Woo!
Okay, anybody else?
We're seeing you.
Who's from Madison?
Raise their hand.
Awesome.
I tell you, you guys got great
fishing out here.
I drive out here, I will usually
bring my volunteers that help me
when we take the kids fishing out
here because it's
so fun.
I personally would like to see a
15-fish pan fish
limit out here because I think these
lakes are just amazing,
you know?
Lake Mendota, Monona, I mean,
you guys got a great fishery out
here. I come out here, I catch
perch, walleye bass.
I remember one time we were fishing
bluegills in deeper water,
and guess what we ended up catching?
Legal walleyes.
The one thing to do to understand in
Madison is you need to read the fish
regulation books, especially for
walleye. A walleye in Mendota
has to be 18 or better.
A walleye on Menona only needs
to be 15 or better,
so you know a lot of
stuff you know I learned, but I love
it out here.
When I was 16 years old and
actually got my driver's license,
yeah.
Wait a minute, I'm not a diplomat,
but why is that difference in the
length of one wing for the other?
They're trying to make trophy
fisheries, or they're just trying to
protect what resources are in that
lake.
I live on Lake Guelph, an angler
educator. I'm trying to people
better at fishing, be
it young, be it old,
just trying to get out there.
Facebook.
Just on Facebook I reach about
8 million people a year all
across the world which is so cool
because I'm not really sharing
pictures of the fish I catch I'm
sharing how I caught them
and you know and that's that's my
mission So I think what
I'm gonna do is just go through this
since we got most of the people here
because you know what?
I forget what I'm supposed to do
talking about myself.
So I do live on
Lake Winnebago.
I love fishing Green Bay for big
walleyes. I mean, and
I did catch a big walleye.
My biggest walleye to date is
33 and a quarter, and it
got certified at 13.12.
That is a monster of a fish.
I said I was never gonna mount
anything until 34,
but somebody says, Hey,
you get a nice fish, we're going to
mount it for you because of what you
do for youth and so we're
gonna actually show you that a
little bit later.
Today, very important for me,
this is my 500th
fishing event.
I have caught over 100,000 kids
fishing so pretty cool.
My largest walleye in Lake
Winnebago, 29 and a half
and we've caught a few 29 and
half. It just seems like We can't
get that 30-incher.
So, you know, one other thing is
learn to fish with us.
So that's my nonprofit is learn
number two fish with us will be in
your books.
Go out there, you don't follow us on
Facebook, you know,
like us because that helps.
I mean, if we don't have these
sponsors here, we can't host
all these events for kids.
You know, we really, we need help.
And through personal donors and
sponsors, we've done this for
21 years, so that's
pretty cool.
I think we're ready to go, right
Karen?
Okay, I'll let you come up.
I think we can get to know the
person you go fishing with so much
better. I've learned so much thing.
You know, and the other big thing,
you know, this week, you
know, we lost one of our board
members. So that was
tough, you, know.
And you know and this is, you know
this is like pretty important, you
to be hosting events like this.
So, you know sorry about that, but
you know he was with us for
a long time.
And he actually passed in
the water, so just
to let you know.
But we're going to have fun.
I just wanted to take a little
minute and respect Rick.
Okay, I got through all the
teleprompters, so...
Gosh, it's so great to see so
many of you here.
Thanks for the excellent, thanks for
the timing, I needed that I think.
Okay!
Okay, we're going to get
rolling, you know, first thing I
cover when we're talking about
fishing, it's got to be safety.
You know, like
I said, Rick passed,
and he passed, he drowned from
a riptide.
Very important and it just goes to
show that, you know, this is huge.
When I'm fishing by myself, I make
sure to be wearing an
inflatable.
One thing to note, this isn't
inflatable, very comfortable
to wear, and
most of the time, even in 90
degrees, because this is a very
comfortable one.
So when you do buy one, you want to
make sure you try it on, make sure
it's very comfortable.
Even walk through the store a little
bit just to feel, is this good?
Because Once you get a good one like
this.
If I accidentally fall overboard,
this is going to inflate to be this
big automatically.
So I do love these.
The one thing to note, though, if
you have this in your boat, you must
wear it.
It cannot be considered a life
jacket for a person unless
it's being worn.
It can be in there as a backup,
but just so you guys know that.
Then we have our traditional life
jacket.
Youth that are under 13
must wear a life second win in
a vote.
You know, the other thing is you've
got to have a life jacket for
everybody in the boat.
I recommend, I like keeping
mine on the chairs in the boat.
You know most of the time this way
because it's very comfortable, but
if they're not,
make sure kids you ask
the boat owner where are
the life jackets.
You know if you're older because a
boat goes down sometimes pretty
quick and you want to make sure that
you know where everything is.
You want to come up and try it on?
You going to be my model?
