A Family Tradition With Nick Lindner

In this podcast episode, we sit down with Nick Lindner to talk about family, tradition, and a lifelong passion for walleye fishing. Nick shares stories of growing up in the fishing industry, lessons learned on the water, and how family values shape success in fishing and business. From walleye fishing tactics to building a legacy through angling, this conversation is packed with insight every angler can appreciate. Perfect for anglers who love walleye fishing, fishing podcasts, and stories that connect generations through the outdoors.

What is Reel Talk Fishing | With No Limits?

I'm Brian Bashore, Professional walleye angler and owner of The Walleye Guys Guide service. I am here to reel you in with captivating stories, expert tips, and interviews with some of the biggest names in the fishing community. So, sit back, relax, and let the drag scream!

Brian Bashore (00:01.546)
Hey folks, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Real Talk Fishing with No Limits. Today we're talking ice and everything nice, even some open water with the man who knows it the best of coming over from the ice capital of the world, it seems like over there in Minnesota. We got with us Mr. Nick Lindner. How we doing today? How's the fishing been? Outstanding.

Nick Lindner (00:21.528)
Good. How are you doing? it really no limits? That's the name. OK.

Brian Bashore (00:25.682)
It's no limits. No limits. That's the name. Unlike Minnesota, where it sounds like they're bringing your limits down.

Nick Lindner (00:33.122)
That's true. Yeah. No, that's a, that is one of the hot topics. I'm even starting to see some, obviously like the fishing community has been talking about bringing the limits down in Minnesota for a long time. but like, we're just starting to see the mainstream news. I just saw an article this morning when I was looking, so it must be real now. It must be actually happening potentially. So.

Brian Bashore (00:54.274)
I mean, I don't know if it's, I don't get a fish over there very much. And, you know, when I do travel, it's for an NWT and we don't go to Minnesota very often. So when every time we go, you kind of got different limits all around the state anyway, but is it, I mean, that, are you seeing numbers decline? Is it fishing pressure? It's live scope, right? Everybody wants to blame it on that, but it's not.

Nick Lindner (01:15.51)
Yeah, mean, all of, mean, basically, I mean, the vast, vast, vast majority of our fisheries are put and take while I fisheries basically. So like everything is stocked. and like, for the most part, most people I think are, you know, keeping what they catch and all that. And obviously there's, there's people that don't, you know, there's people that do it for the sport of it, but, yeah, no, it's a, I don't know. mean,

Ultimately, there's like a ton of ton of walleyes in all of our lakes. So I don't know. I mean, I would say before Ford facing, especially like the argument was like, well, you know, most people are going to catch two or three walleyes. So what's the point of bringing it down or, you know, leaving it up? It's all there's almost like an artificial limit, the amount that you can catch. Right. So anyway, I don't know. I think it's generally a positive thing. think

Brian Bashore (02:06.76)
Yep. Yep.

Nick Lindner (02:12.674)
I think at the end of the day, six walleyes is like a crap load of walleyes. So, per person, you go out with two other buddies and you got 18 walleyes in the well. I mean, that's enough to feed you and your families for several meals. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (02:16.478)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. mean.

Brian Bashore (02:26.09)
Oh, wow. I was, uh, you know, was guiding, we'll catch a couple and I'm like, two, I'm like, two is a meal for like my wife and I have a guy like two, nice 18, 19 inches. I'm like, that's a lot that the fish is feeling, you know? So I'm like, that's a lot of fish. When I get clients that are, you get meat fishermen out there and they want to fill that box nest of goals, get their limit. And yeah, we want to catch as many possible, but I'm like, are you really going to eat all those? If there's four of you in the boat and you know, over here, it's four.

You know, and then the course, you know, they want to keep those big ones. I'm like, you're the, if you're paying customer, it's your fish. You can do what you want. I'm going to give you my input. And 95 or more percent of the time they're like, okay, cool. And they throw it back, you know, those 22 plus inches. Um, but I gotta keep tabs on the Mille Lacs thing. Cause that's always an issue, you know, with the limit over there, it's keep one you can't keep. You can only fish till after July 1st, you can't keep any, but I think they bumped it up a little bit this year. So, but all they hear is what a great fishery.

Nick Lindner (03:09.388)
Yeah, yeah.

Brian Bashore (03:26.344)
And how healthy it is. I'm like, then, but you can't keep any fish. get it. The whole tribal thing and the netting is, it's just kind of a shit show over there more or less.

Nick Lindner (03:35.372)
Yeah. I think, I think they're bringing, I think they're bringing the limit up to three here pretty soon. And, or maybe it is now already. don't, I don't like keep on it up on it super hard because I'm generally not harvesting a lot anyway, especially places like Mille Lacs and stuff. But, but yeah, whether it's three or it's zero, I feel like the fishery in a lot of ways has been really similar.

the years. know there's a good there's a lot of walleyes. It's a good amount of smallmouth. The walleye bite has varied pretty dramatically in over that period of time but it's not really anything to do with the amount of walleyes in the system. It's almost more to do with just the amount of forage in the system. Like the last year year and a half or so the bite on Mille Lacs has been really tough but it's just because there's so much forage you know.

It's like, mean, Malax is insane. It's like a forage making machine. There's so much mud, there's so many bugs. you've got, like throughout the course of the summer, you'll have, you know, you'll start the year off with some of the minnow hatches and you got the perch hatches and stuff like that. And then it's bug hatches like every single week. So the walleyes are just super, super well fed.

And then other years, you know, the walleyes are skinny and you can catch 30 of them. So it's just, it's all, it varies so much.

Brian Bashore (05:08.486)
It's tough when you have to, you can eat buffet all year, you know, and then you go out there and try to throw something in there and say, but this is better. I promise. You tried to trick them into it. asked Joel Nelson about that a few years back. We're talking about Mille Lacs and I was like, how the smallies are here about what a great small mouth fishery it is the wall. I'm like, you can't keep in these fish. How is there any forage? And he was like, forage is not a problem. And he's like the amount of, you know, baby perch and whatever. And that's what you just second to that in a sense that.

Yeah, it's a forage factory, which that can support it kind of Lake Oahe. Why are these fish getting so big? It's the, you know, the, the herring and there's a lot of bait, but like any system, goes, it's sicklet in a bit where we have a flood and all that stuff gets pushed out. There's no forage. Boom. The fish are starving. They're hungry, but they're skinny, you know, and then obviously they're not growing. And I rather just, I'd rather it be a tougher bite with a lot of forage than no forage in an easy.

Nick Lindner (06:02.754)
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense for sure. The smallmouth thing is interesting too, because it seems like the smallmouth, they're almost just on a whole different plane than the walleye to some degree, because of course they're eating some minnow and some Cisco and stuff like that, but.

they eat so much crayfish on malax. So they pretty much just like have that, you know, that they can go and take advantage of. And I know when they've done like diet studies, they found like almost like exclusively crayfish. And obviously that's going to depend on time of year and whatnot. But yeah, I feel I feel like the smallmouth will always have stuff to eat no matter what happens with the walleye population and all that.

Brian Bashore (06:46.858)
It's interesting. There's that, that many crayfish even. It's just, it's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. A lot, a lot of mud. Great for bugs, obviously. And then obviously you got, you got rock, you got crayfish. So we don't, I get to fish a lot of structuralist areas. with it's mud and then you hope that there's some weed growth. So the river, we got weeds and submerged trees. It depends on what part of the Missouri river you're on. guess there's obviously some rock, uh, loose and carcass, but most my time we have like one rock pile.

Nick Lindner (06:50.318)
It was a lot of rock, you know.

Nick Lindner (06:55.928)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (07:16.858)
and start to get a lot of weeds thanks to the zebra mussels, which is helping the forage in this fall. There's more bait than ever. The perch are, know, booming and getting big. And because now they have a place to hide. you know, which they never did before. And I mean, I have yet to see a zebra mussel fishery go down versus get better when you move into certain places. Of course, the DNR will never say that publicly.

It's the...

Nick Lindner (07:46.574)
You gotta make sure to clean, drain and dry, right?

Brian Bashore (07:49.543)
Yep. Yep. I'm like, I don't know who doesn't pull their plug, but I guess it's easy to forget, but I, got a whole different opinion on that. don't, I don't have a lot of zebra mussels sticking to my boat flying down the river. you know, at 60 miles an hour, even while you're moving and fishing, I get it. If you leave your boat in the slip for all summer long, something's going to attach to it. But I'd say you can't pick up a, if we get a snag and bringing a stick or something, or even just a rock, it's going to be wadded. You're going to have them all over and those could easily drop into your boat or what have you. So.

Nick Lindner (07:54.348)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (08:19.562)
I don't know. You ain't stopping it. It's giant waste of money.

Nick Lindner (08:19.884)
Yeah, I don't. I would tend to agree. So, but yeah, I mean, I was. I'm not like I don't study this field or anything, but from what I've heard, the vast majority of a lot of that is from things that are in the water for a long time coming in and out of the water, like boat lifts and stuff like that. So anyway.

