Speaker 1: If you're gonna go full Canadian, you have to constantly apologize.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry about that, but right away I put
Speaker 1: my hand right over the whole clients had no idea,
Speaker 1: They had no idea what just happened. You could probably
Speaker 1: get away with living in your friends driveway longer because
Speaker 1: he can just tell the neighbors like, yeah, that's my
Speaker 1: buddy's boat. Do I blur the naughty bits on the
Speaker 1: back of the spoon? Do I let it ride? I
Speaker 1: haven't really decided yet. Good mornings generate anglers. And welcome
Speaker 1: to Bend, the fishing podcast that once tried to patch
Speaker 1: a pair of waiters with big lead chew and trailer
Speaker 1: bearing grease. I'm Joe Surmelli and I'm Haden Samack, and
Speaker 1: I was more of a bubble tape man myself. Oh
Speaker 1: that's good, that's good. There's something wrong with bubble tape.
Speaker 1: How about razzles? Do you ever have a razzle? It's
Speaker 1: candy than it's gum razzles? No, No, you never had
Speaker 1: a razzle. You come out here, when you come back
Speaker 1: at here and buying you some razzles? Um, anybody who's
Speaker 1: had a razzle? You you were you were sure each
Speaker 1: time it just wasn't going to become gum like you're
Speaker 1: just about to swallow, and then suddenly it was gump.
Speaker 1: Total mind freak. Anyway, it cares about razzles. What's shaking
Speaker 1: this week? We've got kind of a boat theme going
Speaker 1: on here. We've got a sort of near death experience
Speaker 1: on a boat, and then we've got a boat that
Speaker 1: cheats death. It comes back from the dead, but is reincarnated,
Speaker 1: um and isn't really a boat anymore, which which beat Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: which beats the more common alternative of talking about restoring
Speaker 1: a boat for ten years while it just disintegrates in
Speaker 1: the backyard. You just you just gotta let those go sometime,
Speaker 1: you know, you just gotta give it up. Just let
Speaker 1: it go. Man. Well, though, surprisingly the reincarnation of this
Speaker 1: boat could be more appealing to the misses. We'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll see how that goes. Anyway. So, uh, before we
Speaker 1: move on here, man, what's shaken? What's shaken on the
Speaker 1: west side? Anything good? How you do one? Uh? You know,
Speaker 1: big game just kind of wrapped up here not too
Speaker 1: long ago, so I'm kind of going through like that
Speaker 1: reorganization process, and you know, my closet and all my
Speaker 1: gear and getting all that ship squared away. So that means, um,
Speaker 1: I'm cutting up an elk. Can no longer be your
Speaker 1: excuse when I call and you can't take the call.
Speaker 1: I got like four mule deer quarters in the freezer
Speaker 1: right now I'm going to deal with at some later point. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the trout water out here
Speaker 1: fish is great all uh all winter long. So I'm
Speaker 1: really looking forward to some winter fishing. Uh. Let's see,
Speaker 1: I'm really really really looking if it gets cold enough,
Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to some hard water. And you're
Speaker 1: not going to believe this, but one of my best
Speaker 1: buddies around here is our HR person, Christine. And see,
Speaker 1: I thought you'd be more surprised that, like, I had
Speaker 1: a buddy in HR. I thought that would be like,
Speaker 1: that's a power move at any company. You want to
Speaker 1: be friends with the HR people. Good for figuring. I
Speaker 1: just figured with the ship that we say, you'd be
Speaker 1: surprised if NHR person took a shine to me. Uh.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, Christine's from Michigan and she's real into ice fishing.
Speaker 1: So we've been scheming to hit it hard this year
Speaker 1: if it ever gets cold enough. Yeah, well, I know
Speaker 1: it's been it's been kind of abnormally warm out there,
Speaker 1: right yeah. Well anyway, Uh, speaking of ice fishing, you
Speaker 1: mentioned the other day that our friends at thirteen Fishing,
Speaker 1: our friends and sponsors, they actually did get you that
Speaker 1: care package we talked about, right, Uh, yeah man, they Uh.
Speaker 1: One of our listeners wrote in the other day saying
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of yeah man in these episodes,
Speaker 1: So yeah, man, there is. I forget who it is,
Speaker 1: but shout out to you guys. Anyhow, you said something
Speaker 1: about getting me some gear a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, the other day a couple of mysterious
Speaker 1: boxes appeared on my doorstep full of ice fishing gear,
Speaker 1: and I could not be more excited to get out
Speaker 1: there and use it. Yeah. The thirteen guys are great. Um,
Speaker 1: what you get? What's your what's your favorite thing? What? What?
Speaker 1: What was in the box? Tell me it was in
Speaker 1: the box? That was your favorites in the box? In
Speaker 1: the box? Phil drop that please? What's in the box?
Speaker 1: What's in a box? Well, they sent me a couple
Speaker 1: of like rod and real setups, and then I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure every single finesse, babe, they offer like literally literally
Speaker 1: like every single one that they offer. I I just
Speaker 1: love the look of that flash bang though. It's just
Speaker 1: like fishy, So I like those. Uh. They also sent
Speaker 1: some of those freefall omen combos, and who knows, man,
Speaker 1: like I might even trick some folks into thinking I
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing with all this gear. Anyhow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as if I wasn't already looking forward to hard water,
Speaker 1: now I'm really looking forward to hard water. What have
Speaker 1: you been up to? A little trout, little steel brown
Speaker 1: trout had been pretty randy on a few of the
Speaker 1: local rivers and just got back from the Niagara River,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite places to fish, and and we
Speaker 1: we we messed up the lake trout pretty good and
Speaker 1: had a nice little i'd say a smattering of steel.
Speaker 1: I could have used more steel, but they were just
Speaker 1: being finicky because of the conditions. So I'm happy to
Speaker 1: have just gotten a few um in the tough conditions.
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, I know you're headed back east soon,
Speaker 1: and I'm we've we've talked about it behind the scenes
Speaker 1: and now publicly, like we should get out together and
Speaker 1: float for those browns while you're home. Yeah, man, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd love to do that. Yeah, I could. I could
Speaker 1: totally see that happening. I'll bring the I'll bring the
Speaker 1: streamers and rods and stuff, and you you just, you know,
Speaker 1: bring whatever special items you need for fishing. They're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing a lot of dube rolling when you're living
Speaker 1: in a van down by the river. I am not high,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, but I can't help. But it's
Speaker 1: a thing now, it's just funny. Um. Anyhow, if we
Speaker 1: get together to float, I will say, it will be
Speaker 1: in the comfort of my trusty clack of craft, which
Speaker 1: is of course a hard drift boat. I see what
Speaker 1: you're doing. Yep. Now, if you, let's just say, hypothetically
Speaker 1: you're on the fence about buying a raft or a
Speaker 1: hard boat for all your floating needs, We've got a
Speaker 1: smooth move for you this week with a colleague of
Speaker 1: ours that just might sway you toward that fiberglass Why
Speaker 1: all right, Joe, So, we got another one of my
Speaker 1: friends from the Meat Eater office and here, uh he's
Speaker 1: currently are what what do you social media manager? Communications coordinator?
Speaker 1: What is it? The latter communications coordinator? We got the
Speaker 1: communications coordinator in here with us. Uh. Corey Caulkins former
Speaker 1: fly guide as well. Man, how are you? I'm good.
Speaker 1: How are you guys doing today? I think this is
Speaker 1: terrific because again, like I work with Corey too, but
Speaker 1: mostly through email. So having you out there and we're
Speaker 1: finding out that all these people have these great fishy
Speaker 1: story reason we're guides and stuff, it's terrific. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like there's so much of the Mediator Office
Speaker 1: really is made up of folks who just live this
Speaker 1: ship in like a big way, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Where were you guiding? Mostly? Man? Started out up in
Speaker 1: northwest Montana in the Bob Marshall Wilderness for half my
Speaker 1: career and then the last seven eight years down here
Speaker 1: in Bozeman. So you guided in the northwest corner. So
Speaker 1: is that like the Kootney Drainage. I've only ever been
Speaker 1: up there once, not that far northwest? Uh, the Flathead drainages? Okay,
Speaker 1: got you all right? It sounds good. Okay, So that's um.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's kind of the part of Montana
Speaker 1: that not as many people go to. I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: seen much more, many more crowds on the water when
Speaker 1: you switched to guiding out of Bozeman than that part
Speaker 1: of the state, right, Yeah, true, it's uh, it's still
Speaker 1: a little bit of a secret. There's some secret streams
Speaker 1: and corners up there, but there's not many secrets left anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't just spoil anything because Kutney is
Speaker 1: pretty damn big river that's very hard to fish on foot,
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. So that was not a burden, correct,
Speaker 1: not at all. So Quarry is with us this uh
Speaker 1: this morning to uh to give us one of his
Speaker 1: smoothest moves man. And this one, actually, Joe, it does
Speaker 1: not come from a mega sport or it were a client.
