This is no food.
That's a good food.
There he is.
Come on up.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
He's doing it.
What?
Cupa.
Is it bad?
No.
That's nice.
Cupa.
Cupa.
I gotta get the burp this one.
Cupa.
Cupa.
Cupa.
Cupa.
Cupa.
Is there anyone over there?
Yeah.
Okay.
That's all about going on.
He's like, well Marcus is on TV.
He's on TV.
He's probably.
Is that good music?
Uh, is that right?
We usually do.
Usually we're rocking out here.
I just see him know that right too.
We want this to be accurate.
Well, we like it.
He's been off.
Maybe a little bit.
Yeah.
Like they want to be able to like pick up stuff.
Yeah.
Not copyright issues.
Maybe after I do the first batch.
Cause I still got that.
You're leaving after the first batch, right?
Yeah.
We don't have to capture two batches.
Cause that reminds me of this first.
Okay.
Yeah.
I got to get in here.
I got to take like two-ish hours.
Go ahead Marcus.
Yeah, actually it'll be quicker than that.
Cause you'll be here.
Okay.
So it'd probably be more like maybe like an hour and a half of that.
So we could do two hours.
Cause I don't got to stop filetting.
Cause you'll be there writing everything down.
I don't got to stop filetting.
I just got a filetting and then hand you everything.
That's what I'm doing right now.
Or else I wouldn't.
I wouldn't be able to like do it.
They're doing this right.
So.
Look at that.
I promise this is a familiar.
Well yeah, that's what I usually do when I come in I start doing that.
I didn't even just like it today.
I didn't even write down that when I came in yet.
I usually do all this stuff first and then I write down when I come in.
Cause this stuff usually takes like an hour to file.
But these have been sitting out since last night.
I thought they would have been cleaned up.
And still got cleaned a mile.
This is a commentary for someone.
No.
No.
There's just a lot of stuff that is going on.
Remember Nissen?
Cheers.
I've known Jake since I was a little kid.
He was kind of the one of the reasons why I wanted to start working here.
Jake?
Yeah.
I just remember out like Jake what do you do for work like when I was in like middle school
and stuff and oh I work at Goodfway.
No I really work like that.
My dang that's a cool job.
He's like yeah.
He's like you worked that long enough.
You just stand there out and they just had you to come work for them.
I was like all right.
Awesome.
Come on.
Yeah that was shocking bullets are pretty fun.
You guys are going to be out on the shocking bullets too huh?
Yeah come on.
Oh yeah the spring.
I don't mean fall.
My bet.
I was out there in the spring time.
That's a weird catching like big monster ones.
You guys will be watching them catch like little ones over there.
Those ones are fresh.
These ones aren't so fresh.
I don't know when they caught these ones or how long they've been chilling.
Because usually on the fresh ones will like take the cheeks off too.
Because why now?
Not for testing them.
No.
No three.
Nah you just yeah.
Just a little extra, a little extra snack.
Helps with peace.
Well we gave someone to the Michigan 31st.
Helps with gifts.
Yeah when I was down at ceremonies I see an AC bond down there and he said that they cooked some up for a...
Let's save it.
Yeah and then every time you transport these I don't know why.
Just because they're fish I guess.
But they always got like slime on them.
And you gotta clean them off but also when I'm full in.
I mean it's already gets pretty slimy.
But they get mega slimy if I didn't clean obviously.
Stumb off to here.
Fish should just be sliding all over the place.
The police will be flying off the table.
The heck were they doing with this one?
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Do we try to get 12?
12 fish alike?
Sometimes we don't.
But you can get 12 big fish.
And we try to get the bigger fish.
The bigger's better.
We've got tape her in there.
Karen didn't know these had tape germs on them.
came up with us jockeying on the boat in the springtime.
We caught a pretty nice one with big tape worm crawling out
of it.
She was like, what is that?
I think it's a tape worm.
They have tape worms in them.
Nice to lead up one yesterday with a big huge tumor and it was pretty crazy.
I never seen one like that before.
It was like the size of like a big chicken egg.
It was crazy.
Yeah, this one was inside it, like inside it's a swim bladder, like right up against the
spine.
When I was shocking too, I learned a lot about like what determines like a healthy walleye.
Like when you're like our catching stuff, like if you're catching nothing but monsters,
it's usually like not a good late.
Something's going on where the fryer, the earling are getting killed out, then they're
not making it.
There's no turnover is what they called it.
And same thing if it's like nothing but small fish, like small females and stuff.
There's something where, something's not going right, it can be habitat or predator or something.
No, I was just letting them know, no, no, I was just letting them know, no, you're
doing great.
They're all involved somewhere in other maxillaries or whatever they're called.
But again, yeah, I do all this just minimalized work because it's going to be really slimy
anyways and I try to keep, I got a little squeegee over here, I try to keep it like
a tidy and stuff, but you know, yeah, getting back to that healthy ecosystem though.
The last lake, I remember we did was Duck Lake and that's a border lake and it was
a leg beer dessert late for spirit and we had to like hunt the fish down, it was crazy.
Everywhere we rolled up, it was like pre-mo spawn time.
Everywhere we rolled up where it should have been like, it was really gravelly like pre-mo
spawn beds like where they were spawning before previous years, there's nothing there.
We found maybe like one or two and they're either our captain butch, he was like, we
got to get more fish, he's like, they're gonna, because the more fish we get, the better
numbers they'll get for that lake, like the more fish they can spirit.
And even that, they had like 80-some fish available and they said that they had maybe
five teams go out there to spear and each team only came back with maybe three could
be really let down, like not being able to see nothing, like I want to be, I want to
be able to guarantee my kid like I can get you on some game, you know.
So that's like what it's, yeah butch was really like, there's something going on with
this lake, taken over by more sand and more vegetation, like bass habitat.
So it's like, yeah, it's pre-mo bass fishing but for walleye it's not the best.
And it's, yeah, I think I mixed reviews on that so, get these in order, I look at the
fish, 351, 375, so this one's here, and I just line them up so I know how to go down
so this is how I usually got to line them, okay, and I usually got that there so I can
like wipe my hands off, and then I measure, measure everything, so this would be 14-1.
14-1?
