The Complete Angler Podcast#55-Todd Longley

Welcome to The Complete Angler, your source of information on the outdoor industry in Central Canada.
With over 35 years in the field, host Don Lamont covers topics and issues with industry leaders and influencers to bring you up to speed on what’s happening in the outdoor world.
And now, here is your host, Don Lamont.
On today’s show, we talk to the rock and roll fisherman, Todd Longley, a guide for almost 30 years.
Todd has been a bit larger than life on the Manitoba angling scene.
He has been tremendously involved in the promotion of urban angling during that time, raising a large amount of money to charities to get young people out fishing.
Hey, Todd, thanks for coming on The Complete Angler podcast.
Hey, Don, how are you? Good afternoon.
Yeah, it’s a great afternoon. The sun’s out. Hopefully, we’ll get spring sometime soon.
But we go back a long way.
We’ve been working together on a number of different projects.
Urban Angling Partnership, the Fish Winnipeg Program.
So, how long have you actually been a guide now, Todd?
Since 1999. It’s like 26 years now.
Holy smokes, all time flies when you’re having fun, huh?
It flies, that’s for sure. And yeah, I’m having a lot of fun.
I got to ask you, how did you get the name of the Rock and Roll Fisherman?
From the Fish Winnipeg event. Bob Sikowski, remember him?
I sure do.
The lawyer?
Yeah.
But he owned the Wise Guys Bar and Grill back in the day.
And they were my first guided trip I ever did.
And that was with the Fish Winnipeg.
And he called me the Rock and Roll Fisherman, and it stuck.
Well, it sure did. Yeah, that’s what you’re known for.
And yeah, and it’s worked well for you.
You’ve done really well in the industry, and you’ve done a lot of things for charity,
which is pretty incredible.
You educated a lot of kids.
So, let’s first talk about the Manitoba Fish 155,
which happened over this course of this year.
What was it all about?
How did you figure it out?
You know, I’m always thinking about doing something for our community
and helping out others.
It’s, I don’t know, it just seems to be the way I’m programmed.
And I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to just do a straight fish for so many days nonstop
and raise money for a good charity?
And so, I bounced it past Catherine Ward from Fisheries,
and she runs our Urban Angling Partnership, and she thought it was a great idea.
And then we got Fish Futures on board, and it was the start of Fish 155.
So, what did you have to do?
You had to fish or do something related to fishing for 155 days in a row?
That’s correct.
I had to fish or do something fishing related for 155 days.
I had to do a post every day to let everybody know what I’m doing.
And if somebody wants to make a donation, they could to Fish Futures.
And I also donated all my tip money for the year to Fish Futures and Urban Angling Partnership.
And then at the end, we put on a big banquet at the St. Bar and Grill out on Portage.
And it was an amazing event, and everybody was happy.
So, and we ended up putting a lot of money in Fish Futures and in the Urban Angling Partnership.
So, it was a success.
Well, that’s great.
And I followed you on social media, and you were a busy guy.
Absolutely.
All kinds of people came out fishing with me.
And it was a tough summer on you.
I know you’ve got a few things.
You’ve got diabetes and asthma.
And then with all that smoke from the wildfires, it must have been really tough on you.
There were a few days that it was clear when I was going out.
And then partway through the day, the smoke would roll in.
And all of a sudden, you know, it doesn’t happen right away.
But within an hour, I start coughing pretty bad.
And I have to get off the water, or I could get really sick.
It wasn’t good, that’s for sure.
I know I missed like 45 days of work, my other job at Coca-Cola and stuff.
But my doctor said, try wearing a face mask.
And I did, and it ended up working for me.
So I was able to carry on and finish the year out, because it was an unprecedented year for forest fires last year.
It was just crazy.
It was.
Well, let’s go way back to when we first got together over the Urban Angling Partnership.
Maybe you could explain what that partnership is all about.
Well, the Urban Angling Partnership is a great organization that promotes our world-class fishery here in Manitoba, or in Winnipeg.
And we put on a Winnipeg Fish Festival, which I take part in every year, do seminars, give away a trip.
