Couple on the corner or something,
but get in.
Like normally the fish come,
you know, around the
bend or whatever and go up river and
then they're going to end up
marsh this one and
after a while they spawn up and they
go back down and then they're
on the deep, deep side of
the river and
they're...
Floating backwards down river,
you know, they don't swim, but they
do swim, but they're
always higher up.
Water column they might be
six or eight feet down you
know when they go back like now
they're on the bottom.
I don't know if you guys...
Zach maybe, kid.
I'll be too busy with this thing.
Yeah, I ain't going to guarantee
it gets any fish.
No worries.
That's because the water got so
cold.
Main thing
You know a shallow over there and it
goes down.
It's probably.
Six and a half or seven feet deep
here and then on the end it's
another foot deeper at least.
You've got a wolf ever gone
with a minnow on.
Like I made this railing and...
Oh cool.
Like, fishing like this now,
like I can, you know,
move over.
When I'm using game poles, they're
all straight like that, and I can
move them this way too.
This was a pontoon.
I used to have other rafts
that I made that, uh...
That were like pipe frame
and then used barrels.
Then I went to this one was
it's easier.
You used to have a Hay Wagon that
you.
I had to load them on
and this
one I made out of
a pontoon and I made it wider and
then I built a shack.
Make a little shack, insulate it and
I put metal on the outside so I
didn't have to do nothing with it
after a while.
That's what the shag's all about,
whoo!
I thought Gary was gonna come.
Don't really just
sit there and jig and
you can feel it hit bottom
you're up and down
Use different weights of
jigs according to how much current
there is.
Anything all kinds of fish bite
like we had some
small mouth bass already and
rock bass got a few walleyes
once in a while you get a sturgeon
on they're getting ready i
know the dnr uh talked about
on the news today was
usually the
sturgeon spawn on
the rocks Like April 21st,
the water's usually 55 degrees,
but so cold that DNR said that
they might spawn like
a week later or something.
All depends on the weather.
I'll get him up all the way, Mr.
Dugan, sure.
So I think we might come up and have
him stand here, I'll stand over
there. Sure.
But then we can have the woods
behind him.
You know there's an IC in the light,
I can ask him some questions.
Sounds good.
I'll get the mic ready.
You just give me a mic check once
Are you going to hear me?
Okay.
So I guess, give me
a little background on, so you
grew up here, right?
Yeah, I grew up knowing it all
my, I've been here all my life,
like my dad took me fishing
when I was a kid, and been
fishing all the time on rafts,
and I made different rafts that I
had over the years, and
this one's
a pontoon, made out of pontoons,
I made it a little wider and I built
a shack on it, I have a
ponton trailer, which
is easy for,
to back under it
and crank it up and away you go.
I used to have to
take my other rafts, so I'd
jack it up and get it on that, like
a hay wagon or something like that.
It was a lot of work to end hauling
around and things
like that was harder to put in and
out.
Like this one too, is then
I just, to move it,
I take my boat and
motor and hook on the end of
it and then push it around.
Like pipes in the corner, that's
what holds it in the,
down the corner of the raft, holds
it in place wherever you put it
on the river.
And I run an extra rope to the
shore for safety
precautions to hold it
in case something.
Most of the time, the pipes don't
slide or nothing.
They work their way in the dirt, and
you've got to jack them up.
Some guys got automatic cranks on
them and stuff.
Here's it.
What is it that makes fishing under
raft unique or special about
it?
Well, like if it rains here, on
this raft here, I got a little
hangover.
I can stand under
the raft and
not get as
wet.
The other thing, it's heated.
I got bunk in there.
You could always take a nap if you
didn't have to.
Other thing is you can
fish all night.
And fish, you know,
fish bite all night sometimes.
Especially when they're going down
river, they're just floating by or
whatever.
When they're coming up, you know,
they're swimming by and
you never know when you're going to
catch one.
All depends on the
weather and the
temperature of the water, the spring
and stuff.
Of course I ice fished before
You can catch fish anytime,
sometimes you don't catch any.
What was it, a pastime
or a passion or what was it?
Kind of like a passion and all.
It's a passion, it's like I live
just north of town here and we have
property, like we own.
My sister-in-law owns, my brother
and sister- in-law own this land
here and it's on the river.
It's easy for us to either go
hunting, we can go hunting here or
fish off it.
