Barstool Outdoors S2 Episode 2: The Fat Mama Brown Trout Of Wisco

Wisconsin is one of my favorite places on this Earth.  When I decided to go to college in Appleton, I had only been there a handful of times for hockey tournaments growing up and didn't know the whole truth about it yet.  What I quickly found out is that Wisconsin is one of the most genuine spots that exists in America.  The people are so pure its unbelievable.  They love Packers football, drinking beer (like they REALLY love drinking beer),  and going outdoors to hunt and fish.  I've never met someone from Wisconsin who wasn't exactly "what you see is what you get".  They are the most loyal people I've ever known. Well, other than West Bend's Andrew Borresen who switched sides last minute on our intramural basketball team and took our biggest rival to an IM championship, a dastardly betrayal that still stings to this day.  But other than that horrific instance, the people of Wisconsin have always done right by me in every occurrence. 

Now that we got all the touchy feely stuff out of the way, I cannot stress to you enough good Wisconsin people are at hunting and fishing.  It is in their blood.  People who would never even consider themselves to be "outdoorsmen" have caught bigger fish and shot bigger bucks than you can imagine.  Its almost disrespectful to people from other states.  To stand out amongst the hundreds of thousands of outdoorsman, you have to really be doing something right, and Eric Haataja would fall pretty hard into that category.

Eric Haataja reminds me of a player you watch in the NHL or NBA that is just a freak. You don't know how he does it, because he doesn't look that different than the other players, but for some reason he just has an innate ability that produces at a level so far past everyone else it looks silly.  I've seen his ridiculous pictures and videos on Instagram for a long time and was honored to be able to fish with him for an episode.  People underestimate how hard it is to be a fishing guide.  EVERY customer wants to have the best fishing day of their life every time.  To be able to put people on big fish every single day is a level of production amongst changing variables that is hard to understand.  We flew in to Milwaukee and Eric put us on more enormous trout than i had ever seen in my life and he made it look easy.  He is a stud and I suggest fishing with him if you can ever make it happen.