Steve Mitchell; Stalker of Bass, Viking Pillager
He'd Tell You That Eskimos Invented Chili, Too!
Bass fishing with Mitchell was a singular event every time we went out because there were so few things he did with regularity. However, one of them was that he kept a bottle of Old Grandad in his tackle box for ratifying the first two rules of bass fishing.
Rule One states that if you fish all day and don’t catch anything then you can overcome your disappointment with a nice, comforting drink.
Rule Two is if you catch a bunch of good-sized fish you can celebrate your achievement with a nice, comforting drink.
These rules are not unique to Mitchell but he liked them because they are simple and easy to understand and enjoyable when applied.
What was unique to Mitchell was just about everything else. This included his skill at hustling a game of nine-ball, his ability to win an argument by simply raising one of his eyebrows and his almost convincing tales of having been a Viking warrior who was killed in a skirmish in Scotland in 1057.
“I had to come back,” he once told me, “to do penance. All good Vikings plunder and kill people, of course, but believe it or not they frown on pillaging in Valhalla and I did my share of pillaging. So now I have to come back and work for a newspaper and go bass fishing with you and Collins.”
Mitchell claimed that he got his recipe for chili from “a dying Mexican cowboy on the side of the road near Laredo.” He later retracted that version, explaining that “too many people already use that one.”
“Actually, my recipe comes from an Eskimo witch doctor who beat me in a game of nine-ball up near Whitehorse one night. This guy was amazing with a cue stick and understood chili in all its forms. Plus he cheated. Did you know that chili was invented by the Eskimos?”
Mitchell never kept any of the fish we caught. He claimed it was beneath his dignity to clean a slimy bass or to actually eat one. “I’m not in it for the romance,” he said, “just the sex.”
Catching a largemouth bass is an experience almost impossible to convey with mere words. But the first one you catch hooks you almost more than it does the fish. The attraction to keep going back and doing it repeatedly is almost irresistible. So you become a bass fisherman.
“You hear the whip of the flexible rod and the soft whir of monofilament line running off the reel, then see the splash of your black plastic worm hitting the smooth surface of the water. You wait for it to sink then gently lift the rod so that the bait moves in spurts slowly above the bottom. You see the line suddenly start running off the reel and know that the bass has taken the bait. You wait a few seconds then pop the rod sharply up, setting the hook. The fight is on!”
Largemouth bass were an important food source for prehistoric peoples all around the world. You can find them in almost every country today, prominently including Japan and Russia, where some of the largest have been caught.
But we’ve come a long way from catching bass as a food for survival.
We’ve also gone beyond what used to be simply a few guys in a rented jonboat chasing bass on Saturday to escape housework. Bass fishing today has been co-opted by big commercial interests and is now a competition “sport” with tournaments (yes, tournaments!) featuring contestants dressed up like NASCAR drivers, festooned with corporate advertising logos and zooming across reservoirs and lakes in sleek boats, powered by multiple, 100-horsepower motors, the boats equipped with elevated swivel seats, trolling motors, underwater, sonar fish finders and dashboard screens revealing where the hapless fish are hiding.
If you peer far enough into the future you might one day be able to see “professional” stamp collectors, dressed in logo-emblazoned, stamp-collecting body suits, engaged in competitive stamp-collecting tournaments, or maybe bird-watching tournaments or carrot growing tournaments or Scrabble tournaments. Who knows?
But, no, Mitchell and Collins and I preferred chugging across the lake in a cheap, rented aluminum boat with an old, 18-horsepower Evinrude off the stern and a spare can of gas. We’d have some beer on ice and some cheese crackers for lunch and, at the end of the day, maybe a chug of Steve’s Old Grandad.
My goodness, those were some fine times!
If you catch a bass or two and want to have them for supper you’ll want to filet (“fillay”) them first. Bass exude slime through their scales to protect them from the elements so it’s best not to try scaling them and frying them with the skin on. That will give you a strong “fishy” taste.
You want to have a very sharp filet knife to do this. The best one to get is the Rapala, made in Finland. It has a long, “bendy” blade, tailor made for the job. You can get one, reasonably priced, at almost any store that sells fishing gear.
You Can Do This
Crispy bass filets
Rinse and pat dry 2 pounds fresh fish filets (can also be tilapia). Lightly season with salt and pepper on both sides (I use Lawry’s Seasoned Salt).
In a bowl, mix 1 cup all purpose flour and one fourth teaspoon baking powder and one teaspoon salt with a half-cup milk, a half-cup water.
Whisk until smooth.
Heat about an inch of oil to 365 degrees(F)
Dip filets into the batter to coat then carefully lower them into the hot oil, one at a time depending on size. Turn these over and cook until golden, about two minutes. Drain on paper towels.
Mitchell was never in Alaska and as far as anyone knows, he only went to Mexico once so I’m not exactly sure what he knew about chili. However, I remain open to being convinced that if anyone, anywhere might possibly be a reincarnated Viking it would be Steve.
I asked him for his chili recipe but he refused to let me have it on the grounds that it was too valuable to give out.
“I have to have something to leave to my children,” he told me, “and this recipe should set ‘em up for life. You’d be taking away their livelihood. Here, have another plug of Old Grandad.”
I asked Mitchell once to tell me how he knew where to catch bass. After a long pause, he consented. Leaning over towards me he revealed his secret.
“Bass, are where you find them,” he said.
I must tell you that Steve returned to Valhalla years ago where I am sure he was welcomed by his fellow Norse marauders, now that he had been sufficiently chastized for pillaging.
And if they have a lake there and if it’s big enough and if it has bass in it and you can rent a 14-foot jonboat there with an old Evinrude hanging off the stern and you can buy some black plastic worms at a dockside store and maybe a bottle of Old Grandad, then I can probably tell you where you can find him.