Alright, you can talk to me, don't
worry about all of
this. Yeah, sure.
So I guess, let's go
back to the beginning. You were born
in Montello, right?
Yes.
And so did you grow up fishing?
Was fishing something passed down to
you?
Yeah, I sure was.
My dad liked to fish, and that's how
I ended up in Montello, because he
was from Kenosha.
And his parents and
his grandfather would come up here
fishing,
as tourists, back in the 1920s
and 30s.
So he met my mom in
Montellos. She would net his fish.
She was 13.
And they ended up eventually
falling in love, getting married,
and then they moved.
He moved to Montello after
World War II.
And so my mom's still there.
Same house on the river.
Yeah, she's 96.
So yeah, it's kind of
in my blood.
So how did she end up, did she work
at a resort or help down in the boat
or she just met him and he took her
away? Yeah.
Yeah, well, her dad
owned a big, he was lock tender at
the locks at the dam there and then
she would always be down there
helping him and you know cleaning
his rental boats and
bailing water out of them because
they're wood and they leaked and and
that's how, you know, people shore
fished and that is how she met my
dad, so she would run around and net
fish not just for him but for other
people too, so Yeah,
and I grew up there
helping my grandfather then,
her dad, doing the same stuff.
Now, was walleye the big thing back
then?
Well, walleyes were a big thing, but
it was a big catfish
river, it was the Fox River,
so a lot of catfish,
crappies, some bass,
smallmouth bass especially, and
of course a good number of walleyess
that would come out of Lake
Puckaway, Lake Winnebago
system.
So growing up for you was fishing
a diversion or was it like
a passion?
Oh, it was a passion.
Yeah, I mean it was every day.
It was 3
a.m.
And before school.
It was all weekend.
It's was all summer.
So then you were telling before
that you kind of came into
your early life and trying to find a
job, trying to start a family.
Yeah.
You know, what was
fishing at that point in time?
Was that like where you wanted to
get to?
Yeah, you know, after
high school, I went to college and
all that kind of stuff and I got
drafted, Vietnam War thing going on
and came back
and I worked at a resort when I came
back. Jobs are hard to find anyway
so I thought well, if I'm going to
work for that same amount of money,
I'll work at a resort and then
I became a fishing guide there.
So that helped a lot.
And I really enjoyed that, getting
people on fish and teaching them how
to fish. And
Worked other jobs, did my freelance
writing, started to do that.
The freelance writing was
really the big stepping stone
because I got to meet
people in the fishing industry,
manufacturers, manufacturers'
representatives, that kind of thing,
and of course, pro-fishermen.
Excuse me.
Sorry about that.
And, you
know, people in the industry,
manufacturers, representatives,
pro-fishermen, and so on, and
other writers,
and resort owners,
so just kind of
Get it, get it.
Yeah.
Like I said,
the other day I've been fighting a
cold. Mm-hmm.
I've not coughed all day.
That didn't cost the whole time we
were talking earlier.
No worries.
Oh
You can keep a glass kind of
by you if you want to.
How about a cup?
Where's my fishing haul of faith?
That'll help.
I hope.
Want me to do that over.
No, we'll just keep going
from there.
So you're kind of manufacturing
your own path, in a way.
Yeah, yeah, kind of.
I love freelance writing and.
Fortunate enough to be able to write
for all of the big three magazines.
What is it?
Outdoor life, field and street
sports field and then
just little things, not a lot,
but in those days it paid very
well and then if you
had photographs as well.
So I was finally making a decent
living and
that, but I always wanted to be
not interviewing tournament anglers,
I wanted to interview, I
want to be the angler, right?
And so I started fishing bass
tournaments, did well, I won the
state championship.
A one year and then.
I met a guy who fished the walleye
circuit and he said, hey, how would
you like to fish the wall eye
circuit?
And I said, I can't afford it.
And he said well, I got a boat, I've
got this, I got that, we'll split
the costs.
So I paired up with him.
We did really well, won three
tournaments on the very first
year.
Sponsorships came and bam, then it
really took off after that.
Around what time was that?
That was 1988-89.
So you'd pick your juice, and that
was... You...
Wasn't immediate, right?
Oh no, it sure wasn't,
and I didn't know if it would ever
happen.
I didn't t expect it to.
There was an opportunity.
I did seize the opportunity
and I set a goal,
a five-year goal, and I thought, if
I don't make these goals in
five years, I'll get out.
Made them in one year.
So then you couldn't get out,
because it was too fun, and
it paid well.
So yeah, so
how how does a walleye
professional walleye fisherman make
a living is it mostly from?
Sponsorships or is it from the
tournament winnings or how does that
happen?
Yeah, at first it's a
combination.
Usually when you start out you don't
have sponsorships or they're very
small but it
all helps.
So then winnings really
help.
You gain notoriety,
you get speaking engagements.
You have to be willing to do them
and that means traveling
all over the United States,
all winter long at sport shows and
and giving seminars on walleye
fishing.
I liked doing that anyway,
so whenever an opportunity
was there, I would take it.
And it's interesting because there
again, they paid a lot for
speakers.
Professional walleye anglers were
rare.
Prior to the mid-80s,
the only walleye pros
were outdoor writers who
fished with good walleye
guides.
So they knew how to do it and they
would come into the shows and talk
about it.
There was no competitive walleye
angling. Well, once that started and
you proved yourself a winner,
then you could get the stage
time to go and talk about your
winning tactics and things you do
and how you learn and
how to tweak things and just
how to be a better angler.
So for some of the people that would
show up to this, were they hoping
to be competitive anglers
or were these just your average
fishermen who just wanted to get a
little better and catch the wall?
Usually, most
of the time it's guys that
they want to be,
they want to win.
You talk to them, they compete
in a lot of stuff.
They race in all of these cars.
They do all that kind of stuff, dirt
bikes.
They're always racing.
But yeah, they're competitors so
that they do it for the competition.
They want to win,
some want to do it to make a living.
Some just do it because they enjoy
the competition, but they
maybe own their own business.
I have some other job they can get
away from, self-employed,
whatever.
They're never looking to become a
full-time professional.
They don't want to speak at shows
in the winter, and they want to go
to Florida and fish all winter,
get on their yachts, which
is good, because if everybody wanted
to do that,
then water's down the whole field.
