Welcome back everybody to another episode of the JMO Podcast.
I'm your host, Taylor Michaels, and our guest this episode, we've got John Hoyer back on
the show.
If you're not following John on social media, whether it's Instagram or Facebook, go ahead
and do that.
It's one of the most entertaining, one of the most fun and educational social medias
that you could possibly be following out there.
And also, tour level gold is a big part of this conversation as well.
We've talked about it before on this show, but go to YouTube if you haven't already,
go to YouTube and type in tour level gold, find that content, and binge watch it if you
haven't already.
And if you have, go check it out again.
Obviously, can't promote that sort of stuff enough.
And that's a big part of this conversation.
We're going to get a fishing update, of course, from John.
We're going to get some great tournament fishing stories from so far this 2024 season.
We forecast a little bit for the NWT Championship on Lake Huron that's right around the corner.
But also, we just spent a bunch of time talking about tour level gold, which I think is, you
know, from a media content creation standpoint in walleye fishing specifically, it's one
of the most fun things that's out there right now.
It's one of the most influential and just fun new things that the walleye anglers are
able to enjoy.
And so, we're going to talk about it, get more backstory, just get more fun behind the
scenes conversation about tour level gold in this.
So, we'll talk fishing, talk tour level gold.
It's John Hoyer.
Check it out.
Devil's Lake is one of North Dakota's premier outdoor recreational destinations.
And to find out more about what the lake and the community of Devil's Lake has to offer,
head to devilslakend.com.
That link is in the description.
I want to take a minute to address a list of very important topics this time of year,
especially here in the state of North Dakota, where hunting seasons are already underway.
Number one, we need to be respectful of each other when we encounter other hunters in the
field, whether you're recreating on private or public land.
If you're interacting with a landowner or just other hunters in the field, we have to
be able to interact respectfully and be cool with each other.
Leave gates as you find them every time you go through, regardless, again, on private
or public land.
Check if land is posted physically or electronically when we're parking our decoy trailers or small
boat trailer on public roadways.
We have to keep the roadway clear so other vehicles or farm equipment can pass through.
Be respectful of that.
And picking up our trash has to be a major priority.
Now, accidents happen when we get back to the truck and we're in a hurry and it's after
dark, something falls out your door, but let's cut down on the accidents.
Let's cut down on the excuses.
Check around your vehicle once, twice or three times before you leave every single time and
we can cut down on the trash that is left out on the landscape.
That's always a big one every year.
If we can do these things, then we're doing our part to hunt for tomorrow.
And of course, I want to wish everybody a safe and successful season.
For updates on hunting seasons, hunting regulations, seasonal updates, head to the North Dakota
Game and Fish website.
That link is in the description of this podcast.
Zuloff Construction from Fargo, North Dakota is your trusted partner when it comes to protecting
and enhancing your property, servicing the surrounding area with over 40 years of combined
experience.
They've built a reputation for delivering exceptional roofing, siding, gutter and window
solutions.
With a team of skilled professionals using quality brands and products, that's how they
ensure lasting results.
To sum it up, Zuloff Construction is committed to exceeding customer expectations.
If you want an appointment for a free estimate, check out Zuloff Construction at their website,
zuloffconstruction.com or call them at 701-6300-197.
All those contacts are in the description of this podcast.
We got a couple of things.
There's a couple of notes written down.
I got a bit of an agenda for you for this.
That being said though, real easy.
What's the update?
It's like a pretty interesting season, a lot of fun storylines going on, the NWT season
specifically this year.
What's the update on wildlife fishing this summer?
What are some of the notable things that we should touch on?
What were some of the fun memories, the highs and lows, whatever it is?
What's the update right now before we get into some of these hotter topics?
The update, if your listeners haven't seen yet, is that our team, which is Dewey, Dustin,
Manky and myself, are officially back on the map.
After the first one at Erie, we made some noise.
We were kind of commanding the wildlife news cycle from the championship all the way then
again to the first tournament.
That's really a gratifying feeling.
But then these young guys all of a sudden took over and they were top 10-ing everything.
The next two tournaments, Dewey and I slide down to like sixth and seventh for angler
of the year and we're joking in camp about how her has beens and washed up.
And then lo and behold, the nice little Missouri River event comes on the calendar and our
boy Dewey Jelm wins that tournament.
And that was like the first thing I said to him was like, we're back.
Just in time for the championship.
Put these guys on notice.
We're not screwing around the rest of the year.
They had their chance in the spotlight, but our goal is to win out here.
And yeah, that risk of sounding cocky or arrogant, that was actually kind of going on.
We're joking about it, but we're kind of serious.
That's the Kakowice tournament.
I'm a little biased.
I really enjoyed the headlines and all that.
And I tried to co-angle that.
I just never got the call to be in it.
But that being said, tell me a little bit about this Kakowice tournament.
How did it go, man?
I know you enjoy coming out here and fishing.
You get to fish.
You share camp with Dewey, who's literally like the crown prince of the Missouri River
system right now by way of walleye tournament angling.
So tell me a little bit more of the details of Sakakowice, kind of how it went and any
of the high points of it.
Yeah, I mean, that one was super gratifying for sure.
When I look back at my pre-fish and whether we win or we do well, we top 10 or we completely
tank, I always want to look back at pre-fish and really figure out where it went wrong.
And I think those are the biggest lessons learned for myself personally, because the
things I learned a lot of practice are trying to big picture things.
But it's like, OK, how did he win in that area?
OK, I didn't look at that the last five days of practice.
I wrote it off in essence.
Did we all write it off, say shallow weeds or something like that?
So did we all write it off in the first three days of practice and never return to that?
OK, yeah, that does kind of happen.
But we found them out deep.
And hindsight is 20-20.
So that doesn't really bother me.
But when I looked at Sakakawea, I was just like flowing around the reservoir.
It was kind of funny.
I cracked the code in the back of the creek arms because of the rising water right away.
And then I kind of shared that with Dewey and Dusty.
And then, I don't know, one day I went up by myself and I was in a different area of
the lake.
And I'm like, well, what about out in these like big current areas?
