Episode 81: The Bait Man

Kyle Zachary shares his remarkable journey of entrepreneurship in Northern Ontario, balancing multiple ventures in bait trapping, guiding, and barbering. His commitment to quality service and customer satisfaction in each area reflects his passion for the outdoors and dedication to his community.

• Introduction of Kyle Zachary and his ventures 
• Growing up in Dryden and starting in guiding 
• Success stories from the spring bear hunts 
• Overview of the bait business dynamics 
• Challenges of trapping and the fishing industry 
• Transition to barbering and its impact on his life 
• Importance of customer relationships across businesses 
• Unique experiences encountered while trapping 
• Collaboration with lodges and successful hunt management 
• Community engagement through his barber shop and outdoor services

Chapters

• 0:05 Success in the Bush
• 9:12 Fishing Tournament Partner Hunt
• 13:28 Tournament Disqualification Misunderstanding
• 24:43 Trapping and Bait Business Story
• 32:08 Wilderness Trapping and Baiting Techniques
• 42:42 Bait Sales to Wholesalers and Lodges
• 45:20 Bait Business Relationships and Loyalty
• 57:47 Ethical Business Practices in Hunting
• 1:04:18 Bear Hunting Lodge Partnership Expansion
• 1:14:57 Barbering Career
• 1:20:42 Barbershop Business and Outdoor Ventures
• 1:28:41 Outdoor Journal Radio Launch Announcement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

so when me and damon started the bear hunt it was like, hey, we're not gonna hold back anything like we're. We're gonna do it exactly how we would want it if we were paying what these guys are paying. And now we have a group of guys that, like they appreciate it and like, like last year we killed two bears over 400 pounds um two Boone and Crockett's. One was probably the biggest bear, to be honest, killed in Ontario last year. The best part of the whole season. People always think, oh, it must have been that big bear. But the best part was before that guy shot the bear. He's been on what did he say? 32 bear hunts or something across Canada, this fella. And he texted me this is the nicest tree stand I've ever been in and it's not even close.

Speaker 2: 0:48

This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio podcast Networks Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North. Today, willie and I are excited to have on an outstanding young entrepreneur who has found success in the bush of Northern Ontario and now it is our pleasure to introduce to all of you Kyle Satchery. On this show we talk about the many businesses he has on the go, from outfitting and guiding to a live bait business and a barbershop. Yes, this guy does it all. So if you love great success stories and interesting people from all walks of life, this is another great one. Here's our conversation with Kyle Zachary With Kyle Zachary. Well, folks, here's another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner, and Willie and I are so happy to be sitting down with Kyle Zachary, and Kyle is a very interesting feller from the north. He is a bait man, he's a barber and a guide. So, willie, why don't you bring us a little bit into this episode with Kyle?

Speaker 4: 2:21

Sounds good, buddy, sounds good. Welcome with Kyle Sounds good, buddy, sounds good. Welcome Diaries family. To another episode. Kyle, we're happy to have you here today. Thank you for hopping on here last minute and I think you're a great attribute to our show here today. You got some awesome stories. You know a background that's definitely unique A tournament angler, a guide, a bait man and a barber.

Speaker 1: 2:48

I don't know too many of them out there. No, no, I don't think there's very many barbers that are doing kind of the other stuff that I'm doing. Well, the look behind you on your wall.

Speaker 4: 2:58

There you got about 200 taxidermied animals and fish and you got one of the sexiest haircuts that ever been on this show, buddy.

Speaker 1: 3:06

So oh yeah, you're looking good so far. That's not me. I can't take credit for that. That's j mac and dryden. He's my barber. I'd love to say it was my own doing, but that's all on him awesome.

Speaker 4: 3:18

Well, welcome buddy. I uh, I haven't seen. You know, I haven't seen you in a while here yeah, I haven't seen you since. Tournament Fish there.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Yeah, I guess Red Lake was the last time we saw each other.

Speaker 4: 3:26

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Speaker 2: 3:28

Nice. Yeah, we see each other a lot more in the school. So tell us a little bit about how you got started in the north, how old you are. You're a young man and you're doing all of this stuff up there Kind of quickly.

Speaker 1: 3:48

walk us through how it all started. Well, it's kind of like, I guess, a little complicated, but when I got out of high school, I was guiding full-time.

Speaker 4: 3:57

Where'd you grow up, Kyle?

Speaker 1: 3:59

Pardon, where'd you grow up? I grew up in Dryden. We had a bait shop in Dryden and my old man worked in the mill there. So I grew up in Dryden and then helped my old man with the bait shop, like I said, and then when I graduated I started guiding because I wanted to kind of get out on my own. I was getting to that age where, you know, testosterone wasn't working out working with the old man sometimes.

Speaker 1: 4:20

So it was time to get out on my own and I don't think he was too happy about losing his assistant manager, so to speak. But I got out guiding and I mean to be honest, I was making like no money basically Back then. I think my first guiding job was 70 bucks a day and I thought I was rich. Yeah, I don't know what you offered me last year, willie, but I know 17-year-old me was like are you saying no to that? Like what's wrong with you?

Speaker 1: 4:49

and uh, because I remember when I started for 70 bucks and I remember like my dad looking at me like man, I pay you good, why are you leaving? And I'm like I get to go fishing every day and and I thought it was like said, I thought I was rich doing 14 hour days for $70. And and things have changed, but you were rich yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:10

I was rich. I was rich, I was a lot of wallah. I mean, yeah, the feeling that you got by doing that job and at that point in your life, like I mean, let's just explore that. Take me back to when you were guiding in that very first year and tell me what each day felt like for you.

Speaker 1: 5:30

You know, it was kind of like I guess a dream come true. I didn't. I had always dreamed of like that's how I wanted to make a living. Right Was out and I always assumed at that time that it would be fishing. We always had the bait business, kind of like. My dad had it, my uncle was a trapper, but I always assumed like I would make my living fishing and hunting and guiding.

Speaker 1: 5:51

So when I got the opportunity I jumped at it and that was with Cat Island Lodge, farron Buckler, and so much respect for them. They gave me an opportunity that I don't know if I would have gotten. Yeah, so much respect for them. They gave me an opportunity that, uh, I don't know if I would have gotten. Um, and back then there wasn't just jobs like there is now, like I mean, it's only 15 years ago or whatever, but it it was. You know that was the only guide posting I seen, and so I jumped at it and and I spent the next uh, I think it was three seasons up there. Um, wow, yeah, and, and so I kind of went through the progressions of I started at 70, but thankfully I was pretty good at guiding because I loved it, and Farron's wife, I think, really liked me. So every time I left I seemed to get a raise. So I kept coming back and I'm not saying by the end.

Speaker 4: 6:41

Well, that already wants to fire you because his wife likes you. That's one of the. I was starting to worry.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Yeah, cause I'd come in and he'd look at the paycheck and he'd go, hey, what the heck? This is 10 bucks a day more than we agreed to. And I said, hey, your wife signed it. I don't know, I just I don't know.

Speaker 2: 7:00

Yeah Well, hey, listen, it was a very smart business move on her part because you kept coming back for three years. You know it's tough for lodge owners to retain guides that are young and obviously at that point you didn't know whether you were going to go to school or what kind of a decision you're going to make. So it's really good to be able to retain a guide, a young guide, for two, three years.

Speaker 4: 7:29

So yeah, Did you, did you hunt up there too, guide, or did you just strictly start fish guiding?

Speaker 1: 7:34

I started just fishing guiding. Um. We had our own deer hunt at the time, uh, that we still run Um. So I would do that in the falls when I'd get back. Um, usually I would try and work a little bit of construction kind of in the fall, just so I could get on unemployment for the winter, and then I'd run my old man's deer hunt and that would be kind of the end of my fall. And then I started doing some moose guiding with him too, towards kind of the end of my guiding. But uh, by then I kind of knew the writing was on the wall that I was uh leaning towards getting out of it and and uh getting into doing stuff for myself.

Speaker 1: 8:12

I never. I think I was like eight years old. My grandpa, who has all the had at the time all the petrol cans in the area uh, I think I was eight he looked at me. I was like you're never going to be a good employee. You got to work for yourself. And uh, which I thought he told, like I thought growing up he had told all of our like all the cousins and grandkids that. And then, talking about it, now my one cousin's like no, he told me to get in the oil fields Cause I was too dumb to run my own business.

Speaker 6: 8:40

I thank my grandpa a lot I like that guy.

Speaker 1: 8:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:44

Get to the oil fields.

Speaker 1: 8:46

If you're silly fucker, yeah, exactly, and my cousin's done very well in the oil field, so we're the only two that listen to him and it seemed to pull out pretty well for us.

Speaker 4: 8:58

Nice, nice, hey, I got a question for you and this brings us back to I kind of got a story and a question. So, oh, kyle, this would have been like 2012, 2011. And I used to go and fish the Dryden Walleye Masters, yeah, down there. This was like when Gussie was like, just, he was like the hot thing on the Lund Trail. He just got picked up by Dr Pepper I was in the Dr Pepper group and Kruger Farms, yeah, up picked up by dr pepper and the dr and kruger farms, and yeah, and I, uh, so I came down and I stayed at um pat's place over in vermilion bay there on eagle lake and I took my family there and then, uh, I would go out and tournament, fit free fish kind of thing, get ready for this tournament.

Speaker 4: 9:42

It's 20 minute, 30 minute drive every day and, um, so I get back the last day of pre-fish and my partner was supposed to come over from winnipeg greg hagg was his name and greg ended up bailing. Uh, he had something last minute come up, so I was kind of scrambling for a partner and so I went into town and I was like, what you know, this is the only shot I got is to try and find somebody local. So I went into town. I stopped at that petrol where you were talking about, the one that's not there anymore and that little bait shop attached. What was the bait shop called?

Speaker 1: 10:17

it was kna, sport and tackle.

