We kind of branched out and said let's take other people and kind of our focus was we
wanted other families with kids to use this area and fall in love with it so that when
it gets threatened by taking it away there's going to be people that say no no that's
such a cool area so it was kind of that was in our mind too is to try and create more
opportunities for people to see what we have here you don't have to drive all the way up
to Ontario although that's lots of fun and I love it but we can do a lot of those things
right here too yeah so how much of the guiding business you developed was just what you guys
wanted to do versus you know there's hundreds or thousands of guides that'll take you out
on their you know 16 brick giant boat yeah and take you out on a big lake all day yeah
you know I think I think that's probably our biggest thing first of all we knew we had
we we really wanted to try and create create those moments for people that just make lifelong
memories for them especially families and you get that I think when you're totally immersed
in not just the fishing but you're in the wilderness river you're going around you know
you're seeing wildlife you're getting the sights the smells all that makes a big impact and
sometimes it can be you know you have an experience that maybe didn't go as planned but that becomes
the experience and that and you know and I have I have all the respect in the world for the
guides that hey meet me at the bull lunch jump in my boat we're gonna go out in the lake
and fish for eight hours there's all those you know those guys but we always said if
you go out on the lake and the fish just aren't biting that day and it's hard you're just
out in a boat on a lake with kids that's challenging but when you're going down a river and oh
we got some fast water coming up here and you get it you know oh look at the deer standing
in the river you know you go sitting up there the kids get restless yeah stop somewhere
and let them float down there and catch crayfish they can do you know you can do things that
they'll remember and that's you know so that's kind of our kind of our thing so when when
was that when did that start about ten years ago was it that one yeah yeah twenty four
two more than that yeah twenty fourteen was when we first started and another part to
this was we had you know we had just kind of finished doing the doing the kids all you
know doing all the sports stuff we had coached baseball for lots of years and football and
high school and our kids were in a lot of sports and music and it was like we knew
what it was like to have to put all that stuff on the calendar first and not take the time
to go and do a camping or you know fishing or whatever and then you had that one weekend
where it's like hey wait there's nothing happening did you really want to pack up all
your gear to go up north and get back late on a Sunday night you got a car full of wet
gear and can't tense and you got you know all that stuff because we've done that a lot
because we have done that and we thought it's not fun so we kind of thought that's a niche
you know instead of like families who have that situation you know come up north instead
of going to Noah's Ark which is a great you know great fun weekend but are you really
going to remember that the rest of your life right but come up north we'll take you for
a day we'll haul canoes into a little lake you can fish catch lots of fish we'll even
cook them for you make a campfire make some s'mores hike out at the end of the day and
leave all the stuff with us and and you drive away and you know that's the stuff that you
know kids remember lights are firing kids you know a lot of times that they remember that
and they want to do that again and we we we're fortunate to make some really great relationships
that's been a big part of it it's been a lot of fun we talked about these little girls
that have been coming to us since they were five seven and nine and now they're driving
and in the little one the first years we she couldn't really we were afraid to let her
cast in the boat she might hook somebody so I got a Barbie fishing pole yeah John go
with this big bunch of rubber frogs and he said well Janie pick out one of these and
so she's looking and she picks out this red sparkly one which up until then I don't think
we ever use and he puts it on digs digs the hook right into the rubber so there's no way
she's can hurt anybody and she's casting a dozen a musky common gravity rabbit right
in the boat side she's screaming she's got this fish out it wasn't like to go and I mean
I knew it was a matter of your time before it would just break the line because it was
the frog was gone and and she just you know she never she talks about they talk about
every time they come back we tell the genie story and then she didn't want to fish anymore
she put her pole down and she said Janie why aren't you fishing I don't want a big musky
to get my pole yeah and I we had a we just had one this year I had a young man who was
a junior in high school a very quiet kid and him and his dad get a lot of father son and
mother daughters and but very quiet and he he just he we had a fun day on the river he
caught three muskies we had just we caught it was just a and he was just gradually throughout
the day just opening up opening up they got back home down by Okano I can you got back
home is dead call me it's like John I don't know what happened but he's like a different
kid like he's totally just starting to plan him he wants to go to Stephen's point he wants
to do resources and everything and then that was that was he's like so that was thanks
a lot for the trip okay that was it well just this past summer I got a call from him from