And I'm like, well, there's a bunch of big ones out here that barely want to bite at
all, but they're the right fish also.
And then I leave that whole upper midsection of the lake from Van Hook down to the Deacon
after literally having 25 pounds every day or more.
And I just go to the very far east end where I have friends that have fishing the lake.
I have a guide friend who guides the lake.
And it was funny.
I talked to him on the phone and he's like, basically like, I wouldn't waste my time from,
and I don't know all the creek arms, but I think it was like the western third of that
main east-west stretch.
So down from the beacon.
He's like, they just aren't down there on the far east end.
They're not to the dam.
They're not this.
And that two days later, I was just like, I'm going to put in at the launch in Garrison
and I don't know, go look around.
And I find colder water, way less bait, way less walleyes.
But lo and behold, I weigh like 27 pounds.
And that was the first day down there.
And then I tell Dewey that, and I don't know if he came down the next day or the third
day, but I think it was the next day.
So I'm like, yeah, man, we got to look at all this.
So that was the day we literally fished sun up to sun down like 15 hours and caught so
many five plus pounders.
It was unbelievable.
I found this school that was like a Lake Erie school.
It's stretched for five or six miles.
And if people know like forward facing sonar on Sakakawea, a lot of my earlier fishing
in the week was like, oh, you make a cast at a noteworthy one, like every five minutes,
10 minutes, if you're in the right area, like a big one.
I was literally casting every 30 seconds for, I had my trolling motor in for six miles at
one point.
And it was so fun, but it was still absolutely tedious.
You get one out of eight to bite when they're biting or one out of six.
And then you get like one out of 20 to bite when they weren't biting.
But there was just so many targets.
It was game on.
And ultimately that's the zone that Dewey won in, that region, I guess, at Kana, not
really any specific zone.
We covered a lot of water in the tournament, but yeah, I could look at and say, what mistakes
did I make?
But the reality was it was a roll of the dice.
Like each day I casted to 30, 40, 50 big ones and could have easily had, you know, those
five big bites each day, had them nip, had them chase and just wasn't there at the exact
right minute, basically is what it came down to.
So the other thing that was really interesting, I don't know if Dewey touched on it in your
podcast, but about 95% of those fish, I'm talking N thousand walleyes, about 95% of
them shifted somewhere.
If it was open water, I'm not sure, but they were in essence gone.
And for both days of the tournament.
So like a stretch of a quarter mile where you literally saw a hundred big ones, there
was like two or three and the odds went way down to catch them.
So to hear like how early he weighed in, I mean, kudos to him.
He sat down in the right areas at the right time, made the right cast, did the right finishing
moves and yeah, he earned it.
Like that was, that was not as easy as it looked on paper.
Yeah, it's like something speaks to him.
You know, when down on Owhahi for the South Dakota Gov Cup and cause that was no cup of
tea either.
That was, you know, by anybody's standards.
And we talked about it and everything.
I mean, that, that wasn't like a phenomenal bite.
Like it can be, and there was the NWT on Sakakawea, you know, going into that tournament, there'd
been, you know, that stretch of the summer there, that early July, like it wasn't a super
funny, easy bite there either for anybody or certainly the locals.
So yeah, there was a, in hindsight is a lot of fun to talk about them.
But you know, when it was happening, it was kind of, everybody was just kind of holding
onto their seat a little bit to see, you know, what the weights were going to be and how
the bite was going to be for everybody who was going to find what.
But you know, hearing your story like that, you know, just like thinking about, you know,
tournament fishing, when you go to a destination and you're breaking it down, when you start,
when the days of pre-fish start racking up and you're trying different things, but you're
having success like each day, like on different types of things, like how much is too much?
Like when do you got to draw the line and stop looking for a new pattern and just start
really sort of refining the things that you are finding if you are finding success or,
or isn't there one?
Do you feel like the more patterns right up until tournament day, the more patterns, the
more spots, the more different things you can find is just purely confidence.
Like I'm just so curious about that because my head would be spinning if I had confidence
in shallow weeds and then I moved out and found something deep and then I switched ends
of the lake and they're here too.
Like, you know, I'd be like, yeah, I wouldn't know what to do with all that.
Yeah.
I mean, it can definitely create a scenario that's not helpful, but in reality, the, the
other side of that coin is like, oh my gosh, we have nothing.
And then it's, you can have success.
Like I've had plenty of success in tournaments with very few spots.
I think that's a lot of the reason why when we go to a new body of water, I've never
fished.
I generally do pretty well.
You know, spring Valley, Dunkirk for the first time ever that time of year.
Devil's Lake for the first time in September was 2019.
So yeah, I mean, having, having a couple zones and like, but having good fish there, you
know, you could sit in one there.
You could have sat in a couple of those points or whatever on Sakakawea and just went over
them and over them and over them.
And those fish would have turned on.
You could have caught the exact same weight.
Dewey could have won the tournament in a one, you know, one mile stretch or a half a mile
stretch.
That was what was going on there.
So when you get to the other side of it, I mean, for myself, I don't know, I think that's
one thing that's driven me in fishing is like, as soon as something gets predictable, like
every cast, even before forward facing sonar, I wouldn't say before a side scan, but you
know, there was times on Mille Lacs or anywhere where it would be every cast with a jig and
a Shiner.
And I am wired to that, like after three casts, I'm already thinking like, what else?
And you know, what else will they bite?
They're biting everything.
Will they bite something this dumb?
Will they bite something this fast?
Will they bite something this big?
So that's just kind of how I'm eternally wired going forward.
And so what that looks like in practice is sometimes it looks like a chicken with their
head cut off and nothing continues to work and waste a lot of time and maybe probably
don't do that well in the tournament.
But other times it's like Sakakawea where it's just flowing and you know, the ideas
are coming really clearly and yeah, I am going to try.
Well they should be out here.
There's people salmon fishing out here, like big wall.
I see the same food as salmon, you know, so stuff like that where it's just like, it's
coming to you and boom, it's working.
And you do end up with a big, you know, shopping list of spots for the tournament.
But you know, lo and behold, Sakakawea, the Great Lakes, there's going to be wind and
there's going to be travel calculations.