Speaker 4: 10:18

So that was my old man's shop okay, so so did he own it right until it got bulldozed down, or did he sell it to somebody? Because I went in there and I stopped and they ended up hooking me up with a guy named cody and he was a guide for pat out in vermilion bay. He was a young guy, he was like maybe 1920. He might even be your cousin yeah, I don't like we sold.

Speaker 1: 10:45

It would have been, I think, 2010, 2011 there, so it probably would have been the new owner it was right after then Okay.

Speaker 1: 10:53

Yeah, yeah, my old man was still in there for a little bit helping out, but I can't remember the exact timeframe. I know like I graduated from high school in 2010 and went away to college that fall and I think it was that winter my old man sold it. So it would have been like 2010, 2011 that he sold it. They just well, all of us were out of the house and my mom's an accountant and there had been a few hard years where, you know, it rained all summer and you just don't sell bait and tackle.

Speaker 1: 11:21

If it's raining, canadians just don't go. Don't sell bait and tackle. If it's raining, canadians just don't go. Americans still do, but at that time we hadn't really dived into the bait business as much as we did towards the end. So my mom was on my dad's rear end to get out of it while we were kind of doing. Well, you know, the accountant side of her didn't forget the two bad years where me and my dad were like hey, we're giving her Let us go, let us run with this, and she's kind of put the kibosh to that.

Speaker 1: 11:51

And so they sold it in 2010, 2011.

Speaker 4: 11:53

So probably would have been the new owners. Okay, I can't even. Well, this young man, this Cody I here's a story for you. So we, we, he says yes to me and he was jackeded right up because he's just a kid, right, and I was like I don't know, I was a middle of the pack guy but you know, I had a nice rig and I was kind of it was kind of up and coming a little bit. I guess in my own stage, you know, I could compete yeah so.

Speaker 4: 12:17

But I needed a good second rod and a net man is basically what I needed, right. So we ended up going out. First day came back in, I think we had like an average weight, like we had like 12 pounds, 12 and a half. So we were, you know, running like 30th, 35th and so I thought that was really good. You know, I was pretty jacked up about it because I was still close to you know I could bust the top 10 at least right and get some money back. So the second day we, uh, we head out and we go all the way down to, all the way down to butler and I pull up on this hump and I drop my jig and spoon down and I didn't even get it to bottom. I look to my right and here comes scotty dingwall and his ranger falls up beside me on the other side, right, scotty and jay, so I'm fishing away and fishing away and I get one boom, pull it in.

Speaker 4: 13:03

It's like a 20 incher. I look over and dingwall's got a 31 on the board. Sounds like you got me shit me dingwall, all right. So, stevie, if you don't know, but scotty dingwall is a big, he's a stick up in this area. They own the local ford dealerships in northwestern ontario yeah, we stay.

Speaker 1: 13:19

Oh yeah, his younger brother stays with us when we stay at willie's in the summer, for the year falls tournament on Laxool.

Speaker 4: 13:25

Yeah, we all tournament fish a couple of tournaments together up here, but anyway. So you know, I was kind of pissed off right, I'm like I'm out of here. So I took off right and blew back down the lake and I get into Trap and Mile and we hit a couple of nice ones another 22, a 23. I had a 17. And I we hit a couple of nice ones, another 22, a 23,. I had a 17. And I'm like shit, we need a, we need a hog. And it was getting like two o'clock. So we were kind of pulled the Babe Ruth swing right and I went back out to the big lake deep middle of the afternoon and thinking, okay, well, maybe I'll get something on the deep edge, crawling up and down and, uh, second pitch out, I had a little bucktail jig, little black marabou, bun boom drilled one. It was like I'm guessing from what I remember I think it was like 29 and a quarter, 29 and a half, but it would have put me up in a good way. So we had like 15 minutes back. So we weighed them, put weights on the fish on the fins and blast in, and we were so jacked up because it was like for one I would have probably busted into the top 10. Well, for sure I would have. And for two, and it was like a you know, cancellation on a partner and I had this kid fishing with me. So it was like this is a great story for myself. Yeah, we're doing good, right.

Speaker 4: 14:37

So we pull up to the docks, you know, and everyone pulls into the slot and somebody comes down and sticks their hand on your live, well, and make sure your fishes are good and make sure that no one's dead and floating, and okay. So they give us a tag and we put all our fish in the in the bag and I said, well, you go up and wait, cody, and all we've done here at the boat, right. So the kid was, he was pumped right because he's going on stage now. So the kid gets up there and he goes in the arena. So I pull around I'm actually sitting beside gustafson and we're just bullshitting and then it was like five seconds and the kid turns around and he comes back and he starts walking down and he's got a pink slip and I'm like, oh, I'm like what happened? Like they just kept, they just checked our fish how to? A pink slip means you're disqualified, yeah. So I'm thinking like why, what's going on here?

Speaker 4: 15:25

So he gets down to the dock and the kid this cody kid is in tears and I'm like bud, what's going on? What happened? Did one of the fish die on the way up? And he's like no, we had too many fish. And I'm like what do you mean? We had too many fish. I'm like we just put that hog in the tank. And he's like I didn't throw one out, willie. And I'm like fuck, that's not on you, kid, that's on me.

Speaker 4: 15:56

I'm like that's totally on this guy. I was so pumped up that we were going to end the day at least in some money. I didn't even think, because I normally would have my partner there, right.

Speaker 4: 16:06

Or a guy who was in a tournament before I never thought about it and the young kid didn't throw out that little 17 we had and yeah, so I got. It was the only tournament I ever got DQ'd in and I felt so shitty for that kid man. I was like and it was completely my fault, right, it had nothing to do with anyone else, it's funny you mention it because, especially with that tournament, what people probably listening don't realize?

Speaker 1: 16:30

on Wabagoon, the water is so muddy that guys will run into clear lakes off of Wabagoon just to fill their live. Well, so you can see your fish. And I know your story has happened a lot of times where guys are coming down the river to weigh in and they start counting fish and they go, hey, we got one extra. Or like my older brother one year, they came in and they're looking and he's going there's only three fish in here and his partner goes it's a four fish weigh-in, right. His partner goes, no, no, there's four. And he goes, no, there's three. Like I'm telling you there's three fish, but you, you just the water's so muddy that you, you don't know, right.

Speaker 2: 17:02

Really the clarity Steve is like inches the water in your live well is so muddy that you can't see in the live well.

Speaker 1: 17:10

If you put your hand in the water straight down like this, you're going to maybe see it here, maybe.

Speaker 2: 17:16

No way. So you've got an inch of clarity.

Speaker 1: 17:19

Yeah, they call it the big mud for a reason, right, I know. One year we were staying on the lake. So my brother and his partner, of course, the Friday before the tournament we're going to have a fish fry. So we have a big crappie and walleye fry. And the next morning they go to get checked in, right. So they open up everything. Well, they open up the live, well, and there's a crappie swimming around. So people are like what's going on? And of course they call the tournament director over and he jumps in the boat. He's like well, they're not trying to cheat, it's a crappie like.

Speaker 1: 17:52

And my brother's like yeah we had a fish fry last night. Obviously we missed it. You know we left the boat in the water. The crappie is still alive. They released it at government dock the morning of the takeoff. I don't know if there's legalities to that, but it swam away fine. But they had no clue it was in there. He's like we put our minnows in there and I had no idea this crappie was swimming around, because it was just so muddy big live well, right, and he goes.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Thank God when they opened it up that they seen it, because he's like we would open it up we would have scared the crap out of swimming up the pipe at the output there.

Speaker 4: 18:25

Yeah, exactly so.

Speaker 1: 18:27

So it happens more than you think, willie, and I know it's one thing for us that every year it's like by two o'clock in the afternoon you're like going through being like are you sure we have four? It's not five, is it four? And you're like I think last year we had. No, it was the year before the fishing was really good. So we had two different times where me and my partner we quit fishing. He held the net over the side of the boat and we threw the fish into the net. We're like, okay, yeah, that's four, put them in, release the fifth one. And now we know we have four. Yeah, yeah, it's an added treat with that muddy water. It's uh, it's a pain well in wilds.

Speaker 4: 19:00

Yeah, that's a crazy body of water. It's an awesome body of water to the wobbling chain.

Speaker 1: 19:03

That's my favorite lake in the whole world, but I grew up on it, so it's awesome, really one of the best, yeah yeah, and what species? Like the fish is small mouth in there uh, there's everything, smallies, you even get the odd largey now, uh, crappies, purge crappie fishing is insane. Yeah, probably the best crappie fishing. I think maybe in the world like for I would say northwestern ontario, easily for sure yeah, like for 14 inch crappies like I.

Speaker 1: 19:31

I remember when the like because they got introduced right and I remember when we would start fishing for them we were bringing home like limits and back then I think it was 20 fish or 25 we bring home like three guy limits of 14 to 17 inch crappies and all my buddies from the Kenora and Nestor Falls are like what are you guys doing, keeping those like you should be?

Speaker 1: 19:50

those are the breeders throw them back. And we were all confused because we're like man, these things, everyone tells us these are like perch. You just keep every single one and that was all we were catching. So then a couple of my buddies came up fishing and you know, you're halfway through filling a five gallon pail in the winter. And they go man, we haven't caught one under 13 inches. I go no, you don't like, there's no small ones. Yeah, now we see some small ones, but it's still like. The average size is probably still 13 inches like. But I remember when it first started like the biggest one I ever seen was almost 19 inches and we kept it. We didn't even think twice about it.

Speaker 4: 20:23

You know, what I thought over the years and I've actually had this conversation with someone else is those crappies and they're really light crappies. I am almost, I wouldn't be surprised, or I'm almost certain, that that strain of crappies is from the south, like those crappies are, like the ones that you'd see in Lake Fork. Do you know what I mean? Like consistently right. Like I've, seen crappies come out of there. That are almost two pounds.