Speaker 1: It comes from from our man, Corey himself. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: was a very smooth move on a terrible act on
Speaker 1: my part, very part of the state of which part
Speaker 1: of Montana is this smooth move coming from the northwest
Speaker 1: or the Bowsman area, the northwest on one of the
Speaker 1: famed flathead drainages. So so lay it honest, man, because
Speaker 1: I know Hayden knows this story, but I don't. I
Speaker 1: have no idea what's coming. So I am very excited.
Speaker 1: So there's this one stretch of river that we float
Speaker 1: the attapt to pack your raft down this really steep hill.
Speaker 1: It's a quarter mile. Takes about four trips. You roll
Speaker 1: your raft up, put it on a hack frame, pack
Speaker 1: it down the hill, go back up, which is the
Speaker 1: worst part, just going back up the hill. Take your
Speaker 1: frame down, which is extremely awkward, corners of the frame,
Speaker 1: raft frame bouncing all the way down. Go back up
Speaker 1: one more time for your gear. When you're at the bottom,
Speaker 1: pump up your boat. It's a long process to get
Speaker 1: a boat in the water on this stretch. It's really
Speaker 1: it takes a couple hours. You want to try and
Speaker 1: be there before your clients, and then somebody drives your
Speaker 1: clients there. If you have the energy, you walk back
Speaker 1: up the hill, walk your clients down because it's kind
Speaker 1: of a treacherous trail getting down. So we're I don't know,
Speaker 1: eleven am a third of the way through our trip,
Speaker 1: catching plenty of cutthroat, and I think a client got
Speaker 1: tangled up something. I had to drop anchor. So I
Speaker 1: dropped the anchor in a not very good spot. Water
Speaker 1: was a little fast, and hopefully other people can learn
Speaker 1: from this one. I'm sure it's happened too many folks,
Speaker 1: But I dropped the anchor in between some slab rocks.
Speaker 1: Finish on tie and this not we're ready to go,
Speaker 1: go to pull the anchor up. It's stuck, very wedge jammed. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been here and it sucks. Yes. Asked the client
Speaker 1: in the back to do what he can in the
Speaker 1: back to pull on that thing. He can't get it.
Speaker 1: He's about to snap the collapsible chair in a half
Speaker 1: trying to yank on this anchor rope. I'm back there
Speaker 1: with him, trying to like hold him up and pull
Speaker 1: the anchor rope at the same time. I actually asked
Speaker 1: the kid in the front to row as hard as
Speaker 1: he can upstream and while I pull on the anchor rope.
Speaker 1: It was a debacle, right, I'm sure we were stuck
Speaker 1: there for fifteen minutes trying to get this thing unstuck.
Speaker 1: It came to the conclusion that anchor is staying right there,
Speaker 1: and I better cut the rope. I don't want to
Speaker 1: just leave the rope, which maybe would have been smart,
Speaker 1: because the rope would have left to, you know, place
Speaker 1: to come look later. The candy cane blue and white
Speaker 1: long anchor rope. So I decided to cut the rope.
Speaker 1: So I break out my pocket knife and brilliantly cut
Speaker 1: down on the rope and I sliced right through that rope.
Speaker 1: It's very sharp knife and punctured the raft, brand new raft.
Speaker 1: This was the second voyage for this raft, RS Otter.
Speaker 1: Oh no, so I sliced down instantly, but right away
Speaker 1: put I put my hand out over the hole. Clients
Speaker 1: had no idea, they had no idea of what just happened.
Speaker 1: So my hands on this hole, my hands shaking because
Speaker 1: of so much air is trying to come out, and
Speaker 1: I wrote us down about another quarter mile with one
Speaker 1: hand on the oars, the other hand on this little
Speaker 1: slit three slit and the brand new otter, and I
Speaker 1: just go, guys, I think it's lunchtime. So we go
Speaker 1: down to this spot pull over. At this point, the
Speaker 1: whole back end of the boat's drooping pretty bad. Like
Speaker 1: the guy in the back. They still not said anything
Speaker 1: like do they still not know what's going on? Even
Speaker 1: though they were back they were fishing still. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm rowing out one hand, so it's just like this
Speaker 1: total oblivious nous. Yeah, they're fishing a clue. I just
Speaker 1: really like crab strokes man. Yeah, it was it was
Speaker 1: awkward rowing. Luckily it was an easy spot. In fact,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure they caught a couple of fish between
Speaker 1: the knife incident. And yeah, it's pretty silly fishing back there.
Speaker 1: So we pull over do lunch, and luckily I had
Speaker 1: a patch kid with me and had never actually had
Speaker 1: to put this to work, but I knew exactly how
Speaker 1: to patch that boat. Got are all patched up, pumped
Speaker 1: it back up, they had lunch, We continued on our day.
Speaker 1: They had no idea that had ever happened. That is
Speaker 1: like a smooth move in more way than one. It's
Speaker 1: the smoothest kind of move, because that's what a good
Speaker 1: guy does, like the best guide. It's like it's like
Speaker 1: an airline pilot, Like you could be like crashing, but
Speaker 1: like the good guy, like you will still be eating
Speaker 1: your complimentary you know, pretzels and not have any clue,
Speaker 1: like like unless you're like death is eminent, like the
Speaker 1: good ones know how to just keep that under wraps man,
Speaker 1: And there's so many great captain stories like that. We're
Speaker 1: same deal, Like some catastrophic ship or potentially catastrophic shit
Speaker 1: is happening right now, but as long as the clients
Speaker 1: don't know, like you are doing your job so as
Speaker 1: the smoothest kind of smooth move. The recovery was smoother
Speaker 1: than the incident. It has everything a good smooth move has.
Speaker 1: Man it has like you know, a colossal cup, which
Speaker 1: is like funny, and then it right like you said,
Speaker 1: it has that perfect It's like airline captain quality poise. Well.
Speaker 1: I also think we can all identify Corey with with
Speaker 1: with slicing the boats. It's one of those things that
Speaker 1: in your head here like I would never do that,
Speaker 1: like that will never happen to me, Like I would
Speaker 1: always have like no, not to have the sharp objects
Speaker 1: going down into the raid because I ran a raft
Speaker 1: for years before I got a hard boat, right, And
Speaker 1: I was like, so I didn't trust other people with
Speaker 1: hooks and things, right, but I trusted myself and I
Speaker 1: was like, I know how to make sure I don't
Speaker 1: pop this. So it's just one of those things that's
Speaker 1: like you never think that's going to happen until it does.
Speaker 1: Like and I'm sure that was a split second of
Speaker 1: cutting and you were just like, cannot believe I just
Speaker 1: right now. I was so frustrated that I couldn't get
Speaker 1: the anchor up I mean, I've gotten a wedged many times.
Speaker 1: It is probably my fifth year guiding, and we could
Speaker 1: not get that thing up. It was driving me crazy,
Speaker 1: as you know, the pyramid anchor, and it was so
Speaker 1: rounded over it wasn't sharp anymore, and I could not
Speaker 1: get it up. So I was like, oh screw this,
Speaker 1: took out my knife and slashed. Isn't that when most
Speaker 1: mistakes are made, when you're just in like a complete
Speaker 1: fit of rage, you know what I mean? Like cool
Speaker 1: heads prevail, although like I would have been just as
Speaker 1: piste off about that, um and I've I've I've cut
Speaker 1: off a few anchors before for the same reason. So
Speaker 1: if anybody out there gets their anchor stuck, make sure
Speaker 1: you cut up on your rope and not down. Man.
