WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:09.180 Well, I guess when it starts with kind of explaining what it is that why this lake was 00:09.180 --> 00:15.760 a good choice as a not one that's generally accessible to the public for the experiment 00:15.760 --> 00:16.760 that you guys are running. 00:16.760 --> 00:17.760 Yeah. 00:17.760 --> 00:22.520 For the experiment that we're running here which is overall the objective is does adding 00:22.520 --> 00:27.560 trees or of course would be habitat to a lake increase fish community productivity or the 00:27.640 --> 00:29.680 carrying capacity of the lake. 00:29.680 --> 00:33.920 And there's not even though there's thousands of lakes up here, there's not a lot of lakes 00:33.920 --> 00:38.720 where we can do a manipulation or experiment at that sort of scale. 00:38.720 --> 00:42.440 Also in the absence, as we look around the lake today, there's no development. 00:42.440 --> 00:47.380 This is the minor footprint of any development on the lake in its entirety so we can truly 00:47.380 --> 00:52.640 understand how the fish community responds to that manipulation and the absence of things 00:52.640 --> 00:57.240 like high fishing pressure invasive species, lake shore residential development, excess 00:57.240 --> 01:00.240 nutrient loading, all those things. 01:00.240 --> 01:01.240 So it's really ideal. 01:01.240 --> 01:07.200 It was ideal because it's a manageable lake size, it's about 90 acres this lake here. 01:07.200 --> 01:12.320 In addition to that, we've really only studied kind of woody habitat dynamics in relatively 01:12.320 --> 01:16.640 simple fish communities, largemouth bass and yellow perch or largemouth bass and blue 01:16.640 --> 01:17.640 gill. 01:17.640 --> 01:22.520 This lake has a pretty species diverse fish community for a small lake so we've got natural 01:22.520 --> 01:28.280 reproducing musculone, smallmouth bass, walleye, largemouth bass, as far as the pan 01:28.280 --> 01:33.120 fish, yellow perch, rock bass, blue gill, pumpkin seed, green sunfish and hybrids of 01:33.120 --> 01:34.120 those species. 01:34.120 --> 01:37.720 There's some white sucker in here, there's very few crappy. 01:37.720 --> 01:41.600 So it's a very diverse fish community and we can understand a little bit more than just 01:41.600 --> 01:46.320 bass and blue gill and bass and yellow perch about how the fish community or more diverse 01:46.320 --> 01:49.120 fish community might respond to these sorts of manipulations. 01:50.120 --> 01:55.120 So why don't you take us around and show us some good examples of what you've been doing. 01:55.120 --> 01:56.120 Sure. 01:56.120 --> 02:01.800 So we started the experiment out here in 2015 and often we do, or generally always with 02:01.800 --> 02:07.840 whole lake experiments, what we should be doing is we should have a treatment and a reference 02:07.840 --> 02:08.840 system. 02:08.840 --> 02:15.640 So our reference system for this lake is Escanaba Lake and in 2015 to 2018 we essentially came 02:15.640 --> 02:20.320 out here every spring and sampled the fish community and got to understand the limnological 02:20.320 --> 02:23.480 conditions, the riparian zone conditions. 02:23.480 --> 02:25.760 So for three years we just wanted to get a baseline. 02:25.760 --> 02:31.160 What was, how was this lake behaving, so to speak, is it's fish community, is it's water 02:31.160 --> 02:37.640 quality and other aspects that we were interested in that might be influenced by a whole lake 02:37.640 --> 02:39.120 edition of Woody Habitat. 02:39.120 --> 02:44.880 And in 2018, in the summer of 2018, these are some of the trees that were dropped at 02:44.880 --> 02:45.880 that point. 02:45.880 --> 02:50.840 So you can see the needles are no longer on the trees anymore, but they're still maintaining 02:50.840 --> 02:58.960 a pretty high branching complexity, even after seven years of being in this lake, ice conditions. 02:58.960 --> 03:01.280 But the bark is starting to be gone now. 03:01.280 --> 03:06.400 But again, those very smallest branches seem to be holding on, the needles are gone. 03:06.400 --> 03:10.680 It's early in the season yet, if this was about a month from now, you'd see a parafight 03:10.760 --> 03:14.920 or algae growth on these trees that we dropped in 2018. 03:14.920 --> 03:20.000 If we get up close, maybe not right now, but in the summertime, you'll see small bluegills 03:20.000 --> 03:22.960 and other fish that are all inside that refuge area. 03:22.960 --> 03:28.840 You might see some of the larger predatory or piscivorous fish eating fish, musky bass 03:28.840 --> 03:32.200 using the outside edges of them in a couple of weeks here. 03:32.200 --> 03:36.960 We might see like smallmouth bass and largemouth bass nesting in association with that wood. 03:36.960 --> 03:42.720 So this was the initial phase of the experiment, or phase one, where we dropped 140 trees 03:42.720 --> 03:45.280 all along the north shore of the lake here. 03:45.280 --> 03:47.200 And we did it in kind of bundles and complexes. 03:47.200 --> 03:52.200 As you can see, we got a couple there, and we're just kind of opportunistic with the sizes. 03:52.200 --> 03:54.280 And we dropped trees commensurate with what the forest is. 03:54.280 --> 04:01.920 It was about 87% conifers, 13% deciduous trees, mostly maples. 04:01.920 --> 04:05.960 So that was the first phase of the project, and then we monitor it, what happened to the 04:05.960 --> 04:12.400 fish community, what happened to the limnology of the lake in that first five, six, seven 04:12.400 --> 04:16.920 years, actually we monitored for six years what it ended up being, because we missed 04:16.920 --> 04:19.000 a year with COVID, with field sections. 