Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground, brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Closed captioning is made possible by the Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

More information is available at bemidjiairport.org [Music] I'm Producer/Director Kelsey Jacobson.

The 2024 Ice Fishing Extravaganza looked different compared to previous years due to the unseasonably warm temps, but that didn't stop family and friends from gathering out on the ice for a good cause.

[Music] Hi my name is Katherine Tennis, the 2024 chairwoman of the Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza.

When the Extravaganza was first founded it was actually just a bunch of guys sitting around wondering how they could be bringing businesses into the Brainerd Lakes Area during a historically low point and so they actually decided Minnesotan, Midwestern, let's come together and let's have a great ice fishing tournament, and so our core ideals have always been about providing support to our businesses in the Brainerd Lakes Area.

Then it also grew into, we've always been a charity event, all of our proceeds are donated to local charities and nonprofits in the area.

Main one being Confidence Learning Center which is a camp for people ages 6 months all the way to 98 just helping people with disabilities get out in recreational activities.

Really good.

She's a natural.

That's because I have a climbing wall at home.

Do you?

There you go, nice work.

Way to go, way to go.

All right when you're ready just have a seat like you're sitting in a chair.

I'm Travis Grossman, Executive Director of Confidence Learning Center.

We're located just west of Brainerd in East Gull Lake, Minnesota.

I've been at camp for about 5 years and just recently stepped into the executive director position about 18 months ago.

It's been a really fun journey up to this point.

We have so much history here.

One of the favorite things about my job is really getting to meet people who have been involved in supporting camp for so long and getting to know and build on those relationships and what a special place to have an office that you can look out your window and see what you're here for.

Our campers are coming and going, our team is coming and going and it's an amazing job.

As we're coming up on the 35th year of the Ice Fishing Extravaganza the benefit and the partnership with Camp has been incredible, coming up on $3 million over that time frame that has been donated to Camp directly to our mission.

We don't receive government funding, we're donor supported and also supported through our own events and the Ice Fishing Extravaganza being the largest so many years and up to 25% of our annual working budget, so it is a partnership but boy we're on the receiving end and we couldn't be more grateful for that partnership and for the opportunity that the Jaycees give us through the Ice Fishing Extravaganza.

For anyone who hasn't been to camp or very aware of what we do as a part of our mission, our whole goal is to bring in people who in other aspects of life might be looked down upon or not given the same opportunities and we're here to encourage them with activities.

There you go, you're doing good, you're going too fast.

I can slow down, you just let me know if that's too fast.

Our whole goal is to help people identify the things that they can do and find that personal growth.

For so many of our campers they come in and they're finding a different type of support from our team because we do see their peers accomplishing these things often and we can help encourage them in the right way, our staff is trained in that and experience more than anything else.

And so our campers are able to reach goals and heights that that they never would have expected, their caregivers or their family members sometimes never would have even expected and it's just regular business for camp.

We get to see it all the time.

One of the most unique things about Confidence Learning Center and Camp Confidence is that this is a camp that our campers come in with their caregiver or their family and their siblings.

There's a lot of families that have a hard time traveling and going on a vacation where everybody can do all the activities together and that's what we do.

We can be that vacation spot for a family looking for some peace and quiet in the Northwoods and also offering a huge array of programming opportunities that we do that each person participates in and each person can succeed in.

I think one of the things that is most impressive about the Ice Fishing Extravaganza is the fact that you've got a whole group of people who are under 40 that get criticized quite a bit for work ethic and volunteerism as a society at this point.

On top of the things that they're doing on their own they're able to drum up 300 plus volunteers to pull this event off that is for the greater good of our whole community, not just our organization.

It's an economic impact and other organizations that get involved really benefit from this and so it's an impressive feat for any age or any generation and here we've got a group our sub-40 category is carrying the torch in a way that is unmatched.

The 2024 Extravaganza was just an example of the resiliency of our Jaycees and the committee that puts that tournament together.

I think so many organizations or event committees would have cancelled.

I think the weather worked out for us a little bit but it was a really unique year in having to go with a hybrid.

I just find it so impressive that that team of young folks stuck together, they pivoted, they made an incredible tournament happen in the Brainerd Lakes that was supporting our local economy.

