Speaker 1: You've been a fly fishing guide. Yeah, I was a
Speaker 1: fly fishing guide for seven long days, which prompted the
Speaker 1: folks at Gidness to just dissolve the title of world
Speaker 1: shortest river entirely, because really, who gives them? We wonder
Speaker 1: if that's pepper spray at taser or a clock on
Speaker 1: his sidebow. And I was just like, this deck is
Speaker 1: It sounds and feels like I am walking on saltine
Speaker 1: crackers right now. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to
Speaker 1: Bend the Fishing podcast that kindly asked you to remove
Speaker 1: any cigarettes or lithium batteries from that carry on bag
Speaker 1: of bad juju you're trying to bring aboard our flight
Speaker 1: to guaranteed slave Festville. I'm Joe Surmelli. I'm Miles Balty,
Speaker 1: and uh well, I'm not entirely sure where you're going.
Speaker 1: That was pretty good, I don't I liked all of that,
Speaker 1: and props to you, sir for putting it together. Thanks man,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that very much. Here's where I'm going, without
Speaker 1: thinking about it too long, name the first person that
Speaker 1: comes to mind that's guaranteed to turn what by all
Speaker 1: counts should be like a really good day of fishing
Speaker 1: into an absolute suck fest with nothing more than his
Speaker 1: or her presence. Oh that's easy. That that would be me,
Speaker 1: this guy right here. Yep, yep. Uh. You know, come
Speaker 1: to think about it, I can kind of attest to
Speaker 1: that a little bit now that you caught me off guard.
Speaker 1: But I can kind of attest. Okay, all right, so
Speaker 1: it's it's you that's it's expected but fair. Next question, then,
Speaker 1: do you have a slang term for people like yourself,
Speaker 1: like these dark clouds of vibe crushing and mojo killing?
Speaker 1: Um my, my super ego. I don't know, No, I don't.
Speaker 1: I think I see where this is going now, and
Speaker 1: and I'm with you. I want to have this East
Speaker 1: versus West semantic slang discussion about you know, this topic,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I actually don't have a word for that.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know that we have such a
Speaker 1: word out here. So I'm just gonna tee you up
Speaker 1: and say, what do you call him? Joe gouchers? My
Speaker 1: preferred term, yes, my preferred term for those people that
Speaker 1: just seem to drain the life out of any water
Speaker 1: or like they conjure wind and rain and hail when
Speaker 1: none of that was forecast. Those are guchers, right, And
Speaker 1: I did not invent the term. I actually heard it
Speaker 1: on a party boat years ago, and believe it or not,
Speaker 1: it has an interesting origin that fits bent to a t.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just it's so bent. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: save that for today's Weekly Words segment, right, But I
Speaker 1: do think it's important to point out that while it
Speaker 1: might be easy to say, well, well, stop fishing with
Speaker 1: these people, stop fishing with Miles if he's a goucher, right,
Speaker 1: You're not bad folks, right, Like all, or at least
Speaker 1: most of the guchers I know, are people that I
Speaker 1: enjoy like. I want to fish with them. I want
Speaker 1: them to hook up and have a great day. But
Speaker 1: despite me saying well, this time will be different, this
Speaker 1: can't possibly last forever like that funk can be strong
Speaker 1: enough that there's just no breaking out of it. Man.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, uh, I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: gucher thing and give my thoughts. I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna I'm not gonna spoil it. I don't want to
Speaker 1: get hut of the Weekly Word, but I'm excited for
Speaker 1: that because I know exactly what it makes me think
Speaker 1: of it. But anyway your point, Can I just say
Speaker 1: that it sucks being a gucher? Can I just say, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sucks, just just by virtue of the fact that
Speaker 1: I have fished so much in my life. I have
Speaker 1: had many, many incredible days. But it's pretty safe to
Speaker 1: assume that if I'm booked on a fishing trip, even
Speaker 1: too good odds that the conditions are going to be tough.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be the optimal conditions. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I can attest to that. I know, and that was bad.
Speaker 1: But I've got many other stories like that, perhaps the
Speaker 1: worst one. I once got the trip of a lifetime
Speaker 1: to fish Cuba, like Cuba and dream Trap. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: day I arrived, the weather turns so bad that our
Speaker 1: entire group only got to fish one day out of
Speaker 1: the four we had playing because, like, it was so
Speaker 1: bad we couldn't even launch the skiffs. It was so
Speaker 1: bad for for most of the time we were there,
Speaker 1: So we ended up spending most of the trip drinking
Speaker 1: herculean quantities of beer and rum because what else you
Speaker 1: gonna do. Yeah, and we're not even like mainland Cuba.
Speaker 1: We're on the small island off the mainland of Cuba.
Speaker 1: There there's really not much to do besides fish and drink.
Speaker 1: I had a blast, but I went there to catch
Speaker 1: stupid tarpan, not sloppy on a beach, and I shouldn't complain.
Speaker 1: This is the definition of a first world problem. I know.
Speaker 1: But the worst part about being a goucher's exactly what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. People are afraid to invite you on fishing.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid I should say that people won't invite me
Speaker 1: on fishing trips, not because they don't like me, but
Speaker 1: because I'm a bad omen right, Like that's my fear.
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, wow, Joe is not gonnavite me back
Speaker 1: now because he thinks I'm a gucher. That there goes
Speaker 1: my invite anyway. I just the thing is right with
Speaker 1: gucher's it's you're not a goucher if the bad luck
Speaker 1: only extends to yourself, like everyone else is whacking them
Speaker 1: and you're not a gucher, brings down the whole tribe. Man,
Speaker 1: that's the problem. That's what I'm talking about. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, But enough about me. I'm assuming that you
Speaker 1: have a favorite gucher that runs from your circles. I do.
Speaker 1: I absolutely do. And he's my dad and he listens
Speaker 1: to all these shows, so I will hear about this.
Speaker 1: But even he won't deny it. Like if he were
Speaker 1: joining us as a guest right now, he'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's not lying, Like I dude, I could hammer fish
Speaker 1: on Tuesday and have identical conditions Wednesday. Get him out
Speaker 1: there and we won't touch a fish, or we'll we'll
Speaker 1: just get one where I got one hundred, like at
Speaker 1: the zero hour, like just before dark, like, oh, there's
Speaker 1: your one, and it's maddening. And it has been like
Speaker 1: this for years. Right, And he's the worst because he's
Speaker 1: a freaking multi species goucher. It doesn't matter what you're
Speaker 1: fishing for, he will shut it down, right, And because
Speaker 1: I would actually say, I'm curious if you agree it's
Speaker 1: more common to be a species specific goocher. Like Frankly,
Speaker 1: first of all, we all have a little goucher in
Speaker 1: this from time to time, right, but I consider myself
Speaker 1: like a full time muskie goucher. Right, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how good the fellows were doing last week, I will
Speaker 1: shut it off, okay um. And I even once had
Speaker 1: a buddy. Note, I said once, because we're really not
Speaker 1: boys anymore, that I accused of being a tuna gucher
Speaker 1: while seventy miles off shore. And he was so offended
Speaker 1: and adamant that he was not the gooch that he
Speaker 1: kind of stopped talking to me. Anyway. Look, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and so you'll hear more about my dad's goocheness
Speaker 1: in that aforementioned Weekly Words segment. I'm not done with
Speaker 1: him yet, just so he knows Dad that for the
Speaker 1: back stepping back though, that former buddy of yours needs
Speaker 1: to have thicker skin totally. I'm sorry. Like, yeah, the best,
Speaker 1: the real gouchers, the good gouchers. We own our gucins,
Speaker 1: like like your dad myself. And speaking of your father,
Speaker 1: I'll bring it back to that. I do have a
Speaker 1: little advice for him. My advice to him is to
Speaker 1: arm himself with a selection of lures from our good
Speaker 1: friends at thirteen Fishing. I personally suggest my name is Jeff,
Speaker 1: which comes with a proprietary anti gooch force field cooked
Speaker 1: right into the plastic. So now now he's gonna call
Speaker 1: me and be like, give me some of them. Jeff's
Speaker 1: that Myles was talking about like I have to be
Speaker 1: the supplier. He's not gonna go out and look for that.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that's a terrific suggestion. And the actual name
Speaker 1: of these four inch floating swim baits, right is My
Speaker 1: name's Jeff. They named the damn Lord. My name is Jeff,
Speaker 1: and we love that. We've said how much we love
Speaker 1: their names. I also really like the Lord because they
Speaker 1: got a hollow belly. It was like a little air
Speaker 1: trapped in there, so they fall a little slower on
Speaker 1: a jakehead rise a little higher on drop shot. Keep
Speaker 1: that in mind. It's good stuff all around, like great stuff.
