Speaker 1: Thick ass wuthering heights in Jane are not dog like.
Speaker 1: I got stockers to catch. I ain't got time for that.
Speaker 1: It looks like you try to catch somebody's ship zoo
Speaker 1: with a hat exactly, remember, yeah, yeah, with the zebra stripes.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, of course, real quick if you're the
Speaker 1: listener already crafting an email in your head telling us
Speaker 1: what your interpretation of the old man in the sea
Speaker 1: has stopped. Yeah, good morning to generate anglers, and welcome
Speaker 1: to Bent, the Fishing podcast that swears to God, if
Speaker 1: you reel that barrel swivel into the tip guide one
Speaker 1: more time, it will not take you out for froyo.
Speaker 1: When we get back to the dot, I'm Joe Surmeli
Speaker 1: and I'm Hayden Samac and uh and doesn't like that
Speaker 1: they what do you call the f g eliminate that
Speaker 1: issue like an instentirety. Yes, technically, yes, there's several mainline
Speaker 1: the leaders places out there these days that, if tied correctly,
Speaker 1: will allow you to reel the knot all the way
Speaker 1: up onto your reel. But I brought up the swivels
Speaker 1: in the tip top guide because here's the thing, um,
Speaker 1: I think people have actually gotten so used to line
Speaker 1: to line connections, especially newer anglers, that if they do
Speaker 1: end up using a rig with a barrel swivel like it,
Speaker 1: it just simply does not compute. Right, Like I learned
Speaker 1: to fish with the barrow swivel connecting my leader to
Speaker 1: the mainline. And you know what, like two palamar knots
Speaker 1: against the quality swivel is a damned strong connection. Some
Speaker 1: may even argue stronger than any line in line connection.
Speaker 1: And I never, I never, or very rarely, only by mistake,
Speaker 1: ever reeled my swivel into my tiptop. I was just
Speaker 1: like cognizant of it and knew not to do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think that it's because beginners are
Speaker 1: like used to line to line. That's probably a large assumption,
Speaker 1: that is fairly big. But I mean, like, really, a
Speaker 1: swivel in is uh not great? No, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: I mean it is the easiest way to cracker chip
Speaker 1: the insert your tiptop guide. Which is why though getting
Speaker 1: back to beginners for just one sec, you will rarely
Speaker 1: see a charter captain rig his rods with barrel swivels
Speaker 1: for his leader. For that reason, because I've been out
Speaker 1: there and all day long, it's just click tink, click,
Speaker 1: and one can only uh, you know, say, don't reel
Speaker 1: the swivel into the tip top guide. So many times, um,
Speaker 1: I've experienced that on on my boats. Uh and every
Speaker 1: time you hear it, like you just you just WinCE. Um.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, to me, it's just not that
Speaker 1: difficult to remember. Yeah, yeah, I mean i'd agree with that.
Speaker 1: But have you ever gotten any sort of like legitimate
Speaker 1: damage because of somebody really or because you or somebody
Speaker 1: barring your gear? Really? Yeah? No, totally. Um. I I
Speaker 1: lent a surf rod to somebody one time, right, and
Speaker 1: the next time I used it every third cast like
Speaker 1: my ship is just flying off. I'm just like sending
Speaker 1: storm shads off into the distance. Um. And it takes
Speaker 1: a second so you finally figure out, like ship, there's
Speaker 1: a hip in the tip top guide. And I guarantee
Speaker 1: it's because that dude was reeling his swivel in. Um.
Speaker 1: So here here's a hot tip, right, And something I
Speaker 1: don't do often, but if if I'm going to be
Speaker 1: fishing in the dark on the surfer sake, going like
Speaker 1: popping for tune, it's something that really matters. When I'm
Speaker 1: packing up my rods, I run a Q tip around
Speaker 1: the inside of each guide, and if there's a chip
Speaker 1: or a crack, it usually phrase the Q tip Because
Speaker 1: to go back to that night on the beach, like
Speaker 1: I mean, I had no I had to go home,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't bring to nine ft surf rods. I
Speaker 1: just brought one to go fish for the night. So
Speaker 1: the night was kind of shot, you know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but like I feel like I feel like it's got
Speaker 1: to be like some sort of like mcgiver fixed to that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but see, not a great one in my opinion. Like,
Speaker 1: if you have duct tape, you can try wrapping a
Speaker 1: tiny strip around the guide, but it doesn't cast the
Speaker 1: same and the braid will eventually cut through the tape.
Speaker 1: Um and those insertain materials are they're so slick that
Speaker 1: even like super like trying to fill it with super
Speaker 1: glimics and stick all that. Well, right, Um, the best
Speaker 1: thing you you could do maybe would just be to
Speaker 1: knock the entire insert out and and and fix the
Speaker 1: whole guide later with the wire frame. Yeah, just fish
Speaker 1: with a wire frame. Uh. And people will likely write
Speaker 1: in with other ideas, but I'm talking about quick fixes
Speaker 1: on the scene. Right. If you can afford to kill
Speaker 1: the time and the hardware stories open, UH, you might
Speaker 1: have better ideas. But I'm talking about midnight, all alone
Speaker 1: on the beach. Um. So this is also why it
Speaker 1: pays to have a good local rod guy. Shout out
Speaker 1: to mine Rick Szakorski of rat Sticks. That dude has
Speaker 1: fixed so many chipped guides for me. Anyway, you must
Speaker 1: have mcgeivered something out there fishing or not. What have
Speaker 1: you mgeivered? Yeah? Well, so I was like elk hunting
Speaker 1: UH in September last year, and I needed to get
Speaker 1: water out of this like little trickle. But it was
Speaker 1: like super shallow. It was just like this little spring
Speaker 1: coming out of this like little seep and it was
Speaker 1: all muddy. So if I like try to like scoop
Speaker 1: my water bottle in it, like I get all sorts
Speaker 1: of yeah, pine needles and ship and um. So what
Speaker 1: I did was there were like some reads next to UH,
Speaker 1: next to the water. So I I clipped one of
Speaker 1: these reads with my knife. It was totally hollow in
Speaker 1: the middle. I built up like a couple of rocks
Speaker 1: and like some mud around one end of the read.
Speaker 1: Uh let the water build up behind it to the
Speaker 1: point that it went through the read and over this
Speaker 1: little ledge. So now you had like a little spickett
Speaker 1: coming out of this spring. And I used I let
Speaker 1: that run clear, and I used that to fill up
Speaker 1: the water bottle. So that's something I'm scared. I believe
Speaker 1: that there is an exhibit in the Natural History Museum
Speaker 1: of ancient people's doing exactly that. So that is that
Speaker 1: is very good. Anyway, Listen, if you've got a rod
Speaker 1: that's just too beat up, let's say, to be worth
Speaker 1: any kind of costly repairs, how about a new one,
Speaker 1: perhaps from our sponsors thirteen Fishing. Um, I don't know
Speaker 1: what it's been like at there. Why I kind of do,
Speaker 1: because I mean pictures they we'll talk about in a minute.
Speaker 1: I dude, it was it highs in the seventies here
Speaker 1: last weekend, record temps, so uh. I took the old
Speaker 1: oman pan fish and trout rods over the local croppyhole,
Speaker 1: thinking they'd be all woke up, but not yet. So
Speaker 1: I got a few good ones ago, but the water
Speaker 1: temps haven't really caught up to the air. But I
Speaker 1: was using the seven foot ultra light model, which is
Speaker 1: fairly slow and um and whippy. But these fish weren't
Speaker 1: like ripping the float under. It was a very subtle bite.
Speaker 1: So that flex and softness, um really helped set the
Speaker 1: hook on these fish that kind of like barely had
Speaker 1: these baits in their mouths. So it worked out. The
Speaker 1: uh you know, those thirteen rods are so sensitive that
Speaker 1: me and my buddy Corey, we were we were doing
Speaker 1: our last like uh like overnight urbit trip for the Yeah,
Speaker 1: I saw what she did. It's cool, tell us tell
Speaker 1: us about it. Well, I'll tell you about what I
Speaker 1: think you're talking about, but I'll tell you something that
Speaker 1: was less cool, but nevertheless a testament to the sensitivity
Speaker 1: of a thirteen fishing rod. I was using one of those,
Speaker 1: a medium action even widow maker dead stick, and we
Speaker 1: were chunking like while we were going to bed in
Speaker 1: like the in like the shels or whatever, and we're
Speaker 1: just kind of like talking and watching our rods, and
Speaker 1: mine just started to go like this. Listeners, you can't
Speaker 1: see it, but I'm like very subtly lifting and lowering
Speaker 1: my extended index finger. Here it looks it looks like
Speaker 1: a swordfish bite on a deep drop rod. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: very subtly, and you know, I'd go, I'd pop the
Speaker 1: rod out of the dead stick holder, like real carefully,
Speaker 1: so it was not to disturb the bourb but that
Speaker 1: was surely about to get stung. I'd set the hook
Speaker 1: and then nothing. And this happened like five or six times.
