So why don't you walk us through
what we're looking at.
The last time we saw anything here,
we had a lot of more yellowish eggs,
right?
Well these eggs have been
in here, these
eggs were harvested on the 11th,
so they're getting
pretty old.
Typically they hatch in about
21 days at 50
degrees, but our water temperature
has not been average in 50 degrees.
So they're taking a little longer
than that.
But that's
a good round number. 50 degrees
average water temperature, they'll
hatch in 21 days.
Every one of these little eggs now
has a little embryo in it.
And the reason they're dark is
because the most obvious part of
that embryo is their two little
black eyes. And
That's why they look white, why they
look.
If you could really focus
in, some of them are
hatching. You can see them
flitting up now and then.
These on top
are empty egg shells.
When the little embryo exits the
egg shell, the egg shell stays put
hopefully.
Otherwise, it goes out and plugs up
our filters.
What happens is, as they start
to decay, fungus,
the same fungus that decays a
fish, dead fish out in the lake,
gets on these and
It can be a serious
problem, otherwise it's just
a visual problem.
I cleaned these this morning, but
now we've got big clumps.
And to clean them,
all you do is you shut the water
off.
This is the delivery tube,
the way these work is the wire goes
down the delivery tube goes down
and it's held off the bottom with
these three flanges and
then wells up and that's what
lifts the eggs.
You can see the eggs now they're
they're settling down.
We typically put 80
ounces of eggs in here.
There's 4,000 per liquid ounce,
so that's 320,000 eggs.
So I'm gonna say right now,
we probably have
70,000 egg
still left in here,
so that'd be about 240,000
little fish in this one jar.
All I do to clean
the fungus eggs out.
I'll work it down to the bottom and
lift all the clumps up
and
just slowly lift it up and the
eggs will
settle through the slits in the
in the spool.
And there's a side byproduct of
that.
Rough housing with the with the
eggs will actually cause the fried
hatch quicker.
So there's a few drawbacks,
but like I said those are
fungus eggs.
Mostly dead or empty egg
shells and we
just discard them.
Not real scientific, it's
just a matter of how it's created.
And I could have used a smaller
spoon. The spoon just barely fits.
But like I said, as a byproduct
of shutting the water off,
it causes the eggs to hatch.
So once they hatch, how do they get
outside?
While the water is going
down
that tube and then wells
up and there's an overflow
spout on every one of these jars.
It goes into that long collection
trough.
Flexible hose on the outside is
hooked to the manifold.
It goes along behind the tanks and
we got a series of valves so we can
Segregate and that's what we do is
we segregate by day
because we hold them
About 48 hours
They have a yolk sack attached
to their abdomen and
they can't vertically swim
through the water So
you want to get give them
time to absorb that yolk sac
before you take them out there
because
but the embryos will swim up on
their own.
No, they're washed out.
Yeah, they don't swim up.
As a side note, we've done northern
eggs in here and they don t come
out. You have to pour them out.
They have a whole different
biological
rhythm that when they hatch
in a lake or whatever,
they have an organ on top of their
head and they latch up
underneath a piece of vegetation and
hang there until their yolk These
don't
have that benefit.
So.
But otherwise, the embryos
start out
their life as a big amusement park
ride going down some tubes.
Like it or not,
they don't have a choice.
Were you r-
Our hatcheries have been in
evolution.
When we first started hatching,
we could catch all these
inside the hatchery.
We don't need all those tanks out
there. So we had a bottom
tank down there.
We tried to catch four million
little fry in one tank.
It doesn't work.
So like I said,
this whole thing has been an
evolution of design.
Unfortunately, I have some
photographs of those old hatcheries.
In my show and tell sessions,
I show people, we
do learn.
Even though we're a bunch of old
guys, we learn.
The reason I put water in there is
there are some live fry
or
maybe live eggs that
come out with
the decayed stuff.
And by shutting this off like this
for 10 minutes, it will
cause the hatch to pop.
I might have been a little...
The standard measure
for eggs in a liquid ounce,
there's 4,000 per liquid ounce.
But those are the new eggs,
and these eggs, because they're
almost twice the size,
because there's an embryo developing
inside.
There may not be quite as many
eggs in that one jar as
I said there was.