Speaker 1: 20:51

Yeah, yeah, they're huge. They're huge, it's crazy. Like I said, the average size is probably 13 inches. The weird part is I won't get into the specifics. But I won't get into the specifics but I know some of the people that put them in the lake 20 years ago or whatever 25.

Speaker 1: 21:06

And they came out of Little Sawbill, which is on the way to Fort Francis, and we eat those fish, crappies there, and I mean a 12-incher was a big one. But I think they got into Wabagoon and it's just so shallow, it's full of bugs, trees's just it's, it's everything environmental like. So they just exploded and and, uh, it's been the best thing for the lake because, like, back when the crappies got into wabigoon, you just hoped to get a limit of walleyes, like that, if you went out walleye fishing and you got a limit, like you know, my mom was happy. She's like holy cow. You got a limit of walleyes and now, if you don't go out there in that tournament and catch 230 inches each day, you're not, you're not even in the top five, like no, not even close and you're catching a hundred a day.

Speaker 1: 21:50

It's like lack of school now, like the walleye fishing is just, oh my it's. It's probably one of the most underrated walleye fisheries in Northwest Ontario and I think personally it's all because of the crappies Because, like I said, I grew up on the lake and when I was 16, if you caught, or when I was 12, 16 or whatever if you caught a limit of walleyes, you were doing good. And now it's.

Speaker 2: 22:14

So I wonder why the crappie would have changed the ecosystem to make it better for the walleye.

Speaker 1: 22:25

I think like we've talked about it a lot and we think that like if you go out there in the winter, now nobody walleye fishes unless you're catching a few walleyes while you're crappie fishing. So I think like a lot of like my dad's older friends that you know were mad that the limit went from six to four walleyes. They just go crappie fishing because you can keep 15.

Speaker 2: 22:46

You can catch them during the middle of the day, and the meat is just as good.

Speaker 1: 22:50

It's so good that I think, like so many walleyes' lives are saved between the tourist camps kind of push people towards the crappies and then the local fishermen if you can eat five crappies, you're not even going to bother with a walleye and then we find a lot of crappies in the walleyes. Like when you clean one, they'll have little tiny crappies in them. So I think it's just a whole bunch of things. I imagine the muskies are eating the crappies instead of the walleyes, like because we never used to see the muskies in the Clearwater Lakes and now you'll see them in the Clearwater Lakes, which is where the crappies kind of took a hold first.

Speaker 2: 23:27

So I think there's a few things at play, very interesting and totally makes sense. Yeah, that's great. So how big is Lake Wabagoon?

Speaker 1: 23:40

It's 13 lakes.

Speaker 4: 23:43

Wabagoon, I think, is technically the biggest one, although denorwick's not too far off, um, and those are the two muddy water lakes, and then you have 11 clear water lakes attached to it, I mean it's very similar to our chain, like cedar, like the parole and cedar cedar lake chain, maybe a little bit bigger in size with wabagoon, but the same amount of style lakes, bodies of water, how they're a variety with the rivers and it's very similar steve it's a cool fishery because you can fish, like when that tournament goes on.

Speaker 1: 24:04

It's kind of cool because you can fish however you want to fish, like some guys just can't handle the muddy water so they they just spend all their time in the clear water lakes. Um, and the clear water lakes fish like a regular clear water lake and then um. For the rest of us that you know, I love being out on the big mud. If I can stay out there for the whole tournament, I don't even sniff around the clear water. But the risk and reward on Wabigan is kind of what gets you. You never know on Wabigan if you're setting the hook into a 14-incher or a 34-incher, which is what I love about it.

Speaker 2: 24:36

Yeah, nice buddy, yeah, very cool.

Speaker 4: 24:43

I think it's pretty crazy, though, how your dad used to own that place, and you know my life is all about karmatic justice. I feel to me like that's, that's a big I'm a big believer in that is. You know that the, the path you take, you know there's a reason. You took them or the or or the connection somewhere, and like I never had a reason why, but me and you got to be real good friends here now and it's like man, like it's crazy that you used to own that place and that's a big portion of my. You know, that's a story in my life. Yeah, so I think that's.

Speaker 1: 25:06

No, yeah, we uh that's awesome fond memories of that tackle shop. It's what got me into the the bait business.

Speaker 4: 25:13

So for sure, for sure. Well, and so that's what I was gonna say, stevie, let's, let's listen to, listen to, let's hear some bait stories and tell us about your bait business and what you do, what you sell, how you move and maneuver your day.

Speaker 2: 25:30

Yeah, like I mean, the one question that I think we should maybe start with so all of the folks out there understand, is where and how do you get your bait?

Speaker 1: 25:44

So I I trap like I have myself and then my business partner, damon I call him Wheezy. We grew up together our whole lives, so I started the bait company in 2016. Well, I shouldn't even say that I took the bait company over in 2016.

Speaker 1: 26:00

Tragically, I lost my company name, that's nickel Creek bait company, so we call it MCBC. And that was started by my uncle, scott Jeez, a long time ago. He used to sell minnows to my dad, um, and he called it MCBC cause he loved ACDC. Um, we grew up our trap cabin. Uh, he was a fur and a minnow trapper, so his fur cabin was on Mickle Lake. So thus Mickle Creek Bait Company was born and he used to trap and I used to go out.

Speaker 1: 26:28

When I was five, six years old, he'd take me out on the trap line and actually this is probably a good story to talk about my uncle before I talk about how he tragically passed in 2016.

Speaker 1: 26:38

And then I took the business over. But when I was about seven years old, my uncle took me out on a pond we just call it the bog pond. I still trap it to this day and on the way out there he was telling me all these stories about how in the UK and Ireland, people will fall through the bog and they'll be found 500 years later and they look just like they did when they fell through and you have to be really careful. So we get to the pond and we're getting everything ready and he goes. Okay, just walk over there and I'll pick you up in the canoe and and I'll, and everything will be good, but just be careful. Well, sure enough, I take about two steps and I fall through this bog and I'm eight years old, I think I'm drowning, I'm going to be one of these bog people and my uncle reaches in and grabs me by the scruff of the neck and he pulls me out and he throws me onto the top of the bog. He goes there you go.

Speaker 1: 27:22

I saved you. I saved you. Well, lo and behold, now, 15 years later, whatever it was, I'm at that same pond and I'm trapping for myself. So of course, I'm thinking of these memories. It was the first spring after my uncle passed, and so you know it's kind of. It was emotional. The whole season was emotional, trapping without him.

Speaker 1: 27:39

So I'm on this pond and I'm remembering where I fell through and I'm looking. That son of a bitch set me up to fall through and just so he could save me, and for my whole life I've always remembered how he was like King Kong, he saved my ass. And I'm looking at this bog where I fell through. I'm like he set me up, like, of course, at eight years old I didn't know this, but now I'm looking. So I've been actually bugging my brother. Now he's got a young daughter who's just turning five at the end of the month and I keep telling him oh, I'm excited because I'm going to do the same thing to her. I'm going to let her right in the bog and I go over to this spot where he set me up to fall through.

Speaker 1: 28:20

It's about a foot and a half deep, like I could have stood right up, but I was just traveling and here for my whole life I thought you know he saved me and what a guy. And meanwhile, like I said, he set me up and and he did save me, but I could have just stood up, so so that's kind of where it all started. I was from that age. And then, um, after my uncle passed, uh, before he passed we had been talking about me kind of taking over the trapping, and then, when he passed, uh, it kind of just fell into my lap, I guess unfortunately, but but fortunately at the same time what was his name?

Speaker 1: 28:53

again, it was scott norman so he was, uh, norman, yeah, he died. He died too young. He was like a second father to me. You know, I spent most of my time out on the trap line with him, whether it was fur trapping or minnow trapping, and even at that time like I think about it a lot now that if I could go back to that eight-year-old kid that fell through the bog and tell him that I'm making a living out on the trap line and in that area and I've expanded the business, you know, tenfold since I took it over, but that little kid would be just like so giddy I don't even think that he would care if I had a pot to piss in, as long as I could pay the bills and be living like this. Like that was the dream. So it's just been kind of surreal in that way. So then we took it over in 2016.

Speaker 1: 29:39

At that point my dad was still selling bait when he sold the tackle shop. Some stuff went on there and then eventually he got back into selling bait, just basically because a bunch of our old customers were calling and asking if we would get back into it. So I took over for my uncle kind of trapping it and I would sell it to my dad. And then during COVID my old man was retiring from the mill in Dryden. He was a welder his whole life, uh, and he wanted to get out of the bait too. Um, so I I took that over from him then. So now I do all the, all the sales and all uh, a lot of the trapping. We do buy some minnows from a few trappers and then obviously my business partner traps as well. So, um, so, as Willie knows, these lodges go through a lot of bait every day. So you got to be out there every day pretty much all summer. So it's a hectic job. Pounds and pounds.

Speaker 1: 30:28

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:30

Tell us how you trap, like what's the process of actually collecting your bait?

Speaker 1: 30:36

And what you're trapping. Yeah, so we trap leeches and minnows. We buy our worms and sell our worms just through a wholesaler but we trap our leeches and our minnows and we trap them. The leeches are a little different than the minnows. The minnow traps are kind of everybody's senior typical minnow trap. We make our own traps for commercial, so they're a little different but the idea is the same. So we trap our minnows that way in the ponds. You know we're going to all sorts of ponds and lakes. It kind of depends on the time of the year and the weather.

Speaker 2: 31:09

And are you on four-wheeler side-by-side walking Like how do you move through there?

