When the Fountain Lake Sportmen’s Club was looking for someone to report on the fishing conditions around Albert Lea its search didn’t take long.

Want to know what’s biting where it’s biting and what it’s biting on Albert Lea or Fountain Lake search no further than Hi Lo.

Hi Lo, also known as Orien Loe, has become one of Albert Lea’s fishing ambassadors, submitting reports to the club and the Albert Lea Convention and Visitors Bureau, which get published in the Explore Minnesota magazine and Outdoor News.

“Some people are alcoholics, I’m a fishaholic and a workaholic,” Hi Lo said.

Hi Lo, who got the nickname as a teenager when others couldn’t pronounce his name correctly, has spent nearly 30 years with the Sportsmen’s Club, joining as the fourth member in 1980.

Fishing is not only a passion for Hi Lo, it’s also a source of pride. His daughter gave him an oak picture frame with his name inscribed across the top. Inside the picture frame, a snapshot of the first walleye he caught on Fountain Lake after the Sportsmen’s Club stocked the lake with walleye.

There might not have been a finer moment for the club and Hi Lo than earlier this spring when Albert Lea Lake was ranked in the top seven of opening-day walleye lakes in Minnesota by Minnesota Sportsman magazine.

Since retiring from the city three years ago Hi Lo has spent most of his time fishing. In his first year of retirement he spent all but two days fishing. He rises at 4:30 in the morning and is out fishing when most people are just beginning their day.

“There’s only six or seven places that I go to,” he said. “I might be there 15-20 minutes — nothing — try a couple different things, then I go to the next one.”

While Hi Lo knows all the hot spots in the area, he’s not about to give up his own honey holes.

“Some of them may ask, ‘Where’d you get these big ones?’ Fountain Lake,” Hi Lo said. “I don’t necessarily put them right on the spot. I just say in the area of the cemetery. That’s all I tell ’em.”

Along the way he’s talking to other fishermen out on the lake gathering information the 69-year-old Hi Lo can pass along later.

He gets about half a dozen phone calls a month, but many of those who would call end up running into him at some point.

“The biggest thing with Hi Lo is he knows so many people,” said Fountain Lake Sportsmen’s Club President Dave Villarreal. “He talks to a lot of people. He gets the word out as far as what’s going on out there.”

A storyteller with a lively sense of humor, Hi Lo is often the fist to lend a hand as well.

“He’s always there,” said Sportsmen’s Club member Larry Anderson. “He’s one of the people you can count on when you pick up the phone.”

Whether it’s helping with the Take A Kid Fishing day, a fishing report or putting together a fishing outing for ARC of Freeborn County, like he did Monday night at the Edgewater Park fishing pier, Hi Lo will often be the one with the biggest smile.

“You got any questions just go to Hi Lo, he’ll help you out,” Villarreal said.

For as many stories Hi Lo can tell there just as many about him. Once when Hi Lo and club member Harlen Thompson went to Diamond Jo’s for a donation from the casino Hi Lo struck it big. Thompson and Hi Lo had to wait for their meeting and decided to play the slots to pass the time. Hi Lo struck for $400 and had a moment of generosity following the win.

“He came back and had a grin on his face from ear-to-ear,” Thompson said. “He just won $400 and said, ‘I’m so happy I’ll buy you a pop.’ I said, ‘You cheap bastard it’s free down here.’”

Though Hi Lo can spout out all the details of the lakes at a given time he has had trouble with the calendar before.

One season Hi Lo was fishing for walleye and reeling one after the other in near the channel. Just as he was getting ready to pack it in, a Department of Natural Resources official paid a visit to Hi Lo to chat. The DNR official looked at the walleye and complimented Hi Lo on his haul. Then he asked Hi Lo what he was going to do with them. Hi Lo said he was going to take them home and filet them, but it was at that point the DNR official informed Hi Lo that the walleye season ended the week before.

“We give him so much crap for that one,” Villarreal said.

As much guff as the others in the club give Hi Lo it’s a mole hill compared to hard time Hi Lo can give. Though in jest Hi Lo seems to have a wise crack for anything.

Hi Lo’s retirement has been anything but that. He remains active by driving cars for Motor Inn, fixing lawn mowers and even dropping by his old place of employment for some foosball with the guys. During the winter he’s busy tinkering with snow blowers and plowing driveways.

“My wife says, ‘Why don’t you slow down?’” he said. “I says [sic], ‘I think I am a little bit. Before I was still at work, I did 28 driveways and their yards. I got that down to four.”

Hi Lo will turn 70 in a month and he has no plans of taking it easy and that’s probably good news for area lakes and the Fountain Lake Sportsmen’s Club.