And then our third is to get people out ice fishing and so what's been really nice over our 34 years is we've really stayed true to those three core ideals.

My favorite thing about the Extravaganza historically has been when someone catches a fish and they're running all the way up to the weigh-in table.

You have 10,000 people around you cheering you on like it is just that camaraderie that I absolutely love to see with the Extravaganza, that people are so glad for that other person when they're running their fish up there.

It's not a oh maybe I lost that chance at a truck it's you rock, you go weigh that fish.

That our businesses really flourish when we have that tourist time of year in the winter is also really important to all of our beneficiaries, from Confidence Learning Center to the Boy Scouts to the fire departments to just a lot of groups that really rely on the proceeds that are built during this time of year with the Extravaganza and that's something we just really want our contestants to remember this year, as we had to pivot, that we really thank you guys for continuing to support us and continuing to support the cause of the Extravaganza which is that we are a charity event and run on all volunteers.

The Brainerd Jaycees is a leadership organization from ages 18 to 40 and what we do is we build up leadership skills through different service projects and so the Ice Fishing Extravaganza is actually only just one of those things.

We also have Run for the Lakes which is a Boston qualifier, we also have Little Rubber Ducky which is our Junior Jaycee's led by them, we've got Street Fest that brings all of our community together in the Brainerd Lakes Area during the summer to gather and have a good time.

This event has been running for so long simply because one we've got great support from our community and our contestants.

We've put a lot of effort into making it a really great experience for our contestants.

In years previous we've run Youth Olympics, getting kids involved.

We've had opportunities out on the ice for ax throwing and scavenger hunts and just different vendors coming together and it's also in part because of our sponsors.

Our sponsors have been amazing even this year, especially Fleet Farm and Grand View and Strike Master that they continue to see the value in bringing 10,000 people together out on the ice.

My name is Mike Cook.

I am the 2024 co-chair of the Brainerd Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza and I am the chairperson of the 2025 Ice Fishing Extravaganza.

So about 19 years ago one of my close mentors ended up coming into my office and he says Mike what are you doing tonight and I said ah nothing that I'm aware of why, what's up, and he said that well I just signed you up to the Jaycees, you need to be a part of this, it's the best thing that I ever did and that is tonight so you're going to a meeting tonight and I hope you enjoy it.

And ever since then that I went to that meeting and I met some close friends that I didn't know yet and I just had to be a part of this.

Many of us that are in there and have been in it in a lot of years.

Some people that are just newer.

It's probably the best thing that all of us have done personally, professionally and we've been able to learn how to grow as people, how to grow inside, how to help our communities firsthand, but then also how to run businesses, how to do other various things, how to handle the money, how to do all that and without the organization many of us would not be where we are today.

[Music] This is kind of a twofold but it ends up being the other people that are on the committee and all of us that help work this throughout the whole year we end up getting so close, it's a family in its own sense and then when we end up standing on stage right before the cannon goes off, at noon, we're all together as the committee.

The cannon goes up there's a huge cheer and that's when the contest starts.

Back originally when the tournament started there was five Jaycees at the time they were getting together trying to find a way how do you bring commerce into the Brainerd Lakes Area during the winter and the other side of things too is it's a good group that actually needs some financial aid as well.

That's when Confidence Learning Center became the main beneficiary to help them be able to raise some money but then also to make this happen one of the original people actually mortgaged his own house to make sure that there was enough to give away at the beginning.

So this started on the back of a napkin and a mortgage of a house and has turned into this.

So this year is a little bit different.

This year we went hybrid.

So by going hybrid it is different just because the temperatures haven't been well enough for us to be able to have a contest where our 10 plus thousand contestants come together in one area, but we are able to safely do it across multiple lakes and across multiple areas.

So it does look differently but the beauty of it is that we're still able to do it, we're still able to help the community, we're still able to have a ton of fun.

So we have a lot of people that do come back year after year and I think it's because of the excitement.

Everything that they're doing is making a difference and we all love that ability to be able to hang out with other people that love the sport but then also just have a chance to win a truck, have a chance to win another prize, that's just icing on the cake but I think it's also a great excuse to just get away and just go ice fishing.

I would love to tell all the fishermen have fun with this, make some new friends that are out there and everything that you're doing every line that was dropped you actually help to make an impact in somebody's personal life.

