 Lakeland Public Television presents Currents with host Ray Gildow, sponsored by Niswa Tax Service, offering tax preparation for individuals and businesses across from the City Hall in Niswa and on the web at niswatax.com. Hello again everyone and welcome to Lakeland Currents where today we're going to talk about all things fishing. My guest today is Tony Roach. Tony is a professional fishing guide from Moose Lake, Minnesota and he has a very famous great uncle, Gary Roach, who is known around Minnesota as Mr. Wally. Thank you for being here Gary. It's an honor to have a professional fisherman on the show. Tell us a little bit about who you are. What is it that you do and how did you get into this business? And before you answer that I want to say I have young guys all the time and sometimes young women asking me how do you become a fishing guide? Well you can maybe tell your story and I'll give us an idea. To be quite honest with you I've always been into fishing at a really young age, four or five years old. I knew what I wanted to be in life and that was a professional angler. My father was in fishing, you know, fished on the Mr. Wally team with Gary Fish. What was your dad's first name? Mark Roach. Mark? Fished a lot of tournaments, obviously with Mr. Wally and my uncle Gary being in the fishing industry. I always aspired to be kind of in those circles if you will and it just was always a dream of mine. I got my start fishing I guess with my dad. My dad always took me fishing. We fished a lot of tournaments. I started fishing Wally tournaments when I was 14 years old on the Lacks Lake. Fished every chance I had growing up. I grew up on Moose Head Lake there so it's a lake river system so I really got a vast knowledge of not only Wally fishing on the lake but fishing rivers as well and streams and that passion just drove me as an individual even at a young age to a blossoming of adult if you will. I had a lot of friends that got away from fishing in high school and college. That just was never in my DNA. I just always fished. I hunted and fished and it was my passion. Like I said it's what got me awake in the morning and kept me awake at night at times and I got my first guiding start really at Lake of the Woods. I guided up on Flag Island Resort. Oh wow, way up there. Yeah, I had an opportunity to go up there. A friend of mine's dad and family ran Flag Island Resort at the time and got to meet a bunch of great guides who I'm still in contact now with and just that just kind of fueled that passion. I came back. I was still in college at the time when I was guiding up there. I came back and really kind of got my foot in the door if you will in the fishing industry that way and then shortly after that Gary asked me to be on the Mr. Wally team. That was a promotional team that we went around and you fish tournaments, you went to dealers, I started doing fish fries for Gary when I was in high school so continued doing fish fries with his batter. I'd stand outside a holiday sports or a cub foods or drive all over and do these fish fries but I was actually working in the fishing industry and loved doing it. To this day I love having fish fries and people over and… Well just call, I can find your house. So that's kind of how I got my start but really when I was asked to be on Mr. Wally team I knew that that was an in-road for me in getting in and so I took full advantage of it. I called and emailed everybody I could. It was around 2004, 2005 and I think at that time it was still making mainly phone calls but I did send out a few emails and had a few folks call me back like Northland Fishing Tackle. I remember Strike Master Augers had called me back and so I just said hey I'm not looking for anything I'm just looking to work events or anything you want me to do I'll be there and so I'd go to these in-store promotions and kind of travel all over and you fast forward 11 years later. Here I am I've been doing it for now over a decade full time and I love waking up every day grabbing a cup of coffee and going to the lake. Well I would say you're one of the rising celebrities in the fishing industry and I think one of your strengths is your humility and I really mean that. You see lots of people who come and go in this industry but they don't stay and it seems that you have staying power. What did you major in in college? A number of different things I ultimately ended up majoring in teaching because I wanted to teach so I could fish and I figured that was kind of the wrong reason to get into teaching but it's really helped me become a good guide and a good teacher in the industry you know being patient and you know just educating people and showing people how I fish. It was really a good thing that I took kind of that background it did work out for the teaching world but it definitely worked out you know when I'm putting together presentations and seminars. What area where you're majoring in what did you worry in the high school level or elementary level? High school history, ninth grade history, like American history. Did you teach at all? No just student teaching. And that was enough to know that I needed to look elsewhere as far as a career path. Again it was I knew I wanted to fish but getting