14.9
No clip
at a risk.
85.
We will take that and then we'll get
out of my eights.
No clip.
5-7
I'm assuming they haven't stocked
anything in this...
I don't think they had.
Er, did he say?
Yeah, okay.
You're gonna do that next week or
so? After.
Oh really? Yeah.
Is that what they told you?
So they should be next week and then
Red Cliff does upper sink prior to
the weekend.
Okay.
Oh really, I didn't always talk
that.
Oops. Did I get them on the outside
there? Nope.
Nah, I just stabbed his thumb.
Yeah, I'm a little out of my head at
it.
It's just a flesh wound.
Did you say you got to see them feed
the ones that they're going to stock
out next week?
At Red Cliff, as you're going to
see.
Yeah, all of that once for the other
lake.
How did that go?
Did you get some good footage?
No, Lance says that they usually
do a lot of the activities at night
or in the morning.
So it's hard to, yeah.
So we got to see the
minnows go in, but you didn't
get to see a feast.
Yeah, I hear that's what happened.
That river has a hatchery too,
they raise walleye and perch.
9-2
Get on that.
Usually not that active midday.
That's the way I do it.
Edo.
Edo, you take that.
Brandon's like, yep, to
work with walleye, you must
become like a walleye.
Yeah, you must be
walleye!
Sleep midday.
Next year your eyes gonna go
You feed at night.
Dawn and dusk usually.
All right, we'll see you later.
Guys, the end point is just around
that point, isn't it?
There's a bridge over there.
Is that where you're going to?
I think so.
Yeah,
another mile, mile and a half.
Oh yeah, because we don't go all the
way down.
I don't think so.
I can't remember.
I was just... I remember starting
at...
I left my knife in the truck.
I don't think it goes all the way
down though, because we don't do
this out on shore.
No, I could look it up on my
phone, I think, because you
re-mailed it, didn't you?
Oh yeah.
I'll look it up for you.
Thank you very much.
If I remember right though,
that's... We're good on those things.
To that bridge.
It's over here.
I don't know if I'm gonna get enough
service. I'll try.
Did you find it?
So you are going to do some West
Shore, huh?
Actually, most of us are.
Yeah, on an island.
Ok, so pretty much this is the
Payne's Island.
Yeah, there's another creek down
there I think.
We're good on that, you know, we're
good. That sounds curious, yeah.
Could have just been a bus for the
ones they put in, yeah.
The ones that he's stocking in this
year, he's going to do right and
left for pellet versus minnow,
right?
I think so, yeah.
Oh, and I think he has other years,
too.
Okay.
So, maybe
one treatment didn't survive well.
I can't remember.
How you been?
Good to see you. Yeah, you too, man.
Yeah.
No, it's super exciting.
No, I hope so.
I've been... All right.
Yeah, it's awesome.
I've been pumped, I've talking this
thing out to everybody in Nevada, I
mean it's the coolest thing ever, it
is!
How is it out there?
Hot, usually, but pretty
good, pretty good so far.
I've gotten a couple handles so far,
so I'm towards getting my A.D.
Because you can get it through just
field experience, so we've been
working pretty hard at that.
Really, really cool, we're on that
Greenlink project, I don't know if
you've heard about that at all.
I had no
transmission line from Vegas to
Reno. It's a six-year project so.
Okay.
It'll be pretty fun,
but I'll be trying to make it back
for more of this as often as I can.
Yeah that's awesome.
Do you see lots of tortoises out
there?
Yeah
Are they big?
Yeah, here, I actually just want to
see them. Sure.
I want to how big these animals are.
Well, so they range.
I found an 88 millimeter, just
a little, little fella.
I mean, there's two, I guess,
two remote people that are
technically part of other offices.
Oh, sure.
Physically, you know.
Yeah.
Oh, man.
Man, that's such a big change.
When I was there, when you
started...
This was a super
grumpy female, that's
the one I was telling the story
about, that really wanted to get
onto the construction pad but we
wouldn't let her so she just kind of
stared at us.
Yeah, she just sat there like that
for a while.
This baby rattles thing is
swarming in my pinky.
Oh really? Yeah, that's really
zoomed in. Wow.
That's insane. Yeah, no,
the rattle didn't even grow,
because they'll eat anything as long
as it has moisture in it.
They can process it.
Oh yeah yeah yeah no they're super
fun that's how they get water they
just eat dirt or cactus yeah like
after a rain if there's a lot
of moisture in the soil they'll just
eat it
yeah and uh
a little cruiser all the way back
around then came into the
Oh, he's like, well I found this
myself.
They have really
big personalities, but they're
really dumb, and they're
just really goofy to watch.
He was like, I'm not going where
you put me.
Exactly.
Everyone's doing everything they
can.
Or just check and see if there's a
better spot, a better burrow.
Here's that, here's that.
Baby
I don't know if that gives you
any idea of its size.
It's tiny!
Really, really small,
juvenile.
Wow.
That was super cool.
Super fun to see all the wildlife
out there. A lot of wild donkeys and
those things are crazy.
Just all over the place by
perump and whatnot
on project.
But a camel got out.
Oh, really?
Project but nobody wants to go near
it they just see it off in the
distance.
What do they do?
Oh, there's that and there's also
two ostriches running around out
there.
I don't know where they came from,
they got out of some private
ownership, something,
it was really funny though because
to my knowledge they still haven't
caught any of the animals, they're
just kind of running around.
What you guys are doing is what
we're doing.
Just whatever we're doing, okay.
I mean, this is, yeah, obviously.
You just have to let us know if
there's something.
We just have...
Yeah, should we dip all sizes
maybe juvenile survey
right now, but if there's a
If there's opportunity,
get the big ones too.
I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself
yet, I'm Jackson.
And I'm Rick.
Nice to meet you guys. You guys,
GlyphWick?
Yeah.
And then if we, do you have other
mics too?
