Just talk to me, I know there's a
million things.
Yeah, I'll do the best I
can.
And yeah, there's no wrong answers
here. These are just your opinions
and recollections.
All right.
Let's kind of start back at the
beginning and tell me how you
came to be here in this lovely
place.
It's kind of a long story, but
I came here with a
bunch of rowdy guys that were about
24 years old.
We come back from Canada,
we're very tired, and
we decided that we needed to
stop somewhere and sleep.
So of all things, we drove
to Garmisch and
rented a room after
driving a number of from Canada,
and we got our polls and...
Went down to the lake,
and we caught more walleyes
than what we caught up in Canada.
And we were just laughing and having
fun, and it was getting late
at night, and the owner came
down and said, can you guys hold it
down a little bit?
So there was four of us.
We were just having a blast.
We ran out of bait, and I always
remembered Lake Namacoggin because
of that.
And when Mary and I were looking
for a place, we
looked at a number of lakes, and I
said...
You know, I know a lake that's a
little further east that
had pretty good walleye fishing.
And we came here, and like
I told you, we found the lot,
happened to be for sale.
So it was kind of a long,
you know, my first
experience here, I was,
I don't know, 22 years old.
You know, that's how long it took
and then we finally ended up.
We had had a lake place before
in Yellow Lake but we wanted
something different and maybe a
little more, I don't know,
wild, if that's the right
word.
And so this was it.
So that was my connection.
That was how I knew about Lake
Namacog and staying at Garmisch
and
and you know, it's a fantastic
lake.
You can water ski, you can fish,
you Take your
canoe out.
It's you know, let you do everything
and that's what we were really
looking for
And when was that when you were
buying here?
You know, we bought here
I think in 2002,
somewhere in that area,
and like I said,
we built a cabin.
This was a cabin, and it
was just designed to be
a two-season
experience, and
then we just decided we
did not want to have
two properties to take
care of.
So we remodeled
and turned this into a home.
So you, how many
children is it?
Just one son.
One son.
Just one son went to St.
Norbert's,
good football player, good
football program.
But he would have been, what, in
high school or younger?
He was, so
we had a lake home
on Yellow Lake. He was quite young.
Then we had few years off.
I worked for 3M, and I was an
international, and I traveled,
so then a number of years later.
So he was.
Just going into college,
so I think he was just entering
college.
So this wasn't
blocked with the idea of being a
family getaway, this was for you
two.
Well, when we bought it,
I got to get my timing straight, but
we bought, he helped me
from the family standpoint.
It was the first time we actually
got to work together
and say nice things to each other
rather than instruct each other.
So it was really very good for the
both of us. So he helped build
it.
And so the intent was all along,
as it always has been, is to have
a place for.
The family and other
family members come and
fish and
hunt, it's good grouse hunting
around here, and
just enjoy the Northwoods
and the lake, and I think it's a
great lake.
So let's go back to your youth.
When did you first start to fish?
My dad was not a fisher person,
but my grandparents were.
My grandfather was an Italian
immigrant.
Why he ended up ending his
movement and settled in Minnesota
is beyond me.
We always said if you just went a
little further, we could have grown
up in California.
But anyway, he settled
in Minnesota and got married,
and they loved to fish.
Not unlike other people who
are immigrants, you know, they
ate what they caught,
but they enjoyed fishing
and my experience fishing is
really with my grandfather
Mike and his wife
Em, my grandmother, and
that's where I learned to love
fishing.
And they were very good fisher
people and
that just
where it started for me.
You know, my
dad hunted.
He didn't like to hunt ducks,
but he liked upland game.
So that's where he would
take me, but it was my grandparents
that really got me going.
And was that just anything that was
biting?
They ate everything.
I don't want to say Italian
immigrants,
but yeah, absolutely.
My grandmother would take
walleyes and
northern pike,
even catfish,
and she would steam them
and then she would take them apart,
bone them, and then make fish
patties.
They were absolutely delicious.
OK.
So fried fish patties.
Many years later, I
was out on the back porch of
one of our cabins.
And I had become a pretty good
fisherman.
And I was flaying some walleyes.
And she came out and she said,
that looks great.
Your grandfather never knew how to
flay a fish.
So all the fish were caught and
given to her.
And then she would make fish
pattys.
But that's how they, and they loved
them. And they loved fishing and
they caught everything.
I know there were regulations at
that time and they didn't exceed
those, but they
really loved fishing.
And that's where I got my interest
in it.
So how did you go?
Was it a pretty straight line from
there to being going to Canada with
some other guys?
You know, I went to a camp in
Western Minnesota on Stone Lake,
and probably the first fish I caught
without a parent or a grandparent or
somebody else, I caught a 10-pound
northern, which was a big deal
there, and it was a big deal for
me.
And I was just really hooked.
And as I got older, I started going
to Canada.
And we'd go to White Pine Lodge
up in Suneros.
And I got to know a couple of,
one guide in particular,
and Bobby, he was Native American,
and he taught me how to tie spinners
and tide lures,
and he took me even
duck hunting.
He knew all the great spots.
He was an amazing guide.
We're out in the middle of a rice
paddy that's 40 acres,
and he said, we'll
hunt ducks here.
And I looked around, and it went.
He said, threw out four
decoys.
