I just want to take a minute and give you an update. Ohio Fish Rescue is ran by a family of individuals. The Price family and Big Rich and Josh are the ones that work on it with Big rich's wife, tracy, and she has been in the hospital this week and is not doing very well and needs your support. They don't know exactly what's going to be going on, but it's not looking great and they need your prayers and your financial support. It since Big Rich is self employed, insurance is an easiest topic. And in the show notes, there'll be a gofundme to certainly help out these wonderful, kind people that have devoted their lives to saving fish. I couldn't stress more that. Take your time. Let them know that you love them on their Facebook page. They need your your prayers and supports. And consider donating a few dollars. So far, we've raised over $3,500. And of course, that's not going to be a drop in the bucket for weeks in the hospital. So certainly consider donating and please pray. Now, let's get back to our regular scheduled programming. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the podcast. I'm here to remind you that valentine's is right around the corner. You can't forget your lady your lady angle. Forget you. You need to get her something to know what she means to you. Don't get her roses. Don't get her chocolate. Instead, go to Joe Shrimp shack.com. Get her the hottest, the sexiest little shrimp you know she wants at checkout. Use promo code Aquarium Guide for 10% off that hot order. Don't leave her hanging. Show her that cherry red shrimp at Joe Shrimpshack.com. Let's kick that podcast. Welcome to the Aquarium Guys podcast with your host, Jim colby and Rob dolson. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. Happy. If you're listening to this, it's probably going to be close to valentine's Day. So happy day of love. I am rob's olsen, and I am alone today in the studio. Gym and Adam are both, frankly, crap heads and they say they need something called vacation. And I'm like, well, what about our loyal fans that love us? So Jim is out on the monsters of Rock cruise. Hopefully he's going to be able to find one fan on that cruise and sign their dairy air. But Adam is out enjoying time with his family. So I'm in the studio alone, and we have a pre recorded podcast that will blow your mind. But I just got a couple of reminders before we kick off. Probably a reminder, actually. Please come see us March 21 at the Aquarium Expo in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We want to hang out with you. We are setting up a booth solely to hang out with you guys in a wonderful setting where you can see fish and have a great time. So come see us. We'll be right at the front of apparently, is what we're told. So we'll have a good time and hopefully get something signed for you. We're not even having a merch booth. We're literally just setting this up to hang out with you. So come hang out with us. And please keep submitting the images to discord. After Jim gets back, I will make him select some of his favorite photos and send you out a mysterious prize that Jim has yet to tell me about. This is what happens when Jim leaves. He just leaves me at the wheel trying to come up with something. He should have had this done before he left. Shame on him. But again, guys, if you like what you hear today, please go to our website, according Toyspodcast.com. At the bottom of the website, you will find a donation link that's a great way to support our podcast. Otherwise, support our sponsors. Joe from Joe Shrimp shack is a great guy and hope you like the show. I'm not just going to leave the introductions for rob's in the past. And here he is. I just want to put a reminder out that this was on location and we did the best we could for audio ability. mahout has never been on a microphone, much less a podcast before, so please forgive any discrepancies in the audio. Thank you. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. Today I am on location in vining, Minnesota with a guest hoop becker. How are you doing today, buddy?

Good, how are you doing?

Wonderful. So we also have Jim here. Adam is still down southern Minnesota, so poo on him.

Yeah, Adam decided to take the day off because he's got family stuff going on. But we are up here in a blizzard, and it is a nasty day. So, rockwells, let's go for a drive. I said, yeah, absolutely.

It wouldn't miss us for the world. So today's topic that we're going to talk about is the bait business. We want to get into it. That's not an aquarium subject, but we can learn a lot if we learn anything from the DNR of them, how they breed walleyes, do, the entire fisheries program, I bet there's going to be something we're going to learn off of the bait business. So, hoot, you are a bait expert. How many years have you been baiting?

I'd say 45 years.

About 45 years. So you're not that old. So you must have started, like, when you were a kid?

Seven?

Yeah, I'd say eight, nine years old. Ten. Yeah.

So I'm assuming I'm pretending, because I know a lot about this, but this is a family business.

It was, yeah. My brother died. My brother died. My dad died. So now it's just me, basically.

So is it second generation or did your grandfather start this as well?

No, my dad did it. No, he started it out. Yeah.

Before we get into too much, we want to look at some background. So what's the inspiration that maybe your dad told you before? He passed of what enticed him to make a bait business.

Well, see, he worked for a guy who did this stuff instead of working for somebody, he'd go on his own.

He's like being in the outdoors.

Oh, God. Yeah.

Like the amazing suntans you get by floating on the boats.

A few years ago we caught a lot of frogs, bait frogs, going to sun all day. Yeah.

I have so many questions, I don't even know where to start. So let's start by again. 45 years doing this since you were a kid, grew up into it and loved it yourself.

Yes.

And I present you're an avid outdoorsman. By seeing your house, you have plenty of mounts on the walls. So you hunt, you fish, you do it all?

Yes.

So what do you capture for bait or what have you captured in your career?

Mainly frogs, mud puppies and leeches is about it, I feel. snakes years ago.

Minnows, I'm assuming.

Minnows too. Yeah, we have a lot of fur years ago. Too late. cools muskrats.

So not just bait business, but you also did quite a bit of trapping oh, God.

For 30 years, yeah, 30 years of trapping. Oh, God. Yeah.

So let's talk the logistics of the business. So let's just pick on leeches to give perspective because most people, they don't give two thoughts of where leeches come from. When they go to cabela's on their way to a fishing, you wake up, how do you collect or farm leeches?

Go around small lakes and get no fish and you throw a few traps in if it shows up and you go back and put a lot of traps in.

So small lakes could it be? We always have the question, what's the difference between a lake and pond? I always think that the lake is capable of not entirely freezing over in the winter. And a pond does that?

No, the main thing long there's no fish in it. There could be leaches in any lake, long as they get no fish.

So if the fish are there, leaches go by.

Yeah, they'll eat them up.

So just go to any essentially, lake.

Pond, any pond, smaller lake.

So how many lakes or water bodies do you say you touch in a year with your business? Because I'm assuming you don't do this alone.

No, not as many as I used to. Maybe now is down to 30, 40 maybe years ago we had like 100.

Of them, 30, 40 lakes.

Not in a day, but in a year.

Right.

I go back and forth to them.

So what point do you start in the spring. And when do you end in the fall for just leeches?

Usually the mid April to mid July.

About mid July. And then it just gets too hot.

The late gets coming. It gets hot, too hot when they lay eggs and they die off too.

I think it's just not the populace that you once had?

No, they're going down too. Every year it's harder and harder to get again.

You start with, say, Lake A, you put traps. What are the traps that you use?

I use various different traps.

So what's your favorite trap?

Boy? Kind of keep that a secret.

A secret? These are the podcasts that we ruin your secrets.

Come on. He's going to have to punch you.

And throw it for that.

All right, let's not talk about your secrets then. All right. We'll work you through the podcast to.

Melt some of these secrets out.

Let's pretend that if Robbie wants to go catch some leeches because for some reason he wants to feed his aquarium fish some leeches, what would Robbie do to build a trap?

What most people use is they take a piece of tin and they flip flapping back and forth. It's called a flat trap. You make like an accordion.

An accordion.

You bend it over and over and over. Okay.

So it's just a flat piece of metal that you bend into an accordion structure.

Yeah. And then you put bait in between the slots. Yeah, in between the slots.

And then what? The leaches hook onto the bait.

So when you pull in there, they crawl in there. It's up to the bait. Yeah. Then you rub them out of the slots.

And what do you use for bait?

Mostly kidneys. Beef. kidneys.

Kidneys.

Yeah.

So to get the beef kidneys, you go to local farmers or butchers and.

Just a long prairie pack. And they sell them there? Yeah. Like a Meatlock yeah, a meat packet plant. Yeah.

And you can buy boxes of frozen oh, yeah.

You come with 30 pound boxes.

Right.

What is that, a pound?

It varies. Fifty cents to thirty cents. Yeah.

That's fantastic. If I know I want to put blood and organs across Jimmy salon, I would go to a locker plant and make thirty cents a pound. That's worth a prank right there.

Oh, that'd be a lot of fun for everybody, wouldn't it?

So I'm gonna take a quick tangent. You know, I know we have a ton to go over.

Yeah.