So a lot of our sistering competitions did have to end up cancelling in various other communities around but we have been able to continue this year, we were able to pivot.

That's kind of been the word of our year is pivot and make sure that we can still make this happen and the reason we were able to make this continue this year and not have to cancel because there was a lot of fears from a lot of people that they might have to cancel but because of the Jaycees being a leadership organization the whole purpose is that giving us the ability to learn how to pivot, learn how to think on our feet and to be able to make lemonade out of lemons.

That's what we ended up doing with the Jaycees and what we've been able to learn through this we were able to band together, come up with a great idea, and frankly put this together in about 8 days.

And with our community, with our partnerships, with our sponsors, with our other members that is why it's still alive today.

So in Minnesota fishing is life to many and ice fishing I think it's a bunch of the Norwegian in us or something like that but with it as well there's something about the togetherness that fishing and ice fishing really brings to us.

It's a chance for us to be able to gather, catch some dinner, share some laughs and also let's be honest do something when it's cold outside.

I am from Buffalo, Minnesota and she's from Otsego, Minnesota.

So we are out here for the Jaycees Ice Fishing Extravaganza, it's our 10th year and we're out here on Gull Lake right off of Craigun's.

This is her fourth year coming and I have my son, her father and her mom, my daughter-in-law, and then my grandson's floating around here somewhere.

So we're just hanging out trying to catch fish.

It's been pretty slow.

It's cool and the wind's blowing but, you know, you just you never know what you're going to get and just having a good time Like when the prize patrol comes around we've gotten prizes from them and just seeing people run their fishes up and everybody having a good time together it's a really fun entertaining tournament.

It's very different this year but I like the hybrid better than the year that they just did it the virtual when you know Covid hit and we had to do the fish donkey and you could fish anywhere.

That didn't seem so inclusive, it didn't seem like the tournament.

This year there's only a few lakes that you can fish on, there are other people you know everybody's still together in a way and I like the hybrid version better than the virtual, obviously it's not as good as the regular tournament, but I think they came up with a really good solution you know last minute they had to figure out what to do and I think they came up with a really great solution.

You like to play on the ice don't you?

Yeah.

My kids, my grandkids, you know, we're all together doing it together as a family and that's what's important to me just having a good time together.

It's not really about catching the fish, although that's a bonus, but it's a good time with my kids.

And this is my grandson.

This is Tanner.

My name is Russ Markfelder, I'm from Rice, Minnesota.

We're doing the Extravaganza Ice Fishing Tournament on Gull Lake.

We haven't caught anything yet but we're hoping to get something here soon.

Yeah this is my third year here, fished on Gull all three years, and caught a fish two years ago that placed 11th.

Bill was here the last two days just kind of checking out different areas.

Yep nothing yet.

I think it's great for the Brainerd Lakes Area, brings a lot of people into town.

I think it's just fun to get together with friends and spend a day on the lake and hopefully win a prize and support a good cause.

My name is Dave Tyler and I'm from Blaine, Minnesota drove up Wednesday have been fishing ever since we got a cabin back on the opposite shore there and this is the 18th year since I've seen some of my friends that are coming from across the country.

We all served together in the Army in the early 2000's, we're having a little bit of a reunion trip, yeah.

So my buddies that are with me we all served together in 2005 to 2006 in Iraq.

We were all stationed together in Fort Benning, Georgia for about four years together and so we've kept in contact over the years.

Some of us this will be our third year together coming out to get together for the tournament.

This year by far is our largest amount of participants, guys coming in from Arizona, Alabama, Tennessee so all across the nation so it's pretty neat.

And some of them first time on the ice ever which is pretty cool.

So yeah this year's, you know, absent of snow, absent of cold temperature so the ice has suffered greatly.

Reminds me of a bongo drum session it's cracking and popping.

You can see that there's definitely a lot of evidence of the ice is a late freeze so like just back over there there's big chunks of white ice have refrozen in as it got colder this last couple weeks.

It's definitely not normal usually we have a lot of snow out here and a lot colder temperatures that this place would have you know hundreds of ice fishing houses and plow trucks out here maintaining well-maintained roads and this year it's just absent.

