INTERVIEWER: This is August 4, 1958. Mr. Gene Garrow and myself at the home
of Mr. Joe [Gegle?]'s home here at Fremont. Joe is 75 years old and he has lived in this country for the past 64 years. He knows the river probably as well as anybody in the vicinity. And we want to ask Joe a few questions and get the lowdown of what the river has been in the past, and what can we expect in the future if we can promote this idea of building a dam on the Fremont River, or, on the Wolf River. Joe, there has been some neglect in maintaining the Wolf River in the past few years, is that right? There's been some neglect in maintaining and doing anything on the Wolf River the last few years. 00:01:00GEGLE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: Can you tell us about that, Joe?
GEGLE: Well, there isn't so much to tell, only they don't make any
improvements. If a snag pile accumulates, they sometimes come up and remove that, and that's about all.INTERVIEWER: If they do dredge the river, Joe, it don't do much good, does it?
GEGLE: No, it doesn't.
INTERVIEWER: What does it do, fill in right away?
GEGLE: Well, it fills up with [silt?].
INTERVIEWER: I see. Joe, outside the improvement, the marshes at the present
time are in bad shape, is that right?GEGLE: They are.
INTERVIEWER: What do you suggest about that? Would high water help it any?
GEGLE: Yes, it would.
INTERVIEWER: That would create, then, spawning and nesting grounds.
GEGLE: Yes.
INTERVIEWER: What about the pike spawning grounds, Joe?
00:02:00GEGLE: They left due to low water, the areas smaller.
INTERVIEWER: Years ago, did you--was it better in those days?
GEGLE: Oh, yeah.
INTERVIEWER: In what way?
GEGLE: Cause there was more room for them, more water on the marsh.
INTERVIEWER: How about wild rice? Is there any wild rice now, Joe?
GEGLE: Some, but not so much.
INTERVIEWER: If we have higher water, would that bring the wild rice back?
GEGLE: I think it would, to a certain degree.
INTERVIEWER: In what way do you mean that?
GEGLE: Well, because your marsh would be moist all summer long, and it would grow.
INTERVIEWER: I see. We have with us tonight Mr. Gene Garrow. Gene is the owner
of the Sportsmans Bar in London, and he has been very active in sports in the past years. He's been on the Alaska game commission, he's helped me write the laws, and were going to have Gene will ask Joe a few questions and talk with him, because I think Gene knows this river probably as well as anybody. Gene, take over a little bit. 00:03:00GARROW: Well, Joe, Ive been watching this thing from years ago, when the
[bob?] went out at Poygan. At that time, we used to have a lot of fishing and lots of hunting, didn't we? The ducks used to blacken the sky. Am I right?GEGLE: That's right.
GARROW: Now, they used to also stop over along the Wolf along the way because
the water was high, right?GEGLE: Yep.
GARROW: When did the bob go out of Poygan?
GEGLE: The bob went out at Poygan most [inaudible] about"around 1912.
GARROW: And the last of it went out when? [pause] In the 20s, wasn't
it? In the 20s?GEGLE: Well, about then.
GARROW: About then.
GEGLE: I cant say exactly.
GARROW: At that time, it used to be hard to paddle across Poygan, directly
across in any direction, wasn't it?GEGLE: Well, you could paddle across the open water, but when you got in the
00:04:00rice beds, it was hard going.GARROW: It took you a long time to get across.
GEGLE: Yeah.
GARROW: Well, since then Ive watched it, and I've been interested in
this promotion of this dam on the Wolf River for the reason, in my opinion, the fishing has declined year after year with the added number of boats on the river, with the lack of food, because of the bob going out at Poygan, the ducks have ceased to stop over here in flight. If there are a few ducks on these waters, the water being so low, that a few boats agitate them and they're gone. Isn't that right?GEGLE: That's correct.
GARROW: So consequently, they head for Horicon Marsh, the only preserve around
thats large enough to take care of them.GEGLE: I think that's true.