Speaker 1: I love Corey. That guy's genuinely one of the best
Speaker 1: outdoors and I know, dare I say the best. I
Speaker 1: respect for you guys are saying that you're breaking my heart.
Speaker 1: You said it. I don't know Corey as well as
Speaker 1: you do, and he might be the best, like except
Speaker 1: for that one time, just at one time, he wasn't
Speaker 1: quite the best. Everybody slips up now and then sometimes
Speaker 1: with a large knife anyway, h a guy like Corey
Speaker 1: is like bound to have some smooth moves man. And
Speaker 1: as far as like our smooth moves go, I think,
Speaker 1: like that's pretty high up he's done. It was pretty
Speaker 1: smooth in the sense of like, you know, uh, cause
Speaker 1: and effect. Like it was like a very clear, clear
Speaker 1: cut part in the pun. Very good. Yeah, I like fun.
Speaker 1: That dude has done a bunch of really cool ship
Speaker 1: as a guy. Uh, you know, just knowing him as
Speaker 1: a buddy, you know, he's done a ton of back
Speaker 1: country stuff, a lot of boats stuff, um, including I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure a bunch of trips on the Madison, which
Speaker 1: gives us the perfect segue into a very special edition
Speaker 1: of fish News. Fish News that escalated quickly, very quick
Speaker 1: bit of housekeeping I have to share. Uh, we got
Speaker 1: a bunch of notes about our Canadian themed show last week,
Speaker 1: all very nice, very nice. Um, but I got I
Speaker 1: got a message from one listener and he says, Um,
Speaker 1: you didn't apologize enough, Like if you're gonna go full Canadian,
Speaker 1: you have to constantly apologize. Here, I'm so sorry about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they up here, you hold he said, you hold
Speaker 1: the door for somebody, and you apologize for doing it.
Speaker 1: Um so I got I gotta kick out of that anyway. Um,
Speaker 1: here's what's going on a little bit different spin on
Speaker 1: news this week, Hayden, tell the good people exactly what's
Speaker 1: going on here. So the fishing world, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: was kind of in the national headlines for a little
Speaker 1: bit last week because of some recent events on the
Speaker 1: Madison River. Um, as many you know, the Madison there
Speaker 1: was a damn malfunction and in short, I mean we'll
Speaker 1: get into it more in like the interview, but the
Speaker 1: water levels dropped precipitously very quickly, and there was genuine
Speaker 1: concern that this was going to result in some sort
Speaker 1: of ecological like disaster for the Madison. Unluckily, it was
Speaker 1: remedied fairly quickly, and the general consensus is this isn't
Speaker 1: gonna be something with a lasting felt impact. That said,
Speaker 1: we felt as if it was like really important to
Speaker 1: bring as much light as we could to the issue,
Speaker 1: not so much because it ended up being a really
Speaker 1: horrible and serious thing, but more because there was so
Speaker 1: much conversation surrounding it and we wanted to kind of
Speaker 1: give people the bigger picture of what went on. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was actually I was away when this happened.
Speaker 1: I just got back from three days on the Niagara River. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know how it is like when you're out
Speaker 1: in the cold all day with your boys and you
Speaker 1: get in and just want to go like eat you know,
Speaker 1: wings and drink beers. So like, I saw something going
Speaker 1: on here. I caught a few of the headlines. I
Speaker 1: saw it in kind of bits and pieces. But then
Speaker 1: when I finally sat down and read the piece on
Speaker 1: the Meat Eater website by our colleague Sam Longdren, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh shit, right now, I know. Um, a
Speaker 1: bunch of the Meat Eater team like jumped right into
Speaker 1: action on on this and and went to ground zero,
Speaker 1: right Yeah, a bunch of our colleagues were immediately. I
Speaker 1: was getting text left and right. Uh you know, Oh
Speaker 1: we're going out. We're going out. Do you want to come?
Speaker 1: You know? And I think that really speaks to it's
Speaker 1: like a microcosm example of the response that was felt,
Speaker 1: you know, from all sorts of you know, different areas.
Speaker 1: I heard of people coming from as far as South Dakota,
Speaker 1: you know, to go help. Yeah, well, I mean you
Speaker 1: have to consider we're talking about one of the most
Speaker 1: famous trout waters in the entire country, if not the world. Um,
Speaker 1: and that this also hits so close to home for
Speaker 1: you and everyone else out in Bozeman. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you had said I'd like to fire up a special
Speaker 1: report on this, and I was all for that. So
Speaker 1: who is joining us to tell everybody? So today we
Speaker 1: have Andrew Welch. He is the leader in hydro power
Speaker 1: license compliance for Northwestern Energy. And we also have John Way,
Speaker 1: who is the owner of the Tackle Shop in Ennis,
Speaker 1: which is the oldest fly shop in Montana. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna have a a really good conversation
Speaker 1: and it's gonna bring to light a lot of like,
Speaker 1: you know, problems that existed before, how we're dealing with
Speaker 1: this particular problem and what we're gonna do to avoid
Speaker 1: problems of a similar ilk in the future. Absolutely, So
Speaker 1: we're gonna We're gonna talk to John and Andy and Phil.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure who you're gonna judge with this one, Um,
Speaker 1: but this wouldn't be bene if we didn't hear from Phil.
Speaker 1: So when this is all over, Phil surprised us. Alright,
Speaker 1: So today on the show, Joe and I are doing
Speaker 1: a special edition of Fish News covering some recent events
Speaker 1: on the Madison River that made national headlines. For those
Speaker 1: of you who don't know, Last Tuesday, a malfunction at
Speaker 1: the Hebgen damn uh caused the water to drop to
Speaker 1: dangerously low levels on the Madison River. After the malfunction
Speaker 1: was discovered, volunteers flocked to the Upper Madison and worked
Speaker 1: to relocate fish stuck inside channels, while cruise from Northwest
Speaker 1: Energy worked by all accounts, NonStop to restore flows. After
Speaker 1: forty eight hours, the dam was fixed and the flows
Speaker 1: river restored. With us today to talk about it, we
Speaker 1: have two guests, John Way, owner of Montana's old owner
Speaker 1: of Montana's oldest fly shop, the Tackle Shop in Ennis,
Speaker 1: and Andy Welch, leader of hydro power Licensed compliance for
Speaker 1: Northwest Energy. How is it going, guys? How are you
Speaker 1: happy to be here? I appreciate you guys taking the
Speaker 1: time to be here so much. This is this is terrific. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for real, Um, It's something that a lot of folks
Speaker 1: are deeply concerned about, and it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: nuanced issue to unpack. And so it happened like two
Speaker 1: experts like yourselves. He's going to be I think hugely
Speaker 1: valuable to clarifying a lot of like the situation. It
Speaker 1: also makes it feel like we have a grown up podcast.
Speaker 1: We're not just grabbing ridiculous news stories, all right, So look,
Speaker 1: let's sort of get like right down to it. Uh, Andy,
Speaker 1: I want to start with you, man, Can you walk
Speaker 1: us through exactly like what went wrong? Sure? Yeah, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me this morning. I appreciate it, you bet so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the malfunction that the damn was was caused by
Speaker 1: a coupler that broke essentially, and so the shaft that
Speaker 1: controls the outflow gate at Hebgen became in two pieces.
