#15 – Out Of The Tank Series: DNR Fisheries

FEAT. MANDY ERICKSON FROM MINNESOTA DNR FISHERIES

4 years ago
Transcript
Speaker A:

Alright, guys, welcome to the podcast guys. Blue Crown aquatics has the sweetest new pieces to their collection. They have betas. Yes, koi betas. Go check them out on blue crowd. aquatics website. And Pandaochas, it's never been a better time to get your butt to that website and use our promo code, Aquarium Guys for free shipping. I even have Mr. pickles to tell you how much he wants to order from Blue Crown, but can't because he's in Canada.

Speaker B:

I love pandel oaches so much, and if I could, I would love to get one from their website. And I literally ordered betas the other week and they were so expensive, but on their store, they have it for a really good price. I would love to order, but I can't.

Speaker A:

Don't be a pickle. You're in the United States. When you're listening to this, at least the majority of you, if you're in the United States, don't hesitate. Stop. Go check them out. And don't forget our charity of choice, Ohio Fish Rescue. They just got donated another massive reef tank. You got to see this. Yes, 500 gallons, and it came with a massive centerpiece. Go check out their YouTube channel, ohio Fish rescues on YouTube and give them some love. Go to their website, ohiofishrescues.com, and on the site you'll find three ways. I think it's patreon go fund me, paypal, give a little money, but call them the numbers on the website. Tell Rich how much you love him and his content. Let's kick that podcast. Welcome to the Aquarium, guys. Podcast with your hosts, Jim colby and Rob tolson. All right, guys, welcome to the Aquarium Guys podcast. So this week, we're going to be airing an additional episode. Yes, it was requested by our friends in Ireland. They called us out. They said they're sick of waiting a week between podcasts and they want another one. So I'm in the studio alone today and I have pickles here just to kick out an introduction. pickles, how are you doing?

Speaker B:

I'm good. How are you?

Speaker A:

I'm sublime. What we're doing is we have a pre recorded podcast that we've been saving for you for a rainy day. And what better rainy day than the Thanksgiving Black Friday end of week podcast. That was a hell of a whoop. pickles has been waiting this podcast. Jimmy and I actually went to our local department of natural resources in Minnesota. Because we have so many lakes, there's really no better place in the United States of America to see how the Department of Natural Resources fisheries work. And we have one of the largest walleye fisheries in the nation, I believe, and write bias. So we were lucky enough to sit down with mandy erickson at the Minnesota dnr, and again, she's part of the management there, and they give us a lot of trade secrets on how they breed walleye. It's going to be a lot of fun. And the whoop from Mr. pickles was certainly deserved. So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to jump you right into that podcast again, just a quick reminder before we dive in, please like and subscribe this. We want these push notifications to your phone. So if we do get called out from Ireland again and have to put out a podcast off schedule like this, you just know about it. You're not going to miss it. You're not going to see two podcasts when you normally expected to see one. Make sure to like and subscribe. And also aquariumguyspodcast.com. Don't forget, we have discord Facebook. We have a merch store in case you want some sexy T shirts. Remember, you definitely want to see me in a crop top. Mr. pickles is like, no.

Speaker B:

Yeah. What do you think? I'm staying silent here.

Speaker A:

You're just staying silent. Well, thanks. Thanks for the support. You're like, no, Rob, you're going to look great in a crop top. I love winnie's poo.

Speaker B:

Yeah, I'll pass. I'll pass. All right.

Speaker A:

Well, again, let's kick that podcast for the second time. Hi, friends. We are here today at the Minnesota dnr Fisheries in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. And we have a special guest. mandy, please introduce yourself.

Speaker B:

My name is mandy erickson. I'm the Assistant Area Fisheries supervisor here in Detroit Lakes.

Speaker A:

Thanks again for taking the time and having us. And again, I'm your host, Rob Zulson. And we have with today with us.

Speaker C:

We got Jim colby. We got him out of the house, and we took him on the road.

Speaker A:

We got to have lunch together. It was very cute. I'm a cheap date. It was only $16.

Speaker C:

Yeah, I even got to supersize it. It was wonderful. Oh, man, I love eating the car with your audience. This is a lot of fun.

Speaker A:

This podcast is not sponsored by Pizza Hut, but call us.

Speaker C:

That would be nice if they were sponsoring us. Get some free food, because we are wasting away, the two of us.

Speaker A:

So today, this podcast, we want to be the theme of Department of Natural Resources. So in the aquarius hobby. Again, this is not necessarily about aquariums, but I believe that every aquarium enthusiast should be knowledge about what is happening in their local lakes and streams. We continually preach about not taking your tropical fish species and dumping in a lake or stream. And what better way to know what's going on and have the direct advice than from the experts? So thanks again. And first of all, let's start with you. What caused you or what motivated you to work for the dnr?

Speaker B:

When I was little, I loved to be outside. I often fought to try and wiggle my way into what at that time in my family, was a guy's club. Dad and brother when I was going to the woods, and I always wanted to go. Was never really allowed to go until my grandpa started taking me along. And I would go minnow trapping with my grandpa while everyone else was out and about and I was stuck at grandma and grandpa's house. But Grandpa used to take me out in the mine pits up in northeast Minnesota, and we'd go minnow trapping there. We'd go pick berries and walk through streams and whatever else, and started fishing and playing in the woods and running our at that time, little banana seat bikes into the Superior National Forest and building trails and playing in streams and having a great time, and always had aquariums full of miscellaneous stuff in the yard. And the rule was always you could keep it for a day, and then you had to put it back. So we had a frog pond in the town I grew up and would always go down and catch our bucket of frogs, come back, have frog Olympics in the backyard, and then bring them back down into the pond the next day. We had turtles and fish and all sorts of stuff.

Speaker A:

I thought you were going to say you're going to eat frog legs. I was waiting for that also. That's north of the border.

Speaker B:

Never have I ever had frog legs.

Speaker C:

They're delicious.

Speaker A:

They're delicious, you monster.

Speaker C:

I mistakenly had some one time. I was at a French restaurant with some people, and they ordered in French, and I did not know what I was getting. They're not my friends anymore.

Speaker A:

But not your friends.

Speaker C:

Yeah, I'm going. These are the tiniest chicken legs I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker B:

So, no, we never ate them. We never lit up the grill and barbecued our play dates.

Speaker C:

That's probably best.

Speaker B:

It was best. It was best.

Speaker C:

Secret time. Don't eat your play dates.

Speaker A:

Don't eat your play dates. No. Again. We're at the Detroit Lakes. Dean fisheries. This is the head office that we're in, correct?

Speaker B:

This is an area office, yes. We're part of the northwest region of the state. Obviously, our regional office is based out of the miji, and then this is an area office, so we have several different divisions in this office. We have foresters, wildlife staff, fisheries, ecological resources, hydrologists, red river fisheries specialists. We're all based out of this office here, so it's a pretty neat place to work and a lot of diverse work going on out of this office.

Speaker A:

We walked in, and it looks like 125 gallon aquarium, and they have crappy sunfish and sturgeon right there to display for educational purposes. And it was just a real treat to see, being aquarium people. But you walk in and there's so many different types of mounts everywhere. There's muskies to hawks to everything, so it's a real treat. Even in our conference room that we're in, I'm looking at a giant white swan just staring at me in the corner like I should eat ice cream.

Speaker B:

We do get a lot of people coming in here, and they think it's a museum, or they think it's a tour place and they ask for tours. And we kind of have to tell people this is actually our office. So you can walk around and look for sure. But yeah, this is not a museum, even though it looks like it, but it's neat. A lot of these things are or the mounds are donated by outdoor people that have passed away and their family didn't have anywhere for them to put the mount. Sometimes they come here. Some of them are actually confiscated animals that have been donated by the taxidermis that has mounted them. So they're for educational purposes. If you are familiar with becker County and our becker County Fair. Every year all of these animals are on display at the becker County Fair. The Natural Resources Building. So they do get moved around a little bit. We have a pretty good display of furs as well, and those are on aboard in the hallway in a lot of schools and Boy scouts, girl scouts, four age groups will borrow those furs when they go through an animal unit. So it is neat. And they do go out for a lot of educational purposes.

Speaker A:

I had to double back on that because I thought it was just like this place. You hang up coats and like that's, a lot of, oh, there's tags on those.

Speaker B:

Please don't make a coat out of a gray wolf.

Speaker C:

I was going to say we do.

Speaker B:

Have a hide here.

Speaker C:

Yeah, won't that be a nice gift? As you walk out the door, you're putting on a big pelt and go out and traps around in a quick.

Speaker A:

Throw over my petty coat.

Speaker B:

Right. The bear skin would make a good one. And there's a full deer hide out there as well, too, if you're looking awesome.

Speaker A:

So again, now you said you're assistant manager. What is directly your role and responsibilities of the dnr?