his dad he's like John bends out of getting out of the Marine Corps he's put four years
in it's first thing he says I want to go on a fishing trip up north you know call John
and I was like that was cool we came up we had just we had just a blast you know that
kind of stuff makes it just you know just so worth it yeah and I sure like that that
different experience being offered doesn't take long for people to you word of mouth becomes
your yourself that's pretty much all it is is word of mouth and you know we're not looking
to you know we're retired you know so we're not looking to make a living at this in fact
most of it just covers the cost of that yeah we travel somewhere and hire a guy but yeah
we could guide every day if we wanted to but then we wouldn't be able to go fishing
or so lots of calls but it's yeah so it doesn't take long for people to realize that we take
everybody you know we don't you know care you know we have fun you know with elderly
people too who used to do it 20 years ago and now you get them in a canoe you know give
them a comfortable seat and yeah I think we can do this and they just oh yeah that one
gal that was like 80 and she just scrambled up in front of the canoe yeah yeah and she
we just that's on the water yeah so that's it's really rewarding and when you're I think
when you're an educator that's what your career is all of us teaching more coach friend doesn't
master has a master naturalist certification so you know there's a lot so you know we do
a lot of foraging too along the way and there's always things that you know so so one of the
obvious this story is focused on a walleye because of the people around that so musky
is a big thing but walleye is another big species right like everybody wants to catch walleyes
because I mean they're the most finest table fair we have in Wisconsin right they're just
amazing to eat and so a lot of people want to catch walleyes and we found a little niche
for that yeah in walleyes I think it's funny I said they're very I don't like the way they said
like an intentional fish like people want to catch walleyes and you don't just you just don't
stumble across them like in lake you got it you might stumble across other fish when you're
fishing for walleyes but you don't just all of some stumble into a bunch of walleyes you know
it's usually kind of a focus but I get we get a lot of calls from people they say hey
we're coming up you know maybe from no we don't know Chicago or wherever we're coming
up for a week we want to get a bunch of walleyes in a freezer it's like certain times a year
you can do that in Wisconsin and the guys that guide strictly walleyes up here and they're
good and those guys know it's not this isn't northern Minnesota or even in our Canada this
is there's great walleye fishing at times in certain areas but it's you know the Green
Bay is obviously really good so I'm going to be as good and we do fish there too but
but you kind of have to know what you're doing yeah or have a guide that knows what they're
doing because it's yeah it's a harder harder fish to catch but the idea of just coming up
and loading up on walleyes in northern Wisconsin it's challenging for species coming up in
July in August for their one week vacation right so but people have that mentality and
they do and their expectation that's northern Wisconsin yeah walleye every day they do and
it is it is it is challenging again you know you especially there like there's a there's
a really good lake by us that it's a very very good walleye lake but from about early July
through August it's solid weeds and it's shallow and solid weeds and there's lots of walleyes
and big walleyes but most people like how do you I mean how do you even begin to fish
them here like you know and it's frustrating because people aren't used to fishing in the
thick weeds for walleyes but they're in there and you can get them if you know but it's
totally a learning curve so so talk to me a little bit about the the river experience
because you know one thing that a lot of people probably don't realize is walleye are native
like lakes are where you think of them but that's actually not their native habitat so
how do you stumble into no one where the walleyes are in these little backwards well
that's kind of funny because we actually at first didn't really ever walk at them or
catch them much no I mean I grew up fishing the rivers around Eau Claire for walleyes but
it was mainly in the spring you know spring walleye fishing in the rivers you know it was good
and that's kind of the cool thing about when you're fishing these small rivers right
like we said deep water holds most of the fish and deep water on these rivers is literally
three or four feet so I mean you're talking about deep little hole that might get up to your
chest if you walked in it but everything else is this deep there's fish in there and it's going
to have muskies in it and there's going to be smallmouth in it and there's going to be
walleyes in it and it's funny in the summer in the spring we can we can go and catch hit those
holes and there's rivers high and the walleye the raw water temps good and there's a lot of
feed in the water and it's spring so they're feeding and we can we can you know we can catch a
bunch I mean you can you know never see another boat the entire day and you're catching
and some really nice ones too but then you get into summer and all these other fish are really
actively feeding you know smallmouth in August they're eating everything so those walleyes are
in the same holes a lot of times so it's like you make that cast and oh got a smallmouth