Brian Bashore (08:47.668)
Yeah, you can't, you just gotta let mother nature will do it. It does. mean, like we had, ally on here once and he explained it to, were on the same page, both kind of nerdy science guys. He's obviously that's what he does. So he's way he gets it. And he's like an area, right? don't have areas, not the fishery it is without the zebra mussels coming in years ago and cleaning up the water, but they're not there no more. Now it's Kuga muscles. Right. There's things will happen in the systems and they will die out or expand or

Nick Lindner (09:12.385)
Okay.

Brian Bashore (09:16.926)
Whatever the case may be, I'm not a biologist. So, but I've seen it happen all over places where there isn't too many zebra mussels. know a little lakes have tried to, they've drained them and that'll take care of it. And then they fill it back up. And two years later, there's zebra mussels in there and get them like you stop wasting these taxpayer dollars on all this stuff that a bird can pick up and transfer to another body of water in the next 10 minutes. This is a, this is dumb. So that's what zebra mussel soap box.

Nick Lindner (09:44.066)
Yeah, no, I'm with you. And one thing I just like bugs me so much is I'll pull up to just a random local lake and they've got this big giant like machine like for washing down boats and whatever. And they got two people. So they're paying two people to sit at the ramp all day. This might be unlike a Wednesday. You know, it might have two or three people come to the ramp that day.

at the most in some cases. And so they've got two people that they're paying to sit there and they have a super expensive big giant machine that they had to wheel over there and park. you know, anyway, so, yeah, it's I mean, I'm sure that barely costs any money to do right.

Brian Bashore (10:26.46)
It's, it's yeah. Well, you're Minnesota and I think everybody's seen that your government is really good at managing funds. super very, very good at it. So things are a little different over there, but they definitely spent a lot of money on it. South Dakota has gotten a lot better. I haven't had the interns at the boat ramp all summer and, know, thankfully they at least use the interns to do that. They're there, but they're doing krill studies and other things. They're not so much on.

Nick Lindner (10:52.931)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (10:53.16)
I'm handing out the information sheets because that's all you can really do is educate people on it. However, one day this year is a weekday blown like 40. I was the only boat on the water. It's probably like August or July. And I come out and there's the little mobile wash down trailer in a truck sitting in the parking lot with two people in it, which I haven't seen the entire year. And this is a weekday and I'm the only boat in this boat parking lot holds a hundred, 200.

trucks and trailers and there's one truck and trailer there and that's mine and these people sat there waited till I got off the water and it pulled out and then they asked me a couple questions looked around I'm like are you freaking serious look at all these if you work for the park go pick up all those branches that are broke go do something else I mean this is absolute this is ridiculous I'm glad you're doing your job they're like you think today's bad you should have seen where we're at yesterday I'm like awesome so you sat somewhere there was nobody

Nick Lindner (11:31.502)
Well, it's good.

Brian Bashore (11:46.827)
During the week, if you want to check people come here on a Saturday, when this thing is completely full, then you'll create a traffic jam and have a bunch of pissed people, know, off people. like we, we, we do something better and they're, they're young, they're summer help. I'm sure they're not paying them a ton of money and they keeping them busy. Maybe it's, it's had to feel some time that day. I don't know, but there's literally the only time I'd seen them all, all years. So they're definitely doing better. I know Wyoming has stepped up their game. So they're kind of late to the game and coming in heavy, like Minnesota does. The other could have got a little better about it. And I haven't fished in Nebraska for a while, so I

Nick Lindner (12:00.59)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (12:16.978)
Anyway, enough zebra mussels. That's just, gotta get my blood pressure rising. we start getting governmental and start talking about funding. we'll go back a little bit. So people that don't know Nick, tell them a little bit. What's your backstory? Where you been working? What are you doing? What's coming up for the don't know Nick's just, they recognize the name probably, you know, and they're like, Hey, that sounds pretty damn familiar guys all over the YouTube, all over the social media out there, ice fishing, putting out.

Nick Lindner (12:21.57)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (12:46.346)
killer content, of the putting out some of the best tips. I watch stuff all the time. I'm like, all right. Yeah, I had to try that. You know, it's between you and Brett out there on a Tuesday night or whatever it be putting out stuff, but let our listeners and viewers know just a little bit of Nick's background.

Nick Lindner (13:03.622)
yeah, I mean, I guess even before I get into that, I should also just, I should also just mention like, while I'm on the same page with you on the AIS stuff, I, if there's anyone listening, like I'm not like a straight up like DNR hater, whatever, right? That's just like one thing I feel like is a kind of a waste of money and frivolous and like whatever, you know, but, they do, they do like a ton of super good stuff and there's a lot of

Brian Bashore (13:21.556)
Perfect.

Nick Lindner (13:33.556)
a of good things happening, especially here in Minnesota, because that's what I know, you know, but like in other places, I'm sure too. But I should just say that quick too.

Brian Bashore (13:40.947)
Overwhelming. mean, you have a right. No, it's you have an overwhelming amount of bodies of water. And as you said earlier, they're all full of walleyes and that just doesn't happen. Yeah. That just doesn't happen by itself. So there is some funding and some management that's going great. do a lot of great. The South Dakota, our CEOs are awesome here. and our fisheries are excellent. You know, other States or other States that everybody has their own issues. But when you started getting into how things are managed,

Nick Lindner (13:50.742)
Yeah, they do a great job in a lot of ways.

Brian Bashore (14:10.794)
someone's always going to have a gripe one way or the other. But overall, I think most of the fisheries across the whole Midwest that I go to are all, they're all thriving. So I think.

Nick Lindner (14:18.67)
Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. No, but I was wanting to throw that in there, but, uh, yeah. So, uh, me, so I thought, like you said, I make a lot of YouTube content. Um, and I grew up in a fishing family for sure. So, uh, grew up fishing with my dad. lot of my dad is, uh, James Linder, Jim Linder. Uh, so grew up doing a lot of bass fishing with him and musky fishing in the fall. Uh,

Brian Bashore (14:22.442)
Perfect.

Nick Lindner (14:49.016)
a lot of, know, stuff like that. And actually in the winter, which we're in the middle of the winter right here now, did a lot of like my dad, he likes to go a little bit off the beaten path. Like I didn't, I didn't do a lot of like walleye and crappie fishing when I was a kid through the ice. it was more like catfish and whitefish. I feel like we're the two main things we would go for in the winter. So

That's just kind of, that's like his style in the winter and a lot of bass and muskies in the summer. you know, so from there, like I ended up working with him in my teenage years, early 20 years. So, you know, spending a lot of time with my grandpa, Ron and his brother, Al and uncle Daniel and my dad's cousin, Troy. So, you know, it's kind of a whole big family of...

you guys that like to fish and Uncle Willie as well, who's an awesome photographer. So that's like, that's a little bit of my background, but yeah, just.

Brian Bashore (15:53.739)
All legends and I've, worked, I've got to work with several of those guys. I've been out, had some dinners and done some photo shoots with, with your dad and Bill was running the camera on some of those occasions. And yeah, that apple didn't fall far from the tree. It kind of hit Nick in the head and here you are.

Nick Lindner (15:57.966)
Okay.

Nick Lindner (16:13.454)
Well, you know, so just spend so much time in it, right? Like I I remember being, you know, this this tall or whatever. You guys don't have a reference. I'm sitting now. Can't hear, but real. remember being real, real small and going out musky fishing in Minnesota, like on the Mississippi River when the lakes are probably at least scammed, maybe have some ice on it.

And you know that little seven-year-old Nick was just in the boat so that dad could have another sucker in the water, you know? So I definitely have memories of that when I was younger. Just, yeah, cuddled up or whatever, cozied up underneath the, you know, the steering wheel with seven, seven jackets on me just trying to stay warm while we're dragging suckers for muskies. So.

Yeah, so I grew up in it and doing a lot of it. And then as I got older, you know, I started fishing some tournaments with my grandpa, just local derbies like the local bass league. And yeah, you can kind of see as like the patriarch of the family that my you know, how everyone got into fishing because he's a super he was a super awesome mentor just.

He always wants to help people out, whether it's family members or not. If you knew him, he was always looking to help and mentor people. He loved fishing those derbies. I loved fishing those derbies with him, just local around the Brainerd area. And then, yeah, growing up from there, some trap. When I went to college, I did a little bit of traveling with my dad.

He was running around the country a little bit, just fishing some of the bass opens. I went with him and practiced and did some co-angling in some of those tournaments, which was kind of cool going to all different types of places, basically from Tennessee up to New York to wherever. So that was just like a short little window. But from there, I started getting more into walleye fishing, just the challenge of it.