Speaker 1: It was maddening, and I'm like, dude, I can see
Speaker 1: the bite, but I don't know what's going on. And
Speaker 1: I thought about it for a second, and I remember
Speaker 1: somebody telling me that there were crawfish in the lake
Speaker 1: that would set off their tip ups. What I was
Speaker 1: watching was a crawfish crawling onto my bait twenty ft
Speaker 1: down with a medium action rod. Now tell me that
Speaker 1: that's not like a very sensitive ice ory, very sensitive.
Speaker 1: And then you go set and he just whooped backwards
Speaker 1: and he's gone. And we found this out by dropping
Speaker 1: a camera down the hole and literally just seeing the
Speaker 1: bottom littered with crawfish just crawled. Dud. I'd drill another
Speaker 1: hole and put a trap down. Cold water, crawfish boil,
Speaker 1: you bet as soon as ice off, that's what's going
Speaker 1: that's what's going down. And and we ended up we
Speaker 1: caught more than crawfish. On that trip, we caught a
Speaker 1: tagged bourbon. Yeah who tagged that? That was interesting? Like,
Speaker 1: who's tagging? Yeah? I don't know. I know that Corey
Speaker 1: submitted the tag to f w P the other day,
Speaker 1: so we will I will report back on on what
Speaker 1: came about that. Anyway, we've already shared a couple of
Speaker 1: good tips here, that being always have a camera so
Speaker 1: you can see if you're you're being attacked by cross
Speaker 1: or Joe stupid, you know. Guide. So let's carry the
Speaker 1: teaching over. We've got an awkward moment in angling for
Speaker 1: you that captures a teaching moment that, um, it doesn't
Speaker 1: look to be going particularly well. What did you take
Speaker 1: a picture? A life? So today's photo comes to us
Speaker 1: from Bent listener Rev. Crimson. Now I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's his real name. Uh though if it is, that's
Speaker 1: totally badass. He may he may be a real reverend,
Speaker 1: like an actual man of the Lord, in which case
Speaker 1: forgive us for some of the things we may be
Speaker 1: about to say. Or perhaps it's just a symbolic reverend
Speaker 1: title similar to Rev. Run Run DMC. I think it's
Speaker 1: probably that. Yeah, either way, this is a great photo.
Speaker 1: Especially if you're a dad. Now I am not a dad,
Speaker 1: but this is still a great photo because there is
Speaker 1: a father son moment being captured here. And whereas you
Speaker 1: probably identify with Rev the dad, Joe, I could put
Speaker 1: myself in the in the sun's position just like, just
Speaker 1: like a little bit more easily, it's slightly more recent.
Speaker 1: That's fair. That's fair. Okay, So let's set this up right. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the foreground of the shot is Rev's son. He
Speaker 1: didn't provide his name, that's okay, Okay. Now he's a teenager, right,
Speaker 1: he's not a little little fellow. Uh. And he's wearing
Speaker 1: a tank top and some some broken in jeans with
Speaker 1: a kind of cloth belt that used to come standard
Speaker 1: on a pair of cargo shorts from Pacific Sunwear. Okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's wearing a leather necklace. And while the charm at
Speaker 1: the end of it is obscured, right, I'm thinking I'm
Speaker 1: willing to bet just just looking at it, it it is
Speaker 1: a giant one of those giant tribal bone hooks, right,
Speaker 1: which is which I assume people wear as a true
Speaker 1: statement of angling prowess, which will make all this funnier
Speaker 1: in just a minute, yeah, so the kids got this
Speaker 1: like wild grown out hair is young is young teenagers
Speaker 1: are sometimes to do. And he's got a flat brim
Speaker 1: hat on backwards, but he hasn't tucked the hair under it,
Speaker 1: so it's like one of those things where it looks like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that look right, Like it's hard to describe,
Speaker 1: and it's like it looks like you try to catch
Speaker 1: somebody's ship zoo with a hat and now all you
Speaker 1: can see is just like the tough to fur under it. Anyhow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's also wearing frameless like Oakley style, and I guarantee
Speaker 1: either gas station beat or sunglasses. And he's he's looking
Speaker 1: down at his hands. Yeah yeah, I still insist on
Speaker 1: referring to those style of glasses as ken Griffe junior glasses. Anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's looking in his hands and he's fiddling with
Speaker 1: fishing line. Um. The expression on his face is totally blank.
Speaker 1: Not much going on there. Uh So now we can
Speaker 1: move on to the rev. Rev is the primary focus
Speaker 1: of my roaths because I don't believe in U. If
Speaker 1: say about revs, so I under stand that I couldn't,
Speaker 1: so I didn't want want to lay into him too
Speaker 1: hard you know. Okay, So Rev is standing behind him
Speaker 1: and he's doing the open trout vest over a tank
Speaker 1: top thing. Right. His arms are are sternly crossed across
Speaker 1: his his chest. Um, he's wearing a pair of old
Speaker 1: school Vietnam Eric Chamo pants covered up with hip boots.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about hip boots for a second. By and large,
Speaker 1: you just don't see them in fishing the way you
Speaker 1: used to write, like, I started out as a kid
Speaker 1: with hip boots, but nowadays I feel like the kids
Speaker 1: go straight to chess waiters, just because so many companies
Speaker 1: make little kid chess waiters. Right, did you start with
Speaker 1: hip boots when he first started waiting? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I I like hit boots a lot. And here's why
Speaker 1: if you're kind of doing like a like we've talked
Speaker 1: about how I have an affinity for blue lining brook Trout,
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's kind of a waste to wear chess
Speaker 1: waiters for a blue So I get that. In case
Speaker 1: you guys like don't remember, a blue line for brook
Speaker 1: Trout is like or just any trout for that matter,
Speaker 1: is finding just a small blue line on a topo
Speaker 1: map and just going in and exploring and hoping that
Speaker 1: there were some fish there more or less. Um, So
Speaker 1: I wear them for that because you can wear your
Speaker 1: hiking boots in pack those hip waiters in just super
Speaker 1: easy and a lot of times you don't need them.
Speaker 1: But it's good because a lot of those streams are
Speaker 1: like you know, they have like a you know, maybe
Speaker 1: like a real muddy bank where it's like two and
Speaker 1: a half foot of mud, and even if you were
Speaker 1: in wellies, which you didn't want to hike into in
Speaker 1: the first place, or actually less convenient to carry than
Speaker 1: a lot of these breathable like frog TG style hit boots, um,
Speaker 1: you going past them and you'd be, yeah, I see,
Speaker 1: I see, I see. I just in my observation, I
Speaker 1: see more application in hunting these days because I started
Speaker 1: out with hip boots and inevitably would go in over
Speaker 1: them like it was just not enough coverage, like it
Speaker 1: was just a disaster anyway. So Rev has that totally
Speaker 1: old school like definitely like a or Ohio or West
Speaker 1: Virginia trout fisherman look, and I diget his arms are
Speaker 1: also like covered in tats and I can't make all
Speaker 1: of them out, but I know one is a is
Speaker 1: a big old rose and h Rev has kind of
Speaker 1: a high and tight military haircut. He's rocking some dark
Speaker 1: oval kind of ninety weren't really that man. What they
Speaker 1: look like is their transition lenses, I think, is what's
Speaker 1: going on? You know, you're right, they are transition lenses.
Speaker 1: But they have that oval like oblong kind of shape about. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he as a killer like what do he called?
Speaker 1: Like the James Hetfield man Chew chew? He has a
Speaker 1: killer fu man Chew. Now most most critically though, Rev's
Speaker 1: head is cocked to the side, looking upon his son
Speaker 1: with a look of complete disdain and frustration. Looks like
Speaker 1: he's in the middle of saying something too. He is,
Speaker 1: he is, but here's why here's Rev, Rev writes with
Speaker 1: his photo. The photo is of me and my son.
