How Wisconsin’s ‘Robin Hood of fishing’ turned trash into treasure and became an internet sensation

“Here’s a $12 lure,” Ed Bieber said, plucking something shiny from rocks beside the St. Croix River. The silvery item was the lone treasure Bieber collected among several bags of trash. He and his fiancée, Christie Barlament, had found four hats, three unmatched sandals, a snarl of fishing line, an empty White Claw hard seltzer and a dog chew toy shaped like an ice cream cone.

Bieber is better known as Ed the Diver, the social media moniker he uses to share his scuba expeditions cleaning up waterways around the Midwest, including Minneapolis’ Chain of Lakes. He and Barlament had driven to Hudson, Wis., from their home in Green Bay for a podcast interview, but they didn’t have time to dive.

So the couple spent an hour cleaning detritus off the St. Croix shoreline, including a waterlogged sneaker that caused Barlament to wonder how, exactly, people lose shoes. “It’s always just one,” she said.

Fans have dubbed Bieber “the Robin Hood of fishing,” but “Merry Maid” might be more apt, as he picks up whatever’s been lost or tossed in the region’s lakes and rivers. Bieber sells the valuables he finds, mostly lures and vintage glass bottles. And he reunites any identifiable items — including several wallets and a crashed drone — with their owners.

People also hire Bieber to recover dropped cellphones, wedding rings and other precious property. And during his dives, he’s happened across plenty of sketchy stuff, including a cracked-open safe, stolen jewelry and a plastic-wrapped Winchester rifle.

Among all his finds, Bieber says his best was Barlament, whom he lured into his life with an algae-covered Barbie doll. (More on that later.) Since then, the Badger State’s new internet It Couple have been using their eco-influence to inspire their 300,000-plus fans to take care of the water. “We’re just trying to make a ripple effect,” Bieber said.

Bieber used to live north of Green Bay, near a river known as a walleye-spawning run. When his kids were younger, he took them fishing there, and they lost a lot of lures.

Bieber also found plastic, cans, bicycles, tires, rope — “all the random stuff that didn’t belong underwater” — and started removing that, as well. Over the next couple of years, Bieber learned to scuba dive, got a kayak to haul his finds and a GoPro to record his adventures. He also solidified his dual mission: “If we’re out there finding treasures, we’ve got to pick up all the trash, too.”

There’s unfortunately a lot of it: Minnesota’s longtime volunteer cleanup program, Adopt a River, has collected about 6 million pounds of litter over the past three decades.

Trash harms wildlife and can introduce dangerous chemicals and microplastics into the environment, explained Alex Van Loh, programs manager with Freshwater, the nonprofit that runs Adopt a River.

“It’s everywhere, whether we see it or not,” Van Loh said, noting the importance of preventing litter “upstream” on land. “It’s not just trash that gets left at the beach. It’s anything on any street in the city that goes down the storm drain and gets entered directly into our waterways.”

Even if people initially seek Bieber’s videos for entertainment, Van Loh said he thinks they can come away with greater awareness of the problem and motivation to make picking up litter a habit. “Once you see it, you can’t unsee it,” he said.

What he finds most often is fishing line, in large tangled clumps. Some of Bieber’s most popular videos show him freeing animals caught in line or snagged by hooks. While he loves encountering underwater wildlife, Bieber admits that huge sturgeon or snapping turtles can be unnerving and his biggest fear is encountering an angry beaver. “If you’re in their territory and they’re trying to scare you away, they’ve got some monster teeth,” he said.

If you can think of it, Bieber’s probably pulled it from the watery depths. He’s found fishing rods, empty Fireball nips, horseshoes, car batteries, traffic cones, a stop sign and an electric scooter. Century-old glass bottles that once contained Vaseline and Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup (a morphine-based medicine that killed several children). A light saber, a Walkman, a baby Yoda doll, a toilet and a 5-pound hunk of coal. He’s brought up bowling balls, boat anchors, dog tags and a small treasure chest. (It was empty.)

Bieber even found a tackle tray full of lures that he’d sold to someone a year or two previously. And a lure with a personal message inscribed: “Hi Ed the Diver.”

When Bieber dives in recreational areas, he brings up frisbee golf discs by the hundreds and golf balls by the thousands. At water parks, he’s retrieved goggles and Apple watches and hair extensions. Bridges are the most egregious dumping grounds. That’s where he’s pulled up sewing machines, microwave ovens and car bumpers, a bank money bag, two cash-register drawers and a knife.

Bieber doesn’t spend too much time considering how it all gets in the water. Maybe it’s better not to know. “Ed, I am just curious why people seem to lose so many socks? I think that is kinda weird,” one follower wrote. “I try not to overthink it, but by the rivers, they may be used as TP,” Bieber responded.

One of Bieber’s most meaningful recoveries was finding the cellphones of a Wausau, Wis., couple hit by tragedy. The devices went underwater when the husband died after his car slid off the road and flipped into a pond, and his wife, who came across the crash, tried to save him.

During COVID, Bieber’s social media following exploded. He secured an agent. He went diving with Wisconsin comic Charlie Berens. A Green Bay pub named a drink after him.

Despite his internet fame, Bieber still tackles the less glamorous side of his business: scrubbing the grime off his finds to resell them.

Lures are the quickest buck, and Bieber can haul in 15,000 in a good year. He can also make good money off vintage glass bottles — if he could find time to prep and post the inventory that’s taken over his house. “I’ve got a whole bedroom with shelves and shelves of bottles that people want, but I just don’t have the time to sell them,” he explained. “I’d rather be cleaning up and diving.”

Last year, Bieber was diving in northeast Wisconsin when he found a Barbie doll with zebra mussels in her hair. In March, he decided to auction it on eBay and use the proceeds to help fund a three-month cleanup tour.

These days, the duo’s social media posts almost seem scripted by their comic pal Berens to spoof a Midwestern Dream Couple. Bieber and Barlament feed each other summer sausage and cheese. They dine at Olive Garden and take home the leftovers. They wear matching Christmas sweaters, cheer for the Packers and once snapped a selfie with the late Hulk Hogan, whom they ran into at a Wal-Mart in Appleton, Wis.

Barlament has been helping Bieber market and manage his various revenue streams. And her online presence has broadened his audience beyond anglers, environmentalists and treasure hunters to include those interested in the couple’s romance and travels around the Midwest.

“It went from a bunch of guys who are anglers saying, ‘I dream about finding a lure like that underwater, because I lose so many,’ ” Bieber said, “to now there’s women talking about, ‘Oh, Christie, your makeup is so beautiful, or you’re always wearing white shoes and dresses, but you’re not afraid to get dirty.’ ”