Speaker 1: 31:14

We do it all by foot and four-wheeler and truck. We've kind of looked into the plane thing a little bit. I know I heard you had I listened to your podcast with wayne big wayne, yeah, yeah, he. You know, if I ever get to the point where I have 150 trap lines like him, maybe we'll have to look into a plane, but for now we can get a different level yeah, yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1: 31:36

To be honest, I don't even know, uh, how wayne even he probably doesn't get to half those trap lines, but it's good to have them either way and you need the plane to get to them. So my problem is I'm afraid of heights, like even when I was guiding full time and I was in flying, like I'm not. I don't like planes. So I started listening to those stories of you know, and I've talked to a lot of the old trappers. Wayne's stories match up with every airplane pilot that flies for minnows I've ever heard of. It's like the craziest thing you can do, I think, with your life. I've heard stories of guys here tying their plane off to a tree on the shoreline so that they can get the plane going wide open and then they reach back with an axe and cut the rope just so that you'll be able to get up before the trees. I'm like man, I'll cut, I'll chainsaw trail to that pond every time. Like I'll go, I'll go in the winter and cut a trail in there before I'm trying that stuff.

Speaker 1: 32:36

Yeah, so you imagine that right? Yeah, like it's not. That's not for me. We hired, like I know, a few guys with planes here, so we'll hire them to kind of fly us around our bait blocks and look for where we should put a trail or if we even can get into ponds. But I'm not going to fly into ponds. So we drive and quad. Luckily for us, they've done so much logging around here the last 10, 15 years that like it seems like every time we go out to the trap line we can get to another pond. It seems like. So we just keep expanding that way and uh, and we haven't had to get into the flying. So we we mostly just quad, uh truck. Sometimes you walk if it's a short trailer or whatever, and then we're as long as we can get a canoe in there with a cooler we're in there like a dirty shirt man and trying to get as much, uh much bait as we can.

Speaker 4: 33:24

And what do you want? Pardon, what do you bait with your traps, Like when you go in and trap them? What do you? What do you put in your trap?

Speaker 1: 33:31

Something different. Um, we use chicken feed. I find it works the best. Um, I've heard other stuff Like the pellets. Yeah, it's like pellets. So what we do is we put them in a bucket, you wet them, kind of make like a bread flour, we make balls and then we bake them in the oven and then you use those. They're about a hard ball size, gotcha. So, yeah, we use those in the traps. To be honest, part of it my old man still has has a feed business in dry and they sell a lot of feed to like farmers and stuff and it started with deer feed for our deer business, but so they have the chicken feed there. So it's just the easiest. Usually my old man needs minnows, so he just drops off a bag of chicken feed we give him. That's your cue. Yeah, it's a good trade.

Speaker 4: 34:19

eh yeah, and what about le leeches? So when you get into the minnows you put this thing in the trap, you throw it out just like a normal you know any kind of thing else, and the minnows swim in and they can't get out and you go get them. But what about leeches? How do you? So you're trapping the same lakes for the leeches, and how do you do that?

Speaker 1: 34:36

So so they're the same kind of lakes We've kind of found, like if a pond is really good for like nice size minnows, it doesn't seem to be as good for leeches. Like you might get jumbo leeches but you won't get as many typically. But if a lake is just full of minnows and you know, like some of these ponds, they're just all you know, they're too tiny where if I brought them to Willie he's going to tell them to take them home, willie he's going to tell him to take up, take them home, their guests aren't going to use them.

Speaker 1: 35:03

Yeah, those ponds can be the best for numbers of leeches, um, and then for that we're just using like a hunk of liver, or we use a lot of suckers, like we'll go get suckers in the spring and just cut them into like suckers, uh stakes, and we put them in the trap and uh, the only difference between the leeches and the minnows is the leeches. We're setting the traps right before dark and we're back right at sunup. Some guys even go before sunup. Just makes it a pain in the ass, to be honest, trying to find the traps in the dark. So I'm usually at the ponds at like 3.30 or 4 in the morning, whenever the sun's coming up, and we do that right at first light where the minnows the minnows, you can trap them whenever.

Speaker 1: 35:43

Um, if it's summertime, you know, like the middle of July, when it's plus 30, we have to do the minnows every day, cause they'll get sunburned and uh, and then when we bring them to the lodge they kind of slowly die and then I have to deal with it. It's always my fault, right? So, uh, we do that a little different, but for the most part we trap a lot of our minnows in the springtime when the trapping is easy, and then we'll store them and then just kind of trap a little bit in the summer to keep stock.

Speaker 2: 36:10

And like when you store them, you've got tanks Are they like concrete tanks or with aerators, obviously? And then you feed them.

Speaker 1: 36:19

We have a few different kinds of tanks.

Speaker 1: 36:21

We mostly run big stainless steel milk. They're the old milk containers, yeah, yeah. So we mostly run those. And then at my business partner's place there we got four tanks set up that have constant running well water. Unfortunately for me, I still live in town. I just purchased some property out on our trap line. Actually Me and the wife are going to build out there, but for now I'm in town so I run a.

Speaker 1: 36:46

I run a system. Well, it's the exact same system. Wayne runs in his bait shops it's the same tank, so I can run it off of like I have a chlorine filter so I can run it off of tap water. And then I have mine. My tank is three big sections and then I have mine. My tank is three big sections.

Speaker 1: 37:01

So I'll have my minnows divided small, medium, large. So all the minnows that are kind of selling day to day stay in my tank and I do the selling and the transporting and all that. And then the tanks at Damon's house are kind of where we just store the bulk of our minnows. And if there's anything, sometimes, like you know, for certain tournaments guys want suckers, so then we'll store those separately because you know for certain tournaments guys want suckers. So then we'll store those separately because you know if we can help it we're not going to go just trap suckers. If we're getting them kind of as byproduct, we'll just keep them separate in those big tanks. But for the most part, yeah, the bulk of the minnows stay in the big tanks and then the minnows that are selling day to day stay in my sorted tank.

Speaker 2: 37:40

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Speaker 2: 39:23

Tight lines everyone Find Ugly Pike now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts, you're collecting these things and you're trudging through the bush and at like all hours of the night. What are some crazy things that you've seen out there, like, have you seen? Like you must have seen animals and bear, or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 39:50

Yeah, you see all sorts of stuff. I'm trying to think of anything out of the ordinary. Like we see a lot of moose, you see, like some neat stuff like you'd never think. Like, uh, last year we had one pond where I think it was an otter um was stealing all the anytime we would use sucker meat in that pond for leeches, they would steal it out of the trap. So, like you, I ended up having to like wrap the sucker meat up in like a bag so that it couldn't get the sucker meat out, which if you weren't out there you'd never think that was a thing, but it was like three or four times in a row. So I'm like, and sometimes we get turtles like the turtles are really bad for doing that, but usually they're like you know, I can think of a couple of ponds where if I set a trap at this particular spot, a turtle's taking it, like he's taking the bait out. I've even had it where I pull the leech trap up and the turtle's in the trap and you have to dump a little painting turtle out. But other than that there's not too much crazy stuff that happens on the pond. Like we see all sorts of weird stuff with loons and you see bears and moose on the blocks.

Speaker 1: 40:58

Last year probably the neatest thing was Damon was staying. We keep a camper out on one of our trap lines every year because some of them, you know, are an hour and a half drive through the bush roads. So he woke up. Of course you're getting up at four in the morning to go leech trapping. I think he had set the leech traps at like 1030 at night after he got off the middle ponds. So he goes. You know he wakes up. He's like I'm starting my truck because it's early or late May, it's cold. You know he goes. I go out, I start my truck, I'm inside, I'm the camper, I'm getting the French press going for the coffee, and he goes. I haven't even woke up yet Right, my eyes are still covered in sleep and he goes. I'm hearing scratching and I'm like what the heck is that? Like you know he's like it's not making sense. And so he looks out the window of the camper and about five feet in front of his truck is this giant black bear that's scratching the tree.

Speaker 1: 41:52

Now we've just finished our black bear season where we killed 13 bears. So david looks is telling me this. He goes. I'm assuming this bear is out for blood, like he's sitting there scratching the tree. And Damon said when I went to my truck I was five feet away from this thing and never even knew it was there. Like you know he's like. I started the truck I'm half asleep, I didn't even look. I get back in the camper, here this thing is. It's scratching the tree. Well, he goes. So I yell at that thing like hey, hey, get out of here. He goes. That bear looks over at the camper and just keeps scratching the tree and he goes so next thing, I know, I'm stuck in the camper for 20 minutes waiting for this thing to take off.

Speaker 1: 42:25

Of course we have. You know, there's no gun, no, nothing like. He's got a fillet knife, maybe, and and so he goes. I'm yelling at this bear and he's we got the picture. It's unreal the damage the bear did to this big pine tree and it was like I I never seen the bear, but I seen the scratches.

Speaker 1: 42:42

There was a good reason not to leave that camper and, yeah, like stuff like that happens all the time. I'm lucky I bring. I have a springer spaniel that when I started in 2016, I don't really know how I trained him to come trapping with me, but he follows me around every pond and it don't matter if it's a bear game warden. You get ran off if you try sneaking in on us and we got a few ones. Find out the hard way that a 50 pound springer spaniel is a pretty scary thing when it comes flying through the woods at you. Yeah, so, and I've never had an issue with a black bear, so I'm fortunate that way, but yeah, that's probably one of the crazier things we've had happen yeah, yeah, no doubt.

Speaker 2: 43:21

So listen to kind of nicely. Tie up the bait portion. How, where, where can people buy your bait and do you sell just directly to lodges, or do you have a storefront or how? Tell us about that part so people can find you.

Speaker 1: 43:40

So we mostly sell like probably 95% is directly to what I would say is like other wholesalers, like lodges, tackle shops. So I try and avoid selling too much to the public. Perfect, it doesn't feel right to me. I sell to the tackle shop in town. I'm not going to go and undercut them a dollar so that I can make an extra dollar. I'd rather just sell it right to them.

Speaker 2: 44:05

Yeah, so your product is going into all the tackle shops.