Yep, and then we come over and weigh it up, all right, well yeah another thing,
too, I totally spaced it out, took this now, yeah I caught up in getting all these fish
ready, I gotta get my knives ready, I can't, I can't do this without my knives, whoa,
that's just to get any of the little burrs off and stuff, because that thing sharpens
it really good but sometimes, man, this is 16-3, yeah, and you got that weight, okay,
now we're gonna need too much on the table, when you're writing, because sometimes it
messes with the scale, so usually like I step back and I like wait for it to do what it has to do, 15-2,
yeah, I know, but I'm saying like you don't mess with it, I usually just back up, 15-2,
so you guys been doing this stuff, yeah, like how long you been in this work, oh great man,
7-8, all right, how'd you get into this, you just been like, okay, that's dope, he's from
like Louisiana, when he says this area, he means like this state, yeah, so it's like when he's like oh yeah you're
from this area, it's like you know you know about what's going on and you came up here, it wasn't
not really different, right, yeah, that's cool, so how'd you get into this, how'd you get into
this work, and that's what I was wanting to be in like, like illusion, yeah, that's cool, I mean you guys
are all talking about us, it's like yeah I want to know a little bit about you guys, man, like that's
cool, that's cool, I didn't like school, I don't like school, I'll probably never go back, I'm not
like trying to top down on it or nothing, but I just had a really, I didn't have, I didn't have the
best experience in school, so I was like I won't go back, I was like doing stuff like this, so when
I got this job it was like perfect fit, this is 28.5,
yeah, should you be able to fill it out if I'm here, yeah, I'm going to get a shot of it, perfect,
so I'll be like, so are you from around here, yeah I'm from Bad River, I'm a tribal member, I'm
spending around here my whole life, I grew up in the woods, grew up on the river, been on boats my
whole life, been fishing forever, and that's how I kind of got into, I got this job was get
out full in, out full in from my uncles, there's like, you full in fish right, like you need that
meat, you know, so they hated it, hated it, when I would, I used to cut around the ribs and just have
like big backscrap fillet and big tail fillet, like oh yeah that's good, look at all that meat,
look at all, and then they would fillet it and get all that belly meat and be like look at this,
look at all this meat you left, like yeah they would be really, that's the challenge, okay, right,
this one is 18-4
oops, this one is 19-5, 14-7
all right, in the river
is that the bleach, I can't yeah
great
Just to be extra.
This too I need this to clean myself up.
This is very fragile so you gotta like take your time with it.
Yeah, there's a lot of fish here.
I'll get all the angles.
But yeah, I can see things let me know.
That's a hard one to see.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
This is a baby female.
They start so young.
She had eggs too.
She wasn't agar.
Some people leave the skin on for their analysis.
We take the skin off the tissue.
There's some studies out there that say that the results are a little bit.
Some people cook the fish with the skin off.
Take the skin off and pry it up.
It's a matter of preference.
That's how we do our tissue.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
I'm going to take a little bit of water.
When you're thinking, can you just point them out first with your tweezers
for anything?
You can see exactly what we're pulling.
No problem.
Let me clean this up for you a little bit so it's not so muddy.
It's going to be a little muddy, but just so it's a better shot.
A little cleaner.
Like I said, the odorless are really thin
so you want to put enough pressure into it just to get through it.
Sometimes they pop up here because this is where they usually sit,
but they pop this way. This is the odorless right here.
Here's one.
Here's the other one right here.
Like I said, it just depends how it breaks. Sometimes they'll stay in that little pocket,
but sometimes they'll pop this way.
It's scary when they go this way because the only thing that's holding it there
is a little bit of gel and if you pop that
they slide right into the brain and it's impossible to find.
I left out once and found one and I was pretty impressed with myself.
So when you're Chilean, are you
doing the same technique as you would for harvest even though?
Yeah, pretty much because I'm like, well,
they probably want it as close to
somebody eating it because they want it for consumption.
So I'm like, when I'm going to cut it up,
like I'm cutting it up to harvest.
The way my uncle would want me to fillet it.
Or Jake would fillet it. Jake's a master to fillet.
This is a male.
So you can tell the difference because the male's got these big huge
milk sacks. So you can call it fish milk.
How old were you when you first filleted fish?
I was probably like
at the actually like clean and foolish, or foolish,
I'll sing about fillet and fish, but like a cleaning fish.
I was probably like
I was probably like six, but I was like
just scaling it and like with bull heads, just like skinning them.
But I want to say the first time I actually
filleted it was maybe about like ten
and it was just butchered. It was like just straight. I remember I was with my
uncle Rob and he was trying to show me how to
fillet and I had little ones like this and I was
just butchered and I was just getting like it was just mangled
and he was like hold up, hold up. He started giving me big ones like this and
bigger ones and he's like here this is how you learn how to fillet.
It's how I learned. He said the bigger one's that bigger bone
so it's easier for the knife to slide on. So it's easier to learn like
the way your knife is supposed to work it.
That's how I got good at it.
Yeah, because I used to just cut like all this so
Jake and like my uncle Rob and that's all good stuff
that you're wasting it, you're wasting it.
People, I got cousins down and I'll steal that like this cut too. These are called
the wings because there's good fat. I mean good like
fatty meat in here, you know, just like the belly. So like
they'll cut this off and they'll bread that up and fry it up. I wouldn't do that
but I like the cheeks. We'll take the cheeks out but not
on these ones.
My uncle Sam too, yeah
he's really really die hard, fillet dude. He's really
bought his fillets and if you're meh
don't mess up the fillets, don't, those are your fillets over there
keep them away from mine, mine look beautiful. I got beautiful fillets
but I have a lot of
like my skills and like what I, I guess what I love
about my job to my uncle's.
They taught me how to enjoy nature.
Yeah, they're good enough. That's how I was telling Karen when she hired me. I'm like I don't know.
Some of these fillets might turn out and be like man let's throw that in the fine pan.
I got a couple guys from the NRD that would come in every once in a while.
We'll just put one of those in the freezer.
Like nah man can.
That's what he said. He was like well I thought they only took one side.
I'm like nope they hate.
Ever since the addition of the e-cross program we take both
stuff and finish it out. So it used to just be the record program. We would only take one stuff and tissue
and now we take both. So that's where the cheeks don't come.
How are they back?
If they're frozen cold they're still okay.
Yeah well again it depends on how long
the ones we had earlier this year they were all fresh.
As soon as they were harvested or as soon as we
because some of the samples we got from
shocking. So as soon as we got them it was like we threw them on ice
and we either brought them here or they threw them in the freezer
like so they're you know especially they could be.
Yeah these these on the other hand are from Michigan
you don't know how long they were sitting out like when they're
harvested really like.
That's what I was thinking like
or if I do I'll show you like I'm one of these bigger ones
I'll show you guys like how we take the cheeks out on one of the bigger ones because
it looks better with the bigger ones you get a bigger nice chunk of meat.
Like when we're like netting and stuff you're depending
on where you go like Milak you can get like 300, 400 fish you know
so you're sitting there flailing up torpedoes like this. You think about it
that's a lot of meat in your waist and so it's like yeah I'm flailing them up you know
but sometimes you're you're getting spots where you only get a few
of them. Two or probably two or three weeks of
flange trying to figure out the rhythm of how to do stuff more
more efficiently and
come to find out it's all the odorless all first and then I can just concentrate
on flailing because
Josh isn't down here all the time so it's like
I got to think about like time too because another thing
is for me at least I got to worry about picking up my girls
at the end of the day at three they get done with school at three so I got to be done here by three
technically I could pick them up at three thirty but I don't like
making them wait especially my one year old she always expects me there
at three and she gets upset if I'm not
I didn't know that till the teachers told me.