Speaker 1: The lower half was attached to the gate and it
Speaker 1: fell to a more closed position, reducing the flows to
Speaker 1: the Madison, and the upper part was still attached to
Speaker 1: our controls. We lost full control all of that outlet
Speaker 1: gate and uh it closed to a more closed position
Speaker 1: about a foot and uh and reduced flows down to
Speaker 1: right around twofs in a matter of a few seconds. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was pretty drastic and right now right
Speaker 1: this story, um, a lot of it is based on
Speaker 1: eyewitness accounts. So John, I want to ask you to
Speaker 1: give listeners a feel for that. Can can you talk
Speaker 1: about a little bit about what you saw in the
Speaker 1: Madison since you were right there? Yeah, absolutely, and thanks
Speaker 1: for having me today, guys. Um. Sure, my guys and
Speaker 1: I were up there the day it happened, as well
Speaker 1: as the second day when the big rescue effort UM
Speaker 1: came underway. Most of the side channels were dried up
Speaker 1: to pockets kind of in the holes in the side
Speaker 1: channels and kind of along the edges. There was still
Speaker 1: a main channel UM with that most of that two
Speaker 1: cfs flowing down the main channel. UM, but the flow
Speaker 1: to those pockets was there, There was no flow to
Speaker 1: those pockets UM. In me of the pockets there were,
Speaker 1: there were fish, sculpins UM all that kind of trapped
Speaker 1: in those pockets because the water came down quick enough
Speaker 1: that they couldn't escape back to the main channel. And
Speaker 1: this was all pretty much UM between the lakes between
Speaker 1: head Get and Quake Lake. Below Quake Lake, UM, conditions
Speaker 1: came down I think more more gradually and so those
Speaker 1: fish had time to move. So the real uh stress
Speaker 1: area I believe was between head Getting Quake Lake. Sure. Well,
Speaker 1: just quick follow up to that, like in terms of
Speaker 1: stressing the fish, right, I would imagine that that sort
Speaker 1: of one thing on the side of all this, on
Speaker 1: the good side, was that this happened in the winter.
Speaker 1: I imagine this would have been a much bigger issue
Speaker 1: had it happened in the middle of the summer. Right, Oh, absolutely,
Speaker 1: at least in our our respect. But the brown trout
Speaker 1: had just finished spawning, so there were reds all, you know,
Speaker 1: quite a few reds in that upper section. Um that
Speaker 1: did get dried out, and so that that's one of
Speaker 1: the big concerns moving forward. And Andy, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: saw a similar thing kind of going down there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with that. Um, you know it, it
Speaker 1: could have been a lot worse than a lot of
Speaker 1: different circumstances. You know, the heat of the summer would
Speaker 1: have been pretty catastrophic for fish and aquatic life there.
Speaker 1: But also if it would have been a lot colder
Speaker 1: and we would have had all of these exposed areas
Speaker 1: freezing up overnight, and that can also be much more
Speaker 1: detrimental than the conditions we saw. And so it was
Speaker 1: actually with the lack of a very short freezing and
Speaker 1: uh cooler temperatures, things would have held their moisture for
Speaker 1: a longer period of time. And and we I think
Speaker 1: we were rather fortunate relative to that, right, I think
Speaker 1: we can all agree that we did get lucky in
Speaker 1: that sense. Uh. It seems like it seems like a
Speaker 1: lot of the it seems like the biggest problem in
Speaker 1: the eyes of a lot of folks was the river
Speaker 1: falling while operators worked on the assumption that it was
Speaker 1: an instrument glitch. Um to be like kind of just
Speaker 1: blunt with it, I is, how come somebody just didn't
Speaker 1: go out and check on it? Yeah, So you know,
Speaker 1: it's that's a very complicated question relative to operating a
Speaker 1: facility like this. Um, what it comes down to have
Speaker 1: agin as a you know, it's a remote facility. We
Speaker 1: don't have someone there, man, So we have a lot
Speaker 1: of instrumentation in place to monitor what's going on, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, are the way things are set up. We
Speaker 1: did not have indication right away that, um, there was
Speaker 1: an actual problem within the damn facility itself. And so
Speaker 1: we saw the U S G S gage. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of history with U S G S gages going
Speaker 1: up and down and and uh, and so one of
Speaker 1: the first things we did was looked to see do
Speaker 1: our controls show any change from what we saw yesterday essentially,
Speaker 1: and then if no, can we verify this is a
Speaker 1: real condition on the ground, call usgs UM you know,
Speaker 1: have them check their instrumentation UM to see if if
Speaker 1: the U S g S was real. From that point on,
Speaker 1: we sent people as fast as we could get them
Speaker 1: up there to get on site and get eyes on
Speaker 1: the ground. We do have cameras at the facility, they're
Speaker 1: more facility based, and so those were limited to our
Speaker 1: value of actually looking at the river conditions down below.
Speaker 1: And then we started receiving notifications from outside folks that
Speaker 1: showed pictures and stuff like that that we were like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is real, um, and we that's when we started
Speaker 1: our response. So this brings up kind of like an
Speaker 1: important point. Uh, there are there are a lot of
Speaker 1: reports saying that people tried to get in touch with
Speaker 1: Northwestern for you know, some folks estimated as many as
Speaker 1: like twelve hours between when this was noticed and when
Speaker 1: you know they actually got through. Could you speak to
Speaker 1: that at all? Yeah, you know, it's that's a really
Speaker 1: hard question to respond to in the way that who
Speaker 1: knows where they were calling who they're trying to contact.
Speaker 1: But you know, we we do stop by flas shops
Speaker 1: um about quarterly with our my staff. We leave our
Speaker 1: contact info. UM. We you have websites for the Madison
Speaker 1: that you know has some contact info. So um. I truth,
Speaker 1: we don't understand who they might have been trying to
Speaker 1: get ahold of M. But I'd have to have more
Speaker 1: information obviously to evaluate what really happened. Yeah, and see,
Speaker 1: I also think that's a little unfair, right, But one
Speaker 1: thing you said about the the gauges that that sort
Speaker 1: of resonates with me just because not just you guys,
Speaker 1: but everybody fisherman in general put so much stock and
Speaker 1: like you're always looking at gauges on your phone and
Speaker 1: wind gages and all these things, and like we we
Speaker 1: we we take that to heart. But in reality it
Speaker 1: just goes to show that sometimes those things are wrong,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like you need to have
Speaker 1: eyes on the ground, or or even in fishing scenario
Speaker 1: where it says the river is doing this, it might
Speaker 1: not be. So it just sort of it's like a
Speaker 1: little like how reliant we are on on those kinds
Speaker 1: of things, you know what I mean? I totally agree
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's equipment. It can malfunction, it needs
Speaker 1: to be adjusted to calibrate it. There there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of things with us G S gauges. They do have
Speaker 1: a good alarm system set up on those. It just
Speaker 1: happens to be that the Madison River below Hepgin we
Speaker 1: have a minimum flow of a hundred cfs that's allowed
Speaker 1: by our license, and so we have alarm set. Like
Speaker 1: for me personally, I have a USGS alarm set at
Speaker 1: that level. We didn't quite drop that low, so that
Speaker 1: alarm was never triggered. It was the rate of change
Speaker 1: that was the catastrophic impact, but it wasn't necessarily the
Speaker 1: full low level of discharge from the facility that would
Speaker 1: cause us to be alarmed. Sure, and I think another
Speaker 1: important thing to remember too. And John, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: could you could speak to this, but um, you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's so many damns like this all over the country,
Speaker 1: so many a lot of fisheries have this here, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, anglers come to rely on these tail waters.
Speaker 1: They're great fishing. Um. But you also can't forget that
Speaker 1: then it puts sort of humans between you and the wild.
Speaker 1: Like if you have these things and a lot in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases, these damns create such great, great
Speaker 1: trout fishery ease. But um, you know there are people
Speaker 1: operating those and it is it is mechanical and things
Speaker 1: are going to happen from from time to time. Now,
Speaker 1: no real quick, before we get there. John's trying to
Speaker 1: get a word in edge. I'm sorry, guys, and I
Speaker 1: agree with what you're saying, Joe. You know, the masison
Speaker 1: is so great because of the damn. We're always kind
Speaker 1: of really blessed with that clean cold water that flows
Speaker 1: all year. And something you said, Andy, Um, the minimum
Speaker 1: flow required is a hundred. Is there any plan going
Speaker 1: forward to to bump up those alarms to maybe two
Speaker 1: or three gfs so you guys have a better idea
Speaker 1: or more insight UM on a quicker basis. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: I actually already adjusted by water alert for the U
Speaker 1: S g S. But yeah, there's there's there's certain essentially
Speaker 1: stages associated with the different levels of cfs that we're
Speaker 1: releasing from Ebgin that um have different impacts on the
Speaker 1: river there and you know a hundred and see it
Speaker 1: it's a hundred and fifty cfs is are low UM
Speaker 1: and then six hundred cfs at Kirby, which is downstream
Speaker 1: at Quake Lake. UM. So you know, there's there's definitely
Speaker 1: gonna be a follow up on this to look at
Speaker 1: not just alarms, but everything in the mix on you know,
Speaker 1: what we can do to prevent the equipment failure, what
Speaker 1: we can do to respond in a more quick and
Speaker 1: controlled manner. There's also gonna be UM looks at just
Speaker 1: impacts everything you can think of, and all of those
Speaker 1: well being brought into context and say, okay, what do
Speaker 1: we do next time that would alert us quicker be
Speaker 1: able to have us respond quicker. UM. But for instance,
Speaker 1: you know below Hebgin, somewhere around three cfs is where
Speaker 1: that first side channel in the corner right there starts
Speaker 1: to lose flow, and so we manage it the best
Speaker 1: we possibly can to not go below that UM and
Speaker 1: a six hundred cfs at Kirby onfs all the way
Speaker 1: downstream it and it's UM really drive how much water
Speaker 1: we're releasing from Hegan. So I think it's important to
Speaker 1: note that like this story is not as much about
Speaker 1: an environmental catastrophe as it is a close call. And
Speaker 1: I think the reason that it was a close call,
Speaker 1: was because delayed or not. Once the issue was recognized
Speaker 1: by you know, volunteers and Northwestern, Um, the response was
Speaker 1: you know, pretty swift and decisive. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think like that like kind of ought to be you know, celebrated.