04:19.000 --> 04:20.000 So both. 04:20.000 --> 04:25.280 So when you sample the fish community, we do surveys out here just like we do on a lot 04:25.280 --> 04:26.280 of our other lakes. 04:26.280 --> 04:31.360 We'll fight net it for usually out here for about a month to get through all the species. 04:31.360 --> 04:35.680 We get mark recapture population estimates on all the major species in here. 04:35.720 --> 04:40.560 And then through the collection of aging material from those fish and the population estimates, 04:40.560 --> 04:45.080 we can measure production, so fish production of the fish community. 04:45.080 --> 04:50.960 And production is a rate, so it's for scientific terms, it's kilograms per hectare per year. 04:50.960 --> 04:53.760 English units would be pounds per acre per year. 04:53.760 --> 04:57.800 And so it's a rate of the productive capacity of an individual species. 04:57.800 --> 05:03.440 And what we found, we've just submitted this paper for publication to Fisheries Magazine, 05:03.440 --> 05:10.400 which is an American Fisheries Society publication, is that in, you know, six years 05:10.400 --> 05:15.760 post close woody habitat addition of those 140 trees, we've doubled the fish community 05:15.760 --> 05:20.280 production of Sanford Lake here. 05:20.280 --> 05:25.040 What mostly happened is what we hypothesize what happened is every one of these trees 05:25.040 --> 05:28.120 is setting up a micro ecosystem within this larger ecosystem. 05:28.560 --> 05:33.120 So that tree drops in, it slowly starts to degrade, that parafite grows on it, that 05:33.120 --> 05:37.880 algae, that healthy algae, that attracts benthic macaron vertebrates, that attracts 05:37.880 --> 05:43.240 the small fishes that eat those, and eventually that's to translate up into the upper trophic 05:43.240 --> 05:47.160 levels into the musky, into the bass, and into the walleye. 05:47.160 --> 05:51.080 So in this phase of the experiment right now, most of that production is all locked up in 05:51.080 --> 05:55.520 those lower trophic level forage fishes, so major increases in production in yellow 05:55.520 --> 06:02.040 perch, bluegill, and rock bass as a response to the experiment. 06:02.040 --> 06:05.480 And we'll continue to monitor it as we get farther down the lake here. 06:05.480 --> 06:12.560 Phase two of the project was to drop trees on the entire western shoreline of the lake. 06:12.560 --> 06:17.120 And so we really loaded it up this last time and added, and we'll see this when we get 06:17.120 --> 06:25.320 down the shore, we added 240 more trees to this lake in early November this past fall. 06:26.320 --> 06:31.360 And the reason we're doing this and staggering it is we want to find out, or we want to test 06:31.360 --> 06:36.600 whether there's a point where fish production basically caps out and saturates. 06:36.600 --> 06:42.040 So is there a point where you don't get the benefit of adding the wood anymore for fish 06:42.040 --> 06:43.040 production? 06:43.040 --> 06:49.720 You see some of the parafite in there, that's also freshwater sponge, which is kind of neat. 06:49.720 --> 06:55.680 The other reason that we are staggering these tree drops in the lake, because eventually 06:55.680 --> 06:59.200 we'll have a third phase where we do the rest of the lake the entire southern shore. 06:59.200 --> 07:03.600 We're staggering it because most of the lakes in northern Wisconsin are almost anywhere. 07:03.600 --> 07:09.080 There's not going to be this amount of area to put trees into, so it'd be good to know 07:09.080 --> 07:13.440 if there is a saturating point and we get the question of how many trees should we add 07:13.440 --> 07:19.200 to get this sort of response, or what type of tree should we add to get a response. 07:19.200 --> 07:21.040 We should be able to answer some of those questions. 07:21.040 --> 07:26.640 So again, everything we're trying to do here is applied so that what we learn here can 07:26.640 --> 07:31.600 be taken on the landscape for the greater good of lakes based on what we observe here. 07:31.600 --> 07:37.240 Yeah, so if you determine if there's a difference between dropping a carnivore versus a deciduous 07:37.240 --> 07:38.240 tree? 07:38.240 --> 07:39.760 Not a difference per se. 07:39.760 --> 07:43.720 It's only going to be, or what we do know is it's going to be in longevity of how long 07:43.720 --> 07:45.680 that wood's going to last. 07:45.680 --> 07:50.440 And so everything we've dropped in here is either a hardwood or a conifer, and they 07:50.440 --> 07:55.440 last a long time compared to something like a birch or an aspen in our softer woods. 07:55.440 --> 07:59.400 They also have to maintain their branching complexity a bit better, but like the conifers, 07:59.400 --> 08:03.520 you know, if we were to take a chance out of that one right there, and we cut into that 08:03.520 --> 08:07.160 sap that smells fresh is cutting that tree down in the wood. 08:07.160 --> 08:13.200 It doesn't degrade very rapidly at all, especially those that are under water. 08:13.200 --> 08:14.200 So it's a long process. 08:14.200 --> 08:18.520 They've done some dendrology on woody habitat and lakes and some Ontario lakes, and some 08:18.520 --> 08:23.400 of those pieces of wood were, had been in the lake for 500, 550 years. 08:23.400 --> 08:26.120 It's very long lived. 08:26.120 --> 08:30.680 Another reason for doing the experiment out here though is that there was a lot of woody 08:30.680 --> 08:35.920 habitat in this lake, but it was all highly degraded and not contributing to the system 08:35.920 --> 08:37.800 so to speak anymore. 08:37.800 --> 08:43.720 So this was kind of a pulse of new course woody habitat, new carbon that's going to 08:43.720 --> 08:46.840 slowly enter this system. 