Northwest Sportshow: Tank's a lot

Few attractions at the Northwest Sportshow will be as seductive as the big fish tank when the annual outdoors extravaganza opens indoors Wednesday at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Variously called a Hawg Trough and, more simply, an oversized aquarium, the tank -- capacity about 4,000 gallons -- allows showgoers a chance to inspect up-close-and-personal samples of the same finned creatures millions of Minnesotans seek with hook and line each year.

Walleyes. Bass. Northern pike. Bluegills. Crappies.

During the show's five-day run, beginning Wednesday at 1 p.m., these and other fish will be studied intensely by kids and adults alike.

And while it might seem to casual observers that the tank and its inhabitants materialize at the show each year as if by magic, in fact the exhibit represents thousands of gallons of ingenuity.

And no less work -- such as trying to catch show-worthy fish on half-frozen lakes and in flooded rivers swollen with dangerous currents.

"This year's been the toughest ever," said Dick (Griz) Grzywinski, a St. Paul fishing guide charged with catching many of the tank's biggest inhabitants. "The fishing's never been so difficult before a show."

In the mid-1980s, when the Sportshow's former owner, Dave Perkins, first brought a fish tank to the show, hatchery-reared fish, not wild fish, were the big attraction.

Big hatchery fish.

"We put bass in the tank that weighed between 10 and 15 pounds," Perkins said. "A guy raised the fish in Georgia, primarily for TV shows and commercials, and I sent a guy with a tank truck to get them."

Fishing experts such as Al Lindner and media personalities such as Don Shelby (at the time a competitive bass angler) performed seminars with the tank and its big fish as a backdrop.

"The tank was a huge winner for the show, huge," Perkins said.

Enter a onetime pro bass angler from south Texas named Gary Hain.

"Dave Perkins and I became like brothers over the tanks," Hain said. "Once I started doing his show, he didn't want anyone else doing it. He trusted me for everything to go right with the tank and the fish."

Hain originally managed a traveling tank for a show production company. Then he built his own mobile tank, which he pulled behind his pickup like a trailer. Then as always his job was to keep the tank clean and the fish alive. As important, he gave multiple fishing seminars at the shows, casting into the tank repeatedly.

Sometimes bass in the tank hit his baits, adding yet another show thrill.

In time, Perkins wanted tank fish that showgoers could more easily relate to.

But catching wild fish wouldn't be easy, not least because the show ran during a period when Minnesota angling seasons for most sport fish had ended for winter and not yet begun for summer.

Frankie Dusenka, a marine and bait dealer from Chisago City, told Perkins he could provide the fish.

"Dave [Perkins] and I were talking one day and I told him I could get a good variety of fish for him," Dusenka said. "I know all the commercial fishermen, and knew what they threw back that got caught in their nets. I knew we could get the fish."

A special DNR harvesting permit was granted to Dusenka, in part because the DNR realized the tank promoted Minnesota fishing. For a few years netting, along with some hook-and-line angling, produced the needed sportshow fish.

But for many years now, they've all been caught by hook and line, usually by a crew of three, including, in addition to Grzywinski, Dusenka's sons, Joe and Bud.

With extreme care, the fish are transported from lakes or rivers in mobile bait containers. No lake or river water makes the move, in keeping with state law regarding possible transport of invasive species. Instead, clean water is brought in the tanks to hold the fish.

"The only part I do personally nowadays is bring the fish to the show," Frankie Dusenka said. "Water temperature is a big thing, and we like to have it in the 40s when we move the fish into the show tank. The most important part is bringing good, healthy fish to the show."

A lot is at stake. Lure and other fishing-product manufacturers feature their logos on the tank, and the pro anglers who cast into it during fishing-technique demonstrations want the fish -- bass in particular -- to take their baits, if only occasionally.

All while showgoers young and old gather to watch, hoping someday they'll hook big fish of their own.

Dennis Anderson danderson@startribune.com