There he is, coming up.
I hope you know, it's
like coconut and lemon and
it's really happening on
the third family.
Cucumbers, there's a big cucumber in
there.
Is there anyone over there?
All that's going on.
He's like, Marcus is on TV,
don't leave me on TV guys, is that
probably?
We usually
do.
Usually we're rockin' out here.
You want this to be accurate, right?
Well, we'd like it to be as good
as...
Yeah, like they want to be able
to like pick pick up stuff
not copyrighted this year.
PLEASE SUBSCRIBE!
Maybe after I do the first batch.
Cuz I still got up
Yeah
Okay, yeah.
I gotta get in here and I gotta...
Um, yeah, actually, it'll
be quicker than that, because you'll
be here.
Oh, okay.
So it'll probably be more like maybe
like an hour and a half, if that.
So we could do two hours.
Because I don't got to stop
fileting.
Yeah. Because you'll there writing
everything down.
I don't t got to filet and I just
got to filet and then hand you
everything.
That's what I'm trying to do.
That's what I'm doing right now.
Or else I wouldn't be able
to do it.
They're due this Friday, so...
Look at that.
So familiar.
The best way.
But yeah, that's what I usually do
when I come in.
I start doing that.
I didn't even, just like today,
I didn't even write down when I came
in yet. I usually all this stuff
first and then I write down when I'm
coming.
Because this stuff usually takes
like an hour to thaw, but these have
been sitting out since last night.
I thought they would have been
cleaned out.
We still got to clean them out.
Is that commentary for someone?
No.
There's just a lot of stuff that's
going on.
Reminiscence
I've known Jake since I was a little
kid.
It was kind of the one of the
reasons why I wanted to start
working here.
Jake?
Yeah, I just remember I was
like, Jake, what do you do for work?
Like when I was in like middle
school and stuff and, oh, I work at
Glyphway.
Oh, I really would like.
I'm like, dang, that's a cool job.
He's like, yeah.
He's, like, you worked there long
enough, you just stand there out,
and they just tell you to come work
for them. I was like, all right,
awesome.
I don't know if you're shopping or
not.
Yeah those shotgun bullets are
pretty fun.
You guys are going to be out on the
shotgun bullets too huh?
Yeah, I'm off to over.
We're going, oh yeah, this spring.
Army fall, my bad.
Oh
I was out there in the springtime,
that's when we're catching like big
monster ones.
You guys will be watching them catch
like little ones out there.
On those ones those ones are fresh
these ones aren't so fresh.
I don't know when they caught these
ones or how long they've been
chilling
Because usually on the fresh ones
we'll like take the cheeks off too,
because why not?
Not for testing them?
No. No, great.
Nice.
Yeah. Just a little extra, little
extra snack.
That was a piece.
Well, we gave some to Michigan
First, for helping us.
That's what it is.
We have to feed them?
Yeah.
Yeah, when I was down at Ceremonies,
I seen Acey Bond down there and he
said that they cooked some up for
uh...
Yeah, and then every time you
transport these, I don't know why,
just cause they're fish I guess, but
they always got like slime on them,
and you gotta clean them off
or else when I'm fileting, I mean it
already gets pretty slimy,
but it'd
get mega slimy if I didn't clean all
this like, scum off of here.
The fish should just be sliding all
over the place.
Hopefully this will be flying off
the table.
What the heck were they doing with
this one?
Thank you.
We try to get 12
fish a lake, sometimes
we don't.
Will you get 12 big fish?
And we try to get the bigger fish.
Bigger is better.
We got tapeworm in there.
Karen didn't know these had
tapeworms in them.
When she came out with us, jockeying
on the boat in the springtime,
we caught a pretty nice one with
big tapeworm crawling out of it.
She was like, what is this?
What is that?
I think it's a tapeworm!
They have tapeworms in them?
Thank you.
I fileted up one yesterday with
a big huge tumor and it was pretty
crazy. I've never seen one like that
before.
It was like the size of like a
big chicken egg.
It was crazy.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, this one was.
This one was inside it, like inside
its swim bladder, like right
up against the spine.
It was pretty nuts.
I'm a big female.
When I was shocking too, I learned a
lot about like what determines
like a healthy walleye
lake.
Like when you're like are catching
stuff.
Like if you're catching nothing but
monsters, it's usually like not
a good lake.
Something's going on where
the fry or the yearling are
getting killed off, then they're not
making it. There's no turnover is
what they call it.
And same thing if it's like nothing
but small fish, like small females
and stuff. There's something
where...
Something's not going right.
That could be habitat or predators
or something.
We didn't want a lot of talking in
this, but it was
great.
Nah, I was just letting them know.
I didn't make that noise!
Oh, no, I think I'll
ask questions.
I was just letting them know,
like...
No, you're doing great.
Normally we don't have our peanut
gallery here. Here's a cool little
something.
Support
They're all involved somewhere or
another.
They, uh, they do that a lot.
Maxillaries or whatever they're
called.
That's your damn computer there,
internal loader.
Do you have some other collections?
Yeah, baby.
But again, yeah, I do all this just
to minimalize
the work, because it's going to be
really slimy anyways.
And I try to keep it.
I got a little squeegee over here.
I try keep it tighty
and stuff, but you know.
Yeah, getting back to that
healthy ecosystem,
the last lake I remember we did
was Duck Lake.
And that's
a border lake.
And it was a lag beer deserve
lake for spearing.
And we had
to hunt the fish down.
It was crazy.
Everywhere we rolled up, it was like
primo spawn time.
Everywhere we roll up where it
should have been like rock
It was really gravelly, like Primo
spawn beds, like where they were
spawning before, previous years,
there's nothing there.
We found maybe like one or two,
and they're either,
our captain Butch, he was
like, we got to get more fish.
He's like, they're gonna, because
the more fish we get,
the better numbers they'll get for
that lake, like the more fish they
could spear. But even that they
have like 80-some
fish available, and they
said that they had maybe
five teams go out there to
spear, and each team only came
back with maybe three fish being
really let down, like not being
able to see nothing.
Like I want to be able to
guarantee my kid, like I
can get you on some game,
you know.
So that's like what, it's,
yeah butch was really like, There's
something going on with this lady.
Taken over by more
sand and more vegetation,
like bass habitat.
So it's like, yeah, it's pretty much
bass fishing.
But for walleye, it is not the best.
And it's.
You get mixed reviews on that,
so...
Oh, pretty good.
Get these in order, I look at the,
let's see what this is, 351
375 sales
close here
I just line them up so I know
how to go down the row.
T9-7.
They're shipping, they say no,
and then they're finished, so we
gotta put that down.
Before you take a moment to think...
497, 498.
Okay.
So this is how I usually got
it lined up.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
I usually got that there so I can
wipe my hands off.
And then I measure, measure
everything.
So this would be 14.1.
14.1.
Yeah, and then you come
over and weigh it up.
Oh yeah, another thing too, I
totally spaced it out just now.
I got caught up in getting all these
fish ready. I gotta get my knives
ready.
I can't, I can do this with all my
knives.
Whoa, slipping all
over.
You can have-
Thank you very much.
It's just to get any of the little
burrs off and stuff.
Because that thing sharpens it
really good, but sometimes
it may.
I thought it was 600.
This is 16.3.
16.3
Yeah, you got that weight.
It was $608.
13.3.
That wouldn't be too much on the
table when you're
writing.
Because sometimes it messes with
the scale.
So usually I step back and I
wait for it to do it.
It has to do.
15, 2.
Yeah, cause why?
It takes up 10 grams.
Yeah, I know, but that's what I'm
saying. You don't mess with it.
I usually just
back up.
