MARINETTE, Wis. (WFRV) – Ed Bieber started his diving business Bieber’s Underwater Recovery in 2020. Bieber recovers fishing lures, cell phones, apple watches, and just about anything that you could lose underwater.

He says it all started with him spending quality time with his family.

“It started right out here fishing with my kids,” explained Bieber. “I would take them out here fishing, and they’d be grabbing lures out of my tackle box. They’d lose some, I’d lose some to the point where you only have one or two left, and you’re thinking, man, it’s going to be pretty expensive to replace all of those.”

After losing so many lures, he decided to take matters into his own hands.  

“I decided to come out in a mask and some shorts and some shoes and start grabbing them closer to the bank here,” added Bieber. “After I grabbed a lot of lures like that, I started going underwater, holding my breath and getting a little more braver, collecting a lot more hundreds at a time.”

Bieber does most of his diving in the Menominee River but has also recovered items from others such as the Fox River, Oconto River, Peshtigo River, Wolf River, and even the Mississippi River.

“A lot of stuff gets left on the banks by irresponsible anglers,” stated Bieber. “You get trash that blows off the roads from garbage trucks or people’s yards, it ends up in the rivers, all the fishing line, lures, the hooks, the plastic, it adds up.”

The diver has big plans for the future.

“This summer, this year, I’m going to a lot more places. I want to get to the Detroit River, the Milwaukee River, and whatever ones that are littered with trash,” concluded Bieber.

Bieber has also opened his own tackle shop reselling and recycling items he recovers.