Don't be a videographer. I'd love to see you.
Do you have contact info?
Yeah, I do have a card.
Great.
We're with PBS Wisconsin.
We're doing a big story about walleye fishing.
What we find is everywhere we go we find more people with family connections and it's like...
I don't know if you will.
I'll buy a mole link because it raises walleyes. I don't know if you've ever been up there.
It's just like a hundred thousand walleyes a year.
We supply him minerals to feed those fish.
I don't know if you guys ever did a story about that.
That's a cool, he's got a really cool setup.
He's actually...
It's through the tribe, but he's from Iowa recently. He's not a native guy.
He's just a fish bite.
We're able to get a shot of him.
And then I know.
Yeah.
Fourteenth last, and walk right out.
That's what we want for a while here.
We're not going to walk right out.
Let's go up.
I've got a real life.
We've got a real life.
Yeah.
Alright.
I'll get over here.
I don't want to be interviewed.
Yeah.
Let's wait now.
Okay.
All the back on Thursday that's going on.
Alright.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I'm just gonna...
Okay.
That's cool.
Okay.
Right here.
Yeah.
Why don't we start from the front door and then come in and give here a perspective.
Sure.
Pardon my Indian wheel panel.
Walk and talk.
That works.
We're just gonna come in and get back to them.
Yeah.
Just a knife.
Yeah.
I know that works for us.
Okay.
For LLC.
Oh.
Okay.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
All right.
You're ready to get me.
Hello.
Hello. Hello. So, if you could give me a start on walleye. If I want to go catch a
walleye, what do I got to know? Where should I start here? Well, we have a very nice
liquid, a bagel right next to us here. I would say get a nice fishing pole, a
decent one. There's different grades of fishing poles. There's a light for like
panfish and there's like a medium light for walleye and there's heavy ones for
like Lake Michigan, heavier stuff. But we're mostly focused on walleye and panfish
off of Lake Bueno for this particular shop. Well, so be around, what's
going to catch me a walleye? Well, it's all good a fisherman you are, I suppose.
Well, you got to take these through some of the bait and some of the options that you
have. Okay, if you turn around here, we have our own flies and we make fly rigs
and they're using a little pencil sinker for a weight and they're using that for
catching walleyes and that's just one technique that they're using here on Lake
Bueno on a bagel. Over here, we do sell your fishing license and all kinds of
license right here also. So it makes it easier for a one-stop shop. These are
those little pencil sinkers that we use for making fly rigs. So we have all
assortment here. We have a good selection of brand new reels. We also have
pamphlets on your fishing and hunting. So we do have a nice little counter here.
We carry ice fishing stuff here on because a lot of people like to use them
for pan fishing. Not so much walleye but for pan fishing. We have a good selection
of live bait. That's our sorting table over there. We have a sorting table for
leeches here. You say a good selection of live bait. We just got a big truckload of
bait came in as you saw there. We're walking on this way. This is one of our
coolers that we have all our live bait in. A lot of 80% of the fishermen are
using night crawlers at this time. It kind of goes sometimes it's the wall I
want meat or sometimes they want a crank bait as such. So that's part you
got to change the be flexible. Over here this is some of the stuff we make in
house. We're making inline sinker weights. We make all of this. This is some of the
lead head jigs that we make. We package it all ourselves in house and they have
UPC codes on the back of all of them. Down here I'll tell you a story about that
after a while. Down here is all our selection of hooks and bobbers. Behind us
we have more jigs that we make. All different styles. Some people like the
little wrong ball head jig. People like a mental style we make all of us. These
are some of the rigs that we make. The perch rig and floating jigs. We make all
these floating jigs also right here. And these also have UPC codes on them. This is
our closed out section. We go around the corner here. As I was saying we leave
ice station jigs all year round. We have a whole wall display just for ice station
jigs. On this side we have plastic that we make in house. We make little plastic for
ice station. We also make like plastic worms. So that's that. We also have a good supply
of kids fishing pole combos already ready to go. I mean that's normal. We carry some
a lot of, well I'll clear you. Some crank baits here. A lot of the professional
fishermen are using the salamos. They're a little bit on the expensive side but
we're just a middleman so we can't say much you know. These are salamos. Colors
vary day by day depending on the overcast. A lot of them like the fluorescent colors
or gold colors. That's always a good standby. When it comes to the kids poles what's the
importance of having a pole that you got Star Wars, you got some other ones like for
a kid to be interested in it. It's like to get a kid into fishing. Well some kids just
want a fishing pole to start it all with and some kids are so intense on having a star