Speaker 1: So John, I want to start with you, and then
Speaker 1: I want to go back to you. Andy. Uh, John,
Speaker 1: can you describe the volunteer response? And then Andy, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know the same question to you. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about Northwestern's response? Yeah? Absolutely, Um, the volunteer response was
Speaker 1: pretty overwhelming, you know. UM, and I believe it was
Speaker 1: kind of driven by social media. It really kind of
Speaker 1: shows the power of social media. Uh, every fly shop,
Speaker 1: every outfitter from west Ellstone all the way down to
Speaker 1: Bozeman here, Uh put something out that this was this
Speaker 1: was an issue. There was this rescue effort to try
Speaker 1: to help save these fish that were trapped. UM, please
Speaker 1: show up and help and and uh the response was
Speaker 1: was unbelievable. Um that I think it was Wednesday. I
Speaker 1: drove up the valley and every parking spot had three
Speaker 1: or four cars in it, you know, with people out
Speaker 1: with nets and buckets and and trying to save a
Speaker 1: few fish and Um, it really shows the power of
Speaker 1: of social media. And I believe you know, within six hours,
Speaker 1: everybody you know in the fishing community coast to coast
Speaker 1: knew what was going on and and knew what the
Speaker 1: next step would be. It was pretty overwhelming. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And what do I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about Northwestern? Yeah, I'll just follow up on that to
Speaker 1: it's I was there Wednesday morning early and U met
Speaker 1: a bunch of the volunteers all the Madison Foods parking
Speaker 1: lot and kind of gave an update what was going on.
Speaker 1: But the response was absolutely humbling. Um, just to see
Speaker 1: everybody from all over there come into a place and
Speaker 1: be respectful to the situation and also just trying to
Speaker 1: be there to help, you know. And and that was
Speaker 1: a pretty big deal, I would say, And it was
Speaker 1: it was just a um, it was a kind of
Speaker 1: an overwhelming experience to see that. And we had a
Speaker 1: bunch of Northwestern staff there to to volunteer too. Is
Speaker 1: you know, this is the lifeblood of our lives too,
Speaker 1: you know, we we live in Montana for a reason.
Speaker 1: And uh we uh we actually made a change of
Speaker 1: plans and just said okay, let's let's support the supporters
Speaker 1: here from a Northwestern perspective, So how about we just
Speaker 1: go and start distributing refreshments and talk to people, and
Speaker 1: and it was. It was a really great day all
Speaker 1: on all considering the circumstances that brought it forward. So
Speaker 1: and I have to say, Andy, I I give kudos
Speaker 1: to Northwestern Energy. You know, you guys were were in
Speaker 1: the parking lot at Madison Foods. I believe the president
Speaker 1: of the company even came down to n S and
Speaker 1: and I mean he didn't have to do that, you
Speaker 1: guys didn't have to do that, and even being on
Speaker 1: this podcast, you guys, I mean didn't have to but
Speaker 1: it shows a level of commitment going forward and commitment
Speaker 1: to the resource. So I appreciate that. It's it's you know,
Speaker 1: we manage these things for you know, benefit of the resource,
Speaker 1: but we see it as a privilege to generate electricity
Speaker 1: from the water there too. So those are kind of
Speaker 1: level of priorities and I think you'll find that from
Speaker 1: the top down in the company. John, I gotta ask
Speaker 1: kind of a kind of a little bit tougher controversial question,
Speaker 1: right because I feel like this is a this is
Speaker 1: I have to ask this, So what we've seen here
Speaker 1: in the face of crisis is like this extreme coming together, volunteers, anglers,
Speaker 1: everybody out there working for one calls. Right, But it's
Speaker 1: also no secret that I mean, the Madison has just
Speaker 1: gained this reputation of being so overcrowded. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: been in the New York Times, right, I mean they've
Speaker 1: run articles about the uptick in track fick on that
Speaker 1: river and how insane it's gotten. So do you see
Speaker 1: this as, at least on a local level, something that
Speaker 1: come next summer or next spring when the season really
Speaker 1: kicks back in hardcore? I mean, I think it's fair
Speaker 1: to say that you have guides out there who make
Speaker 1: their living their pitching in the help, right, That's that's
Speaker 1: that's that's their livelihood. But then you have all these
Speaker 1: you know, tourists and locals and all these people who,
Speaker 1: in another breath, some guides could be like, man, these
Speaker 1: are the people who are clogging up the river and
Speaker 1: making this place crazy. So what does this do for
Speaker 1: sort of long term pr on the river? Is this
Speaker 1: now sort of like do we go back to the
Speaker 1: in fighting with the crowds, or is this the moment
Speaker 1: to be like, well, look, okay, they bug us. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people whatever it may be, but when
Speaker 1: it came down to brass tacks, we're all out here
Speaker 1: helping keep this going. Yeah, that's a good question, Joe,
Speaker 1: and something I've thought about as well. You know, you
Speaker 1: go Fourth of July weekend and her thirty boats putting
Speaker 1: in Alliance Bridge, and the average tour or Montana resident
Speaker 1: wants to go float with their family on July fourth,
Speaker 1: and and here they are. I understand where that anst
Speaker 1: comes from. Um, and I understand where the bad vibes
Speaker 1: to guides are because that's what they see. They see
Speaker 1: us out there, they see us in the parking lot,
Speaker 1: they see us on the river, and that's all they see.
Speaker 1: But I hope now they see this as well. Where
Speaker 1: the outreach was from the guidan outfitter community. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: you came, you know, was it was a big part
Speaker 1: of it, and you know, everybody pulled together, but a
Speaker 1: large part of that outreach and a large part of
Speaker 1: of those volunteers were from the guiding outfitter community who
Speaker 1: dropped everything and I mean and ran up there. So
Speaker 1: I hope this is a great opportunity for the public
Speaker 1: to gain a little more faith in the uh the
Speaker 1: outfitting community. Andy, I would ask, like, what's what's the
Speaker 1: lesson here for other fisheries and other places here? Like,
Speaker 1: what's what's the takeaway? That's a tough one. You know,
Speaker 1: the Madison is a unique place, UM, with conditions there.
Speaker 1: It's amazingly beautiful, free flowing reached between the two dams.
Speaker 1: That just gives it some character and and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of things to balance there from you know, recreational
Speaker 1: and outfitted use to you know, Northwestern making sure we're
Speaker 1: managing things right. So UM, I think the best thing
Speaker 1: to kind of get out there is just you know,
Speaker 1: how are we communicating what's getting done out there from
Speaker 1: all parties and and that way we can manage it
Speaker 1: the best we can. Um. You know, with so many
Speaker 1: vested interest in the health of the fishery there, it's
Speaker 1: that it doesn't seem like you could do anything reasonable alone, obviously,
Speaker 1: and that's been showed through the process the last few years.