Cause you might, cause if I'm
driving this boat, you might want to
get some sound from their
boat.
Where I gonna have to be is if Ethan
gets on.
Oh sure like narrate what we're
seeing and then like just seeing it
naturally Yeah, sometimes it's with
the sound sometimes Sure, the sound
of everything happening is what we
are looking for.
Yeah, usually the
Narrations for me.
Oh, sure later on I'm going all
right. What the hell is that looking
at here? Like right it's usually
somewhere one of the commentary to
the tracks. I can go.
Okay. That's what he's describing Oh
sure make sure my notes are accurate
I mean, there is Joe
Walters, he's still there, okay.
Yeah, and they got a new one in the
first day.
This is where I am right now.
Hi, I'm Mike.
We've met before. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is it Ted?
Yeah, yep. Anyway, he was down
here.
Yep. Yeah, I'm here.
Yeah. Okay.
Anyway, I'll stop over after.
Okay. All right.
See ya.
I screwed up.
Why's that?
Well, I was going to meet him here
and I,
anyway, it's a long story.
I just got up today.
Oh, okay.
And who's our
fisheries biologist?
Oh, the new one?
Nate. Oh yeah, he's here and then.
We've got a new one at Glyphwood
too, Brandon here
has.
Alright, I told him
it would take a year to ship.
Yep, yep.
But in the middle of it, I'm still
doing regular reporting.
We got three tonight,
and then we got a PBS Wisconsin
film crew who's going to come out
too. They went out with Mike
yesterday fishing.
Well, that's a good thing. Yeah, well that's a good thing.
So we were in Jamesville talking
with someone from the Soybean
Alliance.
And many reasons.
Just to put some more
knowledge in people who know
what I'm saying.
I don't know what I'm saying, but
it's
getting better, when I'm
giving you crap.
He's like, why don't you go up here
and over here, and he's got a drone
out there.
He is into it,
but he's very knowledgeable for
laymen.
Yeah, he's been good to work with.
All of you guys have created a nice
situation.
I don't know.
I help him a lot.
I don't even fish.
Come across over here.
So where are you guys all going
tonight?
I didn't think you were coming.
Well, I wasn't initially, but
they...
That's awesome.
What a crazy change from tigers
to turkeys.
Yeah, I don't know how she did it.
And she ended up in the USDA.
That's wild.
Yeah, well, everyone
does different things,
you know me, I sew scotch tape.
That's how I know Mike.
That guy is passionate.
Holy shit.
They're doing well with the pressure
being on everybody watching them
load their boat yeah yeah trailer
backing is good now you hit the
trailer perfect it's a species
You can probably back a full-size
pickup. Don't throw car batteries in
the ocean.
They made that thing indestructible.
It does look pretty
sturdy.
Oh, is he going to get something?
Oh
Did you get that?
Yeah, you got it.
I don't know what he got but...
Small fish.
That was
awesome.
Hold that, frame that, but it's
like, at the same time, it's a
videographer, they've got to frame
the camera, focus the camera.
So, it feels awkward when you're
saying, just hold that fish for ten
seconds.
So, there's a lot of, when you
are just watching, you can go, oh,
he's getting great stuff, but, it
could be that...
Or the focus, or it's a little off,
yeah.
Come back and you hope you have
enough you don't really know until
you actually see it.
Yeah, it's good to just get a lot,
that's kind of the name of the game,
get a ton of footage.
We call it pray and pray.
OK, yeah.
As much as you can, and hope a
little bit.
As Zach likes hearing that, too.
Yeah, that's our favorite.
Ha ha ha ha.
Oh great, it's fresh fish.
In a target rich environment,
something's going to happen.
That's
As long as the camera turns on.
Oh, that was scary yesterday.
I'm happy to help if I can,
but it's not your fault if you don't
help.
We're on this side of the post
He's been back in the trailers for
40 years.
Yeah, where were you crab?
It's not that fast.
It's cool. And then, you know, the
diversity of the job, like this
stuff and trout stuff,
habitat work.
There's a lot of
different stuff there.
Do you still see
Josh, Slasher?
Yeah. Once in a while.
Yeah. He's a good friend of mine.
Yeah, yeah, because I worked with
Josh back then.
Oh yeah, when you were out fishing
wildlife you would have seen him,
yeah.
That's the MOCC
coordinator for a big region
now.
Yep, he switched to that like
a year and a half ago or something.
Yeah
I think he likes it last I talked
to him about it.
Yeah, that's a big
change for him too.
Yeah, because he's been there, art,
fish, and wildlife, for quite a
while too. I think that was 2010
or 11, yeah, probably years after
I got up here, he came up here.
He was in Missouri and Kansas for
school and stuff
for a while.
Where did you meet him in
grad school?
A grade school actually.
Oh really? Yeah, we were in fourth
grade together.
Oh wow. Yeah, fourth, fifth, sixth,
and then I went to a different
school and then we were high school
buddies and went
to Stevens Point, done
by Madison.
Oh okay. Yeah.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Okay. I knew he was yeah from down
that area. Yeah, that's it.
Oh you guys go way back
Yeah, yeah, yeah way,
way back. Yeah, we roomed together
at Stevens Point for a couple of
years.
Being a roommate puts a strain on
it after a while, because you're
just different, you know, and you do
different stuff and annoy each
other, but it was a good time,
yeah.
Thank you. Good night.
Yeah
Yeah, I haven't run into him
since I've been back.
I've seen some of the other guys
from the Fish and Wildlife Office.
Mike Sager.
But yeah, I havent seen
Josh yet.
He's around, I haven't seen
him lately either.
He's probably doing all the
trainings all over the place.
I think he travels a lot now
for trainings and stuff.
Yeah.
That's good, that's kind of off his
alley too.
When I was there in 2019,
I was impressed
with his boating.
I mean, he's good with boats,
and he's the right guy for
instructing people on that.