war one. Just for starting out a good brand name is Zepko and that's a good standby. It's
good for any size kid. The three feet general size for that. So we got a good selection
here. We even have some little penguins for the little girls. Like I say we have some
crank baits here on the wall for walleye fishing. A lot of guys have their favorite colors that
they'd like to go with but I would say 80% work the same as anything else. Around the
corner here like to show you. You probably heard of night crawler harnesses okay. This
whole wall is for making night crawlers and all these packages are in-house. So we have
the beads and the hooks and the blades and we make them in the back room and put them
out as a in-house manufacturing. And pretty good selection all the way down of beads and
blades here. We have a good display of different styles, different kind of rods up here right
above them. On the back side here now a good display of bass worms. We make some of that. We
make all of these jigs here for bass fishing. They can be used for walleye also. Depends on
how finesse you want to get. Okay we're going to walk down this way a little bit. We have
bass jigs, spinners. We have our in-house panfish little spinners that we make right here. These
all have UPS codes so it's a lot easier to take them up to the counter and scan them. We have a
good display of rods and reels. They're not all just for walleye so we have different sizes for
the kids. Some kids want a purple one, pink one so we try to show them that anyway. We have a
little display right here. We also have we carry nets all different sizes and shapes.
We have some plastic here for walleye bass.
A lot of stores carry these particular type for walleye. I have to carry a few fully and I
isn't just in case you do catch your walleye. This is our accessories for swivels and treble
hooks and we carry some catfish bait here. Like I said we have a good selection of different
size and shape rods and reels. Here's our rod and reel corner all the way around and we have a few on
this side. We do have a few antique lures for sale. We have some telescopic rods. Some people are
starting to get into using these off of the back of the bolt and then you use these off of
the back of the bolt for trolling. This is a 14 foot or up to 16 even 20 foot or off of the back
of the bolt for trolling and different sizes. We got some catfish rods and reels. Now I can
give you a sales pitch on what weight rod you would like. We don't try to oversell. We just
show people. You don't want a real, real light rod but you don't want a real, real heavy rod
also. We kind of asked them for like what kind of a price range are you thinking about spending.
We have them from $20 up to $100 for combos. So if you step this way we'll kind of give you a
sales pitch for a lot of rod. Here's one for that $100. I'll give you a sales pitch. It's a
lightweight, it's carbon, nice, nice rod and reel combo,
something like this, nice flueger. It all depends on how you feel on handling a rod and reel. We
can sell you any kind of rod and reel or whatever you like but we don't try to oversell and that
makes a difference. We got a nice cabinet counter here. So I don't know what else would you like
to see. I mean I'll try to hear it. All right well give me your background. How did you get into
this? When did you decide you know what I should open up as a big package store? Well it started
25, 30 years ago. I started taking some of my lead jigs to work with me and showing some of my
friends at work. Oh yeah I can buy some of these. Can I buy some of those? And I said sure and then
well it just kept on building after a while and then I got my son involved. I bought him a
fly tying vise and he started tying flies and then my friends wanted flies. So okay
we started and then after a while we did have a little shop up in Michigan for a year
and it got too hard to be traveling back and forth and everything. So we kind of stepped back for a
little while and looked at property down here and we decided on a good location like this. I mean it's
near lake and it's convenient and not very far from the house. So did you you must have
grown up fishing or is fishing a part of your life all along? Well yes being from the UP I guess we
had more time to go fishing and a lot more fun up there because there's a lot more lakes close by
and you walk to some of the lakes down here you know some lakes are 20 waffles apart.
But yeah I did quite a bit of fishing up north. So when did you start creating your own baits
30 some years ago? I mean just snowballs you I guess you might say.
Was that something for fun or just to say? It was making baits for myself
and then you know like I said I started taking a few to work with me and my friends seemed
interesting and oh can you make these here and can you make it something a little bit different
and you can make some flies and make spinners and I just kind of snowball and a hobby turns into a
business. So what's great about this is you've got family with you right? Yes. Why is that so
important to doing this? Well as a family business I think you have more personal touch
even to the customers that come in instead of being a higher corporate shop as such.