Speaker 1: I have, for the twentieth time that day, tried to
Speaker 1: explain how to tie a simple clinch knot, so that
Speaker 1: ties the disdain in the photo together. It's funny. That's
Speaker 1: gonna kind of mess up one of my burns, but
Speaker 1: go ahead, so anyway, he says, anyway always makes me
Speaker 1: laugh when I see it. As a side note, my
Speaker 1: son has since absconded with my new thirteen fishing rod. Hey,
Speaker 1: there you go somewhere with your boy lance V. Something
Speaker 1: about hashtag Google squad, hashtag chunk bait not hate. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: I I understand it's hard to get the full visual,
Speaker 1: but Dad's know this look of what the you actually
Speaker 1: doing right now, and it's been captured here perfectly. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I i've i'm i'm personally yet well, no,
Speaker 1: that's not sure. I'd give that look to folks all
Speaker 1: the time, but not in a fatherly sort of way.
Speaker 1: But I I and I have it on the receiving
Speaker 1: end of it many times myself. Yeah, and Red looks
Speaker 1: like a no bullshit kind of guy, frankly, major dad energy,
Speaker 1: as you wrote in your response to him. Um, it
Speaker 1: also looks like like you said, that Rev is mid
Speaker 1: sentence and I can only imagine the words being uttered.
Speaker 1: So now the boy is also in a high pressure
Speaker 1: situation as he tries to tie eight years. Only he
Speaker 1: could eat that chicken sandwich. Very impressive. Mike Fitzgiven's son
Speaker 1: is a nuclear physicist and my shun kind, so I'm
Speaker 1: very curious about the roast this week. I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask if you're focusing on Rev, but you already said
Speaker 1: on Rev uh my, my new favorite part of awkward moments.
Speaker 1: Are you ready? We will put ten seconds on the
Speaker 1: clock and go. Dude looks like he doesn't know if
Speaker 1: he's more disappointed than the son's not tying or his outfit.
Speaker 1: Dude looks like a fisherman character in Apocalypse Now. Dude
Speaker 1: looks like Dude looks like the love child of Bob
Speaker 1: the Garbage Man and Mike i Canelli. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: you'll see it when you see the photo. Dude looks
Speaker 1: like he's halfway through a rant about how not strength
Speaker 1: is bogus and that big fishing just wants you to
Speaker 1: tie complicated not so you spend more time tying and
Speaker 1: less time fishing in an effort to save fish as
Speaker 1: part of their secret green agenda. Wow, that was masterful.
Speaker 1: Was that the last one? That's the last one. I
Speaker 1: spent some time on that. That was masterful. That was masterful.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that was really good. Um wow, you
Speaker 1: like you like took the spit out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: That was so good. Anyway, Rev, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: sending that one in. I'm sorry. If the boy is
Speaker 1: going the way the Google squad, that's just too bad.
Speaker 1: Tie him up, Rev and make him watch Roland Martin
Speaker 1: DVDs for a few hours. You'll get him back. Um. Hey,
Speaker 1: if you've got a good shot of yourself about to
Speaker 1: open up a can of whoop bass on your child
Speaker 1: while fishing, do please send it along to Bent at
Speaker 1: the Meat Eater dot com. So that was a little different.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that one. That's for all the dad's um
Speaker 1: and moms right out there. They get it. And if
Speaker 1: you don't have kids yet, despite how you you may feel, now,
Speaker 1: believe me, the day will come that no matter how
Speaker 1: much you love your kids, you will find yourself, um
Speaker 1: asking them if they are stupid, Like that's gonna happen
Speaker 1: you just are you stupid? It just happens naturally. So
Speaker 1: so why I appreciate that photo from Rev so much?
Speaker 1: Man that that realization comes to some quicker than others.
Speaker 1: Just ask my dad anyway. I've been asking myself if
Speaker 1: I'm stupid all week long after hearing from you guys
Speaker 1: about the Trojan Brook Trout story I covered last week.
Speaker 1: So find out if I'm competent and qualified or not.
Speaker 1: In this week's installment of fish News, fish News that
Speaker 1: escalated quickly alright, so correction time. This happens on occasion.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is less of a correction than just a clarification,
Speaker 1: but the masses have spoken and I shall respond. Uh.
Speaker 1: Last week I covered the story of the Trojan brook trout,
Speaker 1: and while discussing how brookies found their way out west,
Speaker 1: I said that the Mississippi River acted as a natural barrier.
Speaker 1: In other words, you have all these native brookies in
Speaker 1: states east of the Mississippi, right Uh. And while they
Speaker 1: could conceivably reach the Mississippi, the chances of them populating
Speaker 1: the western side of the country that way are are
Speaker 1: pretty slim for a bunch of different reasons. Temperatures, predators,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Right. Um, well, everyone, everyone jumped up
Speaker 1: and said, whoa buddy, there are native brook trout in
Speaker 1: the driftless area of Wisconsin and Minnesota and Iowa, and
Speaker 1: uh guess what, they live on the west side of
Speaker 1: the Mississippi. So you're wrong. Um, And okay, apologies Driftless
Speaker 1: area anglers. You are correct. But where I failed was
Speaker 1: to specify that the Mississippi River, when referring to to
Speaker 1: all the states east of it, which have a lot
Speaker 1: more wild brookies than than the Driftless, right, you guys
Speaker 1: have your own strain up there. Um. The point the
Speaker 1: article was making that I pulled from was that brookies
Speaker 1: were populated in the west by people bringing them from
Speaker 1: the east, where you know. Once again, um, there are
Speaker 1: a lot more Brookies than just in the Driftless. So yes,
Speaker 1: there are brookies west of the Mississippi and the Driftless,
Speaker 1: but even there, the Mississippi is still kind of a barrier,
Speaker 1: like the Brookies and the Driftless would have to have,
Speaker 1: you know, gone through generations of travel hell to populate
Speaker 1: waters all the way out west. So basically, I'm saying
Speaker 1: I apologize for forgetting our friends in the Driftless in
Speaker 1: that little trout country surrounded by walleye and muskie country. Um,
Speaker 1: it was just a little out of context, But I
Speaker 1: fished in your waters. I love them dearly, and I apologize.
Speaker 1: You do have wild brookies, native brooks. Yeah. I like
Speaker 1: the guy that pointed out that you had talked about
Speaker 1: catching tiger trout in the Driftless and was like, dude,
Speaker 1: do the math in reverse. Yeah, yeah, you know that's
Speaker 1: I I. Yeah, I just recently did say that, like
Speaker 1: the Driftless is one of the few places that has
Speaker 1: um wild native tiger trout, which would require brook trout. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry, it will. I think I
Speaker 1: have a slight correction of my own on that same story.
Speaker 1: Somebody brought to my attention that I I I miss
Speaker 1: represented wild versus native trout, or like I I like
Speaker 1: slipped and I said wild when I meant yeah, come on, people,
Speaker 1: get over come on. That happens all the time. Native
Speaker 1: is something that has been here always. Wild is something
Speaker 1: that was introduced and has since developed, like a sustaining population.
Speaker 1: So there's there's my correction. Joe. We're both we are
Speaker 1: we are both now correct, we are coming correct. Okay, anyway,
Speaker 1: enough on that quick. Thanks to everyone that tuned into
Speaker 1: Hayden's Tuesday Night tie deal last week on Instagram. Um,
Speaker 1: I had a bunch of fun chatting with you guys
Speaker 1: while tying up the old master splinter. Now, so everyone
Speaker 1: knows you're aiming to host that every Tuesday night on
Speaker 1: your Instagram. Correct, I am a man um so real
Speaker 1: quick this week, like this past week, from the point
Speaker 1: that you were listening to it, now go back in
Speaker 1: time three days that being Tuesday, we did not do
Speaker 1: a We did not do a tie week, and that's
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to get the whole thing sort of
Speaker 1: under my fingers, trying to find some cool folks to
Speaker 1: come on and teach us how to tie fly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to that end, I'd like because a few people reached
Speaker 1: out to me, I am down to jump in there
Speaker 1: when I can, but just to clarify, I can't necessaries. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's an ass to be wiped at that hour on
Speaker 1: most Tuesdays. Okay, yeah, anyway, So yeah, the bent uh
Speaker 1: tie along Tuesday series that is going to be taking
Speaker 1: off soon on the old Instagram. If you follow me
Speaker 1: at Hayden Underscore SAMAC, you will be tuned into when
Speaker 1: that's going down. Basically, we're gonna have somebody cool come
Speaker 1: on and show me how to tie a fly, and
Speaker 1: by proxy, you how to tie a fly. We'll tie
Speaker 1: one with a tutorial, and then we'll tie another one
Speaker 1: while we're just kind of bullshit, and I'll what's our
Speaker 1: show with the chicken wings hot ones? Kind of like yeah,
Speaker 1: and dude and I I really did have fun. I
Speaker 1: will jump in when I can, maybe not to tie along,
Speaker 1: but just to like heckle and say in an ship. Um,
Speaker 1: but no, that's good. That was a really good time. Uh.
