(gentle music) - [Bret] Get ready for an adventure filled episode of Prairie Sportsman, as we head to the Red Lake Nation for some hard fighting largemouth bass action.

We'll also be learning about the research being done on plants that could help absorb excess road salts which could have negative impacts on local ecosystems.

and we'll join Nicole Zempel for a fast forage.

Welcome to Prairie Sportsman.

I'm Bret Amundson, we got a great show lined up for you, and it starts right now.

(adventurous music) - [Narrator] Funding for Prairie Sportsman is provided by, the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources, and by Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm.

A retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

And by Live Wide Open, Western Minnesota Prairie Waters, and the members of Pioneer PBS.

(energetic rock music) - Driving north through Minnesota, you see a lot of the same familiar sites, and so many fishing trips begin this way, but our destination is not your typical fishing destination in Minnesota.

In fact, as a Minnesotan, I need to buy what is essentially a non-resident license to fish here.

(energetic rock music) Today I'll be jumping in the boat with Darwin Sumner along with Dan Amundson and my brother Wade Amundson.

- Okay, we're heading to the wilderness here in Red Lake.

Let's go try for some crappies, some blue gills, and do some bass fishing.

- [Bret] I feel like it's always an adventure getting back to these lakes up here, Darwin.

- Yeah, this road here, I could if some days when it's really muddier, I'll just get in that rut there and fall asleep, take a nap till we get to the lake and takes us right to the lake.

(Bret laughs) Pretty rough roads.

Nobody comes back here a lot, so makes it, you know, better fishing back in our lakes and the waters.

We got about 40 lakes back in the wilderness area here, Red Lake Indian Reservation and all roads are all like this.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] After surviving the road, we decided to start off by looking for some big panfish.

- Blue gills and crappies are out here and about 14 feet of water suspended right now.

(upbeat music) (wind whooshing) (fishing rod whirring) - You get one?

- [Darwin] I don't know what yet.

Probably a big blue gill.

- [Bret] Looks like he's spinning.

Nice blue gill.

- [Darwin] Nice little chunker.

(upbeat music) (wind whooshing) It's a crappie, whoo.

- [Bret] I think it's a blue gill.

- [Darwin] Okay.

- [Bret] I haven't seen it yet though.

Yeah, based on the way it was fighting.

(sighs) Not bad at all.

On the rod my dad made me.

- [Darwin] Nice.

(air whooshing) (fishing rod whirring) (water sloshing) - Yeah.

- It's a good one?

- Small guy.

- [Bret] It's good.

- [Darwin] Small guy.

(upbeat music) - [Wade] Feels a little more sunlight.

(water sloshing) - Blue gill.

- [Bret] Jay is almost a little too light.

- [Wade] He's a nice little guy.

- [Darwin] He probably runs about eight I would say.

(fishing rod whirring) Oh, what do we got here?

Looks like one of them little tanks again.

- [Bret] It's nice one there, yeah.

- [Wade] Yeah.

- [Darwin] (laughs) four-inch gulp.

(indistinct) did go to four-inch gulp with these guys to get this hammer on them.

- [Bret] With the wind picking up, we're using an oversized presentation to get down to the fish.

Quarter ounce jigs and four inch plastics.

But it's not phasing these big blue gills.

(upbeat music) Tell me how these lakes are managed here on the reservation.

- We got a tribal DNR that manages all the lakes and test the water clarity and the law enforcement they go around, check the lakes, make sure everybody's you know, following the limits and stuff.

This year we had to put a limit on the crappies and the blue gills.

- [Bret] Lowered the limit.

- [Darwin] Yep, lowered the limit 'cause we're getting a lot more people fishing and they're getting more proficient at catching fish.

We put the limits down a five each on the crappies and the blue gills.

And the blue gills, they keep one over eight in that limit of- (Bret grunts) Ooh, there's a nice one.

(fishing rod whirring) Hopefully that's one.

Ooh, that's a ooh, that's a chunker.

- It's a good fish.

Oh, yeah.

- [Darwin] So, ones like that they're...

I don't know if that's about what over eight?

- [Bret] Eight, yeah, sure.

- [Darwin] Everybody come on a half ounce jig.

- And lowering the limits on these panfish, it's the same thing that's happening around the state of Minnesota too.

- Right, yeah.

- [Bret] As fishing is getting better and you don't need to keep a ton of these to get a good fish fry out of 'em anyway.

So get a couple for a meal put the rest back like I'm gonna do with that one right there (water sloshes) and let it grow bigger so we can keep catching these big ones.

There's some big fish in here.

- [Darwin] There's some really nice fish in here.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] Managing the pressure and reducing limits, that's how you keep a fishery sustainable and healthy.

And for someone like us to come and do this, we have to buy a non... Is it a non-resident or non-reservation tag?

