By Justin Haag
I occasionally pull it from the drawer to run it through the catch of the day. With its familiar wooden handle, conditioned by about 40 years of handling, this fillet knife has been with me for most of my fishing days, and my history with it is rooted in a favorite celebrity encounter.
It began when my dad took me to McCook’s new Walmart (back in the early ’80s when the L and M were still separated by a star) to see a living legend in action.
As a preteen kid who loved to fish, I was excited. Behind a small table near the sporting goods section stood the same grandfatherly figure who had shared his fishing adventures with me through the television set on many a cold winter Saturday. It was Harold Ensley, the founding host of the “Sportsman’s Friend.” At the time, Ensley was about 30 years into a remarkable 48-year run of the television program he began in Kansas City in 1953.
In his hand was the same model of knife prominently hanging on a display rack nearby. Its wooden handle, decorated with an autograph facsimile, and straight blade now seem as practical as the Ford Country Squire station wagon he drove. Its Japanese construction and plastic sheath seemingly bridge one generation to another.
We watched closely as he pulled bluegills from a cooler and gave us pointers on filleting fish. While doing it, he extolled the assets of his knife’s design. Of course, we each left with a new cutting utensil that day.
Ensley is recognized as a pioneer in outdoor television — and television in general. He capitalized on the medium as TV sets were just becoming common in homes.
His approach to it seems worlds apart from today’s shows. An ordained minister with roots in the western Kansas town of Healy, he used a soft-spoken delivery to narrate over the top of the action footage from a cabin-themed studio.
When he started, video cameras didn’t record audio, and there was none of the whooping and hollering, or amped-up music, that have become staples of today’s programming. Just a guy showing us experiences of doing what he loved with friends and family. He closed each episode by hanging a “Gone Fishin’” sign over the fireplace.
Bill Snead of the Lawrence Journal-World related Ensley’s impact in a profile piece:
“Ensley’s show and his athletic, teetotaling image helped change the public’s perception of hunters and fishermen,” Snead wrote. “Many non-sportsmen thought most outdoorsmen were usually an arm’s length from a case of beer or within range of a no-hunting sign filled with bullet holes. Ensley helped bring a new level of respectability to outdoor sports.”
The show took Ensley to premier fishing and hunting destinations and brought him considerable fame.
He fished with some of the biggest celebrities of the day and even appeared in guest roles on “Gunsmoke” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Of course, he was named to the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame and garnered countless other honors.
With Ensley’s proximity to Nebraska, some readers surely have firsthand memories of the “Sportsman’s Friend.”
Whenever Ensley was mentioned in my family, someone would reference when he was the keynote speaker at my alma mater, Beaver Valley High School, when my aunt graduated. It happened before I was born, and I’ve always felt a little cheated that I didn’t get to see it.
Not surprisingly, he made his way into this publication. He was on the cover of Outdoor Nebraska, the former name of Nebraskaland, in September 1960 holding a shotgun and two sharp-tailed grouse.
“I’ve hunted the chicken in Canada and had some fine shooting, but this sharptail hunting in your Sand Hill country is the best shooting I’ve had yet,” he said in the article. “Nebraskans are mighty lucky people.”
In my research, I learned that Harold Ensley was a friend of Walmart founder Sam Walton. Walton would have been a handy friend to have if you were looking to peddle some goods.
The knife is not the only merchandise with Ensley’s name on it. Perhaps more popular were his lures, such as a plastic bait known as “The Reaper,” a jointed crankbait called the “Sneaky Snake” and a hair jig,
“Tiny Tot.”
The knife has timeless utility, but it is especially good at evoking nostalgia. When it’s in my hand, I think about the TV show and those summer evenings bellying up to an old metal ironing board to fillet fish with my dad and grandpa.
They were special times, reliving the day’s experiences. No doubt, some of the conversations at those sessions involved something I’d seen on TV — Ensley, Virgil Ward or perhaps the younger fellas, Bill Dance and Jimmy Houston. With the cold wind blowing outside, those shows certainly helped build excitement for warmer days.
After decades of sharing his love of the outdoors, Ensley died in 2005 at age 92. The legacy of the “Sportsman’s Friend,” however, lives on in the stories he produced and today’s outdoor entertainment industry. And, of course, in my drawer of fish and game cleaning utensils.