Speaker 1: Let's see, let's not forget our conservation minutes before we
Speaker 1: get into the meat of news. It's a new thing
Speaker 1: we're doing. Here's what I got. The state of Massachusetts
Speaker 1: recently announced that motorist can now purchase license plates to
Speaker 1: give back to striped bass conservation. Uh. If you want one,
Speaker 1: you'll have to spend forty dollars every two years, on
Speaker 1: top of the fee that comes with just having a
Speaker 1: regular plate. Quote from the story reads, the purchase of
Speaker 1: these specialty license plates will enhance efforts to conserve and
Speaker 1: restore stripe bass, river herring, and other marine fisheries that
Speaker 1: are vital to the Commonwealth's coastal ecology, economy, and culture.
Speaker 1: The plate features a striper chasing l wife herring, painted
Speaker 1: by artist Jane BEYONDI. Uh so we know, Bob the
Speaker 1: garbage man is out because those ain't bunka and uh
Speaker 1: A giant sebio Mattics member may have been more appealing
Speaker 1: to the anglers in that state, since them only fish
Speaker 1: the cape cod canal boom. I had to do it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to hear about it. But there you go.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure the context, but I'm that's all right.
Speaker 1: Onto my conservation min in here. I got to uh
Speaker 1: one being a follow up to your conservation minute from
Speaker 1: last week. That being that, um, the Goliath Grouper season
Speaker 1: is is going to be a thing in Florida and
Speaker 1: you can buy a tag. It was passed. So there's that.
Speaker 1: Um now my more elaborate minute. On March first, New
Speaker 1: Mexico officially declared landowner efforts to restrict public access to
Speaker 1: rivers and creeks is unconstitutional. Landowners were taking advantage of
Speaker 1: New Mexico's designation of waterways is being unnavigable. Uh So,
Speaker 1: if you don't know, in much of the West, this
Speaker 1: designation is like navigable versus non navigable. Is what separates
Speaker 1: water you can legally access by like waiting or boating
Speaker 1: or whatever, from water that you cannot. And people love
Speaker 1: to debate navigable versus non navigable. It's a thing in
Speaker 1: every state. It's crazy. Yeah yeah. So um, as it
Speaker 1: turned out like there was a single lawyer in New
Speaker 1: Mexico was processing a bunch of applications on behalf of
Speaker 1: landowners to designate their creeks and rivers running through their
Speaker 1: property is non navigable, allowing the landowners to block them
Speaker 1: with like barbed wire, chain link whatever. The problem was
Speaker 1: that the certification of a non navigable waterway was more
Speaker 1: of a paid for designation rather than in natural certification process.
Speaker 1: So it's not like somebody was like, yep, that's like
Speaker 1: a thing. It's like this lawyer was literally just putting
Speaker 1: in these applications and like the state was going, yep,
Speaker 1: sure it sounds good. Um. So anyway, basically you could
Speaker 1: pay to privatize water whether or not it was actually
Speaker 1: navigable or not navigable. Um. You know, it's worth noting
Speaker 1: that there are lots of rivers in New Mexico that are,
Speaker 1: you know, fluctuate insanely in flows. So even like something
Speaker 1: that would be designated navigable could go all but dry
Speaker 1: during like the summer months, then come back up and
Speaker 1: it's still navigable even though for a while it was
Speaker 1: non navigable. If that's confusing, I think that that's that
Speaker 1: was the genesis for this legislation. Anyhow, Um, that just
Speaker 1: got trashed and good riddance. If you'd like to read
Speaker 1: more about it, You can check it out on the
Speaker 1: meat eater dot com in an article by Maggie Hudlow,
Speaker 1: who I'm actually gonna be referencing later on in fish
Speaker 1: News UH titled New Mexico's Supreme Court restores public stream
Speaker 1: access laws. There we go, all right, moving along. Remember,
Speaker 1: UH news is a competition. We do not know which
Speaker 1: feature story the other fella is bringing to the table.
Speaker 1: At the end, a winner will be declared by our
Speaker 1: trojan audio engineer, Phil Uh. And it is your lead
Speaker 1: this week, man, So what you got? All right? So
Speaker 1: this week on fish News, we're taking a ride down
Speaker 1: to Georgia. That's for you. For me, it's across and
Speaker 1: down to Georgia to talk about one of your favorite fish,
Speaker 1: Joe the shad. Yes. Before we get there, though, I'd
Speaker 1: be interested to know what started your infatuation with the
Speaker 1: shad Um. Is it just that they like fight hard?
Speaker 1: Or do you like that they taste like shit? Or
Speaker 1: is it something to do in the spring. So it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of all the above. Don't taste like shoot
Speaker 1: the yeah, I don't want to yeah yeah right. Um. Really,
Speaker 1: the bigger answer is just tradition, I mean, growing up
Speaker 1: around here, like that's something everybody did, Like it was
Speaker 1: a big deal that my dad and his friends would
Speaker 1: go to the Delaware Water Gap every year to do it.
Speaker 1: And I remember, you know, like you're a little kid,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed to go, you're not tall enough for waiters,
Speaker 1: and then finally you get brought in. So it's something
Speaker 1: I just grew up with as a spring happening here. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's also it's also the kickoff to spring fishing.
Speaker 1: Two good spring fishing here. And they do fight damn hard,
Speaker 1: you know, light nice light tackle. Yeah, do they jump.
Speaker 1: That's why we call them Jersey tarpin. Yeah. Now you
Speaker 1: and I had uh, I forget what context we were
Speaker 1: talking about it in, but you had mentioned, oh I remember. Folks,
Speaker 1: if you have not seen Joe's B side on on
Speaker 1: shad in the Delaware, you you ought to go check
Speaker 1: that out. He gets deep into the history of it,
Speaker 1: including how basically the folks at Valley Forge were relegated
Speaker 1: to shad based eating for a long stretch of time
Speaker 1: and we can basically owe our independence to eating the
Speaker 1: fish that nobody wants to eat. Yes, and when you
Speaker 1: finished watching that B side, read The Founding Fish by
Speaker 1: John McPhee. It'll tell you more than the B side.
Speaker 1: It's a very good book. Yeah. Anyway, So on that note,
Speaker 1: last week, angler Timmy Woods um timm Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: his and his two pounds ten ounce fish beat the
Speaker 1: record for Georgia's biggest ever hickory shad, overtaking the previous
Speaker 1: record held by Christian Blake Jones of a two pound
Speaker 1: three ounce hickory shad caught in. Timmy's fish was also
Speaker 1: just four ounces shot of the world record hickory shad,
Speaker 1: coming in at two pounds fourteen ounces. Prior to that,
Speaker 1: the record had been a one pound, fifteen ounces hickory
Speaker 1: shad caught in a record that stood for nearly thirty years.
Speaker 1: If you didn't do that math over to yourself, Um, Joe, Now,
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of the a lot of
Speaker 1: the shad that you catch, or maybe all the shad
Speaker 1: that you catch, I'm not too familiar with the shad
Speaker 1: fishery where you're at, but or shad fishers in general
Speaker 1: for that matter. Um, you catch American chad, and I'm
Speaker 1: curious what your experience might be with hickory shad. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I actually I actually catch both and it's It's interesting
Speaker 1: though where where I live on the Delaware River, we
Speaker 1: have a much much higher percentage of the big American shad, right,
Speaker 1: so they're the biggest shad that run in the country.