GARROW: Now if, in our opinion, if we could get the dam, lock, fish ladder,
whatever's required to satisfy all people involved in this thing, hold that water high, we would have what is, in our opinion, the first or last good food 00:05:00in the state of Wisconsin. For the ducks going north, it would be the last good food, approximately.GEGLE: Yeah, it would be.
GARROW: Coming south, it would be the first, with the exception of a small
amount of feed along Shawano Lake.GEGLE: That's right.
GARROW: How about, years ago, when the ducks used to fly? In your opinion, tell
us, as best you can, some of the best hunting days that you had, and the type of water you had compared to what there is now to hunt in the fall.GEGLE: Well, we had, our best hunting was when the water was fairly high.
GARROW: And compared to the ducks today, how many ducks would you say there was then?
GEGLE: Oh lord, I wouldn't have any idea. We'd see thousands where you
don't see one today.GARROW: Well, that's quite a comparison. And how about the fishing? Do you
go along with me that the fish has declined since the food went out and the water has gone down?GEGLE: I think it has. Either that has made it decline, or the amount of
00:06:00fishermen have, one or the other.GARROW: Well, it must be that, a combination of things, as long as the fish
can't get back to spawn in on the spawning beds, try to spawn on the river, the motor boats agitating the spawn separate it, so you don't get the amount of fish coming to maturity or even to a spawning state.GEGLE: I think that's right, too.
GARROW: Now, we could get the water back in on the marshes, the fish would get
back in there and spawn, wed get a lot more fish out of the spawn, wouldn't we?GEGLE: That's the natural place for them, that's where they belong.
GARROW: Now, I don't know about catfish and the likes. It seems to me,
however, according to fishermen up and down the river, even the catfish has declined in numbers. They don't get as many as you used to years ago.GEGLE: Well, that I think is right, too, and what there are a lot smaller.
00:07:00[tape break]
INTERVIEWER: This is [inaudible] August 4, 1958, were [inaudible] Scoville
brothers. One is Charlie, and the other is Dick. And Charlie is 69 years of age, and Dick is 73. These boys have lived on the--what river is this?SCOVILLE: Waupaca.
INTERVIEWER: This is the Waupaca River, and they've lived here in this
vicinity all their lives. They watched the river--SCOVILLE: [inaudible]
INTERVIEWER: They watched the river from the early, early days, and they watched
it deteriorate, and they saw the good of it and they saw the bad of it. They're three quarters of a mile from the Wolf River, they have traveled in boats years ago where, when transportation was only by boat and stagecoach; they grew up with this thing, and I think these boys really know the river. We have 00:08:00with us tonight Gene Garrow, hes the local owner of the Sportsman's Bar in London, he founded the Yukon Fish and Game Association at White Horse, the Yukon Territory, in 1945 he helped rewrite the game laws of Yukon Territory. Gene has had a lot of experience in the Alaskan Territory, he has also lived at Fremont years ago, or not too many years ago. He saw the river himself. I think Gene is capable of also telling the history of the river. And I'm going to turn this over to Gene, and he's going to interview and talk to the Scoville brothers, and I think were going to find out some interesting things. Gene?GARROW: Charlie, you and Dick both worked for the conservation department. How
many years ago?SCOVILLE: Well, 23 years at the outside, maybe a little better.
00:09:00GARROW: And that was seasonal work, wasn't it?
SCOVILLE: Yes, outside of my brother Dick worked thee years steady for them.
GARROW: And that was during the days when they used to have the hatcheries
around here, and you maintained this hatchery for them for quite a few years here at Weyauwega, right?SCOVILLE: A pike hatchery, yeah.
GARROW: Pike hatchery, yeah. Now, you were telling us the other day when we came
out here for the first visit that your dad came to this territory years ago, and at that time the Gills Landing was quite an active place. They used to do all the freighting from here to Wausau and places west and northwest from here.SCOVILLE: By stage and team.
GARROW: By stage and team. Now, from the time that you fellas located here after
you came back to this territory, having left it as children, came back here, you've been here consecutively, or consistently how many years, about?SCOVILLE: Well, we've been here over sixty years.