But quick story now that we're talking about the jamie's front lawn, I did a booboo. So I was out Memorial Day weekend some year, and we swap to our relatives grave sites. We swap out, you know, the fake flowers from the grave site and then put fresh ones out. Right. So I pulled last year's fake flowers and basically just rotting plastic plants and then these wooden crosses with chipped off paint. So we had a bunch of wooden crosses in the back of our trunk and we're like, we got to throw them away. And to NASA leans over my wife and says, we should put these in jimmy's front yard.

There you go.

So we go to his front yard, right? We stake these white crosses all over his yard. Little did we know that Jimmy was going on a trip and his son was going to have to watch his house while he was gone. And how did that go for you, Jimmy?

I got a panic phone call from my son. We were down to Minnesota State Fair and my son calls me up and he goes, who in the heck did you piss off? I go, what do you mean? He goes, There are three white crosses in our front yard. And I'm going, what do you mean there are three white crosses in my front yard? He goes, there three white. And I go, I don't think I know anybody from the ku klux klan that would come over and do that to me.

No.

And he was ready to call the cops until we kind of figured what happened.

Yeah, it was the best prank I did. We didn't think of anything of it. We just thought, we're throwing garbage in his lawn. But then no, I forgot. They're like rickety rippy crosses. So next time when I do put more garbage in your yard, I'll make sure to get thirty cents a pound. Organs.

Yeah. Just please make it look like a.

Slaughterhouse right before Halloween. To be kind of fun for everybody.

Yeah, have a little fun. Make the smell make it ripe.

Oh God, yes.

Right. All right. So you use a flat piece of metal. That's an accordion, right. You put the meat pieces, the organ pieces on it, the leeches grasp on to it, but there's no per se trap or basket it falls into. No leeches that are on the meat.

Yeah. They stick inside, they'll stick in the ten to you. They'll stick to the ten year aluminum. Yeah.

So growing up in Minnesota, I remember there being two different types of leeches that I deal with. You have your normal black leeches that you see in the bait store, and then you see like red belly leeches. What's the difference between those two?

The fish won't bite into red ones get like a poison. They won't eat them.

Just distasteful or they just tasteful.

Yeah.

Something that they won't eat.

No.

I was always told that they're the ones to bite you more readily in the lake.

Actually, the little ones will bite you there's. Little round ones, you can see them on mud turtles and stuff.

Right.

They call it a planter leech. Yeah.

I'm getting kind of creepy crawling thinking about it.

Well, that's the one that'll bite you get in between your toes and yeah.

So you have this metal trap and I'm assuming you put it on a string and on top, what do you use to float them? Just a piece of foam.

Pieces are a foam? Yeah.

So you put all these out. Do you mark the traps? I'm assuming there's a bit of theft you have to worry about.

No. These all private lakes? Pretty much.

So when you say private lakes, like all the property around it is privately owned?

It is, yeah.

So you have agreements with lease all the lakes?

Yeah.

Oh, you lease the lakes?

Yes.

So it's just like a few bucks a year.

Nothing'S free.

Private access.

So what are other baiters do? Because I'm assuming that not everybody is lucky enough to get leases to some of these water bodies.

If a lake runs up to a road, you can go off the road legally. As long as the water runs up to the road.

Yeah, but if there's private property, you're crossing private property.

Then you can't do it.

No, because no one owns in the state of Minnesota.

No one. A body of water no longer road, you can go. Yeah.

So if it's a public body and they can get access from the road, there is potential theft issues.

Yeah, there could be.

You just don't know that they're going to steal your trap and whatnot.

No, I never had no trouble.

Now the leases matter.

Oh, God. Big time.

All right, so after you get the leashes in, I'm assuming you just bucket them, you bring them back and we're actually at your place and you have these shed facilities.

Yeah, virtually.

Walk us through. What are what are these sheds for?

So you got a flowing well. You just put a tank it's a bit of wood tank, like a four by eight tank. You know, the water runs in there and they've got a drain going out. You keep them there. Pretty simple. Yeah.

So we can say four by eight tank. I'm trying to remember because it's been it's been like three years since I've been out here looking at your leach beds. So what you have is, again, everything, like a lot of the fish farmers, it's it's low cost. So you have wells dug down, drinking.

I got a flowing well. I got an artesian well here. So you don't go to pump it. Yeah.

What's an artesian well?

It's free flowing, so you just tap.

It and it's comes out easy enough. So how lucky did you get to get?

Very lucky.

Your dad must have been like, yes, we did it right.

Oh, yeah. It flows 100 gallons a minute. Yeah. It flows.

That's insane.

Yes, we bought the place. It was here, so we got lucky. Yeah.

You bought this place with all the so someone else was baiting?

No, they just had the well. Yeah, the well happened to be here. Yeah.

And so does the well go all year round?

Yeah. Does it? I got a deal. I can tap it off if I want to.

See. Is it flowing right now when it's.

No, I got it turned off just enough so don't freeze. You leave it enough run just so it don't freeze.

Okay, so you always regardless of freezing, I'm assuming you don't want to stop it completely. No, it'll freeze well even in, like, the summer. I don't know how long you can stop type of well from just stop flowing. I don't know how these wells work.

No, you can stop and then open up again. There it is.

It's a faucet.

Yes, it's a faucet. Yeah.

You cheater. Sitting there looking for a place. I'm like, I'm looking for a well. You're not looking for three bedrooms?

No, it just happened to be here. We looked at a place that happened to be artesian well here.

So were you alive when dad and your mom picked out the property?

Yes.

So you got to like, yeah, dad, let's do this one.

We got the old dad. Yes. Oh, awesome. Yes.

All right. So now we got the well situated, so it's all groundwater. And in Minnesota, we have a lot of different water bodies above ground. Below ground. And it comes out about the same temperature at all times.

Right. Like oh, does it? Like, cold is 48 degrees. I think it's real cool cold.

Yeah, real cold. And that's no matter what time of year?

No, same way it's a deep well.

Right.

Once I got around 25ft. Yeah.

So you make again to put these leaches in so you can keep them until they get shipped or wherever they need to go. Are these made out of wood? Two x fours.

That's like three quarters plywood. Yeah. No, four legs on.

And then you just seal the plywood.

Yeah.

And you have so much current and flow that if it hits the floor, you're fine. Because you have very vaulted floor drains.

Yeah, I got a drain. Yeah. drains in the lake down here. Yeah.

So how many flats would you say? Because these are, like, tank plywood. Tank flats. How many tank flats do you have in your main shed?

Eight. Nine, I think.

And there how many feet again?

Like four by eight. Yeah, four by eight.

So when you go in there in the summertime, you'll just see all these flats, buckets upon buckets getting dumped in.

These flat beds for beaches, hopefully lots of them.

And it's continual water flow that you have at that 40.

Yeah. You want a little bit of water in every tank. Yeah.

So the leeches are cold again. They can handle the cold climate, preserve the leeches.

Oh, God. It keeps them alive longer. Yeah. God. Yeah.

So the the whole secret there is just keeping the water running clean.

Water clean and cold and fresh.

And you don't have to run filters.

You don't have to go through any of the batch.

All right. So you have your first batch. You go up the first day of April. You try to find where the leaches are at, how many days from the trap dropped until you bring it up and check it.

Put traps. And you check it the next day.

The next day. So every trap you put out 24 hours, you're checking it. So how many traps do you have out per person. Because again, no, it isn't just you.

No, it's just me, basically now, like two guys, one guy runs a motor, and I check the traps.

So two guys, how many traps do you do out in one time?

The most we have out is like a thousand. Yeah. Depends how many lakes are trapping.

How long of a day do you work for 1000 traps?

Probably six, seven, 8 hours.

Those phones, that's a nine to five right there that you got to look for. where's Mike Row when we need a dirty job?

That's right.

Yeah. But every day is different, though. Some days is more, some days less.

So what constitute a long day for you?

Years ago, we went from dark to dark. A lot. Years ago, we had more lakes to tap.

Just because more lakes are dark.

Yeah, we had more lakes. We had more lakes to go over. Yeah.

Like, how do you feel? Because you're using five gallon buckets to put the leeches, I'm assuming, and then you bring them home. Home. Do you have like, a full truck? And now you got to go unload and unload them.

You got to clean them, wash the dirt out and shit. Yeah.

So how many leeches to fill your truck and you have to drive home?

A good day, you get two £300 and a good day.