So I think kind of the more the merrier when it comes down to that.
And I don't know, the way we fish in tournaments nowadays, you know, we cover quite a bit of
water in the tournament and I really don't mind going into an area with like very little,
very little history.
Just because it allows me to fish quick, not really have any preconceived notions in the
area like this is my best area from practice.
I'm going to spend two hours here.
I'm going to spend 15 minutes on my best area in practice from seven days and it was good
every single day or something like that.
It just allows you to kind of fish a little cleat or freer in the tournament and not have
any preconceived notions.
Yeah, because that is the tough part for those of us that don't know what we're doing.
You know, actually recently I was talking to Joe Okada, good guy.
And you know, he was fortunate to go fish Fort Peck, the Montana Gov Cup for the first
time, or Fort Peck for the first time in his life for that tournament.
And the thing that he enjoyed the most is that he was on a body of water that he had
no waypoints and it was so freeing to him.
And I thought that was like a fun, interesting, you know, somebody that fishes tournaments,
high level tournaments for a long time, there's probably fewer and fewer first times, quote
unquote, first places, you know, like you go to all these places and there's like very
few that you haven't been to.
But when you finally get to one where you don't have waypoints, like that's fun probably.
And yeah, like you said, to be free, it's hard to be objective like that when you have
memories or even just memories from pre-fish.
You start to feel like you owe a spot when it's going and pre-fishing tournament day.
It's hard to go in there and they're gone.
And it's hard to make that shift when you've just got you've got so much, you know, emotional
sort of equity in a spot like that, man.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I don't I don't get over that very easily.
I yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's like a badge of honor.
If I can put my stole my trolling motor and leave a spot that was good yesterday, I'm
not good at that.
But last tournament thing, I want to talk about some other stuff with you for sure.
But last like tournament topic, I talked to Jay Siemens yesterday and he was telling me
some stories about Lake of the Woods tournament that you guys fish together and it sounded
like you guys had a gas.
I'm curious to hear what what that experience was like for you, how much you enjoyed Lake
of the Woods and fishing up there.
Any interesting memories from that from a fishing standpoint?
And then I'm going to ask you what it was like to fish with Jay, man.
So what's the story up there?
The story up there was whenever I thought of Canadian while I fishing on Lake of the
Woods, the Canadian side of Lake of the Woods, I thought like eaters and, you know, occasional
big fish here and there.
Like if I looked at Lake of the Woods, I would in the end and know the history of Big Traverse
Bay, you know, the American side of it.
It's like, well, that's their summer home.
That's the big basin.
That's all the forage.
The whole ecosystem like ends up in Big Traverse Bay and everything else is just, you know,
some percentage as good as that.
But then I go up there and Jay has some history from the Knorr while I open and some of its
normal tournament stuff like, you know, I fished this region of the lake this year.
We did we took fifth this year down here.
We did this.
We did that.
But, you know, a lot of guys are running in this direction.
And you know, there's like kind of lake trout water over there.
It's different ecosystem.
I'm like, sweet.
Well, let's just start in that area.
Sounds like a lot of fun.
And just put me in the region.
I'll see what I can see.
I'll see what I can find.
And I was joking with him.
I'm like, you only need two lures in the summertime for walleyes.
It's a heavy glide bait and a jig and a crawler or something else.
They're really, really negative.
But I'm like, I'll be throwing the same lure the whole time.
He's like, sweet.
So anyways, we the way practice started, it was like we went to that region.
It's kind of basically west of Canora.
There's just tons of islands and basins and stuff.
And I put the trolling motor in and at first we started in a bay and caught like a ton
and caught him up to like 25, 26 inches out 30 feet.
And then we kept going.
I remember putting the trolling motor in and on my forward facing sonar, I had three of
them that were like eight plus pounders.
And on my scout mode, I could see like six or eight of them.
And I hadn't even moved the trolling motor yet.
I literally just put it in randomly on a shoreline.
And I was like, holy cow, Jay.
And I grabbed my rod and like make one cast.
And I don't remember if I caught one the first cast or not.
But overall, those Lake in the Woods walleyes on the Canadian side, they are the friendliest
walleyes I've ever seen in my life.
To sum it up, I did the rough math, but in like five days of fishing, I had somewhere
around 60 walleyes over 28 inches.
And that was the percentage of fish that I cast at other than the tournament.
Like they were definitely, you know, there was some feeding windows and stuff like that.
But and then I was only casting at like the really big ones because we needed to upgrade,
you know, whatever we had on 29 incher right away in the morning that Jay caught like a
second cast, which I say that in a matter of fact, I caught a 29 and a half my first
cast on day two.
He caught a 29 or whatever, 29 incher on his second cast of day one.
So we thought we were doing pretty good and then these local hammers that are they do
really well in bass terms and win all those.
They've also done very well with KWO.
They like they were fishing way less numbers of big ones, I think, or just more isolated
stuff.
And you know, they had a 30 and three quarters day one and a 31 and a quarter day two.
So where I thought like we'll be in the top five, we got almost a 30 incher.
We got pretty good unders on day one and like we were in 12th place or something.
I think we ended in 12th place and we upgraded to like a 30 and a half on day two.
So yeah, well, I'm definitely not the only person that knows how to catch walleyes in
the canora area.
And like kudos to the rest of those guys.
They are dialed in up there and everybody smoked them.
It was unbelievable.
Zuloff Construction from Fargo, North Dakota is your trusted partner when it comes to protecting
and enhancing your property, servicing the surrounding area with over 40 years of combined
experience.
They've built a reputation for delivering exceptional roofing, siding, gutter and window
solutions.
With a team of skilled professionals using quality brands and products.
That's how they ensure lasting results.
To sum it up, Zuloff Construction is committed to exceeding customer expectations.
If you want an appointment for a free estimate, check out Zuloff Construction at their website
zuloffconstruction.com or call them at 701-630-0197.
All those contacts are in the description of this podcast.
I want to take a minute to address a list of very important topics this time of year,
especially here in the state of North Dakota, where hunting seasons are already underway.
Number one, we need to be respectful of each other when we encounter other hunters in the
field, whether you're recreating on private or public land.
