and learn they outfish the hatchery kind about 7 to 1, you’ll never go back to the kind you buy. If there’s a deadlier bait for smallmouths in the fall, I’ve not found it. Problem is, you have to catch them yourself, which Dennis does, on a tiny ice fishing lure baited with a single maggot. You don’t get three dozen in a half-hour, but maybe that’s another factor that makes them special.
Besides, they’re big enough at 5 to 7 inches to fight off smaller fish, and even large enough to filet if you get skunked. And they are tough. Dennis notes that he once tossed a bunch into a live well that held a few dozen fatheads. An hour later, the fatheads were gone. Draw your own conclusions.
“We’ll just rig up Lindy-style and pull those big chubs along the edge of one of those rock piles,” he added. “And cut that snell to about a foot or so to make it easier for them to catch the chub.”
Rocks and adjacent deep water nearby are most often the keys to smallmouth bass location in the fall. If you’re on the right pile of rocks, you’ll be fishing not a few, but in most cases, many fish. And for reasons I don’t understand, they seem to ignore most artificial lures under such conditions.
A few minutes later, we were moving slowly along a rocky bar, the wind literally howling from the southeast. Scud-like clouds moved rapidly and waves topped three feet. But my 75 Merc, a tiller model, chugged along slowly, and the spashguards kept us reasonably dry. After 45 minutes, I felt a slight tug, and before I could feed slack, the line shot off my finger and slashed through the water. I closed the bail and set the hook in the same motion, and minutes later, lifted a fat 16-inch smallmouth over the side.
Most South Dakotans haven’t tangled with a big smallmouth, and for me, that’s any fish over 16-inches. They go on powerful runs, punctuated with occasional leaps, and they never seem to tire. But though they are coveted in most parts of the nation, they are unappreciated by most South Dakotans, for we are a region of one fish specialists, and that one fish is the walleye.
In most places where smallmouth bass have been stocked, they’ve done well, so well that some claim they compete with walleyes for available forage. However, science does not validate such views. In fact, there are hundreds of lakes across the northern part of the nation where both species co-exist peacefully, and not a single study supports that belief. But most who espouse those views are barroom biologists who support their “facts” with closing statements such as, “Well, I just know.” Forgive them for they know not what they say. I am reasonably sure that at some point in the future, when the walleye hunters have reduced the population to a level typical of a Wisconsin or Minnesota lake, they’ll discover…and hopefully learn to appreciate…smallmouths. But by then, so will others from other states, who will release their fish, thus perpetuating rather than demolishing a marvelous fishery.
And thank goodness our fisheries biologists have recognized this by putting into place more stringent regulations that protect these wonderful battlers in the interim.
We caught a couple more smallmouths over the next few minutes, then moved to another rocky point. I had just dropped my chub over the side when the rod was darned near pulled from my hands. This was a good fish, actually a very good fish, and when Dennis netted and hoisted it into the boat, I put it on the digital scale. It measured a hair under 9 pounds, a big walleye anywhere. I released it, and five minutes later, tangled with another that was slightly smaller than the first, but as Dennis reached for the net, the hook popped out.
We went back to the original spot and I quickly caught another walleye, one of about 3 pounds, which I put in the live well for evening appetizers, and then a couple more nice smallies. By this time, the rain had turned from a light mist to a steady downpour, so we sped back to Roy Lake Resort, filleted the one walleye we kept, and turned it into a myriad of fine walleye fingers with a couple cheeks thrown in for good luck. We then finished the evening off with a few glasses of good red and a ribeye grilled to medium rare. We’d return in the morning.
There is a rule in fishing that if a storm front moved through yesterday, fishing will be lousy today. KELO-TV’s meteorologist, Jay Trobec, assured us that morning that the day ahead would be a big improvement, though it would be a little “breezy.” Easy to say from the comfort of a climate controlled studio 150 miles to the south, and I realized that like most TV weather guys, he didn’t know squat about smallmouths or walleyes.
Put this in your book of outdoor tips. Whenever a TV weatherman uses the word “breezy,” in the Dakotas,” it’s gonna blow like hell. And so it did, like a banshee from the northwest, at least 30 mph, and since there were few leaves left on the trees on the north side of the lake, there wasn’t much to hold it back.
On such days, those who own big console boats stay home. Fine! Let it be recorded that they are wussies, because on such a day I am convinced God and his Apostle Peter, the only fisherman out of 12, collaborated on splashguards and tiller outboards. And under these conditions, fishermen who study know that they were not born to hide behind a plastic console. Not if they want to catch fish.
So it was, Dennis, myself and cameraman Paul Lepisto, adorned in Gore Tex, rode tall waves to the sharp rocks. Depth? Who knows? The flasher couldn’t settle on 2 or 6-feet as it covered all ranges in between, and that gives you an idea as to just how tall those waves were. But for the next hour, we began to doubt the fishing Gods.
Then Dennis got a bite that quickly resulted in a 5-pound smallmouth coming on board. And then he caught another as though he was getting even from the day before, when I’d spanked him thoroughly, reveling in it because it happens so rarely. He’d catch two, I’d get one, he’d get two more and I’d land another. All big smallies, few under three pounds, most around four, and it continued until we’d caught and released well over a dozen.
Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?