Speaker 1: 44:09

Yeah, I, to be honest, I prefer working with the lodges cause I don't like trapping in the winter. But just like for local guys, if, if, if. Like I've sold to local guys if they're going on a big trip, like, if you want more than 50 dozen, I'll sell to you, um, if you want less than that, I just tell you to go to the tackle shops.

Speaker 1: 44:25

I sell to, um, they help me out all year, so I'm not going to undercut them a little bit, I know a lot, a lot of the guys, uh, especially like the middle-aged trappers seem to really get into like trying to sell it like by the dozen on their own and it's so much extra work and headache that I just don't want any part of it. And two, I just again I don't feel right kind of undercutting the same shops I'm selling to. I'd rather the guy just go and buy from them. And everyone always thinks I'm not going to give you that much of a better deal to undercut my other clients, especially they're. They're buying you know three, 400 dozen a week where you're. You want two dozen, why am I giving you a better deal? Yeah, yeah. Well, mostly it's all to the lodges and tackle shops and we're always expanding every year Like we keep, we keep growing and growing. I just added two more customers yesterday, the difference we kind of do, which I think has helped us a lot.

Speaker 1: 45:20

And this is going back to when it was my old man's when we had the tackle shop. You'd have every trapper comes in and says I'm going to trap all your minnows, I'm going to get everything you ever need. And I'm, I got it all. And that's fine in the spring, but once it starts getting warm in June, any trapper that traps a lot, knows like it gets hard to find them and it's just hard to keep up with it. So we always make sure, like I always tell the guys, if I take you on as a client I will always have your bait and that doesn't matter if I have to go out at three in the morning to get there for 6 am when you're giving your bait to your guests, we'll always have bait for you.

Speaker 1: 46:06

If I said I'll have bait for you and I mean even last year, like Willie gets some leeches off of us and I owed him a few at the end of the year and they weren't kind of the quality that I usually sell, willie and a regular trapper probably would have just dropped them off and said there you go. And a regular trapper probably would have just dropped them off and said there you go. We agreed on whatever the weight was, but I wasn't going to. You know I called them and said, hey, these are kind of. They're smaller than what you want. You can take them, but if you don't want them I'm not going to be mad. And you know, I think Willie probably appreciated not having a bunch of leeches that his customers were going to complain to him about. So I think little things like that is kind of what's allowed us to stay growing every year and, like I said, it's just more. Every customer I bring on I kind of want to treat like family.

Speaker 2: 46:50

Well, and that's why you're absolutely right. It's not coincidence or anything like that the reason that people are coming to you and using you. Because, as a business owner myself, when I owned the lodge, if I had somebody that was going to tell me I was going to get minnows in July in 30-degree heat, and stand up to that, that would be a seller right there. Because for the last four or five years of my tenure I didn't even have minnows for those hot months because I couldn't keep them alive and they were so hard to find. So just knowing that and the fact that you're treating people the way that people should be treated and you're building a relationship with your clientele, that is the secret to success, right?

Speaker 1: 48:03

So you're doing everything right. I'm very thankful that I kind of grew up the way I did in the bait business and in the like tackle shop business, just because we we seen it so much. Sorry, I'm just plugging in my laptop here.

Speaker 1: 48:17

And we seen it so much where guys like, like I said, we're giving you promises that I mean we were in the bait business at the time, right, my uncle was always trapping so we knew, like one, we knew how much bait we were selling and that it wasn't even possible for one minnow trapper to supply it all.

Speaker 1: 48:34

And uh, and then we just you know there were so many promises. I mean I love wayne, but I remember fu matches between wayne and my old man in the tackle shop because there wasn't the bait that there was supposed to be. So I remember when I got into it I'm like I'm never going to get into a situation where I made a promise that I didn't keep to somebody. So we've grown a lot slower than we could have. Like, last year I turned down a huge contract that, to be honest, looking back, might've even been a bad business move now. But we at the time we had just bought a bunch of new bait blocks and we didn't know how good they were going to be. So it's like I I figured they'd be good enough that we could have taken on the client.

Speaker 4: 49:23

But when you're that, when you're a client that big, I don't want to, I guess, piss you off, uh, because I couldn't be sure. Don't burn that bridge, buddy, don't?

Speaker 2: 49:26

yeah, that's yeah, no, that's smart I appreciate the fact that you're saying I'm not sure that we can do this for you, because then they can go. But once you get set up and now you know you can go back and you can say hey, listen, you know, we're good to go now, and that's part of building a relationship.

Speaker 1: 49:48

Yeah, I was just gonna say it works out both ways where it's been good for us, because now, like it's a cutthroat business and I know a few like younger trap Well, not a few, I know a couple like guys that are getting into it now and it's like everyone's just trying to steal customers from everyone and we're kind of lucky. The way my dad taught me to deal with the, the lodges, and everything has led to where if you call some of the lodges I deal with, they're probably gonna tell you to f off. You know, and it don't matter if you're half the price, like they know, I'm gonna be there when they need it and all those relationships have kind of been set because of that. So it's kind of worked out good in the long run and, to be honest, it makes my life easier in the summer because it gets so hectic between all three businesses trying to keep everything straight that having those good relationships with those lodges and tackle shops, it's really helped me be able to like I'll tell them hey, the wife's been on my arse.

Speaker 1: 50:45

I'm not going to be here Saturday night, I'm not going to be back till Sunday night.

Speaker 1: 50:49

You guys got to make do without me, and if that means they're going to take a little extra bait than they normally would, they will. Just to help me where I mean we always advertise that it's seven days a week and it is, but it's nice to be able to, you know, get out and go to camp for a night or two and keep the wife off my back and she has to deal with a lot of a lot of headaches dealing with me during bait season. I wouldn't want to deal with me during bait season, so I got to try and give her some sympathy when I can. So that's been nice having the relationships with the lodge where they they're willing to kind of work with me and and and help me out when I need need a break, and and it's good to good to work both ways. With that I think it helps everybody out and there's more than enough in Northwest Ontario for everybody Like it. It doesn't have to be as cutthroat.

Speaker 4: 51:40

Your customer service is excellent, buddy, just like, like wayne. Wayne is like a different level of a guy, I think in northwestern ontario because he's the mecca.

Speaker 4: 51:50

and then I see, like you and cody charlebois, I think, are like, so like those are the three big names I know in northwestern ontario and you all kind of do business. The same is, you know there's, you have your people and those people are dedicated and at the same time, the dedication comes you know yours and reversed back to them, which is which is great, and I love the fact that you guys aren't cutting each other's throats like that.

Speaker 4: 52:14

You know that's a, that's a key thing and I know it personally firsthand because I deal with Wayne and 90% of my stuff and that one area that I've been friends with you in for a while and I deal with you and it's never a conflict, never an issue and I know at any point it can, I can call out of one of you and you're there for me in a minute.

Speaker 1: 52:34

Yeah, and.

Speaker 4: 52:35

I appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 52:42

I think that's the better way to be. Like I know, with Wayne, he's got such a big operation that I don't have a clue how he does it. Like, yeah, and like people tell me that I have a big operation between all the businesses that I run and like, and you know, even my old man's always on my ass that I'm gonna be way too busy and all this. And then I look at like what wayne does and I'm like like he's got four people basically between him his wife, his daughter and her boyfriend and they, like you know, they have 140 trap lines now something like that, like so it's a reference

Speaker 1: 53:09

for reference, me and Damon uh, we just bought two more, so we have, I think, 12. Now we're in the process of buying like three or four more. It's hard for the two of us to trap like the 12 that we have. Like like there's blocks I haven't been to for years, like for a couple years, um, and some of that is because we let blocks get a break but like to have 150 blocks and everything wayne does. I have no idea how he does it and and I think that's part of it he's a champ, yeah, and all the camps and everything.

Speaker 1: 53:39

so we run it like like well, for instance, I just I'm in the process right now of signing up a camp that does half their bait with Wayne and, like I told him, I don't care. Like you know, some people would get mad and be like, oh, you have to buy everything from me. I'm like man, they're a huge lodge. Like they go through hundreds of dozens a day I go. In my opinion, I think they'd be silly to trust just me or to trust just Wayne, you know. Um, so I I have no problem working with people and I just want everyone to end up at the end of the day being happy. I find that's best for business and it's always that's how I've always done it, and even whether it's the bear business, the minnow business or the barber business, it's always kind of led to more clientele for me by operating that way.

Speaker 4: 54:23

Dude, that's so awesome. And I and you're right, I know like, uh, you listened to that podcast with Wainer there, you know it's me and Wayne have gotten really close and uh, and not for business, personal, you know we both are, we both are, uh, you know we're very aggressive but opinionated people at the same time but also have big hearts and I think you're the same way. You know you don't put up with shit and you'll go do your thing, but at the same time you have a big emotional heart and I love that.

Speaker 1: 54:50

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 54:52

And to me that makes all of us succeed together in the Northwest it's funny you say that I was just telling a young trapper.

Speaker 1: 55:00

So we helped out a young trapper last year and we ended up catching wind that the it wasn't reciprocal. We'll leave it at that. You know there was there were. Part of the deal was you know he was going to trap some for us. We were going to help him out when he needed Cause he had taken a contract that I knew he couldn't fill. But he was a young guy. He's trying to break in.

Speaker 1: 55:19

So you know it's nice just seeing. I mean you know how hard it is to find people to work Like there's no young guys that want to get in this industry. So the problem was we ended up because it's a small world finding out that you know he hadn't fulfilled his end of the bargain and it wasn't because he couldn't have, so he had lied to us. So then it's funny dealing with some of these guys because he goes. Well, I don't get why you guys are so mad. I'm like I'm not mad at what you did, I'm mad that you lied to me. You know, because in the business it's like if you're to me, I'm like if your word means nothing, what do you have then?