And there’s all kinds of stations there where people can come and learn about our urban fishing and all kinds of other things that you need to know.
You know, conservation-minded, all different things.
Where you can fish.
And you get to talk with some pros and some tackle dealers and different people and get some knowledge.
You know, also, you know, the Urban Angling Partnership is big on, you know, promoting, obviously, our urban fishing.
But we do learn to fish clinics with the City of Winnipeg and the Urban Angling Partnership.
And we’ll take families fishing offshore, like in Kildonan Park, and we’ll teach them everything they need to know about out-of-shore fish and even some fish IDs so they know what they’re catching, the rules and regs and everything.
Oh, and then, of course, your Fish Winnipeg event that you put on where you have that van and they take kids out fishing from different community centers.
And I believe, if I’m not wrong, you guys give them a fishing rod at the end of the day?
That’s correct.
Every kid gets a rod and reel.
We held the Fish Winnipeg event for a number of years, and it’s still going thanks to some of the work that you’re doing.
And the city actually administers the program, and we help raise funds and make sure the kids get a rod and reel.
So it’s been a great program over the years.
So I would suggest it’s probably been running 25 years, I would think.
Oh, that’s incredible.
Yeah.
And the thing is, I remember somebody saying once that, you know, you’re giving kids a fishing rod,
and at the end, instead of going out and causing trouble, they’re going by their community centers and digging up worms and going fishing.
And that’s a huge turnaround, and it gives them something to do.
And I think it’s amazing.
Yeah, and just in context, the Urban Angling Partnership won a National Fisheries Award.
So we had a chance to go, a few years back, we got a chance to go to Ottawa to receive the award.
It was John Toon and myself and a city member from the city, and it was a great, great honor.
And the program has continued to be very instrumental in educating young people on the sport of fishing.
And you’ve been a big part of that.
Talk about some of your, I know you work with the Seven Oak School Division and get into the classroom as well.
Right, Todd?
Yeah, it was a really weird thing that happened.
I was sitting at the Four Crowns restaurant having lunch one day, and the owner, Ravi, who owns, obviously, he owns the Crown.
He says, Todd, I want to introduce you to somebody, and he introduced me to this one fellow.
He works on the school board, and he ended up, we talked about what it’d be a great idea to start a program
where we teach kids how to fish in the schools.
And from there, we had a few more meetings with the school board, and it was born.
We, I do, this year alone, I’m, we’re in our fifth year, and this, and every year, I’ll do in-class PowerPoint presentation
for the first part of the course, and the second part, we’ll meet out in Selkirk,
and we do shore fishing right near the boat launch, and kids are catching tons of fish.
We’re recording over sometimes 60, 70 fish in a four-hour or in a two-hour period, which is incredible.
And the best way to teach a kid how to fish and get them interested in fishing is to actually put them on fish, you know?
And we’ve been having a really, really high success rate and reaching a lot of kids.
Well, over the years, I worked with a number of the school divisions as well, Todd,
and there’s a lot of the high schools now do have, or have for a long time, have fishing programs.
River East was one, Miles Mack, and by the way, I’m trying to think of the school.
I should know them.
They’re close to where I live, and they got a huge…
Yes, thank you, Todd.
Daniel Mack has got an incredible program.
I don’t know how many hundreds of students they put through every year,
and the teacher there is…
The educators there are very passionate about it, so a great program.
And for the first…
Well, third time now, we’ve had a high school ice fishing championship.
And I don’t know how many students were there this year, but it was close to 1,000, I think,
or over 1,000 on the ice at Balsam Bay.
So, you know, it’s very gratifying for, I think, both of us, Todd, you and me,
who’ve been long-term educators in the system,
to see the kind of impact that is going on the landscape now in the schools.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, that fishing event that they put on for the high school students is incredible.
A lot of them, I heard one year they had 1,500 kids out there.
That’s correct, yeah.
Yeah, that’s amazing.
And, you know, and it’s important.
You’re teaching these kids a life skill that they can one day teach their kids.