08:46.840 --> 08:51.200 And then as we've shown so far, it's made its way into the food web and increased fish 08:51.200 --> 08:52.200 production. 08:52.200 --> 08:57.600 So is there a difference between someone who will like foot logs out on the ice in the 08:57.600 --> 09:00.440 middle of the lake versus dropping a tree on the edge? 09:00.440 --> 09:01.440 Yeah. 09:01.440 --> 09:04.960 So we've had a lot of conversations about that and some research. 09:04.960 --> 09:11.280 So formerly within Wisconsin DNR, you know, we'd fill out permits for cribs, fish cribs, 09:11.280 --> 09:14.440 which is more of what you're talking about, Zach, where we're going to go on to some 09:14.440 --> 09:15.440 deeper water. 09:15.440 --> 09:17.160 It's not going to be a navigational hazard. 09:17.160 --> 09:21.640 We're going to kind of sink a lot of cabin or a complex of trees. 09:21.640 --> 09:23.680 We've gotten away from that as an agency. 09:23.680 --> 09:28.080 We still have that permit and we still allow it, but we've gone more towards fish sticks 09:28.080 --> 09:34.120 and tree drops, which this is because that simulates the natural environment of what 09:34.120 --> 09:35.120 happened. 09:35.120 --> 09:39.360 That pine tree right there, you know, when that dies, it has 360 degrees to fall and 09:39.360 --> 09:43.000 about 180 of them would be associated with the lake. 09:43.000 --> 09:45.760 That's the natural process we're trying to simulate with this. 09:45.760 --> 09:49.160 What we did here was by request of the group that we're working with. 09:49.160 --> 09:51.760 They wanted us to specifically do tree drops. 09:51.760 --> 09:56.120 Another thing that we promote that's probably even better than tree drops is if possible, 09:56.120 --> 09:58.720 go cut wood in an upland forest that's away from the lakes. 09:58.720 --> 10:03.200 You leave all the riparian habitat to fall in, bring that on to the ice in the winter 10:03.200 --> 10:07.160 and distribute it like this, and that's what we call our fish sticks program that 10:07.160 --> 10:12.560 Scott Toshner started at least 10 years ago now in Northwestern, Wisconsin, based out 10:12.560 --> 10:15.000 of the Hayward and Broul area. 10:15.000 --> 10:19.800 So I guess that's, I mean, obviously there's an advantage to having a private lake that 10:19.800 --> 10:23.840 you can do this on where it is more of a controlled experiment, but if we're going 10:23.840 --> 10:29.240 to expand this to public lakes that are developed, they don't have trees left, but they can 10:29.240 --> 10:32.080 still possibly get there by fish sticks. 10:32.080 --> 10:33.160 And that's exactly what we're doing. 10:33.160 --> 10:39.680 So as an agency, we prefer to have the riparian zone intact. 10:39.680 --> 10:45.200 There's all kinds of benefits to having that riparian forest from preventing nutrients 10:45.200 --> 10:52.120 from getting in the lake, some water purification, clarification sorts of purposes, so those 10:52.120 --> 10:56.480 runoff effects, but then also having that leaf litter that actually falls in the lake breaks 10:56.480 --> 11:00.440 down and gets incorporated into the food web, as well as just the woody habitat that might 11:00.480 --> 11:04.520 naturally fall in through a storm event or senescence or a beaver dropping it into 11:04.520 --> 11:05.600 the lake. 11:05.600 --> 11:10.840 So that's exactly what we'd, you know, promote in those sorts of situations is that we want, 11:10.840 --> 11:15.360 we've, we'd sign that permit, but we want you to bring it from upland sources, drag 11:15.360 --> 11:18.000 it onto the lake and winter and distribute it. 11:18.000 --> 11:27.080 And we were on Lake Namacocket, Mike D'Andrea, at least they've dropped a number on a one 11:27.080 --> 11:29.240 undeveloped section of shoreline. 11:29.240 --> 11:33.400 So when, when, how fast do they see results? 11:33.400 --> 11:38.000 So I'd say relatively quickly depending on what the response is. 11:38.000 --> 11:42.360 And so in general, as soon as you drop these trees, they'll become fish attracting structure 11:42.360 --> 11:45.320 really rapidly, especially for the small fishes. 11:45.320 --> 11:50.160 And then the larger fishes off would set up ambush points on the edges of it. 11:50.160 --> 11:53.440 Then within a couple of years, you're going to start to see the degradation of the tree 11:53.440 --> 11:56.960 bark, the pine needles falling off and things like that. 11:56.960 --> 11:59.760 The trees start to get your parafight and through that degradation and those release 11:59.760 --> 12:00.760 and nutrients. 12:00.760 --> 12:03.480 The background vertebrates quickly respond to that. 12:03.480 --> 12:07.920 And then like I said, the micro ecosystem now, the fish progression starts. 12:07.920 --> 12:15.240 So it happens pretty rapidly, you know, once, once these are implemented. 12:15.240 --> 12:18.000 Another question we get about this, you know, I talk about parafight and it's kind of a 12:18.000 --> 12:21.240 healthy, naturally algae. 12:21.240 --> 12:25.240 One of the other questions that we answered in this experiment is we've heard a number 12:25.320 --> 12:30.600 of times like, well, if we add trees to our lake, that's going to make the water less 12:30.600 --> 12:31.760 clear. 12:31.760 --> 12:35.120 It's going to, because of the nutrients that are in the system now, it's going to lead 12:35.120 --> 12:39.000 to harmful algal blooms and it's just going to change our water quality in general. 12:39.000 --> 12:40.320 So we're not in favor of it. 12:40.320 --> 12:45.200 We just published a paper recently, said that basically what we did out here changed none 12:45.200 --> 12:46.640 of those variables. 