 If you enjoy watching Common Ground online, please consider making a tax-deductible donation at lptv.org. Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people November 4th, 2008. During the summer of 2016, my friend Darwin Sumner invited me to film him and a family with a foreign exchange student from Spain fishing at a pristine lake on the Red Lake Nation. So I drove from Bemidji up 89 past the casino to meet Darwin and this family where they were purchasing their licenses. From the courthouse, we were off to a stocked lake deep in the forests of the Red Lake Nation. Darwin prepared his boat and the family for a morning on the water. My name is Darwin Sumner from Red Lake. I come into the Redditary Chief last March when my father John Sumner Senior passed away and I got to take over film as eldest son. Last summer we took a special young man named Joaquin fishing with us. Joaquin is from Spain and we took him up to Red Lake and did some trout fishing. Ready? Yep. Ready to go? To the plug-in? Huh? To the plug-in? The boat? Did you put the plug-in? Dude, you better reel it back in. Just did it. Just did it. So my name is Joaquin Gonzales de Darwin. I was born in January 2002. My mom is Iscari Bivargen and my dad I know from Gonzales. Last summer I went to Minnesota as an Australian student and I went fishing to Red Lake and it was one of the best experiences of my home. I highly recommend it. Where are you at? Where am I at? And how are we doing the interview? So I'm in my house in Spain in Madrid and you are in Minnesota and we're doing this by Skype and we're recording this. So you know, you can do interviews through all around the world. People who want to come enjoy the great outdoors in Red Lake fishing, they have to be with a tribal member. There are several guides that they hired but the main most important thing is you got to have a Red Lake member with you who's a registered guide with the tribe in order to go fishing. So bringing Joaquin up to Red Lake and him being from Spain, I figured we got a little part of the world up in Red Lake with our reservation. So it's just a little small part we got and we want to share that with people no matter where they're from. Kind of showing them around Red Lake, showing some cultural stuff and where we're at, who we are, do a little fishing, have a little fun and share some stories with each other. When they told me we were going to go fishing with Darwin and with his friends, I was told so many stories about them. He's so nice to kids that he teaches very good to kids and that he's a great person. My experience with Joaquin was like with any other kid. Kids are the same no matter where they're from. We all want to have fun, learn stuff. So I brought my grandson along to help me out a little bit. My grandson's name is Landon and I taught him how to fish and I asked Landon to teach Joaquin and the other guy how to cast. So when we're out we wouldn't have hooks flying around. So Joaquin fit right in with us and he took up the fishing no time but I think he got the first one actually. So we're going to try and kind of change up some hooks out here. We picked a good day. We couldn't have picked a better day to go fishing that day. It was sunny out and no bugs. Once you get out on the water there's no bugs and the wind picked up a little bit after a while because it was a little hot. But fish were biting really good. I think we caught like 30-some fish. Look how clear that water is. You can see all the way down to the bottom still guys. Yeah that's just beautiful. Do you have water that clear in Spain Joaquin? Nope. I didn't think so. To go fishing with my host family was a great experience. All those sites it was a great thing. You know that lake with clear waters. And with all those trees around and it was very nice with no buildings. You see it wasn't air polluted and it was very nice. Now with that experience I got to know what pollution was doing to all the forest near here in Minnesota and everything. Because I'm a voice count and I get to go like one time each month to the morning. And I know pollution is doing very bad things to our planet. It's great. I love the lake. It's very very nice. And I have a great opportunity to learn how to fish very well. He got up there. We went in the woods and he was saying wow never been way out in the woods like this. Seems like he had a good time with the nature aspect. He was asking a lot of questions about the woods and the people and the land we're at. He had a good respect for the knowledge of nature. All those sites. It was very nice. I went fishing one time in the states but I didn't catch anything. Landon what is it like to teach your new friend Joaquin how to fish? Very fun. I feel like my teacher now. Yeah Landon did a good job with Henry and Joaquin. Joaquin was asking Landon a lot of questions as we're doing the whole film. Landon was more than happy to share his two cents. Landon's been at it since he's been two years old. And I didn't teach him that. One day I asked Landon, who taught you that? He said don't watch TV. So he learns a lot from in-fishermen and stuff like that. But he was really proud