The boat driver for myself and Steve Bowman this week has been 33-year-old Jon Kuester of Stanley, Wisconsin. That’s a three and a half hour drive away from Mille Lacs in Minnesota. He’s piloting a big borrowed Nitro walleye boat for us that’s more than 21 feet long. He’s a big man himself at 6 foot 5 inches tall.
Kuester is a dairy farmer with 60 milk cows and 100 cattle total. And that means long work weeks. “Cows gotta be milked seven days a week, twice a day,” he told us. His average work day is 14 hours long. “That is unless I’m out fishing or snowmobiling.” On those days he gets some hired help.
Kuester is a tournament angler himself with 15 to 20 trips to Mille Lacs under his belt. He fishes in the Upper Midwest Bass Challenge Series, the Minnesota Lakes Division. His home lake is Otter, near Stanley. Kuester is on the Nitro pro staff.
What has he learned this week watching the Elites? And by the way, this is the first Elite event he’s attended. “There’s more ways to fish this lake than I thought,” he said. “We typically use football jigs and some drop shot. I never used a jerkbait here. I figured the water was too stained for that. But that’s how we saw KVD catching em.”
I asked him on a scale of 1 to 10 how much of a butt Bowman has been this week. He struggled with that, and then said, “I’d have to say a zero.” Well Jon, that means you’ve done a great job for us. Thank you!