This here is it has like a more personal touch and get them involved and if they like it they'll
stick around. If they don't like it they won't stick around. It's and it's been working okay for us
so. And you probably see the same families come back as your customers right? You probably remember
little kids? A story. We have a customer when he was a teenager he would ride his bike with a
little cart on the back and he'd come in practically every day or every other day and
now we've been here in over 23 years so this is he started coming in when we first started
and now he's like 35 years old and he still comes in every other day with his wife and his kid.
So it's kind of unique that way. So talk to me about what is it about walleye that gets people
hooked on fishing? Well fishing for walleye is a little bit different than fishing for pan fish.
While I generally you have to go out into the water you sure you can fish from shore but out
in the water it's probably more enjoyable for the kids and they're not quite so restricted as how
close you are to somebody else. Like if you fish from shore they may be fishing elbow to elbow
and it's just a walleye is probably put up a better fight than some other pan fish although
you know the kids do like fishing for pan fish also.
And I mean there's when a kid catches a walleye and they pull this huge fish up what does it do to
me. Just it's a
remembrance that they caught a nice size fish. Sometimes if they go into a park and catch a
five or six or seven inch little pan fish they don't remember that as much as they would be
catching a 20 inch walleye because they're so nice and fat and they can use it for a meal.
Some pan fish they can't really use for a meal and it's just a good remembrance I guess you
might say and that's why it's and for throughout the whole state walleye could almost be the state
fish and it's just it just while I everybody knows what walleye you know while I go for fish
right I gotta have a walleye plate I don't I don't want a perch plate when I go out to eat.
Just walleye is the one right. It's number one or number two on the list.
So if you would can you show us a little bit of how you make some of the lures is that
possible do you have your your setup open to either to put together a rig or something for us
just so we can see a little video. Okay I'm going to turn that over to my partner okay
I'll introduce her. Wow you gotta talk over here we have a microphone over here.
It came in with some nice fish though didn't they.
21 22s.
Okay yeah that's where they're getting right now by a beautiful bridge.
Okay.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Okay so we got okay.
We just got in 10 pounds of leeches
and that only lasts us for three four or five days. We saw them by the
way.
Okay you ready? Yeah I just can't find any in my regular fly hook so I'll just have to do
go. Oh okay yeah just for one or two.
Because we make a lot of this stuff right now.
Oh what do you think?
Those are chubs and rosies there.
I don't know what to do.
Okay.
Uh it's all here to go.
There you go.
It's like 90 people.
Yeah older guys.
We're going to be able to bring her in.
Couple of gogers? Yeah okay.
Thank you.
Did I talk to me?
I did it gone.
Bigger.
We're all right.
I was just careful.
Can I try? I think it's a thousand years.
Can people regularly ask for custom orders?
Yes.
They know what they're catching them on and that's what they need.
I'm good here.
I thought you did over here.
I thought it was a thousand years.
Huh?
Oh yeah.
It takes me about two minutes.
I don't think I'm going on.
Oh pin.
Oh yeah.
You want a receipt?
Okay you're good to go.
Okay.
They got too fast.
Come on.
Precious.
We need everybody.
What?
Uh-huh.
There you go. Here. Right here.
I get it.
You got two in there?
I got four.
I got two.
Oh.
And then I can do the live time.
Just making a mess.
I know how to do this.
Well, she's excited.
Isn't that used to doing it?
The bark goes down the rod.
You don't have to camp yet.
Alright.
Make the gather room.
Now you hide.
Eight.
Three.
Thank you.
You're good?
Alright.
Okay.
You got her all.
All taken curve.
I'm going to get her all the way over here,
so she can help us with the weight too.
Yes.
I have a wide range of children.
Huh.
Alright.
I had a motor of control for 10,000 cars.
Yeah, no problem.
Okay.
I even had the youngest.
Let me do it right here.
Yeah.
Now I'm going to tell you about these.
If you put water in there, you got to let it sit for like overnight.
Okay.
We have our own bedding that you don't have to do nothing with.
Okay.
I just want to show it to you, okay?
Alright.
You don't have to put no water in here.