Speaker 1: And here's some more great stuff. We are going to
Speaker 1: move into smooth moves. And joining us today is our
Speaker 1: good friend and very accomplished photographer Brian Gregson. Now this
Speaker 1: was recorded, I believe while you guys were in Ohio
Speaker 1: shot Doss Boat. That's correct, the Dost Boat sessions. Yes, yep.
Speaker 1: And this is I think almost certainly the shortest smooth
Speaker 1: move we've ever had, mostly because Brian prefers he likes
Speaker 1: to be behind the scenes. He wants to be behind
Speaker 1: the camera. He makes the media. He doesn't like doing it.
Speaker 1: He hates being on podcasts, and he nearly stopped being
Speaker 1: my friend when I wrote a short film about him
Speaker 1: some years ago, which is a good film. You should
Speaker 1: check it out. Anyway, he got over that, and he'll
Speaker 1: get over being on our podcast because we needed him.
Speaker 1: His story fits our same this week, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call it like a cautionary tale for all those guchers
Speaker 1: out there. The first step towards turning your look around
Speaker 1: might be admitting that you are bad luck. You've gotta
Speaker 1: be self aware and maybe a little more in tune
Speaker 1: with your environment, which the subject of this story really
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be. Why sitting down today in the
Speaker 1: great state of Ohio on the it's not really a
Speaker 1: set of dos boat, is it. I guess it could
Speaker 1: be a set, Yeah, but I'm sitting here with my
Speaker 1: buddy Brian Gregson, and there's there's so many things you do.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how to set you up. Like.
Speaker 1: You're a badass photographer, right photos? Yeah, you have one
Speaker 1: of those codact disposable cameras, right Yeah. Yeah, You've worked
Speaker 1: on a commercial tuneaboat. You've been a fly fishing guide. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a fla fishing guy for seven long days.
Speaker 1: Basically though, like you've done all the things that everybody
Speaker 1: wants to do. Like so I'm like, I'm very jealous
Speaker 1: of the things. I feel like when I talk to you,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I've done nothing with my life. You've been
Speaker 1: everywhere and done everything I've done. I've been fortunate to
Speaker 1: do a lot of things, but I think that you
Speaker 1: have to give up a lot of things too. I
Speaker 1: also heard that you don't really love being on podcast.
Speaker 1: Is that accurate? Yeah, you know, I work better behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. Um, I feel more comfortable with a camera
Speaker 1: in my hand looking through a view find it than
Speaker 1: I do in front of a camera. Okay, well, but
Speaker 1: so that that noted. I appreciate you doing bend. I
Speaker 1: appreciate this is. This is I'm I'm proud because people
Speaker 1: have like tried to get you and you're just like nah, nah,
Speaker 1: right right. Yeah. I had one one friend talked me
Speaker 1: into it and there was no way out of it.
Speaker 1: I was cornered into it and I did it. But well,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're staying in the same place. You
Speaker 1: can't say no because every day I'll just be like
Speaker 1: you're coming upstairs and sitting down and we're doing this, um.
Speaker 1: But you you know what smooth moves is all about, right,
Speaker 1: So because of all the different things you've done, this
Speaker 1: smooth move could come from any aspect of all these
Speaker 1: cool things you've done with your life. So I'm very
Speaker 1: excited because I have no idea what you're bringing in
Speaker 1: the table, right, So the floor is yours. Man, hit
Speaker 1: me with a smooth move. Well, you know, over the years,
Speaker 1: you see a lot of smooth moves. I'm fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to spend my time with a lot of anglers and
Speaker 1: guides all over the world, and you hear all the
Speaker 1: smooth moves, um, and one that kind of stands out.
Speaker 1: So this didn't happen to you. This is that's fair.
Speaker 1: That's it. And I hate to throw anybody I know
Speaker 1: under the bus. Um. One of my favorite parts of
Speaker 1: your podcast is a smooth moves. I'm always cringinging. I'm like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I hope I'm not that person that happened to me,
Speaker 1: and I've never wind up on him. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: go this route and you're gonna tell a smooth move
Speaker 1: about something that had this somebody else. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: was it was a good friend of mine. The guide
Speaker 1: in the Caribbean and had a new anger in his
Speaker 1: boat and his first time, to believe, very excited, very
Speaker 1: smart person on paper um, and he noted the water
Speaker 1: and he's like, wow, this is the most beautiful water
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in my life and it is. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Turk course great yea. And the guy's like, hey, should
Speaker 1: take some home with you. So he's like, oh man,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. I'm emptied his water bottle and
Speaker 1: filled it up. I might have happened to maybe or
Speaker 1: may not, been on the boat, screwed the cap on
Speaker 1: and he went to look at it. And it was
Speaker 1: at that moment I think it's just so overwhelmed. Don't
Speaker 1: even think about it. Because he looked up at it,
Speaker 1: it's like, that's the color of water. What gives it?
Speaker 1: The color is the bottom? Right, But you know, first
Speaker 1: time or smart guy of paper, but maybe not so.
Speaker 1: The clincher there is just I'm sure it was suggested
Speaker 1: in that perfect like yeah, and you have take some home.
Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, well, of course you'll be sweet,
Speaker 1: you know, and just expected to have a bottle of
Speaker 1: turquoise the shell exactly. But nobody else house on what
Speaker 1: you said about being in tune with your environment is
Speaker 1: accurate because often, okay, but not always, I find that
Speaker 1: a goucher like they have the desire, right, they have
Speaker 1: the moxie, they want the fish, but they're just like
Speaker 1: a step or two behind in the big picture of angling. Right,
Speaker 1: here's an example. Here's an example, right, Like, I once
Speaker 1: jumped on a boat with a guy I never met.
Speaker 1: I knew most of the people, but there was one
Speaker 1: outlier I never met. And as we're breaking the inlet
Speaker 1: at two o'clock in the morning, the dudes like, we
Speaker 1: never catch tuno when I'm on the boat, and because
Speaker 1: I believe in the power of the gooch, I was like, god,
Speaker 1: damn it, like I don't want to be here now.
Speaker 1: And sure enough we caught zip right, just blank. But
Speaker 1: while me and everyone else were like racking our brains
Speaker 1: looking at colored charts and changing lures and doing whatever
Speaker 1: we could figure out how we can turn this around,
Speaker 1: how we can swing this around, Like that dude was
Speaker 1: just in a bean chair, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like he can cast in real but he's not overly
Speaker 1: interested in in the harder worker details. So again I
Speaker 1: am not always because when I fish for muskies, right,
Speaker 1: which is rare, but when I'm doing it, I do
Speaker 1: it pretty hard and I still can't really catch them.
Speaker 1: So maybe what do I know? You know, No, see,
Speaker 1: this is a semantic argument. It's not my word, but
Speaker 1: I don't care. I'm gonna argue it anyway. To me,
Speaker 1: that's not a gucher. That's that's a disinterested angler. That's
Speaker 1: someone who lacks one of the primary qualities that you
Speaker 1: gotta have to be good at and truly enjoy fishing.
Speaker 1: I reserve gucher for people like me who are explicably
Speaker 1: cursed with consistent bad luck. But maybe I'm just being defensive,
Speaker 1: But that's how I define that term. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just I think it works both ways. Like I
Speaker 1: know really devoted anglers that are just bad luck. But
Speaker 1: I also know a lot of people that are bad
Speaker 1: luck but also just don't try very hard either, Like
Speaker 1: my dad comes to mind again here, Like I'll put
Speaker 1: it this way, like they don't go out of their
Speaker 1: way to change the luck. They just resign to the
Speaker 1: suck and say like, oh wow, this is always what
Speaker 1: happens when I'm here, and just like leave it at that.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, that's just that's just bringing negativity into it,
Speaker 1: like that's harsh in my mellow. That's no. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't do they can't give up like that. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we've all waited long enough to get the origin story
Speaker 1: of gucher. I know, I know where I hope this
Speaker 1: thing is going, but I'm actually unsure where this term
Speaker 1: came from. So please, the floor is yours. Let's get
Speaker 1: on with that weekly word. Webster's Dictionary defines fish as
Speaker 1: the gooch. Most of you know it's a slang term
Speaker 1: for a specific male body part located between two other
Speaker 1: male body parts, and this also explains why several of
Speaker 1: the Urban Dictionary definitions of the word gucher wouldn't be
Speaker 1: anything you'd want to repeat at the church picnic their guy. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now that that's out of the way, I'm thrilled
Speaker 1: to announce that goucher, as I've been using it to
Speaker 1: describe a person with the magical ability to curse a
Speaker 1: fishing day, has nothing to do with body parts or
Speaker 1: deviant acts. Its origin comes from the classic film Stand
Speaker 1: By Me. If you are unfamiliar with stand By Me,
Speaker 1: well shame write the hell on You You need to
Speaker 1: Get Familiar Asap. It was written by Stephen King and
Speaker 1: set in nineteen sixty and it follows a group of
Speaker 1: young friends on a coming of age journey to find
Speaker 1: the body of a missing boy. That group of friends
Speaker 1: is played by eighties grades like Corey Feldman, Will Wheaton,
Speaker 1: Jerry O'Connell, and the Late River Phoenix. The antagonist none
Speaker 1: other than Key for Sutherland as the thug Ace Meryl.