All right, next question. It's a chain of questions. You see the theme here, jimmy, questions. You have a five gallon bucket. You're filling just leaches. There's not a lot of water in that bucket. How many pounds is on a five gallon bucket?

We don't know. Water is £40.

£40 per five gallon bucket?

Yeah.

Well, that's why you're so buff. Just ripping shoulders. That's what's happening. So again, how many pounds did you say to fill your truck?

Six by $8. Whatever. Figure it out. You probably get about 2025 buckets, about 25.

Your poor suspension on your truck.

You very seldom get that many, though, in a day.

So once you get those leaches back, I know you have to go back. And after you clean them, you have to sort them for size. Correct.

Lose you all one size. Lose you all kind of one size.

Okay. Because I know, like, a lot of different places that I go to, they'll have the jumbos, the larges, the smalls and stuff, and there's an incredible difference in price.

Most of the time they come pretty much one size.

Okay, so you're looking out like that.

I'm assuming when you get to a lake, they're not going to be mixed sizes because it's going to be, what, the certain month? They'll be this size next month, yeah.

Certain lake. Some lakes are always jumbos, and again, some are always small. Every lake is different.

So just like any other critter, it's based on the size of where they can live, the food that's available.

It's got to be to feed. I'd say is where some lakes always got jumbos.

So let's talk about the leach itself. In a natural state, in a ponder lake that doesn't have fish, mind you, because the fish will eat them.

Yes.

What do they feed on?

I'm not sure. Must be all those small organisms. Shit. I think just anything in the dirt, I'm sure. I don't really know for sure.

Not a lot of research on them in the ponds.

No. You must eat a lot of larvae and stuff, I think. Yeah.

Their scavengers are predatory. I mean, a fish dies will eat that. I mean, they'll eat just about anything.

I think they'll eat bugs underwater, too. I think whatever's underwater, they eat that little stuff you can't see, I think.

The miracle of leeches. Hope they survive on something.

Yes.

Jimmy, you must have a ton of questions. Please don't let me just run the show here.

Well, I tell you what, I'm so intrigued by leeches, because my full time gig is I'm driving truck around the area and I have many places I go to that sell leaches.

Yeah.

And I hear I get leach reports. It's not like a weather report. I get leach reports from different people. I say, how's leech? And going, oh, this week has been great. And now it just crapped out.

Because they'll do that, too.

Yeah, because it's gotten too hot and stuff. But I know the big thing is that they're always looking for the jumbo leaches.

Oh, God, yes, by far.

And I've got several guys up in the northland where they're buying 300, £400. You said beef kidney, right?

Yeah.

And they buy the beef kidney, they chop it up, they put it in their traps, and then they go out and collect the traps every morning. But up north where I'm at, they have a tremendous amount of problems with people stealing their traps, or else they'll come. One guy was telling me a story about he'd come out every morning and he goes, how can I not catch a leach every single day? But yet all my bait is gone. And so then he just set up some trail cameras.

If there are no, they suck the bay. You can tell right away if there are some in there.

Yeah. And this guy, he had set up some trail cameras along trees along the way, and these guys were coming out at 03:00 in the morning, 04:00 in the morning, and they're taking all the leeches and stuff. And you're talking leeches getting wholesale sometimes, what, nine to £12.

Oh, God. Yeah.

And you got wait, did you just.

Say nine to $12 a pound?

Yeah.

So I can get either ribeye or a pound of leeches, right, yeah.

You decide I'm taking the ribeye.

That kind of blew my mind right there.

But yeah, a lot of these guys up north, they'll go out and on a good day, they'll get, you know, £50 of leeches and you know, they're done by 09:00 in the morning. But there again, is it's a tremendous amount of work.

Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah.

It's it's hard on the body. The bugs are terrible, the mosquitoes, the sun, stinging insects out there. And so it's not easy. Everybody goes, oh, it's going to be easy money. It's just like ricing up here, northern Minnesota. A lot of people go, Ricing.

Oh, I know. Yeah.

And ricing is good money when the racecraft is good. But it is a tremendous amount of work.

At least you do it. It all depends on the weather. We got nice sunny weather columns. It's nice, but then sometimes it's rainy and windy.

So you hate mondays more than most people?

Not really, no. Monday don't mean nothing to me.

No rainy days and mondays.

Rainy days or Monday.

We could put that right here. We need a new T shirt from the carpenters.

Oh, there's a song.

There's a song by the carpenters. Rainy day and mondays. All right, get me down. We'll put it right here.

Right here. Hanging around rainy days wonders always gets me down. Yes, that was a fantastic song.

Made me miss the eye. I love Karen.

I just thought you were drying the eye.

No, I'm just looking over your shoulder at the blizzard that I'm watching right now, thinking, I wonder how we're going to get home tonight.

You Negative nellie.

No.

You know how many beers it is to get from here to there?

You don't drink in the car.

Shame.

Oh, that's right. I forgot.

How many drinks you need to get there before we leave?

Yeah, I'm thinking about how many drinks I need to get before I get back in the car with you. Because you drive like a maniac.

Yeah, more than this many.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, so again, 24 hours, you check the trap, then you bring with a five gallon bucket back. You put them in your flats. Who picks them up? Do you have distributors or wholesalers that come around?

Okay, one guy, Irbank baita, molds them to him. Irbank bait over here.

Shout out to you, said irving Bay.

No irbank bait bank. Bait. Bait company, over here.

Irbank is a town in Minnesota, so.

They must no, it's by Spencer Lake over here towards the peak. If we know what a peak is.

That another secret. You don't even know.

This podcast goes out to so many people. We just try to give a city in Minnesota to give you idea, because we got people in Ireland, Australia, the UK. So check it out. irvine in Minnesota, but they come once a week or during the baiting season.

No, it depends on many I get too. Yeah.

So you're like all my slots are full. You better get your butt on here.

No, I got no trouble selling me. He's going to get them big ones.

Got you. So do you ever have to deliver to him or.

He strictly comes I pretty much deliver them to him. He's close by within handy. Oh, God. Yeah.

So do you have to weigh them? Do you weigh them here before you go over there?

Yeah, weigh them here.

And do you re way them over there?

No, you don't?

Because I'm assuming that his scale is probably a lot lighter than your scale.

Honest individual. Oh, God, yes. I get a little over all the time. They all shrink a little bit right away.

Well, I mean, we all have that problem.

Yeah.

It is cold out jimmy's. Nickname shrinkage, isn't it?

Yeah.

Your name is what? nubs.

Nubs?

Yeah.

So mean. I cut my fingers, like, sliced to the bone, like, three weeks ago with a glass ornament for an aquarium, and it's just been nothing but grief from this guy over here. Shame on you. You should feel bad for my disability.

It was kind of funny because he sent me pictures of his buddy fingers and stuff, so I gave him the nickname nubs.

Yeah. There you go.

Don't worry. Next time I'll send you the gory pictures.

No, you don't want those.

I want to see it.

No.

Okay.

So that is the leach life that you're rolling. But to go a little bit deeper into the conversation, at least in the past, because, again, it seemed to be like you're downturning the business or you're making it a little bit easier in yourself. You just told me that for the first time in years, you're using a boat motor.

Yeah.

So imagine, like, a day in the life of hoot, right? You have a pickup. You have a special flatbed boat that.

You put in the back of your John boat. Small john boat.

Right. And you drive out to a lake. You literally pick up the boat by yourself, bring it to the water, and then you or yourself across the lake.

Throw 7810 traps in. Yeah.

So how far do you go across the lake? Just close by.

We don't want to go very far. Maybe 50, 60, 70 yards.

When you trap the leaches, do you stay close to the shoreline?

Sometimes they trap deep, sometimes shallow. Depends on time of the year and everything.

So is it better trapping shallow or deep lid?

Varies.

Like I said, it all depends on the temperature and the weather, where the.

Weeds are at, everything. Everything. Every lake is different.

Okay.

He goes out there, he sees a bunch of people skinny dipping deeper. You know what I mean?

Nobody wants to do that.

Yeah, they're feeding on those people. He needs the good ones that are hungry.

Yeah, that's for sure.

Let's see. So, Minnows, you also done in the past. So bait business versus scientific names is completely different. So if you go to a bait store, you'll see names like Fat Head or crappy minnow, you're not seeing those names if you try to look them up on the Internet, so everything has a different name. Like before, I was like, hey, do you have rainbow shiners? And you're like, I got these. And you bring me what was like.

