A barefoot Walker Hanna leads the way through Wanless Park to the banks of South Fork Sangamon River, hoping to film the catch and release of a large flathead catfish.
As the Rochester High School sophomore navigates his way through the wooded area, with sunshine filtering through dense tree canopies and stinging nettle all around, his mother Becky follows with phone in hand ready to capture Walker’s adventure.
Wearing his typical uniform of red St. Louis Cardinals baseball tee and shorts, Walker maneuvers through the undergrowth to the location of bank poles he had built and set up at the base of the river, the water low alongside steep, rooted banks. He checks one, and then another, before noticing movement.
Suddenly, he plunges into the water, struggling to wrangle a huge flathead with his bare hands, exclaiming excitedly, “This is a big one!” Becky videos Walker emerging from the water, fish in hand, grinning ear to ear. He speaks in fast, short, staccato sentences to the camera, adrenaline still racing:
“Holy mackerel! Look at this one. This thing is massive. This is maybe a 25-to-30-pounder, a huge flathead. Look how big the head is, absolutely massive. I know there’s bigger in here. I know there’s 50s, 40s … we’re going to get a scale on this guy and see how big he really is. It’s a huge flathead, guys, definitely my biggest. I’m going to scale him to see what he weighs,” says Walker, taking a breath as he attaches the scale. “He’s a 20-pounder. Look how big this fish is, guys — an absolute dinosaur fish! This is my favorite catfish. We love these guys. Just amazing, awesome to catch a 20-pounder. I’ve always loved these fish. Oh, just amazing! Big flatty from Cincinnati!”
About 20 minutes later, a reluctant Walker releases the fish with a kiss on the head and a tender “Bye, buddy,” and he and his mom head back home as the fish swims away to freedom.
Stag beetles, bees, snapping turtles, raccoons, opossum, snakes, flathead catfish … you name it, Walker has caught it, released it, relocated it or made use of it in some way. With the help of his older brother, Jack, he invites others along with him on these “big adventures” via TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. To date, more than 30,000 followers and subscribers across these platforms have accepted the invitation.
Becky says her son’s interest in wildlife began as early as age 3. “He was really interested in all kinds of bugs at daycare. He would catch these huge stag beetles … we’d put them in a cup and have to take them home. He’s just always loved bugs and snakes and turtles.”
According to Walker, snapping turtles have always been his favorite. “I caught my first one when I was 10, and I’ve been catching them ever since,” he says, adding that he’s probably caught close to 100 over the years. “I always let them go or relocate them somewhere else.”
His love for the creatures runs deep. “They look prehistoric, and they get really big. They’re fun to catch, and they’re like the apex predator in their area,” Walker explains. An apex predator is a predator at the top of a food chain. “I have this one in the neighborhood pond, and I catch him all the time. His name is Jose,” he laughs.
While sequestered at home during COVID, a younger Walker found himself inspired by Coyote Peterson on Animal Planet’s “Brave the Wild.” “Coyote Peterson does a whole bunch of animal stuff, but he likes snapping turtles. He goes out on the kayak, looks down in the water, jumps off and catches them like that,” he says. “He was probably one of my first inspirations.”
Another of Walker’s inspirations is Ernie Brown Jr., also known as the Turtleman, who appeared on Animal Planet’s “Call of the Wildman.” “He’s just a real country boy. I learned a lot from him. Basically, he would go into small, shallow ponds and stir up the pond, because in the middle of the day, the turtles are in the mud,” Walker explains. “You get the turtles agitated, and they walk on the bottom and start swimming around in the mud. Bubbles from the mud start coming up, and you go and grab them. That’s what I do, too. … [Turtleman has] done that ever since he was a kid, too.”
He also learned how to make a turtle call. “Anytime we’re at our land or we’re walking around, if Walker gets something, he’ll do this turtle call,” says Becky. When he returns with a catch, “he’ll do a turtle call, so I know he’s home,” she laughs.
