Go play videographer.
Love to see you.
I'll show you the back door.
Okay, let's give you one second.
Yeah. Do you have contact info?
Yeah, I do have a card myself.
Yeah, great.
We're with PBS Wisconsin.
We're doing a big story about
walleye fishing and, you know, we
keep...
What we find is everywhere we go, we
find more people, family
connections, and it's like...
I know all the really cool, I don't
know if you look.
Up by Mole Lake, there's a guy that
raises walleyes. I don't know if he
ever been up there.
He raises like 100,000 walleyed a
year. We supply him minnows to feed
those fish.
That's kind of, I dunno if you guys
ever did a story about that, that's
cool. He's got a really cool set up.
He's actually, it's through the
tribe, Sakagan, but he's
from Iowa originally.
He's not a native guy, but he just
like a fish.
You were able to get a shot of
him, and then, yeah.
14 glass of water right now.
That's a lot for a block of air.
That's water right there.
Let's go. Sorry.
I got a real light.
Thank you so much.
Alright, I'll get out of here.
Come on.
I don't want to be interviewed.
Oh, okay.
I'll be back on Thursday then, so,
yeah, alright.
Alright, yep.
See ya. I'm just going to follow you
with your chocolate.
Okay, sure.
That's cool.
Alright, you ready?
Yeah!
Why don't we start from the front
door and then kind of come in as
if you're a
perspective person, and then we'll
kind of walk
and talk. That works.
We're sort of coming in the back
door. Yeah, just a night.
Yeah, I know that works for us.
Unless it goes all the other way.
Or LLC.
Oh, okay.
I'm going to do the other one.
Yeah
hello hello so
if you could give
me a start on walleye
if i want to go catch a walleye what
do i got to know what if where where
should i start here
Well we have a very nice Lake
Winnebago right next to us here.
I would say get
a nice fishing
pole, a decent one.
There's different grades of fishing
poles, there's a light for like
pan fish, there's like a
medium light for walleye,
and then there's heavy ones for like
Lake Michigan, heavier stuff,
but we're mostly
focused on
walleye and panfish off
of Lake Winnebago for this
particular shot.
Well show me around, what's
going to catch me a walleye?
Well, depends how good a fisherman
you are.
I suppose.
Well, you've got to take me through
some of the bait and some of the
options that you have.
Okay, if we turn
around here, we have
our own flies
and we make
fly rigs.
And they're using a
little pencil
sinker for a weight and they're
using that for catching walleyes.
And that's just one technique that
they're here on Lake Winnebago.
Over here
We do sell
your fishing license and
all kinds of license right here
also. So it makes it easier for
a one-stop shop.
These are the little pencil
sinkers that we use for
making fly rigs,
so we have all assortment here.
We have a good selection of
brand new reels.
We also have pamphlets
on your
fishing and hunting, so
we do have a nice little counter
here. We
carry
Ice fishing stuff here in Rome,
because a lot of people like to
use them for pan fishing.
Not so much walleye, but for
panfishing.
We have a
good selection of
live bait.
That's our sorting table over there.
We have sorting
table for leeches
here.
You say a good selection of live
bait, we just got...
A big truckload of bait came
in, as you
saw there.
We'll walk on this way.
This is one of our coolers
that we have all our live bait in.
80% of the fishermen
are using night crawlers
at this time.
It kind of goes, sometimes
it's the walleye
want meat or sometimes
they want a crankbait as
such.
So that's part of the, you've
got to change to be flexible.
Over here.
This is some of the stuff we make
in-house.
We're making in-line
sinker weights.
We make all of this.
This is some of
our leadhead jigs that we make.
We package it all ourself in-
house and
they have UPC codes on the back of
all of them.
Uh, down here.
I'll tell you a story about that
after a while.
Down here is all our selection of
hooks and bobbers.
Behind us, we have more
jigs that we make, all
different styles.
Some people like the little round
ball head jig.
People like a minnow style,
we make all of those.