Speaker 1: But I will pick off a couple of hickories a
Speaker 1: season occasionally. Now. Subsequently, if you go just a little
Speaker 1: bit further south to Philadelphia to the School River, you
Speaker 1: have them. You catch way more hickory shad. What is
Speaker 1: what is that fishery like, man in the School Is
Speaker 1: it worth doing? Um? Yes, it's a very good fishery,
Speaker 1: but I mean there's n damns on it. I mean,
Speaker 1: these fish can only go so far out of the
Speaker 1: Delaware before they hit the famous dam behind the Art
Speaker 1: Museum in Philly. And yes there are fish ladders, but
Speaker 1: everybody's shad fishing below the damn. That's the story of
Speaker 1: a lot of East Coast rivers when I was When
Speaker 1: I was living there, man, I always wanted to go
Speaker 1: and catch the shad, but I never did. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: hickories are a lot of fun. Um, they don't grow
Speaker 1: as big as the Americans. Interesting though, they are a
Speaker 1: much more aggressive shad. Right. So, whereas American shad, you
Speaker 1: have to set your your darts and your spoons out
Speaker 1: so they run into them and then they bite them.
Speaker 1: Hickory shad, unlike Americans, also bite in salt water, so
Speaker 1: you catch them in the rivers. But then there's also
Speaker 1: runs in the fall along the entire Jersey Coast around
Speaker 1: a lot of the inlets where you can cast spoons
Speaker 1: like you're casting for blue fish or or throw flies,
Speaker 1: and like you will see hickory shad blowing up bait fish.
Speaker 1: American chad don't do that, so they're smaller, but they're
Speaker 1: scrappy um and just a little further south to me,
Speaker 1: you see a lot more that we have a much
Speaker 1: better run of Americans here. There you go, folks. In
Speaker 1: difference between American and hickory shad via Joe Surmeli back
Speaker 1: to the back to the article here. So the article
Speaker 1: that I like lifted this story from was by Newsweek,
Speaker 1: and uh, the first thing I want to get into
Speaker 1: is how damn click baity the article title is. It's
Speaker 1: borderline inexcusable. Man. Uh, it has to be the most
Speaker 1: click baity way you could possibly uh frame a shad?
Speaker 1: How well, how else are you gonna make people care
Speaker 1: about a hickory shad. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: but I mean like sure shad spend most of their
Speaker 1: time in the salt right and only migrate to spawn.
Speaker 1: But to frame that as as the article titled itself,
Speaker 1: record breaking fish normally found in Atlantic Ocean caught in
Speaker 1: Georgia River is just like, what was this doing here?
Speaker 1: Oh well, I mean that dude, that's honest to god,
Speaker 1: That's what drew me to thing. I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, what they do like catch like a red
Speaker 1: fish like way up somewhere, and it's an andronymous fish. Man,
Speaker 1: that's like calling a record steelhead, record breaking fish normally
Speaker 1: found in Pacific Ocean caught in a Washington River. I mean,
Speaker 1: not that we're doing that anymore, but it doesn't it
Speaker 1: just doesn't make any I thought that was funny, and
Speaker 1: it's very funny. It's an a nadrumous fish, though not androminous.
Speaker 1: I think that's from a sci fi movie, just like
Speaker 1: you know, an idiot. All right, Well, you know we
Speaker 1: all have those words man that we just can't get around.
Speaker 1: And like, for whatever reason, my brain sees that and
Speaker 1: goes andronymous. I know, it's an ADRUMUS. Anyway, I'm moving on.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about records. Lately. It seems like all sorts
Speaker 1: of records have been broken, and this extends across the US. So,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned in Georgia, the record had not been
Speaker 1: beaten for thirty years, got beat, and then got beat
Speaker 1: again within like another year or so. Um. And this
Speaker 1: has been happening everywhere. For example, in one alone, Idaho
Speaker 1: certified eighteen new record breaking fish. In the same year,
Speaker 1: Montana broke seven records in North Carolina. As similar pattern
Speaker 1: as we're seeing with the Georgia Hickory chad occurred last
Speaker 1: year when the state record for channel cats was broken
Speaker 1: twice in the same year. Prior to that, the North
Speaker 1: Carolina channel cat record had stood for over half a century.
Speaker 1: As our very own, wildly talented colleague Maggie Hill, who
Speaker 1: I referenced in the minutes there, recently reported the mean
Speaker 1: mouth that's a hybrid smallmouth large mouth world record was
Speaker 1: bro looking for the third time in a single year
Speaker 1: in Texas. So what's up with all the record breaking?
Speaker 1: Man um Experts have varying theories. Some include climate change
Speaker 1: induced warming, prolonging growing seasons for fish, resulting in obviously
Speaker 1: more growth. I wrote that like an idiot. Another theory
Speaker 1: is that angler awareness of potential state records has increased
Speaker 1: in our digital age, and you keep going, but I'm
Speaker 1: going with that one. I think that's likely with information
Speaker 1: on state records available at angler's fingertips no matter where
Speaker 1: they are. And another theory is that COVID just got
Speaker 1: a lot more people actively fishing, whether that's first timers
Speaker 1: or fishermen with more time on their hands. All of
Speaker 1: these theories make sense, and it makes you wonder how
Speaker 1: long the trend will continue. Now, Joe, I know you
Speaker 1: had something to say about the state records in a
Speaker 1: digital age. Yeah, well it's a snappy title, man, Spencer.
Speaker 1: You can have that and and and COVID is accurate, right,
Speaker 1: there are more people out fishing, but yeah, straight up, man, like,
Speaker 1: I think there are more people that get off on
Speaker 1: like posting their record, channel cat or chat like. They
Speaker 1: are just more people that are looking to achieve those goals,
Speaker 1: whereas I don't know, dude, I might have caught the
Speaker 1: world record Hickory Chad nineteen times in my life, but
Speaker 1: I don't care, Like I wouldn't even be thinking I
Speaker 1: wouldn't even look that up. And I think that's how
Speaker 1: people used to operate. So for a state record to
Speaker 1: fall or something, first and foremost, you had to look
Speaker 1: at that thing and have a sense of like, holy
Speaker 1: sh it, this is so big. I need to check
Speaker 1: what the world record is. If I ever told you
Speaker 1: my channel cat story, I might have even told it
Speaker 1: on the podcast, Like long story, short man. I I
Speaker 1: caught this huge channel cat that I thought was I
Speaker 1: don't know, probably mid twenties something like that, like pounds,
Speaker 1: and I asked my buddy, I said, hey, look up
Speaker 1: with the state record channel cat is, or I think
Speaker 1: I I mess this up. I said, look up what
Speaker 1: the state record cat is. And my buddy, who was
Speaker 1: not as super experienced fisherman, gave me the flathead catfish record,
Speaker 1: not the channel cat record, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, dude, not even in contention through the
Speaker 1: thing back. Turns out that the channel cat record was
Speaker 1: obviously significantly less. I think it's like pounds something like that,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it would have been a state record.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying like, oh, I definitely threw back up
Speaker 1: state record fish, but like, at least it might have
Speaker 1: been in contention, right, But do you lose sleep over
Speaker 1: that not having that title? No? No, no no, no no.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying like that, you know again pointing to
Speaker 1: like the digital age thing, like I was able to reference.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's exactly right. Was incredibly easy to call
Speaker 1: that information up, no doubt, way to go, Jack. But
Speaker 1: there are just certain but there are just certain things,
Speaker 1: shad being one of them that like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even who can't like who it's a HiT's
Speaker 1: no disrespect to Timmy, but like it's a Hickory shad Man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, well you know it's like you know, it's
Speaker 1: an extension to like lying class records and like you know,
Speaker 1: like sicklid records. If I'm going to go through the
Speaker 1: effort of state recording something, I want people to see
Speaker 1: it and go, oh damn, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like you know, so it's hey, we've talked about record chase,
Speaker 1: something that folks really care about, like snakeheads. Yes that
Speaker 1: was sarcastic. Please enter your password. You have one unheard
Speaker 1: message is Carl. So we're sending out another drone operator
Speaker 1: with another drone, So if you could please keep an
Speaker 1: eye on your back cast. Drones were great, mere terrible
Speaker 1: and thanks man. End of message, Delete priss seven save deleted. Alright,
Speaker 1: so let's move over from the downplaying of Phish records
Speaker 1: to the downplaying of fishing in general. A couple of
Speaker 1: people sent this along. It's a weird one, but it's
Speaker 1: just too ridiculous not to share, okay, and it comes
Speaker 1: from the u K's Guardian headline. University Warrens woke students
Speaker 1: that Ernest Hemingway's classic novel Old Man in the Sea
Speaker 1: contains graphic scenes of fishing now long ago, like just wait,
Speaker 1: do you just wait? Now long ago they think about
Speaker 1: death in the afternoon, or for whom the bell tolls.