Grew up fishing, I like fishing
different kinds of fish.
The Wolf River is quite unique.
Like up north, I went up there and
fished for trout, and there's all
kinds of fish in the river
system.
I hunt a lot, bullhunt a lot.
Now I'm retired, you can fish all
you want.
Not that the fish are going to bite
every day, but you
go according to when you
feel like you want to go.
Usually the fish might bite
in the morning or afternoon.
It depends on the weather, if it's
clear out or how clear the water is,
different times of the year.
Sometimes in the fall they catch a
lot of fish,
probably friends.
Thing with a raft, you can,
if you had kids, you know, you could
take kids down there, you
know your girlfriend or wife or
something could sit
in a raft and keep warm,
they can fish too or
whatever they want to do.
It's a non-stop parade.
Is that just the rain sending them
in?
Yeah, it's supposed to rain
tonight and start sprinkling and
I don't know how heavy it is but
now they're talking about another
storm. I don't t
know what will happen.
A couple weeks ago we had
20 some inches of
snow that one day and
it melts and it brings the water up.
Higher water helps
the fishery by
putting more water in the marshes
so that the fish can get in and
the water level stays higher
so that eggs can
hatch and the fry can float back out
in the river.
And that was one main thing back
in the,
I'm gonna say years ago there
was a lot of fish back in 60s
and 70s when I fished.
And then the population kind of went
down and then
the conservation groups,
like we started, you know,
wildlife tomorrow.
And we started working on habitat
improvement.
And what we did was we put some
culverts in some places.
Cut the bank down so
the water goes into the marsh.
For increased water flow
and
If we cut the bank down some place
where we're running in,
the water flow,
you know, keeps on going
through the marsh longer amount of
time.
The fish would hatch and then the
current would kind of
wash them back into the river.
Same way like the
water table was,
because we cut the bank, the water
was going across the marsh a longer
amount time than it
would have been.
So we improved the water flow
and we
got increased
reproduction
that helped a lot.
Some places we put culverts in.
Increase the water flow is
the main thing.
Do you think most fishermen
understand that, you
know, that connection from
a marsh to a culvert to
all the way through Lake Winnipago
and how it's all connected?
They probably understand that the
fish go up river and it's
according to water
flow.
Say, in wintertime
it's frozen and the river is
lower.
And then all of a sudden it starts
raining or melting and
snow melts.
And the river comes up and increases
the flow and all the fish
feel that flow.
And then they head for the river and
start swimming up river.
And they might swim away and stop
and rest and then keep
on traveling.
Some of these guys got different
kinds of boat motors here.
This guy's going by with all the
noises of, go devils.
Probably use it for duck hunting
too.
It's not like we're fishing, we're
waiting for fish to bite, you know,
the fish are swimming up river yet.
We're kind of on a bend where the
fish normally come
around the corner and keep on going
up river.
There's different depths.
It's shallow over here and then it
goes deeper.
And all species of
fish are swimming up river.
I mean, in the fall, some
of them go back to the lake.
They stay in the lake, bass.
After a while, later in the spring,
all the white bass run up here to
spawn, too, a lot of
it.
Granted, we worked on some projects.
While I was working on projects, we
put a lot a reefs in Lake Winnipeg,
helped the saugers, you know.
We have
portable fish hatcheries that we use
on different lakes that
they take them along and take them
to different lakes and
hatch some of the fry from the
walleyes or
sawgirs.
They can dye
the fry and
the DNR takes the fish after
a while. What happens to
the dye that makes
a bone in the fish's
head. The otholith bone that
absorbs the dye,
when we dye them when
they're just hatched,
makes a circle in this bone.
Yep, wait.
Re-dye these fish.
Say they raise these fish in a
pond and they're fingerlings, you
know, four or five inches.
The DNR can plant them in
a lake as they die them.
And that die goes into the bone,
in their otholip bone.
And then it's only like
a half moon.
Later on, the DNR
takes a sample of
the fish. They say they take 10 fish
out and they
kill them.
They take the bone out and they look
under the microscope to see if
the fish died,
you know, at fingerling size or
when it first, you know,
hatched.
Then you can tell if it
doesn't have a mark in it, it's a
natural reproduction.
Anyway, that's how they get their
ideas for...
Amounts of fish somewhat
gives them a
better idea
Over the years, I've worked on
other...
Some of the marshes were mostly
on the Wolf River and
really one up on the Embarrassed
River.