Speaker 4: 55:52

like uh, well, you could have helped him out. That's the problem. Right, you could have. You could have went to his block and been like well, hey, man listen, I understand that you're not cutting the slope right now, but I'll help you out, because then it gets me my stuff that you agreed to, right?

Speaker 1: 56:05

so that's well exactly you know part of the deal. It basically the deal was he was going to sell us some leeches every week and we would help him out with his minnows and all summer long, you know, we helped him with his minnows and we just kept hearing about how he was too busy to go out leech trapping which he probably should have been too busy. But then at the end of the year, when you're having a few beers and you start bragging about all these leeches you trapped and that you didn't fulfill your orders to us, you know it's like well, you know, now, this year, why am I going to? Am I going to bail you out? Because you know I. I certainly didn't have to. And, to, and, and.

Speaker 1: 56:44

To be honest, my business partner was like why are we helping out a comp, a competitor? You know competition, um. But to me it was like, hey, there's plenty of business to go around. I don't mind helping them out. If you go back I'll scratch yours. But when you start finding out that you know, uh, somebody's word doesn't necessarily mean as much as your word means. It's kind of like well, this year, when you're hard up's word doesn't necessarily mean as much as your word means. It's kind of like well, this year, when you're hard up, don't don't call me Saturday night, because you need 400 dozen for Sunday morning.

Speaker 4: 57:10

You taught him a lesson.

Speaker 1: 57:11

You taught him a lesson and you know my old man had said it when I was growing up that there's reasons not to do these kinds of things. And so it's funny now we consider my old man, we call him Big K, so me and Damon, my partner, we'll always, whenever we have a question about something, I say like, well, we better call the consultant. So we call my old man. I don't know if he laughs at us more or what, but after a good laugh at what's going on he usually just sits there and he shakes his head and he somehow always knows it was going to happen. You know, he goes ah, I seen that coming and he goes well, I'll do this and then it. So we're lucky in that regard. Where I got the old man and he kind of makes light of it and he talked about all the, all the different camps that had done the same thing to him, or the same trappers that had done I caught Stevie here on the log end.

Speaker 2: 58:00

Yeah Well, I know something about good business and never stray away from it, and that is all. Ships rise with the tide, so you know it's. I never chose to have a bad relationship with anybody. But having said that, you know, when you learn certain things about certain people, um, trust is, uh, is, uh, is is um the ultimate um trait in a person, and when somebody doesn't, isn't trustworthy, then you know. You just have to watch yourself, right.

Speaker 1: 58:38

Yeah, and I'm used to that, like business right, you always hear like nothing's nothing's fair in business, right, and and so you're used to it. I guess I'm a little different where, like, growing up, my uncle Scott was always big on like trappers, have to look out for trappers and you should always, you know, be honest with trappers. And I'm not saying you know, uh, there was a reason why when you asked about the leech traps, I didn't say what our leech traps looked like, because, absolutely, david gave me very specifics if I was coming on here that we kind of figured something out with leech traps that no one else does, and he said if you share that I'll kill you um, so like, yeah, that's trade secrets, brother, you don't have to share those yeah.

Speaker 1: 59:17

But I mean, we kind of grew up where my uncle was always like hey, if you can help a, help a trapper out, if you could be honest with a trapper, we're all in it, all in this together. So that's kind of where we've gone on, and it's nice to know now that not all the trappers are in the same boat. But that's fine and and I mean it, like I said, having that mentality kind of has led us to have a pretty successful businesses and as we've got into the bear, uh, outfitting business and it's kind of.

Speaker 2: 59:41

Yeah, let's go there, let's talk about your whole outfitting business.

Speaker 1: 59:46

Okay, yeah, so we run. Our big one is we do spring bear. So we have a big spring bear hunt. Me and Damon pour a ton of time and energy into it. We build big, beautiful stands and it's probably been their most rewarding uh business we have. I think in that because we've poured so much work into it, it has taken off kind of more than we even imagined, where now I have other bear outfitters that are going up to my old man and being like man, all my, all my customers are just talking about your son. They want to go and hunt with your son and Damon, and when we're doing all the work it just seems like to us like what you should do. I guess, like they pay us very well, you know. And so we put a lot of work in.

Speaker 1: 1:00:33

And when I used to guide for all the lodges I guided for it was one of my biggest pet peeves and kind of why I got into working for myself, was that a lot of the lodges, I hate to say it cut so many corners and like kind of cut them in ways that like I don't think you need to.

Speaker 1: 1:00:51

You know, like if you're charging someone, like, for instance, one thing that I can think off the top of my head. I guided for a guy for moose, and it was all old, crappy engines on the like, the boats, and even like the battery he gave us to power the lights in the wall tent. It had to have been in the bottom of a boat at one of his lodges for like four years because like it would power these little twinkle lights for about four minutes. Um, so the the poor old americans can't even tie their their boots up before the lights go out. And then I got to fire up a generator at five in the morning so that they can get ready. Meanwhile you're in the middle of nowhere, sleeping in a wall tent because you're trying to be quiet, and in the middle of nature, right, and I remember sitting there like a 20-year-old kid going like I know what he's charging for these hunts, I know what he's paying me, I know what the plane costs.

Speaker 1: 1:01:47

There's plenty of money in it to buy a hundred dollar battery at canadian tire. You know, like proper equipment, there was always little things like that that would piss the guests off and for a guide, you're like looking at your tip, just you know, and it's like, oh yeah, I'm like I'll, I'll buy the battery myself. So when me and damon started the bear hunt it was like, okay, we're not gonna hold back anything, like we're, we're gonna do it exactly how we would want it if we were paying what these guys are paying, and like, at first you still had some of the guys who just wanted a cheap hunt and and they kind of went off on their own and left us. But now we have a group of guys that, like, they appreciate it and like, like last year we killed two bears, over 400 pounds, um, two boone and crockets. One was probably the biggest bear, to be honest, killed in ontario last year. I keep trying to get the guy to put the skull in um, but he won't. He doesn't care about the record books or whatever, but um, the best part of the whole season. Uh, people always think like, oh, it must have been that big bear and the big bear was fun, it was a lot of work.

Speaker 1: 1:02:44

But the best part was before that guy shot the bear. He's been on what did he say? 32 bear hunts or something across Canada, this fella. And he texted me this is the nicest tree stand I've ever been in and it's not even close like that. A boy. This guy's 400 pounds, right.

Speaker 1: 1:03:01

So he's like you know he used to bring his own stands. He would tell me to some of the places he went and you know we build them. We have a sawmill, me and Damon, so we cut the boards and we built nice big platform stands and I'm like that was the best part, was like all the guys being like this is above and beyond what we expected and uh, and then, like I said, said that just led to where now, because my old man sells the feed, he's had two or three guys come and and be like man, all my hunters are in camp talking about your, your kids hunt. They're not even talking about the hunt that they're on. And uh, and I'm like that to us has been the most like rewarding part, because I mean just knowing that we're doing it right and then seeing how, like I mean, if you want to book a bear hunt with us. As of last june, you had to book for 2026, so like we're booking 18 to 2 years in advance and how many tags do you have in your bma?

Speaker 4: 1:03:56

we?

Speaker 1: 1:03:57

have 13 so we run for two. So I run it for two different lodges. Between we have one, two, three, four bear units total between the two.

Speaker 4: 1:04:06

Hold on, so they're not your hold on, so we don't take it back a second. So my so like I own my BMA DRO 5-7. So this be the BMAs you're hunting are for lodges and you're contracting them. Is that what you're?

Speaker 1: 1:04:18

doing yeah. So what happened? That was an awesome idea.

Speaker 1: 1:04:27

Yeah, so how it started was 26, so when I was I should, I guess I'll rewind so when I was still, uh, just starting out as a barber, I ended up living in my camper at deer path lodge. The owner's name is rick tinney, so I lived there. He, he let me like so for reference, like in sulac out rent is like a thousand dollars a month, so for 600 bucks he let me camp at his lodge for the whole season From May 1st, and I stayed there till like November, I can't even remember as long as you could.

Speaker 1: 1:04:51

Oh, I was so broke right starting out that I didn't have any money to move. So it was like, once this is over with. I didn't even know where I was going and what happened was, because I was there so often, most of the guests started thinking I was an employee and so I'd be sitting there and I'd help guys unload their trucks or whatever, and Rick would come up to me and be like, hey, you don't have to do that. And I'm like Rick no-transcript. You know, he's old and he's got a neck injury and he just can't do it. And if I would maybe be interested in helping him out and and doing the bear hunt.

Speaker 1: 1:05:36

So I started off with him and then, uh, as it kind of grew with, like I said, how, how uh nice of a job we were doing. And we were, you know, we cared a little more. It wasn't just like I don't just go and throw a bear bait three days before the hunters get here. It's like I'm baiting a month before they show up and even more the week they're they're arriving, um. So the hunt booked solid. Um, it was busy. Rick loved it, while other lodges started kind of getting wind. Uh, one of the lodges we sold bait to asked me if I'd be interested, because they had another guy doing it and the guy was charging them just like they pay us well, and he was getting a lot more than we were getting. I'll leave it at that, um, yeah, so they asked if we would take it on. So we took on that lodge, uh, coming out of COVID, and then that one snowballed now where we have, I think, one or two other lodges that are trying to get us kind of to take over their hunt.

Speaker 4: 1:06:32

The problem starts being Well, it's a great idea. Yeah, if you're out there doing that work, like I know, I have one of the biggest BMAs. Like I know, I have one of the biggest BMAs, I think actually I have the biggest number per square kilometers in northwestern Ontario, with 35 tags in that DRO 549. And it's like I got 209 miles of land. It's a lot of work and that's the thing. Right, like we had, I had some of the prettiest bears I'll send you them, kyle that you've ever seen, but they're so. I have a family of cinnamons that are breeding, but they're skunk striped, so they're probably about six inches across the back and from the skull right to the butt and I've never seen anything like that, and I put two of them on the ground this year and I've seen at least three or four more out there.

