By KW

And while we’re talking about invader species, how about that European rudd?

They’ve been documented in South Dakota since 1996, although they almost certainly were here much longer. Sheridan Lake, Pactola Reservoir and Newell Dam are among the state waters where the brassy, red-finned European import - a visually flamboyant member of the minnow family - has been recorded. (Anybody know if they’re causing problems in Sheridan, or elsewhere?)

I say “minnow” but the European rudd can grow to 20 inches. I know. I saw one almost that big in the canal below Sheridan Lake dam a couple years back, and almost got it to take a grasshopper fly.

Sooooooo close….but no rudd.

This afternoon at Sheridan Lake, I saw a school of rudd, suspended about a foot and a half below the surface near a sunken tree. I say “sunken” but about 40 feet of the trunk was still halfway out of the water. (It was a big ponderosa pine that tipped over into the lake.) And there were enough branches to create a bit of a catwalk, allowing me to cautiously work my way out on the trunk and over deeper water. (I’m guessing five or six feet deep, although with the branches and mossy haze it was difficult to judge.)

There I managed a precarious balance and did some casting for bass with my new Garcia Pro Max (yes, it’s sweet!), 14-pound Fireline (casts like crazy!) and a weedless spoon that proved to be, well, almost weedless.

I caught two small largemouths elsewhere, but nothing off the fishy looking sunken tree. I did, however, get a great view of the rudd school, from above it. I have to admit, they looked pretty with those golden sides and red fins, but they’re about as welcome here as the Eurasian dove.

Dove-rudd casserole? Mmmmmmm.

The best part of hanging out on the log was the black crappies. They were snug up against the cover - as were the bass, which other than those two, didn’t seem at all inclined to chase a gold spoon - and secure in their tangled underwater home.

They were so secure, in fact, that they barely moved when I lay down carefully on the tree trunk and slowly reached down past my elbow to put my left hand within four or five inches of the crappies. Even then, they didn’t spook, but smoothly, delicately finnned themselves backwards enough to keep that very narrow margin of safety.

I was surprised that they would let me approach from the top like that - like a heron or osprey might. It just shows, I guess, how safe then felt.

It also shows the value of structure, or habitat, in a productive fishery.

By KW

I’m sorry, but I do.

I’ve given them three years or so, thought about their arrival and apparent determination to stay in our neighborhood - in our country, really - and tried to keep an open mind.

But I’ve decided I hate Eurasian collared doves.

It isn’t just that they’re not a native species. Pheasants aren’t native. And I love pheasants.

Trout aren’t native. And I love trout.

Jeff Vonk isn’t native. And I, oh, never mind…

But collared doves are not only non-native invaders, they’re irritating. And I think they’ve pushed out the native mourning doves that used to nest in our backyard.

Now it’s collared doves and their ugly song instead of mourning doves and their lovely one.

Ugly song? Yeah, they try to imitate that appropriately mournful who-ah-who, whoo-whooo of the mourning dove, but get the call caught in their throat. It ends up being kind of a who-ah, who-ah, who-ah that they can’t seem to finish.

Unappealing.

And rather than that sweet little wing whistle of the morning dove, the collared dove makes an crow-like screech when it flies and flutters around in our spruce trees.

Really unappealing.

Sure, they’re cute. But that’s not enough for me.

I don’t like them. I don’t want them here.

But I suppose I don’t have much choice.

(So I guess I’ll try to forget the little sky suckers by taking a trip up Spearfish Canyon, with a 4 weight Sage. See you later…)

Rick Highley of Rapid City shares the moment with 12-year-old Cody Hunter as he shows off the 8-pound walleye he hauled in at Angostura Reservoir on May 24th, joining the club that the infamous Take It Outside founder and fishmeister still hasn’t qualified for.

By KW

An 8-pound walleye.

A 5-pound largemouth bass.

A 20-pound northern.

I set those trophy marks for myself years ago. So far, I’ve managed just one: the northern. The fact that I’ve managed it twice doesn’t diminish my longing for the others.

I remain a half-pound short on the bass and a pound and a half short on the walleye.

So here comes this 12-year-old, charging into the 8-pound walleye club that I’ve been trying to join for, oh, something like 45 years.

Cody Hunter did himself proud with his Angostura walleye. But the guy bursting with pride was his grandpa, Tom Collings, who provided this picture.

Kudos to all involved. It’s a breautiful fish.

A short-nosed gar (I’m guessing it’s a short-nosed, right?) waits somewhat impatiently to have Caster’s favorite Missouri River fly - the old chartreuse woolly bugger - removed from its, uh, lip.

By KW

On the back of his little SUV, Caster Don proudly displays the bumper sticker: “Carp on a fly.”

And he does catch carp on a fly, with great regularity this time of year.

