COOK – Every man who arrived at Whispering Winds Resort for Hometown Hero Outdoors’ annual MuskieMadness event last week had to walk past it, Jeremy Johnson’s boat.
It was the boat Johnson was piloting in May when it rammed a boat operated by Daniel Erickson on Lake Vermilion, throwing four men into the water. Three men survived. Johnson did not.
Parked in the resort driveway, the boat became an unavoidable reminder for the volunteer guides, Hometown Hero Outdoors staff, and Johnson’s parents, Ron and Margaret, as they gathered for the fourth annual retreat, the first without the man whose vision had helped make it possible.
“You almost didn’t want that boat there at first,” said Aaron Schiller of Hometown Hero Outdoors MN. “You’d walk by it and think, man. But by the end of the week, it was almost comforting. It was better to remember and hurt than not remember at all. We all needed this. It was kind of the bandage on our heart.”
The annual retreat pairs volunteer muskie guides with military veterans, law enforcement officers, firefighters, and other first responders for several days on Lake Vermilion, offering fishing, fellowship and, perhaps most importantly, conversations that often come more easily in a boat than almost anywhere else.
Johnson had hosted the retreats at Whispering Winds free of charge during the resort’s busiest season. Even after his death, Schiller said there was never much discussion about whether this year’s event should continue.
“I don’t know that anybody really thought about not doing it,” Schiller said. “It was just something we had to do.”
The participants themselves were largely new to the experience, as Johnson had insisted on giving as many people as possible the opportunity to attend. For many of the guides, however, returning meant confronting the absence of a friend while making sure the focus remained where Johnson always wanted it, on the men in their boats.
Guide James Madigan admitted he spent weeks wondering whether he should come at all.
“I actually didn’t really look forward to coming up here and tried to come up with every excuse to not come up here,” he said. “But I think the best part of it has been just the healing, some closure, and being able to look back at Jeremy’s vision and kind of see it played out.”
That became especially clear, he said, while spending long hours on the water with participants carrying burdens of their own.
For guide Larry Bauman, returning to Whispering Winds meant returning to a place filled with memories.
“I felt like I had to do it. If Jeremy was here, I’d be here,” Bauman said. “It’s hard, but it’s helped me through it. Never guided till he talked me into it. So it helps me relax. This is where I come to reset. It helps me being out there with the vets and talking to them.”
Being back on Lake Vermilion wasn’t easy.
“It’s hard being out on the water,” he said. “Me and Jeremy were always out there when I was here. We’d be out just talking all night long. It brings up a lot of memories when you go out and see certain things. But it helps.”
Bauman said Johnson was rarely seen without two things.
“You never seen him without a cigarette or a Mountain Dew.”
For guide Donnie Manz, coming back to Whispering Winds was something he almost talked himself out of doing.
“I was more worried about coming, just emotional stuff,” he said. “I actually didn’t really look forward to coming up here and tried to come up with every excuse to not come up here.”
Once he arrived, however, he found himself exactly where he needed to be.
“It feels good that we came and did it because it made a difference in a lot of people’s lives,” he said.
Manz said four participants caught their first muskies from his boat during the retreat. One 75-year-old participant checked off a lifelong dream by catching two muskies in one evening after spending decades hoping for the chance.
“He said, ‘I can die a happy man tomorrow,’” Manz recalled.
For Manz, moments like that affirmed the decision to return.
“Ultimately we decided Jeremy wouldn’t want me to sit here crying even talking about him,” he said. “He’d say, ‘Get out there. What are you doing? Get that guy that hasn’t caught one yet. Catch one.’”
That attitude was evident throughout the week.
The volunteer guides donated their time, boats, and equipment, absorbing whatever costs came with helping someone else experience a once-in-a-lifetime fish. None of them seemed to think twice about it.
For Ron and Margaret Johnson, allowing MuskieMadness to continue despite their son’s death was never really a question.
“I didn’t want to cancel any of the season,” Ron Johnson said. “Jeremy would have wanted it no matter what.”
For Madigan, the week also reaffirmed why Johnson had started the retreat in the first place.
“There was a couple of the guys here that were the exact person Jeremy had on his heart when he came up with the idea of having these retreats because they’re hurting, they’re in pain, and they really needed healing,” he said. “Some of the conversations you get to have in boats, you just feel kind of safe and comfortable with people really quick. Those conversations brought healing for them and healing for me and kind of brought the whole thing full circle.”
Whether Whispering Winds will continue hosting the retreat remains uncertain as Johnson’s parents determine the resort’s future without the son who had been preparing to take over operations. Schiller said he hopes Muskie Madness will continue somewhere next year, even if it ultimately finds a new home.
For this year, though, there was one last evening together.
Before the group gathered on the dock for one final photograph before heading out for the retreat’s last night of fishing, Ron Johnson quietly slipped into a nearby shed.
A moment later he returned carrying a bottle of Mountain Dew.
As Ron took his place holding one corner of the Hometown Hero Outdoors banner, the bottle rested in the other.
Jeremy wasn’t in the picture.
But somehow, he was.