Red striped no, rainbow minnows or dace.

They call them red striped dates. I was looking for like a rainbow shiner. Completely different breed, but that's what they call them in the bait business. They sell as rainbow shiners.

Yeah.

So what type of minnows have you sold in your bait career?

Mostly suckers.

Yeah, mostly suckers. So as a bait enthusiast, what does a fisherman use a sucker for?

Everything. The bigger ones for northerns walleyes. Everything. Yeah.

So they literally take the live sucker, bait them up, hook them up, chomp them up. I'm assuming they keep them live on purpose.

They literally use them live.

They use them live, put hooks on them, cast them out and see what happens.

Yes. They drag on about them.

So in Minnesota, we have an ice fishing tradition on top of our summer fishing for those that are listening, because we have quite a few people who don't understand what ice fishing is. People literally wait for the lake to freeze over a certain inches. Is that like four inches to walk?

No, two inches. Yeah, you can walk in two inches.

Well, I'm a fat man. Look at me.

I'm going, you might need six. Yeah, you might need ten. I might need six.

No, I think we all want to agree in ten be good for you.

Two, you can walk. Four, you should walk.

Yeah, you can. I know what you mean.

Yeah, right. So what was it?

Eight?

You can get a small vehicle, like an atv. Ten car, twelve truck.

I drove on ten inches already. I know. I drove an eight. Nine inches with a truck.

Right.

And just for people listening, too, you have to realize that because it's eight inches deep over, especially this year, 100 yards over, it might be six inches. And we have people that drop cars through the lake over and over and over. We've seen that how many times already locally, where the cars have gone through.

The ice most of the time. It's not that scary, though, in most situations, because you go to a lake that doesn't have live springs or doesn't have a river flowing into it, and generally it'll be within a reason. So if you see it twelve inches, you'll be safe in those, like, thinner spots, because the thinner spots are only ten. So once you have that twelve inches or more, you can drive.

Oh, yeah.

You can drive your camper, your friends'camper. You can have a car lot on the lake. So if you go to some of these big lakes in Minnesota, they have Lake of the woods. A lot of these vacation areas. They actually have whole cities on the ice.

Oh, God.

They pull out like, how big is your fish house?

Not real big. Eight by 16. It ain't real big and happy, but.

Oh, yeah, not real big. Eight by 16 nowadays. Small cottage, sir?

Well, they're way bigger than that nowadays, of course. Yeah.

So eight x 16. That's a small trailer house. I've been in your fish house years ago. I don't know what you have now.

It's right there. You can see it right there. Oh, see?

Definitely. Trailer house, right?

Yeah.

So you have bunk beds in it?

No, I don't know.

Not anymore.

Not mine. No.

Okay. But you have a full, like, table kitchen area.

Oh, yeah, pretty much.

And it's like a small living space.

It is.

And most people in Minnesota, they have these bigger ones. They do have it where they can stay on the lake for a week.

Oh, God. Yeah.

And use it as, like, a little vacation area. And even on the bigger lakes, they pull out small trailer houses with kitchens in them and have diners on the lake.

Some even got a basement.

Right.

And satellite dishes. It's crazy.

So people do live on the ice in Minnesota. If the ice conditions are correct and they ice fish, they drill a hole in the ice and we fish right out.

Yeah.

And and there's a lot of festivals that we have in the area. I mean, over here in Walker, Minnesota, we have the Eopolit Festival. They'll have 15, 20,000 people out on the ice.

The same ice. Together?

Together, yeah. Yeah. Side by side.

And and they'll throw big tents up. They'll put bands out there. They'll open bars out there. They've had strip clubs out there. And it just gets crazy.

Is that why you have glitter on you?

Never mind.

I thought you're just fabulous.

I am fabulous. But one of our local lakes around here, they're going to have I think it's next weekend. I think they're having a big party out there on the ice.

Big concert.

They've got three or four bands out there, and people just go out there and they're bib overalls, and they probably keep the tent about 50 degrees and your beer never gets warm. And when you're bored, you'd be surprised what you can find to do in the northland.

Right.

So one of the other less snow traditions, because people do know about ice fishing, is spearing. So what they do is they have specialized houses that they bring out to the ice, and they cut square blocks into the ice with a chainsaw. chainsaws cut through ice real easy.

Oh, God, yes.

So you cut a big square block, and what's the foot like? Four by three, sometimes bigger.

Yeah, I'd say three by four, but basically your average size.

So it essentially gives you a window to the ice below you. And what you do is you use either suckers or you make fake fake decoys. decoys?

To hang decoy.

And what they do is you wait for, like, a northern pike.

Yes. It's all you can spare is northern pike.

And you sit there in the dark.

And you look down because again, the lights going through the ice. So you use that hole for your light in your fish house and you just wait for a northern to swim by.

And then you sit there and drink beer and fall asleep and drop your phone in the hole.

But it's so much better than that. You also pretend that you're a member of atlantis and you have this trident in your hands. You feel like a real man. These tridents generally like five prong, six prong tridents, and they have barbed ends. So what you do is you literally take a spear it has a rope on the end.

Yeah.

You spear me and you throw a spear at a fish.

Yeah.

It doesn't make you feel more, you know, inuit than that, trust me.

Little prime meal there.

So you're gonna you're that's what you're going to be using these big suckers.

Big suckers.

On top of is a lot of these spearing outfits as well.

Yes. Daily. They use for musketies in a fall, too. Sucker. Minnows.

Nice.

They're using up to three £4. They wanted three £4 for the big muskets.

So a minnow, that's three or £4. Yes, lordy.

Right. That's what we call a quote unquote air quote minnow.

Yeah, exactly.

So in Minnesota, we have a wide variety of fish, but some of the more common ones are we mentioned before, like the northern pike, but in Minnesota and a lot of Canada. Throughout Canada and Alaska, we have a larger variety that looks like in northern pike called a musculunch. And they are massive fish. Like, I know you've caught some monsters. What's the biggest one you caught?

Hoot. Like 51 inch or I think. Yeah.

Can you imagine that's? A barracuda? Yeah, that's easily you know the size of what you got in your trousers, right, Jimmy?

I doubted. Wow.

We've been here about 45 minutes and I'm already hearing this.

Hey, you got mad at me for the shrinkage coming.

It is cold out.

Yeah, no, they get pretty massive. They don't attack people. Don't get afraid that there's sharks in our water?

No, but if you send a doctor, they have grabbed people's feet already.

That's because they're wearing shiny stuff on their feet.

They see a movement, they think it's a fair shield. Grab go for it.

Right.

And lop off your toe.

Just your toe.

Just your toe.

Well, mainly because they can smell it.

And that's why I don't like to go skinny dipping late at night, because they'll lop off my toe.

Toe air quote.

Yeah, you're a big toe.

My favorite toe, actually.

So back on the baiting. So when you get these suckers in, you keep them in the flats like you do the leeches?

No, see, I have urban bait now that Philip capi traps them out for me. Oh, so you just plant them in the lake and he traps them out for me and give me so much a gallon.

Well, what did you used to do?

We used to trap ourselves and pond them and then sell them in the spring.

So when you say, quote, unquote, pond them, where's your pond? Like, you have pond.

You just pick a pond out? Yeah, we store them sometimes you aerate the late to keep alive till spring. They sell better in the spring and early summer.

How do you aerate a pond?

You put a deal in it. It blows air. It keeps them alive.

So you get, like, a big pond and a stone pump and just throw it out there. You watch it fizz and you go.

It keeps the hole open. Keeps the hole open.

So it must be a pond at least close by to electricity.

Yeah, we got electricity.

We're learning so much. Are these man made ponds or do you have a license to use, like, any natural?

No, we got a license to lake too. We have. For minerals.

Got you.

I know you got questions.

Jimmy hit a lot.

I know that when you're selling minerals, you're not counting minnows. One, two, three.

No, it goes by the gallon.

Goes by the gallon? Goes by the quarter?

No, usually a gallon. Yeah.

Use a gallon.

A gallon or dozens.

Are they different sizes?

No, they're different sizes.

And so you just sell like a sorted variety usually.

Kind of one size per lake? They'll kind of be one size. Okay.

And so then when you say a gallon, it's a gallon of fish with a little bit of water in them, correct?

Yeah.

