And start fishing.
So have you been out fishing at
all?
We were on
the Chippewa River over in the
Squamigan with a couple of guys.
Nice.
Yeah, that was
awesome.
John and Brenda Meyer,
I believe.
They're in my phone as John and
Brendan Guides.
Well, great.
Yeah, but they, they
guide out of, they're not that
far away actually.
Okay.
Um, they've, they do a lot of canoe
guiding and so real
low water.
Were you in a drift boat, or did
you...?
Yeah, one of those little canoe
robots.
Oh, yeah.
They had a couple of those, so they
had a client out with them and we
were in the other room.
Fishing for Walleyes.
They had a few pockets where they
had some walleyes and a lot of
bass.
Okay, that's good.
Yeah, it was a beautiful day.
I've got a drift boat in the
garage barn,
they're fun.
It's like you're just starting to
get some color in there.
Yeah it's getting close.
You know we sort of
peak early October,
you know I mean by October 15th.
But we had some, we've got some
maples that go early
and now everything's gonna start
to change.
What we do is just troll.
Everybody tries to fish walleyes
here deep,
and the walleyess aren't
deep.
Some are, maybe.
So I'm going to put you out this
side of the boat, OK?
And the only thing you need to do,
so these are diving cranks.
We'll be fishing in
like seven or eight feet
of water.
And you need keep it out
so it's away from the motor.
And you don't need to cast it.
Obviously, you're going to have to
bring it up if you feel weeds.
But it doesn't need to go any
further than...
Now I'll let it go a little further,
like three times the length of the
boat.
Keep the rod tipped down and
then I'll guide us along, hopefully
it won't kill us here.
So there you go.
Assuming that the head on these is a
little more definitive than
Yeah, you don't
have to wait, they'll set
themselves.
And...
People used to catch fish right
here, but this is just to get
us started.
There's a few walleyes in
that bay, but
we'll be fishing on the north end
here, and
as the sun
goes down,
the baitfish now are,
in August you'd
use crawlers,
because they're still eating bugs.
But now the bait fish are alive,
they're probably all that big.
And they're all finding warm
water.
And now the walleyes come in
shallower to eat them.
So we'll stay in.
Not very exciting.
Six to seven feet of water.
If I get us in the right mode here.
So I just cleared the track so I
can see where we're going.
So here's the map.
Here's the depth.
I don't even use this
that much, but...
So I'm using the button to
turn my RPMs down.
Usually I troll with the
trolling motor, and that's
all I need.
I can't see it.
Lake's been a little more quiet the
last few weeks.
Yeah, everybody's gone.
You know, we had
some people last weekend.
The weather was so nice that
we had some people skiing and
doing stuff, but for the.
Do I need to bring it in and clear
them?
If you've hit weeds or you think
there's weeds on it,
you should bring it in and take the
weeds off.
So how's the film going?
We feel pretty good about it.
We've gotten a lot of good things,
every
time we go out the list of things
that I still want to get gets
longer.
But we've kind of figured
out our winter schedule in the next
spring, so I feel good about not
only solidifying his time to
know that I can go out and get what
we need, but then just
getting much more concrete ideas
of okay, this is when we need what
we need it can all fall in.
See this here?
Some of this, those are fish,
those are bait fish.
So this is weeds here,
but some of what we just ran into
this stuff up here is probably bait
fish
Woof, woof, WOOF, wooF, WOO-
Well, he's not a...
He's still here.
So you'll still be filming next
spring too?
Wow.
Doing or filming next spring.
Next spring.
I'm going to try and get out with
Lance and his boys for some
spearing.
That'd be fun.
That's the guy from Red Cliffs.
They won't let me go, but oh shit.
You may catch a log here,
where did that come from?
I don't want to catch a lot.
Where did that come from?
That's a post.
It's kind of a little...
Yeah, that'd be fun to get out and
go. I've never asked to go out and
spear, but I'd like to
go, you know, if they ever
have a...
A lake blessing,
you'd want to get in on that if you
could, that would be
pretty cool.
They had one here over at the
federal landing.
Not much.
Lance says most of the kids go
there because they like the hot
chocolate and the hot dogs.
I'm sure it's like every other kid
fishing.
Yeah, you can.
I bribe my kids to
get on the boat with snacks.
Yeah?
Yeah, a little extra time.
I got a weed if you want to film
that.
We film everything here.
Ha ha ha ha!
We're also going to do some stuff
around the wolf and the fox for the
spring run.
Last spring we did a lot with
research and science on the
spawning, this
next spring we want to focus more
on.
Made sure that we didn't identify
any of the bridge crossings or
anything else there.
They rarely see anyone else out
there for their guide service.