from point A you know to point B or C you know making that leap was the most difficult part so I started my own guide business I donated tons of trips and ran all over doing shows for free and you know just traveled and helped out where I can and I still continue to do that today. I love donating things to worthy causes and taking people fishing that normally wouldn't have an opportunity to fish. I love to fish I mean there's no doubt about it I think about it it's who I am if I have a bad day on the water I get home and you know sometimes I get up at two o'clock in the morning and write down notes thinking okay I didn't check this spot. Really? Yeah you know my wife you know jokingly she'll wake me up because I've been repeating like 19 feet for an hour or something but it does consume me even when I've had a good day you know there's just things that drive me there's certain patterns that I get on and I'm really a multi-species angler I make my living fishing walleyes and perch and smallmouth bass a lot of times on the Lax Lake but I really get into certain patterns whether it's bass fishing topwater or drop shot for smallmouth or even pan fish you know when I get a day off I go pan fishing all the time with my kids and there's certain pan fish patterns that I get on that I can't stop thinking about it how do I perfect it how do I make it better how can I improve my boat control to put more of them in the boat I know it sounds weird but that's kind of what drives me as a person and as an angler. You know you sound a lot like a young Al or Ron Linder because that's how they were in their early years I can remember them talking about laying in a in a crick even just watching fish to see how their behavior was and I think if you look at our history in the fishing industry the pioneers are people who had that passion it's not the everyday guy who just will go out when the weather's nice and it's people who have a passion like that and I don't think that younger people who are looking at the industry realize the expense of it now it's a very expensive business to get into isn't it could you just talk a little bit about that? Yeah you know I it is expensive I mean boats are expensive trucks are expensive insurance you know we talked off air about you know all the things that make a you know family tick with health care insurance and rising health care costs but yeah it's a it's hard to just jump in a boat and say you know I'm gonna go fishing or be a fishing guide or be a termin angler there's a lot that goes into it it's a lot of you know not making money at times and you know you really have to be passionate about it I mean I the road has been paved you know guys like yourself the Niswa guide league the the linders of the world the Gary Roaches the you know the names are endless when it comes to Minnesota fishing legends and guys like that really paved the way for you know a younger generation like myself on and did it with class and and you know you talk about sleeping in your cars and and you know I don't think it's that much more expensive than it was back then yeah the price tag's gone up but you know back then guys weren't making that much money guiding either and $12 for a happy day and so you know I do it because I love it I I do it because I enjoy teaching people fishing I enjoy fishing I enjoy being out there you know there's so many times where I'm driving in my truck and it's a bright sunny day and I'm heading to the lake and you know I just look up and say you know think how fortunate I am to be doing what I do and doing what I love doing it's I pinch myself all the time because it's it truly is a dream to be doing what I'm doing and if and if it weren't for you know guys that were legends in the industry that really paved the way I I I know I'd have a tougher road than I currently do you know trying to make a living in this industry where do your customers come from and do you basically operate alone or do you have a crew of guys that work with you I've got a crew of guys that I use summer and winter you know some they change from season to season but I get people from all over the Midwest that want to come up and fishing and you know fish walleyes I get people from the Twin Cities that want to come up and fish you know I'm sure like you I get people that are corporate customers you get people that are families you get you know I enjoy hopping in the boat with them because you you always hear their story as well and I like listening and hearing stories people's different background you get as you know people in your boat that are great anglers that are fantastic anglers you get other people that are novice some people want us to learn a certain technique for me one one sector of my business that has been really growing over the last five to six seven years is obviously ice fishing that has really exploded as far as popularity and then bass fishing Minnesota is really on the map now as a great destination for largemouth smallmouth bass malax being a destination that now is is known nationwide and so I'm getting all sorts of people from down south that normally wouldn't come to Minnesota as tourists but now we're here because of our bass fishing and our catch rates our size rival