2026-10-07 · Anderson's Grand Vu Lodge, Leech Lake (Chippewa National Forest)
Three Vets Wouldn't Let the Boat Ride End — So They Built Their Own on Leech
Three veterans met at a muskie retreat in 2013. When that retreat ended, they didn't. Now every fall, twelve more vets get a lodge, a guide, and a seat in the boat on Leech Lake — free.
Most fishing friendships start the same way. Somebody lends somebody a leader. Somebody watches somebody else’s figure-eight and politely says nothing. Then it’s ten years later and you’re both standing in a bait shop arguing about bucktail colors like it’s a family matter.
This one started in 2013, at a veterans’ muskie event called Operation Muskie. That’s where three vets, Matt, Mike and Todd, met. Per the group’s own telling, they kept fishing together after it wrapped, a few times a year, the way you keep calling the one cousin who actually picks up.
Then Operation Muskie ended.
And look, a lot of us would’ve been sad about that for a weekend and moved on. I once mourned a discontinued crankbait for an entire summer and did nothing about it except complain at the dock. These three did something about it.
Lake Alexander, 2016
In the summer of 2016 they got a group of veteran friends together on Lake Alexander in Minnesota for some muskie fishing. Everybody had a good time. And somewhere after that trip came the decision: if the thing that helped them was gone, they’d just run one themselves, in the same spirit.
They called it Musky Mission Complete. Their tagline is “Completin’ the mission by fishin’,” and I’m not going to touch that. It’s theirs, and it’s perfect.
What the mission actually is
Every fall, Musky Mission Complete picks twelve veterans for an all-expenses-paid, guided muskie retreat. They keep it small on purpose so it stays personal. Home base is Anderson’s Grand Vu Lodge on Leech Lake, out in the Chippewa National Forest. This year’s retreat was on the calendar for Sept. 17–20, 2026.
Each vet fishes every day with a volunteer professional muskie guide and gets hands-on teaching in the boat. They picked fall on purpose, too. The group says it gives the guides a better shot at putting a vet on one of these big, judgmental fish. (Muskies always look like they’re reviewing your résumé. Even in photos. Especially in photos.)
Some of those guides come from right down the road. The Brainerd Lakes Chapter of Muskies Inc. says several of its members volunteer to guide at the event every year, and calls it “a very rewarding experience for everyone involved.”
The part that isn’t a joke
Here’s what the group says it’s actually for: helping veterans get through the move from military life back to regular life by handing them a passion that travels. Their words are simple. They want vets to make lifelong friends, to “heal the heart and soul by fishing,” and to come home knowing how to fish on their own.
That last part matters more than it sounds. A weekend is a weekend. But a vet who leaves Leech knowing how to read a weed edge and work a big bait? That person can go do it again on a Tuesday, alone or with a buddy, with nobody’s permission. And if you’ve ever had a hard week fixed by two quiet hours in a boat, you already understand why.
Anyway. Three guys met in a boat in 2013. The event ended. The friendship didn’t, and now twelve strangers a year get the same shot. That’s a pretty good return on one muskie trip.
If you’re a vet, or you know one
The 2026 application window is closed. The group says to check back in December 2026 to apply for the 2027 retreat at Musky Mission Complete. They also take donations there, and say each gift helps fund a veteran’s spot.
Sources: Musky Mission Complete event page, Musky Mission Complete home page, Muskies Inc. Brainerd Lakes Chapter.