It wouldn't take much for someone to
empty out something.
No.
He was pretty careful in the
approach and quite a few of them
were just like, all right, there
might be one or two in here, come in
from the side, stay here, cast in.
Yeah. Yeah, we got a few.
I think we got four.
Yeah, four or five.
Yeah, and we got two.
We got somebody bass that day.
You know, in the middle part of it.
Yeah just a bass after a bass.
Oh, that's fun.
Oh, that was a blast.
We were right here with the front of
the stoutfish at $7-$8.
That's a journey.
Yeah.
Yeah, those trips
are long, you know.
There's no getting out half way
through, we're like, oh we got what
we need.
I actually put a
motor, I got a two horsepower motor
on the back of mine because some of
the stretches are like, okay we're
done, let's go.
Over Green Bay.
Yeah, it's pretty crazy
there. I mean, they have excellent
fishing, and they
do have the numbers.
Here, I
hope the people that come here
catch fish and then take a few.
This isn't one of those, let's
go get a limit,
and I mean you can
catch enough to get a fish fry
but...
But it's pretty exciting fishing,
I mean. The guy you've guided
with before? For a couple years,
yeah.
I've got a weed.
Yeah, he's a good
guide.
He's helpful.
He'll tell you how he does things,
and he shows me a couple of knots.
I mean, he is a decent
guy. He's got good equipment,
so you don't have to
fool around you.
For God's sakes.
But how legal most people keep their
own choosing?
You know like our docks are going to
go out the 17th
of October.
So most people will be in,
you know, this weekend you'll
find people at the
landings you know really getting
their stuff out.
We tried to keep our stuff in
longer for
both fishing and the pontoon for
fun and
when it gets cold,
it gets cold.
It's like,
okay, my wife is sitting
next to me
with a winter
coat on and
we're on the pontoon.
That's ready.
Yeah, the net's right there.
I'm hoping we catch one that's...
Yeah, it's probably in northern.
Got a little more tug than they
usually do here. No, it is a
walleye, for God's sakes.
I should have let the guide get him.
Okay, there you go.
Just set it on the ground.
I'll just make a mess of everything.
All right, first thing we check is
it clipped.
Nope, natural.
That's good.
That's probably a keeper.
I'm not keeping it.
How do you hit?
You just grab it.
You don't set the hook.
I'd say
That's just the keeper,
15 inches.
So, there you go.
We can go home now.
All right, now the night just
started, so.
So what's the deal with the camera?
I've never seen that before.
I have no idea.
My guess is maybe it's the internal
battery.
It's not one of these batteries that
we always carry with us.
You have to take the camera apart.
I just kept turning it on and off
and eventually it turned on.
I've never seen
that before.
Why? This is the one that isn't
having issues apparently because I
called Andrew quick.
Let's make sure we don't have that
next time.
I've had it all year for some reason
because I think we have to switch
this week.
It was just on the work order.
So they know there's a bummer
camera, but they let it out.
It's not a bummer, I think it's just
the camera that's been having issues.
Uh-huh.
The guy, the engineer says he's
fixed it, so it probably
is the bummer camera.
Ha ha ha ha.
I thought we were a little weedy
here.
We're still in five feet of water,
so.
How'd you take your wife to
Garmisch?
You know, we drove down there and
it was so packed,
couldn't even find a place to get
in.
Ah, dammit.
That was close.
It looked very nice when we
were ready.
Would you go at least to the bar?
No, we couldn't even get out of the
vehicle.
There was no place to
park, there was no, I had difficulty
turning around because I had my
boat.
We'd been out on the lake
all day with the boat.
You should have come over, I'd have
made you old fashioned or something.
She had wine out of
her bowl.
She wasn't working.
Oh
That was a fun week though, yeah.
Were you filming?
She was just kind of hanging out
with us.
And what's a Baldwin grant?
That's a great question.
I believe one of the focuses is
that you have to work with one of
the system schools and it has to
like showcase the Wisconsin
idea in
some way that it's demonstrating and
educating and
showing off all the research and
stuff.
They're optimistic that we've
got a really good proposal for it.
Good.
I think we find out early next week.
And how's PBS?
Public radio, public television.
My boss said, oh, you're fine, you
are fine, it's like, yeah,
I'll believe it when I'm on the
other side of it.
Actually, we joked with this
project, one of the things that
makes us feel like we're secure
until 27,
is we know they want this gun.
People are asking me, when are we
going to see it?
And I thought, I've got to tell them
27.
That was a
cool guy.
It's all right, man.
You OK? You want to?
No, I can't.
Ethan, did you drop a knife?
I did not, no.
That's my son, sir.
So we're looking for thin
clips.