So, uh...
There's always a handful,
and it's always the same guys,
year after year after years,
doing these circuits.
And we would, a handful
of us would speak,
and take a regular route, and
the next year we'd have a different
route, and the third year another
route, and then they're ready for
you again,
two or three years later.
And some sports shows would have you
every year.
How much of what percentage
of your life was actual
tournaments versus talking about?
Yeah, well the
tournaments would run from mid-March
to October and
then all the time after that
you're not tournament fishing.
If that's your profession you've got
to make money in the winter and
of course that's most
of it because March to October
it's about half a year so you
got your other half is
speaking engagements period or
guiding. A lot of guys still guided
in between.
Guided late into the
fall and early spring.
I quit guiding
three
years into it.
I could just couldn't keep doing it
and mainly because I was fishing
three circuits.
Once while I tournament circuits
proved successful then
all these other circuits started
popping up.
Bigger money, you know,
getting sponsorships from elsewhere
and longer travel.
You know you weren't just Midwest
anymore.
But if that was your profession,
that's what you did.
I mean, you just went where the
tournaments were.
And the paybacks were way better.
Sponsors liked it.
So the more you did,
the more your got paid to do it.
That's kind of how it works.
And then the rest of the time of the
year, you're promoting sponsors
during your seminars.
So for you, did you get
a chance to come back to Wisconsin
and fish here, or was that
kind of lost to you for a time?
Oh, I was really lost.
The only time I fished in Wisconsin
was when there was a tournament
here.
We would come, I would, like
I said, fish in two or three
circuits, one time three.
I did 19 tournaments
that year,
not counting the championships.
So my wife and I, she would travel
with me and help me out, she was
kind of my jack of all trades and
she would take care of all the side
distractions that I'd...
Didn't want to have to do.
I wanted to focus on fishing.
So she would take care of all that.
And uh...
So yeah, when I came home
all I did was get the boat ready for
the next tournament.
I didn't even have time to fish
here.
But if the tournament was on
Winnebago, if it was in Green Bay,
Pete and Will Flowage, kind of the
most popular places for walleye
tournaments, yeah, then I fished.
Our documentary is talking about
walleye in Wisconsin as
a significant cultural species
also connected to economy
and tourism and tournaments.
So for you, did walleye
still hold a special place or
once it became like a livelihood did
it kind of shift?
That's a great question.
Walleye, because I grew up fishing
walleyes in the Fox River.
They're like the golden boy of the
fishery, you know? I mean,
everybody, the elusive
wiley walleye, that's all we ever
read about or heard about,
and how hard they were to catch.
And they were never hard for
me to catch, I never bought
that. I never thought, why
do people keep saying that?
Because it's not true, but
for a lot of people, they can be.
They're a special fish and
yes, when I would come home,
we have a walleye run here in
March up the Fox River and
I would always fish that and there
would always be a smaller run in the
fall and I'd fish that.
And I'd do some walleye fishing on
Big Green Lake because I
guided for walleyes there.
So Lake Puckaway, same way.
I quit fishing in the Wisconsin
River because I just didn't need to
go there because I could catch them
elsewhere.
Fishing all over the U.S.
Made me a better angler here,
but fishing here made
me way better anglers elsewhere.
And I think that's why the Wisconsin
Tournament anglers,
especially, were so good
on the professional walleye trail.
I mean, we just outshined
everybody, almost everybody,
just because of our
knowledge of fishing on this
Winnebago system.
Tough system.
But once you've got to figure it
out, man, it's so good, you know?
So that's the key.
If you can fish them here, you can
do it anywhere.
Yeah, I believe that, and well,
I've proved it, and so have
several other anglers, so yeah.
So you have the ultimate home
field test, a home field advantage.
Absolutely, and you know,
even yet, when I catch a walleye
today, I mean, I
just marvel at that fish.
It's just a very special fish,
and I never took it for
granted.
I mean I could catch, there were
places you could go and catch 100
walleyes a day.
You know, those fisheries in North
America are that good,
and even in a half a day sometimes,
it's so plentiful, but you
never got tired of it.
And never got tired of going the
next day and catching some more fish
and catching those walleyes.
And it didn't matter if they were 10
pounds or 10 inches.
You know, it's just, not for me
anyway, for some people maybe, but
not for my. It's just a special
fish.
What's it like to have
a walleye on?
Is it the anticipation for you
of like when they're about to or
setting the hook or is it when you
get them in the boat?
What are the different moments in
that action?
Yeah, I'm a caster.
So I'm casting baits out,
retrieving.
I mean, I catch, obviously I have to
learn how to catch walleyes in every
method to be a professional.
You can't just use one thing or you
get a lot of zeros.
So I had to learn these other
methods, but my favorite is casting.
It's usually casting a jig,
pitching it out, working along
the bottom. When you feel.
It's just something special, it's
just like that.
You know right away what it is.
And I know a lot of fish bites,
a small mouth bite like that,
and a large mouth bite, and a pike
bite.
But you can, if you're caught enough
and done enough, you can tell.
And just feeling that.
I mean, it's exciting.
The most exciting thing for
me in fishing is the bite.
It was the same way muskie
fishing.
Bass fishing top water,
that's the most exciting thing.
Actually, finding and catching a
fish is no big deal.
That's all part of the stick, but
feeling that bite is
so cool.
This just, it sends such a rush, you
know?
And it's, and walleye's way more
subtle than those other fish,
but maybe that's what makes it so
much better.
And because they're in the perch
family, perch bite the same
way, even more subtle.
So I love to fish perch
with jigs the same way, just
to feel that little tap and
yeah, that's
the deal. It's like, what's
the best part about bobber fishing?
When the bobber goes down,
the same thing.
And I still get excited about that
when I fish with bobbers, so.
So I mean, could you have
been as successful as you
have been without still
enjoying every part of it?
No, I don't think so.
I don't think so, I mean, yeah,
it's a job.
I never,
I dunno, every fish I caught,
even if it wasn't a keeper,
you know, even it wasn't
a money fish,
it was just, it just, wow.
You know, it' just that wow factor
every time.
It care and just
throw it you know I would never do
that, just drop them over the side
and let them go, because that fish
is special.
I mean, you know, that's ten years
from now he's that ten pounder, you
know.