Speaker 1: I'm going I'm going to tell you, maybe not very specifically,
Speaker 1: but close now long ago. I expressed my feelings about
Speaker 1: Ernest Hemingway on this show, but today those feelings are
Speaker 1: neither here nor there, right, I will have you know. However,
Speaker 1: Old Man in the Sea is I think the only
Speaker 1: required summer high school reading I actually read. The rest
Speaker 1: were all cliffs notes, and yes, of course it was
Speaker 1: because it was about fishing. But also it is extremely short, right,
Speaker 1: is it? It? Is a very short book. Thick ass
Speaker 1: wuthering heights in Jane are naw dog like I got
Speaker 1: stockers to catch get time for that right. I was
Speaker 1: in Advanced English, even though I didn't read the books. Anyway, great, anyway,
Speaker 1: I was an English major and didn't read the books.
Speaker 1: You can't even pronounce a nadromus, So that means what
Speaker 1: happened in Finnegans wake me and nobody else can tell you.
Speaker 1: So look, I do think though, on the off chance
Speaker 1: you're not familiar with the story, here's the super cliff
Speaker 1: notes like crazy cliff notes, what's fasting? It's a guy
Speaker 1: who doesn't care about books or interesting films and things
Speaker 1: that an old man heads out to sea to fish.
Speaker 1: He catches a giant marlin. It's too big to fit
Speaker 1: in his little rowboats, so he ties it along the side,
Speaker 1: but then spends the next few days trying to get
Speaker 1: back to shore as he fends off sharks trying to
Speaker 1: eat his marlin, and returns, as I recall, with nothing
Speaker 1: but the head and the tail. So some say this
Speaker 1: is the story is a metaphor for life. Others say
Speaker 1: it's a metaphor for Christianity. But it is a classic,
Speaker 1: right lover hate hemingway, It's a classic. But at the
Speaker 1: University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, the metaphor
Speaker 1: is apparently too violent, too disturbing for some readers. Um,
Speaker 1: and I guess. So as not to overwhelm the school
Speaker 1: counselors or whatever, the university put a content warning on
Speaker 1: the book, alerting students that it contain quote graphic fishing scenes. Okay,
Speaker 1: before we get to that, real quick, if you're the
Speaker 1: listener already crafting an email in your head telling us
Speaker 1: what your interpretation of the old Man in the Sea is, stop, yeah,
Speaker 1: send that to Miles Nulty at anyway. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: brought up what do they think about this, that or
Speaker 1: the other thing? This is not the first book that
Speaker 1: the university has added the content warning too. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing. This, this determination, these warnings are are being
Speaker 1: figured out by like their historical and literal society, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not like one guy. Um. Others include Mary
Speaker 1: Shelley's Frankenstein, which the content warning says contains violent murder
Speaker 1: and cruelty, as well as Romeo and Juliet, which contains
Speaker 1: quote uh, scenes of stabbing poison and suicide. So that
Speaker 1: graphic content warning just kind of ruins the entire book
Speaker 1: if you hadn't read it. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like like you just told me everything that's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: like you figure out in the beginning of Well, clearly
Speaker 1: I know exactly what's gonna happen. Anyway. A spokesman for
Speaker 1: the university said they are doing this so students can
Speaker 1: make informed choices. Um, And that's great, except I bet
Speaker 1: most of the choices they make are not to take
Speaker 1: the old man in the sea out of the library
Speaker 1: and stay in their dorms, like watching horrible pranks going
Speaker 1: wrong on TikTok and like people getting blown up on
Speaker 1: the news. Right, so like we're gonna worry about old
Speaker 1: man and see. Um. And I'm sorry, but but there's
Speaker 1: a part like this reeks to me a little bit
Speaker 1: of like that one kid, Like that one kid that
Speaker 1: got all offended by something and complained because he thought
Speaker 1: Frankenstein was gonna be like the lovable goofball he was
Speaker 1: in Monster Squad. You know what I mean. It was
Speaker 1: like terribly wrong. Um. Anyway, what are other very smart
Speaker 1: people saying about the move to add graphic content warnings
Speaker 1: to classic literature. They're saying that it is extremely dumb.
Speaker 1: Mary Dearborn, the author of Ernest Hemingway at Biography, said
Speaker 1: this is nonsense. Oh, I bet you she doesn't have
Speaker 1: any I bet you she doesn't have any skin in
Speaker 1: the game. Probably not, She says, this is nonsense. It
Speaker 1: blows my mind to think students might be encouraged to
Speaker 1: steer clear of the book. The world is a violent
Speaker 1: place and it is counterproductive to pretend otherwise. Much of
Speaker 1: the violence in this story is rooted in the natural world.
Speaker 1: And she's right, it's it's it is the law of nature.
Speaker 1: Now here's the here' you're gonna see trigger warnings outside
Speaker 1: of yellow ste So here's the best part. Jeremy Black,
Speaker 1: emeritus professor of history at the University of Exeter, added,
Speaker 1: this is particularly stupid given the dependency of the economy
Speaker 1: of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland on industries such
Speaker 1: as commercial fishing and farming. So like, that's kind of
Speaker 1: the clincher. Like one of the biggest industries in this
Speaker 1: part of Scotland is freaking commercial fishing. In Santiago, the
Speaker 1: main character of the book was a commercial fisherman, so
Speaker 1: not to get off I'm trying not to get off
Speaker 1: on a ran here, because boy could I. But I'll
Speaker 1: just tell you, like, this is what bothers me most.
Speaker 1: And it's not the specific incident or the graphic content
Speaker 1: warning on one book, but I think it speaks a
Speaker 1: little bit to the vulnerability of outdoors pursuits in the
Speaker 1: public eye in general. Right, Like if one organization can
Speaker 1: decide fishing is worthy of a graphic content warning, is
Speaker 1: it reasonable to assume And I'm I'm asking this, I'm
Speaker 1: not stating things like, but is it reasonable to assume
Speaker 1: that in time like fishing, books or videos could just
Speaker 1: be labeled to something graphic? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like if you scoff at that, has it not already
Speaker 1: happened in hunting? You know? If enough people speak up
Speaker 1: and say that's wrong, and I don't want to see
Speaker 1: that suddenly a pastime enjoyed Bible a lot of people
Speaker 1: can be contained on YouTube or Facebook, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I just want to close by saying I
Speaker 1: don't think that's going to happen with fishing. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. But putting the graphic warning on old Man
Speaker 1: in the sea means that enough people within what you'd
Speaker 1: assumes an organization of smart people signed off and said, yes,
Speaker 1: I agree with this decision. We collectively agree there should
Speaker 1: be a graphic warning about the fishing in a classic
Speaker 1: Hemingway book. I think it's something to think about. Well,
Speaker 1: you know they're in like why. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I don't have anything smart to say about this. I
Speaker 1: wish I did. Dude, did you read The Old Man
Speaker 1: in the Sea? Yeah? Sure, did? I think that? Um,
Speaker 1: all right, here's where I think. Take your time if
Speaker 1: you need to do. We can pause for a second,
Speaker 1: cut it if you want a noodle on it. No, no,
Speaker 1: I got it. I think that. Um. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of time there are things that we are exposed
Speaker 1: to in life that we don't have the tools to
Speaker 1: deal with, um, a shocking death, some sort of trauma.
Speaker 1: I also think that literature is a safe space to
Speaker 1: be exposed to those traumas in like a nonconsequential wealth
Speaker 1: put and and at least help you develop the tools
Speaker 1: you need to navigate things you're gonna come up in life.
Speaker 1: For instance, when I was a when I was a
Speaker 1: kid in fifth grade, we read a book called The K.
Speaker 1: Have you ever read that one? I'm not familiar with
Speaker 1: that one. Now. It's like it's a like a it's
Speaker 1: like a little like novella kind of deal. It's like,
Speaker 1: I I forget if it's like one of those well
Speaker 1: known books or I mean, I'm sure it's well known. Anyway.
Speaker 1: The K is about a a little privileged kid who
Speaker 1: who's I think it's like the boat that his family
Speaker 1: is on sinks and he's left with this dude I
Speaker 1: think Timothy is his name, and Timothy is a blackfellow.