Speaker 1: The entire thing is narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, and it
Speaker 1: was Stand By Me that introduced the world to the
Speaker 1: concept of mailbox baseball. In a scene that slips by
Speaker 1: most viewers, the boys are trying to decide which of
Speaker 1: them will have to go to the store to buy
Speaker 1: provisions for their upcoming hike to find that dead body.
Speaker 1: To decide, they all flip a coin. The outcome of
Speaker 1: that flip is four tails or what Verne, the chubby
Speaker 1: member of the group played by Jerry O'Connell, refers to
Speaker 1: as a goocher. It turns out that the opposite all
Speaker 1: heads in the toss of multiple coins is called a moon,
Speaker 1: and it's a sign of good luck and good things
Speaker 1: to come. A goucher, of course, is a sign of
Speaker 1: pending bad luck and doom, making it perfectly for voting
Speaker 1: in the movie because the kids pilgrimage is pretty rife
Speaker 1: with struggle. Per the Internet, there is no history of
Speaker 1: the terms moon or goucher as signs of good or
Speaker 1: bad luck anywhere outside Stephen King's book and the later movie,
Speaker 1: suggesting that King either coined the term himself or maybe
Speaker 1: it was something he and his buddies used when they
Speaker 1: were kids. My dad is both a huge Stephen King
Speaker 1: fan and, as I said earlier, a huge goocher, and
Speaker 1: so is his buddy Mike, who he's known since college.
Speaker 1: Mike's inability to catch fish is semi legendary, and I've
Speaker 1: been hearing stories about it since i was ten years old,
Speaker 1: which is right around when Mike and my dad first
Speaker 1: started taking me shad fishing. As it naturally happens. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: I'm the one taking my dad shad fishing, and nine
Speaker 1: times out of ten, because he's just like a Gucasaurus rex,
Speaker 1: the fishing is extremely tough. Mike is such a gooch
Speaker 1: that he couldn't even get on my boat, let alone
Speaker 1: catch anything. Literally every single time I set a date
Speaker 1: to row Mike and my dad down the river. Whether
Speaker 1: or high water or COVID or something forced us to
Speaker 1: cancel the trip. I'm not even kidding. This went on
Speaker 1: for three years, So finally this past May, after rescheduling twice,
Speaker 1: I got Mike and my Dad on my boat. It
Speaker 1: was a beautiful afternoon, though very late in the shadd season,
Speaker 1: so late, in fact, that my expectations were about nil,
Speaker 1: but much to my surprise, we positively whacked them. It
Speaker 1: was so good I could only set two lines instead
Speaker 1: of four because I just couldn't keep up. Those old
Speaker 1: timers had the best day of fishing they've had in years,
Speaker 1: maybe decades. I mean, hell, they're still talking about it
Speaker 1: to this day. But I'm only left wondering, have I
Speaker 1: figured out the secret formula? Does two Gucher's equal one ringer?
Speaker 1: Does the bad luck become a force for good when
Speaker 1: they crossed the streams like in Ghostbusters? This is something
Speaker 1: you should probably ask me next Chad season if I
Speaker 1: can get them out again. Possibly, maybe, almost certainly my
Speaker 1: favorite weekly word. Yes, that movie was the only place
Speaker 1: I had heard the terms Gucher and moon, and I'm
Speaker 1: so happy we got to talk about yet another Stephen
Speaker 1: King story on this show. Yeah, one of my favorite authors.
Speaker 1: But I was hoping I really wasn't. I'm a little
Speaker 1: disappointed because I was hoping you'd be able to provide
Speaker 1: the etymological history of those words. Yeah. I was one
Speaker 1: in that, I I know, and I was really hoping
Speaker 1: that too, and I tried, right, but no, like all
Speaker 1: the signs point to, it just seems that that King
Speaker 1: seems to be the person who brought those into the
Speaker 1: common lexicon. Yeah, well, good for him. Shakespeare did it,
Speaker 1: Chaucer did it. Stephen King did it? Good for Stephen King.
Speaker 1: In contrast to our previous conversation about a movie adaptation
Speaker 1: of a King book, I actually love the film stand
Speaker 1: by Me. I'm not gonna say it's better than the book,
Speaker 1: but it's close. Now, having said that, I have a
Speaker 1: question for you. The story that stand by Me was
Speaker 1: based on, titled The Body, was published in a collection
Speaker 1: of four novellas called Different Seasons. Three of those novellas
Speaker 1: went on to become movies. Can you name either of
Speaker 1: the other two without googling? Oh? I So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take a wild stab and say that one was shaw
Speaker 1: Shank just because it's it's I know, I know. King
Speaker 1: wrote that it's non horror and it's set in the
Speaker 1: same time frame, stand by me. But the other one
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know accurate, well done, Yes story, the story
Speaker 1: was called Read a Hayworth and the shaw Shank Redemption.
Speaker 1: They shortened it, and yeah, it's a great story. Another
Speaker 1: really excellent one in that collection, another good reason to
Speaker 1: read it. The other two stories are APT Pupil and
Speaker 1: The Breathing Method. APT Pupil was also made a new movie,
Speaker 1: but it was not very good. Yeah you know that one.
Speaker 1: I recognized the name. I don't think I saw it though, don't.
Speaker 1: That's that's like Nazi stuff, right, Yeah, there, there's there's
Speaker 1: a there's a Nazi Nazi twings to it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's creepy. The book was much better and on that
Speaker 1: different seasons. Is probably my favorite Stephen King book of
Speaker 1: all time, And if I could find a way to
Speaker 1: spin it as a fishing book, I would definitely make
Speaker 1: it Philistines. But the only thing I could come up
Speaker 1: with is that the bad guys cover story that they're
Speaker 1: planning to tell the cops is that they were out
Speaker 1: steel Head fishing when they found the body, and I
Speaker 1: just don't think that's enough of a connective thread to
Speaker 1: make it work. Um, but I do hope that I
Speaker 1: can come up with some better connective threads to move
Speaker 1: between our stories in this week's fish news. Fish news
Speaker 1: that escalated quickly. Okay, So in case you weren't paying
Speaker 1: attention to my end the mediator social channels this week,
Speaker 1: Episode one of doss Boat Northeast, which would be Doss
Speaker 1: Boats season three, is now live. And guess who took
Speaker 1: over hosting duties this season? Miles? Any thoughts on that?
Speaker 1: I mean, who could it be? I can't imagine. The
Speaker 1: choices are endless Phil. It's not Phil, although I would
Speaker 1: watch the ship out of that. Um, the answer would
Speaker 1: be me. I am now the host of doss Bow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So super pumped and honored to have doss Bow, which
Speaker 1: of course existed long before I got to media right,
Speaker 1: honored to have that happening on my turf. And as
Speaker 1: we've hinted at on this show, you're gonna see a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of bent regulars in dost Boat this season.
Speaker 1: It's true. And let me just say, I am so
Speaker 1: happy that you wound up with the hosting duties. I spent,
Speaker 1: as you know, years of blood, sweat and tears working
Speaker 1: on the show, helping bring this thing into existence, writing it,
Speaker 1: producing it. And so to have you take over the helm,
Speaker 1: shall you speak of the host and dudes, just makes
Speaker 1: me really happy. And you're not alone like you were saying,
Speaker 1: are are good? Buddy Staaten Island's native son, Frank Cressitelly
Speaker 1: plays a major role. He's he's the boat fixer. I
Speaker 1: think this is the way what you called it, which accurate,
Speaker 1: which is accurate? Uh, And let me tell you, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's ever been a doss boat in the
Speaker 1: history of doss boats that's required more work and effort
Speaker 1: than this one. True facts, true facts. So this year, right,
Speaker 1: we're running a nineteen foot nineteen seventy three Mako center console.
Speaker 1: And while that's a classic, super classic Northeast boats, it's
Speaker 1: also the kind of boat that guys want. They want
Speaker 1: these older boats to restore them and make them perfect again.
Speaker 1: The thing is, most of the time, when you find them,
Speaker 1: like on a front lawn in Delaware where we found ours,
Speaker 1: she's got issues and we weren't spared any of them.
Speaker 1: We were not spared any of the issues. I was
Speaker 1: there on the ground when we found it, and I
Speaker 1: was just like, this deck is like it literally it sounds,
Speaker 1: it sounds and feels like I am walking on saltine crackers.
Speaker 1: Actually you called me. I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we can fix that. Should we
Speaker 1: do it? And it was insane? Right, But also, you
Speaker 1: have to consider finding a used boat right now on
Speaker 1: a tight budget. It's not super easy. Okay, like it's
Speaker 1: I think I actually think it's getting a little better.