Sometimes we try to just
cut veins down.
Sometimes we put culverts in,
depends on where,
what the situation would call
for.
Like culverts are under a
road or something, or a guy's gotta
drive, drive across it, yeah,
that's what.
We aren't doing as many as
we're used to because of
some regulations and
it costs a lot of money to do.
We raise a lot money for our
different chapters.
We raise lot of money.
$250,000,
$300,000 to $400,000 a year to
use on projects throughout
the state.
Sportsmen come to the banquets and
they...
They, you know,
we have a meal for them in different
areas.
Fair prices and stop banquets, you
know, at the banquests.
Thought I had a nibble, but...
Some fish bite a little bit and then
they let go.
The big thing that affects them is
the temperature of the water.
It was warm the other
day and then cooled
off because we had an ice storm.
Rain is cold and there was
ice went into the
system and cooled the water off
and then what happens is
the fish quit biting.
So what's your reaction to all these
guys and their $100,000 boats
flying up the river while you're
on the old shack here?
Yeah, it's something you've
got to put up with.
A lot of these guys, you know, they
hear about somebody's catching fish
so everybody comes and
like here, a lot of
this people might be from
Fox River Valley or
different towns that they come and I
call them tourists and
you know granted, they catch fish
too.
Compared to everybody else, anybody
who wants to fish, you can fish, buy
a license and pay your
fees for your
boat and fishing license and
go fishing.
Do you think it makes a difference
how much it paid for your boat or
how expensive your rod and reel
were?
It changed a lot,
but I had a raft.
It's nice going on a raft,
like we came down here today.
We just walked down here and
got a little boat here just paddled
to the dock and fished off
the dock.
Dock's nice and sturdy, and if
we get cold, we can go inside and
get warm, or I got an oven and
a stove, and I can always cook
something, or,
anyway.
Guys in the boat can get wet, like
stay dry.
But it's a lot of work maintaining
a raft and taking care of it.
Biggest place, have some place to
put it or attach it to property.
You can't put it on public land
anymore or
DNR property, this is
on private property.
You got to get a permit
and permission from the landowner.
What is it about the heritage
of it that makes this special
for you?
Well, I know we talked a little bit
about it before was,
the heritage thing was from
the logging industry in the 1880s,
they had loggers that,
this system, the Wolf River system,
they cut logs up
north and they floated them down the
river to transport
them.
And then they brought them to
different sawmills along the river
here. Some were in New London and
Northport was a big, big logging.
Small town and
and that's how they
it was easier
for them to float it down the river
these apparently the
loggers had to have some place to
stay so they made
a shack and I
presume they had logs and everything
that they made rafts that they
were on the river and they fished
off them from home
and for fish for food and
one thing
here is From what I
always knew was
the
Wolf River is the only place that
I know of, that I heard of that
lets rafts on the river,
that permit them,
and so it's
kind of a historic
thing of the rafts of the river
and fishermen kept them
going nowadays.
It's a historic thing to keep on
going.
There's quite a few, you drive up
and down, there's...
Yeah, yeah, there's, you know,
different towns, you know, they sum
up by Horton, you know, a different
place on the river, Chi-Octon and
Hortonville.
And south of here is Fleece's
Landing is a big one.
And of course, you know, along
the river why we go Fremont.
So when you were a kid, was walleye
for eating or walleye was just fun
for catching?
Well, mainly,
it was mainly to eat, you know, I
mean, people didn't
have as much money as some
of people do now,
and you know it's just
like hunting and everything else too
was, oh.
As a child, you know, we ate,
and I still do, is
we went out and shot a rabbit, we
ate a rabbit and squirrels
and, you know, I mean ducks and
pheasants and stuff like that.
Oh, that's that's
what we lived on, other people did
too, and
it included all types of fish.
Whenever they caught date,
every shot.
So is Huawei still
a staple in your diet, or is it more
of a delicacy?
For me it's probably a staple,
I probably eat fish
once a week anyway.
You can't sell me, put some in the
freezer.
I go trout fishing, once in a while
I have a trout or
you can go perch fishing in the
winter or pan fish, whatever.
And you don't have to go to the
grocery store.
It's gonna taste good.
Yeah save money
you know I got a a little
nibble on this boy I don't know what
it is
he might be trying to bite it might
be a small
fish
pick it up see if I can feel it
might be rock bass or
I don't know, smallmouth bass,
you never know what's biting.