a lot of locations across the country and I don't I think we're just now getting exposed to the rest of the country and how great a fisher we have not just walleyes but bass as well what are the what's kind of the geographic range that you spend most of your time and I know you fish malax a lot but what are some of the other area lakes that you fish I love fishing when of a gosh grew up fishing winning my whole life you know the Grand Rapids area is great obviously leech lake you know we're blessed in Minnesota have so many great fisheries you know it's hard to you know pick one any given day I I always think the toughest question is the one that's posed you if you could only pick one lake or if you could only pick one species or one technique because that's too hard you know I have little tiny streams and rivers that I fish around home that you can't get a boat in there you've got to walk that stream and I love doing that I I do that quite often the upper Mississippi north of Brainerd Aiken area all the way up to Grand Rapids there's so much untouched water there that you know I don't think I'll ever get to fish in a lifetime so I love fishing that to a little backwards lakes that you can only get into in the winter I I try to fish all over I truly I look at it every day as a challenge every lake or body of water as a challenge doesn't matter what the species you know for business my business you know because malax is such a great tourism destination the Brainerd area such a great tourism destination I try to pick those areas yeah I certainly have customers that love to go to Winnebogash because I took them up there at one point or love to go to leech but I don't actively promote or you know have a business up on leech but I'll take some people up there or recommend them to some guides in that area as well and try to network I think a large part of our industry you know because it is so small as networking with other people and you know at today's age it seems like you can get information at the touch of a button so it's nice to be able to if someone hears about a hot bite somewhere even if I can't take them somewhere I can network with a guide on leech or Winnie or Red Lake or Lake of the Woods let's let's talk a little bit about malax because I know you're on the general advisory board or a console and it's been controversial in a lot of different areas and you know I've said this on our program many times I'm not a fisheries biologist and I can appreciate how difficult it is to figure out what's going on underwater we had a collapse on leech lake where for four years it was hard to even catch a perch sometimes you know and it was maybe because of the cormorants maybe not I mean the jury's still out on some of these things but the leech has rebounded it's coming back it's doing a lot better malax was always held up there as probably the world's best reproductive area for walleyes and I can remember fishing back there in the 60s and it was just unbelievable how many fish there were and it's hard to pinpoint all the things that are causing the issues there but from your perspective are we making progress on that do you think we are understanding better what's happening on malax yeah you know malax is a it's a big body water it's like leech lake I mean there's a lot of moving parts there's a lot of things that have changed in that system over the last decade I mean you've got zebra mussels you've got water temperatures change well I mean look at you know springs and falls it seems like we've had earlier springs and later falls lately and bait fish you know decline in and rise and so there's a lot of things going on and in that fishery that you know a lot of moving parts if you will and yeah I think we're going in the right direction I mean that 2000 year 13 year class really gave a boost to the lake as far as overall numbers of fish you know prior to that the the big issue wasn't that there wasn't any walleyes it was just the spawning biomass was aging you know the the bigger fish were getting bigger and there wasn't a lot of small fish coming up through the system and when you have that it's kind of scary because you look down the road and you take a natural spawning lake like malax and all of a sudden you know you can see in the future saying hey you know in a couple years we're not going to have any small fish left and that's changed you know that 2013 year class would get a big shot in the arm with that you know some of these year classes in between 14 15 or okay 16 looks really good back online again as far as numbers so yeah I think we're heading in the right direction also just being on that board and having the board to talk through some issues rather than just meeting once a year and then kind of battling it out over you know what's going on in the lake because a lot of people have varying opinions you know you got a lake that size with people that are very passionate about the lake you're gonna have people with really varying opinions on what's going on so it's nice to see this advisory board we meet once a month sometimes twice a month we not only talk about you know we're all pretty much conservation minded we want to see this thing through we want to see malax succeed but