(upbeat music) - Welcome to "A Shot Of Ag."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

Do you like fishing?

You ever think about how the fish got into the water?

- Vaguely.

- I don't know.

Today we've got Nate Herman.

Now, he's with Herman Brothers Fisheries.

You're outta Hanna City?

- Yeah.

- Is Herman Brothers Fishery outta Hanna City?

- Yep, Herman Brothers Fisheries is just a mile from where I live.

- Okay, I'm guessing it might be with your brothers.

- You're pretty intuitive.

- Ah, you're not dealing with a chimp here, you know what I'm saying?

Who's all involved in that business?

- So, Herman Brothers Fisheries is my two brothers and then also my two brother-in-laws.

- Okay.

- So there's five us all together.

- It's a little deceptive on the name.

Should be Herman Brothers and Brother-In-Laws.

Did you shorten it to keep on the character space?

- So we are really good at growing fish, but we're really bad at marketing and logoing and- - All that other stuff.

What is a fisheries?

- So fisheries, I guess we would define that as a place where we grow fish.

- Okay, so you are actually, I don't even know how you say it, you're breeding fish.

It's like a fish farm.

- Yeah.

It is a fish farm, but it's a newer, more like- - [Rob] It's a modern version of fish farm?

- Modern version for a name.

- Because all right, if you say that to somebody, you've got a fish farm then someone's gonna think you've got like, just a farm pond and you're out there dipping a tasty bass out with a net.

But that's not how you're set up.

- Right, a lotta people would think in the past, fish farming would be catfish, you know.

So you got ponds full of catfish to sell to restaurants and whatnot.

- Those tarpons, you ever grow those?

- You know, tarpon is a fish that we actually could grow up here in the middle of Illinois.

They don't need pure salt water for their entire life.

- Is that those tilapias.

- Tilapia we have grown.

- Yeah.

- Unfortunately, the state of Illinois does not like tilapia being stocked into public waters.

- Ah, 'cause you get the whole Asian carp thing.

Right?

They get out.

- Well, tilapia is a little bit different than the Asian carp, but if you do stock tilapia into one of your farm ponds, the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service will show up at your door.

- Well, they don't like that.

- No, not here in this state.

- How'd you get into all this?

- So, we got into all of this basically because we are just like passionate about fish.

So we loved fishing.

We grew up on a farm pond and I always wanted to know like, hey, I've got bass and blue gill in here, but I want more.

Like, I would love to have a walleye in my pond.

I'd love to have crappie in my pond.

I'd love to have a Northern pike or a muskie.

Like, I had all these dreams and everywhere I read, everything I saw, kept telling me, you can't do it, you can't do it, you can't do it.

And they would give these reasons why, but they weren't even that good of reasons why.

So it's like, all right, well I want to have crappie in my pond, so I went and drove my bike, rode, not drove my bike.

- You rode your bike.

- Rode my bike.

- Depends on how good of an operator you are.

- Yeah, well, I was only like, 13 at the time.

So, I rode my bike, I had a little bucket on the front.

Grabbed a couple crappies from a pond about two miles away, brought 'em back to my pond, put 'em in there, and watched 'em breed, spawn, and then grow some really big ones.

And I'm like, well, everybody told me I couldn't do this and I just did it.

So then it just kinda really fueled the passion for figuring out how to grow big fish in ponds.

- You just like being difficult.

When somebody tells you you can't do something.

- Yeah, you could talk to my mom for days and days about being difficult stories.

And making life hard for her.

You could talk to my wife of 19 1/2 years.

- She's got a lotta stories, huh?

- Well, maybe one or two.

- So, every time when you interview somebody I always ask, you know, what don't you want me to ask?

And usually people are like you, like, whatever, I'm an open book.

And then I always joke, oh, I'm gonna ask you what your first girlfriend, boyfriend was and if you still follow 'em on Facebook.

We've done it for years.

And you said, your first girlfriend's name was- - Brooke Herman, been married to her for 19 1/2 years.

- Your wife is your first girlfriend?

- Yes, she is the only girl I have ever held the hand of, given a hug to, a kiss to, that's it, just her.

- And how many years?

- 19 1/2.

- Yeah.

You think it's gonna last?

- I am hopeful because we have a 20-year anniversary coming up.

And we have been dreaming our whole lives of going to Hawaii.

- [Rob] Are you gonna go fishing?

