October 4, 2023 • 62 mins
Founding HHO Members Tony Thesing , Andy Giraffe, and Chris Tetrault catch up with Jake Kuchenmeister, the inspiring figures behind Minnesota Made, a thrilling ice fishing league. Jake, an entrepreneur at heart and a fervent supporter of youth sports, unwraps his captivating journey with Minnesota Made. This episode is brimming with stories of hard work, unwavering dedication, and the immense love for both youth sports and the fishing community.
We reveal the behind-the-scenes chaos and fun of organizing the Minnesota Made Fishing Tournament. Jake, Tony, and Andy share their experiences and challenges they face while managing 25 teams, 50 vehicles, and trailers. Amidst all the hustle, the camaraderie and excitement of the day are evident as friendships bloom, and sponsors generously shower prizes.
We delve deeper into the impact of the Future Anglers of Minnesota (FAM) and the Minnesota Made Outdoors tournament. We also pay special attention to the Future Legends program at Home of the Brave and the significant role of mentorship in shaping young minds. Don't miss this episode, where we discuss character development, inspiring tales, and the tremendous impact on youth sports and the fishing community.
#veteran
#veterans
#military
#lawenforcement
#firstresponder
#outdoortherapy
#hometownherooutdoors
#newpodast
#outdoorpodcast
#mnmade
#fishing
#futureanglersofminnesota
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
MUSIC.
Welcome to the Hometown HeroOutdoors podcast.
Here is your host, Chris Tatro.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
MUSIC and welcome back everyone Another Wednesday
here on Hometown Hero Outdoorspodcast.
Today's podcast we actuallyhave three of us board members
here.
We are here to talk to Jake.
Jake, how many is your lastname?
Again?
I was going to let you go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Cook and Meister.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I know I was going to kill it, I'm sorry, I tried.
It didn't work very well.
Jake has a very closerelationship with Tony Tessing
and Andy Graff.
Tony is our social mediadirector for the board.
Andy is our event director forthe board as well.
They all have done a lot offishing together when it comes
to hard water fishing in thewinter.
(01:13):
So we'll talk about Jake herereal quick.
Jake has been married for 13years.
He has two children, ages fiveand three Coach Hockey and
Blaine Maple Grove, and overMinnesota, for the last 10 years
he started a group calledMinnesota Made.
We'll get into that a littledeeper.
This is where they've hostedthe event of Home, of the Brave
event for Hometown Hero OutdoorsVery phenomenal huge fishing
(01:37):
tournament where everyone getsto try to get a piece of the pie
when it comes to how to fish inthe competitive nature.
And then recently started theFuture Anglers of Minnesota.
Currently owns a logisticscompany and he works for himself
.
So that's kind of the best jobthere is working for yourself,
jake, so appreciate you beinghere and everything you've done
for HHO.
Just want to introduce yourselffor a minute.
(01:58):
I know we kind of got into it alittle bit here, but then we'll
go around the horn and we'llhop into the Minnesota Made
stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, I think you nailed it.
That's pretty much my life in anutshell right there.
Outside of being a dad, that'skind of I've always said I don't
want to title whether it'sbusiness owner or president or
whatever it's dad, and thenafter that it's kind of they
kind of don't make anydifference anyway after that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So Well, your priorities in the right spot.
Being a parent is an awesomething, and that's an awesome way
to look at it too, and I seeyou're pretty involved with the
sports too.
So is that mostly for all theyouth sports, for hockey?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, I started with Blaine doing youth hockey I
don't know, I think they werelike probably 12, 13 years old,
was the first team that Icoached and then kind of bounced
around from different agegroups and Blaine for probably
like eight, 10 years and then Iwent and coached the Maple Grove
girl.
I had a couple of friends thatplayed for the Gophers women's
team when they won the nationalchampionships and then coached
(03:01):
the Maple Grove high schoolgirls hockey for a couple of
years and then kind of quit fora while, a year or two and then
we got asked to jump on over tothe Andover Association through
a friend and me and my buddywent over there and coached the
(03:21):
double a badm's for a coupleyears and I think right now
there's one kid in the NHL andsix or seven that are playing
division one.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I felt that was pretty sweet.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I just want to get that out there.
That was not the coaching.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
You gotta take a little credit right, a shred of
it right.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I'll give it to the guy that I was coaching with.
He's kind of the guru.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That's all right.
No, that's cool.
No, it's then.
Then we'll talk more about yourother endeavors that you have
with the, you know, the young orfuture of the country, here,
with the future anglers ofMinnesota.
But, tony and Andy, do you guyswant to introduce yourself,
just for our listeners?
That might be tuning in for thefirst time who you are and what
you do.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Sure, I'm Tony Tessin .
As Chris said, I am the boardmember that manages the social
media stuff.
I am not a professional but Ido my best and I've been here
with the hometown hero outdoorssince day one.
(04:21):
And that's about it for me.
If you have any questions, feelfree to reach out to me on
social media.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, we got three of the four founders here right
now.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
So yeah, cool.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
I'll just continue.
Andy graph, I am on the boardas well and, as mentioned,
founding member from day one.
I handle our events, or try to.
I do my best to assist us toour events nationwide, so it's a
lot of fun.
Like Tony said, not aprofessional, but doing my best.
Also, I'm a Navy veteran andcurrent police officer in a
(04:58):
South Metro here in Minnesota.
I was in the Navy for almost 10years and I've been a cop now
for almost four, so it's goingby quick.
And also a dad, just like Jakesaid also a dad.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Yeah, I forgot that.
Part Army vet myself and also adad.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, relatively new dad.
Yeah, and you guys have heardme and I'll bought all my kids
all the time, so we don't needto go down that road anymore.
But Jake probably doesn't knowI have seven children, so we
have a blended family.
So I have three, my wife hasthree, we have one together.
I love every minute of it, nice.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
My best friend is a cop and has seven kids.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
It seems like a lot of law enforcement officers out
there have a lot of kids.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Seriously, I'm stopping at two.
I don't want to know.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It must be the uniform.
That's right.
Yeah, now we'll go with that.
Yeah, so we'll go into theMinnesota made stuff.
So can you guys talk about?
Okay, first, jake, let's do itwhat is Minnesota made and how
did you make a connection withTony and Andy?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
So Minnesota made outdoors, is a ice fishing
league.
We normally have around 20 or30 teams in it.
We run for four events eachyear.
Each event has a payout, hasbig fish, has prizes and
sponsors and stuff like that.
We're we're very lucky to tokind of hitch our wagons to the
(06:26):
clams and the Thorne brothersand the Vex Lars and relevance
and and you know, the top of the, the top of the tier of the ice
fishing community.
So we we had a lot of supporton that side of things and we're
able to kind of get this offand running and it's been pretty
successful through.
I think this is going to be your10 or 11.
(06:47):
I don't know, I can't even keeptrack anymore, but so for me to
do that for that long is iskind of a cool deal.
We've had a lot of the sameguys in it.
It's kind of became and gals,it's kind of become like almost
like a like a fraternity or kindof like a more of like a
brotherhood and sisterhood thanit is a nice fishing league.
(07:11):
Sure, we, everybody wants to goout there and and when the
hardware it's not even reallyabout the track.
Our number one rule in ourleague is don't be a douche bag
and everything kind of reverse.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Good rule.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
So, um, yeah, so the uh, I don't know how, I don't
even know how.
So Dale Lugendale somehow endedup in our league through
somebody else or founded on onsocial media and decided to sign
up.
Um, he was running a full scalepodcast and I probably Tony can
(07:47):
probably tell it a little bitbetter because he was the there
for that.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
So, so, um, at some point we're supposed to have
Dale on, but it just didn't workout.
We'll get to him eventually.
Uh, andy and I um connectedwith Dale uh on on his podcast
the full scale outdoors, and wehad a very nice chat about home
(08:12):
tone, hero doors, um, waterfallhunting and ice fishing is
pretty much what we covered, andI believe it was you and Paul
cause only that uh heard thatpodcast.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yes, yeah, and I think I sent Dale a text saying
hey, you need to get us in touchwith those guys.
And then he did.
I think we ended up meeting upat uh moonshine and now now
that's kind of our go to spot,that's where we meet every year,
and uh, and we kind of justthrew something at you guys and
(08:50):
thought you know what about this?
And and uh, and then all of asudden it happened.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
What was the concept or the goal for this first
meeting, like what was the brainbaby that was born?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
We kind of wanted to just see what they thought and
figure out what, um, what wouldwork and the the whole idea was
behind it was we run atournament, we run it well, and
we know how to do that and how.
How do we do that with a groupof people that may not ice fish
or, or maybe they do, and andhow do we incorporate our guys
(09:27):
and their guys and and and thendo something special on top of
that for them and put a day likeI at that point I had kind of
done my research on what youguys were all about and what we
wanted to do is have a day wherethey could come out, feel
appreciated and walk away withsome really cool stuff.
And uh, I think over the years,as a, I mean I don't know how
(09:52):
we keep talking about what wecan do to make it better.
I just don't I mean outside ofa live band in the middle of
winter out on the ice, whichwe're still trying.
But um, yeah, I mean it's, it'skind of dialed in now to where
I mean I was just kind oflooking at some of the prizes
and it's just insane, some ofthe some of the stuff.
(10:13):
Again, like we have a very largegroup of of really good people
um in Minnesota made.
So that's the reason we're ableto do these things is because
of those people.
I mean we have to get 25volunteers just to pair them up
um with each team that HHOprovides.
And then we got all theseprizes.
I think there's 50, 50 prizes.
(10:34):
Everybody goes home with aprize and then we have a raffle
where you get what is it?
Bear hunt, turkey hunt, iz80stay in play.
There's, I mean, federal.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
There's usually some golf.
I mean, there's so manyunbelievable prizes.
Yeah, and you know, that's myfavorite thing is people who are
first timers.
They've never gone.
This is going to be our fourthyear, which is hard to believe,
um, but like hey, you guys haveno idea what's in store.
And I remember the first yearTony was like hey, we're going
to keep all these prizes likesuper, super kind of secretive
(11:06):
until we get the final list, andthen we just, you know,
bombarded them with just allthis excitement and all this,
just like, oh, bear hunts,turkey hunts, stay in plays,
like you know, vex, lars, forthe winners you know, I think
there was a mount at some pointis just unbelievable amount of
prizes.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Coolers.
Blackfish gift cards.
Guided pheasant hunt yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
And a lot, of, a lot of these prizes are coming from
um Minnesota maids members, andone of the things that I found
very unique about Minnesotamaids, specifically their
members, is the diversebackground Everybody comes from,
um like I.
You have guys that work atfederal cartridge, you have, uh,
(11:51):
loan officers, realtors,doctors um my contract my
contractor who just did all mywork on my house.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Uh, john my too Great dude.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Yeah, um, all these guys managed to organize all
these prizes for our members,and it's there's no way to
really thank every last one ofthese guys.
It's, it's quite special.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
You know, and I think it speaks really largely too,
because planning these things Imean they're not easy.
I mean, show up in fishing isone thing, but all the
background work that comes with,you know, gathering all the
prizes and how the structure ofthe day is going to go into work
, so to have anotherorganization just kind of come
to HHO and say, hey, we justneed bodies, come fish and have
some fun, it's pretty cool.
(12:44):
So very much appreciate that,jake, and all that hard work.
Do you guys, can you talk alittle bit about the background?
Like, how do you guys go aboutand find these prizes or those
things to give away for everyone?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, I mean just going through the list here,
kind of I would say that themajority of the prizes that are
going to the 50 Fisher peopleare kind of our sponsors.
So when we ask we have eightevents, when we we don't ask for
eight prizes from each one ofthem, we ask for 10 so that we
(13:21):
have a couple extra to throwinto the HHO thing.
And now our sponsors aresending us 12.
So, when you do yeah, when youdo something good, people like
to be a part of it in any waythey can.
So, besides that, we got likeour members are like.
Our members are going out andgrabbing prizes for it, and our
(13:46):
members wife makes these reallycool custom mugs that are
painted.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Those are sweet.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
The one that said like IE crayons or something was
pretty good, everybody loved it.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
We'll dig it Marine.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
So yeah, and then yeah, and then it's just kind of
our members kind of go out andwe just say, hey, ask, ask.
Now we got a list.
Now, once you've done it a yearor two or three, you kind of
just go back through your listand say, hey, I see you got
these three prizes.
Can you reach out to them again?
So it's just coordinating it,they're doing it.
(14:18):
And then I'm just kind of thepuppet behind asking people to
do the things.