So, a few weeks later, I am thinking waterfowl. It is November and I have traveled to Devils Lake, ND where the duck hunting is nearly always the best anywhere, and though there are mallards dropping like rocks into a small wetland, because we came prepared for field and not over-water hunting, we failed to fire a shot. I had just one day to hunt on this trip and that blew it. And while we were still waiting for the ducks to come down from the north, we overlooked the fact that these days, “north” is North Dakota.
So I’d read the US Fish & Wildlife waterfowl reports from Bismarck and got more discouraged with each one. It seemed almost a repeat of last fall when I never could be there at the same time the birds were because the birds there at the beginning of October were, indeed, the “northern” ducks. Are duck numbers down? Yes, I think so, and as Keith Harmon, a biologist and a veteran of many waterfowl wars once said, “If they were there, we’d see them.”
So, I called Jason Mitchell.
He's about twenty something, much too young to know as much about fish and birds as he does. Perhaps it is because he spends all of his time with a fishing rod or shotgun in his hand. But like Kassube, he is not a spectator. He is a participant who thinks, deduces…and plans.
I arranged to meet him in Devils Lake the next evening, and he said he’d scout before I got there. Fine, because I was again on limited time, but I miss something when someone else does the scouting, because for me it’s as much a part of the hunt as anything.
We met the next night in the lounge at Randy Frost’s Great American Inn. Randy managed the Devils Lake Chamber for a number of years and he’s an avid duck hunter, though his expertise tends toward divers on the big lake. He just hasn’t done much field hunting. So the three of us plus cameraman Paul, sat down over steaks and a stein to plot the next day.
“I found a place that a lot of ducks and geese are using,” Jason said. “We’ll leave about 4:30 AM.”
Good lord, it was already nearly 10:00 PM and the Vikings and the Colts were matching touchdowns and the game wouldn’t be over until at least 11 PM. Even by showering when we returned from the hunt, that meant just 4 hours of sack time. Why so early?
“Well, we have to drive about 60 miles,” said Jason, noting that these were the only birds he’d seen in over 250 miles of scouting. We got the point. If we want to hunt, we leave early.
At 4:20 AM, Jason walked into the coffee shop as Randy and I filled our travel mugs. Paul loaded his camera gear into the truck and a few minutes later, we were following Jason’s truck and decoy trailer west. Normally I’d worry about falling asleep on such a drive but the northern lights were providing a spectacular display. Besides, I’d fallen asleep the night before with the game tied at 28 apiece and I was waiting for the score. Turns out it was decided not by Daunte or Payton, but by some little kicker who probably can’t speak English and damn sure knew nothing about mallards in fields. And I figured if the ducks didn’t fly, well, that’s the way it goes because I know disappointment…I’ve been a Vikings fan for years.
We got to the field by 6 and by 7, had deployed the decoys, parked the cars and were laying in the blinds. Small flocks of ducks flitted back and forth, sweeping low over the spread. It was legal to shoot but not light enough to shoot a TV camera, and you certainly couldn’t tell a drake from a hen. I don’t know how the decision-makers can justify pre-sunrise hunting while restricting hens.
Finally, about 7:30 AM, Paul white-balanced his camera on a snow goose decoy as a flock of widgeon set their wings at the outside of our mostly Canada goose spread, glided in quietly from right to left and Jason yelled, “Take’em.” Four shots rang out and three ducks fell. Not a bad start.
But as I would note on each flock that came our way, they’d fly in from the right and cross directly in front of us from 20 to 30 yards out, giving each an equal opportunity to shoot birds. And as the sun began to creep over the horizon, it became easy to ignore the flashy pintails that sometimes fly with the mallards, and certainly easy to separate the gaudy greenheads from the drab hens. But it was the decoy arrangement that enabled our success.
Here’s Jason’s plan. He arranged the decoys in a big, but tight V with the bulk of them (and a convenient opening) to our left and just a bit behind us. With the wind quartering our backs, any ducks heading for that opening would be going directly into the sun, presumably making us harder to see. The plan worked to perfection because by 8:00 AM, we’d filled on mallard drakes and widgeon.
Actually, we had 16 of our potential 18 birds, but since we’d lost a couple, we counted them in our bag. For the next hour, we swapped our steel 3’s for BB’s and concentrated on snow geese. They weren’t decoying but enough gave us 50 yard shots to the point we left with a half-dozen including a couple of very mature snows and one adult blue. That evening, we toasted the duck Gods and good planning.
It’s almost a cliché to use that line, “When a good plan comes together.” But in over 5 decades of fishing and hunting, much of it in the company of those skilled enough to reside in the upper echelon of the pecking order, I’ve come to realize that all of the best get that way by absorbing knowledge with each experience. Eventually, the brightest begin to use that knowledge in a logical way, enabling them to more or less predict what will happen on any outing.
I’ve been there when Bob Propst has done it. I was with Al Maas on a day he boated a half-dozen legal muskies on Leech Lake, a feat not duplicated by ordinary men. Bob Sheedy, might be the world’s worst fly caster, but always seems to put his flies in all of the right places at all of the right times, leaving us to wonder how he knows those times and places. When Mike Schell looks at a field filled with feeding ducks and geese and says they’ll be back in the morning, bank on it.
These aren’t accidents nor are these lucky hunters and fishermen. They all have something in common…the desire to learn all they can about what they’re after. Like a big sponge, their minds absorb what their eyes see, filing the information neatly back there somewhere, and when needed, they pluck it out and arrange everything in a logical way.