- Okay, so this trip- - The answer is yes.

- The answer is no, but yes.

So normally trips are planned around really good fishing destinations.

- Yeah.

- The island of Maui happens to be a fantastic fishing destination.

But we've planned out the trip and I have carved out the hours of 5:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. to go and do a little bit of casting along the rocks.

- She's probably fine with that.

- She's okay with that.

- Yeah.

I would be too.

- And well, and I told her there's some really good eating fish and so she does like to eat fish.

We both love to eat fish.

And so to be able to catch a few fresh, there's different types of snappers right there in the rocks.

- No crappies?

- No crappies there.

- Yeah, you could sneak some over.

They'd probably frown on that.

- You know, there are ways, but you can only bring three ounces of liquid.

I don't think I could bring very many.

- You want a hardy fish.

19 years.

How many kids you got?

- We have three kids.

- Okay.

All right, so with the fishery, when did that start?

- So the fishery, we modernized the name about two and a half years ago.

- Yeah.

- But before it was called Herman Brothers Pond Management.

- Okay.

- So we started out back in 2005, kind of on the side.

We were building homes for our main job.

- Yeah.

- And I knew that that's not what I wanted to do my entire life.

I got to see my great grandfather, my grandfather, my dad, my older brother, I got to see them live amazing lives, do amazing things, but I knew it wasn't the path for me forever.

- That's a lotta grinding hard work.

- It is and today's home-building client has really changed and shifted from back in the day.

You know, back in the day, my grandpa would design homes based on what size, length sheet of plywood would come in.

And he wouldn't leave a foot extra, you know, I mean, it was in increments of fours and eighths.

So, I mean, he would design homes that way.

My dad and then my older brother, things started shifting to where just even to get people to make decisions just would take forever.

- So basically, working with fish is better than working with people.

- Yeah, so, when you're working with somebody on their custom home.

- Yeah.

- A lotta times there's a lot of internal conflict within that family.

- What?

- Making those decisions.

If you can believe it.

- Get outta here.

- Unbelievable, I know.

But, when you're working with somebody with fish, it is a whole different ball game.

I mean, people want to buy fish.

The day the fish show up at their place, they're excited.

They get to see 'em go in, they get to feel good about it.

It's just like a feel good story all the way around.

And we learned real quickly that is the business where we can achieve, maybe not 100% customer satisfaction, but I mean, right, right there.

- Yeah, I think you're right because you see this in situations where people meet each other, right?

They have a common interest in like, football or whatever.

If you find out that two people both have ponds, that's all they talk about the entire night.

Managing the pond, what happened to their pond, what they're gonna do with their pond.

- Yeah.

- And you've tapped into that.

- We have tapped into that.

And so, we've evolved.

So we started out killing algae, cleaning beaches, building docks and decks.

That transformed into, you know, stocking fish.

We ended up getting an electro fishing boat where we could- - Those are cool.

- Super cool.

So cool.

Like, that was dream of mine since 2003.

I kinda put out on a pond management forum, where I was gleaning all this information, my dream is to have a electro fishing boat.

I'm hoping, you know, within five years.

I have no idea how I'm gonna pay for how I'm gonna get it.

And literally one showed up at my door.

- Santa or?

- This wasn't Santa, I think this was God actually giving a gift that I have been so thankful for, I mean, ever since 2008.

So I learned how to do email.

I was not good.

- You learned how to do email?

- I learned how to do email.

Learned how to get a website.

- Setting the bar kinda low, aren't you, Nate?

- Yeah.

So, that sets the story to where it's like, I learned how to do it.

This lady out of the blue from Iowa sends an email, says, "Hey, you look like a pond management company."

She didn't say, you know, it was more like, you look like you could be a pond management company.

And I've got this boat sitting in my garage for the last two years.

Some company went out of business, my boss stored it here.

He just said, "Get rid of it."

I'm ready to get it outta my garage.

So, figured out how to download the image, waited for it, you know, waited for it.

The image comes through and my jaw drops, my heart stops beating, and I'm like, that is my dream boat.

I knew this boat was gonna get me onto all kinds of properties all over the Midwest.

Because you know, it's like, they call you up.

"Hey, I'd like some help with this."

And you can say, "I've got an electro fishing boat, I can come and show you the fish in your pond.

And I can tell you what fish to take out, what fish to put back, and get you on a plan."

