History of GrindFest Outdoors

 

October 24th, 2010. Linwood Lake, 5am:

I was 26 and had never duck hunted. I bought a Remington 870, a camo beanie, and a long sleeve shirt big enough to fit over my jacket, and I met my buddy Bjorn at the landing before dawn.

We threw some old decoys in a 12-foot john boat, motored out to a point, pushed into the reeds, and waited.

Two honkers came in. Bjorn said “freeze.” I froze. Then he said “kill ’em,” and I pulled up and put my bead on the lead bird. We both shot. Two birds dropped. My heart was pounding.

I looked at him and said, “Was that me?”

“Yep. You got the one on the left.”

“Does this feeling ever go away?”

“Nope.”

He was right.

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The two hours that started a company

At the end of the 2016 season, my buddy Jacob and I busted ice on the Mississippi with a 14-foot v-hull. Broke a prop, broke a paddle, mallards were flying everywhere. Got zero ducks. We threw the decoys in the boat and shoved the whole mess in the garage.

Fall of 2017, I pulled the boat out and found a knot the size of a beach ball. Two hours of untangling line, cursing Jacob in my head, knowing full well it was equally my fault.

There had to be a better way to rig.

I ordered weights online and a cheap monofilament Texas rig kit. Instant convert — I was never going back to tangled line. But by the next season those mono lines were kinked and full of memory. A buddy’s sliding egg weights wouldn’t even slide all the way down.

So I did a bunch of research, bought a lead mold, a casting pot, coated steel cable, crimps, pliers, and carabiners. Melted down my old sinkers. Made four dozen rigs at my bench.

Then I made some for friends. Then I sold some on Craigslist. Then other marketplaces. People kept coming back for more, and a few of them told me I should make a real go of it.

So I did.

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What we actually care about

I am not satisfied with being anything but the best rig on the market.

Every part is chosen on purpose and the entire product line is engineered to industrial standards. Wire gate carabiners, not the cheap ones. A #7 stainless ball bearing decoy clip. Crimps that are swaged to maximize durability and breaking strength. No line molded straight into the lead, because that’s where cheap rigs fail. Proprietary cable that was developed over 3 years to minimize memory, allow for flexibility and decoy movement, and provide superior coating durability. I developed this product from the ground up and it is assembled to my spec, not pulled off a catalog page.

We measure honestly. A lot of companies measure a 48” rig from the tip of the weight to the loop. We measure from the top of the weight — the depth you actually get. When you buy 48 inches from us, you’re rigging 48 inches of water.

It’s built to be beaten on. Waterfowl gear lives in mud, ice, and truck beds. Rigging you have to re-buy every other season isn’t cheaper.

The gear is not the point. The point is you standing in the reeds at legal light with a spread that’s already set, because you weren’t untangling line in the dark or pissed off because one of your decoys is floating off. Every hour of frustration we take out of your morning is an hour you get back.

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Where we are now:

GrindFest has grown every year since that garage bench, and every dollar of profit has gone straight back into it — more efficient tooling, more capability, higher volume at lower cost so I can keep the quality up without pricing hunters out.

You’ll find us at hunting expos across the country, with a crew of people I trust running the booth alongside me. Come pick up a rig. Feel the weight. Ask me anything about how it’s made — I’ll tell you more than you probably want to know.

My original goal was to make enough money to pay for my own rigging.

Let’s see where this thing goes.

— Alex Johnson, Founder