But that’s not quite enough (oddly enough, some might say) for old Caster. He showed that up at Pollock last weekend, when he tied into bunch of buffalo (the fish, not the bison) and gar (the fish, not the actress - although didn’t you love her in Mr. Mom?).

It was all fun, Caster says, but it came with a price. Two broken fly rod tips.

Caster was fishing below a spillway near Pollock, where water runs out of Lake Pocasse, which is essentially a backwater bay of the Missouri River. The gar and buffalo fish were packed into that spillway area, as Caster says, “like beer in a cooler at a NASCAR race.”

That’s packed, baby.

Caster was hooking one gar and buffalo after another, sometimes in the mouth and sometimes with an inadvertent foul hook. He was able to wrestle them to the rocks. It was getting them up over the rocks to take out the fly that was the trick.

“If I’d had a net, I’d have been OK,” Caster said yesterday, as he tried to decide where to go fishing after his afternoon nap. “But trying to get those things up on shore, that’s where the problem was.”

It was a problem that snapped his 15-pound tippet on several occasions and broke a couple of rod tips. He was strolling out of Dakota Angler when I saw him, having left the rods for some work by handyman owner Hans Stephenson.

Broken tips and all, Caster Don was smiling, and pondering the weekend.

“Hey, what are you doing on Sunday?” he beamed. “I’m thinking about a road trip.”

Isn’t he always?

Buffalo show their jumping abilities as they try to clear the top of the spillway on Lake Pocasse at Pollock.

One of CD’s many braggin’-sized buffalo.

Caster does battle with another hawg.

Steve Matheny of Rapid City holds the new state record lake trout, a 28-pound, 5-ounce beauty caught in Pactola Reservoir.

By KW

Because I was out doing extensive field research over the last week or so of my vacation, I missed news of the new state-record laker from Pactola Reservoir. The lady at the fee station at the south Pactola ramp (I was on my way in with a fly rod to hammer the bluegills) told me it weighed 30 pounds. But she didn’t know the guy’s name.

“It was in the paper,” she said.

She meant the Journal, where I work. But since I was so deeply engaged with my fish-sampling work, I missed the story.

My back-channel buddy Aldo, who more frequently casts in the political waters of Mount Blogmore, trolled the Interenet to find the name of the record-setting angler: Steve Matheny. For that, Aldo wins the quickest WebJediKnightSearcher in the west award. He was followed closely by Gene Galinat, GF&P fish pro who e-mailed to confirm the fish at 28 pounds, 5 ounces and 40.5 inches long.

GF&P fish man Geno Adams of Pierre followed up by confimring that the trout was caught on May 17, on a “minnow” (seriously?) and had a 23-inch girth. It was weighed in at Don’s Valley Market, next to a beautiful hunk of summer sausage (I kid).

Geez. What are they eating up there?

Yes, it was a “minnow” rig. But it was a minnow chub, about 5-inches long, trolled at 30-feet over 72 feet on a quick-strike rig that the big fish, well, struck.

I reached Steve Matheny by phone last night, and got the details. Matheny, who has caught and released a number of big Pactola lakers, caught this one at about 1:30 p.m., as he was cranking up his line after a down-rigger canon ball nudged the bottom.

“It was a brute right away,” says Matheny, who’s biggest previous Pactola laker was a 24-pounder. “It took line and took like, and I had to thumb (the Garcia 5500-C) down to get him to stop, right before he spooled me.”

Matheny figures the big fish ripped on about 100 yards of 15-pound Trilen line before he got things under control. But then it took 20 minutes to bring the fish along side his Lund Pro V.

“I kept fighting it and fighting it until he finally came up and laid on the surface of the water, and I gilled him,” Matheny said.

He was thinking state record but was disappointed when his scale registered 14.97 pounds.

“I knew that wasn’t right,” he said.

A nearby angler motored over and offered his scale, which showed the fish at nearly 30 pounds. That was close enough to send Matheny toward an official scale, and a new state record.

A crappie/fly rod still life by Keith Wintersteen - although the crappie lived to swim again.

By KW

Our main man Wintersteen is usually quite obliging with his fishing information.

This crappie spot, however, will have to remain secret.

I can tell you that it was on Angostura Reservoir. Beyond that, information is tough to come by.

“Uh, I’d rather not get too specific,” Mr. W said.

I don’t blame him. Honey holes with hungry, 15-inch crappies are tough to come by, especially in these parts.

But Angostura has long been known for its crappies, with a population that ebbs and flows but always provides some action for people willing to depart the hunt for walleyes and smallmouth bass long enough to sample other fish.

Wintersteen is willing, especially when armed with a fly rod and a wee bit of free time.

He was so armed the other day, when standing at the, uh, the, well, along the, er, you know, somewhere on Angostura, hauling in crappies from 14 inches to almost 16.

Those are paper mouths you can stick a thumb in.

Wherever they happen to be, exactly.

The biggest crappie of the day went 15 3/4 inches. And that’s a serious hawg in the crappie world.