I mean, I was like, man, this is gonna be, this is like, the ultimate.

- Okay, all right.

Explain this to me, because Emily and I had a chance to go out with the Virginia Fish and Wild, whatever they are, right?

- Yeah.

- They had the shocking boat.

- Yep.

- I guess I was unimpressed because it's a boat, it's a generator, and they've got the one wire for catfish and then they've got the spread out wire for the game fish.

- Yep.

- Is there something to it that I'm not seeing?

- So, what you're not seeing is the little nuances of what it takes to understand what electricity, what current, and what settings on your control box, the pulse rate and the duty cycle, is it gonna take for that particular body of water to bring up the most amount of fish with the least amount of effort?

- Yeah.

- That takes about five years to figure out on your own, kinda like me.

Or I'm sure you could, you know, take some sort of classes or whatever.

- This is via the old telephone things that you cranked and- - Yep, that works really well for catfish on creeks and rivers.

- Carbonite, that's a good way to fish, isn't it?

- Carbonite would be a lot more fun.

- It's very illegal by the way.

- Yeah, and I have no idea what actually would happen.

- I've never seen it used.

I've always heard the old guys, yeah.

I have no idea what really happens.

That's so bad.

You have had a lot of opportunities, right?

I mean, you guys have started this, you found your passion, you went to it, you actually, you had "Lake Life."

What was that on?

- The DIY Network.

- The DIY, yeah.

- Yep.

So this whole fish adventure has led us on a journey that I could have never imagined in my entire life.

- Yeah.

- I was looking for an opportunity to work more outside, to work closer to lakes and ponds, 'cause water is therapeutic.

If people haven't understood that yet, I mean, get it through your head.

Water is therapeutic.

Whether it's sitting on a bench seat overlooking a pond or a lake or an ocean with a sunset, or it's taking a walk around, or it's just seeing it from a distance, it's therapeutic.

- Yeah.

- And so, my goal was to be able to work outside- - Therapeutic.

- Next to the water, yeah.

Make sure there no like, fish or anything in there.

- I like it.

- So that was my goal and it's led us on a journey that only God could orchestrate.

I mean, the pieces of the puzzle from making a YouTube video of my 82-year-old grandma putting a fish, a golden shiner in her mouth, swimming underwater and having a bigger fish come and give her a kiss and take it out of her mouth.

- What?

- Yeah.

So we started making these underwater videos, putting 'em on YouTube and that's when Back Roads Entertainment was like, "Hey, you guys are doing some pretty cool stuff.

You got a pretty unique business.

We think we could make a TV show out of you guys."

I'm like, always looking for ways to, you know, further our business.

I'm like, this is our chance to show the world, you know?

And so like, "Sure, come on over.

Let's figure out what to do."

So they came and filmed a little sizzle is what they called it.

- Yeah.

- They put together all these clips from following us around for a couple days and they shopped it to the different networks.

I was so excited 'cause I'm like, we're gonna really rock this outdoors, lakes, ponds, fish, deer, wildlife, people.

And they come back with us and they say, "The DIY Network wants to buy your show.

- It's a big network.

- Big network, exciting, but we want it to be a design/build show.

So, we didn't turn 'em down.

We dove full in.

We built, we built little cabins and lodges.

We built double decker docks with water slides and rock climbing walls.

We did floating cabins.

- Built the baptism thing out at- - Built the baptism dock to where they can have baptisms in the pond.

- Yeah.

- With a cage below it where you don't have to stand in the muck, you're standing on a platform.

- It's like a shark cage.

What the heck they got that pond out there.

- Yep.

And I do kinda scare people like, "Hey, we just put some extra big catfish right in by the dock," you know, when they're going down for their baptisms.

- Was it a big deal?

You're an unapologetic Christian.

Was it a big deal to talk about stuff like that on the DIY?

- Well, so here's the thing.

We could talk about it, since we didn't own the show, we could talk about anything we wanted all the time.

- Yeah.

- We just weren't in charge of the editing process.

- Ah.

- So there was a lotta really good material that wouldn't make it in.

And that was always a touch disappointing, where it's like, ah, that would've been so good.

So, we weren't in charge of that process.

Probably part of the reason why we only did 25 episodes instead of 50, 60, 70, or 80.

- Yeah.

- But it was the most incredible learning experience.

We got to meet unbelievable people.