And then yeah, and then it'sjust kind of.
I think last year we kind ofhad a little bit of a hiccup
with the food.
Normally Traeger has came outthere, and that's the other part
of this.
Like that might have beenactually like year one.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
That probably was my favorite part, that food was so
good it was and it was such anice day.
First year I was wearing ahoodie, running around doing
just fine Right.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
And that was in.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
February.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
Yeah, t-shirt, while they're pretty much pulled pork
like mac and cheese.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
They were cooking like, hey, these pizzas on the
traggers.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
They did breakfast pizzas, yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
They did like season goldfish, like my kid's favorite
snack.
They were like seasoning it,like it was so good and then so
like, just just to give you anexample, like last year they
couldn't make it.
They had, like one of the guyshad a wrestling tournament for
his kid.
Now there was out of town.
None of them was going to bethere to be there.
And Diane, who fishes in ourleague, was like well, my
(15:24):
company can sponsor the food.
So she went out, paid for itall, picked it all up, came
there with her husband andcooked it all.
And like it was a little bitstressful last year trying to
figure out what we were going todo, and like it's kind of just
runs by itself Cause somebody'sgoing to step up and do
something.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah Well, that's phenomenal.
So how much work do you get todo, tony or Andy, when it comes
to helping with any of this?
Speaker 5 (15:52):
It's always the initial question what do you
need from us?
And we it's kind of a wait andsee and um, and usually um, it's
a hey, can you get all thedrinks for the day, or whatever.
Um, but mainly it's get thepeople there and make sure it's
filled.
(16:12):
And Andy is stressful.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
I get a list, cause I do the drawing on our Facebook
page, um, and I get all thenames and, like every year, you
know we'll draw our 50, but thenI think what?
Last year I had like 35 dropoutand then the big thing we
always have is like the no call,no shows, and only the first
year we only had one.
Second year we had.
Last year we had zero.
That was like a first.
It was wonderful.
(16:38):
Everyone showed up, all 50 ofthem.
So I'm usually standing thereat the meat point.
You know all the Minnesota madeguys are, you know, using live
scopes, finding where the fishare cutting holes, and I'm
standing there basically takingmuster.
Who's here?
Okay, your coach is hereshipping them out.
So that's a little bit of astress on our part, but I mean
that's that's.
I mean that's pebbles comparedto what the Minnesota made guys
(16:59):
do for us.
I mean, you know, getting alist of 50 people to show up,
you know that's the stress wehave to do.
That's about it.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
It's always fun watching you, though that day
out, because you are stressedout to the Mac.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I just call in people .
Are you coming?
Are they here?
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, yeah, but you always got like a couple extra
aces up your sleeve that areactually your starting distance
my father.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
he used to linger in the area.
I'm like if they drop out, youcan show it Sure Just circling
the lake waiting for you.
Come on down, you're fishing,yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I love it.
He's a good guy.
He's always reliable to go andhelp out.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Oh yeah, I'm going to go and fill in the last minute,
fill on a few trips for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So you said something important I thought would be
interesting to expand on was theword coach.
So the day is set up a certainway and you have coaches.
Expand on that a bit.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
So, yeah, each there's, there's 25 teams of two
and those are all the HHOmembers and we split, the Andy
sends that list over, so we have25 teams and then I basically
send that out to our guys andsome of them know some of these
and sometimes I know, like withwith Andy's boss, evan is going
(18:08):
to take him out, oh gosh,because he's competitive and he
wants to win.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
That's all yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Before it was just fun.
Now it's starting to getcompetitive too.
There's a little bit of trashtalking going on day of and and
that's what we put.
We put those together and then Imean these guys are all,
they're all tournament anglersand they're all really good at
what they do.
They they're really good atteaching it.
They're really good at kind ofexplaining what's going on and
(18:36):
why they're doing things and whythey're going to move, and what
you should use and what yourjig and canes is and how to read
your graph and the fish moodand all these things that it's
somebody that gets to go out,you know, three weekends of
winter doesn't really have intheir, in their toolbox yet.
So not only do they get to havea fun day, but I think they
actually get to learn a ton.
(18:57):
And we've had a lot of commentsafter saying like, oh, this was
so awesome.
I've taken my kid out threetimes since that and just the
stuff that I learned, we'recatching way more fish and like
that's like an added bonus toall this.
Um, another thing is when we putthis out there.
(19:20):
This is probably the one daythat is circled on all of our
guys' calendar, kind of like theVikings Packers game.
That's what this is for ourguys.
Gotta be there.
Every single person's like thatwas.
When they do it for the firsttime they're like that was the
coolest thing ever, like I'm infor that forever, and it's just
(19:45):
the connections that are made, Ithink, between the teams and
the guides is life lasting, andI think a lot of our guides or
members, or whatever you wannacall them, are still friends
with a lot of these people today, and that's the other cool part
too.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
I see that a lot on Facebook where it's like I know
I'm friends with pretty muchanybody.
I think in Minnesota made, andI'll see HHO members commenting
back and forth on various poststhat they make on Facebook.
It's really cool to see yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
So what's the typical species that's targeted on your
guys' tournaments?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
So we do they get to bring in their 10 heaviest fish
between crappies, gills andperch, and then we weigh those
in and we do it in order andthen that's how they get to pick
their prizes.
So if you're in last place, youget the last two things on the
table.
Well last year there wasleftover prizes.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
They had quite a few choices.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
For sure, yeah.
And then there's always addedstuff too, like those cool,
those hat racks.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Those were unexpected .
Speaker 5 (21:02):
I actually bought some from the guy that made
those and gave all the boardmembers one.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, mines on the wall right there.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Those are slick mine's sitting right there.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Mine's in the garage works great.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
One of the things that didn't get mentioned is
that the Minnesota Maid crew isreally good at and Andy is
taking account of who's gotfishing gear for that day and
everybody gets squared away andI like to think that Minnesota
Maid is one of those days that,as long as you show up in
(21:39):
appropriate weather clothing,you're gonna have a good day,
and so you'll get just squaredaway Waiters, waiters.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Hey, he was standing by the fire, so he was gonna be
able to go in too.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, he was there.
We've had some doozy days,though.
I mean oh.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
And that was it.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Your second year was like was it like 20 below?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yeah, with the wind chill, it was brutally cold.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
That was bad.
Broke his drone that day.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Yes, Racing the automobile, trying to be fun.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
He was racing Johnny.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Yeah, is that 2021 or 2022?
That was the first year at Rush, so Okay, so that'd been 21.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Well, it was like first year was great and then it
was super cold.
Is this wait?
Is this the fifth year we'redoing already?
No, this was four.
Okay, four, because I rememberit was like it was really nice,
super cold, and was it last year?
It was pretty fine, it was mild, it wasn't too bad.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
That was a good day, a good day of fishing.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, Nice and sunny.
I remember that one year,though, when it was freezing
cold, I got a call Saturdaynight or Sunday morning from
another league, the UPL, andthat's Matt Johnson.
He runs the Clam Ice Team andcalls and he says are you guys
(23:01):
gonna cancel for your eventtoday from Minnesota, Made Cause
our tournament is on Sunday andwe run the HHO deal on Saturday
.
And Giz is asking me, and I waslike how can we cancel our
event when it's the same asyesterday and 50 people from HHO
came out and fished?
(23:23):
We can't cancel.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Right, that's right.
Yeah, Back to back days.
Your guys captain's got beat uppretty good there.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, and so that's another thing too.
These guys, not only are theygiven up a day out of their life
, but they're giving up apre-fishing day for the
tournament the next day.
That's huge.
So I mean, and that's kind ofwhat our league is about too.
We've always said, if you'rehere to cash the check, then
(23:53):
just we'll give you your moneyback and you can just walk right
back out the door.
If you're here to learn and docool things, then you're at the
right spot.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Do you have a certain number of membership for
Minnesota Mades Sorry, Tony.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
We can do 30 teams We've had 30 teams in the past,
I think probably the bread andbutter is probably 25, just for
starts to get a little crampedwith some of these accesses with
50 vehicles and trailers, causeI mean these guys are all
bringing trucks and trailers andsome bring their ice castles
(24:30):
out and stay there for a fewdays.
So we lock up the accessespretty good.
I'm sure the locals are reallyhappy about it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But Happens what Not that often.
So whatever Once a year yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Tony, I'm gonna add something.
The one thing that I'd add tothe extremely cold days is Clam
is very generous in donating hubhouses for warming houses.
So there is, they're there,they're there, but they don't
get used very much.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Well you're running you're running in, gunning for
fish, right Popping holes andmoving.
You're not staying inside thehouse too much.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
I think that's 2020.
Some guys will.
Yeah 2022 was the year that Iwas walking around with an
oxygen tank and my dad wasstaying in his ice castle.
In the same area, there wasmembers that actually fished in
the ice castle that day becauseit was so cold, but Couple of
(25:29):
years back to back.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, if there was probably one thing where we put
too much work in it's, it'ssetting up the hubs and taking
them down, because we've I thinkwe set up like 15, 20 hubs
probably, and maybe two get used.
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Yeah, it's pretty pretty rare.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So you do your check in, everyone gets their coaches,
and then you have a hard startand a hard stop.
What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yeah, I think.
What do we fish from like eightto one?
Speaker 4 (26:00):
I think, it was like eight to noon and then we weigh
in at one, because we kind ofwrap up and eat and prizes,
something like that.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
It's, it's four or five hours of fishing and
everybody's, everybody has abucket to keep their fish in
with water and keep them alive,and then then they bring them up
to the scale and we weigheverything in and then I think
it kind of switches every yeardepending on for the food
situation.
But either that we eat and thenwe announce all the winners and
(26:27):
then once we go through andannounce place 25 through first,
then we do the raffle andeverybody can, kind of what
would we do?
Sign up.
It could sign up for either thebear hunt or the turkey hunt
type of thing.
And then they all, and theneverybody gets one raffle ticket
automatically for all the restof the stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You know pretty engaging, busy day.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah, yeah.
I think everybody's prettytired by the end of that day.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Well, yeah, and then we always start in the morning.
We do like a brief meet thecaptains, then we do the
national anthem, and usuallyDale Luegenbill is our, our
singer.
Did he do it last year or two?
Yep, he did.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Okay, it's done it every year then right, yeah, we
tried to get a sailor Jerry.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
That's right.
I don't think that ended upworking out.
So we we had a, we had a closelike maybe we were going to get
Ted Nugent.
It was, it was.
It was close but not that close.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
And I got a.
I got a loose connection withHank Williams Jr.
We can try that next time,That'd be kind of cool.
Yeah, he comes up to malax allthe time too, so that's how I
ended up meeting him.
He was up on malax, so he'she's a huge outdoors person and
pretty cool person to meet.
Back to our podcast.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, is there anything else you guys want?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
to talk about with Minnesota made.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
No, I know we have openings, so, if anybody I know
there's a lot of guys From theHHO that they're getting
competitive if you guys want totest out your skills and come on
out.
I know we got probably 10 or 12openings right now.
Mikhail, if you're listening.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
I'll tell him.
You call him out.
Yeah, no, he would.
You know what, right up hisalley.
I mean, he's one of the mostcompetitive people I've met.
He is a darn good fisherman andI think he would have a lot of
fun.
And you know, what you shouldsay, too, is like it's an
all-skill level thing.
Yeah, you guys are really good,but you've got, you know, young
kids going on, you've got olderguys, everybody and you guys
(28:59):
all have such a good time.
Like you said, it's kind oflike a big frat party.
You're all buddies, you knowYou're laughing like so you're
not there chasing the money inthe check.
You're just having fun and justhaving an experience.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah, I mean, what's super cool First off, like if
you finish in the top halfyou're gonna get a prize.
Yep, you're going home with theprice.
If you get lucky and end upcatching the big fish, you
usually go home with a pair ofrelevant sunglasses.
Those are nice.
Yeah, I I'll say this if youhaven't tournament fish, if your
(29:31):
normal style isn't drilling a100 200 holes a day and and
running and chasing fish, you'lllearn how to do it.
You're not gonna finish verywell the first year.
Well, what we've always seen isyear one is, if you stick
around and learn, you know whatyou get, what you put into it
too.
So If you talk, our guys areopen books.
(29:54):
They'll tell you what they'reusing, how they're breaking down
lakes, why they're looking incertain areas.
They'll they'll give you theinformation after Sunday.
Yeah, they're over there they're.
They're an open book.
So I always say this it's it's$450 to enter as a team, so it's
225 a guy.
