If you are an avid angler, you want to be on our Francis Case Reservoir, or beneath the dams at either Pickstown or Ft. Thompson, pursuing walleyes right now! One can either troll or toss minnow-tipped jigs, but either way, move or retrieve slowly and quietly. I like fourpound test monofilament line and eighth-ounce jigs. I also like chartreuse in color. They won’t be as aggressive as post-spawn walleyes, but you have a greater chance of nailing a big one. Please put the egg-laden fish back in the river.

What I enjoy even more are the pre-spawn smallmouth bass. Go with jigs or tube jigs with soft plastic bodies – preferably white in color. I like the Pease Creek-White Swan area. These bass will average over 2-3 pounds apiece. The eating quality of smallmouth bass is superlative.

As most readers know that I’m a native Chicago boy, I’m frequently asked if I ever hunted before coming to South Dakota in the fall of 1960. I had some limited hunting experiences.

When I was a 7th grader in the fall of 1954, we had shirttail relatives who farmed in the Manteno, Illinois area. My father enjoyed hunting, though not often, and I once related his South Dakota pheasant hunt to the Oldham, SD area in the fall of 1945. Anyway, in the fall of ’54, Dad and his cousin Robert took my brother, John, and me to Manteno for a pheasant hunt. My brother and I toted borrowed shotguns, mine being a 12 gauge Model 37 Winchester single-shot. I had no idea whatsoever what to expect.

As I recall, we hunted separate areas – probably so we couldn’t accidently shoot each other. I was trudging through some alfalfa when a rooster erupted under my feet. Between the explosiveness of the flush with vivid colors and loud cackles, I nearly tossed the gun over my shoulder! What an introduction to wing shooting! I never saw another bird that day. On the following Christmas morning, I received a Mossberg 20 gauge bolt-action shotgun from my parents. I think I cleaned that gun most every day.

Fast forward to the fall of 1955 when I was an 8th grader. Unbeknownst to me, my paternal grandmother had a sister in Mendon, Illinois. She was my father’s aunt as well as Cousin Robert’s. Great Aunt Mary’s son farmed, and we were invited to hunt quail as well as cottontail rabbits. Once again Dad, Robert, my brother, and I made the trip. I knew absolutely nothing about quail, but for sure, or so I thought, they weren’t going to spook me like that rooster pheasant did the previous fall.

Armed with my new shotgun, I fired my first ever shot at a cottontail rabbit. It lay dead as a hammer, but I didn’t know it was dead as it quivered with muscle spasms. I shot it again, point blank, a few more times, and proudly carried my mangled trophy back to the farmyard where our host chucked it to the pigs. I was crushed!

As we later lunched, I inquired about some strange phenomena I had experienced. While trudging through heavy timber, I heard a loud ‘rrrrrr sound while at the same time shadows flitted through the timber. What was this? When the laughter subsided, I learned that these were quail covey flushes. To this day I wonder if I could hit one of those fleeting shadows.

I or we never hunted again through my high school years. In wondering why as I write today’s column, it probably related to my Sunday afternoon football games (light practice on Saturdays) and my mother’s confinement to a wheelchair with multiple sclerosis. Dad’s care of mom was a loving 24/7/365 dedication.

When I boarded the Chicago & Northwestern “Dakota 400” in downtown Chicago, bound for Brookings, my shogun was my most important piece of luggage. My hunting was a bumbling fiasco at first, but I caught on quickly. Classes interfered with my hunting, and my grades looked like it. Ralph Ginn, the football coach, actually confiscated my shotgun, but he gave it back on the promise not to skip any more chemistry labs.

See you next week.