He's good at it.
Have you been getting all that?
I've made one so far.
This will be the second time and I'm
not even really surveying.
I'm just kind of like cart the crew
around and see what's happening.
Yeah, so that's a change too.
If we had enough crew
leaders then I would kind of like
do a week here but not the
whole season.
And now this year is hardly ever.
Yeah
So we broke at the
office of a boat out.
He's got a schedule of four and
we're like.
We didn't have the light plug,
and we didn't even have a strap for
the boat, you know like everything
was not pulled together.
Yeah, Jackson was out there.
We were like, oh no, we've got to
get the...
Yeah, they made it work.
They took 169, which is close.
Went down that way because
if you're out in Odina, it'll
actually tell you It's faster
to go that way than to go back
through Ashland
It was, it was faster still,
I mean, I kind of
felt it sleeping on the way back,
but...
They've been putting in a new
culvert by Lake 3 too and
I've gotten, drove all the way there
trying to get to Mineral and they
had to go back around to Melon.
Did you guys get much?
Yeah, they got a bunch.
Yeah, it was good.
They got a bunch, yeah. There's good NR out there
and there's a bunch of...
Honestly
My sage zeroes is what they said.
Okay
8's, 9's, 10's, 11's,
but the water is so dark there.
How far could you see?
Yeah, sheeing.
Yeah, no.
Six inches maybe.
We didn't do much of that with the
lighting we had.
It's
No, but there...
There were a lot of...
Oh, okay. I was looking for a stop.
He's brave coming from that way
I didn't say everyone else went
around him.
Yeah.
Looks like he's got it though.
That's a tight corner.
He's gonna have to straighten it out
anyway.
Once you get too far over, you
can't.
Can't pull it back straight.
Oh, he's got it though.
It's impressive.
Good effort.
Getting a little too close.
Look at that.
I need some space to back off.
There they go.
You guys met Charlie, our PIO
director, tall guy.
He was gone the day we were there.
Oh, okay.
Oh, you saw him on the car, maybe.
He's on the call.
Yeah.
He always says you've got to...
Coming up like he would call
and email me like we need to talk we
need talk we need a talk and every
time I call him he wouldn't answer
oh and then like the day we showed
up he wasn't there what's so urgent
that you're flipping out
over we just want to talk about how
you're gonna cover this even
how we're gonna cover it
He's had a bunch of different stuff
going on.
Get right up into something like
someone else's books Oh no it's a
crab
Oh, yeah.
I mean, ours are all work boats, so.
Alright, do you guys need any more
footage down here?
I think we're good with that.
Okay, I'm going to run up and use
the bathroom real quick.
Acoustic telemetry antennas out
there. Yeah, and so it's
nice to have a a decent-sized
boat for out there
we had you some other boats that
were smaller and
But that doesn't work as well out
there Hey, you could it's a
Winnebago size if you if you're
I don't know if you familiar with it
or not, but it's
So it's uh...
Substantial enough at a nice deep
view like this you feel a lot safer
doing work out there.
Than Winnebago, right?
Yeah, I think it's like 40 at
the deepest a lot of it's
like 25 to 30 feet.
I think what Winnebago is a lot of
15 to 20.
Yeah.
I should say for reference to the
life jackets in the compartments up
there, you don't...
He's got his own
Okay, so you don't necessarily have
to wear them, but just so you know
where they're at in case we have
some kind of anything crazy
happens
There's the crew.
You can see our other boat up there
on the point.
They're going to do a little stretch
along this point and then come down
here and shock some
of this main shoreline back towards
the landing.
OK.
See you guys!
I don't have it.
That's a good word.
Pretty nice isn't it?
Oh, yeah, on the left side.
I could see was a red
Yeah, probably need
a taller one.
You got, uh...
Courtesy lights though.
Look at that!
It's just like an LED
rope string underneath the...
Yeah, pretty fancy.
That's all you need.
Is falling off.
You'd probably do it better.
Yeah, you would have been at that
all night. You would have gone backwards.
We don't expect either of you to
want to do that.
Amateur.
So you guys gonna cruise up this
way?
Okay.
Yeah, do we want to do that now and
then we can get footage of us fill
in the tank and stuff, must we get
the point?
I'm sure that sounds good.
Yeah.
You guys picked a nice night for
doing this.
Oh, it's amazing.
It probably doesn't always work out
this way, does it?
Tell me outdoors. No, not always.
No.
If we can get them taken off.
Sure.
Thank you. Just pause for a bit?
Yeah. Okay.
No, I haven't.
No, no, I'm getting that 10 pounds.
Sure.
It's a pretty good cake.
Chicago and still rice
That's where you're going to swallow.
They said they were going to have
you push them.
Uh, it's over with.
Oh, is it?
So next year?
I don't know, we'll see.
If I'm doing this, you know, I don't
know.
Or if I run into another guy that
owes me money.
Or ten pounds of rice.
What can I say?
I've done here.
I've gone here.
That's a good guy.
You guys ready to put on the show
here?
Oh yeah.
How's this angle?
You okay?
Or should I get closer?
This is fine speed back up a little
bit.
Is that good?
So they're putting the droppers on
right now, which go
onto the end
of the boom, and they'll swing those
booms around and put them out front.
The electricity comes out of the
dropper and goes into the water.
That's the anode side and the
cathode is the boat.
So these are DC shockers, direct
current, pulsed.
So you'll see them spread these out
and then swing them around to the
front.
And that's just ahead.
Kind of got us in Rick's way here,
there we go.
Put the net heads on the poles and
then they're going to fill the tank
with water.
Then they'll pretty much be ready to
dip fish.
You can see they've got the
generator on the side there.
That's the Honda.
That puts the, there's a power cord
that runs current from the generator
into that blue box that's right by
the steering wheel over there.
And that's what controls the amount
of power that he puts out.