00:10:00GARROW: Over sixty years.
SCOVILLE: Yeah.
GARROW: Can you tell us something about the, what the conditions were at that
time, with regard to the marsh areas, the amount of water, the number of rats, the fishing as it was then compared to today, and the duck flights as they were then compared to today?SCOVILLE: Well, the water; we used to have lots of water, and sometimes it would
stay all season, right through, even fall. Freeze up that way. The marshes would be covered even, and sometimes we could paddle right down from our home, right across the marsh, the Gills Landing Marsh, right down to Fre--or, Partridge Lake. Hunt ducks anywhere, and there was rat houses all over everywhere, and we used to catch from 1000 to 4800 rats in one season here right on our own ground and some that we leased, but now the water has been, everything is drying up. We 00:11:00don't get rain, and they draw this water off down at Menasha, Neenah-Menasha down there, for--to keep it down so they won't flood those millionaires' homes; that is, their boathouses and then backyards, and that's spoiling our spawning grounds up here. This is the natural spawning grounds for Lake Winnebago, and all these lakes down below: Poygan, Butte des Morts, and all of those. The fish come up here in the spring when we have a little water, that is, we get a raise of water every spring, about, and the fish, pike, and walleyes, and perch, and pickerel, they all get out on the marsh all right and lay their eggs, but by the time the eggs are ready to hatch, this water being drawn down from February till we get our flood, it runs away so fast that by the time these eggs are ready to hatch, the marshes are all dry. 00:12:00That's killing our fishing in Wolf River, and the lakes too, in time. And another thing, we were getting motorboats by the hundreds, cruisers and everything, and they travel up here, that is after, when the white bass come they can't get out, pikes cant get out on the marshes, so they have to lay their eggs on the bars in the Wolf River. But these motorboats, these big cruisers and all those smaller boats, they go wide open, most of them, and they're washing the shores of the Wolf River in, and they're covering these eggs up that the fish do lay, so they don't hatch, and they're spoiling the river because there's no water to speak of anywhere. There used to be 10, 12 feet of water in the channel. 00:13:00GARROW: Well, it'll be, it'll be a continuing thing, wont it, if
the boat travel continues and the low water level remains, the silt will come in that much faster, they'll wash the banks away, and they'll never be able to maintain the channel without constantly spending a lot of money to dredge it year after year.SCOVILLE: That's right.
GARROW: If there was high water, the agitation would be confined to the deeper
water, and as a result, there'd be a lot less silt.SCOVILLE: Sure. If they would hold the water back, even down there at
Neenah-Menasha, and keep our banks full in the Wolf River, we'd have ducks and rats and everything else. We got plenty feed here in our marshes, but this water being drawn off, it kills this feed, you know, dries it up, makes it poisonous; our rats die off by the hundreds.GARROW: How many rats did you trap the last year that you trapped?
SCOVILLE: Last year we got, what was it? Oh, no, not last year. We got fifty-six
00:14:00or something like that. Fifty-seven.GARROW: And you trapped approximately the same area that you always used to trap?
SCOVILLE: Well, not exactly, but we trapped as much as there was water on, see,
and we trapped where the water was, but most of our marshes now are dried up, so we cant trap.GARROW: So you trap probably one percent of the area that you could trap, if
there was water that was normally a high water level held the year around; what would the area be now that you trapped this last time you trapped, compared to that we were talking about with high water?SCOVILLE: Yeah.
GARROW: How many acres would it be, compared to that?
SCOVILLE: Well, now, we did have around 600 acres, but we sold some of it, and
so we've probably got 200 acres altogether now.GARROW: You trapped on that 200 and you say you took about fifty-six rats off it?
SCOVILLE: That's right. Fifty-nine, to be correct.
00:15:00GARROW: Fifty-nine. The price of rats today.
SCOVILLE: 85 cents.
GARROW: You wouldn't make a nickel!
SCOVILLE: No.