oh here a small one and they're there and Austin at maybe four or five fish in I was like oh it's
a walleye you know and it's a nice 17 inch walleye perfect eater you know and it's like
but they're they just don't they aren't super aggressive and so and then you know also
you don't get them in the bite windows if they want to eat morning you know early and late
well if you're floating a river and there's a really good walleye hole but you got a three-hour
float out how are you gonna hit that right before dark if you're trying to float out in the dark
or right at first light how are you gonna get down to it in the dark so sometimes we have to camp
you know we'll make camp so we hit in the evening hit it in the morning you know
but you can usually pick one or two up in the afternoons you know and and we have dark water
here too so that helps these rivers are pretty dark so you know you find a little cloud cover and
dark deeper hole and you can usually find them so so growing up you said you fish for walleye
you were over by green bay so it was walleye big thing for you as well no it's interesting
because back when i was young which is a long time ago um the walleye fishing wasn't a thing
on the bay you know i'm back where the fox river was almost a dead river when it was polluted really
bad in the 60s and um so our main fish that we fish for was perch which is a sister to a walleye
right um so i grew up perch fishing a lot which there's a lot of similarities when you're fishing
them but we'd go out catch 200 perch and that was just a normal thing but not walleyes that was not
a thing back then so when you started coming up here is that really the first time that you
got into walleye oh yeah and it was like i didn't realize how much there was to it you know i didn't
know that it was kind of this cult following of people that want to catch walleyes and that was
like the night we got out of the light and bobbers yeah i never fished with a light and bobber and
he took me up north and like not far hour from here and we went out at midnight at the bolt landing
and launched the boat and we got these lights on our bobbers and i'm watching the light go down
slow with his bobber and i was just fascinated by it because i had never done anything like that and
i just thought it was the coolest thing ever and then we got to eat them which was really awesome yeah
so for you was walleye just part of what you were looking for was like walleye the species
you certain times of the year i'd focus on walleyes on the river especially or when you're ice fishing
or ice fishing i did a lot i always said i always said i probably got through college
because of walleyes i said i i would drive my car i went to stout in monomony and i would
one of the lakes where i lived and i drive my car out there at night i'd set up my three lighted
tip-ups and i'd turn on and leave the car run turn on my dome i'd do all my reading oh gotta fly go
out there catch one i could do three or four hours of that you know i didn't find me three four hours
in a library doing that but i could do that sitting in a car by myself you know and uh yeah i saw
some good friends we were kind of walleye we chased walleyes through the ice and uh you know that
was pretty pretty good focus there and and and you know i think too now with all the electronics
that are available to people for the lakes um you know you can find them when you used to not
really be able to find them right i mean you can find them suspended in 40 feet of water oh you know
how did you used to find those fashite you didn't really most people didn't um but in the rivers
they really had it really hasn't changed i mean walleye fishing is very much what it was like
when i was a kid and when i was growing up and very simple you know and get put a bait in front
of them and when you're talking about a hole the size of this table and you know bait it
they're going to eat it most likely so um and that's something we really appreciate is the the
lack of electronics simplicity like even with that one walleye we have mounted i caught it
i was just floating in a canoe and dragging a bait behind me and uh in the middle of nowhere
and it hit and i caught it and that's there's just something oh it's it's special when you do it that
way it's like it's very it's very uh primitives not the right word i suppose but it's just very
it's very simple you know there's no you just read the water and they got to be somewhere in
water this time of year when it gets low you know really concentrates them it's getting to those
places it's very difficult and during the year there's certain things like right now you know
where the ever the wood is in the water they're in that shadow down there and then shallow water
they want to hide you know you just kind of get out of the sun you know we got a few places where
there's big logs that if you can get it in there without getting hung up you're usually almost
always going to catch one so is the i mean obviously bass are known for fighting or they're
a little different and musky will take you away but what's it like to catch a walleye what's that
experience like can you tell well we tell you the ones on the river are very different than the
ones i mean they just fight like crazy they don't want to leave that hole you know they do not want
to come out of there and when you're catching we get some walleyes in the mid upper 20 entrance we
got 230 inches on the river in the last couple years but you get those those five pound fish and
they don't want to come out of that hole and you're and we're using late gear you know like we usually
it's it's it's a guess it's pretty intense yeah yeah it's fun and you're in a small boat you know