So he'll adjust those settings to
stun fish but not hit
them too hard.
You want to be able to stop them but
have them recover really quickly
once you shock them.
So once you've netted them and put
them in the tank.
So he'll kind of monitor that as
they go to, you know, to see like
are these fish getting hit really
hard or are they are
they missing a lot of fish because
they're not getting it hard enough.
There's kind of a balance you got to
find there So that's what he's
going to be watching for
Yeah, if you wouldn't last two.
I can't do both.
Yeah, so you get a bunch of fish.
Any favorite thing?
If the person puts their name in the
credit card, I'm gonna hear it.
No, no, no.
You tell me that.
Alright, I thought I could do a
little producer three-quarter.
Hehehehe
He's putting an aerator on there
now. It just spins and
mixes the water, puts bubbles
on the top, keeps the oxygen up,
and that plugs into the generator
too, so it's got constant
power.
Oh, that's a light.
It's a bright one.
100 watts.
Oh, you got to wear the full blotrix
tonight.
Lighting suits you.
And justify me being out here.
Zach's earning his pay up there.
Yep. I don't know where to get out.
Yep.
Brandon's scanning the sky for
stars,
we like to say there's a six star
rule but once you see the six
star then you start shocking,
but it's too cloudy tonight so
we can't really see.
Behind and pick them all up because
they're right there yeah like don't
bother
Are they too stoned in there?
Yeah, I don't know of a study like
that. That'd be interesting
My guess is they wouldn't bite right
away, but maybe with them.
Yeah, I don't think it would take
long to get hungry after that.
Somebody may have done that study,
I'm just not aware of it, if it's
been done.
Proof of that, but
I would tell you the baby
Yeah, then they'd be ready if that's
the case. They'd be right away.
I'm skeptical on that one, but...
This is fine.
This is good.
Alright, we're going to go this way.
So we're going to have to get turned
eventually here.
You can see the flashing light on
the box there, that means the power
is on, and
you can hear the beep.
There's actually a big piece of
electrical tape over the beeper,
otherwise it's really loud and
annoying.
Even for the driver,
it's annoying too.
It's good to know that the power's
on.
Alright, I'll get turned here.
You can sit there even, you can just
blast them with some light.
We're just going to reach.
Yeah, it's just otherwise I'm just
blown out. I'm way too high with my
ISO.
We're about to go turn.
Yeah.
Thanks for watching, I'll see you in
the next one.
Yeah, I thought he was about to get
something,
fake this out.
Yeah, they shot something there
might have been a sucker.
I couldn't get a real good look at
it. Maybe a bass
It's like about 10 to 15
inches,
something in that range.
Kind of a weedy bay, a lot of times
they're in a ton of walleyes
up in the
weedy bays this time of year.
I'm just gonna go around these reeds
up here.
Coming to the other boat.
Oh, there he dipped one.
Maybe.
There he goes.
What have we got?
That must be a walleye.
Right out on the point,
looked like about a 12 or 13
incher, right on the edge of
the range they're going for.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll give you one
gallon more for you.
But already we're going to need a
good bottle of water.
I mean, I can estimate, but
as we saw last night, my size
estimation skills at Wally are very
good.
Ha ha ha ha
Thank you.
So now they're going to measure
them, look for fin clips.
He's going to tally the measurement,
and then they'll take a scale sample
for aging, if it's under 12 inches,
to see if it's an age 0 or 1
or a 2.
14.3.
Well, they only give them
half-clips,
not full-permanent clips.
Yep, we've got...
What?
LV. Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah,
so they removed the
left ventral
fin so they could identify that
as a fish that they stocked.
So they removed it when it was
small.
That would have been Mike and the
crew there and the NADF
folks.
So that's one that they stock
probably three
or four years ago.
You don't need skills on that one.
Can I get you to just pretend
like you're writing something down?
Hahaha
This fish will give him something to
write down.
I just want to get both of the
actions.
Thanks.
Appreciate it.
He's getting
cozy.
Hahaha
This will take us this would be a
scaler
So they're going to get a scale
sample off of this one for age
estimation.
Come back.
10.1
no clips, so then you know that's a
naturally reproduced fish,
which is actually really what we
want. You know, it's good if stock
fish are surviving, but ideally
we want a lot of
natural fish out here doing
it on their own.
Well, that's a good workout.
Yeah, we picked a
real walleye-esque spot to
start clear.
Yeah there's a couple muskies
by that dock with them guys though
yeah did you guys
tell them about it
It was right after they asked.
Did they see it or no?
No, I don't think so.
Yeah, it was probably a two-inch
bit.
The water biz is not
what we've been used to the last
couple of nights.
Yeah, a lot of the other lakes it
was really, really clear.
Oh.
Green
It's a little green.
It ain't easy being green, you know.
That's it, nice. Yeah.
All right.
Cool!
Now they're going to cut a cross.
Do you think we can be out in the
head just a little bit so we're kind
of shooting it?
Sure.
Yeah. From behind.
Yeah, I can try that.
Obviously we don't want to get into
the shocking or...
Right.
Some of this shoreline is good for
spawning in the spring,
where the adults come.
You can see it's kind of rocky up
there.
It's going full on.
Might have missed it.
Oh, he got one.
This is a decent angle.
Yeah, okay.
Just cruise along a little
Can I help?
Yeah. I'm sorry, somebody was a bit
late.
It's got a log coming.
I gotta be sure not to trap him in
here with this tree.
Ha ha ha ha
He's got space to make her.
That tree probably fell this summer.
You can see there's still green
needles on it.
Oh yeah, you can see where it broke
up there on shore.
Yes.
So usually the goal for the driver
is to stay up as shallow as you can
without hitting rocks.
You gotta pay attention, right?
24-7. Yeah,
you'll see he's adjusting that wheel
kind of constantly.
It works best in like
three feet or less.