12:46.640 --> 12:51.360 It didn't change anything, meaning for chlorophyll, A went up a tiny bit, but it didn't make 12:51.360 --> 12:58.800 any difference with like second distransparency or water clarity in this lake. 12:58.800 --> 13:02.120 And so that was, I think, a good, again, one of those demonstration experiments like I 13:02.120 --> 13:06.040 talked about until you do it and you measure it and you get it out there and are able to 13:06.040 --> 13:11.600 talk about it, people may be reluctant to do something that's quite beneficial for a lake. 13:11.600 --> 13:18.360 There's a lot of conventional wisdom that you have to overcome in a lot of these places 13:18.360 --> 13:22.600 where people, this is why we've always done it, this is what we've always assumed. 13:22.600 --> 13:27.280 How hard is it to, I mean, can one study penetrate some of that or does it have to be a study 13:27.280 --> 13:31.760 that then shows it, like they have to feel it themselves? 13:31.760 --> 13:36.600 I think a little bit of both, I mean, I guess I think the demonstration science helps a 13:36.600 --> 13:39.480 lot, but it is also the outreach then, right? 13:39.480 --> 13:43.720 And so as an agency, we spend a lot of time working with lake associations and anglers 13:43.760 --> 13:49.400 and fishing clubs to take the science that's out here that we're looking at right now 13:49.400 --> 13:53.280 and the research we're looking at right now and the results and taking it out into the 13:53.280 --> 13:58.960 public and having those conversations and showing those things and talking about it. 13:58.960 --> 14:03.400 And so I think that's one of our greatest tools that we have for some of those transformative 14:03.400 --> 14:05.800 changes or policy changes. 14:05.800 --> 14:10.480 And then like I said, I think oftentimes there's a lot of, can be very contagious. 14:10.480 --> 14:14.960 And so you get a lake association or someone that sees the results, they understand the 14:14.960 --> 14:20.200 results and then it becomes, they're promoting it and it propagates from there. 14:20.200 --> 14:26.200 So I think a lot of that is where, you know, big progress comes from these sorts of things. 14:26.200 --> 14:35.760 You see all the fresh water sponge that's growing, so that's been a really, yep, yep. 14:35.760 --> 14:43.040 So there's kind of green, wavy sort of stocks there, that's fresh water sponge. 14:43.040 --> 14:46.120 And that was a pretty big response, a lot of parafyting, but a lot of fresh water sponge 14:46.120 --> 14:47.120 on most of these trees. 14:47.120 --> 14:54.600 Are we able to kind of go into them and Ethan's got the GoPro, we can kind of put that down 14:54.600 --> 14:55.600 the water. 14:55.600 --> 14:56.600 I'm going to take you to one of our biggest ones down here. 14:56.600 --> 15:00.920 We got a huge hemlock that we dropped and maybe that'll be a neat one. 15:00.920 --> 15:06.320 That one was so loud when I hit the water, it like cut out the audio on my video camera. 15:06.320 --> 15:11.240 It just like went blank for a second when I hit the water. 15:11.240 --> 15:17.880 And we've left a couple areas in here by the club's request, like this one not to drop 15:17.880 --> 15:18.880 trees here. 15:18.880 --> 15:25.440 There is some walleye spawning that goes on in here. 15:25.440 --> 15:29.240 For the most part, you know, we added a lot of trees and we're going to go along the western 15:29.240 --> 15:32.360 shoreline here, which we did last fall. 15:32.360 --> 15:35.760 Take a look. 15:35.760 --> 15:38.360 Other work that we're doing out here, we're doing a lot of behavioral work with fish to 15:38.360 --> 15:40.240 see how they respond to this. 15:40.240 --> 15:47.200 We have muskeys, small mouth, large mouth and walleye that have radio transmitters in 15:47.200 --> 15:48.200 them. 15:48.200 --> 15:51.840 So we find where they are in the lake every two weeks. 15:51.840 --> 15:53.880 We've had what are called pit tag receivers out here. 15:53.880 --> 15:59.000 So your pit tag is the same as like a microchip that you might put into a pet that gets lost 15:59.000 --> 16:00.120 and you can find it. 16:00.120 --> 16:04.440 We put a lot of those into fish and we had receivers out here that were tracking fish 16:04.440 --> 16:08.680 movements in relation to the new habitat constantly basically. 16:08.680 --> 16:13.920 Anytime they passed over those antenna, they would get picked up and we get that information 16:13.920 --> 16:18.840 from a master's student who might have worked on that aspect of the project out here. 16:18.840 --> 16:23.480 It's been very interesting. 16:23.480 --> 16:26.880 So there was definitely some early attraction to the structure, but then we started to see 16:26.880 --> 16:30.120 more offshore movement and just movement in general. 16:30.120 --> 16:36.720 And we think based on the literature and those results, what we're seeing is that we probably 16:36.720 --> 16:42.280 created so much good refuge habitat in here that it did become good foraging habitat anymore. 16:42.280 --> 16:45.760 You can hit that point and it's another reason of doing the experiment of how much is too 16:45.760 --> 16:50.200 much where you start to imbalance things in the other way because we know this with aquatic 16:50.280 --> 16:53.280 weeds and with some woody habitat studies. 17:04.200 --> 17:05.200 This went up. 17:05.200 --> 17:08.880 In other studies, we found that their activity cost for the predators went down because it 17:08.880 --> 17:11.000 would just stay in association with the habitat. 17:20.200 --> 17:27.200 It's been seven years and we can see, oops, if we look into the water, all the branching 17:28.200 --> 17:35.200 complexity that's still remaining in habitat that that's creating for small fish. 17:35.200 --> 17:42.200 And I'll also note these woody habitat logicians are not just for fish, this is basking habitat 17:42.200 --> 17:43.200 for turtles. 