We got to do a lot of witnessing to the camera crews and the people.

And they're basically, I mean, they are a part of your life.

When you're filming a show like that, I mean, they are with you from, you know, they always like to wake up at eight or 9:00 a.m. We're getting started at 7:00 a.m.

So, we had a lot of fun with it.

We gained a lotta family, you know, like, the crew.

- Well, I mean, it's like free advertising.

- It was.

- I mean, if anybody ever watched TV anymore.

- Well, so then, well back then people did watch TV.

we actually are Emmy-nominated.

- Really?

- So, we sold- - So are we.

No.

- Rock on.

So, we were the only DIY show for 2016, is when it aired.

We filmed them in 2015.

- Yeah.

- Emmy-nominated for the most outstanding lifestyle program 2016.

- Really?

Who won it?

- It was some like Gypsy Girls doing garage saleing or something like that.

- That's a good show though.

We can't rip on that show.

- You know what?

Maybe they won it far and square.

- Well, you know Hollywood, right?

So we always ask people to bring something to put on the desk.

You kinda went above and beyond, didn't you?

- Yeah, I was excited.

I mean, what am I gonna, I mean, what would you have brought if you were me?

- I don't know.

Good night, that's got some bulk to it.

I'm okay to set it down?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Okay, so what do we got here?

- So right here we've got a bag full of 75 hybrid sunfish, three inches long.

- Those are three inches long.

- Yep.

- Oh wow.

And they're okay in there just chilling?

- Yeah, and the reason why they're okay in there is 'cause we shot this bag full of pure oxygen.

So, they don't even need this much water.

They actually only need about about half as much water.

You just can't see 'em as well.

So I figured, you know what?

They're not gonna be in this bag all that long.

They'll stay in this bag for four hours easy.

- Just enough to keep 'em wet, that's all you need.

- And the less water and the more oxygen, the longer they'll stay in the bag.

- Now did you raise these?

- So these fish actually come out of Arkansas.

So, these particular ones- - I thought they looked southern.

- Yeah, you're exactly right.

So, what we do is we get 'em when they're about yea big.

- Okay.

- We put 'em into our hatchery ponds.

We grow 'em up to the sizes that we need for our fall fish sales.

So, this is fish stocking season.

I thought, there's nothing better than to bring in and talk about stocking fish.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So I mean, if I had a pond, right?

And this is what I'm gonna put in there and they're gonna grow and then I'm gonna catch 'em.

- So these are a special fish.

So these fish are a hybrid, so they don't actually breed for future generations.

- Okay.

- Now, they're 97% male.

So they will breed a little bit, but their offspring is actually not that desirable.

And you might say to me, "Why sell a fish or bring in a fish where their offspring isn't desirable."

Well, the reason why is because these fish have hybrid vigor.

They're dumb, they're aggressive, they have big mouths.

So they're perfect fish to put in for kids to catch, fishing events.

This is not a fish where I would recommend stocking a balanced pond and trying to do it with these as opposed to regular bluegills.

This is for special situations where you're feeding fish, or you have events, or you like to eat fish, and you wanna actually grow this.

You can put these in, feed 'em for a year and a half and they are ready to eat.

- All right, so this is the stupid fish bag.

We got more?

- Yep.

- Yeah.

- We got more.

- You notice how I'm not groaning when I'm lifting it up?

- Yeah, you been working out.

- Not really.

Yeah, let's just go with this one.

- All right, what do we got here?

So these are large mouth bass.

- Yeah.

- So these are a three to four inch large mouth bass.

- This is what everybody wants, right?

These are like the rock stars.

- Yeah, these are the rock stars in your farm ponds because they help keep everything in balance.

So, they'll eat up all of the smaller everything else to just keep a nice natural balance.

- Like the bluegill?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Yep, the regular bluegill.

So, some people will say, "I wanna have this pond to grow the biggest bass possible."

- Yeah.

- So then, we're gonna set up a plan focused on growing just big bass.

It's not a natural balance situation, it's not a fun place for kids or families to just go fishing, it's a situation where we're gonna grow a handful of fish that are gonna be exceptionally large.

You're gonna have low catch rates, but you're gonna have really large fish to catch.

- Now, as far as like, eating though, the bluegills are better than these?

- Yep.

The bluegills, most fish are better.

These fish you would wanna eat when they're like, 10 to 14 inches long.