(30:15):
You get four events, you get agood, good group of people to go
fish with and If you go, takeone guided trip with a guide,
you're gonna learn 10 times moredoing this absolutely.
So it's a good.
(30:36):
It's a good way to get into itand learn about fishing.
I mean, our guys can go catchfish on any given lake at any
given time, whatever weather itis.
They're not kind ofone-dimensional like, oh, this
is my lake and I know thatthey're off of this weed line or
something like that.
They they can break it down andfigure it out.
So I think joining it is a is abig deal.
(30:59):
If you're trying to get better,you'll, by year three you'll be
for sure, taking some prizeshome here and there and possibly
cash in a check.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
So that's pretty cool .
So how do they go about findingMinnesota Bay?
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Social media.
Either that, or if you go on toI don't even know what it is.
Let me look here.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
The website.
No, yeah, I know, while he'slooking that up real quick, the
one thing I'll bring up duringthe day.
During tournament day, andy andmyself Go head-to-head versus
Jake and Paul.
We owe you brunch.
(31:44):
I know we still do.
We need to figure out a Sundayfor brunch nice gentlemen's
wager.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
We usually have a good time.
They usually do a.
They catch 10, we catch fiveand they kick our butts.
One time we were close I thinkwe had four, but it still there.
Yeah, he's still got these guys.
It's flip the back.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, we made one year.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Yeah, you got that a lot.
He's got his mug.
He's gonna get the mug.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So far listeners.
He's showing one of his prizesthat he got here.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
He's got a bunch of prizes from Tony and Andy.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
I Around yeah, taking my money, but we do.
We do owe you brunch.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Yes, true, true story and a coin.
Still got the coin.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
It's all laying right around here.
This is where I live my life,so Love it Sometimes.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
You reminded that I'm a champion.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Last love to be a whiskey glass fit you more.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, we got fresh new ones too.
So nice, yeah.
So do you find the website?
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yep, it's, it's super easy.
It's Minnesota made outdoorscalm.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Oh it is easy.
Yeah, it's easier than ours.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, it's a mile long social media.
I believe it's a Mn madeoutdoors Perfect cool, cool.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
No, it's awesome.
That's the, the home of thebrave event that they host with
Minnesota made annually.
This year will be their fifthyear.
Let's look at us.
It's kind of cool to talk aboutand you guys recently just got
into and I know Tony and and hebrought it up a few times is the
like you don't have enoughgoing on, but the future anglers
of Minnesota want to share withlisteners what that is.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah.
So we actually when we when westarted this thing, we were
talking about starting anon-profit, and Then it just
happened to where we could justcoordinate with HHO and just do
it that way and then we werelike, well, what are we doing?
The other things we can, we gotmore.
We got more time and morethings that we could do.
(33:45):
And so we kind of looked Intothe veteran side of things and
we were gonna kind of try tofind a niche on the veteran side
of nonprofits To help out orcoordinate with other nonprofits
and and do similar things.
And the more we kind of lookedinto it there was there was a
lot of them.
So we kind of looked into likemaybe doing stuff for kids of
(34:09):
veterans and whatever.
And then that spun out to whydon't we just do it for just
kids, period?
And so we started futureanglers of Minnesota.
I've started two companies inmy life.
Starting a nonprofit is no jokethat the red tape and all the
(34:30):
whole leak out, Right yeah, youfeel it every day.
Yeah, yeah and so like, and nothaving any funding or any
sponsors or anything and thenlike, so Minnesota made
basically Funded the startup ofof fam, and Then so, yeah, we've
(34:53):
started that in June, we startof 2021, we kind of figured
everything out throughout thesummer and the fall, and then
the winter of 2022 is when westarted doing our first ice
clinics, and so Right now we runthree ice clinics a year where
we take out about 2025 kids toeach one.
(35:16):
I think last year we had onewhere we had 40 kids when the
crappie chronicles guys came out.
And then this summer we've doneyesterday I was out on the lax,
we took 20 kids out on out ofhunters nitty's point and we
took 20 kids out there on alaunch, and we did another one
(35:36):
of those.
In June we did a guided boattrip on West Rush where we had
20 kids out there and 10 boats,and then we were just starting a
new one in About a month.
Here we're gonna be out onBattle Lake.
We're taking 20 kids muskyfishing for two days.
Wow, that's cool, that's gonnabe sick, so, and it's during a
(35:58):
full moon, so we're we'reexcited for that.
So, yeah, that one's gonna bekind of our, our new flagship
Clinic, where these kids willcome out on Friday and we'll
have a dinner for them, they'llmeet their guides and then on
Saturday they'll wake up andthey'll fish from Sun up the Sun
down.
We got hotels booked for all ofthem and then Saturday night
(36:24):
we'll go back and have anotherdinner.
And we got a ton of prizes, likewe had St Croix musky rods, we
got Bates from like muskyinnovations and musky mayhem and
I think we're gonna get RobHooliman, who's the.
He was the PMTT champion lastyear.
He won the musky tour.
He's kind of the brainchildbehind this all, and then we had
(36:48):
the infrastructure to do it.
So he's a Got a bunch of guides, he's got a cabin on the lake
and when I asked him how manyMuskies he thinks will catch on
a conservative side, he saidseven and probably one over 50.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
If that happens, if that, if we get, fine you.
Know, I don't know some ofthese kids my night and be able
to really win yeah that's true.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
We just had a Veteran trip up on per million for
muskies and those guys I I'mjust blown away by how many
muskies I caught.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
But they hammered them yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Where they using live scope.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Yeah, live scope and watching them.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Yeah, yeah, it just thinks right in front of them.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah, man, they were after the races.
It was wild.
The things that they can donowadays is pretty crazy, I hope
.
I wish you guys luck on that.
That sounds like a phenomenaladventure.
I.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Yeah should be great.
And so we just we just expandedour first expansion.
We're kind of, I Guess, at thispoint now, the Twin Cities
chapter.
So, just like you guys, whereyou guys keep adding states and
stuff, which is super cool, orwe're gonna add cities and we
got brainered Joe, joe Gonska,joe and Miranda Gonska, the own
(38:17):
Pelican Lake Fish House rentalsand guide service, they were
looking to do something similarto what they were doing and so
they started a chap drop andbrainered.
So now, and brainered is likethe epic center of getting kids
out and like there's tons ofkids that want to and they're.
They're so much better thancity kids at catching fish and
(38:41):
so they're gonna be runningWinter clinics and summer
clinics as well, and it's supercool because they they have a
pond too and with a bonfire pitin the middle of it.
So Few times a year they takeout like four or five kids and
they roast hot dogs andmarshmallows on the pontoon
while they're Bobber fishing forwalleyes and bats.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So that's cool, that's pretty awesome.
Yeah, it's.
So, Go ahead, tony.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
So I have a question if any like parent or kid wanted
to get involved with them, isthere any cost to participate or
anything, or how do you guys dothat whole situation?
Speaker 3 (39:27):
No, everything's free outside of the musky trip,
being that that one's gonna costus like 10 or 15 times more
than most of our clinics.
We we asked for like a hundredand fifty dollar.
We also wanted people that weregonna be committed.
It was more of like acommitment thing.
We end up getting a lot of likethe Andy situation.
(39:48):
We'll get the backouts I'vealways played something for free
.
You try to do something good,people take advantage of it and
we're learning.
We're doing kind of athree-strike rule.
We're just no longer Eligibleor whatever.
But yeah, everything's free.
So all of our ice fishingclinics there is a limited
number of spots we, when westarted this, we wanted to
(40:11):
impact less people in a moreimpactful way than Having 50
kids out there and they didn'tlearn crap because there was
only 10 volunteers and eachvolunteer had five kids.
So all of our clinics are twoto one, volunteer to kid ratio.
So and the majority of ourvolunteers and guides are again
(40:33):
Minnesota made members, or XMinnesota made members, their
tournament fishermen, theirtheir studs.
So they're getting Real, realgood information again, whatever
they put into it.
Sometimes we're just ababysitter for a few hours and
that's fine too, as long as theyhad fun and they want to fish
(40:54):
and they learned a few thingsabout life.
But yeah, everything's free.
So all they do is they sign upand they show up and they go
home with, I don't know, winnerclinic.
They go home with a bucket andwe usually have donations and
stuff to where one kid's goinghome with an auger and or a pop,
a hub shack or Custom rod orrelevant sunglasses, something
(41:20):
pretty sweet.
And then every kid goes homewith prizes.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yep that's cool.
Yeah, it's one thing that we'retrying to get more of is Doing
our youth involvement.
We know we have our McCoy'slaunch, that we do what four or
five times every Open waterseason.
You know they get to bring aplus one and we encourage kids
to come with and Sean Olesbergdown in Texas as a youth deer
hunt.
But it's pretty cool that youguys do that.
(41:46):
That's something that we'rehoping to do more with our
members is get more youthinvolved with their parents, and
I mean it's.
There's something to be saidabout the bonding that All of
our staff or volunteers havewith our members, but also if
they're able to bring a kid with, it just adds another element.
I think that Drives a lot ofthat mental health home.
(42:06):
You know, hoping all the things, my little soapbox.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
No, it makes sense and I agree with you because
you're growing up.
I was in outdoors with my dadas much as I could be.
You know he taught me so muchand some kids don't have that
opportunity.
So through HHO or you know, fam, these kids are getting chances
to, like you said, learn lifelessons, basically out on the
water and where they couldn't ifthey don't have that
opportunity.
So it's pretty awesome whatyou're doing.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
And now I didn't even go a step further too.
You know you guys do a lot withyour event that you do with us.
You know, maybe, maybe, downsome down the road, open water
wise, we'll be able to partnerwith you guys and help with some
funding there.
And yeah, let me get one ofthose trips set up with, you
know, parents and the youth.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yeah, absolutely for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Like you know enough, on your plate some of the other
thing for you.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, yeah, but you know what it's.
It's getting a little biteasier because I Think we're
starting to build a little bitof a following, which which
makes it easier, and we'regetting some people out there
that Better that are coming outof the woodwork.
And now we got we got a really,really good core staff of
(43:20):
People that kind of havedesignated jobs and they do
awesome.
Like Tony Alberg runs a are,you think, requests.
So I mean, he was poking aroundon the internet one day and saw
something that they did in likeWyoming or Montana or something
.
So we got these little, theselittle coins.
I have it somewhere around here.
(43:42):
With it you get a plaque.
Well, you start with thesecoins and so there's those
little challenge where we likeditch pickles and and gravel
lizards and river rats and theyhave to try to catch all these
different species with minimumlengths and it forces is kind of
a challenge to get them off thethe console and and out outside
(44:04):
.
And they get these coins andthey, every time they get one,
they get a coin shipped to theirhouse and then, once they
complete the challenge, they geta wood plaque with their name
engraved in our logo and thespot for those little coins.
But they can glue right inthere and finish that and hang
it up on their wall.
Very cool.
I think we've had the waterfallchallenge water.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
The Delta waterfall ultimate waterfall challenge.
That one sounds like that alittle bit.
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yeah, yeah, just just incentivizes them to kind of
get outside and do that stuff.
I know we've been talking aboutdoing.
I don't know if this has evereven been said publicly so but
it doesn't matter because Idon't know if we're gonna do it,
if I don't know.
But we want to do a really coolfama palooza type of thing and
(44:55):
we got to find the rightlocation first.
But the vision of it is a youthfishing day kind of state fair
and vendor feel like a foodtruck, ice cream truck, picture
booth, dnr booth, a build a rodstation, paint your own lure
station, pure fishing and shorefishing With buckets out there.
(45:21):
And we'll have a weigh-instation, similar to like the
Brainer Jcs, where the kids willcome up.
They'll have a little casting,carnival games and stuff and
just something more.
Families can come out and enjoythe day and and hopefully go
home with a bunch of cool prizesand and then Start sending up
for more clinics and way to getour name out there and to do
(45:42):
something cool for community.
And I don't know if it'll be inbig lake or Minnetonka or Coon
Rapids, but I'll give you intouch with.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
The Minnesota Conservation Officer Association
.
They have their own Fishingstuff that they have now and
their own programs.
I do so they'd be a goodconnection for that.
Yeah, we'll see where we canget set up and maybe help out
with, because I mean they have apretty large following too when
it comes to their youthprograms.
I do so that might be helpful.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
For sure, absolutely.
I'll get you in contact.
We got it.
We have a vision, perfect,perfect.
Yeah, we have a vision.
We don't have any Any hard with.