460
15-2.
So how long you guys been doing this
stuff?
Uh, news?
Yeah, like how long have you been in
this work?
24 years.
Holy cray, man.
Like, 7'8".
7' 8", alright.
How'd you get into this?
You've just been like...
I actually went to UW-Superior.
They have a film-making program,
so I worked for WDIO
in Duluth, and then I moved down to
Madison and got a job at PBS.
Dang dude, that's dope.
So you're from this area?
No, actually it's from Wisconsin
Dells. I just went to school at
UW-Superior for a university.
Well, he's from, like, Louisiana.
When he says this area, he means,
like, this state.
That
makes sense.
Yeah so it's like when he's oh yeah
you're from this area it's like you
know you know about what's going on
and when you came up here it wasn't
nothing really different right yeah
that's cool so how'd you
get into this how'd do you get in
this work
I went to college for it.
And that's what I've always wanted
to be in, like, the, like...
Uh, illusion?
17.
Yeah, that's cool.
I mean you guys are all talking
about us. It's like yeah, I want to
know a little bit about you guys man
That's cool, that's cool.
I didn't like school, I don't like
school, probably never go back.
I'm not like trying to tap down on
it or nothing, but I just had a
really, I didn't have, I didn have
the best experience in school, so
I was like, I won't go back,
I always like doing stuff like this,
so when I got this job it was like
perfect fit.
This is 28.5.
Would you be able to fill it out if
I'm here?
Yeah, I'd be nice.
So are you from around here?
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm from Bad River.
I'm a tribal member.
I've been around here my whole life.
I grew up in the woods,
grew up on the river, been on boats
my whole life, been fishing
forever.
And that's how I kind of
got into, I got this job was
good at fileting.
I learned fileting from my uncles.
It was like,
you filet them fish, right?
Like, we need that meat, you
know? So it was...
They hated it, hated it.
When I would, I used to cut
around the ribs and just have
like big back strap filet and big
tail filet, like, oh yeah, that's
good.
Oh, look at all that meat, look it
all. And then they would filet it
and get all that belly meat and be
like, look this, look at this meat
you left.
Like, yeah, they would be really.
I'd just put that one on the scale.
Well, okay, all right.
This one is
18.4.
Okay.
This one is
$19.50.
14-7
So I'm hungry.
Alright, I'm good now.
I can.
Yeah.
Just to be accurate.
This too, I need this to clean all
this stuff up.
These are for the all in all though.
This is very fragile, so you've got
to take your time with it.
Yeah, there's a lot of fish around
here.
I'll get all the angles.
But yeah, if you see anything, just
let me know.
That's a hard one to see.
This is a baby female,
they start so young.
Yeah, thanks, too.
She was an anchor.
So some people leave the skin on for
their analysis.
We take the skin off the tissue.
There's some studies out there that
say that the results are
eligible.
Some people put the tissue with the
skin on, some people
take the skins off and pry it up.
It's something that's a matter of
preference.
So that's how we do our tissue.
So when you take them, can you just
point them out first with your
tweezers for Ethan, so we can
see exactly where they are.
No problem let me clean
this up for you a little bit so it's
not so bloody i
mean it's going to be a little
bloody but
just so it is a better shot you
know a little cleaner
Yeah, and like I said, it's like,
the otoliths are really thin, so
it's like, you want to
put enough pressure into it just to
like get through it.
Yeah, sometimes they
pop up here because this is where
they usually sit, but right they pop
this way. This is the otolith right
here. Here's one.
Here's the other one right here
Like I said, it just depends how
it breaks. Sometimes they'll stay in
that little pocket, but
sometimes they'll pop this way.
It's scary when they go this way
because the only
thing that's holding it there is a
little bit of like gel.
And if you pop that, they slide
right into the brain and it's like
impossible to find.
I left out once and found one and
I was pretty impressed with myself.
So when you're fileting, are you
doing the same technique as you
would for harvest, even though...
Yeah, yeah, pretty much, because I'm
like, yeah well
they, you gotta think,
they probably want
it like as close to like somebody
eating it, you know, like because
they want it for consumption,
so I'm gonna
cut it up like I'm cutting it
up to harvest, you know.
So I was like, I'll filet
it the way my uncle would want me to
filet.
Or Jake would filet
Jake's a master two-filler.
This is a male,
so you can tell the difference
because the male's got these big
huge milk
sacks.
So you call it fish milk.
So how old were you when you first
started fishing?
I was probably...
We like
Actually, cleaning fish,
I was thinking about filet
and fish, but cleaning fish.
I've been cleaning fish since I was
probably like,
I was like six,
but I was just scaling
it, and with bullet heads, just
skinning them.
But I want to say the
first time I actually fileted,
fileted was maybe about 10.
And it was just butchered
it was like just straight I
remember I was with my uncle Rob and
he was trying to show me
how to filet and
I was just I had little ones like
this and I was just butcher and I'm
I was getting like it was
mangled and he's like hold
up hold up and he started giving me
big ones like this and bigger ones
and he said here this is
how you'll learn how to filet is how
I learned He
said, the bigger ones have bigger
bones, so it's easier for the knife
to slide on.
So it's easy to learn the
way your knife is supposed
to work it.
So that's how I got good at
it.
Yeah, because I used to just cut
like all of this, so
Jake and like my Uncle Robin, that's
all good stuff that you're wasting
it, you're wastin'
it. People, I got cousins down
in Elcio that like this cut too.
These are called the wings, because
there's good fat, I mean
good like
fatty meat in here.
You know, just like the belly.
So like they'll cut this off and
they'll bread that up and fry it up.
I wouldn't do that, but I like the
cheeks. We'll take the cheeks out,
but.
Not on these ones.
My uncle Sam too,
he's really,
really die hard filet
dude. He's really about his filets.
And if you mess up the filets,
don't, those are your filets over
there. Keep them away from mine.
Mine look beautiful.
I got beautiful filets like,
but I have a lot of
like my skills and
like what I, I guess what I
love about my job to
my uncles.
They taught me how to
enjoy nature.
Restaurant.
Yeah, they're good enough, that's
what I was telling Karen when she
hired me. I'm like, I don't know,
some of these filets might turn out
and you're gonna be like, man, let's
throw that in the frying pan.
I got a couple of guys from the
N.R.D. That would come in every once
in a while. We'll just put one of
those in the freezer.
I'm like, nah man, can't.
Were you scared?
That's what he said he was like well
i thought they only took one side
i'm like nope they
Ever since the addition of the PCOS
program, we take both sides of
the fish now.
So it used to just be the mercury
program. We would only take one side
of the tissue.
But now we take them both.
So that's where the cheeks come
from.
Peace out.
Oh my god.
And if they're frozen hold they're
still okay.
Yeah, well, again, it
depends on how long they,
the ones we had earlier this year,
they were all fresh.
They were all like, as soon as
they were harvested,
or as soon we,
because some of the samples we got
from Shaken, so like
as soon us we got them, it was like
we threw them on ice, and like we
either brought them here, or they
threw them in the freezer.
Like, so they were, you know, as
fresh as they could be. Fresh as they could be.
Yeah these these on the other
hand are from michigan
we don't know how long they
were sitting out like when they
were harvested really like
You've got two nickels on the scale.
He's only off two nickel.
That's what I was thinking, like,
cause it's, well if I do, I'll
show you like on one of these bigger
ones.
I'll tell you guys like how we take
the cheeks out of one of the bigger
ones, cause when, it
looks better with the bigger one.
You get a bigger nice chunk of meat.
I mean when you, like when we're
like netting and stuff, you're,
depending on where you go, like
Mille Lacs, you can get like 300,
400 fish, you know.