Yup they it was like a parrot
stay or something or it was like a family day and
she was the I was a little late literally probably like 10 minutes late
and she was the last kid in the room knowing
she was crying waiting for her dad
she was waiting for her day day and I was like
ahh
I didn't I got to do the first fillet and then I can determine
if it's a he or she I don't want to
misidentify
they might be non-binary
I don't know this is a male
now you might want to edit that out
I was like this is the job we're talking it is joking
yeah we do mark them as unknown if we don't know
but we find out which injury
I can usually figure it out
I was showing him how to figure it out to one day he was like how do you know
if it's a male or a female I was like come here I'll show you
even if they're a young female you can see where their
ovaries would be they're just like not full
and the males they always have a little bit of they're more white I guess
so
this one is a little male
yeah
yeah
yeah we're saying that joke though on the ball
because like when you're working up the fish you got
for the data purposes you got to tell if it's a male or a female
and my
shit man he kept going like if they're young and we couldn't tell
non-binary you know it was just
the running joke just like one of the other
running jokes was every time we left like at the end of the day
or at the end of the night I should say from working everybody in the car
Jay you in the car this guy
got left one time at the lake
one night I was trying to signal them
oh yeah and so that's always a good time too hanging out with them
guys the shocking crew that's a good time
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
already got to put it up
all right I know it's good to go
this one
see like in this one the hold of this stuck up in the top
see that right here
yeah I learned you got to like really
take your time with it and just break that first little
when I first was doing it the way Ben showed me he he was just
beast it and because he was showing me on Lakers and them lake fish got like
thicker bones and so it was like you got to kind of be really tough on them
so that's why I was like beasting on them and I was breaking the hold of this up
and cracking them in half and so I learned you got to
be delicate with it
I got a little
I got a little better with my technique just from watching
read the fishmonger on YouTube so
shout out read read the fishmonger man like have you ever
put that in there be like oh yeah he has some he
he can show you how to cut up some fish though
this is the male
usually I do too like but
it seems like for like weighing all purposes it comes out a little
better but that's what I was doing
too at first I have like the big freaking chunk of skin hanging out
with
you can
fillet fish was uh you can fillet it so it's like all the meat just like
falls it's like one it almost looks like a big butterfly
meat
yeah
too it's pretty awesome
oh
yeah man I grew up
from when I hear we're spoiled up here
but yeah I grew up eating walleye in my entire life
I was eating walleye basically anything in the river
like walleye
northern
smallmouth bluegill
crappie and basically anything that swims around
here but yeah I always grew up eating walleye
anything that swims in the net
here's a female
no land prey don't swim in the net they swim through it
no one time though I was filleting in northern
and uh land prey popped out of it
like out of its stomach my uncle Sam was like
take a picture of that send that to glyph lake
I was telling that land prey specialist about it
he's like really oh you should have man oh it would have been awesome
yeah it was just something
one I never seen it before but I was thinking about it
I mean they eat big leeches and stuff so
I just thought it was a big leech
do you see the basses and the trees?
I'm almost almost good enough to read a newspaper
I still think they're very good
I got a helper down here this school is really fast because usually it's just me down here so it's like
I got a stop so that's why I just learned
I get the fillets out full am then that way I can throw the fish down
weigh them up right it down onto the next one
one time I was fully inefficient when I got here to
take the gills out of the way it was calm there's a big leader in its mouth
somebody caught it at one point and it swallowed the hook
it was way down and it's like stomach and stuff so I thought it was cool
it was a huge fish, big monster female
somebody had the fight of their life that day
lost the monitor
it was a good
it was a good
good
good
good
male
male
oh
The
Yeah, and since working from a micro program too, I found all that like the, yeah, my entire
life of my all hits in the belly.
Whatever your question, find out what it looks like.
The fact that you need to make the belly not up is that you need to be able to reach for your spouse too.
And, oh shit.
It's good.
There's some tests you need to help.
There are tests you need to follow.
There are tests you need to help.
There are tests you need to follow.
There are tests you need to follow.
Jake brought up, I remember this was like a while ago.
We're talking about microplastics, right?
And he brought up, what about in the rice?
And I was like, what do you mean?
And he said, it makes perfect sense to me.
All the tarps that everybody uses are plastic tarps.
And it's like when you're gathering the rice, like how much of them and the rice bags that you're using?
Yeah, so it's like how much of them microplastics are actually getting into the rice?
I brought that up to AC bot and he was like, I never thought of that.
He was like, that's actually something to think about.
He was like, I seriously never thought of it like that.
And I was like, yeah, Jake brought it up and I've always thought about it ever since.
Because I mean if we're worrying about microplastics in the fish right now,
wouldn't we want to worry about the rice too?
Look at that, because he's big screens.
The dried rice, huh?
Mm-hmm.
The rice, huh?
Don't put it on, okay?
The dried rice.
It doesn't come out, okay?
When I see people moving back and forth,
the dried rice, the marmed rice, the rice real fast.
That's not crazy.
No.
It's not crazy.
It's not crazy.
I think the rice is good.
It's good.
It's good.
It's good.
It's good.
It's good.
See, you guys want to talk about the microplastics?
Look at it.
Um, after we're down to his five foot.
Yeah, because I'm just jibber jibbering over here.
I'm just trying to kill time, you know.
Great.
This is a female.
Yep.
Yep, see, here's a little spent up over here.
It's all deflated.
She was the first at the bar that night.
Oh.
Well, that's how Butch put it.
Like when he's all like, he's like big about it.
He's like, that's all these little fish are.
He's like, all the little young ones
are our first ones over there at the bar.
He's like, the big females come in right away.
I was like, holy crap.
He's like, later on, that's when the big males come in.
See what I tell you.
Young bucks at the bar, man.
Yeah, that's Butch's take comment.
That's what I was like, man.
He had so much, he had so much like knowledge though, you know.
And it's like, and he's getting,
he's getting ready to retire.
So it's like, I think he said he has this season
and next spring and then he's done.
Yeah, so it's like, man.
But he has so much knowledge and
he just always has a funny way of putting it.
It's mushy and it's hard to fully like,
you'll be like, like, how I was grabbing it and doing that.
It'll like, want to squish up on the bottom
and it's just not good.
It fully comes out all stringy and not presentable.
Yeah, on this fish, I'll show you guys how we do the cheeks.
Just to get that in there.
Yeah, they just put whatever the heck they had on hand.
I need to be a teacher sometimes.
This one.
Yeah, but I enjoy doing this work.
I feel like what I'm doing is for a good cause.
And it's,
it's not just to benefit my people, but like everybody
because our data gets shared with the whole state.
Yeah.
Do you feel like you have to keep pushing the awareness of mercury?
Or do most people, I mean, your family, your extended family.
Well, it seems like, at least in the Indian community,
from my perspective, it seems like people pay attention to that.
People pay attention to that, you know.
Like they don't want, they don't want to be poison in their kids and stuff.
And they don't, they don't want to be,
because a lot of the time,
we're not just keeping this fish for ourselves, like we gift it
or we use it for fees or funerals or whatever.
And yeah, it's an important commodity.
And we pay attention to it because it matters, you know.
And, but from what I, what I've seen,
a lot of non-natives, they don't pay attention to it
because they feel like they don't eat to or whatever.
I don't know what their logic is, but like for instance,
Cisco at Lake, that is like in our, at least in our area,
like the really hot lake around here.
And everybody knows you don't eat nothing out of there.
But I'm pretty sure, like I was here every once in a while,
people talking about eating the walleye and stuff out of there,
and I'm like, yo, you shouldn't even be eating that.
And Bush put it to me.
And it, Bush said this, he's like,
I wouldn't have my worst enemy eat a fish out of that lake.
That's how he put it.
He's like, that lake is so like contaminated with mercury.
Ossafician, by the way, over there, like you got,
you can catch some fish.
But yeah, he said I would not let,
I wouldn't have my worst enemy eat a fish out of that lake.
But some people just, I mean, I understand times are hard, you know.