That's all we've done.
We put it on paper.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Hmm, now I like it.
That's cool.
It sounds about a fun.
I assume you're looking to doopen water versus.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yeah, the cold, yeah in the summertime, yep, that's
cool.
There's a lot of good optionsout there.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Yeah, nice day is not freezing cold.
No, I always thought it'd bekind of cool because when we
originally started HHO, we usedto do a fish of Palooza on White
Bear Lake and we wanted to gothat over time and it's been
many years since we've done thatand I'd like to do it again at
some point.
Maybe some the board can throwtogether.
But we thought it'd be kind ofcool to get some food trucks out
there eventually.
But you know it's really hitand miss when it comes to
(47:04):
weather and participation lookslike.
So that's the hard part, yeah,such as life.
But that's that's a really coolconcept and a good idea and
I'll really appreciate.
You know all the efforts thatyou're doing to get the youth in
the outdoors too.
I think that's, you know, huge,especially Now that we're
seeing in the state a lot, asignificant decline In people
(47:25):
who are buying licenses, and notonly is that generation who
normally does getting older, butthe generations that are coming
up aren't buying them like theyused to.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
Speaker 5 (47:36):
I got a question for you, jake what is, what is the
average average?
What's the average age ofparticipants that you guys get,
or what's the range of Kids thatare showing up?
I would guess the average.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
I guess 10, 10, 11 is probably the average.
Sometimes we have minimumsDepending on what we're doing,
and I like for the musky one wehad a minimum of 10, and so the
musky one is 10 to 15 year olds,the majority of our turn.
(48:13):
Like when we do all go on theice, I think our minimum is five
or six or seven I have to look,but I Would say on average
you're gonna get eight to twelveis kind of the sweet spot where
once they get to 13, they gotyou know stuff that we used to
do and chasing girls and boysand doing fun stuff, and Younger
(48:36):
than that they don't tend toLast unless it's nice.
Oh, and we got hub shacks andheaters and and everything that
keep warm snacks and we do it,we do it right.
We're all dads on our board, soMoms and dads now.
But yeah, I mean so we knowSnacks are number one.
Behind safety, snacks might benumber one.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
It's probably number one.
It's not a lot.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Yeah, if you don't got snacks, you're, you're
lasting, you're lasting lessthan an hour, but back to your
snack.
You're talking about thelicenses.
What's ahead?
Nothing.
Speaker 5 (49:20):
What's that?
The snack?
Speaker 3 (49:27):
Yes, that's we're doing, that we're doing that on
the musky trip is we're puttingsnackle boxes together For each
kid to have out on the boat.
So, and the guides, just sothat they don't get grumpy, but
when you're talking about thelicenses, they, one of the
(49:48):
things that we do is we, wesponsor a kid or two each year
and we call it our future,future legends, and so they have
to put in an application, whichis they got to fill out our
form that we have, and then theygot to submit their report card
.
They have to go out and getreferences from teachers,
(50:08):
coaches, families, friends,neighbors, whatever, and then we
kind of take a take a peek atall those.
And then the one thing that we,we, there's two things one,
their character and their lovefor fishing.
That's the two things that webase it off of.
We get a lot of applicationswhere we've never met the kid
(50:32):
and what we're trying to do isteach life through fishing, and
if you don't have a relationshipwith somebody, you're gonna get
nowhere.
So, come out to our event,volunteer at you know trade show
.
Come say hi to us at a tradeshow or something.
Be known, get known, dosomething good, and then.
So we got two more kids, we gotthree right now and Blake
(50:56):
Bussin Was the first one and inall reality, that's kind of
where this the whole fam thingspun from.
He put a Facebook post out.
He wanted he was like 13probably at the time, I think
it's 15 now he put something outsaying that he wanted to do
Fishing Minnesota made and inorder to do that, he needed to
(51:18):
come up with this list of thingsand he put a cost on each thing
, on every single one of those,including the entry fee for that
, and a lot of it was like warmweather gear and augers and
things like that.
And then, if it stopped there,it probably doesn't make an
impact on me.
But then it had a bottom and itsaid how I'm gonna do it and it
(51:40):
said I'm gonna mow 20 lawns andI'm gonna sell this many fire
starters and I'm gonna pick uppoop for this neighbor and
whatever.
And so he had a plan and I waslike that's what we should do.
We want to teach that.
That doesn't get taught, thestuff that doesn't get taught in
the schools.
Yeah, you know, how many thingsdo you remember from Sixth
(52:01):
grade through 12th grade thatyou use on a daily basis?
Not my percent, you know.
So.
So that's, that's one thing.
So we have Blake and and thenwe had Calon and Kelsey last
year and they're 11, 12 year oldkids.
Um, they've kind of had a roughBack life, you know, up till
(52:23):
this point.
Um, both are kind of beenraised by mom and uh.
There was at least 50 dudescrying At our banquet last year
when these kids got up there andspoke and were awarded their
their thing.
They're so appreciative,they're just fantastic kids.
Um, but things that we do likewith Blake, he couldn't, he
(52:46):
wasn't a good public speaker.
When we had him the microphoneAt the uh at the banquet, he
basically froze, looked at usand he was what should I say?
Speaker 2 (52:56):
And it happened that our banquet too, with some of us
no worries yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Yeah, but it was okay .
Well, you know, make a mentalnote.
And so at some of these showswe were making him go up to Dave
Gens and Jason Mitchell andinterview him, and then that
transpired into he was up on theon the stage during some of
those clam presentations thatthey have at the on the stages,
(53:25):
and he was part of the, thejunior ice team, and he and now
he's one of the first ones tograb the microphone.
He's not polished by any means,but he's not nervous and and
that's a huge thing to havegoing forward in life.
And so we've got a couple othercool things that we want to do
where they.
They got to do, you know, salesand and presentations and and
(53:47):
things that that will help thembuild connections and and figure
out how life actually works.
Um, and that that's.
It's a mentorship program assoon as they get Selected for
this.
We got two kids that'll beselected this year that are
they're absolute Awesome like.
The character of these kids isjust I want my kids to grow up,
(54:09):
just to be just like them.
But, um, they get a man I get amentorship from.
Whenever they get a futurelegend award.
Tell their 18 or tell they tellus to they don't want to talk
to us anymore.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
That's brilliant, though that's uh, that's a
really awesome program and Imean it just gets people hooked
to giz and life lessons withoutthem really knowing it.
Yeah, I think Down the roadthey appreciate it probably a
lot.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yeah, and part of their sponsorship package is a
lifetime fishing license.
Speaker 5 (54:45):
No, I'm jealous very sweet.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
That's cool, yeah, yeah, if you guys don't know
about those lifetime fishinglessons, jump into them.
I mean, get them when the kidsare young, because, uh, the cost
is only gonna go up.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Get them, get them young and soon, yeah, before
three, I think, for sure that'sthe best.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
Yeah, yeah, let's think it.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
They get a 500.
I mean, it's basically about500 bucks for the age kids that
we're we're getting um, and thenthey get a $500 guided trip
with somebody.
So, like I know, callan wentwith griff Adam Griffith, who's
on the crappie chronicles, andthen Kelsey just went bass
fishing with sam soby.
He did a cool video Um withthat.
(55:32):
When he went out and took herout, um, blake ended up being on
an episode of the crappiechronicles, um, so that was just
like our connections are arepretty deep in the fishing
community and the people thatthat were connected with our our
awesome people too.
So, and then what?
else, then they get a $500Shields gift card and then they
(55:53):
got a thousand dollars to playwith with whatever they want,
whether they want to just getset up with rods for life, or I
know callan got a new boat.
That wasn't new, but callan gota boat and a motor and kelsey
got a kayak with a graph.
So cool, you can get them outthere.
It's awesome on their own.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
Well, it's phenomenal , no, it's good.
They say you know, get theminto the fishing or hunting.
They won't have money to affordother things outside of there.
I hope he won't be smokingcrack yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
I can't afford it.
Speaker 3 (56:26):
Yeah, that's, that's the goal.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah, I love it.
No, jake, that's awesome.
Thank you very much.
I know we're coming up in anhour here and we really
appreciate your time today andalso just to recap and let
everyone know About minnesota,made and fam.
You guys got a couple of reallyawesome programs there.
So just so our listeners areaware, or no, minnesota made you
had the email and the socialmedia from earlier.
(56:52):
How do people get in contactwith fam?
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Um our our website.
There is f a dash mnorg.
Either that or you can emailset future anglers mn at
gmailcom.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
And anything on the social media platform instagram.
Speaker 3 (57:11):
Yeah, so we're on um Facebook and instagram, I think,
correct.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
And everyone's aware too you know we do have
listeners from all over thecountry is based in minnesota.
So, um, I mean, if you're inthe area too for a family trip
or whatnot, and look these guysup if that's something to do.
But, um, you know, minnesota isa very, very hot commodity when
it comes to a fishingdestination for states in the
country, and the, the amount oflakes and species that you can
(57:41):
target out here is prettyphenomenal.
So make sure you look them upIf you're here or looking.
The Minnesota made things.
But, uh, gentlemen, do you haveany last final comments?
We'll start with andy.
Do you anything else you wantto say?
Speaker 4 (57:51):
Yes, if you're a veteran um First responder or
active duty.
If you want to go on this event, look for it Basically late
december, early january.
This trip will be posted forthe home of the brave event.
Tons of great prizes, good tosee us Um laughing and having a
good time.
So I encourage you to check itout and thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Hey tony, how about you?
Speaker 5 (58:13):
Uh, I just have to thank jake uh for all he's done
for us.
Um, it truly it.
He he touches my heart.
Uh, jake and paul Um trulytouched my heart with all the
hard work that they do and allthe mn made guys and gals um
they they've become true friendsof mine and uh Definitely a
(58:35):
great group of people.
Speaker 2 (58:38):
It's awesome.
Oh, thanks, hey, jake.
Do you have any final thoughtsor things you want to share?
Speaker 3 (58:44):
If you make me cry on here, dude, I'm gonna punch you
.
I love it.
Um, no thanks, thanks, uh, IAgreed, like everything you guys
do is absolutely awesome.
Um, I'm just happy to be a partof it for one day and to help
and do that kind of stuff.
And and, uh, it's cool thatthat we can call each other
(59:05):
buddies and friends and brothersnow.
Um, I think that that's thecoolest part of this whole thing
.
And, uh, I look forward to, uh,to getting out to brunch
someday.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
Maybe you gotta do brunch.
We do it, we gotta do it.
No, that's awesome.
No, jake, I gotta say thank youtoo.
I know I watch these two guyslight up every year when this
time comes and I'm excited theyget, and I know it's a huge
thing that they have to lookforward to.
And we all have our own littleniches when it comes to the
things that we like to do in theoutdoors, our trips that we
host or the things that we getengaged with.
(59:36):
And these guys are, they glow.
I'm serious when this comesaround the corner and then, uh,
appreciate everything you guysdo and the work that you put in
for the organization and ourmembers.
I know people rent and raveabout it all the time.
I'm pretty sure that if we likehad people like fight Out front
of the house, people wouldprobably fight to get on the
trip.
Uh, it's just, it's just thathighly sought after and people I
(59:58):
could be doing it would be.
I mean, it's another way theycould pick people, I guess.
Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
Last two spots, it's it's fight yeah right.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Like club out back your dad's gonna be there though
, andy, so but no, it could bethe awesome that.
Yeah right.
I'm a little gladiator mode atthe end, um, but everyone has a
blast and everyone rants andraves about how awesome it is
every time, and Even during thecoldest days of our year in the
north, um, it's.
It's a very good time that Iget to see uh Unfold on social
(01:00:31):
media and hear from these guysand how it was.
So appreciate you and your teamand everything you do,
especially on the fam side ofthings the kids getting kids in
the outdoors is huge.
So we thank you very much.
So everyone knows how to get ahold of minnesota made and fam
at this point and Reallyappreciate everything they've
done for us and the organizationand we continue to hope to have
(01:00:52):
that partnership, continue tobuild and be here and Help each
other out and for our membersthat are out there.
You know outdoors Is somethingthat we are very involved with
when it comes to our mentalhealth side of things.
But a fair times where it getsa little bit to be too much,
please feel free to reach out us, to us at hho.
So we have our staff hastrained in our assist training
or applied to the setintervention skills training,
(01:01:14):
you know, and if it's somethingthat's more immediate, you know
you can always call 988 or text988 for the crisis intervention
line.
But Just because you're havinga difficult time today doesn't
mean we can't get through it.