And the ducks only flew directly
over us.
They didn't fly over on that side.
So he knew exactly where the
ducks were. He was an amazing guy.
And he taught me how to fish really
a lot more.
And so I went up to White Pine Lodge
for probably 10 years,
whether it was with Mary and I or
just my buddies.
And I kept going up there, or
my brother and I.
And Bobby always taught
us how to fish and where to fish.
So I guess my grandparents started
it and I have to
thank Bobby for teaching me how to
So when you came here,
there were lots of things that drew
you to this area, including some of
those memories, but what
was your initial pursuit when
you launched the boat here?
It was really walleye fishing.
My memory was that there was good
walleye fishing here.
I knew this was a lake
that you could catch
walleyes, and not
just a couple, but you could catch
enough to have
a fry.
And the lake I had been
on previously,
as many lakes in
parts of Wisconsin, the
walleye-fishing was a little
tougher.
The other part that really drew me
here was you
can do everything here.
So, water skiing,
swimming, the lake
doesn't have swimmer's edge.
The lake is good, clean water.
Not that I knew it at the time, but
all the water comes through the
national forest.
So, it's not impaired in any
way.
It's just really, you know, the Lake
is stained, but that's a natural
occurrence.
So, its a lake that you can
everything that you want.
And I'd like to do, as
a fisherman, there's nothing I
enjoy more than to see
a family out there water
skiing.
That we did with my father,
certainly more than fishing, but I
was a water skier, so I mean it's
a lake you can do everything on.
Was it different then?
We were talking more than 20 years
ago.
Was there a different type
of people that were here, type of
the people that came and lived?
Maybe this was a two-season cabin at
the start.
Yeah, so I think it
was different in that there
were more cabins,
there were more even
one-season cabins.
There were some really
large cabins that
people from out of town, Chicago,
would come up for just a month
or a couple of weeks, but
since 2002
or whenever the date was.
People started building, you
know, homes,
and some significant ones.
And the little cabins, in fact, I
was out just across the
bay here the other day, and there's
a small cabin that's
very traditional.
The people come from Illinois.
They'll come here probably on
the 4th.
They'll stay for
July and part of August, and then
they'll go back to Chicago.
Those are almost gone.
And when we looked the
place, there was another place
across the way here.
And I thought, I can't understand
why the realtor was showing it to
me. But it was really,
he said, well, you're going to tear
it down.
I said, really?
And that's when it really started
happening. There was a lot of
teardowns.
There was lot of people really
looking at a different
lake experience, you know,
more home-like.
So I told you when we built this and
I wanted to build a two
season cabin.
They kind of laughed at us and said,
we don't build those anymore.
So your construction became,
you know, either had a basement or
you had a
cement surface that's heated, but
you had foundation.
You weren't putting it on blocks.
You weren't putting it in piers.
And so that's what things really
started changing at that time.
And
Do you think, I mean,
there was a shift then also in
the walleye population, do
you think those things are related
or is it just coincidental that as
this lake shifted and the people
that came here changed
the landscape around it and
what they did on the lake, that what
happened in the lake changed too?
Oh, I think so.
I think, you
know, as nice as it is that we have
lots of springs here and water that
comes from the National Forest.
When you build
a McMansion or
just a big home,
one of the things, especially doing
what I'm doing now, is people
have a tendency to go down and
cut trees down in the front of their
lake. They either do it for the view
Or if you've seen,
I think earlier in spring, we showed
people that like to mow
to the lake.
And there's more than one
factor why the walleye population
has in
our lake started to fall.
But I think certainly that's one of
them is that we weren't taking care
of the lake,
we were clearing out
bigger areas, we were...
Some people who built large homes
wanted them to look just like their
homes.
Suburban Minneapolis and
that I
think had an effect on the lake.
There were more things that affected
but that I think had
a lot a lot to do with it.
The joke I have for people who
are interested in
redoing their shoreline
is that when Mary and I moved here
the first thing we did was take the
wood out of the water because
that was terrible.
Why would you have in the water,
when that's a critical.
Element to the
growth of fish and everything else.
So yeah, I think that had an effect.
So I did some research.
I looked at some of the Navacog and
walleye population estimates.
And it was over nine
fish per acre 20,
30 years ago.
So on average, we've had over
five fish per acre.
We did have, and
I've reminded Scott
Toshner as our
fishery, one of the fisheries
biologists, he's in charge of
the group.
1997, he was responsible
for this lake. There was over
nine per acre, so this is
a naturally reproducing walleye
lake.
We slid.
And it really started in 2002.
Oftentimes people want to blame the
spring harvest.
That's not the whole answer.
And by the way,
hook and line fishermen catch three
to four times more
than any spring harvest
that's done by the Native
Americans. So anyway,
that population...
Was hanging pretty close to
six walleyes per acre till
about 2002, which
might be when I came.
I don't want to say I'm responsible,
but then it started to decline.
And it
got down to, in 2018,
population was 2.3 walleyess
per acre.
And that's when Glyphwick got ahold
of us,
and they were concerned.
They really changed.
How they harvested
this lake.
And we knew something was wrong.
And when we first came here, the
fishing was, you know, they weren't
all huge fish, but I
could take Mike out,
and with a slip bobber, we'd
catch 40 fish in an evening.