These are some of the rigs that we
made,
the perch rig and
floating jigs.
We make all these floating
jigs also right here.
And these also have
UPC codes on them.
This is our closeout section,
we go around around the corner here,
as I was saying we
ice fishing jigs out year-round.
We have a whole
wall display just
for ice fishing jigs.
On this side we have
plastic that we make in-house.
A little plastic
for ice fishing.
We also make like plastic worms.
We also have a good supply of
kids,
fishing pole combos already
ready to go.
I mean that's normal.
We carry some
crank
baits here.
A lot of the professional fishermen
are using the Salmos.
They're a little bit on the
expensive side, but we're
just the middle man so we can't My
channel These are Salmos.
Colors vary day by day,
depending on the overcast.
A lot of them like the
fluorescent colors, or gold colors.
That's always a good
standby.
When it comes to the kids' poles,
what's the importance of having a
pole that, like, you got Star
Wars, you got some other ones, like
for a kid to be interested in it,
like to get a kid into fishing?
Well, some kids just
want a fishing pole
to start out with, and some
kids are so intense
on having, I
have to have a Star War one.
Just for starting out, a good
brand name is Zipco,
and that's a good standby.
It's good for any size kid,
the three feet general
size for that.
So we got a good selection here.
We even have some
Little pink ones for the little
girls.
Like I say, we have some
crankbaits here on the wall
for walleye fishing.
A lot of guys have their
favorite colors that they'd like to
go with.
But I would say 80%
work the same as anything else.
Around the corner here.
Like to show you.
You've probably heard of knife
crawler harnesses, okay.
This whole wall is for making knife
crawlers and all these
packages are in-house.
So we have the beads and the hooks
and the blades and
we make them in the back room
and put them out as in-
house manufacturing.
Pretty good selection all the
way down of beads
and blades here.
Now we have a good
display of different
style, different kind of
rods up here, right above them.
On the back side here now,
a good displayed of
bass worms.
We make some of that.
We make all of these
jigs here for bass fishing.
They can be used for walleye also,
depends on how finesse you want to
get.
Okay, we're going to walk down this
way a little bit.
We have bash
jigs, spinners.
We have our in-house.
Pan fish little spinners that we
make right here.
These all have UPS codes, so it's
a lot easier to take them up to the
counter and scan them.
We have a good display of
rods and reels.
They're not all just
for walleye.
So we have different sizes
for the kids.
Some kids want a purple one,
pink one, so we try
to show them that anyway.
We have a
little display right here.
We also have, we carry nets,
all different sizes and shapes.
We have some plastic here for
walleye, bass.
A lot of stores carry these
particular type for walleye.
You have to carry a few
full A's just in case you do catch
a walleye.
This is our accessories
for swivels
and treble hooks and
we carry some
catfish bait here.
And like I say, we have a good
selection of
different size and shape
rods and reels.
Now here's our riding
wheel corner all
the way around.
And we have a few on this side.
And we do have a few
antique lures for
sale.
We have some telescopic
rods.
Some people are starting to get
into.
Using these off of the back of the
bolt.
And then you use these off of the
back of the boat for trolling.
That's quite the ride.
And this is a 14 foot or up
to 16 or even 20 footer
off of the back of boat for
trolling.
And different sizes.
We got some catfish rods
and reels.
Now I can give
you a sales pitch on
what weight rod you would like.
We don't try to oversell.
We just show people.
You don't want a real, real
light rod, but you don't
a real heavy
rod also.
So and
we even
we kind of ask them for like what
kind of a price range are you think
about spending we have them
from twenty dollars up to
a hundred dollars for combos so
if you step this way we'll kind
of give you a sales
pitch for
a while well here's
here's one for that hundred dollars
just i'll Give you a sales pitch,
it's lightweight.
Carbon nice nice
rod and wheel combo
Something like this, nice
flugr.
It all depends on how you
feel on handling a rod and
a reel. I mean, we can
sell you any kind
of rod and reel or whatever you
like, but we don't try to
oversell.
