Marty Mack, Loren Schoenbeck, Luke and Jake Schoenbeck and their rootin’tootin’ father, Lee, and an army of Labradors show off the feathered fruits of their labor following a past Brown County ringneck hunt

By Kevin Woster

You have to ask yourself: Would I vote for a man who hunts with white Labradors?

If so, you might vote for Lee Schoebeck.

Or not, depending on your political persuasion, or particular pooch penchants.

Schoenbeck, the swashbuckling former Republican state Sen. from Watertown, is a Labrador man. He also has a flair for the unexpected, with is hardly the rule in the Lab community - where predictability rules.

So Schoenbeck likes to run a little white in a Labrador herd that typically runs black, yellow, copper or chocolate. I’m tempted to say that it runs slow, too, but why start a fight?

Anyway, Lee the Lambaster - as he might have been known on the state Senate floor - has been making noise for some time about hunting for higher office. And he’s not just planning on taking his law practice to the second floor. (Rim shot, please, if you can’t manage a wingshot.)

Anyway, Take It Outside is not afraid to mix hunting with politics, as both the state Legislature and the Game, Fish & Parks Commission like to do. So we asked the man with the pearly pooches if he was aiming at the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate or the South Dakota governor’s chair.

So? Yeah? Say what?

“I am unequivocally not running for an office that requires me to live where I cannot shoot pheasants, or where they shoot back at you when you go for a walk,” Schoebeck wrote in a non-toxic e-mail.

OK, so it sounds like the governor’s race. But that’s unofficial.

At least until after the season’s over.

Keith Wintersteen holds a, uh, well, ok, fairly nice rainbow trout caught this week in the, hmmmm, so far he ain’t telling….

By Kevin Woster

See, that’s just ridiculous.

When something gets too big, it’s just ugly.

I think Wintersteen’s rainbow trout is ugly. Don’t you?

My brook trout isn’t too big. I think my brook trout is beautiful. Don’t you?

And as you’ll all recall, I was also willing to tell you guys where I caught my brook trout.

I pride myself on being honest and open about my fishing.

And you, Keith? Well, we’re waiting;…

By Kevin Woster

The trout season began for me this week, thanks to that little brookie.

Thanks, also, to the walk-in fishing stretch of Castle Creek below Deerfield.

And thanks, as well, to Chuck Post, whose dry fly of some unknown - to me - name and origin I managed to locate in the back of my truck, shortly after I decided it was time to begin the flyfishing season.

It’s a bit late in the year, I know, but it takes me a while to put down the jigs and spinning gear and fiddle with something more complicated. My day off Tuesday seemed the perfect time, and Castle Creek the perfect place.

It was beautiful, as usual, and quiet. And the wind managed to settle down near dusk. So I slipped on the waders, sectioned the flyrod and slung the Nikon over my shoulder.

Only one problem: no flies. I had forgotten the fly box. That sent me rummaging through the pickup, where I found a plastic box with two flies in it, one of them dry.

Chuck Post, who was for many years in charge of public information for the state Game, Fish & Parks Department, had given me a bunch of flyfishing stuff many years ago. I still have much of it, stuffed here and stuck there among my outdoor debris.

Whatever the dry fly is, this little brookie loved it. So did a bigger brown that smacked it twice without getting hooked, then decided it wasn’t interested.

So, what’s a guy to say after a flyfishing trip that produces just three hits, one  tiny fish and an exceptionally beautiful sunset?

Fabulous.

David Koslowski shows off his state-record carp, a 37-pounder manhandled from Waubay Lake on April 20, 2001. According to unofficial reports, a woman from Tea has broken the record with a 42-pounder.

By Kevin Woster

Take It Outisde’s mostly-despondent field editor, Duane’s Depressed, wandered down from the political heights of Mount Blogmore this morning to offer this biting bit of fishing news:

“CAAAAARRRRRRRRRP!”

State-record carp, that is. Duane called to say that he had heard on the radio this morning that a Tea woman - that’s where she lives, not what she drinks - had hauled in a monster carp on the Missouri River up by Mobridge to break the state record.

Depressed or not, Duane tends to be a semi-reliable source, which is about all we ask here at TIO. (Actually, sometimes we ask less than that.) Anyway, DD hit it today. A brief AP story confirms that Barb Brothern of Tea caught the 42-pounder on a night crawler, topping the existing state carp record by 5 pounds.

Using my pre-school-level computer skills, I made an exhaustive - to me - and unsuccessful search for Barb’s telephone number in Tea. Then I had a cup of Earl Grey and sent Duane off in his 1949 Willys to look for Barb in person.

(Not to worry, Duane’s Jeep will never make it to New Underwood, much less Tea…)

Meanwhile, if anyone out there knows Barb, please invite her to join us by Internet here at Take It Outside, or call me at 394-8413 in the live-bait department of the RC Journal newsroom. As an old carp hunter myself, I’d love to hear her story.

Then tell it to you.

By Kevin Woster

OK, not really.

