Speaker 1: Fishing is not causplay. It's not a fetish that you do.
Speaker 1: It should not turn into like a furry convention in Vegas.
Speaker 1: There's no longer a week you've drained the tank of
Speaker 1: a week all the off sushi restaurants around me are
Speaker 1: shipping their pants because if this is available at Best
Speaker 1: Buy in five years, that could be really problematic. The
Speaker 1: fish doesn't want to wear that dude symbol of marital
Speaker 1: failure either. Good morning to generate anglers. Welcome to Bent,
Speaker 1: the only fishing podcast we're aware of. It probably admits
Speaker 1: at giggles like the pills very dough boy when it's
Speaker 1: Bobber goes under Joe sur Melly, I like that a
Speaker 1: Miles Nulty and uh. And today we're going to celebrate
Speaker 1: those buoyant bits that bob above the surface tension. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: look you you've heard us argue on this show before
Speaker 1: about lots of just an ange ship, most recently that
Speaker 1: the crocs are the worst foot wherever abjectly false. And
Speaker 1: you know what I had. I had a lot of
Speaker 1: reach out about that. A lot of people are on
Speaker 1: your side, some aren't, but many are. Okay, I'll be anyway.
Speaker 1: Um you and Oliver and I can be uncomfortable together.
Speaker 1: That's fine. I don't care. Oh man, Anyway, what else
Speaker 1: have we argued about? How about regionally specific fishing phrases
Speaker 1: including stroking it, stroking them, I believe is what you're
Speaker 1: You might say now it is stroking it and corked.
Speaker 1: But on this particular topic, it turns out that Myles
Speaker 1: and I are in total agreement. Right we both proudly
Speaker 1: fish bombers. We do. That is true. We we completely
Speaker 1: agree with that, and we recognize the bobbers go by
Speaker 1: a variety of different names depending on where you live
Speaker 1: and how you fish. If you're a British carp lover
Speaker 1: their floats, if you're a fly angler. There strike indicators,
Speaker 1: which is a term I've always kind of hated for reasons. One,
Speaker 1: it just seems like an unnecessarily longer way of saying
Speaker 1: bobber or float like it's fewer, fewer syllables is better,
Speaker 1: And two it's actually inaccurate. It's not true because most
Speaker 1: of the time it's a drift indicator. It only becomes
Speaker 1: a strike indicator when a fish takes your fly, which
Speaker 1: is like one tiny, little minute percentage of the the times
Speaker 1: you're fishing, it's a drift indicator. If you've got to
Speaker 1: be an indicator. I see what you're saying. I've always
Speaker 1: looked at it kind of like this. Right. If it's
Speaker 1: if it's a tiny piece of yarn that you're legitimately
Speaker 1: using to detect the bite of, like a spring creek
Speaker 1: fish barely taking a zebra midge, I'll let you call
Speaker 1: it a strike indicator if you feel better. But if
Speaker 1: it's the size of a freaking ping pong ball, right,
Speaker 1: and let's be honest, thing of a bobber's note the
Speaker 1: word bober in the name. Okay uh, And that's what
Speaker 1: that's what I see most often. It's it's a bomber.
Speaker 1: It's a bomber. It's a bomber. But not only do
Speaker 1: they have many names, but bobber's come in many designs
Speaker 1: and can be made of various materials. You've got your
Speaker 1: classic red and white plastic bobber with a push button
Speaker 1: line clip. And for the record, let me just add,
Speaker 1: if you're over ten, you should probably up your game
Speaker 1: to a more effective and versatile bomber appropriate for the
Speaker 1: fishing situation. If you're man, if you're a growing ass,
Speaker 1: man without children fishing with you and the red and
Speaker 1: white Bobbers, your bobber of choice. I don't trust you, Okay,
Speaker 1: I just feel like you're being intentionally obtuse. There's so
Speaker 1: many better options out there. Something's not right, uh, And
Speaker 1: there are so many options, right, Balsa or foam stick
Speaker 1: floats which are my personal favorite, slip bobbers, cigar floats.
Speaker 1: What else you got? Pencil floats, spring slips, popping corks,
Speaker 1: casting bubbles, dink floats, quill bobbers, yarnies, pinch on, even
Speaker 1: full on party balloons. If you're a shark and tuna guy,
Speaker 1: you know um and all of them have specific fishing applications. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and this is this is why we need the celebration
Speaker 1: of bobbers. They'll just get lumped in with that one
Speaker 1: tiny little clip on, which we agree is kind of lame.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna talk more about the iconic red and
Speaker 1: white clip on round bobber and why it sucks later
Speaker 1: in the show, But for now, I want to focus
Speaker 1: on the stigma against bobbera fishing. As we have talked
Speaker 1: about in the past, the many different factions of the
Speaker 1: fishing community love to find points of disagreement, But it
Speaker 1: seems like almost everyone except for the eurocarp scene, the
Speaker 1: center pin, steelhead and salmon guys, and certain inshore gulf fisheries,
Speaker 1: they all hate on bobbers. Everybody else hates the Bobbers.
Speaker 1: That's fair. It's it's like the one thing that unifies
Speaker 1: the hardcore fly fishing purists and the crazy bass heads.
Speaker 1: Bobbers are for little kids or people who know nothing
Speaker 1: about fishing, and that's just not true. Joe and I
Speaker 1: completely disagree with that that we do. But listen, before
Speaker 1: we get into our spirited, defensive bobbers, let's remind everyone
Speaker 1: out there that, no matter where you stand on the
Speaker 1: pro or anti bober debate, thirteen fishing has got you
Speaker 1: covered with exceptional gear for just about every fishing situation. Indeed,
Speaker 1: they do. I lately have been finding that the lightweight
Speaker 1: Defies Silver seven foot makes an excellent choice for drifting
Speaker 1: trout magnets or other lightweights UH may or may not
Speaker 1: be UH magnets are other lightweight river presentations under a
Speaker 1: sensitive float that that particular rod. It's it's soft enough
Speaker 1: two delicately cast the small rigs, but still got enough
Speaker 1: backbone to turn a big brown and heavy current. I'm
Speaker 1: a fan. I've played with those rods. I love those
Speaker 1: rods for drifting trout mags too. But I've sent out
Speaker 1: a shiner three under a dollar ninety nine eagle claw
Speaker 1: slip float with rods in their open black line and
Speaker 1: whooped the messive pickerel and perch and bass. So it's
Speaker 1: all it's all bobber friendly, it is. Go go over
Speaker 1: to thirteen fishing dot com. That's the number, thirteen one
Speaker 1: three fishing dot com to gurope for all your pro
Speaker 1: or anti bobber fishing missions. Yes, yes, so, as we
Speaker 1: were saying, much like the point I recently made about chunking, right,
Speaker 1: bobber fishing can be as simple or as technical as
Speaker 1: you want to make it. And you just mentioned center
Speaker 1: pinning earlier. Um, And that's one area I'm very curious
Speaker 1: about but not fluent in. Someday I want to learn that.
Speaker 1: I feel like it should be part of my my
Speaker 1: skill set. Um. But I have buddies that that do it,
Speaker 1: that center pinning. Listening to them talk about their floats
Speaker 1: like Almo makes me more intimidated, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: like they come in all different shapes and weights. I
Speaker 1: think it's measured by grams. And then the shot pattern
Speaker 1: like the level of technicality that goes into that level,
Speaker 1: because that all has to harmonize. The flight, the shot
Speaker 1: pattern all has to harmonize to to achieve the right
Speaker 1: drift depending on water and and uh, your your rig
Speaker 1: and what you're fishing for, and it's it's definitely technical
Speaker 1: bobber fishing. It is. It is, and we I feel
Speaker 1: like we could spend another whole show. We might have
Speaker 1: to do a center pin show because but I don't.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna go there, because it's a it's a
Speaker 1: valid point. I also want to address a little bit
Speaker 1: further the holier than They'll fly folks who pretend that
Speaker 1: a fish caught beneath a strike indicator is somehow less
Speaker 1: worthy than one cought on a floating dry fly or
Speaker 1: a strip streamer or a tightline swing. This is this
Speaker 1: is a pet peeve of mine. I've I have actually
Speaker 1: written a whole articles about this, uh and had them published.
Speaker 1: If your definition of nymph fishing just involves floating down
Speaker 1: the river in a boat and like flinging a boba
Speaker 1: rig out and mindlessly mending. Then yeah, I can see
Speaker 1: the argument this is a less technical way of fly fishing,
Speaker 1: and maybe less I don't know, hallowed whatever, But that
Speaker 1: to me just shows that you don't have enough creativity
Speaker 1: to understand how nimp fishing can be done. I want
Speaker 1: to see those same people set up and actually have
Speaker 1: to work a hole or a run. I vehemently contend
Speaker 1: the trying to get a natural drift with subsurface flies
Speaker 1: is harder than fishing a dry fly. You can see
Speaker 1: your dry fly. You know exactly what it's doing. You
Speaker 1: know if it's dragging, no, it's off. You can see
Speaker 1: if a fish comes up and eats it, rejects it.
Speaker 1: Fishing flies well under the surface means that you you've
Speaker 1: got to better understand current and flow and and and
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but get out of here if you think
Speaker 1: hucking streamers and striven them back is more difficult or
Speaker 1: technical than trying to compensate for different current speeds at
Speaker 1: the surface of the water column in the bottom. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: The same goes for tight lens wing. Most of the
Speaker 1: folks I hear hating on indicator fishing just suck at
Speaker 1: it and they want an excuse. Well, look, you know
Speaker 1: I hate namphing, right, I've expressed this, but that's only
Speaker 1: because I just don't personally enjoy doing it. I have
Speaker 1: never said it was because it's easy, right, Like hell, yes,
Speaker 1: being a productive nymph for take skill, I mean you
Speaker 1: know less. So if you're if you're, you're a nymphing.