So let's stay here today so wecan talk about things tomorrow
and get our way through it.
But that ends today's podcast.
So thank you all for being heretoday.
Really appreciate you all andContinue into uh grow the future
(01:01:36):
of hho and helping our membersout for that.
We'll see you all next week.
Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Thank you for listening to the hometown hero
outdoors podcast.
For more information, visit ourwebsite at
hometownherooutdoorsorg.
MUSIC.
Welcome to the Hometown HeroOutdoors podcast.
Here is your host, Chris Tatro.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
MUSIC and welcome back everyone Another Wednesday
here on Hometown Hero Outdoorspodcast.
Today's podcast we actuallyhave three of us board members
here.
We are here to talk to Jake.
Jake, how many is your lastname?
Again?
I was going to let you go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Cook and Meister.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I know I was going to kill it, I'm sorry, I tried.
It didn't work very well.
Jake has a very closerelationship with Tony Tessing
and Andy Graff.
Tony is our social mediadirector for the board.
Andy is our event director forthe board as well.
They all have done a lot offishing together when it comes
to hard water fishing in thewinter.
(01:13):
So we'll talk about Jake herereal quick.
Jake has been married for 13years.
He has two children, ages fiveand three Coach Hockey and
Blaine Maple Grove, and overMinnesota, for the last 10 years
he started a group calledMinnesota Made.
We'll get into that a littledeeper.
This is where they've hostedthe event of Home, of the Brave
event for Hometown Hero OutdoorsVery phenomenal huge fishing
(01:37):
tournament where everyone getsto try to get a piece of the pie
when it comes to how to fish inthe competitive nature.
And then recently started theFuture Anglers of Minnesota.
Currently owns a logisticscompany and he works for himself
.
So that's kind of the best jobthere is working for yourself,
jake, so appreciate you beinghere and everything you've done
for HHO.
Just want to introduce yourselffor a minute.
(01:58):
I know we kind of got into it alittle bit here, but then we'll
go around the horn and we'llhop into the Minnesota Made
stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, I think you nailed it.
That's pretty much my life in anutshell right there.
Outside of being a dad, that'skind of I've always said I don't
want to title whether it'sbusiness owner or president or
whatever it's dad, and thenafter that it's kind of they
kind of don't make anydifference anyway after that.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So Well, your priorities in the right spot.
Being a parent is an awesomething, and that's an awesome way
to look at it too, and I seeyou're pretty involved with the
sports too.
So is that mostly for all theyouth sports, for hockey?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, I started with Blaine doing youth hockey I
don't know, I think they werelike probably 12, 13 years old,
was the first team that Icoached and then kind of bounced
around from different agegroups and Blaine for probably
like eight, 10 years and then Iwent and coached the Maple Grove
girl.
I had a couple of friends thatplayed for the Gophers women's
team when they won the nationalchampionships and then coached
(03:01):
the Maple Grove high schoolgirls hockey for a couple of
years and then kind of quit fora while, a year or two and then
we got asked to jump on over tothe Andover Association through
a friend and me and my buddywent over there and coached the
(03:21):
double a badm's for a coupleyears and I think right now
there's one kid in the NHL andsix or seven that are playing
division one.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I felt that was pretty sweet.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
I just want to get that out there.
That was not the coaching.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
You gotta take a little credit right, a shred of
it right.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
I'll give it to the guy that I was coaching with.
He's kind of the guru.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
That's all right.
No, that's cool.
No, it's then.
Then we'll talk more about yourother endeavors that you have
with the, you know, the young orfuture of the country, here,
with the future anglers ofMinnesota.
But, tony and Andy, do you guyswant to introduce yourself,
just for our listeners?
That might be tuning in for thefirst time who you are and what
you do.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Sure, I'm Tony Tessin .
As Chris said, I am the boardmember that manages the social
media stuff.
I am not a professional but Ido my best and I've been here
with the hometown hero outdoorssince day one.
(04:21):
And that's about it for me.
If you have any questions, feelfree to reach out to me on
social media.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, we got three of the four founders here right
now.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
So yeah, cool.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
I'll just continue.
Andy graph, I am on the boardas well and, as mentioned,
founding member from day one.
I handle our events, or try to.
I do my best to assist us toour events nationwide, so it's a
lot of fun.
Like Tony said, not aprofessional, but doing my best.
Also, I'm a Navy veteran andcurrent police officer in a
(04:58):
South Metro here in Minnesota.
I was in the Navy for almost 10years and I've been a cop now
for almost four, so it's goingby quick.
And also a dad, just like Jakesaid also a dad.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Yeah, I forgot that.
Part Army vet myself and also adad.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, relatively new dad.
Yeah, and you guys have heardme and I'll bought all my kids
all the time, so we don't needto go down that road anymore.
But Jake probably doesn't knowI have seven children, so we
have a blended family.
So I have three, my wife hasthree, we have one together.
I love every minute of it, nice.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
My best friend is a cop and has seven kids.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
It seems like a lot of law enforcement officers out
there have a lot of kids.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Seriously, I'm stopping at two.
I don't want to know.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It must be the uniform.
That's right.
Yeah, now we'll go with that.
Yeah, so we'll go into theMinnesota made stuff.
So can you guys talk about?
Okay, first, jake, let's do itwhat is Minnesota made and how
did you make a connection withTony and Andy?
Speaker 3 (06:05):
So Minnesota made outdoors, is a ice fishing
league.
We normally have around 20 or30 teams in it.
We run for four events eachyear.
Each event has a payout, hasbig fish, has prizes and
sponsors and stuff like that.
We're we're very lucky to tokind of hitch our wagons to the
(06:26):
clams and the Thorne brothersand the Vex Lars and relevance
and and you know, the top of the, the top of the tier of the ice
fishing community.
So we we had a lot of supporton that side of things and we're
able to kind of get this offand running and it's been pretty
successful through.
I think this is going to be your10 or 11.
(06:47):
I don't know, I can't even keeptrack anymore, but so for me to
do that for that long is iskind of a cool deal.
We've had a lot of the sameguys in it.
It's kind of became and gals,it's kind of become like almost
like a like a fraternity or kindof like a more of like a
brotherhood and sisterhood thanit is a nice fishing league.
(07:11):
Sure, we, everybody wants to goout there and and when the
hardware it's not even reallyabout the track.
Our number one rule in ourleague is don't be a douche bag
and everything kind of reverse.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Good rule.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
So, um, yeah, so the uh, I don't know how, I don't
even know how.
So Dale Lugendale somehow endedup in our league through
somebody else or founded on onsocial media and decided to sign
up.
Um, he was running a full scalepodcast and I probably Tony can
(07:47):
probably tell it a little bitbetter because he was the there
for that.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
So, so, um, at some point we're supposed to have
Dale on, but it just didn't workout.
We'll get to him eventually.
Uh, andy and I um connectedwith Dale uh on on his podcast
the full scale outdoors, and wehad a very nice chat about home
(08:12):
tone, hero doors, um, waterfallhunting and ice fishing is
pretty much what we covered, andI believe it was you and Paul
cause only that uh heard thatpodcast.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yes, yeah, and I think I sent Dale a text saying
hey, you need to get us in touchwith those guys.
And then he did.
I think we ended up meeting upat uh moonshine and now now
that's kind of our go to spot,that's where we meet every year,
and uh, and we kind of justthrew something at you guys and
(08:50):
thought you know what about this?
And and uh, and then all of asudden it happened.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
What was the concept or the goal for this first
meeting, like what was the brainbaby that was born?
Speaker 3 (09:06):
We kind of wanted to just see what they thought and
figure out what, um, what wouldwork and the the whole idea was
behind it was we run atournament, we run it well, and
we know how to do that and how.
How do we do that with a groupof people that may not ice fish
or, or maybe they do, and andhow do we incorporate our guys
(09:27):
and their guys and and and thendo something special on top of
that for them and put a day likeI at that point I had kind of
done my research on what youguys were all about and what we
wanted to do is have a day wherethey could come out, feel
appreciated and walk away withsome really cool stuff.
And uh, I think over the years,as a, I mean I don't know how
(09:52):
we keep talking about what wecan do to make it better.
I just don't I mean outside ofa live band in the middle of
winter out on the ice, whichwe're still trying.
But um, yeah, I mean it's, it'skind of dialed in now to where
I mean I was just kind oflooking at some of the prizes
and it's just insane, some ofthe some of the stuff.
(10:13):
Again, like we have a very largegroup of of really good people
um in Minnesota made.
So that's the reason we're ableto do these things is because
of those people.
I mean we have to get 25volunteers just to pair them up
um with each team that HHOprovides.
And then we got all theseprizes.
I think there's 50, 50 prizes.
(10:34):
Everybody goes home with aprize and then we have a raffle
where you get what is it?
Bear hunt, turkey hunt, iz80stay in play.
There's, I mean, federal.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
There's usually some golf.
I mean, there's so manyunbelievable prizes.
Yeah, and you know, that's myfavorite thing is people who are
first timers.
They've never gone.
This is going to be our fourthyear, which is hard to believe,
um, but like hey, you guys haveno idea what's in store.
And I remember the first yearTony was like hey, we're going
to keep all these prizes likesuper, super kind of secretive
(11:06):
until we get the final list, andthen we just, you know,
bombarded them with just allthis excitement and all this,
just like, oh, bear hunts,turkey hunts, stay in plays,
like you know, vex, lars, forthe winners you know, I think
there was a mount at some pointis just unbelievable amount of
prizes.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Coolers.
Blackfish gift cards.
Guided pheasant hunt yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:28):
And a lot, of, a lot of these prizes are coming from
um Minnesota maids members, andone of the things that I found
very unique about Minnesotamaids, specifically their
members, is the diversebackground Everybody comes from,
um like I.
You have guys that work atfederal cartridge, you have, uh,
(11:51):
loan officers, realtors,doctors um my contract my
contractor who just did all mywork on my house.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Uh, john my too Great dude.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
Yeah, um, all these guys managed to organize all
these prizes for our members,and it's there's no way to
really thank every last one ofthese guys.
It's, it's quite special.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
You know, and I think it speaks really largely too,
because planning these things Imean they're not easy.
I mean, show up in fishing isone thing, but all the
background work that comes with,you know, gathering all the
prizes and how the structure ofthe day is going to go into work
, so to have anotherorganization just kind of come
to HHO and say, hey, we justneed bodies, come fish and have
some fun, it's pretty cool.
(12:44):
So very much appreciate that,jake, and all that hard work.
Do you guys, can you talk alittle bit about the background?
Like, how do you guys go aboutand find these prizes or those
things to give away for everyone?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, I mean just going through the list here,
kind of I would say that themajority of the prizes that are
going to the 50 Fisher peopleare kind of our sponsors.
So when we ask we have eightevents, when we we don't ask for
eight prizes from each one ofthem, we ask for 10 so that we
(13:21):
have a couple extra to throwinto the HHO thing.
And now our sponsors aresending us 12.
So, when you do yeah, when youdo something good, people like
to be a part of it in any waythey can.
So, besides that, we got likeour members are like.
Our members are going out andgrabbing prizes for it, and our
(13:46):
members wife makes these reallycool custom mugs that are
painted.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
Those are sweet.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
The one that said like IE crayons or something was
pretty good, everybody loved it.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
We'll dig it Marine.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
So yeah, and then yeah, and then it's just kind of
our members kind of go out andwe just say, hey, ask, ask.
Now we got a list.
Now, once you've done it a yearor two or three, you kind of
just go back through your listand say, hey, I see you got
these three prizes.
Can you reach out to them again?
So it's just coordinating it,they're doing it.
(14:18):
And then I'm just kind of thepuppet behind asking people to
do the things.
And then yeah, and then it'sjust kind of.
I think last year we kind ofhad a little bit of a hiccup
with the food.
Normally Traeger has came outthere, and that's the other part
of this.
Like that might have beenactually like year one.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
That probably was my favorite part, that food was so
good it was and it was such anice day.
First year I was wearing ahoodie, running around doing
just fine Right.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
And that was in.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
February.
Speaker 5 (14:51):
Yeah, t-shirt, while they're pretty much pulled pork
like mac and cheese.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
They were cooking like, hey, these pizzas on the
traggers.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
They did breakfast pizzas, yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
They did like season goldfish, like my kid's favorite
snack.
They were like seasoning it,like it was so good and then so
like, just just to give you anexample, like last year they
couldn't make it.
They had, like one of the guyshad a wrestling tournament for
his kid.
Now there was out of town.
