From the Creek to the Console: Raising a Tournament Partner

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Published: 13 May 2026

By Matt Summerlot, Guest Columnist

A father’s dream is to raise his son in a way that one day, the kid you were teaching becomes the best friend you get to share it all with, or at least it was for me. At some point in Hunter’s life, he stopped being just my child and became one of the guys. It didn’t happen overnight. There wasn’t a single moment when it flipped. It was built over time. From the first fish to the first harvest, and every trip between then and now.

Our first house had a small creek running along the back of the property. Being a fisherman, I was always down there trying to see if anything would bite. And no matter what, he was right there with me. He’d wake up from a nap asking to go see the “wa-wa.”

I’d be mowing the yard and look over to see him standing on the little bridge, staring down into the water.

Before long, he was dragging a kiddie pole down there on his own, trying to catch his first fish. Eventually, he did. A small creek chub on a piece of corn. And from that moment on, it was over.

For the next few years, he absolutely terrorized those creek chubs. Every chance he got, he was down there. I swear by the end of it, he had caught every one of them multiple times and probably knew them all personally.

That’s where it started. Not with a boat, not with electronics, not with tournaments: just a kid, a creek, and the freedom to figure it out.

From about the age of two, he went with me to the deer woods or the duck swamp. I would carry him in on my back, I’d lay a blanket down in the blind, and he’d sit there with his toys or on my knee, watching. We didn’t harvest a lot in those first few years, and it didn’t matter. He was there.

Fishing, though, was different.

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Back Where It Started: Battling the Wind and Grinding It Out on Lake Max

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Published: 30 April 2026

By Matt Summerlot, Guest Columnist

Lake Maxinkuckee, “Lake Max” as the locals call it, has always been a special place for Hunter and me.

It’s where we first started fishing together as a team. Back in July of 2020, we fished a Wednesday night open out there. Hunter was just 7 years old. We were in an old Tracker TX17, fishing the channels, and stumbled into a frog bite that landed us five keepers. I still remember him pulling fish out of the livewell at weigh-in, proud as could be. We finished 4th that night, just out of the money, but it sparked something that’s grown into what we’re doing today. Fast forward a few years, and we found ourselves back on Lake Maxinkuckee, sitting 2nd in points in the Michiana Fishing League and looking to keep the momentum going.

We were able to get out Thursday evening for a short pre-fish and quickly realized things weren’t lining up with what we expected. Main lake temps were already around 62 degrees with the typical clear water Max is known for, drastically different from what I had expected. For being a larger body of water than the previous two lakes and not having that many warm days and a lot of rain, I expected the temperature to be closer to 56-58 degrees.

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