Nick Lindner (18:29.806)
grew up, you know, doing a lot of cast, casting and stuff like that. but so learning, trolling, you know, crank baits, rigs, all that sort of, sort of a whole new world kind of in my early twenties, learning some of that. And, uh, and yeah, I went from there and I sort of, uh, I definitely have started to like, had started to gravitate towards walleyes, uh, at that point in time, just because I think it

Excuse me. think it's just like the challenge of them. You know, they are difficult, especially locally around where we live. I mean, it's a lot of clear bodies of water. Super highly pressured fish. I mean, I would, I would assume the twin cities like metro area in Minnesota is probably, probably more pressured and difficult. But up by where we live, Brainerd, Minnesota, I mean, it's about as like

Brian Bashore (19:10.121)
No.

Nick Lindner (19:27.64)
challenging as it comes outside of places that just don't have wallets, know, or like really crap.

Brian Bashore (19:32.298)
You have a ton of walleye, but it doesn't mean they're easy to catch.

Nick Lindner (19:36.162)
Yeah, it would be normal to go out on any of these local lakes and use the best technology with the best baits and tactics that we've honed really, really hard and cast at 10, excuse me, cast at a hundred walleyes and maybe catch one or catch zero or catch four, you know, like that would be.

Brian Bashore (19:58.635)
But you guys make it look so easy on the social media stuff on YouTube.

Nick Lindner (20:02.686)
Yeah, well that's the that's the beauty of it I've been doing a little bit more live streams and like uncut videos where there's no editing and stuff like that and then those videos you get a feel for Just the challenge of you know catching these fish, but yeah most YouTube videos you watch I mean What you don't see in that YouTube video that someone put out is that they went out yesterday and didn't catch anything and then

Today they went out and smoked them, but I mean that was 12 hours and it was three fish, know, three nice fish, but it was three fish.

Brian Bashore (20:38.602)
Yeah, don't, most people don't realize how much work goes into a three minute YouTube video or even a full 20, 30 minute episode or whatever. It's like, might be three days involved into that. You know, not that's not counting editing. That's finding the fish, catching the fish. And then if you and I do a lot of the our own self filming, that's just another, that's a pain in the ass. mean, when you get someone along with you that could help or view bread or out doing some, it's like this so much better. Now if the fish would just cooperate, right? Cause.

Nick Lindner (20:43.758)
Yeah.

Nick Lindner (21:00.829)
yeah.

Brian Bashore (21:07.281)
I have an extra hand.

Nick Lindner (21:08.793)
Yeah, for sure. No, so we did a competition on Lake Winnipeg last winter that we shot like the last week of March and we it was like a 48 hour window. So we started about halfway through the day, fish the rest of that day through the night, the whole next day through the through the next night and then half of the next day. So it was a 48 hour window. And so it's ice camping.

fishing, trying to get your five biggest fish over that window, and self-filming. So the thing that's like, you can kind of show, you know, sort of the grind of some of those things in the video, but the one thing that is kind of hard to show and explain is just the grind of self-filming. You know, it takes so much, just extra like mind space and effort and sometimes time, you know, just trying to...

fix a camera that stopped working or you know. Yeah, exactly. So there's a lot of factors that go into shooting a YouTube video, but you get kind of decent at it over the years. You do it enough, so.

Brian Bashore (22:07.124)
battery management, especially if you're ice camping.

Brian Bashore (22:19.146)
Yeah, you get the you figure out how to keep those things running longer and beggar SD cards. So don't have to keep running over and turning it on and off. Cause then you're like, how many fish did I miss? Cause I was like, Oh crap. I forgot to the camera on. It. Yeah. It's a hassle.

Nick Lindner (22:34.094)
Yeah, some of it's just money too. I got some expensive batteries and you go into Amazon and you look, you you go to buy some SD cards and you're like $300 for this. Well, I guess I, I guess I have to get it. So yeah.

Brian Bashore (22:36.21)
Yeah, yeah, there's no doubt it.

Brian Bashore (22:52.682)
Yeah, it is. The gear isn't getting any cheaper. There's more of it. I mean, that's a good thing. guess the competitiveness can drive some of the price down, but a GoPro is still about the same price it was when they came out 15, 20 years ago. They're just getting better. So can make it better and keep the cost down. I guess. I don't know. I just saw a GoPro 360 of their day trying to compete with the other, you know, the 360. Yeah. So I'm like, all right, let's get the built in wifi. That would work. So, I don't know. It isn't cheap and it isn't.

Nick Lindner (23:13.656)
to 360.

Brian Bashore (23:21.578)
Isn't easy. Uh, your grandpa, Ron. I had one of my first time meeting with him was an MPA conference sat down and played cards. Man, you want to talk about some stories and just deny opener. if you got to fish them grimy, you are fortunate and blessed coming from that family. Uh, which explained why, why, you know what you're doing out there and you're, you know, how to put the content together. You know, how to media part of it works. You know how to, to film what people, you know, viewers are watching. So we'll drop the links in here.

Tell your social and your YouTube and your sponsor stuff. I mean, these guys are all benefiting greatly from me because you're putting it out the right way, right? How people want to see it. Cause you, you grew up doing it and seeing it done. Um, I was, it was an NPA conference, your dad and I was talking and Johnny Morris is coming. And of course Johnny Morris knows Ron. He knows them all and James and, uh, your dad walked up and said, Hey man, anything you think I can get, we can get.

a seat up your front for Ron. And I was like, well, yeah, definitely. He can sit wherever the hell he wants. He sees Ron. could, I don't know, he put a chair on stage, whatever man. Just be, wherever he wants James. It's cool. I was like, okay, that's great. Thanks. said, Hey, I do you want better? said, Johnny just showed up and I can use a little company in the green room. You just want to come back. Ron was on one of his last years here and hit boy moved like it was, he was 13 getting ready to take out the blocks and a hundred meter dash.

He's like, yep, let's go. He left the little walker thing and just went right up the stairs. Dave was like, said, Nope, let's go. It was just like two flights, but he went up around and those two, was like reuniting a couple that haven't seen each other in 40 years. I mean, you know, he's like trying to introduce himself and Johnny Morris is like, just gave him a big hug. And he's like, I know, I know who you are, you know, and, and it was great. They sat there and BS that I went and brought Gary Parsons in as well.

Nick Lindner (25:12.95)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (25:19.658)
Um, just to keep some people that he was familiar with. Johnny gets a little nervous when he's speaking to his peers. So it happens to the biggest of names. He, uh, he likes to, he's very chill and doesn't do a lot of big, big public speaking type stuff. may see him at a bass tournament or something like that. Um, but he's thinking of 250 people at the NPA conference. So these are all professional anglers or aspiring ones to be in and man, he can talk and, and it was awesome, but what made it more awesome was.

Nick Lindner (25:26.55)
Okay, interesting.

Brian Bashore (25:49.385)
having Ron there, having James there, know, Al's come in the past and spoke and those things just, they're, legendary names in a wildlife world that will be around forever. You're carrying on that torch, you're keeping it going, keeping things. It's, it's just, it's awesome. and just super glad to see it. You're, you're, fortunate and just, I hope you just keep fishing and putting it out. Cause they're, mean, just it's good stuff, man. Just keep on doing it.

Nick Lindner (26:17.358)
Yeah, no, I, yeah, absolutely. I agree. I'm super lucky for sure. I think one thing that that did kind of set them apart at different points is like you said with with with Gramps with Ron, like his his his energy. mean, he is he's not the kind of guy. Oh, OK, let's go. Like he is. He. Yeah, he's got.

Brian Bashore (26:40.071)
no.

Nick Lindner (26:43.928)
crazy energy. He's a guy. He's a like a man of action. Like if we're talking about non non fishing tips here, you know, just life tips, like be a person of action, you know, go after what you're going to do. I mean, he'll be he'll think of something. He'll be on the phone with five people setting up, sending it up. And this was something, you know, from a conversation at lunch, you know, and most people when they have, you know, their their master master ideas, they have to

spend six months stewing on it and making sure it's the right idea before they take action. And he was like a person of action for sure. Right. So like way back in the day when they were just starting TV, like they ID TV is something that would be good to do. And he just went out and he got some cameras and they just went out and did TV. You know.

Yeah, so it's just his personality was, you know, basically, I mean, if it wasn't for his personality of going out and doing that, mean, who knows if anyone would know who Al is today, you know? Al might have just been a fishing guide or whatever, or maybe he would have, you know, found his way into the media. I don't know, but...

Brian Bashore (28:00.363)
Yeah, I think from my time with Ron, was, he was clearly, it was all business all the time. I mean, he just, but it wasn't, let's just go talk about business. was, he was a sponge and he never stopped learning. He always wanted, I mean, he's 77 years old at a conference and I'm talking about website development and might've been some media, socials type stuff. And Ron is in the front row and asked more questions than anybody. You know, he's like, what do you think about this? And YouTube's just kind of becoming a thing or us.

The walleye world, we're always quite a bit behind on a lot of this digital tech side of things. Um, you know, and so some of that stuff's just popping up. And I remember when Facebook was fairly new, you know, Ron's asking all these questions like, this. Yeah. Is this just crap or is this going to stick or what do you think? You know, and, it's, brilliant. Let's get everybody's opinion. And, know, in the room where this is going, because he's just thinking, how can I leverage this? You know, how, what are we going to do? What's Linder media going to do? And it just.