Speaker B:

Our jobs as fishery specialists for the dnr are very diverse. Mine specifically changes quite a bit with the seasons. And most jobs within the dnr do vary quite a bit within the seasons. In the spring, I run our fish hatchery. We run while I hatchery here. We take eggs out of lake. Sally so Mall of Spring I pretty much live in the hatchery, and then once we're done stocking in the spring, then I go into lake surveys. Most of my work is index abiotic integrity. So we're looking at the non game fish, the minnow species that are up near shore, that are indicators of habitat in the lake, whether a lake is healthy or not. So I do a lot of that sampling. Also do a lot of aquatic management, area acquisition and maintenance lands that the state has bought to protect critical habitat. I work with that. And then in the fall, we do walleye harvests. We go back into our rearing ponds from the spring and harvest fish and stock lakes with walleyes that we hatched out of our hatchery in the spring.

Speaker C:

And what size are they at that point when they've sat there in the ponds for the summer?

Speaker B:

Depends on what they're eating. Just this year we had fish that were about 45 to the pound, which we're about three and a half inches long. And then we did have fish that were twelve to the pound, were our biggest, and those are pushing seven inches or so. But there have been times when they're stocked into a pond and there's not much for them to eat, and they're 90 or 100 to the pound and they're only about two inches long at that point. And then there are some cases where they stocked into a pond and they've eaten minerals all summer long and they're quarter pound each. So varies depending on what they're eating.

Speaker C:

And for those of you listening, it's hard to count fish. And so when she says there's nine to a pound, there's nine fish that equal a pound weight.

Speaker B:

Correct.

Speaker C:

And when you're buying feeder fish, and that's how they do the counting, they really don't count. They get an average size. Because if you're going to count 10,000 of these things, you're going to be there till Tuesday.

Speaker A:

Good luck.

Speaker B:

Great. And we'll take a couple of grab samples and do weight checks and we'll weigh out £5 and actually count how many fish are in that £5 if we're in the hatchery. It's all mathematical equations that were developed by some poor grad student in a lab somewhere counting fish in a microscope. So we thank them for their work and use their equation.

Speaker C:

Thanks for all the free work.

Speaker B:

Thanks for that.

Speaker C:

Because people always ask, people want to know numbers. Every time we have somebody that gets back to us and they ask a question, they want to know numbers. How many individual fry do you think that you put out in these lakes?

Speaker B:

I printed that sheet off. I knew you had it right. Let me find the right column. This year, the number of eggs that we took was 66,863,947. So that's how many eggs we harvested.

Speaker A:

So any egg batch, you only get so many that we completely get reintroduced. So how many you expect total fish after they hatch to get introduced from our hatchery?

Speaker B:

I run our hatchery and I'm incredibly picky about how things work in our hatchery. And we take pride on doing a pretty good job. And we're generally hatching over 70% of our fish, which is pretty good. You've got to realize the scale that we have, we'll have pushing 400 quarts of eggs, and each quart is about 120 to 130,000 eggs per quart. So the sheer number of individual live eyes looking at you and that hatchery is, is a big deal. So hatching about over 70% is pretty good. This last year we were close to 80%, which is great.

Speaker C:

And as technology goes forward and stuff, it gets to be a little bit easier when you get new equipment. I know too, when I'm hatching fish it's a lot easier than it was ten years ago.

Speaker B:

Well, that's the great thing about a state hatchery, you're on top of it. No, actually we are very funding dependent and we are dependent on the funds allocated by the legislature, which at sometimes is not very flush. So the technology that we're using in our hatchery is not the greatest right now. I have 1940 technology for an iron filter and we are looking for money for hatchery upgrades. So sadly for as important as walleyes and other game fish are in this state, we don't always see that follow through into appropriations for our hatchery upgrades and being able to do things as efficiently and cost effective as we can. So in this hatchery, iron filtration out of groundwater is the most difficult thing that we fight with and our water is heavy in iron just by the nature of where we are. And iron will coat the fish eggs and give us our biggest issue. We're able to rely on gravity, which is not reliant on technology, and then for our flow through the hatchery system but then our water is filtered right now by polyester quilt batting actually. And our flow through, that's what we use. But we're running, I mean we're running up towards 3 million gallons a year through that. If you're using quilt batting as a filtration medium, you know that once it gets full there is no ability to flush that and restart. You've got to shut everything down and that's just not an option. So it's kind of a race against time in the spring for us in terms of filtration with the water that we're in. We're monitoring our flow, making sure it's high enough to do what we needed to do, but not too high that we burnt through our iron filters so fast. So yeah, so much for the technology.

Speaker C:

Wow, that blew me away. I'm expecting to see space shuttle type stuff.

Speaker B:

No, not at all.

Speaker C:

So we're talking covered wagon type, we're.

Speaker B:

Talking my chemical drip station is an upside down bottle that's measured and dripping slowly. Probably the most technologically advanced thing we have is we've got a great TV and vcr in our viewing room that shows videos of us doing different types of field work throughout the year. That's probably the most technologically advanced piece of equipment we have in the hatchery, but it works and we've got one of the best hatch rates in the state and we're able to produce and sustain some fantastic fishing opportunities around here.

Speaker C:

Well, good luck getting anything new. If you're doing that well on this stuff, they're going to look at you and go, you go girl.

Speaker B:

Okay, so when you get back in the studio, edit that part out.

Speaker A:

Oh yeah, you got it.

Speaker B:

But no, we make the best with what we have and end up succeeding.

Speaker C:

That is very impressive 80% hatch rate like that. When you're talking that many millions of fish, how long does it take once the fish is hatched? How long does it take until they absorb the yolksack and move on?

Speaker B:

A couple of days, probably two to three days. And they'll start looking for food.

Speaker C:

And then are you keeping them right at what's the water temperature that you normally catch these at?

Speaker B:

We run at a solid 51 degrees. It used to be 52 for years and years. Our groundwater is 52. The last couple of years has dropped at 51. So not sure why that change was, but we're running at a solid 51 degrees, and for us, we are on groundwater, so that temperature is pretty constant. Some of the different hatches around the state are running off of filtered surface water, and they will see some drastic temp fluctuations, which, as I'm sure you know, has a dramatic effect on egg development and hatch time, so they can change. But ours here, we hatch at about 21 days, and our water temperature is about the same throughout the whole thing, so that helps us quite a bit.

Speaker A:

So there's no gestation like a higher rate for a lot of these fish, they literally 21 days in that cold environment.

Speaker B:

There's no heat up there for us, there's not. But if you're watching your degree days and all of that, you can there are some hatcheries that are messing with heaters and chillers to slow things up or slow things down and speed things up, depending on what the environmental conditions are doing. But for our hatchery here, we don't have heaters. We have heaters, actually, but we don't use them for walleyes and we don't have chillers. So we're kind of at the mercy of hoping that our inside conditions matching our outside conditions, and most of the years they do fry are pretty tough when you take them out of the hatchery and put them into natural ponds or lakes, which is where ours go to. And more often than not, the conditions are somewhat similar. The water warms up kind of slowly, and we're still stocking in similar water temps. We're not putting fry into 80 degree lake water. We're stocking in May. Things are still pretty cool.

Speaker A:

So two questions before we go on is because we went over a lot of topics there. For your filters, use quilt, batting, any other type of because generally in the aquarium hobby, you're looking for mechanical, biological, and chemical, right?

Speaker B:

We do have airstones, so that'll be about it. We have sprayers that hopefully break up iron particles out of water when it sprays into our filter tanks, and then it goes through our polyester batting. And then that water is also aerated. So between the process of the spraying and the aer rating, that iron is separated a bit from the water.

Speaker A:

So there's no uv filter for groundwater.

Speaker B:

There's not. There are hatcheries that run on surface water? Absolutely. I think they're down now to 15 micron filters and then uv treatment as well for our surface water. Sorry. And surface water is lake water. And this hatchery used to run off of lake water as a backup, and then we use lake water for a lot of our transport stuff. But with Zebra Muscles coming into our source lake a few years back, all that was shut off. So our lake water pump is totally disconnected, and we actually wound up using a second well as a backup for our hatchery. So we're totally on surface water right now. In the hatchery business, surface water is clean water or groundwater is clean water. I'm sorry. And surface water, you're always going to be fighting one thing or another. Right now at zebra Muscles, who knows what it might be five years from now? So my opinion on that, that the groundwater is the way to go and figure out this iron issue would be great. But now is it going to go back to water?

Speaker A:

Can you flow of water?

Speaker B:

It is for us just the way again, we're running on old technology. Some hatcheries do recirculation systems, and ours is a flow through system.

Speaker A:

Jimmy made a hand pump motion.

Speaker C:

Do you know what a hand pump is?

Speaker A:

I do.

Speaker C:

Maybe I can show you what a phone booth looks like.

Speaker B:

We actually hire interns for the hand pump operator.

Speaker C:

Do you give mandy a call here at the dnr because she would love to train you on how to use the hand pump. No.

Speaker A:

The reason I ask that is because in the aquarium world, you always worry about the cycle to make sure that you have the ammonia nitrate nitrite cycle.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker A:

But if you're just drowned water, scott bacteria in it, you're just flowing through. That makes a lot of sense. What is your biggest challenge when they're eggs? Again, I'm going to keep going back to the aquarium hobby. Our biggest thing is egg fungus.

Speaker B:

It too fungus is a huge issue.

Speaker A:

For how do you battle that?