It's kind of striking the fact of the, you know, maybe a handful of people are even on the ice right now.

First year I came out out here was '22 and we actually had a ice castle rental right here where we're standing and it was pretty cold, plenty of snow.

First year I caught a walleye immediately at the start of the tournament and I was on the leaderboard for a little bit but then got pushed off the bottom, just wasn't a big enough fish.

And then last year we did the same thing, we rented another Ice Castle.

We were down to the south a little bit.

It was a lot colder last year and a lot more snow which made for a lot of flooding issues from the way to the snow on all the plowed roads but still successful trip, had a lot of fun hanging out with the boys and getting some good ice fishing in Yeah catch a fish more so one of my buddies that came out here I want them to catch the fish you know more so than I ever could and that'd be the best thing is actually end up on the leaderboard and take something home hopefully it's an Ice Castle that they leave here because they don't need it in the south.

Yeah I think it's a tremendous event.

You know spent my adult life serving and the fact that there's organizations out here that, you know, put forth such effort to create an event that brings people from all over the world together and all for a charitable cause says a lot about, you know, this area and the Minnesota nice and the outreach programs that are involved is bar none and that's why I hunt to participate in this event in any way possible as much as I can and will so for the, you know, following years that I can foresee.

You got to do it.

Ice fishing is such, I always say to my buddies, that ice fishing is 5% catching fish and it's 95% hanging out with your people and enjoying, you know, Minnesota's winter nature which is spectacular and for me that's the drivers, you know get out there if you've never done it, and experience the super positive energy that comes from events like this, it'll change your life.

My favorite thing about the Jaycees is just how it becomes quite the family of people, like-minded people gathering together to do something for their community.

We went out actually on quite a few of those lakes today and got to see the excitement in person, live.

We saw perch being drawn up, we saw some walleyes and even some people who didn't catch anything who were still having a lot of fun.

They were out there cooking, they were out there playing games, and some people even brought bean bag boards.

They just made it into a great fantastic day out on the lakes.

Our hybrid method here was completely new this year.

We had multiple contingency plans in place but unfortunately a lot of them just weren't going to work out and so our committee came together and we created a new plan that brought in that fish donkey app so that little bit of virtual piece that people could go ahead and pick their lake within the Brainerd Lakes Area and fish so we were still a bit scattered about but we still wanted to bring that sense of community to people and so we saw a ton of people gathered on Hole in the Day Bay, we saw people interacting with our concierge stations and our info booth and of course here at Fleet Farm all of us gathered to get those 150 prizes.

Last year we had people from France, we've had people from the Netherlands.

This year we had quite a few Texans who were super excited about the fish donkey app having no clue what that was and said that alone was worth the price of the ticket.

So we had quite a few people coming out of state all the way from the south, never before ice fishing and got to experience that this year.

Oh it was a good fight.

You know fishing in 60 ft of water I didn't think I was going to catch a walleye that big or anything at all you know.

It just inhaled my jig and I just set the hook and it was on.

Without the Jaycees I don't think we could operate year round and present the programs in the quality that we do and the number that we do.

I want to win the truck.

Honestly did not expect to win this.

It was just like once in a lifetime deal.

Over those eight years we've only caught one fish but in all those eight years we've always had a great time.

We come up here to have fun and spend time with each other and be outdoors and enjoy the sport of fishing cuz we love to fish, too.

This is my 24th year.

I missed two years I couldn't come otherwise I would have been here 26 years, but 24 years and I have not caught a fish yet.

You always have to stay optimistic that you're going to catch a fish but sometimes it doesn't happen, that's fishing in a nutshell for you.

I just love it.

It's a charity event and the kids all benefit down at Camp Confidence off of this, so it's a great deal.

It's just the camaraderie of being up here and having a good time and I mean this is the biggest fishing tournament in the world, it's awesome.

Thanks for watching Common Ground.

If you have an idea for a Lakeland PBS production in north central Minnesota, email us at legacy@lptv.org or call 1-800-292-0922.

To watch Lakeland PBS Productions online visit lptv.org or download the free PBS app.

Production funding for Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Closed captioning is made possible by the Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

More information is available at bemidjiairport.org.

Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money by the vote of the people, November 4th, 2008.