Come up here.
I will bite.
Come on.
There you go. Thank you.
So we want to always make sure,
here, get your hair out.
And then what we want do, if you
want to, can you snap the top one?
Just make sure, yeah, you don't do
that because I already got some hair
stuck in a snap.
What you want to do is make sure
every one is snapped all
the way up and down.
You want to make sure it's snug.
Not tight, but snug.
Are you comfortable?
That's the big thing because if
you're going to wear it all day
long, you want to make it's
comfortable.
Perfect. Thank you.
Can you do that one?
There you go.
Good job.
So...
Make sure that there's a life
jacket.
Next is a throwable.
Another thing that is required in
a boat is a throwable, it
can be used as a seat cushion, but
you want to be able to toss this.
And once you get it,
put your arms in there and just
float until we can get close to you.
You know with all the fishing I did,
capping and everything,
I would save two people's lives with
this, because I could get
to them.
You know, once I gave them something
to float with.
Okay, when
we go fishing, believe it or not,
we get double-digit sun.
We get the sun that's coming down,
you get the Sun that bounces a cheap
pair because at least we're
protecting the eyes from the sun.
The other thing is, my little fish
right here, Lake Winnebago,
I told you I fish really shallow.
Well, believe or not sometimes when
I fish weeds, I can actually see a
fish.
Swim. So I'll see a walleye, I'll
actually see a white tip on the tail
swim, and I'll know it's a wallay.
And it goes into the weeds.
But because these are polarized and
they're wraparounds, I can easily
see those fish.
Why do you think, what else?
Barb. So hey, any kids?
You guys, named Barb?
Parents?
Grandparents?
Barb?
Do you know grandma or something
that has a barb?
I'm just checking.
You know, I did have a couple kids
that said grandma is named Barb.
But this barb is very important
because we're going to talk about
setting the hook and catching a
fish. A fish is going to bite,
you're going see a nibble, you are
going to set that hook.
That barb it's going to keep the
fish on as long as you keep
your line tight.
If you let go, if you let it loose,
sometimes that barb will go free.
Fish will swim off and then you go,
oh boy, but
that barb also means if this
goes in your hand,
guess what?
It doesn't come out really easy.
So you most likely got to go
to the hospital.
So just to let you know, be careful.
If you feel a prick,
stop.
Don't do anything because it
might in the backyard and we go for
two minutes and we see who can catch
the most fish. We learn how to catch
two, three, four fish at once.
But, believe it or not, if I'm
fishing, I'm using this because this
is so easy to use.
I'm not going to have line tables.
The other thing is, people ask,
what is that dial at the top?
There's a reason I wanted you to sit
in the front row.
You're going to be my big fish.
So
So grab on to that thing and hold it
hard.
If I don't do something, what
is going to happen?
What's going to happened?
I could break, I couldn't break
my lady ugly stick, this is a lady
ugly stick that is so awesome, but I
could break my rod, but i could lose
the biggest fish of my
life. So what I'm going to do is I'm
gonna turn that dial to the
negative, because it should have a
plus or negative, and now
I can let that fish
go and run.
And play them and as the
fish tires out I can increase
the drag and reel them in.
So that is so important to
catching the big fish.
Excellent!
Okay, how does this work?
We're going to show you how to catch
that.
So if you're ever going at a tree,
a person, stop it by pressing
that button.
You let go of the button, line goes
out.
Now the big thing is once you
cast you got to
click.
That click means the reel's engaged
and you can set the hook.
We're going to talk about setting a
hook a little later, but if you
press your button and you forget
to set it, you go to set the hook,
look what happens.
The line comes out.
You won't catch a fish that way.
So you cast it,
and we're going talk about casting a
little bit later.
Another big thing is, if you ever
have a lot of slack line,
make sure to put your finger there
so you keep the line tight and
reel it in.
Okay, so now
We're going to talk about the next
one up.
The next one is a spinning
combo.
See the line?
This is what makes this more
difficult to use, but
then you go, why do you use it?
Because we can cast so much
further.
There is no...
I don't know what...
I'm trying to think of what the word
is.
No, it's there's no one
I don't know why I'm having a
thing, but it's
not attached to anything.
All it's doing is going through the
line, you know, through the guides.
Where here, we're going through
cover. It's the same thing.
I had a guy come up and ask me about
a bait caster. He's like, why is
everybody casting jigs and
everything with this versus a bait
cast? And I said it's because of the
friction that comes out of it coming
out of the bait casters.
So, here, a little bit different,
pressing the button, open the bail,
line goes out, Turn the
handle, line comes in,
we got a drain either on the front
or the back.
One thing that we're not seeing on
new reels coming out is the
back reel switch.
But we have never had a
bar go through skin.