GARROW: Conceivably, if you had had high water on the property you have to trap,
what do you think the take would have been?SCOVILLE: Well, Ill tell you. We dredged, we spent $1800 putting ditches
into land that we owned, that's 180 acres of it. And the first--or, second year after we had those ditches dredged, my brother Dick and I went in there and we set our traps the first day that we could open them, and the next morning when we took them, opened them and took the rats out, we had 103 rats out of the one big ditch. We didn't touch the smaller ditch. Now the waters down so low that the rats wont go in there. There's nothing there; we cant even paddle and trap in them half the time.GARROW: But to begin with, you had to dredge this because the level has been
maintained at such a low state that years ago, you wouldn't even have 00:16:00thought it would ever be necessary to dredge.SCOVILLE: That's right. We wouldn't even have to have a ditch down
there if the water stayed up where it was. Well, the man that done the dredging for us, he had his dredge in there in the summertime, and he didn't get through in the fall, and he left the dredge down there and the water came up that fall; and it come up to the top of his engine, and it was quite a high dredge, you know, and even the rats built a house on top of his motor, and there was houses all around that dredge, everywhere.GARROW: Charlie, the other day, you were talking about this dry weather, you
said something about the fountains drying up. Now, explain that a little bit. They're drying out, is that right, and you're having trouble around here?SCOVILLE: Why sure, the water levels going down every year, a little bit
more all the time, because they don't hold any water back here, it all runs away, down the Wolf River and out down at Neenah-Menasha dams. 00:17:00GARROW: Well, actually, the water tables gone down.
SCOVILLE: Why sure, the table, water table has gone down too, but I think that
this has a whole lot to do with it. If they back this water up and had water here, this water underneath wouldn't get away so fast.GARROW: It would create the pressure to bring that back up again.
SCOVILLE: Why, sure, yes, that's right.
GARROW: A lot of fountains would come to life again.
SCOVILLE: Why, sure.
GARROW: Well, how about the duck hunting years ago?
SCOVILLE: Well, when we was young fellas around, yeah, ten, twelve years old, we
stood right out here in our backyard and shot five, six ducks in the morning, and if we wanted some more at night, we could do the same thing. And you could stand out here when those ducks was flying and look east or west, as far as you could see, you could just--the air was full of ducks, flock after flock, in big flocks. And that would continue for an hour sometimes. They'd go south 00:18:00at night; I don't know where they went, down to Poygan, Butte des Morts, Winnebago, I suppose, and then in the morning early, theyd go back, up toward White Lake, that's north of our place. And why, the teal, and some of the bluebills, and then redheads would have to raise to go over our house, and that's two stories and a half high.GARROW: Well now, how many ducks did you see last fall?
SCOVILLE: Well, huh, I don't believe we see more than thirty, forty ducks
altogether, flying, that is in the fall, you know, after they got big enough to fly after being hatched.GARROW: The reason for that is that the flyway has been destroyed. There
isn't the water, because there isn't the water, there isn't the feed, and they've changed their flight pattern.SCOVILLE: Listen, I don't think there would even have been that many, only
they created a preserve down here. We've got 140 in it, and Kingsman has 00:19:00got quite a bit of land in it, and Swede Nelson's got 40 or 80 in it, and then the Waupaca Gun Club, they put in a 40, and just that little preserve made an awful difference. There was geese stayed in that preserve, and lots of ducks too.GARROW: But you're aware of the fact that in conjunction--
SCOVILLE: But that was out in the lake, see? [inaudible] right out in the--
GARROW: Out by Long Point and [inaudible]
SCOVILLE: That's right.