If you're interacting with a landowner or just other hunters in the field, we have to
be able to interact respectfully and be cool with each other.
Leave gates as you find them every time you go through, regardless again on private or
public land.
Check if land is posted physically or electronically.
When we're parking our decoy trailers or small boat trailer on public roadways, we have to
keep the roadway clear so other vehicles or farm equipment can pass through.
Be respectful of that.
And picking up our trash has to be a major priority.
Now accidents happen when we get back to the truck and we're in a hurry and it's after
dark, something falls out your door, but let's cut down on the accidents.
Let's cut down on the excuses.
Check around your vehicle once, twice or three times before you leave every single time and
we can cut down on the trash that is left out on the landscape.
It's always a big one every year.
If we can do these things, then we're doing our part to hunt for tomorrow.
And of course, I want to wish everybody a safe and successful season.
For updates on hunting seasons, hunting regulations, seasonal updates, head to the North Dakota
Game and Fish website.
That link is in the description of this podcast.
Devil's Lake is one of North Dakota's premier outdoor recreational destinations.
And to find out more about what the lake and the community of Devil's Lake has to offer,
head to devilslakend.com.
That link is in the description.
One thing that I find interesting with like tournament anglers, high level tournament
anglers is like you go somewhere and you pre-fish for however long you pre-fish and you're breaking
down a strategy and you're all good at it.
And like, you know, there's all these different scenarios that play in your head.
It's like, you know exactly what it's like to go to pressured bodies of water and fish
a big high level tournament against, you know, however many boats where it's going to be
super competitive for spots and fish have pressure.
And you know, it's like it's that dream to find a wrinkle or find a little spot where
there's fish that are just seeing a little bit less pressure or you got to completely
refine your tactics to catch pressured fish when you're in and amongst other boats or
whatever.
So you go to a place that, you know, is just like endless bodies of water and you're fishing
fish that, you know, I mean I guess they, you know, they act like they're unpressured.
Like is there like a push pull in your brain sometimes?
Like can you switch that real easy and be like, okay, like I'm fishing unpressured fish.
I don't need to spend so much time finding a complete wrinkle in all this.
Like I just got to figure out like where the biggest fish are and how many of them I can
catch.
Like I'm curious about that stuff and just do you ever just like laugh about that when
you're in the boat catching Lake of the Woods walleyes of Jay Siemens?
Oh, we were laughing and laughing and laughing.
We couldn't stop laughing.
Yeah, like it's exactly what you're saying.
It just turns into, I mean, a really beautiful scenario where it's just power fishing and
I don't even have to, I get to shut my brain off for presentation and now we're only looking
for location.
I mean, that's heaven on earth.
And the one part I didn't mention was I told him like day one, I mean, we drove however
many miles, 20 miles or something.
And it was the most beautiful, coolest boat run, obviously ever.
If you look at a map of Lake of the Woods, it looks, it looks very intimidating, but
for any of your listeners that I a hundred percent, you have to go up there.
You will have success.
Like I'm talking about to some degree, but you know, the routes, the trails, they're
all marked on all the maps, you know, the predominant trails.
Then you just need to like the current stuff around Kenora would get a little, a little
weird.
But if you always remember red, right return when you're returning upstream or returning
to port, which is usually returning to street upstream.
Like if you just remember that and keep saying that to yourself, when you take off out of
Kenora, you're going to be completely fine as far as like lower unit and rocks.
Like there's so many buoys.
It's perfectly marked, but you know, we're snaking through all these islands and islands
and islands and basins and that sunrise on day one.
It was like, oh my gosh, life is so good.
I'm with one of my favorite humans in the world.
We're driving by Ranger 621 at like 68 miles an hour on Lake of the Woods.
And we're going to go destroy huge walleyes when we get there.
I mean, it was like goosebumps the whole way.
And that was the amount of fun we had.
He actually just texted me this morning saying that his next YouTube video is going to be
the recap of that tournament.
And I mean, he has like a hundred big walleye catches on film.
So if you watch, you need to watch the video, but if you do, you realize it's good.
There's no way he's going to show even a tenth of all those.
But that was the vibe the whole time.
I mean, it was awesome.
I was staying at Jay's house.
His family is really cool.
Christian family.
His son, Hanan, his wife, Sam, like they were, they were just straight up cooking meals
for us.
No matter what time we came back, they'd wait for us.
And we're out there like we're feeling bad because we're having so much fun.
We're catching so many walleyes.
And then we show up to this beautiful homemade meal every night.
It was just, yeah, it was awesome.
I can't stop smiling talking about it.
Yeah, man.
That was the sense I got talking to Jay about it too.
It's like he just, I mean, yeah.
And, and you know, and then, so I had to ask him, you know, it's like, okay.
He had the opportunity to spend some days in the boat with John Hoyer.
You know, what were the big takeaways?
Obviously he had high praise and you know, he learned a lot and, and, and, but just ultimately
just enjoyed his time.
So I would ask you the same question.
What were the big takeaways for you fishing with Jay specifically?
What like, what are, what's it like to fish with Jay?
Like what's the, what are the, what's the vibes?
Like what are you learning stuff?
Like, like what's going to be your ultimately your memory fishing with Jay?
I mean, I fished with Jay before.
So again, like the number one thing is his positive attitude.
And I think all tournament anglers can take, you know, have a takeaway for that for a tournament,
but overall, honestly for life, like he's such a positive dude that you can't help but
be positive.
And it's so fun to like watch him.
Like when we were trying to upgrade our unders, this was like, we're looking at hundreds and
hundreds of hundreds of like 14 to 15 inches, some 16s, some of the beautiful 16 and a half.
So like they weren't biting that good.
And we're in like attack mode.
And you know, still when he sets the hook, he's like, well, yeah, there we go.
Little better, little better.
Okay.
Not it.
Oh, not better.
Okay.
So I think that's like number one.
I will say on a, on a technical part, saw a lot of those Canadian anglers fishing a
drop shot.
And it makes a ton of sense because, you know, to set a bobber at a depth, the, the, the
terrain is so rugged.
