WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:03.000 Like, from an expert on some of the U.S. E&E. 00:03.000 --> 00:06.000 Public broadcasting is very... 00:06.000 --> 00:09.000 It's just, you go like a local prophet. 00:10.000 --> 00:12.000 Because it's just like a... 00:13.000 --> 00:14.000 Part of like... 00:14.000 --> 00:18.000 You gotta guarantee your funding so you can't make people do. 00:20.000 --> 00:21.000 Yeah. 00:21.000 --> 00:25.000 So, that's because they all have feelings coming to the needle if they want to be more. 00:25.000 --> 00:26.000 Uh... 00:26.000 --> 00:28.000 All right, we're just going to show how they do it. 00:28.000 --> 00:29.000 They've been speaking it off. 00:29.000 --> 00:31.000 You know, I think that's where the people are going to be. 00:31.000 --> 00:32.000 They're going to be able to start them off. 00:32.000 --> 00:34.000 They're going to have revenue changes. 00:34.000 --> 00:35.000 They're going to help me to do it. 00:35.000 --> 00:36.000 Yeah. 00:37.000 --> 00:39.000 Those things are like, no one's going to... 00:40.000 --> 00:42.000 No one's going to call in and say, 00:42.000 --> 00:45.000 Oh, I love seeing that needle on there, but... 00:45.000 --> 00:47.000 Someone might say, I didn't like it. 00:48.000 --> 00:49.000 All right. 00:49.000 --> 00:51.000 Flying a little bit of flying here. 00:54.000 --> 00:55.000 You good whenever. 00:56.000 --> 00:59.000 I don't know why you don't have to go for it. 01:27.000 --> 01:28.000 Oh. 01:48.000 --> 01:49.000 All right. 01:49.000 --> 01:51.000 Hopefully it's waterproof too. 01:51.000 --> 01:52.000 Yeah. 01:53.000 --> 01:55.000 We are ready whenever you are. 01:55.000 --> 01:56.000 This gives us a second. 01:56.000 --> 01:57.000 Sounds good. 02:00.000 --> 02:04.000 Right now, the framing, you're going to get a lot of this table in the foreground. 02:04.000 --> 02:05.000 Okay. 02:05.000 --> 02:07.000 So, if we kind of frame it up, 02:07.000 --> 02:10.000 I don't know if we can just compare the crop in if we need to. 02:10.000 --> 02:11.000 Yeah, that's 4K. 02:16.000 --> 02:17.000 Look at that. 02:17.000 --> 02:18.000 All right. 02:19.000 --> 02:21.000 You're good. 02:21.000 --> 02:22.000 Awesome. 02:29.000 --> 02:33.000 So, these are a chip wall strain of walleye. 02:33.000 --> 02:36.000 So, they have just coming from this region. 02:36.000 --> 02:39.000 They have been domesticated for a number of generations. 02:39.000 --> 02:43.000 So, they are technically known as a domesticated strain. 02:44.000 --> 02:49.000 But here, this was a cohort. 02:49.000 --> 02:53.000 This was probably about a two-year-old fish. 02:53.000 --> 02:58.000 So, a little bit slightly slower of growth than what we're used to. 02:58.000 --> 03:01.000 But you always kind of have that tapering. 03:01.000 --> 03:06.000 You have your fastest growing fish and then you have your ones that grow a little bit slower. 03:07.000 --> 03:14.000 So, with the walleye, the main pieces of meat that we use are just the two fillets. 03:14.000 --> 03:18.000 So, the best way to start, just get right behind the gill. 03:18.000 --> 03:22.000 I like to angle it a little bit up towards the head of the fish, 03:22.000 --> 03:26.000 because there is a good amount of meat right in this pocket that's often missed. 03:26.000 --> 03:31.000 So, you get that angle down to the spine. 03:31.000 --> 03:37.000 Then work your way down the spine. 03:43.000 --> 03:47.000 This is flat as possible. 03:47.000 --> 03:55.000 Then, once you make it to the top of this fin, I like to punch all the way through. 03:56.000 --> 04:05.000 Then, keeping your nice flat work in your way down through the edge of the tail. 04:09.000 --> 04:19.000 In general, probably our fastest growing fish are going to reach about this size in 15 months. 04:19.000 --> 04:23.000 We have plenty of these fish left from this cohort. 