So you're sitting there fileting up
torpedoes like this.
When you think about it, that's a
lot of meat you're wasting.
So it's like, yeah, filet them up,
you know?
But sometimes you get in spots
where you only get a few of them.
Probably like two or three weeks of
fileting, trying to figure out the
rhythm of how to
do stuff more efficiently.
And come to find out it's
polyodal itself first, and then I
can just concentrate on fileting.
Because Josh isn't down here all the
time.
So I got to think about
time too.
Because another thing is,
for me at least, I got a worry about
picking up my girls at the end of
the day at three. They get done with
school at three, so I got be done
here by three.
Technically, I could pick them up at
3.30, but I don't like making
them wait.
Especially my one-year-old.
She always expects me there at three
and she gets upset if I'm not.
I didn't know that until the
teachers told me.
She knows what's going to happen.
Yup, it was
like a parent's day or
something, or it was a family day,
and I was a little late,
literally probably like 10 minutes
late, and
she was the last kid in the room.
She was crying, waiting for
her dad, she
was waiting for day day,
I was like aww.
Which one is this?
I got to do the first fully
and then I can determine if
it's a he or she, I don't
want
to misidentify.
That might be non-binary, I
don't know.
This is a male.
No, you might want to edit that out.
I was just, it was just a joke,
we're tired of his jokes.
I, yeah, I'm, I.
We do mark them as unknown if
we don't know, but we
find out the gender.
I can usually figure
it out.
I was showing him how to
figure it out to one day, he was
like, how do you know if it's a male
or female? I was like come here,
I'll show you.
The, even if they're a young female,
you could see where their ovaries
would be. They're just like not
full, you know, and they're,
the males, they always have a little
bit of, they're more white, I
guess, so.
This one is a little male.
244-397
Yeah, we're saying that joke
though on the boat because like when
you're working up the fish you gotta
for the data purposes
you got to tell if it's a male
or female and
My shit made, he kept going,
like if they're young, and we
couldn't tell, non-binary,
you know, it was just
the running joke.
Just like one of the other running
jokes was every time we left,
like at the end of the day, or at
the night, I should say, from
workin', everybody in the
car?
Jake, you in the card?
This guy got left with time out
of the league.
This 4-9 flash try to
signal them.
Oh yeah.
Down the road.
That's always a good time to hang
out with them guys the shocking crew
it's a good
Thank you. Good night.
Thank you.
For
Yep.
You didn't know it, I already put
it up.
Alright.
I know it's good to go.
Is this one where the whole thing
goes?
See, like in this one, the auto has
stuck up in the top.
See, they're right here.
I learned you gotta like really
take your time with it and just
break that first little because when
I first was doing it, the way Ben
showed me, he would just
beast it because he was showing
me on Lakers and them lake fish got
like thicker bones.
So it was like you gotta kind of be
really tough on them.
So that's how I was like beasting
on them and I was breaking the
otoliths up and cracking them in
half and so
I learned that you gotta be delicate
with it.
And I got a little better
with my technique just from watching
Read The Fishmonger
on YouTube.
Shout out to Read The fishmongerman,
if you ever put that in there,
be like, oh yeah.
He has some, he can show you how to
cut up some fish though.
This is a male.
Usually I do too, but
it seems like
for like weighing out purposes it
comes out a little better.
But that's what I was doing too at
first. I'd have like the big
fricking chunk of skin hanging off
of it.
You can filet a fish, you
can filete it
so it's like all the meat just
like falls it's like
one it almost looks like a big
butterfly of meat.
Thanks a lot.
Yeah, the butterfly, yeah.
Thank you very much.
That's true, that's true
Yeah, the team is pretty awesome.
Yeah, but perfect.
So you must have grown up eating
along the way, right?
Oh yeah man, I grew up just as,
from what I hear,
we're spoiled up here,
but yeah I grew up eating walleye my
entire life.
I was eating walleyes,
basically anything in the river.
Walleye, northern,
smallmouth, bluegill,
crappie.
Yeah, basically anything that swims
around here.
But yeah, I always grew up eating
walleye.
Anything that swims in the net.
Yo, anything that swims in the Net.
You're the female.
Alright.
Nah, lamprey don't swim in the net,
they swim through it.
Now, one time though, I was fileting
a northern,
and a lamprey popped out of it.
Like, out of its stomach.
My Uncle Sam was like, take a
picture of that, send that to
Glyphway.
I was telling our lamprey specialist
about it, and he was like, really?
Oh, you should have, man.
Oh, that would have been awesome.
He was like yeah,
it was... It was just something
one-off.
I'd never seen it before, but I was
thinking about it.
I mean, they eat big leeches and
stuff, so...
I just thought it was a big leech.
They say the best is the dream.
I'm almost good enough to read
a newspaper through it.
See, when I got a helper down here,
this goes really fast.
Because usually it's just me down
here. So it's like, I got to stop.
So that's why I just learned to
get the filets out, filet them,
then that way I can throw the fish
down, weigh them up, write it down,
onto the next one.
I don't have it.
One time I was fileting a fish and
when I got here to take the
gills out of the way there
was a big leader in its
mouth.
Somebody caught it at one point and
it swallowed the hook.
It was way down in its stomach
and stuff.
I thought it was cool.
It's a huge fish.
Big monster female.
Somebody had the fight of their life
that day.
Lost the mauner.
Those are good.
Now.
To give them up.
Yeah, and since working for the
Mercury program, too, I found all
that, like, the, uh...
Yeah, my entire life, I'm like, oh,
it's in the belly.
Bring it up a little bit.
And there's the flame.
Yeah, so things will still be the
whole fish, like different
organs, or
whatever
your
questions are, the
type
that you're eating right now.
Maybe that
represents a lot of how much we
are exposed to.
Yeah, I know.
Oh shit.
And if people have
done it,
there's some question
about these very customer people,
and they've got some different lines
down the stairs.
And we found that in the wardens,
the people were a lot higher than
the regular employees.
Jake brought up, I
remember, this was like a while ago,
we're talking about
microplastics, right?
And he brought up
what about in the rice?
And I was like, what do you mean?
And he said, it makes perfect
sense to me,
all the tarps that everybody uses
are plastic tarps.
And it's like when you're gathering
the rice, like how much of
them and the rice
bags that you're using.
Yeah, so it's like, how much of
them microplastics are actually
getting into the rice?
I brought that up to ACBot and he
was like, I never thought of that.
He was like that's actually
something to think about.
He was, like, that, he was, I
seriously never thought about it
like that.
I was like yeah, Jake brought it up
and I've always thought about ever
since.
I have a question for you, do you
not care if it's seen on the air or
not?
Because, I mean, if we're worrying
about microplastics in the fish
right now, wouldn't we want to worry
about the rice too?
Aren't you going to make me pick it
up because he's
big screened
the dry eraser?
We're going to have to pay for that.
Drive with nice and warm, drive
very slow and fast.
No, I'm not angry
with her.
Finish the race.
Do you guys want me to talk about,
like, summer camp?
Well, I think we're going to,
um, after we're done with this,
find a question for Mike and Josh,
and we'll just ask a few questions.
Yeah, because I'm just gibber
jabbering over here.
I'm trying to kill time, you know?
That's a male, right?
This is a
female.
Oopsie, cuz look at yours, they're
all spent up ovary.
It's all deflated.
She was the first at the bar that
night.
Well, that's how Butch put it, like
when he's all like, he's like,
think about it.
He's like that's all these little
fish are. He's, like, all the little
young ones are first ones out there
at the bar.
He's all, like them big females come
in right away.
I was like, holy crap, he's like,
yeah, he was like later on, that's
when the big males come in.