- [Darwin] Yeah, it's a reservation permit.

Yeah.

- Okay.

- [Darwin] And you got daily permits and you got three day permits.

- [Bret] What do you do?

- [Darwin] But you got seasonal permits too, which is for non-members it's $50 a season or $10 a day.

- And then you have to hire a guide.

- Yep, gotta be with a guide.

(upbeat music) (fishing rod whirring) (wind whooshing) - [Bret] Well that's a nice fish.

- [Wade] Oh, yeah.

Look at that one.

(laughs) - Here's what's out here.

- A sunfish.

- [Wade] Holy Darwin.

I don't think I've ever seen one that big.

Jeepers.

(upbeat music) - [Bret] Anytime you catch big blue gills that hit double digits, it's a good day.

But we weren't done yet.

- [Darwin] See how that grass comes out there?

That floating stuff?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- [Darwin] On a sunny like this the bass they just go camp right under there.

(playful music) Oh, (indistinct).

(fishing rod whirring) (person speaking indistinctly) - Got it.

- I missed the (indistinct).

(playful music) - I let it sit for a little longer.

- Yeah.

(people laughing) - Oh, are you kidding me?

(grunts) Cannot keep 'em hooked.

I got it.

Darwin let us have the first crack at bass, but after a dry spell it was time for him to grab the rod.

- (grunts) I've seen enough more watch.

(person speaking indistinctly) I just gotta see if there's any out here.

- [Bret] And it didn't take him long to show us how it's done.

- Oh.

(laughs) - Oh.

- Is that in northern?

- Oh.

- Oh.

- [Bret] No, oh.

(Wade laughs) It is.

(fishing rod whirring) (water sloshing) Ooh, that's a nice fish.

(person speaking indistinctly) (water sloshing) - [Darwin] Nice little bass.

- [Bret] Chunky.

- Wasn't the most striking zeroes I believe, it's called.

- And he hit that three times.

- Three times.

- You think that, you think he got 'em on?

- Yeah, I had him off the first one.

(laughs) - Yeah, Had 'em on gas back out there.

He hit it, missed it and then he hit it again.

- He's fat.

- Yeah, he's been eating these blue gills here.

All these isolated pads have a bunch of blue gills on.

We've been hearing them.

(upbeat rock music) - [Darwin] Hold on tight.

He's coming, he's coming.

- [Bret] You got em.

(Darwin grunts) (fishing rod whirring) (water sloshing) - [Darwin] Come on here.

- So, we were using frogs and then Darwin had to show us he could catch fish.

(Darwin laughs) So he caught one on a worm.

- I have a better colored worm.

- And then he switched to the frog and got one on a frog too, so - First cast, so (indistinct) - Obviously, we're doing something wrong.

Nice fish.

- Yeah, that's not bad.

(upbeat rock music) (air whooshing) - [Bret] Get him.

Oh, no.

Oh, he still got him.

There you go, Wade.

- Nice.

- Where's your neck guy?

(laughs) - Who's taking this guy - Nice.

for that one.

- Nice.

- No way.

What did you switched to, Wade?

Jig and a plastic?

- Yeah.

Nice.

- [Wade] Not a bad little fish, yeah.

(upbeat rock music) What do you say, dad's old reel comes through again.

- [Bret] Yeah, that's pretty awesome.

- [Darwin] Yeah, that's awesome.

- [Bret] So while I got to fish with a rod my dad built, Wade was fishing with a reel that also had connections to our dad.

- [Speaker 1] It was a reel that your grandfather won in a Bassmaster bass tournament when we lived down in Nevada, Missouri, like in 1977 or 1978.

(upbeat rock music) (fishing rod whirring) - Here you go.

- [Wade] Oh.

(Darwin grunts) (upbeat rock music) - [Bret] Clearly, the tribal DNR is doing something right in making the Red Lake Nation a fantastic destination for all anglers.

(upbeat rock music) - [Dwayne] We've been salting perhaps more than 50 years and there's a consequence to, you know that salt loading to our lives.

Sodium chloride, once it's in solution, nothing stops it.

It goes into the ground, it just moves.

- [Nicole] That is the work of a weevil.

So if you see acorns that do have these holes or cracks, you just wanna toss those aside.

(engine whirring) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Salt saves lives.

When applied to icy roads in the winter, Sodium chloride prevents cars and trucks from skiing off the road or into traffic.

Salt can also be deadly.

When sodium chloride seeps into groundwater and makes its way to lakes and streams, it harms fish and other aquatic life and it's impossible to remove.

But what if plants could absorb that road salt before it gets into our water?

That's a solution University of Minnesota researchers are investigating.

(gentle music) - I heard that the roadside salt application and the pollution it causes to our twin city metro area from the radio.

And then, I started to think, you know, what can be the good way to remove the sodium chloride from our environment?

