Have I got the Christmas gift giving scoop of the year for you!  

If you have a tough-to-please angler, hunter or outdoors person on your shopping list - someone who frustrates you to no end every year when you search for something unique to give them - let me put your mind at ease and end to your woes.  

Honest truth, these are the coolest, neatest, most unique gifts you've ever seen!  And you won't have to go into hock to pay for them, either.  

I am talking about genuine leather products made from - are you ready for this - walleye fish skins!   

You can buy wallets, cell phone cases, business card holders, iPad covers and filet knife sheaths all made from walleye skins.  You have to see and feel these things to believe it, but they're premium, one-of-a-kind, top of the line products.

And do you want to know the best part?  They're not made a million miles away in some far flung country by a multinational corporation that doesn't give a hoot about you and only wants your money.  Instead, they're hand-crafted by 59-year old Clint Boyd, in his trappers cabin, in the Pembina Valley in south-central Manitoba.   

Now, how Canadian cool is that!  

Boyd calls his company Big Eye Leather, and trust me on this one, you won't see him anytime soon on the Dragon's Den.  Matter of fact, you just might find Kevin O'Leary and the other billionaire Dragons lining up outside his trapper's cabin door, begging for a piece of the action, given that he can't keep up with the burgeoning demand.  

Cabela's is already on board, carrying Boyd's products in its Winnipeg main office store, with orders about to come in for all of its American branches as well.  A bunch of other big name players are also flipping over their maps, searching for the little town of LaRiviere, Manitoba, in the Pembina Valley.    

It is a story that is almost too-good-to-be-true, but the fact is that Boyd, who learned his trapper skills as a youngster at his grandfather's knee, has perfected a method of turning walleye skins - he buys them from the Fresh Water Fish Marketing Board in Winnipeg and removes the scales - into gorgeous, uniquely patterned, fish skin leather.  

And despite what you might think, the finished product is soft, smooth and as tough as nails.  And, no, it doesn't smell, either.        

Well, actually there is an odour, but it is from the familiar, rich, cowhide leather backing Boyd uses to stitch his fish skins.  

Now listen, Christmas is fast approaching and demand for Boyd's Big Eye walleye skin products are going through the roof of his trappers shack.   If you snooze on this one, you're gonna' lose.  You can purchase Big Eye leather products in Winnipeg at the Cabela's store, as well as online from the company's website: 
http://www.cabelas.ca/index.cfm?pageID=71&&section=1180&section2=1201&ID=34843

In addition, you can buy them at The Forks in Winnipeg or Chip and Pepper, in my home town here in Kenora, Ontario.  American anglers and hunters, on the other hand, can order all of the items stateside through https://walleyeleather.com/

Last, but by no means least, you can order them direct from Clint Boyd's Big Eye website ...
http://bigeyeleather.ca/history.html

Let me say it again, how Canadian cool is this?