Nick Lindner (28:42.702)
He was all over that. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (28:58.472)
They made so many moves where Al is always just that constant. This guy can catch fish, you know, Ron's is he's in your, I the invention, the, beetle spin story and all that stuff. He's just, you're right. If he had a great idea is draw it down in about five minutes. Let's figure out how to put that thing to use.

Nick Lindner (29:16.3)
Yeah, no, it is crazy to just when you have that kind of personality and then as you start to do more things, you have more connections and stuff like that. It's crazy to know how many things that he had his finger on at different points in time. You said they like the Beatles spin thing, like the worm blower, like he invented the worm blower. Like that is the most random thing. And like what?

Brian Bashore (29:36.734)
Yup.

Nick Lindner (29:43.959)
What are a few of the other ones, you know, obviously like the Lindy rig back in the day or whatever. But I, and I had actually just recently found out that he was one of the early partners for shore lunch that you go buy at the grocery store, you know, and then he got out of that and, you know, folk was full point to focus on in fishermen and all the other stuff. But it was just like, you were involved in that too.

Brian Bashore (29:47.754)
Right.

Brian Bashore (30:09.044)
think those things are going to, those things are going to keep popping up through the next 20 years of your life. You're going to continue to stories and things about them that you probably never knew or heard or whatever. mean, they were the innovators, know, Ron and Al and then, you know, and James and it's just, and your next kind of generation of that is probably Gary and Keith and, know, and some of that. I think, you know, we're looking at things are moving fast nowadays. They're moving super fast and, and you're, you know, innovating you're out there.

Nick Lindner (30:33.016)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (30:37.522)
And you do a lot of stuff with, with Brett and those things kind of got up. There's going to be that next group. got chase and, know, and these guys, but the Dan Sprangler's creating baits as fast as you can possibly imagine over at rep or at Berkeley. And then you got the replica guys doing the same thing and it's hard to keep up, you know? So who is this? Who is the next Alan and Ron or Gary and Keith? And I don't, I don't, I don't think it'll be like a one or two guy thing. It's going to be probably a whole generation, you know,

Nick Lindner (30:52.312)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Bashore (31:07.72)
movement type stuff of you and, and that area of guys bringing this new technology into the stuff that you've already learned how to do the business side of it in a sense, right. From, growing up in it and Brett's getting it firsthand working over there with them every day, you know, or in his chase as well as growing up with that. think that's probably the next big bang and next big movement, which is awesome because this isn't an easy, easy industry or business to be in.

You could probably attest to it. None of us are getting super rich off it by all means. Neither. We're not retired. It's why you see these guys fishing when they're 60, 70, 80 years old. They're still doing this stuff because they want to, because we love it, but we have to as well. A little bit of necessity in there.

Nick Lindner (31:51.747)
Yeah, now that makes sense. Yeah, the idea is if you can just own the same home long enough, eventually you'll own your home. So that's a good, that's the retirement strategy.

Brian Bashore (32:03.242)
Yep. Stay at the same place long enough. What, uh, you're in the industry. What do you kind of feel where it's moving? Obviously the forward facing sonar stuff has been hot topic everywhere. Back to DNR, Minnesota guys are taking the lead on that and doing a lot of research and studying, um, which is good with Jeremy on here, Juan Smith. And we chatted about that a little bit. I think he helped out with some of that. Uh, but we're still too early to tell on a lot of this stuff. If it's effects or not, don't think it's affecting a whole hell of a lot or.

You know, will it ever? What are you? You kind of got your your finger on the pulse where you think things are going in the industry. Good bad tackle sales angling numbers.

Nick Lindner (32:45.294)
It seems to me like a lot of people are fishing. You know, I can tell you when I go out in the lake, it seems like there's a lot of angling hours happening. So I think that's a great thing. You know, I think the biggest thing is just going to be. Yeah, just keeping up with the resource, keeping up, you know, and I think.

The resource seems like it's really good here in Minnesota. That's what I know best is Minnesota. It seems like things are in good shape. We got tons of walleyes in the lake, like I mentioned before. The bass fishing is awesome in Minnesota. Crazy, crazy good. I think they're working through some things on the muskie side. think stocking had been down statewide for a bit there in Minnesota.

but musky fishing, you know, still is pretty good around here as well. And they're doing a lot of stuff on the panfish side to try and, you know, rebound some of those populations. And I think that a lot of that is working. So the resource has been great. but yeah, it seems like there's a lot of people in the industry for sure. You know, about a month ago, we had that St. Paul ice show, which is a big deal kind of in the ice world, kind of like the ICAST of ice fishing, you know, and,

Numbers are never, you know, since the COVID years, the pandemic years, like numbers have not been the same, but like there's still a lot of people, there's still a lot of hype. And I think people are just going to those types of things less. I we're seeing, I mean, this isn't like, this isn't news by any means, like more and more people obviously are just becoming more more reliant on the internet for.

Networking, know, if it's social media and they're seeing what's happening, they're seeing the reports The ice reports the fishing reports all that they're hearing about bites in different places Like, know how many people knew about green wall eyes and like Winnipeg 20 years ago, you know, and now it's like

Nick Lindner (34:55.082)
Everyone's seen that video. You'll still see you'll still have a couple comments, you know, they're like a green walleye. That's crazy Where is that from? But like people know about it, right? Like the amount of stuff that everyone knows is so much higher just being honest and transparent and no limits is pretty big in today's world because There's so much information out there and you just can't get away with

You can't get away with not only can't you get away with lying, you can't get away with being biased, you know, in today's world. So, yeah, so it just seems like the information there's so much of it. Some of the sports shows, you know, they might see dwindling attendance and people might think, man, like the industry is going down, you know, or whatever.

but like more it's just because more people are plugged in on the internet and there's less need for that in person stuff. So yeah, I don't know if that was the direction you wanted to go on that.

Brian Bashore (35:55.819)
Yeah, I know. think the sports show stuff is dwindling, but it seems like the sales are good. In which I always talk to, you know, when I'm at one with Gold Snap or Norse, whoever. it's like, tenants was low, but we sold a ton of suits and we sold a ton of batteries. then that's what we're here for. So it be less people, but those people that are there usually are there to buy, you know, and it's a place where you can go and look at this company, A versus B right there. might, hell, they might be next to each other or across each other in booths.

Nick Lindner (35:59.951)
Mm.

Brian Bashore (36:24.202)
And kind of see where you can get them. So it's all, there's always good deals at those pork shows. If you're looking to save up a few bucks at St. Paul, I show the Dakota angler, fishing Institute is it'll be called, moving forward. Those things are great, great places. And, they, they, they help keep those, small businesses like Dakota angler obviously intact. But I think a lot of people also come to them just for the camaraderie. They want to come, they want to come see Nick and they want to come see, I think you had a chemo some parts, bunch of those guys are in the.

Whitewater booth over there. had Max over in the cold snap booth. it's great place to come meet and mingle and what have you. So they're still good. They're still, they're fun. I know if you're working it, it can get a little old come Sunday. You're like, man, these are, these are some long days, man. You know? but I don't know, I don't know if they'll ever uptick.

Nick Lindner (37:04.963)
Yeah.

Nick Lindner (37:14.144)
It's good place to go and get sick if you're to be there for three days.

Brian Bashore (37:19.284)
That's, this is definitely true. You cannot have enough go wash your hands. Plenty. did, the code anger eyes when I came home and two days later, I'm like, man, had the crowd that lasted. Yeah. It's been last and most of December or mostly it was, that was really November. lasted most of November. It So bring a lot of hand sanitizer, but the tournaments you're not doing lot of any really tournaments nowadays, except for what you got league night. think you guys do.

Nick Lindner (37:34.338)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Lindner (37:45.293)
Yeah, we do a league night, which is super fun. And honestly, I mean, it's, really challenging, you know, like, there's super good anglers in there. we've already talked about it, but like the fisheries obviously have their own challenges as well. so you really learn a lot fishing any sort of competitive thing because you get to find out, you get to go out on the water, either do well or maybe not do well. And then you get to.

Brian Bashore (37:50.638)
yeah.

Nick Lindner (38:14.006)
chat with all the different people that were on the water and compare notes. And I think anytime you go out with one or two buddies and you compare notes, you learn so much. So imagine going out in a competitive fashion and fishing as hard as you possibly can for a certain window of time, and then getting to talk to potentially 25 other people that were out there, including some people who absolutely spanked them. So

Yeah, the local derbies are super, super fun. Me and Brett McComis partnered up on them and, you know, we do well sometimes, you know, sometimes we get beat. but sometimes we win, sometimes we don't win.