And all of them went back,
except for a few that were capable.
But there was fish.
And by 2019,
18, there were not.
Actually, it was 17 is when we got
the data, and then this
project started in
2018.
So did you change
your patterns as a fisherman then,
along with the patterns in the lake?
Yeah, you know, I did.
It probably has more to do
with what I'm doing now,
but I really kind of move towards
catch and release.
I do catch, I love
walleye, but there's
certain bodies of water close
by that really can
provide fish to eat.
You know, bodies of
like Green Bay,
Winnebago.
Um, anybody, and certainly this
body of water can, but for me, I
just said, okay, I'm just going to
put the fish back.
Um, unless Mary said,
gee, could we have walleye tonight?
And then I, you know, find my way
to get a couple of keepers.
And, um, but I did change
how I fished and, and I actually
changed, um.
Towards a small mouth bass, uh,
for fun.
Uh, I mean, I always thought they
were fun, but then
You know, so now I fish for walleyes
to find where they're at, where, you
know, what weed beds are they in,
you, know, the water
temperature, like tonight, last
night, my son caught
two walleyess,
one of which we stocked,
and a couple of northerns, and they
were in five feet of water.
So in almost July 4th,
everybody's going to think all the
walleyers are in 12, 15
feet.
This is a cold, dark lake,
is what the DNR has classified it,
and the walleye is really
shallow.
So I did change.
I changed how I fished.
If I like to eat fish, I like
sunfish.
I can fully sunfish as well as
I can play a walleye.
So that's what I
fish for.
There have been a lot of studies
that have shown that to
be the case of
when walleye decrease and people
realize, hey, they're harder to
catch, there's not as many out
there, they'll target something
else. They still want to fish.
But I fish really for fun now.
And I'm more interested.
Yesterday, Mike and I went out and
fished.
And he's 35 years
old.
And it's just a good time to go out
and to fish.
I'm not trying to hammer,
let's get a load of fish.
So that whole thing has changed.
And even Mike has
changed, too. And I think it's part
of maturing.
I think fishermen do that.
It used to be important.
The reason I went to Canada all the
time and fished with
that White Pine Lodge with Bobby was
to bring back a limit.
Now, I'd much rather
have a fish fry and
not bring any back or
go to Green Bay.
I go to green bay a lot and I
catch some fish and I've got
enough fish to cook up.
As things changed out in the lake,
was it the study that
made you realize that things needed
to change, or did Glyphwick contact
you and that's what spurred it, or
how did that all get in?
Sure.
You know, first we all recognized
that fishing was getting tougher
and you know the
expression that, you know, 20%
of the fishermen catch 80% of fish.
A little arrogant to consider me
part of the 20, but I think I was a
pretty good fisherman and
they were just getting harder to
catch.
And it became apparent
that there was just less fish in the
lake.
Then who does surveys
every fall.
To understand the population
of zero-year
wall...
Year of the fifth, you know, the fry
of that year,
figure out how to.
It's the year of young, is that how
you call it?
Yeah, yeah.
Young of year, Y-O-Y.
So they count what
they call zero year, first
year, and then they call actually
year one, so one year olds,
and they can tell the
population and how
our recruitment has been doing.
And what they had seen wasn't just
in the year 2017, but
in Succeeding years
preceding years
in preceding years,
that survey that they've done
was just declining.
And you know, it had
to have been some factors, but
nobody could figure out the factors.
It wasn't harvest, although harvest
hurt.
So every time I kept a fish,
that affected.
And so we were concerned.
And so Glyphwix sent
the information to
Our town board, Jim Krieger
is one of them, and he called
me and we got a group together.
We tried to get ahold of as many
fishermen together and
went to the town
hall and brought
the DNR, Scott
Taschner, Mark Laring
from Glyphwick.
There was a few others, myself
and others, and we said,
what can we do or what should We
do.
And both Mark and
Scott were very important to say,
why don't you write a fishery
initiative?
And we wrote that.
So we made goals.
One of our goals was to have
returned the
population of walleyes
to over
five per acre.
And that's pretty high for
the DNR, because the DNr's objective
statewide for each lake is three.
This is a good lake, and they knew
it was a good Lake.
Glyphwick also considers this a
very important lake.
So that was the goal.
The other goal was to
provide some fish habitat.
Not cribs, but fish habitat
on the shore, whether they were fish
sticks.
And then we were just going to try
to do some shoreline
restoration.
And we did a little of that.
That's.
It's hard in that going
to people and saying,
hey, stop mowing the lawn.
You know, it's kind of, there's
a nicer way to say it, but you're
still telling somebody their, their
lake lot looks bad or is
bad for fish.
So we've done some restoration,
but there's got to be a better
effort at it.
So, and the other method
that we were going to use was, was
stocking.
So, kind of as a group.
We came together and I
happened to have an opportunity
to go up to
Red Cliff and meet the
people at NADF
and it
was a fantastic meeting.
The guy at the time who was the
director there, we
made an agreement that if any one
of our parties said,
we're not together on this, he
said, it's over, you can't use any
of my space.
So that means that
Red Cliff would
have to agree to
what we're doing, that
the DNR would have agree to
we're what we are doing, that GLIFWC
was on board, and certainly
those of us working
on this project and
the Lake Association.
