March 04, 2025
By In-Fisherman Staff
This is the second part in an extended series we’re producing to help celebrate 50 years of In-Fisherman. The legendary Al Lindner and his late brother Ron began In-Fisherman back in the 70s, with lots of twists and turns along the way.
Al shares some incredible stories about his early years before In-Fisherman was founded. We learn about what motivated him, how he learned the business and how the Great Northwoods beckoned the two brothers to a new home to begin one of the most influential fishing publications in history. This is the first of several interviews with Al as he recounts his early days and what lead them to Hayward.
Truncated transcript:
00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:17.200: 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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00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:45.560: So that buddy is there every single day. Yeah. So North Long's kind of become our baby. But I remember seeing something. Was that one of your– One of my absolute favorite lakes. Because of the action. You're always catching fish. Always catch fish. And when I was guiding, I was one of the few guides that guided bass at that time. Mm-hm. Yeah. Yeah.
00:00:45.560 --> 00:01:04.000: Well, you had to be one of the only ones in Minnesota. Yeah, well, I mean, it was, you know, I had a good following with the Bass Brigade. Yeah. You know, Bass and Pike, I'd go to North Long and you'd just smoke them. We've had some fun out there. On walleye fishing, you'd go to Pelican and Gulf. [LAUGH] Well, if you want to-- And Edward's on a sleeper.
00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:12.800: Well, Tom, my son's been out there the last couple days. It's been tough, but he's kind of starting to get him dialed in and caught a few walleyes. Yeah, two walleyes, three walleyes last night. Okay.
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00:01:12.800 --> 00:01:38.320: So hey, if you recognize that voice, that's Mr. Al Linder. And this is a very special edition of… We've decided to tell the greatest fishing story of the modern era. Maybe the greatest fishing story is Jesus telling the disciples to cast a net on the other side of the boat. I've tried that. It doesn't work very well. But Al Linder is here with me in studio, and we're going to get the full version of In-Fisherman from the start.
00:01:38.320 --> 00:02:05.560: And in this particular episode, we're going to dive into Al and Ron's childhood in Chicago. And I'm hopeful there's some golf course trespassing stories because we had some of those with Mark Zona when we opened up this feature. And it's the 50th anniversary of In-Fisherman, 50 years. Yeah. 50 years already, man. We're actually finishing up the 50th. That version of the magazine is getting kicked out. Might be the end of this week. Might be today. I'll have to check with Rob.
00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:32.720: But the 50th anniversary of In-Fisherman magazine is going to press right now. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Did you ever- It's like a flash. A flash in time. Well, and I'm learning that. I'm not as seasoned as you are, but as I'm getting to the age where I'm starting to, like I need to slow down. This stuff's going too fast. I've got a kid that's going to be a senior in high school next year. My daughter is an amazing cross-country skier. And I'm like, "Where'd these days go?" They just- you're right. It goes fast.
00:02:32.720 --> 00:02:58.720: But did you ever imagine when you guys first thought of creating a content stream that it would turn into what it did? No. No. You know, you kind of had a dream a little bit. But until you started to put your toe in the water and start- you really didn't know what happened. It's like anything else. You got to put the boat in the water. That's right. And then you start getting the feel for it. You got to start someplace where it starts.
00:02:58.720 --> 00:03:30.920: Well, there's so much of this that I want to get to, and I know we've talked about. We're going to make multiple episodes. So we're not going to go into the deep dive of the first issue of the magazine in this show. What I want is the inspiration. I think that all of us at one point or another had a point in our life when we were young that inspired us or impacted us. I've told this story on this show several times. I will apologize, but I'm not sorry because I'm going to tell it again…
Click here to listen to the entirety of Episode 24.