Speaker 1: But going back to last spring, early last spring, there
Speaker 1: were not a lot of great use boat options. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we had this tight budget. So Frank and I
Speaker 1: looked at this thing. We just kind of set a
Speaker 1: prayer and went for it. Gave the man his money,
Speaker 1: but damn it, we whipped her into shape. We did,
Speaker 1: you did. And and beyond that, I mean, beyond that
Speaker 1: whole origin story of the boat. Uh, the saga of
Speaker 1: this season is impressive, and so are the results. Right.
Speaker 1: The season kicks off with you chasing stripers with old
Speaker 1: cal Ryan callahand before embarking on a two thousand mile
Speaker 1: adventure around the right side of the country, Fisher cought
Speaker 1: Oliver and I gets on board. At one point, our
Speaker 1: buddy j Siemens makes it appearance. We even put Ross
Speaker 1: robertson on the damn thing this year. Yeah, maybe against
Speaker 1: our better judgment, we did that for some reason. I
Speaker 1: kid if I kid, of course, we had a great time.
Speaker 1: Who else Blaine Chocolate on the action Yeah, Briandrassi, Christine
Speaker 1: Fisher And despite how exhausting truly this season was to
Speaker 1: put together, I had a lot of fun. And I
Speaker 1: really hope you guys follow along for the next six
Speaker 1: weeks on the YouTube. There's gonna be We got snack heads,
Speaker 1: we got Kobe Is, got Walleyes. If you're into that,
Speaker 1: you're you're into the Walleye thing, you know, kidding. It's
Speaker 1: all good ship. It's it's really came together. Well it is,
Speaker 1: it is. It's really good. Uh. But now let's get
Speaker 1: into the this newsy goodness that we got going on.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, this is a competition. Joe and I
Speaker 1: do not know which stories the other one is bringing
Speaker 1: to the table. And at the end of it, our
Speaker 1: auditory Dolly Lama filled, the engineer will find a state
Speaker 1: of grace and decide which one of us will attain enlightenment.
Speaker 1: M hm. And this week you have the honor of
Speaker 1: starting us off. I hope, I hope you brought some
Speaker 1: good stuff. I'm looking forward to it. What have you got?
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know if it's good. I just don't
Speaker 1: know anymore. I just kind of never worry anyway. So
Speaker 1: here you go. Listen up, hockey fans, because this one
Speaker 1: is for you. Yes, And just a quick side note. Um,
Speaker 1: while I've never really been a sports fan, I think
Speaker 1: I've said that on here, Like I don't watch football
Speaker 1: or baseball, I just really don't give a shit. In
Speaker 1: my youth, I was a pretty big hockey fan. Hockey
Speaker 1: was my thing for a while. I think we're talking
Speaker 1: into fish news in the past anyway, I I think so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a big San Jose Sharks fan. I also
Speaker 1: loved the Florida Marlins, if you see where I'm going here. However,
Speaker 1: I was an l A Raiders fan because the Dolphins,
Speaker 1: as we all know anyway, anyway, they've done turns out
Speaker 1: hockey goalie Pete Peters, and I love that name. Pete Peters.
Speaker 1: What a great name. He is a very passionate angler.
Speaker 1: Now Pete Peters was an NHL goaltender in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. A matter of fact, he won the Vezina
Speaker 1: Trophy for being the best goaltender in two eighty three
Speaker 1: when he played for the Boston Pruins. His real claim
Speaker 1: to fame, however, and this is I love this so much,
Speaker 1: was that he was in goal for the Philadelphia Flyers
Speaker 1: in two season, which was the season when Wayne Gretzky
Speaker 1: was striving for a fifty goal season, and he scored
Speaker 1: goals forty six through fifty on Peters in the same game. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's not what you want to be known for. Peters
Speaker 1: is also quick to brag that the first goal Mario
Speaker 1: Lemieux ever scored in the NHL was on him. So
Speaker 1: I like this guy, Like this is the stuff, like
Speaker 1: when you meet him, apparently he talks about right, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's awesome. I I I love it. I
Speaker 1: love it. So anyway, I explain all this because Peters
Speaker 1: likes to joke that he's the one that made Gretzky famous,
Speaker 1: right by letting in goals six through fifty in a
Speaker 1: single game. And now he's telling fishing guide Kevin Ostrada
Speaker 1: that he's done the same for him. He's made him
Speaker 1: famous too. So not long ago, Peters and some buds
Speaker 1: chartered Estrata to take them out sturgeon fishing on the
Speaker 1: Fraser River. Peters and his crew ended up reeling in
Speaker 1: a white sturgeon bigger than any recorded in modern history.
Speaker 1: The fish taped out at eleven feet six inches, and
Speaker 1: Estrata estimated the weight at jest shy of nine hundred pounds. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen the photos of this fish.
Speaker 1: If they've they've crossed your desk. It's frightening, dude. It's
Speaker 1: so big, like it doesn't even look real. I mean,
Speaker 1: the head on that fish, it's it's just nuts. Now.
Speaker 1: According to the story, right, it's definitely a British Columbia
Speaker 1: provincial record, and Estrata claims to be reaching out to
Speaker 1: Guinness about the catch. But it's not going to qualify
Speaker 1: for a world record because Peters traded the rod off
Speaker 1: with with his buddies a few times. So Astrata has
Speaker 1: been fishing the Frasier for fifteen years. They actually talks
Speaker 1: about him crying in the article. All he talks about
Speaker 1: it because he's like, I've never seen a fish like this,
Speaker 1: and he absolutely credits this with some pretty strict conservation efforts, right, Like,
Speaker 1: sturgeon have been catching release only on the Frasier since
Speaker 1: the early two thousand's um and it's very likely that
Speaker 1: this fish is well over a hundred years old, right. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: I assume that they're saying this is the biggest sturgeon
Speaker 1: recorded in modern times, because I guess because I feel
Speaker 1: like I've even seen stuff like this, you probably have to.
Speaker 1: While some photographic evidence exists of fish this big or bigger,
Speaker 1: like a lot of what I've seen is grainy, black
Speaker 1: and white photos probably taken one years ago themselves, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, like way back in the day.
Speaker 1: So in a sense, seeing a fish like this, at
Speaker 1: least this caliber of sturgeon, it's almost like you're seeing
Speaker 1: a fish that people kind of think doesn't exist anymore,
Speaker 1: Like it's extinct, you know what I mean, like to
Speaker 1: see one this size in the flesh. Um And in
Speaker 1: the story, Estrada says, other anglers over the years have
Speaker 1: made claims about catching fish this size. But and this
Speaker 1: is fairly vague, but I think I have a handle
Speaker 1: on it, Like, after careful examination of these photos, they
Speaker 1: were all discredited. So you know guys like I got
Speaker 1: a twelve footer here, and you know it's all about
Speaker 1: the angle or whatever. And then experts look at these
Speaker 1: and do the proportions and they're like, ah, that fish
Speaker 1: isn't as big as this guy's claiming. But Astrata and
Speaker 1: Peter's fish absolutely is. I mean, I'll post it in
Speaker 1: our in our stories this week like it was nuts.
Speaker 1: So the one thing that sticks out to me, though,
Speaker 1: is it says it took twenty five minutes to reel
Speaker 1: this fish in. Now, I am not in nearly as
Speaker 1: good of shape as Pete Peters, even though he's much
Speaker 1: much older than me. Right, but I've caught these fish
Speaker 1: on the Columbia. Have you ever fished for these fish before?
Speaker 1: The bucket list for me, but I've never All the
Speaker 1: ones we caught in three days were like one fifty
Speaker 1: pounds was probably the biggest, and they all kicked all
Speaker 1: of our asses for significantly longer than twenty five minutes.
Speaker 1: So I would love more detail on that, Like maybe
Speaker 1: it was so old and you figure it had to
Speaker 1: have been caught more than once. Being ad old, it
Speaker 1: was just like, get it over with I've been here,
Speaker 1: I've done this before. Um, so that was like the
Speaker 1: only discrepancy on like twenty five minutes. I fought one
Speaker 1: of these things for an hour and a half and
Speaker 1: thought I was gonna die. Still, incredible fish really speaks
Speaker 1: to what conservation measures like that can do. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's like it's frightening its head is So
Speaker 1: it's just massive, it is and it's true. And you know,
Speaker 1: we we pride ourselves on being nuanced enough to talk
Speaker 1: about catching release as not a monolith like catching release
Speaker 1: is important here in other places is not. I think
Speaker 1: this is a great example of a fishery where it
Speaker 1: is important. These are absolutely long lived fish that don't
Speaker 1: spawn every year. Catching and release really matters for fish
Speaker 1: species like this one. M My first story also is
Speaker 1: a record story, but for a very different kind of
Speaker 1: fish that for which catching release also matters, but maybe
Speaker 1: not in the same way. Also, I just want to say,
Speaker 1: I don't know which of my story is to run into,
Speaker 1: because you set me up for segways to both of them,
Speaker 1: but I'm just gonna go with this one. I hope
Speaker 1: you have another Guinness Record reference for me to set
Speaker 1: me up on the next My next story is terrible.