04:23.000 --> 04:30.000 With just a couple fish tanks, we have to kind of be very strategic about our bio plan. 04:30.000 --> 04:37.000 Make sure we have enough fish to support our plants that make sure they're providing enough nutrients. 04:37.000 --> 04:43.000 So, I know there's some people who cut right through the ribs and take the ribs off after. 04:43.000 --> 04:45.000 Are you more of a carve around the ribs? 04:45.000 --> 04:49.000 I'm more of a carve around the ribs when I don't have an electric knife. 04:49.000 --> 04:53.000 Otherwise, if it was an electric knife, you'd just buzz right through that. 04:53.000 --> 04:57.000 Then, work your way around the ribs. You can do it quite a bit faster. 04:57.000 --> 05:01.000 Especially if you're doing this in a commercial setting. 05:01.000 --> 05:06.000 The way we're getting these fillets done right here would be too slow. 05:06.000 --> 05:08.000 That's a beautiful piece of wood. 05:08.000 --> 05:15.000 We try to, and we do a little bit of a purge toose and no food beforehand. 05:15.000 --> 05:18.000 Once they're dispatched, we put them in a little bit of water. 05:18.000 --> 05:22.000 Then, you're just left with perfect white flaky piece of meat. 05:22.000 --> 05:27.000 Then, the only bones on this fillet are going to be right here on that walleye. 05:27.000 --> 05:29.000 Generally, you just do a little y-cut. 05:29.000 --> 05:32.000 There are pin bone machines that you can take care of that. 05:32.000 --> 05:36.000 But, quite expensive, you need to reach a certain economy of scale to get there. 05:36.000 --> 05:41.000 This would be a great fillet for the frying pan. 05:41.000 --> 05:44.000 You just do the same thing on the other side. 05:44.000 --> 05:50.000 There are these walleye that we have here today are probably just big enough 05:50.000 --> 05:55.000 where there are a couple of hidden pieces of meat that many walleye fishermen will be aware of. 05:55.000 --> 05:59.000 Maybe it'll be news to some of us. 05:59.000 --> 06:03.000 This is the famous walleye cheeks. 06:03.000 --> 06:07.000 The walleye cheeks and also walleye wings. 06:07.000 --> 06:13.000 It's something I picked up an Eagle Lake in Canada. 06:13.000 --> 06:18.000 I had a resort up there. 06:18.000 --> 06:21.000 My family goes to. 06:21.000 --> 06:30.000 Once a week, they did a fry and they would bring out these walleye wings that end up being more of a seafoody 06:30.000 --> 06:33.000 rather than that nice white flaky. 06:33.000 --> 06:36.000 It's a little bit different texture but a really nice piece of meat 06:36.000 --> 06:41.000 that you can get a good bite from on the bigger size of walleye. 06:41.000 --> 06:44.000 How long is this fish? 06:44.000 --> 06:52.000 This is probably about a 16 or 17 inch fish. 06:52.000 --> 07:01.000 It's about a probably 1.5 pound fish. 07:01.000 --> 07:05.000 We'd be hopefully harvesting. 07:05.000 --> 07:14.000 We'd probably get maybe about 8 ounces worth of meat off of this fish. 07:14.000 --> 07:17.000 Those are ready to go. 07:17.000 --> 07:23.000 You're not the first nor the last traditional to do it on a newspaper. 07:23.000 --> 07:26.000 Fish wrap is... 07:26.000 --> 07:34.000 I was going to go with a nice Wisconsin cutting board but I figure it's true to the Wisconsin fish fry 07:34.000 --> 07:37.000 right on a newspaper. 07:37.000 --> 07:45.000 The walleye cheeks, you can pretty much fillet them out right here. 07:45.000 --> 07:48.000 You can feel it, you can see the little squishy piece of muscle. 07:48.000 --> 07:51.000 That is more seafoody as well. 07:51.000 --> 07:54.000 Right here are the walleye wings. 07:54.000 --> 07:56.000 It's that space in between. 07:56.000 --> 07:58.000 It's two bottom fins. 07:58.000 --> 08:03.000 You can see there's a nice layer of meat right there, about a half inch. 08:03.000 --> 08:05.000 You just try to cut around that. 08:05.000 --> 08:14.000 Then you can fry the whole thing up and you kind of slurp the meat off the fins then. 08:14.000 --> 08:25.000 It can be a little bit easier if you have like a wire cutter or something honestly. 