See what I tell you,
young bucks at the bar, man.
He got it.
Yeah, that's Butch's take on
it.
He's sitting there grabbing the
boat. Hey man, you need to go
mustache.
That's why I was like, man,
he had so much
like knowledge though, you know, and
it's like, man,
yeah, he's getting
ready to retire.
So it's, like, I think he said he
has this season and next
spring, and then he's done.
And it was supposed to be that
great. Yeah.
Yeah so it's like man
but he
has so much knowledge and
He just thought it was a funny
way of putting it.
It's mushy, and it's hard
to filet.
You'll be like, how I was
grabbing it and doing that,
you'll want to squish
up on the bottom, and it just
not good.
Your filet comes out all
stringy and not
presentable.
Actually, I put a bag of ice cream
in mine.
Yeah on this fish, I'll show you
guys how we do the cheeks.
Just to get that in there.
Why not? It's a lady.
Yeah, they just put whatever the
heck they had on hand.
Thank you.
Yeah, but I enjoy doing this
work.
I feel like what I'm doing
is for a
good cause.
It's, it's not just to benefit
my people, but like everybody,
because our data gets shared with
the whole state,
yeah.
Do you feel like you have to keep
pushing the awareness of Mercury?
Or do most people, I mean,
your family, your extended family...
Well, it seems like,
at least in the Indian community,
from my perspective, it's seems
like...
People pay attention to that, you
know? Like, they don't want to
be poisoning their kids and stuff
and they don't
want to give,
because a lot of the time,
we're not just keeping this fish for
ourselves, like we gift it
or we use it for feasts or
funerals or whatever,
and yeah,
it's an important commodity.
A lot of non-natives,
they don't pay attention to it
because they feel
like they don t eat to or whatever.
I don't know.
I don t know what their logic
is, but like,
for instance, Sisquit Lake,
that is like in our, at least in our
area, like the really hot lake
around here, and everybody knows you
don't eat nothing out of there.
But I'm pretty sure, like I
always hear every once in a while
people talking about eating the
walleye and stuff out of there.
And I'm like.
Yo, you shouldn't even be
eating that, like.
And Butch put it to me, Butch
said this, he's like, I wouldn't
have my worst enemy eat
a fish out of that lake.
That's how he put it, like, he's,
like that lake is so contaminated
with mercury.
Awesome fishing, by the way, over
there. Like, you can catch some
fish.
But, yeah, he said, I would not
let, I wouldn't have my worse enemy
eat a fish out o' that lake, but
some people
I mean, I understand times are hard,
you know, you got to do what you got
to do, but yeah,
I feel like you got a,
not just for the
ABA community, but again, for
everybody, you gotta push the
awareness of what you
can eat, what you cant eat,
like how much you can have.
Is there still suspicion
about someone like the
warnings and like those are needing
more than answers?
Oh yeah, like there's, this
is just for instance, but like
just take like the bag limits.
It's like those bag limits are set
by the state for a reason,
and it's,
this is a
female,
a young female.
But yeah, they set them,
it's not just for the,
they're not setting those limits
just for
the like the fish numbers,
you know? They're setting it because
it's for consumption too.
Like they don't want people to over,
it doesn't matter like how small
they are and stuff.
It's like they're still in there.
That you're consuming it, like.
So yeah, you,
it, yeah.
There's a whole lot that goes into
it, but yeah, for sure.
You gotta push the awareness, people
gotta know what's up.
I was going to say when I was doing
this program and doing the
outreach for it, I was kind of
surprised, like, going to
the health fairs and putting
it on the list. Because there's so
many people doing that.
Yeah, there's lots of people who do
Take your kids fishing.
Yeah, I tried to.
I mean, it's always a kind of a
hassle when you got a two and a
one-year-old, you know, but I
try to take a fish in.
My daughter, Daphne, she's
really good at it.
First time I took her fish in, she
caught like
17 Jumbo Perch.
Like, they're really good walleyes
in the river in the fall time.
Because everybody's not like I
like all tribe members are in the
woods everybody's hunting so it
was like nobody on the river and
they're just catching monsters like
so my
buddy was like how come nobody's how
come they never see no tribal
members in the fall time when the
walleye really biting good like
because everybody is fishing all
summer man and
shit man it's hunting season in
the ball time everything's game if
it flies it dies if it
It's down, it's down.
Everything's game.
Jake's the partridge master.
He's the the master grouse hunter
around here.
Can I get my share?
Plus.
Plus other people share.
Ha ha ha ha!
Nah, he's really good at hunting
girls, though.
I shot Coney last year.
Coney over last year
He's a dog?
No.
Coney. They're too big.
They're big.
They're in a neck or a tail.
See, you hear me?
Oh, I got 20 last year.
I'm lucky to get maybe two or three.
So is that all on the ground?
Then you just gotta know how to seal.
If you look at the fire, you're
still on fire.
They just sit there and let you
shoot.
Well, they'll, it's, their, their
coloration, it is crazy, their
coloration blend in so good.
I've gotten to like me to you away
and they didn't move until like I
took another step and.
I have a heart attack.
Oh yeah, cause I didn't even see him
like...
Just right the roads and just look
in the woods,
pretty sure you see them.
Yeah, sometimes.
Sometimes they'll send out like
a Judas one where
they'll sacrifice them.
You'll shoot that one while there's
like 20 of them over here in the
trees you don't even know.
So usually when you pop one you
gotta like look around you'll see
like a couple more walking around.
It's usually not long.
But yeah, fall time is my favorite
time of year around here.
It seems like you can do anything
you want.
You can, there's still some
berries out there that are good,
blackberries are still good.
Fishing is primo,
hunting is bomb.
And again, you can hunt whatever you
want then.
You wanna go duck hunting, you go
duck huntin'.
Wanna go hunt some, wanna go
hunt partridge, you go huntin'
partridge.
Wanna go turkey huntin', go turkey
hunting.
Want to go pop a bear, go pop bear.
Coyotes, go bust some coyotes.
You can do whatever you want,
I love fall time.
So I was telling Josh when he got up
there, oh man, you gotta get a gun.
What, what? No, I can't get it.
I'm like, dude, you got to get one,
dude. I'm, like, you've got to go
hunting, dude like.
Why do I need to go huntin'?
I'm to know where your meat came
from.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
For what?
You know, that's all you need is one
to get you a little 4'10".
Yeah, I just needed a super one.
You can pop some birds.
Same as my twenty-two bag.
Yep, 22 megs,
right to the head.
You don't have to take it
easy.
Now I'm home in one big fire.
Yep, you can put it in there.
Marcus said if it flies it dies and
if it's brown it's down and
it'll fall.
What does the first brown mean?
Like a deer?
Like Bambi? If it's Bamby,
if it's a dog, if it's Bob,
throw lead.
Throw lead.
That's something my Uncle Rob told
me when I was...
When I was...
I went hunting, he took me
hunting and when I shot my first
deer he's like, Marcus I'm going to
tell you something that my dad told
me.
You see fur in that scope,
throw a lad, you just throw a Lad
my boy, throw lad,
your sure uncle?
Yup, you throw lad.
He's like don't listen to me because
it was the night before we
were hunting down at his brother
Dave's cabin.
Yeah
And I had
a deer in the skull.
And, don't shoot it, don't
shoot it. Don't shoot.
So I didn't shoot and,
did you see a deer?
Yeah, I was gonna shoot it but you
told me not to.
Don't listen to me.
Every time I'm hunting and
I see fur, I'm throwing lead.
I feel like I failed if
I didn't pull the trigger and I've
seen something.
Like even if I missed.
I knew, like, I took the shot,
you know, like.