None of them was going to bethere to be there.
And Diane, who fishes in ourleague, was like well, my
(15:24):
company can sponsor the food.
So she went out, paid for itall, picked it all up, came
there with her husband andcooked it all.
And like it was a little bitstressful last year trying to
figure out what we were going todo, and like it's kind of just
runs by itself Cause somebody'sgoing to step up and do
something.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah Well, that's phenomenal.
So how much work do you get todo, tony or Andy, when it comes
to helping with any of this?
Speaker 5 (15:52):
It's always the initial question what do you
need from us?
And we it's kind of a wait andsee and um, and usually um, it's
a hey, can you get all thedrinks for the day, or whatever.
Um, but mainly it's get thepeople there and make sure it's
filled.
(16:12):
And Andy is stressful.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
I get a list, cause I do the drawing on our Facebook
page, um, and I get all thenames and, like every year, you
know we'll draw our 50, but thenI think what?
Last year I had like 35 dropoutand then the big thing we
always have is like the no call,no shows, and only the first
year we only had one.
Second year we had.
Last year we had zero.
That was like a first.
It was wonderful.
(16:38):
Everyone showed up, all 50 ofthem.
So I'm usually standing thereat the meat point.
You know all the Minnesota madeguys are, you know, using live
scopes, finding where the fishare cutting holes, and I'm
standing there basically takingmuster.
Who's here?
Okay, your coach is hereshipping them out.
So that's a little bit of astress on our part, but I mean
that's that's.
I mean that's pebbles comparedto what the Minnesota made guys
(16:59):
do for us.
I mean, you know, getting alist of 50 people to show up,
you know that's the stress wehave to do.
That's about it.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
It's always fun watching you, though that day
out, because you are stressedout to the Mac.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I just call in people .
Are you coming?
Are they here?
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, yeah, but you always got like a couple extra
aces up your sleeve that areactually your starting distance
my father.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
he used to linger in the area.
I'm like if they drop out, youcan show it Sure Just circling
the lake waiting for you.
Come on down, you're fishing,yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I love it.
He's a good guy.
He's always reliable to go andhelp out.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Oh yeah, I'm going to go and fill in the last minute,
fill on a few trips for sure.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So you said something important I thought would be
interesting to expand on was theword coach.
So the day is set up a certainway and you have coaches.
Expand on that a bit.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
So, yeah, each there's, there's 25 teams of two
and those are all the HHOmembers and we split, the Andy
sends that list over, so we have25 teams and then I basically
send that out to our guys andsome of them know some of these
and sometimes I know, like withwith Andy's boss, evan is going
(18:08):
to take him out, oh gosh,because he's competitive and he
wants to win.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
That's all yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Before it was just fun.
Now it's starting to getcompetitive too.
There's a little bit of trashtalking going on day of and and
that's what we put.
We put those together and then Imean these guys are all,
they're all tournament anglersand they're all really good at
what they do.
They they're really good atteaching it.
They're really good at kind ofexplaining what's going on and
(18:36):
why they're doing things and whythey're going to move, and what
you should use and what yourjig and canes is and how to read
your graph and the fish moodand all these things that it's
somebody that gets to go out,you know, three weekends of
winter doesn't really have intheir, in their toolbox yet.
So not only do they get to havea fun day, but I think they
actually get to learn a ton.
(18:57):
And we've had a lot of commentsafter saying like, oh, this was
so awesome.
I've taken my kid out threetimes since that and just the
stuff that I learned, we'recatching way more fish and like
that's like an added bonus toall this.
Um, another thing is when we putthis out there.
(19:20):
This is probably the one daythat is circled on all of our
guys' calendar, kind of like theVikings Packers game.
That's what this is for ourguys.
Gotta be there.
Every single person's like thatwas.
When they do it for the firsttime they're like that was the
coolest thing ever, like I'm infor that forever, and it's just
(19:45):
the connections that are made, Ithink, between the teams and
the guides is life lasting, andI think a lot of our guides or
members, or whatever you wannacall them, are still friends
with a lot of these people today, and that's the other cool part
too.
Speaker 5 (20:04):
I see that a lot on Facebook where it's like I know
I'm friends with pretty muchanybody.
I think in Minnesota made, andI'll see HHO members commenting
back and forth on various poststhat they make on Facebook.
It's really cool to see yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
So what's the typical species that's targeted on your
guys' tournaments?
Speaker 3 (20:27):
So we do they get to bring in their 10 heaviest fish
between crappies, gills andperch, and then we weigh those
in and we do it in order andthen that's how they get to pick
their prizes.
So if you're in last place, youget the last two things on the
table.
Well last year there wasleftover prizes.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
They had quite a few choices.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
For sure, yeah.
And then there's always addedstuff too, like those cool,
those hat racks.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Those were unexpected .
Speaker 5 (21:02):
I actually bought some from the guy that made
those and gave all the boardmembers one.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Yeah, mines on the wall right there.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Those are slick mine's sitting right there.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Mine's in the garage works great.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
One of the things that didn't get mentioned is
that the Minnesota Maid crew isreally good at and Andy is
taking account of who's gotfishing gear for that day and
everybody gets squared away andI like to think that Minnesota
Maid is one of those days that,as long as you show up in
(21:39):
appropriate weather clothing,you're gonna have a good day,
and so you'll get just squaredaway Waiters, waiters.
Speaker 4 (21:49):
Hey, he was standing by the fire, so he was gonna be
able to go in too.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, he was there.
We've had some doozy days,though.
I mean oh.
Speaker 5 (21:59):
And that was it.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Your second year was like was it like 20 below?
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Yeah, with the wind chill, it was brutally cold.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
That was bad.
Broke his drone that day.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Yes, Racing the automobile, trying to be fun.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
He was racing Johnny.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Yeah, is that 2021 or 2022?
That was the first year at Rush, so Okay, so that'd been 21.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Well, it was like first year was great and then it
was super cold.
Is this wait?
Is this the fifth year we'redoing already?
No, this was four.
Okay, four, because I rememberit was like it was really nice,
super cold, and was it last year?
It was pretty fine, it was mild, it wasn't too bad.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
That was a good day, a good day of fishing.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, Nice and sunny.
I remember that one year,though, when it was freezing
cold, I got a call Saturdaynight or Sunday morning from
another league, the UPL, andthat's Matt Johnson.
He runs the Clam Ice Team andcalls and he says are you guys
(23:01):
gonna cancel for your eventtoday from Minnesota, Made Cause
our tournament is on Sunday andwe run the HHO deal on Saturday
.
And Giz is asking me, and I waslike how can we cancel our
event when it's the same asyesterday and 50 people from HHO
came out and fished?
(23:23):
We can't cancel.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Right, that's right.
Yeah, Back to back days.
Your guys captain's got beat uppretty good there.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah, and so that's another thing too.
These guys, not only are theygiven up a day out of their life
, but they're giving up apre-fishing day for the
tournament the next day.
That's huge.
So I mean, and that's kind ofwhat our league is about too.
We've always said, if you'rehere to cash the check, then
(23:53):
just we'll give you your moneyback and you can just walk right
back out the door.
If you're here to learn and docool things, then you're at the
right spot.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Do you have a certain number of membership for
Minnesota Mades Sorry, Tony.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
We can do 30 teams We've had 30 teams in the past,
I think probably the bread andbutter is probably 25, just for
starts to get a little crampedwith some of these accesses with
50 vehicles and trailers, causeI mean these guys are all
bringing trucks and trailers andsome bring their ice castles
(24:30):
out and stay there for a fewdays.
So we lock up the accessespretty good.
I'm sure the locals are reallyhappy about it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But Happens what Not that often.
So whatever Once a year yeah.
Speaker 5 (24:42):
Tony, I'm gonna add something.
The one thing that I'd add tothe extremely cold days is Clam
is very generous in donating hubhouses for warming houses.
So there is, they're there,they're there, but they don't
get used very much.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Well you're running you're running in, gunning for
fish, right Popping holes andmoving.
You're not staying inside thehouse too much.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
I think that's 2020.
Some guys will.
Yeah 2022 was the year that Iwas walking around with an
oxygen tank and my dad wasstaying in his ice castle.
In the same area, there wasmembers that actually fished in
the ice castle that day becauseit was so cold, but Couple of
(25:29):
years back to back.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, if there was probably one thing where we put
too much work in it's, it'ssetting up the hubs and taking
them down, because we've I thinkwe set up like 15, 20 hubs
probably, and maybe two get used.
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Yeah, it's pretty pretty rare.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
So you do your check in, everyone gets their coaches,
and then you have a hard startand a hard stop.
What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yeah, I think.
What do we fish from like eightto one?
Speaker 4 (26:00):
I think, it was like eight to noon and then we weigh
in at one, because we kind ofwrap up and eat and prizes,
something like that.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
It's, it's four or five hours of fishing and
everybody's, everybody has abucket to keep their fish in
with water and keep them alive,and then then they bring them up
to the scale and we weigheverything in and then I think
it kind of switches every yeardepending on for the food
situation.
But either that we eat and thenwe announce all the winners and
(26:27):
then once we go through andannounce place 25 through first,
then we do the raffle andeverybody can, kind of what
would we do?
Sign up.
It could sign up for either thebear hunt or the turkey hunt
type of thing.
And then they all, and theneverybody gets one raffle ticket
automatically for all the restof the stuff.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
You know pretty engaging, busy day.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah, yeah.
I think everybody's prettytired by the end of that day.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Well, yeah, and then we always start in the morning.
We do like a brief meet thecaptains, then we do the
national anthem, and usuallyDale Luegenbill is our, our
singer.
Did he do it last year or two?
Yep, he did.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Okay, it's done it every year then right, yeah, we
tried to get a sailor Jerry.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
That's right.
I don't think that ended upworking out.
So we we had a, we had a closelike maybe we were going to get
Ted Nugent.
It was, it was.
It was close but not that close.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
And I got a.
I got a loose connection withHank Williams Jr.
We can try that next time,That'd be kind of cool.
Yeah, he comes up to malax allthe time too, so that's how I
ended up meeting him.
He was up on malax, so he'she's a huge outdoors person and
pretty cool person to meet.
Back to our podcast.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, is there anything else you guys want?
Speaker 2 (28:17):
to talk about with Minnesota made.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
No, I know we have openings, so, if anybody I know
there's a lot of guys From theHHO that they're getting
competitive if you guys want totest out your skills and come on
out.
I know we got probably 10 or 12openings right now.
Mikhail, if you're listening.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
I'll tell him.
You call him out.
Yeah, no, he would.
You know what, right up hisalley.
I mean, he's one of the mostcompetitive people I've met.
He is a darn good fisherman andI think he would have a lot of
fun.
And you know, what you shouldsay, too, is like it's an
all-skill level thing.
Yeah, you guys are really good,but you've got, you know, young
kids going on, you've got olderguys, everybody and you guys
(28:59):
all have such a good time.
Like you said, it's kind oflike a big frat party.
You're all buddies, you knowYou're laughing like so you're
not there chasing the money inthe check.
You're just having fun and justhaving an experience.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Yeah, I mean, what's super cool First off, like if
you finish in the top halfyou're gonna get a prize.
Yep, you're going home with theprice.
If you get lucky and end upcatching the big fish, you
usually go home with a pair ofrelevant sunglasses.
Those are nice.
Yeah, I I'll say this if youhaven't tournament fish, if your
(29:31):
normal style isn't drilling a100 200 holes a day and and
running and chasing fish, you'lllearn how to do it.
You're not gonna finish verywell the first year.
Well, what we've always seen isyear one is, if you stick
around and learn, you know whatyou get, what you put into it
too.
So If you talk, our guys areopen books.
(29:54):
They'll tell you what they'reusing, how they're breaking down
lakes, why they're looking incertain areas.
They'll they'll give you theinformation after Sunday.
Yeah, they're over there they're.
They're an open book.
So I always say this it's it's$450 to enter as a team, so it's
225 a guy.
(30:15):
You get four events, you get agood, good group of people to go
fish with and If you go, takeone guided trip with a guide,
you're gonna learn 10 times moredoing this absolutely.
So it's a good.
(30:36):
It's a good way to get into itand learn about fishing.
I mean, our guys can go catchfish on any given lake at any
given time, whatever weather itis.
They're not kind ofone-dimensional like, oh, this
is my lake and I know thatthey're off of this weed line or
something like that.
They they can break it down andfigure it out.
So I think joining it is a is abig deal.