Speaker 1: But we'll save that flashpoint for another show. But we're
Speaker 1: actually kicking off this show with someone who actually feels
Speaker 1: a deep and secretive shame about his own bomber fishing.
Speaker 1: As you'll hear, he asked us not to out him
Speaker 1: as a dirty, dirty bobber bouncer. But I ignored that
Speaker 1: because sunlight is the greatest antiseptic. Something like that. Uh.
Speaker 1: Back again to offer his unique take on smooth Moves,
Speaker 1: the segment where people in the fishing industry tell us
Speaker 1: ridiculous stories about things that clients do or say. Is
Speaker 1: my good friend Pat Cook, manager of white Tail Country
Speaker 1: fly Shop on the Upper Delaware River. Why so, I
Speaker 1: am sitting once again in the official guide check of
Speaker 1: Cross Current Guide Service on the Upper Delaware River. I've
Speaker 1: recorded here before, but we have a new guest here.
Speaker 1: Sitting sitting with me is my buddy Pat Cook. How
Speaker 1: you doing, Pat, Pretty good? Good? Good? Now you are
Speaker 1: you are the manager of white Tail Country fly Shop. Correct, correct, okay,
Speaker 1: And we've had you one before to tell some shop stories.
Speaker 1: But this is different today because we're not in the shop.
Speaker 1: We actually we did a thing today. We did a
Speaker 1: thing today that we have never done before. We fished
Speaker 1: together today. I wouldn't call it fishing. I was gonna
Speaker 1: say it was not good. The company was good, the
Speaker 1: fishing it left a bit to be desired. No Nara
Speaker 1: area n area fish was found right, And you bob
Speaker 1: er balled all day. I mean you just you were
Speaker 1: like pulling out all the stops. I don't ever tell
Speaker 1: anyone that ever again. Okay, I might erase that. I
Speaker 1: don't know, we'll see, but yeah, you know, Um, it
Speaker 1: was it was. It was pretty much, um twenty mile
Speaker 1: gust in the face all day, I mean, steady, steady fifteen.
Speaker 1: I'd say lack luster would be an overstatement. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that's okay because we had a good time. And um,
Speaker 1: we're hanging out here now and we're drinking beers, and um,
Speaker 1: you had hinted a while back that that whenever I
Speaker 1: was ready, you had some some fresh shop stories to share.
Speaker 1: So you know, we talked to guides and captains on
Speaker 1: smooth moves all the time. But it's fun to always
Speaker 1: hear the perspective of the guy behind the counter. I
Speaker 1: always said, you're the unsung hero. So what do you
Speaker 1: What do you got fresh for us? Give us, give
Speaker 1: us a good one. Okay. So um, this is I say, August.
Speaker 1: We'll call it the slow season, which I enjoy because
Speaker 1: I'll get into the shop in the morning and I
Speaker 1: can actually drink my coffee. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: times I'll get there and there's already a car waiting
Speaker 1: for me, which is understandable. Now you get to the river,
Speaker 1: you're ready to fish. Eager people have an agenda. Going
Speaker 1: to the fly shop is one of them. Whether or
Speaker 1: not I'm ready for that, it's not up to me.
Speaker 1: But that's that's okay, that's what we're there for. Anyway,
Speaker 1: from the fly shop, there's a view of the road
Speaker 1: that passes by, so I can see everyone that's coming
Speaker 1: to fly. A long driveway, so you can see that,
Speaker 1: see the riff raft coming. I can see that blinker
Speaker 1: turn on. There's nowhere else saying go. You can't make
Speaker 1: it right you can only go left, I know if
Speaker 1: they're coming. So I see this car coming down the
Speaker 1: road and it's got a flat tire, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: go straight, just go, just go, man. I see that blanker,
Speaker 1: come on, you know that morning? Actually, so I drink
Speaker 1: half calf coffee. I don't like to get all jazzed
Speaker 1: up because you know, I like to I like the
Speaker 1: enthusiasm level. It's like we need to stop. No, no,
Speaker 1: we don't need to stuff. I would enthusiasm level. That's
Speaker 1: where I like to be average. Like any higher than that,
Speaker 1: I might get too fired up and say something I
Speaker 1: don't mean. Guy pulls in the parking lot and I'm
Speaker 1: expecting him to change the tire. Sure I just use
Speaker 1: your parking lot to get back on tracks, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: brand new super through out back, gets out of the car,
Speaker 1: comes into the fly shop. I'm like, maybe he needs assistance.
Speaker 1: He comes in, standard question, what are they hitting on?
Speaker 1: He went right to that. No, no, no mention of
Speaker 1: the tell, acknowledgement of the tire. Okay, And I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: peasant tale nim for work. Great size eighteen to twenty
Speaker 1: sulfurs around small olives eighteen to twenty covers it. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: He goes over and grabs the flies, comes back pace
Speaker 1: for him, goes out to the car. So I run
Speaker 1: outside to do the right thing. You're gonna let him know.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let him know. So I run outside. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 1: you got a flat tire. He says, oh I do?
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, you do, driver's side left. He gets out,
Speaker 1: so oh yeah. They say, well you got a spare
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, I think so. So I grow
Speaker 1: around in the back and I opened up his hatchback
Speaker 1: and it's filled with camping gear. Okay, And I said,
Speaker 1: you got a bunch of camping gear down here. He say,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. I took the tire out so I could
Speaker 1: fit more stuff in the car. So I say, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: you've got enough stuff in here to drive down to
Speaker 1: Tara del fuegoing back. In the meantime, you need to
Speaker 1: get a spare tire. I know a place over in
Speaker 1: Hancock they can take care of this for you. He said,
Speaker 1: well how about this. Do you have a spare that
Speaker 1: I can borrow? I say, well, that's my board ranger
Speaker 1: over there. And as you can see, the tires are
Speaker 1: a different side for starters number two. My spirits rusted
Speaker 1: on the frame and it's not coming off. So he says, okay,
Speaker 1: well how about this. I'm gonna go fish for a
Speaker 1: little bit, do you I'll give you the money. Do
Speaker 1: you mind driving over and grabbing the tire for me?
Speaker 1: I said, I'm sorry, I can't do that. I gotta
Speaker 1: watch the shop. So he says okay, so he just go.
Speaker 1: He goes fishing, and I was hoping at this point
Speaker 1: that I could just wipe my hands clean of this
Speaker 1: situation altimate. It didn't happen that way. So it comes
Speaker 1: back an hour later and he says, hey, what was
Speaker 1: the name of the tire place? I said, that's uh,
Speaker 1: what's being auto? Um? I can give you the number
Speaker 1: if you need it, and he said, no, that's all right,
Speaker 1: I'll just drive over there. I was like, okay, you're
Speaker 1: gonna bend the rim out. You know, it's gonna cost
Speaker 1: you a little bit more. He's like, oh, that's all right.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop at one one bridge and fish a
Speaker 1: little bit on the way, so I'll take a break.
Speaker 1: So I see the car he's exiting the shop parking lot,
Speaker 1: car stops, goes into park, gets out, comes back in
Speaker 1: and say, hey, can I borrow your truck? So I said, um,
Speaker 1: I don't feel comfortable letting you drive my truck. What
Speaker 1: I can do as I can call them and I
Speaker 1: can have a tow truck come over. And he's like, well,
Speaker 1: if the truck truck comes over, then I gotta wait
Speaker 1: for it. I was hoping that I could just borrow
Speaker 1: your truck. I'll go fish bridge for a little bit.
Speaker 1: This is not real, I swear to got real. I
Speaker 1: mean this is this is a true story. Keep going.
Speaker 1: So he's like, well, I was hoping I could borrow
Speaker 1: your truck and I could fish one ninety one bridge
Speaker 1: for a little bit and then I'll go grab the
Speaker 1: tire and I'll come back and then we can fix it.
Speaker 1: And in my head at this point, I'm like, there's
Speaker 1: no longer a Wei. You've drained the tank of WE,
Speaker 1: You've dredged the bottom of WE. There is only I
Speaker 1: And I will call my friend and he will come
Speaker 1: get your car and change the tire for you, and
Speaker 1: you can can into your day of fishing. And is that?
Speaker 1: And is that? Is that? What happened? To the best
Speaker 1: of my recollection, that's just my story. I'm gonna stick
Speaker 1: to it. So once again, like this is why I
Speaker 1: love you, dude, because like there it's it's I have
Speaker 1: I have compared you to Stephen Wright on past shows,
Speaker 1: and like they're like, there's no punchline. This is just
Speaker 1: to real life. Like this is just real life. Well,
Speaker 1: when you work in a fly shop, number one, people
Speaker 1: are indoors, right, so they react similar to the way
Speaker 1: they work if they came to your house. There's they
Speaker 1: have a certain level of etiquette to them, and you
Speaker 1: have to too in responding to that. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of subdued in a way. Sure, like where if this
Speaker 1: was happening in a truck stop in middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: there'd probably be words exchanged and you'd be like, you're
Speaker 1: out of your mind, what are you even doing here?
Speaker 1: You could die? But because it's a fly shop, you know,
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, Well, number one on Michael is that
Speaker 1: you catch fish. So I'm gonna sit here and let
Speaker 1: you basically choke me and throw me on the ground
Speaker 1: and take my truck as long as you get to
Speaker 1: catch fish. And I appreciate the subtle response that most
Speaker 1: people don't understand is sarcasm because I saw it firsthand today.
Speaker 1: We were floating down the river today and we floated
Speaker 1: past a gentleman who was waiting, and he asked us
Speaker 1: if we caught anything, and we said no, And then
Speaker 1: you asked him and he said, well, I just got started.
Speaker 1: And your response was perfect, Like who says like that?