It's probably not a walleye, a
wallay would bite harder.
Nibble down a little bit.
Minnow on there
Well you can't fish at night, you
got the lanterns on, you've got gas
lanterns for lights.
You just, normally
you have minnows out for the
fish to wait on.
You can jig at night if you want.
If you want to get warm, you go
inside.
Get warmed up.
Usually you got a pole just sitting
and you look out in the middle and
watch the pole as the fish bites.
They come out and try to catch
them after the biting.
What condition do you think the
walleye fishery would be if
you guys hadn't started doing what
you were doing all that time ago
with the marshes and
the column herds and all that work?
Well, people didn't,
I would say people didn, you know,
I don't know, they knew
what was going on but they
didn't you know there was a lot of
fish and then all once
as more and more people fished.
They caught quite of the fish
out, and maybe they didn't
have good
years where the fish spawned,
or there wasn't a lot of
reproduction.
So then the quantity of
fish went down, and then the
guys fishing, the fishermen realized
that, well, what's happening,
you know, we aren't having really
good hatches for some reason.
Then we came up with the idea
of.
Helping the fish spawn for natural
reproduction and that's where we...
We help the fish by working on the
marshes to
get them to spawn to
increase the
numbers.
It takes a few years for
them to grow up, of course.
The DNR tracked them and then
some years you might,
you know one in three years you
might have a good hatch or you might
have a couple good years and
they used to count them they used to
have a graph went to one to ten
after a while they
do trawlings, net trawling
in Lake Minnebago and stuff places
in the fall to see how many
young in the year are and
to see many that were
actually hatched
and grew.
And then they can tell what year was
good or bad or whatever.
But they had this graph 1 to 10.
And back in the early 90s,
they had to change the graph because
there were so many fish because
there had to have been
a really good
reproduction rate.
And they changed the graph up
to 40.
And it's like when they go out and
do trolling, they put their
nets in and then.
And trowel.
They pull them and then they pull
them out and you count all the fish
in there, all the minnows and
different kinds.
That's where they get these numbers
from.
Anyway, in the last few years,
they had to raise their graphs again
because they raised it to 50
because we had a really
good reproduction year.
So that's where we get the numbers
from.
Did you take some pride in that?
I suppose I should, but
it helped. A lot of people, I mean,
know that I worked on
the river here and
worked on a sturgeon trail here.
Normally, we all did walleye
projects, but because I'm working on
projects, I proposed
a sturgeon trail here, and no one
didn't improve it.
And all they did was put more rocks
in there and made a trail where
people could go and.
Watch and see the sturgeon
spawn.
The Wolf River is one river.
One of the five places in the world
where you can actually see sturgeon
spawn.
You know, if I'm working on
a wall project, it's
right next to some of our property
that I said,
why don't we make it better for
Sturgeon and there's other groups,
Sturgeons for Tomorrow worked on
some of the other projects too that
help the Sturgins.
It's nice to see
families come out there, they bring
their kids out there and then they
can see the
fish swimming along the shore, swan
and then kids are
yelling and screaming, look at that
big one, look at the big one.
So that's,
I'm glad to see that
in the kids' faces
that get to see something
that's unreal.
Well, how much of this is
about kids?
Because a lot of times you go out
and see, it's a bunch of old men
fishing, but you do see
kids out there and there's a
different level of excitement with
that, right?
There's, like for on the
Sturgeon Trail, I mean everybody
goes out there to watch them.
Like our walleye fishing,
or same way we could,
when we improve a marsh,
all kinds of fish could actually go
into it, and like
northerns usually go into there,
and earlier, and they spawn earlier.
So northerners could be using a
marsh and then all the walleyes
go in there.
And the thing about,
when you improve water flow across
the marsh, the natural
weeds, the
natural vegetation filters
out some of the dirt, so actually
you're improving water
quality and,
I mean, people don't think about
that, but I know that.
It takes some of that silt
and dirt and it maybe settles
down in there, so
we're helping the water quality
also.
So how important is law
life to the identity of
this area?
Well, Wally's
probably been here forever,
I presume, but,
oh.
One of the
groups here is,
well, it's a fishing game called.
They have a new one in Fish and Game
Club.
They have a big whopper
contest that's about, they
call it Big Whopper, but it's like
for walleyes.