Why, why didn't you go into
small mouth is that you know bass
tournaments are what a lot of people
most average non-fisherman
They've heard of big bass
tournaments. You see on tv.
Oh, yeah But it seems like that's
where the money would be.
So why?
That's totally where the money is
and still is and
But the money started to come
into the wall, I think in
a lady in a late 1980s
and I thought well,
this isn't bass
And I would and I always
wanted to be a bass guy.
I mean, you know those guys
They had the TV shows
on and a lot of those guys actually
are friends of mine today because
we're all the industry, but
But they would always tease me
that I was fishing those
walleyes.
And they would say, you're never
going to make any money doing that.
Why don't you get into the bass?
But that's an expensive
deal. I mean, you just,
yeah. And just to get through all
the qualifying and stuff to
do it is brutal.
But there are guys that, they're
still doing it.
These young guys today are just
amazing how they've come in.
We've had some in our own state here
that have done great.
You know, fishing all over the
country for bass.
Had the walleye thing
not panned out,
say the money was never there, I
couldn't tell you if I would have
gotten into bass or not.
I may have probably just kept
freelance writing, guiding,
you know doing both because
it was something I
liked and it was easy and it here
and you know
didn't have a lot of expenses.
Tournament fishing is expensive.
I mean, even in
the 90s, you're dropping
25 to 35,000
a year.
And that was a lot of money back
then.
If you didn't have the sponsors,
it was coming out of your own
pocket.
You couldn't sustain that if you
weren't good, you know, if you just
showed up and fished.
So you really had to
perform. It's a performance
sport.
Well, you were talking about that
before about how much of it is
mental comparing it I
mean it is interesting that
you've heard people talk about pro
athletes And there's a lot more
people that have the same physical
qualifications, right, but they may
not have the right makeup
Well, yeah, you see that all the
time. I mean, if you watch a lot of
sports, you see an athlete
and you see so many guys who are
husband trophy winners know that
they had the physical skill,
but they didn't have
what we call it, they didn't have
it. They just couldn't make
it work with
a team.
Now granted, fishing's not a team
sport.
Well, it can be, but
most of the time it's not.
So it's individual.
It's you against the fish,
you against yourself and you
can't control anything anybody else
is doing you just have to
focus on what you're doing so
the longer you stay in the
game mentally the better chance you
have and and but you
still got to have the skills
you just can't say
well I'm a jig fisherman
I hate trolling.
Period, that's me.
Okay, I'm a jake fisherman, I hate
trolling. That was me in 1988.
By 1995,
I had, look, I gotta learn
how to do this because we're on
more and more lakes where you troll.
I gotta learned how to fish bottom
bouncers and spinner rigs, I got to
learn how to fish slip bottom rigs
and have the patience to
do it, which is a whole mental game.
And I learned all
those things, I won tournaments
doing all those thing.
And had I not been versatile,
I would have maybe won
one or two tournaments doing
it the way I like.
That don't pay the bills.
I mean, if you're independently
wealthy, you don't care, fine, do
your stick.
But then what are you going to do?
If I'm going to a sports show
and do a seminar.
And somebody in the audience says,
how do you work planer boards?
How much line do you set back on
a floating bait, floating wrap
law, for example, with a small lip?
How deep does it go?
You've got to answer those
questions. If you want to continue
to excel in the
sport, you've got know this stuff.
And a lot of guys didn't want
to learn it.
I don't like doing that, so I'm
not going to learn.
So you guided for quite a few years
before that.
What's the experience like as a
guide? I guess what's the,
these are different roles of how
people see a guide.
Like I'll take you there and show
you versus I'll give you an
experience.
Yeah,
I had a real love-hate relationship
with Guiding because
you book a guide trip,
they want to go.
And they don't care if the wind's
blowing, if it's raining,
snowing, and you don't
want to. You were beat up
all day the day before.
With Guiding, you
have an eight-hour day in
the boat with
two clients.
Okay, so you get up.
At 4 a.m.
Get everything ready, get everything
going, get the bait, get the tackle,
meet them at the ramp.
They're all fired up, okay.
They've had breakfast, you have, and
you grab some coffee, a quick trip
or whatever, you know, and a
horrible donut, and
that's your breakfast.
They're fired up. They get out
there, they fish. You fish all day.
Fish may not be doing so well,
cold front, whatever, and so you
have to make them feel like
they're having a good time, having a
good experience.
You have to have a
whole lifetime of stories
to tell, to share with them.
People in common that you might
know, that you can tell stories
about, and it's
all way more than just sitting there
like a bump on a log all day in the
boat and not talking and moving
around the places.
You got to know your lake.
You got know the techniques.
You got be willing to say,
look guys, walleyes aren't going to
bite, and this for us so bad.
Let's go.
You want to catch something, let's
go fish northerns or something.
Yeah, well, it's better than
nothing. Then you go out and you
catch 20 northerners and a couple of
big giant ones.
They had a great day.
They didn't get their walleyes, but
they still had a good day.
Then there's the no-fish days.
I guaranteed fish.
So if I had a no-fishing day
with clients, I would say,
look, it is guaranteed.
Come back.
We'll do this again.
I said, this is not going to happen
twice. So and
Some would take me up on it, some
wouldn't, you know.
And I always felt bad.
I always feel like I let them down,
you know, as
a guide.
And yeah, it's a
hard job.
And you drop them off,
OK?
Then they've got fish.
They want you to help them clean
them. So you help clean the fish.
Then they want to have lunch, supper
with you. They want to buy you
supper.
And then you maybe sit around
and have a few beverages.
And you get home at 10 o'clock at
night. And you got to charge
batteries. You got to get paid for
the next day.
You got everything all cleaned up
because you got two new people the
next thing.
I don't know how these guys do
it.
I mean, I did it and it
was hard and I know guys that do it
and they just love it.
Every day they go, here we go, let's
go get some fish.
I'm like, and they won't even get to
fish.
Like I didn't fish.
I let them fish.
I only fish to show them how to, you
know, how to do it
So then you're not even fishing, so
man, it's wicked.
So that's why you did it when you
needed to pay some bills.
Tournament fishing was way more fun,
believe me, although guiding you
meet so many cool people and
you get repeat customers like crazy,
you know.