Yeah, I do what you got to do, but yeah, I feel like you got to,
not just for the Indian community, but again, for everybody.
You got to push the awareness of what you can't eat,
what you can't eat, like, how much you can have.
My answer is still suspicion about someone like the warnings
and like those are maybe more than the services.
Oh yeah, like there's, like you, this is just for instance,
but like just take like the big limits.
It's like those big limits are set by the state for a reason.
And it's, this is a female.
A young female.
But yeah, they set them, it's not just for the,
they're not setting those limits, just for the, like the fish numbers,
you know, they're setting it because it's for consumption too.
Like they don't want people to over, it doesn't matter how small they are
and stuff, it's like they're still in there.
Yeah, you're consuming it.
Like, so yeah, you, it's, yeah.
It's a whole lot that goes into it, but yeah, for sure.
You got to push the awareness, people got to know what's up.
I wouldn't say I never said it, but it was programming
doing the outreach.
But I was kind of surprised, like, going to health fairs
and kind of like...
Because there's...
Yeah, there's lots of people who do...
Take your kids' fishing?
Yeah, I tried to.
I mean, it's always kind of a hassle when you got a two and a one year old,
you know, but I tried to take a fish in.
My daughter, Daphne, she's really good at it.
The first time I took her fishing, she caught, like, 17 jumbo perch.
Like, they're really good walleyes in the river in the fall time.
Because everybody's not like...
Like, all the tribe members are in the woods.
Everybody's hunting.
So I was like, nobody on the river, and they're just catching monsters,
like, so...
My buddy was like, how come nobody's...
How come they never see no tribal members in the fall time
when the walleye are really biting good?
My...
Because everybody's fishing all summer, man, and...
Shit, man, it's hunting season.
In the fall time, everything's game.
If it flies, it dies.
If it's down, it's down.
Everything's game.
Jake's the...
Partridge master.
He's the master gross hunter around here.
I'm gonna get my...
Get my share.
Plus, other people share.
No, he's really good at hunting gross, though.
20-year-old last year.
Is this a dog?
Nope.
20-year-old.
See, you hear him?
Yeah, oh, I got 20 last year.
I'm lucky to get maybe two or three.
Dang it.
A lot of seasonals in the ground.
They just got in the water seal.
Look at them.
They just sit on them.
They just sit there and let them shoot.
Oh, they're coloration.
It's crazy.
Their coloration blend in so good.
I've gotten to, like, meet a UOA
and they didn't move until, like, I took another step and...
Oh, yeah, because I didn't even see them, like...
Yeah, sometimes...
Sometimes they'll...
They'll send out, like, a Judas one,
where they'll sacrifice them.
You'll shoot that one.
Well, there's, like, 20 of them over here in the trees.
You don't even know.
So, usually when you pop when you gotta, like, look around,
you'll see, like, a couple more walking around.
Yeah, fall time is my favorite time of year around here.
It seems like you can do anything you want.
You can...
There's still some berries out there that are good.
Blackberries are still good.
Fishing is primo.
Haunting is bomb.
And, again, you can hunt whatever you want, then.
You got...
You want to go duck hunting?
Go duck hunting.
You want to go hunt some...
You want to go hunt some...
You want to go hunt some partridge?
You want to go turkey hunting?
Go turkey hunting?
You want to go pop a bear?
Go pop a bear?
Kaios?
Go bust kaios?
Like, you can do whatever you want.
I...
I love fall time.
So I was telling Josh when he got up there,
oh, man, you gotta get a gun.
What?
No, I can't get...
I'm like, dude, you gotta get one, dude.
I'm like, you gotta get a gun.
I'm like, you gotta get a gun.
I'm like, go hunting, dude.
Like...
Why do I need to go hunting?
Am I?
To know where your meat came from.
Yeah, I guess you're right.
You know, that's all you need is one.
It gets you a little 410.
Yeah, I just need a super one.
Okay, you can pop some birds.
Say with my 22 Meg.
Yeah, 22 Meg.
Right to the head.
You have to take a piece of birds.
You know, you can put in there.
Marcus said, if it flies, it dies.
And if it's brown, it's down.
The fall time.
What is...
What does that sound like?
It's like a deer.
It's like a deer.
Like, bambi.
If it's bambi.
If it's a dog.
If it's a dog.
Throw a lead.
Throw a lead.
You know, that's something my Uncle Rob told me when I was...
You're a throw a lead.
You know, that's what I was...
It was a...
I went hunting.
He took me hunting and when I shot my first deer,
he was like, Marcus, I'm gonna tell you something that my dad told me.
You see fur in that skull.
Throw a lead.
You just throw a lead, my boy throw a lead.
You sure Uncle?
Yup, you throw a lead.
He was like, don't listen to me because it was the night before
we're hunting down at his brother Dave's cabin.
And I had a deer in the skull.
And don't shoot it.
Don't shoot it.
Don't shoot it.
So I didn't shoot.
Then...
Did you see a deer?
Yeah, I was gonna shoot it, but he told me not to.
Oh, don't listen to me.
Every time I'm hunting and I see fur, I'm throwing lead.
I feel like I failed if I didn't pull the trigger and I've seen something.
Even if I missed, I knew I took the shot, you know?
Because you never know...
Shit, I might have tumbled their song and hit it.
Yeah, oh yeah, it's another one too.
My uncle Rob, yeah.
I went hunting with my brother Scott and we seen Bullwinkle come on.
But all I seen was ass.
God damn it, Scottie.
He's like, I shot lots of big deer in the ass, but they're always on the ground.
He's like, you would have had him on the ground.
He was like, oh man, he was really kicking himself in the ass after that.
Yeah, I'm just gonna show him how to take the cheeks over a quick.
See, then you get one.
I think I zoom in.
Yeah, two.
Wow, that's nice.
Yeah, see, so it's like...
That's a scallop.
It's a bad river scallop right there.
But yeah, that's what we usually do.
You got the cheeks, you'll take the cheeks over, you know?
Yeah, it's a bad river scallop.
Yup, shoot him in the ass.
Oh yeah, that's what my uncle wrote.
If you see a big one, shoot him.
Even if it's in the ass, you'll get him on the ground.
He shot a really big butt, really big nine pointer in velvet one time,
and he shot that one in the ass, so he always told me.
Remember that big nine pointer I shot?
Yeah, shot that one in the ass.
Yup, let's look at him though.
That's it.
That buck is still at the test.
He said he put it, or you said he put it in the freezer here.
He took it up to the test and there missed it.
I think I wanted too much or at least half of that.
You know, I'll take it for you.
What?
I have never done that.
So the test is still at it.
Nice velvet buck.
Yup.
This is the size of the way that people should be for.
Yeah, this is the size you shouldn't be eating.
But again, I grew up my whole life.
We wouldn't put this back, but my uncle would be like,
we put this in our pile.
He'd be like, this is for me and you.
Like this?
It's for the women and children.
It's for the men.
Poison the men.
We don't need to live that much longer.
We're all right.
But no, that's all.
I still think that way.
It's like no.
Women and children get the little ones.
Men can get the big huge ones.
We can poison ourselves.
We're doing our part.
We're getting the fish for them.
Yup.
Did I tell you what this was?
No.
This is a female spent.
There's only one female that had a bunch of eggs in it.
There's a lot of fish in it.
Oh, it's good oats.
A little perch.