08:25.000 --> 08:30.000 This is a job that I have cut myself a couple of times doing so. 08:30.000 --> 08:33.000 The caution is suggested. 08:33.000 --> 08:37.000 So how old were you when you first started filleting your own fish? 08:37.000 --> 08:45.000 Oh, geez, probably 15 or 16. 08:45.000 --> 08:52.000 I have so many memories of my dad doing it and I honestly, almost every time I'm filleting fish, 08:52.000 --> 08:54.000 I feel like my dad standing here. 08:55.000 --> 09:01.000 It's definitely a cool connection piece and a cool kind of like family tie in. 09:01.000 --> 09:05.000 And a good thing to know. 09:05.000 --> 09:09.000 A lot of fish end up being real similar with how you fillet them. 09:09.000 --> 09:14.000 Knowing how to do a walleye, you can do so many other fish. 09:14.000 --> 09:19.000 Then there's a lot of goodness left over in this fish. 09:19.000 --> 09:22.000 Even when you take out all of the meat possible. 09:22.000 --> 09:27.000 You can use this for fish emulsion, turn it into plant nutrients. 09:27.000 --> 09:33.000 You could take these skins that are still on the fillets, turn it into fish leather. 09:33.000 --> 09:37.000 We could take the head, freeze dry it, turn it into a sort of pet treat. 09:37.000 --> 09:42.000 All things we are considering as we kind of scale up on the walleye side of things, 09:42.000 --> 09:44.000 but don't have a use for it just now. 09:44.000 --> 09:51.000 So it'll go into our compost pile and then we'll at least get some nutrients for plants out of it that way. 09:51.000 --> 09:55.000 We'll get the other one. 09:59.000 --> 10:01.000 Right. 10:01.000 --> 10:04.000 The worst is when I have to grab my dad's and like the best. 10:04.000 --> 10:09.000 Yeah, there's not, that's more of a, I am a quarterback's coach. 10:09.000 --> 10:12.000 So that's always kind of a running joke when you get new quarterbacks. 10:12.000 --> 10:15.000 Oh, you've got your left handed football today. 10:15.000 --> 10:20.000 No, it only becomes, it becomes a right or a left handed fillet knife. 10:20.000 --> 10:22.000 After the person's using it enough. 10:22.000 --> 10:26.000 Yeah, definitely, definitely. 10:30.000 --> 10:32.000 So there is actually. 10:36.000 --> 10:42.000 About the best version of a walleye cheek that I'm going to get. 10:42.000 --> 10:47.000 You know, you can, there's a little bit more meat in there, but that's mostly what you get, that little chunk. 10:51.000 --> 10:58.000 This one's just slightly bigger, maybe, maybe quarter pound. 10:58.000 --> 11:10.000 And one of the main things that like made us interested in this, we just went past some pigs on the property, which we give some extra produce to. 11:10.000 --> 11:17.000 But one of the main things of walleye that we're really enticed by is that feed conversion. 11:17.000 --> 11:33.000 So fish in general are as close to a one to one feed conversion where you feed one pound, one pound of feed into this animal and you get close to one pound of food for humans coming out of it. 11:33.000 --> 11:37.000 Whereas a cow is more like nine to one. 11:37.000 --> 11:43.000 A pig is more like five to one chicken, more like four to one. 11:43.000 --> 11:57.000 So that just like taking advantage of your resources that you're putting into these and making sure you're getting food for people out of it was the thing that we really like the idea of. 11:57.000 --> 12:12.000 And these, so this fish, you know, pound and a half over the course of its life at max three pounds, but probably it only ate probably about two pounds of feed throughout its life to get to this size. 12:12.000 --> 12:16.000 All while we're, we know exactly what type of feed it's in. 12:16.000 --> 12:20.000 It's a healthy fish based high protein diet. 12:20.000 --> 12:24.000 So we just know we're going to get really good fillets out of it. 12:24.000 --> 12:38.000 And it's a healthy, healthy fish that has been stressed out a minimal amount throughout its life. 12:38.000 --> 13:00.000 But yeah, you can definitely see it probably half your time or better with a, with an electric filet knife here. 13:00.000 --> 13:03.000 And there again, that's really nice. 13:03.000 --> 13:07.000 Piece of meat. 13:07.000 --> 13:11.000 It's not as interesting to go through these ones whenever I catch a wall and I'm flailing it. 13:11.000 --> 13:15.000 I like to go through the stomach contents, see what, see what it's eating. 