Speaker B:

Again, I'm incredibly picky when it comes to the hatchery. So the most simple thing that we have done with all of our staff that's made a big difference is I keep the place clean. Anyone that's touching my egg jars, I say my egg jars. But the egg jars, I ask that they have gloves on, clean, paranitril gloves, whatever you itched or scratched or ate or whatever is going to go right into those jars and trying to make sure that everyone's got clean hands when they're touching the outside of the jars or picking up fungus eggs on the inside that they're clean. So we also try and minimize a lot of the flow through traffic in the hatchery, just kind of watching us, and they're keeping it clean, spraying everything down. So that has been a big change in the last probably seven years that we've noticed during egg development. Try and keep the lights off when we can. And that's helped. We have gone through different light sources, and this was slightly before my time, but there was a difference between the cool light and the warm light that we played with for a little bit, pulling select bulbs. But now the energy auditors came through all state facilities and switched us all over to led lights. And we weren't really sure what that was going to do to egg development, but it actually seems to be good. We don't have as many issues with fungus that are right in the jars, right below where the lights used to be. So that's changed a little bit. But for the most part, it is keeping things clean. And then we do treat with hydrogen peroxide every day. We treat with that until we start seeing fry. It is toxic to the fry. It'll kill the fry. But we treat with hydrogen peroxide.

Speaker A:

Do you ever use methyl and blue? That's very common for any egg keeper.

Speaker B:

No, we don't. No.

Speaker A:

Got you.

Speaker B:

Some offices will use Formulin formula, but that's pretty toxic chemical. Hydrogen peroxide is highly corrosive.

Speaker A:

It's really corrosive.

Speaker B:

The type we're using is 35 degree food or 35% food grade. So it's very corrosive. It's not the hydrogen peroxide that you wash out the cut with, so you've got to be pretty careful. formalin has got its own cancer causing heart issues, right? And hydrogen peroxide has worked great for us on groundwater. If you're on surface water, the biological content and organic matter is higher in surface water than groundwater. And with that, you'll get a lot of bubbling up if you use hydrogen peroxide. So some of those hatches that are running on surface water will use formula to just make sure they've got that egg treatment. But they can't use hydrogen peroxide because of the gas issue. But we're on groundwater, so we're okay.

Speaker C:

This is all new good information for everybody that's out there. The different things that have been used in the past. Going back to what you were saying earlier about people touching stuff in your hatchery, I've been to several major big places where they hatch out fish, but tropical fish, of course, and they don't even allow anybody to come in there anymore. Kind of like they're allowing school kids to come walk through there and stuff, and then they'd have a whole system crash about three days later.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker C:

And so when people tell you that to stay out of their barn or stay out of their hatchery, it makes total sense, because you could lose everything just by something that you do. That's silly. And you're not meaning to do any harm, but maybe you've got suntan lotion on your arm or something.

Speaker B:

Stopped a pizza hut before you came in.

Speaker A:

That's right over.

Speaker B:

And it's a flow through system. And you touch the top jar, and every single jar is infected. And we do have signs on there that say Staff only. And usually once or twice a year, I'll get, oh, can I come in? And whatever else. And it's for that reason to just keep some of everything out of there. We don't have footbaths here. A lot of the bigger hatcheries will have footbaths that you have to step in and protective gear. We haven't gone that far.

Speaker A:

Well, you have an 80% hatch rate. I mean, clearly it's working, right?

Speaker B:

We do. And I do get a lot of school groups come in, and I'll admit it's cool, and that's what I usually tell people, that I get it. This place is fascinating. I love it. I would move my bed in there if I could in the spring. But everything you need to see, you can see through our viewing room window. But sometimes with the little kids or kids that are super interested in fisheries, I'll let them come in. But my first question to the crowd is, all right, kids who've got pockets? And especially the little kids are all excited that they raise their hands. I have pockets. I have pockets. And then you ask, who has hands? And then they're super excited that they all have hands. And I said, okay. Good. Put your hands in your pockets and leave them there. And then you can come into the hatchery. So everyone's hands are in their pockets. They can't touch anything. They can look at things. They can smell all the great smells of a hatchery and hear all the great sounds and look at stuff, but.

Speaker A:

Smell the great smells.

Speaker B:

Yes. Fascinating.

Speaker C:

Fascinating smells of a hatchery.

Speaker B:

Don't touch the jars. And then if you get people bumping jars, I try and tell them that's almost 400,000 fish in one jar.

Speaker C:

It's a lot of money.

Speaker A:

It's a lot it's a lot of work.

Speaker C:

It's a lot of money. And people just don't realize how much work it is.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker A:

So we have an ongoing joke. So jimmy's been breeding angels for many years, and his method is angels breed directly onto a side surface. The female lays the eggs, the female falls right up behind. And we use slates. They're just cut slates. And what we do is we take the whole slate, because we can just pick up the slate because we can't touch the eggs at all. There's no scraping, there's no moving. So you just take the slate, you put it in a pickle jar, and then you have your drop of methyl and blue to make sure you completely cover fungus. Because if you don't, the first day you'll have fungus, it has nothing to do with clean environment for those type of fish. They just come pre baked with that, basically. Then you put an airstone in there and let it sit in a pickle jar. And he's got these collection of these one gallon pickle jars everywhere. Right. So what jars do you use?

Speaker B:

We use. McDonald jars. Not McDonald's like McDonald's, but they're called McDonald Jar. It's just standard hatchery stuff.

Speaker C:

I was like Big sauce, like the secret sauce from Big Dark.

Speaker A:

What they do is every year, they clean up the Nick rib sauce and.

Speaker C:

They dig in the dumpster behind McDonald's. mandy made his promise that we would not get her fired. So that was a joke.

Speaker A:

I'm sorry.

Speaker C:

Kind of. It's kind of a joke.

Speaker B:

But actually, the jars are pretty cool. They've been around for that style of jars. Been around since the 19 hundreds. They used to be all glass and glass and hatcheries obviously isn't the greatest. Now they're all plastic. But the jars themselves will hold three and a half gallons of three and a half quarts. I'm sorry, three and a half quarts of eggs. In our hatchery, we usually have three quarts of eggs in each jar, and then they have a rounded bottom. So the water comes in through a standpipe that stands up in the jar, goes to the bottom of the jar, and the bottom is rounded. So all that water just billows up the eggs, and they're continuously moving in the jar. So every single one and every single egg in that jar will move continuously just to make sure we've got fresh air, fresh oxygen, fresh water going through all those eggs in the jar.

Speaker C:

So you're tumbling in the eggs.

Speaker B:

We are.

Speaker C:

And that's what's known in our industry, is certain cichlids, certain eggs. You have an egg tumbler, which is exactly what you just described and stuff. And so you have all these eggs tumbling in there. Do you ever take a cracker and have some caviar? I'm just wondering.

Speaker A:

Oh, boy.

Speaker B:

No. But I will admit to when we are actually harvesting eggs out on Lake Sally, I will have eggs everywhere. Hair inside my glasses, in my ears.

Speaker C:

That's when you're out there stripping the eggs correct. To females.

Speaker A:

That's why you don't see a dnr calendar like you do the fire department or police. Yeah, because those pictures really just don't work out.

Speaker B:

No one's buying that. nobody's buying the dnr not going to buy that.

Speaker C:

She was managing some eggs in her hair.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker C:

Having a tough day.

Speaker A:

So for those of listening, you can actually look up the McDonald's style jar. It actually is commonly used in a lot of breeding facilities, facilities, facilities. And they have a lot of new pre filtered screens and a lot of these jars. So certainly check them out. You can just do a quick Google search and you'll find a lot of them. They range between $12 all the way up to $80.

Speaker B:

And then the standpipes come with some of the jars. And there's some various types of standpipes as well. We found for us that the longer and wider standpipes work better than the shorter and skinnier ones for us. And then some of the McDonald listings also have screens. And the screens have been great for some of the folks that are using that hydrogen peroxide and dealing with gas issues. The screens will keep the eggs in, otherwise they flow right out the system. So McDonald jars are pretty standard for all the hatcheries around here.

Speaker A:

So what species do you actually breed in this facility?

Speaker B:

We only do walleyes right now. This facility has been running for 100 and some years out at the Lake Sally location, and through that time, we've done everything from bass croppies, blue gills, northern pike. We did sturgeon for quite a few years, but now a lot of our sturgeon is or. All of our sturgeon are hatched out of the Valley City, us fish and Wildlife Service hatchery and Valley City, but we did hatch those for a while here and use that as part of our recovery effort for the Red River Basin. But right now, it's just walleyes. We do get musky fry in, and we have a ringing pond in the area that we're raising muskies in, but they're not in our hatchery at all.

Speaker A:

So when you say bring stuff in, do you guys actually do the breeding process here, or do you harvest eggs, hatch them, and then release for our fish here?

Speaker B:

We harvest right on site from Lake Sally for our walleyes, and all of those are just brought by over by little garden wagon into our hatchery, which is only about 30 yards away from our spontaneous site. So all the walleyes are here. Within the state of Minnesota, we have several different genetic strains of walleyes that we're managing, and that's watershed based. So we are Red River watershed. So we're working with the Red River genetic strain of walleyes. And the other offices that are working Red River include butte and bemidji and Us and fergus Falls and then some in the south. ortonville Deal a little bit with Red River stuff as well. Those are kind of the primary Red River ones. So depending on how we're doing with egg harvest and establish quotas, we will ship eggs to fergus and Bimidi and help them out with their quotas as well.