GARROW: Well, you're aware of the fact that, in conjunction with this, that
we've proposed that White Lake and Sinkhole Lake be put into a preserve.SCOVILLE: Well, that would be a good thing, because, you know, they'd have
a resting place then where people couldn't get at them and drive them out, and there's so much feed along this country here, that they'd be flying anyway. They could come out of the preserves just the same.INTERVIEWER: Well, Charlie, just let me butt in here for a minute. Along with
water, and raising water, and getting a preserve set in there, a refuge, do you 00:20:00think in your own mind, honestly think, that landowners and farmers would be willing to lease or contribute part of that land so that we could plant corn and stuff in there for goose feed, so that we could have an area similar or better than Horicon Marsh?SCOVILLE: I think that there'd be plenty of people along this river
that's low ground, but its ground that would raise good corn, and I think that they'd be willing to let people raise corn for them geese. They like to hunt themselves, you know. They like their sports too.INTERVIEWER: Now, on the other hand, by raising this water, do you really think
that it would cut out a lot of these no trespassing signs and give the average hunter and the sportsmen more of a chance to go out and get game? Do you think, along with yourself, in all the area landwards along this river, do you think it 00:21:00would better the conditions so that wed have more natural hunting conditions like we had years ago?SCOVILLE: I sure do. Because if they held the banks level, even, say if
they'd back the water up so that the Wolf River would be bank level full, this water would be back in the holes all around, and people could paddle around in there, you know. They wouldn't have to have signs up. They could go wherever you paddle, you can hunt.INTERVIEWER: I see. Now, Charlie, I'm going to put you on the spot a little
bit. I've been around the last couple of days, and Ive talked to many people, some guys that are really up in the sports world. This may not be the thing to say, but I'm going to tell it to you, and I want to get your answer. I've been told that some of the fellows along the Wolf River, if we put in this dam, that would be a natural and a benefit and a gain to the landowner himself. Of course, we realize that. But don't you think that by doing this, all the fellows would feel better about it, even you yourself, would 00:22:00feel as if the sportsman had a better chance and he'd be more welcome, and you'd be more free, and even though it would be a gain to you or somebody else, you've gone through these years and not much benefit; don't you think in your own mind and your own words, don't you think it would be better, and wouldn't you go along with this and give out a 100% of your time and efforts, and even feel as if everybody's welcome?SCOVILLE: I sure would. Because, you know as these seasons get drier and they
started pulling this water down out of the Wolf River and drying the marshes up, why, we had a lot of ground at one time for, just for the purpose of trapping. We didn't give a darn for the shooting on it, you know, or if somebody did shoot on it, but we wanted--we had to post it. But it got so dry that they stopped the runways all down and drove the rats out, and their dogs would kill 00:23:00the rats and everything, chasing them off from there, and we had to post the thing or we wouldn't have got enough to pay our taxes off em.INTERVIEWER: And if this waters come back, we could promote this idea, get
this water back, get this dam put in, even though its benefiting you, you could go back to raising rats; I mean, the average hunter would be more than welcome to shoot ducks or anything else.SCOVILLE: They sure would, and I think that there wouldn't even be any
posters up at all. I wouldn't see any reason for it. Because if we had water enough, the hunters wouldn't chase the rats out then, because they couldn't walk in there and stomp the rat runways down. Course, they could stomp on a rat house, but if there was water enough, they'd stay in their boats, they wouldn't get on a rat house. But I think it would benefit everybody here, all the length of the river.INTERVIEWER: This is one of the things that was bothering me. In your words, I
mean, this takes a load off of my mind. It just makes it a lot easier road to travel, and I think everybody, every sportsman, every hunter would be happy to 00:24:00hear this, and I just want to thank you for saying that, Charlie, that's wonderful.SCOVILLE: Well, that's alright. I don't think there's been an
inch of ground around Gills Landing area would ever been posted if the water would have stayed up where it belonged.INTERVIEWER: Now getting back a little bit to the wild rice. Will that come
back? Can we get that back as duck food? Can we get the pickerel weed and stuff for it, the good feed?SCOVILLE: I think, you know the wild rice, of course when it got so dry it died
out. But there's always some in certain places. Blackbirds and ducks and other birds that eat this stuff will carry that and plant it back again. Now they tell me that wild rice don't grow every year. Sometimes 2 and 3 years it'll lay dormant, and by golly, where you wouldn't see a spear of rice here, there'll be a nice crop of it.GARROW: Well, it so happens that in this particular area, there happens to be
foods that you don't find, duck foods that you don't find very seldom 00:25:00in any other part of the state. You got some"right over at Sinkhole Lake I remember years ago I took Joe [Mucco?], one of the acknowledged best underwater vegetation men in the state over there, and Joe, of course as you know, had quite a write up in the journal there a while back.SCOVILLE: Yeah. Was he the guy that was getting these potato [inaudible] for the Chinamen?
