Replacing a guy like John Cooper is a lot like searching for a guy to fill in for Brett Favre. It ain't easy.
But Jeff Vonk, Gov. Rounds' choice to head the Game, Fish & Parks (GF&P) Department, looks like the real deal.
Based on his performance in Iowa, he has the right instincts. Sportsmen liked him, but the Farm Bureau and Iowa Pork Producers didn't. Iowa sportsmen led a campaign to encourage new Gov. Chet Culver to reappoint him. He didn't.
Mike Held, who heads the S.D. Farm Bureau, told the Argus Leader that he'd "watch with a cautious eye." Held seems obsessed with anything that smacks of protection for wildlife or conservation.
History reveals three men who were great leaders at GF&P; the late Bob Hodgins, Jack Merwin, and Cooper. Each had his own style, and each left big footprints.
And each developed their own friends and enemies, which look a lot like those of Vonk's.
He comes to South Dakota with another big advantage. He's been in Iowa for a half-dozen years, which means he knows what intensive agriculture can do to a state's fish and wildlife resources. Reports also indicate he's not been shy about facing big agriculture. Iowa has essentially been drained, cut and plowed from border to border. But all of that took place before Jeff Vonk arrived in Iowa.
Drive across the Hawkeye state on I-80, look around; take a few backroads, and then ask yourself, where wildlife could live on that landscape. Deer do, too many in fact. So do giant Canada geese. But tell me where either doesn't do well. Deer even infest Chicago city parks.
Wild turkeys have prospered along Iowa's rivers and what remains of its forested areas. However, you can find turkeys doing well in some of the most abused and populated places.
When I lived in Iowa during the 1960s, there was decent quail hunting, and fair pheasant hunting. Today, quail have all but disappeared, and pheasants prosper only where there is some CRP on the ground.
You can almost forget about Iowa fishing. It is a shame that in a state laced with a wonderful network of rivers, almost all have been posted, at one time or another, with fish consumption advisories.
Do you know anyone who plans an Iowa fishing vacation? The truth is, Iowa is a land that's been used but mostly abused, which is why so many Iowans travel to the Dakotas to fish and hunt.
Vonk has seen all of that, and I'm betting that he'll do everything possible to prevent South Dakota from going down that same path.
Iowa sportsmen I've talked with tell me he's a good leader, exactly what we need here.
To those who say, Rounds should have appointed a South Dakotan to the job, I ask, who? I can't think of one capable of dealing with a legislature that includes some loose cannons.
So this is the hand Vonk has drawn, and how he plays it will determine our angling and hunting future in one of the last states that has an abundance of both.