Cause you never know.
Shit, I might have tumbled or
something and hit it.
Yeah, oh yeah, it's another one too.
My Uncle Rob, yeah, I went hunting
with my brother Scott
and we seen Bullwinkle come
out.
But all I seen was ass.
Oh, god damn it, Scotty.
He's like, I shot lots of big deer
in the ass but they're always on the
ground. He's, like, you would have
had them on the groun.
He was like, oh man,
he was really kicking himself in the
a** after that.
Yeah
Yeah, I'm just going to show them
how to take the cheeks out really
quick.
So then you get one.
Did I close that?
I think I zoomed in.
Yeah, too
Voila!
Yeah, see, it's like,
that's a, what are they, that
a scallop. It's a Bad River scallop
right there.
But yeah, that's what we usually do.
You got the cheeks, you'll take the
cheeks off, you know?
Yeah, it's a bad river scallop.
We don't know how fresh it is.
Yep.
Shoot him in the ass though.
That's what my uncle wrote.
If you see a big one, shoot
him. Even if it's in the ass, you'll
get him on the ground.
He shot a really big buck, really
big nine pointer in
velvet one time and
he shot that one in the a**.
So he always told me, remember that
big nine-pointer I shot?
Yeah, shot that one in the an**.
Yep, I still got him though.
That, uh,
that buck is still at the
taxidermist, ain't it?
He said he put it or you said
you put it in the freezer here
He took it up with the taxidermist
and the guy wanted too
much and he said, ah, fuck that,
I'll pay for it.
WHAT?!
I never did that!
That's a good
Nice velvet bike.
I'm sorry.
This is the size
of filet that people should
be wearing.
Yeah this is the size you shouldn't
be eating but like
there's like again i grew
up my whole life we we'd get we
wouldn't put this back but my
uncle would be like this is the fish
we put this in our pile he'd
be like, this is this is for me and
you like this it's
for the women and children this is
where the men poison
the men we don't
need to live that much longer like
we're all right
But no, I still think
that way.
It's like, no, women and children
get the little ones.
Men can get the big, huge ones.
We can poison ourselves.
Yeah, we're doing our part.
We're getting the fish for them.
The tail is no more.
Did I tell you what this was?
This is a female.
There's only one female that had
a bunch of eggs in it, huh?
There's a lot of fish in there.
Oh, it's a good option.
Well, per-
Okay, perfect size.
Yeah, there you go.
It's a kind of rattle.
So that's how it happens?
That's how that happens.
It builds up from the plankton of
the little critters, a little
invertebrate here, and
this little nugget for that one.
And you see it can eat at least
five or six.
Yeah, cuz look at his little
gullets fall
See, that's what you're,
that's the kind of lure you get in
control with.
You got a little perch.
You control it.
It's all laying on the river like
crazy.
There's another one right here
It's kind of like a school, eh?
Oh my god. You know what I'm talking
about.
Yeah.
I'm in, and I'm
out.
It's a good catch.
That's all it does, is a perch.
Yeah, and these
fish come from a closed system,
which is like just an inland lake
that's locked off from like the big
lake.
If these were from the big Lake,
they wouldn't have these perch in
them, they'd have smelt in them.
Because that's how our system,
the river is, is an open system.
So that's what we got.
When we caught up with open hours,
like at this time or in the
springtime or early summer, it's all
smelt.
Don't really got a whole lot of
perch. I noticed that when I was
fileting up all these inland lakes
that if they had anything in them
it was all little perch.
Because they starved themselves
before.
And then after, before
they spawn, they starve themselves,
right? And then it's like after,
when they come back out, they're
hungry as crap.
Yeah, eating everything up.
Cold and deep and crazy on the
river.
Oh yeah, in the springtime.
It's awesome trolling.
Awesome trolling!
I'm gonna give you a musk.
Yeah, man, they're...
I've never really had musky,
but I've eaten northern my entire
life, so I'm pretty sure it's...
It's better.
Is it?
Yeah, I'm straight up through it all
out of my book.
No way.
Yeah, right in our reading.
Hey, underneath it.
I didn't see a bunch of perch.
I don't know, all that perch must be
in all three
of those hoodies.
Do Muskie have the lagoon, like the
northern lagoon? Yeah.
And that's why people don't
want to be in it.
But if they screw, we'll have to win
it.
I know how to cut around that.
The way I've learned how to do them
is like, like if this was like
a northern or a musky,
I would come down the back and hit
this big filet because they don't
have this like big dorsal fin.
There's like a big chunk of meat
here.
So I'd hit that and have like that
chilling.
And then I would, yep, and then I'd
just hit the tails.
And then if you really want, you're
really hard up, then you can go down
the sides
And then you can get like a decent
square of meat, but it's really
thin.
So I always just left that for the
critters and the eagles.
I'm like, ah, they, they need
something to eat too.
They can have that, but
yeah, my uncle Steve showed me
how to cut them all.
I don't need that mask anymore,
that's good.
Ha ha ha ha
You don't leave it there on the
mosquitoes, do you?
You can eat it on your own.
Sometimes we get them in there,
they've been speared.
So if you're a master
spear, you go for the head.
They go for head shots.
But the young kids and youngsters
are first timers.
They get them the body.
But when the master
dudes hit them, sometimes
I don't get otolithed.
The otoliths are blown out.
Thankfully all year I've been
lucked out and I've found
one or part of one or
something. But yeah,
usually they are.
The master jabbers can,
yeah, they just blow it all, ain't
nothing left there.
Some strep to head.
Man, like I said, I've
speared too, but it's a lot of
work spearing, like for real.
It's, people don't think it's alot
of work, but when you think about,
I'll put it to you this way,
what sounds easier to you,
going, taking a
couple hours to go down the road and
put a net in that might take like,
what, an hour and a half to set,
then going home and chilling all
night, checking it in the morning,
or would you rather
Pack up for a couple hours,
get you and your buddy, load
up the boat, go gas
up the boat and your truck,
drive maybe four or five
hours to a lake,
wait till it gets dark,
then go jab all night
till you meet your quota or you
might not meet your quota, come
in, wait for the Creole clerks
to count all your fish because they
gotta sit there and count your fish.
Then you got to load up your fish,
drive all the way back home,
and now you got to contemplate, do
I stay out and filet all these
fish, or do I put
them in the cooler and go to bed?
To me
it doesn't make any sense,
but I understand that
our ancestors fought for the rights
for us to like continue doing that.
So it's important too,
but to me I'd rather go sit
in that.
I'm a net guy.
You can't set nets on the lakes
though, right?
Um, we can do,
we could, we got, we,
it depends like the
time of year.
So like if you went out in the
springtime and tried to do what we
call like a lake set, so like that
would be, just say,
say this is, say, this is like the
beach, right?
This is the lake.
Our nets are going to be sitting out
like this.
Like we got it anchored to a point
and then we got stretched out and it
stops right here.
If we tried to do that in the
springtime, this is going to be
loaded up with suckers.
None but suckers!
You're going to have a biomass of
like 5,000 suckers, you're going to
have in every hole you're gonna
have a sucker.
You might get five lake
fish out of all them
suckers so it's like you gotta wait
till like summertime like right
like middle of summer.
Yeah like that's when you can go do
a lake set and you'll catch some
good lakers.
You'll but it
depends on when you do it and
I guess the wave action too when
you're doing it because
we used to try to do lake sets
when I was younger but every time
we did biomass
of suckers or
there's a lot of
trees and stuff coming out like
from the spring washout and stuff.