Around age 11, at the behest of his brother, Walker began taking videos of his catches like his TV mentors for his brother to edit and post online. “I went on all these crazy adventures, and I [thought] it would be cool to share with people,” says Walker. “I trap raccoons and possums and all that, [and] I also like to catch snakes.”
They also post instructional videos covering the gamut — egg tanning a squirrel hide, setting raccoon traps, even how to make a fishing hook out of a soda tab. One explains the process of making and using bank poles to catch fish. “It’s basically a thin PVC pipe. You tie a thick rope to it using an eye hook, and you shove [the pipe] into the bank of the river,” he simplifies. “You put bait on it, let it sit overnight and check it. People usually catch flatheads with live bait. The fish like bluegill, carp, stuff like that.”
Becky says Walker came to her with the idea to use bank poles. “I knew nothing about [them]. That was several years ago,” she says. “He’s like, ‘Can you take me to the hardware store to get stuff … I need this size PVC pipe,’” she laughs.
“I had heard about it [and] seen people doing it before, and I’ve always wanted to go for a big flathead,” Walker adds. “I knew they were in that river (South Fork Sangamon River), because they like rivers. I’m going for a 40-to-50-pounder.”
The family also owns land on Adams Electric Cooperative lines in Brown County, where Walker, who is a Boy Scout, traps and hunts. Over the winter, he tans hides and even makes coonskin caps.
“I like hunting, [but] I don’t want to waste the animal. I like using as much [of the] animal as I can,” he explains. “My parents don’t let me eat the raccoon and opossum, so I tan the hides and make use of them.”
Walker says there are a lot of steps to the process of tanning, including skinning, removing fat, drying, rehydrating, a salt bath and an acid-type bath. A degreasing solution with a certain pH kills any bacteria, followed by neutralizer, tanning solution and heating the skin. He says that the final step is stretching. “It turns into a real nice white leather,” he says. “It’s a lot of work.”
Other opportunities have presented themselves along the way as people have learned of him. He has partnered with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) on box turtle and bird surveys. Becky accompanied him two years ago to help catalogue box turtles in different areas. “We worked with IDNR people and a vet that specialized in amphibians and reptiles. We met them early in the morning, and it was an all-day thing,” she explains. “We went to different locations … Turtle dogs retrieved these box turtles and brought them back to the dogs’ owner.
“We sat down in a group, and they did all these metrics on the turtles, and Walker got to notch their shells. The vet took blood and heart tones and measurements and swabbed for infections. It was really interesting,” Becky adds.
This year, Walker went solo with IDNR on a bird survey. The survey consisted of stopping and listening to birds for three minutes every mile for 20 miles, and identifying and counting the number of birds heard along the route.
He has become well-known in his own neighborhood as well. A neighbor who owned beehives taught him about beekeeping. Eventually, Walker bought his own colony. Another neighbor fishes with him at the neighborhood pond and taught Walker the art of fly fishing.
When an abundance of moss accumulated in the pond, residents complained to the homeowner’s association, and the association hired Walker to clean it up, since he was there so often. Another resident in their subdivision asked Becky in the street if Walker would take her son fishing.
“He’s busy from sunup to sundown and always outside, like 100% of the time … always barefoot,” she adds. “He’ll ride his bike down to the pond, and then he’ll ride [back] with a snapping turtle in his hand like a pizza or bring a huge catfish or whatever. Everyone’s always like, ‘Yep, we call him Huck Finn.’”
And, though this modern-day Huck Finn has created a platform, Walker is all about keeping it simple. To other kids thinking about creating a channel, he says, “Just be yourself and do whatever you like to do. … Don’t take it too seriously — push when you want to. If you’re still a kid, it’s not a full-time job, [so] just have fun.” For Walker, that means more adventures, preferably with snapping turtles and a 40- or 50-pound flathead.
FOLLOW ALONG
Follow Walker on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok at Walker’s Big Adventures.