Speaker 1: So as I'm sure everybody who's listening is noticed, I
Speaker 1: know you have. Over the past couple of years, New
Speaker 1: York state fishing records have been falling like the clown
Speaker 1: in Billy Madison, hard fast and in bizarre, confusing and
Speaker 1: strangely entertaining ways. Hey kids, it's me. I've thought I
Speaker 1: was dead, but glad I fell over. I just broke
Speaker 1: my lining. Gonna hemrhage in my head. A couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago, Royal Isaac of Albany landed a four pound
Speaker 1: seven ounce croppy, breaking a twenty year standing state record
Speaker 1: by more than half a pound. This is at least
Speaker 1: mildly noteworthy because new records usually eke past the previous
Speaker 1: mark by like an ouncer two, and in this case,
Speaker 1: the new record adds one six of the body weight
Speaker 1: to the previous. In affish as small as a croppy,
Speaker 1: that only amounts to a little more and a half pound,
Speaker 1: but for the size of the fish, it's a huge leap.
Speaker 1: Like to put this in context of another game fish
Speaker 1: we've been talking about a lot lately. If this had
Speaker 1: been a tarpin that bested the current record by the
Speaker 1: same percentage of body mass, the difference would have been
Speaker 1: forty seven pounds. So yeah, percentage wise, it's it's a
Speaker 1: big jump. Mr Isaac was fishing Sleepy Hollow Lake in
Speaker 1: Upstate New York. From what I could gather in some
Speaker 1: basic Internet research, Sleepy Hollow is best known as a
Speaker 1: bass fishery, but I think that says more about our
Speaker 1: collective obsession with bass than the actual quality of the fishery,
Speaker 1: at least if we're talking trophies. Seems like the lake
Speaker 1: is overrun with stunted large amouth as in, like fifty
Speaker 1: to seventy fish days are common, but they're almost fourteen
Speaker 1: more interesting to me anyway, Sleepy Hollow is a giant
Speaker 1: croppy factory. Besides the most recent record, one of the
Speaker 1: two fish that co held the previous date record was
Speaker 1: also caught out of that lake. Joe, before you get
Speaker 1: all excited and packed the car, go on a road trip, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's a private lake, so you can't go there. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right? Is this like the Sleepy Hollow like the
Speaker 1: Ichabod Crane deal the very same one? Yes? Okay, and
Speaker 1: and and far from me. Actually this is not like
Speaker 1: crazy far upstate. It's Hudson, Yeah yeah, yeah, okay uh
Speaker 1: and and only residents of the lake and their guests
Speaker 1: are permitted to fish there. Roy Isaac is not a
Speaker 1: resident of the lake, but he has a buddy who
Speaker 1: lets Isaac and his two sons fish office Pierre regularly,
Speaker 1: and it seems like these guys have a pretty solid
Speaker 1: pattern on the panfish. For four weeks in a oh
Speaker 1: Isaac and his kids have been getting into bigger and
Speaker 1: bigger crop eas He told Field and Stream quote, when
Speaker 1: I went out there four weeks ago, I caught a
Speaker 1: one pound seven ouncer and said wow, Next time a
Speaker 1: two pound ten ouncer, and then the following week a
Speaker 1: three pound ten ounce fish. Finally he landed the state record.
Speaker 1: We have already debated the issue of private lakes and records,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to get into that again. And frankly,
Speaker 1: that's not the most interesting element of this story to me.
Speaker 1: Sleepy Hollow Lake has populations of both black and white
Speaker 1: croppy as well as hybrids. Black and white croppy are
Speaker 1: very difficult to distinguish just by looking at them, and
Speaker 1: while naturally occurring hybrids often have a black racing stripe
Speaker 1: running along their face and back. That's not always the case.
Speaker 1: Hybrids are usually sterile and as a result, often grow
Speaker 1: much larger than true black or white crop eas. New
Speaker 1: York State recognize his records for black and white croppy,
Speaker 1: but not hybrids. Isaac's fish would have bested either one
Speaker 1: of the records, but it had to fit into one
Speaker 1: of those categories. Now, a New York Department of Environmental
Speaker 1: Conservation Fisheries biologist examine the fish and determined it to
Speaker 1: be a white croppy because of the placement of the
Speaker 1: eye and the number of dorsal fins. But here's my question.
Speaker 1: You may remember last November we reported on Jordan's Tantarski,
Speaker 1: who had to wait ten months for genetic testing results
Speaker 1: for the State of New York would certify his record
Speaker 1: pumpkin seed. Why did the state require genetic testing for
Speaker 1: one panfish record but not this other one? Because somebody
Speaker 1: in Sleepy Hollow got money in grease the right pocket.
Speaker 1: It was like this, as a Sawbucks says, it's a
Speaker 1: white all right, maybe, but I'm gonna say this, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna get a little more nuanced. My guess
Speaker 1: is that because the stately recognized as black and white
Speaker 1: croppy for records, not hybrids. It was just easier to
Speaker 1: do a visual inspection and declare it one way or
Speaker 1: the other. Because if they had required the same genetic
Speaker 1: testing that they did for the pumpkin seed and the
Speaker 1: results came back that this was a hybrid, they would
Speaker 1: have had a problem, and like they would have been
Speaker 1: under pressure to create this whole new record category. Now,
Speaker 1: I will fully admit I'm not a croppy expert, and
Speaker 1: and maybe it's true the fact that Isaac's fish only
Speaker 1: had six dorsal spines means that it's definitely a white croppy.
Speaker 1: But my gut tells me there's some politics of play here.
Speaker 1: We need to get Wily Marshall on the phone. He'll
Speaker 1: sort this whole thing out. The croppy King, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not the croppy King. I did do
Speaker 1: a bunch of reading, though, and it smacks to me
Speaker 1: like a fish of that size besting the record by
Speaker 1: that much, especially if the hybrids grow that much bigger
Speaker 1: and quicker. I'm going to be real honest, man, I
Speaker 1: had no idea they were hybrid croppys out there, but
Speaker 1: I I croppy fish actually more than you would think
Speaker 1: in the colder months before it freezes, just because it's
Speaker 1: easy with the kids, Like you got a couple of
Speaker 1: hours to kill, I got a couple of ponds and
Speaker 1: a couple of trees, you know. Um and see it's
Speaker 1: also funny. I always thought white croppies were pretty just
Speaker 1: like easy to distinguish. I thought so too until I
Speaker 1: started reading this like doing research because later with barring
Speaker 1: versus the black croppie that are darker and speckled, It
Speaker 1: very much depends on the like the turbidity of the
Speaker 1: water they come out of, and the time of year
Speaker 1: you catch them. White croppy during the spawn gets super dark,
Speaker 1: look just like a black black croppie in in turbid water,
Speaker 1: black croppy go completely white it out. And if you
Speaker 1: look at the picture of this fish, yeah, it looks
Speaker 1: like it could go either way. Yeah, I'm certain because
Speaker 1: our our listeners are good like that, we're gonna hear
Speaker 1: from some some croppy people and and and and I
Speaker 1: encouraged that let us know because I mean why, I
Speaker 1: think it's fascinating look for better or where it's like,
Speaker 1: I know there's like crappy crazy people out there and
Speaker 1: they're like c be destinations and that's a huge scene.
Speaker 1: But for me, I just like that's just the thing
Speaker 1: to go down the street and catch a couple of
Speaker 1: here and there. So like I don't know that yeah there, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just don't know that much about crop eas um,
Speaker 1: but that that, yeah, I see what you mean. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of paperwork involved in finding out that
Speaker 1: that was a hybrid. Here's the transition for you if
Speaker 1: if you happen to know somebody that lives on Sleepy
Speaker 1: Hollow Lake but you don't have any fishing gear, You're
Speaker 1: just gonna want to take a little drive to a
Speaker 1: library a little further up in New York before you
Speaker 1: hit Sleepy Hollow. How is that? I love it? Right?
Speaker 1: So that was that was well done. So remember a
Speaker 1: while back I did that funny little piece about the
Speaker 1: flybrary right and how I thought it was a fine idea.
Speaker 1: But we both kind of agreed most of the time,
Speaker 1: the flies you find on it, we're kind of worthless.