It's perfect size.
Bye.
Yeah, there you go.
It's a kind of raffle.
That's how it happens.
In the plankton, all the little critters,
all the little invertebrates here.
This is a little nugget for that one.
You see, it can eat at least five or six.
Yeah, because look at those little gullets fall.
See, that's here.
Oh, look at that.
What kind of lure do you get to control with?
You got a little perch.
That's something.
Show it.
It's always on the river, like crazy.
You want to get another one right here?
You want to come across a school, right?
No, you don't.
You don't want to.
Hey.
Fermin.
It's a catch.
Take it all over the desk.
Use a puree now.
Yeah, and these fish come from a closed system,
which is just an inland lake that's locked off
from the big lake.
If these were from the big lake,
they wouldn't have these perch in them.
They'd have smelt in them.
Because that's how our system, the river is,
is an open system.
So that's what we got.
When we cut up open hours, like at this time,
or in the springtime or early summer,
it's all smelt.
Don't really got a whole lot of perch.
I noticed that when I was fully enough,
all these inland lakes,
that if they had anything in them, it was all little perch.
Because they starve themselves before,
and then after the, like, when they,
it's like, before they spawn, they, like, starve themselves,
right?
And then it's like after, when they come back out,
they're hungry as crap.
Yeah, eating everything up.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, in the springtime.
It's awesome trolling.
Awesome trolling.
Yeah.
It's awesome trolling.
Awesome trolling.
Yeah.
Man, they're, I've never really had musky.
But I've eaten northern my entire life,
so I'm pretty sure it's,
better.
Is it?
Yeah, I'm straight up through all that in my book.
No way.
Yeah.
Right underneath it.
Yeah.
Underneath it.
And it'd be a full perch.
The walleye perch,
musky, and all three of those woody.
And musky at the wide room, like, in northern?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's why they go home to you.
But it's fair.
We're allowed to win.
I know how to cut it wrong, but, you know,
the way I've learned how to do them is like,
like, if this was a, if this was like a northern or a musky,
I would come down the back and hit this big filet,
because they don't have this, like, big dorsal fin.
There's, like, a big chunk of meat here.
So I'd hit that and have, like, that chillin'.
And then I would, yep.
And then I'd just hit the tails.
And then if you really want, you're really hard up,
then you can go down the side.
And then you can get, like, a decent square of meat,
but it's really thin.
So I was just left out for the critters and the eagles.
I'm like, ah, they need something to eat, too.
They can have that.
But, yeah, my uncle Steve showed me how to cut them all away.
You know, leave it there on the musky, though, huh?
Sometimes I get, um, we get them and they've been speared.
So, like, they, if you're a master spear, you go for the head.
They go for headshots.
But, like, the young kids in, like, youngsters are first timers.
They get them in the body.
But when the, the master dudes hit them,
sometimes I don't get autolist.
The autolist, they're all blown out.
Or, like, thankfully, like, all year I've been lucked out.
And, like, I've found one or, like, part of one or something.
But, yeah, usually they, the master javers can, they, yeah,
they just blow it out.
Ain't nothing left there.
Yeah, and, like I said, I've, I've speared two,
but it's, it's a lot of work, spearing, like, for real.
It's, people don't think it's a lot of work, but it is.
Like, when you think about, I'll put it to you this way.
What, what sounds easier to you, going, take in,
take in a couple hours to go down the road, put a net in
that might take, like, what, an hour and a half to set,
then going home and chilling all night, checking in the morning.
Or, would you rather pack up for a couple hours,
get you and your buddy, load up the boat, go gas up the boat,
and your truck, drive maybe four or five hours to a lake,
wait till it gets dark, then go jab all night until you
meet your quota, or you might not meet your quota.
Come in, wait for the Creole Clerks to count all your fish,
because they gotta sit there and count your fish.
Then, you gotta load up your fish, drive all the way back home,
and now you gotta contemplate, do I stay out and fillet all these
fish, or do I put them in the cooler and go to bed?
Yeah, it's like, to me, it doesn't make any sense.
But, I understand that our ancestors fought for the
rights for us to, like, continue doing that.
So, it's important too, but to me, I'd rather go set a net.
I'm a net guy.
You can't set nets on the lake, so, right?
We can do, it depends like the time of year.
So, like, if you went out in the springtime and tried to do
what we call, like, a lake set, so, like, that would be,
just say, say this is, say this is, like, the beach, right?
This is the lake.
Our nets are gonna be sitting out like this.
Like, we got it anchored to a point, and then we got stretched
out, and it stops right here.
Like, if we tried to do that in the springtime,
this is gonna be loaded up with suckers.
None but suckers.
You're gonna have a biomass of, like, 5,000 suckers.
You're gonna have, in every hole, you're gonna have a sucker.
You might get five lake fish out of all them suckers.
So, it's like, you gotta wait till, like, summertime, like, right?
Like, middle of summer?
Yeah, like, that's when you can go do a lake set,
and you'll catch some good Lakers.
You'll catch a nice lake fish, white fish.
But it depends on when you do it, and I guess the wave action,
too, when you're doing it.
Because we used to try to do lake sets when I was younger,
but every time we did, biomass of suckers,
or there's a lot of trees and stuff coming out,
like, from the spring washout and stuff.
So, it's like, every once in a while, you might get, like,
water or something wrapped up in your net,
then you're sitting there all day,
on tingling the net, cutting your net, cutting the rope,
like, pissed off, man.
So, yeah, it's, uh, you can, yeah, there's,
but there's a difference between, like, setting out in the lake
and, like, doing a lake set.
So, I'm, from what I was told, we used to be able to do,
to set out in the lake.
But, like, everybody in their grandma was doing that back in the day,
so we, like, kind of, fished it out.
So, they put a kibosh on that.
And now it's, like, if you want to fish out there,
you got to have a commercial fishing license, or whatever.
My grandpa used to do lake sets, and...
In the lake.
But, yeah, um, they...
Can we do one, or get a spear, or commit?
Yeah, so, yeah.
So...
Can you put a fish?
Yeah, netting those fishes.
Yeah.
But, yeah, and then, uh, another thing, too, is...
Totally.
Okay, you might go out all night, and say your quota for the lake
is, um, 75 fish a person.
You go out there with two or three guys, all right?
So, now you got to get all them fish, or try to get all them fish,
and you might not get them all, or you might be on a poopy lake,
or a duck.
Remember, I was telling you about duck.
It was really bad.
So, you're sitting there, and you think you're going to get all these fish,
and you don't.
At least I know I go set up a net.
I'm guaranteed that at least get 20 or 30 fish in the morning.
Like...
So, yeah, I just feel like setting a net is more safer.
I'm guaranteed fish.
That's what I'm trying to get at.
And again, I can choose if I want to camp on my net, or if I want to go home.
I don't have to sit out there.
Did it?
I was wondering.
This is a male.
But they're both very important.
I guess it just depends on how much work you're willing to put into
getting your harvest.
Me, I'm all about getting the most for the least amount of work.
But, um, flammable.
We did, when I went out there, the crew I was with, we did, um...
What the heck?
There was star.
We did oxbow.
We did squirrel.
We did tenderfoot.
We did amber.
Um...
What other one did we do?
I swear we did another one.
Oh, Annabelle.
The reason I'm thinking of that is because we're taking fish too.
