Dan Small, longtime host of “Outdoor Wisconsin,” will be inducted into the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sports Show.
In Dan Small’s rich and varied life, there is one thread that runs through all seven decades.
In fact it – fishing – was cinched in his earliest memory.
“I was fishing with my dad and I remember looking over the side of the boat and seeing what looked like a carpet of green and gold,” said Small, a Westby resident known to many as the longtime host of ” Outdoor Wisconsin” on Milwaukee PBS. “It’s a school of yellow perch.”
That outing was with his father, Clarence, on Lake Erie, near Dan’s birthplace in Tonawanda, New York.
String continued in his youth to angle for bluegills and rock bass at a quarry near Clarence, New York, where Small grew up, as well as for brook trout on family camping trips in the Adirondacks.
It’s fun and a connection to the outdoors. But also food.
“My father never met a fish he couldn’t fillet,” Small said.
Not even a year in France during college could provide a backlash to this through-line. Small went abroad as part of his studies at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. In France his passion for fishing led him to the Roya River near Nice. There it was brown trout fishing.
“Talk about fussy,” Small said of the French browns. “They’re survivors of the Ice Age and in that clear water they’re as hard to catch as any fish you’ll find.”
Naturally he didn’t stop casting when he moved to Texas to earn his doctorate in French literature at Rice University. Small memories of delicious catches of redfish, flounder and sea trout near Galveston, largemouth bass in ponds around Houston and trout in the Guadalupe River where stocked rainbows are “suckers for corn or small marshmallows on a hook,” he said.
But arguably his fishing genes only fully expressed themselves after Small moved to Wisconsin in 1972 to teach French and English at Northland College in Ashland. Now in just a long cast he has access to inland waters with musky, smallmouth bass, walleye, trout and panfish and a Great Lake with trout, salmon, smallmouth and more.
It helped start a new career. Small began using his passion, talent and education to write magazine and newspaper articles on fishing. He also wrote several books on the subject. And he even branched out into television, the medium that would introduce him to Wisconsinites.
As host of “Outdoor Wisconsin” from 1984 to 2020 Small helped highlight fishing, almost exclusively in the Badger State, in hundreds of segments on the weekly, 30-minute television show.
That’s quite a tapestry, spanning the late 1940s to the present, from his youth and college days to adulthood, through changes in vocation and from New York to Europe to the deep South to Wisconsin .
And it’s not over yet. But Thursday will be a time to pause and reflect, to make a commemorative notch in the gunnel.
For his lifetime work, Small is being inducted into the 2024 class of the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.
The ceremony will take place at 2 pm Thursday on the Dan Small Outdoors Stage at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sports Show at the State Fair Exposition Center in West Allis.
On its induction plaque, the hall of fame noted Small’s more than 1,000 articles on fishing, his work as editor of Wisconsin Outdoor News from 1993-98, host of “Outdoor Wisconsin” for 36 years and since 2006 as host of “Outdoors Radio,” a weekly, regional radio program.
The Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame is located in Hayward and has approximately 500 inductees.
Joining Small in the 2024 class are: Albert Gagliarducci, a Massachusetts-based lure designer, manufacturer and fishing show producer; Tim Huffman, an author and photographer from Arkansas; Jerry Martin, an Illinois-based conservationist and writer devoted to antique fishing tackle; Bill Murphy, an angler associated with the rise of bass fishing in California from the 1960s to the 1990s; and Roger Stegall of Iuka, Mississippi, a bass fishing guide.
Several past hall inductees will present seminars at the Sports Show, including Steve Heiting, Mike Mladenik and Dale Strohschein, all of Wisconsin. And another, Bob Mehsikomer of Minnesota, will lead the induction ceremony for Small on Thursday.
Looking back on a lifetime is humbling, Small said, and it’s hard for him to believe how quickly time flies. He said it is a great honor to be included in the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.
And in the course of life, one thing is as certain as the thread that anchors his past and present.
“I have no regrets when it comes to fishing, not one,” Small said. “Fishing has been a joy, it has led to so many great experiences and relationships. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
The 83rd Journal Sentinel Sports Show begins Thursday
The 2024 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sports Show runs Thursday through Sunday at the Wisconsin State Fair Park Exposition Center in West Allis. Now in its 83rd year, the show will include seminars, exhibitors, demonstrations, food and entertainment. Hours are noon to 8 pm Thursday and Friday, 10 am to 8 pm Saturday and 10 am to 5 pm Sunday. For tickets, schedule of events and more information, visit jssportsshow.com.