Speaker 1: And this is at a point in time where like
Speaker 1: racial like tensions are like high in society, right, So,
Speaker 1: like in a lot of ways as a fifth grader,
Speaker 1: that was like one of my first exposures to like
Speaker 1: a a long explication of like the ideas of like racism,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, it's you understand what I totally do.
Speaker 1: I totally do that. That was so good. I may
Speaker 1: have to get filled to put from the arms of
Speaker 1: the Angel under under what you just did again. I'm
Speaker 1: just God, don't do it and just let me like
Speaker 1: I'm letting you anyway, So what is the whole point
Speaker 1: of kids read books at different stages throughout their life,
Speaker 1: like that's part, that's part. So I will say that that,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty something years later, I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what the Catcher in the Rye was about.
Speaker 1: Like I just don't really get it, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to get off on it. But that was one
Speaker 1: it was like, Oh, Joey, it just kills me. Man,
Speaker 1: it just kills me that you don't know that. It's
Speaker 1: like all this hype, like next year we get to
Speaker 1: read Catcher in the Rye. I'm like, I don't get it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: We'll see what what Phil got this week. This should
Speaker 1: be a good one from Phil based on these two
Speaker 1: choices of story. And then after him, let's keep it salty. You.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do an end of the line on a
Speaker 1: jig that you actually might be able to catch a
Speaker 1: Marlin on um or if not, at least a big
Speaker 1: s tuna. You know, it's been a while and I'm
Speaker 1: feeling generous today, so I think I'm gonna give the
Speaker 1: wind to Hayden this week. Congrats. I know we're over
Speaker 1: halfway through the show and things like this generally go
Speaker 1: up at the top of something, but I thought I'd
Speaker 1: go ahead an issue a trigger warning for Bent, you know,
Speaker 1: just in case there are any discerning listeners out there
Speaker 1: who could use it. Okay, here we go warning. The
Speaker 1: Bent podcast contains graphic depictions of two white guys talking
Speaker 1: behind microphones and engaging in self congratulatory mental masturbation for
Speaker 1: about sixty minutes, give or take. Also, occasionally a guy
Speaker 1: named Bob the garbage Man will show up, and Uh,
Speaker 1: at that point, I don't even know what to warn
Speaker 1: you about. You're on your own. All bets are off. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not loud enough. I was twenty two years old,
Speaker 1: fresh out of college and working at Saltwater Sportsman magazine
Speaker 1: the first time I ever heard the words butterfly jig spoken.
Speaker 1: This was two thousand five, and our editor, Dave di
Speaker 1: Benedetto had just returned from a trip to the Gulf
Speaker 1: with Shimano where he got a first hand lesson about
Speaker 1: the jig Shamano claimed would revolutionize saltwater fishing. Now I
Speaker 1: was intrigued, of course, but not overly so. Why Because
Speaker 1: at that age I was still glued to striper fishing
Speaker 1: in the surf. That's what I knew, and more importantly,
Speaker 1: that's what I could afford, and I hadn't been around
Speaker 1: long enough to make friends and contacts with boats that
Speaker 1: could take you off shore locally and actually use a
Speaker 1: butterfly jig. But I clearly remember Dave being impressed with
Speaker 1: its performance. It was also the first time American saltwater
Speaker 1: anglers were introduced to the idea of a system, a
Speaker 1: marketing strategy Shimano would continue for years to come. So
Speaker 1: you couldn't just buy the butterfly jig and send it
Speaker 1: down on your favorite ugly stick paired with the Mitchell
Speaker 1: three hundred. For the jig to work properly, they said
Speaker 1: it needed to be paired with their rods and reels
Speaker 1: specifically designed for butterfly jigging. At the time I scoffed
Speaker 1: the idea to fish Laura, I had to spend hundreds
Speaker 1: more on your rod and reel. And I wasn't the
Speaker 1: only one that felt this way, nor was I the
Speaker 1: only one that questioned the productivity of this whole deal. Yes,
Speaker 1: Dave had caught some red snappers and groupers, as I recall,
Speaker 1: but as a giant blue fin tuna or yellow fin
Speaker 1: tuna really gonna eat that little chunk of metal, and
Speaker 1: if it does, with that little chunk of metal be
Speaker 1: able to hang on long enough to land it. If
Speaker 1: you take the design it face value, you can see
Speaker 1: why an offshore angler may have been skeptical back in
Speaker 1: the day. Butterfly jigs are thin profile, heavy jigs, some
Speaker 1: wider and some extremely thin. Whereas the metal jigs we
Speaker 1: were familiar with prior to two thousand five featured a
Speaker 1: single or treble hook dangling at the bottom, butterfly jigs
Speaker 1: came with assist hooks, something US anglers were not familiar
Speaker 1: with at all. Assist hooks are heavy gage single hooks
Speaker 1: tied or crimp to each end of a very heavy
Speaker 1: piece of braided line or dacron, which is then looped
Speaker 1: onto a solid steel ring. There are several configurations of
Speaker 1: assist hooks, but regardless of the style, that ring they're
Speaker 1: tied to is attached to the heavy duty split ring
Speaker 1: on the top of the jig, not the bottom, dangling
Speaker 1: freely as the jig does its thing. Now, that thing
Speaker 1: is sort of a walk the dog action like you'd
Speaker 1: see from a top water spook, only it's achieved in
Speaker 1: a completely vertical orientation by pumping and reeling simultaneously at
Speaker 1: a fast pace, thus giving birth to the now very
Speaker 1: common term high speed jigging. What was a revolutionary concept
Speaker 1: here had been common in Japan for more than a
Speaker 1: decade before butterflies hit tackle shop shells. It's no secret
Speaker 1: that many of the lures and tackle pieces we use
Speaker 1: routinely today were developed by the Japanese first. But in
Speaker 1: many ways, the butterfly jig had as much to do
Speaker 1: with catching more fish as it did simple efficiency. The
Speaker 1: Japanese love their fish right, and they want as many
Speaker 1: in the boat as possible, as fast as possible. Now,
Speaker 1: if you think about a traditional metal jake like a
Speaker 1: Hopkins or a cast Master, your line is connected directly
Speaker 1: to one end of the loure and the hook is
Speaker 1: connected to the bottom of the loure. Any pressure you
Speaker 1: put on the line is pulling directly against the heavy metal,
Speaker 1: and as the lore flops around during the fight, the
Speaker 1: way to the lord itself can in fact dislodge the hook.
Speaker 1: The Japanese figured out that assist hooks provide a better
Speaker 1: connection from the rod directly to the hook instead of
Speaker 1: the loure, thus reducing fish laws. They also figured out
Speaker 1: that by reducing the weight of their rods and reels
Speaker 1: while simultaneously making them stronger. They could actually put more
Speaker 1: heat on the fish and land them much faster. To
Speaker 1: do that, of course, to make that kind of tackle,
Speaker 1: you end up creating much more expensive rods and reels,
Speaker 1: which is why back in two thousand five so many
Speaker 1: people said, yeah, okay, Shimano whatever. Fast forward to today,
Speaker 1: and high speed jigging is a part of the vernacular
Speaker 1: of salty anglers on every coast in the United States.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, it's so yesterday's news that now Shimano
Speaker 1: is leading the charge in the other direction with slow
Speaker 1: pitch jigging, because if you think fast was cool, wait,
Speaker 1: un do you see what happens when you pump the brakes.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's a whole other end of the line segment.
Speaker 1: These days, high speed butterfly jigs are produced by hundreds
Speaker 1: of companies and price ranges to fit almost any budget.
Speaker 1: Light jigging rods that have the backbone to beat big
Speaker 1: tuna are found in every tackle shop from variety of
Speaker 1: makers to almost fit any budget as well. Since first
Speaker 1: here about butterfly jigs way back when I was the
Speaker 1: saltwater sports been intern I've gotten used them a lot
Speaker 1: for everything from golf snappers, two keys, amberjacks to Jersey tuna,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I'll ever forget my first connection
Speaker 1: with one. It was during a Bluefin run a few
Speaker 1: years later, after Butterflies hit the scene, and the buddy
Speaker 1: whose boat I was on and who had a lot
Speaker 1: more money than me at the time, was the kind
Speaker 1: of guy that liked to stock his sled with the
Speaker 1: latest and greatest. So when we came over a pile
Speaker 1: of marks, he handed me a butterfly rod and said
Speaker 1: drop it. Now. I've never used one before, so he said,
Speaker 1: just real fast and pump. At the same time, I
Speaker 1: was trying to say like this, but only got out
Speaker 1: like before. It felt like I had snagged the Titanic.