Actually, in this photo taken last winter, GF&P resource biologist Dan James is using surgical gear to implant a radio transmitter into a anesthetized Spearfish Creek rainbow trout, as fellow fish doctor Bill Miller runs oxygenated water through the fish’s gills.

The fish was one of 12 rainbows that James “tagged” with electronics - including a 10-inch wire antenna - to track movements during the spring spawn.The six-month study showed that the rainbows stayed within a 60-meter-long stretch of home water, except for their spawning runs. For those journeys, the fish cruised up to half a mile each way to spawn, in most instances somewhere up Cleopatra Creek.

James’s study shows that Cleopatra is important to the self-sustaining rainbows in a one-mile stretch of Spearfish Creek that is specially managed for them.

“None of the tagged fish spawned in Spearfish Creek, and we never saw any spawning activity in it,” James said.

Cleopatra Creek appears to be excellent breeding and rearing water for rainbows but not so much for anglers. A survey of one short section of the creek found 400 juvenile rainbows and one adult fish.

“The creek seems like it plays an important part in growing fish up so they can recruit into the population,” James said. “When they get bigger, they go into Spearfish Creek.”

Spearfish is a top-notch brown trout producer, but the mile-or-so stretch of the creek near where Cleopatra runs in is the only stream section in the hills where rainbows are known to sustain themselves.

“We’ve seen evidence of rainbow reproduction elsewhere,” James said. “You’ll see 3-, 4-inch fish. But recruitment is where we have the problem, getting them to a year or two old.”

The combination of the breeding-rearing waters offered by Cleopatra and the habitat in Spearfish Creek that provides food and shelter for adults is a working combination for rainbows.

Studies like James’ could help us understand more about what works there, and doesn’t work elsewhere.

Geez, can’t a fawn grab a bite to eat without being pestered by some two-legged critter?

Not if Steve McEnroe is around, fully armed with a Nikon.

McEnroe captured this soothing scene a couple weeks back, while on another assignment for the Journal down in Custer. The fawns were dining quietly in the trees near the Black Hills National Forest superintendent’s office.

McEnroe just couldn’t help but stop and snap a few.

I’m glad he did.

 –KW

By Kevin Woster

When it comet to fishing uncles, Rory Fenske is one lucky kid.

He happens to be the nephew of Keith Wintersteen, currently the assistant manager at McNenny State Fish Hatchery near Spearfish and consisently one of the most effective fish finders around.

Doesn’t matter which species - bluegills, bass, walleyes, carp or trout - Wintersteen is always on the prowl for a good bite.

This week, Rory got in on some of that, as this picture shows. It’s a beautiful Rapid Creek rainbow, caught up near the, uh … over by the, hmmm … right around the, well…

Heck, you’ll have more fun finding the spot yourself.

 

By Kevin Woster

 Seriously, fishing is as much about giddy grins as it is hooks, lines and sinkers.

Just check out Rapid City angler Dan Tully, a kid with a great smile who got to use it Sunday afternoon at Canyon Lake.

Beautiful day. Beautiful lake. Great trout.

And the smile? That’s a real keeper.

Laura Wood, Matt Andrasi, Tyler Scott and Matt Hornfeck spruce up a trail in Wind Cave National Park

By Kevin Woster

Now that’s a summer job.

Four interns at Wind Cave National Park got a hint this summer of what could be waiting for them if they pursue careers in conservation.

Laura Wood, Tyler Scott, Matt Hornfeck and Matt Andrasi came to Wind Cave as interns with the Student Conservation Association. They’ve been busy thinning ponderosa pines and maintaining the park’s 30-mile system of hiking trails.

Acting park superintendent Tom Farrell said SCA is “a great program that benefits both the park and the student.”

The organization finds field internships for 3,000 high school, college and graduate students a year in national parks, forests and on other public lands. If you’re a student with a hankerin’ for such summer toil, or if you have one in the family, check it all out at www.theSCA.org.

Sounds like a blast. In fact, I should probably check it out myself. Since I didn’t graduate from either high school or college, I might still qualify as a student.

By Kevin Woster

John Lott.

I dug out that hot piece of news just a few moments ago, when I dialed the number of GF&P fisheries chief Dennis Unkenholz in Pierre, and got Lott’s voicemail instead.

Then I did what any good investigative newshound would do. I went: “Huh? What the heck?”

(Isn’t it exciting to get an inside look at real investigative reporting?)

After a moment of work-place vertigo, my mind cleared (by my standards) and I rembered the tip I got a while back that Lott would be replacing the retiring Unkenholz, a 30-plus-year GF&P veteran.

 I meant to call and confirm, but never got around to it. I think I went fishing instead.

This morning, I was working on a story on white-bass fishing and wanted a quote from GF&P. So my fingers automatically dialed Unk’s number in Pierre. Instead, I got the recorded voice of Lott, who had been a senior biologist with the Missouri River fisheries center staff, announcing himself as the new fish chief.

And where’s Unkenholz today? Out fishing, I hope.