Luke Ovgard

Luke Ovgard is a lifelong angler and vocal advocate for conservation, outdoor education, and outdoor participation. One of his earliest memories is trout fishing at a small, Southern Oregon lake with his father at age 3. From there, fishing grew into an all-consuming passion that shaped the course of his life. At the time of publication, he has fished in all 50 U.S. states and 57 countries. He holds the worldwide Fishing Big Year Record, having caught 416 species in 2021. He has 17 IGFA All-Tackle World Records and currently ranks third in history for the total number of fish species caught, with 1,557 (about 5 percent of all fishes on Earth) at the time of publication. He is an Force medical officer currently stationed overseas. Though he enjoys serving his country, as well as managing real estate, his driving passion is writing about fishing, and he wrote a regionally syndicated travel and outdoors column called “CaughtOvgard” for a host of newspapers for more than a decade. His primary goal in life is to travel, fish, and write about his experiences full-time, despite being born a few decades too late for this path to be easily realized. Regardless, it is a goal for which this book is a step in the right direction so long as you enjoyed it and tell all your friends about it, so they can share in the journey. If you did enjoy it, the author appreciates your kind words. If not, he will cry himself to sleep later.