That's when they taste the best.

And that's actually when you do need to pull them outta your pond.

- Because after that what, not so good?

- Once they get bigger their meat gets a little tougher.

The flavor gets a little stronger.

Not as desirable of a fish to eat.

It's more of a sport or a trophy at that point.

- Gotcha.

All right, let's try these specialized guys and girls.

- Yeah, so those are funny looking fish.

- Yeah.

- We sell a lot of these.

These are called grass carp or the technical name White Amur.

And these are a triploid grass carp, so they cannot reproduce.

- Haven't you ever seen "Jurassic Park," man?

- I have.

- Life will find a way.

Didn't work out so good for John Hammond.

I don't know what you're trying to pull here.

- Yeah, so these fish are regulated by the state of Illinois.

We have to actually get a permit to stock 'em into each pond.

But it doesn't take many.

So what they do is they eat vegetation.

- Yeah.

- So it's more of a tool.

It's not so much of a sport fish.

They're really hard to catch because they eat vegetation.

- You're just snagging 'em, right?

- You can snag 'em, or there's certain times a year if you have like, mulberry trees, bushes or trees hanging over, little berries hanging over and they're dropping in, you can catch 'em.

And actually, we just filmed a thing with In Fisherman TV, where they came down to the giant Goose Ranch, which is another property of ours.

They came down to the Goose Ranch and filmed, well, took pictures for an article about grass carp to catching them.

So, they caught several right in that sweet spot.

But those are important fish to help keep vegetation under control naturally.

- Yeah.

You don't want it all mossy.

- Right.

Yep, so people ask, "Well, how many do you put in?

I read five an acre, or 10 and acre, or 30 an acre."

Well, it's not about how big the pond is, it's how much vegetation do you have and how much of it do you want to be eaten?

- Gotcha.

Tell me quickly about the Goose Ranch.

- The giant Goose Ranch is a campground in Canton, Illinois.

But it's also part of our fishery as well.

So, we've got a lot of hatchery ponds there to where we grow a lotta fish.

It's kinda like agritourism where there's 900 families that are members out at the Goose Ranch and they all get to have a sense of ownership of the place.

They have their own private places, lakefront lots, where they have campers or cabins and they get to go help feed the goats, help feed the chickens, pick chicken eggs, play with the horses.

And then even the fish farm ponds, they get to go and feed the fish.

- Oh, do they.

- Yeah, so it's like, agritourism where they get to be part of the farming operation and it's recreation at the same time.

- How many businesses do you own or are a part of?

Do you even know?

- It's five or six or seven.

And that's the entrepreneurial aspect of what we do.

We love the outdoors, we love the land, we love fish, we love deer.

So we help people buy and sell recreation land 'cause we are on thousands of different properties, literally in a given year of time.

So, we help people buy and sell 'em.

We do consultations for when somebody's looking to buy or sell their farm.

We can show 'em exactly what it's worth, how to break it up, how to get the most for it when they sell it.

And then on the buyer end, how to buy the right farm for their particular interest.

This morning, actually on my way here, I wore my brand new shoes.

Like, I'm filming a TV show, so I wear my brand new- - Brooks?

- Yeah, that's a good name right?

- That's an old man tennis shoe.

- Well, I'm old.

I mean, I'm an old man kind of.

- That's obvious.

- So anyhow, I wear these and then I go help a guy look to buy a very unique piece of property.

Go over, well, what exactly is your intention here?

This is how to do it, this is how to break it up.

This is how to make a little money with it.

Help him make those decisions before he even purchases it.

- Where do people find you then?

- People can find us online.

So it's giantgooseranch.com.

Hermanbrothersrealty.com.

Hbfisheries.com.

And that can spider to all the other different.

- You could rattle off websites for the next 30 minutes.

- And that's the path, like that's the journey.

Like, one thing leads to the next, which leads to the next.

So, I mean, if God leads us towards a TV show, let's do it.

If he leads us towards building a resort, we just built a huge resort for a guy.

He came and visited the Goose Ranch and he said, "I love this."

- Well, we're gonna have to talk about it next time.

You're gonna have to come back.

- Okay.

- Because now, PBS is shutting us down.

DIY would never shut you down.

- I thought you said this was 27 minutes.

I think we've only been here for five minutes.

Right?

- Nate Herman, thank you very much.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next week.

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