You know you can shock fish that are
down four or five feet if the power
is up high enough but it doesn't
hold them very long a lot of times.
If they've got a way to escape
to deeper water they will.
So it's it's kind of
a near shore
method to sample for sure.
The piers actually kind of make it a
little harder to, you
know, stay where you want to.
Yeah, it is.
So Zach, do you get lots of earfuls
when you tell people that you do
political reporting?
They either have a lot of questions
or no questions.
They're just like, oh, don't want to
talk at all about it.
Yeah.
I can see like when you tell people
that you're kind of like
your guards up a little bit, you
know, like you're ready for whatever
they're, for anything.
I've had every possible, conceivable
reaction.
Yeah
Nothing really fazes me,
but...
Yeah, but you just don't know what's
coming as soon as you say that.
Yeah.
It's a crazy time.
I'm sure it's going
to be the same as when they tell
someone who works at the DNR.
There's always going to a reaction.
Everyone's got an opinion.
Sure, oh yeah, about
politics or about the DNR or
about, yeah.
Probably are quite the same because
most people right don't even know
what they are.
Yeah, and they're kind of like, is
that like the DNR?
What is that?
And we tell them about it.
It's a little light.
Everyone's their own personal expert
on politics,
and they're
allowed to be.
Right?
The worst is when you talk to
legislators who,
you know, some of them, which have
been at the Capitol for a while, are
in a leadership position,
and you're like, no, I'm
right, like I was there when that
happened, you're not, and
they're like oh no, that's not,
like, I don't need to argue with
you, it's just one of us is right.
They'll just argue about facts of
something.
Yeah.
Oh no
I mean, I guess I'm not that
surprised, but...
You know, some of it's just
institutional now.
I can't see that much.
That's a big fish.
Up by shore yeah i
think i heard some splashing i
didn't get a good
That was long.
Okay, could have been a big muskie.
Yeah, yeah, there's some really big
muskies in this lake.
It's kind of known for that.
Not huge numbers,
but big size.
These reed edges aren't really great
juvenile walleye habitat,
they tend to like sand flats or
like smaller gravelly areas,
but you can catch some along these
types of spots.
Part of the index station, so the
idea is to do the same
station every year and then you get
a standard.
So it's not all prime habitat,
but...
If it makes it interesting, if
you're seeing changes,
then at some point if you adjust the
timing of the survey then you
dramatically impact its
reliability over time.
Right, yeah, it can change
the reliability of the surveyor of
how comparable it can be over the
years.
And again, if it consistently starts
to stay warmer early and
from the same time.
Then it'll be about the same for
that time period.
It's just our older data won't be
as comparable.
There's a big fish.
It looks like a musky, I think.
He's going to have a hard time
getting that in the net if he...
For the big ones, you've got to get
them in head first, because all
the weight is in the head,
in the front.
If you get the tail in first and
try to lift it up, it just kind
of...
So if you're taking an average,
though, of how many you've seen,
it's kind of crazy how much of that
is impacted by
humans.
Like the quality of the driver and
the quality the netter.
If you have inexperienced one of
each, you can dramatically impact
your data.
Yeah, yeah, there's big variability
that gets added that way, you know,
you hope over time it kind of washes
out, but it's true.
You got some, some netters
are really aggressive,
and that's what you want all your
netters to be like, but they just
aren't all that way.
And some are really good at
catching the movement, seeing the
fish, getting after them right away,
and others are kind of like, is that
a walleye? Oh, it's too late, you
I don't know.
Yeah so these fall data can get
pretty variable that way because
what we do is take catch
per mile of shoreline and
yeah so it's affected a
lot by good driver, good
netter, or bad driver, bad netter.
Most of them are somewhere in
between but
But at least you get an indication
of, is there a year class there or
not? You know, are you seeing age
zeroes, are seeing age ones?
Typically, even if you don't have a
good driver and a good netter,
you're still going to catch some if
they're there.
The nice part about a lake like this
is we've got three crews out,
so if one crew is really
good, one crew's really bad, and one
crew in the middle, then it kind of
evens itself out too.
In our spring ones, where we're
actually estimating the population,
the adult population,
it's less affected by that.
The only problem is it takes longer
if you don't have good netters,
because you do a mark recapture
estimate.
So the idea is you mark a whole
bunch of fish with a fin clip,
then you come back and shock the
whole shoreline and figure out
what proportion are marked of
the whole shore line. So say you
mark 20.
If it's a small lake, you mark 20,
you go around, you shock the whole
shoreline, you catch 20
and 10 of them are marked,
you would estimate that the 20 you
marked are half the population
because half of
what you captured
was marked and so then your estimate
would be 40.
That's basically how the math works,
it's pretty simple that way.
So if your netters and dippers
aren't as good,
you'd mark fewer, but your
ratio would just be lower then.
But you still get better
measures of uncertainty
if you have a bigger
recapture sample and more fish
marked to begin with.
But at least it doesn't bias the
estimate.
Doesn't cause the error to be one
way or the other.
It just causes more variability in
it.
Assuming that they're consistent in
their own abilities night after
night, from beginning of night
to end of night.
True. Yeah.
Let me tell you, we're working with
people.
Right.
Red Bulls and
Mountain Dews.
A lot of caffeinated beverages get
consumed during this type of
work.
Definitely getting a lot more fish.
Yeah, a little better spot here.
What's he gonna do here?
I think he's gonna...
Oh yeah, he's got a little bay here.
He's going to keep shocking through.
I'm just going to park here for a
second, because he doesn't
have far to go up that way.
Yeah, my younger brother went into a
similar field.
He's got a media arts degree.
He went to Bethany.
Bethany Lutheran College.
Whatever shot you need, just let us
know. We can take a second.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, I'm good here.
Good, okay.
Thank you.
Is this what you're looking for?
Yes, sir.
Look at that extra light, we need
one of those for the workout.