It's just good housekeeping,
because if
you don't do this, the fungus will
take over the entire Eggman's
and destroy the entire eggman's.
I didn't do these two down on
the end this
morning.
The dead egg mass collects
on the fins, on the bottom of
that tube, and that's
what occurs.
That's why I say housekeeping is
absolutely important in this
process.
That's the kind of mat that
they catch on the bottom of
that of that
fin and
it doesn't take long for that
to just rise up and
really take over the jar.
And you sometimes have to be fairly
aggressive getting
it up.
I'm going to wait to do that one
until Mark and Mark get here because
they've never done this with the
spoon before.
So, yeah
There's a big color difference in
them. How is your close-up?
I'll put a different lens on,
a wide-angle lens.
And they just don't
move very much.
They're not very active at all.
And they're called swim-up fry
at this point in time.
And if you look at them, they've got
that big belly on them yet.
You can see the big belly of some of
these little fat ones.
That's what has to go away for them
to be able to actively swim.
And so those are a day old.
They're anywhere from.
12, from 24
hours to one minute old,
when you shut the thing.
That's the trouble, you gotta take
the median age rather than,
because.
When you first
close the valve,
they're a minute old, or when you
first open the valve they're minute
old and then you let them bill
for 24 hours so some are
only a minute old.
So that's why we have to.
Let's see if I can get more over
here.
Did you get?
How can we try it one more time?
I got a couple of good shots.
We tried a dozen times.
See what I get over here
for numbers.
Well, I'll just hold it down like
that.
Yeah, we'll turn these loose
tomorrow.
He must like having a fisher ticket.
That doesn't look smooth, it looks
good.
So how many are in this tank do you
think?
Couple hundred thousand.
Should we get an extreme close-up?
Here you can see what I took out.
Oh, wow.
And there probably is some prize
swimming, so you could turn them
loose by the...
Here they are. Let's try something
in the rock. You ready, Freddy?
Thank you.
Let me see if I can, oh
yeah, right now they're not going to
respond, let me stir
them up a little bit, get them
moving around here.
I'll go back here a second if
I can get it.
Awesome, thanks.
You can see how they just
lay there and collect along this one
rib. They're really pretty
sedentary.
If they can find a
nice spot to sit, they'll
sit.
Protein foam, bait dealers
have a heck of a time with protein
foam, and almost any big bait dealer
will have a water
fixture that removes
that protein foam from their water.
You start building up
metabolic byproducts
and they lose a lot of minerals.
So protein foam.
Is a big deal.
Those big clumps are collected on
the bottom.
And this is all the stuff that
folded up. That was where I got
those big clumps out of.
And all I do is I just stick this
down and
I start agitating
and sometimes you
you got to kind of break it up.
And then you just,
I keep the,
I just let them settle on their own
for a bit.
There we go.
Actually, that is really good.
There are very few in there.
Either that, or I missed the whole
bunch.
But I don't think it was this
morning. And I just cleaned some
of those again.
It's collecting on the egg
shells from when they hatch.
Good job.
And you got to really be...
That's the list of things we do.
You've got to be really careful
about that because it starts at
the bottom and it will come up
through the entire tank.
Okay.
Yeah, I can do a lot more.
Have at it.
Get out of the way I'm
gonna go hook my boat up or
hook the boat up to my truck
There's a silver lake in some
parts of here,
so
our pictures around the recreational
lake must be a nice place
to be.
Really?
Oh, it's ten bucks for a boat.
Oh, sure.
Silver linked up by Wapaka.
Put that one where,
yeah, it's not about to resolve when
you're gone and in the morning you
can do all the fishermen around
there before five.
And then sometimes, you know, in
between the cruise cruises, you
can't do the rest of the fishermen.
Thanks, Peter. Thanks, people.
Figured out the lash, huh?
Luckily,
I don't know where you got that
padlock from because
all of our padlocks, all the
wallways for tomorrow padlocks are
key to like.
I don't know where that one came
from, but...
Oh, there was a water proof case
when they had like a different kind
of a problem.
Really?
They were like, cool, we can fix
that.
Bye.
You gotta unhook the front.
I will, yep.
Once I get it in the water.
Better do!
Well, okay, I'll do it now.
I guess.
I was wondering where the key was
for that padlock, but we found it.
Found it.
Yeah, well, you know how that works.