Speaker 1: So we've gotten some feedback. To be fair, we haven't
Speaker 1: called it up, but some folks have called them be Like, no, man,
Speaker 1: they're great. Mayer. I've learned a ton from them, So
Speaker 1: in some cases it is working. And I've also had
Speaker 1: people writing and be like, yeah, I leave gobs of
Speaker 1: of of salmon skin on the flybrariy. Good for you, bro. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so it's a similar vibes here. I like this story
Speaker 1: a lot better. So in many ways, right, libraries were
Speaker 1: sort of being underutilized by by a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And it's been going on for a while because now
Speaker 1: we have so much technology, right, and so many answers
Speaker 1: to what we need to know right at our fingertips,
Speaker 1: and then nobody cares about checking out DVDs at the
Speaker 1: library anymore. Right, So but the ds, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: I mean now, I was going to say, like, libraries
Speaker 1: are not known for their books, dude, it's books. But anyway,
Speaker 1: go ahead. That really says a lot about where we
Speaker 1: are in our culture, where we're like remember the days
Speaker 1: when we used to go to the library for DVDs? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's fine anyway, the COVID pandemic has actually sort
Speaker 1: of changed that and for like a lack of a
Speaker 1: our way to put it, um made libraries in some
Speaker 1: places like sort of useful and necessary again for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. And per this story, I found on
Speaker 1: Spectrum local news dot com, which covers upstate New York
Speaker 1: many libraries, including the Han Memorial Library in the city
Speaker 1: of Clayton. They were providing curbside book pick up right,
Speaker 1: creating all kinds of virtual events for both education and
Speaker 1: entertainment for kids, to give kids something to do, providing
Speaker 1: WiFi net access for people that didn't have it or
Speaker 1: needed to do job searches, and so on. So the
Speaker 1: library sort of adapted to the community's needs. Right. So,
Speaker 1: now as the pandemic starts to wane, the question is
Speaker 1: how do we keep people engaged and using the local library.
Speaker 1: So Han Memorial is trying to think outside the box
Speaker 1: and figured, hey, a libraries where you go to borrow stuff?
Speaker 1: Who says it has to be books? And Mannequin too
Speaker 1: on VHS? Right, uh so it was one of my
Speaker 1: favorite movies. So it just so I can't wait to
Speaker 1: hear from all the Mannequin two people Mannking two on
Speaker 1: the Run for the Wind. So it just so happened
Speaker 1: right that Clayton local Joe Krisman, who is a big
Speaker 1: time angler, had a garage full of gear he wasn't using,
Speaker 1: so he donated a whole bunch of tackle and combos
Speaker 1: to the library. So now you can go to this
Speaker 1: library and sign out fishing and safety gear just like
Speaker 1: you would a book. They've got life jackets. Right, there's
Speaker 1: a big gas landing net on the wall with a
Speaker 1: little tag on it. Smattering of rods and boxes of lords. Now,
Speaker 1: the town of Clayton sits right on the St. Lawrence River,
Speaker 1: so it's definitely a fish area. And I gotta say
Speaker 1: I love this, right, not even not even kidding, like
Speaker 1: I might reach out to my local library because you've
Speaker 1: seen the amount of ship in my garage, and I
Speaker 1: could definitely thin out the herd a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: So I commend this a thousand times over. But I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be me if I didn't have like some ship
Speaker 1: head comment to make. So of course, look looking at
Speaker 1: the rod and real selection there. Actually there's a couple
Speaker 1: of pretty nice newer Shakespeare combos, right, um, pretty good stuff,
Speaker 1: full of line and all. But then they're also what
Speaker 1: I would guess there's some remnants of Joe's garage, like
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff you'd see piled into that old
Speaker 1: garbage can at the flea market table, just like odd
Speaker 1: rods just like spewing out of a bucket or something.
Speaker 1: Um and there's just like you know, super crusty, perhaps
Speaker 1: missing a guide. There's like ten wraps of old bone
Speaker 1: and dry mono on the reel. And I laugh at
Speaker 1: this not because of the donation, because good on him,
Speaker 1: but because if I were the librarian working there and
Speaker 1: someone came in looking to rent out a rod and
Speaker 1: some tackle, I feel like I'd have to sort of
Speaker 1: profile like a little bit and like try engage how
Speaker 1: likely this person is to steal the tackle or how
Speaker 1: careful I think they're gonna be with it, and be
Speaker 1: like here you go, bud, Like you can have the
Speaker 1: Garcia spinner with the broken anti reverse loaded with the
Speaker 1: dak ron and paired with this beat up conventional party
Speaker 1: boat roun Right. So the promoter of fishing in me
Speaker 1: loves this. I love it, But the serious fisherman in
Speaker 1: me that has spent plenty of time with true rookies
Speaker 1: as have you, is like that ship is contu broken,
Speaker 1: like regard like or return in just a hopeless bird's
Speaker 1: nest situation or yeah, or just with zero of the
Speaker 1: spinners and frogs that they checked out along with the rod. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, like, even if even if you
Speaker 1: know what you're doing, it's just what happens in fishing gear.
Speaker 1: Pretty Much every piece of fishing gear I own I
Speaker 1: consider temporary because it will meet its end eventually one
Speaker 1: day will it will just not come home. Um, So regardless,
Speaker 1: the Harn Memorial Libraries make an effort to provide this
Speaker 1: gear for anyone that wants to try or maybe can't
Speaker 1: afford fishing gear. And that's I love it, super cool.
Speaker 1: The one hiccup that they didn't address, though, was licenses right,
Speaker 1: And I'm sure they haven't figured out. But the library
Speaker 1: is literally across the street from the water. But like
Speaker 1: if you're popping in and return all those goose bumps
Speaker 1: and want to chuck a spoon for trout across the way,
Speaker 1: like you still gotta have a license. So I don't
Speaker 1: know how they handle that. I assume they tell you that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make it my goal to reduce the books
Speaker 1: in my local library by at least and just turn
Speaker 1: it into a tackle the trout, magnets and surf rods
Speaker 1: for everyone in the Joe Sphmelli Wing. Great story? Have
Speaker 1: we not? Have we not proven the fishing gear and
Speaker 1: and books can co exist, like have we not? Like
Speaker 1: there's one thing I've hope we've accomplished. It's that you
Speaker 1: don't have to remove the books for your fishing. Isn't
Speaker 1: it funny? I'm kidding and you know that. But it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be funny to think of something coming to me
Speaker 1: like I'd like to rent one of your rods and
Speaker 1: appropriate lores and do you have any books on fishing,
Speaker 1: like just like the whole package in one Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 1: You know what, I would be great, And I think
Speaker 1: I have a solution to the problem that you put. Oh,
Speaker 1: there we go do it. Here's here's what if I
Speaker 1: were running that library, which god knows I'm not, but
Speaker 1: if I were running that program, we hang Onu'm trying
Speaker 1: to stop you and say, I could see you running
Speaker 1: a library but being very disgruntled, like you want to
Speaker 1: give people the best literature, and they'd come in and
Speaker 1: just be like you got fifty shades of gray and
Speaker 1: you'd be like, no, no, don't want that. Stephen King.
Speaker 1: I would be the soup Nazi of the library note
Speaker 1: books for you. But to figure out the fishing rod problem,
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's easy, man. You have an age
Speaker 1: cap right, and and that also solves your license problem.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's different different states, but usually you've
Speaker 1: got to get to a relatively ripe age before you
Speaker 1: need a license. Because I think it's twelve here. You
Speaker 1: just you just pair those up. Man. If you're if
Speaker 1: you're too old to fish without a license, you're too
Speaker 1: old to rent the library's fishing gear. Very safe, That's
Speaker 1: how I would deal with that. I think that we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna move from a story about ways to
Speaker 1: make children happy to a story about making children cry.
Speaker 1: Giants Springs State Park is a little known attraction here
Speaker 1: in Montana. It's located just outside of Great Falls, and
Speaker 1: and honestly, it's not the kind of thing you would
Speaker 1: travel interstate to see, or even in trust state, but
Speaker 1: for locals in the area, it's a cool spot. Giant
Speaker 1: Springs is named for well, the giant spring that bubbles
Speaker 1: up out of the ground right next to the Missouri River.
Speaker 1: The Lewis and Clark Expedition noted this feature when they
Speaker 1: passed through an eighteen o five, and for good reason.
Speaker 1: It's one of the largest freshwater springs in the country,
Speaker 1: pumping out a hundred and fifty six million gallons of
Speaker 1: water each day. It's almost as much as Poland Springs.