We should put a couple of those on
the front. Yeah, get the stand with
that light on there.
Now you can really see that board.
It would be great when the water
viz is on.
Rick, can you come back a little bit
so he can see?
So now it's.
Does that look like your talking
about? Kill that motor too.
Clip on this one.
See how that thing's going.
Yeah.
Did they do a mark recap out
here?
Because that's what that looks like.
They fin clipped
stocked fish, fish that they
stocked.
But did they, I mean like
this one?
That one doesn't look like it's
It's like a half clip.
It's a half-clip.
Yeah. They were saying.
I would write it down as a half clip
and then we
can figure out later if they gave
half clips.
Keep them separate from the full
clips maybe.
I don't even know when you're ready
to take a video because of it.
Oh no!
Oh shoot!
Wonderful. Oh yeah.
That's a borderline there.
13 six
It's in there.
That's a rough one.
Uh, no clip.
How's the camera?
How's your car?
You're fired.
Pretty much outwit.
I've got a fire bud at the station
across town.
Oh, alright.
You're like, fine, I'll go to the
rival station.
I'm going to be able to get it.
No clips.
996
No clips.
Okay.
Looks like somebody tried to take a
bite out of him.
14 one We get
another It's
obviously region. I don't know if
you want to call that a full clip
full LV or
Yeah, we'll follow that one.
14-8, L.O.V.
10-1 looks
like another half I
mean it's regen
but you can tell it was clipped it's
all weighty
at least I would think it's
like we're all been sick where that
line is whether all the rays are
broken
And you said we don't need scales?
Nope, that one.
13.3.
It's kind of the same thing.
I mean, it looks like a regen,
but compared to
the intact one.
And that definitely, you can tell
there is a lot.
In the cold air, that's what we'll
call it.
130
You want no crips.
Nine, five,
take that one,
no clips.
13.3.
And they'll quit.
17.2.
Too.
Now you get to see Brandon's
strenuous labor tallying
fish, one pencil
mark at a time.
Ships away at you.
Gotta stay alert.
This fish I'm going to pull out of
here in a minute will keep you
alert.
Got some bycatch.
Nine, nine.
We got that one already.
And we got an OB.
11.5.
We'll take that.
Ouch.
No clips.
Bonus water scope for you.
Oh they're cool.
So they take five scales per
half inch group, although maybe
you're not taking five tonight
because there's more than one boat.
But that's the general idea, just to
get a
range of different ones to look at.
Usually you can kind of tell.
There'll be a length frequency like
an age break, you know, like all the
age zeros will be
around seven inches and under.
And then there'll be some that are
between seven and eight that you're
sure is at an age zero or an age
one.
And most of the age ones will be 8
and 9 inches and maybe 10 inches
and then they'll be kind of like a
zone where you can't quite tell.
So they'll take those back to the
office and age them to try to figure
out where those breaks are between
the zeros, the ones and the twos.
9-4
We'll take that one.
And they just take a sub-sample of
scales for that.
Ob region
So a 9-4 is one
and a half plus one? It's probably a
one.
Yeah, it's probably a one and a
half.
For one and four months.
That's a good bet.
One plus.
95
Eight, nine.
We'll take that one.
No clips.
No clip.
There we go.
So that one's probably going to be
an H0.
6-0
So how many of those do you want to
see in order to feel like you've got
a good year class?
Depends on the lake.
15 per mile of shore or so is
pretty good.
Anything above that is,
you know, you're thinking it's going
to be a good contributing year
class.
This lake has
a lot of shoreline and for some
reason the catch of age zeros isn't
usually that high.
So if we saw 10 to 15 that'd
be pretty
good per mile.
And how much have we done seen right
now?
15 total juveniles.
The age ones look better than the
age zeroes so far.
I think that's the last fish in
there.
So the age ones count in that
15-percent.
They would be their own you
know and for age ones you'd expect
to see less because they've had to
live a whole nother year And they
have pretty high mortality in their
first couple years of life, so
to get eaten.
Like five to ten per mile of
age ones would be pretty good.
So we're maybe closer to that.
We might be at five for mile-age
ones. Yeah, for age ones.
Yeah.
I think that's the last one.
It looks like it.
Oh, something.
Okay, well, hold on.
Can I measure that?
There you go.
30 millimeters of them.
Oh, there's two of them here.
Oh I didn't see the other one.
And tiny blue gills.
Oh, like food.
Yeah. Scooping them.
Other stuff comes up with them.
They're food, right?
Mm-hmm. Cool.
About an inch.
I would take some out and refresh
it.
What is your thing saying for a
water temp?
Uh, we got around like 70.
Yeah, that's what mine says too.
I'm just curious how close they are
to each other.
69.3
Ah, so they give or take a degree.
Yeah.
It's warmer over there.
So they're freshening up the water.
Since it's warmer, it doesn't hold
as much oxygen.
It's just nice to switch it out.
Keep the fish happy in there.
The fish are happy with it.
Yeah, we
want the fish happy.
Drift away.
That's right they're gonna want to
close off Rick's ability
to access the water.
He's gonna be like oh no now
Zach has to fill the whole tank I
can't reach the water this
is so bad
and start throwing it.
Right?
How far down can you guys see?
And I'm 83 feet.
It's not great.
Pretty much like if I can see the
bottom. We're in too shallow water.
Oh, one of those, okay.
There's a lot of stuff in the water.
Did you mention the mats we have to
stand on?
Didn't.
Safety mats up there so if they it's
a switch mat so it
connects metal to metal when they
stand on it and that completes the
circuit so if somebody were to fall
off their mat it cuts the power.
Or if they stand
on their tip.
Oh, he didn't dress.
Did they have some extra gear for
him at least?
Mike had a little bit of like an
extra suit for him, so it wasn't
too bad.
Yeah, I had told him he needed
a pair of rubber boots.
He doesn't wear winter clothes.