everything everything is kind of like a circus when you get a big fish on a small boat it's just
kind of chaotic but that's what people remember you know and yeah so they fight yeah they definitely
fight and that that's just some of the fun of it right yeah yeah i mean when you think of like
people that are out and when a baggo just trolling there's gold back and forth for six hours and
like fish is on it and yeah i mean is there any comparison between the two well we we do we do
we do that we we have a bigger boat and we'll go up to shawama game bay and we'll we'll troll
we'll do some trolling i enjoy some of that i mean i i mean i it's not doesn't compare to fishing
them in in the canoe or on the rivers but i i enjoy but exactly i kind of a lot of times i
kind of call that a little bit of a meat hunt i mean you're gonna go out and you're gonna reel
in a 16 17 inch or and it's going to go in you know you're even a 20 inch or it's not a lot of
it's fun because you're catching a walleye you know kind of in the middle of you know a big
body of water and that's kind of figuring them out it's fun that's where we try and get most of our
fish to eat is yeah that way yeah because on the river these are small rivers we try and be
pretty careful about keeping anything because you know we just don't know you don't want you
don't want to affect the population so every now and then if something's hooked bad or we're
going to do a whole short lunch or something we'll keep a couple both clients that are like
you know do come here we were ever going to catch a wall i were like yeah you can keep one
or two or five then one or two not from meal for them and that's good you know but and they're good
with that so look how did you get involved with the women fish
Wisconsin women fish yeah a lot of bar don't you get involved with everything at a bar
sorry to say you know in Wisconsin um no we were we were at a bar for the musky school
so my friend Amanda owns the deerfoot down at uh on the Chippewa Floyd and we were down there and
I was working at that school and Barb carried the president it was the
Wisconsin women fish was there and we were we were talking and she started talking about going ice
fishing up on red lake and they stay in sleeper shacks and all these things went off my sleeper
shacks you get to fish while you're sleeping it just sounded like the coolest thing ever and I said
that to her and she's like you got to come with us and all of a sudden I was riding up to red lake
with the lady I didn't know to sleep in a shack with people I didn't know and fish walleyes and
it was 28 below and that was my introduction to the club and it was awesome the people are great
and I had a blast and uh yeah it's that's been a really nice that's been a really nice niche for
us too a lot of women that want to come up here learn the musky fish or you know again we float
rivers and we fish with light gear you know we don't throw big heavy stuff they really they feel
really comfortable having friend to take them well sometimes they just want a woman to take them
and yeah and then sometimes after they come for a year then of course their husband back home is
like hey I want to so then I'll take the husband she takes it and it actually is working out really
good we do that quite a bit she'll take mother daughter I'll take father son and it ends up you
know being really good the more I got involved with Wisconsin women fish the more I started guiding
too um in the beginning I was more like just a support system and now I take a lot of people
by myself and uh I even get requested sometimes over my husband I'll say sometimes if you really
want to catch a fish go with him if you want well especially in the fall October October she guides
a lot in October I I we have dogs and I bird hunt a lot and I I kind of back off the first
week or two I I have some trips booked but other than that then I kind of I kind of back out but
she goes pretty hard out through the whole month so well in that I mean this having covered this
around the state this is a pretty male dominated in your masculine sphere so what is it like to
to let women know hey there's a comfortable space for you to learn how to do this yeah that's that's
that's what the club that I belong to is all about really is giving people a chance to do it without
feeling that pressure and uh a lot we have a lot of women too who used to have fish with their
husband and their husband maybe passed away or they got divorced and they're like I still want
to do this how do I do it on my own and so we're a big support system we have like a private um
Facebook page where you can ask questions and only the people in the club can see it so you don't
have to be afraid someone's going to jump in and start saying stupid stuff um and making you feel
bad so um that's cool and for me when I take someone um I have a kind of a different approach
than john he's very he teaches a lot about fishing and gives a lot of direction and I'll
often have people that are a little bit more trepidacious about what we're doing and I'll say
you know we're gonna go fishing and we're gonna have some fun and if you want guidance or you want
me to tell you things please do so if you'd rather have me be quiet and just paddle you along and
you want to just cast a little bit and and so I try and approach it that way so it's not so intense
and a lot of people appreciate that and then by the end they're like
should I cast that spot how about that spot you know and they're just all into it and
but it's a it's more of a slow well imagine that as you give women space they're very comfortable
to take that space it's like letting them feel like they can take some of that space