Speaker 1: It was so brilliant. It was one word perfect. And
Speaker 1: that's why we love you, and that's why we're gonna
Speaker 1: keep having you on and we appreciate you being here
Speaker 1: yet again anytime. Oh Pat, Mrs Calling, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not hating on what he does, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's a great store manager at all. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: the dude should be doing stand up somewhere. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know he should. He absolutely should. There's great stuff
Speaker 1: about how he prepares his coffee that had me rolling,
Speaker 1: But like the segment was already getting along and I'm like,
Speaker 1: we have to lose the Pats coffee preparation regiment, Like
Speaker 1: we just don't have the room. Um. I also learned
Speaker 1: that when recording with Pad, it's best to get four
Speaker 1: or five beers in him first, so I'll know that
Speaker 1: for next time. UM, I'm just glad dude's not trying
Speaker 1: to create a semi serious, semi humorous fishing podcast or
Speaker 1: we might be looking for any jobs. So don't get
Speaker 1: any ideas. Uh, you know, I hear you, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know that he has the instincts to track
Speaker 1: down the hard hitting, groundbreaking, life changing stories that we
Speaker 1: come up with in fish News Fish News. That escalated quickly,
Speaker 1: So Miles and I did a thing. And full credit
Speaker 1: goes to Miles, full credit goes to you, because this
Speaker 1: is absolutely your idea. Um. But but we now have
Speaker 1: a public bent podcast Spotify playlist, and I gotta te
Speaker 1: I gotta say, this was so fun to put together.
Speaker 1: And I think both of us like we got lost
Speaker 1: in it. And I realized, if you're creating this like
Speaker 1: lost enough to annoy both of our wives. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: wife's like, are you even listening to me? I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not listening to you. I think I like, like,
Speaker 1: nothing paints a picture of who you are and like
Speaker 1: what you're about better than a huge Spotify playlist. Um,
Speaker 1: and man, we're all over the map with this one.
Speaker 1: And it's it's bear in mind, it's only me and
Speaker 1: Miles contributing to this, so it's it's just this perfect
Speaker 1: reflection and combination of our taste and we share a
Speaker 1: lot of them. But then we also wander away from
Speaker 1: each other at times within the playlist, which makes it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that rounds it out, It gives it some depth. It
Speaker 1: was if we were all picking the same songs that
Speaker 1: will be boring and the original. Originally, when I first
Speaker 1: came up with this idea, it was like, oh, let's
Speaker 1: make it a bent play list, so it was gonna
Speaker 1: be all punk. But then then Joe, you made you
Speaker 1: made a very strong case that we should use this
Speaker 1: as as a broader dumping ground for all of our
Speaker 1: eclectic musical tastes. So I decided, all right, I'll broaden
Speaker 1: it out. Besides just the punk and sky, I threw
Speaker 1: and sprinkled in some reggae because I know that's not
Speaker 1: something you've really gotten into. And then and then I
Speaker 1: threw in some hip hop to round things out a
Speaker 1: little bit. Though we have agreed to veto terms that
Speaker 1: this is important to me anyway, either one of us
Speaker 1: can veto any song at any time, and I am.
Speaker 1: I was listening to it yesterday on repeating this one
Speaker 1: song came up. So I'm saying, I'm considering flexing that
Speaker 1: option on some of your eighties pop additions, but for
Speaker 1: the moment I have allowed. I'm allowing them to stand
Speaker 1: if they annoyed me too much, though some of them
Speaker 1: might go away. Just that's okay, it's your call. I'd
Speaker 1: never do that to you. I'd never studied your musical
Speaker 1: taste and creativity. But yeah, I stuck some things in
Speaker 1: there because I want you guys to listen and be
Speaker 1: grooving and then just be like, where did this? What?
Speaker 1: Why is this here? That's the fun okay, Um, But look,
Speaker 1: if I'm being honest, right, there's truly there's nothing you've
Speaker 1: added that I questioned, like I like it all, even
Speaker 1: the Yeah, dude, I got no problem with reggae. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm planning on finding some new music, because then isn't
Speaker 1: there a study that like, once you hit thirty, you
Speaker 1: stop finding new music, like you just stuck with what
Speaker 1: your listen. So I see this. I see your picks
Speaker 1: as an opportunity for me to find new things that
Speaker 1: I like. But I, on the other hand, like I
Speaker 1: went all in. I combed the archive okay, And there
Speaker 1: there is representation of all the phases of my life
Speaker 1: on that plane. Like there's seventh grade Jinko jeans wearing Joe,
Speaker 1: there's high school punk Joe. Including I even stuck in
Speaker 1: a few bands that nobody has ever heard of, but
Speaker 1: my band in high school used to play with them
Speaker 1: like they'd be the headliners while we were opening, so
Speaker 1: it's like total nostalgia. Um. And then there's the college years,
Speaker 1: post hardcore metal Joe. It's we're all over the place. Yeah. No.
Speaker 1: I put in at least one local band that I
Speaker 1: used to go see in high school just because I
Speaker 1: think they're great, but no one's ever heard of him. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's a whole But there's there's a bunch of audies.
Speaker 1: I don't know where last night checked. I think we're
Speaker 1: sitting at fourteen hours. So there's there's plenty to listen to,
Speaker 1: and some of it's really just Some of it's there
Speaker 1: to make you laugh, some of it's there to make
Speaker 1: you wonder, what what the hell did I just listen to?
Speaker 1: And some of it hopefully will get you to discover
Speaker 1: some new bands or some new genres you hadn't been
Speaker 1: in do before. That's what we hope anyway. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and so let us know what you guys think, let
Speaker 1: us know what we missed, suggest stuff you know how
Speaker 1: to reach us. Maybe we'll even down the road, add
Speaker 1: some fan fails and shout you out as in this
Speaker 1: addition to the to the playlist courtesy of you um
Speaker 1: so search for the band podcast playlist on Spotify and
Speaker 1: for some reason you can't find it. There's a link
Speaker 1: in my Instagram link tree profile thing. You can find
Speaker 1: it there. But rock out with us please and as
Speaker 1: my bud uh my. But Neil Angling has already said
Speaker 1: he's like, yo, this is a super dank playlist, which
Speaker 1: really that's a good kids are saying anyway, So I
Speaker 1: thought that out of the way. Let's move on the news.
Speaker 1: As always right, this is a competition, Miles and I
Speaker 1: do not know what stories the other dude is bringing
Speaker 1: to the table, and at the end, our main man
Speaker 1: fill the engineer will declare winner. But before I passed
Speaker 1: the mike to you, I would just like to let
Speaker 1: Phil know that just for him, I added Bleed American
Speaker 1: by Jimmy Eat World to the Bent playlist because that's
Speaker 1: actually a good song. I like that song. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that should lure you in Phil But then if you
Speaker 1: stick around, we'll have you, you know, crimp and studs
Speaker 1: to your sweater vest in no time. Anyway, Miles, what
Speaker 1: do you got? What you got for news? But all right, well,
Speaker 1: my obsession with finding stories to combat the idiocy of
Speaker 1: c spears continues. Oh here we go. I can I
Speaker 1: cannot say how long this is gonna go on, but
Speaker 1: I can say I'm not done yet. I just can't.
Speaker 1: I'm not over it. Uh, And I should I should
Speaker 1: say that I got the idea for this segment from
Speaker 1: an article published in the magazine Scientific American earlier this week.
Speaker 1: So that's where this comes from. Do you remember how
Speaker 1: you covered a story a while back about the rampant
Speaker 1: mislabeling of fish. Yes, yeah, so yeah, it was the quiz,
Speaker 1: the UK quiz can you identify these fish? Yes? I'm
Speaker 1: building off of that and and to recap. Research suggests
Speaker 1: that about a third of the fish we buy at
Speaker 1: markets and restaurants is fraudulently mislabeled, and and the fraud
Speaker 1: is particularly acute with certain popular fish. So eighties seven
Speaker 1: percent of the filets being sold as snapper are not
Speaker 1: snapper there probably telapia, maybe sea brim or rock fish. Uh.
Speaker 1: The spicy tuna roll you you bought it at the
Speaker 1: gas station the other day, fifty seven percent chance that
Speaker 1: wasn't tuna, About a quarter. The halibit you buy is
Speaker 1: actually tile fish, and the grouper in cod you buy
Speaker 1: are actually catfish. The f d A and various watchdog
Speaker 1: agencies have been working to crack down on this problem,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's nearly imposed able to look at
Speaker 1: a piece of fish and definitively determine if it's mislabeled. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if we can't even be sure what kind of
Speaker 1: fish were buying, how do we have any confidence in
Speaker 1: the origin of our fish? Right If if you're one
Speaker 1: of those people who who look carefully at the fish
Speaker 1: you buy because you don't want to support over fishing
Speaker 1: or destructive catch methods or slavery, this would seem to
Speaker 1: suggest that c spiracy may indeed be correct. The only
Speaker 1: way we can avoid contributing to those unsavory practices is
Speaker 1: to quit eating seafood altogether, or you know, catch it yourself.
Speaker 1: There is, however, another potential solution. If the the FDA
Speaker 1: and those other agencies just had some kind of readily available,
Speaker 1: easy to use quick technology to i D fish meat.
Speaker 1: They could theoretically curb a lout of this problem before
Speaker 1: it hits consumers. And, as is so often the case,
Speaker 1: when we humans encounter problems, we come up with solutions.
Speaker 1: Problem solving is it's kind of our thing. It's kind
Speaker 1: of we do. Enter. University of Texas graduate student Abby
Speaker 1: get I'm gonna mess this up, Get Maton. I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it a lot, so sorry, Abbey, abbe
Speaker 1: get Maton. I think get Maton was introduced to a
Speaker 1: tool called the mass spec pen when she first started
Speaker 1: doing her graduate study in chemistry. The mass spec pen
Speaker 1: is is it actually a pen at all? But it's
Speaker 1: this little handheld one thing that kind of looks like
Speaker 1: a pen, and doctors use it to detect tumors. Get
Speaker 1: Maton hypothesized that if the pen could correctly identify human tissue,
Speaker 1: it might work for other animals as well. According to
Speaker 1: the research she just published in the Journal of Agricultural
Speaker 1: and Food Chemistry. She was right. I'm just gonna quote
Speaker 1: the description of what she did straight from the Scientific
Speaker 1: American article because they did it better. Than I could anyway.