Yeah, so the fin clips would be here
or there, and that's a
natural fish, so about 12
inches.
Okay, to your left or
right, so like this bring them over
this way. Oh, I see
I have to do the show kick as
well, otherwise you don't get it.
Alright, you good?
Yeah, I guess.
Well, give me one more chance at
that.
Ten seconds.
Okay, you can throw them now.
Ready? Wait, wait.
Oh! Sorry.
The other side.
That's right, they're fish, they
like to swim. Kid come up from
Iowa or Madison and
then be out with his
dad and catch, you
know, a couple of fish and
that's why we do
this, not for any, you know, I mean
there's a lot of guys that have over
fished this lake and I think that
day is done.
The new regulations I think are
really good.
You know, if a young kid and
his father can catch a fish or
two and go back
home and tell
the kids in school what they did,
that's how my
son got interested in fishing.
That's why we do all this.
Okay, I'm gonna keep fishing
for a bit.
I'm going to get us into this bay
here.
I call it a bay.
So for you, is it more exciting
to get one with a fin clip,
knowing that you helped put that one
in there?
You know, I just catch them
and, you know, it's good news
if I'm catching a lot of fish and
they're not fin clipped.
I mean, we had good recruitment,
and you know Mother Nature is always
going to be vastly
superior to what we can do,
but that's been the problem with
all the local lakes is recruitment's
been bad.
Now, we're lucky with
this lake. This is
a decent walleye lake.
But yeah, that's why I look for the
ones that are clipped.
It's kind of a good no matter what
to do there.
I just like to catch them, so, you
know, a lot of people say, oh, I
can't catch any fish, or they're all
too small, or hard.
You know, and I go, what are you
fishing?
I'm in rocks and 14
feet.
You're not there.
Stop fishing there.
But, you know, I'd like to
see them, a couple of clipped fins
are great, you know, and I know
we've done it.
But we see enough of them in the
spring when our pike nets are out.
We always get, you
fish with the clip fins
and there's
a lot of lakes that are stocked that
they just don't survive and
so, you're
lucky for us.
So where are you staying in
Hayworth?
Oh, we're at the American.
Once in a while the Holiday Inn
Express will be a state rate we can
get in.
Slip over or drop shot
Even that bores the hell out of me.
It seems like there's enough
different ways to fish that
you find what's enjoyable and do
it.
I got us in some weeds here,
we're in about five feet that's
weedy.
Check mine you
guys didn't bring headlamps,
did you?
Flashlight on the phone.
We've got a light on that camera.
Uh...
How do you catch,
do I need to turn the lights on in
the boat for you to see the fish?
Oh no, it's fine.
This is pretty good in low light,
but instead of having a light on
the camera, we would just bring a
light separately.
No, actually your headlamp in the
ambient light would be perfect for
us to see.
I mean for a pitch black it would be
a different place. Yeah.
Not being a very good guide here,
but...
Well, now they left.
I wanted to put that on so they
didn't run into us.
So I suspect they were fishing
for...
They were probably fishing for a
while, they weren't
casting that much.
Right at the edge of a weed
Next week's going to be really nice.
I'll get this out of here.
Next week is going to nice.
I gotta sit.
The weed?
Yeah.
I hooked into one too.
Yeah, that looked fun.
So where else do this, I
know you want to title it sort of
walleye, but, you
know, I think a lot of our...
You know, that has worked together.
If you don't find
that anywhere
else,
what other part of the story is of
interest?
Just the interest in walleyes?
The broader theme is
the walleye's cultural, economic,
and ecological impact in Wisconsin.
Okay.
Why that one particular species
holds so much interest from so
many people.
And how even people that don't fish
for it are impacted by its,
like, the economic and cultural
impact of the history of its there.
Sure.
And so it's kind of,
you know, I'm using the science as
a leaping off point of
the wild. All the attention
and interest in the science of
trying to save this species.
And it's almost starting from the
question of why, why
this one species is...
Because, you know, you could name a
lot of species of fish that if they
were collapsing...
A few scientists or maybe someone
who cared about that would be
worried about it, but it wouldn't
be collecting billions of dollars of
research and efforts to sustain
it.
Because I think the most interesting
part of this is what we're doing.
Just kidding no you're not wrong
that's why we keep coming back up
here this
the connection that
exists in this all
the different groups that are
collaborating are kind of
the whole thing
Where's your geese?
Oh, right into the sun.
No, they're not going to get up high
enough.
Okay, I got a fish.
Thank you.
There's the ducks up
above.
Swimming towards me.
Holy smoke. Come on, buddy.
My son caught a 22 inch
smallmouth right
up here.
That's maybe 13.