Speaker 1: Very close, very close. Giant Springs was also the site
Speaker 1: of a world record controversy. The springs feed the Row River,
Speaker 1: which flows a whopping two d and one feet before
Speaker 1: hitting the Missouri. In A fifth grade class in Grade
Speaker 1: Falls launched a campaign to get the Guinness Book to
Speaker 1: recognize the Row as the shortest river in the world,
Speaker 1: a title that was at the time held by the
Speaker 1: D River in Oregon, which stretches four After two years,
Speaker 1: the campaign was successful, but the people of Lincoln City, Oregon,
Speaker 1: were not happy about their local river losing its Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a major award, of course they were, dude,
Speaker 1: that's like, that's that's ten T shirts they're not selling
Speaker 1: next year, you know what I mean? Get it. So
Speaker 1: the folks in Oregon re measured the D, deciding to
Speaker 1: end it at a new terminus, which they declared was
Speaker 1: the point of extreme high tide, and coming up with
Speaker 1: a new length of a hundred and twenty feet. The
Speaker 1: two western towns engaged in the short but heated public
Speaker 1: debate which prompted the folks at Gidness to just dissolve
Speaker 1: the title of World's shortest river entirely, because really, who
Speaker 1: gives a That was the last time that Giant Springs
Speaker 1: State Park appeared in the national news until a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. And while fifth graders campaigning to get
Speaker 1: their local river inducted into the Book of World Records
Speaker 1: is cute, this news story is quite the opposite. In
Speaker 1: addition to the Roe River, Giant Springs provides water for
Speaker 1: one of Montana's largest and oldest trout hatcheries, which has
Speaker 1: been operating continuously since n The hatchery ponds are one
Speaker 1: of the primary attractions at Giant Springs Park. Generations of
Speaker 1: kids have visited the display pond, where they can see
Speaker 1: and feed giant rainbow trout, which is why the next
Speaker 1: thing I'm about to tell you is so sad and infuriating.
Speaker 1: On August, some angry in cell jumped the fence at
Speaker 1: the hatchery after sunset and stabbed many of the large
Speaker 1: fish in the display pond with a knife. Six of
Speaker 1: the fish had to be euthanized the next day, and
Speaker 1: numerous others survived but now have large open wounds. A
Speaker 1: local news story about this included an interview with Hannah Crane,
Speaker 1: a mom from Great Falls who regularly brings her six
Speaker 1: year old son to the park to play at the
Speaker 1: playground and see the fish. In the interview, she said, quote,
Speaker 1: one of the things he asks when he knows we're
Speaker 1: coming down this way is are we going to see
Speaker 1: the fish? I was trying to explain to him, there's
Speaker 1: not going to be as many. They're not going to
Speaker 1: be as big as we usually see them. They're not
Speaker 1: going to be as beautiful and swimming around as much.
Speaker 1: They're hurt. Now, Okay, I get that was emotional pandering
Speaker 1: on the part of the journalist who wrote the piece,
Speaker 1: but damn it, it worked. I was totally on the
Speaker 1: fence about this story until I read that quote and
Speaker 1: then thought about how shitty that conversation had to be.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess kids have to learn that people
Speaker 1: can be unspeakably cruel somehow, but six years old seems
Speaker 1: I don't know, kind of young. I just I'm so
Speaker 1: glad I wasn't in that situation, and I sincerely hope
Speaker 1: the person who did this faces some kind of consequences. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that person is still large Montana fish. Wildlife in Parks
Speaker 1: is asking the public to keep an eye out for
Speaker 1: social media posts featuring suspiciously large trout and to come
Speaker 1: forward with any information they may have that will lead
Speaker 1: to the capture of the individual. I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: like mourning. You know six a half dozen broodstock rainbows
Speaker 1: that were already It's a weird thing, and it's weird
Speaker 1: thing in that regard, yes, but the senselessness and downright
Speaker 1: means spiritedness to do regardless of trout. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: any different. No, it doesn't make any sense. It's a
Speaker 1: hatchery bond to the state park where kids go to
Speaker 1: get excited about giant fish. Who in God's name grabs
Speaker 1: a knife, hops offense and like I'm gonna get all
Speaker 1: stabby on these trout. I don't get it, and I
Speaker 1: hope they find the guy, and if they do, I
Speaker 1: think they should force him to stand by that pond
Speaker 1: for the next year and apologize to every kid who
Speaker 1: walks in to see those fish. That's what I think
Speaker 1: you ought to do. I mean, I hate to say it.
Speaker 1: It's either like a raging just psychopath weirdo, or like,
Speaker 1: could this be some like twelve monkey style crusade, the
Speaker 1: rib the rid. The world of hatchery fish, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like somebody who just like hates hatcher.
Speaker 1: You know, they stocked him over his wild trout somewhere.
Speaker 1: It happens, it does, but like if that's a wild
Speaker 1: person doesn't know what they're doing, because these are the
Speaker 1: fish that are past their prime. They're not even the
Speaker 1: breeders anymore. Like they're the retired breeders. If you want
Speaker 1: to do something like go after of the fish, they're
Speaker 1: still making more fish. So I mentioned recently that I
Speaker 1: used to belong to a trout club, which is exactly
Speaker 1: what it sounds like, and it's a very Northeast thing
Speaker 1: to do. I feel so bad. If you can get
Speaker 1: me this child's name, I'll call our old hatchery and
Speaker 1: I will have some giant rainbow sent right to his
Speaker 1: front door. That's what I'm gonna do. You want a
Speaker 1: thirteen pound rainbow that can't swim, I'll get it for
Speaker 1: you by three o'clock. Dude, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Poor kids? Oh, isn't it it is? So? I think
Speaker 1: we need to laugh after that one. That was gut wrenching.
Speaker 1: But here's how we're gonna do that. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: go to Phil uh see what tickled his fancy this weekend.
Speaker 1: As soon's we're done with that. It's been a while.
Speaker 1: It's been a while since we've heard from our dear
Speaker 1: friend river Horse, but we got some sage lee wisdom
Speaker 1: coming at you that's gonna lighten the mood after all
Speaker 1: that giant breeders stock trout death. Miles Nulty, you're the winner.
Speaker 1: As a side note, I went to Lincoln City, Oregon
Speaker 1: almost every summer grow up, and I can tell you
Speaker 1: that they take a lot of pride in their little
Speaker 1: d River Guinness. If you're looking for another tiny d
Speaker 1: to measure, you can come on over to my place.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, come in. Oh what's this for me? Oh? Thanks? Okay,
Speaker 1: it appears I have been fired from meat Eater. I
Speaker 1: guess that's that. Joe, Miles, you were a pleasure to
Speaker 1: work with. Um if you don't mind, I've actually got
Speaker 1: a written statement that I prepared several weeks ago in
Speaker 1: case something like this ever happened. Let's see here. The
Speaker 1: tides of history are never kind to those. Hey, Now,
Speaker 1: this is a river Horse coming to you from the
Speaker 1: deep south with some sage lee wisdom. I got a
Speaker 1: little story for you called parking lot of And let's
Speaker 1: keep in mind, as the old Western legend Wyatt Herb said,
Speaker 1: fast it's fine, but accuracy is everything. There's a ups
Speaker 1: truck parked in the fire lane, not much wind. It's
Speaker 1: about a sixty ft shot, and I've got an eight weight.
Speaker 1: This all started out innocently enough, but since winter it's
Speaker 1: been out of hand. It's even worse now. This fly
Speaker 1: shop is a beautifully shabby anomaly for Houston. It's it's
Speaker 1: smack dab in the middle of a posh neighborhood strip mall.
Speaker 1: By posh, I mean six figures equals poverty. As for
Speaker 1: all of us, we're lucky to have six bucks in
Speaker 1: our wallets. Some days the local crews all gathered around
Speaker 1: the front sidewalk of the shop with various fly rods,
Speaker 1: bombing outcast after cast, trey and jabs, jeers, hoots, and
Speaker 1: house as we each take a turn. Some days there
Speaker 1: are beers in the middle of the day Saturday night
Speaker 1: before closing. There might even be a cheap bottle of wine.
Speaker 1: Oh class, We take turns casting its cigarette butts, speed bumps,
Speaker 1: specks of dirt, rocks, parking signs, rose gardens, whatever, and yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes the obligatory aired out fest for absolute distance. It
Speaker 1: was only a matter of time before the antie was upped.
Speaker 1: Anything moving is fair game BMW bins rolls. These are
Speaker 1: an automatic go to for whoever is on deck. A
Speaker 1: Volkswagen bug with the cheap plastic steering whell flower is
Speaker 1: a yes. A jacked Bubba truck is a hell yes.
Speaker 1: Any vehicle leaving the code store around the corner is
Speaker 1: the definitive, non negotiable yes for code in Texas shameful. Admittedly,
Speaker 1: there has been a history of wanton recklessness and hell
Speaker 1: raising getting me in over my head. There was a
Speaker 1: spot in a South African serf town that had a
Speaker 1: deadly slab of rock the size of a cement truck
Speaker 1: just barely submerged in the middle of the break. You
Speaker 1: had to decide mid sir Fried to either surf across
Speaker 1: that without coming undone, or simply bail out and paddled
Speaker 1: back up the point break with your tail between your legs.