Speaker 1: It was one of the most impressive dead stop rod
Speaker 1: bending hits I'd ever felt, and it is a very
Speaker 1: addicting kind of hit. It's the brown trout crumpling the
Speaker 1: streamer on steroids. It's the bass annihilating the frog times ten.
Speaker 1: And if you've never experienced a high speed jig hit man,
Speaker 1: you really should. And I will now be putting high
Speaker 1: speed jigging on my list of things to do. You know,
Speaker 1: I I don't really think it's it's translated over to
Speaker 1: sweetwater at least not the exact SAMEE presentation. But you
Speaker 1: you could scale it down like I don't see why
Speaker 1: it wouldn't work for things like lakers and pike through
Speaker 1: the ice. The one thing about high speed is that
Speaker 1: it is designed for fish that are not messing around.
Speaker 1: I mean, they can't be like nippers, like they gotta
Speaker 1: be ready to just trash the thing. It's time to
Speaker 1: start prototyping up some micro butterfly jigs that could Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go, that could be the next big thing. Man,
Speaker 1: Just scale it down anyway. Um, that was a great
Speaker 1: back story on a modern lure that has a stronghold
Speaker 1: in the saltwater scene. But we're going to discuss another
Speaker 1: one that has kind of taken over in the bast scene.
Speaker 1: Joining us on the bent Helpline today is none other
Speaker 1: than the aforementioned Mike I canelli to wait has made
Speaker 1: fun of way In on this bait and whether it's
Speaker 1: knocked another classic out of favor. What do you laughing at,
Speaker 1: Mark Deiny? You're not an idiot, You're not a damn loony.
Speaker 1: How Moore, you're a fisherman ever best what's your emergency?
Speaker 1: So joining us today for the ben helpline? How about
Speaker 1: this for help? How about Mike? I canelli to help
Speaker 1: with the bass fishing question? What are the odds? Right? So?
Speaker 1: Who who is the lucky listener? That is Kyle Alston
Speaker 1: who sent this question in? And I gotta admit I've
Speaker 1: been sitting on it because, like I told Mike, I
Speaker 1: could kind a weigh in on this, but not nearly
Speaker 1: as good as as he can. I don't think you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna offer quite as much perspective. So Mike, how
Speaker 1: you doing? Man? We all, as always we appreciate you
Speaker 1: being here doing great, great, cool cool. So I'm very
Speaker 1: curious to to get your take on this. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a simple question, maybe with a complex answer, and
Speaker 1: maybe you might disagree with it. So this is what
Speaker 1: Kyle writes He's as growing up, I swear all my
Speaker 1: dad would ever throw for bass was a spinner bait.
Speaker 1: Therefore I used to throw a lot of spinner baits too,
Speaker 1: he says. I try to stay up on modern bass tactics,
Speaker 1: and I feel like, for the most part, people just
Speaker 1: don't talk much about spinner baits anymore. Have they become obsolete?
Speaker 1: I still catch fish on them, but it seems like
Speaker 1: chatter baits get a lot more love. Yeah. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let you go first, because you know you're Mike.
Speaker 1: I can so I can tell you this, Kyle, that
Speaker 1: was a great question. It really is a good question.
Speaker 1: And um, fishing trends, fishing lores. It's a lot like fashion.
Speaker 1: I always like to convert it to fashion. My wife
Speaker 1: would be happy I'm saying this right now. Things come
Speaker 1: in and out of style a lot. Right if you
Speaker 1: look at fashion, Joe, come on, you remember where parachute pants?
Speaker 1: Don't you? Zoo Baz? Do you remember zoob Yeah with
Speaker 1: the zebra stripes. Yeah yeah, yeah, stuff is out. But
Speaker 1: whether we want admit it or not, it's gonna come
Speaker 1: back a style a little bit. Uh. Well, yeah, Hayden
Speaker 1: wears them. Now they come back. Hayden's got him on
Speaker 1: right now. That's but I really think the same is
Speaker 1: true for the spinner bait. You know, the spinner bait
Speaker 1: has definitely lost favor to other trending techniques. And I
Speaker 1: would say the chatter bait vibration jig for sure is
Speaker 1: something that has pushed the spinner bait out, But the
Speaker 1: spinner bait is so important to me, and I'm serious.
Speaker 1: It's always tied on one rod in my rod ocker
Speaker 1: at all times, and that that's I'm talking about, super dirty, muddy,
Speaker 1: water stained, crystal clear, fifty degree pre spawn to heat
Speaker 1: of the summer eighty degree water temperature. It's always tied on.
Speaker 1: And the one thing that a spinner bait does is
Speaker 1: it is the perfect lore for a combination of flash
Speaker 1: and vibration together. So you know, if we were just
Speaker 1: looking for vibration, chatter bait might be a better bait.
Speaker 1: If we were just looking for flash, a jerk bait
Speaker 1: or a spoon might be a better bait. But that
Speaker 1: spinner bait is the perfect combination of both of those attributes.
Speaker 1: And to me, it's the original Alabama ray right. It's
Speaker 1: when you look at that spinner bait, it looks like
Speaker 1: a little school of bait fish coming through the water.
Speaker 1: You add that to the safety pin design of a
Speaker 1: spinner bait and you could throw it anywhere. Just to
Speaker 1: give you a real quick example that a chatter bait.
Speaker 1: I love a chatter bait. Don't be throwing a chatter bait,
Speaker 1: no stumps and would because you're gonna be hung up
Speaker 1: with that john every five seconds. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: But the spinner bait by design, right that wire is
Speaker 1: it the fleck tour to the bait, and it stops
Speaker 1: it from getting snagged on wood, rock, even grass. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a terrific bait. So my answer to that is,
Speaker 1: don't get rid of your spinner bait anytime soon. It's
Speaker 1: still a really good bait. The main thing I would
Speaker 1: say is the blades are the most important thing on
Speaker 1: a spinner bait. And if you want more vibration, you
Speaker 1: go to a Colorado. If you want more flash, you
Speaker 1: go to a willow. If you want something that sits
Speaker 1: right in the middle, you fish in Indiana style blade
Speaker 1: right on, right on, now'll see. I would also say,
Speaker 1: even though I know there's some very very well made
Speaker 1: spinner baits out there, chatter baits aren't cheap, but you
Speaker 1: can still get them like two job or spinner baits
Speaker 1: at the Walmart, you know what I mean. So like
Speaker 1: if if you if you lose a few of them,
Speaker 1: you don't really care. Um, dude, I I have, I
Speaker 1: have not much more to add to that other than
Speaker 1: I agreed with the question that I feel the same
Speaker 1: way like snakehead fishing and stuff. Everybody's got chatter baits,
Speaker 1: chatter baitch chatterbaitch chatter baits, and like nobody seems to
Speaker 1: be throwing a spinner bait anymore. But they're as they're
Speaker 1: definitely not obsolete, so that's the wrong way to to
Speaker 1: think of it. So just not fashionable. They're not fashionable
Speaker 1: at the moment, but they're still just as good. Well
Speaker 1: appreciate that. Mike um Kyle, you just got your question
Speaker 1: answered by Mike. I can elly. If you have a
Speaker 1: question that you want answered, keep firing them off to
Speaker 1: us at Bent at the Meat Eater dot com and
Speaker 1: maybe we can help you out. So that's it for
Speaker 1: this week. Big thanks again to Ike for dropping by
Speaker 1: with some knowledge and clarity about spinner bates. Also to
Speaker 1: every charter guide, you are welcome for the giant no
Speaker 1: reeling the swivel into the tip guide p s A yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you happen to have a shot of yourself
Speaker 1: just after losing a fish to a chip guide, please
Speaker 1: be sure to post it using the Degenerate Angler and
Speaker 1: Bent podcast hashtags. Likewise, if you've got an awkward photo,
Speaker 1: send it to Bent at the Meat eatar dot com,
Speaker 1: along with any Saleman items, bar nominations, questions, or news
Speaker 1: clips you want us to read. That is right. And finally, kids,
Speaker 1: do Dad a favor and learn the clinch not he
Speaker 1: brought you into this world. It's the least you can do.
Speaker 1: You haven't gotten a job, clean the garage, or finished
Speaker 1: your first college, I say yet, so at least, given
Speaker 1: the satisfaction of knowing you can tie on a rooster
Speaker 1: tail