Ryan Remke: The story behind MadDogOutdoors

Growing up in Oklahoma, there was one pastime that Rob Remke loved the most: fishing. Starting at a young age, his father took him on fly fishing trips. This gave Rob a passion for fishing and a strong bond with his dad. Over the years, Rob gained a lot of skill, fishing in all kinds of different conditions. After graduating college, he moved to the Midwest where he started a family and continued his love for fishing. If you were going to find someone that loved fishing more than Rob, it was going to be hard.

Starting April of 2000, you didn’t have to look any further than inside his own family. Who was this? A miniature dachshund named Madi. A year or two after having Madi, Rob started to take her out fishing. After that, there was no leaving her behind. Madi was an absolute nut in the boat. She patrolled the gunnels and waited patiently for a fish to be caught.

Well, she was not always patient. Often when she saw the muskie rods come out, she would be unhappy and would let us know about it. For example, her scowling bark when nothing has been caught in a while or making a bed in the net. Rob often joked that this was her spreading the message, “you’re not going to need this anyway!”

Near the end of Madi’s life, the family was blessed with a few more summers of fishing with their favorite dog. During the last summer of her life, Rob bought a GoPro. Not only would he use it to document his fishing, but I think Rob definitely had in mind to get some footage of his beloved dog doing what she loved most.

As it was progressing towards Madi’s passing, Rob made a YouTube channel named MadDogOutdoors. He uploaded five videos of Madi that he recorded the previous summer. These videos showed “Mad Dog” and some of her antics in the boat. Here is one of the videos below:

Look at the MadDogOutdoors channel today and you will see that he has 40 videos uploaded, with a subscriber list nearing 100. His videos include bass, trout, muskie and ice fishing as well as a few mountain climbing videos. He has videos of fishing with his son, daughter and friends. He even has a video uploaded of his wife catching a big bass! (Rob would have never predicted this).

MadDogOutdoors, which began by storing precious memories of Madi, continues to store more memories, as Rob and his family live on fishing. In March of 2012, Madi passed away.

(All photos taken by Rob Remke)

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