Like many professional athletes, Bruce Samson is spending his offseason watching game film, poring over depth charts and pumping iron in his weight room.

The extra time in the gym gives him an advantage over opponents, Samson said, and the hundreds of hours of studying charts, many of which he creates using sophisticated computer programs, help propel him into championships.

Is he a pro baseball or football player? Nope. He’s a professional walleye fisherman changing the way anglers compete for prize money.

A retired physician, Samson, 54, spends his winters preparing for the summer tour season by compiling intricate maps of lakes where tournaments are held and by working out.

“It’s very fatiguing standing in a boat in three-foot waves for an entire day,” said Samson, the top money-winner in professional walleye fishing with $570,000 in career earnings. “I do general conditioning and leg-strength exercises to keep my balance on wavy days. I also do curls, bench press, pulldowns and rowing.”

Samson also works out on a NordicTrack exerciser, a treadmill and other aerobic machines.

“I know it’s a significant advantage to me,” he said, “because I don’t get as tired in the boat, and my muscle soreness isn’t as severe.”

A new breed of walleye angler, Samson brings a physician’s eye for exacting detail to the sport along with his exercise regimen geared to holding a jigging rod and maintaining balance in rough water.

Few if any professional walleye anglers equate bench pressing in January with catching more walleyes in July. In a competition where losing a two-pound walleye at the edge of the boat can mean the difference of an extra $50,000, Samson believes that having extra physical stamina helps avoid a mistake that could keep him off the money list at the end of a day.

He also once broke ribs while trying to net a fish on a windy day. He was reaching out with a net when a wave hit the boat, and he crashed into the gunwale.

“It was a long day,” he said. “I don’t even remember how I finished.”

Samson admits to having a passion for maps and electronic gadgetry, and blending them into charts that help him find fish.

“I’m obsessed with accuracy” in maps, he said. Samson will comb various sources to find maps that show accurate bottom contours or, even better, maps that list GPS coordinates.

“I want GPS-accurate maps or a software mapping program or a map on a (computer) chip that I can put into my laptop computer,” he said.

Samson, known as Doc, might be one of the only pro walleye anglers to trade in a successful medical career for a life of fishing. He retired last year as the director of the Cambridge Spine Program in Cambridge, Minn. He also had worked as an emergency room doctor and family practitioner.

Samson considers himself a full-time professional walleye angler now.

Samson considers himself a bit of a loner in professional walleye fishing circles because he doesn’t practice or trade secrets with other anglers.

“I don’t have a group of guys that I work with,” he said, avoiding the standard practice of swapping information among a clique of anglers. “I usually collect information by myself or work with one other friend.”