It's going to happen,
you know, it's surprising it hasn't
happened yet, but it's because
we think of the method that we're
teaching them on how to do this.
So, what we're going to do is point
the rod at your target, so you want
your rod tip at the target, press
the button firmly.
If you don't press the buttons
firmly, that's what's going happen,
so get used to it,
press that button firmly, look
behind. We're going to go to...
This is two o'clock,
ten o' clock. Oh, and I hit a fish
on the head. I got to do that again.
So we're going to, you're going to
probably hit up here.
So we are going to go back.
This is ten o clock,
two o clock.
10 o'clock.
See how straight that goes?
Now I click it.
If I want my big, what
did I catch?
What did I catch?
A crappie.
We're going to talk about all the
different fish.
Now, I'm going to ask for a
volunteer.
You really want to do this?
Okay.
You
WOW!
You ready?
OK.
This is what's so cool.
Is this going to be your first time
you cast?
Oh, mom's going to help.
Uh-oh.
Come over here. I won't bite.
I promise.
Well done.
So you're going to put your hand
here.
OK, we're going put the
right thumb on here.
Yeah, we're going to go.
And we're going to go over your shoulder,
look behind you, because we don't
want to hook mom or dad.
We're going go back, and then we're
going to release the button.
Are you ready?
Oh, OK, we're gonna try it again.
Oh, no, we are going to get it a
little bit.
OK, so press the button again.
So we got to go there.
We're gonna go over, and they're
we're let go.
Wow
Okay, hud, move it over.
Lucy, let's go by daddy.
I'm going to get a little better
toss here.
Okay, turn that handle,
we've got to get it to click.
Okay, so now what we're
gonna do, oh yeah, right there,
right there.
Oh, oh, oh.
Yep, gotta go slow here.
This is what I love about back here
bass. The only way you're going to
catch these fish is
to have a good cast past
it. You can't go across it.
Yep. So go a little more that way.
There you go.
It's a real
Keep that rod tip up.
And the cool thing is, this is
actually what a fish is going to
fight. That rod is going be
bending all the time that fish is
coming in. Keep reeling.
Oh, wow.
It looks like the crappies are
biting today.
There's some walleyes out there,
but I'm thinking a.
Oh, look at that.
She caught a walleye by hand.
Thank you.
Okay, we're gonna keep moving on.
In the crease of my
pointy finger,
I bring the finger to the
rod, I open
the bail, and everything
else is going to be the same.
Look back.
The one thing that's going to happen
is this finger is
going point towards the fish as
I cast.
Okay,
let's see.
Okay, today's a good day.
Oh, look at that.
Oh, back-reel switch is still on.
What did we catch now?
What? What did get?
You know what it, what is it?
You can say it, say it loud.
Say it like you own it.
There you go!
Bluegill!
What I love about bluegills, and
we'll talk about it, bluegill can be
purple, green, blue!
You know, that's what's so cool
about a bluegille.
You never know what color you're
going to catch.
Okay, who has
never casted with a spinning combo?
You ready? Do you fish?
Okay, this is a tough one.
Spinning combo is really tough.
It took me a long time to learn it.
Okay, so now what you're going
to do is you're gonna go over your
shoulder, and then you're go
to let go of the line forward.
Whoa!
Okay, now you're turn the handle.
Turn the handle, closes the bail,
and it requires a little strength.
Okay, let's see.
We gotta go that way.
Go really slow.
Oh yeah, let's try it.
Let's see if we can get two.
Oh, keep reeling.
Keep reeling!
What do you think you caught?
You don't know?
Okay, let see.
Oh, we got another one.
What is that? You know what that is?
Anybody know what is?
What is it?
Perch!
Perch, very good!
Oh, who likes perch?
Oh yeah, we all love perch.
Who loves walleye?
Oh yeah look at all those hands.
Okay, way to go bud.
Way to go.
Give him a hand.
Which is really nice.
So all you've got to do is remove
this nut and you can flip it
to either side. So that's what's
really nice another thing
I just want to point out
if you are a righty
the right hand should hold
the rod the left hand should turn
the handle and that's
because the smartest hand is the
right-hand so that's we want
casting. This hand, guess what it
does?
Do you think you need to have a
smart hand to just do that?
No.
So I want to try to make sure that
if you're a righty and you're
doing it the left-handed method,
change it now.
You know, while you're young.
OK.
If you were going out fishing with
us today,
a sinker to get the bait down to
the fish.
And then what we like, too, this is
called a long shanked hook.
This is a true turn, so especially
bent. I think it helps me catch a
lot more fish.
But we like a long-shaped hook
when we take kids fishing, because
if the fish takes it
in a little further, you've got a
lot of more hook to grab onto
to get out. You see that?
That's called setting the hook.
And that's what's going to allow you
to get that barb into the fish's
mouth. And if you keep your line
tight, you'll be able to get the
fish in.