And that makes a difference.
Got a nice cabin
at the corner.
So...
I don't know.
What else would you like to say?
I mean, I'll try to...
You're ready, all right.
Well, give me your background.
How did you get into this?
When did you decide?
You know what I should open up is a
big tackle store.
Well, it started
25, 30 years ago.
I started taking some of
my lead jigs
to work with me and
showing some of my friends at work,
oh yeah, can I buy some of these,
can I buy those?
And I said sure, and then,
well, it just kept on
building after a while.
And then I got my son involved.
I bought him a...
Fly tying vise,
and he started tying flies,
and then my friends wanted
flies, so okay,
we started, and after
a while we did
have a little
shop up in Michigan
for a year,
and it got too hard
to be traveling back and forth and
everything, so.
We kind of stepped back for
a little while and looked at
property down here.
And we decided on
a good location like
this. I mean, it's near the
lake and it's convenient and
not very far from the house.
Yeah, so did you, you must have
grown up fishing or is fishing a
part of your life all along?
Well, yes,
being from the UP,
I guess we had more time to go
fishing and a lot more fun up
there because there's a
lot of lakes close by.
And you walk to some of the lakes
down here, you know, some lakes are
20 miles apart.
But yeah, I did quite a bit
of fishing up north.
So when did you start creating your
own baits?
30, 30-some years ago,
it just snowballed, I guess
you might say.
Was that something for fun, or just
to say...
It was making
baits for myself,
and then, you know, I started
taking a few to work with me and
my friends seemed interesting
and, oh, can you make
these here and can you make
something a little bit different and
can ya make some flies
and make spinners
and it just kind
of snowballed and a
hobby turns into a business.
What's great about this is you've
got family with you, right?
Yes.
Why is that so important to
doing this?
As a family business,
I think you have more
personal touch even
to the customers that come in
instead of being a
higher corporate
shop as
such. It has like
a more personal a touch and
get them involved and if
they like it they'll stick around.
If they don't like it, they won't
stick around, that's...
It's been working okay for us, so.
And you probably see the same
families come back as your
customers, right?
You probably remember little kids.
A story.
We have a customer,
when he was a teenager,
he would ride his bike with a little
cart on the back and
he'd come in
practically every day or every other
day.
And now we've been here now over 23
years so this is,
he started coming in when we first
started and now he's like
35 years old and he still comes in
every other with his
wife and his kid.
So it's kind of unique that
way.
Talk to me about, what is it about
walleye that gets people hooked
on fishing?
Well...
Fishing for walleye is
a little bit different than fishing
for panfish.
Walleye generally you have to
go out into the water.
Sure you can fish from shore but
out in the water it's
probably more enjoyable for the
kids and they're not
quite so restricted as how
close you are to somebody else.
Like if you fish from shore,
they may be fishing elbow to elbow.
And it's just,
well, I'd probably put up a
better fight than some other
panfish.
Although, you know, the
kids do like fishing for panfish
also.
And when a kid catches a
walleye and they pull this huge fish
out, what does it do to them?
Well, I just...
It's a...
Remembrance that they caught a
nice size fish, sometimes
if they go into the park
and catch a five or
six or seven inch little panfish,
they don't remember that as much
as they would be catching a
20 inch walleye because they're so
nice and fat and they
can use it for
for a meal.
Some panfish they can't really use
for a a meal and it's just
a good
remembrance I guess you might say
and that's why it's
and for
throughout the whole state walleye
could almost be
the state fish and
it's just uh
it just walleye everybody knows
what walleye you know walleye
well for fish right I gotta have a
walleye plate I don't want
a Mm-mm.
Just walleye stuff, the one,
right?
It's number one or number two on
the list.
So, if you would, can you
show us a little bit of how you make
some of the lures?
Is that possible?
Do you have your your setup open to
either to put together a rig or
something for us just so we can see
a little video?
Okay, I'm going to turn that over
to my partner.
Okay.
I'll introduce her.