Brian Bashore (38:50.744)
I hear you. Right. Yeah. I've said the same boat, you know, run up a local league as well. And sometimes you do great and you're like, well, you're the guy, you're out here all day, every day. like, yeah, but that's sometimes a, can hinder you for one. I've been out here since 7 AM and you know, worked all day and then was off the water for 15 minutes and went and plugged a boat in to get a charge, which thank God I got lithiums. Now I don't have to do that. And then go back out until nine. You might be a little exhausted in that hot hundred degree July day.

you know, but then it, and you get suckered into something that was there and literally like in a river fishery can change so much by the afternoon evening bite is that's, that's long gone and you needed to move on, but you're right. I'll see, man, I saw those guys fishing over there and you know, and they, spanked us. So that just tells me tomorrow I got to, I need to move over there with my clients and try, try that maybe, but it's fun. And the local things is you're, you're fishing against people that know that fishery, like probably the best 20.

you know, sticks are on that body of water.

Nick Lindner (39:51.011)
Yeah. And there's and yeah, so not only are they some of the best sticks on the water, but they're also just on those waters. But they're also just like some of the best sticks out there, too. I mean, obviously you got the NWT and you've got the aim series and people who are, you know, out there all the time. And there's people from all over. Right. But like we have some of the guys that we have in our league, you know, do extremely well or win.

a of the regional tournaments. like one of the guys in our league is Jay Kahe, you know, and he's just one of the best Walleye dudes that exists. Like he's one of the best Walleye anglers out there. And like he didn't win, he, and his partner didn't win AOI this year, you know, they didn't win the team of the year. They did the year before.

Brian Bashore (40:33.834)
Yeah. There's so many guys that are great that can compete at the highest level, but don't. mean, there's all sorts of variables. mean, the vacation time, I mean, there's so many variables that go into it, or they just maybe don't like that, that just don't do it. And it doesn't mean that they're not, you'll never, you never know who really is the best out there. Like the bass, Oh, it's Jacob Wheeler. It's Van Damme. And yeah, they've won millions. Yeah. I mean, you want to be the best. got to fish that top level and be recognized at it.

Nick Lindner (40:39.693)
Yeah.

Nick Lindner (41:00.012)
Yeah, on the bass side, there's a lot more financial incentive to go and fish those tours. And if you do well, you can make a lot more money. On the walleye side, there's less opportunities, right? So you have some extremely good anglers who don't tour, you know, basically. So and then there's enough, you know, like regional derbies where you get to see, know, there's like in Minnesota, for example, like we have, you know, the graha in.

Brian Bashore (41:04.148)
Right. Lots more. Right.

Nick Lindner (41:28.012)
Grand Rapids area and then, you know, there's some big tournaments up on Leech and then there's, you know, a bunch of moderate sized tournaments where you actually, you can go and win 10, 20 grand, you know, on Gull Lake, Pumiji, you know, down in the Metro. And then there's a bunch of awesome tournaments in the Dakotas as well, you know. So, yeah, like I remember one year, was that two years ago? can't remember. Kahi, like, you know, fished in our league and I think it was his rookie year.

on the NWT did pretty good. And then they had a Derby on, I don't know if it was Sakakawea or Oahe or where it was. And then he just stayed in the Dakotas for like a couple more weeks and just like won a couple of the other tournaments out there that just happened to be going on after that. So, and, and yeah, think Tom Wynn went this last year and won, I think a bigger one over there too. So.

Brian Bashore (42:15.37)
Yeah, he's good.

Brian Bashore (42:21.49)
Yeah, he was fishing right next to me. So we were for the whole two days. Yep. Yep.

Nick Lindner (42:24.396)
Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's cool, right? I mean, it's, there's, there's not, you know, you don't necessarily, while we don't have the infrastructure that maybe the Bassmaster, Bassmaster, you know, MLF type stuff has in place and, as much as like a national draw, you know, Wally fishing is a little bit, it's more Northern, obviously. there's still a lot of like cool opportunities for guys to go and compete. So.

I enjoyed the derby stuff and I would do more of it. I just, need to get, I need to get a big glass boat so I can, I can handle some of these bodies of water. That's kind of where I'm at.

Brian Bashore (43:02.09)
Yeah, it, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm glad I'm in a fiberglass. It's an EV21 nitro from a 20 21. And there's definitely a difference, but jumping from my old aluminum lawn into a, when I went over to a fiberglass to a Ranger years ago, I'm like, Oh, there's a big difference. Not that it can't be done. There's plenty of guys that still run the aluminum to jump in, but when you get sent to the great lakes or some of these big bodies and it's kind of blow in it.

Nick Lindner (43:28.003)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (43:29.232)
It sucks. You're going to get, mean, even a fiberglass boat, it sucks. So I can only imagine, you know, what some of that's like, and it's definitely not a draw Mississippi river. It's like, Hey, give me a John boat. You know, you know, some of these situations you're like, want, Tim Abraham, I think brought his jet boat last time we're at lacrosse and sweet. You can do the place and new could go anywhere. Unfortunately, the fish weren't in the backwaters, which if they were, he would have whooped up on everybody. So you could get to them. So.

Nick Lindner (43:52.363)
This is fun.

Yeah. No. So that's the hard part, right? I mean, it would be really fun to go fish some of that, like the Great Lakes and stuff, but you can't, you just can't commit to going and doing that if you don't have a big boy boat, you know, like a big giant class boat is kind of, you almost just have to do it. If you're going to go, if you're going to go somewhere and you're going to put dates in your calendar and you're going to say, I'm going to go out and fish unless they call the Derby off.

Like you can't you can't commit to doing that without without a big boat.

Brian Bashore (44:26.652)
If anybody wonders about that, go follow a Joshua Jones. He jumped in the NWT cup. This is the big guy in a little boat. doesn't have a little boat no more because he went, this doesn't work out very well because he's a big dude. And maybe he had like an 18 foot Luma craft or something like that. And at Erie, and it was brutal. Hell I came in. and he couldn't, he couldn't go out. He went out kind of just pass the takeoff and fish for a little bit. And he was like, this is dumb. But, but it was smart. It was like, yes, you should not be going out there.

Nick Lindner (44:51.832)
Can't do this. No.

Brian Bashore (44:55.9)
in that none of us should be going out there and that's what you definitely should be in your boat. And he did that for the first year and he was like, you know, and that's just what he had, right? That's what the, it's whatever. That's the boat he had and jumped in, learned a lot, but then come in, I think last year was the second year on tour and he went and got a six 20 or six 20 butter ranger, a lot of fiberglass boat. And then he's like, I got this. Now he's, he's like, yeah, this, this is a little bit of a game changer. And this is kind of where I need to be. If I'm going to, if I'm going to invest all that money to compete for this, this is probably one of the biggest.

tools in the box.

Nick Lindner (45:28.11)
Yeah, well, and yeah, like an 18, 19 foot aluminum boat is just a perfect, amazing boat for 98 % of fisheries. But you get out in the Great Lakes. I've never been to Sakakawea, but I would assume you get out there at the wrong time. And if you don't have a big glass boat, you're gonna watch what did.

Brian Bashore (45:44.741)
Yep.

Yep. Cause that 2%, those are the tournament days. That's just how it works. Yep. Yep. Trust me. We wish they weren't that we were in Minnesota and some of these smaller bodies, especially for like championships. Cause you got that great fisheries. mean, those are great fisheries where like a devil's lake, which still big body of water, but those kinds of fisheries, like you have a ton over there in Minnesota where every technique you can use so you can fish to your strengths.

Nick Lindner (45:50.67)
And that's where all the tournaments are. They're on the 2 % waters. They're all in the big giant bodies of water.

Nick Lindner (46:04.206)
tomorrow.

Brian Bashore (46:17.098)
you're a troll, go troll. If you're a slip bobber, a jig, you know, whatever, all those bites are usually sometimes happen at the same times. Kakui is a good place to walk. You can kind of get some of that, not because we just don't. You have rocks and structure and weeds and mud and most of the places we go don't have all of those things. You know, unless they're 50 miles apart.

Nick Lindner (46:35.117)
Yeah. Yep.

Nick Lindner (46:39.328)
Yeah, they're outside of the water clarity. They're they're super diverse. We have like a super diverse. We have like a lot of super diverse resources where we live with. We do have the dirty water and stuff as well. But if you get planted on one big body of water, like, yeah, the only thing that's not going to be diverse is the water clarity on that lake. You know, like it might be a clear fishery or a dirty fishery, but.

We got weeds, we got rocks, we have mud, we got, you can do anything, you know, like some of the local leagues, especially before Ford facing, mean, we'd have, you know, guys would be catching them. You didn't know if the lead core guys were going to win or if the jig flippers, you know, and the weed edges were going to win, or if you had to run up into three feet of water, you know, and throw plastics or something. And then, and then turns out the guys.

then ended up winning, were trolling crankbaits in the weeds in like six feet of water and they were just like getting followed up like crazy and then they'll pop it off and but they could pop it out of the weeds five or six times and get five or six big bites for the night and that was it. yeah. No, that's like a specific example, right? You think, it's going to be, you know, pulling spinners, you know.