GARROW: That's right. [inaudible] duck potatoes. They got acres of that
stuff. I took Joe over there to Sinkhole Lake, and he says, You don't know what you do for me over here.SCOVILLE: Yeah.
GARROW: He says, Here is food what I couldn't find no place else.
Its a gold mine.SCOVILLE: Sure.
GARROW: So that's the reason why your bluebill and your mallard [inaudible]
in there. I've forgotten, I couldn't conscientiously say, but do I think it was duck's meat, or coon tail, or one of those things.SCOVILLE: Yeah, arrowroot is a rat potato.
GARROW: No, it isn't a potato, it was one of the foods that roll up on the
00:26:00shore in the fall. It was like coontail, or possibly duck's meat.SCOVILLE: Or burr weed, a lot of different weeds that, you know, and this corn
grass has regular little ears on em like corn, and that's all rat food and duck food too.GARROW: Wild rice, in my opinion, it doesn't rank as high as most people
think it does.SCOVILLE: There's sweet flag, you know.
GARROW: Sweet flag. Celery. They're way up there.
SCOVILLE: Even these cattails; the muskrat eat the roots of that, too.
GARROW: You know yourself that wild rice is ripe only a short period during the
fall, it has to be knocked off by the wings of the ducks; its more cover than it is food, actually.SCOVILLE: That's right.
GARROW: [inaudible] should be on the fact that, in addition to the wild rice, it
would be brought back here naturally, on its own and possibly even through the efforts of fish and game clubs, and a lot of money's been spent in that 00:27:00respect in the past, there are other natural foods that are native to this area that will come back. As I said, coontail, duck's meat, burr reed. Wild celery, and so forth.SCOVILLE: Well, listen, we know a fellow by the name of Milt Locks, he has
forty-some 40s up around Rhinelander, and he made a flowage, of two flowages, put in dams, hadn't got the right to put them in there, and backed that water up and there was no feed there for rats or ducks or a thing like that. So they come down here, and he's got these arrowroot or rat potatoes, they call 'em, yeah, and he got burr weed, and he got wild rice, he got cattails, and I don't know, different weeds. And he got here, and he took 'em up there and planted them. We was up there, my brother and I a couple years afterwards, and I'll be damned if there wasn't fields of wild rice and arrowroot and cattails growing everywhere up there, and on his flowage. 00:28:00And he had quite a few muskrats come in there too.UNIDENTIFIED: [inaudible]
SCOVILLE: Oh, yeah, acres of it. Now, he planted that stuff. He brought it from
the Indians, and he--waiting in the fall, a certain time when the blackbirds is gone. And then he'd get mud or red clay or something, and he'd roll that rice into balls in that red clay, and then he'd throw it in there and it'd grow itself. That's the way he planted it.GARROW: One thing I wanted to ask was, right now, the acreage that you own, or
that you know of, taking it at high level stage, tell me about the number of acres that would be underwater and the number of acres that are underwater now. Just to give us an idea of how this thing would materially affect the acreage up 00:29:00and down the river. Were going to try to get those figures from the Corps of Engineers, and Wisconsin Public Service Commission. But in your own opinion, knowing--being a landowner, and knowing the acres that you own, and would normally flood at a good high water level, how many acres are there compared to the amount that's underwater now?SCOVILLE: Well, oh...
GARROW: Just your own property.