I mean, we got.
Well, you gotta talk over here.
We have a microphone over here
Any kind of wall light setup would
be great.
You can just show each of what you
do.
They came in with some nice fish
there, didn't they?
21, 22s.
It's either going to 44 or it's
going to be fired up by
them all.
Okay, yeah, that's where they're
getting it right now, by
Butte-a-Mole Bridge.
Yeah,
okay.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
This is all we got.
It's hot.
Okay.
We just got in ten
tons of leeches.
Oh.
And that'll only last us for
three, four, five days.
We sell them by the end of the year.
Okay, you ready?
Yeah, I just can't find any in my
regular flyhook, so I'll just have
to do gold.
Okay, yeah, just for one
or two
Because we make a lot of them, we
make a lot more stuff ourselves.
Oh, I get it.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, guys.
Bye.
Oh, what do you think?
There's our chubbs and rosies there.
Hahahaha
So this is what I, this is the time,
so that's all over there.
A couple of weeks ago.
Oh yeah
There's a lifetime
loop of older guys
that renovate
those streamers.
Couple of dozen?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah, come follow me.
And he had gone
bigger and bigger.
All right
It's just careful.
I tie at least 1,000 a year.
Do people regularly
ask for custom orders?
They know what they're catching them
on, and that's what they need?
I thought you had it over here.
Huh? I thought that you had over
here...
About a thousand a year.
Thank you very much.
It'll take me about two minutes, so
it's gonna take a little while.
Pin
Oh yeah.
Your receipt
Okay, you're good to go.
Thank you.
They go too fast.
Nom nom nom nom
Right here, but what?
Uh-huh.
There you go. Here, right here.
I get it.
Alright, two of there?
So, we started making our own.
Okay
over here.
I know how to do this.
She's excited.
She's not used to doing it.
The barcode's on the rod.
The bar code's on a rod.
95
Well, to
be fair, the one on the right
is on the 4th gear, sorry.
8.
20. 30.
Thank you.
You're good?
Very nice. All right.
So press main. You'll have to be
here just for a while again.
All right, now press first.
It's a big festival.
I'm going to have a bite here.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Okay, you got it all.
All taken care of.
I have a wide range of children, so
I bring them in.
I had to order a virtual
for $10,000.
Yeah, no problem.
Maybe not the youngest.
You can do it right here.
No, no, no.
Now I want to tell you about these,
if you put water in there you got to
let it sit for like overnight.
Okay. We have our own bedding
that you don't have to do nothing
with.
Okay. I just want to show it to you,
okay?
All right.
You don't have to put no water in
here and it's really good
and we use them for all of our
crawlers.
I mean, you can use that if you
want, we'll sell it to you there,
but this is our,
well, we use.
Okay.
So.
You can feel the difference there.
Oh yeah.
Got moisture in it and you don't
even need water for it.
No need water for it.
Are you selling this?
We're selling it in like
a ice cream pail,
four pound ice cream pail.
Okay. You want one or two?
Oh, how much are they?
Five marks.
I'll take, I'll two of
them.
Okay, well...
I can tie them all up.
I can try them all out.
Mom, I can get them in.
What's that?
Are you okay?
Not afraid to teach this?
Yeah. There's more people doing it.
That's awesome.
Show you their difference anyway.
It makes it a little bit easier on
you.
I need tri-colors,
like that one.
This is the basic one to show you.
And then I'll take care of
everything for a day.
I measure with my finger because I
don't, because then it's easier
for me to go on like this all the
time.
I've learned things that have helped
me.
All this is is a black tail that's
been dyed.
It has long hairs and
thin hairs.
Okay
I'm trying to find ones that
are, can I measure it again?
Take the extra long hairs out,
take the extra short hairs out and
measure it.
Your receipts and all?
Yeah.
My fingers are nimble and I'm
going to take this over the head and
tie it.
And you got a ten dozen in two
boxes, two things there.
Alright, perfect. Thank you.
All the way to that bridge.