Now we have all the plants growing on the roadside.

Why not we just look into the different type of plants and see whether we can remove those, the roadside salt with the plants we have in our state.

We started this research about five years ago and we first got a couple of undergraduate students who are really interested in this work.

- My role in studying salt absorbing plants is planting different kinds of halophytes which are plants that can tolerate high salt levels and seeing how much salt they can absorb into their above ground biomass.

Because we wanna be able to harvest this above ground biomass and remove this salt from the environment.

So these plants have to be really hardy.

They ideally grow really quickly so they can outcompete these more weed like species that will grow on roadsides and take up salts effectively and not have too much maintenance while we're planting these and harvesting them.

- So, we're really at the preliminary stages of plants that might be good to take up salt sequestered in their biomass, whether it's roots or shoots.

And the idea of harvesting that material is what makes this research novel.

So, if the plant grows and dies, we just delayed when the salt ended up in the groundwater our ditches, (laughs) you know, someplace else.

- [Leif] We are researching different ways to utilize the biomass 'cause we definitely don't want to just throw it away.

So, the main kind of focus is looking at the potential for animal feed.

If you can harvest this and then give it to animals that's a high value way of using the biomass.

But then also, of course, composting and then another avenue is looking at burning the biomass for energy and then potentially reusing the salt that's in the ash.

So, if that ash has a high amount of salts then we could potentially use that again as de-icing salts.

(camera whirring) (gentle music) - We've been salting, perhaps more than 50 years and there's a consequence to, you know, that salt loading to our lives.

Sodium chloride, once it's in solution, nothing stops it.

It goes into the ground, it just moves.

We've got lakes now that are almost as salty as the ocean.

Nothing really grows in it, so if you make it salty enough it kills all sorts of things.

We know it's hard on bodies, you know, hearts and things like that.

It'd be no different than what it does to the environment.

(car whooshing) If you were to drive on any road, look for the first three to six feet.

Do the plants look weird?

And maybe they're not weird, they're just different.

And the reason they're different is that our annuals the salt killed them.

So around the university you can see where you're not supposed to put snow and where they put snow piles and today they're not normal turf grass and you're not gonna grow normal turf grass because the salt residue prevents normal things from wanting to establish and persist.

You look at a typical roadside, you've got the first flush off the shoulder and that's the space that I think is most valuable to capture salt before it even gets to the ditch.

It's the easiest to manage.

We mow it anyway.

- MnDOT has a lot of species, lists, mixes that we already know will grow pretty well on roadside.

So I would kind of look those up on the Internet and just try to find as much information as I could on their salt tolerance.

But a lot of these species, we just had to test in the greenhouse.

(gentle music) (playful music) - [Narrator] The most promising species are moved to field trials.

- The best species right now are actually sunflower and pitseed goosefoot.

The annual or common sunflower is a really good species for salt uptake.

Unfortunately it's not a perennial species.

So we're actually looking at a lot of different perennial sunflowers because we want these plants to be able to grow right when the snow starts to melt.

And it's the spring thaw because that's when the salt concentrations are gonna be the highest in the soil.

But another species like pitseed goosefoot, it's similar to a weedy species that can grow in our backyards.

It's called lambs quarters and so it's another annual but it has pretty good salt uptake.

If these plants can at least grow and then drop their seeds and then pop up really early in the spring then that can also be beneficial too.

- [Narrator] Sugar beets are also highly effective and the plants' leaves can absorb a 20% concentration of sodium chloride, but it isn't a practical crop to plant and harvest on roadsides - MnDOT's goal is to have a perennial plant mix because we don't wanna keep reseeding, we don't have the budgets.

- Think turf grass right now, is probably one of the higher potential species of perennial.

- [Narrator] Perennial plants around MnDOT stormwater management ponds are also important for filtering out pollutants.

- And if we can get plants to trap some of that it's gonna be a benefit to all of us to have less in our potential surface waters, less than in our lakes, rivers, and streams.

- Our first LCCMR project was funded for about three years and we just got continued funding for the next three years.

So the next three years will look a lot like exploring more perennials and then looking at wetland species 'cause we want to target these areas that have a lot more salts in them like rivers and lakes.

- This is hydroponic systems that I'm trying to grow some plants here.

The idea of this research is to see what kind of plants can absorb or uptake the salt from the water.

When we done with this first step, out of seven species, we gonna pick one or two, the best one.

And then after that we move with the habitat.

(gentle music) - [Bo] With our results, we will eventually give MnDOT some recommendations.

- And the whole point of this is not just to do research for research sake, it's to actually implement the results.

And that's one of the roles I play at MnDOT is to take the seed components that work and put it into standard plans standard seed mixes for counties, cities, townships, and anyone who wants to participate.

So we all benefit from salt but we should be exploring alternatives.