Speaker A:

To describe the egg harvest process. You get adult males and females, and you actually do the squeeze process or hop.

Speaker B:

Yeah. So when they're ready to release their eggs, their bellies are loose versus tight. And if you just physically push gently on the underside of a female walleye, her eggs come out pretty easily. So we do strip the eggs from each female into a dry bowl, add the sperm from three males just for genetic diversity. Make sure we're not wasting a lot of eggs on a male that may not be able to fertilize them. Stir it with a feather just to be gentle with them. Make sure we've got a feather. A feather, yes. And add water at that time.

Speaker A:

There's no cooking spoon.

Speaker B:

There is no cooking spoon. We did try silicone bastards for a while. And some of those new things, but that was just a little rough back to that 1940 technology. We're on feathers. Feathers and polyester quilt bedding.

Speaker C:

So you go back to the covered.

Speaker B:

Wagon and then we cover the wagon when we bring them into the hatchery.

Speaker A:

And then they have a corn feed in the back of the hay loft.

Speaker C:

Yeah. After they butcher the chickens and seal the feathers.

Speaker B:

No, we trade chickens for new materials.

Speaker A:

Is it just like a fake plastic feather or is it actually like a bird feather?

Speaker B:

No, it's actually the secondary flight feathers of a goose that work the best.

Speaker A:

Oh, my. That's how they keep the fungus out of it. It's a little goose dusting, you know what I mean?

Speaker C:

And the goose's name is Bruce.

Speaker A:

His name is Bruce.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

He's really pissed at us all the time. We run around chasing, give me that feather.

Speaker B:

He doesn't fly so well when we pull the secondary flight back.

Speaker C:

And hence, that's why he lives here.

Speaker A:

He's been doing well. Bruce is bald, but he's living in.

Speaker C:

Back in the garage. Exactly.

Speaker A:

He's the next mount that's going to stare at me in this conference room.

Speaker B:

Whatever works.

Speaker C:

As long as the eyes don't start following me, I'll be fine. But I did see Night at the museum oh, no. Too many times with my kids when they were younger.

Speaker A:

It's all over.

Speaker B:

So, yeah, we do stir with the feather. And then by nature, eggs of wild fish, walleye specifically, are very sticky. So if you think of where walleye spawns in nature, they'll spawn in ripple areas, rocky shorelines, and they want those eggs to stick to the ground. So they're super sticky by nature. We actually apply bentonite clay, very kind of like a gravyish mixture of bentonite clay and water to those eggs and let that sit for a couple of minutes, and that takes that stickiness off the eggs. And then the eggs are rinsed and put into a tub with fresh water going through it. And then back to the covered wagon they go into the hatchery.

Speaker A:

Now, for those who are in experience, how big is a single egg compared to marble pea?

Speaker B:

Oh, gosh.

Speaker C:

This is the size of a bb.

Speaker A:

Bb.

Speaker B:

I would if you have maybe five grains of sand together.

Speaker C:

Not very big.

Speaker B:

Not very big, no.

Speaker C:

So like rubber.

Speaker B:

And actually when they come out feather. Right. And when they come out of a fish, they're very small. And then when we go through a process called water hardening, where after the eggs are fertilized, they're placed into a tub. And then we have fresh water going continuously through that tub for 3 hours, three to 4 hours, and those eggs will triple in size within that time. They'll actually absorb that water and swell up. And they're very fragile when they first come out of a fish. But after they've water hardened, you can pretty much bounce them off a floor. Don't recommend that. But you can after they swell. Not saying I've ever done.

Speaker C:

You're going to sell fired. It's not going to be us getting.

Speaker B:

You fired, but they are pretty firm at that point.

Speaker A:

Well, if they end up in your hair, it's got to fall off sometime.

Speaker B:

It does, yes.

Speaker A:

I got a question that relates directly to walleye. I came prepared, rob's face.

Speaker C:

It's so perplexed right now. It's like I've got one. I don't know if I dare ask it.

Speaker A:

So this is a bit of debate. Right? So in 1984 ish they declared the blue walleye to be extinct out of Lake Superior. So there has been recent pictures and sightings of blue walleye in Grand forks area. Are these rumors true? Is there any backing to it?

Speaker C:

If you tell us, do you have to kill us?

Speaker B:

I am not you are allowed to plead the Fifth. I will plead the fifth, but I am not in the loop on that whatsoever. That one I'm going to have to defer. I don't know that one.

Speaker A:

So for listeners, the blue walleyer, blue pike used to be, again, a prevalent fish in Lake Superior, but introducing other species actually brought it out and of course, everything's overfished. So they have not really had a confirmed sighting of a blue walleye since there's been walleyes. The standard yellow walleye that we have breed all over and they've seen other tinge of colors in it, but it still has that yellowish belly. So the ones that they're seeing, that they're seeing online have no yellow belly and they're actually a dark, rich blue color. So it's something that people have seen. Took a couple of pictures of re release, but the only way to prove that it's the actual blue wine species is for genetics. And no one's brought that forward, apparently.

Speaker B:

I would love to look at the genetics of those. And there with all of our fish, people catch some really bizarre looking fish sometimes and the genetics are good. They're the solid straight line species, but they're just very colored variation. People have different colored hair, different color eyes, and you see a ton of variation in fish. And now I often wonder if with the state of the world on all sorts of aspects, that are people catching them more now than they ever did? Or are people just more apt to snap a picture and put it all out and so you see it? So whether they're more or less common is kind of debatable, depending on the sign of the times and how people are sharing information all over. But we've seen some crazy colored perch, some very unique bass, some ridiculous color patterns on northern pike. There's just a ton of variation in these animals and you'll see it when people share all over. But, yeah, genetics is the only way to look at it. And unless you're pulling scale samples and sending those in for analysis. That's pretty tough to say.

Speaker C:

We've got a guy we, we had on Wednesday, we had a gentleman whose name is Jim Kitchen, and he is known as the placo king. He is, he has raised plecos, one of the first guys to raise certain plecos that nobody else has in the world.

Speaker A:

It's a genus tuda cantechist. So it's the plecos that generally get 2ft plus. And he decided that in his pastime with breeding all these species and helping name and discover species, that he's going to ask his brother, which is a geneticist, and he DNA mapped like 75 strains just for fun.

Speaker B:

Wow.

Speaker C:

He was swapping the inside of their mouth.

Speaker A:

Imagine just take yourself out like a two foot playoff. These things are armored and spiked. Wrap it in a towel, hold it while the other dude sit there with a swab in its mouth and then sends it into what, DNA for me?

Speaker C:

Yeah, I don't know where you send it into. I'm sure his brother is probably just doing it on the side, but he actually has written a paper on it and whatnot. And because he doesn't have a PhD behind his name, nobody wants to look at it. But the guy is incredibly, incredibly smart. We had him on Wednesday night, very impressed, heard a lot of cool stories from him. So, yeah, we know a guy who can swab your walleye.

Speaker B:

Well, there you go. Start to go fund me for that.

Speaker A:

See how far you get. So the other topics I want to cover shortly is the lake surveys. So what exactly are you looking to survey? Lakes? Number one, you're looking for invasive species. You said health of the lake, right? What are the things are you looking for?

Speaker B:

So with our standard lake surveys, we are looking for basically a summarization of what that fish population is like in the lake. A lot of these lakes we stock, many we do not. But it's a way to see if our stocking is working. If we're maintaining decent growth of the game fish in our lakes, if we are maintaining a healthy, balanced population, invasive species, we will document. That's not the primary focus of the fish management work. We do have other staff that are focused solely on invasive species. So we all watch, but that's not the primary focus. But mostly it's just that health and balance and long term maintenance of that established fishery in a lake. Because fishing is such an enormous part of Minnesota culture and history, minnesota has one of the best in the nation programs for fish management, inland fisheries management in the game, fish management, stocking, maintaining those populations. So it is a big deal if you're not a person that actively fishes. If you look at the numbers of the industry and the bait industry, the fishing poles and boats and boat, gas and everything that goes into it, it'll shock you for how big of a deal that is in Minnesota. So maintaining that is important for the state and that's what our jobs are focused on.

Speaker A:

That's what we're lucky to have you on. I mean, we're not we're one, we're local, but there's really nowhere else in the nation that we can go to a state and see what type of fishery access they have. Because this is the land of, they said 10,000 lakes, but it's actually 18,000 in that area and there's no better place right now.

Speaker C:

How many lakes are around the Detroit Lakes area? Is it 412?

Speaker B:

I don't even know. I would have to count. But for our management purposes, we manage about 120 lakes. For dnr to actively manage a lake, that lake has to have public access. So if you've got a little pond in your backyard and the public can't get to it, we're funded by public dollars. We have to make sure that we're doing a benefit for the public when we do things. So the only lakes that we'll manage or do anything on are those with public accesses. And that could be a state owned access, a county access different. As long as it's open to the public, we manage those lakes. But there's about 120 that we actively manage.

