Lake of the Woods guide loves his Angler Qwest

 

Rough water is no problem

 

Tom Briggs, of Minnesota, started guiding when he was just 14, in between working at a local bait shop and school. To say he’s an experienced angler is an understatement, guiding was present most of his life, and he eventually bought a resort on the Lake of the Woods.  A few years ago, he sold the resort but continued guiding- with most of his time spent in a Warrior fiberglass boat.

            But then he saw an ad for an Angler Qwest.

“I had so many people wanting to have four-to-six people in the boat,” he said.  “I loved my Warrior, but I simply couldn’t take more than a couple people out at time.  I saw that ad and investigated it and eventually got my Angler Qwest a couple years ago.”

            Briggs said that during covid his business went up, because he could take more people out at one time, and he guided on both the Minnesota side of the Lake of the Woods but also the Canadian side.

            “When people couldn’t get across the border, I was able to help them, on the Minnesota side,” he said.  “Some of my longtime repeat customers were really surprised when they came to the dock the first time and saw a tritoon, but once they were on it and felt how much room it had, and the comfort, they loved it.  Some clients even went out and bought their own!”

            Briggs said there was a little learning curve piloting the boat, but he thinks the boat runs as good or better than anything on the rough waters of The Lake of the Woods.

            “We have a different sort of wave out here,” he said.  “You’ll have swells and then 3-4 footers inside the swells.  I have no problem taking them head on without steering much.  If you are going with the waves, you just had to adjust your throttle the correct way, but I still don’t have to turn left or right.”  

            One thing that Briggs said really is interesting about his Angler Qwest is that it doesn’t rock in the waves like other boats- especially when he is spot-locked on a school of walleye.

            “I watch other boats and their motors are bobbing up and down as they rock on the waves,” he said. “I’ll be almost completely steady in the waves because they sort of funnel underneath my tritoons, so you stay in one place.  It’s great because it makes fishing easier, and clients are more comfortable and stable.”

            Briggs’s fishes for walleye, sauger, smallmouth and perch.  If you’d like to reach him and go on your own guided Anglers Qwest experience, go to www.Briggsguideservice.com