you've got a really good mix of people that are stakeholders in the lake that that you know either own a business on the lake a gas station around the lake a bait shop you've got a good mix of people that are realtors some people that are on different fishery boards if you will see you've got some people that are interested in bass you've got people that are interested in northern pike populations walleye you also have people on the board that are biologists and then you have some people that are on the board that are you know on the board because they you know they're they're they're county advisors or they sit on a county seat so there may not necessarily have a fishing background but it's a good source and a good mix of people some on the inside and some in the outside looking in and I think that's really helping not only you know make sure that we see this thing through and and create great fishery but also it's good in the relationship that we have with the Minnesota DNR and seeing what they're looking at as biologists because like you said in the beginning it's it's hard to look under the water and see exactly what's going on especially when you're talking like a lake like malach's leach winamagash Lake of the woods it's it's it's a vast system out there and it looks easy on a map but you actually get out there as you know it's it's pretty intimidating at times. It really is you know red lake when red lake collapse we knew it was because of netting. Leach lake collapse I don't know that we're still positive of all the reasons why leach lake collapse but it's coming back but malach's collapse seemed to be the biggest mystery of all and I think there was a lot of time just spent trying to understand why is this lake not recruiting young they call it the recruiting of the young fish and I personally I think a lot of us have thought maybe they were just protecting too many large fish and I think the other thing that's never really talked about very much and it's true on malach's and it's true on leach and it's true on red lakes we have been a part of the problem there are so many fishermen when these bites are hot I can remember them talking about 40,000 boats on malach's on a weekend and I do remember the latter years when it was so hot at some of the resorts like on terries over on the southeast side of the lake or the east side of the lake there wasn't even a place to go you had to park in fields across the road yeah so that many people with that much pressure is also a big factor and it's true of a good hot crappie bite I mean the word gets out and the crappies are just about wiped out so people are part of the problem there's more and more of us and if you look at the historic things happening in worldwide there's since 1970 we've lost almost 60% of our fish populations in the oceans and it's from people eating fish as much as anything so but I know it's a very emotional thing a lot of these folks have their businesses depend upon the tourism being there the thing I've always appreciated about you Tony is when this clap started that smallmouth population was there and you started promoting that more than anybody I heard talking about well don't just focus on wallies get out here and and I think when they had the national BASS tournament on malach's last year they found out wow that is really a fisheries resource for smallmouth bass and you know is that because the wallies slimmed out I don't know I don't know if anybody knows but we're starting to see that development on Leech Lake where there's a really good population of smallies 20 years ago as I never caught a small mouth bass on Leech Lake and now they're there too but so our climate's changing our lakes are changing and it's we're just in a period of uncertainty aren't we with a lot of these things I think yeah you know studies will definitely show that bass populations especially in this north country are growing you know growth rates are getting better the populations getting up there but you know what the smallmouth and malach's have been really good for about a decade here you know with the with the sport fishery that and and the really you know I don't know if the people know that you know malach's for a better part of 10 to 15 years was a closed fishery to smallmouth bass you could keep one over 21 that was it so it was basically a sport fishery well in that time you know that the bass were there and it just wasn't really talked about because walleye fishing was was the reason people come to malach's I mean you look in garrison there's a great big walleye and garrison you don't hear anything about small fishing and a lot of people knew that it was a great smallmouth fishery I mean I always want people know it yeah right I mean I watched countless TV shows where I knew where they were fishing and they were catching smallmouth bass so it's been a great fishery for a while but now yeah the cats out of the bag and the rest of the country knows now that it's a it's it's a world-class bass destination and people are coming from all over I get people from Oklahoma Texas California some really good skilled anglers that are coming up here and that are just in awe about how great of fishing we have in Minnesota and as you know