The Fishing Hall a Fame

[Lee Borgersen]

Tom Neustrom’s passion for fishing has landed him in the Minnesota Fishing Hall of Fame

(Lee's thoughts)
I remember when Tom and I used to compete with each other back in the day when we were young and handsome. Now were just handsome! He lived in Chicago and we both belonged to the Lake Geneva Fishing Club.


GRAND RAPIDS — Tom Neustrom was about 12 when he met the old fisherman on Wisconsin’s Middle Eau Claire Lake near Barnes.

“There was this old Swedish guy — Hans, of course — who taught me how to jig-fish,” Neustrom said.

 

Neustrom, a longtime Grand Rapids fishing guide, remembers the exact jig. It was the first jig he had ever seen, “a yellow-headed jig with white hair on it.”

“Hans took me out on the dock and threw it in the water,” Neustrom said. “He would make these motions with his wrist. I said, ‘Why do you do that?’ He said, ‘You gotta make it dance.’

“I’ll never forget that,” Neustrom said.

At 66, Neustrom has been making jigs dance ever since, spanning a three-decade career as a fishing guide, fishing educator and fishing ambassador. For all his contributions to the fishing industry, Neustrom will be inducted into the Fishing Hall of Fame of Minnesota in Minneapolis on Saturday.

He was inducted into the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame based in Hayward in 2009.

Neustrom has been guiding for the past 35 years on lakes in the Grand Rapids area. He has shared tips on a local radio station for 21 years and has written or been featured in hundreds of magazine stories. He has given countless fishing seminars for his sponsors, some of the biggest players in the fishing industry.

“I’ve known and fished with Tom for — what, 40 years?” said Al Lindner of In-Fisherman and “Angling Edge” fame. “His walleye fishing is phenomenal ... He can catch walleyes when most guys are struggling. He’s the most consistent angler for walleyes in that part of the world that I know.”

Dan Quinn, field promotions manager for Rapala, said Neustrom is “in a league of his own” on Rapala’s pro staff.

“He’s very good at all aspects of being part of a pro staff,” Quinn said. “He’s one of a handful who truly understands it. His work ethic is second to none. Aside from the whole fishing side of it, he’s really a good guy.”

“The great thing about Tom,” said Jason Oakes,

director of marketing for Lund Boats, “is that he goes above and beyond as far as his activism in the fishing industry. He’s not just a guide. That’s almost a second job. He’s one of the most active if not the most active participant in the fishing community that I know.”

On a recent Friday, Neustrom was tapping away on his laptop at his dining-room table, cranking out a story on — you might have guessed — jig fishing. Fishing magazines with some of his previous stories surrounded him as reference material.

Growing up fishing It took Neustrom nearly half his life to get to Grand Rapids. He grew up on the north side of Chicago, three-and-a-half blocks from Lake Michigan.

“I drove my mother nuts,” he said. “I was down there day and night, fishing perch. If you caught a rock bass, you were big-time.”

His parents had a cabin on Middle Eau Claire Lake near Hayward, but the family fished most often on the Chain of Lakes near Antioch, Ill., and Lake Geneva, 80 miles north of Chicago. Neustrom had to be on the water.

“I was haunted,” he said. “I couldn’t get enough of it. It consumed me.”

When the movie “Jaws” came out, Neustrom had to go see it. He took a woman he knew, but he was so possessed by the thought of such a fish that he took her straight home — and went fishing.

“I got my tackle, got in the car and drove up to Lake Geneva at 10:30,” he said. “I fished all night.”

By his mid-20s, he had earned a reputation as an excellent walleye fisherman. He was asked to give his first seminar for a Walleyes Unlimited group at a VFW club in Antioch. The place was packed, he said. He started talking about jig-fishing, but those in the back couldn’t see what he was showing them.

“I just climbed up on a table,” Neustrom said. “I was showing ’em how to jig. I must have shifted my weight, and the table fell over. I was so embarrassed. There were jigs everywhere.”

Moving north Neustrom spent 10 years on the police force in Chicago starting a couple of years after high school. That tour of duty included the day in 1970 when he almost died. He and his partner were chasing someone they suspected of having stolen a car. They stopped the vehicle and in the ensuing struggle, Neustrom’s partner was fatally shot. Neustrom was critically wounded after being shot three times in the chest and back. He was given last rites that evening. He eventually recovered, but he was away from work for nearly a year.

Neustrom continued working as a police officer in Chicago until 1978, when he moved to Grand Rapids. He took a job as an Itasca County sheriff’s deputy, later becoming an investigator. He worked for the department until retiring in 2004.

“I’d come here fishing twice,” Neustrom said. “I loved the fishing. I said, ‘I gotta come here.’”

He began guiding a year after getting to Grand Rapids, and he’s been at it since. While working as a deputy, he would guide every day he had off. He landed his first sponsorship 30 years ago, with Lund boats, still a sponsor today. He started doing his summer “Guide’s Corner” radio shows on KOZY-AM and KMFY-FM in Grand Rapids 21 years ago.

Not a tournament angler

Neustrom fished some early walleye tournaments with Lindner, but competitive fishing didn’t appeal to him.

“Something was missing in tournament fishing that I couldn’t get my arms around,” he said. “I was always about trying to find out why a fish bit, and then I wanted to tell somebody about it.”

Guiding suited him perfectly.

“Guiding, for me, was always about the customers catching fish, and teaching them to fish,” Neustrom said.

He’s excellent with his clients, Lindner said.

“Tom’s communication skills are part of his strength,” Lindner said. “He makes people comfortable, no matter who you are. He has great people skills.”

Neustrom has guided often for guests of Bowen Lodge on Lake Winnibigoshish.

“Tom — oh, my gosh,” said Bill Heig, owner of Bowen Lodge. “He’s been a hundred-percenter for 30 years — he just goes. He’s been instrumental, not just in guiding but in fish management. He’s been really active in our Lake Winnie Area Resort Association... He’s there for everybody.”

Neustrom’s guiding led to more sponsorships with industry leaders — Rapala, Minn Kota, Humminbird, Mercury, Daiwa and others.

His expertise in fishing also has earned him appointments to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ walleye advisory council, the Leech Lake walleye advisory committee and the Red Lake walleye advisory committee.

On the water In the boat, Neustrom is easygoing and quick with a laugh, but he’s always watching how an angler is fishing, and he teaches while he fishes. Like all fishing guides, Neustrom has hundreds of stories from those outings.

He was guiding two brothers years ago who got into a fight in the boat. One threw the other overboard.

Another time, he was jig-fishing on Cut Foot Sioux Lake with two men, and they were catching plenty of fish. Neustrom, fishing from the rear deck, slipped while setting the hook and fell off the boat into 48-degree water. Good news: He caught his rod on the way down. Bad news: The fish got off. He hollered to his clients for help getting back in the boat.

“We both got a fish on,” one replied. “Can you wait a minute?

Then there was the novice woman angler he was guiding one day.

“It was a leech bite,” Neustrom remembered, and she was using a slip-sinker rig.

He saw the woman’s rod twitch, so he knew she had something on her line.

“Let it go,” he told her.

She did. She let go of the rod. It dropped right into the water and disappeared into the depths, never to be found.

He’s still guiding about 70 days a year, down from 90 or more in his peak seasons. He says he will retire from the promotional end of the business in three years. But if you ask him how long he plans to keep guiding, the answer comes as swiftly as a hook-set: “Until I can’t.”

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