No, I mean, we thought he was tough,
but it was raining and it
was misty. That's so bad, I hate
those nights. Yeah, that's worse.
Well, it's half the time, I need to
wake.
Oh, sure.
It's not a big enough boat.
We're trying to get people that are
in the boat to do what they're
doing.
So the videographers by now,
they know what we're doing
Right.
Right. They don't need a ton of
direction to get it.
You know, for certain shoots it
would be like, this is what I'm
envisioning, this, this this this,
or you know, just a second pair of
eyes would be helpful, but...
Yeah.
I honestly didn't know what we would
have for a situation tonight, so I
was fully prepared to just sit at
the bowling.
Oh, sure.
I need to go out.
Yeah this is a good boat for this
sort of thing.
It's nice to have it.
Well, I appreciate
that you're willing to actually,
like, go within 30 yards,
because it was nice to have Mike
help us.
Oh, but he didn't want to go close.
You could see he was so worried
about his boat, getting anywhere
close to it.
Oh, sure.
Lots of shots were really wide.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, aggressively not in the way.
That's what you try to do.
Before it was even approved,
before it was a goal, it was just an
idea.
But the videographer, you have hours
sometimes on the vehicle or
whatever, so we just talked a lot of
stories. And I said, oh yeah,
the one thing I want to do is this
walleye project and I don't know
what they're going to let me do or
how big it will be.
And he said, well that sounds awesome.
If you get to do it, let me know and
I'll be your main videographer.
It requires a lot of week long
travel.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, not everybody's
into that.
You know, some of these are,
they're really cool.
Some of them are just long ass
calls, just like this.
This is a long day.
Oh, sure.
I'm known for working
to stay out till we have what we
need. Oh, nice!
And, uh, two other guys that
have helped and filled in
the trunks.
Yeah.
And, yeah, they've done a great job
too, but it is nice to
have one consistent person.
We're part way through and he's
like, I got everything I need, I
don't have to worry about him.
It's like not understanding what
did he do.
Oh, shit!
There will be some people there.
They think they have everything.
All we need right and then later on
you're like we can't go back and
recreate this.
Yeah.
It doesn't happen now or it doesn't
have to.
Seems like they're getting a few
more even now.
So do you have other big projects
you're working on at the same time,
or is it...
This is by far the biggest
This is the main one where you got
the soybean story.
Yeah, and that's just a short bit of
a thing.
Yeah, so you like to keep
doing your part to the...
I'm still regularly contributing
stuff for the show.
But otherwise, yeah, I mean, I'm
already in...
This is the main one though.
Yeah, I'm already working and
planning for election coverage.
Yeah.
But I'm always told that that's
a never in my life.
That's just part of it.
Is it governor's election this time,
too?
It is, okay.
And do you cover national too,
or just state mostly?
Because it'd be congressional too,
right? Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we'll cover federal
and state elections, but...
Within the state.
Within the State. Yeah.
So like.
Yeah, yeah.
But we're not,
I mean, last year we covered
the 50 years.
Oh, sure.
Yeah. But otherwise we typically
don't state for our politics.
We don't go to Washington.
Right.
Yeah, you wouldn't even go interview
our reps out in Washington.
You're just catching them when
they're here. Right, yeah.
That's what I thought it was, but
oh, so everybody's lining
up now.
Yeah, no, it'll be...
It'll be a mess.
You're in for an exciting cycle
then.
Yeah, I mean the primary is next
August.
Okay.
Thank you!
Some of the primary kind of
self-selects, by the time you get to
there you can see who's raising
money and who doesn't have any
money.
Oh yeah.
Who's getting more desperate in
their attacks and other people shows
that they're behind in the polls and
who's already like, you know,
who the other side concentrates
their fire on lets you know who they
think the...
Who they think the biggest threat
is.
Yeah.
So there's all sorts of, you know,
smoke signals that go up that
everyone can read, and it's
just a matter of...
Especially if you've been in the
game long enough, you kind of...
I, that's just it, it's like I...
I'm just feeling like I see where
this is going.
If you talk about how long ago I've
known any of these people, like, Tom
Tiffany just announced he's running
for governor. He's the congressman.
I knew him when he first ran for
assembly.
Right, he was...
Lost back in
2008.
So we're talking, you know,
nearly 20 years.
Yeah.
That I've been covering here.
He was State Assembly and then was
the State Senate too,
and then he went out to Washington.
So he's been around for
a long time. So someone like that,
I've still been covering Wisconsin
gubernatorial elections longer than
he's been in politics.
Yeah.
So I've seen all of his races, but
everything he's going to say,
all the tricks.
He doesn't have that much new that's
going to surprise
you, I bet.
I don't know if we're going to make
it through here.
Shallow.
So this is an island in a bay that
he's going around right now and
it's kind of shallow around it.
You can see those there's a couple
buoys up there which are probably
marking rocks.
I think, well, it looks like he's
making it through, so...
But his boat is really flat on the
bottom. It's made to
go really shallow.
We're not coy.
Built for that but i think we'll be
fine if not
we'll just wait for them to come out
the other side
So who we got lining up?
We got Tiffany.
Yeah
Uh, the building is a
wealthy business.
Yeah, exactly.
You've never heard of him?
Yeah. OK.
No one has, no one had heard of me
before, you know.
Okay, alright.
Josh Shaneman is the Washington
County Executive.
Okay. He's following the old
Scott Walker lane.
I'm a county executive, I know how
to run things.
Okay?
Tiffany is the, you know,
Trumpy Northwoods guy.
Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar
with Tiffany.
I've been up there long enough to
see what he's like.
We have some pre-recording.
I don't feel like anyone that's
announced is picking up any
momentum. Yeah.
But Democrats don't typically
like supporting
millionaire businessmen,
whereas Republicans do.
Okay.
He ran for Senate, right?
If he passed on the Governor's
race last time, when he probably
could have walked the denomination.