Okay. It's kind of like how they sell crickets too. When you're buying crickets by the thousand, they don't count 1000 crickets out at the cricket farms and stuff. They take a container when they sell.

Minerals, they got a five gallon peril. They got black lines in them. Everyone's a gallon. You put two gallons of water in, then he fills to the top. Then you got three gallons of minerals.

Okay.

They've done the homework.

They've done the homework. Same thing with the crickets and stuff too. They'll grab 25 crickets and they'll weigh them and then they'll just do the multiplication of 1000 away. This many, and then off they go.

Well, see, back in the 50s, they hired a bunch of asians do that math. Math for them.

You just killed our whole Asian listener population.

I complimented them. They're better than me at math.

Everybody'S better than me at math. You told me the other day you thought you were £140.

Yeah.

Hey, I'm close. All right.

They put the other foot on this.

I lost a lot of weight when I cut fat off my fingers.

That's right.

There you go.

All right, so you do a variety of different minnows, but mainly it's suckers that you've done in the past. What other things have you bait and even trapped in the past.

That's about it.

What?

Mud puppies.

Mud puppies? Not anymore, though.

No, not anymore. But so, for those that don't know, let's talk first about what's a Mud puppy. What's a mud puppy. Because most people don't know.

It's like a big salamander, basically. Yeah.

So for the aquarium hobby, we know a lot of these species is axle models. And axle models are generally from Mexico. They're a lot smaller, and they come an assortment of colors over the years for the aquarium trade. Pink, dark purples. They do come in blacks and browns. A Mud Puppy is a wild, larger variety of an axolotl.

They're called Nectaris is a scientific name.

Yeah, they're huge. They grow 1314 inches.

What big one? William.

They're brown with darker spots, and they have beautiful red, fluffy crests for their gills.

Yes.

So in axolotl, you'll get to see the gills pop out. These look like they have a palm palmer on their neck, like a hawaiian lay. There's so much gills.

Yes.

And they are spread throughout different places in North America, but no one gets to see them because they're a very deep species.

Yes. They just come on the wintertime. They're not active in the summer. They got to have a cold.

They have a real cold, and they're at the bottom of the lake. So you only get to trap them when you used to trap them?

Yeah. Through the ice.

Through the ice. So what did you trap them for?

They're not used for bait research, dissect them and stuff. Colleges.

You use them for colleges. Now, a lot of the salamander species, for those that are listening, colleges use them not only for dissection experiments, but more importantly, they use them because these type of species, like axe levels or salamanders, are extraordinarily susceptible to any chemical composition.

No. It can't take a lot of pollution, though.

So if there's pollution to be studied in an area, they generally purchase from a beta expert, such as hoot, Mud puppies, or species like them to see exactly what they're absorbing, because if they're absorbing it, they know toxins are there.

Yes, 100%.

So, over the years, when did you start did your dad start capturing Mud Puppies? How did this conversation go?

My dad, he worked for a guy who tried mud Puppies. He tried Mud Puppies for a guy who did it. That's how he got started.

The shoe in. He knew about it?

Yes. So then he figured, I'll do it my own way. I worked for him. Him, I'll go on my own and do it.

So here do you know the contacts? He knew the schools and contacts.

The schools? No. Any schools. We sell the one big it's called nasco in Wisconsin.

Got you.

And they distribute from they distribute from there, yeah.

So how do you trap a Mud Puppy?

Just a plain old minute trap. Put some dead minerals, and they come put the dead minimals.

Okay.

So you saw Old Ice put the traps under ice.

Now let's explain a minute trap to the audience, because half of these people have not ever trapped anything alive in nature. So the traditional minnow trap and please correct me where I'm wrong, is a round cylinder, and the ends have cones that are pointed into the cylinder. So the idea is when a minnow swimming along and smells bait that's in a trap, they swim through the cone.

Yeah. Then they can't get back out.

And they can't get back out because the hole so small and there might be a little current in the water.

They're not going to swim back out barefoot. Will, but right.

You're going to lose some, but the.

Majority are still good. I said 90% stay in there.

So as far as these minnow traps you've used, big, Small, what do you use for bait? Is the same type of bait?

No, the dead minnows.

Just throw dead minnows in there. So you catch minnows with minnows?

Yeah.

That's cannibalism hood. How could you?

No, they're not so it is I guess that's nature.

It's a circle of life.

Circle of life.

Circle of life.

Yeah.

So just whatever, basically you have on hand. One of the things can you use for a minute? I know people that in the aquarium hobby. It's really common in Southern states. They have kilifish, they're American type of minnow, and they collect them using minnow traps. So what would you recommend for other solutions? If they don't have dead minnows floating around to bait with?

People use chicken feed, anything like that.

So chicken feed, bread crush, crackers up.

Cream and wheat, anything like that.

Literally any food substance you can put in the water.

Old Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Dog food even works.

There you go.

Anything grind up, anything.

Literal dog food?

Yes.

Just don't pollute your water. Don't put that chunky's Campbell chili in there or whatever. It might go through the trap. You don't know.

You don't know.

You'll get chili sometimes.

Goes right through me.

It's going to go through the trap.

That's right. Yeah.

So the traps that you're using must be much bigger because you're talking some I saw the Mud puppies here three years ago when we were here.

Yeah.

So those traps must be a lot bigger. How big of a hole do you have to pop in the ice to be able to get these in and out?

I got four foot by four foot about. Okay.

So you're actually cutting squares in the ice?

Yeah, like a spearhole. Spear and fish about the same size.

Now, it's so extremely cold here. So do you have to go out there and chip the ice in the morning to get him out?

Yeah, he retains us. That's what he does.

Oh, you do?

Yeah. So then you can put a carbon on top of the hole and put the snow on top. So don't breathe so much, too.

Okay, that's a good way to trap Bigfoot.

There you go.

Right through the hole. Right through the hole. It'll be bigfoot lollipop.

There you go.

There you go.

Because I know we interviewed the Minnesota dnr, and they're holding back. I know we got Bigfoot out here somewhere, and they're just not telling me where he's at. So I think you'll find him.

We'll catch him.

Find him. So you cut a four by four hole, you drop the trap in, and then where do you put the line? You just chip it into the ice above?

No, you hook them out. You got to stick with a hook on. Oh. So you just so you put them in shallow water. Shallow water better. See, they're always in shallow water.

In the winter, they come out. They come shallow, yeah, they're always shallow. So in the summer, they go back down to the deep and barriers, deepest.

Coolest part of the lake.

Hibernate. In summer, they do a weird creature. So I think hoot has been studying homotopies for years to see if he can get some antifreeze out of their.

Blood, working on his little experiments.

It's called Jack daniels, right?

Yeah. There you go.

So you guys have been capturing mud puppies, and over the years, you've caught a few individuals, I saw, that you had, once upon a time, a mud puppy albino mount in your living room.

I think my nephew where he wounded, I think he broke it. All the pieces. Not mum. I think it's gone. I think it's gone.

Oh, I'm going to cry. So to find an albino species in nature is crazy. It's not like an axolotl where you may find a few, especially down the trade. They're literally bred as albinos. Finding a mud puppy, you said in your career, what, four you've ever seen?

I'd say four or five, yeah.

In 45 years.

45 years. That is literally finding the one lump of coal in an ocean and then backing up.

When you talk about albinos earlier, we talked about that. You've actually found albino leeches.

Oh, yeah. A couple of legs got them. Yeah.

And so are they a bright white or are they more of a pink?

More of a pinkish white, yeah, pinkish whites.

You get more money for those?

No.

What the corner of the market? If they're doing $12 a pound, you could do 30 easy.

You might get a pound in your lifetime. So it's not that big a deal.

Well, see, then you could charge even more.

Do you have any of those albiny leaches mounted on the none of those. Okay, so we can't see those?

No, he just stuck them to his skin to see how long it takes before they turn red.

Yeah. They suck all your blood out of you.

Indeed. Well, wait, Jimmy, you must remember, when you were a kid, did they still use those as medical treatments?

Wow.

That wasn't very nice.

They're like, Jimmy, your face, it looks ugly. Here, put some leeches on it.

Yeah. What's really crazy is that they are now using leeches in the medical profession.

Oh, God. Yeah, they call it medicine leech. I red bellied one. Yeah.

Yeah. And so they're actually this is still happening. This is true. Medical hospitals that are doing this to get toxins and poisons out of people's sores and or open wounds.