Speaker 1: So so here's the quote. Get Maton touched the pen's
Speaker 1: tip two samples of fish she had bought at the
Speaker 1: grocery store. The pen released a droplet of solvent onto
Speaker 1: the sample surface and then sucked it back into the pen,
Speaker 1: through the tube and into the mass spectrometer. Inside the machine,
Speaker 1: each sample is automatically dissolved in the solvent and then vaporized,
Speaker 1: turning its chemical components into ions. The ions were beamed
Speaker 1: through a magnetic field, which bent their path so that
Speaker 1: each one shot in a new direction based on its
Speaker 1: mass and electrical charge before landing on a detector plate.
Speaker 1: By noting each ion's position on the plate, the system
Speaker 1: could identify which chemicals and how many of each were
Speaker 1: in the samples. So that sounded like some some serious
Speaker 1: star trek stuff. I don't totally understand it, but that's
Speaker 1: the basic description of how it works. Yep. Other scientists
Speaker 1: have already learned the chemical profiles of most fish species.
Speaker 1: Get Mayton and her team just had to program the
Speaker 1: mass speckpen to identify which chemical signatures were connected to
Speaker 1: which fish. They then touched the pen to a filet,
Speaker 1: and fifty seconds later, the screen told them halibut or sakai,
Speaker 1: salmon or telapia. The team thinks that with more work
Speaker 1: they can further refine the pen to not only determine
Speaker 1: what type of fish it is, but other important information
Speaker 1: like if it was farm raised or wild caught, and
Speaker 1: where exactly the fish came from. The technology has a
Speaker 1: long way to go before it could be mass marketed,
Speaker 1: but it has the potential to be highly effective and
Speaker 1: relatively cheap. Aside from the the initial investment in the equipment,
Speaker 1: each test just requires one disposable tip and a couple
Speaker 1: of drops of common solving. Plus the test does not
Speaker 1: harm the fish in anyway that that filet remains perfectly
Speaker 1: good and safe to consume. If this does become widely accepted,
Speaker 1: we could have a much clearer picture about where all
Speaker 1: our seafood comes from, which would allow retailers and consumers
Speaker 1: to make informed decisions, which could crack down on all
Speaker 1: these issues that we keep talking about. So once again,
Speaker 1: heavy handed, monolithic, reactionary responses to our fisheries management problems
Speaker 1: are not the only way, not even the best. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do need to better manage our marine fisheries, but
Speaker 1: we are developing the tools to do this and to
Speaker 1: maintain a viable seafood industry. We're not there yet. We
Speaker 1: got work to do. But research like this and and
Speaker 1: the longitudinal study I talked about last week suggests that look,
Speaker 1: if we're willing to implement like a bunch of different
Speaker 1: incremental changes, we can get there. All hope is not lost,
Speaker 1: despite what people might have you think. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe lay off the gas station sushi Joe,
Speaker 1: because it's probably not which to think it is. So
Speaker 1: I read this and we almost crossed over. I almost
Speaker 1: did this story within me being me, I knocked it
Speaker 1: out for dumb celebrity news. So I'm glad. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you did it because it's an important story. Um, although
Speaker 1: I I when I read it, I wasn't thinking of
Speaker 1: it in the in the sea spiracy vein as much
Speaker 1: as you, But more so, all the off sushi restaurants
Speaker 1: around me are shipping their pants because if this is
Speaker 1: available at Best Buy in five years, like that could
Speaker 1: be really problematic, Like you know what I mean, like
Speaker 1: go to the sushi place and be like that is
Speaker 1: not snapper. I don't think it's gonna be like a
Speaker 1: consumer product. I don't think they're gonna be selling these
Speaker 1: mass spect pens at best Buy. I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: happen a little to to use a bad analogy higher
Speaker 1: up food chain, right, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna try and call in the favor like that,
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean, like like use the
Speaker 1: powers of the mediator to be like, look, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do it. Can we review the like I need one
Speaker 1: of those pens? Um? Yeah, dude, no great, great story
Speaker 1: and um I mean, man, talk about technology coming a
Speaker 1: long way, because, like you said, the cool thing about
Speaker 1: it is you cannot not only can you do it
Speaker 1: in fifteen seconds, but you there's no waste, You destroy
Speaker 1: nothing nothing doing this. So how this doesn't get implemented
Speaker 1: over time to to be available everywhere in this industry?
Speaker 1: I mean, how how we don't harness this. I don't
Speaker 1: see that happening. I think this could be one of
Speaker 1: the coolest advances in terms of managing these fisheries that
Speaker 1: we've had yet. I mean, you you manage fisheries at
Speaker 1: the economic side, and if we can be able to
Speaker 1: trace these things back and allow retailers consumers to make
Speaker 1: informed decisions. I think that there are enough folks who
Speaker 1: are invested in that to make sure that we can
Speaker 1: we can change the way that we consume. And without
Speaker 1: the money, the industry falls apart. Right, The industry will
Speaker 1: change its practices in response to those economic forces. That's
Speaker 1: how it's going to happen. Yeah, and there's the broad
Speaker 1: look at that in terms of the economics. At the
Speaker 1: same time, on a personal level, like, I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool that it's gonna be harder for somebody to
Speaker 1: dupe me with butterfish. I mean, dude, just like taking
Speaker 1: that out of the equation, making it that much harder
Speaker 1: because this is rampant. I mean, this story was all
Speaker 1: about that. Like it is. I don't think we can
Speaker 1: stress enough. You know, people probably listen to this and
Speaker 1: the other story with the quiz and they're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that happens somewhere, but not a Joe's Shrimp shack where
Speaker 1: I go. It might it's it's happening like once it's
Speaker 1: breaded man, you know, you know what you don't know?
Speaker 1: You know, once you got a little panco on there,
Speaker 1: you don't know. So you know, it's easy to have
Speaker 1: all the faith in the world and like your joint
Speaker 1: or where you get fish, but this is very common
Speaker 1: and it's tied to economics. It is cheaper. Not only
Speaker 1: are these things more sustainable, it is cheaper to get
Speaker 1: tilapia than it is a snapper. And like dude, it's
Speaker 1: a business. You do what's good for business. And if
Speaker 1: you can do people with tilapia and charge red snapper prices. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of places that are going to go
Speaker 1: that route because they are there to make money. So
Speaker 1: that is illegal. Right now, we should say you're not
Speaker 1: allowed to do that, but without the ability to test it,
Speaker 1: it's just happening. So I mean, you know, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say. One of the negatives is
Speaker 1: if if it's so easy to to do this, I
Speaker 1: d you're gonna force people into buying the real stuff,
Speaker 1: which could drive up seafood prices, because now, if dude's
Speaker 1: got to sell you real tuna, you're gonna pay for
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna pay for real tuna. But I
Speaker 1: would rather know and have be eating something authentic, you know, exactly.
Speaker 1: So um, this this actually ties very nicely to my
Speaker 1: first story. Some some similar themes here we're gonna talk snakeheads,
Speaker 1: which is a favorite subject of mine, and they they've
Speaker 1: just made headlines in a big way out here. And
Speaker 1: things have been pretty quiet on the snakehead front for
Speaker 1: a while. But um, this story is both confirming fears
Speaker 1: and perhaps exciting a handful of snake obsessed weirdos such
Speaker 1: as myself. I don't know, but this comes from penn
Speaker 1: Live dot com and it turns out that just this spring,
Speaker 1: workers at the Conna Wingo damn, which is the first
Speaker 1: major damn on the Susquehanna River closest to its mouth,
Speaker 1: have removed a whopping one thousand pounds of snakeheads from
Speaker 1: the fish ladders. Right, it's a lot. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of snakeheads. It's a lot of snakes. It's a lot.
Speaker 1: You need a lot of frogs to handle thousand pounds
Speaker 1: of snakes. Uh so Um. This is so concerning that
Speaker 1: that Maryland State and federal Resource agencies asked Excelon, the
Speaker 1: company that operates the dam, to completely shut down the
Speaker 1: fish ladder on the eastern side of the river for
Speaker 1: the year, and the ladder on the west side of
Speaker 1: the dam consists of a series of gates and channels
Speaker 1: of water that are actually designed to attract fish into
Speaker 1: a tank like hopper that is then lifted into the
Speaker 1: air to a sorting table where biologists manually sort the fish. So,
Speaker 1: of course the idea of these ladders, as with all adders,
Speaker 1: is to let the right species go through species here
Speaker 1: would be shad herring um that these ladders are supposed
Speaker 1: to help support. I did not know this. Once they're
Speaker 1: in the sorting table, they're then put into trucks with
Speaker 1: portable tanks to be moved further upriver. So it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this huge operation and the invasives, of course are
Speaker 1: weeded out, which also includes blue and flathead catfish as
Speaker 1: well as the snakeheads. So folks in that area have
Speaker 1: been concerned for a long time that snakes will invade
Speaker 1: the Susquehanna, and based on those halls, clearly plenty of trying.
Speaker 1: The snakeheads want to be in the Susquehanna very badly.
Speaker 1: They went in, and I know there's some in that river.
Speaker 1: I know people that have caught them, but so far
Speaker 1: they're not nearly as established as they are in other rivers.