Okay.
And it's really good, and we use them for all of our crawlers.
Alright.
I mean, you can use that if you want.
We'll sell it to you there, but this is what we use.
Okay.
It's all.
Alright.
You can feel the difference there.
Oh yeah.
That's got moisture and you don't need water for it.
You don't need water for it.
Okay.
Are you selling this?
We're selling it in like ice cream pail, four-pawn ice cream pail.
Okay.
You want one or two?
Oh, how much are they?
Five bucks.
I'll take it.
Okay.
I don't know.
I can try them all up.
Oh yeah.
I'm in.
Yeah.
Are you okay?
I'm not trying to teach you this.
Yeah.
I just show you their difference anyway.
Right.
It makes it a little bit easier on you.
Right.
I need dry-colored.
Like that one.
It's just a basic one to show you.
And I'll take care of everything for that.
Yeah.
I measure with my finger because I don't mind.
Because then I feed your commute to a phone like this all the time.
I've learned things that will help me.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
I mean, I can't even hold it.
Yeah.
All this is is a bucktail that's in the eye and it has come here and here.
Okay.
I find ones that are my measuring.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'll take the extra one here.
Yeah.
The extra one here is out.
Yeah.
The extra one here is out.
Just measure it.
You're re-seating too?
Yeah.
Oh.
My fingers are nimble enough.
Okay.
And you got a ten dozen and two boxes.
All right.
Two of the things there.
All right.
Perfect.
Thank you.
Okay.
I think you'll be more satisfied with that.
Okay.
Yeah.
Let's work to go into it.
Mm-hmm.
Otherwise you gotta like wait overnight when you put water in it.
It'll burn.
Actually burn the worms if you put them in too soon with that stuff there.
All right.
Can we catch any walleyes on day go in?
Yeah.
There was two walleye tournaments yesterday.
Okay.
75 boats each and they were coming in with 20, 21, 22 inch.
Nice, healthy walleye.
That's good.
So they are starting to cut your fuel.
They're not real big ones yet, but 20 inches is good for us.
Anything on the perch over here?
They're getting some coffee and some coffee and then I forget what.
In the park.
Probably some blue hill in the park with smaller fan fish in warmer water.
So they're right around that wooden bridge in the park.
In by the paddle boats.
Makes sense?
Yeah.
Perfect.
Thank you.
That's really awesome.
This is a nice eight foot all round.
All round combo.
Some fishermen don't like them quite so long.
So we say, okay, we got shorter rods for you.
So I mean, that's why we try to carry a good variety.
Depends on the whole heart of a sales pitch you want me to give to you.
You know, I just feel that one.
I'm going to say it's reasonable price.
Yeah.
For the rod and the reel.
Yeah.
So.
But now we can show you all kinds of walleye setups, combos.
Like I said, we try to find out what kind of price range you're looking for.
And we don't try to oversell.
We just let you to pick it up.
So Ethan, just walk down.
Okay.
I'm kind of checking these all.
Are you sure that does all good?
Hanging some of these up.
Yep.
We'll just, if you could just have you walk all the way.
Okay.
Perfect.
Okay.
And then I'll have you walk back, but I'm going to go down there first.
Okay.
Perfect.
Thanks.
We got quite a bit of stuff.
Hmm.
Let's just pick out something here just a little.
Nice general walleye combo.
It's lightweight and reasonable price.
And we have a good selection.
You don't necessarily have to go with just black.
We have other colors you can pick from also.
It's just some of our selection that we have for walleye fishing.
Cool.
You got to go on here.
Uh, show one tell.
And I don't know when you first came in.
We have all this bead here.
I don't smell anything.
I don't know.
It's not.
There's no dead mineral smell or anything.
No.
So yeah.
You can go to some place.
Oh.
Just for you?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yep.
Oh my God.
We got some uh, movie shoots going on today.
Ah, show one tell.
Oh my God.
And we're the best kept secret and final act.
Huh?
What would you say about the night crawlers?
What do you think tomorrow?
You always get good crawlers.
Speak up.
I didn't hear you.
You always get good crawlers.
I've been coming here for 27 years.
Oh my God.
Oh no.
Just gonna hide this.
No product placement of Dr. Pepper.
Oh no.
Okay.
That's no problem.
No problem.
