You You When I started out fishing when I was a boy that you go out 25 or 30 miles in a lake and you'd see this water Foaming on a white cap, you know while you're on the boat maybe out 35 or 40 or 50 fathoms of water You could look down below the surface and And maybe see 150 feet down the fish coming up That far down.
I mean you could actually see the fish in the nets and our equipment down there and you just crystal clear and it had Sort of an unexplainable color to it.
It was just fantastic.
It used to Just get me you know just to see something like that like crystal clear and you know blue and blue and white The sun colors and everything with a reflection in it.
It's just beautiful I mean, it's something you have to appreciate Now notice the last four or five years It's not that way You You Fishing all my life started out on weekends were again kept my job, you know reconstructed every week Got started organized that way She's a good boat.
Tell you she's one of the Nicest boats I've read out on the Great Lakes as far as weather is concerned We were out there Gales already Or as what I say virtually speaking the seagulls don't even fly in particular days.
We were out in the lake, you know She's probably home on many a bad nights already where In some instances you'd be worried a little bit and I wasn't I mean I'm just a little bit different.
I feel more at home.
I don't like kind of watered and I do actually hear the streets of Chicago But it's in my blood once you get the bug, you know, it's hard to break away.
I can break away maybe for six months or so or a year or two and do something else, but that attraction Will always be there And it'll always draw a person back once you get it in at least you'll you'd be working indoors or England someplace and The habits are always be with you where you look at the wind Which directions is blowing how hard the water you'll smell the fresh breeze and you'll wonder geez what am I doing here? Just so be out in a lake over it's Well, let's go back in the lake and stuff like that So it's always there once you get it in once you adapt this you just can't get away from it you know, you'll talk yourself out you move off into something else, but Sure as heck Here you come back six months later is six years later Think it's the other thing about the whole thing is the challenge you got to like a challenge and you've got to be You've got to accept this challenge and and then it's a challenge within yourself that you can compete with this particular force and survive and Accomplish what you want Oh About the fish business you could Be fairly well off one day in a bum virtually speaking the next day You gotta be willing to lose some in order to gain some I've gone out there and lost as high as ten thousand dollars with equipment I'm one night So This is pretty tough It's a big risk actually Ensuring people like us.
It just gives you a little more food for talk in the business whether it's all worth it Getting out there and risking your life every day.
This is what it is really.
What's my color st.
Peter? It's another thing.
He was a fisherman.
He's up at the pearly gates and they I'll get to see him He's not have something to kind of work It is an eye -faceted life did sit so it's not everybody can go out and working on a Rainbow dies fishing person to use his thing or the nice thing you want to do unless you look at the Little flits little bug like that.
So the other thing our hours on a lake is Bad our average hours is Oh tender 15 hours and then some today the average person wants to work eight and less And five days a week and so forth And the fishing business you had to work seven days And we had work when it was there the drivers in this Christmas The Thanksgiving or whatever it was if the fish were running for it There was a demand and you had this particular thing going you had to keep on Going work because the following week or the following day or the following month.
It wasn't there no more the fish have disappeared Know what you're doing out on the lake remains a lot You've gotta be constantly thinking about what you're doing.
In other words, your mind is always back there.
You're thinking What's your next moves are gonna be? And so for me didn't take so much out of a man And we don't have the people in the business today even That can make our new equipment as we did years ago Used to be able to have somebody make nets and so forth and string that's We know I have people around that were talented this week It's a trade by itself.
You don't have it.
Today.
You're if you don't do it yourself.
You just can't get it done There's no big I don't know where to go.
I've tried to tap every Available source of manpower of help for people that might be interested in this this type of work and it's gonna be very Disappointing The other people I don't blame for not doing it because there are better things to do The people that are that I left now the old -timers and so forth their drifters to some extent They're not interested in they work when they want to which is little bit, you know, it's bad for us Like I says I couldn't couldn't get a spare man That's how close we work right now So when you do have a few people in the business that you're working what you have to hold on to them and cherish them because Nobody behind them after after this particular crop as I call it is gone.
There ain't nobody else Working for prices that virtually you're back in depression days in the 30s and early 40s and so forth We're better than we're getting today I Been a lot of trouble in the fishing business The water is contaminated The fish are contaminated But also all the products are contaminated and it's just starting to hit the papers now our Livelihood our staples and that thing I heard I heard that I'm seeing these here cancerous Sars and fish out in the lake which I've never did What is cancerous chubs are out there the fish? The same thing was happening with our cattle poultry now they're trying to come in with crash programs to rehabilitate these wakes and so forth, but I'm afraid that when it gets to a certain point it gets out of hand They won't be able to do anything Chances are this generation here what? few of the profit is stuff that maybe music comes on Somebody else might mind my little guy or something like that.
There won't be no clean water.
There won't be no Fish anymore and stuff like this.
So this is this is getting to be a serious thing.
I can remember when I Was able to catch her and perched out off a 68 straight where used to be one of the nicest grounds The cleanest There is no more here.
There is no more perching that area The perch up that we all met the greatest fishing grounds in shore areas.
It's beautiful now the last several years We go down into these areas.
We can't come up with any Any fish anymore to speak of you know, because it was changed the bottom to sediment the feeding grounds, I imagine are the spawn grounds of the cycle is changed on them, but The water has been bad down there for years already I tell you that's a bad part The northern is just as bad to another degree because of this washing problem We're having now you may be in a point now We might never be able to bring it back to be honest with you once it takes a hole Just the shame that the water is gonna go to waste and that's what's gonna happen I know because whatever crash programs they've got instituted now there was a Just not enough of it and this country don't realize or they don't know Just how bad they need these great ways, but as it is right now, it looks pretty pretty bad for the future I Think back over the years what I remember when I first started out She would be crystal clear.
You could you could look down in the water for 20 or 30 feet or 50 feet down below and see the fish coming up as clear as imaginable and you would hit a certain depth factor there where they like come up out of the night and when the water would boil and the water would fall From a sea you'll get the various colors and green and white blue and everything especially on a sunny day to the sun hits this just Colors and unimaginable you don't have that It's not that way It doesn't have that specialness that luster that Something, you know to attract you real fast It's Green that a sort of pale green pale blue the seas don't shine and sparkly Even that's 20 30 miles out in Lake City Very few people are very few things happening.
It's nature still carrying on by itself out there People are losing that body of water that's so great to them that will be so Generation of people that will be alive and be so dependent on it.
It would be all shot down too bad I Don't really know how long I'll be able to hold out under the circumstances I'm encountering these problems on along down the line I'm worried for what it going on, but I have to say could do All right, let's presume that we are out of business and there is nobody anymore that has the experience And capability of going out into the lake and working on the water Like even working with industry let's presume on some problems that have cropped up Why are you going to get these people if needed in the future? How long would take to change And they'll find out there isn't anybody no more then what they're gonna do.
I Don't expect to see very very many people around So it's sort of a bad outlook on it, but that's what what's happening right there it's right there in front of us You You