Speaker 1: And the bright side, uh is that even if they
Speaker 1: do get through Conna Wingo, they've just got a ton
Speaker 1: more damns. The Susky is damned pretty far up And
Speaker 1: on a personal note, the irony in this for me
Speaker 1: is that, as a guy that's spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time snaking, uh, you know, people are worried that an
Speaker 1: infestation there will hurt small mouth populations, since that's kind
Speaker 1: of what the Susquehannas is really known for, you know,
Speaker 1: it's smallmouth fishing. Um. But as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: all the giant flatheads that have already worked their way
Speaker 1: pretty far upriver, they're gonna kill all the small jaws
Speaker 1: long before a snakehead population like this is happening now already.
Speaker 1: I mean, and these are not like a bunch of
Speaker 1: little ones. Giant flatheads everywhere they eat swim baits like
Speaker 1: they're everywhere. So I I commend, you know, like the
Speaker 1: effort to keep these invasives from getting further up river
Speaker 1: at Conawingo. Um. But again there's already some problems that
Speaker 1: are very very well established. So final note which I
Speaker 1: found cool. Uh, not only are the damn operators extremely
Speaker 1: committed to doing their part, uh, you know, in this
Speaker 1: manual labor to keep these fish from getting up river.
Speaker 1: Right to date, more than a thousand pounds of snakeheads
Speaker 1: captured in the ladder um. Because this has been going
Speaker 1: on for several years. They got a thousand pounds this spring,
Speaker 1: but over the last few years they've been they've been
Speaker 1: collecting them, over a thousand pounds have already been processed
Speaker 1: and given to local food banks. So the damn folks
Speaker 1: have partnered with a local seafood wholesaler who carts all
Speaker 1: those snakes away and cleans them, and lucky you people
Speaker 1: who happen to use those food banks. Because I've said
Speaker 1: a million times I would take a snakehead fil a
Speaker 1: over a walleye file at any day. So I think
Speaker 1: the end takeaway is that, you know, obviously snakehead numbers
Speaker 1: are increasing, they're not going away, because I mean, a
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of fish in one springs a lot of fish.
Speaker 1: There's there's no doubt. But again, still proving that that
Speaker 1: increase has has devastated any particular fishery or ecosystem is difficult.
Speaker 1: You know, that's not as cut and dry, But clearly
Speaker 1: these numbers are going up. So I just said, man
Speaker 1: that's that's a ton of snakes. It is, all right.
Speaker 1: So here's my question. They've, assuming they've had these mitigation
Speaker 1: procedures available to them for a long time, they've been
Speaker 1: able to shut off that eastern ladder and divert everything
Speaker 1: to the western ladder where they can sort it. You
Speaker 1: probably the answer to this, But why didn't they do
Speaker 1: that with the catfish? So I and this is my
Speaker 1: basic understanding the snakeheads. You know, they're in the Potomac River,
Speaker 1: They're in a lot of the rivers in Virginia and Maryland,
Speaker 1: and one would assume that those fish are are breeding
Speaker 1: and migrating up the northern Chesapeake Bay and trying to
Speaker 1: get up the Susquehanna River. The consensus around here this
Speaker 1: goes for the Schukol River in Philadelphia as well as
Speaker 1: the Susquehanna, Maryland Pennsylvania. They all had pretty robust channel
Speaker 1: cats stocking regiments, right because it's popular fish, so that
Speaker 1: they've always supplemented channel cats. At some point down the line,
Speaker 1: which happens from some hatchery, a couple of little baby
Speaker 1: flatheads end up in there. You don't know it. Because
Speaker 1: the blue cats are invasive in the Potomac, which is
Speaker 1: would be the next major river south of the Susquehanna,
Speaker 1: So they're trying to keep them out too. But it's
Speaker 1: not like these flatheads were naturally somewhere and then came
Speaker 1: up there. Those were they were stocked inadvertent sort that's
Speaker 1: sort of the consensus of what happened. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been there, dude, I've fished for them. You fished
Speaker 1: for them. They are mean. I mean, a thirty pound
Speaker 1: flathead will swallow a three pounds small mouth. He doesn't
Speaker 1: even exist. And it's a it's a real concern. I
Speaker 1: have buddies who fish out there all fall, and they're
Speaker 1: catching just as many flatheads throwing jigs and stuff for
Speaker 1: small mouths as they are a small mouths. So I
Speaker 1: don't think that the overall snakehead worry will ever go away.
Speaker 1: I think a lot more people understand it now and
Speaker 1: are less tense about it. But it's this big shocking
Speaker 1: headline of one thousand pounds of snakehead. In reality, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't worry about them as much as the flatheads that
Speaker 1: are already up there. You know, it's a branding problem.
Speaker 1: I think it is like a flathead doesn't sound nearly
Speaker 1: as scary as a snakehead. I think it's true. That's
Speaker 1: the issue. Personally, it's true. But you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I don't, I wish, I I don't know enough
Speaker 1: to come in definitively one way or the other. I
Speaker 1: would say probably the native fish don't need any more
Speaker 1: competitors when they're already having to deal with the flatheads,
Speaker 1: would be. That would be I'm not saying this one
Speaker 1: way or the other on snakehead, but they probably don't
Speaker 1: need any more competition. I do not have a great
Speaker 1: segue other than this is going to talk about No,
Speaker 1: it's not I got nothing. I got nothing. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: all I'm doing is I'm gonna talk about weird objects
Speaker 1: found in or on fish. That's what I'm gonna do. Uh.
Speaker 1: And first, this is a shorty, but this was pretty
Speaker 1: widely reported. A charter captain on Lake Michigan was cleaning
Speaker 1: one of his clients Lake Trout earlier this week and
Speaker 1: found a lego and its stomach, and he was quoted
Speaker 1: as saying, like, I'm gonna try and figure out how
Speaker 1: to read legos, which I don't think is gonna be
Speaker 1: any more effective than a spoon. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a cute story and a good or minder.
Speaker 1: You know, fish eat all kinds of random stuff, and
Speaker 1: we probably shouldn't pitch anything in the water we don't
Speaker 1: want going into fish. I figured, I figured the trout
Speaker 1: stepped on the lego. It doesn't have hands, so when
Speaker 1: I do that, I pick it up and throw it.
Speaker 1: It was so pissed it just ate it out of anger.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly what happened. But that story, like
Speaker 1: the listening that the whole thing. It reminded me of
Speaker 1: another incident from twenty nineteen that has always stuck with me.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the story about the angler who caught
Speaker 1: a steel head in Lake Michigan, right near Chicago that
Speaker 1: had a wedding ring zip tied to its caudle? Do
Speaker 1: you remember that one. I don't remember the zip tied
Speaker 1: to its caudle specifically, but man, over the years you're
Speaker 1: just covering fish news, there's been the wedding ring on
Speaker 1: the Marlins bill, like wedding ring. There's a bunch of
Speaker 1: wedding rings stuff. We're on a wedding ring kick, so
Speaker 1: just hold on to that. But this one. That one
Speaker 1: from a couple of years ago stuck to me because
Speaker 1: what happened some fishing guide in Michigan. They gotten divorced
Speaker 1: because because he was a fishing guide. And the guy
Speaker 1: does he claimed it was because his wife hated how
Speaker 1: much he fished, and that ended their marriage, and that's
Speaker 1: not an uncommon story with fishing guides, like vouch for that. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and the guy he thought the ring was cursed
Speaker 1: and he wanted to get rid of it. And alright, fine,
Speaker 1: I can follow you that for But what I can't
Speaker 1: understand is that he decided to zip tie this tainted
Speaker 1: band to a steelhead and then release the fish. Which
Speaker 1: that's just a dick move. Yes, Like, it's not the
Speaker 1: fishes fault. You got divorced that fish. That the fish
Speaker 1: doesn't want to wear that dude symbol of marital failure either,
Speaker 1: and it's sure as hell doesn't want a plastic zip
Speaker 1: tie cutting in his body. Anyway. Seven weeks later, the
Speaker 1: fish was caught again and someone else ended up with
Speaker 1: the ring. Something kind of similar again, we're on the
Speaker 1: wedding ring. Thing kind of similar happened recently about a
Speaker 1: week ago. A woman named Susan Pryor was snorkeling near
Speaker 1: her home on Norfolk Island. And Norfolk is a South
Speaker 1: Pacific island between New Zealand and New Caledonia and it's
Speaker 1: technically an austra In province. Prior spotted a sand mullet
Speaker 1: wearing something around its body that looked distinctly out of place.
Speaker 1: So sand mullet feed by rooting their snouts around in
Speaker 1: the sand, hence the name, and and Prior has seen
Speaker 1: them in the past get caught up in other stuff
Speaker 1: like plastic soda rings and and hairtized right because they're
Speaker 1: they're just rooting around the sand and they can easily
Speaker 1: turn something over and swim through and get stuck. But
Speaker 1: this one looked different, and so she caught up to
Speaker 1: the fish when she was snorkeling and actually snapped several pictures.
Speaker 1: You can see these online showing this bone white mullet
Speaker 1: with a gold wedding band just behind its head. Norfolk
Speaker 1: Island is small, It's got like two thousand residents and
Speaker 1: and the word had gone around the community the previous
Speaker 1: Christmas that a tourist had lost his wedding ring while swimming.
Speaker 1: Prior sanding photos of of the bedazzled fish to the
Speaker 1: man who lost his ring, and he confirmed the mullet
Speaker 1: is now wearing his nuptial band. Now here's the interesting
Speaker 1: part for me. Anyway, mullet or notorious difficult to catch
Speaker 1: on Roden rail. We've talked about that. Oh, it's possible,
Speaker 1: but it's really difficult. Work at it. You're gonna work
Speaker 1: at it, right So the idea of trying to target
Speaker 1: one specific individual mullet to catch with with bait, that
Speaker 1: that to me just max of futility. That ain't gonna happen.