There's got to be a joy that comes
from giving them an experience when
they have those
Oh, for sure.
My favorite was guiding, you know,
dad and his son or dad and his
daughter, the kids getting the fish.
I mean, those were special.
I tried to do more of that than
adults.
I'm sure you get a lot of guys that
think they know a lot and they're
there to learn where's the good
spot, I'll have to pay them next
time, right?
Yeah, one of the toughest
is you get them on
good fish, you go the next day and
they're there with their buddies and
their boats. You can't even get
there fishing with your clients,
yeah. That happens to them,
but it's part of
the deal.
Did you, did you also eat wildlife?
I mean, was that ever- Oh heck yeah.
Yeah, still do.
Yeah, every chance I get.
I fish walleyes a little now.
I don't fish them a lot.
There's just my wife and I,
and one 18-inch
walleye is a meal.
I don't need five.
I don't need three.
So just get one for
a meal, and next time she wants a
walleye, go get another one.
It's kind of like the permanent
freezer, right? It's always stock.
Yeah, you get them fresh,
you know.
But what is it about walleye
eating them that's different than
other fish?
Uh, yeah, they're, they are flaky.
I mean, they, they uh, they more
solid.
Uh, I really think actually
Northern pike are just as good.
A lot of people don't think so, I
do.
I eat both, still do.
And there's this whole stigma around
the walleye, you know.
The price of them in a restaurant,
for example.
Some people think, you know, if I'm
paying 20 bucks for a meal of
walleyes, it must really taste good.
Oh yeah, it's delicious.
And they take, it sits in here.
Well, that's interesting because
there is a lot of mystique
around walleye in Wisconsin.
What's the history of that?
Where did all that, how did that
culture get built up around this one
fish?
Well, I think the
guides perpetrated
a lot of that, mainly because
they
can be tough to catch for
the average fisherman.
They don't act all the time,
they're not as predictable as other
fish for one thing.
They move, they have shorter
feeding periods than a lot fish,
they are very good at so
they catch the bait fish
pretty quick.
And then they shut down.
So I think that,
the fact that they're more difficult
to find, to catch,
has created
this whole mystique about walleye
fishing.
And they're always, not always,
but they're often in deep water.
And shallow water fish are always
easier to catch.
And no matter what the species, so
deeper water fish or tougher.
More line, more mystiques, more
snags, There's more things in that
you have less control over,
that the more line you have out, the
less control you have, always.
And so,
yeah. Wounded bagel, being shallow.
Puck away, Fox River being shallow,
easy, easy peasy.
So I never looked at them as being
hard to catch
till I got in a tournament trail and
had to fish deep water fish.
I went, wait a minute, I've never
done this, you know.
So you have. I shouldn't say never
but you have to learn the
whole,
the way they act differently in
different bodies of water too, you
know, so.
It seems like it's the combination
of they're
not easy, they don't jump in the
boat, and then the value of
what they're like on the plate, like
those two things together.
Sure and they're a
nocturnal species so a lot of
times they come up to feed
shallow at night and that's when you
catch them like the last half hour
before dark.
So it's like a crazy half
hour of fishing and then nothing.
Okay so a a lot
people don't get that opportunity or
early morning.
So there's that but of course in
professional fishing we didn't fish
at night. We fish in the daytime so
we had to learn how to adjust.
How do we get these about in the
daytime. Where are they?
How do we make them bite?
And uh...
I don't know that you could make
them bit.
But you can at
times trigger some fish with
certain tricks and
tweaks and stuff you do with
presentation, which gets
us into a whole another four
hour summer on
how to present the bait
properly to the mood of the
fish.
Yeah.
So when you
look back at the history of,
like you said, this place was up
north for a lot of people.
Yes.
And then there's up north today,
which is Hayward, or River Managua.
How much of that mystique
plays into up north?
Like, it had to be a travel, a
destination for
It's kind of that too.
Yeah.
And it's the same way with Northern
Pike, you know, it's kind of like a,
you what's a Canadian, that whole
Canadian walleye northerners, that's
all they ever talk about up there,
come up to Canada and catch all
these fish. Well, we have these fish
and so, and we
have this fish all the way into
Illinois, so, in Michigan,
Minnesota, so why do I have
to go there?
But, so yeah,
people... They want to catch those
fish. They think big fish, we get
the big fish and the big predator
fish is always part of
that, because they
do grow big.
People don't eat a lot of bass.
People never ate a lot a bass in
Wisconsin.
They did, when I was a
kid, for subsistence.
A lot of the neighbors, they ate
bass all the time.
But other people, we don't need
bass. Well, they didn't have to.
They had walleyes.
They had northerns, they had perts,
bluegills like we still
do today where they can,
they don't have to eat these other
fish, but there's nothing wrong with
those fish.
You just don't want to eat them in
July.
But the rest of the year when the
water is cool or cold, they're fine.
But because of the abundance of
these good-eating fish, so to
speak, but then those same People
eat ball heads and catfish and
they're no great.
Meal, but they're not horrible
either.
You can eat them.
Yeah, they're a fish, you know.
One of the things that we're looking
at is how much
attention the state and
like the DNR or the universities
and their researchers or
GLIFWC or the tribes and they're
all the stocking and the research
and the studies and there's
a lot of attention on one
species.
Yeah.
Is it warranted for that one species
to have so much money
sunk into it because in a lot of
places the populations are
declining due to a number of
different factors.
There's so much effort being like,
bring back the walleye.
Mm-hmm.
Is that, is that needed?
Is that worth it?
Or should I just let it, you know,
fall on a decline in an area, then
decline in something else?
If the money's there, if the
resources are there, yeah, I mean,
why not?
We've done it with trout, we did it
with muskies.
I mean why not,
you know, the species you don't have
to really manage, like bass, for
example, and bluegills.
I mean they kind of take care of
themselves and
yeah, they can get stunted, they can
get overabundant, things
can happen there too, but they
rebound so fast.
They're fast growing, they rebound
and they can live in almost
anything, you But
where walleyes need better water,
cleaner water generally,
the perch the same way.
Perch and walleyed are important
to the angler.
They like to fish them, they like to
keep them, and they like eat them.
I think reducing
the limit to three
will really
go a long ways to help that.
And in places where they've done
slot limits in other states, and
even in Wisconsin, it's done
wonders.
