Kid Rock couldn't have picked a better fishing guide Sunday than Josh Stevenson, owner of Blue Ribbon Bait and Tackle and Mighty Muskie Guide Service in Oakdale.

Not only is Stevenson an excellent fisherman, he knows music.

"I didn't tell Kid Rock, but I had seen him in concert six times," Stevenson said. "The Y2K concert in Detroit was the coolest. Kid Rock was there with Ted Nugent and Metallica.

"Then, a few weeks later, Kid Rock and Metallica played three straight shows in the Twin Cities. I was in the mosh pit at all three."

Kid Rock's given name is Robert Ritchie, and he introduced himself as "Bob" when Stevenson picked him up Sunday morning at Grand Casino Hinckley, where he played a concert Saturday night.

Uncle Kracker (Matthew Shafer) was among those who accompanied the Detroit-based multigenre (hip-hop, rap, Southern rock, country) rocker.

Kid Rock, 46, didn't have time to fish for muskies, Stevenson's specialty, because he was headlining the Iowa State Fair on Sunday night (for which he was paid a reported $600,000), and his private jet had to be wheels-up from the Hinckley area at 3 p.m.

"In the time we had to fish, my goal was to get him a decent-sized northern pike," Stevenson said.

Stevenson had pre-fished the Snake River and adjoining Cross Lake, as well as Pokegama Lake, the previous three days.

But on Sunday, the fish didn't cooperate.

"Uncle Kracker caught a couple of decent-sized northerns early on in the Snake River, but the fish were pretty much shut down," Stevenson said. "Fortunately, Kid Rock didn't let it bother him. He was really into it. He had the fire going."

By midday, a bright sun hung overhead with no wind. Heavy vegetation in the area of Cross Lake that Stevenson picked for a last hurrah limited Kid Rock's lure choices to top-water buzz baits.

Stevenson's famous client — who for a brief time was married to Pamela Anderson of "Baywatch" fame, and who formerly owned a $10 million house in Malibu now says he prefers living in a double-wide mobile home wrapped in Mossy Oak camouflage.

He didn't mention he might run for the U.S. Senate from Michigan (www.kidrockforsenate.com), a possibility he floated in a recent tweet.

A hard-partying Republican who years ago was arrested for brawling in a Waffle House restaurant (pretty cool, as rap-sheet citations go), Kid Rock is popular in Michigan and could win, some believe.

"Presuming [he] doesn't get caught in bed with a little boy, or beat up a woman between now and August 2018, he's going to win the nomination if he gets in," Dennis Lennox, a Michigan Republican political consultant told Politico.

"I think there's no question about that."

With just two minutes remaining Sunday afternoon before a quitting time that already had been extended 20 minutes, Kid Rock caught a brute of a northern pike.

Yes! thought Stevenson.

Then, soon, the rocker-turned-angler-turned-rocker-again was in the air, headed for Iowa, where the Des Moines Register reported Monday that, "With an explosion of onstage pyrotechnics, Rock and his 11-piece band went into the 2002 number, "You Never Met A [expletive] Quite Like Me."

Josh Stevenson would agree.