Walking rows of cornfields on a 90-degree day with 70% humidity in late July, Cody Hill answered my phone call to talk…fishing. An agronomist during the week and a fishing guide on weekends, Hill’s CHill Guide Service is based out of Pelican Rapids and will take you about anywhere across Ottertail and Becker County to catch fish.
Fishing was something that called to Hill early. His high school guidance counselor, Brad Laabs, was a fishing guide. These days Laabs still guides on occasion in the Detroit Lakes area, but enjoys his retirement and a slower pace. As a young man, Hill said, the ladies in his neighborhood helped teach him to fish and were his first inspiration. Years later, he’d repay the favor through his support and involvement with Woman Anglers of Minnesota.
After graduating from Frazee-Vergas High School, Cody attended the University of Minnesota – Crookston. He joined Delta Theta Sigma fraternity, and his advisor within the fraternity was also the agronomy adviser at Crookston. Agronomy quickly became a second major for Hill, as he landed a job at the Northwest Agronomy Research Center and started working with spring wheat and barley. “I loved agronomy,” Hill said. “Everyone was getting into agronomy sales, so I followed the crowd up until I realized I didn’t like sales. So after a little bit of time in sales after college, I got a full-time job in Moorhead doing canola research and really enjoyed it. Eventually I switched to Corn in South Dakota, and agronomy research had me traveling from Hawaii all the way to Lethbridge, Alberta.”
Fishing was a constant for Hill. What he enjoyed most was helping others and he started by helping get his friends on fish. “I took Scott Brewer out with his son and daughter-in-law and he told me I had to start doing this more. That’s what planted the seed for guiding.” Brewer is a fishing pro and podcast host with Kyle Agre, forming Brewer-Agre Outdoors. Hill credits both men with helping advance his fishing career. “Scott got me in touch with Lund boats,” Cody said, “and Kyle got me on with Eskimo and the Ion ice augers group. That started the wheels moving.”
In 2019, Cody made the jump and started CHill Guide Service offering weekend guiding opportunities on lakes in Becker and Ottertail County. Now six years into operations, Hill is getting noticed for his work with young people and making everyone feel comfortable on his boat. He’s been called upon to be a fishing guide for Ottertail Lakes Country, which is a collaborative partner with Gopher Sports Properties and Dinkytown Athletes, which brings University of Minnesota student-athletes up to Ottertail County to experience the region, in some cases heading out fishing with Hill.
“My first trip was Athan and Dino Kaliakmanis and their father,” Cody recalled. Athan had started a few games for the Gophers the year previous and would go on to start all the games in 2023 before transferring to Rutgers University for the 2024 season. “It was on a lake I’d never fished before, it was like 2 p.m. in the afternoon, and a rain storm had hit when I was going to scout the lake. I had heard all about smallmouth bass in this lake. I threw everything single thing I could think of and finally went with a leech setup and wham! I had a walleye. I said whoa, this isn’t what I thought, this is a school of walleyes! We got Athan and everyone out catching walleyes, they were having a blast, and the photographer from Star Tribune was along, so we packed four people in the boat plus the camera guy.”
This year, Hill entertained volleyball and football players, including Gophers starting quarterback Drake Lindsey and running back Darius Taylor. “I got the guys on an off week before [Big Ten] media day and training camp starting. They sat on the boat and were amazed at how quiet the lake was. I thought the lake was busy just seeing a couple boats, but to them it was dead because all they had ever seen was Minnetonka.” Hill said the pair enjoyed catching a few fish and just laying out and relaxing. “They don’t ever get to take a break with their busy schedules. We might only have a couple hours to catch a fish in the middle of the afternoon, so I have to be on the hunt and we need to find and catch fish, fast.” After never venturing more than an hour away from the Twin Cities, Darius Taylor got to see what true northern Minnesota is like. A week later, Taylor talked about the fishing trip with Hill as a highlight while speaking with the Big Ten Network.
Erik Osberg coordinates the student-athlete trips on behalf of Ottertail Lakes Country and frequently jumps in the boat to be the photographer. “Cody is just an all-around great guy and an outstanding ambassador of our area. When I’ve been in the boat with Cody and the student athletes, he’s pretty laser focused on doing everything he can to make sure they have an enjoyable time. He makes them feel at home, makes them feel comfortable, makes them feel relaxed. And these student athletes get exposed to a part of the state that they probably didn’t even know existed. He is about helping others get what they want out of a fishing trip, and he puts himself secondary, which is what great guides do. He teaches them along the way, passing along the why and the how, so they get a little bit of knowledge too.”
Osberg notes that the trips with student athletes must work within a very limited window. “These aren’t eight-hour fishing trips. We get two hours, maybe. He’s the type of guy that goes above and beyond to try and make it happen in a short window. We’ve had times we’re trying to beat a storm that’s building, but you know, he’s going to get the athletes on a fish before we have to head back in to be safe. He’s never just mailed it in and said, ‘well, the weather sucks.’ He’s a get it done kind of guy.”
“Growing up in Ottertail County has given me a lifelong appreciation for this area,” Hill said. “I’m biased, but I don’t think there is a better place to be an angler. We have amazing panfish, muskies, bass, walleye, and pike. We even have a trout lake. There are, I think, 1,072 lakes in Ottertail county. Detroit Lakes area has 412 lakes in a ten-mile radius. We have a lot of opportunity. A lot of these small lakes are hidden gems.”
Hill volunteers his time in a couple of youth fishing leagues as well as Future Anglers of Minnesota, a fishing nonprofit organization. The Heart of Lakes Conference Fishing league is for kids in schools in northwest Minnesota. The Lake Agassiz High School Fishing League is for kids in schools in the Fargo, North Dakota Area. Each school league has a different multi-species scoring and verification system but are intended to help grow the sport of fishing with young anglers of all abilities. To Hill, the youth in fishing programs help him pass on his fishing passion to the next generation and encourage those anglers who will come after him.
Last year in the Agassiz league, Hill took out a pair of kids he had never met and they ended up in second place for team of the year. This year, the pair came back and fished with Hill and ended in first place. “The part I like so much about guiding is getting people out who don’t get the opportunity to get out fishing. It’s great to take kids that have never caught a walleye and then low and behold they go and win a tournament catching walleyes. I’ve had kids catching 20-to-25-inch walleyes on Zebco push button reels at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, having an absolute blast. Most kids don’t have a boat, and some kids don’t have parents with any fishing know-how. Being able to help these kids is really amazing. Fishing is something that you can do when you are 5 years old, 10 years old, all the way up to 105.”
You can reach Cody at chillguideservice.com or on Facebook or Instagram.