In places that I used to fish,
where you could barely catch one
over 15 inches, not today,
with the slot limits, you can catch
lots of big fish.
And you have to release them.
But that's OK.
You don't want to eat those anyway.
But you can still keep some
14, 13,
15-inch walleyes if you
want. I think 13 is a little
small.
But because these fish,
at that size, grow pretty fast.
From the time they're finger length
to the time they reach 15 to 18
inches is three years, depending on
male or female.
So that's pretty good for
a fish to be plate ready,
if you want to use that term.
So is it worth it?
Heck yeah.
And what the tribes are
doing with the stocking is,
obviously, it's a great PR thing.
But it's also an important
resource thing.
Because we get to fish those lakes,
too.
And I've fished
quite a bit on
a Lacta Flambeau flowage.
I know several tribal people
up there that I've worked with over
the years in PR and other stuff
years ago.
But some of those lakes up there are
just loaded with fish.
And they aren't
even aware, the public's not even
that you can fish those.
In the summer.
You know, yeah, they're heavily
speared, but there's a lot of fish
there.
Well, yeah. When you look, you know,
people look at the spearing and they
look at how many fish
are taken. Oh, they took 35,000
fish.
Well, that's not, it's
a lot because it's,
you got the stats there, but you
don't have the stats of the hook and
line and you don't have the stat,
you know, which is way, way,
way, waaay higher, and so...
I think the state has kind of
figured out at this point,
yeah this three fish limit is
a good idea, it's a good thing.
Once people are used to that,
all they want is a limit.
Yeah, I got my limit.
It's way easier to catch three than
five, or five
than ten, so if you
lower the limit to three, they still
got their limit, four or
five guys, you get plenty of fish,
that's enough fish.
And that's just walleyes, you can
catch other fish.
To eat too.
It doesn't have to just
be walleyes.
You know, Canada's been doing this
forever.
You know you can hardly bring any
fish back from there.
And those lakes are so full of fish
it's crazy.
You gotta be afraid to wash your
hands in there.
You can get your fingers bit off.
It's just nuts.
And yet people complain about that.
It's just wise use,
and it can work.
It does work.
It's proven that it works.
So talk to me a little bit about the
importance of relationships in
fishing. Obviously, you have a
different dynamic with your
wife being an active part of
your career, but I'm sure
you know people who either leave
the wife at home or maybe the wife
gets a little upset about the amount
of time spent in the boat.
How does that get managed?
Later.
Well, like any
career, sometimes it don't, you
know, and people
just go their separate ways,
but tournament fishing,
because of the scheduling,
is tough. I mean, it's really tough.
A lot of guys would bring their
wives, and my wife loved that
because she got to be friends with
the wives of the fishermen,
and they would do stuff together and
so on.
And a lot of them still do travel
with their husbands.
A few fish with their husband like
in partner tournaments
and so on do well,
do very well.
But it's a strain.
I mean, regardless of what you're
doing it's just a strain,
but you can have that same strain if
you worked at nine to five.
You know, the guy
comes home from work and then goes
to the bar all night and plays
Shootspool, plays Dirk.
I did all this stuff.
Shootpool.
Do this, and they play baseball all
summer, and that's
the same thing.
You're there, but you're not there.
I mean, you're physically there, but
you are not there because
you're not doing anything with your
spouse.
So yeah, you have that.
And it's something that the two have
to work out like
you would with any other
jobs.
Is there a way to make those I mean
is it because we've heard from some
couples that say oh well the wife
come along read a book or read a
book in the boat yeah you can still
go out in the water and there's
other just well no it's his time and
here's my time.
Well, I, yeah.
Got to decide you're not going to be
as selfish as you are with
your time and that's hard
for a lot of guys and girls.
I mean, it's not just the guys,
but a lot times it is where
I say, okay,
I need to spend some
time here with you and I'm
going to make the time to do that
and I
wasn't real good at that early in my
career. It was much better later.
Something I had to learn as well
because it can you yeah, you can go
this way pretty fast if
you're
Your spouse wants attention and
if you're not giving her attention
she's going to find attention
so nobody
wants that, neither does she.
So you just got to not be selfish
and make
time.
Well, it probably helped you that
she was a part of everything, right?
It did.
I mean, you know,
you think about that. You got kids.
Who's doing everything with the
kids? She is. Who is taking them to
all their games? She is school.
She is your fishing.
It don't look good.
You know?
It doesn't look because it's not.
But, you get
mannered.
Man can be driven.
To the point of not seeing that
and not appreciating that,
and again you gotta come back to
reality.
And that means you gotta sit down
when you're home, you gotta
be home.
You can't be in Mille
Lacs, cause that's your next
tournament.
You just got back from Lake Erie,
and now you're at home but your
head's in Mile Lacs because that's
where you're going tomorrow.
And that
precious time together.
You've got to block that out and
really spend that time with her and
that's
enough sometimes.
Sometimes that's not enough,
but it's better than nothing and
once it all falls
into place and things can happen for
you,
like with Sherry, she was
a real estate broker at
a time when that thing
was just exploding.
And she gave that up to
travel with me to
help me in
my career.
That was a big sacrifice for her,
for both of us, because
her income was even better than
mine at that time.
And it would have way been way
better, you know,
everybody thinks you make a
lot of money tournament fishing, you
don't, but yeah,
I mean, millions of dollars,
but, but she...
Was willing to give that up, give up
her career,
to be with me.
And she loved it.
I mean, we did a
lot. I mean we went to places
together we had never, ever been
able to afford to go to or take
the time to go too,
that sponsors paid for.
When you get at that level,
it's amazing what
you can do and the people you meet.
And stuff you can see concerts
and all kinds of crazy things.
Talk to me about the Hall of
Fame, how did that come to be?
To get into the Fishing Hall of Fame
is very simple.
First of all, you have to be
nominated by someone.
No matter who you are or how great
you are, if you're not nominated,
you don't get in.
So you have be nominated someone.
So someone nominated me.
And years ago, 30
years ago.
And I was so busy fishing,
I didn't even care.
I mean, if you want to nominate,
great. I don't have time to
deal with that.
So, and
I didn't get in.
And so then
several years later,
another guy, Joel Coons,
friend of mine, said, I'm going to
nomate you from the Hall of Famous.