exactly and I'm I'm pretty known and threatening kind of person and then and sometimes people
look at me and they're like you're gonna roll the river for the next eight hours and we're like
yeah I am well and and it's funny because you either light you light that fire and someone who's
never done it and they just are like this or you relight the fire and someone who used to do it
when they were a kid and they just don't really know why they got away from it and they did and
then also like oh my gosh this is well I have a gal who's coming back this year last year she
came to musky school from california her kids encouraged her to come back because she used to
come up here and and do stuff and she read about our musky school and she came and I had her out
in the river and I gave her a rod and she's like she made like three cashes like I am so
I can't do this and I was like well you know what let's just set you up with a sucker because in
the fall we put suckers on a sucker rig with a bobber and whatever and I said you can just hold
the rod so you know make it work for for her comfort zone I wasn't gonna keep pounding on her
and how to cast it's like no let's just do this and isn't she sitting there and she's just holding
this rod and all of a sudden this big musky comes screaming and grabs the sucker runs into my
little cargo canoe splashes her with water she screams bloody murder pretty soon we got that
fish flying all around we ended catching it it's a 40 inch musky and I she gets a picture with it
and it was just it was just such a cool thing and even her family was so happy to hear all about it
and it was just and now she's coming back this year so we're gonna hopefully do it again but
you know those said a high bar yeah that's a little nerve everything yeah I get a little
nervous about all of it I feel a lot of responsibility to help people have a good time and and meet
their goals or make their dreams come true and if I don't then it's that's hard for me personally
and kind of getting back to what you asked before people's expectations one of the things that is
hard to is is because we float these rivers where you know these are small you go down the middle
of it you know you you can cast to both banks I mean this is not like you can't get anything much
more than a canoeing on a lot of these stretches and trying to understand that well what is what
is a trophy or what is success in that river you know because you social media you mentioned
on Green Bay you see all these pictures of people these giant walleyes you know multiple stringing
and laying on the bottom of the boat you know and and it's like and it's like well that's not
really what we're going to do and we have some really good days where we catch a lot of fish
but with walleyes if you go through you catch some small moth maybe a musky and on your light
gear and then pick up a couple of nice walleyes you know for the frying pan that's pretty that's
pretty cool and think about that into context it's always important to so people are some people
are really focused on numbers numbers numbers and after the end of the day they're like that
was really fun like because it was just simple like with my big walleye I mean to me that was
more of a trophy than I've caught bigger ones when I was out trolling with you on the big water but
that one was more special just because of how it was caught you know to me you know it was just
yeah we had one I had two guys um they're really tired musky fishermen they fish
everywhere and they want a trip that we had donated to a local organization
and one guy was from Chicago actually and um and these guys know more about musky
fish than I did I mean they were I mean they were really good so I picked their brains we
it's one thing we don't have any egos we're always literally we don't we're always asking when we
get people in a boat that we know no sir we're always picking their brains but but they were
like what should we bring for gear and what are we going to use and I told I said here's the
guys we use medium medium medium heavy bait casting gear if you want to catch muskies I said
we don't don't bring any musky rods no big ones no big baits I said fishing the river
eat the same stuff as the bass I said so we'll catch bass along the way but I said this is what
these muskies eat well we get to this we're in the super small river I mean it's where it starts
it widens up but it's small and he casts he had on a uh he had on the spinnerbait and he casts
the spinnerbait down in this little hole and also he's like oh there's one he's like oh man it's good
and there was one of these giant walleyes it was a 30 inch here dark gold water it's like dark
gold he was literally like this is one of the coolest fish I've ever caught he was so just
so appreciative of it and so you know and that was probably a 20 year old fish I mean it was just
awesome awesome experience for him and you know we would release it and let it go and
you know that even when I got that with a you know a four inch musky because for him that's a
nice musky in the river and for him that would have been like oh yeah that's now but that was
pretty cool so one of the other things I want to explore a little bit is relationships and
couples in fishing these we've ran into some people that they can't really have a relationship
because they're almost married to the boat and then there's other people where you know maybe
the spouse will come along and they'll read and they'll they'll find a way to be together and
then there's people like you we're obviously your passion dovetails together but how how does
how important is you know finding a way to balance a relationship with fishing