SCOVILLE: There'd be a thousand acres to where there's one, where
there's water on one acre now, and there ought to be--do you think about thirty, forty thousand acres that'd be wet; that is, so ducks and things could get--yeah, I mean the whole length of the river from Fremont up. There's an awful lot of it, lot of marsh, and sloughs and all that stuff. And even if this water was held back, so we had bank-level here, bank-full, the 00:30:00water around Shiocton and up in that country would be back in them lowlands where the oak grow, and that's your mallard feed. Them acreage. And wood ducks. Darn right, we got oak, we had oak on the piece we sold, and boy, there was mallards in there by the thousands. Why, there was water there, feeding on acreage.GARROW: That's been how many years?
SCOVILLE: Oh boy, that's...must be twenty years or more, thirty years.
GARROW: See, that's back that the bob went out down there--
SCOVILLE: Yeah.
GARROW: Your flyaway has been practically destroyed, because, with the
construction now of the dam on the Wisconsin River, that has added to their flyaway potential over there. The ducks'll go there, the big body of water, then cut in southeast and get into Horicon. They'll come down from Green Bay, missing us to the east, and then they'll cut southwest to Horicon and 00:31:00down there. Poygan with the food gone is no longer the attraction it used to be. We have the food here.SCOVILLE: Oh, acres of it.
GARROW: But we don't have the water on the feeding ground.
SCOVILLE: That's right.
GARROW: It's, where now, it takes about five to eight hunters that'll
keep all the ducks off of Partridge Lake at Fremont. If that water were at a high water stage, you could put two hundred hunters on that same area, or that body of water, and you would never probably bump into each other. You wouldn't be shooting at ducks and alarming them away from the other fella.SCOVILLE: That's right. A lot of these ducks would be back in the marshes
and sloughs, too, if there was water in them.GARROW: Plenty of place for them to drop in.
SCOVILLE: Yeah. No water in the darn things now, no place for them to stop. You
gotta go out in the middle of the lake, just about.INTERVIEWER: Now, Charlie, the other day we talked to you, and you made a kind
of interesting statement, I thought about it a lot. You said that the water--or, the river, now, being at the stage it is, with the number of boats that's on there--we know that there's a lot of boat traffic now. 00:32:00Its going to be more. We can't--[tape quality poor--inaudible]
INTERVIEWER: You said--
[inaudible--talking in background]
INTERVIEWER: --traffic now, its going to be more. We
can't--it's [inaudible] times, and there's nothing we can do about it. The only thing that we can do is give more water. And you made the statement that--more boats going down created this wash, making the river wider, and by making it wider, its filling with silt, and it's getting shallower. And in time to come, its going to fill up, and I think 00:33:00you did say that there are places now where the--you have seen cows eating in the middle of the river from grass that's growing there. Now, is that right?SCOVILLE: Tha'ts right. Especially in the Waupaca River, you can go
anywhere, even wade across, wouldn't get you--well, your knees wet anywhere. But in the Wolf River, by golly, its getting so [inaudible], there's weeds growing way out from shore. And if they kept the bank full, we wouldn't have that wash, we wouldn't get that silt. Now the water's so low, this--when the boats go by, and the big waves go up against one of these banks, washed right up and under them. I was sitting fishing, and you could hear that water go way back, three, four, five, six feet, under them trees. Sloshing back in there and out again. One boat threw me right up against a bank and put a pail of water in my boat, and about a pail in my shoe.INTERVIEWER: Well, that's something that we can't know anything about.
I mean, the river is there, the boats are there, but the idea is with that 00:34:00washing under that bank, now in time to come, that's going to cut under, undermine, and then that bank is going to cave off, putting more dirt back in the river and making it shallower. Is that right?SCOVILLE: That's right, because if the bank was full, it couldn't wash under.