Speaker 1: There's there's got to be that equilibrium though that you
Speaker 1: know that well the resource will support the use and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what that is and in this
Speaker 1: ever change environment is is something that everybody has to
Speaker 1: get together on So we're gonna wrap it up here
Speaker 1: in just a second. But before we do, I I
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to, Yeah, you put out a call
Speaker 1: for listener questions, didn't you? I did? I did. Um.
Speaker 1: We're kind of gonna boil those down into some more
Speaker 1: assiscinct questions because basically everybody asked the same ship um
Speaker 1: uh First, UM, what would you guys say to folks
Speaker 1: that are in New York that are reading about this
Speaker 1: and think the sky is falling? You know, John, what
Speaker 1: would you say? Andy? What would you say? I think, Um,
Speaker 1: we we we almost had a catastrophe. I don't think
Speaker 1: we did. I think you know, the swift action of
Speaker 1: the volunteers, Northwestern Energy and Fishwife and Parks all um
Speaker 1: prevented a pretty big catastrophe from happening. Um. I worry
Speaker 1: about the long term biological impact um on brown trout,
Speaker 1: aquatic invertebrates, and that especially in that stretch between the lake.
Speaker 1: But you gotta remember, this is a three to four
Speaker 1: mile stretch that was really affected. The Madison is sixty
Speaker 1: miles long here. There is a huge portion of of
Speaker 1: that river that that is not affected. The Madison is
Speaker 1: still a great place. It's still gonna have lots of fish. Um,
Speaker 1: We're gonna learn a few things, I hope, and the
Speaker 1: sky has not fallen yet, ye and yeah, I totally
Speaker 1: agree um with that perspective. Um. Obviously, going forward, Northwestern
Speaker 1: is going to do what we can to analyze exactly
Speaker 1: what happened at this situation and and come up with
Speaker 1: some corrective actions that we you know, fully intend to implement.
Speaker 1: But then also, you know, talking about the long term fishery,
Speaker 1: you know this this is a challenging one in the
Speaker 1: way that we don't have good baseline data for fish
Speaker 1: in this exact reach below he gain between having in
Speaker 1: the quick and so we're gonna have to come up
Speaker 1: with some, uh with some ideas with our partners on
Speaker 1: you know, what can be done here to really evaluate
Speaker 1: the impact, because undoubtedly there's going to be an impact, um,
Speaker 1: you know, but what that is and in the the
Speaker 1: impact in the overall fishery and the long term is
Speaker 1: is a whole different question. And so I think that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to answer that is it's going to take
Speaker 1: you know, some kind of specialized folks putting their heads
Speaker 1: together to to figure that out. The positive thing is
Speaker 1: we we do have a macro invertebrate sampling spot right
Speaker 1: down in this reach, and so we'll be able to
Speaker 1: track that and we have twenty years of data directly
Speaker 1: in that area to be able to compare and see,
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not there's an impact of the bugs.
Speaker 1: If there is, how long it persists, those sorts of things,
Speaker 1: so we can get an idea of how you know,
Speaker 1: the resiliency of the the river there is is reacting.
Speaker 1: And then the third piece I will say too is
Speaker 1: you know, we we've long standing how to program in
Speaker 1: the Madison to to provide mitigation enhancement measures for the
Speaker 1: impacts caused by the dams. And it's a perfect framework
Speaker 1: to to be able to look at some of this
Speaker 1: stuff to develop some potential projects to help out and uh,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's a very viable way to to
Speaker 1: respond to this once we do understand exactly what the
Speaker 1: impact maybe. And you know, it's we've spent a lot
Speaker 1: of money over the is you know, about six and
Speaker 1: a half million since two thousand investing on projects on
Speaker 1: the Madison and so that will always continue and hopefully
Speaker 1: we can you know, make some meaningful impact that will
Speaker 1: help out this reach. So andy, um, moving forward, is
Speaker 1: there is there a plan in place right now for
Speaker 1: increased sampling, increased biological work to to figure out what
Speaker 1: effects might have had? Um or is your more money
Speaker 1: shut a shide for that anything like that? Is that
Speaker 1: into works At this point, I would say the discussions
Speaker 1: have started on how we need to kind of start
Speaker 1: talking about this. Frankly, we're we're getting our breath right now. Um.
Speaker 1: Northwestern did a full on, full court press on this.
Speaker 1: In the forty eight hours that we had with limited
Speaker 1: FLOWCA went out of Hedgin. I think I slept six hours. UM.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a pretty wild situation. I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: Tuesday night at ten o'clock, we had twenty five people
Speaker 1: on a zoom call, um, you know, trying to figure out.
Speaker 1: We had divers, we had engineers, we had our environmental staff.
Speaker 1: It was. It was a full on effort to do
Speaker 1: the best we could to get those situations remedied as
Speaker 1: fast as possible. Now that we have that done, I
Speaker 1: think we take a quick breath and be very diligent
Speaker 1: and purposeful on how we go about trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what the impact maybe and then respond with some
Speaker 1: sort of action after that, and and I don't want
Speaker 1: to promise anything right now on exactly how that will look, um,
Speaker 1: but obviously there's there's some follow up that's needed in
Speaker 1: Northwestern's committed to doing that, all right, guys, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: thank you both so much for taking the time to
Speaker 1: talk with us. So nice to get insight directly from
Speaker 1: you guys on something that so many people are reading
Speaker 1: about on social media and elsewhere. This has been great.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to clear up a lot of
Speaker 1: ship for folks, um, you know. I I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be valuable. I think this might be a
Speaker 1: very very valuable bit official news joke. I think so too,
Speaker 1: perhaps one of our most valuable. Again, it was really
Speaker 1: it was nice to change, get up and not just
Speaker 1: talk to each other. Have some some people here with
Speaker 1: some more interesting things to say than just you and
Speaker 1: I do so and real quick, I gotta ask and
Speaker 1: you are you a are you? And angler yourself? I
Speaker 1: am man. I do a little mixed bag. I find
Speaker 1: myself out on reservoirs a little bit right now with
Speaker 1: a three year old. She's not quite proficient at wade
Speaker 1: fishing yet, so but we're working on it. Quick tip
Speaker 1: on that, don't buy the three year old waiters because
Speaker 1: by the time she's four, they won't fit anymore. That's
Speaker 1: I bought them and like she got to wear them
Speaker 1: once and then by the next time, it's like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: these don't even fit you anymore. So tip of the week.
Speaker 1: Thanks thanks for that. I always appreciate parenting tacks like that.
Speaker 1: All right, well, thanks again for coming on, guys. Appreciate you, guys,
Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks for having us. You know, there was
Speaker 1: a chance for that to get sort of combative, and
Speaker 1: it didn't. That was a very nice conversation. Both those
Speaker 1: guys were super on point. I'm I'm really glad we
Speaker 1: did that. Yeah, me too. Um, I'm really glad that
Speaker 1: we kind of took the time to tuck into that
Speaker 1: because a lot of folks were like pretty freaked out,
Speaker 1: and I think it's important that we all kind of
Speaker 1: come to the table and have a balance talk about
Speaker 1: what happened, you know, why the sky didn't exactly fall,
Speaker 1: but also not forget to really highlight what we just avoided. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to be clear, like this really could have been it
Speaker 1: could have been catastrophic, horrible. Uh as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: you know, we kind of burned or get out of
Speaker 1: jail free card. If the weather had been different, if
Speaker 1: they couldn't have gotten the damn fixed quickly, if it
Speaker 1: had been a different damn, if a whole host of
Speaker 1: things had happened, this could have been just terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think it's also you have to point out that,
Speaker 1: as much as I like to take shots at social media,
Speaker 1: right everybody has bad shits say about social media. Prime
Speaker 1: example of how social media helped this situation very very quickly.
Speaker 1: So for all the bad that we say comes from it,
Speaker 1: here is a great example of some good. And that
Speaker 1: was a really interesting report. So we're gonna hear from Phil, which,
Speaker 1: since he's not judging, perhaps just pontificating, this is like
Speaker 1: a wrapped present under the tree. It's a surprise, right um.
Speaker 1: And speaking of stuff to put under the tree, Right
Speaker 1: after Phil, we're gonna hit the sale bin because we've
Speaker 1: got a one of a kind item just begging to
Speaker 1: have a giant bow put on it in your driveway.