But that kind of,
that's what I do. I work on this
projects. So we all four had to
really come together and say, We
agree with what we're doing,
and it became a really nice
collaboration that's
worked out very well, and I think
it's one of the, I think
there's a few more in the state, but
I'd have to say in 2017,
that's probably the first
one that did that.
So, when there's a chance that
something like this could fall
apart, like, what would,
not to point fingers, where's the
most likely place it falls apart?
Is it just hubris, or is it just
different goals, or how does, how
would, it seems like a pretty, like
everyone can agree, yeah, let's try
and get more efficient.
The simplest way for this to fall
apart is that if the
pond's up at UW-Stevens
Point, which is on
property by that
red cliff, if there's a project
for the ponds, then we
wouldn't be able to raise fish.
But aquaculture is not raising fish
in ponds anymore.
So those ponds really aren't used.
But that'd be the very first one is
if Tyler said, gee, we don't
have room this year.
The other one would be if
you have attitudes like
it's the DNR's
fault, it's
Redcliff's fault.
Hook and line fishermen take too
many. That if we're not
working together and agreeing...
Then things can break apart.
There's a lot of anger
and silly issues that can
come up, but we've got a good group
that understand, you know,
this is what our goal is,
and we like each other and
trust each other.
So that's, I was just up
talking to Tyler and talked to Lance
and, you now,
I consider them friends, but they're
also important to it.
But if if Lance said
Gee, we can't get it done this year.
There's not budget.
I can't spend the time
to, you guys, we're there.
Get the fish, then it
would stop.
But sometimes,
in fact, an individual said,
wow, this is a big political issue,
meaning we can use wall eyes for
politics.
That would be disastrous,
because none of us want
that. We just want to
do good things for this
league.
And what Lance is doing is taking
the same idea of let's
get eggs from
a particular lake and
milk and let's
hatch the eggs and
grow them and put them back in the
lake.
You don't have the problems with the
DNR in terms of fish farming or
permits.
It's just a lot cleaner.
And I think Red
Cliff is doing a great job with Area
Lakes and they know we're
on board for stocking
and helping here.
I think they're also pretty excited
that we have projects
to put habitat
into the lake that helps
the fishery.
I've heard of other lakes
that are stocked around Wisconsin,
and a lot of times the attitude from
the people that live there, the lake
association, is when's the DNR going
to put fish in my lake?
It's a very my, my
ownership centric.
It is.
Yeah, you know, Max Walters
wrote sort
of a plan for walleyes
for the state,
and I think
the goal there was
to not stock lakes
that really aren't
good habitat for
walleys,
because it's nothing but
a And
maybe those lakes are great,
Panfish, Northern Pike, maybe
they're great, Smallmouth Bass,
Musky Lakes, but then there
are certain lakes that are,
you know,
natural, naturally
reproductive walleye
lakes that stocking can help,
can assist, and then we
can, you know,
make sure that that body of water is
similar to like what it
had been in
So there are a lot of
people that tell the
DNR or expect the DNr
that we need walleyes
in our lake.
And I think an effort was done
a number of years ago that
was political and
some lakes were promised walleyess
and probably in all
likelihood it was going
to be a dead end.
What happens in those lakes, there's
one north of Namacoggin is...
They don't reproduce walleye, so
the walleyes that you put in
at $4 a fish
mostly die off.
The walleye that live are mostly
females and the
walleye you catch are large,
but there's fewer and fewer every
year and they don't re-produce.
So when you're done with it and
you put 10,000 fish at$ 4
a fish into a lake.
You have, you know, $500 fish
that you're catching, and there's
no end in sight.
It's just nothing but
stocking.
Where many of those lakes can be
fantastic fisheries for
other kinds of fish, and
people can really enjoy it.
And you know I think even
on Namacoggin here,
Scott many, many years ago changed
the regulation on smallmouth
bass from 14 to
18 inches, And it was.
It's been fantastic.
If you like fishing for smallmouth
bass, sure there are
more famous places,
but man, our fish are fun to catch.
And they're more numerous.
People are putting them back and
they're big fish and they
fight a lot.
So I think, you know,
I think my lake deserves
to have 10,000 walleye stocked
in it sometimes that's
probably gonna change.
But if you said my lake
should be a great panfish
What can we do to, you know,
help that population.
I think that's where your fisheries
biologist can really help out.
So I think where we're
trying to get, or I think, that's
what Max was trying to do.
And we're just lucky that
we're considered a
naturally reproducing lake.
You've been on the lake,
it's varied, it's got islands,
it rock piles, it's
fresh water coming into it.
That's why I moved here.
When did you start seeing
a difference as a fisherman in
this process?
Well, I think in
2002
when we bought this place,
the fishing was really good,
and the data supports it,
too.
I would say it was 2015,
maybe in
those areas where it
was like, man, I'm really working.
I'm working really hard.
I could go out here on
our North Shore.
Troll, you know,
from 8.30 to
9 o'clock and
have enough fish, you know, there
was a limit was three,
but had enough fish where I could
bring it in and I could filet them
up and we could have a fish fry.
That wasn't anymore.
You know, it was harder and harder.
And sometimes when we were trolling,
we were catching crappies.
And there's some interesting studies
about crappies and walleyes.