The spots are, they vary in depth so much that like the guys that one saw them start
with a drop shot.
Jay, you know, you could tell his go-to was a drop shot.
And when I watched some of his videos back, you know, he's caught a lot of fish on that,
but I know that's like one of those confidence lures.
And that is one huge thing I learned was like, it's just like small mouth.
You throw that thing out there.
It's not always instant, but you know, you get to watch them on active target or live
scope and they'll, they'll swim around that thing.
They'll swim around it.
They'll look at it.
And then they know like they shouldn't, they can't really resist that thing down there.
So yeah, that was one big takeaway for myself was like how much confidence all those Canadian
guys have in a drop shot for walleyes.
What I really wanted to talk to him, we got plenty of time to kind of spend on this.
I want to have a conversation about tour level gold.
I feel like is having such an interesting and cool impact on the industry, the way you
guys produce it, the fact that it's, you know, it's, it's depicting a competition and, but
it's got so much personality and like the personal side of things besides just the fishing,
it's got like enough fishing to captivate walleye anglers or traditional wall anglers, but the
production and all those other things that I listed, it's like, it really is kind of
the only thing out there right now that really opens itself up to so many other viewers.
And it's definitely bringing new people or new eyeballs that weren't there at all before
to the tournament scene, just to walleye fishing in general.
And you know, just, just, I feel like it's, you know, we're getting to towards the end
of the second season of it.
And I think that it's just having a tremendous impact.
So it's one of my favorite stories in walleye fishing right now.
And I want to have the opportunity to kind of maybe get a little bit of an update or
sort of a synopsis like on tour level goal.
I got some specific questions, but what's sort of the, what is sort of the fun update
from your end?
I mean, you're there at the inception, like, you know, where has tour level gold gotten
to now and what is sort of like the fun update on your end?
I mean, a lot of it is, you know, everything you just mentioned, how it started, what happened
last year was literally, you know, Brett Carlson, if he's listening, he said we caught lightning
in a bottle last year.
And I mean, when we did, obviously the number of wins that characters of tour level gold
had was, it was hilarious.
And obviously the stars have to align because there's a lot of good anglers on the national
walleye tour.
So like we started and we have the year of years, which, you know, we were sitting there
after the first season and it was like, I mean, I think that some of our viewers would
like to see us fail, you know, and rightfully so now that they had anything against us,
but it would like show the other side of what a bad practice looks like, you know, stuff
that we've all seen in our days of tournament fishing.
And they happen way more often than not.
But the whole first season, like we barely had any of that other than, you know, Owens
mechanical breakdown and Winnebago that was very eye opening, I'm sure for some people
like this stuff happens.
He has zero chance of like top 10 in this tournament now.
And you know, mechanical breakdown or, you know, if you looked at the Green Bay episode,
I don't, they didn't have all the lines I said to my, my partners at camp, but I was
like, I'm not keeping a five pounder in the first hour.
I'm I'm going for 24 pounds for three fish.
Like this all of a sudden changed everything.
And you want to put that on the list of how confident was I going into a tournament?
Not five of all time.
As far as like good luck rest of the field, you're going to need it.
And then I, in essence, I catch one while I had day one, all my fish are all gone.
Everything I found that last day of practice, which completely changed my whole mood of
practice.
You know, if, if you didn't get that from the Green Bay tournament, I was like, it was
laughable how bad I did in that tournament.
So you know, that was kind of a cool thing, but yeah, I mean, more media, Logan, especially
he does such an amazing job editing that stuff.
And now we have these kind of ebb and flow of these storylines.
One of the one that makes me laugh is how we've just started kind of documenting the
eternal trash talking that Max Wilson and I do to each other.
And so Logan plays like the, you know, almost the whole interaction at the end of the tournament.
And he doesn't have a couple of lines like after Max walks away, I'm like, isn't that
funny how he has to think like three or four seconds longer than I do to come up with his
comeback and then they're not even really that good.
And so like there's beyond what he showed is like actually how Max and I, you know,
usually talk to each other, not pre-tournament.
That's kind of bad luck.
You know, that is like gentlemen style.
Good luck.
Thanks.
Good luck to you.
I don't mean it.
No, I don't either.
But you know, we're at Sacakawea and Dewey wins.
We're all kind of like dazed and confused.
I hadn't eaten anything.
I look over there's Max and I think he cashed a check right there.
You know, yeah, I think he did.
But I look over Logan's kind of done.
Like he has all the stuff like we're just kind of hanging out waiting to get our checks
and stuff.
And I look over, I see Max, I'm like, ooh, there's Max.
We should probably go light him up a bit, ask him what happened day two.
And Logan, I'm like, Logan, you got any memory space left on that card?
He's like, oh yeah, I'm like, let's go.
So I don't know if that's going to show, but I, you know, I go over there and literally
try to belittle him as much as possible.
And it's all, it's all fun loving.
He's a super smart dude.
And he, he has like some of the best one-liners to me I've ever heard, like ones that will
literally make me laugh.
Like I have no come back for that Max.
So that's what I'm trying to get out of him.
He has some gems and he didn't really show it at that Green Bay interaction, that long
version, but there's been times where I literally am like, wow, nice work, buddy.
You win.
Yeah.
Probably when the cameras are on, he's probably takes two or three seconds to think before
he speaks in those moments when the camera's on.
He wouldn't have to if the camera was there.
Probably you got to forget.
You got to tell Logan to get a little longer lens and stand back a little farther.
So Max, as I know he's there.
Yeah, that's a good point.
For sure.
I agree.
That would be good.
Or a second camera angle.
Yeah.
But I think overall, like if you ask the people around us, I mean the overall score of like
the trash talking score is, I mean, I'm winning for sure.
There's no question about it.
And for whatever, you know, my whole life, I've usually been able to come up with something
funny to say to like end the conversation like that.
So I'm winning, but I will give him credit for his quality, like comebacks and stuff.
He's had some of the best.
So there's an asterisk there, but I guarantee you I'm crushing him overall.
Well, so with the tour level goal, this is one of my direct questions because I think
that I think there's always something interesting with like content creation and the art form,
you know, because this is art.
