New video: Traditional Native Walleye Spearing.

Filmed this spring on Georgian Bay with some friends of mine.

Enjoy.

I eat food with holes in it!

Neat video Hutchy, I swear I could smell that water!

I'm hungry all the sudden.

I have been to native feasts, and i dunno if its how they cook it or what, but the walleye always tastes incredible.

thanks.

was fun to make!

Me too! Lol

Pretty cool! Good job!

That video was awesome!!!

Great video. Thanks

Thanks.

I have actually got some flak from it in various fishing groups, and I expected that.

As a native friend said, greed exists no matter the color of someone's skin, and I know natives get a bad rap in some places because the stories of wasted fish and abandoned nets always get the most attention.

Simply hoped people would watch the video and see that there are reserves doing it right.

Just tried to put a good story out there.

i thought it was pretty cool. we have walleye here but not in numbers. They are delicious. I too have heard stories of people wasting that resource and using their ancestry to justify it. I am sure some of them are true at least. Those guys were just harvesting. Again, I liked it.

Yeah same type of dweebs who think Wolfie catchin carp with a barbed hook is "barbaric"

If we weren't on Tman I'd pass on some advice you can give them!

enjoyed very much thankyou speared a lot of fish when i was a kid in streams like that nice and clear most got smoked now the streams are dirty and a lot have soap suds in them cant even see the fish its sad

Good viewing of another culture's methods. Thanks for making.

Great video Hutchy.

IMHO, if you practice "traditional" rights, then you ought to live 100% traditionally... 100% of the time.
Especially since there are at least 400 million in North America these days vs maybe 3 million when these methods were the norm.

That being said, gorgeous photography in that vid.

Good stuff. Thanks. LLL

interesting to say the least

I get that.

I also get fish hatcheries aren't traditional and am good with them dumping a few million fish in the lake every year!

Works for me! Hooked into a ten pounder today musky fishing. Love it!

.what did you used to spear?

a five prong gig looked real similar to the ones used in your video

No.

With that logic it’s forget about yesterday and live and adapt to what’s happening each day.

Like buying a new tv every other month because a new one came out. Buying a new vehicle every year. Building a new house because new techniques and codes came out or modernizing. Buying a new rifle or new bow each year cause it shoots faster, more accurate, better bullet/broadhead. Etc.

You want to erase history.

I’m telling you there’s nothing wrong with trying to do things your ancestors have done. It’s kind of the beauty about living in a country like Canada. Not sure how things are in the States.

I guarantee you didn’t think before you posted that.

You want to erase history.

Not sure, but he might of meant learn from history.

I’m telling you there’s nothing wrong with trying to do things your ancestors have done. It’s kind of the beauty about living in a country like Canada. Not sure how things are in the States.

Didn't realize non-natives could spear walleyes in Canada. Yes, it is different in the states.


Nice underwater video shots. Looks like some nice country.

My family always , speared suckers and mullet, in the spring.In the georgian bay rivers. usually would come home with a couple of feed bags full.. We are not natives,Just farmers, mostly just trying to get food. Remember my grandmother, canning them . That was their food. Spearing mostly disappeared before I was old enough to help out. I did net , suckers and smelt. Usually a spring time adventure. old243

Non natives can spear suckers and...I think carp during day light hours. We can't spear walkeye. I was only filming.

I hear sucker are good canned. It sucks we cannot spear them at night, but oh well.

I'd like to try spearing and pickling them.

I rarely watch you-tube videos. In my opinion, the vast majority are "Gee. Look at me! I'm fantastic!" This one Hutchy, was very informative and exceptionally well photographed. Thanks, man.

Jack

There will always be people who pick and chose what technology they embrace. Decide what they want to call their version of tradition is something all humans seem to do.. Doesn't matter if your talking base ball bats, fishing, archery, or cars even relation ships..
I think the bone spear was cool idea. They guys you were with seemed to be doing something they had always done.
I like your videos and think you do great job on them.
Thanks for sharing.
Oh and I too have no problem eating things with holes :-)

Mac

i thought the video was great brought back good memories and i have done things like they were done years ago and thought it was better than way its done now but im not going to go back to going out to the out house out side when its below zero like we did when we were kids and i wish farming was like it was back then and have clear streams again

Yes, Great!

Not bad for a Canadian

Thanks for the kind words Jack.

I am trying to make my channel a bit more than just the vapid look at me kind of stuff.