But you didn't catch what hoot said. He seemed like he knew this, like he's used it on himself. He had, like, a swelling.

No, not yet.

No, I actually saw that on the Discovery Channel not that long ago.

No, they put maggots on a sword and they put maggots on to eat all the dead meat off.

Right.

Yeah.

Take flight maggots and put in there. Yes.

I should have put a not safe for work warning on this. I mean, that sounds like what you.

Had for breakfast, maggots.

Oh, excuse me.

You had cheerios. Wow, you're working on your cholesterol.

I got a feeling that HR is going to have us in for a meeting on Monday after all this.

We're getting a lot more listens, and this company is definitely growing. I did not expect to have HR this soon, but we'll be talking with them in a future podcast.

I'm sure we will.

They're going to need to have a public broadcast apologizing to our listeners.

We should just apologize to everybody in general. And that just covered it.

I'm really, really sorry, especially about that whole Chinese or asians are good at.

Math thing, but they are.

All right, so over the years, you've seen and you told me this before the podcast, so don't let me paraphrase, but you told me that over the years you've been trapping mud puppies, and certain years have certainly seen less and less population. But the last years that you've been trapping mud puppies, the populations have gone down exponentially.

Yes.

You have a theory and you could tell us more about it, about chemicals?

Yeah. I heard that they can't take a lot of pollution.

So when you're trapping these you told me before that anytime that you had a lake that was close by, farmers field or something, that they treated, sure enough, you would see a lot less or no mud puppies at all.

They got to be in fish lakes. They got to be in big fish lakes, deep fish lakes.

So they're certainly getting affected by toxins. And now they're on the endangered species list.

That's what I heard. Yeah.

So when did the dnr say you got to quit doing this?

It was this year? Yeah, this year, yes.

First year we missed out. We could have got a couple more last year. Shame, shame. Enemy is crying.

And you used to harvest thousands of mud puppies and the universities would take them.

Yeah, years ago, we sold up to 40,000 on my area.

That's a lot of zeros 40,000.

Yeah, years ago we did.

And when you sell mud puppies, did you sell them by the count? By the each?

By the piece?

By the piece and stuff. So that must be a lot of fun, counting all those.

I usually count them as you dumb by the trap, you count them.

Did they come pick them up?

Phil cappy hauls minerals out of Wisconsin.

The same bait distributed?

Yeah, he hauls them out there for me.

And how do you haul mud puppies? You got to keep them in cold water. I'm assuming you have to keep them in freshwater.

Longs are cold, cold, cold.

So you can put a lot of mud puppies in and don't really necessarily have to worry so much about oxygen.

No, they're ten times tighter than a minute.

Okay.

So we've kept mud puppies in the past, and we recommend that if you're going to keep a mud puppy, number one, they're going because you're going to keep them in a warmer client. They're used to they only come out in the winter and hibernate in the summer because it's too warm. Take that just a moment in your brain. So when you take these indoors, run a chiller. We have in our episode Eleven Tips, Tricks and hacks. We have how to make a cheap chiller and keep them cold at all times. And you'll have a great mud puppy, but they have a lot of waste, so make sure you have filtration and do a lot of water damage.

Yes, they're very dirty to handle the.

Biol load in the tank. Otherwise they're very rewarding. They're much like a giant axolotl. They behave the same in the tank. And we've had a few through in the past for certain customers that have.

Wanted them, but no longer available.

Not through here. But there may be another state where it's legal. You find them.

I know they're in Wisconsin, I think, too.

Right. So if you do see them, you are able to purchase them, make sure to keep them cold.

Delicious.

Yes. That's the main thing.

Right.

Have you ever eaten a mud puppy?

No.

Have you ever eaten leeches?

No, not on purpose. Right.

No.

On my route up north, ran into there's a place up north called barch Bait. I'm sure you've heard of it.

Yeah, probably.

And anyway, I know these guys pretty well. A couple of summers ago, I was up there, and they invited me to sit down and have coffee with them. I was in there delivering for my full time job. I was in there delivering. And who was there but Mike rowe and Mike Row was with them.

Yeah, I seen this show. Yeah.

And Mike Row has done three shows here in our in our 20 miles square radius right from where we're sitting.

Yeah.

I don't think he's done mud puppies. I'm just saying he's not back on it.

He's not done mud puppies.

He's come. Up here.

He went with bart Spa and yeah, I've seen that. Collected leeches. And at the end, they ate leeches.

I've seen that a little crazy.

I wouldn't do that. They put him in a frying pan. He also microbe from Dirty Jobs has also been up here collecting turkey semen from the turkey farms up here. Quit laughing at me, Rob, just because I said semen.

I just feel like that was like your high school summer job.

Yeah. The third thing that he did up here, he came up here with Mr. Gary Thompson, who is a scuba dive guy who goes out and collects your your truck or your car from the bottom of the lake when it falls through the ice.

Yes.

And it is not cheap. When when your car falls through the ice.

Thousands of dollars.

Tens of thousands.

Yeah.

Because first of all, you have to get it out in a certain amount of time. The dnr start finding you per day.

Oh, God. Yes.

As your gasoline your car sitting at the bottom of the lake. Your gasoline and oil and stuff is getting into the system, so they find you per day. So you got to get out there pretty quick. These guys don't work for free, so you have to hire a scuba diver who goes down there and hooks up. And Gary Thompson has developed a racking system where they actually pull it up off the floor, put this rack on it. So then they pull it up through the ice with a winch.

Yes.

And then the car just kind of comes popping out. And here in Minnesota, most insurance companies now will not insure your car if it goes through the ice.

No, they won't.

So if you and when you go out on the ice out here in Minnesota, every vehicle you see is a $30 to $50,000 pickup truck pulling another 30 or $40,000 ice house. And so you let these guys out there, got 75 $80,000 worth of equipment, and it goes through the ice, and now it just cost you $10,000 to probably get it out of the ice. And the insurance company is not going to pay for it.

And the truck is basically ruined, too.

Yeah, everything's ruined. So anyway, Mike Grove from Dirty Jobs, really nice guy, but I got to visit with him and have coffee with him a little bit, and I asked him how the leechon was, and he goes, I've never seen mosquitoes so damn big in all my life.

I believe that.

And if you watch Dirty Jobs, I'm trying to think the guy's name, his cameraman, he's a Barski that he talks about. He's from the tristate area here. And so that's why they come up here so often, because they have family, and they come up here and they drink beer and raise heck.

Oh, there you go.

So that was off on a tangent.

That was a good tangent.

Good tangent. I just want to give you some information.

But we need Micro on the show someday along with our other people. Like yeah.

He's got nothing else going on other than voiceovers for everything you see on Discovery.

He's a public speaker.

He advocates for the working man. He does a lot of stuff politically, trying to incentivize people, just going out and getting a job. He works for labor big time. He Ted talks all kinds of goodies.

Yeah.

And then he does he's found his niche.

Oh.

And then he does a tremendous amount of voiceovers for everything. And discovery. What's the appealial?

Crab.

When they're out crabbing out on the wait, I'm confused.

Is that new tattoo on your dairy air Micro, and you just been hiding it the whole time?

No.

Who is it?

It says Robbie sucks. This is Robbie sucks. My tattoo says Robbie sucks.

I should have seen that misdirection coming.

Yeah, exactly.

So, back to the bait game, right?

Shout out to Mike Row.

Call us, you're man crushing stop it.

He's a nice guy. He's not a bad looking guy. I wouldn't know that if I wasn't married. No, never mind.

Yeah.

Oh, my I don't know where to go from this. So back to the bait. Right. Let's talk about how this information helps the aquarius, because we're an aquarium guys, podcast talking about the bait business. So I hear a ton of people trying to purchase bait from bait stores to either have as a pet or worse, feed their critters. So if you get minnows, what are some of the parasites that you see in capturing minnows? What some of the issues you see out and about?

Boy, not a whole lot.

What are those black spots you see all over fish?

Boy, I don't exactly I never really checked into it that much. Yeah, I think it's a parasite type deal. Yeah.

Parasite worms.

If you go to a bait store, the one thing you can do is check your fish, because some of the parasites you won't be able to see in any fish.

Oh, I know that. Yeah.

Little white fish when you cut them and fillet them. But batemanows especially, are really susceptible. There's these black spots you see in any native lake that shows that they're peppered with parasites that you're transferring to your tropical fish.