I mean, the production level on this, like it's a crew of you, you know, like you'll
from the idea in the beginning or say from that first episode to now, like what are some
of the what are some of the big realizations?
Like what what has sort of become of this that you were did not see?
What's been some of the feedback that, you know, you just, you know, wouldn't have sort
of thought of or wasn't a part of the idea originally?
I mean, for myself, you know, we've all seen similar productions or, you know, there's
bass guys like Grant and Polina does an amazing job.
But you know, you go back to Jay Siemens, why are his YouTube videos the best?
Because he is passionate about the cinematography.
So like, you don't know why, you know, I know why I love watching Jay's stuff.
It's like the effort he puts in the hours has the drone sunrise shots and like the your
mind just is drawn to that stuff.
And then guess what?
Really cool fishing information.
There's some like, I don't know if that's a word, but like escapism.
I mean, I know that's a normal thing for human nature.
I want to watch stuff that's filmed in Canada.
So originally, when I when we filmed the first series of Spring Valley for myself, it was
honestly just the fact that, OK, they are not like Logan and Adam.
They're not a burden in the boat.
Either is the follow boat.
They have a tracker on us.
They're going to be able to just find us.
I don't have to worry about that.
I don't care if they just showed up a second before I'm leaving.
Like I know them well enough.
They know that we're making hard decisions here.
So all that stuff that I was like kind of skeptical about, and I was like, I'll do the
first episode of Spring Valley and we'll see from there.
It was all just like all those qualms or like preconceived notions I had about how this is
going to go and is it going to affect me negatively in practice and in the tournament?
They're all gone when I saw the production value.
And then it was like, oh, my gosh, we need to make this happen.
We have to we have to fill the next tournament.
So that's kind of like the underlying story for myself.
Why I have so much fun when Logan and Adam show up because I know what the finished product
looks like.
And you're right.
I mean, it's 100 percent.
It's an art form.
And it's really fun for me because I've done a lot of photo and video shoots like in the
fishing industry.
But then you watch like the angles these guys are doing and they're shooting into the sun
here and why.
And seeing how they capture it and how efficient they are at it.
And then also knowing how many hours it takes to edit.
Like Logan literally starts the day he gets back.
And when you see that that episode released, that's every day from the time he gets back
to that episode.
That's how many hours are involved in editing one of those episodes.
So yeah, that's kind of all that stuff.
And then as far as like, you know, how are we going to stay?
Look, you know, I'm a hyper critic, but, you know, is this going to get boring?
You know, tournament to tournament.
But I think that's what continues to captivate myself.
And I assume for others is like, A, the art side of it, the cinematography.
But then B, this is a new tournament.
These are different bodies of water.
The tournament angler maybe has never been to Lake Huron.
They want to see what that looks like.
What does that feel like?
What does it feel like when you're, you know, in the lead at Devil's Lake and the championship
on the final day?
How is John feeling?
What is Max feeling?
Like all that stuff.
Once you get, once you start, you know, getting emotionally invested in the characters and
maybe like, oh, and cause he's the youngest, he's got the steepest hill to climb.
You know, people get emotionally invested in us because now they get to know us.
You don't, you don't ultimately know somebody from social media.
But I will say like, when you start watching YouTube, like Jay Siemens, you know what that
guy's like, cause you've seen him for, you've watched 40 hours of his YouTube stuff.
You know what that guy's like.
And lo and behold, when you meet him in person, he's the exact same way.
He's just like that.
So yeah, that's kind of the overall picture of True Level Gold in my mind.
Yeah.
And, and you know, I think that that last point, that last element is such a big one
with, you know, with the content creation, it's like, how do you have, how do you have
an original idea that's not so original that it, you know, can't be consumed, you know,
because you want to have a good idea.
You want it to have like a good positive purpose.
And you know, we're all looking for a job in the industry.
And so it's like, you know, is this, is this thing like really, you know, worth all of
our time and whatever, you know, but that last element of like allowing the personal
side of things and the fact that it depicts a competition, I think is a big one where
people can, fans can get, you know, invested into it and kind of, you know, root for, root
for the characters.
And that's where I think it brings in new eyeballs, you know, even like this podcast,
it's not for everybody.
And it probably doesn't draw in people that weren't anglers before to the industry, right?
But like a production like yours has that element.
And I think it's right there.
I think that it's that part where you start rooting for people and you start, you know,
you just anticipate those interviews or that raw footage where you're making a decision
in the boat.
You're giving a little update to the, to the, you know, the camera boat that's to the side
on tournament day or whatever it is.
And like all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it's like you really open yourself up to a
lot of, a lot of new people.
I'm curious if that was like a big part of the idea or even if you agree with that, but
I think that's absolutely the case.
Like you said with Jay Siemens, he's, you know, I had that conversation with him too
about his content.
Like when you do, it's like, why is YouTube, on YouTube is so popular for these YouTubers
to do these little competition videos with each other?
Well, I think just seeing them have fun or, or, or not, like the highs and lows, when
you see those emotional highs and lows and you see somebody just, you know, ultimately,
even if you're trying to play a character, fishing, you know, a really a high moment
in fishing or a low moment on tournament day is going to like, you know, break character
that you're going to see the personal side of somebody.
And all of a sudden those moments start showing up and it's like, all of a sudden it's like,
you're just opened up to so much, a much bigger audience, you know, just cause more people
that's palatable to more people, like people would stick with you.
They don't even, they don't even have to be huge into fishing.
You know, they might only buy, you know, four or five lures a year for Christmas or whatever,
but like, but they love your stuff.
You know, I feel like that's what tour level gold does or has that, you know, nobody else
out there right now does like any of the television programs or anybody, anybody that features
tournament anglers, you know, in any sort of like, you know, any of the content creation,
I feel like tour level gold is just like leading the charge in that way where you're actually,
you're not just catching the eyeballs that are already there.
It's like you have the ability to get new people into it.
And that is, that's a tricky thing to do.
So I guess I was just kind of curious if you agree with that or if that was like part of
the idea.
I mean, that was part of the original idea.