17:43.200 --> 17:48.200 In the right situation, a loom may build its nest on a floating log in the right situation. 17:48.200 --> 17:53.200 You see blue herons perched on them and fishing. 17:53.200 --> 18:00.200 And I'll also note that these woody habitat logicians are not just for fish, this is basking 18:00.200 --> 18:02.200 habitat for turtles. 18:02.200 --> 18:08.200 In the right situation, a loom may build its nest on a floating log in the right situation. 18:08.200 --> 18:12.200 You see blue herons perched on them and fishing. 18:12.200 --> 18:14.200 So there's a lot of different benefits. 18:14.200 --> 18:16.200 The yellow perch lay their eggs. 18:16.200 --> 18:19.200 Their egg ribbons will be draped across this course, woody habitat. 18:19.200 --> 18:23.200 Same thing for frogs and toads and our amphibians. 18:23.200 --> 18:25.200 They use this habitat too. 18:33.200 --> 18:35.200 And that's not even many. 18:35.200 --> 18:41.200 In some years out here, we're dip netting out five gallon buckets full of tadpoles. 18:41.200 --> 18:45.200 And what I've understood over the years here, I'm pretty sure the green frogs and what 18:45.200 --> 18:49.200 happens is that they get these banner tadpole years where everything's right. 18:49.200 --> 18:53.200 And there's so many of them that they actually, it becomes a rhinovirus diaph. 18:53.200 --> 18:55.200 So we've seen it on Escanaba for sure. 18:55.200 --> 18:56.200 I think it's seen it here. 18:56.200 --> 19:02.200 So as they start to emerge from tadpoles to become frogs, right at that stage that rhinovirus 19:02.200 --> 19:06.200 kind of hits and knocks those densities down and so you'll see a lot of dead tadpoles 19:06.200 --> 19:10.200 and our tadpoles that are going through metamorphosis. 19:17.200 --> 19:19.200 Yeah, the tadpoles. 19:19.200 --> 19:21.200 I think it's pretty good size. 19:21.200 --> 19:25.200 These tadpoles are in the water for at least two years and so a lot of the ones in here 19:25.200 --> 19:27.200 and Escanaba, they're getting their legs right now. 19:28.200 --> 19:34.200 So we're just ending the first phase of the woody habitat edition right now. 19:34.200 --> 19:40.200 Again, that was in June of 2018 that we dropped those trees along the north shoreline. 19:40.200 --> 19:49.200 And then we started phase two this past fall in early November of 2024 where now we're on 19:49.200 --> 19:56.200 the western shoreline of the lake and I came out here with a forester and took a look 19:56.200 --> 20:02.200 at opportunistically at what trees would make sense species-wise to drop in. 20:02.200 --> 20:10.200 And now we're seeing trees that have been dropped in wherever we're at six months ago now 20:10.200 --> 20:13.200 and have just gone through their first winter. 20:13.200 --> 20:17.200 You can see there's a little discoloration on some of the pine needles there but we still 20:17.200 --> 20:23.200 have some green underneath and again we're pretty opportunistic at trying to put the trees 20:23.200 --> 20:29.200 in bundles creating a lot of habitat to continue to see how it influences the fish community 20:29.200 --> 20:33.200 production of the lake and other aspects of the aquatic ecosystem out here. 20:38.200 --> 20:41.200 We worked with some amazing loggers that did this. 20:41.200 --> 20:46.200 How long do you think it took to drop 240 trees into the shoreline of the lake with two guys? 20:46.200 --> 20:47.200 Walking? 20:47.200 --> 20:48.200 Yep. 20:48.200 --> 20:49.200 With the chainsaw? 20:49.200 --> 20:50.200 Yep. 20:50.200 --> 20:51.200 Three hours. 20:53.200 --> 20:58.200 We started about 9.30 and we were eating lunch at 1 and they took a couple breaks. 20:58.200 --> 21:01.200 It was a little bit warmer that day and I started to understand it. 21:01.200 --> 21:04.200 I was like guys by all means I'm like take your time. 21:04.200 --> 21:08.200 And they didn't want to go back to the shop degrees equipment and stuff like that. 21:08.200 --> 21:16.200 And so, and it was, I mean it was just amazing to watch a professional work in that aspect. 21:16.200 --> 21:18.200 I wish I had the same level of confidence. 21:18.200 --> 21:19.200 Yeah. 21:19.200 --> 21:22.200 Just guys like guys, this is absolutely incredible what you're doing. 21:22.200 --> 21:23.200 This is amazing. 21:23.200 --> 21:24.200 You can see the beaver. 21:24.200 --> 21:25.200 Mm-hmm. 21:25.200 --> 21:27.200 They're like this is the cherry of cherry jobs we get. 21:27.200 --> 21:32.200 We're not trying to lift a huge tree that's sitting over somebody's garage. 21:32.200 --> 21:36.200 You know with this lift, this pulley system, he's like we're just dropping trees. 21:36.200 --> 21:37.200 He's like this is great. 21:37.200 --> 21:41.200 You figure it would take longer than just to walk. 21:41.200 --> 21:43.200 He said three hours. 21:43.200 --> 21:44.200 Wow. 21:44.200 --> 21:48.200 And they probably took at least, they took two, they took like a 10 minute break. 21:48.200 --> 21:55.200 And they took like a 20 minute break. 21:55.200 --> 22:01.200 And as little as just zip, zip, booms, zip, zip, boom. 22:01.200 --> 22:06.200 So is the bike net in here deliberately trying to see what comes into these shorelines? 22:06.200 --> 22:09.200 It's more opportunistically. 22:09.200 --> 22:12.200 We typically set them in slightly different areas. 22:12.200 --> 22:17.200 But now that there's so much wood on this side of the lake, it's harder to get to some of the place they wanted to. 22:17.200 --> 22:21.200 So Taylor, she's the one Taylor and Dylan said it this year. 22:21.200 --> 22:30.200 So they just said it more opportunistically to get good coverage of the lake where we know there's decent walleye spawning habitat. 