You gotta write him a note.
Yeah, right now we've got five
tanks full.
Yeah.
All right, so what we do is
we we put a siphon hose down
in the filter
And then the fun part, you get to
suck on this thing and you get the
siphon going.
Mark, come here.
Hold on to that so it doesn't come
back up.
I only want to do this once.
And I'm not like your dad, I do it
sideways.
And we siphon as much water out as
we can get.
No need messing around with
60 gallons of water.
Once we get it out...
Oh!
Can I?
Pull on that valve.
We pull this out of the way because
we'll slide it.
We take all this assembly off and we
slide the tank out so
that we can
drain the last of it into
a cooler and or buckets.
You want to do it in the buckets or
you want to it in a cooler and haul
the cooler over.
You did a good work.
It's fine.
And then I gotta move my truck.
Oh, no, it's to the bucket side.
No, I'll move my truck.
Okay, let's do it.
You gotta learn to be more
assertive, kid. Kid.
Ah, you know.
We're older than you are, but so
what?
We got the air in, so it's nice.
When your boss shows up
and tells you to do something, and
you think it's not a good idea, you
learn to say no.
Absolutely.
My brother was in the Navy and
he was
up for promotion and
the guy that was interviewing him
said did you ever lie to
a command to a senior officer and
he says damn right I did
why'd you do it he said because
he wasn't qualified to know what he
was asking me for
Is this thing on?
Yeah. I can't tell you my
other Navy story.
I'm lost for sight of him.
No, you've got to.
That big hose.
See, you're only getting...
Come on, you must have done a bong
once or twice in college, didn't
you?
If you want to suck in a hose like
that, you gotta get an actual growth
of KK.
Yeah
Yeah.
Come on!
That's right!
That's Right!
If you got any kind of bubble left
in that thing, it'll feel loose.
Well, he only scraped the hell out
of it once.
They all get scraped,
I can't even go by it.
The car is...
Boat. I figured it's pretty good not
having mirrors.
What they expect to do is put it on
here. They just, these are
wires. She was helping.
But she yelled at me.
There's a guy named Bill
What you got?
With a gold hat.
I don't know who that guy is.
You're hooked up to a lie detector
test. So the first question they
asked me, do you ever think about
having sex with your mother?
He said it went downhill from there.
He said they want to know everything
there is to know about you.
So you guys going home tonight?
Nope, we're going up to Boulder
tonight.
Tonight.
That's why you guys could have done
this at three.
Holy moly, that's a nice ride
from here.
It's about four boulder, like
five of our way boulder.
Yeah, it's all, well, we're staying
in Monocloa.
We've got to be out in the morning
at 730 so we can be on the boat with
the researchers.
Greg Sass.
Greg Sass, he runs the Northern
Highlands Research Center.
Great guy.
Like if it's fish similar to one
of these southern lakes that gets
attacked all year,
whether they can reproduce.
I know one of them.
One of them is working on Jescanaba
Lake. I don't know.
Yeah, I think that's the walleye
one. That's the main one right next
to the center.
Yeah, very good sir.
He is an amazing speaker.
I mean he can he can relate.
I mean he is up
here when it comes to the
intellectual undertaking but
when it come to addressing a
crowd.
Brian and I will
just lift it.
Well, shut that off.
Full of filters.
Rinse them off in here so they don't
heavy fry on them.
You're not going to pull that out,
leave that in.
Um
You want to take this in coolers?
A cooler?
Well get the cooler then.
Well you siphon it in first.
Oh not right now.
I got the air manifold.
I didn't know what you did with
them.
It fell through the shell from
the counter.
That's why I couldn't find him.
A lot of water left in this thing,
man.
I know, I tried.
So
Oh, that's a ton of water.
Yeah, there is.
Let's just try this one more time,
get a little more on.
Five and six is good, right?
You got some help on that, Brian?
Oh, good. I'll put a head in.
Now wait a minute slow he's
gonna
We've got to videotape this.
He's going to go on the other side,
Doc.
Your butt's not very photogenic.
I don't even have to be in it.
We're good to go, thanks guys.
You really want to put that much
water in there.
Well, I gotta watch my language on
my tape.
Hey, the right here.
I hope that someone brought them out
here.
There's a Pyrex right here.
