September 12, 2019

Maas A Straight Shooter On, Off The Field

As much as he loves to hunt and fish, Jason Maas knows he can’t do those activities every day like Luke Bryan sings in his country music song.

Coaching football and family come first for the Eskimos head coach, although he’s been able to involve his wife, Marjean, and children Makaela, 16, and Garyn, 7, with his passions.

“We go together quite a bit; not as much as we’d like,” Maas said about family fishing trips, which mostly occur when they’re holidaying in Mexico during the winter. “My daughter has caught a Mahi Mahi out on a boat. My son, my wife and I have gone out fishing with a guy they call Granger down in a little town south of Puerto Vallarta. I’ve been trying to catch a roosterfish the last couple of years – haven’t got one – but I have got some good red snappers and things like that off the beach.

“I don’t have a lot of time during the summers to do much (fishing) up here,” he continued. “We go up to Valleyview with our friends at times, and I went ice-fishing and fish on the lake when we have time.

“A couple of years ago, my family and I went out with Keith Ray. He was a Hooked On Fish guide. It was right before training camp; it might have been two years ago. We called him up and had a great day out on the lake and fished with him here. He ended up succumbing to cancer not too long after that. It was a pretty special time for my family to go out with him one last time in the boat and fish with him.”

Maas, who mostly uses a bow and arrows, gets more opportunities to hunt than fish when he’s in Edmonton. Once the bow hunting season is open from late August until early December, he might be able to get out for a couple of days during a bye week and, sometimes, the night before an Eskimos home game.

“There’s plenty of time to sit there and think about things, so obviously, I still think back to game-planning and football in general when I’m out there because there’s not much else to do,” said Maas. “You’re looking for animals, listening, you’re looking at nature and being a part of it. But your mind wanders a lot.

“It’s just nice to get away from a fast-paced life and the pressure of your job, I guess, and what it entails and the magnitude of what you do. When you’re in the woods, you’re kinda alone with your thoughts, and I enjoy that part. It’s quiet.

“There’s nothing quite like being in the woods just before dark or when it is dark just before the sun is going to come up. Those kind of moments are just surreal. I really enjoy it.

“It’s not so much that I end up getting away from football,” he added. “It’s just that I am away and I have the time and can do it. It’s very relaxing to me and something I obviously love.”

Maas has also taken his daughter hunting with him “here and there” and tries “to take my son out a little bit.”

“I’m trying to make it more of a family thing so I can do both of those, as well, because football takes up so much of my time,” he said. “I really just want to be at home with my family, but that draw of hunting is hard to suppress when it’s (in) season.”

Maas said he hunts “very little” with a gun, although he did shoot a black bear with his rifle a few years ago.

“I go up north to Valleyview occasionally and hunt a bit with a rifle, but a lot of my time spent around Edmonton is bow-zone hunting,” he said. “Around Edmonton, there’s two kinds of deer – mule and whitetail – plus moose. That’s mostly what I hunt for. Up north, elk is the prize to go for. It’s something to fill your freezer with all winter and help the family out.

“There’s bear hunting from April through the middle of June. Bear hunting is one of my favourite things to do. … I haven’t been fortunate enough to get one with my bow yet.

“Black bears are pretty curious by nature at times,” Maas explained. “The younger ones can be. The older ones seem to be pretty slick and smart. They get pretty old, so they’re pretty good with the woods and understanding when you’re there, so you’re definitely on edge when you’re in the woods with them. You have to be aware of your situation and the surroundings and what you’re doing, but it’s a lot of fun to watch them and be around them in the woods.”

Maas said he enjoys the abundance of animals and abundance of tags hunters can purchase without a draw in Alberta.

“Arizona is mostly a draw, so it’s kind of hard to hunt everything,” he said.

Maas was born in Beaver Dam, Wis., and grew up in Yuma, Ariz., where the Phoenix Prep Sport magazine selected him as the most outstanding high-school quarterback in the state of Arizona as a senior.

He started fishing with his grandfather, Roy Maas, during summer visits to Wisconsin when he was eight, nine and 10 years old but didn’t get involved with hunting until after college.

“He would take me out fishing all day,” Jason recalled. “It was just that connection with my grampa and hanging out on the boat. I just really enjoyed it. Whether we caught things or not, it was more spending time with my grampa that I enjoyed, but I definitely got hooked on fishing in general and being outdoors. That was always fun for me.

“Hunting just made it that much better.”

Asked if he had a typical “fish story,” Maas talked about “a special moment in my life.”

“My grandfather and I went fishing for muskie quite a bit,” he said. “He fished for most of his life for a wall-hanger muskie. In the three summers I fished with him, we had a couple up to the boat that got away.

“I ended up one day going out on the boat with a buddy while he fished from the dock. I came back, and he kind of joked with me that he had caught a decent-sized fish. He didn’t tell me it was a muskie.

“I walked over to where he had it in the water, still on the line. I pulled it up, and it was a wall-hanger muskie. It was a 46-inch muskie! It got put in the (news)paper.

“It was his life-long dream to catch one. I felt unfortunate that I wasn’t there, but I’ll never forget him telling me to lift it out of the water and then me just pulling it up and seeing it and how excited I was.

“I have the fish now,” Maas added. “It’s hung up on my wall since my grandfather passed. It was handed down to me.”

“I ended up getting one and kind of got hooked on hunting that way,” Maas said. “Obviously, just going out there with (Randy) and being out in the wilderness and ultimately, the goal is to get something, but just being out there was just as fun so I enjoyed the hunt and the practising and everything that came with bow hunting.

“As the years have gone by, that’s kind of what I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve enjoyed just spending time out in the woods and getting closer to nature, I guess. But practising something and getter better at something obviously helps, too.”