22:30.200 --> 22:35.200 Because our nets out here, they've got good coverage throughout the lake and we're getting all species. 22:35.200 --> 22:43.200 But at least early on we're targeting walleye spawning habitat. 22:43.200 --> 22:48.200 So what is the walleye per acre? 22:48.200 --> 22:54.200 Out here, it started at about three adults per acre in 2015. 22:54.200 --> 23:01.200 Like many of the lakes up here, especially the smaller ones, we've seen that slightly decline over time. 23:01.200 --> 23:03.200 We've written about this. 23:03.200 --> 23:10.200 We can't say that it's because of the tree drops causing it because it's been a system, like a systemic pattern up here at that same time. 23:10.200 --> 23:13.200 Where small lakes and walleye recruitment seem to go down. 23:13.200 --> 23:20.200 We've seen an uptick of largemouth bass out here afterwards, but that's often what happens in other places. 23:20.200 --> 23:30.200 So our note to those interested in this practice for fish habitat purposes is probably to be precautionary in walleye lakes. 23:30.200 --> 23:36.200 And certainly not unknown walleye spawning locations within a lake. 23:36.200 --> 23:45.200 This lake probably did not originally have walleye. It was stocked by the club in the 70s. It was naturally reproducing. 23:45.200 --> 23:55.200 But again, as we talked about this morning, some of that fades away over time where this lake has got very limited walleye spawning habitat, very limited. 23:55.200 --> 23:59.200 In fact, I can't even tell you exactly where they spawn in here. 23:59.200 --> 24:04.200 I could go out and ask an album, point out 10 different areas where I know walleyes are going to be spawning. 24:04.200 --> 24:08.200 If we went out there at night and electrified it, we're probably even more. 24:08.200 --> 24:12.200 In here, we've been out here electrified fishing and what we think is peak spawn. 24:12.200 --> 24:18.200 You get a couple here, you get a couple there, but you don't see the concentrations of fish like we do in other lakes. 24:18.200 --> 24:29.200 So what are the types of habitat that are ideal for walleye spawning? 24:29.200 --> 24:35.200 So for walleye spawning, their ideal habitat is to have gravel and cobble. 24:35.200 --> 24:43.200 And so oftentimes, they can wind swept shorelines so that it's constantly cleaning that silt and it's nice and oxygenated. 24:43.200 --> 24:49.200 So when walleye spawn, they're broadcast spawners, which means that they spawn and then there's no parental guarding or anything. 24:49.200 --> 24:52.200 They just leave those eggs to the mercy of environmental conditions. 24:52.200 --> 24:56.200 But with that spawning habitat, those eggs are sticky. 24:56.200 --> 25:01.200 They fall down into the interstices of that gravel and cobble where they're kind of protected. 25:01.200 --> 25:05.200 They've got enough oxygen. They're not getting suffocated by silt. 25:05.200 --> 25:08.200 And so that's what walleyes are really looking for. 25:08.200 --> 25:12.200 So then why did they use the marshes on the wool? 25:12.200 --> 25:15.200 There's unique circumstances where walleye can do some different things. 25:15.200 --> 25:19.200 There's I think Lake Pepin in the Mississippi River is a similar situation. 25:19.200 --> 25:26.200 And so somehow they're making it work and found a way to adapt to those marsh conditions in spawning in them. 25:26.200 --> 25:32.200 But in general, with walleyes of river fish, that's what they're seeking is gravel and cobble. 25:32.200 --> 25:38.200 And there's gravel and cobble in here, but it's a smaller lake. 25:38.200 --> 25:42.200 It doesn't get wind swept just by the general nature of it being small. 25:51.200 --> 25:55.200 It's got the wind pushing us in a little bit. 25:55.200 --> 25:58.200 Did you want to put the GoPro in the water? 25:58.200 --> 26:02.200 Especially if there's some of these green ones? 26:02.200 --> 26:06.200 And if you need it, we've got a lot of b-roll of that stuff. 26:06.200 --> 26:11.200 Of GoPro of underwater photography from our comms gals. 26:11.200 --> 26:15.200 They came out here and got in the water for a couple days and did a bunch of it. 26:32.200 --> 26:39.200 Yeah, let's get that. 26:39.200 --> 26:42.200 And if you need anything specifically for me, then just let me know. 26:42.200 --> 26:43.200 Yeah, sure. 26:43.200 --> 26:45.200 Are you waiting on those regulations? 26:45.200 --> 26:55.200 That feels like another one that's going to have science and then the politics or the implications for the people that fish those so most heavily. 26:55.200 --> 27:00.200 Not wanting to have to change what they've always done. 27:00.200 --> 27:03.200 Yeah, I think it's a little bit half and half. 27:03.200 --> 27:05.200 I understand why we're doing it. 27:05.200 --> 27:14.200 I'm glad we've done a very nice experiment testing it out over a hundred waters for a period of time that let us know how panfish are going to respond. 27:14.200 --> 27:25.200 I do worry a little bit because of some panfish and negative interactions with walleyes and other species because that should serve to increase abundances to a few lower exploitation. 27:25.200 --> 27:29.200 But I guess that becomes part of the next experiment to see what happens. 27:29.200 --> 27:31.200 Well, that's croppy, right? 27:31.200 --> 27:32.200 Yeah, croppy. 27:32.200 --> 27:35.200 His perch abundance is good for walleyes. 27:35.200 --> 27:36.200 Right. 27:36.200 --> 27:39.200 Do they predate on walleyes or exclusively? 27:39.200 --> 27:40.200 The croppy? 27:40.200 --> 27:41.200 Yeah. 27:41.200 --> 27:46.200 We think, and it's really difficult with diet studies like that because it can happen really, really quickly. 27:46.200 --> 27:50.200 We've got a whole bunch of croppies and then the walleyes are all this big and they're interacting the same habitat. 