So it's like every once in a while
you might get like a big wad or
something wrapped up in your net
then you're sitting there all day
untangling the net cutting your
neck cutting rope like
pissed off man like
so yeah it's
uh you can yeah
there's but there's a difference
between like setting out
in the lake and like doing
a lake set so
I'm From what I was told,
we used to be able to do,
to set out in the lake,
but like everybody and their grandma
was doing that back in the day.
So we like kind of fished it out.
So they put a kibosh on
that.
And now it's like, if you want to
fish out there, you gotta have a
commercial fishing license or
whatever.
My grandpa used to do lake sets and-
In the lakes.
But yeah, they-
I can only do one or you can either
spear or commit.
Yeah, so, yeah,
so.
Yeah, many more finishes.
But yeah and then another thing too
is okay you
might go out all night and
say your quota for the lake
is um 75 fish a
person you go out there with two or
three guys all right so
now you gotta get all them fish
or try to get all the fish and
you might not get them all or you
might be on a poopy lake like duck
remember i was telling you about
duck it was really bad so
you're sitting there and you think
you're gonna get all these fish and
Don't At least I know, I
go set up a net,
I'm guaranteed to at least get
20 or 30 fish in the morning.
So yeah, I just feel
like setting a net is
more safer.
I'm guaranteed fish,
that's what I'm trying to get at.
And again,
I can choose if I want to
camp on my net or if I
wanna go home.
I don't have to sit out there.
To tell all of the journals for
comments.
Did it?
This is a male.
But they're both very important.
I guess it just depends on
how much work you're willing to
put into getting
your harvest.
Me, I'm all about getting the most
for the least amount of work.
By Flambeau.
When I went out there,
the crew I was with, we did
What the heck was there, was Star,
we did Oxbow, we did
Squirrel, we get Tenderfoot,
we did...
Amber,
um, what other one did we
do? I swear we did another one.
Oh, Annabelle. The reason I'm
thinking of that is because we're
taking fish too, and
in Oxbow, there's a
tributary between Annabell
and Oxbow.
Annabella is kind of a hot lake.
It's not as hot as
this foot, but it has higher mercury
levels.
They never did tags in Oxbow,
we were just doing fin clips and
we were catching fish
that had tags
and I'm not sure
if Josh did got
a hold of Brandon to
see where that tag came from but
we're pretty sure it came from
Annabelle because it's
and we act when we
did that we actually caught, I can't
remember if it was three or four
fish and Butch was like
He was saying that's probably not
good either because it means that
them fish are trying to leave that
lake for a reason like
so it's
So that's what I was saying, Butch
has a lot of knowledge on
that stuff, like he's...
As I was telling him, I was like,
man, you're a real asset and
it's like you're gonna be leaving.
It was like, ah, there'll be other
people.
Oh, yeah, my
name's Marcus Krasco.
M-A-R-C-U-S-C
A-R R-A S-C
O.
I'm a lab aide and
just here to cut up fish.
Yeah, yeah, my title is
a lab aide,
because I'm aiding him in
his studies, so...
But you also do a lot of other
things.
Yeah, whatever whatever
Did you have to work with the tribe,
with that river, or was it with the
Indians?
It's a good for anything that I've
done like like that has been with
Glifwick they
Go for it.
Once you're like in here, they
they tend to want to use
the employees that
they got so it's like if something
comes up like like
Shocking stuff like that.
They'll they'll ask internally like
who's available for how
long? And that's where
I got connected with butch
in them on that.
So Because we had a
little bit of a lull where
we weren't getting fish.
So I did the fish that we
did for the lakes that we got,
and then I
got to go shocking for a
couple weeks.
That was a cool experience
and everything.
Like I said, learned a lot doing
that.
What do you do?
Yeah. And you're also a gold member
of that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm an enrolled member,
like I've lived here my whole life,
so like I was
trying to say it forward, doing
stuff like this really means a lot
to me,
it just makes me feel
like I'm making a difference,
like, I guess everybody kind of
wants to feel like
they're doing something positive,
you know, but yeah, doing
this type of work really makes me
like I'm doing a different, doing
something positive and
What's the difference between you
when you were younger and you guys
would harvest and then share with
the community versus the feeling now
when you're out of this?
Well, I still
do that.
If I'm hunting or
fishing, and I'm
getting a lot, I
was always taught you share.
You share with your family.
I guess being on this side
of it, I'm
more aware of the consumption
end of it. Because again, it was
just like, load up on fish.
Have all the fish you need,
you know. Like have enough fish that
you know it's gonna last you a year.
But now it's like,
I'm learning about
how much is
safe, like a safe
amount to consume.
How much is not a safe the amount.
Like I, again,
I used to think.
Eating fish twice a month was
like normal or even
more like maybe like four four times
a month was normal but it's
really not like you shouldn't be
doing that like um
you're and it's
just not good for your body it's not
good for you your family and
everything and i didn't know until
like talking with josh and
everything more and reading reading
about mercury and like
methyl mercury and stuff but
dog that doesn't just affect you
it affects your
descendants, like your
kids and like their kids
are going to be affected by
the mercury intake from
from you.
So it's yeah
so it's a it's it's all different
but I again I feel like it's
important to know it's an important
to be part of.
It's got to be a better feeling not
only to help and provide, but you're
giving knowledge with.
Oh yeah, exactly.
Like I was telling my
wife and my kids, I was like,
I used to think we can just sit here
and max on the fish because it's
like, we got it, you know?
But I always tried to give them
the smaller fish, you now?
But now it's, like, dang, we've
got a bunch of fish and we can't
eat it like we used to.
For this month,
we already had fish, so
now we've gotta wait.
But again, it's not, I might have
a lot of fish, but it's just not for
me.
Something might come up or somebody
might pass away.
There you go, there's some fish for
that.
Or somebody has like
a ghost feast or maybe it's
something like that.
Maybe it's somebody's birthday and
they really wanted a fish fry.
So here you go man, like have
at her.
So yeah, I just,
I was just
taught to share.
I was taught to like,
Don't be greedy.
So where does walleye break
in, and what's the importance of it
being walleye in here?
It's a walleye.
I don't know.
It's just very
important. It has been a very
important resource to
not just my family, but everybody's
family in the Indian community
forever.
It's been here.
It is just like sturgeon.
Sturgeon is very important too.
But the walleye is...
Everybody wants to eat walleye.
Nobody, like, because sturgeon's
like a bottom feeder,
not looked at as like primo,
you know, so.
But walleye, everybody wants to Eat
walleye it's
top notch, A1.
This guy, he never had a
walleye before. I was like, are you
kidding me?
I was, like dude, it'll
blow any other fish.
I don't care how you prepare
it, it smokes any
otherfish out of the water.
Like it could be salt water, fresh
water, like don't, it's just
the best fish, okay, and
it's just, it ranks high
because it's so good.
I don't know how to, it just
a very important commodity.
And it's because of
that being, it
is just hard to describe.
It's just, it's like deer.
Like deer is just something that's
just been part of our culture
forever.
Like, it's like, you just can't
take it away, like...
Yeah, I don't know.
It's just, it's hard to describe,
but it's just if I was
to put it, it just because taste
alone, you know, like just taste
wise, like you, you
can put it up against any fish out
there and it's going to
blow them off the off the market,
like off the map, like, just you
can you can fry it,
you could bake it, you could saute
it.
You can you could poach it.
Like you could do like anything you
want with it. And you can make that
taste incredible.
Like, you can even burn
the crap out of it,
and I'm telling you, like, we went
fishing one time.
Dawn, she's the
treaty specialist here, she
made fish tacos and burnt the crap
out of the meat, and it was still
bomb.
Like, I'm tellin' you, it's just
a great fish.
It's, yeah, like I
was tellin', like, tellin'm for it.