Speaker 1: Cars would often park along the dunes and hawk to
Speaker 1: cheer you on, to goad you into an ass busting
Speaker 1: blood letting or a fist pumping victory. The sticks here
Speaker 1: different at the fly shop where we're all outcasting, but
Speaker 1: not much, not really, sweet Jesus. There it is what,
Speaker 1: at first glance appears to be a two pound turpin
Speaker 1: rolling on the outer sunlit fringes of the hazy concrete
Speaker 1: just past the jewelry store is the all time moment
Speaker 1: of reckoning, the ultimate price. It is a rent a
Speaker 1: cop on a segue, one hand on the handlebar, the
Speaker 1: other holding a towering waffle cone of frozen yogurt. There
Speaker 1: is a lengthy silence, wallets are pulled out and cash
Speaker 1: is flashed. We wonder aloud if that's pepper spray, a
Speaker 1: taser or a glock on his side belt. Another twenty
Speaker 1: ft of fly line gets stripped to the concrete landing
Speaker 1: by battered steel red wing boots. Step aside, Everyone hold
Speaker 1: my beer and watch this cast. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's sage lewisdom. Here's to all things grassroots, handmade, homegrown,
Speaker 1: and our beautiful sense of fishing. Community. Get on out there.
Speaker 1: I don't know this for a fact, but i'd suspect
Speaker 1: that based on on demeanor and just the way he
Speaker 1: carries himself. River Horse is the anti goucher, right, and
Speaker 1: I feel like I've said similar things about him before,
Speaker 1: like you could be clinging for your life to like
Speaker 1: a pool float in the middle of the gulf in
Speaker 1: ten foot seas, you know, and like river Horse would
Speaker 1: just be like, hey, now, why don't you take your
Speaker 1: mind off your severe dehydration and cast this sweet, delicious
Speaker 1: pink deceiver against the hull of your overturn boat And
Speaker 1: it would just be like the greatest mahi bite of
Speaker 1: your life, and you just forget about everything else. I
Speaker 1: kind of think I kind of think confidence is gooch kryptonite.
Speaker 1: River Horse just oozes confidence. So yeah, but you can
Speaker 1: just cut in for one quick second. Though, Then, now
Speaker 1: that you said that, do you lack confidence? I feel
Speaker 1: like you're pretty confident when you're pretty confident. I can't
Speaker 1: explain my gucciness is inexplicable. I know, I know for
Speaker 1: a fact that I'm less gucci when I'm feeling super confident.
Speaker 1: For me, man, it's and it's not so much. It's
Speaker 1: not so much about my home waters, because sure, I
Speaker 1: feel like I've fished them so much that it's beyond googe.
Speaker 1: It's whenever I go somewhere else, That's that's when the
Speaker 1: veil of googe descends upon me. That's that's kind of
Speaker 1: how it goes. Yeah, but no, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think that I lack confidence. I appreciate you saying that.
Speaker 1: And if we're on the topic of people with just
Speaker 1: unfathomable depths of confidence in lieu of end of the line,
Speaker 1: this week, we're going to close out with a tackle
Speaker 1: hack from none other than our bud and self proclaimed
Speaker 1: Walleye phenomen Captain Ross Robertson. This is also from the
Speaker 1: dost boat Ohio sessions. Is it not? It is? And
Speaker 1: we we were corded plenty more with Ross that you'll
Speaker 1: hear later, but we're gonna we're gonna slip this one
Speaker 1: in here. This is a really solid tip. It is
Speaker 1: it is, and it's it's tips just like this that
Speaker 1: dare I say, have the ability to turn a gucher
Speaker 1: into a moon. I'm getting hot from inside the city
Speaker 1: like the floody gracing as with his knowledge today is
Speaker 1: vast knowledge of the walleye Latin name Ross. Okay, perfect,
Speaker 1: there you go, Captain Ross Robertson. Uh, dear old buddy,
Speaker 1: and we're together in Ohio right now, sitting face to face.
Speaker 1: Which is nice, is it's said, fair point, fair point.
Speaker 1: But you're gonna make us. You're gonna make all the
Speaker 1: Walleye freaks out there that come out of the woodwork
Speaker 1: as Walleye people a little bit better at what they
Speaker 1: do today because you're the man on Lake Erie. You
Speaker 1: are a technical fisherman, meticulous, precise. So make us better,
Speaker 1: make us a little bit more like Ross Robertson today. Joe.
Speaker 1: You know, I like giving you tips. And here's one
Speaker 1: that I think it's super simple that applies just about anybody.
Speaker 1: That guys just don't think about the elephant in the
Speaker 1: room when you were spool lines. A lot of guys,
Speaker 1: I know, we're like, man, I keep losing fish. You
Speaker 1: know why, Joe, most of us while ley guys do
Speaker 1: an open water fish. And I mean probably Joe's realing,
Speaker 1: but I mean aside from that factor. Aside from that,
Speaker 1: that's cool. Monofilment's got t stretching it, Okay, Braid's got
Speaker 1: like three to five. That's why I don't like using braid. One.
Speaker 1: I don't have to so on my open water stuff,
Speaker 1: my boards, things like that. I always use model. I
Speaker 1: want that shock absorber in there. The problem is it
Speaker 1: look too much. So what I do is is I
Speaker 1: have somebody pull that line out. Sometimes they use a
Speaker 1: fence because you know, maybe I don't have somebody around
Speaker 1: the cares about me today, Like Joe, He's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get ice cream, gonna help you stretch
Speaker 1: your line today. But you can literally just seriously hook
Speaker 1: it to a chain like fence. I've done it many
Speaker 1: days by mess off and pull that out. And you
Speaker 1: know a lot of times you see the curly cues
Speaker 1: in your line. Yeah, you pull that right out, pull
Speaker 1: that stretch out a little bit. You're still gonna have
Speaker 1: plenty of stretching there. But I like to do that
Speaker 1: in about the first fifty feet. Okay, And so that's
Speaker 1: the stuff that's in the water, and I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: better feel and I'm not I'm going to get a
Speaker 1: little bit better hook sets because now those fish that
Speaker 1: barely get on it, maybe my hook's not quite as
Speaker 1: sharp as it was when it first got you know,
Speaker 1: putting the water. Now, all of a sudden, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have way better hook ups. So pre stretch your monofilment
Speaker 1: line a little bit. You can even do this with
Speaker 1: spinning stuff. This is an exclusive to trolling monos. You
Speaker 1: like to stretch, but if you think about it is
Speaker 1: a lot. And if you don't believe me, here's what
Speaker 1: you want to do, maybe we should do this for you.
Speaker 1: I want to see you cut your hands up, hook
Speaker 1: a hook on when you're spinning reels or whatever it
Speaker 1: is to a chain link fence, walk back fifty ft,
Speaker 1: wrap around your hand. Do the same thing with mono.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the braid is gonna cut you
Speaker 1: in two that mono. You're gonna be like, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, are rare sound effects free? I mean, you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna be able to walk back seriously, like seriously,
Speaker 1: like five six seven ft. You're gonna pull it and
Speaker 1: you're gonna go right back, and it's gonna go right
Speaker 1: back like a bungee cort. But I was just saying,
Speaker 1: so the stretch is important to what you do. But
Speaker 1: fresh line is gonna have more stretch than you even
Speaker 1: wanted to have when it's fresh. You know, so many
Speaker 1: things we do are like, hey, it's it's like a baseball.
Speaker 1: It's perfect right before it's useless, right, like you got
Speaker 1: to break it in and and a lot of guys
Speaker 1: that put that real nice line on there and they
Speaker 1: get it out there like between Let's say you're using
Speaker 1: a board, You've got all that extra stuff in there,
Speaker 1: and you don't realize like those fish are it's gummy mouth,
Speaker 1: like they aren't getting the hooking. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of guys that's this is a simple tip. I hate
Speaker 1: even giving it because it's so it's like the elephant
Speaker 1: of the room. But that little simple fact gets me
Speaker 1: a lot more fish. And I don't have to wait
Speaker 1: through or four trips losing fish before that line is broken.
Speaker 1: So that's it for this week. Remember it's much smarter
Speaker 1: to practice your fly cast on rent A cops than
Speaker 1: hula hoops. My dad is more Gucci than your dad.
Speaker 1: Take a picture of that clear blue water because you
Speaker 1: can't take it back to your office. And sheboygan, dumb, dumb,
Speaker 1: and stretch that mono so you don't pull a hammy
Speaker 1: in an hour's long battle with the walleye and uh
Speaker 1: and while you're standing by the fence stretching out that mono,
Speaker 1: go ahead and send a bar nomination sale. But item,
Speaker 1: awkward photo, news story, or whatever else you want to
Speaker 1: bent at the meat eater dot com. Also keep using
Speaker 1: those degenerate Angler and Bent Podcasts hashtags on the Gram,
Speaker 1: and why don't you follow those hashtags while you're follow them,
Speaker 1: It'll bring you closer to your fellow degenerates. Whatever you do,
Speaker 1: do not use or follow the hashtag Gooch m