And in Oxbow, there's a tributary between Annabelle and Oxbow.
Annabelle is kind of a hot lake.
It's not as hot as this foot, but it has higher mercury levels.
And, um...
They never did tags in Oxbow.
We were just doing finclips.
And we were touching fish that had tags.
And I'm not sure if Josh did...
He's got a hold of Brandon to see where that tag came from.
But we're pretty sure it came from Annabelle because it's...
And when we did that lake, we actually caught...
I can't remember if there was three or four fish.
And Butch was like...
He was saying that's probably not good either.
Because it means that then fish are trying to leave that lake for a reason.
Like, so it's...
So I was saying Butch has a lot of knowledge on that stuff.
Like he's...
And that was telling us that, man, you're a real asset.
And it's like you're gonna be leaving.
Oh, there it is.
He was like, ah, there'll be other people.
Oh, yeah.
My name is Marcus Krasko.
M-A-R-C-U-S-C-A-R-R-A-S-C-O.
I'm a lab aide.
And...
Is this here to cut up fish?
Yeah, yeah, my title is a lab aide.
Because I'm aiding him in his studies.
I think we also do a lot of other things.
Yeah, but whatever...
Whatever the work was...
The tribe, the river, or is it worth it?
It's worth good for anything that I've done.
Like, that has been worth good for it.
Um, the...
Good for it...
Once you're like in here, they tend to want to use the employees that they got.
So it's like if something comes up like...
Shocking, stuff like that.
So they'll ask internally, like, who's available for how long?
And that's where I got connected with butchering them on that.
So...
Because we had a little bit of a lull where we weren't getting fish.
So it was...
I did the fish that we did for the lakes that we got.
And then it was...
I got to go shocking for a couple weeks.
That was a cool experience and everything.
Like I said, learned a lot doing that.
And...
Yeah.
And you're also an enrolled member of the...
Yeah, I'm an enrolled member.
I've lived here my whole life.
So...
Like, I was trying to say it for doing stuff like this really means a lot to me.
It just makes me feel like I'm making a difference.
I guess everybody kind of wants to feel like they're doing something positive, you know?
But yeah, doing this type of work really makes me feel like I'm doing a different...
Doing something positive.
And...
What's the difference between you when you were younger and you guys would harvest and then share with the community versus the feeling now when you're on this set?
Well, I still do that.
Like, if I'm hunting or fishing and I got...
And I'm getting a lot.
I was always taught, like, you share.
Like, you share with your family.
And...
Like, it's just...
I guess being on this side of it, I'm more aware of, like, the consumption end of it.
Because again, it was just, like, load up on fish, like, have all the fish you need, you know?
Like, have enough fish that you know it's going to last you a year.
But now it's like, I'm learning about how much is...
Like, how much is safe?
Like, a safe amount to consume?
How much is not a safe amount?
Like, I...
Again, I used to think eating fish twice a month was, like, normal.
Or even more, like, maybe, like, four times a month was normal.
But it's really not.
Like, you shouldn't be doing that.
And it's just not good for your body.
It's not good for your family and everything.
And I didn't know until, like, talking with Josh and everything more and reading about mercury and, like, methyl mercury and stuff.
But that doesn't just affect you.
It affects your descendants.
Like, your kids and, like, their kids are going to be affected by the mercury intake from you.
So, it's...
Yeah, so it's a little different.
But again, I feel like it's important to know, it's important to be part of.
So...
It's got to be a better feeling not only helping provide when you're giving knowledge with...
Well, yeah, exactly.
Like, I was telling my wife and, like, my kids, I was like, I...
I used to think we can just sit here and max on the fish because it's like, we got it, you know?
But I always tried to give them the smaller fish, you know?
But now it's like, dang, like, we got a bunch of fish and we can't eat it like we used to.
Like, we got to...
Like, we already...
For this month, we already had fish, you know?
So it's like, now we got to wait.
But again, it's not...
I might have a lot of fish, but it's not just for me.
Some...
Some might come up or somebody might pass away.
There you go. There's some fish for that or...
Somebody...
Somebody has, like, a ghost feast or sell...
Maybe it's not something like that.
Maybe it's somebody's birthday.
And they really wanted a fish fry.
So here you go, man.
Like, do it, have that or...
So...
Yeah, I...
I just...
Yeah, I just...
I was just...
I was taught to share.
I was taught to, like...
Don't...
Don't be greedy.
So...
Where does walleye break?
What's the importance of it being walleyed in here?
Oh, walleye is a walleye.
Like, I don't know.
Like, it's this...
Walleye is just...
It's just the...
It's just very important.
It's been a very important resource to...
Well, not just my family,
but, like, everybody's family, like,
in the Indian community, like, forever.
Like, it's been here.
It's just, like...
Like, sturgeon.
Sturgeon is very important, too.
But...
The walleye is...
It's...
Everybody wants to eat walleye.
Like, nobody...
Like, because sturgeon's like a...
It's like a bottom feeder.
It's not looked at as, like,
Premo.
You know?
So...
But walleye,
everybody wants to eat walleye.
It's top notch A1.
This guy, he never...
He never had a walleye before.
I was like, you kidding me?
I was like, dude, you're...
It'll boil any other fish.
I'm...
I don't care how you prepare it.
It smokes any other fish out of the water.
Like, it could be salt water, fresh water.
Like, don't...
It's just the best fish.
Okay?
And it's just...
It rakes high because it's just so good.
I don't know how to...
It's just a very important commodity.
Like, and it's because of that being...
It's just hard to describe.
It's just...
It's like deer.
Like, deer is just something that's...
It's just been part of our culture forever.
Like, it's like...
You just can't take it away.
Like, it's all...
Yeah, I don't know.
It's hard to describe, but it's just...
If I was to put it, it's just because
taste alone, you know?
Like, just taste-wise.
Like, you can put it up against any fish out there
and it's gonna blow them off the market.
Like, off the mat.
Like, just...
You can...
You can fry it.
You can bake it.
You can saute it.
You can...
You can...
You can poach it.
Like, you can do anything you want with it.
And you can make that taste incredible.
Like, you can...
You can even burn the crap out of it.
And I'm telling you, like...
We went fishing one time.
Don, she's the...
A treaty specialist here.
She made fish tacos and burnt the crap out of the meat
and it was still bomb.
Like, I'm telling you, it's just...
It's just a great fish.
It's a...
Yeah.
Like, I was telling, like...
Tell me before.
People won't worry about smelting stuff in the springtime.
It's like, man, we're all about our walleye.
Like, you...
Yeah.
Growing up, kids were always like,
oh, smelting season's right around the corner.
It's like, smell it.
Yeah, we got...
Yeah, we're all about walleye over here, man.
Like, I'll save some for you.
But, yeah.
It's just something that...
It's just been part of our people.
Creator gave it to us to help sustain us.
So, it's just...
It's very important, again, just like deer or anything else.
Like, it was placed here for us to sustain us.
So, we can make it and to carry on the next generation.
You know?
So, again, I want to be able to guarantee my kids I can catch them something, you know?
Like, so it's...
Yeah, it's all about sustainability, I guess.
It's like why it's so important.
Like, you...
We want to be able to provide the next generation with...
With this, you know?
Like, I never thought about it, but...
My ancestors really fought for...
My ability to come out here and go settin' it.