malach's can be pretty rough so there's times where I have to take them elsewhere and we have a lot of other great bass fisheries around that they're amazed at the level of fishing we have for bass in the state of Minnesota and that gets overlooked because we have such great walleye fishing and we have great pike fishing and bass to us have been kind of that overlooked species and now I think we're kind of in the national spotlight as Minnesotans as a whole yeah a lot of people have treated basses if they were garbage fish but if you've caught a 23-24 inch smaller you know that that's a real thrill right to catch those things and they but you're right I've looked at some studies in Canada where the bass are moving about 10 miles a decade to the lakes north you know and they're not always sure is it people planting them there they're not sure how they're getting them maybe they're getting there through birds and eggs I'm not sure but there's definitely a sprawl of smallies and largemouth bass both we only have about four minutes left but maybe you could give us going into this spring a few little your tips on how people might want to catch a walleye and then maybe we could talk a little bit about bass before I run out of time yeah no you know spring's always that time of year where you know it's kind of a time of renewal if you will everybody it's a fresh start for everybody in Minnesota we have Minnesota fishing opener for a reason and I always say play the weather you know if the weather is cold and nasty and you know slow down you know shut that big motor off you know fish shallow fish a little bit later in the afternoon that's tend to win the fish bite you know if it's a really warm spring you can do a lot of things that other anglers aren't doing everybody's packed in on those shoreline breaks a lot of times you can slip out a little bit deeper move around a little bit and catch fish but I always let the fish tell me how I'm gonna fish you know I I don't go out that particular day with any you know preconceived idea where I'm gonna fish and I'm gonna I'm only gonna fish there I use my electronics I try to move around I check first thing I look at a surface temperature you know there's a lot of things that factor into how I'm going to fish that day and if you pay attention to the wind water temperature you know your graph if you catch a fish put an icon down not only when you catch fish do you put an icon down look exactly how fast you were going a lot of those things are going to contribute to people putting more fish in the boat and that's how I fish every day is different I don't have an idea well we pounded them there yesterday yeah I may start there but by the end of the day I might be somewhere totally different are you mostly live bait fishing or live bait rigging in the spring or are you doing a lot of artificial stew a lot of jigs jigs and spottails do some rigging but a lot of plastics the further away from 50 degrees you get as far as 52 53 54 55 I find that artificial's work much better than live bait at times just because I can control that bait like with a paddle tail or a swim bait for example I can rip that thing through you know dead vegetation that's laying down there through rocks I don't have to worry about my shinor breaking off there's so many times where when you're pitching live bait especially in the spring as you know those walleyes come up and grab it mid minnow people set the hook and all they see is you know scales coming off their hook well with that paddle tail even if you miss them they're still chasing that bait and then boom they'll inhale that whole thing so you get better hookup ratios a lot of times with plastics so yeah I'm a big believer in plastics and that's just not for walleyes I mean panfish as well I'm using less and less live bait every time I go fishing and with the rules and regs we're dealing with with live bait it's just a natural trend I think to start moving in that direction how about largemouth bass what's some of your favorite mid-summer techniques for largemouth bass I love topwater you know we were talking leech lake you get up on some of those flats on leech lake but a lot of places in Minnesota where you've got wild rice you've got bullrushes lily pads even open water applications I love throwing topwater and I love throwing frogs rapala makes a lot of great topwater products whether there be x-rap poppers skitter walks I love throwing topwater I mean if I see a fish at the top I know at any given moment my boat there's a topwater somewhere rigged up in my boat in my rodlocker because I'm deploying that that's not just for smallmouth largemouth even panfish at times if there's a topwater bike on I'm I'm in well tell people how they can get a hold of you Tony I think go to roachesguideservice.com on the web also you can Google Tony Roach fishing TonyRoachOutdoors.com either way you can contact me and spend a day on the water well I think it would be a day bent with a guy that would be fun to fish with so thank you for being on our show appreciate it very much yeah thanks for having me Ray appreciate it you've been watching Lakeland Currents where we're talking about what you're talking about I'm Ray Gildow so long until next time