February 18, 2025
By In-Fisherman Staff
Held in Brainerd, Minnesota, this year is the 35th annual Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza on famed Gull Lake. Thousands of anglers from all over the state, country and world gather to compete for an impressive purse that pays out to 150 competitors. Curious how it works? Sheena Ziegler, Mike Kuck and Andrew Jay swing by the Storyline Studios to give the full inner workings to the largest ice fishing derby on the planet. You should come and give it a try, you'll love it!
https://www.icefishing.org
Truncated transcript:
00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:18.000: You're listening to In-Fisherman Storyline, North America's top voice in multi-species freshwater angling. Here is your host, Thomas Allen.
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00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:39.000: Welcome to In-Fisherman Storyline. We have a house full of friends, and I've got Todd Ceisner, the one and only piped in from his palatial studios at Buffalo, New York, the publisher of In Fisherman himself. Todd, thank you for making time for me today, for once. Thanks, Thomas. Appreciate you making time and space for me here.
00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:58.000: Yeah, well, your space is going to get limited real quick. We're going to go around the room. We're going to talk about the world famous, arguably the largest ice fishing event on the planet. To this year, the 35th annual Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza, which is going to take place on famous Gull Lake here in Brainerd, Minnesota.
00:00:58.000 --> 00:01:27.000: And we got ice. We've got ice. And that's a big thing for us, because last year we didn't. No. This is an exciting time to see that water get a little harder. So that gravelly voice over there, let's switch to your camera. That is Mike, and I'm going to read, because you guys are going to explain this Jaycees thing to me. I understand it's an important part of every community, but that is Mike Kuck, and I'm going to spell his name correctly. How do you say it in German? Krrr. There you go.
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00:01:27.000 --> 00:02:00.000: He is the current chair of the Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing event, and next to him is Sheena. Is it Ziegler? Ziegler. Ziegler. Do you have any Iowa relatives? Married in, no idea, but yes. No, okay. I think so. I grew up with some Zieglers. Ziegler. Is that right? Yeah. Okay, they were farm people in eastern Iowa. Aren't they all down there? Maybe. That's fair. No, but-- All the farm people? My first job was on a dairy farm. Oh, nice. Yeah. Very nice. That was great. That's a lot of story. We don't have time to go into it.
00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:26.000: But Sheena is the marketing director co-chair, and we're going to talk about how this elevates year to year. I'm fascinated by this. And then on the other side is Andrew Jay, and Andrew is the bouncer, if you will, of the Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing extravaganza, but a previous chair, right? Correct. And also manages security at this event. And you wonder why. Why would you ever need security at an ice fishing event? But we'll get to that.
00:02:26.000 --> 00:03:05.000: I've got a long list of questions, but let's talk about the Jaycees. So that's an important part of the community. I think it presents opportunity to bring everybody together that might have a different, maybe, job in town or whatever. It just--you guys kind of seem to me like you're a bit of a mixer, bring everyone together and share, you know, something that we all enjoy, whatever that might be. And this is an ice fishing extravaganza. But who wants to take on what is the Jaycees? I think we all could probably add a little bit. So the foundation of the Jaycees, like internationally, is that it's a leadership development organization through civic engagement…
Click here to listen to the entirety of Episode 22.