That was a big change
for me. I'm catching crappies on
what I'm trolling for walleyes
and usually, you know, so that's
when things started getting
different.
By the time 2017 came around,
people are better fisher than me,
and there's a lot of them, but
everybody was saying, man, it's
tough. It's really hard.
So I would say from that time
on. So it was a good 20
years of decline
In a lake like this,
if you're down to two walleyes per
acre, that's
not a lot of fish.
So since then, have you seen
an uptick?
Have you been able to see the work?
Oh yeah, it's
all the work I've done, and the
team is done. It's not really us.
We've had, remarkably,
we've had a couple of
years of good recruitment.
And as much as we can stock, and
we did stock,
there's nothing like mother nature
to get the job done.
But it was a turnaround in
recruitment and the fact that we
were stocking.
That, so I had, we
had good recruitment in 2018,
2020.
21 and 2, it's
rare. So we had like
three or four good years
of recruitment where on
a one mile they're finding,
in fact Mark called me and said on
this lake as long as you don't tell
anybody, they were finding
25 fish per mile.
That's a big number.
That's like the numbers that you
saw, the data that you from 97.
So the recruitments really helped.
We believe the stocking has helped
too.
I don't know how the, we were going
to assess doing
tree drops because that's what we've
changed to,
how that's going to help the
numbers, but we know that that
creates a huge amount of
not only habitat but
food stuff for fish and
places for perch to
nest in and so
it's going to help, but I don't
know if we'd be able to figure that
out.
We are going to do a
population estimate for
wall ice next year.
Glyphlic will be helping us.
I know the DNR will pitch in.
And that's what we're going to try
to understand on this lake,
which survived better.
Minnow-fed fish or
pellet-raised fish.
And many states around the upper
Midwest are just
stocking with pellet raised fish.
Minnow-raise fish are wildly
expensive.
So that's the real interesting study
that NADF
is going to do.
We're all interested in it.
The DNR is interested in.
Lance and the people at Red Cliff
are interested.
But that's what's going to happen.
But right now we believe
we're at 4.3
walleyes per acre,
so it's a great improvement.
Now do you notice that as a
fisherman, someone can tell you
the numbers but compared to where
you were eight years ago when you
started this, do you feel when you
go out in the boat?
Yeah, I had a really
neat experience this last
fall when we were clipping fins.
I like to say an older gentleman,
but I guess that's what
I am now.
But I think he had a few years
on me, and he
grabbed my arm and he said, thank
you. He said, our fishing
hasn't been better for
years and years.
And so this was a guy
who was up clipping fins, somebody
who had brought his family up.
For decades, and now
the fishing was back.
And any number of people have told
me that the fishing, you know, was a
lot better. Now they complain the
fish aren't big enough,
which is not a project I'm
gonna take on.
But you know that's
good news.
And I'm catching more fish.
Now our fish relate.
A lot of times people say, I can't
catch any fish, and I said, where
are you fishing?
And they're saying, rock piles and
20 feet of water.
And I'm saying, don't fish there.
You know, they're in the weeds.
I don't know if that's a behavioral
thing or if they've always been in
the weeds, but that's where I catch
my fish. They're in weeds.
So we talked about the involvement
of the Red Cliff band,
and obviously they're key to all of
this. What were the attitudes of
the locals towards the
spearing and the rights of the
Chippewa to come in here back when
you first got up?
Oh, you know, here's the,
if I can tell a funny story,
is when this group of fishermen got
together in
2017, I think it was January
of 2018,
and Mark Laring was in the meeting
with us, and Marc
works for Glifwick, and
we got into the conversation
is that the fault was the tribes,
they're sparing too many fish.
You know, Mark is well versed,
you know, he's been able to handle
the Mille Lacs group and
he explained exactly what
the numbers are.
And so, you know, it's
really hard to get attitudes
changed.
So in the meeting I said, well,
Mark, can you tell us what happens
when you get together
with tribal members?
Oh, he starts laughing.
He says, yeah, they complained
that all the fish,
that hook line fisherman.
Take, go right into the live well.
In other words, we don't bring
fish back.
So everybody's blaming
each other.
You know, the data is the
data. When that meeting was done,
a well-known fisherman on
this lake came up to me and shook my
hand and said, I wish you the best
of luck.
I just don't believe
you're going to have any success.
And so that was
the attitude about...
It's their fault.
And the attitude for some
of the tribal fishermen is it's
there fault.
No question when you take a
fish and you flay it,
that's one less fish in the lake.
But we started
losing our recruitment
in 2002.
Tribal experience started well
before then.
If it had been that, that
would have dropped immediately.
The formula that they use
is pretty straightforward.
It's a really hard formula to
understand, but 35%
of the fish are harvestable.
Between Bad River and Red
Cliff, they take a
third of that, so they
don't take 35%.
And so they establish their quota.
And if the ice is good and
the season is good,
hook and line fishermen take the
rest.
Last year, a couple
of years ago, we had a survey.
We weren't taking that 35%
by a log shot,
both between the tribes and
hook and line fishermen.
So if you notice, I tried not to say
spearing.
So we're taking less and less fish.
So that's not the problem.
The problem was recruitment and
what's causing the recruitment to go
down. And that's happening all
over.
The lakes are either getting warmer,
which is true, there's
more crappies.