People don't worry about smelting
stuff in the springtime.
It's like, man, we're all about our
walleye.
Yeah.
Growing up, kids were always like,
oh, smelten season's right around
the corner. It's, like, smelt.
Man, we worry about walleye over
here, man.
I'll save some for you.
But yeah,
it's just something that has
just been part of our people.
Creator gave it to us to help
sustain us. So, it's
just, it...
Very important again just like deer
or anything else like
it was placed here for
us to sustain us so
we can make it and to carry on
the next generation you know so
again I want to be able to
guarantee my kids I can catch
them something you know like so
it's yeah it's
all about sustainability
I guess is like why it's
so important like you
We want to be able to provide the
next generation with this,
you know?
Like, I never thought
about it, but it's...
My ancestors really fought for
my ability to
come out here and go setting it and
harvest fish, so yeah,
it's just important.
I don't know what else to say, man.
It's just very, it's just
part of who we are.
Just, it was like anything else.
You got all, like the trees and
stuff too. It's part of just who we
were. Like, you got maple trees,
part of tapping trees, you know,
like we were making our syrup and
our sugar and stuff,
and just part who we as a people.
So that's why it's
important. It's a
resource that Creator put here
for us to sustain us.
And we've been taking advantage,
like, good advantage of it for
thousands of years and I
I would like to see it continue as
long as possible,
so doing stuff like this, doing work
like this really does make me feel
like I am
providing that, you know,
so yeah.
Sorry if I was just lambing on there
for a little bit, but it was just,
yeah, it was Just like, I...
They put all this stuff here for us
and we
got to take advantage of it and
treat it with respect and
do everything in a good way the
right way.
We will grab the mic back from you.
Yeah, I think so.
So walk me through the
science of what we have
here and what
step in the process we're at.
Okay, so we're at nearly the
beginning.
We're kind of at the midway point
here.
So typically what we do is
we have, usually
we have the spearers collect the
fish for us. We pay usually $10
a fish or so.
And then we try to get at least 12
per lake where we're aiming.
And so that doesn't always happen.
Sometimes we collect the fish
through population assessments.
And that's the way we got
these. And these came from Michigan.
From our sister agency,
KVSC.
And so we're assessing,
right now we're assessing the
mercury content of the fish,
as well as the PFOS content
of a fish.
And I say mercury, but it's actually
methylmercury.
There's a big difference there.
A lot of people, whenever you speak
on that, they think of the
inorganic metal, when really we're
dealing with the organic metal,
which is mercury that
has been methylated by
typically anaerobic bacteria.
In, say, a marshland
or a bog.
So the factors that
contribute to that are
your levels of sulfate,
your pH contributes, and
as well as the dissolved oxygen.
So as anaerobic bacteria work
on this stuff, a lake
with lower dissolved oxygen,
acidity, higher acidity and
then potentially higher sulfates,
you'll see an increase in methyl
mercury in those fish populations.
So it's important for you to study
different lakes because even if
they're next to each other, lakes
may be different, right?
Yes, that's exactly right, and we're
also monitoring trends over time.
So this program has been enacted
since, I want to say 1996 or
so, and so it's been going on
for nearly 30 years at this point.
What have you seen over that
time?
Actually we've seen the trends
are steady.
They follow what you would expect,
you know, larger fish by
accumulation.
They tend to have more
methylmercury content.
Right now the focus is actually
towards PFOS.
We're trying to detect hot
spots and so with
the fish you not only are you making
a food consumption advisory.
To let people know if the fish are
safe to eat within that lake,
but also we are at the
same time looking at
the quality of water, because if
your water is contaminated, your
fish will be contaminated as well.
What are the main concerns with
methylmercury?
Obviously the consumption is
the issue.
So your main concerns are it
is a neurotoxicant or
neurotoxin.
So with methylmercury, it is
very
toxic to
our special populations,
to women who may become pregnant,
women who are pregnant, children,
infants, newborns,
anything that
has a developing brain.
Is highly susceptible
to methylmercury toxicity.
And are people more aware of these?
I mean, I've obviously been doing this
study a long time.
Are people becoming more aware that
they should take that serious?
Ah, more aware,
we need, all right,
so more aware.
They are aware, but as far
as like the intricate details of it,
I would say no, we are, we need to
do more on that part.
Like I said earlier, a lot of people
believe it's like the liquid metal
mercury, but no.
Here we're dealing with a organic
form of mercury.
In fact, a
lotta metals,
if a metal is safe, take
tin, for example.
If you stick a methyl group, a
couple methyl groups on tin,
that metal goes from a safe metal to
a quite toxic metal.
So organic metals are
typically something to always be
concerned of.
And mercury is found everywhere
in the universe, right?
Yeah, mercury is a natural...
Yeah, mercury is a natural occurring
compound.
When Marcus was speaking on earlier
how there is atmospheric deposition
of mercury, that's just something
that happens naturally from,
you know, combustion of fossil
fuels, combustion of, you now,
anything that's going on in
industry, goes up into the air,
and then it slowly will particulate
out, and they have
this model, people put
this down or math and
then And so
usually where there's a higher
concentration of industry, you can
see more mercury deposition.
In the past, whenever the
United States was in its
industrial age,
like we were making metal
manufacturing back here, that's
when the levels were higher.
They're looking at, what is that
bay called out of Duluth?
St. Louis?
River Estuary?
Yeah, so they're monitoring that.
Keeping track of those levels
because that's a lot of industry in
that area.
We saw one of the fish where we saw
a lot of the other fish popping out
of her. Just talk about that food
prop. OK.
Okay, so the bioaccumulation.
So, you know, once the mercury is
deposited into the soil, the water,
it then becomes part of the, you,
know, the natural cycle of things.
It is taken up, you know, you
imagine like a little bacterium.
They just suck that mercury up,
methylate it, send it out, you
now, and sometimes it can even
become double methylated.
So you have methylmercury
but typically it the
the equilibrium tends to fall on the
methyl mercury side.
So once it's deposited,
the anaerobic bacteria, bacteria get
a hold of it and then the peat and
the marsh and the bog and the
soil.
Slowly gets accumulated up
through, let's say, the Daphnia, the
little water fleas, the little water
bugs, and then they accumulate
it and then you have the little fish
come and feed on those, and the
little fishes get fed on slowly
but surely by the larger walleye and
then, you know, up the food chain it
goes. And so you have a
bioaccumulation effect,
a magnification of methylmercury
in, say, your larger, older fish.
And that's why there's always the
warnings about the size of the fish
and the size of the flay.
Exactly.
So that's where, yes, that's exactly
where the warnings come about
regarding the size of the fish and
the age.
So you typically want to stay below
20 inches on your fish
size for eating.
The sweet spot I would say is around
15 inches to 18 inches.
That's your sweet spot for eating
and safety. So what
do we know about
It's a developing field at the
moment. It is,
we
are learning it is a
compound that we are detecting in
extremely small quantities.
That's why we have the foil there to
help with any cross contamination.
What we know about PFOS is it's
another forever chemical.
Just like PCBs, PFOS will be
around until we're all dead and
gone. It'll be around forever.
And so we're monitoring,
all right, let's start where we
know.
So PFOS, where we expect
to find PFOS are runoff
areas around landfills,
airports, and firefighter
training areas.
Those are our three main hotspots,
so if you live anywhere around
there.
And not not say per se a modern
landfill because now they're being
designed to control
for that, but an old landfill that
doesn't have per se the liner,
you would have
runoff you see from the leachate
off of that landfill and that
leachates would lead into the
waterways and then you would see
from fish, hopefully
first, testing that area,
increase amounts of say PFOS.
