I couldn’t believe it when Jerry Krause picked up his phone on a trip to Cleveland in 1997 during the Bulls’ run of championships and started talking fishing. I was quick-witted enough to begin typing. It became my best column to that point. Sports editor Bill Adee framed it as a gift for Krause’s office at the Berto Center.
I credit three early threads for setting up my nearly 30-year run as the Sun-Times’ outdoors columnist. Yes, it’s goodbye.
Krause gave me credibility by talking to me. The Palmisano brothers at Henry’s Sports and Bait tipped me on the Illinois-record brown trout (this was before social media), instead of John Husar, the Tribune’s literary lion of an outdoors columnist. Ken Schneider and Carl Vizzone showed me spots in Chicago and northwest Indiana, plus introduced me to ordinary people I should know, giving me street cred.
Krause said he hated Jay Mariotti, an Sun-Times sports columnist, so much that Krause and Jerry Reinsdorf would not talk to the paper. At least twice Dan Cahill, in an editor role, asked if I still had Krause’s number and could I get a quote for a story. I would call Krause, who would decline, then we chatted fishing and upcoming shows. Krause was right about Mariotti. As somebody who did two stints as a sports agate clerk, the lowest sports rung in the newspaper guild, I learned a helluva of a lot about the true nature of people when they checked in on deadline.
Years later, I learned why the Palmisano brothers (Henry, Tom and Steve) gave me the scoop on Deva Vranek catching the Illinois-record brown trout of 36 pounds, 11.5 ounces, straight off Chicago on June 22, 1997. They thought I wrote for ordinary anglers, the ultimate compliment, and they were in a pissing match with Husar over another story. Vranek’s record still stands.
Schneider and Vizzone showed me how to fish Ogden Slip, the discharge on the North Shore Channel, to catch crappie by bridge houses downtown and smallmouth bass at the old Dean Mitchell plant in Indiana. They weren’t afraid to tell me when I was wrong. Hence, my hanging “The Lakefront Lip” on Schneider. I stuck Mike Repa at Park Bait with “Crusty Counterman,” which even made him smile. Schneider introduced me to Eileen Rice, who went into the Illinois Outdoor Hall of Fame for her hands-on elementary course built around fishing.
Many things twined to document the Chicago River revival the last three decades. In the 1990s, Rita Somen caught more than two dozen species of fish downtown; now nearly three times that many species have been documented.
The river pulled the greatest carp anglers in the world for the Chicago Carp Classic in the 1990s. When the BASS Master Classic came in the summer of 2000 (greatest work week of my life), I rode with Rick Clunn on Day 2 in Lake Calumet. He’s my guy. I even tagged along with him, pre-fishing before the 2005 Classic in Pittsburgh.
I saw the rise and slide of Illinois as the world’s prime destination for trophy white-tailed deer. During the 2000s, I wrote about the first modern occurrences in Illinois of wild black bears, cougars and wolves. I expect to live long enough to see breeding bears in Illinois.
My column evolved from a focus on fishing to include more hunting, then, in recent years, broadened to more conservation and habitat restoration while keeping traditional hook-and-bullet.
One of my wildest stories was hoggin’ flathead and channel catfish on Rend Lake. Downstate guide Todd Gessner set up the trip with Wild Man, Wild Girl, Radio and Big Nasty. I can still feel the cats raking my hands, see the tattered Bible on Wild Man’s dashboard.
Special people go to the outdoors. I wander with Joel Greenberg (“A Natural History of the Chicago Region”), smartest guy I ever met. Dr. Joe McCartin, my dentist, is notable for hunting (deer, pheasant, quail) and fishing (muskie, walleye), but especially as a renowned cook and wine aficionado, making ordinary trips into feasts. I connected with Mike Norris early, as mentor and friend. He’s the most analytical angler I know and can explain why and what he’s doing, which is why he’s one of Chicago’s greatest fishing teachers.
Adee gave me the outdoors beat. As I interviewed for a sportswriting opening covering preps, Adee asked my ideal job. I said, “Outdoors.” The preps job went to Roman Modrowski (who ended up at ESPN), but a couple weeks later, I got my shot at the outdoors and have done it since.
Writers have ticklish relationships with “The Desk.” Mercifully, Bob Mazzoni, my primary copy editor, and I built a simpatico relationship. Otherwise, it is either Humberto Perez, favorite son of Frank Deford at the National Sports Daily, or Matt Corradino, who grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, same as me. Perez and Corradino are known for crackling headlines. Sports editor Chris De Luca gave me room to grow into a double truck (two facing pages) on weekends.
Dave Manthey, who passed on the bowling beat when he retired, taught me something from doing Beat The Champs. Make it plain and straight when writing about regular people, it might be their one time in the paper.
Just after I graduated high school, Rick Telander published “Heaven is a Playground,” about playing street basketball in New York. A couple years ago while doing a story on netting invasive carp upstream of Starved Rock, I told him how much it influenced me — not to write about street ball but to write as a participant in the outdoors. Back on shore, he pulled a black hoodie for the book from his trunk for me.
His advice was to let the dream rip when writing. He’s right, but outdoors columnists also have a responsibility to impart practical information. That dichotomy is a constant push-pull.
I only missed a handful of columns.
I missed several Sundays when a sports editor, not Adee or De Luca, dropped it to cut costs. Hundreds of readers complained. Albert Dickens, the sports department’s magician of an office manager, made his editorial comment by jotting each call on the wall. Every summer, Albert fished trout in South Dakota and had a wild photo of himself skiing with a 1970s Afro.
On Sept. 11, I published an abbreviated Midwest Fishing Report. I remember Lori Ralph at The Salmon Stop in Waukegan, asking, “Why the hell are you calling me?”
“I always call on Tuesdays for a report.”
“Turn your damn TV on.”
I missed two weeks after my triple bypass on Jan. 6, 2021. When I rebounded enough to speak at Fish Tales club, I think it was Jackie Vogel who said, “You seem more human.”
Ultimately, that’s more important than being a good outdoors columnist.
I have a big-fish book to finish, volunteering to do at natural areas and church, a granddaughter in Florida to see more than once a year, four kids to keep up with and trips to take with my wife where deadlines don’t loom.
I lived my dream job, now life’s journey shifts.