INTERVIEWER: And by having more water in here, it gives freedom to the boats,
and to the fisherman, to the hunter; there's more spawning grounds, more nesting grounds, the spawn gets out of the way, the waters high, it'll--the spawn will survive, will live and hatch. Were going to have fish, it'll take a few years, but wee going to have abundant game. Is that right?SCOVILLE: Sure is, because the pike would go back, and pickerel, and perch, and
all those out in the marshes, and spawn. Catfish, too, get out in the sloughs. This year, they couldn't even get in some of the sloughs, with the water level. Wouldn't go in there. They have to spawn in the river, and the water being so low, these boats going and making them waves all the time, they cover the eggs up with silt, and kill them.GARROW: I seem to remember that there's millions of dollars being spent on
these superhighways coming out of Chicago, and down in Milwaukee, making it 00:35:00possible for people on the south side of Chicago to get up here in three and a half, four, four and a half hours. But in the next three to five years, were going to see the greatest influx of people looking for recreation areas, fishing and hunting, more than we could [inaudible] conceive in the present time. Thing to do is to plan for it now. Try to get this water so that, when the time comes, when these roads are complete, and the people become cognizant of this area up here, and we've got room enough for them, confine the boats to the river as much as possible, and limit the horsepower of the motors that go to the spawning beds, and keep them off the spawning beds during the spawning season for a limited length of time, let those fish spawn, and as a result, well have more place for these people to go and do their fishing and do their hunting, and regulate it at the same time. As it is now, we're going to have a mud puddle.SCOVILLE: And they get something [inaudible].
00:36:00GARROW: In my opinion today, the mighty Wolf is the equivalent of Mud Creek.
SCOVILLE: Yeah, and in four or five more years, itll be so damn shallow
they won't be able to run their fast boats here. That's what's going to happen.GARROW: Its a wanton waste of natural resources, with the amount of money
that the governments spending today and wants to spend on wetlands restoration and recreation. Its one of the greatest naturals in the state of Wisconsin that there is. In my opinion.SCOVILLE: One of the greatest places for mallards and wood ducks to hatch, and
some pintails, and then wigeons, too. You know, they'd nest here if there was water here. They won't do it anymore. [inaudible] hatch here. We used to have oceans of wood ducks and mallards, and right here, our local ducks, hatched right here. But you don't see them anymore. And it's all on account of low water, that's what it is.INTERVIEWER: I have just a little comment to make. Last night I was over to
00:37:00[Herbie Walts's?], and he showed me some pictures he took of his western trip out to Yellowstone Park, and through the western territory. He showed a picture of a dam that was being built on some river out there, which I can find out the name of, and it was costing millions of dollars, and nowhere around this dam could I see any water, and I asked him, "What's the purpose of the dam, Herb?" He says, "I don't know. There was no water there, but they still had a dam built." He says, "I don't know what it is," but spending money like that, I dont see why we can't, in this vicinity of ours here, build this dam and create something that's worthwhile and get some benefit out of hit. I mean, not only people along the river will benefit, but every town, every business, every, everybody--every resort, everybody around here will make money. I still think it will do more 00:38:00than even getting in a good industry in New London or any small town around here. The resort area will far overcome any benefit that any industry that could come in. Do you think I'm right?SCOVILLE: Well, I do, I certainly do. You know, the better the fishing and sport
here, and hunting ducks and all that, boy, the more people are going to come here. Otherwise, if it keeps on the way it is, first thing you know, there won't be any more fish, ducks, or anything else to come here to hunt.GARROW: In area were talking of, what, about 24 miles of river from New
London to Fremont, about 11 miles to Shiocton, about 3 or 4 miles up to Black Slough. So that would be in the neighborhood roughly between 35 and 40 miles of wonderful duck nesting areas and fish spawning grounds.SCOVILLE: The spawning grounds for all these lakes below us. That's what it
is. All these fish come up here to spawn.GARROW: The restoration of the duck flyaway from here--the Midwest flyaway
from here all the way to Louisiana.SCOVILLE: Yeah, and if they take some of this federal duck stamp money, instead
00:39:00of going up in Canada and spending it, would spend some of that right here and improve this thing, we'd have ducks right at home, right here in the state of Wisconsin. Plenty of them.INTERVIEWER: Well, Gene, is there any further comment tonight that you'd
like to make, anything you can think of?GARROW: None that I can think of, unless we shut this off for a minute and let
the fellas see among themselves, or between themselves if there's something that they'd like to mention.