well we come for a circle haven't we well what's really just just a quick example that a lot
of my friends when I tell them I got a new reel or I bought some new they'll say did you tell your
wife if they're my friends they know they're joking right but like clients like oh I buy I
to hide that I'm like I'm like oh man I said between her and I we got to rein each other in
because it's like we just you know we support each other all the time but yeah we don't have to
hide what we buy when it comes to fishing you know yeah and it fishing together is this is
a special treat because a lot of times we're taking other people fishing so when we get to go
fishing we usually run away up to Canada to our canoe country and like we did that this spring
and we just had an amazing time because we we could just fish for what we wanted to fish when
we wanted to fish where we wanted to fish just and it's just it's so natural for us well and I think
too when we first met I had I had been fishing tournaments for bass and I was a pretty competitive
guy we were both athletes and stuff and we were pretty competitive and I was pretty competitive
about fishing I was pretty intense and she was kind of like lighten up like what's it you know
jeez you know you know whatever and I knew though that like because of how competitive she can be
that over time she has become a lot more like oh no we gotta we gotta go work that
section because I know that fish is there and I know you know so she's the more I've learned
the more input I've had which is sometimes I know I roar I roar around and she just works it I
remember the first time we competed fishing though for perch on the day I don't I completely locked
that out of my mind I had floating jig head slip bobber I had all these rigs and we're out in
30 feet of water she had a paint stick with a line wrapped on it and she dropped it straight
down with a spring on the bottom and two hooks coming off and I was like got one she had nine
in the boat before I even had a bite I'm just like I like this is just way too embarrassing
but you know so there's lots of different ways to fit but yeah we we work it out and even like
you know he likes to troll a lot and it's not my favorite but I go trolling with him and I've
learned more about it and so I can participate more which makes it more interesting that it used
to be I used to sit there like if you go out with a charter and you just sit in the boat and wait
and wait and wait for abroad to go off now at least I'm what page should we put on and how many feet
back and you know so it gives you a lot more to think about so what would you recommend to
couples that anyway marriage therapy kind of like well someone one of the partners is passionate
and well kind of like we do with our clients a lot of times ask what kind of fishing do you
really like to do find out what each person really loves to do and find that happy medium because
same thing I mean I have clients that they love to fish slow with jigs they don't really want to
cast top what and other people that's all they want to do and it's like you if you can tailor your
your experience if somebody doesn't like to sit and look at a bobber and then you make them
sit and look at a bobber the whole day they hate that right so that's one thing a lot of times
the guys that want to go up and troll on shromming and bay john just takes them and I don't I don't
go along on that and if I have girls that really want to sit and jig for crappies and and blue gills
you know I'll do that or like with my club I'll go on some outings that you know I really enjoy
and and then and then the other piece is don't don't torch them right once you have one of these
days and you know even if it's a good day don't overdo it when it's time to be done be done and
just then have go get a good dinner or something or or something just make it uh because man that's
how you know you you just can really burn people out in a hurry that extra hour or two hours in
the boat around the ice or whatever it just I burned you out and add a little bit on ice fishing
here I have a hard time getting off the ice she doesn't ever want to stop so that that might cause
us more as that I as a as a guy as a guy fishing I can't believe I could complain about my wife
not wanting to come off the water but sometimes it's like no hun we we really do have to go so
but no I'm very competitive with myself I'm not competitive with so much with other people but
if I have a goal or and we do that in our club you know you want to catch a fish a certain size
it's like I really want to make that happen and I work really hard at it I've kind of transitioned
a little bit too I don't really care if I fish a whole lot now I love rowing people I love
taking people down the river and just I I don't fish that much um really anymore and it's funny
because every now and then I'll say to him I'll say but I really want to because I said I didn't have
all those years of fishing like you did because most of the time I mean I had three kids and I
taught full-time I didn't go fishing when I was young and so now it's like three kids too but I
still did a little fishing yeah you did a little bit more than me yeah I was inside making dinner
and you were standing out in the bay casting yeah but and I don't have any problem with that but
now it's like I want to have my time and I don't want to you know there's a lot of times when I
want to fish too sometimes it's even hard for me when I'm guiding it's like I'm guiding and I like
I want to just cast over there because I know there's a fish and they can't make that cast and I
want to just see if there's a fish there so I still have all that going on my mind I don't think you