Yes. Some people say cornrans, they poop into lake, and then that's where they get them from, too, I heard. Right.

Cornrans being the large bird.

Yes.

Not people from Cormrant Lake down the road.

No.

Well, they spread parasites. They're kept, certainly in cold water, but they're not fed. They may have diseases and that their tropical fish don't have. So I don't recommend trying to capture minnows to feed your oscars or anything else. Instead, the benefits of this is leeches. Leeches are a fantastic way to feed some of your carnivores and especially your predators.

Oh, God. Yeah.

Leeches don't carry near as many diseases, especially when they're harvested early and smaller sizes. They're kept in a lot of cold water, and when they're in bait shops, they're kept in refrigerators. So they last quite a long time. So if you want to go ahead and catch your own leaches, here's the methods that I recommend. Again, every time you do anything live it's at your own risk. There may be diseases, but there's less risk with leeches. So if you want to make yourself an accordion trap, trap yourself some leeches in some local area. Check your traps every 24 hours and make sure you're not leaving live leeches in your tank. Cut them in pieces and feed your fish. A live leech stuck to your fish in their gill will kill you.

Definitely kill them.

Yeah, certainly. Give that a go. Now, do you have any trade secrets? You told me about this this trap. You got to give up, man. See, the deal is bait experts aren't listening to our podcast, right? Only aquarium people.

No, I won't get that out.

No, not your so is there any other trade secrets you're willing to share with the crowd?

Not really, no. Come on, man.

I brought a case of beer.

It's going to take a lot more than that.

I told you we should have brought some hookers. I just told you that.

I thought you meant tackle.

Yeah.

Specify next time, Jimmy.

There we go. Next time.

Specify.

Also, if you're grabbing minerals and you're putting them in your tank, your tank is going to probably be 25 to 30 degrees warmer than the minerals where they're kept. So anything that those minerals have for parasites are going to just multiply so much faster in the warmer water.

I mean, even if you acclimate, for sure you're talking you said 48 degrees, and this is decently common that people have wells when they bring in the bait business. So you said 48 degrees.

Yes, I think that's what it is yet.

And everybody's just using cold water in the bait stores. So even if you acclimate, you're talking from complete hibernation status all the way till 80 degrees in your aquarium. Even if you acclimate, you're going to have to take days to acclimate to get that to work. Don't use minnows number one. And if you're going to try, try with try with leeches. So is there any other types of traps, since you can't tell us your secret recipe? You have an accordion trap. Is there any other traps you can share?

No. You can also take a coffee can.

So what would you do with a coffee can? folgers big.

Yeah, it's coffee can.

Maxwell House coffee can.

So you just put some grass you put some bait in your back, but put a half a kidney in the can. You put some grass in it and then crush the can. Crush it.

Oh, so flatten the top.

Yeah, flatten the top boat.

So you have just a little slit. They go in.

Yeah. Then they'll go in there, put some grass in there. They stay in the sticking of grass and shit. Yeah.

So the idea that you're trying to do with the coffee can is when you collapse it, you're trying to keep predators, big predators, from not getting the.

We want to keep it darker. So you'll stay in there too. It's darker.

So the leeches love the dark. They love the tightness of closeness.

And then just make sure to have a piece of foam or something that floats to market.

Or you can also take, like, a pie tin, fold it in half, put a couple of clothes pins. that'll work, too.

I want pie all of a sudden.

See, that work. No, we're on pie tin. You fold it together and put a couple of clothes pins. Put your bait in there, and they crawl through their crack and they're in there.

So what's some of the worst designs that you don't recommend people do that they've done commonly.

That's the only way to trap them. Really? I just said you pretty much some people use a bag, a plastic bag. They'll cut slits in a bag, just.

Like a ziplock bag, like a little garbage bag.

They'll cut holes, they'll call tudor holes into the bag when you put bait into a bag. Yeah.

I do not recommend that.

No, you'll get some, but it's a hard way to do it.

You're asking for, like, plastic pieces breaking off.

Yes. It's not a very good way to do it. No.

So other floats that you see, you can go to your local bait store and they have these colored floats that you can purchase if you want to get real fancy with it tomorrow. Essentially, they look like a small, like, five pound barbell used for exercise. And they have string on them and they're weighted so that you can just drop them and then they'll unravel and mark where your bait is at.

Oh, it sounds like we're fishing. Yeah.

Right. So you can certainly purchase those. Those are a few bucks a piece at your local bait store. That's a nice way to try to trap them. So what do you recommend besides, again, I caught my own leeches. How do I take care of my leaches best when I catch them? Just for a home user?

Because I don't have just keep them clean and cold. Change water every day. Keep them cold and clean.

So just put them in a container, put them in the fridge.

Yes.

You don't have to feed them?

No, you can. But they get dirty. Then you got to change water more often yet. No, keep them clean and cold is the main thing.

Clean and cold. And now you trapped from April until July. Can they be trapped after, or is there still some after the fact?

No, you get a bare couple, but very few that don't pay to go after them, though.

So catch them during that time. Unless you're in the autumn Minnesota climate, that is.

Further north, they'll trap a little later up north towards Canada.

The colder it is, the better off you are down south, like Louisiana, you're probably going to get them, like, right around now.

There are no leeches, I don't think, down there real leeches. I'm not for sure. That's what I heard. I don't know.

We need to confirm that.

No, you should check into that.

Yeah, you should call our friends up in Canada.

Well, for those that are in Louisiana, if you're a baiter, let us know. And I was about to say masturbator, but.

Look, HR will see you at 08:00 a.m. On Monday.

If you're a professional baiter in Louisiana or down south, let us know. The season is for you, or if you even have a decent population of them. Maybe they're just a cold climate creature. Who knows?

Yes, I think that's how it works.

All right, so at the end of every interview, we try to get some fun stories. So what's some crazy things that has happened to you during this nine to five that you've been doing for 45 years of dating.

I tipped over one time. Yeah.

Only once in 45 years, you flip a boat?

Yes.

What happened?

Can you swim? I can't. Wait. What?

So you spend your day on the water and you can't swim?

No, I got something to the bottom is about as far as I'll get.

And I'm guessing you probably don't have a life preserver on because you're trying to work on the boat.

No, I don't. I got one in the boat.

Yeah, because Minnesota minnesota law says we.

Have to have I got one all the time.

A life vest on the boat. But you don't have to wear it.

But it has to be with breach. No, I reached for a barber too far. It went too far over and I bought and ran top of me and went out to dig up under the boat and was up to my neck.

Oh, so you're able to stand up?

Yes, barely.

So you flipped the boat once and you're like, never ever again. I don't want to go through swimming lessons.

No.

And so when you finally got yourself to shore and you took off your clothes, do you have any leeches hanging off your body?

No, I didn't actually delete you. They never did spill.

So he saved I saved the leeches.

I saved.

It's like saving a beer when you.

Fall out of the boat, right?

Save your beer and you're good.

He's that guy at a party where he'll do a somersault and yet not a drop.

Don't spill a beer.

Yes.

He had tipped over to Pale. Leaches must have hit the water just right. They were sitting on the bottom of the lake. We were all in the pale yet.

That's some skills.

Yeah, that's about all that ever happened.

Nothing else is exciting happens as bigfoot watches him through the trees absolutely.

All day long.

So do you have any tips now for those that especially kids that are trying to catch minnows for the first time built their own minnow cage. And you can look these up, you can buy them off of Amazon. These are not something that you have to make homemade. You can buy minute traps of any size and it's a very rewarding pastime. But check your local dnr to see the legalities if you have to purchase a license and see what's right in your state and county. But most people that do this kids or aquarium hobbyists, what do you recommend? You talked about bait but placement just anywhere in a cricketer stream or do you have any?

No, pretty much anywhere you throw it there'll come from that feed.

As long as it's baited, you got.

To have it baited.

So you don't always got to have it baited either. They also have any of an accident to you? It depends. How many minerals is there now?

Is there a certain time of year you recommend that minnows are moving into.

Spring when the water first warms up is the best, I'd say. But you'll get some all year long. Yeah.

If you're in a frosty area, right, ice melted up, you finally hit 50 degrees, start throwing traps out.

They'll swim under ice. You can trap under ice too. It'll work. You'll get some. Yeah, you can basically trap a minute any time of the year.

