Koonce’s home waters are Pools 9 and 10 of the Mississippi River, neither of which is too far from where he lives in Prairie du Chien, Wisc. “It only takes about 15 minutes to have my boat at the landing,” he says.

With nearly five decades of river fishing in his blood, Koonce is a mastermind of the patterns and techniques used to catch current and flow-oriented species. “I love fishing smallies and walleyes during the open-water season and bluegills and crappies through the ice,” he says.