Nick Vander Puy

Mellen, Wisconsin: Paid in Sunsets by Nick Vander Puy is a collection of oral histories capturing the soul, grit, and humor of northern Wisconsin's legendary fishing guides. Through intimate, fireside-style conversations, Vander Puy brings to life larger-than-life figures like Marv “Bwana” Elliot, Orville “Sam the Bassman” Small, Todd “Tadpole” Powell, Billy Sherer, tribal leader Tom Maulson, Leon "Buckshot" Andersen and master shipwright Josh Swan.

What sets this collection apart is how deeply personal it is. Vander Puy doesn't write as a detached journalist, but as someone whose own family history is woven into the fabric of the Northwoods. His storytelling is grounded in generational memory - from his parents being guided on muskie trips in the 1960s to his father selling tackle boxes to the makers of the iconic Mudpuppy lure. These personal connections give the interviews an atmosphere of warmth, shared history, and mutual respect that can't be replicated.

Vander Puy has been guiding anglers most of his adult life. He was also a station based public radio reporter with more than two hundred features along with six stories on NPR's "All Things Considered." In the mid-nineties he won a national Golden Reel award for a story about a hound bear hunt "The Day the Bear Died."

He spends most of the year camped in the bush, hunting, fishing and gathering.

He's still excited that for most of his life he was paid to hunt and fish.