Page 5 - Musky Shop Catalog

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the 2020 Musky Shop Catalog.
It’s our great pleasure to bring you many of the outstanding products and tools the musky industry has to offer.
The musky, what a beautiful fish! It’s remarkable how a fish can change one’s life. When you think about it, this fish and our passion for this fish drive us in many directions—through our work, through our play, through some of our relationships, through our thoughts and even sometimes through our prayers. My team and I often remark that when a musky hits our lure, we all say, “please, God, help it to stay hooked.” There are also so many times we catch ourselves (no pun intended) in our boats saying little prayers like “please help us catch a monster today” or “please help the people in the boat catch some muskies today.”
I mentioned earlier how a musky can change one’s life. Well, that actually happened to me. I grew up on a farm near Harlan, Iowa. I loved to fish as a kid and was always fascinated with muskies—so much so that I began to buy some musky tackle and then one day started to think about a musky trip somewhere. I somehow found a little ad in a piece of print media about Rollie & Helen’s Musky Shop. I called the shop and talked to Rick Hanson. We set up a guide trip with Doug Smith, and the jour-
ney was on. Over time, I became friends with Rollie and Helen. This fish and my passion for it led me to the Chicago Musky Show, where Rollie and I were just having a simple conversation, and he said, “Jim, you should buy my place.” In my mind, I thought, “WOW! That would be fantastic, but I am not rich and I don’t have retail experience.” And my excuses went on and on.
I kept thinking about my conversation with Rollie and kept praying that someday I would be in the fishing industry. So I start- ed to look into what it would take to buy Rollie and Helen’s. And when I was in that process, I knew this was a pretty big deal, and I couldn’t do it myself. I asked my pastor, Gundar Lamberts, where to read in my Bible for direction, and he said read the Book of Proverbs. So I read the Book of Proverbs, and it was very helpful.
Time went by, and I still didn’t know what to do. I had no definitive answer. I started to read the Book of Proverbs again. This time, I read to Proverbs 16:3 and could not get past this verse. I actually read pretty much every day that week in Proverbs and could absolutely not get past that verse. One afternoon, I decided to watch a fishing show I had recorded, so I popped in an old VHS tape that happened to be Linder’s Angling Edge. The tape happened to be at the spot where Al Lindner was doing the close of his show. Before I had even sat down, Al said, “you know, we here at the edge, we don’t hunt, we don’t golf, we don’t play tennis, we fish. It’s not just a job, it’s a way of life. And that brings me to my favorite verse of scripture, Proverbs 16:3: ‘Commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts will be established.’” My Bible actually reads, “Depend on the Lord in whatever you do and your plans will succeed.” I stood there with my mouth wide open and knew that this was God direct- ing me and telling me to move forward with this opportunity. Through a lot of prayer and the wise council from an accountant, we were able to come up with a plan to buy Rollie & Helen’s Musky Shop, and I purchased Rollie & Helen’s in 2003.
I share my story not to talk about myself but in hopes that my story might be of some help to someone else. There have been many challenges along the way, but God has seen me through all of them. I believe God created muskies for us to enjoy and be passionate about. I’m really glad He did.
On behalf of all of us at The Musky Shop, I would like to thank you, our customers, past, present, and future. We greatly appreciate your support. It’s our pleasure to serve you.
I would like to close by thanking my family for their support and by thanking the staff members. All of our staff members do an outstanding job, and I am grateful for each one of them:
Tom Rudis, Caleb Rudis, Jay Esse, John Stewart, Alex Slavin, Rick Hanson, Al Frost, Doug Smith, Elmer Jensen, Diane Jensen, John Michniak, Bill Kozak, Don Marley, Fred Palermo, Rich Gorr, Nate Andrews, Dean Zaumseil.
Please consider CPR (catch, photo, release). The future of fishing is in all of our hands. Good fishing, and we hope to see you on the water sometime.
God Bless,
Jim Stewart
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