Speaker C:

Is there a number of acreage? I mean, what do you consider a lake? What do you consider a pond? And a lot of people ask that, right? Because I know, like I said, when we go to Detroit Lakes, I think it says the land 20 miles radius of Detroit Lakes thing is 412 lakes or something like that. It says on a sign in town and stuff, but how big is the lake?

Speaker B:

For our management purposes, I'm just going to throw a number out there and say about 80 acres is the smallest lake that I can think of that we actively manage. So smaller basins typically won't have public accesses on them or they will be winter kill lakes where there are shallow, small basins that kill off. And we do manage some lakes that are winter kill lakes, but for the most part, those just aren't developed enough to have a public access and be something that can maintain a fish population.

Speaker C:

And for those listeners who are not familiar with winter kill lakes, why don't you tell them what a winter kill lake is? It's not something that we do on.

Speaker A:

Purpose, especially in Minnesota, right?

Speaker C:

Because we have a lot of listeners down south that don't know what winter is.

Speaker A:

Never seen a lake freeze, right?

Speaker B:

We actually drive on the lakes up here, too.

Speaker C:

I know it's a lot of fun to go out in the middle of the lake and then hit what is it called, the GPS, the thing that you have in your onstar onstar. You hit onstar and say, I'm lost. Where am I?

Speaker A:

And they go it says, no, it must be wrong. You're in the middle of the lake. Lake I got to check my program.

Speaker C:

You just get a lot of stuttering.

Speaker B:

Going on and turn around and back out slowly.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

Winter kill is basically all about oxygen. So if you're familiar with aquariums, you need oxygen supply in your aquariums. And in the summer, sunlight produces photosynthesis through our plants. And photosynthesis product of photosynthesis is oxygen. So that's oxygen releasing into the water. And then you've also got surface air mixing, producing oxygen in the lake as well. So in the winter, when you've got ice cover, you don't have that surface to air mix and supply of oxygen. And then you get snow on top of your ice. The sunlight can't get through for the plants to grow. So you don't have their byproduct of oxygen through photosynthesis. So basically, you are starving your lake of oxygen. As things start to die, that decomposition process absorbs oxygen, and all the living critters in the lake are also using the oxygen that's there. So it's your limiting factor. And when you run out of oxygen, things start to die. So that's the simplest explanation of winter kill. It's just a lack of oxygen.

Speaker A:

So what's the general depth that a lake needs to have to survive that deprive of oxygen?

Speaker B:

It totally depends. We've seen lakes that are 30ft kill off. In many lakes, you'll have some small shallow bays that will have some areas of low oxygen, no oxygen, and anything that's been trapped in there will die. But if you've got a total basin that's less than 10ft, that's pretty certain that you'll be dealing with winter kill on some normal winters. But again, we've seen some lakes that are 30ft deep, and it depends on many factors in that lake. How many fish are in there, if it was a ton of plant growth and you've got a lot of decomposition, if your water quality was awful going into the winter, depth is just one of many things, and sometimes you'll get some surprises. We'll do oxygen monitoring and it'll look like everything is totally dead and the ice will go off in the summer and you'll have fish all over the place. So sometimes fish are able to find a refuge somewhere. A lot of folks will say, oh, it's spring fed. Well, spring water is anoxic. You're not going to have a lot of oxygen in there. So it doesn't matter if it's spring fed or not. But if you've got running water, like right now in our area, we've got a ton of high water and we've got water flowing all over the place. So with that flowing water, you've got a great supply of oxygenated water coming into a lot of these basins. And for us, for production purposes, we actually do want some of our natural rearing ponds to kill off. And when you've got high water and water flowing, they don't. So it depends on a lot of things, not just not just the depth of the lake.

Speaker A:

So another way that oxygen is held is in Minnesota we have very cold water. The colder the water, the more oxygen held. And tropical fish hobby, that's why you have to use a lot of airstones, aerators, water flow even. We like to use hang in the back filters just to make sure that if you have your tank 85 degrees, it's going to be very hard to keep oxygen in the water, right?

Speaker B:

And when it's water that warm too, your fish will metabolize your oxygen a lot faster too. So their demand is higher and the ability for the water to hold oxygen is lower. So yeah, it's tough. It's a balancing game. Thankfully. In the winter, though, our water is very cold, obviously.

Speaker A:

So just for listeners, because they're always fascinating about Minnesota stories. How thick does the ice on lakes get around here?

Speaker B:

Depends on the winter. So easily 4ft some years you'll be driving on the ice by usually in January, and that's 2ft of ice by then. So ice auger extensions are pretty common and 3ft of an auger plus an extension, so you'll need that. So it can be up to 4ft. Upon Lake of the woods, you can have six 7ft of ice.

Speaker A:

So around here, she mentioned Lake of the woods is one of the popular destinations for fishing. They have a lot of resorts and they'll actually bring ice houses. They take a truck, drive onto the ice, bring an ice house. It's what, ten by 18? They can range, they can range sizes. They can be the size of an actual trailer house.

Speaker C:

They'll take four tons of equipment out.

Speaker A:

There, they'll roll it onto the ice, they'll drill holes, and they'll live there for a couple of months during the winter. But they also bring small restaurants onto the ice sometimes like a little cafe run on wheels. And they have little communities out on the ice. It's quite the scene. So if you've never looked it up, certainly check it out. There's plenty of YouTube videos on it and that really mesmerizes.

Speaker C:

A lot of our festivals, too. We have one over in Walker where they have it's called the eel pout Festival. And eel pout is not a pretty fish. And they click gorgeous.

Speaker A:

Talking to the wrong person, talking to.

Speaker C:

The wrong yeah, I got the stink eye from the mandate very much though. So they actually pull buildings they pull buildings out into the ice, and they'll have set up a bar out there, and they'll have barbecue, and it's just a big party on ice, because up in Minnesota, we're not that we don't have we don't have that much summer, and so we're big partiers up here, at least me and Rob's are. But there's a lot of things when people want to be in the outdoors, they'll do this stuff on these festivals and they'll have live bands out on the ice and it's just crazy. And so people just don't realize how much ice it takes to hold up a truck. And when I say truck, I'm talking suburbans full size pickup trucks and then pulling a 2000 pound ice house on top of it.

Speaker B:

And we do get a lot of people that underestimate the weight of their equipment that they're trying to bring out on the ice and, and sadly end up going through every year. And someone always has to try and be the first one out on the ice of four wheeler or a truck. Or if there ever is a time in your life to be a leader on the ice, is not it.

Speaker C:

Not yet.

Speaker A:

So what's the guidelines? I think it's four inches for walking. I was at twelve inches for a small car.

Speaker B:

Twelve inches for a small car. And I think it's 18 inches for a full size truck. 24 if it's for me personally, if it's under 2ft of ice, I don't, I don't want to be down there.

Speaker C:

But yeah, there's actually a gentleman in Detroit Lakes and he, his job is he goes out and he gets your truck from underneath the ice after it falls through.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker C:

And it's not cheap.

Speaker B:

No. And you are absolutely required to retrieve whatever goes through the ice.

Speaker C:

So if you drop your Suburban, your truck through the ice, you've got such amount of time to get it out. And it's a very short time. And once the oil and the gasoline starts seeping into the waterway, it's a big fine and a big no once.

Speaker A:

Your vehicle goes through the ice. If I'm not correct, was it x thousand a day?

Speaker B:

I don't know what it is off the top of my head, but it's a big deal. You do have a time limit of making arrangements to get that out. You can't just leave it that and.

Speaker A:

Your insurance company will not cover any of this, right?

Speaker C:

Yeah. Most insurance companies in this area will not pay for your truck when it falls through the ice. And every time I see a truck fall through the ice, it's somebody with a brand new truck.

Speaker B:

Right. Trying to be that leader.

Speaker C:

Trying to be that leader. And I have a lot of friends that do the ice fishing and stuff and they'll say, yeah, I was out ice fishing. I look at them and go, it's not even frozen in the middle of the lake yet. And they go, yeah, but it's pretty safe. Ends up a lot of people die out here.

Speaker B:

Fortunately, I said, if there's ever a time to be a leader in your life, that's not it.

Speaker A:

That's not the time. Again, we've covered lake surveys, so land acquisition, what type of land are you guys looking for for any fishery purposes? We know there's some for water fowl, but is that the focus or is it any other shoreline?