13:15.000 --> 13:24.000 You know, if it's crayfish or more like leeches and you can kind of match the hash when you're fishing, this, you're not going to find anything in its stomach. 13:24.000 --> 13:34.000 So a little less interesting, but these will, although these are feed trained and they've been eating feed their whole life, these will go bat. 13:34.000 --> 13:47.000 If they were stocked into a pond or in someone's fish tank or stocked into a lake, these will go back to praying on minnows, leeches, invertebrates. 13:47.000 --> 14:08.000 I like the, the Chippewa strain of walleye. It really has a nice black, black top to the color, a nice cold bottom. 14:08.000 --> 14:20.000 One thing that I don't know if you guys have came across much in your just studies of Wisconsin walleye and everybody involved, but you ever heard of like a blonde walleye? 14:20.000 --> 14:22.000 Yeah, it's really quite color. 14:22.000 --> 14:27.000 Right, but it's like, you know, one in a thousand or something like that when people see it out of dam and make a big deal. 14:27.000 --> 14:35.000 We found that it's been about like one in, one in a thousand of our walleye are that blonde walleye. It looks a little lighter. 14:35.000 --> 14:53.000 No different, but they just look different. They eat the same, they act pretty similar. 14:53.000 --> 15:10.000 Yeah, piece there. 15:10.000 --> 15:16.000 You guys are getting enough bad shots where if this wasn't like a nice puff piece. 15:16.000 --> 15:21.000 Look at how gross fling fish is. 15:24.000 --> 15:28.000 We can tell you, but we're actually for PETA. 15:28.000 --> 15:41.000 Right. I told you a little bit about that the last time that that is, that is a concern of fish farmers. 15:41.000 --> 15:52.000 But you know, there's studies coming out all the time that plants feel pain. Plants cry when they get chopped down so. 15:52.000 --> 16:14.000 Not that I want them to, but I'm just saying everybody's got to eat and we can just provide food in the most ecological way possible. That's kind of what we're about. 16:14.000 --> 16:32.000 The walleye of course are named after their eyes until they hunt. They like to hunt in low light. 16:32.000 --> 16:37.000 We have grown a green bay strain. That's the only other walleye we've seen. 16:37.000 --> 16:43.000 And I believe UW-Stevens Point NADF facility is working on some strain comparisons. 16:43.000 --> 16:51.000 There's definitely some differences of the green bay strain to the Chippewa strain. Green bay strain is lighter. 16:51.000 --> 17:06.000 It seemed to just put on weight slightly differently, but there's been no scientific comparisons of one strain of walleye compared to another being raised in a. 17:07.000 --> 17:16.000 Aquaculture system like this. So we'll be really interested to see what the study finds and if, you know, one is better than the other. 17:16.000 --> 17:25.000 You got to think like how long have livestock cattle or pigs been selectively bred to get to where we are today. 17:25.000 --> 17:35.000 You can imagine we could do a lot, lot of work on the wall and making it more efficient. 17:35.000 --> 17:45.000 So after all that time, we have some nutrients for the compost, four fillets, a couple of walleye wings, and four cheeks. 17:45.000 --> 17:53.000 So when you see that, those are beautiful fillets. That's like when people talk about the best eating fillets. 