That'd be my guess.
Okay, I got it.
Thank you.
So I'll get this out of us,
we'll measure him,
he's got both
ventral fins here,
so that means it's a natural fish,
which is good news.
I just want to shake it out of his,
come on buddy.
Come on, you're barely hooked.
Let go.
There we go.
So there he is, okay,
and let's see what he...
13, just
a hair over 13.
So that's good, keep her next
year.
It's kind of fun though, right?
Sure! Well, let's...
That's what it is.
That's where we're at right here.
Sandy.
The river's flowing through.
Pardon me.
River's flowing though, kind of
grassy.
And the bait fish are in here.
And we could do this.
Actually, you could probably fish in
the dark,
because they're probably here all
night long.
There's no big hatches that
I've seen, so.
The bait fish is what they're
eating.
Well, this is kind of the
weather you were talking about how
you first discovered this lake,
right?
This time of day?
Exactly, exactly.
We won't ask how many years ago that
was.
A long time ago I was
probably 25.
So 50.
Am I that old?
No, I'm not that old.
45
I bet we can.
Hear you howling all across the
lake, huh? Oh, we were having fun,
boy. And we were sitting
on a dock fishing
and catching
walleyes hand over fist.
And you get a couple of beers
and we're using a few jokes
and we were still ringing in fish.
We just came back from Canada and we
hadn't had fish.
So it was hilarious.
We just had a blast.
We were told to be quiet, which
is OK.
So that was...
If it was, you know, I guess
if we were serious about catching
40 fish, you'd sit
probably right here with
slip bobbers everywhere
and we're going to keep,
we'll troll back a couple more
times.
This is good for you, the light of
our...
Stay Saturday night, I'll have a
fish fry.
Not from this lake though,
I don't keep them here.
I'd have to bring my wife back up
for that.
Cheers, well done.
Sorry, I'll turn this off.
Clunks like you just got, I thought.
Okay, that's fish coming
up and biting.
When we first moved here
We'd come out night like tonight.
Maybe catch 15
or 20.
So the population is, you
know, it's coming back,
but
We had nine per acre and
now it's trying to get back to four
and it's still under half and it
was.
Well, we're at 4.3
per acre.
Our goal with our group
is five
an acre,
and Scott Toshner,
who's head of the fisheries
for the DNR, when he used
to have this lake, this was
his lake, and
we looked at the
There should be something right
around here.
So did you tell me what other lakes
you're going to?
Uh let me see the big cedar
winnebago okay we
hope to be on the
wolf
you were on the mariner after a
mirror yeah
right now we're really not
going to be doing anything down in
the madison area yeah
at one point i was thinking
of trying to include that the
cultural attention to lalai is for
Boy, this is small.
Holy smokes.
10 might be a weed.
Let's turn around.
Anyhow, either way, however it
works.
Oh, that's a fish.
He went down the weeds.
Oh, it's small.
You don't have to, we don't need the
net.
Okay
Let's see if this one's clipped,
huh?
That's right, I think I...
See how he looked himself.
So they just hit it so hard they...
Oh, I guess they do need it.
Thank you.
You're in your gills, you goofball.
Yeah, it's a...
So this would be
what they're checking tomorrow
night.
This is
year one, one
year old.
So it was six
inches last year.
And this is what they are looking.
So they're counting year zero,
which is the first year, about six
inches long.
And they would count this as year
one.
So it went from six inches to.
Whatever this is here,
he won't even make the scale,
yeah he will.
Ten inches long.
That's a year one, so when they
do their data, they'll
show Y-O-Y, young of year,
and then they'll do year one
and hopefully if we can get them
to turn them upside down, a lot of
work, you're in the boat, you know,
and take a look at the fins and
see if one's clipped and one's not.
So that was a one-year-old...
It's weird, it's a two-year-old
fish. It was born last year,
and what they're going to look for
is young of the year,
which they'll all be about that
big, and then they'll
record one-year old or
a year and a half, I guess would be
the best.
Yeah, probably a year-and-a-half.
And that would be that one right
there, 10 inches long.
I might measure them.
Yeah, they'll measure, I think
they'll measure that, and any other
adults. That's not an adult, but
So that's what they're looking for
tomorrow, so okay
we're going to turn around and go
one last oh
yeah for god's sakes
We've got a crappie,
speaking of crappies.
That is a huge crappie.
Well, that's
medium for here. That's medium.
Watch your fingers.
Here, let me get you the.
Ethan, watch your step there.
We have to keep him for your fish
fry.
He'll live.
He's just in the tough part of the
gill.
Did you get hooked again?
I think that's a coyote.
That's what I thought, too.
The first part was a little...
Whoa!