It’s been quite the week. David Eckhardt and I spent a few days at Lake of the Woods in what’s becoming an annual winter tradition. It was an AGLOW – Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers media camp and featured a few media members from across the region. Executive Director Mark Smith, his wife Lori and their daughter Harper hosted us with Paul and Brandi Johnson at River Bend Resort along the Rainy River. South Dakotan Brian Bashore, Cheesehead Jim Willes, and Michigander Jacob Vanhouten joined David and I, along with new member Ray Ruiz.

I’ve known Ray for a few years and invited him to become a member of AGLOW. Ray’s company Baztec is “Dedicated professionals creating fishing opportunities to underserved communities since 2017.” He works with spanish speaking communities and even taught me a few words during this episode of Prairie Sportsman.

Ray told me stories about his father shooting doves in Mexico with a slingshot, so when we had the opportunity to film a dove episode, I called Ray and told him to bring his father, Ray Sr, out for the hunt – without the slingshot. Ray Sr introduced Ray Jr to the outdoors to keep him out of trouble in the Chicago area. Gangs, violence and drugs were rampant, so the pair would head to Paducah Kentucky to hunt and fish. Ironically, Ray brought his father out to hunt doves – in a hemp field!

The trip to LOW was great of course, with buckets of fish, a fresh fish fry and good times. We met Memories Made Outdoors with Mike Ferrel who brought along a number of vets to experience the Walleye Capital for their inaugural trip. We’ll have more about it on next week’s Sporting Journal Radio podcast and we did some filming for AGLOW, River Bend and the Fish Hunt Forever YouTube Channel.

Speaking of Sporting Journal Radio, we waded into the deep waters of barotrauma once again, thanks to a suggestion from Scott Mackenthun. He recommended Steven Cooke from Carlton University in Ottawa. Here’s his bio:

Cooke has diverse interests in integrative biology, conservation science, and natural resource management.  His work spans the natural and social sciences with a particular focus on developing solutions to problems facing fish and other aquatic organisms.  Specific projects of late have focused on issues and topics such as fish migration, fish-hydropower interactions, the sustainability of recreational fisheries, aquatic habitat restoration, the movement ecology of fish, the ecology of stress in wild fish, and winter biology.  He has also been deeply involved with defining the new discipline of “conservation physiology” – a field dedicated to understanding the mechanisms underlying conservation problems.  He has much experience working with practitioners, policy makers and stakeholders to co-create usable knowledge.  Cooke founded the Canadian Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation and is working with diverse partners to build capacity for evidence synthesis in his various roles in the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence.

We had a good discussion and he talked about his experience with barotrauma, fizzing and more.

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