Obituary of John Eldon Brackett

John was a storyteller, lover of jazz, salesman, inventor, musky fisherman, and was passionate about anything he enjoyed doing. He was president of Fishing Designs and an inventor and holder of patents for many new products in the fishing industry.

John is survived by his sister Barbara(Hugh), niece Cindy, nephew Scott(Missy), cousin Lauri, and their children.

Please join us with stories to celebrate John’s life Tues. April 2 at 1:00 at the Cremation Society in Edina. No flowers please.

John was a great son, brother, nephew uncle. Other than family and watching and analyzing football games on TV, his adult life was about fishing, particularly muskies.

John’s description of the Balancer which he held a patent for:

• “All fishing rods are tip-heavy. Most of what you feel when fishing is the dead weight of your rod tip. The Balancer balances the rod so you will feel the lure vibrating better and detect those subtle strikes that most anglers ignore.”

At the age of 18 John began working as a groundskeeper at Indian Trail Resort in Wisconsin. He caught the musky fever and soon was working there as a fishing guide. In his words:

• “In the game of musky fishing, man is the underdog. Your opponent is not eager to engage in the contest. You must find him first, and that is a difficult and sometimes impossible task. When you do find him, he consistently defeats you. When you occasionally are lucky enough to win, you take him and you ae proud, but he is not usually what you are really after. You are after big fish and you will see big fish, but will rarely, if ever, catch one. For by the time a musky has acquired size, he also has acquired caution.”

• “The classic description of a musky over forty pounds is that he followed a bait, often all the way to the boat, turned off, and never opened his mouth.”

• “The long day eventually ended. It had been aa very rare day. It was the best musky day I have ever seen and one of the worst I had experienced. I saw more big fish in that day than I have in some entire seasons. I muffed a chance at a possible record fish. In many ways the day exemplified musky fishing. We endured long hours of hard work, boredom and discomfort. Fantastic and unbelievable things happened. We made mistakes and the fish defeated us. It was a frustrating and futile day. We started out serious and dedicated; we finished ridiculous and absurd.”