For those of us who fish, the barber shop served as not only a place to get your hair cut but also the connection from the older folks in the shop to fishing stories. With the river as a backdrop, many tales were told of trophy-sized fish, in great detail, which included conversations about the species smallmouth bass, musky, walleyes and catfish. On a rare occasion, the term “state record” would be used and to a young, knobby-kneed boy like me, the term sounded amazing. In fact, at that young impressionable age, catching a state-record fish in my town’s waters seemed like the ultimate prize in the fishing world. How could it get any better?