So PFOS is a catch all umbrella term
for many perfluorocarbon
chains.
So the main culprits
we're looking at are PFOS, P-F-O-S
and PFAS, PF-FAS
for now, there are many others.
$15,000 or so to
be exact or more.
So, but are they, do we know
if that's equally distributed in
every element of the water
and the fish and the meat?
No, it's not equally distributed.
Like I said, you have your hotspots,
right?
But I guess if there's a runoff
area, is it all the fish that come
through there, or is that what we're
still trying to figure out, whether
it's in the filet, or if it's
constant?
Yeah, so we do have data
on that, that comes from Gavin, our
PFAS guy, he's in Madison.
So he has data that
states that the PFAS is concentrated
in the head.
And he thinks it's the wildlife
cheeks, but I disagree.
I think it's stuck in the brain,
because it's
a fatty molecule, but it's not.
It kind of
mimics cholesterol and you know
your brain is high on cholesterol or
it tries to it gets incorporated
there.
But that's where the science, we
need to know...
We need to know more.
So honestly, if I want to write
a grant, I would write a grant for
Marcus to collect brains and
we would sample those brains and
see if the PFOS is actually
concentrated. But first, we have to
find the hot spot to find where
these PFOS-concentrated fish are.
We do have a few lakes that we know
that are hits and so once
we have those, we can actually focus
on those areas and then focus on the
fish in that ecosystem to see how
that PFOS is actually
If it is accumulating, where is it
accumulating? Is it in tissues, is
it in certain organs, that sort of
thing.
It's possible that taking a filet
sample to look for pithos, you may
not find it even if it is present
in that water body, right?
Or is it simultaneously
testing the water to determine that
that's a hot spot?
Because right now you're only
testing the filet.
We're only testing the fish.
The USGS test the water,
other agencies handle water,
but we have within our GIS system,
we have it mapped out so that
our lakes are chosen
that are highly suspected
to be contaminated
with PFOS.
And is that a bigger
threat long-term than...
Mercury?
No, I mean that's
comparing apples and oranges.
They both pose their
own special threats.
I mean you still have PCBs in the
background here.
That's the OG forever chemical.
Polychlorinated biphenyls,
PCBs.
In terms of, like, the work
that you guys are doing here, is it
always going to be, like what's the
new thing to worry about?
Yeah, kind of, if
you want to be a little cynical
about it,
yeah, we got methylmercury, now we
have PFAS, soon it will be
microplastics, after that it will 6
PPD coming out of your tires.
I mean, this is
a sense of monitoring.
So we're not going to fix what's
happening, but we were able to
monitor what's happened.
So say this is Ruth Lake,
Ruth Lake right now may be clean,
but I come back five Years from now.
My fish are showing numbers that
weren't there, that
weren't there in the previous years
that we sampled.
So now we know that there's activity
going around that lake that
is running off into there.
And we need to alert whoever needs
to know so that they can
figure out how to control
that point source pollution.
So the reason for
choosing Walleye to do the testing,
is it just, it's an Apex Predator?
Apex predator.
Everyone wants it.
It's a high
commodity. It is a fish of the
people.
I mean, whenever I posted my
picture, my selfie picture, like
friends from Louisiana are like,
that's a walleye.
I was like, yeah, how'd you know?
But yeah, they know.
Everyone knows it's walleye, so.
I mean you got musky too.
People love musky, but nothing
compares to the walleye up here.
As far as the fishing, everyone
wants walleye Yeah, everyone want's
it.
So that's why you would test that
rather than something else.
I mean we also test other fish.
We test sturgeon, we test murk,
muskie, we test whitefish out of
Lake Superior, we test lake trout
out of lake Superior.
Right now we're focused on the
inland lakes. We do the Lake
Superior in the fall, we work on the
Inland Lakes in the spring.
So like we're in the summer now so
we're wrapping up the project.
All these samples are due Friday.
But it's probably hard to imagine
that people would ever not
heave walleyes, so you might as well
know where.
No one's going to stop.
No one's gonna stop. So the best
thing to do is educate.
So if I can if I could convince
people to put the big fish up on the
wall or leave it in the water so it
keeps responding the lakes
and he's
shaking his head.
You know, but
I mean you saw that big one we got
230 grams nearly
half a pound off of one filet so.
I'm telling you one thing, my uncle
always taught me this isn't
catch and release.
Yeah, it's not catch and release.
So the thing is we have to catch
and educate.
So catch, educate.
You can eat a contaminated fish,
but you're going to want to eat a
small piece of that filet.
And you're going to do a literature
search on anything that can
attenuate the toxicity of
methylmercury. And there are studies
out there that have data to
back that up.
I believe the top dog in
methylmercury studies right now is a
guy called Michael Aschner.
Could be even closer to retired, but
if you go into PubMed, search
Methylmercury, his name is almost on
every single publication.
Anything else that we should know
what is the next step?
So you guys are just taking the
samples here, and then you bring me
over to a lab, right?
Right, so typically the next
step, they would go in the freezer,
but since we're doing a mock trial
transport, I have four
samples, four lakes that
we're going to do like a little mock
trial run. I'm going to get
everything prepped, settled.
You already got those in the
freezer? No, they're right there.
So we had the PFOS.
The PFOS ones that you saw were the
ones wrapped in foil to help
with any kind of
cross-contamination.
The mercury ones were the one that
went into the bag without any foil.
We have the the otoliths for
aging We have two sets
this time, typically there's only
one set, our sister agency KBFC,
they're training one of their own
LTEs to how to age the
fish. So we get the age, we get
weight, we the length,
and we get tissue weight.
That's going to be, I believe that's
a wet analysis on that tissue.
And so all these things factor in
together to help us know the
proper mercury content of the
tissue as well.
And so the ODA lists,
one set will go here for
our aging purposes here, and that
will go into the database.
And then the other set will be going
to KBIC, and
there they're going to be doing a
quality assurance
or quality assessment.
I got this, this is actually a
secret, they're going to find out
after this airs, but I'm
checking their numbers, seeing that
they're aging right, and we're going
to compare the ages, so it's a lab
lab check. What does KVIC stand
for? I don't know.
Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.
Keweenawe Indian Community
Alright, can I get you to
say and spell your name, give your
title while we got you here?
Do I do the doctor?
All right, my name is Dr. Joshua
Salley.
Dr. Josh Salley, J-O-S-H-U-A-S
A-L-L E-Y.
I'm originally from Louisiana.
I got a job here at GlyphWake
beginning in March after
what, my second
midlife crisis.
And what's your title here?
My title here is the Environmental
Toxicologist.
Alright, very cool.
All right. Are you recording me?
All right, so we produce a physical
map, and on that map we have our,
it's like a section around
the, say
around the band.
Yeah, it's the lakes,
so there's a map printed for each
of our member triumphs.
Okay, and then...
The links that are on their
map are the links that that tribe
declares.
Right, so there's a map with
lakes for our member tribes,
and each look like, alright,
let me start over.
No, we got it.
No, okay.
Yeah, and then those lakes on the
map, they're color
graded.
And so I think I gave you some.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Please.
So, yeah, red means don't
eat, blue means have
at it, kind of the old.
So is there more that you guys need
to do in the lab or is the next one
there's lux?
Oh wow.
Here you see this
whole cooler, what's inside here and
right here. This is, uh, this is
my spring's worth of PFAS
samples. This is
I want to say 34 Lake.
So, since we're about to transport
to the LSRL lab, I need to gather
up some ice.
So, I'll read and grab.
We'll use these green and white
things.
And that should be good.
And then, uh...
I'm gonna need another one.
Sure, I'll get out your way in one
second.