And then harvest fish.
So, it's...
Yeah, it's just important.
I don't know what else to say, man.
It's just very...
It's just part of who we are.
Just...
It's like anything else you got.
Like, the trees and stuff, too.
It's just part of who we are.
Like, maple trees.
It's part of tappin' trees, you know?
Like, we're makin' our syrup and our sugar and stuff.
It's just part of who we are as a people.
So, that's why...
That's why it's important.
It's just...
A resource that creator put here for us to sustain us.
Like, man, we've been taking advantage of it for thousands of years,
and I would like to see it continue as long as possible.
Doing stuff like this, doing work like this,
really does make me feel like I am providing that, you know?
So...
Great.
Yeah.
Sorry if I was just landblowing on there for a little bit,
but it was just...
Yeah, it was just like...
I put all this stuff here for us.
And it's...
We got to take advantage of it and treat it with respect and
do everything in a good way, the right way.
So...
Yeah.
Be able to grab the mic back from you.
Yeah, here you go.
We talked.
Alright.
So, walk me through the science of what we have here
and what step of the process we're at.
Okay, so we're at nearly the beginning.
We're kind of at the midway point here.
So, typically what we do is we have...
Usually we have the spears collect the fish for us,
and we pay usually $10 fish or so,
and then we try to get at least $12 per lake,
where we're aiming.
And so, that doesn't always happen.
Sometimes we collect the fish through population assessments,
and that's the way we got these,
and these came from Michigan,
from our sister agency, KBSE.
And so, we're assessing...
Right now, we're assessing the mercury content of the fish,
as well as the PFOS content of the fish.
And I say mercury, but it's actually methyl mercury.
There's a big difference there.
A lot of people, whenever you speak on that,
they think of the inorganic metal,
when really we're dealing with the organic metal,
which is a mercury that has been methylated
by typically anaerobic bacteria in, say, a marshland or a bog.
So, the factors that contribute to that are,
you know, your levels of sulfate, your pH contributes,
and as well as the dissolved oxygen.
So, as anaerobic bacteria work on this stuff,
a lake with lower dissolved oxygen,
acidity, higher acidity,
and then potentially higher sulfates,
you'll see an increase in the methyl mercury
in those fish populations.
So, it's important for you to study different lakes,
because even if they're next to each other,
the lakes may be different, right?
Yes, that's exactly right.
And we're also monitoring trends over time.
So, this program has been enacted since,
I want to say, 1996 or so.
And so, it's been going on for nearly 30 years at this point.
And what have you seen over that time?
Actually, we've seen the trends are steady.
They follow what you would expect, you know,
larger fish by accumulation.
They tend to have more methyl mercury content.
Right now, the focus is actually towards PFOS.
We're trying to detect hot spots.
And so, with the fish,
not only are you making a food consumption advisory
to let people know if the fish are safe to eat within that lake,
but also we are at the same time looking at the quality of water.
Because if your water is contaminated,
your fish will be contaminated as well.
So, what are the main concerns with methyl mercury?
Obviously, the consumption is the issue.
So, your main concerns are it is a neurotoxin.
So, with methyl mercury, it is...
So, methyl mercury is a neurotoxin.
It is very toxic to our special populations
to women who may become pregnant,
women who are pregnant, children, infants, newborns,
anything that has a developing brain
is highly susceptible to methyl mercury toxicity.
And are people more aware of these?
I mean, obviously, we've been doing this study a long time,
are people becoming more aware that they should take that seriously?
More aware? We need...
All right, so, more aware.
They are aware, but as far as like the intricate details of it,
I would say, no, we need to do more on that part.
Like I said earlier, a lot of people believe it's like
it would metal mercury, but no.
Here, we're dealing with a organic form of mercury.
In fact, a lot of metals...
If a metal is safe, take 10, for example.
If you stick a methyl group, a couple of methyl groups on 10,
that metal goes from a safe metal to a white toxic metal.
So, organic metals are typically something to always be concerned of.
And mercury is found everywhere, straightening.
Yeah, mercury is a natural occurring compound.
When Marcus was speaking on earlier how there is atmospheric deposition of mercury,
that's just something that happens naturally, from combustion of fossil fuels,
combustion of anything that's going on in the industry,
goes up into the air, and then it slowly will particulate out,
and then there's a...
They have this model.
There's people put this down to a math.
And so, usually where there's a higher concentration of industry,
you can see more mercury deposition.
In the past, whenever the United States was in its industrial age,
like we were making metal manufacturing back here,
that's when the levels were higher.
They're looking at what is that they called out of Duluth,
St. Louis, St. Louis, wherever estuary.
So, they're monitoring that and keeping track of those levels,
because that's a lot of industry in that area.
So, we saw one of the fish where we saw a lot of the other fish popping out of it.
Right.
Just talk about that food prep.
Okay, so the value accumulation?
Yeah.
So, once the mercury is deposited into the soil, the water,
it then becomes part of the natural cycle of things.
It is taken up, you imagine, like a little bacterium.
They just suck that mercury up, methylate it, send it out, you know.
And sometimes it can even become double methylated,
so you have diomethyl mercury.
But typically, the equilibrium tends to fall on the methyl mercury side.
So, once it's deposited, the anaerobic bacteria get a hold of it,
and the peat, and the marsh, and the bog, and the soil.
That slowly gets accumulated up through, let's say, the daphnia.
The little water fleas, little water bugs.
And then they accumulate it, and then you have the little fish come and feed on those,
and then the little fish get fed on slowly, but surely, by the larger walleye,
and then, you know, up the food chain it goes.
And so, you have a bioaccumulation effect, a magnification of methyl mercury
in, say, your larger, older fish.
And that's why there's always the warnings about the size of the fish.
Right.
Exactly.
So, that's where, yes, that's exactly where the warnings come
about regarding the size of the fish and the age.
So, you typically want to stay below 20 inches on your fish size for eating.
The sweet spot, I would say, is around 15 inches to 18 inches.
That's your sweet spot for eating and safety.
So, what do we know about pecums?
It's a developing field at the moment.
It is, we are learning it is a compound that we are detecting in extremely small quantities.
That's why we had the foil there to help with any cross-contamination.
What we know about PFAS is it's another forever chemical, just like PCBs.
PFAS will be around until we're all dead and gone.
It'll be around forever.
And so, we're monitoring, all right, let's start where we know.
So, PFAS, where we expect to find PFAS are run-off areas around landfills, airports, and firefighter training areas.
Those are our three main hotspots.
So, if you live anywhere around there, that...
Not say, per se, a modern landfill because now they're being designed to control for that, but an old landfill.
That doesn't have, per se, the liner.
You would have run-off.
You see from the leachate off of that landfill, and that leachate would lead into the waterways.
And then you would see, from the fish, hopefully, first, testing that area increased amounts of, say, PFAS.
So, PFAS is a catch-all umbrella term for many per-fluoro carbon chains.
So, the main culprits we're looking at are PFAS, PFAS, PFAS, for right now.
There are many others, 15,000 or so, to be exact or more.
So, but do we know if that's equally distributed in every element of the water and the fish?
Uh, no, it's not equally distributed.
Like I said, you have your hotspots, right?
But I guess if there's a run-off area, is all the fish that come through there, or is that what we're still trying to figure out?
Yeah, whether it's in the fillet or if it's constant.