And he goes, I don't have time.
And he goes well, you don't need to
do anything. I'll do it.
Okay. So he nominated me
and he put together a resume of
stuff.
I didn't get in, okay,
so, but
then I got a little more interested
because now I'm in my 70s and I'm
like, yeah, it'd be kind of nice,
and da da da, so
you
get three chances, so
we did a
re-nomination,
or he did, and I
did a better job of
getting the information that they
wanted.
That he needed, that he couldn't get
out of me because I was too busy
doing other stuff.
And so you have to,
there's protocols you have to
follow. If you don't follow them,
even no matter what your resume
says, if you don't followed their
specific protocols, you can't get
in.
So I did that and
the vote is always,
they have a committee, a ten-member
committee, it has to be unanimous.
So,
which makes it very, very difficult.
And they
unanimously voted
me in 2025.
So, yeah, it was
quite the
deal. I mean, it's very honoring,
really humbling, because the people
that are in that, I mean if you look
at the, what am
I doing in this, you know,
with these guys over here.
But uh...
Yeah, it's a great honor
and there's
a whole lot of people that aren't in
that are way better fishermen than
I ever was,
and they should be in,
but you have to follow the rules
to get in, just like you do with
anything, so it
takes a
lot of due diligence to
get it done the
proper way, to follow proper
channels and do it all correctly.
But obviously it can be done.
Does it feel like a
cherry on top to your career,
or is it a...
Oh shi-
Oh sure.
Oh sure, yeah.
I mean, I mean I never,
this is why I never took it so
seriously the other two times
because I thought well if I get
it again, I never knew
that they had protocols or
rules or things you had to follow
to do this.
I said well,
here I am. This is me, you know.
I can catch fish and I've
won tournaments.
Spoke to millions of people and
blah, blah, blah, and so,
okay. You're like, nah.
Today, Fishing All
Famous has
a whole new set
of rules, curricula,
you have to follow, and so
much of it is media.
What have you done?
What have done to promote fishing
in not only Wisconsin, but in
the world? What have you done?
To teach people to fish
in your career.
If you just tournament fished, if
you just guided,
a lot of people that are in Hall of
Fame are in because
of that, because of those two
things.
But today, that's not
enough.
Today, with all the multiple, do
you have a podcast?
Do you have a show, a TV
show? How do you reach people?
Uh... Have you worked with state
agencies and restoration projects
and so it's much more
deeper now than it used to be
and it's understandable
I mean when you start out
guy starts out, hey I'm starting the
Hall of Fame well who are you going
to put in? Well I don't know, how
about Joe, he's a great fisherman,
okay you know and
it's true I mean
some of the really early inductees
in the Hall of Fame were great
guides You know, but
they couldn't do it.
Fishermen could do today to promote
the sport of angling,
and I think that
and
Biologists so more and
more they're leaning toward
people who are much writers But
not just writers writers that are
fishermen writers that promote
writers that work with non-profit
organizations With
other fisheries organizations other
groups. I mean, it's just expanded
so much manufacturers
that have done, contributed
hundreds of thousands of dollars to
the industry, that kind of stuff.
So yeah, it's not, it is hard.
It's really hard to get in.
I'm proof of that.
You just can't get in because
somebody knows you're a great
fisherman anymore.
Yeah, the ten member voting
panel are very, very tough
and I
think that's a good thing.
Of course I can say that, because I
made it.
Ha ha!
But but yeah, I mean
I mean, do they give you a call when
that happens, or you get a letter,
or how does that work?
They send you a letter,
believe it or not.
They make the decision in July, I
don't tell you until October.
For watching.
Yeah, and you get a letter from
the President of the Hall of
Fame. Congratulations.
You've been chosen for
induction for 2025.
That's from Emmett Brown.
Yeah, it was
a pretty emotional thing,
it still is, and
like I said I'm very humbled
by it.
I'm sorry that I was so flippant
about it all those other years
because it really is a great honor.
Because I wish I would have had it
30 years ago.
Ago so I could have bragged about it
all these years.
They had people say, well they put
you in just before you died.
I said, thanks a lot.
So, take advantage of it, because
you haven't got that many years to
breath.
But your plaque will always be.
Clack will always be there.
One of my grandkids will have that
someplace someday.
That's all we need from you.
Thank you for giving us time.
Oh, thank you.
If you don't mind, what I would like
to do is put a little wireless mic
on you and have you kind of give
Ethan and me a little tour of your
office, any other of the
mementos and photos from around
here, if that's okay? Sure.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Before I had a computer,
back in the days of the manual
typewriter where I
started my
freelance writing career right at
this desk.
Thousands, tens of thousands of
hours of tick tick tick and
erase tape
and all that good stuff and
and now still doing a
little bit of writing with the
computer. It's so much easier,
so much nicer
and of course I had to have a place
to hang up all
my basically
my life
or at least most of my
accomplishments here.
A little snapshot of what we got.
Give me one second, that's all
right.
So what do we got on the wall for
some of these plants?
Yeah, well these are mainly,
these are all my walleye, well
they're not all of them,
but some of my top ten finishes in
walleye tournament fishing.
You can see different places
around the world, Minnesota,
Michigan, Arkansas,
Arkansas Super Pro,
Missouri Super Pro Championship,
and Port Clinton Ohio Championship
up there.
See one up there.
Oh yeah, one from Winnebago,
that's Mercury National.
2000, that was a while ago,
25 years ago already,
and uh...
I don't mount
a lot of stuff, but I had my
mounted walleye that
we used for a
photo shoot
in Fort Peck, Montana,
and within Fisherman for their
magazine and their TV
show.
They needed a wider walleye
over 10 pounds, so I
went out and caught that.
It was a 13.
Just drove over a hump and saw it
sitting down on the bottom there
with a graph, you know,
and dropped a jig in the minnow down
to it and reeled it up and started
taking pictures.
That's that fish and
that fish is on the cover of
the Walleye Insider.
That's the fish over there,
so, yeah, it's been...
Most people, when they say they want
a 10 pound walleye.
Yeah.
Yeah, in your dreams.
Yeah, well.
We'll have a backup in an afternoon.
We, yeah,
I always had a,
back in those days I knew how to
catch those big fish and
so I got a
lot of opportunities to go with
writers and
video people
that wanted big
fish.
