From banking to walleyes: One man's journey to a dream job

“Eat it!” says a focused Brett McComas as we watch a walleye rise to his drop-shotted plastic minnow on his Garmin Livescope. If you were wondering if he’s the same fish-obsessed angler in the boat as he is behind the scenes editing Target Walleye, his involuntary audible response hammers that confirmation home.

“They’ve been really picky but a few days ago they were hammering it,” Brett announces over a downward glance at the screen while nudging the bait forward and adjusting his sunglasses.

It’s an evening of fun fishing on McComas’ boat, getting the chance to fish together and hear how he came to be a walleye fishing addict who scours the internet for content to share with others of varying level of angling obsession.

We work over a hump and McComas’ tinkering and experimenting characteristics show. Today’s fun fishing is a bit like playing in a laboratory; we pitch Max Scent Ned Rigs, lob out drop shot rigs and work them back to the boat, toss out Walleye Nation Creation Death Jigs, and heave standbys like Jigging Rapalas and Acme Hyper Rattles. We manage a handful of walleye for some fish tacos but the conversation is the prize.

You might have a cool job. Maybe you even have your dream job. But do you get paid to scroll the internet for fishing content and stories? Do you create angling videos and organize a twice weekly email blast of fishing news, tips, product releases, updates, and stories?

As cool as your job might be, it’s not as cool as Mr. McComas’. Situated in the heart of Minnesota’s fishing industry epicenter in Brainerd, McComas shares an office and meets in the boardroom at the Lindner Media headquarters. He gets to exchange weekend fishing stories with Al Lindner. Just how he landed his job is a testament to the persevering grinders of the world and proof that nice guys can finish first.

Brett was always a fishing fool.

“There’s just something special about walleyes,” he told me. “I’ve always been a hot bite chaser. I fished burbot, creek chubs, channel catfish, whatever was going. Growing up, I primarily bass fished, but then about ten years ago I got serious about chasing walleye all season, not just when its easy. I have always targeted walleye through the ice, but I felt like I needed to give them my full attention. My walleye fishing became about the challenge of catching them throughout the year.”

College was a chance for him to find his place in the world. McComas points out that lots of kids these days choose to go to school in Bemidji for all of the outdoor opportunities. McComas says that if he went to school in Bemidji, he’d have never done any homework. Instead, he went to the University of North Dakota, majoring in marketing.

“I always said that marketing was my first choice when I found out they didn’t offer a degree in fishing,” he quips. He was, in his words, a social media addict, and he remembers taking a course where everyone had to manage a project. McComas’ project was on consumer behavior and how it was impacted by the fishing industry.

After graduating in 2011, McComas worked in banking and mortgages for 5 or 6 years at a couple banks.

“While I was at the bank jobs, I was thinking about fishing 24/7,” Brett recalled. “The entire time I was applying for jobs at fishing companies. I remember that I sent a cover letter and resume to Lindner Media. I told them that I would mop the floor or vacuum the place for free, just to try and get in and be working in that office.”

In 2015, Brett got his break. He was an avid user of Instagram and shared pictures of walleye from trips he’d taken to Lake Winnipeg to fish for the lake’s famous greenback walleyes. Target Walleye was at that time a fledgling entity just starting its social media presence.

The organizer for Target Walleye, Jay Kumar, would with Brett’s permission run pictures of those fish from Brett’s trips. The pair built a relationship and over time Brett started sending Jay the coolest walleye content that he was finding on his own. Jay messaged Brett to get his telephone number; he wanted to chat.

“My phone rang and I was pacing all over the whole time while talking,” recalled McComas.

Jay wanted help getting Target Walleye established on Instagram and needed Brett’s help for around 5 hours per week. An overly enthusiastic McComas was ready to volunteer his time, but Kumar was adamant that they would pay him for his effort.

“It started off as 5 hours but I was so into it that I was doing it all the time,” Brett said. “Five hours became extended to 10, then 20, and eventually it was 40. At my peak I was doing 40 hours a week of Target Walleye at the same time as 40 hours a week at the bank. I’d set my alarm for 3 a.m. and giddily roll out of bed to surf the internet for walleye fishing content, then trudge into the bank. It was miserable doing 80 hour work weeks but amazing. How many industries do you jump out of bed to get to work? I do for the Target Walleye job. I’ll roll over at 2 a.m. with an idea and jot it down on paper for later.”

Eventually McComas had to make a decision. Could he make his work at Target Walleye and in the fishing industry a full-time job? What was his risk, did he have enough insurance to pull it off? After looking everything over and crunching the numbers, he decided he could map out a career and jumped in without looking back.

Today, the Target Walleye content is well established with several features to draw in readers and viewers. There is fishing industry news, fishing tips, and a top 5 for the week.

“We want content that the hardcore angler enjoys and can use, but we also want the folks new to walleye fishing to dig in,” Brett explained. “So it might be a knot to tie or a technique that you already know, but we want to jazz it up to keep your interest, spin it in a new way, or make it interesting to everyone.”

“I still look around at the walls at Lindner Media in awe,” McComas says. “I’m like a little kid at the toy store. Working as the editor for Target Walleye is the dream job. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to the bank job.”

I ask McComas if working with Al Lindner ever ruins his childhood memories of the man, an angling idol.

“I met Al Lindner at the Minnesota Teen Fishing Challenge,” he recalled. “I was just giddy meeting him. Even after 7 years of working at Lindner Media, I still get that feeling. He’ll ask everyone, ‘Where’d you go this weekend? What’d you use?’ He’s always asking questions, trying to stay on top of the fish.”

McComas’ focus these days is work and raising his 4-year-old daughter, Maisie. Maisie is after her father’s heart.

“The other day she told me ‘I want to catch a lolleye!’” a proud McComas said. “She loves fishing now. She sees my work. She sees walleye on clothes, pictures of me holding them, so she’s getting a little more interest in catching them. We pick our spots. When we go fishing it’s about having fun. We play with a squirt gun, maybe beach the boat and swim for an hour, go back out and catch a few fish, eat some snacks, and play with the leeches. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: From banking to walleyes: One man's journey to a dream job