So this doesn't replace salt, but it's part of a series of things that we can do to lower the salt use or capture the salt we've done.

For example, alternatives would be to sweep the salt from roads between snow events and reuse it to create storm drain inlets and not put 'em under bridges or in shade, put 'em in sun and let solar heat the area so they don't create a freeze zone or a slippery zone in shaded areas.

Is there other salt alternatives that are probably less corrosive than sodium chloride?

However, they cost more money.

Sodium chloride, rust steel but there's other like mag chloride, calcium chloride, which are more expensive, but they rust different things.

Copper, aluminum, different metals also rust or oxidize away.

So, you know, everything we do has some consequence to something.

For example, potassium acetate is a really nice de-icing agent but it's also really hard on oxygen.

So when it decomposes by bacteria or fungi or algae it takes the oxygen out of the receiving waters.

One of the ways that we're reducing the salt is precision equipment placement of using the salt that's needed based on road temperature and the type of road it is.

Whether it's a interstate, you know, a state road or a county road.

It'd be more precise about the salt application.

But there's a point where you can't go any lower and still have the effects that sodium chloride provides and keeping the ice from forming and hopefully a safer transportation system.

I have children and I would really like to have something that isn't messed up.

I believe that the things we do today should be solved by the generation that caused the problem.

The only important resource we really have, there's two of them, water and soil.

(gentle music) (upbeat folk music) (gentle guitar music) - So it's a beautiful fall day, and just to highlight that foraging really truly can be done year round, all 12 months of the year all four seasons.

Today we are sitting beneath a beautiful burr oak tree.

Now oak trees produce acorns.

Now there's several different varieties of oak trees.

All the acorns are edible, but they all vary like in their tannin level.

Also, some acorns make better acorn oil for cooking than others.

Some make better acorn flour, than others and some, you know, you can just...

They're considered a sweeter less tannin, like less bitter acorn.

And the squirrels actually got this right because those are the ones they're gonna eat first and then say the acorn from a red oak, they're gonna bury those and eat them in the following spring.

So, a variety of different acorns, all of which are edible.

So just make sure you ID your oak tree, know which kind of acorn you're working with.

Today though, we are working with the burr oak.

Foraging for acorns is fun, it's relaxing, and you get to understand and maybe learn about the tree from which these lovely acorns are dropping.

Acorns were a super important staple food for this country's indigenous peoples.

So they have been consumed for a very long, long time.

And I grew up believing that all of these acorns were poisonous, which is not true at all.

Couldn't be further from true.

They are very, very, very good for you.

They contain a lot of protein.

It's a good source of carbohydrates.

So, they're packed with nutrients.

But when I am out here, then foraging for acorns I'm gonna keep my eyes to the ground.

And here, whoops.

(leaves rustling) (sniffs) There we go.

All right, so this would be an acorn that I am gonna toss into my basket.

It looks good.

There's no holes in it, so I'm gonna take that one.

This acorn has a hole in it.

And that is the work of a weevil.

So if you see acorns that do have these holes or cracks you just wanna toss those aside and keep on going.

So then once you have, you know, a basket You know, full of some good acorns you're gonna bring those home and you're gonna roast those in the oven just like this.

We are gonna rinse them and then roast them.

And then after you're done roasting them you are going to take the meaty nut out out of the shell.

And then you're gonna put that immediately into cool water.

And that is gonna be the start of a cold water tannin leaching.

And so you're gonna take those bitter components kind of out of the acorn via the water.

And what that does is makes the acorns less bitter.

But also if you consume a lot of that tannin in your system, that can cause nausea maybe some illness like vomiting or constipation.

And so again, getting those tannins out of the acorn is important if you're gonna consume a lot of them.

So then after you have them roasted, like I said, you're gonna take the meaty nut part out of the shell and you're gonna remove any kind of papery husk that is on that meaty part of the nut.

So then it's gonna look like this and you're gonna toss it into that cool water.

And then you're gonna begin, could be anywhere from seven to 14 days of that cool water leaching process.

And what you do is you put them in a airtight jar in your refrigerator and then fill it about half with the acorns, half with water.

Shake it up and then you're gonna check it every 12 hours and you're gonna add new water.

And you'll notice that the old water that you're pouring out was gonna be dark and that is those tannins coming out of your acorns.

Also, with the acorns, you know, it's super easy to prepare them.

It takes a little bit of time, but it is so worth it.

You can roast them with a little bit of salt and have kind of a roasted acorn.

Or you can grind those bits up and make acorn grits or you can grind it even further and make acorn flour.

Also, acorn oil can be made so they're very versatile.

(gentle guitar music) (gentle instrumental music) - [Narrator] Funding for Prairie Sportsman is provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative Citizen Commission of Minnesota Resources and by Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org and by Live Wide Open, Western Minnesota Prairie Waters, and the members of Pioneer PBS.