So, Bobber goes down,
what are we going to do everyone?
Yell it out, Bobbers down.
Did you guys just get up?
Come on, Barber's down!
You
Set the hook.
If you see your bobber start going,
and it starts
swimming off, what are we going to
do?
Set that hook because the
fish has it.
The fish did is it grabbed it and it
swam up with it.
So it took all the weight off the
bobber so it went sideways.
If we see our bobber bounce around
and stops, bounce
around, and stops what are we going
do? Set the hooks.
We are going to be patient.
We're going to wait because you know
what we got?
We've got a nibbler,
and we've got to wait until he
decides to commit and either taste
the bob or don't.
This is called the hook keeper.
So they've got one next to the reel,
and they also have two slots
here.
Sometimes it's up here,
and that's very important.
For kids, these are most of the
time fiberglass eyelets,
and if you keep putting the hook in
the fiberglass eyelet, you will
chip it.
When it gets chipped, it gets sharp.
So guess what happens when you get a
big fish on?
Cut your line.
So very important to use
the hook keeper.
OK,
guess what?
I told everybody that
Mr. Fishpond guy gave me two
tickets.
So somebody's going to get a ticket
to actually go fishing in the trout
pond for answering this question.
Hopefully, I don't have to give you
tips. If you've come to my clinics
before.
You're going to know the answer.
This is called a slip-bobber.
You see how it slides?
That little pink rope right
there, string, that is
called the stopper.
And you see how I kept it
long like that?
It's so I can consistently tighten
it. As I slide the bobber knot
up and down, it'll loosen.
So by keeping maybe not
that long, but by keeping it
somewhat, I can pull it every single
time. And that will be the stoper.
I also like always having a barrel
swivel because if something happens
to my bobber, I want to change it,
I can just cut the line, change the
bobber or if something happens down
here, all I have to
do is fix this.
So that's a nice thing of having a
swivel.
When I fish with
bobbers, I always
have attractor beads or
spinners on there.
You see that?
Every time I fish with a
hook, I have a bead.
If I'm fishing bluegill's perch,
it's a tractor bead.
This rig is set up for
minnows, hence
the red.
It's because blood.
That's why with minnow, it has
blood.
I got another big question.
It's going to be very big for the
state of Wisconsin, so you'll have
your chance.
Good luck trawl fishing.
I'm going to in this room, so I want
you to come back if you catch one.
Well, you're hopefully going to
catch a trout now.
Well, now. You're good.
And we're going to give you a hat.
And it's yellow, so I'll know where
he is.
OK, moving on.
We're not going to talk much,
because I'm going to a lot more
about this at 2 o'clock.
This is called the jig.
The weight, the hook,
it's all one.
When the line goes to the bottom,
you see how it went slack?
When I lift it up, it
goes tight.
So this is called jigging.
And this is when we're targeting
fish near the bottom.
We're bobbers.
Give me the old zero, everybody.
Come on, zero.
Everybody, parents, get your hands.
If you can't cast to that fish, you
ain't going to get them.
OK, so we're going to give it zero.
But if you can cast to them, you can
catch them.
The other thing goes to if you
cannot do a knot.
I can tell you one thing at your
age, even older, if
somebody would have just told me
how to tie a knot, I know I would
have caught more bigger fish because
I kept losing them.
I used the square knot and just
kept tying square knots.
Terrible knot.
The first knot here, I
know that this is an easy knot.
Why?
I had a kindergartener that
was at school, went
home, showed grandma how to tie it.
Pretty impressive.
You know, it's amazing what you guys
can come out and learn.
So, all you gotta do is put your
line through the hook eye.
Then we're gonna twist this seven or
eight times.
True, you can't do this with the
hook, but all you've got to do is
twist it, and now all we've got do
is take the line's end through the
loop by the hook eye,
before we do anything with
it.
We're going to pretend we're
spitting on it.
And that's it.
That is called a clinch knot.
See how nice it is?
You want to make sure that it goes
all the way up the line.
But this is going to be a good knot.
But if you're fishing a lot and
you're fishing for big fish, I'm
going to show you the other one.
Who wants to do this knot?
Come on up, buddy.
I won't bite.
And you're a super fish.
Superhero
Okay, I'm going to hold the hook.
Let's face this way.
So what are you going to do?
Go through there.
Excellent.
Now what are going to you do?
There you go.
Yep.
And just keep doing that.
Oh, you're going to this seven or
eight times.
There we go, twist it like that,
beautiful.
Okay.
That's good. Now what are you going
to do? Where are you gonna put that
end through?
You were doing it before, just
right. Yep, just do it.
There it is.
Beautiful. You did it all on your
own. So now I want you to grab this
and pull with that.
Okay, show them.