Speaker 1: A lot of people who harvest mullet catch them with
Speaker 1: throw nets and and that seems slightly more doable. But
Speaker 1: you're you're still talking about trying to catch one mullet,
Speaker 1: that mullet right there, Yeah, exactly, which is just it's crazy,
Speaker 1: but still prior. This woman is determined. So she's organizing
Speaker 1: this group of locals to go out and like snorkle
Speaker 1: around and try and find that fish and then get
Speaker 1: them to corral that fish over toward fishermen with throw
Speaker 1: nets and catch it. You'll be shocked to hear that
Speaker 1: so far the efforts have not paid off. But it's
Speaker 1: not because it's already been pooped out by a trivoli
Speaker 1: or something. By that the there there is the rings
Speaker 1: owners offering a reward, so maybe they've got the incentive.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe that'll happen. I don't know. If it does,
Speaker 1: will update you, but I'm not. I think this is
Speaker 1: the last we're ever going to see that ring personally,
Speaker 1: probably ever lose your wedding ring while fishing. I did,
Speaker 1: like I did a thing where I remember I got
Speaker 1: my ring sized and I was like so nervous because
Speaker 1: I was about to get married that I was just
Speaker 1: like rushing and couldn't believe I was ring shopping for myself.
Speaker 1: It was like just like too much to bear. And
Speaker 1: I put the size on. I'm like, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: the right size. But then I got the ring which
Speaker 1: was like titanium carbide, unsizeable and it was way too big.
Speaker 1: But rather than make a thing because my wife was
Speaker 1: already stressed out about other wedding stuff, I was like,
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's totally fine. Fine. I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna lose it. And I lost it and I found
Speaker 1: it in a riffle. Like I went back and I
Speaker 1: found it in a riffle in a small mouth stream,
Speaker 1: and then I got a different ring. The ring I
Speaker 1: wear now is is a cheaper ring that won't come off.
Speaker 1: But it's not my actual wedding man. So that is
Speaker 1: that is my ring story. But I hope they get
Speaker 1: the mullet um. You know that that would mean that
Speaker 1: would be neat. But I wouldn't hold out hope for
Speaker 1: for that. Anyway. She had had a tiny spear gun,
Speaker 1: it would have been done. Um. Anyway, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think she's a crusader though she's trying to save the fish.
Speaker 1: That's she doesn't care about the range. She's like, the
Speaker 1: poor fish has weighted down. She don't want to spread
Speaker 1: that fish. Oh, the fish is fine, it's fine. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of a good transition here. I
Speaker 1: don't have it. So I'll just back pedal and say
Speaker 1: that I was gonna do that that really um, you know,
Speaker 1: thoughtful piece that you did on on on the pen
Speaker 1: that tells you what kind of fish you have. But
Speaker 1: I I trumped that because I hate to say it,
Speaker 1: but the Fonds is in trouble again. Ah, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I saw this one. The Funds. I don't gotta do nothing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Henry Winkler, who of course played the funds on
Speaker 1: Happy Days, has angered the masses with a shameful, horrible,
Speaker 1: stomach turning photo on Twitter. Get this of him holding
Speaker 1: a nice cutthroat trout, and then to pour salt in
Speaker 1: the wound of this atrocity, he had the gall to
Speaker 1: caption the photo. I can't even express the beauty everywhere
Speaker 1: on our planet. How dare you, fawns, how dare you
Speaker 1: enjoy fly fishing and smile ear to ear with a
Speaker 1: gorgeous trout? So to backfill just a bit, I'm sure
Speaker 1: some of you know that Henry Winkler is an extremely
Speaker 1: avid fly fisherman. He's written has he written a book
Speaker 1: about it? Do I have that? That's That's why this
Speaker 1: this why I don't get why this is a story
Speaker 1: exactly we're gonna get to this. Couplished an entire book
Speaker 1: called I Never Met Him. I think it was like
Speaker 1: I never met an idiot on the river something like that. Yes,
Speaker 1: so he's he's written a book, he's written about fly fish,
Speaker 1: and he's been interviewed about it at nausea. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: but here's something I did not know. I only learned
Speaker 1: this after reading this story on pop culture dot com.
Speaker 1: Apparently the Funds has a ton of new fans, right,
Speaker 1: and these are young people, you know, like millennials and
Speaker 1: junk that, while perhaps are there un familiar with his
Speaker 1: screen work or his his history, have just gravitated to
Speaker 1: his Twitter account. Now I don't know, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know what Henry's appeal is to the next generation. Frankly, right,
Speaker 1: he's seventy year old dude worth according to this like
Speaker 1: forty mill which allows him to just really live the
Speaker 1: dream these days and just fish and do nature stuff
Speaker 1: and enjoy himself. But when he recently posted this grip
Speaker 1: and grin, you saw this, it was like met with
Speaker 1: this insane outrage, just like off the charts and negativity,
Speaker 1: which I don't fully understand because again, it's sure as
Speaker 1: hell not like this is the first time the Fonds
Speaker 1: has been seen holding a fish on the internet. So no,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that there's a grip and grin on
Speaker 1: the cover of his book exactly, and furthermore, just from
Speaker 1: a fishing perspective, in my opinion, this is like the
Speaker 1: most benign, respectful grip and grin you could ask for. Like, so,
Speaker 1: Henry is on. He's on a small mountain stream beaming
Speaker 1: over this catch. The fly is still in the trout's
Speaker 1: mouth and he's supporting it appropriately. His hands appear to
Speaker 1: be wet, and he also might be kneeling. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but even if I'm wrong, when you see, if you agree,
Speaker 1: when you look at enough fishing photos, like you can
Speaker 1: tell the difference between stage shots where like someone played
Speaker 1: with the fish or posed or moved around to get
Speaker 1: like this perfect awesome fish shot versus like a quick
Speaker 1: snap before release. And this reads like just snap this
Speaker 1: real quick so I can put this fish back, Yes,
Speaker 1: and and and what I'd say that the look on
Speaker 1: his face supports that because he's genuine back. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it reads to me like a very respectful gripping grant.
Speaker 1: Yet he's just a small sampling of the comments that
Speaker 1: Fonzie received on Twitter. I hope you put that beautiful
Speaker 1: fish back in the beautiful water to continue to live
Speaker 1: a beautiful, peaceful life. Take a photo, don't rip an
Speaker 1: animal out of its natural environment with a hook through
Speaker 1: its face. You can feel something. Honestly, fishing is weird, man.
Speaker 1: I would agree with your caption, but showing off a
Speaker 1: poor dead fish sure doesn't jive with the message I
Speaker 1: bet you the fish which she went anywhere, But they're
Speaker 1: for your beauty and nature fixed now. Of course, many
Speaker 1: people came to the Funds defense in his Twitter feeds,
Speaker 1: stressing that he's a big time catching release guy and
Speaker 1: like he's been fishing a long time, to which someone responded,
Speaker 1: catching releases almost as bad. It's stressing that little being,
Speaker 1: and of course the being part went just everybody. There
Speaker 1: were so many replies to that, my favorite being you
Speaker 1: just killed ten thousand dust mites by sitting down murder.
Speaker 1: That's their favorite one. So maybe maybe you have. But
Speaker 1: like I've never interviewed Henry, we've never crossed paths, but
Speaker 1: everything I've ever heard from people that have have spent
Speaker 1: time with him, he's like he is the sweetest guy,
Speaker 1: a staunch conservationist, and a hell of an angler. And
Speaker 1: I'm also I'm all for, as are you the occasional
Speaker 1: debate about catching release best practices and stuff among anglers
Speaker 1: with an understanding of the sport and the fish. These
Speaker 1: comments are just coming from people just appalled with zero
Speaker 1: understanding of fishing. And I'd just like to say sorry,
Speaker 1: Funds right as a man that went out of his
Speaker 1: way to pose with the bronze Fons statue of you
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee. Okay, I feel bad for you. If if
Speaker 1: Milwaukee wasn't such a fishy town, I'd worry they try
Speaker 1: and take the statue down now. But let's just leave
Speaker 1: the Funds alone. Just shut up and let the man fish.
Speaker 1: Please everywhere, right go everywhere? Right turny is there. It's
Speaker 1: like having gumlanting your shoe. I got two things I
Speaker 1: want to say about this before before we close it out.
Speaker 1: Number one, I can I think I actually have some
Speaker 1: secondhand support for what you say about him being a
Speaker 1: good dude. I had a bunch of friends who guided
Speaker 1: at a lodge. I almost guided there myself here in
Speaker 1: Montana where he was a regular, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: people I know and friends of mine guided him and
Speaker 1: said nothing but good things. And I can tell you
Speaker 1: what as a guide, you learned pretty quickly the people
Speaker 1: in your boat, if they're good people are not. You
Speaker 1: can't hide all day on on the water of thing is.
Speaker 1: I feel a little bad for for Mr Winkler being
Speaker 1: pigeonholed as the Fonds because he's gone on to do
Speaker 1: so many other great things in his more contemporary career.
Speaker 1: Not he was a coach, He was a coach water boy.
Speaker 1: But have you seen Barry? The show's brilliant and he
Speaker 1: is brilliant in it, like I would like, I think
Speaker 1: we should all celebrate him for his more contemporary work.
Speaker 1: I for one believe that. And finally, Winkler, Mr Winkler, Henry,
Speaker 1: if I may, if you're listening, you're welcome on the
Speaker 1: show anytime, and we'll take the fision anytime you want
Speaker 1: to go any time. I gotta say I pulled a
Speaker 1: couple of of of of Fonzi quotes there, but in
Speaker 1: finding those, I got lost in a Happy Day's rabbit hole,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, this is actually really funny, Like I
Speaker 1: should go back and watch more Happy Days. I never
Speaker 1: paid that much attention. So we'll feel we'll see if
Speaker 1: Phil wants to go see Spiracy, if he wants to
Speaker 1: go Happy Days. A lot of choices here for Phil.