And I presume it's almost been
happening for 50 years.
They, back in
the 60s, 1960s and 70s,
they put this boat
out there with two dummies in
it, it's called Pete and Joe.
It's out on ice and they had
a contest where you
would guess when the ice would go
out.
And they gave prizes away for that.
So that's the thing every year,
they guess when the ice would go
out.
And this big whopper thing
was up here by
the boat landing, they had it for
years, was bring
your fish in, they register big
ones, little ones, whatever, give
prizes away.
They used to have food there,
and it was a fundraiser for
them, but a
lot of people came there.
Donated or, you know,
they had hamburger,
buffalo burgers, hamburgers,
whatever, you know
other food, and
it was a fundraiser for them.
They had a DJ
or music there sometimes for a
dance or people, a lot of people
went there.
It's all, it's all
functioning around walleye fishing
here on the Wolf River,
the unique.
It's a unique
area.
Granted, you can catch
fish anywhere, almost,
as they move this way or that way.
You ain't gonna catch them all,
but lucky to catch some.
But like right now, we're doing this
as, the rain
ain't bothering us, but it's
the.
Temperatures of the water and
the weather
affects fish.
Of course, they aren't going to bite
every day or all the time,
either.
If they did, everybody would catch
them all and then there wouldn't be
any left.
And that's why they have
restrictions on
limits.
Like years ago, you used to catch
five, now they have three.
But because of
increased fishing pressure, so
many people are fishing.
And there's all ages of
people. It's good that parents
take their kids and get them
involved with something
besides sitting on their telephone.
Does this have a name?
My Shag?
Mine. It's mine.
Like, do you say I'm going out to
the raft, or I'm going out the
shack, or?
The rail.
And over the years,
I probably had one or
two, probably four
of them, and
I adjusted to...
The sizes and
made it easier to take and put
them in with this pontoon compared
to a regular pipe frame
one or whatever and
you know some
of them use plastic barrels
or foam insulate
foam they had floaters
and different things like
that.
You move them by,
I use my other boat and a motor
and tie up to it and then
I...
Push it wherever I want to go.
By having a pontoon trailer, I just
back under it and crank it up when I
take it to put it in or out.
So it's a lot easier.
Looks like all the fishermen got off
the river.
The other day when it was
snowing and blowing there wasn't
anybody fishing.
I think they were catching fish,
that's like some, you know, it's
raining.
Who's going to sit in a boat and
fish?
When it's cold out.
A couple other guys went fishing,
they just went down to their rafts.
We can take a break and go inside if
you're on.
We're going to shoot the end of the
video.
After a while we wind
up and check to make sure you don't
have a leaf on there,
on the jig or whatever.
The night before it was kind of cold
and we didn't fish for
a while.
It came down imp head.
Two inches of rain and the boat,
I'd come down and pull the boat out
and empty that.
And then the weather,
I looked at the weather you know.
This afternoon it was nothing
like now.
It's supposed to keep on raining,
raining almost all night.
Yeah, you know.
The other thing was, uh...
Here was, you know, the weather for
the week was
so-so and
then a couple of nice days.
I mean, Sunday at 52,
will that warm up fast?
Yeah, you know,
the biggest thing is when the sun
comes out, then the water will
warm up, and
it'll warm up to probably two
degrees where the sun's out,
and it might go up more if
it's windy out at the same time,
and the sun shining.
Say water is going across the marsh
somewhere, a
marsh is shallower and
the sun reflects off the dark
bottom and warms up the water more.
Same way, dirty water warms faster
than
clear water because
light has an effect
on it.
Know like here Sunday 50.
What did you think?
The thing that affects
fishing
the weather.
I'm certain some fish are in the
marshes already.
The eggs in the fish aren't ready
to spawn
because they aren't ripe
enough.
The fish go in them eggs ripe,
okay?
If you know...
About fish eggs like
we have these hatcheries and
we know this they
catch some fish with nets and
take them to a place they spawn them
on and take the spawn and
they take the milk from the
males anyway
They put the eggs in a spawning jar,
but after a while, before they take
them out of the fish, they
put them in a, like a...
Put the eggs in there, put the milk
in there.
There's a hole in the egg,
and they
call it water hardening.
The male sperm has to go
through this hole in the egg
within a minute because
the water makes the
egg close the
hole, so it
happens fast.
