Local invention could be a boon for ice fishing

Article appeared in the Maple Lake Messenger, Wednesday, January 2, 2008
By Vicki Grimmer

    Winter starting with a bang this year suits one local inventor just fine.
    Ryan Renstrom, inventor of the Visual Mark High Visibility Tip-up, watches the ice fishermen drilling holes and sees new customers.
    �A lot of people snowmobiling and riding ATV's run over tip-ups ice fishermen leave out,� said Renstrom. �If there�s even two or three inches of snow, you just can�t see them. People started leaving five-gallon buckets, ice scoops, any thing they could find to mark their spots.�
    Renstrom�s new product, a unique tip-up with an attached rod topped with a highly reflective material, can be seen in headlights or the light of a flashlight from a long distance, even in the snow.
    �I actually built a model of this on somebody else�s product over twelve years ago,� said Renstrom. �Then, not too long ago, we saw a fishing show on TV and they were putting reflective tape on a piece of PVC pipe and using it to mark their spot on the ice. It was so close to what I tried years ago.�
    And, as any inventor will tell you, timing plays a crucial part in every great idea.
    �Ryan and I both wanted to raise our kids on a lake and we found this place and moved to Ramsey Lake about a year and a half ago,� said Jill Renstrom, Ryan�s wife. �A few months after we moved out here, work at the company Ryan worked for slowed way down and Ryan was laid off. We sat there wondering what was next and decided to go forward with this idea.�
    �It�s been a lot of late nights and 19 hour days,� said Ryan, �But worth it. The Visual Mark High Visibility Tip-Up is compact and lightweight so nobody has to carry big buckets or anything out on the ice to mark their spot. We spent last winter traveling around and introducing it. We even got lists from the DNR so we could donate them as prizes in ice fishing contests. Everybody�s been real excited about it, and now we�ve got it patented. All of the parts are manufactured locally or somewhere in the United States. We�re real proud of that. Most of our competitors just import everything.�
    Ryan and Jill, who also works part-time at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, have no plans to rest on their initial success, and are, in fact, setting some pretty high goals for themselves.
    �In 2008 we plan on building a warehouse and a shop and concentrate on growth,� said Ryan.
    �And we�re aiming to come up with two or three new products per year,� added Jill.

Renstrom Family and the
Visual Mark float
at the Maple Lake
St. Pat�s Day Parade,
March 2009