Speaker 1: All right, Welcome to our inaugural episode of Ask a
Speaker 1: three year Old about fishing? Hey, three year old, what
Speaker 1: do you think it is cooler Wally I or Wally Wally.
Speaker 1: There you have a folks, Wally the robot who picks
Speaker 1: up trash in a post apocalyptic earth, cooler and better
Speaker 1: than Wally. Back to you, why did you put the
Speaker 1: 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? Al right, throw up hands west side flash
Speaker 1: gang symbol whatever that is, uh, because that's where we're
Speaker 1: going for this installment of sail ban. And today's item
Speaker 1: keeps up with a sail bin trend, albeit a very
Speaker 1: subtle one that most people I don't think would pick
Speaker 1: up one. And what is that? So I'm fairly certain
Speaker 1: that every single West Coast silban we've done has been
Speaker 1: for some sort of shelter and or alternative to like
Speaker 1: a traditional family home. I'm pretty sure. Oh you know, uh,
Speaker 1: the population is exploding in California. Um. We're also looking
Speaker 1: in like mostly like fishing classified. And I think that
Speaker 1: the people who peruse fishing class sufides are like they're
Speaker 1: typically a certain level of broke, yeah, or trying to
Speaker 1: live off the grid or of a taxes something like that. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that's true anyway. So this is coming from the Pacific
Speaker 1: Northwest specifically UM and and we've had from the same region.
Speaker 1: We once had a listing for an ice shanny that
Speaker 1: literally is that what they call like a meth trailer
Speaker 1: out there. I don't know people from the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 1: let us know, um, but it literally it fell off
Speaker 1: a cliff. Like the photo in the post was a
Speaker 1: dude standing at the top of the cliff shooting down
Speaker 1: on this busted up thing, and the post was just
Speaker 1: like free if you're willing to climb down there and
Speaker 1: get it. So that was one. And then there was
Speaker 1: very early on in Bent history, there was a camper
Speaker 1: that was turned into a boat and there was one
Speaker 1: photo of it on like a beautiful Sunday afternoon floating
Speaker 1: with all these these these young people partying on it.
Speaker 1: But then the rest of the follow up shots were
Speaker 1: just the interior and you could tell it had been
Speaker 1: sitting in a yard forever and it's just like completely
Speaker 1: covered in mildew and black mold. That's how they were
Speaker 1: trying to entice you. You know, man, that black moles
Speaker 1: ship is uh. It brings up a memory or two.
Speaker 1: Man h In my like really, yeah, in my apartment
Speaker 1: or what. No. No. When I was a musician, I
Speaker 1: was working at this one recording studio and I could
Speaker 1: have my own like private writing room. I just had
Speaker 1: to fix it up. And there was a bunch of
Speaker 1: black mold in that which, just in case you guys
Speaker 1: are paranoid like me, black mold is actually not like
Speaker 1: a neurotoxin. It is something that can triggered like asthma
Speaker 1: and respiratory ship but it's like long term, it won't
Speaker 1: hurt you. So all you grunge kids, you know, listening
Speaker 1: from your party house, uh in the basement, don't worry
Speaker 1: too much, man, but you know, do do clean it up? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I think it's one of those it's it's
Speaker 1: it's one of it's one of those things like radon
Speaker 1: in homes. I think people probably worry a little too
Speaker 1: much about you know what I'm saying. This could be
Speaker 1: horrible advice which we put what we should and this
Speaker 1: is also why we're not the home improvement podcast, So
Speaker 1: please keep that in the consideration. I don't listen to
Speaker 1: this and be like Seahune, I don't have to get
Speaker 1: rid of any of that black mold in the kid's room.
Speaker 1: Joe and Hayden said, it's fine. Um, anyway, we're getting
Speaker 1: way off here. This entry comes from Bent listener Mark
Speaker 1: Jeraldlammy in Portland, Oregon, and he found it on Facebook
Speaker 1: Marketplace and it is the exact opposite of a camper
Speaker 1: turned into a boat. Exact opposite. Uh. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a boat turned into a camper. And before we
Speaker 1: even like dive into it, it's legitimately nicer than a
Speaker 1: couple apartments of lived in Dude, I got I gotta
Speaker 1: I gotta say, unlike the jan kee ass camper boat,
Speaker 1: someone puts some extreme love and money into the boat camper. Uh.
Speaker 1: A matter of fact, it's so nice that the title
Speaker 1: of the listings suggests this could also be a tiny house.
Speaker 1: I think. I guess tiny houses are still a thing.
Speaker 1: You could just live here, you just live in it.
Speaker 1: To let you know, Joe, As long as pinterest is
Speaker 1: a thing, tiny houses will continue to be. I'm curious, man,
Speaker 1: tell me sell me on this tiny house. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this interest. So this thing started its life as a
Speaker 1: twenty one ft sea swirl. And while it doesn't say
Speaker 1: what year, I'm gonna guess by the looks and style
Speaker 1: it's late eighties, maybe early nineties. And here's what the
Speaker 1: description says. This old c squirrel speedboat, which is inaccurate.
Speaker 1: It's more like an express style boat has been has
Speaker 1: been converted into a camper slash, tiny home trailer, brand
Speaker 1: new living space. It's one long vinyl floors, all new
Speaker 1: appliances and that he's not kidding. It has like stainless
Speaker 1: steel fridge in it, like they're nicer than the applying
Speaker 1: Is it in my kitchen right now? Um? In floor
Speaker 1: storage hot cold water, both electric and propane heat, propane stove,
Speaker 1: dual tanks, air conditioning. It's got an air like a
Speaker 1: window unit air conditioner, UH standard house outlet for power,
Speaker 1: but also is set up to easily add a battery
Speaker 1: bank and solar panels to be more off the grid.
Speaker 1: Plenty of infloor storage for batteries, water tanks, et cetera
Speaker 1: standard garden hose attachment for both waterline and drain designed
Speaker 1: to easily remove the closet space if you want to
Speaker 1: add a bathroom. You can actually see where like whoever
Speaker 1: built this, you know, chopped the front deck because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm looking, I'm looking at the thing as you're describing
Speaker 1: to be full disclosure for our listeners, and and most
Speaker 1: of the console off, and then they've raised it to
Speaker 1: create more headroom inside, like like imagine like creating a
Speaker 1: gap between the hull and the deck. And then they yeah,
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's a lot of work. It's almost as
Speaker 1: if they made the wall is like taller and the
Speaker 1: boat's original windshield is now like a picture window. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty brilliant. It's pretty brilliant. And if you can
Speaker 1: picture the notch that would be cut out of a
Speaker 1: boat transome to accommodate the outboard, the door is just
Speaker 1: built into that notch, so like that's like now the
Speaker 1: space for the full size walk up to the door.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's cool. Yeah. What I actually think is
Speaker 1: most brilliant is that if you were just driving through
Speaker 1: a neighborhood and saw this back into a driveway at
Speaker 1: a quick glance, it just looks like a boat totally.
Speaker 1: You could probably get away with living in your friends
Speaker 1: driveway longer because he can just tell the neighbors that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's my buddy's boat. It's also extremely economical, which is
Speaker 1: not something that you can often say about boats. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: very much, no money pits exactly. Yeah. Here, here's what
Speaker 1: the post like continues on to say, insurance on the
Speaker 1: trailer is four dollars per year, four dollars. Yes, it
Speaker 1: still needs to paint and finishing touches, but it's ready
Speaker 1: for like whatever customizations you want to throw at it.
Speaker 1: So he's asking for I'm sorry, that good of a deal,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna see it's it's still worth it fifteen dollars,
Speaker 1: which honestly, I'd hesitate to say is a bad deal,
Speaker 1: particular when you're talking about housing. But the very best
Speaker 1: part is that the disclaimer at the very end, in
Speaker 1: parentheses reads, this is no longer a boat. It will
Speaker 1: not float. There is no motor, no mechanisms. It's a camper,
Speaker 1: not a boat. No trades, no takes backs. It's camper.
Speaker 1: Not about I. I kind of love this, I truly do.
