March 25, 2025
By In-Fisherman Staff
Al Lindner sits down for a second interview with In-Fisherman Storyline host Thomas Allen to discuss the early days of In-Fisherman magazine and how both Ron and Al got the organization off the ground. Al looks back at those days with pride, shares some stories that brought the brand to the forefront of the fishing industry and talks about his decision to eventually sell the title to an investment group. It’s an intriguing discussion from the get-go.
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.
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:40.780: So last time, we had the discussion about your early days, the trip to Hayward, the move to Brainerd. And I wanna start where you talked about S&W Bait and Tackle and the league of guides because I kinda feel like that was–That was Nisswa Bait. In Nisswa Bait and Tackle. Nisswa.
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00:00:40.780 --> 00:01:05.340: Okay, so that was a connection you guys made when you got into town early? Yep, yep, yep. And that led through, the median hookup with Marv Koep at Nisswa Bait and Tackle as he was starting to build that business. And the guides league, that was the infancy of the Nisswa Guides League and we became a part of the Nisswa Guides League.
00:01:05.340 --> 00:01:29.580: And that led to the development of Lindy Tackle Company. And Lindy Tackle Company took up seven years of my life. In the last two years of those seven years, we got a real heavy taste of the media business. And we had sold the business ready to Raya Vac and we had a two-year war contract.
00:01:29.580 --> 00:02:01.180: And then I got a taste of television and at that time, Fishing Facts Magazine was really starting to develop into its own. And we started to write regularly for them. And we started doing, still doing a lot of seminars and sports shows. And in those days, you'd go to a sports show, a speaking engagement, and you had to turn them away at the doors. And the fire wardens would come in, the people were so starved for fishing information, starved.
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00:02:01.180 --> 00:02:16.260: And that was social media of the early days. Of a sort, exactly, exactly. So all of this media stuff was happening. And I've said a number of times, when I seen and sniffed the taste of television, I said, I like this.
00:02:16.260 --> 00:02:43.100: But in any case, we were in every form of media, the big big video, there's radio, television, print, and that's where you were at. So–but you had to have everything together, right, cuz it was like a platform in those days, still is. Still is. The more levels of media you have worked together, the better your reach, the more abundant the people that are gonna see it. And naturally, one promotes the other. That's still the way the game is played.
00:02:43.100 --> 00:03:34.380: So that last two years being in the media business, after we had our two year contract, both Ron and I, we talked to each other seriously, what are we gonna do with our life? This thing, I really like this TV stuff. We love writing in the magazines and all that. People would constantly come up to us when you were finishing these seminars and in-store promotions and stuff, and say, do you have anything like that in print? A handout or something. And you hear it over and over and over, and pretty soon, ching, maybe, just maybe I'm hearing something. [LAUGH] Well, I mean, you're right. If people are having to schedule their visits to shows and it's once a year that the crew would come through town, they're getting a very limited opportunity to learn directly.
00:03:34.380 --> 00:04:07.020: Well, I mean, that totally paved the way, right, to them having something on a regular basis. And again, the people were just starved for fishing information of any kind. There really wasn't anything at that level. We're still in the foundational level of basic fishing skills and the communication end of it, and the articles and everything. So that kind of lit the fire to start In-Fisherman Communications Network…
Click here to listen to the entirety of Episode 27.