Yeah, I think you'll be more
satisfied with that.
Okay.
Yeah.
Let's work to go into it.
Otherwise you gotta like wait
overnight when you put water in it.
It'll burn, actually burn the worms
if you put them in too soon with
that stuff there.
Alright.
There was two
walleye tournaments yesterday,
75 boats each and
they were coming in with 20,
21, 22 inch nice
healthy walleye.
That's good.
So they are starting to catch a
few, they're not real big ones yet,
but 20 inches is
good for us.
Anything on perch out
here?
They're getting some coffee
and some...
Buffy and forget
what, in the park,
probably some bluegill in the park,
smaller fan fish in
warmer water, so they're
right around that that wooden bridge
in the Park, in by
the paddle boats.
Okay. Make sense?
Perfect.
Than I am.
This is a nice eight
foot all-around
combo.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
And some
fishermen don't like them quite so
long so we say okay we got
shorter rods for you.
So I mean that's why we try to carry
a good variety.
Depends on how hard of
a sales pitch you want me to give to
you, you know, I just feel that one.
Okay, good feeling.
And it's, it's it's
well, I'm going to say it's
reasonable price.
Yeah, it's not bad.
For the ride and the reel.
Yeah.
Now we can show you all kinds of
wall-like setups, combos.
Like I said, we try to find out what
kind of price range you're looking
for.
And we don't try to oversell, we
just let you to pick it up.
So,
Ethan was just walking down
the stairs.
Okay, I'm kind of
checking these out,
make sure that's all good.
Hanging some of these up.
Yep, we'll just, uh, if you could
just have you walk all the way down.
Okay
Perfect, okay, and then I'll have
you walk back, but I'm going to go
down there first.
Perfect!
But it's, we got quite a bit of
stuff in here.
Hmm, let's just
pick out something here.
Just a little.
Nice general walleye
combo.
Lightweight and reasonable price.
And we have a good selection.
You don't necessarily have to go
with just black.
We have other colors you can
pick from also.
So that's just some of our
selection that we have for walleye
fishing.
You got it going on here?
Uh, I sure wouldn't tell.
Okay.
And I don't know when you first came
in, there's, we have all this
bait here.
I don't smell anything.
I don't know. It's not, there's
no.
No, no, some of them, yeah, you can
go to some place.
This for you?
Okay. Okay.
Alright
They've got some
movie shoots going on today,
huh?
Ah, sure would tell.
Now we're a best kept secret and
final act.
Yeah.
What would you say about the night
crawlers? What do you think about
them?
You always get some good crawlers.
Speak up, I didn't hear you.
You always, you always get good
crawler.
I don't know, I've been coming here
for 27 years,
so...
All right.
HUH-AH!
I'm just going to hide this, no
product placement of Dr. Pepper.
No, no.
Okay, that's no problem.
No problem.
We're doing okay here, I guess.
Taking notes here.
All right.
Oh
Just pretend I'm not here.
Okay, we got you, yeah Yeah.
Just some b-roll, there you go.
Thank you.
Okay.
Perfect.
What are some of your insights of
this place here?
What were you thinking?
Why do you think we're
making it or doing so good,
or what, any opinions?
Doing your own, having your own
stuff I think adds a
lot to what everyone's looking for.
Okay.
That's
Where we get our bait, or where we
fish up north, it's location
and then what's the quality.
So you heard what the guys
are saying.
Yep, that's just it.
It's like if the quality dips, then
you...
For the quality, too.
Yeah, we fight for it.
We buy in bulk and we look
at everything.
That's the difference.
We kind of babysit them.
We sort through it.
Thank you very much.
I take time and I
come back and I go and have...
Take eight hours of the day and I'm
up to my elbow is in dirt
sometimes. All right.
But for a
small family business, I think we're
doing pretty good.
No, this is great.
You look from us from the out and
we have, you know, so much
different things that try
to just put your finger on one
little thing is kind of hard.
I mean like I showed you there's
umpteen different baits and
also makes a big difference.