Speaker 1: My My only hesitation would be that you're still pulling
Speaker 1: it on what looks like a kind of okay shape
Speaker 1: roller trailer, and um, I mean trailers break eventually. Trailers
Speaker 1: have their own issues, so um, you know, if it
Speaker 1: no longer floats, the only way to swap trail trailers.
Speaker 1: If anything happened, I guess would be to find a
Speaker 1: boatyard with a lift to lift it off there. You
Speaker 1: can't just like dump it off in the in the
Speaker 1: lake for a sec to swap out trailers. Um And
Speaker 1: I don't know. I feel like true campers are built
Speaker 1: on beefier frames than your your average boat roller trailer.
Speaker 1: But this is a minor concern, right whatever. Bottom line,
Speaker 1: If I was like twenty two again and trying to
Speaker 1: start some crazy YouTube channel, like imagine touring in this,
Speaker 1: the comedic value of parking this at the lake like
Speaker 1: having a boat you can live in on a trailer,
Speaker 1: a big boat, but just like being confined to the
Speaker 1: parking lot while you sure fish. The comedic value alone
Speaker 1: is worth it. I think it's fantastic. It's it's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: It would be a good stick. Did you ever see
Speaker 1: a show back in the day called gun It with
Speaker 1: Benny Spies? Oh? Man, I I know Benny Spies because
Speaker 1: he did some work at Outdoor Life, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember that show specifically. No. So he used to go
Speaker 1: around in this camper, and I believe like every time
Speaker 1: you'd open the door, a bunch of beer cans would
Speaker 1: fall out. This seems very Spies esque to me. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I think the comedic value alone would in fact be
Speaker 1: worth the fifteen grand. It's a great stick for the
Speaker 1: right person. Mark, thanks for sending this along. Maybe go
Speaker 1: grab it man, right, I'd I'd say nothing else. That's
Speaker 1: definitely one of a kind. There are some Bent stickers
Speaker 1: and such now headed to Mark, and if you'd like
Speaker 1: some of those, keep an eye on your favorite online
Speaker 1: classifies for him, and send any weird ship like this
Speaker 1: that you find to Bent at the meat eater dot com.
Speaker 1: So Mark is getting some some Bent stickers for sending
Speaker 1: in a sale band, and so is listener Andrew Jacobs,
Speaker 1: because he is responsible for this week's end of the
Speaker 1: line segment. All right, this is the one where completely
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, we're going to go from a shady
Speaker 1: camper boat to shady strip quote. That is correct, That
Speaker 1: is correct? Right? So you know, spoons, spoons are pretty
Speaker 1: great all around, lors Um, but but I feel like
Speaker 1: there there's so many modern new fangle lures on the
Speaker 1: market that the spoon has kind of taking a back seat,
Speaker 1: although it shouldn't, especially with ice season ramping up. You're
Speaker 1: gonna get out and do some ice fishing, you should
Speaker 1: use some spoons. So I'm gonna close by covering a
Speaker 1: spoon that everyone has heard of, but you might not
Speaker 1: know anything about its risk a history. Well, that's not
Speaker 1: loud enough. The Little Cleo is probably one of the
Speaker 1: most popular well known spoons ever made. It's so popular
Speaker 1: that it even has its own Wikipedia page. Of course,
Speaker 1: it also has one of the shortest, most factless write
Speaker 1: ups on all the Wikipedia, which is odd to me
Speaker 1: because the Cleo has a fascinating story, one that I
Speaker 1: just recently got tipped off to by listener Andrew Jacobs.
Speaker 1: Prior to Andrew reaching out, I had no idea this
Speaker 1: simple loure, enjoyed by anglers of all ages and from
Speaker 1: all walks of life, was sort borne out of a
Speaker 1: chance encounter in a nudy bar. The reason I was
Speaker 1: unaware this is simple. I just never really fished a
Speaker 1: ton of Cleo's. I mean I never really fished a
Speaker 1: ton of spoons at all, really, especially in freshwater and salt.
Speaker 1: I huck a cash master crippled herring or crocodile spoon
Speaker 1: all day, but in sweetwater for no particular reason, I
Speaker 1: threw Thomas buoyant spoons for trout and Daredevil's if I
Speaker 1: happen to be chasing larger freshwater spoon eaters. This explains
Speaker 1: why I never knew that for forty three years, every
Speaker 1: Little Cleo spoon had a dancing, topless woman stamped on
Speaker 1: the back. Andrew sent a photo of a vintage Cleo
Speaker 1: featuring said half naked lady, and I wanted to know more.
Speaker 1: These days, the Little Cleo is produced by Acme Tackle,
Speaker 1: but when they first hit the scene in nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: they were made by Seneca Tackle Company, which was based
Speaker 1: in New York City. The company was started by a
Speaker 1: fella named Charlie Clark, who had already made some money
Speaker 1: as a saw writer and music publisher. As the story goes,
Speaker 1: Charlie had visited a hoochie Coochie club way back in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties and was smitten by one particular exotic
Speaker 1: dancer that went by the name you guessed it, Little Cleo.
Speaker 1: Years later, when the spoon was developed, Clark decided to
Speaker 1: name the lord the Little Cleo because, according to a
Speaker 1: story I found in the Oklahoman, he believed the wiggling
Speaker 1: and dancing of the Lord would bewitch the fish, much
Speaker 1: like Little Cleo's dance had charmed him. The stamped image
Speaker 1: of the real topless Little Cleo had a good run.
Speaker 1: It survived into the ACME Tackle era, which brought Seneca
Speaker 1: Tackle in. She danced into trout, bass and pike mouths
Speaker 1: through the Reagan years, kept charming Walleyes and Stripers while
Speaker 1: George Bush Senior held office and just about made it
Speaker 1: through Bill Clinton's first term. According to my research, in
Speaker 1: a female employee at a major chain retailers all topless
Speaker 1: Little Cleo and got offended. While I couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: exactly which retailer that was, it had to be one
Speaker 1: of the giants like Walmart or maybe Bass Pro, because
Speaker 1: in the interest of not losing that retailer's business, ACME
Speaker 1: took Little Cleo off the Little Cleo citing that she
Speaker 1: was quote a victim of the politically correct nineties. Andrew,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for sending the shot of your vintage
Speaker 1: Cleo and helping me educate myself and our listeners about
Speaker 1: this classic lore. I want to post your photo on Instagram.
Speaker 1: But now, twenty five years after she made waves, I
Speaker 1: find myself wondering do I blur the naughty bits on
Speaker 1: the back of the spoon? Do I let it ride?
Speaker 1: I haven't really decided yet, but the bottom line is
Speaker 1: that naked lady or not, the little Cleo is likely
Speaker 1: to keep seductively wiggling its way into fish jaws for
Speaker 1: decades to come. So that's it for this week listen.
Speaker 1: Instead of a recap, we just want to take a
Speaker 1: minute to bring you guys up to speed on something
Speaker 1: that's kind of long overdue. Right, So, for a while now,
Speaker 1: many of you have been asking for a dedicated listener
Speaker 1: Q and a segment where we answer your questions on
Speaker 1: the show. That's right. So, starting with the first episode
Speaker 1: of Joe and I are going to build in a
Speaker 1: weekly segment dedicated just to answering your questions. And we're
Speaker 1: bringing this up now so we can let some questions
Speaker 1: build in the archives and get this sucker like rolling
Speaker 1: in the new year. Yes, true story. You guys already
Speaker 1: send us some really great questions, right. We get them
Speaker 1: on on Instagram. They come through Bent at the Mediator
Speaker 1: dot com in the email inbox, and we always try
Speaker 1: and answer as many as we can. But here's a chance, um,
Speaker 1: for some of those answers to help fellow degenerates and
Speaker 1: be heard by the masses instead of just a quick
Speaker 1: type of the answer back to you. And of course
Speaker 1: if we use your question on the show, you'll get
Speaker 1: so to that end fire away. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: we've got eyes on those Degenerate Angler Invent Podcast hashtags
Speaker 1: and we're always excited to see the sale bin links,
Speaker 1: bar nominations, awkward photos and the news clips that you
Speaker 1: guys send our way. Yeah, and we'd also be excited
Speaker 1: to see you patch your raft with only the items
Speaker 1: available in the pitssport excuse for a Sporting good section
Speaker 1: at your local target