Brian Bashore (47:50.516)
Sounds like that's happened to you. yeah. Yep. Yep.

Nick Lindner (48:00.193)
off the break or whatever it's gonna be and it's like no some guy wanted doing something crazy you know so anyway there's I mean there's so much that there's so much that can happen out there so it's

Brian Bashore (48:10.09)
Yeah, I like, I think some of the bodies of waters that we get to fish on, Devils and Bago are probably the two that kind of fall in that where you can kind of go fish your strengths. There's, Bago's got all sorts of different options with the rivers and the chains and then Devils is full of rock trees, weeds and muddy water, clean water, algae water, you name it. And there's fish everywhere in all those spots all year. It's a pretty cool place.

Nick Lindner (48:34.69)
Yeah, Devil's is super diverse for sure. I've been there a couple times and that would be a fun place because you got all, yeah, all types of stuff.

Brian Bashore (48:42.25)
Speaking of those destinations, what are your favorite? We're deep into ice season. People are looking to go hit up some ice fishing spots, whether it's in Minnesota or anywhere. Where's your, what's your top five? Where's Nick going ice fishing? If you get to choose in the U S we get it Canada, big, you know, with a peg.

Nick Lindner (49:00.756)
I was just going to name a bunch of Canadian spots. Okay, so that's a good question. I would say for me, the closest thing you can get to Canada a lot of times is North Dakota. So that's a place that I do like to go when I can. Devil's Lake, Devil's Lake area.

I need to go farther west because I just haven't. It's hard to drive past the Devils and all the pothole lakes and all that. Some of the craziest fishing that I've had is some of the Dakota potholes. I think some of that's maybe like you got to be in the know a little bit. I don't know if there's ways to find that with that, looking through survey data and stuff like that.

Brian Bashore (49:47.26)
Onyx, if it's on there, if there's any data, right, Joel's got it over there on the Onyx fish app.

Nick Lindner (49:52.951)
And that's what I, yeah, that's what I'd like to play with more maybe this winter is try some of those sloughs, you know, going basically, basically going on on X and looking at some of that data and see if you can find some, some of it that way. so I guess that would be one, beyond that we're looking at doing a trip over to green Bay.

as well to do some ice fishing out on Green Bay. We got a buddy over there who guides and he's, you know, checking the ice, knows about conditions, you know, is pretty tuned in with the bite. And that looks like your opportunity to maybe catch the very, biggest walleyes through the ice in our regional area. You know, not, you know, not saying you can't go out west or, you know, Montana or wherever and all the different places, but.

As far something that's somewhat close within our vicinity here, going to Green Bay would be, that's like super high on my bucket list. I think we're gonna try and make that happen this winter. Beyond that, another thing too that I feel like is super, super underrated that people don't really talk about is just there's so many fun and interesting opportunities to...

I know, some people are gonna just like roll their eyes, but fish for bass, fish for bass through the ice. locally, know, north of here, south of here, there's so many good fisheries with really nice bass and big populations. I mean, realistically, we're like so spoiled and we just don't.

Brian Bashore (51:19.102)
Yes.

Nick Lindner (51:36.736)
Some people obviously appreciate it. There's a lot of bass heads, you know, in the north here, but we have like just like the best bass fishing anywhere.

Brian Bashore (51:44.219)
You do. did a, what's his name? Josh, Minnesota fishing guides.

Nick Lindner (51:49.718)
Okay, Josh Douglas? Or Josh?

Brian Bashore (51:51.977)
No.

Nick Lindner (51:54.421)
Josh. yes. That's name of his business. Minnesota. Yeah, I know Josh. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (51:57.547)
That's yeah, Minnesota fishing guides. So him and I did a photo shoot for Cabela's catalog ice fishing years ago. And so Josh was set us up. Anyway, they hired Josh to put us on, on the fish. So him and I were obviously drilling and fishing and that's all I was catching was largemouth. Big ones, like three and four pound largemouth through the ice. And I think we got some pike and that's all we caught. I don't think we got any crop here or walleye. He's like, I don't know. And we were fishing weeds and it was this largemouth after.

Nick Lindner (52:15.224)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (52:26.42)
Tip ups were popping and the jigging bite wasn't good. It was more of a tip up and shiner type thing. And I was like, huh? He's like, yeah, we got a lot of bass, man. He's like, nobody's fishing for these. We've got a lot of bats.

Nick Lindner (52:35.598)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we used to do some work with Josh back when I used to work with my dad and we used to do angling buzz stuff and he would do a lot of reports from the central Minnesota area, St. Cloud area. But yeah, I mean, obviously down south is so popular, you know, for for bass fishing. And we don't maybe have quite the top end up here that they do down there as far as like big trophy fish. But

It is just insane bass fishing. And one of my favorite things to do is like, just go up in the weeds, set up your tent and get an underwater camera going and you just watch them. you know, a lot of people will target them with, you know, a little like.

tungsten jigs and stuff like that because a lot of times they can be kind of soft biters but I found if you're upsizing they're gonna upsize their attitude so a lot of times like I'm gonna use like kind of like a moderate like a walleye sized hard bait and or like you know a large crappie sized hard bait

Brian Bashore (53:38.12)
RIP and raps even.

Nick Lindner (53:39.319)
Yeah, like, yeah, exactly. Like rattle baits or, you know, glide baits or any of that. And they just come in and just woof baits and you can watch them do it. You know, you can watch them do it in seven feet of water on top of the weeds, you know, so and then you can set up a

tip up out in the distance and I'll put an underwater camera on that too so I get to watch the tip up swimming around. So that's one that I really really like. I think bass fishing is super underrated and now in Minnesota they opened up the season so it's season round it's open year round so I think we were one of like two

States that had a closed bass season, I think all of the United States and so now it's open year round and so that means that means when When the rest of the seasons close at the end of february we still have a predator species to target in march so I hope more people get to take advantage of that or try to take advantage of that going forward, but outside of that,

Another big one is actually kind of another local one is just some of the perch fisheries in Minnesota are kind of blowing up a little bit. So Malax is kind of insane right now. There's a ton of, a ton of perch on Malax and like Leech and Winnie are still kicking out really, really awesome perch. So we're getting like a little bit of a perch revival here in Minnesota. So I'd say that's kind of another.

Brian Bashore (54:52.426)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Lindner (55:09.932)
bite that I feel like is worth highlighting kind of in the coming months here. So then that's another species that's open year round, you know. So we got a lot of like really cool opportunities in March now beyond just bluegills and crappies and stuff like that. So those are a few. I feel like what is that four? Four? You got five.

Brian Bashore (55:31.978)
Yeah, four or five. I lost count, but it's a good number. I mean, I've never seen too many people shy away, especially icingers from a good perch bite. that's always handy when you can get a mix, you know, the walleye aren't cooperating, go chase the perch or, know, or vice versa. You, maybe you pick up a walleye perch fish or whatever the case is.

Nick Lindner (55:50.605)
Yeah, yeah, another another bite like in a week or so Maybe two weeks that I'm looking at going up and doing you said not in Canada. This is this is a gray area Actually, don't think it is because I think you have to stay on the US side I think I'm not sure but the rainy river doing some

Brian Bashore (56:02.227)
I'm

Brian Bashore (56:11.176)
yeah.

Nick Lindner (56:11.776)
surgeon fishing on the rainy river so that is that's like been a bucket list thing for me for like a really long time and obviously guys down in like the st. Croix river you know have targeted them pretty heavy but i do feel like the population on the rainy river is just more

little more impressive. know, there's just the size structure of the fish and stuff like that. So hoping to get into them up there here pretty soon. So that's that's kind of another one that I would say.

Brian Bashore (56:42.568)
Yeah. I say anything that connects to Lake of the woods is, pretty good fishing. It's going to be, it's to be pretty good fishing. and we just had Paul Johnson from Riverbend resort on here talking about that exact same, and then the Rainier River run. mean, that's bucket list of mine too. I've been to Lake of the woods, ice fishing and open water fishing, but I never am able to get there in early April to get on that, that spring bite. and nor get there early enough, in December or January to get on the

Nick Lindner (56:45.55)
Pretty good, yeah.

Brian Bashore (57:10.622)
Kind of the better. I always end up there in February. Kind of the big fish bite isn't so great through the ice, but man, you catch fish all day long and you'll pick up some, you know, 20 some inches, which helps you can't keep there or nothing. But I think every trip you feel like me, I want to catch big fish all the time. I don't care if I keep any ever. So that's fine. but definitely have a place, but your best, your favorite or most effective way to target some of these fish. Let's say.

Nick Lindner (57:19.683)
Yeah.

Nick Lindner (57:30.828)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Bashore (57:39.86)
January, I guess, it was just kind of mid season ice, maybe depending on where you're, where you're located at for me, it's going to be like my first time getting on the ice, but.

Nick Lindner (57:48.046)
Yeah, yeah, okay, so if I'm targeting walleyes, I'm assuming we're going in the walleye direction

Brian Bashore (57:55.528)
Yeah, we like that direction.

