Two graduate students on the boat hold onto wrapped PVC piping that gets hooked up to the buoys.

Back on shore, those pipes are connected to a water heater you might find at an aquarium or zoo.

“Like for the whale shark tank at the Georgia Aquarium to heat millions of gallons of water,” Sass said.

The set up is for a research project to learn how climate change will impact the lake and the fish within.

One of the signs near Escanaba Lake in Wisconsin’s Vilas County describes how special permits are needed to fish there. (Katie Thoresen/WXPR)

Sass is the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources fisheries research team leader.

“That’s one of the many great aspects of the research areas, we have the capabilities to do these sorts of things, because these lakes have been set aside for experimental fisheries and research purposes,” Sass said.

Eighty years ago, the DNR, which was the Wisconsin Conservation Commission at the time, set aside five lakes creating the Northern Highland Fishery Research Area.

That means any angler who’s fished on these lakes in the past eight decades has reported back things like what they were fishing for, the lure they used and catch rates. Sass said he sees a connection to the Wisconsin Idea and admires “the foresight that researchers have had in Wisconsin to do things like this, to think about the long term, to be collecting long-term data.”

“I think it lends some to just kind of the Wisconsin idea and the foresight that researchers have had in Wisconsin to do things like this, to think about the long term, to be collecting long-term data,” Sass said.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s check-in station at Escanaba Lake in Vilas County. (Katie Thoresen/WXPR)

The five lakes are in the Boulder Junction area of western Vilas County.

Sass calls Escanaba the characteristic drainage lake with an inlet running through wetland.

Pallette and Nebish are true kettle lakes created by ice blocks left in the landscape from the last glaciation 10,000 years ago.

Mystery and Spruce are two sphagnum bog lakes, which are abundant in Vilas County.

All of them are undeveloped except for boat landings on Nebish and Escanaba.

“To have that foresight at that time, too. It’s within a state forest, it’s set aside, and we’ve got these five lakes that represent the lake types and the various fish species that we have in northern Wisconsin … Really incredible,” Sass said.

The types of research conducted in the area ranges from fish habitat to testing new technologies like forward-facing sonar.

They’ll work with researchers from other organizations such as universities and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.

The only fishing regulations on the lakes are the ones researchers put in place. This helps the DNR determine how different bag limits and length restrictions can impact a population.

Sass says with all the years of data, the lakes can serve as a good baseline for research on other lakes, too.

“We’re a statewide entity, and we’re trying to address fisheries research questions that help our Bureau of Fisheries Management and help our anglers and the quality of fisheries statewide,” Sass said.

All this work can have an impact on anglers on Wisconsin waters.

Sass says those anglers are also the most critical part of the research.

“We have a lot of repeat people that love coming back here. We have anglers that only fish these lakes because they love them so much,” said Sass. “What we find is they’re truly, genuinely interested in the research that we’re doing and taking part of it. We have the opportunity through the creel desk to talk to every one of these anglers individually on a personal level to answer their questions, to tell them about the research that we’re doing, and so it sets up a really exciting partnership that, again, is incredibly unique for anywhere in the world.”

The Escanaba Lake Check Station is open every day of year except when snow makes it impossible to access.

All anglers need to check in and check out each day they fish the lakes.

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This article originally was published by WXPR as part of the Wisconsin News Collaborative.