You know, it was definitely based on, you know, Max's history at spring Valley in his
like very best fishing friend that got him into tournament fishing, passing away, who
was a local there.
And we knew there was like that emotional side of it.
And that's how that first tournament, you know, set up that whole storyline.
And then the way it was won was like, oh my gosh, what are the chances that JJ wins the
tournament?
So then going into the next one, it was like, okay, so now are we just going to be that
fishing show that just highlights the tournament trail?
Right.
You know, do we have that staying power?
So that's where I'd always go back to like, okay, how can Logan, how can Logan capture
those moments, go edit through hundreds and hundreds of hours of audio, and then come
up with like the clips that tell the story and put them in a timeline to where this is
going to be entertaining and captivating the whole episode, like watch the whole episode.
And you know, that's the one without even tournament footage.
So what we see is we're, you know, going to the next tournament, the next tournament,
and then we have another win and it happens to be duty on the Missouri River.
You know, the pieces just started to fall into place.
But I agree 100% with, you know, what you're talking about as far as what I think the number
one, the best selling point or the best, the best referral.
Like if you told somebody to watch Tour L'Eau de Gold, a lot of it's going to be that big
picture stuff, you know, getting to know the anglers, the emotions, all that stuff.
Like you can go watch a win online and it's going to be little snapshots of how people
did.
And you're going to know who won and you're going to read how they won.
So that's like what a large percentage of, like you said, maybe savvy anglers need.
But if you're not like, if you're not getting better at fishing for watching Tour L'Eau
de Gold, you need to watch the episodes again, because there is a lot of stuff that's, you
know, it's a soft, it's not a soft sell.
It's like a, it's not highlighted, but don't watch how fast Dewey pulls his trolling motor
in each time in practice too.
If you're not getting a clue from that, what you need to be doing differently, watch the
intensity of his practice, watch the intensity when we're in tournament mode, and then watch
the results of the tournament afterwards.
So there's like so many things to pick up from that on the technical angling side.
But in the meantime, it's just, when I watched the first take, I always get to watch them
like before the release, just to kind of go over them, help edit, you know, whatever.
But when I watch the first one, I'm literally just dazed at the production and I'll be like,
looks amazing.
Oh my gosh, Logan.
And it's because the music and the clips and all that stuff, it's just, that's what happens.
And that's how I think when most people watch it, they just come away from it.
Then their, their day just got a little better.
Oh yeah.
So why wouldn't you watch the next one?
You know, it's, it's, it's, it's so well done in those moments that are the most, yeah,
like you say, the moments that are the most important can sometimes just be those like
really brief clips of like somebody letting the air out after, or just like a moment of
exhaustion.
And it just, it's literally like three second clip and it just shows somebody walking around
their boat or whatever, or, you know, dusty like this season with dusty, you know, you
know, I like dusty, he's the man and you know, like he's sitting in his boat and he's, and
he's trying to do something.
And then his ADD brain, like he throws that down, he turns around, he goes and does something
else and he's like, Oh, what the, you know, it's just talking under his breath, but it's
like, and then it clips to something else, but those little moments where it just shows,
you know, like you're just seeing somebody in their natural element.
And then like you said, the moments in the boat speak for themselves.
I said this to Dewey, like probably, you know, after like three or four episodes last year,
I was like, this is super educational and nobody's doing a sit down interview describing
their presentation.
It's not like that.
It's like, Oh, I'm watching it.
And all of a sudden, like, like every conversation I've had with any of you guys or people, you
know, just, or just anybody that I talked to and I'm trying to learn, it's like a conversation,
but I've never truly been in the boat with somebody.
All of a sudden I'm seeing images of you in the boat and it, and it started to materialize
all this information and I can just like, see, I see closer and closer, you know, more
accurately what I'm trying to emulate when I'm out on the water.
If I'm trying to learn from John Hoyer and I've talked to you, I've asked you questions,
you've taught me so much and I appreciate that.
And then all of a sudden I'm seeing video footage of you like in your, in your element,
talking to yourself, talking to the camera.
You know, I just see you fishing.
I see you hunting down fish all of a sudden, like that's so, so educational.
And you know, like do it like he agreed.
It's like, like here's a production that, you know, it's super entertaining.
It's got, you know, all this different, but like the education side of things.
I don't know if you guys fully plan that out or had those like types of intentions, but
super educational.
Love it, man.
I love it.
That's definitely a big, a big part of it.
So, you know, moving along here, what can we expect here?
We've got, we're coming up on the NWT championship.
And I think everybody in the production qualified.
Am I right on that?
Everybody but Owen, I believe.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, but you guys added characters.
So it's like, there's even more, like going into this championship than the first season.
You guys got a lot of people that you got to keep track of.
But yeah, Bill and Dusty and you and Dewey, Max.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Awesome stuff.
So many great storylines.
Like I said, this is just one of them, but so many great storylines just like across
like the tournament field and in fishing.
And I'm always trying to, you know, stay on the pulse of those things.
But what can we expect from tour level gold?
We've got this, the Kakowia tournament that just happened.
So that's going to be absolute fireworks when you guys launch that here pretty soon.
And then going into the championship.
Yeah.
What, give us some nuggets here of what to expect coming up.
I think a lot of it will be, you know, the storyline will be the Great Lakes again.
So Lake Huron is, it's a rough body of water.
It's a lot of it is how it's shaped the prevailing wind.
And then like how the shoals are.
There's just a lot of lake current that creates like massive checkerboards of waves and stuff.
So you know, you're going to get that full Great Lakes feel again, almost who knows,
maybe there'll be a 95 mile run talk or something crazy like that.
You know, like I, when I watch that stuff, like Lake Erie and those huge waves, if your
viewers don't realize like on camera, if you've ever seen something filmed where you were
there the same day, those waves look like a third as big as they do to the naked eye
when you're fishing in them.
So if you were out there on that day to a Lake Erie and you thought it looked wavy on
camera, it was literally like biblical.
So you know, that'll be for sure, you know, part of the obvious storyline of having a
championship on the Great Lakes.
It's really cool.
Cause like we, none of us really have history there.
You know, one tournament I was saying that day for myself, Dewey's never fished there.
