Diaries of a Lodge Owner

A muskie over 50 inches on a rod that holds about 30 feet of line sounds like the start of a disaster, but for me it becomes one of those rare nights that never stops replaying. I’m sitting alone with a handful of fishing memories that refuse to fade, the ones tied to a person, a place, and a feeling that hits you years later when you least expect it.

We start on the French River with my son Rayburn, and the moment tha...

The hardest part of emergency calls isn’t always the chaos you can see. Sometimes it’s standing beside a wife, a son, or a loved one who’s begging you to fix the unfixable. Fire Chief Mike Sutton joins us for a raw, honest talk about nearly 30 years in the fire service, the weight that builds call after call, and the moment he realizes PTSD, anxiety, and depression have finally caught up.

We start on the li...

The dog days of summer aren’t just hot weather, they’re the point in the season when a fishing lodge gets squeezed from every direction. When the heat hangs on, the days feel endless, and the finish line is still weeks away, you can feel staff focus slipping and small tensions turning into real problems. We walk through what that looks like from the owner’s chair, and what we learned about motivating a crew, givin...

The fastest way into a fishing guide career is not a perfect resume, it is getting yourself into the right lodge and proving you belong there. Around the table at Two Rivers Lodge, we sit down with three working guides, Rick Payne, John “Cowboy” Jomban, and Caleb Johnson, to talk about how guiding really starts: nerves, rough water, limited gear, and the moment you realize you are responsible for someone else’s be...

A fishing guide’s job is not just finding fish. It’s reading people, managing pressure, and turning a tough bite into a day your guests will still talk about on the drive home. Around the table at Two Rivers Lodge, we trade honest stories about guiding in Northern Ontario, learning unfamiliar water near Kenora, and the moment you realize you’re not “just a fishing buddy” anymore, you’re responsib...

You can own a lodge, hire great guides, and still feel your confidence wobble the moment you step onto a dock where nobody cares about your past. At Two Rivers Lodge, I’m back in the boat as a working guide, staring at new water, new electronics, and guests I’ve never met, asking myself the only question that matters: do I still have it? 

I talk through the real difference between “helping out” a...

Lodge season does not “start” so much as it hits you all at once. Early June brings that first real wave of guests, the scramble to reopen cabins and docks, and the reality that Mother Nature controls the schedule, especially when you are running an island lodge on the French River. We talk through what those first days actually feel like, from the excitement of opening to the gritty details that never make it into the ...

He wasn’t flashy. He didn’t say a whole lot. But he always had my back and that kind of fatherhood changes everything. After losing my dad just days ago, I sit down for a raw, personal reflection on grief, gratitude, and the lessons that still guide me as a lodge owner, a parent, and an outdoorsman.

I talk about what it meant to take the leap into lodge ownership when the timing felt impossible, the money was tig...

A thousand-foot gill net can hold a whole day’s worth of truth about a fishery and Paige Drew has lived that reality on Lake Superior. We sit down with Paige and Caleb Johnson, two newly minted guides at Two Rivers Lodge, and talk honestly about what it means to earn your place in a lodge family when the season is just starting and the water is still near freezing. The conversation starts where most guests never get to look: ...

Spring at a Northern Ontario fishing lodge can feel like two different worlds at once. We’re watching flood water threaten roads and docks around the French River and Lake Nipissing, while up near Kenora the ice is still hanging on and every plan depends on wind, rain, and when the system finally opens up. That push and pull sets the tone for a candid lodge-owner conversation about preparation, risk, and the messy reality beh...

The best ice seasons are not always the ones with the most chaos, they are the ones that run smooth from first hut to last pullout. We’re back with Donny Crowder of Hotbox Huts to debrief a Lake Simcoe winter that started early, stayed stable late, and gave his crew something rare: time. Time to stage “Hogtown” properly, time to avoid panic days, and time to connect with clients one-on-one so families leave with m...

Your body already knows how to come back to centre. The problem is we rarely give it the right signal, long enough, often enough, to override modern stress. We talk with Spencer DeLeal, president of Art of Living Canada, about how rhythmic breathing and mindfulness can help reset the nervous system when life starts to feel like constant fight or flight.

We dig into Sudarshan Kriya, a structured breathing technique built arou...

Spring up north doesn’t arrive politely. It shows up when the ice starts talking, when a route that was open yesterday is suddenly blocked by a drifting plate, and when a lodge owner has to decide whether “maybe we can make it” is actually worth the risk.

It’s just you and me for a straight, practical run through the shoulder season on the French River in Ontario. I share a real late ice-out story fro...

One mistake can end a survival challenge. One accident can erase weeks of memory. One loss can change the shape of a whole family. We’re joined by Joe Robinet, a Canadian bushcraft and camping creator who helped define outdoor YouTube long before it was a career path, and he brings a rare mix of hard-earned skills and hard-earned perspective.

We talk through Joe’s early life in Windsor, Ontario, chasing wildernes...

The season doesn’t start when the first guests arrive. It starts when you look at snowpack, water height, and a dock system that can swing by feet, then decide how you’re going to make it safe, simple, and fast for everyone walking down to the boats. Willie the Oil Man joins us with a full spring readiness download from Two Rivers Lodge, including what he’s changing on the docks, how he thinks about access for old...

What if your walleye box held the key to your next muskie? We sit down with veteran multi‑species guide Patrick Tryon to unpack a hard‑won breakthrough: when walleyes get picky, the jig colour they favour often maps directly to the belly colour that triggers muskies. It’s not a theory born from luck—it’s the product of years of obsessive journaling on Lake Nipissing and the Upper French River, controlled trolling ...

A chance phone call, a cedar boat, and a river that never leaves your blood. That’s how our friendship with Omer began—he arrived from Israel with no rods, no experience, and a map in the glove box, then asked to stay and help. What followed were seasons stitched together by wood smoke and fish fries, a duck hunt mishap that blew a hole in a boat, and a brutal late‑season muskie run where ice formed around our lines in ...

We walk through the mental weight of winter for lodge owners: the quiet that stings, the bookings book that judges, and the systems that turn that silence into strategy. We share hard-won lessons on deposits, pricing, grants, staff processes, and the habit of steady focus.

• winter as a pressure chamber and planning window
• buying the lodge and rebuilding lost goodwill
• honest marketing versus high-pressure promises<...

What if the fastest way to get better at anything isn’t a “secret spot,” but a better way of thinking? We welcome muskie guide and entrepreneur Pat Tryon for a wide-open conversation about the habits that turn long slogs into sudden breakthroughs: studying structure, compressing the search with smart tech, learning shoulder-to-shoulder with experts, and keeping your ego out of the way when the pattern isn’t ...