And then we do put our own
line on.
We got a nice little corner
here.
Here did over 300
Yeah, we
She tries to help.
She needs her own color
combinations.
How do you come up with a name for
this place?
The River Street.
Oh, listen to this now, yeah?
You had River Street, and we
have a German background because
that's where we came up with House.
Oh, this is Brook Street
here and that's
River Street.
So if you put a house in the center,
what would that be called?
In 2009.
You know, I have a few pictures
and stuff and I'm like, what the
heck?
I have a question for you, I will be
thinking about it.
I think that you are,
let me check my notes, because I
cheated.
Yes, he thought you were
older than him.
How old do you think I am, 39?
Yep.
I don't know.
I heard you're going to be 13 soon.
Yep. OK.
Right, AJ.
I have a daughter that just turned
13, so I think you're still
taller than her too.
When you like to get the kids
involved if they like that
particular sport and
I think that was one of last year's
winners for walleye tournament
I'm not sure if that's true.
But, you know, it makes to have a
couple of pictures like that are on.
I'm going to quickly call off the
issue.
But yeah, we're...
So where any of the mount stuff
that you caught are?
A book just by its cover when you
come into a place like this.
Like this.
Makes sense?
I believe it.
I say we just changed,
just put a new sign up last year.
Uh, no, I don't think so.
I mean, I know I've seen those,
those 10 spring hooks
or springs.
Okay.
No
There are no eyes on the outside.
The line goes through the center.
These are mostly used for ice
fishing or inside an ice shanty.
We make those right here also.
And then for our old guys...
And so then how do you restring it?
This is your little reel right here.
Thank you.
I know a lot of times ice fishing we
don't even use a reel.
You just jig and then you pull the
line straight up that way
Yeah, well, that's why
we have,
put that back right where you are
now.
See how easy that goes out
like that?
That way you don't have your eyes
all freeze up on you, right?
Alright.
Make those right here now
no eyes on the outside, line goes
through the rod, you got your
little
That's my dad.
He likes to drill more holes than he
likes to fish.
But, you know, something like this,
and let's see how good you are here.
We got a little jig here.
Thank you very much.
See if you can feel that jig on the
end.
And if you get a bite,
there's your index, something
different, yeah, that's all.
And we got a, I think we got a
pretty good selection of everything
for.
For fishermen for Lake Winnebago,
it's targeted mostly for Lake
Winnnebagle, not so much Lake
Michigan or something like that,
but then again, that's 50 miles
away, so,
and if you don't get a call for it,
why carry it?
Well, yeah, your location is based
on this.
That's where your customers are
going to be.
Makes a difference for us
coming to work, you know,
a lot of people have to travel 30,
40 miles to go there to work.
I have like three blocks.
That makes it nice.
But we put in our hours here.
What color can I sell you today?
How about a nice little red one
here?
That's a nice walleye combo.
Yeah, it is.
Well, here at home I'm
a caregiver for the wife, so...
Yeah
We really don't do
enough advertisement though,
neither, but after 23
years, people should know that for
doing different things in here,
I guess they were orientated
more for Winnebago
and walleye and
panfish, not so much the
Great Lakes stuff.
And you saw it was empty.
Wasn't that?
A lot of bait, and that'll be a few
days worth.
Yeah, over $2,000
worth.
Twice a week.
I went to walleye tournaments
already, because they had
walleye tournaments twice
a month or something like that.
So everything kind of fell together
on this particular weekend.
So it was a
rush.
Where did Sam disappear to?
Is that something I'm supposed to
bring in first?
Oh, okay
Would you like to take a picture of
you doing that?
Picture of Lexi doing leeches?
Take a picture this guy?
Run it around.
Runnin' around.
Run, run, run around, run.
Plus.
Okay.
And then we started, the building
was completely empty when we first
started.
So we built
it up and changed it around and
changed this and we finally
settled on something that we could
see everything that was going on.
Yeah.
Instead of having a glass display
case.