Dusty, I think that's the only time he'd ever fished there.
I think Bill might be the only guy who's been there twice.
Bill's been everywhere twice.
Yeah, for sure.
So, you know, I think that's one of the really cool things to watch for and to keep in mind,
you know, let's say we all top 10.
Well, realize that we all started from scratch.
And for myself, it's kind of an upper level appreciation of that.
A lot of things have to align in practice and, you know, there's going to be multiple
days in practice.
I looked at the weather report, there's going to be some windier days where it's like, heck
no, I'm not going to go fish the South shore on that day.
So like now we have a shortened practice.
We have four and a half days of practice and, you know, we're generally, we're fishing like
seven days before a tournament.
So all that stuff is going to be like amplified, expedited and get way more serious come tournament
time as far as like making those decisions where you're going to fish.
I do like the fact that it'll be a call tournament.
So the weights are really going to reflect like who did the best in practice, who found
the best, who dialed it in the best and who made the decision.
So this one is going to be, you know, the other ones, there's underlying storylines
about like the variables and the limits and no call and stuff like that.
You'll, you'll see that stress, but this one will be like full out walleye tournament where,
you know, the winner taught the most fish and the biggest ones.
And I think it's going to be awesome to see how it goes down.
Your buddies with everybody or you know everybody, what do you think about the angler of the
year race?
You know, a neck and neck deal at the top with Hunter and Dylan.
I'm definitely a fan of both those guys.
And well, and shoot, there's, I mean, by way of technicality, there's, you know, what is
it?
The top five are actually could put, you know, there's a scenario where more than just those,
you know, Hunter and Dylan could win it.
But any predictions there?
Do you feel like anybody's got like a little bit of favoritism or maybe a little bit of
an edge being it's on like here on?
I definitely don't think there's any edge.
And I, I like to like draw people in and say there's five people mathematically in it,
but I really feel like there's only three.
It's Tom when Eric, well, Eric McCoy.
Didn't he, he slipped that sack.
Yeah.
So I think he's in fourth.
So it's a Hunter, Dylan, Tom and Eric.
So Eric possibly, but you got to look at the math on it.
There's only 40 points that separates the guys.
So you know, when I look at it, it's like, oh, okay.
I'm mathematically out of it.
So is duty because there's no way that, you know, they can't even finish low enough.
So if you go up to those, like, let's just say the top three, maybe four, the odds of
Hunter Dylan and Tom, you know, being in the bottom 30th to 40th and, and Eric McCoy
top 10ing it, those odds are like powerball odds.
So I really feel like it's, it's really down to like three.
And I like all those guys a lot.
I, I all four of those guys I just mentioned, I'm rooting for all of them.
I think it's really cool.
You know, Dewey and I have been fortunate to win the AOI the last two years.
One of us each year.
And I am not rooting for them to win the tournament and angler of the year.
Selfishly, I would like to hold that as, you know, it's just nice to be like the only person
that has been fortunate enough for that to happen to.
But I saw like I read a new spam interview the other day and he's like, holy cow, I have
the opportunity to do that.
I'm like, dang it.
Yes, he does.
So obviously so does Tom and so does Hunter and possibly Eric.
So I think the best, the best plan for our team is the best offense is a good defense.
So we need to check that box of national wallet tour championship winner, one of us three.
And then we won't allow that to happen.
But I'm rooting for all those guys.
I literally, I love their vibe.
I love their attitude.
They're always like, they just they like tournament fishing so much that you can see their emotions
of like when they have success, you know, people are excited.
They come up, they talk to you.
But all three of those guys, like they want to know how you did too.
And you're already wearing it on your sleeve, like how you did.
But how did it go today?
I just had 20 pounds.
You know, I could not get any big ones.
Oh, man, me either.
Like, how about you?
Oh, it was crazy.
I caught them all in like two hours.
You know, I talked to Dylan at Sakakawea.
I'm like, holy cow, dude.
And it's like they were biting so good and I caught him in the wrong order.
And I couldn't have gambled on the last one.
He tells you, you know, the last one was a five and a half.
I'm like, yeah, you can't throw that back.
So like those little conversations, you know, I admire all those guys were we're all in it
for the same reason, the anticipation, the excitement and, you know, and their passion
shows through.
So they're all very deserving after a year like they've had this year.
Well, I had some more questions for you, but we're like at our time limit.
I mean, I could ask you for another hour of your time, but we'll just do it another time.
I had some other questions for you.
But man, I'm just I appreciate your time.
I love getting sort of the updates on the season.
And you know, your story is definitely one of the my favorite stories in the industry.
The industry loves you rightfully.
So man, you're out there, you're putting in hard work, you're making some things look
easy, but there's no question it's a lot, a lot of hard work on and off the water to
do what you do at your level.
And you're, you know, we're all chasing.
So unless something else is is hankering on you, but touching on a little forecasting
for the championship, man, I appreciate that.
You know, that being said, we'll promote your socials and the content in the intro.
But I was just like hearing it from each of my guests is kind of how I sign all these
things off.
I would just say, if there's one human being, probably not.
But if there's one human being listening to this that isn't following your content or
following your your socials or whatever, promote anything you want to promote, maybe it's sponsors
or whatever you want to do, man, that's just how we'll sign this off.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Instagram is one of my favorite avenues on social media.
And that's John Hoyer Fish.
And then obviously, we talked about it earlier.
Tour level gold.
We appreciate every single fan.
It's very important to our production and to our sponsors to see those people subscribed
to tour level gold on YouTube and, you know, to follow us on Instagram.
So we all appreciate that.
All six of us.
So and then otherwise, Hoyer Fishing on Facebook is my Facebook page.
Right on, man.
And if people don't know, I get hundreds of messages a month, you know, where people just
have, hey, I'm going up to Lake of the Woods and I saw you're up there with Jay.
Could you give me an idea?
And I personally owe it to everybody who follows me to respond to all those messages.
So if you didn't know that, it could be a good way to have kind of a personal consultant
for your maybe your fishing trip or just a seasonal pattern.
And I encourage people to just kind of reach out and message me on Instagram.
Here it is, man.