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Profile: Lynn Frederick, Charter Captain

Submitted photo.

Her 28-foot Bertram Yacht is named The Fish Doctor, but it’s much more than a nickname.

Lynn Frederick has spent 40 years not just fishing the lake, but studying it. She earned her PhD in zoology from UW – Madison and conducted short-term research on whitefish with the Sea Grant Institute for two decades.

“When I first came up here for research in college, I worked on a small charter boat for extra money,” says Frederick. “Once you’re out there on the lake you get hooked on it.”

She was inspired to start her own business, Lynn’s Charter Fishing, where her knowledge base was an asset as she forged her way in a male-dominated industry.

“In the late ‘ ‘60s to early ‘70s, it wasn’t a trade, career or education that was offered to women,” she says.

The fishing industry, like many labor careers, is a familial tradition – the businesses and boats are passed from grandfather to father to son. The hardest part for women is breaking into that line to get a start. Frederick found another way in.

Now, her background with Sea Grant makes her a tremendous source of knowledge.

She said the nature of charter fishing is sporadic; “It all depends on currents and water temperature. Salmon and rainbows are migratory, and go up whatever shore has the right temperature and the most food.”

Fredrick takes a lot of families and women on charters, and says you’d be surprised which customers fare best.

“Most of them – women and children – do better than the guys because they don’t come with preconceived notions” about what they’re going to catch.