The egg gets fertilized and
then they put them in spawning jars.
They run current, water current,
through it and it's
oxygenated.
And then, you know, we...
They hatch and the
fry will come out and it has a
little belly sack on it,
makes it float and probably
bounces up and down and in a marsh
it would...
The current would flush them back
into the river system.
They'd feed off the sack for a
while, and then they'd start eating
zoologactin.
Organic food, you know, through the
system, and they flow back to
the lake.
Yeah, we got to see the process last
year down by West Bend, a big cedar.
On one of the fish hatcheries?
Yep. Yeah.
Because they put them in them jars
and, I don't know, was Mike there
or?
Yep, Mike, Tom,
and Kevin.
Given the days that I'm there.
Yeah, they move them
for the fish hatcheries in different
lakes, you know,
so that helps wherever
they want to, they don't have
them.
They have different, you know,
different chapters through the
state.
When at some of them nights.
We want the water to, their head's
pointing up river, and the
thing about a walleye is as his
eyes are on, somewhat on
the top of his head,
he's looking up.
It's better to fish higher
than lower,
because the fish might go by.
That's why I got some cane coals
over here.
I brought a couple down here.
You got different amounts of line.
You use short pole, long pole, short
pole long pole.
So you're fishing
different areas and fishing
different depths.
And I got my sinker guide.
I make my own sinker.
This is, you
can spin it
lower.
Different types of quads and some
of them, they've
got different wheels on them, the
wiggle bar or rattle, stuff
like that.
According to the height of the
water,
the current makes lures
of wiggle bar,
or less, and stuff like that.
It's quite difficult, isn't it?
Things like that.
Is it the males that bite more on
the way up?
Natural things that tell you
what's happening is
in the spring almost
you get a whole bunch of flock
there's granite in the Fox Valley
because there's so much water
there's
there's geese around but
almost you see a bunch of geese
flying north in the spring
and that's when I mean
flock after flock after the flock
and that is when the
after the walleye spawn, as long as
you get another bunch of, more geese
would be flying up north,
you know, flock after flock when
it's warmer.
That's when the walleyes are going
back down then.
The other natural thing is
you haven't seen a
frog yet.
When the water gets warm,
the frogs come out of hibernation,
the frogs are croaking,
and that's, you know like a
There's some female
Wally's been spawned yet, so they
hang around in the march.
Also, females are all gone.
Then the males hang in there.
They might be eating frogs, frogs or
minnows.
Then they'll come out.
But the main run is,
it seems like, after the
sturgeon spawn, and
the sturgeons spawn at 52
to 55 degrees.
How's that burst going down?
After a while, you get males.
It's really crappy up there.
Yeah, it just came down.
It's too bad, so I wanna, we know
where it is, but I wanna get a drone
shot of this thing too.
Yeah.
You guys want a pop?
We got a Pepsi here about to do it.
I'm good. I'm great.
Thanks. Thank you
when a while ago when
I talk a lot I get horse
I don't know why and
I never did
but it's not from talking
too much I don't know if I had
I haven't had COVID or nothing,
but I ask my brother, the doctor,
what's
in my house.
You know, the air is so dry that
it could be affecting,
you know, that.
And I, when
I'm sleeping too, I might, I
may be breathing through my mouth
more.
Mm-hmm.
Come over your nose and
I wake up and I get kind of like a
drive.
I don't know if I snore or I'm
sleeping.
Over the years, I learned
how to make
the railing work.
I fished fishing down in
the bow coast.
Then I got, you know, use
a short pole.
That's like my poles, I got them
all.
21 here by the window,
a couple over here.
Feels like the odds are slim we're
going to get a fish today.
It's got 12 feet of line on.
Like this other one,
it's got 10 feet of line on,
and uh...
That's how deep one fish is.
Say I have some other pole,
they're 20 feet long, I have a
long pole and then a short pole, I
fish like this, you know, or
shorter.
Let's say they're four feet down or
six feet.
It's like if I got eight feet
of line out, and from here
it hangs down, there's about
two feet of a line
out of the water,
roughly, and it goes down on
the angle.
That means I got six feet out,
you know, an eight footer.
That means that I got 6 feet of
line in the water
and goes down the angle.
I might only be fishing 4 feet deep.
It doesn't mean I'm fishing 8 feet
deep, I'm fishin' I'm on a
45 degree angle.
Especially the current taking.