Speaker 1: And then as soon as we're done hearing from Phil
Speaker 1: this week, we're going to do a sale bin that
Speaker 1: a lot of you guys have been asking for. Ten
Speaker 1: card people, this one's for you, Joe. It is always
Speaker 1: important to get an occasional reminder to steer clear of
Speaker 1: the comment section. So thank you for that story. But
Speaker 1: I have to give the window Miles this week for
Speaker 1: giving us a little sneak peek on what to look
Speaker 1: for in next year's sky Mall catalog. Guys, the Spotify
Speaker 1: playlist is awesome. What a great idea. Good job on that, Joe.
Speaker 1: I think you wanted me to come for the Jimmy
Speaker 1: World and stay for the Bad Brains, which was very thoughtful,
Speaker 1: but I actually ended up coming for the Psychedelic Furs
Speaker 1: and staying for Peter Satara. So jokes on you, or
Speaker 1: more so Miles, it sounds like, why did you put
Speaker 1: the hand to pay? You don't know what I'm getting? Man,
Speaker 1: what you didn't have to be so hurtful with me,
Speaker 1: so angry. So we've we've just chimed this in as
Speaker 1: a sail bin. We're gonna call this a sail bin.
Speaker 1: It's really not a sale. Mean though, as some of
Speaker 1: you guys know, Miles was recently um out here on
Speaker 1: the East Coast at my house. And even though this
Speaker 1: is you're gonna hear this later, he's here right now. Look,
Speaker 1: he's at my kitchen table. No, this is this is
Speaker 1: a time warp because I'm sitting here at the kids
Speaker 1: were three feet apart, and it's been like we hadn't
Speaker 1: seen each other in person in a year. We've had
Speaker 1: some fun out here. You guys will see all that
Speaker 1: fun later. But we're like we we'd be we'd be
Speaker 1: stupid not to not to lay something down while we're
Speaker 1: in the same room. So my kids are at school,
Speaker 1: it's quiet here. The house is in relatively nice order
Speaker 1: because you're a house guest, so we've cleaned for you,
Speaker 1: which was unnecessary but appreciate it. And we figured, since
Speaker 1: we're just sitting here shooting ship, um, let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about ten carra because we we've made fun a ten
Speaker 1: car a time where two and and, as you pointed out,
Speaker 1: a lot of people writing in and go, hey, it's
Speaker 1: stop making fun of me in my ten car rode.
Speaker 1: It goes one of two ways we get we get
Speaker 1: to to polarized responses. It's either hey, man, like, why
Speaker 1: are you gonna be so hard on ten car It's
Speaker 1: it's fun and I agree. We've said this, we have
Speaker 1: admitted this publicly. Ten Carra is fun. It's the culture
Speaker 1: around ten Carra that we find so ripe for ridicule, right,
Speaker 1: And that's because something has just happened recently, which a
Speaker 1: lot of you guys have tuned us into this. Just
Speaker 1: this proves our points so freaking well. For all of
Speaker 1: you out there were like, come on, man, quit it on. No,
Speaker 1: right now we have proof that the whole culture and
Speaker 1: scene of Tinkara sucks. What what did we find? What? What?
Speaker 1: What is this? So? Just a couple of days ago, Uh,
Speaker 1: this this fashion clothing brand called Supreme the skate scene.
Speaker 1: I feel like they might have been skate posers, but
Speaker 1: I think mostly they're just like urban fashion. I think
Speaker 1: whatever is like urban fashion. They slapped their label on.
Speaker 1: And here's the funny thing about this story, because we
Speaker 1: did the news thing not too long ago about the
Speaker 1: Pokemon lures and how in Japan it's like a big
Speaker 1: deal for these fashion brands and things to have fishing products,
Speaker 1: and we were like, I hope that doesn't start happening
Speaker 1: here and ship wouldn't you know it? Well? I mean, god,
Speaker 1: so what's it's? It's it's similar because as it's Supreme,
Speaker 1: the American fashion company and a Japanese company called South
Speaker 1: to West eight, and together they have made a whole
Speaker 1: line of fashion accessories to go along with a ten
Speaker 1: carra rod, and it's it's truly awful. I'm Supreme now
Speaker 1: has a tan car a rod, but then they've created
Speaker 1: this whole other line of wearables around the tan car rod. Essentially,
Speaker 1: so like you, you'd buy the tan car rod and
Speaker 1: then like to fit the whole bill, you'd buy all
Speaker 1: this other ship to where while your ten car fishing.
Speaker 1: So I think I need to quote some of the
Speaker 1: things that I've been reading about this. Here here's one.
Speaker 1: While fully functional, it's not the type of gear you'd
Speaker 1: expect to see at the river. And indeed, because of
Speaker 1: Supreme's customer base, many if not most, of the people
Speaker 1: who purchase will have no intentions of fishing in it.
Speaker 1: This sort of cause playing is an unprecedented in fashion.
Speaker 1: Just look at the populative car heart outside of blue
Speaker 1: collar workers, and fishing should never be compared to cause play.
Speaker 1: Everything about that to me is wrong. And this just
Speaker 1: this undermines all of these efforts that we have to
Speaker 1: genuinely bring people into fishing and participate in sport. This
Speaker 1: ship isn't helping it's fishing is not cause play. It's
Speaker 1: not a fetish that you do like there, there's there.
Speaker 1: It should not turn into like a furry convention in Vegas.
Speaker 1: That's not fishing. I have a problem. According to one
Speaker 1: one fly fishing forum, here's another quote, I guarantee not
Speaker 1: a single fish will be caught with one of these.
Speaker 1: If you are, you are releasing a fishing product and
Speaker 1: a fishing line. And the response from the fishing community
Speaker 1: is I guarantee not a single fish will be caught.
Speaker 1: There is a fundamental issue, agreed. The wheels have fallen
Speaker 1: off the goddamn bus. So you were reading one a
Speaker 1: little while ago. It was like a review. I've read
Speaker 1: a couple of reviews and there are words in here
Speaker 1: I don't understand. Give us a sample. Where is this
Speaker 1: coming from? Again? This is coming from input, which is
Speaker 1: I think like a fashion blog. I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 1: totally sure. The intro Goes Supreme is going fairly niche
Speaker 1: for its latest collaboration, partnering with the Japanese fishing brand
Speaker 1: South to West eight. The outcome is some of the
Speaker 1: steaziest gear you've ever seen, But in this era of
Speaker 1: fashion is immersion into GORP. You don't need to know
Speaker 1: how to cast. This doesn't even make sense. You don't
Speaker 1: need to know how to cast a real R E
Speaker 1: A L to embrace the look. Now, what steazy mean?
Speaker 1: Is that what the kids are saying? What is that?
Speaker 1: I think the kids were saying that like fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: I don't believe I've ever heard it. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like your swag man, your swagger. You and you looked
Speaker 1: up gorp, so don't actually maybe do look up gor
Speaker 1: bun urban dictionary, but we can't say what comes up
Speaker 1: when you look up German dictionary. And that's not what
Speaker 1: they meant. So GORP, as I've always known, is another
Speaker 1: an acronym for trail mix. You didn't know this, so
Speaker 1: trail mix. But apparently in the fashion scene there's a
Speaker 1: new and I had to look this up. There's a
Speaker 1: new term in the fashion scene called GORP core. Here's
Speaker 1: here's the definition. Gorp Corps, named after the cloak wheel
Speaker 1: term for trail mix is a style focused around utilitarian,
Speaker 1: functional outdoors inspired gears. So just like that. Other articles
Speaker 1: comparing this new collaboration with Supreme to how Carhart is
Speaker 1: making the the blue collar cool I think that all.
Speaker 1: I think it's like a new version into I want
Speaker 1: to look like I do stuff outdoors without doing stuff
Speaker 1: outdoors while still being fashionable, all of which does not
Speaker 1: make sense to me. It just doesn't. Well, So the
Speaker 1: rod is I mean, the rod is just a tin
Speaker 1: car odd. But the clothing, like, if you look at
Speaker 1: the picture of this attire, what comes to mind is like,
Speaker 1: who's that rapper that's always in the news, like six
Speaker 1: nine or something. He was in jail. He's got the
Speaker 1: rainbow hair, and he would wear this, He would wear this.
Speaker 1: It definitely looks like six nine would be all about this.
Speaker 1: I have trouble describing it, to be perfectly honest with you,
Speaker 1: This stuff is is just some of the strangest thing.
Speaker 1: One is like a it's like a mosquito netting shirt
Speaker 1: but that's tied eyed and goes all the way over
Speaker 1: your whole face. But there's there's a there's a promotional
Speaker 1: image here where the dude's got his entire face covered
Speaker 1: by this tide eyed mosquito netting clothing, but he's wearing shorts.
Speaker 1: See and see there that does there's a problem. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think my takeaway I think for the people who
Speaker 1: are like, stop making fun of me ten Car. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: we already kind of have something like a little bit
Speaker 1: to make fun of in that culture, but now, like, look,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about this? Like now they've taken
Speaker 1: this thing that you love and given this opportunity to
Speaker 1: like now now it's even cheesier, and now it's your
Speaker 1: tactic that it's been adopted by the non fish people
Speaker 1: for the fishing cause play. Okay, they're not making cause play,
Speaker 1: you know, slick bibbs and uh, you know, trolling reels.
Speaker 1: They went right after ten Car. I would hope the
Speaker 1: true like people who actually like to tin car fish
Speaker 1: hate this the most. That's that would be my expectation.
Speaker 1: Like for me, as someone who's kind of outside of
Speaker 1: that scene and likes to poke fun at it, this
Speaker 1: is just grisp for the mill. It's just more gasoline
Speaker 1: I can throw into this fire that I think is funny.