He has lost a ton of money in the
Senate.
Tiffany getting in, I mean it's
possible, but once again
the lanes fill up really fast.
The rich businessman is real very,
like the MAGA guy is
Tom Tiffany.
So, what's Humpty going to be other
than the guy that just lost?
And he doesn't want to be a
Governor, he wants to be the
Senator.
Okay,
interesting.
All the fun is being a senator,
because you get to be important
without having to do a damn thing
and the governor actually has to run
the stand.
Yeah, like, you
don't want to do that.
Like the governor or not.
It's work.
Yeah.
At least they have to like hire a
staff and have the staff run the
state. Right.
Senators, they don't just do Jack,
but more Congressmen, right?
They just go out to Washington and
vote on stuff.
They literally go on Fox News or on
MSNBC.
Yeah.
Which is unfortunate that that's how
it is now, but there's so
much party lines now.
It's set up so that it would be
really difficult for anyone to ever
do anything.
We've decided to leverage that to
the max to try and make sure that no
one can do anything
Yeah.
I think there's quite a few of them
here.
You're a nice rocker for sure.
Yeah.
That's the hardest thing for a
reporter to try and explain to
people.
Yeah.
They all sit there and talk about oh
They say, oh why is this so bad?
Why can't it be this?
Like, well because you don't vote
for...
Yeah, you respond to them.
More call attacks, yeah.
If it didn't work, they wouldn't do
it.
Literally what I say.
If it didn't work, they would not do
it. They run all these negative ads
because it changes your mind.
It impacts how you vote.
You might as well ask, why does my
social media algorithm fill with
nastiness?
That's what you look at, that's
what...
I literally yell at my wife every
night when she reads some crap.
Why am I getting all these messages?
Because you keep reading it.
Skip by it.
Don't click on it.
Don't pause. You paused.
It knows you paused.
You're going to get 10 more of it.
And if you get it, block it, delete
it, tell the algorithm I don't
want it.
If you wring your feet, you don't
get it anymore.
I keep that on air though.
Yeah, I hope the mic's not working,
otherwise these...
He's going to be cutting something.
Cutting some sound out.
Yeah, I don't know much about it,
but I'm always amazed what I learned
about what it takes to put together
a documentary,
even a two minute clip, a
trailer,
there's a lot to it.
It's a lot more than just
get some video and
I mean to do it right, to do
professionally is...
That's a really long
sentence for someone to be saying.
Oh, sure.
People will speak in two or three
seconds.
Get him to say something long.
For 10 straight seconds.
Seconds to be like a real ball
is actually not just off the
cuff it's something they really have
to something to say.
You have to think what you're going
to say and actually say it.
In the interviews, it's my job to
get that out of them by asking
intelligent questions and making
them more comfortable.
But it's not as simple as like, oh,
I'll just say something off the top.
It's like, well, no, that wasn't
long enough for me anyway.
And then just even jobs like this,
like,
even if you come back with
probably an hour and a half
of video,
this might be
a minute and a two minutes.
Right.
We gotta pick the
best night in the-
No one knows how long that was.
It's like a lot of my stories, a lot
of my videos, watch the
30 minute series.
Long stories of it.
And that's like the whole story with
the recorder and everything.
Yeah
Look at what I was right at
the minute we're here
and now my stories are between
six and eight
So what's your target
for like a here and now episode is
that like it is it like a 10 minute
or you said six to eight minutes
is that like the whole thing or is
there like multiple ones in a half
hour?
So in a typical period of
time.
Three interviews with people,
like full five to six minute
interviews with a guest
on a topic, and then maybe one
story. Oh, okay.
So it's, it's a, the whole show
is... It fills a half all the time
slot.
And depending on the topic and the
info, like,
we usually don't like to have two
packages, two stories in one
episode.
We don't want to record a rhyme.
Like, we'll, we will, let's spend a
decade doing that. But please
believe me You know,
local car crashes are the greatest
thing ever. Oh, I've walked on
traffic for a half hour.
We now know the name of the man
who died in the motorcycle accident.
It's like, who gives a shit?
His family knows.
His friends probably know.
Hand-waving to make people happy
yeah because
it's not just us it's like
some of those top like Hudson
and some of the other Minnesota
border towns that superior
that gets Viking games
yeah
It depends on, you guess what,
it's not just the snow.
Oh, yep.
There's local air pressure.
Right, because there's a lot of
local ads during those games, and
those are expensive to run probably.
Nope, I'm gonna stop and work up
here.
You got weather moving in right now?
3, 2, 1, 5...
Let's see if you can push that
further so I can...
Come around this other side here.
Uh-oh.
Shallow.
11-1.
Oh, we'll take that one.
We're kicked up out of nowhere.
Yeah
8-4
we will take that
no clips
So how is this stretch?
Little ones?
I haven't seen
It's probably more like age one so
far.
I think we did get at least a
handful of ages.
And they all have the same size
It's hard to tell when you're
driving
Unless it's really small.
Sometimes, yeah, I want to get a
goal out deeper to get around
obstructions.
It's like the little ones really
don't get hit very hard out in that
deep water. And I could just watch
them swim.
Oh, it's sad.
Yeah, a lot of them are deep.
Yeah, they're floating or they're
they're stunned, but they're like
three, four feet deep.
Hope you guys get stuck on a rock up
there.
Where it says rocks.
Yeah.
I haven't given anything yet.
Almost there in that little log,
dude.
I was like, oh, can I follow him
through there? I don't know.
Good choice not to, yeah.
10-4.
Good rule of thumb if you're
questioning, if you follow me, don't
follow me.
Should I follow Brandon?
Oh, he said no then.
I mean, it might be a regen,
it's like that one's shorter than
the other one, and it's...
Yeah, you can tell by the idea,
like a knockoff, so that will be...
Eight,
nine, um,
no clip.