Some of these guys, to find out
where the fish are going by, to give
you a rough idea, they take a cane
pole and I have someone
too.
They put a...
Swivel on it.
I'd say they got the swivel
down at eight feet,
another one at 10,
another at 12.
There's different projects I worked
on, so.
So on Easter, is this going to be
crowded out here still?
Well,
they'll be probably busy,
you know, because everybody's
gotten off from work and the kids
are off yet, I think.
I don't know, a day or two after
maybe or something.
I don't know how many fish they'll
catch,
but they could catch quite a few.
Are you going to be out on Easter?
Yeah, well, I'll be out here every
day, probably.
And I might be, well,
probably within a week I'll move by
the house.
Here, some guys might
be catching a spawned-out
fish. Well, then I'll never be able
to depopulate it.
You
Like that was some template bio
and kind of
a political thing.
More time to all the other fish go
to the reefs.
We quit doing it when,
and,
uh, we used to take a dump truck out
there and then dump, cut a hole and
they'd back up and dump the rock
in.
Then one day,
I was going out there years ago
and ice cracked and the truck went
through and the guy was in
the truck drum.
We quit.
They hauled some rocks out on some
sleds and dumped them in half of
that, but then the mechanic was
doing it.
And some of the reefs, a couple of
reefs were a mile long
that they put all the rocks in.
And that's where they died, they did
saugers, they helped sauger, they
died them, you know.
All once, they caught them once, you
take ten saugars and
kill them and you know,
look under a microscope.
We took some hatcheries and re-dyed
them, you know, put them 20
yards, almost like hats, they go and
put them in a little tub, like
something so they don't get water
running in and out.
And then in their head,
was almost about 80% of them were
the ones we hatched.
So they knew the reefs were working,
so I mean.
Then they died some other ones, but
yeah.
And then after a while they watched,
because they took some more and then
almost there's...
More and more of the fish were,
didn't have a, well we quit dying
them, more and more fish didn't
have any die in them, so it was
more natural reproduction, so we
helped in one of them.
We were, we told them what for, and
they went, what's really in it, some
money.
That's what that is, aren't ya?
That's a...
Yeah, it's still rolling along,
isn't it? It's a
pipe roll.
It's called a pipe-roll.
Actually, this one, didn't
read it, read it.
It was laid
out here on the end,
didn't read it?
Get in the plate.
Okay
There's a hush, guys.
Logging tool company, hashtag
Wisconsin.
And this thing
sure is over 100 years old.
I don't know what I got it
my dad
and uh I don't know where he is
I'm vlogging here I
just have it here when logs go
by.
Logs go by, get hooked on
the raft, or chunks of
ice, and push it out.
I'm sure the thing's 100 years old,
or probably more.
Yeah, the rain is pretty good.
This made it miserable.
But we got what we can get.
Yeah, it's pretty cool stuff, but
it'd be nice to catch a fish or two.
Yeah, I don't see that happening.
No, obviously we'll get like some,
um, I could get some different shots
of this thing, but I don't know how
we, if it's really sunny when we
do that, we'll just have to be
conscious of maybe, you know,
getting a shot of the clouds going
by or something.
Well, I think he can always
reference it, he's out there every
day.
Yep, yep, cool, yeah.
I think it's, say, another five
hours of another bite.
No, there's something kind of
meditative almost about this little
thing. Take a nap?
Yeah, put pizza in
there, then put your rods
back out there.
That's a lot like ice fishing.
Is that it, the height?
100 percent.
But this is, I think, even more
compelling for someone who doesn't
know fish much.
That versus ice fishing, I don't
know. Okay.
Does ice fishing is too cold or?
There's something about the water
being open. Okay.
I think that.
It's more of a mystery, and it's
like, hmm, fish are out there
somewhere. We're obviously there
swimming around under the ice too,
but it's just like... Well, I think
a river is different because it's
always different fish.
There's a lake, it's the fish
that are right here.
No, it's pretty interesting, yeah.
Seeing all of Wisconsin's fishing
culture.
Pretty cool.
Ron Gokos up here, all those
sturgeon, because Lake
Winnebago has the most
sturgeon in the...
Populated, a lot of students
didn't make my video.
These DNR guys, if
any of them get a name, they
probably know who I am.
Oh.
What are they?
Kazul.
Kazul or whatever his name is.
You get out and start walking,
there's, you got to.