So there's an interesting paper
speculating that crappie's
may have an effect.
There was a thought about
largemouth
bass and
northern pike.
I'd say like everything is
probably true, but our
lakes are warming, our lakes are
changing a little bit, and
that's the
reality.
So I think if you look at
this lake now, I think
the fishermen are saying,
you know, it's working.
One interesting thing that happened
two years ago
is there was a
youth spearing.
On this lake in the spring.
And that's where I don't know how
many kids they bring up.
Lance told me about it, but they
had a powwow or
a blessing of the lake.
And I got phone calls from people
saying, so
it was at night, it was
dark, it was listening to
the tribe with
the drums and
people were saying, it's just
beautiful.
The kids, I think,
got 80 fish.
It's not spearing, and
I think we're getting there.
We have meetings now, and
we've gotten away from that.
But when I first started, people
said, gee, I'd really like to help,
Mike. What can I do?
And I'd say, well, you could
help with some stuff.
And they say, you know what?
The problem's the spearing.
All right, you're not on the list,
because we don't need that.
Those are the things that would
say what would break up
this collaboration.
That would do it easily.
You know, if Lance fell, now
when Lance, when we stock fish and I
stock fish with Lance, he's
the most meticulous guy in the
world.
He doesn't let a single floater go,
because one floater is found and
they blame the tribes.
But we're getting there.
And I do believe
that, that we're getting there.
And I think we're an example
of it.
We're also very lucky that
recruitment has seemed to have
turned around a little bit.
And I don't know
that they can explain that as any
better they can the decline.
But I think things in the habitat
or in the lake have changed.
So temperature is certainly one.
Do you think some of the
the fishermen who want to blame
the tribal members and their rights
understand on the other side that
the tribes are the ones helping to
raise the fish that are being
stocked back in or do they only view
them as takers?
No, I think they only view them
as takers, and we
first started with Chase Mariato,
who was at the
hatchery, and I said the
same thing to Lance, is
you got a PR problem here that
you're not really working on,
and the PR problem is
where you're spearing fish,
you're stocking fish.
You're concerned about the
habitat. You're concerned about
the population.
And most people don't get
that.
And I try to explain that when we
have any of our meetings
that Lance and team
are out on another lake.
Usually it's kept a secret for
a while.
And they're taking pigs
and they're going to stock that lake
also.
So if you think of
the area lakes and the lakes that
Redcliff likes to
spear.
They're working at it,
and it's not well...
Publicized and maybe that's
not their style, but I'm
an old marketing guy.
I would be letting people know
Do you think there's a generational
difference in mindset that
some of the people who've been up
here for a long time may remember
the 80s, and even if they
weren't here, remember hearing about
the boat landing kind
of stuff.
So I asked Chase once,
a number of years ago, if
I could go at
one of their spearing.
And he said, Mike, I'd recommend
you didn't.
So I looked up
what happened with Red
Cliff.
And there's a couple of members of
that tribe that got
injured.
And so there's still hard feelings.
And there's hard feelings here.
That I hear recently
somewhere, somebody, I don't
believe in our, between our
tribes, but somebody slashed tigers.
It's like a friend though.
Lock the flambeau.
So, it's one of those you go...
Is that where we're at still?
The problem is, if it is
a problem of declining wall-line
numbers, there is a problem with
declining recruitment.
It's not because the
tribal members are
spearing. And the most hopeful thing
for me is the DNR
now when we're in meetings has
nothing to do with it.
They won't accept the conversation,
they won't except the argument.
They're saying they're
not the problem.
That's not it.
We're not going there.
And that keeps the conversation.
Because it used to be the DNR would
kind of destroy their shoulders.
The Glyphwick is an asset
to them, Glypwick
is
another resource to them and
it's a resource to us
and we easily
can work together and do.
Have you met Mark?
Mark is a wonderful guy.
I've spoken with the mic.
And they're
very helpful.
And Nate Thomas, our fisheries
biologist, they
all accept.
So when we do our population
estimate next
spring, there will be
20 nets from
Glyphwick.
Maybe we'll use some of Red
Cliff's Fike nets.
We'll have
five or six boats and maybe one will
be DNR.
Maybe Lance will be on another,
uh, Lance and Rob, but
the others will be Glyphwick and
we'll do our count.
It's just a great resource and
they're good biologists.
They're just good biologists,
they're not political biologists.
They're not teaming up for the
tribes.
And I think the DNR has understood
that.
And I they're generationally
have figured out, OK,
that's not the issue.
And we just can't have our local
fishermen.
Upsetting themselves about it
because it's the law.
It's settled.
There's not a discussion.
I saw an article in an
Ashland newspaper about,
said, depending on what side you're
on, and I was irritated.
There are no sides.
This is settled law.
The courts in the land have said
this is it, and it's a treaty.
On top of that, the one thought I
had is, can you imagine living here
a couple hundred years ago
when the ice comes off,
it's wonderful for Mary
and I when the eyes comes off the
lake that there was this
gift that gave them
that fish would come right to shore.
You know, it was protein, it is
fresh protein.
So it must have been a fantastic
thing. So I think the fact that the.
Take that history,
come out on the lake,
and you've been on the Lake.
It's cold.
It's really cold.
And they spear a couple
of fish.
They are counted.