It might not make me an internet star, and that's ok. Just trying to share what I do along with a positive message about the outdoors in general.

Great video Hutch, I liked it, and of course, watched it on Youtube and subscribed.

PS, I wouldnt hesitate to eat a walleye, if I was hungry, in any season or not, at any time of the year, lol. Or any other fish.

Not something you get to see often...Thanks for posting...

Hutchy after have dug several archaeological site in boreal situations it is always hard to find 'bone artifacts" because of degradation of the artifact. Stone tools survive because they are stones...but...a stone spear in those situations would have a short life span on the rocks holding the fish down.
It was interesting to see the pin -you-to-the rock-till -stopped thrashing.
If it was not for some of those early written journals we would be lost in what is " or was .So your intro to Sameul was fitting
Unfortunately lots of those journals were destroyed during the French revolution.

Thanks for the kind words.
Yes, real good dumping the spawn back in.

Buwahahaha!
Sure assume a tremendous lot there "JP".

Absolutely nothing of what you stated is true.

Very informative on how it was once done.

I have no objection to "traditional harvest" if it is still done so. BUT there is nothing traditional or religious in using a $100,000. boat and motor with all the modern electronics and 200' nylon gill nets! And it shouldn't be taxpayers that have to restock and limit their harvest to restore waters emptied. The waters in which it is allowed aren't all fully within reservation boundaries. When is fair going to be truly fair for all.

Fair for all does really ring true.


I like the regulations the reserve in my video put in place. It is as traditional as I have ever seen, and hence they have my support. Its a 20 minute walk into the river, and while the hatchery owns a boat, no one else boats in to spear. The boat is used to transport the eggs to the hatchery when its running, and then to bring the fry back tot he river.

But I can understand the distaste when it turns into a commercial operation, and illegally selling fish is the goal.

As a native friend said to me, "there is greed no matter the skin color".

If white people were allowed to spear and net, you think they wouldn't bend the rules too? It is a human thing, not a race thing. It just so happens that natives are allowed to spear, use nets, etc and the bad examples show themselves far more readily.


And that brings us right back to the "fair for all" argument again. lol

I believe were white people allowed to net, spear, etc, they would bend the rules. It has nothing to do with race whatsoever.

But, the "fair for all" argument looms large considering most bands are bankrolled by their casinos which their ancestors never had. Their ancestors never had boats with massive lighting systems and 100 HP motors.

As far as the "fair for all" argument, on the lake I'm on this year we were allowed to take one walleye per day from May 15 - May 31. The fish had to measure between 21-23". Any others caught had to be returned to the water. June 1st - June 30th it was legal to angle for walleyes, but all caught had to be returned to the lake. After June 30th it becomes illegal to even fish for walleyes until Sept 1st at which time you may fish for them again. I don't know if it's been decided yet if you can keep any, though.

The natives can spear or net with no restrictions as to size or limits per day. They have a certain poundage quota each year.

The ancestors of nonnatives subsisted off the land for generations as well but as populations have continually increased and harvest pressure has followed concerned people have pushed for science based harvest management to try to keep a sustainable resource for all. The wholesale netting of fish during their spawning period is NOT considered sound practice in any management I have learned(except where spawn season harvest is allowed when barriers to spawn migration create areas of over spawn production). The rule setting that allows spawn season netting is NOT a bending of the rules but a condoned legal practice that is set by governing group. Over harvesting a resource to its decline may have been a tradition practiced by natives and non alike in the past(YES, native Americans regularly over harvested resources to the point of starvation or relocation as well). Equality comes from EVERYONE treating each other equally by their own choice not because they have to. Would it be "fair" of native MN's to have different regulations of harvest than allowed to non residents for our allotment of walleye.

I'm sure as yet your tradition of spearing spring walleyes have no major impact on your population especially if done the method you showed and I applaud the desire to remember and practice your history, if it is not adversely harming your future. Here the practice of "traditional" harvest is a bomb ticking to go off because it is polarizing people on the "equality" of Americans. Many are demanding to be equal - unless they can get more!

Remember America had no people in it until the first ones crossed over or sailed here. So we are ALL non native Americans. It's just a matter of when we got here.

Trapper 7, our concern I am sure is over the same body of water which we do not want to see go the way of the other waters where other divided harvest rules have been allowed.

Without looking at location I could tell who here is from Wisconsin just by their comments.