So, I mean, you know, why not?
Fishing’s an amazing, amazing sport.
To go out and do, it’s got so many benefits.
It’s a stress reliever.
It’s just, you get time to go out and think, spend time with your family, and reconnect.
Like, fishing has so many benefits.
It sure does, and it’s a lifelong sport.
It’s something, activity you can do for your full life.
And so, you know, I’m actually turning 75 this year.
I’m not going to date myself, but I’m looking forward to a number of different fishing trips,
some with my family, some with friends, and it’s going to be a great year.
So, it never gets old, and everyday fishing is another day on your life.
So, we’re going to be okay.
Are you, Todd?
Oh, absolutely.
Well, they say, for every day you fish, you can add seven years to your life, right?
So, you’re going to live forever there, Don.
And I’ll be right behind you.
Well, I don’t think it’s seven years, but whatever.
We both had pretty interesting careers, and you’ve also been running for Hook Magazine for a number of years, Todd.
Yep, yep.
And you got an article about your charities in this upcoming spring issue.
So, we’re looking forward to that, and we appreciate your long-term support of Hooked
and all the stories that you have contributed about all your adventures.
So, I’m going to ask you about that before we wrap up this interview.
What have been some of your most memorable trips or memories over this 29, 30 years that you’ve been in this?
Oh, geez.
There’s got to be two, and they’re both sports-related.
I mean, in the early days, it was taking Lyle Bauer and a bunch of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers out fishing.
That was fun, and we did TV shows and different things.
Had a great time.
I miss Lyle.
He passed a little over a year ago, and there’s a big hole that needs to be filled now.
He was a huge supporter of people that were battling cancer.
But Michael Schaefer’s taken over the whole thing, and he’s been doing an amazing job with the Neverlone Foundation.
And, of course, the Winnipeg Jets now.
A few years back, I got a call from Craig Heisinger, or we call him Zinger, the assistant GM for the Winnipeg Jets.
And I was asked if I could handle taking all the Winnipeg Jets fishing.
And without even a moment’s thought, yeah, absolutely.
It made it happen, you know.
And we had an amazing day taking the kids or the Jets out fishing.
A big bus pulled up to Selkirk Park, and it was so surreal.
All of a sudden, you see all these players coming out of the bus, like Mark Shifley, Hallibuck, all of them.
Some newer Jets, like Alex Iafello and Velarde and all of them, they’re all walking out of the bus.
And we had them all assigned to different boats and got to take them all fishing.
And then at the end, they caught over 1,560 fish in a four-hour period, all the Jets.
That was incredible.
And then we had a party afterwards for them at the Four Crowns restaurant, and they were singing karaoke.
It was great.
They signed all our stuff, you know, just chatting with them all night.
You know, it was an amazing, amazing thing.
I even got a little teary-eyed.
You know, it was very, very, very, probably one of my best fishing trips I ever, ever did.
And then I, just last year in the fall, I got to take Connor Hallibuck and Alex Iafello,
and one of my fishing guides took Luke Shen and his kid out.
And we were pounding walleyes and saugers by the locks in late September.
It was incredible.
And Connor, whatchamacallit, Connor Hallibuck’s son got his first walleye, which was really cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Some of my most memorable were ice fishing with Dustin Bufflin.
Oh, I remember that.
Yeah, so we had it through the Shifley Golf Tournament, the Dustin and Hooked magazine.
We worked together to supply a trip, and so it was really interesting.
The first time we went, and you were in charge of that one.
Yeah, with my cousin in the helicopter.
And you, it was a blizzard, and you got stuck in the ditch, and your buddies here had to come and get you.
Yeah, that was crazy.
There was, there was no road.
It was just a big field.
The road had, was level with the ditch.
Yeah.
So, and then, then there goes Hallibuck and, and his, his manager driving by us, and they pulled over and pulled us out of the ditch.
And then we ended up with the.
That was Dustin, Dustin Bufflin.
Yeah, Dustin Bufflin.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, not Hallibuck.
Yeah, yeah, my bad.