Nick Lindner (57:58.287)
That's a good direction. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say it's basically just going to be a one, two punch because we get two lines here in Minnesota. In January. So a lot of times, like I like to like some of the different, especially early ice bites, like I like to, you know, set up somewhere. And especially if I'm in a place where I know the fish are going to be roaming around.

Like Red Lake for example, like we talked about lakes where it's more Basiny or more muddy, you know, and there's less structure You know, you can set up a tip up a hundred yards that way and it's basically the same as where you got it set up right now You know, so one thing I actually do like to do is I like to have like an active jigging set up and

I'll jig in my hole and then I'll have a dead stick really close. So I kind of like that for, you know, potentially calling fish in with your spoon or with your rattle bait. Let's just, if you want, if we're just talking about one, one, one deal, let's just say it's a spoon, like an eighth ounce spoon. it's going to be a go to, so.

I'll jig right here in this hole and then I'll have like two or three feet away I'll have a dead stick. A lot of times that could be a treble with a split shot like a number eight treble I'd say maybe a number 10 and if I go into you know the Dakotas or Canada and that might be a number six treble or whatever.

but if I'm around home and it's really finicky it might be number 10, you know, and then I'll just have, you know, a minnow on there like a shiner or even just like a fathead even sometimes can get the job done especially on one of the smaller hooks but another option too is like I'll actually put a drop shot down instead of that treble hook set up.

Nick Lindner (59:48.543)
I just like the drop shot. so fast and easy and efficient. It's something I've been using a lot more. So that would be like a number four, number four octopus style hook.

And then just whatever weight, you know, like an eighth ounce weight or something on the bottom. The weight is a little bit less relevant, but lighter is still probably better for when that fish grabs and starts swimming with it. so that'll be like a one, two punch that I like to do for sure. especially on lakes where, you know, the depth and stuff maybe doesn't matter as much, but, otherwise what I'll do is I'll actively jig in a hole and then I will.

set a tip up either significantly shallower or significantly deeper than where I'm set up jigging. Just so you kind of have like a little bit of a tattletale of where the fish are running around. Obviously, forward-facing sonar helps you know if there's fish swimming around you that maybe didn't come up to your bait, you know, versus having a flasher back in the day. Well, actually, we were using a flasher yesterday a little bit too, so maybe not always back in the day, but...

Brian Bashore (01:00:58.346)
They still work.

Nick Lindner (01:00:59.438)
It still works. It still works. But so the forward facing sonar can help you know like where those fish are running. If they're down the bottom of the break or you're seeing more fish up high, but like a flag or a set line is still, you know, a great tool for that. So basically for me, it's a one, two punch utilizing all the lures that I can, as many lines as I can and jigging and then, you know, either having

That set line is a cleanup right next to you, or maybe you're drawing them in with the jigging. And then they look at that for a while, follow you up and then they, Ooh, look at this alive minnow. I'll take that. Or using it to just, you know, get like covered a little bit more ground in an area. Cause a lot of times, a lot of our bites around home are like we call them flash bites, you know, where the sun is just hitting the horizon on the way up or on the way down. Up or down.

Brian Bashore (01:01:55.402)
You got a short window to get in there.

Nick Lindner (01:01:57.453)
Yeah, so it's like, you got a half hour, 45 minutes. So sometimes covering, know, drilling a few holes before you get out, before that white window starts is critical. And then kind of letting your electronics and your dead stick kind of tell you if you need to move up shallower or deeper in that super condensed window.

Brian Bashore (01:02:05.236)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:02:17.962)
Yep. It's good to know that we fish about the same then, except I get to put more lines out over here. So I better run, I usually run a tip up pretty shallow and then one pretty deep, and then I'll fish in the middle. But same thing. If I go in the evening on a, we've got some trophy lake, not too far from here and it's full of fish, but there's no point of going there until that last evening window. So I've got a three to get set up and drill. So you're not drilling when the bite's, you know, good, get all that stuff, get it all set up and

Nick Lindner (01:02:22.7)
Yeah, that helps.

Brian Bashore (01:02:44.498)
Sometimes they're so tight to the bottom. It's hard to even know that they're there, but all of sudden the sun starts to go and it just comes alive and you can't even run two rods because you're just, you're popping them so fast, you know, but it same deal. I a rip shad or some type of rattle bait, call them in and then have that dead stick. it, I don't know, ice fishing. It's hard to beat a jig and a minnow or just a minnow. It's just, it's just, there's a lot of baits out there and they all work and there's a time and place for them. But if you go without just having a jig and minnow ready to go, you're probably going to be missing out.

Nick Lindner (01:02:50.859)
Yeah.

Nick Lindner (01:03:04.725)
Thank

Brian Bashore (01:03:14.516)
Just you should always have

Nick Lindner (01:03:16.546)
Yeah, minnows are really, they're super good. don't know you guys haven't used a minnow, you should definitely try it.

Brian Bashore (01:03:20.958)
You should definitely give it a shot. There's a reason they make all these fake baits that look like minnows. There's some type of correlation between the two.

Nick Lindner (01:03:26.51)
It is is funny too because that is true and there's been times where it's like Every bite will come on a dead stick and there's some days where I will say you're better off Probably just only running dead sticks. Like if you're allowed two lines in Minnesota, you're better off Setting those two dead sticks up or tip ups, whatever you want to use dead stick or tip up

and setting those maybe up on the weed edge or holes in the weeds or you know by a little you know sand transition or something like that and just getting out away from those baits. That's one thing that we noticed in we went up north to Canada and fished some stock trout really early this winter for first ice and

It's honest, honest to goodness. think the very, very best strategy for those big trophy rainbows that we were trying to catch was to set, you know, set lines and just get away from them. Because in our jigging hole, we just marked nothing, nothing at all. And the set lines were popping like really, really good. So and I think Wally's can be the same way. Just get away from the baits and let them let them do their thing.

Brian Bashore (01:04:35.444)
you this.

Brian Bashore (01:04:39.956)
You think that's transducer noise, people noise? People.

Nick Lindner (01:04:43.442)
I think it's just people, you know, and people and presentation. I, you know, I think the jury's still out on if transducer noise impacts the fish. But, I don't think that that's something that like is easily objectively proven. But I do know one thing like

Brian Bashore (01:05:02.356)
Yeah, I don't know.

Nick Lindner (01:05:05.088)
If you're sitting there, you know, like they know you're there. I mean, put an underwater camera down and point it up. You know, you can see a big giant shadow on the ice. Like it's like the same with a boat. Like walleyes know your boat is there. Like I promise, you know, like, and, and then if you're jigging, right, like it might just be the jigging thing, just a super subtle minnow. Maybe that minnow is just sitting there.

And then like a predator gets close and it starts to kick away a little bit. And sometimes that's just better and staying away from it because on a lot of our lakes, like they're super hypersensitive to sound and stuff like that. that said, we were out in Mille Lacs yesterday and we couldn't buy a bite on set lines. Every single wall I came on jigging rods and it's like, we might as well not even set the set lines up. Like they were a waste of time. So.

Brian Bashore (01:05:56.363)
That's fishing. Every day is different though. mean, right? We don't dictate their mood. We just have to, the game is to try to determine their mood and what's going to work. Right.

Nick Lindner (01:06:04.014)
Exactly, Yes. So that's a so that's just you always got to you got to try it that's kind of like a moral of the story, right? You have to You have to have a handful of different things ready to go and you have to be experimenting with multiple things at the same time If you can get a couple people out, you know, you can get more lines so you can try more things They might want little fathead minnows. They might want, know bigger sucker minnows or shiners

or they might want to jig in or they might not. And, you know, you just you don't know. then like once you see a few things happen, like adjusting quickly so you can kind of capitalize on on what's going on, like the faster you can do that, the better. So.

Brian Bashore (01:06:46.346)
I was just gonna ask you to drop your little nugget or tip or trick, but I think you just did, right? So.

Nick Lindner (01:06:50.472)
That was a good enough nugget.

Brian Bashore (01:06:53.51)
Yeah, so you got another one. If you got something to leave them to make them all better anglers, go ahead and drop it. I think that one's pretty good though.

Nick Lindner (01:06:58.382)
yeah, no, that's I mean, I think that's a good one. Another thing too, is just playing with gear a lot too, as far as just the componentry of your gear. like one thing, like a couple things that I'll do a lot in all different types of situations is experimenting with the line and the hooks that I'm using. So if it's, you know, if it's set lines, we talked a little bit about set lines, whether it's,

you know drop shots versus treble hooks or something on your cell lines or whatever but there are times and places for you know heavier line or lighter line you know a lot of times like I will go with six pound fluorocarbon as my main line and my leader for a lot of the walleye fishing I'll do around home but

One thing I've kind of learned traveling around a lot is that sometimes it'd be nice to have eight, you know, or sometimes 10 even, you know, depending on where you're going. Like if you're using a rattle bait on Winnipeg, like, well, why wouldn't you have 10? You know, you might as well have 10. So like we went rainbow trout fishing early in the season, like I talked about and

you know, came in super, super finesse because that's what we do around home. The lakes are super crystal clear. The trout are not, yeah, the trout are not terribly big, you know, like they're there. You can get a good one, but like, you know, it's a lot of, you know, low, teener fish, you know, hoping for a high teen and it's like.