And they said, well, this is a guy
to call. They'd call me and say,
well let's, yeah, where do you want
to go? We'll just go get one and
they're like, how do you do this?
It's not hard, I mean, you pick
the time of year, spring or fall,
and when they're most abundant, and
they're more aggressive, and you
just find them and go catch
them. Catch them, that's the easiest
part, you know.
It's just, you're
locating, and,
you want photo fish.
I mean they always wanted big
size, I don't know why.
I mean I think a three pound
walleye's just as impressive as a
10 pounder, but they don't,
so.
Of course, I'm a little guy, so when
I hold a 10 pounder, it just looks
big, you know, it is big,
but yeah, I can make a 5 pounder
look pretty big.
The rest of it's
just a couple deer from years
ago that I got and
hunting out here.
So I think I saw the photo
of yours, this.
Yeah, that's me
in the professional walleye trail
stage a
long time ago.
I don't even know who, is that Al?
I think it is.
Al Linder was the emcee at
that time.
And I got quite a few pictures of
Al.
He's got this weirdest look on his
face whenever I'm talking because
He's like, what did you say?
Word salads, you know,
so you do when you when you bomb in
a tournament
So yeah, it's pretty we talked
about that off and on he
laughs about that.
He says yeah, you just stand there
keep talking
but you never said anything.
I said, yeah, it's kind of what you
do when you fail, you know.
Yeah,
these other things are just crazy
stuff.
Do you want to use the tripod and
get some... Sure.
We're gonna let Ethan and Sean and
the other two boys.
So, uh, yeah,
it was a riot.
On top of water baits too.
Oh really?
That'd be fun.
They kind of hooked themselves so
that I figured it'd be the easiest
for the kids, you know.
Yeah, that was a blast.
Lots of screaming, especially from
the little ones.
Yeah. So I started birdwatching,
and there was a fall migration of
warblers. He's naming off these
birds right over there, going, peep.
Oh, that's a black birdie and a
marlboro, it's a white and black and
white and whatever. Oh, there goes a
Cape May warbler, and I'm like, you
gotta be kidding me, you
know. I go, it was a blue jay.
I'm buying them,
so then I would submit
to other magazines,
and they were buying them.
So then, all of a sudden, I'm
writing a column for the local
paper, and then
I'm ready for the other paper over
in Green Lake, another column.
And I'm writing constantly, it's all
I was doing, was writing,
but I was selling it,
and it wasn't hard.
Mostly birds and fish or what
was the topic?
It was mostly birds and
fish, it wasn't science based,
but then I got elected to the
Conservation Congress.
So then I started doing reporting,
which obviously a whole different
can of worms and that was so
easy, I mean, compared to
creative writing.
So then, I started working
as
a freelancer to cover
stories for
I did some for the journal,
Milwaukee Journal,
a couple for Madison paper for that
meeting. Could you cover it and send
us a piece? And we want 500 words
or whatever, you know?
And so I started doing that.
And those all paid really well,
and much more than like
say a local column.
But the local column in the paper
paid every week.
So I got a outdoor
column, well then they had me
start doing reporting.
So then I got paid more, and
photography, so I got payed more.
And went on for,
well, 78 is when I
started.
89 is when i stopped
writing altogether,
because of my turn in my career.
Although I didn't really, because I
wrote books.
But that's different.
So I wrote the
Journal of a Walleye Pro,
and wrote 1,000.
Or then a new
guy comes in and
why are we selling his books,
you know, and
we shouldn't be
selling somebody else's books.
We should only be selling our
author's books, okay.
That was after the
Lindner sold.
That was Al's idea.
So the new people said, okay,
yeah, let's get rid of all of
these. Gary Parsons had one,
Roach had one.
So, they called me and said, hey.
We got 8,000 of these
books sitting here.
And we're going to phase them out.
Do you want them?
This is what you want for me, is a
bucket piece.
I go, OK.
So I bought them. I said, sure,
let's buy them.
I'll sell them at sports shows.
They were gone in like two years.
Because I'm getting out of the
writing business and the publishing
business, and I've
got 6,000
of these books.
Do you want them?
And I said, how much?
He says, three bucks.
I go, man, $18 grand,
a lot of money.
So we talked it over.
We talked it. He lived in Iowa.
And I say, let's do it.
I said we sold all these other
ones, Jerusalem.
That's it.
We'll sell them eventually.
So we bought the journal book and
went down to the Madison show.
I said, you know, that's a pretty
good gig, you know.
So they asked, so we ended up
selling. Then I had the video and
then I did the jigging and spoon
video.
I wrote Fishing with a Mission
and I ghost wrote a
cookbook for a buddy of mine and
then the local
guide to Buffalo Lake fishing and
and uh my
very first after three
i wrote three stories
on they
um you
can get them at amazon
for 75 to 150
dollars a piece boy
do i wish i had kept a couple cases
i bet yeah
That's crazy.
Yeah, we tried to,
Sherry found it in Goodwill.
She's, oh, look at here.
She brought it home.
And yeah, it's pretty funny.
So I only got two of those left.
And I already have, yeah,
and the other stuff.
You know, obviously the VHS
tapes on it's all junk.
I mean, nobody's gonna buy those,
but my little,
and what do you do with that stuff?
I mean it's.
We could borrow this.
You can have it.
Digitize some of this.
Sure. Please.
We'll grab a couple of clips out of
here.
Cool, yeah, that'd be great.
Sure, absolutely.
Vintage stuff.
Definitely a vintage.
I think we got some beta up there
somewhere.
Seriously, I don't
know where it is.
Our engineers would probably be
happier with beta than they would be
with VGNs.
I don't know where it is, but it's
there somewhere.
That's funny.
Unless I taught, you know,
I don't think I threw that out.
It was your VHS.
Very cool
I don't see it though
It should be right up there with the
rest of it.
Maybe I did throw it, because I
figured nobody's ever gonna look at
this.
Believe me, I did one...
I did such a clearing of
stuff, you wouldn't believe, just
bins and piles and piles,
and piles of promotional crap,
you know, because it just was of
no value.
Son of a dog's name.
It was the greatest thing on earth
for about a year.
And then I must've got everybody
that wanted to buy one because I'm
sitting here with a bunch.