Speaker B:

So there's been a lot of research out lately on what the best way to protect our lakes actually is. And there's been everything from fertilizer, no phosphorus fertilizer to leave a buffer zone along your shoreline. Don't rip wrap every piece of shoreline just because you think rocks are prettier than cat tails. A ton of different ways to really save the quality of our lakes. And what it's come down to is watershed management. Everything from great soil practices, if you're a farmer, to making sure you're not releasing a ton of phosphorus by washing your car with some dish soap or something in the middle of town that goes into the storm sewer. But it's watershed management. And when I'll talk to a lot of school groups or even conservation clubs or something like that, and I always ask, who lives on a lake? And you'll get a few people to raise their hand and then I'll say, okay, who lives in a watershed? And everyone kind of looks around like, I don't know, do I? Everybody lives in a watershed. And what you do on your land actually matters. Everything goes into these lakes and it is the filter of everything that we're doing within the watershed. So one of the best ways to protect our lake is to protect watersheds. And what we're looking for is areas that are subject to development on some of our more sensitive lakes. Some lakes have a very small watershed that the impacts of activities on that land have a real direct, quick impact or direct effect of what that lake is going to be like for now and 100 years later. So watershed health is the biggest thing and one of the best ways that we can sustain that is protect that sensitive shoreline and those sensitive areas from development. So purchasing lands that won't be developed, they're open for public use, they're open for hunting, they're open for waterfall watching, birding hiking, everything you can imagine, they're not going to be developed. And just that impact to the lake is greatly reduced if we can protect that watershed. So there's been a lot of work done in the area or in the state to try and identify watersheds that are more critical than others. If you've got for example, the southwest part of the state, sadly, is very dominated by agriculture, which is important for the economy of the state as well. But the aquatic resources are pretty hit pretty hard by agricultural practices in that part of the state. Maintaining a ten acre parcel and trying to protect a ten acre parcel in southwest Minnesota isn't really going to get a lot of bang for your buck. But if you can protect a watershed in the northern part of the state that isn't fully developed, that isn't manipulated yet, you're going to get more value for your dollars there. So we've got some areas of focus that we're trying to protect more of the watershed to just maintain the health of those lakes. So those land purchases are aquatic management. Areas very similar in daily practice as the waterfall production areas that Fish and Wildlife Services purchases and Wildlife management areas that are Division of Wildlife purchases. It's all the same thing, just a different end goal of what you're actually trying to protect.

Speaker A:

I want to transfer the conversation to invasive species again. We talk about a lot about don't dump your goldfish into laker stream, but we know that zebra mussels are probably what number one on the list? Mill foil.

Speaker B:

Depends on what list you want to talk about.

Speaker A:

Let's talk about your list.

Speaker B:

There are several lists. Invasive species are a big thing. You've got the transfer of species from bait buckets and docks and lifts and everything else. And then you've also got the transfer of species from just release of critters from an aquarium. So it depends on which direction you're looking at here for management practices. The thing that we're focused on a lot right now is zebra muscles. With every new invasive species that comes to the attention of everybody, the sky is always falling. The world is always going to end. It's always the end of fisheries as we know it. And we've proven again and again that it's not. Things change, they do find their equilibrium. It will impact the system. At what degree we're still learning. But zebra muscles are a big deal right now. The nuisance factor is what's getting the most attention from people. Anyone with intake pipes on the lake, that they're using lake water to water their lawn or anything like that, they're going to have build up of zebra muscles inside their pumps and live well things in their boat and all that. The impact of that is more nuisance than some of the other invasive species that have come around. So people rate when they're holding their docks and lifts out of the water, they're just coated with zebra muscles and you need to scrape all that off and clean it up. So that's been tough erasing water. Mill foil is a plant that will cause some dense mats. We haven't had too many outbreaks of that up here. There's a few lakes that have mill foil, but not like the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. That's a pretty big impact down there. We have flowering rush has hit the news for quite a few years in Detroit lakes area, that's kind of eased back a little bit. Now there's been some chemical applications that have been able to keep that under control. So again, the sky is always falling, the world is always ending, and life is over as we know it. But we do find a way to manage and live with these things and carry on. It's not saying that they're great and they're not by any means, but it just changes the way that we go about things. Even with our hatchery, we had to totally get away from surface water because of zebra mussels. So it does change we've also got a few different species of snails. banded mystery snail, Chinese mystery snail, faucet snails. Those have been kind of under the radar a little bit, but when they do big die offs, people tend to get a little bit excited about them. They'll blow up in wind rows on lakes when they die off.

Speaker A:

Those live through the winter.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Wow.

Speaker B:

They'll go dormant, but yeah, they will. People don't realize that some of those species are invasive as well. We have had some issues with leaching our businesses around the area that are harvesting and moving leaches around. Some of those were moving faucet snails around for a little bit, and it was a lot of that, too. They may just not have known what they were, but now we've got more educational materials out. But yeah, the invasive species list is long. One of the more interesting ones we had up here was the red swamp crayfish, which is, I think I believe, a common aquarium critter. It's also used as a dissection species pretty commonly in schools. And we found red swamp crayfish in a small lake in Clay County just out of the blue. I mean, these very bizarre looking crayfish that we had never seen. We were doing a lake survey out there just to check on the fish population and ended up finding red swamp crayfish. Sent those into our biology lab to be identified, and it was the first documentation of red swamp crayfish in Minnesota. So, strange thing out of some really small, off the radar lake in Clay County. So we're assuming those likely came from an aquarium dump. But the implications of those, you can Google those all night long and see that they can travel quite a ways over land and very potentially disruptive to our native crayfish populations.

Speaker A:

These crayfish we've actually seen in the hobby, they have different names that the tropical hobby give them as fire crayfish or fire lobsters for the freshwater market. They're not, again, not a saltwater creature, but they have some pretty brilliant color. That's crazy that they actually live through the winter.

Speaker B:

Yeah. And when we first saw those, it was a bit of a shock as to where did these things come from, and trying to figure out if there's someone that had a permit for red swamp crayfish in the area. And we never did figure out the source, but please, please don't dispose of your fish in the natural systems. There are some lakes in our metro area, twin Cities area, that have resident populations of goldfish that have taken over some of their stormwater ponds. And in the metro area, their stormwater ponds turn into kids fishing ponds. So the kids in the neighborhood will go and fish there. And our fisheries counterparts down in that area will actually work with the neighborhoods to try and establish some decent fish populations and provide a great opportunity for metro area kids to get out and fish, and when they've got goldfish in their pond, it just totally eliminates all possibilities for maintaining any other type of species. So it's a real thing of people releasing things into the wild. And knox not good from fish management standpoint at all.

Speaker A:

So on that note, I have a couple of questions. I brought a little bit of homework with me. So was it 2017 there was goldfish introduced to lake bellsby? I think I'm pronouncing that correct. I think that's southern minnesota. And again, they found the goldfish, but they also found how this was discovered was a bunch of dead carp across the shores. And apparently it either eradicated or extremely or expeditedly harmed the carp species in the lake. And they found that it was a herpes virus that was known just a carp. Any comments on that?

Speaker B:

No. Well, other than fish can carry viruses just like humans do. And in our hatchery here, we do treat everything with an argentine solution to try and kill off any viruses that come in naturally. So it is a naturally occurring thing. And one of the risks of putting fish where they aren't naturally occurring is that risk of introducing some sort of virus. And one of the issues that we deal with when we move fish from basin to basin, we need to make sure that our fish are free and certified disease free before we move them. So there is some testing that goes on before we move fish from basin to basin. And you don't know what you're picking up in your aquarium. Just like if you pick up a fish and you're told, don't dump the aquarium water into your aquarium. Always take the fish out, put it in a sample of your water or whatever instructions they give you, it's for that reason, too, just so you're not introducing some virus into your tank.

Speaker A:

Did this actually kill off the entire carp species in that lake?

Speaker B:

I don't know. I have not seen that info. But it potentially could. I mean, it's a real risk that's.

Speaker A:

What we got is unverified reports as no one seen carp since.

Speaker C:

Really?

Speaker A:

So that would be maybe a way to control carp because aren't carp an invasive species from yesteryear.

Speaker B:

Well, goldfish are carp. Same thing, different same thing, different strain. But you can look back through history and all of satilization, every time you try and go after one biological issue with another biological issue, it doesn't always turn out the greatest. So I would not recommend that.

Speaker A:

So again, the big question, and you complete the fifth. It shows here from reporters that DNR reported that the virus is being studied as a possible solution to combat control carb species.

Speaker B:

I have no info on that whatsoever.

Speaker A:

Shoot, that I got that one.

Speaker C:

Well, I've got a carb story for I had a company that I bought goldfish to resell from. I want to say they're from either north or south carolina. And they had the herpes virus go through theirs. It shut them down for three years, almost bankrupted them. And same thing, they'd gotten in some breeding stock from overseas that was certified healthy and it wiped out their farm in about three months, went from one pond to the other. And so it's nothing to mess around with. And like she said, any of the stuff just goes from one pond to the next to the next and you just don't know what you're messing with. So anything you can do to create a safety net around this stuff is just incredibly, incredibly smart.

Speaker B:

Some of our cold water hatcheries, they actually have to have a three year disease free certification before any fish can be moved out of that facility. So you have to be totally disease free for three solid years before you can be moving fish.

Speaker A:

That's incredible.

Speaker C:

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that's what they had because I know they were working closely with their DNR in their area and stuff and they were getting constantly tested, like monthly.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker C:

And when they finally came clear, then they had a waiting time. Also. I'm not sure how long it was, but finally they called me. I'd given up on them and they'd call me and say, hey, we're able to start selling you fish again.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker C:

But by then two other people had popped up and had taken away all their business. So it's pretty sad.