Raise this up and show everybody.
Did you do a good job?
Yeah, you did.
Way to go, buddy.
Excellent. See, this is what it's
all about. I love it.
Very cheap.
So you use a lot of line.
So now what we're going to do is
we're going to more like an overhand
knot.
So you see how I got that overhand?
Then I'm going to bring the loop
through,
bring the hook through.
And believe it or not, does that
knot look like it's anything
special?
No, but this is one of
the strongest knots on the market.
So it had his hand up so fast.
Have you ever tied a poem or not?
OK, so that's even better yet.
Good luck.
So just knowing, it does take time
sometimes to actually do this.
So are you ready?
Okay. They're back.
They ain't going anywhere, but they
ain't gonna swim on their own.
When we hook them with bobbers, we
like to hook them in the back,
or hook them in, hook them the back
or hook em in the middle.
And you want them swimming.
If a middle is not swimming,
you are not going to catch as many
fish as if it was swimming.
Because that fish comes up, checks
it out and says, oh yeah, that looks
like a meal.
And it'll eat them.
The reason we hook them in the back,
typically if they're hooked in the
back, they swim up.
You hook them, I mean,
you hook them in the
middle dorsal, they swim like
this, nothing special.
But if you hook in the back by the
tail, they'll swim up and
what fish will do is typically come
from underneath and hit them
from underneath.
And that's why if it looks like it's
have one other bait that I haven't
talked about.
It's the leech.
That leech is slimy,
it sucks on to you,
but that leech catches so
many fish.
Walleyes love leeches, so
what it does, it's swimming
around like this and its tail
is just flinging around.
So when we hook a leech,
there's a suction cup right there
on the fat part of the leech, and
what we're doing, we're hooking
it, swimming around,
okay.
Another great bait is
artificials.
So I got worms,
I got leeches, I've got minnows.
Many ask, why don't you just
use live bait?
Well, because you guys can
smell it already.
Okay,
does it smell?
So if I had a night crawler
with you, and I had you smell
the crawler versus smelling this,
they can smell this so much further
away. So that's a reason we love
using artificials.
And just think, if I just open this
bag.
I remember I opened this bag two
years ago, a little kid grabbed and
got all the stuff out of there, and
mom came back at my two o'clock
center and says, my kid stinks.
So...
Okay, the other thing I love
talking about is
crank baits.
Look at all the hooks we have.
These are called treble hooks.
So they have three sort
of hooks on one.
But you see how the small
this beak is?
This means it only goes down in the
water four to six feet.
That big bill, this will
actually go 20 feet down in
the water.
Crank baits are used to cast
them. So we cast them out
We reel them in and what does that
look like?
Learning.
Looks like it's a swimmin' and it's
fish, right?
I've already had fish rip
the rod out of my hand.
The other reason we love crankbaits,
if you're on a bobber and it is
just sitting there, that fish can
go, do I want to eat it?
Do I not want to it?
Do I want eat it, do not?
Well, guess what?
If this bait comes by them, do they
got that time to think that?
They got a half a second to
think. Do I want to eat it?
So they'll rip the rod out of your
hand.
OK.
We're going to first do this.
What do you think's in the box?
I haven't brought this guy out in a
while.
I brought him out yesterday because
we were talking to walleye
fishermen, and then walleye
fishermen know it.
Is it a big walleye or not?
Look at that fish!
You see that?
Is this a big walleye everybody?
It is a monster!
13.12 pounds
in August.
A summertime monster.
But look at those teeth!
Look at that!
What makes a walleye so cool?
It's got its teeth.
It's got its gill plate.
Believe it or not, this will cut
our hand. So we got to be Very
careful around a walleye.
But look at those eyes.
You see those eyes?
Those eyes can see at
midnight like we see right
now.
They take what little light there
is, and they can see just like we
do.
We got the big fins.
A walleye has scales.
So feel.
You feel the scales on it?
Yeah. So that's what protects
them. But that is what's
so cool about a walleye.
And uh...
We're going to put him back in a
box, it's really cool, he made me
this nice box.
This thing is actually like 10 years
old.
He sits on my mantle, but I would
rather bring him out to show people.
OK, let's talk about some other
fish.
Bluegill, black spot,
blue around its gills, very
tasty, but you know what?
This bluegill is orange looking.
I caught bluegills that are pinkish,
purplish.
That's why I like going to different
lakes, because I just never know
what is the color of the bluegilled.
A bluegille has a mouth that
big.
It is really dinky.
So you've got to be quick at the
trigger. That biber goes down.
That blue guilt could go f-
Pull in the bait and spit it out
right away. So you've got to be
really quick with bluegills.
Perch, same thing.
They've got a gill plate cover.
Going to be sharp.
They got bars that go up and down.
Pretty big mouth.
