You’ll find more than just fishing celebrities in this list. One can make a significant impact
on the lives of many without ever being well known. It is important to honor all of
those who had a great influence on the great sport of fishing, whether famous or not.
Corporate advances tend to be much more visible to us. For it’s their products that
shape the evolution of the sport of fishing.

Ray Gildow is a professional fishing guide with over thirty-five years of guiding experience.  He started guiding out of Sugar Point Resort on Leech Lake in the mid-1980’s.  In 1989 Gildow joined the Nisswa Guides League, Minnesota’s oldest guides league founded by brothers Al and Ron Lindner and Marv Koep. The league has provided over 50,000 guided fishing trips since its inception in the late 60’s.  In 2004, he wrote the book Legends and Legacies, A History of the Nisswa Guides League.

Ray was selected as the guide for Governor Mark Dayton for the 2014 Minnesota Fishing Opener. In 2017 Gildow was named “Person of the Year” for his work in education and conservation awareness by “Outdoor News”, one of Minnesota’s premier weekly outdoor newspapers.

Gildow served as host of “Lakeland Currents”, a public affairs program that featured a wide variety of topics like fishing, hunting and current affairs for thirteen years on Lakeland PBS.  Gildow is currently co-host of “Fishing Tips”, with Mandy Uhrich, a marine biologists and tournament angler. It airs during the open water fishing season on Northern MN PBS.

Gildow is a seminar speaker and a free lance writer.  For the past five years he has written fishing and outdoor articles for “Action Outdoors”, a weekly newspaper series that appeared in newspapers in Minnesota and Wisconsin before the Covid Virus suspended publication. He has published in a variety of newspapers and magazines over the past thirty-five years.

Gildow was born in Pine River, Minnesota, graduated from high school in Brainerd, Minnesota and retired as a vice president of Central Lakes College with campuses in Brainerd and Staples.  He and his wife Gwynne live in Staples.