I can't get rid of them.
Not that I tried to sell them.
I'm just...
Hell, I don't
see that beta,
but I didn't think it.
Yeah, sorry, I think visually, you
know, but then you come through it
wide, like full.
Yeah. You sure you're not doing your
horror story again?
No, no, no.
Do you have a big Paul McCartney
fan?
Oh, yeah.
This song, Young Boy, is incredible.
No, yeah
Yeah, I heard it.
Highly recommend. I want some of his
solo work.
Actually made in
my like I said in our crazy
profession I
ran into this guy
Ken Mansfield he
was he
was manager
of
US manager
for Apple Records for
the Beatles and and
we became friends
And then a bizarre twist of fate,
he wanted to hire me to be,
he was a speaker, a motivational
speaker, and he
said I'd like to hire you to be my
manager.
And I almost did it,
that was in 2009,
right after I got out of tournament
fishing.
And Sherry just looked at me and she
goes, what's
wrong with you?
She says, what does that mean?
I go, well, I have to fly to LA and.
But to other places,
a couple times a week,
Nashville and all over,
and Sheba.
I'm not doing it.
She says, no, absolutely not.
She says you're crazy.
I said, aw, that'd be so cool.
She said, no.
My Lindy commercial.
That was like from 80 something.
Good grief.
Revisiting all this up here.
It's like a different person.
It's like I was a different person
this year.
Did that guy know what was coming to
him?
I cannot believe
I would have thrown that.
Because I would have thought, man,
somebody, somebody...
Nah, I'm not seeing it.
Spider webs up here.
Last time I've been up there.
Sorry, guys.
What's this little short one
here?
Beta would have been a shorter box
Okay.
Nah.
Wait a minute.
And with a VHS tape.
Oh yeah,
this, um...
This is my promotional
Like what they
would play before I would speak.
Oh really?
Yeah, at sports shows.
They'd pop it in and it would show
me catching monster fish and all
that crap.
See, that's what I had on Beta,
too.
Because back then, you had to.
You had that both.
You don't want that at all, do you?
Sure, I mean, don't say no.
Something to look at.
Yeah.
Yeah, the betas were much shorter
than the V8
VHS.
We're good, I'm sure this will work.
Yeah, because the beta would have
been the same, same footage,
crazy.
I'll give you a couple more shots of
the stuff in the wall.
So this Ken guy,
we meet him and his wife and
go ahead.
When those guys were the outlaws,
that's who managed it.
And then Jesse
Coulter, who was
Waylon Jennings' wife,
ended up winning a Grammy,
and he got a Grammy
because he was remanded, started
another career,
young enough to do it.
So why was he looking to
you to manage, as opposed to someone
who had a lot of managing
experience?
Yeah, that's what I said to him.
He said, I don't have the time to
do it. He said I'm running around
speaking all the time.
He says, I need somebody to book
my flights, book all my
stuff in.
He was trying to do that himself and
he was having cancer treatments
and all kinds of stuff going on.
He says you know how to do this,
right? I go, yeah.
Yeah, I said, that is what I used to
do. If I had
a seminar in New York.
I would try to book something that
fluked.
Man, I shouldn't say I fluk quite a
bit, but when it was my
own deal, I would drive.
When it was a corporate deal,
they would always pay for the
flight. So, yeah, of course.
Some of that was charter, so that
was nice, just go there and jump
in the plane and fly away.
Miami show, Reno,
Dallas.
So Miami would still want someone to
come in and talk about Wallace.
No, but the sponsor would want you
there to sell boats.
Yeah, yeah, so you'd go down and do
that.
You know, they were opening a new
bath, South Sponsored by Bass Pro,
so, you know.
So, at that
point, when you get to that level,
they sponsored, well, I have to go.
So, I fly to Dallas,
land at Dallas Fort Worth,
and, uh,
this Bass Pro.
So you get there and there's a limo
driver with your name and
you get down there and
you jump and they drive you right
straight to the show.
You get there, you walk in,
big celebrity, and all that crap.
And sit down to sign autographs.
And they're going, they know me,
because no idea.
But they did.
And they said, oh, man, I feel bad
for you.
I'll be down here in Bass Country
and blah, blah, blah.
And they bring a stack of
your picture to sign, with
your stats on it.
So we all had these stacks. Grandsons,
that's what you're always, well,
great-grandsons.
Well my mom's 96
and she's
she's my biggest fan but my mom
is my second biggest fan
because that was her dad
and her husband, my
dad, who taught me how to fish so
she goes to these events I
speak at and she just
stands up and birds it right out.
Yeah, this is
a...
She's pretty proud,
so that always makes, it's nice to
have an appearance that's proud of
you, you know, and I'm glad
she's still around.
I mean, she's doing great, she is.
Yeah, lives alone,
does all our own stuff,
doesn't bother at all,
goes down by the river,
down that river bank, down the
river. For an hour
or two.
He's big on putting
pieces in.
I'm big on questions.
That is so foreign
to the frenetic life
I used to live.
I just sit there and put a puzzle
together.
But I have to do it.
So when she gets it out, I have
do it, and I have get
it done as soon as possible.
So it's still frenetic.
It's still competitive.
Yes, he is that way when
we watch Jeopardy!
And every day at 4 30
and we sit
together holding hands and we watch
jeopardy and and he
answers all the questions I get one
or two in an hour you know
she's like how do
you know that and why do you know
that some of them are
so off the grid I
don't know. But yeah.
It's just, I don't know, I retain
information well,
so I'm
very used to it at least.
You know that story, I've forgotten
more about fishing.
I get going on a fishing talk,
I can, I remember everything.
And you add a few
things to it to make it
more fun.
Detail.
You can't
be Mike Iaconelli, you know.
I mean, there's one Mike Iconelli.
Don't try to be like him.
He's nuts,
but he's
also easier at the top of the
mountain or the bottom of the cliff,
you can't be that either.
So, and I like Mike.
Mike is, Mike's gotten older, he's
smelling a little bit,
but, and a lot of that was shtick.
I mean, that's not the real
Mike. I can only seriously,
a lot that was just part of
the show, but that's okay.
You know, that made him a career.
You know they don't,
media don't like boring people.
You know you have, you know they
want people that- Personalities