(30:59):
If you're trying to get better,you'll, by year three you'll be
for sure, taking some prizeshome here and there and possibly
cash in a check.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
So that's pretty cool .
So how do they go about findingMinnesota Bay?
Speaker 3 (31:18):
Social media.
Either that, or if you go on toI don't even know what it is.
Let me look here.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
The website.
No, yeah, I know, while he'slooking that up real quick, the
one thing I'll bring up duringthe day.
During tournament day, andy andmyself Go head-to-head versus
Jake and Paul.
We owe you brunch.
(31:44):
I know we still do.
We need to figure out a Sundayfor brunch nice gentlemen's
wager.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
We usually have a good time.
They usually do a.
They catch 10, we catch fiveand they kick our butts.
One time we were close I thinkwe had four, but it still there.
Yeah, he's still got these guys.
It's flip the back.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, we made one year.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Yeah, you got that a lot.
He's got his mug.
He's gonna get the mug.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So far listeners.
He's showing one of his prizesthat he got here.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
He's got a bunch of prizes from Tony and Andy.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
I Around yeah, taking my money, but we do.
We do owe you brunch.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Yes, true, true story and a coin.
Still got the coin.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
It's all laying right around here.
This is where I live my life,so Love it Sometimes.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
You reminded that I'm a champion.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Last love to be a whiskey glass fit you more.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, we got fresh new ones too.
So nice, yeah.
So do you find the website?
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Yep, it's, it's super easy.
It's Minnesota made outdoorscalm.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Oh it is easy.
Yeah, it's easier than ours.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, it's a mile long social media.
I believe it's a Mn madeoutdoors Perfect cool, cool.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
No, it's awesome.
That's the, the home of thebrave event that they host with
Minnesota made annually.
This year will be their fifthyear.
Let's look at us.
It's kind of cool to talk aboutand you guys recently just got
into and I know Tony and and hebrought it up a few times is the
like you don't have enoughgoing on, but the future anglers
of Minnesota want to share withlisteners what that is.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Yeah.
So we actually when we when westarted this thing, we were
talking about starting anon-profit, and Then it just
happened to where we could justcoordinate with HHO and just do
it that way and then we werelike, well, what are we doing?
The other things we can, we gotmore.
We got more time and morethings that we could do.
(33:45):
And so we kind of looked Intothe veteran side of things and
we were gonna kind of try tofind a niche on the veteran side
of nonprofits To help out orcoordinate with other nonprofits
and and do similar things.
And the more we kind of lookedinto it there was there was a
lot of them.
So we kind of looked into likemaybe doing stuff for kids of
(34:09):
veterans and whatever.
And then that spun out to whydon't we just do it for just
kids, period?
And so we started futureanglers of Minnesota.
I've started two companies inmy life.
Starting a nonprofit is no jokethat the red tape and all the
(34:30):
whole leak out, Right yeah, youfeel it every day.
Yeah, yeah and so like, and nothaving any funding or any
sponsors or anything and thenlike, so Minnesota made
basically Funded the startup ofof fam, and Then so, yeah, we've
(34:53):
started that in June, we startof 2021, we kind of figured
everything out throughout thesummer and the fall, and then
the winter of 2022 is when westarted doing our first ice
clinics, and so Right now we runthree ice clinics a year where
we take out about 2025 kids toeach one.
(35:16):
I think last year we had onewhere we had 40 kids when the
crappie chronicles guys came out.
And then this summer we've doneyesterday I was out on the lax,
we took 20 kids out on out ofhunters nitty's point and we
took 20 kids out there on alaunch, and we did another one
(35:36):
of those.
In June we did a guided boattrip on West Rush where we had
20 kids out there and 10 boats,and then we were just starting a
new one in About a month.
Here we're gonna be out onBattle Lake.
We're taking 20 kids muskyfishing for two days.
Wow, that's cool, that's gonnabe sick, so, and it's during a
(35:58):
full moon, so we're we'reexcited for that.
So, yeah, that one's gonna bekind of our, our new flagship
Clinic, where these kids willcome out on Friday and we'll
have a dinner for them, they'llmeet their guides and then on
Saturday they'll wake up andthey'll fish from Sun up the Sun
down.
We got hotels booked for all ofthem and then Saturday night
(36:24):
we'll go back and have anotherdinner.
And we got a ton of prizes, likewe had St Croix musky rods, we
got Bates from like muskyinnovations and musky mayhem and
I think we're gonna get RobHooliman, who's the.
He was the PMTT champion lastyear.
He won the musky tour.
He's kind of the brainchildbehind this all, and then we had
(36:48):
the infrastructure to do it.
So he's a Got a bunch of guides, he's got a cabin on the lake
and when I asked him how manyMuskies he thinks will catch on
a conservative side, he saidseven and probably one over 50.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
So, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
If that happens, if that, if we get, fine you.
Know, I don't know some ofthese kids my night and be able
to really win yeah that's true.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
We just had a Veteran trip up on per million for
muskies and those guys I I'mjust blown away by how many
muskies I caught.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
But they hammered them yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Where they using live scope.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
Yeah, live scope and watching them.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
Yeah, yeah, it just thinks right in front of them.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah, man, they were after the races.
It was wild.
The things that they can donowadays is pretty crazy, I hope
.
I wish you guys luck on that.
That sounds like a phenomenaladventure.
I.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Yeah should be great.
And so we just we just expandedour first expansion.
We're kind of, I Guess, at thispoint now, the Twin Cities
chapter.
So, just like you guys, whereyou guys keep adding states and
stuff, which is super cool, orwe're gonna add cities and we
got brainered Joe, joe Gonska,joe and Miranda Gonska, the own
(38:17):
Pelican Lake Fish House rentalsand guide service, they were
looking to do something similarto what they were doing and so
they started a chap drop andbrainered.
So now, and brainered is likethe epic center of getting kids
out and like there's tons ofkids that want to and they're.
They're so much better thancity kids at catching fish and
(38:41):
so they're gonna be runningWinter clinics and summer
clinics as well, and it's supercool because they they have a
pond too and with a bonfire pitin the middle of it.
So Few times a year they takeout like four or five kids and
they roast hot dogs andmarshmallows on the pontoon
while they're Bobber fishing forwalleyes and bats.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
So that's cool, that's pretty awesome.
Yeah, it's.
So, Go ahead, tony.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
So I have a question if any like parent or kid wanted
to get involved with them, isthere any cost to participate or
anything, or how do you guys dothat whole situation?
Speaker 3 (39:27):
No, everything's free outside of the musky trip,
being that that one's gonna costus like 10 or 15 times more
than most of our clinics.
We we asked for like a hundredand fifty dollar.
We also wanted people that weregonna be committed.
It was more of like acommitment thing.
We end up getting a lot of likethe Andy situation.
(39:48):
We'll get the backouts I'vealways played something for free
.
You try to do something good,people take advantage of it and
we're learning.
We're doing kind of athree-strike rule.
We're just no longer Eligibleor whatever.
But yeah, everything's free.
So all of our ice fishingclinics there is a limited
number of spots we, when westarted this, we wanted to
(40:11):
impact less people in a moreimpactful way than Having 50
kids out there and they didn'tlearn crap because there was
only 10 volunteers and eachvolunteer had five kids.
So all of our clinics are twoto one, volunteer to kid ratio.
So and the majority of ourvolunteers and guides are again
(40:33):
Minnesota made members, or XMinnesota made members, their
tournament fishermen, theirtheir studs.
So they're getting Real, realgood information again, whatever
they put into it.
Sometimes we're just ababysitter for a few hours and
that's fine too, as long as theyhad fun and they want to fish
(40:54):
and they learned a few thingsabout life.
But yeah, everything's free.
So all they do is they sign upand they show up and they go
home with, I don't know, winnerclinic.
They go home with a bucket andwe usually have donations and
stuff to where one kid's goinghome with an auger and or a pop,
a hub shack or Custom rod orrelevant sunglasses, something
(41:20):
pretty sweet.
And then every kid goes homewith prizes.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yep that's cool.
Yeah, it's one thing that we'retrying to get more of is Doing
our youth involvement.
We know we have our McCoy'slaunch, that we do what four or
five times every Open waterseason.
You know they get to bring aplus one and we encourage kids
to come with and Sean Olesbergdown in Texas as a youth deer
hunt.
But it's pretty cool that youguys do that.
(41:46):
That's something that we'rehoping to do more with our
members is get more youthinvolved with their parents, and
I mean it's.
There's something to be saidabout the bonding that All of
our staff or volunteers havewith our members, but also if
they're able to bring a kid with, it just adds another element.
I think that Drives a lot ofthat mental health home.
(42:06):
You know, hoping all the things, my little soapbox.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
No, it makes sense and I agree with you because
you're growing up.
I was in outdoors with my dadas much as I could be.
You know he taught me so muchand some kids don't have that
opportunity.
So through HHO or you know, fam, these kids are getting chances
to, like you said, learn lifelessons, basically out on the
water and where they couldn't ifthey don't have that
opportunity.
So it's pretty awesome whatyou're doing.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
And now I didn't even go a step further too.
You know you guys do a lot withyour event that you do with us.
You know, maybe, maybe, downsome down the road, open water
wise, we'll be able to partnerwith you guys and help with some
funding there.
And yeah, let me get one ofthose trips set up with, you
know, parents and the youth.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yeah, absolutely for sure.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
Like you know enough, on your plate some of the other
thing for you.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, yeah, but you know what it's.
It's getting a little biteasier because I Think we're
starting to build a little bitof a following, which which
makes it easier, and we'regetting some people out there
that Better that are coming outof the woodwork.
And now we got we got a really,really good core staff of
(43:20):
People that kind of havedesignated jobs and they do
awesome.
Like Tony Alberg runs a are,you think, requests.
So I mean, he was poking aroundon the internet one day and saw
something that they did in likeWyoming or Montana or something
.
So we got these little, theselittle coins.
I have it somewhere around here.
(43:42):
With it you get a plaque.
Well, you start with thesecoins and so there's those
little challenge where we likeditch pickles and and gravel
lizards and river rats and theyhave to try to catch all these
different species with minimumlengths and it forces is kind of
a challenge to get them off thethe console and and out outside
(44:04):
.
And they get these coins andthey, every time they get one,
they get a coin shipped to theirhouse and then, once they
complete the challenge, they geta wood plaque with their name
engraved in our logo and thespot for those little coins.
But they can glue right inthere and finish that and hang
it up on their wall.
Very cool.
I think we've had the waterfallchallenge water.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
The Delta waterfall ultimate waterfall challenge.
That one sounds like that alittle bit.
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Yeah, yeah, just just incentivizes them to kind of
get outside and do that stuff.
I know we've been talking aboutdoing.
I don't know if this has evereven been said publicly so but
it doesn't matter because Idon't know if we're gonna do it,
if I don't know.
But we want to do a really coolfama palooza type of thing and
(44:55):
we got to find the rightlocation first.
But the vision of it is a youthfishing day kind of state fair
and vendor feel like a foodtruck, ice cream truck, picture
booth, dnr booth, a build a rodstation, paint your own lure
station, pure fishing and shorefishing With buckets out there.
(45:21):
And we'll have a weigh-instation, similar to like the
Brainer Jcs, where the kids willcome up.
They'll have a little casting,carnival games and stuff and
just something more.
Families can come out and enjoythe day and and hopefully go
home with a bunch of cool prizesand and then Start sending up
for more clinics and way to getour name out there and to do
(45:42):
something cool for community.
And I don't know if it'll be inbig lake or Minnetonka or Coon
Rapids, but I'll give you intouch with.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
The Minnesota Conservation Officer Association
.
They have their own Fishingstuff that they have now and
their own programs.
I do so they'd be a goodconnection for that.
Yeah, we'll see where we canget set up and maybe help out
with, because I mean they have apretty large following too when
it comes to their youthprograms.
I do so that might be helpful.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
For sure, absolutely.
I'll get you in contact.
We got it.
We have a vision, perfect,perfect.
Yeah, we have a vision.
We don't have any Any hard with.
That's all we've done.
We put it on paper.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Hmm, now I like it.
That's cool.
It sounds about a fun.
I assume you're looking to doopen water versus.
Speaker 3 (46:37):
Yeah, the cold, yeah in the summertime, yep, that's
cool.
There's a lot of good optionsout there.
Speaker 2 (46:43):
Yeah, nice day is not freezing cold.
No, I always thought it'd bekind of cool because when we
originally started HHO, we usedto do a fish of Palooza on White
Bear Lake and we wanted to gothat over time and it's been
many years since we've done thatand I'd like to do it again at
some point.