of himself for helping out Joaquin catch his first fish. I was really proud of Landon. Like a grandpa should, right? We're going to try some butter worms. And if you could take that hooked off of there please. We had Joaquin fishing for rainbow trout and brook trout. And it's a very simple technique. It's just a plain tungsten smallest jig you can get. With a little butter worm or wax worm on it and maybe some cut up earthworms. And we were fishing pretty deep that day because it was kind of warm and we started off shallow but we found one biting and we moved out to like 30 feet and then we started getting. And we caught some nice ones that day. Okay, real. Real. Real. Real. Let's go Landon. Real. Let's land it. Let's land it. Let's land it. Hold it for a second. It's not too fast. Not too fast. I'll tell you. You're good. You're good. You're good. Okay. This is a fish. Oh my God. Hey! Hey! There we go. Look at this fish. Put the bail. Put the bail. Good job. Look at your size. We'll get the camera out here. We got to show your first fish. When I first like failed that there was a fish in my hook. I thought like it can't be real. Joaquin. What? Come over here. Oh my God. Come over here. Hold it. Come over here. Over there by Darwin there. Good work you guys. You think it will be like more hard and everything but it's very soft and you get to it. And Darwin started saying real. Real. Real. Real. And I started doing and when I got the first fish I thought it wasn't, I thought it was a very, it was going to be a very, very small fish but I think it was the biggest one I ever caught. So what's it feel like to have caught a fish? It feels awesome. What were you doing when you caught him? Fishing. Describe what you were doing. I was just putting, getting up and down the fishing rock. Jigging is tough. Yeah, jigging. You did a good job. You see how they kind of just hit and start reeling and they, they pretty much hooked themselves and they're coming out. Good job Joaquin and you're from Spain now? Yeah. What kind of fish they got in Spain? Not much really. In Madrid we don't have. Oh Madrid? Yeah, in Madrid. Wow, that's a pretty famous place. Okay, let's try to get another one, shall we? Joaquin caught a fish and he was all excited. You can see the kids, you know, they get all excited and they start reeling and try to get that fish up as fast as they can but you know, sometimes it doesn't work. You know, sometimes they fall off but that's all about fishing. See how slow that is? Then the boat moves and then we kind of get the different depth so just leave the line right there. But when Joaquin, I remember him saying like, wow, that's the biggest fish I've ever caught. You know, that's the first fish I've ever caught. So that kind of makes everybody feel good in the boat about helping somebody else learn how to catch a fish. Most times from my experience, once you get a kid fishing, he's hooked, you know, he's going to come back out and fish some more with us so. Oh, I've seen that bite. Don't mess with that. Don't mess with it. Even right there, you had a bite while you were messing with it. There you go, real. The big one? Yeah. Okay, easy. Just hold the rod right there. Hold it steady. Oh, that's a nice one. Oh my God. Okay, lift it up. Oh, sorry. Lift it up right here. Oh, I cannot. Lift it up. Just lift it, lift it around it. Don't take it to the top. Look at that one. Don't run, don't run, don't run. Open the bail, please. Open the bail. Yeah. Okay. Oh my God. That was a big one. That's a nice one. Okay. That's a rainbow trout. That's a big rainbow trout. Teaching kids or anybody to fish, that's the skill they can carry for a lifetime, you know. But teaching kids, especially for me, is really important. So, you know, they can carry that onto when they have children, when they get to be young adults and have children, and they can teach their kids to fish. That's a huge one, Joaquin. Yeah. Okay. All right. Good job. Awesome. To me, fishing, being on the water, it's really a spiritual aspect of it to me. Spending time out there, it just feels good. I think the better you feel about yourself and life and that water really has that healing effect on you. And I've seen where kids actually feel a lot better after a time out on the water, you know. Kind of wears them all a little bit, but still that fresh air is good for them. And a lot of times they go home and they just go right sleep. But they're always talking about wanting to go fishing again. And the main thing is that they're out there and join the outdoors, having a good time. And the spiritual aspect of it is, you know, what gets me out there. And just even catching a fish is just a bonus to get out there, you know. Once you learn a few simple techniques, presentations, whatever you're on, certain like bass, walleyes, copies, you can pretty much go anyplace and catch them with the same techniques. There you go, Joaquin. Good job. Man, these guys are fire. And you're from Spain. I like it. Just real. Don't do anything fast in the rod. That's a nice one. Come on, I say lift up. Just lift up slow. Lift up slow. There you go. Good job. Yeah. Woo-hoo-hoo.