Late nights, no fish inspire Batchawana Bay First Nation entrepreneur to create 'The Trigger'

Brendan Syrette had such a passion for the idea of designing an implement for ice fishing rods, he quit his construction job to work on the plan.

What he came up with was "The Trigger," an ice fishing rod holder that automatically sets the hook if a fish bites.

The inspiration came to him after a less-than-successful night out on the lake.

"I came in one night, and [my wife and I] had a little debate about what lakes I've been to and If I'd really been fishing," Syrette said.

"Every time we geared up, we were staying out quite late to catch fish, [we came] back empty handed. Not that I wasn't getting any bites, but my hookup ratio was no good. We decided there's got to be another way of getting the fish on the ice."

And from that idea came the first steps in making The Trigger.

"We can fit anywhere form a 24 inch to 32 inch rod into a rod holder," he said. "There's a pin that the last eye on the fishing rod sits on, and your line is threaded over the trigger mechanism."

"Once the fish bites," Syrette continued, "the rod springs up, similar to down rigging. You can also play with the pin to adjust the sensitivity ... if you're fishing a fish that isn't aggressive on the bite. One of my friends says, even if a fish blows a bubble near the line, it will go off."

Syrette said the timing probably wasn't perfect when he left his construction job. He was in the middle of starting a family, and had doubts about taking on a new, uncertain venture.

"I still get butterflies knowing how it felt leaving the construction job," he said. "Usually the commitment's the other way. You stick with the good paying jobs to support your family."

But he was determined.

"Building up the courage to build what we really want is one of the hardest steps. You just have to stay focused and put your mind to it."

Syrette's focus paid off. After going through a few trial runs with different designs — Syrette said he discovered 50 ways of how not to build a Trigger —  he came up with one that worked.

"It was very simple. But to find simple was a task itself," he said.

"The thing is, when we got into it, I wasn't trying to make money," he said.  "My main focus was trying to make something we could use. We didn't want to worry [about breaking it] if you run it over with the snow machine, dropped it, or [bounced it] around in your sled."

The Trigger has garnered the attention of some influential merchants.

Canadian Tire recently told Syrette they'd stock the product, and it should be available in the store in the coming weeks.

"We're really hoping the first week of November we'll have the first shipments out," he said. "But there's still lots of legwork in front of us. I imagine we'll be on the phones constantly, making relationships with the Canadian Tires across Canada."