And then we, we went fishing, and, and Hallibuck basic, or sorry, back to Hallibuck, Bufflin, ended up catching most of the fish and having a good time.
Yeah, I, I, it was funny because we called him, we talked to his manager and said, you guys still want to go?
And he says, oh, and Bufflin said, yeah, we’re going, Don, not a doubt.
So anyway, so we did make it out there, you guys, your buddies there, had a, you know, the portable shacks ready, everything was set.
They did a great shore launch for us.
Like you said, Dustin, he caught, he caught a lot of the fish, he had custom ice fishing rods, and, you know, he, he was a pleasure to be around.
And then the second part of that, the second year, he donated a trip again, him and the Jets and Hook Magazine.
We flew him, your cousin flew him by helicopter from Winnipeg to Lake Dauphin, landed on the lake.
We had everything ready to go there, and we had a great day on, on the ice fishing Lake Dauphin.
We caught lots of walleye there too, had a great shore lunch show.
My memories of Bufflin are just one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever met, and just a character.
It was funny because if you go on the video, I think we saw the video on our website, one of the doctors who had bought the, the trip to be with Bufflin, he put Bufflin on his back and lifted him up three times, dead weight.
So it was, it was a pretty hilarious day and a pretty hilarious video.
So very memorable for sure.
I know that doctor, I’ve taken him fishing.
He’s a big guy.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, so, uh, yeah, he’s such a nice guy and yeah, he was raving about it as well when I took him fishing.
So, uh, good for you guys.
Yeah.
So lots of good memories and, uh, uh, well, we look forward to seeing you on the water soon, Todd.
Hopefully we get some spring.
I’m sure you’re going to have a busy season lined up.
Yeah, it’s already starting, uh, from mid April till, uh, the end of June.
I’ll be in, I’ll be pretty much working with kids and just guiding on weekends and having some of my other guys taking people out during the week.
And then come July right through till the end of, uh, of October.
I’ll be, uh, I’ll be chasing channel cats and walleyes and putting on, uh, another fundraising event.
Uh, I didn’t tell you we’re putting on a new event this year.
Okay.
Tell me.
It’s called, uh, guiding hand and it’s, uh, basically going to be supporting the never alone foundation this year and the urban angling partnership.
We’ll split the funds in half, whatever’s raised.
Once again, I’ll, I’ll donate my, uh, tip money and we’re going to put on a banquet at the end of this season at the, uh, four crowns restaurant on, I believe it’s October 29th.
And the silent auction prizes will be off the hook cause I have a lot of connections.
So I’m getting a lot of really cool prizes from the Winnipeg jets, urban, uh, tactical, you know, Shimano FXR bunch of my sponsors will all donate and we’ll have.
And, and of course the whole how to write population in Winnipeg, they, they love me and they always support me every year and make a whole bunch of, uh, uh, custom.
We’ve made stuff from toolboxes to rod cases, you name it.
It’s going to be, uh, an amazing, an amazing, uh, event, even, uh, creative print all they make custom fridges and different things.
Uh, yeah, uh, you got to come this year.
Yeah, we had a conflict last year, uh, Kevin was able to make it, uh, he’s the publisher of hook magazine.
And, uh, so we had to split our resources, but I look forward to it and, you know, just to wrap up here, Todd, I just want to, I want to thank you.
And on behalf of the fishing community and the outdoor community for all the work that you’ve done with young people and charities, and, uh, you’ve been a real pillar in, in the landscape here and this province.
So congratulations on all your hard work.
Uh, Don, you are one of my big influences.
So thank you for inspiring me and giving me a direction in life.
You know, um, all the stuff you’ve did, uh, done over the years are pretty much stuff.
I guess you got me kind of hooked on it and I’m continuing.
And I’m hoping one day that when, um, when I’m done, there’s somebody to fill, fill the footprints in the sand that I left behind and continue, uh, for generations to come.
Okay, well, let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Do we want that to happen?
Well, absolutely.
Thanks, Todd.
Thank you, Don.
Thanks for tuning in.
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