have that so much anymore well that's no that's a funny thing to appear there's a number of guides
especially musky guides that they fish right along with their clients and I always ask a lot of the
clients that I have that they've traveled all over the world and hired guides you know and I'll say
how many times do you come into where the guide is fishing right alongside you they're like
not many they're like that's a little different up here it's like there's there's there's some
a number of guides that they'll fish right along with the you know to me I've had it happen a number
of times where I literally I want to make a cast to see if this real this line is on right or I
want to see if this action on this bait and I'll I'll make a cast like this and I was like oh I'm
like oh I feel so bad like I hook a fish and you know they hadn't been catching them and it's like oh
you know but um but but no we typically don't fish no I will with friends you know I'll have
some friends that they'll be like no you got a fish with us and then yeah twist my arm well you
guys can fish with us yeah we'll see what we can do so in in terms of like the culture of walleye I
mean the history is there that that legacy but is that still as ingrained or is that kind of a
generational difference like the older people's view of walleye versus maybe some younger people
it's good that's a really good question because again up here we're in a little bit of a throwback
area right here we kind of I think a lot of people still really like you know we have multiple
generations of people that come up here these old resorts these old lakes they fish the same
spots that they did 40-50 years ago and the walleye still has a has kind of this mystique I mean
that's the first thing you ask people about is when they're fishing you know you know tends to come
up right away as you know you get any walleyes I mean that's pretty you know and obviously the
musky has a whole different following but usually no in conversations with people time on muskies
you know it's just walleyes are still there aren't many people up here that talk about like oh no
I'm not interested in walleye oh most people they want to go catch a few walleyes yeah so
when you think of the amount of research that's being done by I mean UW students points and big
tribes and the DNR and all the other agencies cliff like and a lot of it focused on walleye is
that worth it from a statewide perspective what is the the bigger broader value to all that effort
put into to walleye that one species well I think I mean we're we're we're big proponents of science
and all the data and research that shows that a lot of lakes are struggling a lot of populations
are and that's and that would be really really shame it would be a huge loss just for the north
woods culture because the the walleye is sort of you know king of the fishing and even the chip
of flowage you know this legendary body of water I mean it's a phenomenal fishery
no walleye fishing in the winter you can't catch them to the ice and it's all people talk about
like why can't we well how does it all you know so as soon as you took it away you hear from the
people like that's ridiculous but it also needs to be protected because you know we said it a
million times but with the equipment today especially through the ice the equipment everything from
keeping people warm and transportation and shelters and then obviously the electronics
the gear you can you can really really um decimated yeah I mean you could do a number we're very
careful about little lakes that we go to and especially with ice fishing it keeping them sort
of under wraps and there's only certain people we will take to them that we know are responsible
fishermen they're going to put them back um because you could just really wipe it out and then you
add social media to the mix right and um you know it ends up it ends up being a potential you
know crappies we talked about crappies a little bit earlier and crappies I I mean that has to
stand people's radars because in the winter towards the end of the towards the end of the winter all
those crappies congregate and that you know in a deeper water and in some lakes only have one
deep spot and pretty soon there's a shack there's another shack there's another shagnet and pretty
soon they're in a hammering them day after day um you know they gotta watch that so education is
super important and and and having the the science behind it you know just makes it all work together
then it's interesting that we we've we've talked to a number of people that are very focused on
like putting walleye back in the lake whether they're walleye sort of are on the little mobile hatcher
user they you know they their their guides or their constant fishermen you know how do those
people are talking about they'll catch and release being their primary thing like it's the throw of
the catch it's not the harvest or you know they'll do a fish fry but that's not their priority so
who who is like they're a different breed of person that is just about the harvest because seems like
there's almost like a bifurcation among all the fishermen of those that are just the pursuit and
then there's it's the table yeah there's a hunting factor to walleye's like figuring out
how to get them and how to get them in the boat that's it takes a lot and so you take pride in
figuring that out and finding them let's save that question sorry can i cut for one second
what's going on you're gonna be able to edit that out i can barely hear them okay if they were
inside or not no no no no can we can we stop for just a second okay because i you're tethered
each other i know um really always