27:50.200 --> 27:53.200 They can disappear almost before you can even track it. 27:54.200 --> 28:06.200 But my inclination is that when walleye are, you know, being born, they're interacting with adult croppy that are feeding heavily at that time. 28:06.200 --> 28:08.200 And croppies are, they're pysivores. 28:08.200 --> 28:11.200 They will eat plankton and things like that. 28:11.200 --> 28:15.200 But if they can get minnows, that's going to be a main forage for them. 28:15.200 --> 28:21.200 And I think it's just one of those things where they could probably wipe out a year class when they're at higher abundance is pretty quick. 28:22.200 --> 28:24.200 Am I doing okay for you, Ethan? 28:24.200 --> 28:25.200 Okay. 28:25.200 --> 28:29.200 So there really aren't going to be any good walleye croppy lakes. 28:29.200 --> 28:34.200 In general, what we see is that they cycle. 28:34.200 --> 28:35.200 There's rehabilitation. 28:35.200 --> 28:42.200 So kentuck lake is a great example up here in Violas County where kentuck lakes, walleye population, has collapsed a number of times. 28:42.200 --> 28:47.200 Whenever it collapses, it usually turns into a world-class croppy fishery for a while. 28:47.200 --> 28:54.200 I don't think it mentioned it in Paul Romski's Walla beautiful creature of the nightbook, but he's talking about the upper red lakes. 28:54.200 --> 29:01.200 When that population collapsed in upper red, the walleye population, that was a world-class destination for croppies. 29:01.200 --> 29:09.200 And so they seem to go that way where if croppy get the upper edge, walleye go down, or if walleye go down for some reason, it releases the croppies. 29:10.200 --> 29:17.200 Even if we're fishing kentuck when I was a kid, that was just a crazy panfish lake and then all of a sudden it shifted again. 29:17.200 --> 29:18.200 Yep. 29:21.200 --> 29:27.200 So we have several examples of that where a walleye population collapses or declines and the croppy fishery just takes off. 29:33.200 --> 29:38.200 So why are large-melt baths different than small-melt baths when it comes to interacting with walleye? 29:38.200 --> 29:39.200 Yeah. 29:42.200 --> 29:49.200 Small-melt habitat preferences are much more specialized than large-melt baths. 29:49.200 --> 29:53.200 And large-melt baths tend to be a bit more of a generalist feeder. 29:53.200 --> 29:56.200 So small-melt baths, you know, they're spawning habitat. 29:56.200 --> 30:00.200 They're going to need to exclusively find some gravel and cobble. 30:00.200 --> 30:05.200 There might be sand over those areas, but they'll fan out a nest to get to that habitat, 30:05.200 --> 30:09.200 whereas some of the large-melt baths work I've done, they can spawn on just about anything. 30:09.200 --> 30:11.200 You'll see them spawn on a mark. 30:11.200 --> 30:13.200 You'll see them spawning on top of that lard right there. 30:13.200 --> 30:17.200 You'll see them spawning on top of a rock, especially when they're at higher densities. 30:17.200 --> 30:19.200 So they kind of make it work. 30:19.200 --> 30:29.200 And I think what the large-melt and croppy, they're very similar species as far as a bit more generalist in their spawning habitats, 30:29.200 --> 30:31.200 how much fish they eat. 30:31.200 --> 30:33.200 Like small-melt, they eat a lot of crayfish if it's available. 30:33.200 --> 30:35.200 They'll also eat fish too. 30:35.200 --> 30:38.200 But they're typically associated with rocks and crayfish. 30:38.200 --> 30:43.200 I think macaron vertebrates where bass are just much more generalist predators, 30:43.200 --> 30:45.200 probably much like a croppy is. 30:53.200 --> 30:54.200 Should I just keep buttoning around? 30:54.200 --> 30:56.200 Or do you need some specific? 30:56.200 --> 30:59.200 I think we're probably good on this, and we'll probably, if we head back... 30:59.200 --> 31:01.200 Get to in Madison. 31:02.200 --> 31:04.200 I don't know. 31:04.200 --> 31:11.200 I mean, if it was 82 here, I'm sure it was, I don't know if you'd be pushing 90, but I bet you it was pretty darn warm. 31:14.200 --> 31:16.200 This feels like what I expected. 31:16.200 --> 31:18.200 It's like a nice day in spring for me. 31:20.200 --> 31:22.200 This would be a nice five-net day outside of the... 31:22.200 --> 31:24.200 It's a little windy. 31:25.200 --> 31:30.200 Because I don't know, yesterday, yesterday was a nice day, but when it gets windy like this, 31:30.200 --> 31:35.200 depending on the net location, sometimes it causes the net to roll, 31:35.200 --> 31:40.200 and that could be a little bit of a pain sometimes. 31:54.200 --> 31:56.200 There's everything waterproof there for you, Ethan. 31:56.200 --> 31:57.200 This is it. 31:57.200 --> 31:58.200 Okay, because... 31:58.200 --> 31:59.200 A little splash is fine. 31:59.200 --> 32:00.200 All right. 32:00.200 --> 32:01.200 I mean, there's not really anything I can do. 32:01.200 --> 32:02.200 It's fine. 32:02.200 --> 32:04.200 No, that's a little bit more than a little. 32:04.200 --> 32:06.200 And that wind's picking up now. 32:06.200 --> 32:07.200 I'll see. 32:07.200 --> 32:08.200 It'll just... 32:08.200 --> 32:11.200 Once we go a little bit further, we'll go a little bit further. 32:11.200 --> 32:12.200 I'll see. 32:12.200 --> 32:13.200 I'll see. 32:13.200 --> 32:14.200 I'll see. 32:14.200 --> 32:15.200 I'll see. 32:15.200 --> 32:16.200 I'll see. 32:16.200 --> 32:17.200 I'll see. 32:17.200 --> 32:18.200 I'll see. 32:18.200 --> 32:19.200 I'll see. 32:19.200 --> 32:20.200 I'll see. 32:20.200 --> 32:21.200 I'll see. 32:21.200 --> 32:22.200 I'll see. 32:22.200 --> 32:23.200 It'll just... 32:23.200 --> 32:27.200 Once we go a little bit more, I mean, I wonder if I could go a little faster, 32:27.200 --> 32:31.200 maybe, and maybe that'll help, just to get us away from this. 32:33.200 --> 32:34.200 There. 