Speaker A:

So I want to talk about dojo loaches. They're also called weather loaches. They're being a big pest in Michigan, so they're about three inches long. They generally come in a brown speckled color, but they also come in a gold variety. Minnesota put them on a no import list so we can't technically get them in Minnesota, even though some pet stores may still not abide by that or not know about the law. And have you guys seen anything of those? Because in Michigan, the reports are they've completely taken over a couple of lakes.

Speaker B:

No, I have not. I haven't seen those at all and haven't heard of it, thankfully. Thankfully, right. No. And hopefully our licensed folks and industries, both bait and aquarium culture, are on top of this and understand repercussions of what happens when you don't follow the laws. Sometimes, as we talked, laws are developed to protect ourselves from ourselves. Some things are really cool, but some things are not meant to be taken from where they're from.

Speaker C:

And a lot of people think that when they release the fish into the natural waterways. I mean, first of all, nine times out of ten, they're not going to live in the waterway anyway because it's too cold up here in the northland. But they can still cause so much havoc in the first if you drop them in middle summer and our water temperature is 68, 70 degrees yeah, they're going to live out there. They're going to go out and cause some chaos, but if they're carrying any sort of parasites or anything that's not from this area and pass it on other fish, they can just cause havoc all the way across. And even though that fish may die in the fall, the damage is already done.

Speaker B:

Correct. That.

Speaker A:

And the carcass is going to be eaten on.

Speaker C:

Right.

Speaker A:

Any parasites that are there, that's how they multiply.

Speaker B:

Right. And we have had, the last few years aside, we have had some stretches of very mild winters, and climate change is a real thing. And the species that are able to survive Minnesota conditions is growing because we are becoming somewhat mild, or course, the last two winters aside. But that does open the door for a lot of things to survive in conditions that they weren't. And you can put that into any trade. The floral business, the garden plants you're able to buy and keep alive. And lemon trees. And lime trees are overwintering in Minnesota.

Speaker C:

Yes. Amazing to me. We were at the local floral place in our hometown, and some of this, they're selling pear trees. I'm going, what a pear tree? Unbelievable. Yeah. The average temperature in our area has warmed up a couple of degrees in the last 15 years or so. It doesn't seem like much, but it.

Speaker B:

Can be a lot.

Speaker C:

Can be a lot. And look what's happening up in the Arctic Circle. They're dropping. All kinds of icebergs are falling into the ocean, and flow of the ocean is increasing, and you're getting more freshwater into the saltwater and it's just a trickle down effect.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker A:

Is there any introduction of species into certain lakes or streams? So, again, you guys have walleye, maybe put wale into lakes that there's known walleye at, or stock lakes where they know that they can't breed because they're sport lakes. But is there ever a time where you say, add musket to a lake that's never had one?

Speaker B:

I'm not going to go go into the musky discussion. Thank you for trying to bait me. But I'm not just musky.

Speaker A:

It could be any other species.

Speaker B:

There are certain cases where we have I'll use trout for an example. Some of our lakes are able to support trout. They're two story lakes. They've got great oxygen at the lower depth or the deeper depths of the lake, and they're able to sustain trout. So we have put trout into their stream, trout into lakes, and they are not natural there. They wouldn't be there on their own. But they produce a fantastic fishery and it's something that our customers are actively seeking out. So there are trout in places that they wouldn't be. And as you mentioned, walleyes, many of the lakes we stock are stocked because that lake can't naturally sustain a walle population on its own. We've got some lakes in the area that aren't stocked, have never been stocked, and have fantastic walleye fisheries. So there is some of that manipulation of putting things where they can't sustain themselves. And that's a balancing act that we play. We try and do no damage. And before we introduce any species into a lake, we do thoroughly look at what that population is currently like, what the history of that population is like, if they're able to support whatever introduction we're going to make, and what the potential effect of that introduction may be on that. And if there's anything negative about those introductions, it's not done. But we are very careful about what we do and how we do it. And it's our jobs. We've got a fantastic staff that's dedicated. All of us love what we do. Wow. Absolutely not in it for the money, because the money is not the greatest, but we're in it because this is, this is the field that we love and, and we all want what's best for, for these resources. So it is done carefully. But, but there are some situations where, where fish are introduced.

Speaker A:

Have there been instances of reintroduction of a species that's no longer been there for years?

Speaker B:

Sturgeon is the top one here. So we're in the Red River Basin. Red river borders Minnesota and North Dakota flows north, and there were records of sturgeon in the 18 hundreds. And through overharvest loss of habitat manipulation of water levels, the fish were extropated and no longer existing within that drainage basin. So it's been over 20 years now. I think we're on year 22 of the 20 year introduction plan. But through a combination of habitat alterations, primarily the modification of low head dams and a lot of water quality management for watershed activities, and making sure that our waters are able to support great spawning areas, and again, connected waters, we were able to start a sturgeon reintroduction effort. So we've taken eggs out of the Rainy river and for a while, as I mentioned earlier, they were hatched in our facility for a little bit. We've worked with genoa Fish and Wildlife Hatchery. genoa, Wisconsin. And now with Valley City National Fish Hatchery to raise sturgeon and stalk them into the tributaries of the Red River Basin. And we have actually seen quite an incredible comeback of our sturgeon population. And we've been monitoring sturgeon take a long time to mature, so they're not sexually mature until they're 2023 years old. And for the last few years, we've been seeing some sexually mature males coming back through into some of these, what we believed were going to be spawning areas, ripple areas, holes below, modified dams. And then just last year, we actually saw the first sexually mature female show up, which is in the fish reintroduction world, that is a huge, huge success. So between Minnesota and North Dakota on the Red, we've got a lot of the dams modified, so fish can move, migrate upstream and downstream to get two different habitat areas that they want. And it's been important for catfish as well. And walleyes within wild rice river, buffalo river, sandhill river, red lake river. We've got fisheries farther upstream than we have had in many years. Just because those fish are finally able to move through the systems, they're not blocked by dams anymore. So it's been a great recovery story.

Speaker A:

So that means that this program has been going for over 20 years.

Speaker B:

The sturgeon program has, yeah.

Speaker A:

That's fantastic.

Speaker C:

You said 22 years out of the 20 year program.

Speaker B:

I think we're on year 22 of the 20 year program. But but at that time, you know, let's let's do this. And that 20 year reproduction effort was, was kicked off because surgeon takes so long to mature. So the goal of that program was going to be to make sure we try and have a naturally sustaining surgeon population within the red river basin. And, I mean, 20 years ago, everyone's like, yeah, right, good luck.

Speaker C:

So we could very soon see possibly some new baby sturgeon, naturally, naturally occurring rivers.

Speaker B:

Right. And like last year, we saw one mature female, but we have had many mature males for several years, but it just it takes females a little longer to mature. So ideally, we'll see more and more, and then we'll start monitoring for natural reproduction.

Speaker C:

So if we get them on sturgeons.com or something like match, maybe part of.

Speaker B:

That, too, minnesota was able to develop a catch and release sturgeon fishing season. So you can the season dates, I don't know off the top of my head, but there is an open season for catch and release sturgeon fishing, which has been a new fishing opportunity.

Speaker C:

So you could catch them.

Speaker B:

Yeah, but let them go, you just can't keep them. Right.

Speaker C:

Give a little kiss on the forehead.

Speaker B:

Right. And these are enormous fish. These fish are 60 inch fish. They're prehistoric dinosaur, really neat. And it's lake sturgeon for the google of fishing autos out there, that's lake sturgeon that we're reintroducing.

Speaker C:

My son and his friend go up to rainy river, and they have gotten some 56, 60 inch sturgeons. And I've gotten some photographs from him, and they said it was the time of their lives, right. And they came home with a picture, they put it back in, and what a wonderful time they had. And like she said, they are prehistoric. If you don't know what they look like, make sure you can google it on your internet and check them out. But they look like they're from the prehistoric age.

Speaker B:

And a lot of these fish are in the rainy system, are tagged, and they're tagged in our system as well. So they'll have little yellow dangler tags on their fins, and the tag has a number. And we ask that if you do catch one of those fish, to contact a DNR office and just report that tag number with where you caught that fish. And it's been really, really fascinating to see the movement of these fish with that tag number. Just like if you're shooting a duck and it's got a leg band on it, you can find out where that duck was banded. Sturgeon will be the same thing. We can tell you how old that fish is, where it was stocked, and the ability of those fish to move is just incredible. The miles and miles of those put on. There's also a tagging study being done on catfish right now, too. And the miles of river that those catfish are traveling in a single year is just fascinating.

Speaker C:

And some of these fish that are tagged when they are reported from people, are you getting them caught more than once?

Speaker B:

I mean, are you getting sturgeon especially? Yeah. You'll have many reports of tags throughout the years of people catching a fish, and you'll see that, you know, it was, it was caught in 2016 at this location. At that time, it was this approximate, approximate length. And now, you know, three years later, it's moved to wherever, and now it's grown to whatever size. So it's, it's neat. And the people that are actively fishing those populations are on it and equally as fascinated as we are with the movement and the growth of these fish.

Speaker C:

That's incredible.

Speaker A:

So what is a low head dam for listeners?