Brian Bashore (01:08:20.874)
Let's trout fishing.

Nick Lindner (01:08:34.126)
I mean, you're croppy fish in, you're basically croppy fish in and going up there and it's like, the size structure of these fish are a lot bigger. And so it was like every day is just like re-rigging everything to be bigger and heavier, you know? So, but line is a big one because line can really impact the bites you're getting, you know, if you're fishing crystal clear water. Like one thing, my buddy, Brad Hawthorne, who guides and runs a bunch of wheelhouses and stuff out on Mille Lacs is one thing he'll say is like,

you know, on your rattle reels like a Mille Lacs, you want that leader to basically go up to the ice because the walleyes are super smart. They're super pressured. They can be really finicky. They can be hard to catch, especially once you get in the middle of the air, which we're basically almost already in essentially. So having that leader go up to the ceiling and having it be light, you know, like six pound, maybe less potentially if you want to.

you know, venture, venture lower. But so that's a big one. And then the other one is just playing with, with hooks a lot of times. So like, I'm always swapping out and trying, you know, different sizes of treble hooks and stuff like that.

So bigger obviously has some advantages, smaller has some advantages as well. And sometimes you'll get spoons that are a lot smaller and they don't necessarily come with hooks that are matched well for walleye fishing. So taking like spoons that are maybe more designed for crappies with their little like number 12 hooks on them and like putting the eights or something on it and turning that into like a little bite size walleye candy, you know, so.

Those are a few of the things that I think about when I'm just playing around with stuff.

Brian Bashore (01:10:18.026)
Yeah, I don't think we probably modify baits enough. Some guys do. I'm adding that, wrap a little of that trouble hook with the drop spin on it. mean, just a little modification, even in open water can make a huge difference. I'm a Segar guys running Segar ISEX and I'm my stuff all spooled up and that's downsized everything. I've been typically running 10 and some, and some braid. I'm like, Nope, I'm going to go lighter lines and some longer leaders. It's all fluorocarbon.

Nick Lindner (01:10:25.901)
Yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:10:49.098)
And just try it because I kind of did catch a lot of a lot of fish ice fishing last year and they were there not a lot of people were But I'm always a little Sensitive to go the lighter the thinner diameter as well. I'll use a lot of braid because I river current to cut So that works great, but in the water is not crystal clear and we really fishing, you know fairly deep But I'm just but that line is always rubbing with that current on those holes so I'm always

Nick Lindner (01:11:05.614)
Yep.

Brian Bashore (01:11:18.014)
Kind of leading towards a little bit heavier, but then again, and you know, after all season of bringing up, I'm like, there's not a single Mark. There's, mean, the ice isn't cutting into this line. So I don't know. I'm sure it happens.

Nick Lindner (01:11:27.33)
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That's another testament to just the varying conditions. Like there's a different answer for different places, you know? And yeah, mean, Braid might not be as great of an option in a lot of places, you know, but for that application, that might just be the deal. And maybe you fish something similar and it's like, you've just always used mono and it just is what it is, you know? And it's like, especially if you're just fishing in a shack, like maybe

Maybe you try braid, you know, that might be better if you got current or whatever. So.

Brian Bashore (01:12:01.013)
Yeah, I got a pretty good mix of all of them. if they're coming in and looking and not biting, then that's, I'm switching time. Just keep mixing it up. I probably needed to switch up those hooks. Like you're saying though, a lot more. We just, we get lazy sometimes, but it's winter and there's not a whole hell of a lot else to do when you just fish. take that time. And especially if you're just sitting there waiting for that bite window is a great time to fiddle with your stuff and go out and invest it literally. And I've gotten way better over the years about them. Like.

Nick Lindner (01:12:21.954)
Yeah, yeah.

Brian Bashore (01:12:27.85)
It takes you 30 seconds or 61 minute to do this and that can change your entire day. All of sudden, you know, for missing fish to catching fish where the guys are like, I just keep missing. like, we need a downsize or, know, or do this or sharpen a hook or whatever it is. It's always like, ah, I'll get the next one. I'm like, you guys three fish in a row. Something's not right. So you can either make it take 30 seconds and change it. Or you can just sit there and bitch about it all day long. Whatever. It's up to you. I'm going to take 30 seconds.

Nick Lindner (01:12:47.422)
Yeah.

Nick Lindner (01:12:54.782)
Well that's definitely true. And then on the other side of it I'll do like a live stream, like a nice fishing live stream. Like I've done some of them up on Red Lake and someone will be watching for 20 minutes and maybe we don't mark a fish or something like that and they'll be like they'll comment in, been watching for the last 20 minutes.

No fish. Time to change baits. And I'm like, I'm not going to change baits. I didn't have any fish even come in and look at my baits. That doesn't mean you got to change baits every 20 minutes if you're not marking fish or getting bites, you know?

Brian Bashore (01:13:24.26)
Right, I don't know if it's not working because nothing's looked at it.

Brian Bashore (01:13:33.938)
Location, but bait no, but you're in the middle of limestream. I'm not picking up and moving. So this is it. Right. mean, yeah, we're, we're kind of locked in right here folks. So hopefully they, want to play, but I mean, you obviously went out early and found fish or, or on a spot where you know, they're going to show up. But once again, it's fishing. don't know.

Nick Lindner (01:13:36.172)
Yeah, exactly.

That's the problem too, yeah. The location part is hard.

Nick Lindner (01:13:54.639)
Yeah, exactly. So no, that is the hard part, too, right? Because you're like, it doesn't take a lot of time. mean, you know, there's been times where you you go out and fish and, know, there's fish in the area and there's fish around and it's like your minnow head fell off, you know, and then it's like, oh, but there's like there's fish like crawling all over. This is prime time. It's like that's one thing. That's like a 60 second thing. But sometimes you fish without meat on it, you know, because you're like, I got to stay down there just, you know, because they're they're going right now or whatever. So.

Brian Bashore (01:14:24.714)
I've had as a guy to see it all the time. had a client a few years ago and I'm like, ah, check it. You got bit, you know, and ah, it's good. like, it isn't good. It's going to take you 10 seconds reeled in and throw up another crawler on, you know, and they'd bring it in and be no bait. And he's like, I'm fishing on credit. I'm like, yeah, credits ran out, buddy. You've over the limit. You'd got to put some good, some bait on there. Get some cash back flowing. The fishing on credit ain't going to work. So not a lot of times am I catching the walleyes on bear hooks.

Nick Lindner (01:14:39.459)
Yeah.

Nick Lindner (01:14:44.16)
Yep, yep. Exactly.

Nick Lindner (01:14:51.67)
Yeah, no, that's fair. That's fair.

Brian Bashore (01:14:54.258)
There's a things, death and taxes and fish biting with no bait on the hook. There's a couple of things that are kind of guaranteed. Not to say I have got a walleye on a slow death hook with no bait, trying to hook a net that fell in the water. But that was a red old original slow, Mustad slow death hook. And it came up and ate it. I'm like, well, they're not very smart. That one was really hungry. So that happens once in a while.

Nick Lindner (01:15:00.738)
It's just.

Nick Lindner (01:15:10.55)
Yeah.

Nick Lindner (01:15:15.81)
That'll happen,

Brian Bashore (01:15:18.834)
All right, Nick, appreciate your time. Where can people find you? What's the YouTube, but your social channels? We'll put a link in below form as well, but tell them where they can find it for the listeners.

Nick Lindner (01:15:28.878)
Yeah, no, just if you just type in Nick Linder in most places, it'll probably just pop up. I would say for the most part, a lot of the stuff that you'd want to look for from me would probably be on YouTube. So yeah, I'm starting to put some more stuff on Facebook and I've had an Instagram for a while or whatever, but I would say YouTube would be the best spot for the better content. So that would be where I'd go.

Brian Bashore (01:15:40.938)
YouTube it.

Brian Bashore (01:15:55.851)
That's where everybody goes. That's where all the fishing shows are at nowadays. If you want to know it, it's on YouTube. and if it's not, one of the other channels is going to lead you back to it because that's where it at, right? It's free TV. This is on YouTube. This is on YouTube. It's on Spotify, Apple, all those podcast platforms for you listening to it. But if you want to watch it, catch it over on the YouTube channel or on the Walleye Guys Facebook page as well.

Nick Lindner (01:15:57.417)
Yeah.

Nick Lindner (01:16:08.09)
This is on YouTube.

Brian Bashore (01:16:22.254)
And appreciate your time, Nick. Thank you and good luck this ice season and thank all you for tuning in today and stay safe and we'll see you on the ice.