Now I hear people that have purchased special gear to catch small minnows on a rotten rail. Have you ever seen that or done that yourself?

No. I heard about people doing it. They'll go up in big shiner minnows and they quit river chubs and stuff. Yeah, I think they see a tiny hook. Yeah, they'll bite. Yeah.

I don't have that kind of time on my hands. We talked with Sean kramer, he has a 2000 gallon saltwater cramer him. He's on episode I think it was 19 and he actually purchased some bait equipment to catch certain from overseas. Yeah, well it's cheaper in China. Everything on wish by the way, if you want to sponsor us, give us a call.

Yeah.

He purchased them and used this bait equipment essentially to catch some rogue fish in his tank. Because it's a 20 foot tank. You're not going to sit there under the net and chase a fish across 20 foot tank.

Yeah, he has 2000 gallon tank full of corals and you want to disrupt the corals because a lot of the corals are worth 1000 $502,000 a month.

Yeah, for sure.

So what's the average price? Because the thing that you catch on those are generally bigger shiners or dates. So what's the price you get for catching big days around these times?

Boy, nobody really traps. A lot of them do, it seems they'll jump out of money, see, they jump out of the tank. They'll jump out of the tank. Do they jump out of the water?

Also, bait stores don't want to keep.

Them because they will, but it's they're kind of a pain. Yeah, they're paying their it's hard to get a lot of them. You can't always get a lot of them either.

So if someone were to catch them, what price would you get?

Boy, maybe $30 a gallon or 40 maybe.

That's insane. I mean, a gallon takes a long.

Time to get, but still, there's never a whole lot of them do, it seems. Yeah.

So, kids, if you're listening and it's legal in your state, and you ask moms permission, you can sell them in those. You can't look at that.

Yes.

I think I told you the story about when we were down in Florida. We went to a place, norton Tap Bay Fisheries, and we're sitting there visiting with the owner and his son, and we're just getting ready to leave. And he goes, well, if you guys want to stay here a little bit more, you can help us sort pleco.

Eggs, whatever that is.

Placos are the suckerfish you see in aquariums.

Okay.

And so we're sitting there for about a half hour and two little S Ten pickups, brand new S Ten pickups pulled up and they had about twelve or probably 14 five gallon buckets in there. And each bucket had a cluster of eggs.

Wow.

Now, in the state of Florida, there's so many invasive species, but these guys are all raising their fish in ponds. And so when they drain the ponds, they have a little tractor with a huge pump that pumps the water out of the ponds into the natural waterway system. So there's always some fish that get in there. So these are natural water systems. Now, there's sword tails, there's plateaus, there's guppies, and you can stand by the river. If you go in the right area, you can see all this stuff. So these young guys came up and they had five young buckets. They had these bright clusters of eggs, probably the size of, I would say, golf ball, baseball and softball. And what we we did is we sat there and sorted them out in different sizes. And these kids were paid 1015 and $25 per cluster.

Yeah. Wow.

And the owner said to me, he goes, yeah? He goes, these guys do this every center they go in the natural water system. plecos burrow into the dirt, into the river system. So they go out the river system where there is water moccasins and the crocs alligators, whatever they are.

So put yourself in that spot, right. Some guy says, I'll pay you a ton of money, I'm going to give you a small pickup, but you have to go into a venomous alligator infested river reach in the mud banks where these things burrow. No, not to pull out handfuls of eggs. That's why you don't swim?

No, I want to stay alive. Yeah.

You've heard these horror stories.

Yeah.

So we stayed for about 2 hours, and my buddy Mark and I were there, and we helped sort out the eggs and stuff, and it gets all done. He wrote about a check for about $1,400.

Wow.

And that's what they made on a Saturday morning, these two brothers. And like, when he said that he paid for these trucks, he goes, this money that I give them every Saturday, they went out and bought brand new trucks. And they're in high school.

Yes.

I mean, what a great side gig.

Do you give them?

Yeah, because, you know, it's so much easier to get some stuff in the wild like that. Like the placo eggs, they don't naturally ever really breed in a per se aquarium tank. Plus, they're such dirty little suckers. I mean, they're so filthy for the monolith that they produce, but yet they're still desired by the aquarium. So people get these side gigs to go out and collect stuff in the wild. And yeah, there's a lot of money in it.

All right, so some of the last questions I want to ask you is what would you recommend to someone that wants to start a bait business in this day and age? What are some of the changes you've seen and what are some of the best things to do that you would.

Recommend to get more and more regulations every year? I say here's a common be no live bait. What?

No live bait?

You never know. It's possible. Yeah.

So do you expect that it's going to transition to farming bait? Because bait has got to be around right?

I know. 100%. Yeah. It's just hard to say. Yeah, because yeah.

Down in the southern United States, there's.

A lot of bait farms that licks, don't freeze. It's easier to do. Yeah, right.

Well, they have, like, the rosy reds. That's technically what they treat as a bait mineral.

Yeah, right.

And that's a farm deal. So that's where you think it's going to transition to, then it's hard to.

Get into debate business because all the lakes are taken up to the state. it'd be hard to just go get into it if you're not yeah.

If you have a ton of money and you want to go buy the land and do the excavating and dig your ponds and do all that stuff, you're better off putting your money in your 401k. Honestly.

100%. All the lakes have taken up for years already. There's no lakes. It's hard to find a lake to raise minerals.

And this means something. So just to give you guys perspective, again, from Minnesota, they say the land of 10,000 lakes, we have around 18,000 registered lakes, much less the other small bodies of water all over that aren't marked.

Oh, God.

So saying you saying especially in the heart of minnesota that the lakes are all taken pretty much, you know, for a fact that you could take that.

To the bank 100%.

So if you're looking to get in the bay business, contact hoot becker, and he's willing to sell you his bay business for $1.5 million anytime. Right.

Give me a call.

Cash only, non sequential bills.

In a briefcase.

In a briefcase will meet you behind a tree and just give the money to bigfoot.

That smells like litter.

That's right.

Yeah. Go. I like it. Right? Yeah.

All right. So any other anything we missed, do you think, hoot?

Not really. You pretty much covered at all.

We did it.

We did it all. We finally got out here and got hoot on that line, and it's time.

To have a beer, I think.

Indeed. All right, so thanks again, hoot, for coming out.

You bet. No problem. It's kind of fun yet.

If you guys got questions, certainly message us on the discord we have go to aquariumguys.com. At the bottom of the website, you'll find our email address, our telephone number. You can leave us a message and ask directly questions from a beta expert. And we have a discord. You can talk to us live.

And if you have any recommendations of things that you guys want us to do other than kill ourselves, give us a call, send us an email. We'd be happy to try to find the experts. Be happy to find somebody, or else do the research for us and do a podcast on something new and interesting.

Yeah, we're not the experts. We'll find them. This podcast here came from a request from one of our listeners that was asking how to catch Leeches what the behind the scenes is so he can use it for bait for his own fish.

This always surprises me when people come up with stuff and say, hey, why don't you guys do this? And we're going, really? But, yeah, I mean, it's a wide variety of stuff, a lot of podcasts. You'll sit there and just hear facts and lots of stuff that you can just actually look up on wikipedia. We try to make this fun. We try to go out there and find these people that actually have been in the business and stuff. And like we said before, we want everybody to learn from other people's mistakes, and we want everybody to get together and help the young aquarius.

The young aquarius.

The young aquarius. Yeah, that's what we bought. We're talking about discord. We did a podcast earlier this week, and on Discord, we have such a great group of people that are all helping everybody with their questions and stuff, and it's so much easier to learn from somebody else's mistakes, a lot cheaper and a lot less painful. So be good to each other out there and let us know what you want to hear.

Well, let's kick that out, Joe. Thanks, guys, for listening to this podcast.

Please visit us@aquariumguyspodcast.com and listen to us.

On spotify, iHeartRadio itunes, and anywhere you can listen to podcasts. We're practically everywhere. We're on Google. I mean, just go to your favorite place, Pocket casts. Subscribe to make sure it gets push notifications directly to your phone. Otherwise Jim will be crying into sleep.

Can I listen to it in my treehouse?

In your treehouse? In your fish room. Even alone at work.

What about my man cave?

Especially your man cave. Yeah, only if adam's there no with feeder guppies. No, they're analyzed.

You manage it loving, plank sucking, mother plank.

Well, I guess we'll see you next time. Later.