Maybe some the board can throwtogether.
But we thought it'd be kind ofcool to get some food trucks out
there eventually.
But you know it's really hitand miss when it comes to
(47:04):
weather and participation lookslike.
So that's the hard part, yeah,such as life.
But that's that's a really coolconcept and a good idea and
I'll really appreciate.
You know all the efforts thatyou're doing to get the youth in
the outdoors too.
I think that's, you know, huge,especially Now that we're
seeing in the state a lot, asignificant decline In people
(47:25):
who are buying licenses, and notonly is that generation who
normally does getting older, butthe generations that are coming
up aren't buying them like theyused to.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
Speaker 5 (47:36):
I got a question for you, jake what is, what is the
average average?
What's the average age ofparticipants that you guys get,
or what's the range of Kids thatare showing up?
I would guess the average.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
I guess 10, 10, 11 is probably the average.
Sometimes we have minimumsDepending on what we're doing,
and I like for the musky one wehad a minimum of 10, and so the
musky one is 10 to 15 year olds,the majority of our turn.
(48:13):
Like when we do all go on theice, I think our minimum is five
or six or seven I have to look,but I Would say on average
you're gonna get eight to twelveis kind of the sweet spot where
once they get to 13, they gotyou know stuff that we used to
do and chasing girls and boysand doing fun stuff, and Younger
(48:36):
than that they don't tend toLast unless it's nice.
Oh, and we got hub shacks andheaters and and everything that
keep warm snacks and we do it,we do it right.
We're all dads on our board, soMoms and dads now.
But yeah, I mean so we knowSnacks are number one.
Behind safety, snacks might benumber one.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
It's probably number one.
It's not a lot.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Yeah, if you don't got snacks, you're, you're
lasting, you're lasting lessthan an hour, but back to your
snack.
You're talking about thelicenses.
What's ahead?
Nothing.
Speaker 5 (49:20):
What's that?
The snack?
Speaker 3 (49:27):
Yes, that's we're doing, that we're doing that on
the musky trip is we're puttingsnackle boxes together For each
kid to have out on the boat.
So, and the guides, just sothat they don't get grumpy, but
when you're talking about thelicenses, they, one of the
(49:48):
things that we do is we, wesponsor a kid or two each year
and we call it our future,future legends, and so they have
to put in an application, whichis they got to fill out our
form that we have, and then theygot to submit their report card
.
They have to go out and getreferences from teachers,
(50:08):
coaches, families, friends,neighbors, whatever, and then we
kind of take a take a peek atall those.
And then the one thing that we,we, there's two things one,
their character and their lovefor fishing.
That's the two things that webase it off of.
We get a lot of applicationswhere we've never met the kid
(50:32):
and what we're trying to do isteach life through fishing, and
if you don't have a relationshipwith somebody, you're gonna get
nowhere.
So, come out to our event,volunteer at you know trade show
.
Come say hi to us at a tradeshow or something.
Be known, get known, dosomething good, and then.
So we got two more kids, we gotthree right now and Blake
(50:56):
Bussin Was the first one and inall reality, that's kind of
where this the whole fam thingspun from.
He put a Facebook post out.
He wanted he was like 13probably at the time, I think
it's 15 now he put something outsaying that he wanted to do
Fishing Minnesota made and inorder to do that, he needed to
(51:18):
come up with this list of thingsand he put a cost on each thing
, on every single one of those,including the entry fee for that
, and a lot of it was like warmweather gear and augers and
things like that.
And then, if it stopped there,it probably doesn't make an
impact on me.
But then it had a bottom and itsaid how I'm gonna do it and it
(51:40):
said I'm gonna mow 20 lawns andI'm gonna sell this many fire
starters and I'm gonna pick uppoop for this neighbor and
whatever.
And so he had a plan and I waslike that's what we should do.
We want to teach that.
That doesn't get taught, thestuff that doesn't get taught in
the schools.
Yeah, you know, how many thingsdo you remember from Sixth
(52:01):
grade through 12th grade thatyou use on a daily basis?
Not my percent, you know.
So.
So that's, that's one thing.
So we have Blake and and thenwe had Calon and Kelsey last
year and they're 11, 12 year oldkids.
Um, they've kind of had a roughBack life, you know, up till
(52:23):
this point.
Um, both are kind of beenraised by mom and uh.
There was at least 50 dudescrying At our banquet last year
when these kids got up there andspoke and were awarded their
their thing.
They're so appreciative,they're just fantastic kids.
Um, but things that we do likewith Blake, he couldn't, he
(52:46):
wasn't a good public speaker.
When we had him the microphoneAt the uh at the banquet, he
basically froze, looked at usand he was what should I say?
Speaker 2 (52:56):
And it happened that our banquet too, with some of us
no worries yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Yeah, but it was okay .
Well, you know, make a mentalnote.
And so at some of these showswe were making him go up to Dave
Gens and Jason Mitchell andinterview him, and then that
transpired into he was up on theon the stage during some of
those clam presentations thatthey have at the on the stages,
(53:25):
and he was part of the, thejunior ice team, and he and now
he's one of the first ones tograb the microphone.
He's not polished by any means,but he's not nervous and and
that's a huge thing to havegoing forward in life.
And so we've got a couple othercool things that we want to do
where they.
They got to do, you know, salesand and presentations and and
(53:47):
things that that will help thembuild connections and and figure
out how life actually works.
Um, and that that's.
It's a mentorship program assoon as they get Selected for
this.
We got two kids that'll beselected this year that are
they're absolute Awesome like.
The character of these kids isjust I want my kids to grow up,
(54:09):
just to be just like them.
But, um, they get a man I get amentorship from.
Whenever they get a futurelegend award.
Tell their 18 or tell they tellus to they don't want to talk
to us anymore.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
That's brilliant, though that's uh, that's a
really awesome program and Imean it just gets people hooked
to giz and life lessons withoutthem really knowing it.
Yeah, I think Down the roadthey appreciate it probably a
lot.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yeah, and part of their sponsorship package is a
lifetime fishing license.
Speaker 5 (54:45):
No, I'm jealous very sweet.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
That's cool, yeah, yeah, if you guys don't know
about those lifetime fishinglessons, jump into them.
I mean, get them when the kidsare young, because, uh, the cost
is only gonna go up.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Get them, get them young and soon, yeah, before
three, I think, for sure that'sthe best.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
Yeah, yeah, let's think it.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
They get a 500.
I mean, it's basically about500 bucks for the age kids that
we're we're getting um, and thenthey get a $500 guided trip
with somebody.
So, like I know, callan wentwith griff Adam Griffith, who's
on the crappie chronicles, andthen Kelsey just went bass
fishing with sam soby.
He did a cool video Um withthat.
(55:32):
When he went out and took herout, um, blake ended up being on
an episode of the crappiechronicles, um, so that was just
like our connections are arepretty deep in the fishing
community and the people thatthat were connected with our our
awesome people too.
So, and then what?
else, then they get a $500Shields gift card and then they
(55:53):
got a thousand dollars to playwith with whatever they want,
whether they want to just getset up with rods for life, or I
know callan got a new boat.
That wasn't new, but callan gota boat and a motor and kelsey
got a kayak with a graph.
So cool, you can get them outthere.
It's awesome on their own.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
Well, it's phenomenal , no, it's good.
They say you know, get theminto the fishing or hunting.
They won't have money to affordother things outside of there.
I hope he won't be smokingcrack yeah.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
I can't afford it.
Speaker 3 (56:26):
Yeah, that's, that's the goal.
Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah, I love it.
No, jake, that's awesome.
Thank you very much.
I know we're coming up in anhour here and we really
appreciate your time today andalso just to recap and let
everyone know About minnesota,made and fam.
You guys got a couple of reallyawesome programs there.
So just so our listeners areaware, or no, minnesota made you
had the email and the socialmedia from earlier.
(56:52):
How do people get in contactwith fam?
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Um our our website.
There is f a dash mnorg.
Either that or you can emailset future anglers mn at
gmailcom.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
And anything on the social media platform instagram.
Speaker 3 (57:11):
Yeah, so we're on um Facebook and instagram, I think,
correct.
Speaker 2 (57:20):
And everyone's aware too you know we do have
listeners from all over thecountry is based in minnesota.
So, um, I mean, if you're inthe area too for a family trip
or whatnot, and look these guysup if that's something to do.
But, um, you know, minnesota isa very, very hot commodity when
it comes to a fishingdestination for states in the
country, and the, the amount oflakes and species that you can
(57:41):
target out here is prettyphenomenal.
So make sure you look them upIf you're here or looking.
The Minnesota made things.
But, uh, gentlemen, do you haveany last final comments?
We'll start with andy.
Do you anything else you wantto say?
Speaker 4 (57:51):
Yes, if you're a veteran um First responder or
active duty.
If you want to go on this event, look for it Basically late
december, early january.
This trip will be posted forthe home of the brave event.
Tons of great prizes, good tosee us Um laughing and having a
good time.
So I encourage you to check itout and thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
Hey tony, how about you?
Speaker 5 (58:13):
Uh, I just have to thank jake uh for all he's done
for us.
Um, it truly it.
He he touches my heart.
Uh, jake and paul Um trulytouched my heart with all the
hard work that they do and allthe mn made guys and gals um
they they've become true friendsof mine and uh Definitely a
(58:35):
great group of people.
Speaker 2 (58:38):
It's awesome.
Oh, thanks, hey, jake.
Do you have any final thoughtsor things you want to share?
Speaker 3 (58:44):
If you make me cry on here, dude, I'm gonna punch you
.
I love it.
Um, no thanks, thanks, uh, IAgreed, like everything you guys
do is absolutely awesome.
Um, I'm just happy to be a partof it for one day and to help
and do that kind of stuff.
And and, uh, it's cool thatthat we can call each other
(59:05):
buddies and friends and brothersnow.
Um, I think that that's thecoolest part of this whole thing
.
And, uh, I look forward to, uh,to getting out to brunch
someday.
Speaker 2 (59:16):
Maybe you gotta do brunch.
We do it, we gotta do it.
No, that's awesome.
No, jake, I gotta say thank youtoo.
I know I watch these two guyslight up every year when this
time comes and I'm excited theyget, and I know it's a huge
thing that they have to lookforward to.
And we all have our own littleniches when it comes to the
things that we like to do in theoutdoors, our trips that we
host or the things that we getengaged with.
(59:36):
And these guys are, they glow.
I'm serious when this comesaround the corner and then, uh,
appreciate everything you guysdo and the work that you put in
for the organization and ourmembers.
I know people rent and raveabout it all the time.
I'm pretty sure that if we likehad people like fight Out front
of the house, people wouldprobably fight to get on the
trip.
Uh, it's just, it's just thathighly sought after and people I
(59:58):
could be doing it would be.
I mean, it's another way theycould pick people, I guess.
Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
Last two spots, it's it's fight yeah right.
Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Like club out back your dad's gonna be there though
, andy, so but no, it could bethe awesome that.
Yeah right.
I'm a little gladiator mode atthe end, um, but everyone has a
blast and everyone rants andraves about how awesome it is
every time, and Even during thecoldest days of our year in the
north, um, it's.
It's a very good time that Iget to see uh Unfold on social
(01:00:31):
media and hear from these guysand how it was.
So appreciate you and your teamand everything you do,
especially on the fam side ofthings the kids getting kids in
the outdoors is huge.
So we thank you very much.
So everyone knows how to get ahold of minnesota made and fam
at this point and Reallyappreciate everything they've
done for us and the organizationand we continue to hope to have
(01:00:52):
that partnership, continue tobuild and be here and Help each
other out and for our membersthat are out there.
You know outdoors Is somethingthat we are very involved with
when it comes to our mentalhealth side of things.
But a fair times where it getsa little bit to be too much,
please feel free to reach out us, to us at hho.
So we have our staff hastrained in our assist training
or applied to the setintervention skills training,
(01:01:14):
you know, and if it's somethingthat's more immediate, you know
you can always call 988 or text988 for the crisis intervention
line.
But Just because you're havinga difficult time today doesn't
mean we can't get through it.
So let's stay here today so wecan talk about things tomorrow
and get our way through it.
But that ends today's podcast.
So thank you all for being heretoday.
Really appreciate you all andContinue into uh grow the future
(01:01:36):
of hho and helping our membersout for that.
We'll see you all next week.
Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Thank you for listening to the hometown hero
outdoors podcast.
For more information, visit ourwebsite at
hometownherooutdoorsorg.
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