Speaker B:

A low head dam is typically a dam that is 3ft or less. And they're built on river channels to just try and raise the water level upstream. For various reasons. They've been used for hydroelectric power over the years. They were built for logging. They were built for many, many different purposes. Just flooding a field on your hill or flooding a field on your land. But the water will come over that dam, and then it'll just continue to circulate and rotate and just cause a rolling effect at the bottom of the dam. And you'll see many safety diagrams by dams that just say, don't come near your way. Yeah, you'll get sucked into losing the word for whatever it's called right now.

Speaker A:

But the turbine exactly.

Speaker B:

It's pretty much what it is.

Speaker C:

It's just a big washing machine and.

Speaker B:

You can't get out of it. So with that, fish can't jump up that. Because of that turbulence at the bottom and the height of the dam, they're not able to jump sometimes, and then just the change in the flow over that, they can't get through it. So they become fish barriers. Fish can move downstream, but they can't move upstream. And fish's need for different habitat types throughout the year is varied, especially in river systems. In the winter, they're going to need to find a deep pool. They're going to need to find spawning structures in the spring. And when you can't migrate back up to where you want to be, then you're limited on either overwintering habitat or spawning, typically. So modifying these dams, what's typically done is the top weir of the dam isn't changed. So that water level is the same, but just rock weirs are added below the dam. So it basically fills in that void or deep area that was carved out by just that continuously rolling. And then it creates really wonderful natural looking rapids that become great things for people to fish by. And they can great recreational areas and they're fantastic fish passages too.

Speaker A:

I'm trying to imagine a 60 inch sturgeon going over a little three foot dam like that.

Speaker B:

They can't, right? But when they're modified and they're turned into rock rapids, you still maintain your water level.

Speaker A:

Even going across rock rapids. that'd be incredible.

Speaker B:

Come down here in the spring and watch them go through. It's pretty cool.

Speaker C:

Is it?

Speaker B:

Yeah, it is pretty cool.

Speaker A:

That's fantastic.

Speaker B:

And I would imagine you can find some videos of fish going through. I know DNR has quite a few. If you go to the DNR YouTube page and look for fish passage projects, there's some great videos of fish moving through, walleyes going through and immediately blue gills and bass and everything moving through some of these restoration projects.

Speaker C:

So the dams are there to raise the water level, but the fish are still able to go back and forth is what we're saying.

Speaker B:

Yeah, when they're modified, if they're not modified, they're barriers, but when they're modified and they become passable. And a lot of these dams are built in the 1920s, 30s, for various reasons they're not used anymore. But the water level has been pretty well established and a lot of things are based off of water level. Like in a lake, if there's a dam on the outlet and you pull out that dam, you may just end up with a swamp. And of course that's not ideal. So being able to keep that water level of where it's been established and maintained for many years, but still allowing fish to get through that system is where we're at with modification.

Speaker C:

That's fantastic for the modifications because it's probably still cheaper to do something like that than put little chair lifts like you see late night on TV, how you get up to your stairs so you fall and can't get up and.

Speaker B:

Then it makes them much safer.

Speaker C:

Much safer.

Speaker A:

What's the biggest sturgeon found in Minnesota? That's on record.

Speaker B:

You'd have to look at the state record. The state record for all of our Minnesota fish is printed in our fishing regs. So you can look at that. If I throw you a number off the top of my head, I'm going to be way off, so I'm not able to try.

Speaker A:

For those that are interested in looking for any of the species profile or any of the records that Minnesota state has, go to DNR State, mn, Dot, Us, and you'll find a wealth of resources, including a lot of the projects are doing and more information on the fisheries in the great state of Minnesota. Well, anything else I mean, we didn't get cool stories. Do you have one cool story before we leave?

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Have you ever found an alligator?

Speaker B:

I have never found an alligator. One of the neatest things I found this fall was a freshwater sponge. You don't see those too often. That was pretty cool.

Speaker A:

I don't even know we had those.

Speaker B:

We do, and they're they're pretty neat. Yeah, you don't see those too often. Otherwise, interesting stories and kind of at a blank right now.

Speaker C:

I have a question. Where do you keep bigfoot?

Speaker B:

If I told you, then it wouldn't be a secret anymore.

Speaker A:

Secret time is the one that gets the caviar.

Speaker C:

Secret time DNR keeps bigfoot locked up and only that's about it.

Speaker B:

You have to work for 25 years before you're given a key.

Speaker C:

And how long have you been here?

Speaker B:

22.

Speaker C:

Oh, no. Okay, so in three years, we're going to revisit this and find out where bigfoot lives. Because you hear all these recordings of bigfoot, but yet nobody joe rogan just.

Speaker A:

Stopped listening to our podcast. I hope you Joe rogan did, because he loves bigfoot. So no crazy stories.

Speaker B:

I'd have to think for a little bit. They're all crazy. I don't know.

Speaker A:

Doesn't have to be your favorite.

Speaker B:

Give me a topic.

Speaker A:

Give you a topic. Well, of course, about fish. I mean, that's a given.

Speaker B:

So probably my favorite fish story that I have told several times is I used to do a lot of outreach events and that big tank that you mentioned at the top of the podcast here, that is in our lobby. During the summer we bring that around to different events, scouting events, community stuff, some lake associations, fairs, and we try and bring a nice display of fish for people to look at and see. And it's a great way for people to come up and interact with us and let us tell you all the ways we love our job. But anyway, I was at this event, and I had a beautiful, probably two and a half pond walleye in the tank, and it was a kids event. It was a lot of preschool kids and I'd and blue gills and whatever else, and turtles and all sorts of stuff. And there was a guy that was there with his grandkids and his wife that kept coming by and looking at the tank and looking at the tank, and I'd say hi to him and ask if he has any questions. No questions. No questions. And finally at the end, I was cleaning up, and he was there, and he's like, all right. He said, I just have to ask. He said, what is that fish? Said, can you point to which one? And he points to the walleye, and I said, well, that's a walleye. And he looked, and he goes, oh, my gosh. And his wife was standing next to him and smacked him with her purse and says, no wonder you can't. Ever catch any. You don't even know what they look like. And she just wandered away. That's my favorite walleye story.

Speaker C:

He apparently has been swinging by at the grocery store that frozen on the way home.

Speaker B:

He may have sat in the backseat the whole way home.

Speaker C:

I don't know.

Speaker A:

But yeah, that was the mighty fish.

Speaker C:

You don't remember his name. So we can I don't humiliate him.

Speaker B:

But to give him some credit, you know, when they are just like aquarium fish, when they're in a very bland area, no background colors. They will lose some of their color. But yeah, we'll give him the benefit of that on that one. But that one I will never forget that.

Speaker C:

That was a great story.

Speaker A:

That was. Well, thanks again for joining us on the podcast and letting come and use your facilities. This has been an adventure for us. We have ah, mobile podcast studio. And she walked in and it's like, whoa, we're really doing this.

Speaker B:

I was a little bit intimidated, honestly.

Speaker A:

Yeah, we have fun. We have a lot of fun.

Speaker C:

And once she told us that we're going to get £10 of free walleye to do this podcast oh, yeah.

Speaker A:

Is that what it was? Hopefully you bought your state license.

Speaker C:

Was that part of the deal?

Speaker B:

I can give you £10 of walleye scales that we have to age, and you can age them all and bring them back to us.

Speaker A:

We said nothing about filet. No, that is the key there.

Speaker C:

I thought we're getting lunch, is what I thought. Okay, I was mistaken again.

Speaker A:

Well, thanks again, mandy.

Speaker B:

Thanks for having me.

Speaker A:

For listeners, share the podcast out with your friends. That's the real way that we get this to other listeners, like and subscribe subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And again, we want to do a lot more of these. So if you have a request that you want a podcast, focus on a topic. We'll go out and find the experts. Clearly we're lucky enough to find the experts so far. And we'll see you on the next podcast.

Speaker C:

Yes, we've been very lucky, very blessed, and many people just stepping forward and helping us out with this podcast. We've had some incredible guests. If you've not heard of our podcast, please look back at all of our podcasts, give them a listen, and if you like them, let us know. If you don't like them, let us.

Speaker A:

Know because we're here to help aquariumguyspodcast.com. And on the bottom of the website, you'll find our email and a telephone number. If you'd like to leave us a message that we can play on air and buy a t shirt.

Speaker C:

And if you get any pictures of bigfoot, please send them to the Minnesota dnr. Attention, mandy.

Speaker A:

Attention, mandy.

Speaker B:

Please do. I'm very interested in that.

Speaker A:

Thank you. All right, guys, podcast out.

Speaker C:

Thanks.

Speaker A:

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 in his sleep.

Speaker C:

Can I listen to it in my tree house?

Speaker A:

In your tree house, in your fish room. Even alone.

Speaker C:

Or what about my man cave?

Speaker A:

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

Speaker C:

You magic loving, frank sucking, mother frank.

Speaker A:

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

Episode Notes

Shop shrimp at https://www.bluecrownaqua.com/ with promo code: "AQUARIUMGUYS" for free shipping on any order! ($45 dollar estimated value)

We explore the world of DNR fish breeding, try to find out more about Bigfoot , and interview Mandy Erickson from the Minnesota DNR Fisheries https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fisheries/index.html !

Please call us for questions at 218-214-9241 For questions for the show please email us at aquariumguyspodcast@gmail.com .

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