17:53.000 --> 17:59.000 And that's one of the cats. They love catching the big ones, but when they talk, people know what they're talking about for eating. That's the size they want to eat. 17:59.000 --> 18:08.000 Definitely. Yep. And that's kind of, it works out with our growth rates. It kind of makes the most sense to harvest them. 18:08.000 --> 18:18.000 About that one to two pound range. And then speaking of plates, you know, it fits on a fish fry plate or a walleye sandwich or something. 18:18.000 --> 18:21.000 That size makes a lot of sense kind of through and through. 18:22.000 --> 18:25.000 So what's your favorite way to prepare this? 18:25.000 --> 18:36.000 Oh, we actually, just a, you know, pan fry it. We actually do have our own tartar sauce and fish breading too, which Chef Ray prepares. This is his kitchen. 18:36.000 --> 18:46.000 And so that is actually my favorite way. New is just developed, but yeah, pan frying with our breading and tartar sauce for sure. 18:47.000 --> 18:55.000 The walleye wings are a little different here, but you can put full, you can basically bread this whole thing. 18:55.000 --> 19:07.000 And some people will get the fins, you know, they're not super keen on that, but actually if you deep fry those and just have a bite of them, there's a little breading on them. 19:07.000 --> 19:10.000 It's like a potato chip, basically. 19:10.000 --> 19:15.000 So how would you suggest it? Because I've never seen the wings. 19:15.000 --> 19:23.000 These, yeah, I would just clean them up just a little bit and then you can just throw breading on them and then fry them up the same way deep fry them. 19:23.000 --> 19:32.000 And then it's bit like you can, it's another seafood like it where you just kind of scoop it off the breast plate. 19:33.000 --> 19:37.000 It's oysters. It's like a oyish. Yeah, right. It's kind of like that. 19:37.000 --> 19:47.000 And it is more like a, kind of more similar to shrimp rather than freshwater white fillets. So yeah. 19:47.000 --> 19:58.000 Yep. But yeah, any other questions or anything else you guys want to see with the fillets at all? 19:58.000 --> 20:03.000 So do you take the skin off or do you serve, you freeze them just like this? 20:03.000 --> 20:12.000 Yeah, we will, for customers, we'll take these off and it'll be boneless skinless fillets. Yep. 20:12.000 --> 20:17.000 Yep. I know some places it'll scale first and then lead the skin on. 20:17.000 --> 20:20.000 I think perch especially, they roll up then. 20:21.000 --> 20:24.000 Like that, it's back to you. And perch fry? Gotcha. 20:24.000 --> 20:36.000 This stuff takes quite a bit of time in the processing time so doing it up boneless skinless just makes it a little bit more ready to eat for consumers too. 20:36.000 --> 20:45.000 But it is, you know, with that nice color I like having the skin on there too because it's kind of more representative of what it is. 20:45.000 --> 20:52.000 But we hope to get to a point where all the ones we are harvesting that we're using most of the skins actually. 20:52.000 --> 21:07.000 We've only slightly experimented with turning leather from the fish skins but we're really excited about maybe doing some walleye wallets or walleye belts, things like that just to take advantage of the resource. 21:07.000 --> 21:13.000 So are you going to take the skin off these or what's your plan for these in particular? 21:13.000 --> 21:16.000 I could. I was just going to take these home probably like this. 21:16.000 --> 21:17.000 Okay. 21:17.000 --> 21:20.000 But I could do that if you guys want to see that. 21:20.000 --> 21:21.000 If you could do a couple of... 21:21.000 --> 21:22.000 Sure. 21:22.000 --> 21:24.000 Just to get some video on that. 21:24.000 --> 21:25.000 Sure. 21:25.000 --> 21:27.000 These are going into the fry pan tonight. 21:27.000 --> 21:29.000 Yeah, I think so. 21:44.000 --> 22:07.000 And I have a pregnant fiance at home, no worries about mercury or plastics and these. 22:07.000 --> 22:12.000 There's no monthly limit that you can eat of these all land-based. 