In 1992, deep in the woods of Beaver Bank, Nova Scotia. At the age of 16, LunkerTrunk founder Wesley Long caught a massive 24" Smallmouth Bass for his very first lunker! To many of his friends and family he was known for the phrase "It's Time to Catch a Fish". When ever he would use this phrase, no matter how slow the bite was, he would soon catch a fish and many times they were lunkers. He also contributed to the organization of a Smallmouth Bass tournament hosted by the Sackville Blazers Hockey Team. These seeds would later become LunkerTrunk 25 years later.
After a successful career in design and technology spanning more than two decades. Wesley had designed and developed a Search Engine, Audio & Video Web Players, as well as Real-Time Data applications such as Remote Healthcare Management and Smart Ciy Platforms. Spending 20+ years behind a desk 18 hours a day is not healthy and he wanted to start something different. Something that got him outside and moving. While still passionate about his work as a designer and developer he wanted to build something that would allow him to combine his love of fishing and the outdoors with the latest technology.
He did not want to just sit behind a desk and try to think of ideas that may or may not work. While he had a rough idea about what the trunk could be, he wanted tangible on the ground data. What works and what doesn't. What was involved logistically to cover a region and what would be the costs. How do anglers interact with technology when in the actual act of fishing.
In May of 2016 the trunk officially hit the road as an experiment. We developed a very simple website that allowed people to post fish and be ranked. Using GPS the trunk scouted and tracked as many water bodies as possible. We pulled over anywhere we saw people fishing, talked to the anglers and gave them free tackle as well as sold some here and there. The goal was to get out there and just help people and introduce ourselves. By mid July we started hosting micro tournaments during the evenings at different lakes each night.
We started to experiment with cash prizes, both big and small. These bounties were awarded through a series of events called "Beat the Trunk". This quickly became popular and both membership and turnouts improved. By September 2016 as the season winded down we introduced the Daily Lunker which awarded $5 to every lunker of the day for the entire month of September.
For our second season in 2017 we scheduled and got permits to host over 100 events. We covered more of Nova Scotia than in 2016. The Daily Lunker became the main online challenge for the entire season from May - September of 2017