Yeah, so, we do have data on that. That comes from Gavin, our PFAS guy. He's in Madison.
So, he has data that states that the PFAS is concentrated in the head.
And he thinks it's the walleyt cheeks. I disagree. I think it's stuck in the brain.
Because it's, you know, it's a fatty molecule, but it's not.
It's, uh, I believe it, uh, kind of mimics cholesterol.
And, you know, your brain's hot in cholesterol, or it tries to, it gets incorporated there.
But that's where the science, we need to know more.
We need to know more. So, honestly, if I'm, if I want to write a grant, I would write a grant for Marcus to collect brains.
And we would, uh, sample those brains and see if PFAS is actually concentrated.
But first, we have to find the hotspot to find where these PFAS concentrated fish are.
We do have a few lakes that we know that are hits.
And so, once we have those, we can actually focus on those areas and then focus on the fish in that ecosystem to see how that PFAS.
Is actually, if it is accumulating, where is it accumulating?
Is it in tissues, is it in certain organs, that sort of thing?
So, it's possible that taking a fillet sample to look for PFAS, you may not find, even if it is present in that water body.
Right? Is it simultaneously testing the water to determine that that's a hotspot?
Um, because right now you're only testing the water.
We're only testing the fish. The USGS test the water.
Uh, other agencies handle water. Um, but we have within our GIS system, we have it mapped out so that our lakes are chosen that are, like, highly suspected to be, you know, contaminated with PFAS.
Okay. And that's, I mean, is that a bigger threat long term than mercury?
No. I mean, that's comparing apples and oranges.
They both pose their own special threats. I mean, you still have PCBs in the background here. That's the OG forever chemical.
Poly, chlorinated biofuels.
So, in terms of, like, the work that you guys are doing here, is it always going to be, but what's the new thing to worry about when you do it?
Uh, yeah. Kinda. If you want to be a little cynical about it.
Uh, yeah. We got methyl mercury. Now we have PFAS. Soon it'd be microplastics. After that, it'd be six PPD coming out of your tires.
I mean, we're, I mean, we're, this is a, this is a sense of monitoring.
So we're not, we're not going to fix what's happening, but we were able to monitoring to monitor what's happening.
So, say, say, this is Ruth Lake. Ruth Lake right now may be clean, but I come back five years from now.
My fish are showing numbers that weren't there, that weren't there in the previous years that we sampled.
So now we know that there's activity going around that lake that is running off into there.
And we need to alert whoever needs to know so that they can figure out how to control that point source pollution.
So the, the reason for choosing walleye to do the testing is it just, it's, it's, it's an apex predator.
It's apex predator. Everyone wants to eat. Everyone wants to eat. It's, it's a, like he said, it's a high commodity.
It's a fish of the people. Um, I mean, whenever I posted my picture, my selfie picture, like friends from Louisiana,
they're like, that's a walleye. I was like, yeah, how'd you know? But yeah, they know. Everyone knows this walleye.
So, I mean, you got musky too. People love musky, but nothing compares to the walleye out here as far as the fish.
Everyone wants walleye. Yeah, everyone wants it.
So that, but that's why you would test that, right? Something else.
I mean, we also test other fish. We test sturgeon. We test murk, uh, musky. We test white fish out of lake superior.
We test lake trout out of lake superior. Right now we're focused on the inland lakes.
We do the lake superior in the fall. We work on the inland lakes in the spring.
So, like, we're in the summer now. So we're wrapping up the project. All these samples are due Friday.
So, but it's probably hard to imagine that people, whatever, not keep walleye. So you might as well.
Right. So no one's going to stop. No one's going to stop. So the best thing to do is educate.
So if I can, if I can convince people to put the big fish up on the wall or leave it in the water.
So it keeps responding to the lakes and, uh, he's shaking his head.
Uh, you know, but, I mean, you saw that big one.
We got 230 grams, nearly half a pound off of one fillet.
So...
Yeah, it's not catching release. So the thing is we have to catch an edge cake.
So catch edge cake. Um, you can eat a contaminated fish, but you're going to want to eat a small piece of that fillet.
And you're going to want to do a literature search on anything that can attenuate the toxicity of methyl mercury.
And there are studies out there that have, uh, dated to back that up.
Um, I believe that the top dog in methyl mercury studies right now is a guy called Michael Ashener.
Could be even closer retired, but if you go into PubMed, search methyl mercury, his name is almost on every single publication.
Okay.
Yeah.
Alright. Anything else that we should know? What is the next step?
So you guys are just taking the samples here and then you bring it over to a lab, right?
Right. So typically the next step, they would go in the freezer,
but since we're doing a mock trial transport, I have four samples, four lakes that we're going to do like a little mock trial run.
I'm going to get everything prepped settled. You already got those in the freezer. No, they're right there.
So we had the PFOS, PFOS ones that you saw were the ones wrapped in foil to help with any kind of cross contamination.
The mercury ones were the ones that went into the bag without any foil.
We had the, the odorless for aging. Um, we have two sets. This time you typically, there's only one set.
Our sister agency, KBSC, they're training one of their own LTEs to how to age the fish.
So we get the age, we get the weight, we get the length, and we get the tissue weight.
That's going to be a, I believe that's a wet analysis on that tissue.
And so all these things factor in together to help us know the proper mercury constant of the tissue as well.
Um, and so the, the odorless, one set will go here for our aging purposes here.
And that will go into the database. And then the other set will be going to KBIC.
And there they're going to be doing a quality assurance or quality assessment.
So I got this. This is actually a secret. They're going to find out if this airs, but I'm checking their numbers seeing if they're aging right and we're going to compare the ages.
So it's a, it's a lab lab check.
What does KBIC stand for?
I don't know.
Do you want to be in the end community?
Yeah.
Keep an eye on the community.
Great.
Um, can you get you to say and spell your name, give your title while we've got your theater?
Do I do the doctor?
What's your name?
What's your title?
Alright, my name is Dr. or Joshua Sally. Dr. Joshua Sally. Uh, J-O-S-H-U-A-S-A-L-L-E-Y.
I'm originally from Louisiana. I got a job here at Glyph Week beginning in March after what my second lived, my second midlife crisis.
And what's your title here?
My title here is the environmental toxicologist.
Alright, very cool.
Alright, are you recording me?
Alright, so we produce a physical map and on that map we have our, it's like a section around the, say around the band.
Yeah, it's the lakes.
Um, so there's a map printed for each of our member tribes.
Okay.
And then the lakes that are on their map are the lakes that that tribe declares.
Right.
So there's a map with lakes for our member tribes and each look like, alright, let me start.
No, we got it.
No, okay.
So, yeah, and then those lakes on the map, they're color-graded.
And so I think I gave you some.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, red means don't eat, blue means, how about it?
How do they all?
So, is there more that you guys need to do in the lab or is there excess mother's locks?
Oh, wow.
So, here you see this whole cooler, what's inside here and right here, this is, this is my spring's worth of peepaw samples.
So, this is, I want to say, 34 lakes worth.
Um, so since we're about to transport to the LSRL, I'll have, I need to gather up some ice.
So, I'll read.
And grab.
Use these green and white.
And that should be good.
And then, uh, yeah.
I'm going to need that one.
Sure.
I'll get it.
I don't know.
See you guys.
There you go.
Good.