Babe Winkelman

Early life

Babe Winkelman grew up on a dairy farm near the small town of Duelm, Minnesota, He learned the value of hard work through his labors on the family farm. He started fishing at age 6 on Stoney Brook, a stream that ran through the family farm. After starting fishing he was on the creek every waking hour that he wasn't doing farm work. It was there that he started to understand how fish moved around through the seasons and there that his "Pattern Approach" to fishing got its roots. Pheasants were abundant on the farm as well and his hunting career started there with his first pheasant kill at age 8. Deer hunting started as a driver at age 10 and he shot his first buck at age 12. Young Babe (nicknamed by his father after Babe Ruth) fell in love with every phase of understanding how all aspects of nature worked, in constant contact with the natural processes of life and death, and the cycles of nature. Through endless hours of hunting and fishing, he polished his skills. During the 1960s, every possible moment was spent at the family cabin on Hay Lake near Longville, where he taught himself refined his "pattern" approach to fishing that he continues to teach others today. He started working construction after graduating 8th grade and continued throughout high school learning the carpentry trade. His father was a master and Babe learned it well. Less than two months after graduating high school, he became the youngest person in the history of Minnesota to get his journeyman's Union card. Nights were spent playing lead guitar and singing in bands. In May 1969 he started Winkelman Building Corporation Inc. , a construction company, along with his brother Dennis and Father Don. In February 1970 Johnny Winters called him 3 times for him to go on world tour as lead guitarist for his band. He decided he couldn't leave his dad and the construction business, and his music career was to become a hobby he still practices to this day. By the time he was 25 the company had grown into 6 corporations with nearly 200 employees, but he decided that money was not the thing to strive for in life but rather lifestyle was and sold his interests to embark upon a full-time career in the outdoors.

Outdoor Life

He started guiding fisherman in 1965 and started fishing tournaments in 1970. Even with all his business interests going on, every free minute was spent fishing, hunting and learning as much as he could from every source. In 1973 he helped found the Minnesota State Bass Federation to get bass tournaments started and served as President for nearly 3 years. 1973 was also the year Babe started writing for outdoor publications and gave his first seminar to teach fishing. Upon starting in the outdoors full-time in 1975, Babe guided, fished tournaments, taught at seminars, did promotional work for Lindy/Little Joe tackle, became a field editor for Fishing Facts magazine writing for them and a host of other publications.

In the last four decades he's penned scores of articles and been guest host to hundreds and hundreds radio shows and pod casts. In 1978 he was hired by SC Johnson to introduce a new product to America, "Deep Woods Off." The commercial was Babe, "as a professional fisherman", needing a stronger insect repellent because of his outdoor endeavors. As a result, Good Fishing (fishing series) first hit the air waves in 1980 and exploded in popularity. This prompted him to start Babe Winkelman Productions Inc. and set up his own studio. For nearly 40 years he has owned the trademark,"Teaching America to Fish." With a strong element on teaching and involving his entire family, he and Good Fishing soon won the hearts of all outdoor enthusiasts. Stations used Babe's Series as a lead out of key sports events because he could hold the audience. In one broadcast on WKYC in Cleveland following the Browns championship game, he garnered an audience of 842,000 households. The show kept growing in size and covered not only the US but Canada as well. During the '80s Babe authored a series of "how to" books on fishing, was the only person to use audio tapes to teach fishing, was the first to develop videos that taught fishing starting in 1984 and went on to produce nearly 100 different titles in the next decade.

Appearances

The Saturday Evening Post ran a feature on Babe in 1987. He was also featured in People Magazine in 1988, Midwest Living around 1990, and thousands of other newspaper and magazine articles, radio and TV appearances. Excerpts of Good Fishing appeared 3 times on Married with Children and about a dozen different movies. Babe was also a guest on the Donnie & Marie Osmond show. 1988 was also the year Babe aired his second television series, Outdoor Secrets (hunting series), which was the first hunting show on the air since 1978. With stations like Superstation WGN and the USA network carrying both series, those networks helped boost Outdoors Secrets to instant success. Winkelman spoke at a presidential rally for President George W. Bush in 2004. 

Awards

In 1988 Babe was inducted into the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. A few years later, he was inducted into the Minnesota Fishing Hall of Fame. In 1992 he was inducted into the Sports Legends Hall of Fame (which is Global Hall of Fame) alongside of Evander Holyfield for boxing, Pete Rose for Baseball from the US and 30 other athletes from around the world. Babe is the only outdoorsman ever to be inducted into this hall of fame. In 2015 into the Legends of the Outdoors Hall of Fame. In 2007 he was given the Excellence in Craft award by the Outdoor Writers association of America(OWAA), their most prestigious award for his work with television. Babe Winkleman's production company has won a couple hundred awards for production excellence, including 87 in a two-year span. This included the New York Film Festival, the Houston International Film Festival (for a commercial) and about every type of award in production including Teddy's, Addy's, and the Golden Moose. In 2013 Babe and Kris were nominated by Ottertail County as Conservationist's of the Year for the state of Minnesota for all the work they have done at some land they bought for hunting with the whole family in 2002 and turned it into a paradise for all forms of wildlife.