But look at the orange fins on the
belly. That's what I love about a
perch. And you go up the Green Bay,
oh, they've really got orange
bottoms.
And who loves perch?
We love
perch.
It's very easy to play, a lot
easier than a bluegill,
than we got the crappie.
What do you think this is on a
crappi?
Wow.
Their mouth.
They have a big mouth.
But you know what else is cool about
a crappie?
Look at those fins.
You see how big those fins are?
What happens when a fish has big
fins?
Swim fast.
Swim fast but they got a big fight
because they're going like this
trying to get off trying to make
sure you don't get them in that's
what's so cool about big fins you
see that eye right there that
eye is almost like a walleye they
like to bite in the evening in the
morning and that eye
allows them to bite at night because
they can take what little light
there is look at the evil
eye a red eye
one of the very few freshwater
fish that have a red It is
the...
Rock bass.
Where do you think they hang out?
Rocks, right?
You don't even know they're down
there, so if you come across rocks,
drop your line down there and see if
you can catch a few, because they're
great at fighting.
The old white bass,
the old white bass, look at those
fins on the top, spiky-ish.
So these fish fight
awesome, they're all
right tasting.
When you got walleye and perch,
white bass is all right.
We're out.
Catfish right or bullhead
but the one thing to note
is you see those fins at the top and
the side
those can prick you and
it can hurt but guess what it's
only really when the fish is small
if the fish's this big they're
all worn down you're not going to
get hurt Why do you
think I got Mr. Carp on here?
Why do you think I have carp?
Do you think eat them?
But I have
a fight, right?
You get a 3, 5,
20 pound carp.
You just want the fight.
You don't care if you're going to
eat them or not.
So those are pan fish.
Most of the time, you can keep an
aggregate of 25
here.
We really need to look at the
game fish manual, because lakes
are different for sizes,
seasons, so you need...
Wow!
I should have read that.
This is the game fish.
OK, believe it or not, one thing I'm
going to teach you, I
think it was like 15 years ago,
a kid showed me a difference
in the two bass.
A largemouth bass, smallmouth
bass.
I always knew the difference about
the stripes going up and down versus
going sideways, horizontal.
So that's the way a
warden would typically look.
Some kids said, I can tell by the
size of the mouth, because you can
see how close does
that jaw line go to the gill.
So if it's really close, it probably
is a large mouth.
Where here, if it is more than half
way, it's probably a small mouth.
But then the kids said there's
another way, Captain Greg.
I can look at the top fin.
And that was the first time that I
really saw that.
Not connected, connected.
You know, so you can look at the top
fin when it's flipped in and easily
see it.
Then look at these two.
We got the walleye and the sauger.
They almost look the same.
They're blotchiness.
Makes a big difference on Lake
Winnebago because I can keep three
walleyes, but I can
only keep one sauger, so if
I have one saugher, I can keep two
walleye. So I need to
tell the difference between the
walley and that.
You can sometimes tell by the
blotchiness, but if I'm a game
warden, what am I gonna look at?
Anybody know the difference?
Come on up.
No, come on up, we'll do
this together.
I won't, come one up, we're gonna
work together.
No, you can do it.
Come on, give her a hand.
Okay, do you see any difference?
Come on, come in here.
You're gonna teach them.
So look at this fish and look at
that fish. What do you think is
different?
The white tip, very good.
But there's another reason.
The white is very good, but
what's up with the top fin?
What do see in a top fin.
The bottom one hurts.
Yes, polka dots.
What we're gonna do, and I love that
you said dots,
but we're going to say spots,
because spots starts with.
And what does sauger start with?
S-S.
So if it has spots on the top
fin, it's a sauger.
No spots on top fin.
It's a walleye.
Way to go.
Give her a hand.
That's impressive.
The funny thing is, you see
that white tip on the tail?
It's at the bottom of the tail.
But believe it or not, when you see
the fish swimming down and you're
looking down in the water, you can
actually see that one spot, which
which is really hard to believe.
We got the northern and we got
the musky.
I'm going to flip this over because
my next question
is about Wisconsin.
Northerns have sharp teeth.
They have white spots.
Muskies are green.
Sometimes they'll have tiger spot,
you know, tiger stripes.
I have a musky on the wall, 52
and 1 1⁄2 inches, 38 and 1⁅2
pounds. And I caught it with
six-pound test on a little bait
that big.
Sometimes big fish want big baits.
This is the ticket for
this question.
And I really, after everybody
leaves, this is the one thing I
really want you to remember.
What is so
important about
a muskie in the
state of Wisconsin?
Come on up, baby.
You got her.
Where did you learn that?
My father
Your father?
Good job.
Here, come on. Here you got a hat,
too.
Even though I'm running worried,
you're going to get a Triton board
hat.
Give her a hand.
