FARGO — Tom Huynh has long defied simple categorization.

Raised on a small Arkansas cattle farm, Huynh chose an unlikely career path when he moved to the Fargo-Moorhead area in 1999 to study computer information systems, getting his introduction to the nail salon industry shortly thereafter.

At the time, he did it to keep the bills paid. His employers, however, saw more potential in him, helping him finance his education while also schooling him on all things nail art. “They saw something in me that I didn’t,” Huynh (pronounced h-win) recalled to The Forum. “I ended up really liking doing nails. I was good at it and quick at it.”

After finishing college, Huynh knew his degree wouldn’t play a factor in his job search. “I did finish college, got my degree, but I never even looked for a job using that degree,” he said.

In 2005, he opened his first Polished Nail Spa. After outgrowing the space quickly, he opened two other locations. He’s among the longest-running nail salon owners in the metro area.

All the while, Huynh had added another unlikely line on his not-so-sterotypical resume: competitive fisher on the Bassmaster circuit.

Fishing has always been a part of Huynh’s life.

The pond on his mother’s small cattle farm was stocked with fish, and Huynh recalled casting from the shore, catching catfish and bluegill.

The Huynhs’ television only had two channels, meaning weekend viewing was either the standard serving of Saturday cartoons or fishing tournaments.

Suffice it to say, his farmboy upbringing didn’t portend a career in the nail industry. “All my friends, we were into the cattle industry and for fun we’d hunt, fish, we’d do all that,” Huynh said. “Then I come up here and I start doing fingernails. That’s not your normal path.”

Competitive fishing entered the picture shortly thereafter, as Huynh became a regular on the Bassmaster circuit. He’s covered a vast swath of the United States in the process, with events taking him back to his home state of Arkansas as well as Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, New York and Tennessee.

Despite a rigorous travel schedule — which has put 165,000 miles on his Toyota Tundra over the past three years alone — Huynh remains a nail technician at heart. He has his regulars throughout the winter and even teaches newcomers. “I’m still in the salon off and on,” he said. “In between trips and in between tournaments, I’m still home taking clients when I can.”

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic meant a re-worked scheduled on the Bassmaster circuit, one which was no longer manageable for a man who has a nail salon to run back home.

The fishing didn’t stop, however, and one day while fishing on Leech Lake, Huynh caught wind of a National Walleye Tour event taking place in the coming weeks.

Coming from the action-packed Bassmaster circuit though, Huynh didn’t see as much appeal in walleye fishing. “I had fished for walleyes before, but to very little success,” he said. “The way that I was taught or the way you see people fish for walleyes, it’s way more boring than bass fishing, so I could barely bring myself to do it.”

He couldn’t shake the lure of getting back into competitive fishing, however. “That tournament just kept nagging at me,” he said.

He enlisted the help of his novice neighbor, Nate Wolske, and the pair weighed in at 38.3 pounds , good enough for first place. Huynh and Wolske’s win drew the attention of other competitors, who facetiously heckled them for their beginner’s luck.

Huynh knew it was far more than just luck, attributing the immediate success to carrying bass fishing tactics over to walleye competitions. He knew that big bass moved to different areas of the lake at certain times of the year. “Why wouldn’t walleyes kind of do the same in their areas of the lake?” he asked himself.

Later results vindicated Huynh and Wolske’s novel strategies as the duo secured another first place finish and a fourth place finish to round out the AIM Weekend Walleye Series. “I was able to get on these fish and use literally a technique that had not been used before to win a walleye tournament,” Huynh said. “The way me and my partner caught them (at Leech Lake) really hadn’t been done to success for walleye in the past.”

When he started competitive walleye fishing, Huynh gave himself three years to break even. That proved to be a conservative timeline. After his splashy 2020 season, Huynh “went all out” in 2021.

If 2020 set a high bar, Huynh managed to raise it in 2021.

Fishing solo on the National Walleye Tour, Huynh placed second at the championship event on Otter Tail Lake, weighing in at 44.88 pounds. That he even made the championship tournament took a stroke of good fortune.

Fishing a May tournament in Wisconsin, Huynh reeled in the most significant walleye of his season. After weather conditions changed rapidly overnight, Huynh was at risk of posting a zero for the tournament, a result that potentially would have left him out of the championship at Otter Tail Lake. The nearly 10-pound fish salvaged the weekend and secured his spot in the championship. “That one fish saved my season last year and it was the biggest fish I’ve caught so far on the tour,” Huynh commented. “That was my biggest fish in a couple different ways.”

On the AIM team circuit, Huynh and Wolske followed up their debut year by blowing out the competition at the Minnesota State Championship at Lake of the Woods. In a sport where the difference between first and second can be a matter of ounces, Huynh and Wolske weighed in at 88.62 pounds, more than 35 pounds ahead of the next closest finisher. “I think the weight discrepancy got more people’s attention than the fact that we even won,” Huynh remarked.

Other competitors had taken note. “You’re single-handedly changing the trajectory of walleye fishing as we know it,” another angler told him after his and Wolske’s Lake of the Woods triumph.

“Whether it’s true or not, for somebody to look at me and think of me that way, I just can’t believe it,” Huynh said. “It’s super humbling.”

Fastidious attention to details are Huynh’s calling cards, both in painting nails and in fishing.

On the water, Huynh said he’s narrowed down his approach to eight “little details” which all have to work harmoniously. “There’s so many small, little factors, tiny little factors, that relate to tracking down and catching a giant fish,” he said.

He has successfully married both bass and walleye fishing tactics, mixing both artificial and live bait and fishing in all areas and depths, even spots overlooked for walleyes. It’s why he’s picked up the reputation as something of a trailblazer on the National Walleye Tour. “The secrets, if you want to call them secrets, they’re in the presentation of the bait,” he explained. “The more different presentations that you can give a fish, the better chances you’re going to give them to see something they like.”

That detail-oriented approach shows itself in the salon as well. Huynh said he’s constantly experimenting with new techniques and methods. “In the nail salon, I’ve always tried to figure out something new,” he commented.

Often known on tour as “the guy that owns the nail salon,” Huynh’s fishing opponents have also noted the connection between nail art and his fishing style. “You line of work at home is super detailed,” he says they’ll tell him, “and the way you fish and the way we see you fish is also extremely detailed.”

Huynh sees the comparison. “It’s the same with fishing,” he said, discussing his unorthodox bait usage. “Can I clip one of these fins here? Can I do something here to make the action different?”

“I think there’s always ways to push the boundaries of what people think they know,” he continued.

In 2022, Huynh wants to repeat as Team of the Year on the AIM team circuit, make the championship on the solo National Walleye Tour and place higher in the Angler of the Year standings. For someone who has made a living off of pushing boundaries and bucking convention, there’s no reason to think he can’t.

“What we’ve done is kind of unheard of as far as what we’ve done for winning and placing. I still can’t believe it,” he concluded. “To keep it going, that’s even more pressure.”