Speaker 4: 1:07:26

But you know, selling the hunts is awesome. The bears are there. I have really good stands. I have an amazing area. My thing is is I'm too busy and to pay a staff, so to have a guy if you just here here's my, here's the clients that are coming you bait them and you take care of them and here's our percentage. That's a. That's a great deal for a lodge owner, because it's because you're saying it's a lot of work and if you're already out in the bush doing minnows and leeches and this, already you're in that area where I have to leave the lodge twice, three times a day, and or my staff and the fuel and this it gets to be a lot of money for a two thousand dollar hunt. You know what I mean. So that's it's a really good idea that you're doing that, consulting like that through those lodges like willie, and I mean you steve used to have a lodge that you could appreciate too.

Speaker 1: 1:08:16

We, we take care of everything right from. Like I book the hunters, I take the hunters to the stands, Like we do the advertisement, the lodge. They take care of the cabins and collect the money Like. So for them it's a no-brainer.

Speaker 1: 1:08:33

Like Rick at Deerpaw all the time he tells all of them he goes, there would be no bear hunt if it wasn't for Kyle, you know, and Damon, and for us, like the bear blocks are, we've been kind of purchasing minnow blocks around these bear blocks so we're already out there. Um, our best bear block is actually the minnow block of my uncle's. Uh, the bear block surrounds it. So I grew up out there. So I like, when we got that bear block, I'm like looking where they had their stands, I'm going man, you guys have no idea, like what you're missing out on, and uh, and so then once we take it over, like it usually takes a year, I think the first year the lodge is kind of skeptical because you know they're giving away 50, 60 percent of the their money on the hunt. But then when they see what they're getting and how happy the guests are, it's like it's a no-brainer, like I always the return over is is is worth, is is the money in the long run.

Speaker 4: 1:09:21

It's not no-brainer. The return over is the money in the long run. It's not short-term money, it's long-term.

Speaker 1: 1:09:26

Our hunters always laugh. If you asked Rick or Kurt who is the owner at the other lodge, they couldn't point on a map where the bear stands are. That's how much control we take. Yeah, well, not even disconnected. That's crazy. They're like hey, kyle and Damon are the bear guys. Just that's crazy that they're like hey, kyle and damon are the bear guys. Like, when people call, they're like just call kyle and damon, like and, and that's how we prefer it.

Speaker 1: 1:09:49

Like I would rather have a whole hunt going back to the hundred dollar battery, because now there's no, no, that doesn't even get discussed. And I find it's easier with the lodges, like now, if we say hey, we need to upgrade every stand, you know. So, like the one lodge we took over, they had a bunch of old rinky dink stands. We're like we're going to update every stand and this is what we're going to do. We show them like a picture and it becomes like well, do the guests want it? Yep, they talk to the guests. The guests say yeah, what do you need from us to make that happen? And sometimes it's like hey, you know, instead of splitting this hunt 50-50, how about maybe we take the whole 100%, but we'll take care of all the new stands. You don't have to worry about the new stands, you don't have to worry about the safety. We'll take care of all that. So it works out great.

Speaker 1: 1:10:39

And, like I said, all these relationships with these lodges, it's like we talk to them about anything we're thinking about doing, um, and it's just ballooned to where, like I said, now other lodges see it and they're like man, I don't want to go out on my bear block. I'd much rather have two young guys go out and break their backs and uh, because I mean it's, it's enough work baiting the bears. But like I got videos of getting that 450 pounder out of the woods last year, that like it takes everything you have. And like even me at 32, I feel like I'm getting too old now to uh to start getting some of these bears out of the woods. It takes everything I have oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:11:15

Well, if I were you, kyle, you're building a beautiful business model with that I would make it mandatory that if you partner up with a lodge, that you go in and you do all those stands, because it's imperative. What you're doing is you're building an experience for the guests. You're building, and it's a wonderful experience because you understand that it's the experience that's going to bring them back. And I would be very stern with lodges when you partner that. This is our model, this is how we do it and it works. And now you've got the base behind you where you've got two, three, four different blocks and you can say talk to a lodge owner X, he'll tell you and that's just that you. Because as soon as that experience dips, no matter what you're going, what you'll lose people, right.

Speaker 1: 1:12:42

Now what you've built, that's unbelievable. Now you got to maintain it and you will be totally successful at it and to that effect, it's been nice, when we do talk with these new lodges about taking over, that we've become so busy now that you know there's a waiting list of guys who have hunted with us and guys who want to hunt with us. So it's easy when a lodge comes to us and they have five tags, let's say is one of the lodges that's been talking with us lately it's like, okay, well, how many do you have sold? And a lot of times it's like one, two. It's like, okay, well, how many do you have sold? And a lot of times it's like one, two. And it's like, okay, well, I'll sell all those tomorrow morning. And they're like, no, you won't. And I'm like, no, yeah, we will. But the thing is they're not going to hunt with you if you're not hunting with us. Like they, the clients are, whether it's, you know, we do bear, we clients that come moose hunting, that we guide, that they see the pictures of the bears and they're like, hey, we want to book a bear hunt with you. And so then you know, then we booked them in for that. So it's like the clientele list is long enough that for us it works out.

Speaker 1: 1:13:31

Nice that I can tell a lodge like hey, I'm going to fill your hunt, I'm going to make you more money than you were making before anyways, and you don't have to do any work, just take the paycheck, make sure there's a cabin ready for them, all the stuff you were going to do anyway.

Speaker 1: 1:13:44

And it even is nice for us. Like we've had guests that are at this lodge one year and then they say, well, I want to try this lodge, because you know they'll go to the lodge in Donorwick that has crappies, because, well, I want to catch some crappies. I'm tired of catching walleyes at this lodge. Lodge and, yeah, a lot of it doesn't even care because it's like well, I'll just move another guest in there to fill that spot, you're not losing anything. Yeah, you know it's. It's not like a competition for these guests and it lets the guests have a bit of a different experience. Some of them end up figuring out man, I liked it better at the first place and they go back to the first place, or maybe they like it better at the second place, they stay at the second place. It makes no difference to us and it's just.

Speaker 1: 1:14:19

It's good for business and and it makes relationships work for everything and now we have bear hunters that come up to the lodges, that are just fishermen, so then they buy minnows off us and we win again. So it's like um the relationships speak for themselves well, well, that goes one step further.

Speaker 4: 1:14:37

I think you got one more little business we got to throw in here, so these guys can can buy bait from you. They can go hunt a moose, they can hunt a bear and at the same time, they can look sexy, showing up to camp with a new haircut.

Speaker 4: 1:14:50

They can, they can so tell me how you let's talk about, just briefly, about your barber and how you got, because I think that's crazy. I never forget that. I didn't even know that for the first two years I knew you and then this year we're at Red Lake Fishing. You're like, oh yeah, I gotta go back and cut some hair. And I'm like, what do you mean cut hair? You're like, yeah, I'm a barber. I'm like, what, what? So yeah, tell the folks about that and how that you know brief story how that got going and how they can get a hold of you for that yeah, so I started the barbershop when I was 19.

Speaker 1: 1:15:20

I I was, it was 2012. So I'd been guiding fishing, for that was my third year. No, sorry, it was my second season fishing. And then, like I said I would, at the end of the fishing season I'd work enough construction to get on unemployment and then help my dad out with the deer hunts that winter. I was kind of realizing that you know, I was getting not old, I guess at 19. But I was realizing like I got to make like a living, full time here. So I actually started applying.

Speaker 1: 1:15:49

I thought I wanted to be an electrician. So I applied, probably for I think it was like 28 applications I dropped off. And I remember my 28th application I dropped it off it was at Hoover Electric to the old man that ran it and I had it on my resume and you can tell how different it was back then. He grabbed my resume and he looked at me and he said what do you want me to do with this? I said, oh, I was hoping maybe you might need somebody and I'd like to work up to be an electrician, maybe get an apprenticeship one day. And he said, yeah, I don't know what you think I'm going to do with this. And he threw it right in the garbage right in front of me and, like I said, this was like the 28th guy, so it wasn't the first time that I, you know, said no to.

Speaker 1: 1:16:33

So I'm kind of sitting there and I'm going man, what am I going to do? Like you know, I come from a family of tradesmen, so I assume that's what you had to do. And well, my hair was long. So I went down to the barber shop in Dryden. I'd been going to JMAX for geez, at that point probably already 10 years.

Speaker 1: 1:16:47

And so I'm down in the dumps. I'm 19. I'm like man, no one's ever going to hire me. All they keep saying is you need experience. But how am I going to get experience if I can't get hired? You know, nowadays I could walk into all 28 of those shops and they'd be like man, you want to work, we'll hire you tomorrow. Like, let's go.

Speaker 1: 1:17:02

Um, so I walk into J max and I'm not kidding, there's like I have to stand. There's like eight people there. So I'm like well, I'm unemployed. What am I going to do? Like I might as well wait. So I'm sitting there and in my head I'm going 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150. And while I'm there, he cuts all these guys hair in front of me in about an hour. So I'm going huh, that job I just applied for as an electrician apprentice would have been 18 bucks an hour. I just watched Jason make 125 bucks in the last hour and he's got another 125 bucks sitting here for the next hour.

Speaker 1: 1:17:40

So I get in the chair and I go Jay, how the heck do I do this? You know, like Jason uh, most people don't know him like Jay Mack. He's famous. At this point he was famous for like if you go on Friday afternoon, he's already at camp fishing. Like not a chance was he working late on Friday and everyone would always complain Like all he does is fish. So I'm, this doesn't sound too bad. So he tells me okay, you got to do this and you got to do that. And he had actually gone to hairdressing school, which I didn't want to do at all, but he was on unemployment when he went. So they paid for it because it's like 15 grand, right.