That is impressive.
For everybody, what is so
important about a muskie
in Wisconsin?
Thank you.
Oh, no. I'm not.
No free rods.
It's our?
Stainless!
Very good.
Okay. I am doing one
public announcement because I
believe this is so important.
And I follow this every time I go
fishing. For one, it's the law.
But we've got to make
sure that we take all the weeds off
our boats, boat trailers,
and everything.
We want to make you don't transport
it somewhere else.
Because let's say you go to your
vacation place.
Never had weeds in the lake.
You take that one weed, you might
come back next year and it's going
to be full of weeds.
So just make sure to clean the boat.
The other thing is, if you are with
a boat, pull all your drain plugs
because there's zebra mussels and
everything in that water.
We want to make sure we don't spread
water from one body to the next.
And the same thing goes, when I was
a kid, the first thing I did,
I filled my bucket a lot better that
way because The big thing is we
can't transport water.
If you don't do this stuff at the
boat launch and you do get caught
it's probably I think it's like $250
fine So just just
want to do this, but the main thing
is keeping these lakes great for
these kids Did you guys have
fun today?
Are you ready for a free fishing
combo look?
Are you?
Yes!
Okay, we're going to get a single,
do a single file line,
hand your tickets to us, and then
you're free to go.
I will be in here all
morning, so if you have any
questions, you want to go everything
I taught, I will be here to teach
you. Okay, I'll be right there.
We're all ready.
OK, so what we'll
do is have you guys just throw your
ticket on the table.
You're going to grab a book, and
then I'll give you a ride.
Right over here.
Yep, just throw it down there.
Grab a book, here, grab a book.
You ready for your ride?
OK, just throw that down, take
a look.
Do you want to take a board?
No!
I'll take pictures, I'll get this, I
get this.
Thank you.
Oh cool!
What's his name?
I don't know.
Yep, let me steal this.
Here, there you go. You got a book.
Right here, ma'am.
Okay.
There you go!
Let me, I want to get these out of
here first.
There you go. You want to take that
book over there?
Over there.
Okay. They're good.
They are good.
Third one.
Here you go. Thank you.
There's a book over there, so grab
a book then.
Yep, grab a book.
There you go.
Just hold the rod because it might
slip out.
There you got.
Yep, grab a book over there.
There you go,
you just throw it over there and
grab a book.
I don't know.
Just roll over there, grab a book,
there you go, grab the book over
there.
There you go.
Thank you very much.
There you go.
Give me a guess, people.
Thank you.
One
Yeah
What do you say?
Thank you.
There's a book over there.
Let's get out of here.
This.
There you go!
Right over there, there.
OK.
There you go.
Just throw that tag right over
there.
No, no spinning.
Oh yeah, you got two tickets?
There you go, there's the books.
Just for the ticket over there.
There you go, yep.
There ya go.
Thank you.
There you go, just, there you go.
Right there.
There.
Thank you, appreciate it.
Great Friday.
Sometimes it sneaks up on you.
Yeah, I'll stand right over
here.
Hi. Hi there.
Oh, sorry.
The big ones are 15
and the big ones are 10.
Are you going to go on or are you
going on?
We'll take that one and we'll take
this.
What name are we putting in there
for you?
Um, can you do two?
I can put as many as you'd like.
All right, Ezra has one name.
Ezra? Yep, he's E-R-A.
I can take that.
And then the other name is Aria.
And I'll spell it for you, A-R,
A, I-A,
A. There you go.
Go fishing for fun.
You want that in a bag or do you
want to just carry it out?
Um, we'll take him, probably a
bag for you, don't be too hard.
Want me to give me the fish?
Oh, yeah.
And then you get to carry the band.
Oh, he already stamped your card.
Yes.
There you go.
Thank you.
Are you going to help Carrie?
It could have been different, but
come around and take a look.
Thank you very much.
You said you wanted someone else to
do it, because I've seen your live
show.
So if I got the live on,
let's maybe do that first.
Anything you're seeing?
No.
So what if we get on here?
You can do still work.
I can be here.
They cut into the bulk one.
Uh, we
did our...
No, I don't dislike it.
I'm going to go down and get busted.
I don't like it.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
And poor windows, and the windows
are changing.
And what happened when the brakes
started.
Can you let me see your hand,
actually?
Yeah, I think it was something we
were talking about. All right.
Yeah. Oh, very cool.
How much money do you have?
Family business.
Do you do, like, crochet sewing?
Yeah. Oh, sweet water.
Sweet water. Sweet water pillows.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Would you like me to help you?
Yeah.
Would you like me to start a little hobby?
All the other ones.
I do.
All of them.
I hope you like them.
You guys do a lot of fun.
Come on.
I saw you and I think I just saw you
too.
And if you do sign up online
for fishing...
