'Lindner's Angling Edge' set to mark its 40th season on television

[Spiel]

'Lindner's Angling Edge' set to mark its 40th season on television

 

 

December 8, 2009

DENNIS ANDERSON / www.startribune.com

 

 

Ron Lindner says the past 40 years zipped by in a blink, one fishing show after another -- and soon, he and his brother, Al, along with others in the Lindner family, will be the hosts of one of TV's longest-running programs.

 

And perhaps the longest-running television fishing show.

 

The year was 1970, and Al Lindner was only three years removed from a stint in Vietnam, when the Lindners, of Brainerd, launched their first show. With his big smile and outsized enthusiasm, Al grew quickly comfortable in front of a camera, while his older brother Ron -- also a noted fisherman -- often did the filming, while running the business side of the enterprise.

 

That combination has proven successful not only for Al and Ron, but for successive generations of the Lindner family, as well as their sponsors, among them Lund boats, Minn Kota, Rapala and Mercury. Each advertised on the Lindners' first show 40 years ago, and they'll also sponsor the 40th birthday episode of "Lindner's Angling Edge" in January.

 

"When we started, we did everything on film, as opposed to the video we use now, and we did all of our post-production in Alexandria [Minn.]," Ron said. "The sound was particularly difficult to do. There was no such thing as a 'shotgun microphone,' as there is today. We had to do a lot of voice-overs."

 

The Lindners' show began on five Minnesota TV stations, on which Al and Ron bought airtime and sold ads. Even as cable and satellite TV transmissions developed and 24-7 hunting and fishing networks debuted, that business model generally remained unchanged.

 

Also unchanged has been the Lindners' belief that the show's success is fundamentally linked to their ability to teach people how to catch fish.

 

"Over the years we would go through a lot of pain, using underwater cameras and other techniques, to show people how to catch fish," Ron said. "It's a formula that for us, works."

 

The first show of the Lindners' 40th season airs Jan. 2 on Vs. at 10 a.m. "Lindner's Fishing Edge," a companion program, is on Fox Sports Net North.