Speaker 1: 1:18:14

And again, I'm a broke 19 year old kid. So I get home and I get on the computer and I find this barber program in Hamilton. I call the guy up and the guy has no clue where Drive Ontario is. Like he thinks I'm calling from Sudbury, sault, ste Marie. So I tell him, hey, I'd like to come do this. He goes. This is the middle of March, he goes well, you can start April 1st if you want. Like we start everyone at the start of the month and you're going to have to be here for three to six months, kind of depending how quick you pick it up. So I said OK. So it was like I got my hair cut that afternoon. I talked to him and it was less than two weeks. I'm on the way to Hamilton. I'm going to learn how to be a barber and cut hair.

Speaker 1: 1:18:55

When I left for Hamilton I'm not shitting you it was April 1st. Nost, march 31st it snowed two feet. So I wake up, I'm literally living on my buddy's couch. Like I got, like I think my mom and dad gave me $300 prepaid visa and like that's what I got. I got that and I'm getting. Like I think I was still on unemployment insurance at the time. So I'm getting like 400 bucks every two weeks or whatever, 400 bucks a week. So I leave while there's two feet of snow.

Speaker 1: 1:19:26

So I messaged the guy, the barber, and I go hey, I'm leaving my hometown. I know I'm supposed to start tomorrow, but we got two feet of snow, I don't know. Like I was kind of going to just get there in time to begin with, I might have to start the next day. And I was kind of going to just get there in time to begin with, I might have to start the next day. And he just goes yeah, no problem, which I never thought anything of.

Speaker 1: 1:19:45

Oh, so I get there and this is a black barbershop in Hamilton so I'm growing up in Dryden where, like the only black guy I knew was my hockey coach and like, so I roll up and like man, it's right down to, like I'm calling. I'm going oh, okay, so this is African-American hair. And the barber goes man, I've never been to Africa in my life. Like, what do you mean African-American? He goes I'm from the Caribbean. He goes it's black hair.

Speaker 1: 1:20:10

And so finally, after this goes on, I'm going what do you mean? And he I'm not kidding, he grabs my arm like this, and he puts his arm beside it and he goes it's okay, you can just say, like you have white hair, I have black hair. It's not racist. I'm going, my God, I'm thinking like I'm going to get my ass kicked because I'm just so out of my element. So finally he says to me he goes where the hell are you from? I'm like well, I told you I'm from Dryden. He goes no like, show me. So I show him on a map, right, and he goes holy shit, man, I didn't realize like he's like were you serious? There was actually two feet of snow. He thought I went out with my buddies and got drunk and was hung over and that's why I was leaving.

Speaker 1: 1:20:50

I show him like a picture off of Facebook of my buddy that he had taken that morning. Now, granted by this point, we're into, like you know, the middle of April. I've been golfing in Hamilton since I got there. It's like 22 above. So I show him a picture of my buddy shoveling snow that morning and he goes there's no way I'm going. So I pull up the weather report it's minus 17, you know, and it's snowing. And he goes you're from like the bush, aren't you?

Speaker 1: 1:21:14

I'm like yeah man Like so then I tell him I'm like the town I grew up in like I could never imagine being in a black barbershop getting trained like I am now. And I'm like now looking back. I'm so glad I went that route because, like the barbershop experience if you've ever been to a black barbershop is not even like it. You can't even call a white barbershop a barbershop compared to like it's not the same thing. So it made me completely change my opinion on how I was going to run my business, how I was going to have the barbershop. Um, and, and it was, to be honest, life-changing. I still, I think every year I send Sean Gibson's, his name, I send him a thank you and, like he, he'll never know how thankful I am for the opportunity he gave me.

Speaker 1: 1:21:54

And and if it wasn't for the barber business, I don't think I would have been able to get into everything I have, because it's kind of given me the leeway of being able to get into different things that you know, when I was growing up, I always wanted to be a minnow trapper, but I just didn't think it was something I could have done. And the barbershop although I had to leave guiding to get into barbering. And I remember the last year of dealing with these clients who had known me for years at the fishing camp, telling them like, hey, I'm going to be a barber, I won't be here next year. They're like you're a barber, like you're a fishing guy, but that's not the same thing. How do you get over there? I'm trying to explain this thing. Like, oh, I went to this barber shop and they're so busy that I want to be like that, and uh, so that's basically how it happened. It was, it was a spur of the moment thing, and uh, where's?

Speaker 4: 1:22:39

your shop out of anyway, is it?

Speaker 1: 1:22:41

in your house, or is it? In town uh, so I have a like I built a shop behind my house and uh, so I have it behind my house. I used to be downtown and then the price of rent was just so expensive here that, uh, I knew most of my clients would just come to my house anyway. So I built the shop perfect, moved in and it's been what's it called?

Speaker 4: 1:23:00

so people can get a hold of you if they're up in the Northwest and they want to. It's Marble All Barbershop.

Speaker 1: 1:23:05

I'm lucky I'm the only barber here. So if you're in Sulukout and you need a haircut and you look up barber, I'm the only option you're going to get Nice. And then I mean even the name right Marble Eye. I came up with the name. Everything kind of circles back to just me wanting to be in the outdoors and the shop has just as much taxidermy as behind my back here. So it kind of gets off that atmosphere that you're in the North right when you come in and and it's been it's been great.

Speaker 1: 1:23:33

That's how I met.

Speaker 2: 1:23:34

Rick, what's your buddy's shop's name?

Speaker 1: 1:23:37

Jay Maxx Barber Shop. That's in Dry. Oh my, and Hamilton, that's a. He's the barber center. It's right downtown. I think it's on the corner of Wellington and Maine. I believe I've never. I think I've never forgot that. So I think that's what it is. There's a Tim Horton straight across from it.

Speaker 2: 1:23:54

Right on. Well, if I'm ever down there, I'm going to go in there and get my haircut and tell him that Kyle sent me.

Speaker 1: 1:23:58

Yeah, ask for big Sean. He's, he's the man, he's the man.

Speaker 2: 1:24:02

Nice, nice. Well, listen, kyle. Um, thank you so much for being on with us and and telling us about, uh, about the North and what's going on with, uh, all of your businesses. Um, I'm, uh, I'm really impressed with what you're doing and wish you all of the luck and success in business in the years to come. Man, thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 1:24:31

No, thank you guys for having me. It was a blast. Always a good time to talk fishing and trapping and hunting. I'm always down for that.

Speaker 4: 1:24:39

It's great to see you again, buddy. I'm down and you folks don't know, but I'm actually sitting right now looking at the Caribbean Sea right now, out my window in a palm tree. I'm down in Dominican right now and I heard it was going to be minus 40 in Canada, so I said fuck that and I bailed. So, I fly back on Sunday. And when I get back up north, though, brother, we got to hook up for an ice fish. Let's go up Laker fishing, for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:25:02

We should. I haven't even looked at my ice fishing stuff this year. We went and we set some minnow traps.

Speaker 4: 1:25:08

I'll get you back up in that department, don't worry.

Speaker 1: 1:25:16

Well, the ice was so bad there, like when we were setting minnow traps at the, was uh, the fact that people were out there. I was, like you know, we cut like a three by three square in the ice right to set the traps and you usually you take your ice pick and you kind of have to pick it all into little cubes and then you pull them out or push them under. Sometimes if the ice is really good, you can push the whole block out. Well, this year I'm with damon and I'm coming back from chainsaw on the last hole and I go hey, give me that pick, I'll start picking. And he goes.

Speaker 1: 1:25:43

He's leaned over in the the sleigh and he goes no, watch this. He grabs the pick and just kind of over his shoulder, whacks the middle of this brick of ice and it's a three by three brick and it just turned into like ice cubes and it was all just white. And I looked at him. I went you know I was pretty confident when the chainsaw had about 10 inches ice, but when I see you break it like that, I'm not as confident as I'm standing here now. And he goes no, I don't think I've ever seen ice break up like that, either I go. I think I'm going to leave my ice fishing stuff in the shed till after we get some cold weather. So now that it's been so cold I'm going to have to look for it so I can go fishing there you go.

Speaker 2: 1:26:20

Well, folks, if you're up there, be mindful of that ice. We've got a guy that's watching it.

Speaker 2: 1:26:25

But uh, it should be good now yeah, yeah, well, after minus 40, sure, yeah, but thanks again, guys, and uh, folks, uh, head on over as usual to fishingcanadaadacom and get in on those free giveaways. Garmin always has something fine and dandy on there for you. Give it a look, get your name in there. And thank you very much for all of the Diaries family out there that's made it to this point, will, and I thank you wholeheartedly for that and reach out, let us know what you think. Subscribe so you get those notifications when a new one comes up, but they're always Wednesday at 6 am, as per Dino back in the production booth, and I'd like to thank those guys. We don't do enough of that on the Outdoor Journal Radio Network. And hey, folks, thanks again. And thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner. Stories of the North. I'm a good old boy, never meaning no harm. I'll be all you ever saw, been reeling in the hog since the day I was born, bending my rock, stretching my line.

Speaker 4: 1:28:01

Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine. I'll be making my way, the only way I know how.

Speaker 2: 1:28:14

Working hard and sharing the North with all of my pals.

Speaker 6: 1:28:19

Well, I'm a good old boy, I bought a lodge and live my dream.

Speaker 2: 1:28:26

And now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems, yeah.

Speaker 6: 1:28:38

Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, Angelo will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm, Now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know, there's going to be a lot of fishing.

Speaker 5: 1:28:59

I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.

Speaker 6: 1:29:04

Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes, All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing.

Speaker 5: 1:29:17

To scientists, but now that we're reforesting and laying things free.

Speaker 7: 1:29:21

it's the perfect transmission environment for life To chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.

Speaker 6: 1:29:30

And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3: 1:29:47

As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.

Speaker 3: 1:30:27

After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people. That will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.