Mark has done a number of
videos.
They're counted, they're measured.
You know, it's time to be really
over with that.
I think many of the
people on this lake,
in the hardcore fishermen and
I think the other difference is
you can't look
at wall light now.
And say it's gonna be a source
of protein for my family.
The tribes don't.
I don't know, but I think many years
ago, the fish were abundant.
There were less people on the lake.
There weren't any McMansions.
There weren't any lawns
that we were, you know, mowing down
to the water.
There were a lot more fish in the
water and you could have a source
of protein.
I don't it certainly isn't for me.
Nothing I like more, I was at a
restaurant last night and I had
fried walleye.
It didn't come from here.
But anyway, it's it
can't be a source of protein.
I think many people did.
I told you about my grandfather
and grandmother immigrants.
It was a source protein.
They loved to fish, but and
so I think some of that attitude has
come off.
The last time I was, we
were together down
at Lake Woods, a fisherman,
one that I would call one of
the harder core fishermen.
Pretty much what we were doing,
and was very supportive,
but the one comment he had that was
negative.
We should be very careful with
forward-facing sonar.
I thought, well now here's a guy
that's worried about how
we're fishing rather than
worried about others.
So he knows he has better fishing
on this lake but he's
concerned about how we are taking
fish.
So I think it's getting better.
That's a long way of saying it.
I think it's good.
Well, you brought up something that
I want to talk about, and that's
why, why walleye.
Why walleye?
What is walleye, like the
fish, the species?
That's a great question.
I don't know it.
You know first off it does taste
great It's unbelievable
on the plate.
There's not a lot of bones in it
Unless you get a big fish, and then
there's the pin bones and you
can take care of those pretty easy
It's an excellent eating
fish. I think northern pike
are better I know how to take
the Y bones out thanks to Bobby
And I can take them out almost
as fast as I can um,
filet a walleye.
I like sunfish, but walleyes
are sort of the
symbol of what everybody
wants to catch.
That's the only way I can describe
it, because I can't understand,
you know, I mean, for those people
who live on lakes that really should
be sun panfish,
northern pike lakes, you
now, they insist on having walleyes
per din, or big day of
walleyers per din.
I think if you can make
that sunfish population much
better, but it's walley.
People love to fish for walleyess.
What is it about catching them?
Take me through what it's
like when you know there's a
walleye.
Because it's a different bite,
right?
It is a different bite.
You can tell how it feels, whether
people call it head shakes or,
you know, they don't jump.
They're not as much fun as a
smallmouth.
And even the little sneaky northern
will give a better fight.
But when you have a good walleye on
and then when they get up
a little closer to the boat and
decide that that's not
where they want to be, then you can
tell sometimes, wow, I really have a
nice fish on. I
don't I get
it, but I can't have a hard time
describing it to you, but you know
it when you're fishing for walleyes.
In fact, I think I
can tell, almost every fish I
catch, I'll go, that's
not a walleye.
And that's probably the first thing
I say, that it's not walleye."
You're discounting it, right?
I'd discount it immediately, no it's
not acting like a walleye.
So that is part of it, it's
part of the, I don't know if it's a
mystique or it's part of
fun of it.
I still enjoy fishing and
I enjoy catching walleyes and I have
to tell you, a small mouth bass
is like three times more fun.
Walleyes are a big deal.
And walleyes would attract
money, attract
tourism.
It's part of the history, whether
you're a hook-and-line fisherman.
50 years ago on this lake,
your grandparents or parents,
you were catching walleyEs.
And that was important to you.
Smallmouth bass, much better.
But there's a generational thing,
like do you remember the first time
that your son caught a wild eye?
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, absolutely.
And we, like I said, when we were
out here, when we first moved and
could take our boat out and a couple
of slip-bobbers,
and I'm working hard taking
the fish off the hooks more than I'm
actually fishing.
Because you could have a couple of
those nights that,
you know, it was just fun.
And almost more like panfish,
but it was good walleye fishing,
and then you could...
You know, by the end of the evening,
you could have, you know, three of
them, you know, 14 inches, I
think the limit was under,
you know, up to nothing over
14, you know, something like that.
Limits have changed.
That's the other thing I think has
helped, by the way.
I think our new limits are.
But, I mean, you've got a young
grandson. Yep.
He's not quite ready for that
part yet. He's two.
That's got to be in the back of your
mind. It's like, I want to be there
when he gets his first one.
I want see the look on his face.
Well, yeah, I want to see
the look on his face with his
first fish.
Walleye will be, yeah.
I would like to be there.
I mean, I'd like to be part of that.
I'd liked there to be walleye here
so that my son can have that
experience so that he can,
you know, his grandson is
Adrian, so he can take Adrian and
and fish for
walleyes and be
the have that experience in
it. I'd like him to have that
experience on this lake.
Which is a decent walleye lake
rather than have to take him
on a long ride somewhere else
uh... To catch a fish.
That works too but it
would be nice if he could come up
here and then Adrian and
the young
seven-year-old would,
you know, say, Grandpa, I caught my
first walleye and be all excited
about it.
And that's what, you
know, like my first northern
pike that I caught on my own, that
was a big deal.
Well, I mean, I'm sure you can
imagine the time when it's like, all
right, let's run on down to the
water. Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Just head on out to the boat.