And if you do sign up online, put Fishing Expo
as how you heard about it, because
we just like to keep track of you.
And that's getting everybody's
attention.
We just did this.
Thanks.
Thank you. It is.
It really is.
That's why we call it.
Because the B&R will create a
bureaucracy around us trying to stop
us doing that.
So what the lakes are
these, what areas are
these? Is that rock and roll water
and water?
That's just...
That's just his talking point.
Oh, I see.
So it's based on
the
collapse of the hatcheries,
all the hatchries.
Ever since 2015, they've
known that all the hatcheries
are producing this female fish.
80% to 100% are female
fish, and they've been
studying it.
There was a study.
And if they're not
producing any
fish in the wild.
No.
So what's happening,
this is a study that was done by
the top two fishery biologists in
the state.
And they found they were looking
for the reasons why
the fish were turning basically
all female.
And what they did is they looked at
a variety of different chemicals.
And one of the things they looked at
was they found
real high levels of this is called
Norgestorl.
This is a male hormone.
I didn't know what Nordgesterol was.
I looked it up and found out that
it's commonly,
like most often, it's combined with
a strong estrogen, which is
called a phenylesterole.
Mm-hmm.
But as you can see, there's very
little detected.
What I found out is that these
plastic liners that they put
in the hatchery ponds,
that these extended length finger
lanes are sitting in,
that plastic liner.
They absorb the chemicals that are
in them.
Yes, exactly.
The polyethylene has
the highest adsorption of
that strong female estrogen.
Ah, so, you
shouldn't even be drinking out of
those, you know,
plastic bottles and all.
I started looking at, you
know, is this a problem?
There's 11 studies around
the world
and estrogen contamination
in the groundwater has been
found in Canada, the U.S.,
Europe, and Australia.
And there's 11 study that...
That's the one that got you guys
here.
Next year, next year.
Yeah, we should eat some food.
It's on. It's in this page.
That was great.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, it's nice to have
you here.
Ladies and gentlemen, our contestant
at 12 noon, Kate Jackson,
Jackson's late-night prodigy, is
going to be climbing all the
climbing doors in Michigan to see
if she can bring the fish.
All of a sudden, I see her moving
here.
I think all of them in this building
are in the first game.
This is her third game of the night,
and all of a kind of competition
with Kate Jackson.
I mean, what does she feel with him?
I don't like the dark on there,
it's too dark, and it's cold as
it, but I say it to everyone, I
don´t have it, it doesn't matter.
Thank you.
It's going my way or the highway.
Maybe that's what I did, but I
don't know the rules.
It's been a sane day.
Come on, let's go.
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry, you're all right, but you
don't, you don't You don't
need to see her You don't
You don't
Oh, we're going to the blaster?
Oh, right, right.
Time to guide these blasters.
See what you really have got.
3, 2, 1,
go!
Oh yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, well let me know when you're
watching.
That's all I have to say.
He better got doped in too.
Yeah. Because he had suffered.
Oh, rain!
You too, man.
You too.
Well,
I think that's...
I see you in the back.
That's my
whole job.
Yeah, I spend like that much on the
whole combo, but I can't.
I can spend that much.
The real result was like $630.
You got to save some
money.
I went to a 60
miles north of you.
Quite annoyed that Chase got such a
beautiful look in my dims.
I was bummed right now.
That was a possibility, didn't it?
Thank you.
Sorry.
It's so heavy.
He's shaking, but he's
got it inside of him.
He's going to break up.
Oh, you will?
Yeah. Oh, I know.
Yeah.
You will?
Yeah.
So it's such a long day.
You'll have to be protected.
Yeah.
He said he's going.
I don't know if you can hear this,
but we've got someone else in the
back.
He said they're
coming out the second.
Good, good, good.
I like that.
You like that?
I have to find gifts that you
actually need. Yeah, because I don't
know how many times I've given
gifts. Does that make sense or do
you have it? Oh, this is cool!
We'll talk about that some other
time.
But if you could go off to
Alex, if you can talk to both of
them.
I think they're like 16, 16 years
or something. Yeah, 16.
Well, you used to be able to buy it
in two pairs.
Yeah, so the Japanese kind of
came up with the concept of it,
throw it on an ego rig or a drop
shot or a free rig.
These ones, some folks, they get
the same result.
They say it
works really good on pressured water
where there's a lot of tournaments
and a lot fish in.
It's just something different they
haven't seen.
You don't guys think it looks like a
little paintball or it looks like a
vital plank.
Good afternoon, this is Fishing
Explorers. Thank you.
I want to show you where they go.
I can't find them.
They're actually some of those alien
folks.
This is a cardboard one.
The secrets of one fish.
Can I have some for a sign?
Yeah. I'm going to put this down.
I don't know where.