Speaker 1: If I for those of you out there who are like, no, man,
Speaker 1: I love tin car and I think it's like the
Speaker 1: most pure, wonderful way of fishing, you should be incensed
Speaker 1: right now. You should be like willing to burned down
Speaker 1: the Supreme Store. If again, if I were you, that
Speaker 1: would be how I'd feel. Um there, I gotta throw
Speaker 1: a couple more quotes in here. Fleece jackets the ultimate
Speaker 1: fodder for gorp devotes. I'm sorry. There's also a long
Speaker 1: sleeved t shirt if costume esque dressing is lesser thing,
Speaker 1: and the accessory front is represented by a mesh game
Speaker 1: bag and hats of the jungle bush and balaklava variety.
Speaker 1: Crucially Supreme in South to West Ate have also crafted
Speaker 1: a co Brandon tag car rod and we just hope
Speaker 1: they're good enough to put to use instead of being
Speaker 1: mounted on the walls of a bunch of dorks ikea
Speaker 1: decorated apartments. And that, my friends, is what is destined
Speaker 1: to happen with all of these rods. And that's what's
Speaker 1: wrong with this idea. Well, you've already ben letting us
Speaker 1: know what you think. Keep doing that. This has been
Speaker 1: kind of sale, bin, but really just making fun of
Speaker 1: tin car in Joe's kitchen. And we're gonna go have
Speaker 1: another beer now. Okay, I got to amend us a
Speaker 1: little bit. We will not judge anyone for bobber fishing
Speaker 1: unless they do so with that gear. Holy shit, that's
Speaker 1: straight up horrible. Wow, it is, and thanks again to
Speaker 1: all of you out there who found that before we
Speaker 1: did and send us links. I know we sometimes make
Speaker 1: up dumb stuff to poke fun at fishing culture, but
Speaker 1: even we couldn't come up with something that over the
Speaker 1: top satirical. Nope, but we could not have done that.
Speaker 1: That one is real. Sadly, yes, yes, but we're not
Speaker 1: going to close out this week's show that way. As promised,
Speaker 1: We're gonna circle back to the lowly bobber in this
Speaker 1: week's end of the line segment. Well, that's not loud enough.
Speaker 1: My intention when I agreed to this end of the
Speaker 1: line segment was to trace the history of the iconic
Speaker 1: red and white push button bobber, mostly out of spite.
Speaker 1: As soon as we'll be easy, North Americans have crowned
Speaker 1: the round bobber as are angling archetype. It's the universally
Speaker 1: accepted visual symbol for fishing, the profile that companies slap
Speaker 1: on all kinds of products to tap into the seemingly
Speaker 1: lucrative market of shit non fisherman buy for their friends
Speaker 1: and family who like to fish. It's on T shirts, hats,
Speaker 1: beer coozies, Christmas tree ornaments, throw pillows, coffee mugs, folding chairs, flasks,
Speaker 1: even face masks, and the whole thing is frankly annoying.
Speaker 1: As we discussed earlier in the show round clip on,
Speaker 1: bobbers might be the least effective fishing float ever made.
Speaker 1: They're only attributes are that they're idiotically simple to use
Speaker 1: and relatively visible in the water. So the fact that
Speaker 1: they've become the visual representation of the act and culture
Speaker 1: of fishing, printed on all manner of stuff and then
Speaker 1: given to serious anglers really is insulting. Committed cyclists don't
Speaker 1: get shirts with pictures of training wheels on them at
Speaker 1: every birthday. It's no wonder that bobber fishing gets such
Speaker 1: a bad rap among anglers of all types. It's it's
Speaker 1: this kind of albatross we all carry a regular reminder
Speaker 1: that the broader culture thinks we're complete idiots who tax
Speaker 1: our meager brain capacity trying to outwit creatures with problem
Speaker 1: solving skills. Again to Gerbils, But despite the red and
Speaker 1: white bobber's ubiquity, I couldn't find any backstory for it.
Speaker 1: I have no idea who invented it, and no explanation
Speaker 1: for where, when, or how it became the ever present
Speaker 1: force that it is. And you know what, I don't
Speaker 1: really care because those things float. Fishing actually has a
Speaker 1: rich backstory. Over the past few centuries. Anglers have poured
Speaker 1: as much thought and innovation into floats is just about
Speaker 1: any other piece of gear ever invented. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: fishing cultures all over the world independently figured out the
Speaker 1: advantage of adding something buoyant to the line. I mean, first,
Speaker 1: it keeps your bait suspended at a constant depth, and
Speaker 1: second it lets you know when a fish has taken it.
Speaker 1: So those are two pretty significant advantages that I'm guessing
Speaker 1: just about every fishing culture figured out. But just like
Speaker 1: so many traditions, the culture we have most readily available
Speaker 1: documentation for is that of Western Europe, so that's mostly
Speaker 1: what I found. The online British Fishing Museum claims that
Speaker 1: anglers have been using floats since at least the fourth
Speaker 1: century a d. But they don't actually provide any evidence,
Speaker 1: and I didn't see that sided anywhere else. But just
Speaker 1: about every source I found agrees that the first printed
Speaker 1: reference to fishing floats game in four in the Treaties
Speaker 1: of Fishing with an Angle, which is often said it
Speaker 1: as the first text about fishing ever published in English.
Speaker 1: It gives relatively detailed instructions on how to fashion corkflow
Speaker 1: and use bird feather quills as bobber stops. About a
Speaker 1: hundred years later, the quill bobber appeared in the Art
Speaker 1: of Angler, published in fifteen seventy seven by an unknown author.
Speaker 1: That book suggests pushing together to cut swan feather quills
Speaker 1: to make a cylindrical float. A couple of centuries after that,
Speaker 1: international trade brought African porcupine quills to British anglers, which
Speaker 1: was a huge step up from trying to jam to
Speaker 1: cut swan feather quills together, which really seems like a
Speaker 1: pain in the ass. African porcupine quills are light, watertight,
Speaker 1: relatively straight, and hard as rhino horn. In fact, they're
Speaker 1: still used as floats. You can go buy some online
Speaker 1: right now. Prior to the nineteenth century, anglers had to
Speaker 1: make their own floats and they were pretty much limited
Speaker 1: to basic egg shaped corks or quills. But through the
Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds, as recreational fishing grew in England, they
Speaker 1: became a commercially viable product, As is so often the case,
Speaker 1: commodification drove innovation. By the early twentieth century, hundreds if
Speaker 1: not thousands, of floats were available in various shapes, sizes,
Speaker 1: and applications. Manufacturers started using different materials like balsa and
Speaker 1: aluminum and experimenting with unique designs like adding counterweights and
Speaker 1: creating section telescoping floats. Once plastic became available in the
Speaker 1: commercial market for fishing tackle exploded post World War Two,
Speaker 1: just about everyone was trying to build a better bomber.
Speaker 1: I actually dug into patents for fishing floats, and I
Speaker 1: found all kinds of crazy designs that haven't really caught on.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna share a few of these with you.
Speaker 1: I found ones that claimed to set the hook automatically.
Speaker 1: Ones that light up or send out radio signals when
Speaker 1: a fish takes the bait. Ones that hold the baited
Speaker 1: hook in a protected cup so that it won't fly
Speaker 1: off midcast, and then deposit the hook and the bait
Speaker 1: in the water upon landing. Ones with built in speakers
Speaker 1: that emit fish attracted sounds. Ones with propellers to hold
Speaker 1: their position against tide and current. There's even a patent
Speaker 1: that tried to claim intellectual property ownership over quote a
Speaker 1: hollow body filled with trapped air. I happen to know
Speaker 1: from inside information that one didn't stand up one challenging court.
Speaker 1: But the point is, float fishing has inspired a vast
Speaker 1: catalog of creative genius. Floats represent one of the most
Speaker 1: elegant aspects of fishing, taking a dead simple concept and
Speaker 1: elevating it through creativity, innovation, and craft. So set up
Speaker 1: that slip opera and rig that stick float with pride.
Speaker 1: For much of the continuum of phishing history, floats have
Speaker 1: been paragons of fishing innovation and effectiveness. Only recently, like
Speaker 1: within the past generation, has their public perception been corrupted.
Speaker 1: Not coincidentally, that change seems to have corresponded with the
Speaker 1: rise of the red and white bobber as the culturally
Speaker 1: accepted symbol of fishing. So once again, I blame the
Speaker 1: round bobber. That thing that's all we have on this episode.
Speaker 1: But if you're sifting through the flotsam of discarded floats, bobbers,
Speaker 1: and balloons recently washed ashore, you'll discover that asking a
Speaker 1: phishing shop employee to borrow his car because you don't
Speaker 1: have a spare tire is totally inappropriate. Bugnet camo is
Speaker 1: the absolute worst would be fashion trend since leisure suits,
Speaker 1: and that attaching a buoyant device to your leader doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean you're a novice angler, but judging someone else
Speaker 1: for doing so definitely makes you an asshole. I could
Speaker 1: not agree more with all those stating all those statements. Uh.
Speaker 1: Good news for those audio files out there who share
Speaker 1: our eflectic taste in music, We've started a Bent playlist
Speaker 1: on Spotify, so if you're if you're on Spotify, go
Speaker 1: check that out. Tell us which you think, what you like,
Speaker 1: what what you think we're missing? Just tell us about it?
Speaker 1: Tell us about it. Also, hit us on the Gram
Speaker 1: with the hashtags Bent podcast and Degenerate Angler, and keep
Speaker 1: sending those salban items, bar nominations, phish news suggestions, and
Speaker 1: awkward fishing photos coming to Bent at the meat Eater
Speaker 1: dot com. Please do and also do yourself a favor
Speaker 1: this weekend. Go bobber fishing. Don't don't use the little
Speaker 1: red and white one, but go bobber fishing, especially if
Speaker 1: you think you're too good for it,