Another part of the aspect of
your life is obviously your wife.
There are some relationships that
fishing is separate, and some
where fishing gets incorporated.
How is yours?
Well, she loves to fish.
She's a good fisherman.
She's better a fisherman than I am.
When we first got married, my
wife is a lot smarter than I
am, so she's the academic
in the household, and she's really
smart.
So we went to Canada,
and I
said, we're going to go fish in the
morning. She said, great.
She had a great big straw hat with
a visor on it and five books.
That she carried down to the boat.
I went, okay.
And so we went out,
and the very first fish
she caught, we stopped in one place
and we trawled through it.
She caught a five pound walleye.
That's a big fish.
And she was like, oh my
God.
And so, we
put it back.
It was a very big fish, and
then we went to a deep area
and she caught a 10 pound lake
trout.
The next morning,
at about 5 a.m., she was kicking
the end of the bed,
and when coffee was on, she said,
come on, we're going fishing.
The book stayed back at the cabin,
and she's always been a really good
fisherman.
You know, she's not as, she has
a lot of other things in her life
that are important to her.
We're gonna go on a fishing
trip in August
and she'll out catch me.
In fact, last year
we were on a fishing trip and
she caught the first fish
and it was like 26.
And of course we put it back.
Even where we were at, we put that
back.
And then she out fished me for the
rest of them.
So it's like, I just give up.
So she's a good fisherman,
the relationship, that's important
because she has to
be willing to live up here too,
so she has things that are
important to her,
but she's generous
enough to, and she likes the
lake life, but it was generous
enough to.
Maybe a more academic life.
But I'm sure you know guys
that never see their wives because
they're always out fishing or maybe
they've lost a marriage due to that.
Fishing in widows is a pretty
common thing.
Be really bad.
There's a lot of people that I
guess I know a
few that fish and
not not with their spouses or
whatever consider it.
But you know I do think of it
as something to do with others.
I do fish on my own but
I'm not crazy.
If I fish on my own I'm
trying to find where they're at at
the season.
So as you
know early in the spring.
The fish are very shallow and
I try to understand what they would
bite shallow, but when
they move, where are they moving
to, what weed beds,
they're usually at weed beds.
I do that for myself.
If I want to eat any fish, I go for
pan fish.
But having my wife with me
is very important.
And we enjoy our time together
doing that.
She's just not as, she doesn't want
to be on the walleye project.
So she has other things.
We've covered a lot of territory
here.
Anything else that you can think of
that comes to mind?
Otherwise, I'm sure we'll have other
opportunities.
Is working on this with me.
His name is Ted Pichel, and I've
told him, I said,
you get into a meeting or you have a
conversation with somebody
and they say the problem's the
tribes.
Don't be nice.
You have to say, that's
not true.
There's data that supports
that we catch more fish,
hook and line fishermen, and I don't
want to make it racial, than
the tribes do.
And what you're saying about the
tribes is not accurate.
I said, Ted, you can say it nicer or
more diplomatic than I
am, but that's no true.
Excuse me. And I think we have to
get there. And so I'm glad
you asked about that, and,
you know, they have every right in
the world. They're wonderful people.
I think of, was it
1540 when they finally
moved here in
this cold area,
and they found this fish that comes
to the surface, almost,
in the spring.
It must have been a wonderful
experience, you're
eating wild rice.
Not much, any dry berries, and
now you can get some fish or fresh
meat. So I think it's wonderful.
I hope they continue to do it, and
I told Ted, I said, you
absolutely have to say that's
not accurate.
And I've been really pleased with
DNR, is that they
don't put up with the conversation
anymore.
And they say the same things,
that it's not accurate, but,
you know, for us,
You know, you want to be...
One of the guys,
and, yeah, you know, it's the
tribes.
And I explained to Ted, I said,
well, you gotta tell him, no,
I'm not having that conversation,
and that's not true.
And I think you have to find the
nicest way to say that is not.
Because it gets us all
screwed up.
We're worried about what the other
people are doing, what others
are.
And if you think about this
collaboration, then that
would end it.
And that's why the guy who said, I'd
like to help you, and the first
advice he was going to give me is
the problem is the tribes.
You're off the list, buddy.
Ted is all with me all
the way, you know, it's
not true.
It's a conversation that has to be
had. I think if we get here,
if we had another big meeting,
I don't think you'd get many
questions anymore.
Where in the winter
of 2018, a lot of questions.
You know, everybody's seeing there's
more fish, we're working together,
Red Cliff is here, everybody
likes Lance, Rob is
great, the hatchery is
working.
Um, and I wish they would
hire a PR guy,
um, to talk a
little bit more about what they're
Cause they, you know, they're, they
help on other legs too.
I mean, it's smart, but you know
they're in there.
That's why I tried to get the
community, and
you'll see that,
up to Red Cliff,
and we'll clip fins,
and if I could get some of them to
help lance clip, that'd be fun too.
All right, so I think what we'd like
to do is we're going to put a little
wireless mic on you back again just
so you can kind of walk around.
I was hoping you could kind of show
off some of your fish.
Maybe walk us through some of the
photos you've got here.
Sure.
Sure. Before that, I just need 30
seconds of quiet if that's
all right. We have to get some sound
of the room.
Yeah, so it's...