32:52.200 --> 32:53.200 There. 32:53.200 --> 32:54.200 There. 32:54.200 --> 32:55.200 There. 32:55.200 --> 32:56.200 There. 32:56.200 --> 32:57.200 There. 32:57.200 --> 32:58.200 There. 32:58.200 --> 32:59.200 There. 32:59.200 --> 33:00.200 There. 33:00.200 --> 33:01.200 There. 33:01.200 --> 33:02.200 There. 33:02.200 --> 33:03.200 There. 33:03.200 --> 33:04.200 There. 33:04.200 --> 33:05.200 There. 33:05.200 --> 33:06.200 There. 33:06.200 --> 33:07.200 There. 33:07.200 --> 33:08.200 There. 33:08.200 --> 33:09.200 There. 33:09.200 --> 33:10.200 There. 33:10.200 --> 33:11.200 There. 33:11.200 --> 33:12.200 There. 33:12.200 --> 33:13.200 There. 33:13.200 --> 33:14.200 There. 33:14.200 --> 33:15.200 There. 33:15.200 --> 33:16.200 There. 33:16.200 --> 33:17.200 There. 33:17.200 --> 33:18.200 There. 33:18.200 --> 33:25.200 There. 33:25.200 --> 33:28.200 There. 33:28.200 --> 33:30.200 There. 33:30.200 --> 33:31.200 There. 33:31.200 --> 33:32.200 There. 33:32.200 --> 33:33.200 There. 33:33.200 --> 33:34.200 There. 33:34.200 --> 33:35.200 There. 33:35.200 --> 33:36.200 There. 33:36.200 --> 33:37.200 There. 33:37.200 --> 33:38.200 There. 33:38.200 --> 33:39.200 There. 33:39.200 --> 33:40.200 There. 33:40.200 --> 33:41.200 There. 33:41.200 --> 33:42.200 There. 33:42.200 --> 33:43.200 There. 33:43.200 --> 33:44.200 There. 33:44.200 --> 33:45.200 There. 33:45.200 --> 33:46.200 There. 33:46.200 --> 33:47.200 There. 33:47.200 --> 33:55.100 Peace. 34:25.100 --> 34:35.420 Yeah, so they're tougher to see, but there's at least a couple rock fires that are out 34:35.420 --> 34:40.900 in this area here, and through our radio telemetry, most of the walleyes live right 34:40.900 --> 34:41.900 in this bay. 34:41.900 --> 34:42.900 Yeah. 34:42.900 --> 34:48.020 There's a weed bed in about nine feet of water, where oftentimes we're out here doing 34:48.020 --> 34:52.900 our telemetry, that's where they'll be, that's during the day too, I'm sure they distribute 34:52.900 --> 34:58.380 themselves around, but like we're on a rock, there's a rock bar right here. 34:58.380 --> 35:04.220 Yeah, we're on top of one. 35:04.220 --> 35:11.220 So I think some of the better trees, Ethan, will get our up here around the corner. 35:11.220 --> 35:17.580 I think what's interesting too, is if you look from a distance here, does it look like 35:17.580 --> 35:21.340 there's anything different about the forest after 240 trees? 35:21.340 --> 35:22.340 No. 35:22.340 --> 35:25.580 I don't know what surprised me when we did this one too, it's like, it doesn't look different 35:25.580 --> 35:26.580 at all. 35:26.580 --> 35:27.580 Yeah. 35:27.580 --> 35:28.580 Yeah. 35:28.580 --> 35:29.580 Yeah. 35:29.580 --> 35:30.580 Yeah. 35:30.580 --> 35:31.580 Yeah. 35:31.580 --> 35:32.580 Yeah. 35:32.580 --> 35:33.580 Yeah. 35:33.580 --> 35:34.580 Yeah. 35:34.580 --> 36:04.020 I'm asking questions about it, or I want all the length, weight and age data from Bass 36:04.020 --> 36:07.440 Thunder. 36:07.440 --> 36:10.360 It looks like hopefully that's why I'm here doing an example. 36:10.360 --> 36:11.520 Thank you. 36:11.520 --> 36:18.260 And what happens is you go through this approach quite smart part of this approach to process 36:18.260 --> 36:28.260 Working on independent research, particularly for like our younger technicians that are just getting it started in the field. They want to embrace that experience. 36:28.260 --> 36:32.260 So there's not a lot of base fishing field. 36:32.260 --> 36:39.260 No, we've dabbled in a little bit like we've got radio transmitters like you saw going to a tiger musky yesterday. 36:39.260 --> 36:45.260 So we're tracking those fish year round on Escanaba. So we want to understand their winter behavior as well. 36:45.260 --> 36:52.260 So that's a little bit of winter work. We have done some of the fish sticks work in the winter time on some lakes as part of projects. 36:52.260 --> 36:57.260 We were going to get into some winter fisheries work by actually putting, setting gill nets underneath the ice. 36:57.260 --> 37:04.260 But that project kind of fizzled out the collaboration with Minnesota Duluth. It wasn't their fault or our fault. 37:04.260 --> 37:08.260 It just, there was some challenges with it and we never really got it off the ground. 37:08.260 --> 37:11.260 How do you collect it from bike nets or winter nets? 37:11.260 --> 37:20.260 You basically drill a hole and you send out this kind of runner that goes along the ice and you've got to intersect another hole to get the other end of it. 37:20.260 --> 37:24.260 And then that gill net hangs and you basically pull it out the hole. 37:24.260 --> 37:29.260 And you can pop in minotraps and things like that too. 37:29.260 --> 37:34.260 So Ethan you wanted to get maybe some GoPro or kind of still footage closer to the older stuff. 37:34.260 --> 37:35.260 Are we going okay? 37:35.260 --> 37:36.260 Perfect. 37:36.260 --> 37:37.260 All right. 38:07.260 --> 38:17.260 The winter is kind of present, what I call general fisheries ecology and management scientists that could handle just about any species. 38:17.260 --> 38:23.260 But we do have some specialization with Matt Mitro with his focus on like statewide trout resources. 38:23.260 --> 38:28.260 And then E.L.B.S.I. is a kind of a quantitative stock assessment scientist. 38:28.260 --> 38:33.260 So he's more trained like almost like a marine fisheries person would be. 38:33.260 --> 38:36.260 And he handles a lot of our Great Lakes questions. 38:36.260 --> 38:41.260 But these are big models, big powerful models, complex models. 38:41.260 --> 38:43.260 And he's got a very special skill. 39:03.260 --> 39:20.260 Thanks for watching.