Yeah, the Pyrexx!
The Pyrex is right there,
whatever.
These little guys do.
Have you ever found a good place to
eat in Managua?
I haven't.
That's why I asked.
Do you want some more?
No, that's enough.
Good? Yeah.
I asked him if they float, and he
said he didn't think so.
I don't know, this lake's pretty
clear I think we'll be able to find
it.
It's not going to fall. It's deep
though. Is it?
Probably cold too.
Really cold.
I dropped my camera out of my
pocket up on Lake Monocloa.
Good thing of the lake, it's on the
Manitou's chain.
I reach down the pole of the abbey
and it goes plooch.
The guy says, don't worry about it.
He says, my kid will come up and
find it.
A month and a half later he called
me up and says, we found it and
it still works.
Waterproof.
Then I went to a Wally's
for tomorrow banquet in
Appleton and somebody stole it out
of my coat pocket.
Oh my god.
I was not happy.
That's right.
Irreplaceable boat building
pictures on it.
All my pictures when we built that
boat up in Shawano, all
gone.
Is that strap working on the engine
now?
Mercury,
the cheap suckers, they
knew exactly what was wrong with it
when Tom took it back to the marina.
You know, when you punch a button,
you get a big inrush of current.
They've got a relay in it that's not
big enough to take the inrushing
current, and they burn up.
But they're too damn cheap to go to
a different, higher quality.
They'd rather pay a
warranty for a fair
job on it. It's fine losing relay.
They knew all about it.
How far out does that bar come?
Not me.
I'm facing the wrong direction.
Right there. We're past it.
Just keep going a little further.
We pull a plankton fill out here
to see where the biggest
concentration of plankton is.
For whatever reason, this side of
the lake, there's the greatest
concentration.
How did you guys do that?
They did it, not me.
It was earlier in the year.
We're good anywhere in here.
I'll switch with you.
I don't need to do it, go right
ahead.
I've been sitting in front of this
thing way too long
already today.
That was a good interview though.
So that one goes with the fish
eatin'.
Alright, I'll suck it.
And don't put it on the bottom of
the tank so the first thing you suck
up is dead eggs.
Dad won't appreciate that.
The reason we do it that way is so
the fish come out horizontally
in the water because the top
18 inches of the
water column is the warmest water
and that's where the zooplankton
congregate.
If you dump them straight down
they get cold shot and they go
all the way to the bottom.
And this is 70-80
feet, I don't know how deep it is.
105.
You can't see the little buggers,
but they're going.
No, but sometimes you can.
I don't know.
I went up there today because I
needed to go to the bathroom there
was no I could
I could use our port-a-potty.
I did, that's why I used it.
Did you really?
Well, there's two by the landing.
Oh you could see there's one on our
job site too okay you can see them
you can see them going into the lake
now you can
there are oh yeah
This tank still wasn't that full,
not like the...
The next three are going to be
crazy.
Mike, my question is, should we
leave the boat tied up to the
dock that's not in front of the
launch but on one of the other
docks, so that we don't have to
launch it?
Yep.
The loop, the loop the loop.
I got it.
I'm not pulling on this thing now.
You suck in it.
You, oh,
there's not a chance in the world
I'm pulling on thing now This is
all
They're eggs.
DIG!
Yeah, you're gonna get a lot of eggs
right now.
Very heavy water.
Yup.
Right up top here
Let's let that settle down
a little bit.
Fly out of there yet or no?
There's more.
We just lost suction.
But we're empty anyway, so
there's probably a couple left.
He's going to pour right over it.
I got some now again.
I hope I don't have it.
You might just put in the hose out
about that way.
Thank you.
No, it's done.
I'm okay.
Which dock do you want to tie up
on?
I don't know.
Sorry.
Yeah, go to the west side.
Look, there's a dock to the...
To that direction.
Left.
I would say the dock is on the left.
Oh, I thought you wanted to tie up
on one of those.
No, I would tie up what we normally
do. We just do it on the left side
of a pier.
Well, I was just going to say on the
pier next to it.
There's water.
Oh.
Yeah, let's not get to the smaller
pier west of the launch
just so it's out of their way
A little pier on the other side.
I see it.
I think we should dock up there on
the outside.
You don't mean that one!
Not that one.
Well, I think we don't work.