22:12.000 --> 22:14.000 You know exactly what's going into them. 22:14.000 --> 22:16.000 Perfectly clean, safe. 22:16.000 --> 22:20.000 So tell me about walleye leather. How does that work? 22:20.000 --> 22:21.000 Yeah. 22:21.000 --> 22:26.000 So you can feel, you know, this is... I couldn't rip this. 22:26.000 --> 22:32.000 You know, so this is a really just nice piece of something you can make something with it. 22:33.000 --> 22:39.000 In the Pacific Northwest tribes for arguably thousands of years have been turning salmon 22:39.000 --> 22:44.000 skins into boots or other things to use strings. 22:44.000 --> 22:49.000 So we just love the idea of making use out of this. 22:49.000 --> 22:54.000 It would have to be scaled before that scaled and then tan. 22:54.000 --> 22:59.000 But me and the partners here, our first entrepreneurial venture was actually trapping. 22:59.000 --> 23:05.000 So mostly like raccoon, muskrat, mink, turning the furs and selling those. 23:05.000 --> 23:12.000 So we do have some actual experience in tanning skins and furs and things like that. 23:12.000 --> 23:16.000 But yeah, still in the early stages of this. 23:16.000 --> 23:22.000 But all of that was part of the 100% use of fish pledge that we joined. 23:22.000 --> 23:27.000 The Great Lakes Coalition is partnering with other fisheries and fish farms in the area 23:27.000 --> 23:33.000 where you're trying to use 100% of the fish, not just the fillets and stuff you can eat, 23:33.000 --> 23:38.000 but the rest of the carcass as well. 23:38.000 --> 23:39.000 Yeah. 23:39.000 --> 23:40.000 Yeah. 23:44.000 --> 23:47.000 Yeah. Any other questions on that stuff? 23:47.000 --> 23:48.000 We're good on that. 23:48.000 --> 23:51.000 I'll probably get a shot of you just packaging that up. 23:51.000 --> 23:52.000 Sure. 23:53.000 --> 23:57.000 I'm going to wash my hands quick. 23:57.000 --> 24:04.000 I was looking for some ice, but a chef didn't have any on hand for us. 24:04.000 --> 24:07.000 I guess not. 24:07.000 --> 24:10.000 No ice in the water either. 24:10.000 --> 24:13.000 But this kitchen worked out so nice. 24:13.000 --> 24:19.000 This is chef's kitchen, but we got it licensed through the county. 24:19.000 --> 24:24.000 So then we can do all of our pastos, dressing, stuff like that in here. 24:35.000 --> 24:37.000 All right. 24:49.000 --> 24:52.000 All right. 25:20.000 --> 25:22.000 All right. 25:34.000 --> 25:37.000 Remember, you're ready. 25:37.000 --> 25:38.000 Good. 25:38.000 --> 25:39.000 Good. 25:50.000 --> 25:59.000 So, that's what I want, maybe a little bit better. 25:59.000 --> 26:00.000 Sure. 26:00.000 --> 26:01.000 What was it? 26:01.000 --> 26:02.000 What was it? 26:02.000 --> 26:03.000 A plate of your hands. 26:03.000 --> 26:04.000 Sure. 26:04.000 --> 26:05.000 What was it? 26:05.000 --> 26:06.000 What was it? 26:06.000 --> 26:07.000 Sure. 26:07.000 --> 26:08.000 What was it? 26:08.000 --> 26:09.000 What was it? 26:09.000 --> 26:10.000 A plate of your hands. 26:10.000 --> 26:11.000 Sure. 26:11.000 --> 26:12.000 So, do you want me to like? 26:12.000 --> 26:13.000 You don't have to. 26:13.000 --> 26:14.000 Okay. 26:14.000 --> 26:15.000 And grab to a mitten spot. 26:15.000 --> 26:16.000 Sure. 26:17.000 --> 26:18.000 Come in. 26:18.000 --> 26:19.000 Yep. 26:19.000 --> 26:20.000 Yep. 26:20.000 --> 26:21.000 Let me ready. 26:32.000 --> 26:33.000 Awesome. 26:33.000 --> 26:34.000 Good shot. 26:34.000 --> 26:35.000 One more time. 26:41.000 --> 26:43.000 We can start right there. 26:43.000 --> 26:44.000 Perfect. 26:44.000 --> 26:45.000 There you go. 26:45.000 --> 26:46.000 There you go. 26:55.000 --> 26:56.000 Perfect. 27:03.000 --> 27:04.000 There you go. 27:04.000 --> 27:05.000 A little bit. 27:05.000 --> 27:06.000 Grab a little bit. 27:06.000 --> 27:07.000 Take care. 27:14.000 --> 27:15.000 There you go. 27:15.000 --> 27:16.000 Yeah. 27:16.000 --> 27:17.000 Yeah. 27:17.000 --> 27:18.000 Yeah. 27:43.000 --> 27:45.000 You