We just wrapped up another trip north and we’ve got a ton of Tazin TV footage in the can! I’m excited to get it out as soon as possible. In fact, this is probably the earliest we’ve put out episode 1. Watch it below.

In 2016 I took my first trip to Tazin. It was crazy. I’ve told the story before, but my family has roots in Saskatchewan and I always wanted to travel there. I was beginning to wonder if it was going to happen. But during that first trip, I became good friends with Trevor Montgomery. Each year since, aside from the covid hiatus of 2020, I’ve traveled back to the lodge. Now Dan Amundson travels with as well. We’ve both become good friends with co-owner Barry Prall, who bought in in 2019. Now we usually make 2-3 trips to the province a year.

I’ll be honest, I’ve considered moving there.

This year’s trip, like every year, just wasn’t long enough. We spent about two weeks on the island and cameras were rolling every day. We create a series of episodes for the Tazin Lake Lodge YouTube channel, called “Tazin TV.” It started in 2018 and we just launched the first episode of season 7. Here’s the first episode. If you keep scrolling, I’ll share more episodes and talk about how we started this thing in the first place.

After filming two TV shows there in 2016, I visited again in 2017 and filmed a series of short videos for the lodge. They didn’t have much for marketing materials and needed pictures and videos. They weren’t getting any marketing support and I offered to help. After brainstorming for the 2018 summer, I came up with the idea of episodes and Tazin TV was born. If you watch from the beginning, you’ll see the quality get better as my camera gear upgraded and my skills improved, lol.

I’ve always tried to include some stories about the lodge and the lake as well as the big fish. We’ve had some great sponsors over the years like Yamaha Rightwaters, LIVETARGET, Smith’s Consumer Products, LIVETARGET, Garmin, KastKing, Alumarine, Oceanwaves Sunglasses and others. Some of my favorite episodes over the years include:

“In-Fisherman Visits Tazin” from 2024: I love showing new people this lake and Thomas Allen was jacked to be there. He filmed two episodes of In Fish, recorded an In Fish podcast, then also filmed with us for Tazin TV and the Sporting Journal Radio podcast.

“Jigging a 40″ Lake Trout” is one of my favorite Tazin TV episodes from 2023. They were all fun ones with the Lindner Media Crew and Vic Cook from LIVETARGET. But this one was a goal I had of seeing a big lake trout on the LiveScope and jigging it up from deep water. It was easier said than done.

“Building Legacies” from 2022: This featured some of the father/son guests who came to the lodge to create family memories. They also caught some huge fish!

“Mega Pike!” from the “6 Days At Tazin” series in 2021. The camp was still closed because of covid. Four of us spent 6 days checking on camp. We found trees poking holes in roofs, flooded trails between cabins and lots of BIG hungry fish. It was some of the craziest fishing I’ve seen. In this episode, the crew catches multiple big lake trout in the upper 40″ range and I break the 50″ mark for pike.

“Tazin on the Fly” from 2019. This featured two old friends who met as marines. They take annual trips and we were fortunate to spend some time with them during one of their trips to Tazin.

The Paintbrush from 2018: My friend Jamie Dietman came with me in 2017 and 2018. He’s a guy who loves to tinker and build things. He also will customize materials to his liking. In this episode he adds some paint to an already lucky lure to see if it improves his catch rate. That lure still gets used at Tazin today!

Honorable Mentions

This episode from 2021 has some of my favorite scenic footage in it. It helps explain some of the history behind the lake.

“The Tale of the Lost Boat” This episode from the 2019 season features big lakers of course, but lots of history behind the lake. From the construction of an underground tunnel that rerouted the current of the lake from north to south. This was done back in the 1930’s! It was quite the undertaking and now the water from our big lake powers three hydroelectric dams on the Charlot River.

I consider myself very fortunate to be able to spend 9 years going to Tazin Lake Lodge. While there are a lot of neat places you can choose to take a fishing trip, Tazin is one-of-a-kind in my opinion. It’s a smaller lake compared to the other “big lake trout” bodies of water, it has the history of mining and exploration and it’s hard to get to. It might even be the oldest active camp in northern Saskatchewan, starting around 1960. Popular Mechanics sent their outdoor writer there in 1962 and wrote this article:

https://books.google.com/books?id=F-EDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA4&pg=PA118&output=embed

If you want to go there, I wrote about how to do it. Click here to read it. You can also read about my first experience at Tazin on the Tourism Saskatchewan website. I can’t thank them enough for supporting me (and now Dan) during our trips to the north. If you have any questions about Tazin Lake Lodge, feel free to reach out! Here are our most recent podcasts from Tazin. We have a guest (Blake Ronnie) and a guide (Jeremy Hancock) in the first podcast and owners Trevor Montgomery and Barry Prall in the second.