We're doing okay here I guess.
I'm taking notes here.
All right.
Oh.
This pretend I'm not here.
Oh okay we got you.
Just some b-roll there you go.
Oh my God.
Perfect.
What are some of your insights of this place here?
What were you thinking?
Why do you think we're making it or doing so good?
Or what any opinions?
Doing your own, having your own stuff I think has allowed to whatever one's looking for.
Okay.
That's, you know, where we get our bait, where we fish up north.
It's, you know, it's location and then what's the quality?
So the quality dips.
You heard what the guys are saying.
Yep.
That's just it.
It's like if the quality dips and you find someone different.
Yeah.
We fight for it.
You try and bulk and we look at everything, that's the difference.
Maybe sit on, we sort through it.
I take time and I come back and I go and not take eight hours of the day and I'm up to
my, up to my albours and dirt sometime.
But for a small family business, I think that we're doing pretty good.
Oh, it's great.
Hey, you look from us from the elm.
have you know so much different things that try to just put your finger on one
little thing is kind of hard yeah I mean like I showed you there's I'm
seeing different baits and and then we do put our own line on we got a nice
little corner here we tried to help you come out put our name for
this place
the River Street oh listen to it's not yeah you had River Street and we have a
German background because it's so that's how where we came up with house oh this
is Brook Street here and that's River Street so if you put a house in the
center what would that be called in two thousand you know I have a few pictures
I have a question for you I will do you think I know I think that you are
check my notes yes yes they thought you older than her how old you think I am
39 I heard you're gonna be 13 soon yeah quite a you know what I'm a daughter
that just turned 15 so I think you're still taller than her too when you like
to get the kids involved if they liked that particular sport and I think that
was about last year's winners for walleye tournament but you know I
might say have a couple pictures like that or all but yeah we're you can't
wear any of the most stuff that you caught a book just by its color when you
come into a place like this make sense
you say we just changed just put a new sign up last no I don't think so I mean
I know I've seen those and spring okay and no there are no eyes on the outside
line goes through the center either mostly used for ice fishing or inside
are you shandy we make those right here also okay and then for our old guys
let's see then how do you restring it well this is your little reel right here
yeah because I know a lot of times I especially we don't even use a reel you
just jig and then you hold the line straight up that way yeah well that's
why we have put that back right way here now
see how easy that pulls out like that that we don't have your eyes off frees up
on you right all right
make those right here now no eyes on the outside line goes through a rod you
got your little yeah that's my dad he likes to drill more holes and he likes
to fish but you know something like this and let's see how good you are here we
got a little jig here see if you can feel that jig on the end
you just just huh and if you get a bite there's your index something different
yeah so we got a I think we got a pretty good selection of everything for
for fisherman for lake on a bagel it's targeted mostly for lake on a bagel
not so much Lake Michigan or something like that but then again that's 50
miles away so if you don't get a call for why carry it yeah well yeah your
location is based on this that's where your customers are gonna be and it makes
a difference for us coming to work you know a lot of people have to travel
30 40 miles to go there to work I have like three blocks
huh so but we put in our hours here you know what color can I sell you it
today how about a nice little red one here huh that's a nice walleye combo
by here at home I'm caregiver for the way we saw
when we got we really don't do enough advertisement on either but after 23
years people should know that for doing different things in here where I guess
they were orientated more for win a bagel and walleye and pan fish are not so
much the great lake stuff but
and you saw a little empty wasn't that
a lot of big that'll be a few days worth yeah over two thousand dollars
worth twice a week
what their walleye tournaments already they had walleye tournaments are twice
twice a month or something like that so everything kind of felt together on
this particular weekend so it was a it was a rush
I don't know if I'm going to go back to school
I don't know if I'm going to go back
I don't know if I'm going to go back to school
I'm going to go back to school
I don't know if I'm going to go back to school
Was it a scam to disappear to?
This is something I'm going to be bringing groceries
Oh okay
But did they get a picture you doing that?
What do they take a picture of you doing that?
Picture Lexi doing leeches.
Take a picture of this guy.
Run in and around.
Flash.
And then we started. The bill was completely empty when we first started.
So we built it up and changed it around and changed this and
we finally settled on something that we could
see everything that was going on.
And started having a glass display case.
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe