Speaker 1: I found this whole exercise very instructive and and the
Speaker 1: main thing I learned is that like at least twenty
Speaker 1: percent of our audience is made up of sadists, muskie
Speaker 1: saw aggressive. They attack your trolling though little cherry, garlic,
Speaker 1: hot dog, and it's on piper kind of squirrely. It's
Speaker 1: and it's not the big ones, it's the small ones
Speaker 1: that you have to watch out for. It. It took
Speaker 1: twenty tries for him to finally pop the hook through,
Speaker 1: but we're sixty five off. What choice do I have,
Speaker 1: you know, Good morning, degenerate anglers. Welcome to Ben the
Speaker 1: Fishing Podcast that won't turn ghost white or throw up
Speaker 1: at subway tuna when you bury a four oh treble
Speaker 1: hook in the meat of your hand. I'm Joe Surmelie
Speaker 1: Miles Nulty and I have seen grown men, though never women,
Speaker 1: reduced to quivering sacks of fear and shock at the
Speaker 1: sight of just a little metal cylinder disappearing into flesh.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and you know, I'll I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: you're right about him in too, they handle that much better,
Speaker 1: that much better. Though, there was this one time I
Speaker 1: asked my wife to grab a rod out of my
Speaker 1: roof rack and she put a dog hook in her arm,
Speaker 1: and she cried and screamed obscenities at me. But but
Speaker 1: that was just that one time. To your point, though,
Speaker 1: it is interesting that the hook doesn't even have to
Speaker 1: be in that person's flesh, right, Like I've seen people
Speaker 1: nearly pass out at the sight of someone else like
Speaker 1: catching a hook deep. So, and and quick disclaimer, because
Speaker 1: we're already going there. If you're one of those people
Speaker 1: who get squeamish about hooks and body parts, you might
Speaker 1: wanna you might want to skip this episode. We hope
Speaker 1: you don't, but you might consider. But we want to
Speaker 1: give you the option so we don't make you miserable
Speaker 1: the whole time because we're we're going straight to the
Speaker 1: shank for the next hour or so. I've got a
Speaker 1: handful of really good hook stories that I've collected over
Speaker 1: the years, both removing hooks from other people and from myself.
Speaker 1: But one happens just a few weeks ago, and that's
Speaker 1: that's what inspired this week's theme. Yeah, story time with
Speaker 1: Miles film. I feel I feel like we need, like
Speaker 1: we need to make an intro for these at some point.
Speaker 1: I like that, but If you do that, I vote
Speaker 1: that we should integrate some kind of clip from Mr
Speaker 1: Robinson's neighborhood. Hello boy, the girl off One Man. Eddie
Speaker 1: Murphy was genius on now I mean little Richard Simmons,
Speaker 1: Come on anyway back to your story. No, we're not
Speaker 1: talking Eddie Murphy. No, no, uh so I recently went
Speaker 1: to a like a family reunion at my uncle and
Speaker 1: a's place in northern Wisconsin. We had three generations, which
Speaker 1: was nice. It's I think ages went from two to
Speaker 1: seventy seven. That's a gap, it was a span. It
Speaker 1: was really nice. The it was your quintessential family week
Speaker 1: the lake right, water skiing, grilling, cornhole, water fights, copious cocktails,
Speaker 1: lots of laughing, all the you know. It was. It
Speaker 1: was all the rich human connection that has been just
Speaker 1: totally missing for the past eighteen years, and we tried
Speaker 1: to cram it all into one week. It's also pretty
Speaker 1: much everything you see on Charlie Baron's channel, So it
Speaker 1: was it was very much like, uh, we've been trying
Speaker 1: to get on this show Charlie anytime now, anytime, any time,
Speaker 1: you can come on anytime you want. But the one
Speaker 1: thing we didn't have enough of we just ran out
Speaker 1: of because we tried to cram it all into one
Speaker 1: week was fishing time. So last day of the trip,
Speaker 1: half the family is already gone, my two uncles and
Speaker 1: and these are the men, I should say, who seated
Speaker 1: my love for fishing. These are the guys who baited
Speaker 1: hooks and untangled lines when I was four, you know,
Speaker 1: the ones who nurtured and mentored and just put up
Speaker 1: with me for decades. So these guys insisted, like last day,
Speaker 1: you're about to leave your flying out, we gotta go
Speaker 1: out for a few hours. And I said great, So
Speaker 1: we trail it up and we went over to this
Speaker 1: lake that used to be one of my father's favorites,
Speaker 1: and we headed right to the spot where my dad
Speaker 1: caught his biggest bass ever. And it's the same spot
Speaker 1: where we later scattered his ashes. So it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's like a powerful place show my family. And of course,
Speaker 1: right there, right at that spot, my uncle Jim hooks
Speaker 1: up bam. It wasn't anything noteworthy, right, it was. It
Speaker 1: was like a half pound large still felt significant right
Speaker 1: where it was and what we were doing, what was
Speaker 1: going on, And so I think we experienced as a boat,
Speaker 1: this moment of of profound awe gratitude. It was. It
Speaker 1: was one of those one of those times that brings
Speaker 1: out spiritual feeling. Even if you're not officially spiritual, you
Speaker 1: just kind of get the that that sense inside little
Speaker 1: connection I was talking about. Yeah, And as I was
Speaker 1: basking in that sublime glow, this loud, shocked, oh god, damn,
Speaker 1: it brings out from the bow of the boat. And
Speaker 1: I should say that my uncle Jim is not a
Speaker 1: man who swears casual. He does have quite the arsenal
Speaker 1: of expletives, but he saves them for very special occasions.
Speaker 1: So I look up and I see one of the
Speaker 1: points of the rear treble on the lure that he
Speaker 1: was using, buried in the index finger of his left hand,
Speaker 1: right right next to the fingernail bed, which is a
Speaker 1: very painful place to get. I've had one there. And
Speaker 1: the bass, of course, is still pinned on the front
Speaker 1: trouble with two of the hooks. So I grab a
Speaker 1: set of fliers, I run up and hooked the bass.
Speaker 1: I let it go. Jim looks at his finger and says, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll just have to push that through and
Speaker 1: I'll have you cut the hook And I'm not a
Speaker 1: fan of that. For the record, I don't so I say,
Speaker 1: you know, uncle Jim, there's an easier way. This is
Speaker 1: something I've done many times. I can take that hook out.
Speaker 1: I've taken a lot of hooks out of a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and it will hurt much less. And though
Speaker 1: I am a grown man and have made my living
Speaker 1: in the fishing industry for over a decade, in the
Speaker 1: eyes of my uncle's I'm still kind of a kid.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know, family members. Yeah, you don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. Forty years old.
Speaker 1: You don't know anything. Nothing. And I mean I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say I don't think that I know nothing, but like
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know. Because Jim mel Jim is
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with this, this tactic for hook removal, so he
Speaker 1: was skeptical. I think it's a good way of putting it,
Speaker 1: and so I spent ten minutes explaining what I'm gonna do,
Speaker 1: how it's gonna work, how I've done it before. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to instill confidence, and he finally agrees, all right,
Speaker 1: go ahead and give it a shot. So I cut
Speaker 1: the eighty pound floral bite tippet that I was using
Speaker 1: off and I tied into a perfection loop and I
Speaker 1: snug it up to the bend of the hook, and
Speaker 1: I wrapped the leader around my hand and popped it.
Speaker 1: Everyone work perfectly, Yeah, it usually does. Trouble back right
Speaker 1: out of his ring finger clean went sailing through the air,
Speaker 1: and I had this moment of relief mixed with pride
Speaker 1: having saved the day, improving myself, you know. And and
Speaker 1: the fishing trip is back on, and then the glorious
Speaker 1: arc of this trouble flying out of his left hand
Speaker 1: just comes to this sickening stop somehow, And I really
Speaker 1: don't know how this happened. My uncle Jim managed to
Speaker 1: place his right hand the other hand directly in the
Speaker 1: trajectory of the hook as it was exiting his left.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know how this happened. I literally ripped
Speaker 1: the trouble out of his left hand. It flew through
Speaker 1: the air for several feet and then buried not one
Speaker 1: but two points really deep into his right hand. So
Speaker 1: I just I just throw in that while like the
Speaker 1: odds of that happening are slim, that's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that that happens to me so frequently. I would
Speaker 1: have just been like, yeah, that's about right. I've been like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's perfect. I could not believe it. And the weird
Speaker 1: so that's already weird. But this is another thing I've
Speaker 1: never seen before. He managed to put one hook on
Speaker 1: the trouble into his right forefinger and another hook on
Speaker 1: the same trouble into his right thumb, so his hand
Speaker 1: was like pinned together in this weird, creepy, claw like maneuver.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like it. And of course he
Speaker 1: let out another string of very well earned expletives, and
Speaker 1: then he turned to me and said, I really liked
Speaker 1: your hook removal technique for about a half a second,
Speaker 1: but I'm not so sure about it now, which was fair. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this technique, which I will explain in detail later in
Speaker 1: the show, it works great for removing single hooks. I've
Speaker 1: I have an excellent track record with one hook, but
Speaker 1: when you have two barbed hook from the same trouble
Speaker 1: buried in two different fingers on the same hand, that
Speaker 1: that removal job is just above my pay right, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do that. So sadly we had
Speaker 1: to pull the plug on the fishing trip. After one fish,
Speaker 1: get back to the trailer, take Jim to the e
Speaker 1: r good news. We're all laughing about it by the
Speaker 1: time we hit the ramp, and my uncle's were even
Speaker 1: willing to let me take a few photos and a
Speaker 1: selfie of the incident, which you can see on my instagram.
Speaker 1: If you were into that kind of thing and you're
Speaker 1: not squeamish about blood, yeah, we'll throw it up. I'll
Speaker 1: throw it up in my story this week too. We
Speaker 1: love a good we love a good blood shot. But
Speaker 1: that look, man, that's a pickle. Okay, I'm thinking as
Speaker 1: you're telling the story, I'm thinking on that because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm always trying to avoid leaving the water if possible,
Speaker 1: Like that's the last thing you want to do, right, um, don't.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's hard to say how I would have
Speaker 1: handled that without being there and seeing it. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe I might have made your uncle suffer
Speaker 1: through like one line pole and one push through. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know, like cut cut off the bend of
Speaker 1: of of one of the points, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because separate it. I don't know. It's it's hard to say.
Speaker 1: It's a tough one. It's a dealy of a pickle. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I would have done, just curious
Speaker 1: what kind of lure was it? Well, first, you were
Speaker 1: a sadist for just even saying that. But to answer
Speaker 1: your your question, Hannibal Lecter, it was a full sized
Speaker 1: magic man lipless crank bait from thirteen Fishing. I'm asking
Speaker 1: because there's a difference between trying to do it with
Speaker 1: little trebles on a little something versus like trebles on
Speaker 1: a muskie lore. So it was. It was not a
Speaker 1: muskie plug, it was. It was a bass sized, yeah,
Speaker 1: lipless crank bait and a magic man from thirteen Fishing,
Speaker 1: to be specific. And there are three things that I
Speaker 1: can absolutely attest to about that bait. Number one, bass
Speaker 1: do eat it, seen it happen. Number two, the hooks
Speaker 1: are extremely sharp. Number three the barbs hold very well.
Speaker 1: So we're proud to have thirteen Phishing sponsor the show,
Speaker 1: though for legal reasons, I am compelled to tell you
Speaker 1: that they absolutely do not condone any d i y
Speaker 1: medical advice we may provide, and cannot be held accountable
Speaker 1: for any injuries you sustain as a result of listening
Speaker 1: to the show. Yes, don't listen to us or me.
Speaker 1: At least Miles is smarter. But you should always listen
Speaker 1: to your guide, which is a painful reminder. We're gonna
Speaker 1: drive home with our Smooth Move segment this week. Joining
Speaker 1: us again are good buddy from the North Canada, Jay Siemens.
Speaker 1: Why why did you hanging out with us today? For
Speaker 1: adult story of time? We got Jay Siemens. Jay's a photographer, cinematographer,
Speaker 1: filmmaker and former fishing guide at Wallaston Lake Lodge, which,
Speaker 1: if you don't know, is like Valhalla for big pike fishing. Jay,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming and making some time. Dude. What's good?
Speaker 1: How are you? We're good? Good? Uh? We still ice
Speaker 1: up here. You guys down south are all in the boater, eddie,
Speaker 1: and we can still that's terrible. I'm wearing short span
Speaker 1: and jersey. It's yeah. We got open water here now
Speaker 1: there's not much ice left. Uh. And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know that a lot of people know you're
Speaker 1: responsible with this, but you made a film a few
Speaker 1: years go called Common Thread that I really enjoyed, and
Speaker 1: I'm just curious about, like, where did that project come from?
Speaker 1: How did that all come together well, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I guided at Walston for for seven years, and the
Speaker 1: owner there had had said, let's do a fly fishing film.
Speaker 1: We never really had an idea, but then then eventually
Speaker 1: there's this this woman named Mary, and Mary I used
Speaker 1: to come up to the lodge with her husband, and
Speaker 1: husband passed away, and the question was is Mary gonna
Speaker 1: keep coming to the lodge? What's what's going to happen?
Speaker 1: And She's like, you know what, I'm gonna keep coming
Speaker 1: up without without the guys, I'm gonna come up and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna learn how to fly fish. So this seven
Speaker 1: year old widow learned how to fly fish, and uh,
Speaker 1: kind of just the film tells the story of what
Speaker 1: fly fishing means to her family and her brother and
Speaker 1: kind of how it was just a common thread that
Speaker 1: bound them all together. So I felt very connected because
Speaker 1: I had actually guided them years previously, and then I
Speaker 1: got to come back and film and so it's like
Speaker 1: kind of the best of both worlds there. It came
Speaker 1: together really well, was it was. It was a great storyline,
Speaker 1: great narrative, and and also just fun to watch with
Speaker 1: the big pike and the fishing as as heartwarming as
Speaker 1: that is, we actually brought you here to do the opposite, right.
Speaker 1: That film was all about giving giving credit to someone
Speaker 1: who you guided and and and making them the center
Speaker 1: of a positive story. But you know this is smooth moves,
Speaker 1: So we brought you here to tell a different kind
Speaker 1: of story about your days of guiding. So we're curious,
Speaker 1: what do you got for us? Man? Oh Man, I
Speaker 1: have like way too many that kind of focus on
Speaker 1: focus on me making really dumb moves. And maybe we'll
Speaker 1: save this for a different time. But one one story
Speaker 1: that sticks out of my mind where we're at this
Speaker 1: remote flying pike lake and we were just crushing the pike.
Speaker 1: We pulled into this one cove and I think we've
Speaker 1: probably got this one cove and and this this guest
Speaker 1: it's like, hey man, can I hook the fish? And
Speaker 1: it's like a pretty strict policy. It's like the guy
Speaker 1: touches the fish, No, you're not touching the fish. And
Speaker 1: and this guy just kept hammering me. He's like, Jay, please,
Speaker 1: just I'm fine, Like they're catching doubleheaders and he thought
Speaker 1: he was doing me a favor and I keep telling
Speaker 1: him no, and finally like okay, okay, unhooked the fish.
Speaker 1: The first fish he touches does a thrash, and he's
Speaker 1: got trouble hooks in his hand, and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: you know, and there I am eighteen years old and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to calm down this forty five year old
Speaker 1: man and it's just like just a disaster. So I mean,
Speaker 1: you grab, you grab the hook and luckily it's it's
Speaker 1: barblous hooks up at Walston and you know the key
Speaker 1: is to count to three, but you pull on the
Speaker 1: count too, so he's not expecting it and he got
Speaker 1: the hook out. But that was a pretty good lesson,
Speaker 1: a pretty good lesson for him that I think he
Speaker 1: learned pretty quickly. The guide knows best, you know, even
Speaker 1: even if he is half your age. Well what about
Speaker 1: for you? I mean, he got a lesson there, but
Speaker 1: did you, as an eighteen year old, did you decide?
Speaker 1: Then they're like, I'm never letting client touch a fish
Speaker 1: ever again. It's tough because you tell, you tell yourself
Speaker 1: that's never gonna happen again, and then you let someone
Speaker 1: do it and they lose your trust instantly when they,
Speaker 1: you know, drop a fish or get hooked or whatever
Speaker 1: that might be. But yeah, pipe pip, you're kind of squirrely.
Speaker 1: It's and it's not the big ones, it's the small
Speaker 1: ones that you have to watch out for. It are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're the ones that just start snaking in your hands.
Speaker 1: And my last follow up question is is how did
Speaker 1: how did that particular client respond to the hook removal.
Speaker 1: Was it like a full on fall apart meltdown or
Speaker 1: did he did he take it pretty solid? He was
Speaker 1: good about it. He he went straight back to fishing.
Speaker 1: But I had another guest who put a hook into
Speaker 1: his buddy's head, into the back of the head when
Speaker 1: we were pike fishing. And this was one of my
Speaker 1: least favorite guests and probably seven years of guiding, and
Speaker 1: he just so happened to be the guy that hooked
Speaker 1: the other guy in the head. And it was funny
Speaker 1: because the guy that put the hook that snagged his
Speaker 1: friend in the head, he was the one that freaked
Speaker 1: out more than actually the guy that got hooked. The
Speaker 1: guy that got hooked was calm about it, just holding
Speaker 1: his head, and the guy that hooked him was just
Speaker 1: losing his mind. And the hook went through his hat
Speaker 1: into the back of his head. And the same situation
Speaker 1: had to had to rip it out of his head.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you gotta be prepared for those things. And
Speaker 1: did the guy apologize after you told him not to
Speaker 1: unhook the face? Did he say like, I'm sorry I
Speaker 1: did that. I should have listened to you. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I think the thing is like it it ended. It
Speaker 1: ended fine. We pulled the hook out. I think if
Speaker 1: we were calling for an emergency plane to come in
Speaker 1: and pull us out, it might be a different situation.
Speaker 1: But for him, it was just like, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: back to fishing, and then you know, it is what
Speaker 1: it is. So I have never had to go to
Speaker 1: the hospital to get a hook removed, but probably the
Speaker 1: closest call I ever had, I took a clouser to
Speaker 1: the face years ago and the hook it hit me
Speaker 1: just right in The hook actually ended up up under
Speaker 1: my son, like like it was buried right below my
Speaker 1: eye right. And what made this one also particularly memorable.
Speaker 1: While I will not name names, just suffice it to say,
Speaker 1: a very well known fly caster put it there, and
Speaker 1: I felt way worse for him than myself, Like we
Speaker 1: got that hook out, no problem, right, but it totally
Speaker 1: ruined the rest of the float for him, and I
Speaker 1: had to keep pleading with him the entire it happened
Speaker 1: like first mile of a ten mile float, right, and
Speaker 1: I just had to keep pleading with him, like, dude,
Speaker 1: please snap out of it, like this was not that
Speaker 1: big a deal. This ship happens, it's it's okay, but
Speaker 1: it like ruined him for the rest of the day.
Speaker 1: And we can't say this person's name for a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons, but I am lucky enough to know who
Speaker 1: it is, and I can. I can understand why it
Speaker 1: was in his head because it's sort of like his
Speaker 1: whole identity is being really good casting. I will just
Speaker 1: say this, we were forced by water conditions to use
Speaker 1: really heavy sink tips that day, which he doesn't do,
Speaker 1: like he preferred to never do that, so that was
Speaker 1: also part of it. They're they're all kinds of good reasons,
Speaker 1: but still like I understand why he was uncomfortable. Yes,
Speaker 1: that by for the record, that that the whole thing
Speaker 1: is my nightmare. And that is why I wear the
Speaker 1: wraparound I shield like tight to my face sunglasses all
Speaker 1: the time, Like I can. I can handle a scar
Speaker 1: or two, I can handle some blood. I cannot regrow
Speaker 1: an eyeball. Yeah, I prefer to have both of those.
Speaker 1: Those are those are kind of important and and hopefully
Speaker 1: neither of us will pick up any news cars or
Speaker 1: puncture a cornea in the heat of this week's battle
Speaker 1: of wits, but you never know, it's time for fish news.
Speaker 1: Fish news. That escalated quickly, so I don't really have
Speaker 1: much housekeeping this week, but I would just like to
Speaker 1: say thank you to everyone that wrote in to support
Speaker 1: my claim that dolphins are actually shitty animals. Yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you said dolphins was like hating puppies. Well, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people hate puppies, my friend, I learned.
Speaker 1: I actually I found this whole exercise very instructive and
Speaker 1: and the main thing I learned is that like at
Speaker 1: least twenty percent of our audience is made up of sadists.
Speaker 1: So I'm afraid of most of you, and go on
Speaker 1: with your your puppy and dolphin killing whatever. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: the masses have spoken though, and dolphins are evil. We do.
Speaker 1: We even got an email with a subject line not
Speaker 1: puppies that like, I don't. I don't know, dude, Do
Speaker 1: I smell a dolphins bent shirt down the road? Perhaps
Speaker 1: I do? I will not sign off on that, but
Speaker 1: I'll sign off on it twice. Um. Also, thanks to everyone,
Speaker 1: and I do mean everyone on planet Earth, I think
Speaker 1: for sending me the tuggy sandbox that was turned into
Speaker 1: a go cart, not just do you. I I got
Speaker 1: that one about eighties seven thousand times. It's like that
Speaker 1: was neat and I appreciate you, PLI you you know,
Speaker 1: so got it message received anyway, that's it. That's all.
Speaker 1: That's all I got. So let's we'll get news he here.
Speaker 1: Remember this is a competition, Miles and I do not
Speaker 1: know what stories the other guy is bringing to the table.
Speaker 1: And at the end, our audio engineer, Phil will declare
Speaker 1: a winner. And can I just say, Phil's judgment is
Speaker 1: my favorite part of my own entire show, Like it
Speaker 1: might it might be the best part of this show.
Speaker 1: And it's it's getting out of the most professional part
Speaker 1: of the show. It's getting out of control, but in
Speaker 1: like the best possible way. And every week, every week,
Speaker 1: Whiles and I get to listen to the show before
Speaker 1: it gets posted, and I anticipate Phil's bit like a
Speaker 1: child like hovering at the top of the staircase on
Speaker 1: Christmas morning, what's at the bottom of the staircase this week,
Speaker 1: I don't. Yeah, it's just I love it so much. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it is your leadoff this week for this it is
Speaker 1: so hit me, all right, This first one is is
Speaker 1: really it's a core story for me. And I'll just
Speaker 1: started off by saying, I think public access to phishing
Speaker 1: spots is essential to American fishing. I think it is
Speaker 1: at the core of American fishing. Have to agree and
Speaker 1: and because of that, I consider the public trust doctrine,
Speaker 1: which is shaped water access laws since before the US
Speaker 1: was a country, to be one of the great principles
Speaker 1: of the American ethos. In most cases, we the people
Speaker 1: are allowed to access and utilize our rivers, lakes, and oceans,
Speaker 1: a right and privilege that much the world just doesn't
Speaker 1: enjoy it. They just don't have And all of that
Speaker 1: is a big part of the reason we have such
Speaker 1: a vibrant and diverse fishing culture in this country. But
Speaker 1: that access is not codified in federal law. The rules
Speaker 1: differ between states, so state legislatures and judiciaries have discretion
Speaker 1: in how they interpret and apply the public trust doctrine,
Speaker 1: which has led to the erosion of fishing access in
Speaker 1: some places, one of the major points of divergence affects
Speaker 1: access to rivers and streams without going way off into
Speaker 1: the weeds. A lot of this hinges on how states
Speaker 1: define a navigable body of water and how they recognize
Speaker 1: historic easements. Some states, like Montana, have a broad definition
Speaker 1: of navigability inscribed in the state constitution. If a log
Speaker 1: could have been floated down a river at the time
Speaker 1: of statehood in in Montana, it's therefore navigable. I can't wait. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so long as you can find a parcel public land
Speaker 1: that abuts the river, you can legally walk and fish
Speaker 1: without trespassing if you stay between the traditional high water marks.
Speaker 1: Other states, though, like Wyoming and Colorado and a bunch
Speaker 1: of other ones, have have a different, narrower interpretation of navigability.
Speaker 1: In those states, most stream beds can be privately owned,
Speaker 1: meaning that many rivers and streams can essentially be shut
Speaker 1: off from the public uh In and yet still other states,
Speaker 1: the specifics of who has the right to fish wear
Speaker 1: remains unsettled, which has led to fights over access all
Speaker 1: over the West in recent decades. Landowners, some of them
Speaker 1: very wealthy individuals and often from out of state have
Speaker 1: long been trying to undermine the legality of the Montana
Speaker 1: stream access law. One particular individual, Jim Cox Kennedy, who
Speaker 1: owns a very large vacation home on the Ruby River,
Speaker 1: cloggs the courts with like a near constant stream of
Speaker 1: anti access lawsuits, and those lawsuits work their way up
Speaker 1: the chain and so far have been consistently rebuffed, sometimes
Speaker 1: by the state Supreme Court. Kennedy even unsuccessfully challenged the
Speaker 1: legality of the Montana State Constitution at the U. S
Speaker 1: Supreme Court of Use back and and failed, all in
Speaker 1: an effort to keep the unwashed masses off a stretch
Speaker 1: of river he likes to consider his own. Thankfully, he
Speaker 1: and others like him, washed up Rocker hue Lewis, have
Speaker 1: remained unsuccessful here in Montana, but just south of here,
Speaker 1: in Utah, the fight has been even more pitched up.
Speaker 1: Until a few decades ago, most Utah rivers were treated
Speaker 1: as public resources. People fish them as they wanted, and
Speaker 1: most farmers and ranchers and landowners allowed that to happen
Speaker 1: so long as everyone remained like a bunch of fonzies
Speaker 1: and stayed cool. But in the nineties that all started
Speaker 1: to change as more and more folks wanted to experience
Speaker 1: Utah's exceptional fisheries, and those fisheries began to represent profit
Speaker 1: and value. Landowners started shutting off access to rivers and
Speaker 1: streams and telling anglers they couldn't fish the places they've
Speaker 1: been going their entire lives. Courts began to see a
Speaker 1: consistent parade of cases to determine who had the right
Speaker 1: to what. In two thousand eight, the Utah Supreme Court
Speaker 1: recognized public easement to streams, essentially adopting a similar perspective
Speaker 1: as Montana. Two years later, in two thousand ten, the
Speaker 1: Utah State Legislature passed a bill declaring stream and riverbeds
Speaker 1: private property. That bill privatized fort sent of the total
Speaker 1: fishable rivers and streams in the state. Overnight, floaters, voters,
Speaker 1: and anglers came together to create the Utah Stream Access Coalition,
Speaker 1: and lawyers have been going at it ever since. The
Speaker 1: coalition focus their efforts on two rivers, the Weaber and
Speaker 1: the Provo, hoping to establish precedents that might pave the
Speaker 1: way to open up more rivers and streams. On the Weaber,
Speaker 1: they successfully showed the river had been used to transport
Speaker 1: goods at the time of statehood and therefore definitively met
Speaker 1: the federal definition of navigable. On the provo, that took
Speaker 1: a different tack, bringing a lawsuit against an exclusive resort
Speaker 1: on the Upper River and arguing that Utah's customarily accessed
Speaker 1: those waters prior to statehood and that use represented a
Speaker 1: historic easement. In a district court judge sided with the
Speaker 1: stream Access coalition, and that was heralded as a huge
Speaker 1: win for water access all over the state. Put on appeal,
Speaker 1: the Utah State Supreme Court remanded that case back down
Speaker 1: to district court, and in a bizarre and unnerving twist,
Speaker 1: the very same judge who previously ruled in favor of
Speaker 1: access did a complete one a few weeks ago. That
Speaker 1: judge declared, quote, public use of non navigable riverbeds and
Speaker 1: stream beds in the territory between eighteen fifty one and
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine could not create an easement dictated by
Speaker 1: the law in the late nineteenth century, and with those words,
Speaker 1: Utahn's once again lost the right to fish thousands of
Speaker 1: acres of water. The decision was a crushing blow to
Speaker 1: stream access, not just on the provo but across the state,
Speaker 1: because if the court had upheld that historic use created
Speaker 1: an easement, most of the state's rivers and stream beds
Speaker 1: would have to be defined as public, and that that
Speaker 1: House bill that got passed would be a cent le
Speaker 1: null and void. It's made it easier for everybody to privatize.
Speaker 1: It all went back to private essentially. And and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stop being even mildly journalistic now, not that I
Speaker 1: was really doing a great job before. And I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna go straight up ed because this is horseshit. I'm
Speaker 1: unabashedly pro access, I admit it. That's that's my bias.
Speaker 1: I've written about and advocated for maintaining or expanding water
Speaker 1: access for a lot of my career. The fact that
Speaker 1: wealthy individuals are able to manipulate courts and legislatures in
Speaker 1: order to create legal loopholes that prevent the American people
Speaker 1: from recreating on rivers and streams. It infuriates me, It
Speaker 1: really does. And I am not opposed to private property rights.
Speaker 1: I just think they need to have reasonable limitations for
Speaker 1: the greater good. I get it. I understand that anglers
Speaker 1: can sometimes be shitty stewards of the resource, and I
Speaker 1: sympathize with landowners that have to deal with disrespectful people
Speaker 1: fishing on their property and leaving trash or otherwise acting
Speaker 1: like entitled jerk offs. That behavior is also unacceptable. We
Speaker 1: all have a responsibility to conduct ourselves with the utmost
Speaker 1: care and tact when we're fishing public water, especially when
Speaker 1: those waters cross private property. But shutting down access to
Speaker 1: of a state's flowing fisheries to appease the wealthy class
Speaker 1: is not an appropriate response to bad behavior by a
Speaker 1: minority of the fishing public. That's a wholesale taking of
Speaker 1: public rights and resources. The fact that the same judge
Speaker 1: would completely reverse himself in the same case six years
Speaker 1: later strikes me as deeply shady. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: this is just a depressing outcome for the entire state
Speaker 1: of Utah and all of US American people in general.
Speaker 1: I'm very piste off about this. Yeah, that sounds like
Speaker 1: some kind of kick back there. I hate to say it,
Speaker 1: like some somebody grease to pocket on that one. Um, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm fully on your side, right, and this is
Speaker 1: this is a travesty though, Like you know, you brought
Speaker 1: up nav well waterways things like that. I think part
Speaker 1: of the problem. And and this does not justify measures
Speaker 1: this drastic, but I've even had some some encounters and
Speaker 1: run ins on on private water and I think the
Speaker 1: problem is that so many people think they know what
Speaker 1: the rules are, but they don't actually have any idea
Speaker 1: and just sort of do what they want without paying attention.
Speaker 1: So like navigable waterway. I used to belong to a
Speaker 1: trout club here years ago, um, which I don't anymore,
Speaker 1: but that's neither here nor there, and you'd have people
Speaker 1: sneak in all the time, like you'd see somebody trespass
Speaker 1: or or float through on a kayak and fish, and
Speaker 1: they would get all mouth because they're like, well, you can't.
Speaker 1: This is not this is a navigable waterway. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not. This is a creek that's thirty feet across
Speaker 1: in New Jersey. Same thing with the high water marks.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you are responsible and you understand where
Speaker 1: you can be, that's fine, But I mean so many
Speaker 1: people have that wrong. I've heard people say that here, like, well,
Speaker 1: but of the high water mark, there's no Actually you're wrong,
Speaker 1: that's not the law here. So does that make sense
Speaker 1: that I'm saying, like I think stems too from people
Speaker 1: just assuming they know what's allowed when it's not, and
Speaker 1: and just doing their own thing. Well and and to
Speaker 1: your point, the fact that these laws are piecemeal and
Speaker 1: they're different in every state, and in some states they're
Speaker 1: not even settled. Like I did a whole I worked
Speaker 1: on a very big report about this some years ago
Speaker 1: and really dug deep into the state by state, and
Speaker 1: there are multiple states that really don't even know what
Speaker 1: their definition of navigability is, right. And this is a
Speaker 1: real problem for exactly what you're talking about, because no
Speaker 1: one really knows right like and and if you're maybe
Speaker 1: you are familiar with the law in your state, if
Speaker 1: you cross the border, it's totally different. And this is
Speaker 1: hard for me because I do in many cases believe
Speaker 1: in state autonomy and states rights. But I feel like
Speaker 1: this is a case where we need to standardize this system.
Speaker 1: The problem is that if it gets standardized in the
Speaker 1: wrong way, that I'm gonna be extra piste and and
Speaker 1: I don't want that to happen. So really what I
Speaker 1: want is for them to standardize it according to my
Speaker 1: definition of how it should go, and that's probably not
Speaker 1: gonna happen. No, But navigable gets me all the time.
Speaker 1: I've heard so many people say this is navigable, Like
Speaker 1: do you even know what that means? Well, it's different.
Speaker 1: Navigable in Montana is not navigable in New Jersey. No,
Speaker 1: you're right, But it just rolls off the tongue like, well,
Speaker 1: this is absolutely navigable water we're in right now, Like you,
Speaker 1: you have no idea what you're talking about. Most of
Speaker 1: the time, if I don't just heard that, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: yours to say, I can be here because this is
Speaker 1: navigable water, Like, that doesn't mean you have to be
Speaker 1: able to take a battleship up it, Like that might
Speaker 1: be the definition. Can I dock a battleship here? You know? Um?
Speaker 1: But yeah, dude, I mean that's that's absolutely brutal. And
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of a smooth transition and I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really have one other than this story is
Speaker 1: kind of kind of brutal too. I guess that's that's weak,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna I'm gonna roll on. Um. So, it
Speaker 1: is late summer, right, which means the great white sharks
Speaker 1: are frolicking close to the shore in the Northeast. The
Speaker 1: browns and black tips and hammer heads, they're doing their
Speaker 1: thing inshore in the mid Atlantic, and of course, as
Speaker 1: always their bulls just waiting for the perfect tourist to
Speaker 1: munch in Florida. But none of those species has made
Speaker 1: a move, at least not a newsworthy one recently. So
Speaker 1: if you're craving a harrowing tale rife with blood in
Speaker 1: the water, I suggest you get off the coast and
Speaker 1: let's head over to Lake St. Clair, so per the
Speaker 1: story from Canada's CBC News. The Alex Kintner Award this
Speaker 1: week goes to Matt Gervais. Gervais lives in Windsor, Ontario,
Speaker 1: which is just across the river from Detroit Um and
Speaker 1: he's a pretty accomplished triathlete. So on August he plunged
Speaker 1: into Lake St. Clair with a friend of his to
Speaker 1: make a routine three kilometers swim for the fitness and
Speaker 1: the health. That's that's why I assume, that's why people
Speaker 1: do these things. But he'd only been in the water
Speaker 1: for about five minutes when something latched on to his hand.
Speaker 1: So Gervais said, your mind goes immediately to shark. But
Speaker 1: I still had my wits about me to know that
Speaker 1: was unlikely. So it's actually more like impossible because to
Speaker 1: get there, shark would have to swim up to St.
Speaker 1: Lawrence Rivers, circumvent Niagara Falls via the well and canal
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. And look, I don't
Speaker 1: even actually bring that up to make fun of the
Speaker 1: guy's statement, but just to explain, right, like what a
Speaker 1: shark would have to go through theoretically, because there have
Speaker 1: been hazy reports for decades of bull sharks way up
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River and possibly in the Ohio River. Um,
Speaker 1: but getting to Saint Clair would have been extremely difficult,
Speaker 1: like not happening. So, yeah, you probably guessed it by now.
Speaker 1: We have another muskie attack from Yeah, I did this one.
Speaker 1: So from the piece, looking at the fish through the water,
Speaker 1: he could see its teeth gripping three of his fingers
Speaker 1: and part of his hand. Gervais says it was over quickly.
Speaker 1: He managed to free himself off after about five seconds,
Speaker 1: but his hand was covered in blood and badly injured.
Speaker 1: Swimming on his back with his injured hand in the air,
Speaker 1: he and his friend made it to the shore approximately
Speaker 1: forty five to the break wall of a home on
Speaker 1: Riverside Drive. They climbed a steel ladder to reach the backyard,
Speaker 1: where the homeowner helped clean the wound. So Jervais ended
Speaker 1: up with thirteen stitches in his hand. And and no doubt,
Speaker 1: it's a nasty bright right, Like it's it's not the
Speaker 1: most gruesome thing that I've ever seen, but it's it's
Speaker 1: ugly enough. Like he took a good good it's I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. Yeah, yeah, like he there was some there
Speaker 1: was some tissue damage there for sure. So here's yeah,
Speaker 1: there's stitches. Yes, So here's my cynical takeaway. Right, you
Speaker 1: could not ask for a better bolstering advertisement for St.
Speaker 1: Clair muskie fishing, because let's be honest, right, let's be honest.
Speaker 1: Saint Clair kind of sort of has a reputation is
Speaker 1: the place to go for muskies when you don't want
Speaker 1: to work too hard. And there's there are musky dudes
Speaker 1: right now who are fuming at that statement. And I
Speaker 1: under dan, but like it's it's it's kind of true,
Speaker 1: like I'm extremely musky challenged, right, you know this, lots
Speaker 1: of people know this. I talk about it often and
Speaker 1: time and time again, over and over and over, I hear,
Speaker 1: just go to St. Clair, man, Just go to St. Clair.
Speaker 1: Get it Head off to St. Clair, get it done right,
Speaker 1: because the place is filthy with them almost painting it
Speaker 1: as the place to go if you're musky challenged like me.
Speaker 1: Now again, I'm not saying that there aren't St. Clair
Speaker 1: guys that that fish seriously and put in their time.
Speaker 1: There are, I know some of them, but I also
Speaker 1: know a shipload of people that took their first, second, third,
Speaker 1: and like eighth muskies there in the same day. And
Speaker 1: it's it's often while while trolling. Um. So it's it's
Speaker 1: undeniable that St. Clair's muskie population is huge. And stories
Speaker 1: like this, I don't know, they can easily make you
Speaker 1: think like, well ship they'll just eat anything that that
Speaker 1: hits the water. You know, musky saw aggressive, they attack
Speaker 1: your trolling motive, little cherry garlic hot dog and it's on.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm sorry St Clair Sharpie's I get it.
Speaker 1: But that that is the that is the reputation that
Speaker 1: Lake has. It's true, and and this doesn't dispel any
Speaker 1: of that and all the things. I agree with everything
Speaker 1: you say, but the piece that I took away from
Speaker 1: this did you read the article about this in the
Speaker 1: Windsor Star. Yeah, the one that like made muskie sounds
Speaker 1: super aggro. It might be. It's one of the worst
Speaker 1: pieces of fish journalism I've seen a very long time.
Speaker 1: I just I just want to hit some high points
Speaker 1: for everyone out there, just because to me, this is
Speaker 1: so ridiculous. Here's a line. Uh, local tray athlete and
Speaker 1: endurance sports coach is still recovering after his right hand
Speaker 1: was chumped by a hungry muscle lunge. Now, let's take
Speaker 1: a minute and and think about that statement. What kind
Speaker 1: of an idiot do you have to be to think
Speaker 1: the muskie was attempting to eat a full grown human.
Speaker 1: There was no attempt to consume. It wasn't hungry, it
Speaker 1: was piste off. Let's like basic, basic understanding here, dude,
Speaker 1: you dive in from shore. I bet you he swam
Speaker 1: out on top of a freaking giant weed bed right like,
Speaker 1: I guarantee it was full of milk, foil or spatter
Speaker 1: dock or whatever. And that's just where the muskie lives.
Speaker 1: And you interrupted it. And here's a really really excellent
Speaker 1: piece of this is what this is. This is a
Speaker 1: journalist who just did their research. The piece says, quote,
Speaker 1: muskies in Ontario can grow up to forty inches in
Speaker 1: length and way up to twenty three pounds. I know,
Speaker 1: I saw that. Followed by followed the next paragraph, the
Speaker 1: biggest muski caught in Ontario on record weighed in at
Speaker 1: a whopping sixty pounds. Do you not see like you be?
Speaker 1: They're right next to each other on the page. Do
Speaker 1: you not see how wrong that is? If they only
Speaker 1: grew up to forty in nobody would be musky fishing
Speaker 1: in Ontario. We should go elsewhere. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: this is like journalism one oh one. Yeah, I saw
Speaker 1: this was written by a bot. I don't. I do
Speaker 1: not understand how this got through any editor. It just
Speaker 1: infuriated me. I'm glad you pulled some of this in
Speaker 1: because your spot on with like fourty inches is like
Speaker 1: the bare minimum for me to feel like I actually
Speaker 1: fought a muskie. They grow up to do they? Now?
Speaker 1: That's my fear with fly fishing for muskies, because again
Speaker 1: I haven't achieved that yet, but also it has to
Speaker 1: be I've put forty two inches on it. If it's
Speaker 1: under that, then I still don't feel like I don't
Speaker 1: want to. I can't catch a little tweezer and be like,
Speaker 1: did it. I'm done accomplished that, Like, it's got to
Speaker 1: be at least a real one, and I'd put it
Speaker 1: a couple inches over forty to consider that. So well,
Speaker 1: your bar just keeps getting higher, which is gonna make
Speaker 1: this a more and more difficult thing to achieve. And
Speaker 1: if you're gonna do it at all, you you have
Speaker 1: to try. And I know I was just gonna say
Speaker 1: one step one would be going to do it. So
Speaker 1: you know, as bad as all of those headlines were,
Speaker 1: because there were some bad ones with that, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring up my personal favorite headline of the week.
Speaker 1: And this one comes to us from Live science dot
Speaker 1: com and it was sent by listener Derek Arniston, so
Speaker 1: thanks Derek. The headline reads sexually frustrated sea snakes mistakes
Speaker 1: scuba divers for potential mates. I love that, and I
Speaker 1: took muskie. I'm glad you took this one. I debated.
Speaker 1: I love that title because it actually really does sum
Speaker 1: up the entire article pretty damn well. But as we know,
Speaker 1: I'm not into the whole brevity thing, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give a little more context. In detail, a recently published
Speaker 1: study analyzed hundred and fifty eight interactions between olive sea
Speaker 1: snakes and scuba divers near the Great Barrier Reef. These
Speaker 1: interactions went something like this. A diver would be cruising
Speaker 1: along underwater, checking out the corals and fishes and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, a sea snake would appear,
Speaker 1: coiling itself around the diver's fins and repeatedly licking the
Speaker 1: water all around the diver. When the diver tried to
Speaker 1: relocate away from the coiling licking sea reptile, the snake
Speaker 1: would persistently pursue. While these incidents never resulted in any
Speaker 1: bites or injuries, they were consistent enough to be curious,
Speaker 1: hence the study, and that study found that the majority
Speaker 1: of those interactions took place during sea snake mating season,
Speaker 1: which suggested a correlation between sea snakes sexy time and
Speaker 1: diver harassment. Man they're turned up, they are really turned up.
Speaker 1: When a male sea snake wants to make he performs
Speaker 1: courtship rituals like winding his body around a female snake
Speaker 1: if she flees, which is apparently a common response from
Speaker 1: female sea snakes the male pass her, which and all
Speaker 1: that explains the coiling around divers fins and and following
Speaker 1: them when they try to leave. But here's what I
Speaker 1: don't get why divers right our sea snakes actually mistaking
Speaker 1: human divers or are they just like it's implausible, That
Speaker 1: seems implausible, but but apparently that is what's going on
Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons. One, sea snakes have very
Speaker 1: poor eyesight. They only recently evolved right there there there
Speaker 1: recent evolution from land snakes, and and so their hardware
Speaker 1: that they have is better adapted to out of the water,
Speaker 1: and they just don't see all that well under there.
Speaker 1: But like you're hinting at, that's only part of the answer.
Speaker 1: It seems this is also an act of shall we say, desperation.
Speaker 1: The studies lead author Rick Shine said it's clear that
Speaker 1: most approaches to divers were by males who had lost
Speaker 1: contact with the females they were pursuing. They frantically search
Speaker 1: for a female if they lose touch with her. So
Speaker 1: you've got all these very excited and spurned snakes that
Speaker 1: are searching around everywhere for anything that might give them
Speaker 1: the time of day. And since they can't see very well.
Speaker 1: They're just trying out whatever moves and then using their
Speaker 1: tongues to try and identify the object that they're rubbing
Speaker 1: up against. Another author of the study, Kim Lynch, wrote
Speaker 1: that is likely why tongue flicking was such a commonly
Speaker 1: observed behavior during interactions with divers. They can only really
Speaker 1: confirm that you were not a female snake by licking you,
Speaker 1: and the whole thing. We can just admit that whole
Speaker 1: thing sounds creepy, you know what, very quickly. I just
Speaker 1: watched a great documentary on Woodstock ninety nine and they
Speaker 1: pretty much said the same thing about all the dudes there.
Speaker 1: Season This works is because there are parallels that we
Speaker 1: can all drop to humanity, like for being honest, I
Speaker 1: think I think it's a couple of things to hit olive.
Speaker 1: Sea snakes are venomous and they can be deadly to humans.
Speaker 1: But I think it's important to reiterate there have been
Speaker 1: zero cases where a snake has bitten a diver while
Speaker 1: they're just swimming along. The snakes are very curious and
Speaker 1: pretty tame underwater. The only time people get bit by
Speaker 1: sea snakes is when they're doing something stupid. Like trying
Speaker 1: to handle them. Don't do that, So take away here.
Speaker 1: If you find yourself, you know, in this predicament you're
Speaker 1: diving in the Great Barrier reef. Just never You'll never
Speaker 1: find yourself in this predicament in the United States. You
Speaker 1: have to be there. But if you if you're there,
Speaker 1: just just ignore the snake humping your leg and carry
Speaker 1: on with your dive. He will leave you alone once
Speaker 1: he tastes you. Just don't look at it and make
Speaker 1: eye contact. It will go okay totally. He will taste
Speaker 1: you eventually, and then he'll lose interest. Like I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't even have any good follow up on I
Speaker 1: feel like I said everything I needed to say already. Wow,
Speaker 1: that was a very me story, I feel like. But
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad you grabbed that. I don't think we've
Speaker 1: done a sea snake anything on this show since so
Speaker 1: how appropriate and I actually believe it or not. I
Speaker 1: have a transition, a better one than the last one.
Speaker 1: We'll go from the Great Barrier reef. How about to
Speaker 1: a reef in Lake Erie. Take you back to the
Speaker 1: Great Lakes. There are no sea snakes there, although you
Speaker 1: know land praise um, but this is actually an uplifting one,
Speaker 1: very uplifting news for Lake Erie. Uh and a bunch
Speaker 1: of you find listeners forward to this along and I
Speaker 1: thank you. This comes from w g RZ News and
Speaker 1: according to this story, natural lake trout reproduction has been
Speaker 1: observed in Lake Erie for the first time in sixty years,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a big deal. Okay, So these
Speaker 1: fry were first found by the New York d e C.
Speaker 1: This spring, and they actually trapped them on an offshore reef.
Speaker 1: They were out there looking for suitable lake trout spawning habitats,
Speaker 1: set some traps and they caught these fry, So they
Speaker 1: took some they did some genetic testing and just recently
Speaker 1: confirmed that they are in fact lake trout fry. So,
Speaker 1: historically lakers were the top predator in Lake Erie, but
Speaker 1: commercial fishing started for them, I mean like seventeen hundreds
Speaker 1: way back right there for a long time, and by
Speaker 1: nine they were pretty much done. There were no more
Speaker 1: lake trout and Lake Erie they pretty much got wiped. Now,
Speaker 1: population restoration efforts have been going on for a long time.
Speaker 1: Right back in the early eighties, um they really started
Speaker 1: started bearing down on it. But by then those efforts
Speaker 1: faced a lot of new challenges right by. By then
Speaker 1: there was pollution in Lake Erie. The water wasn't as
Speaker 1: clean as it was in the seventeen hundreds. Um, you
Speaker 1: had those sea land praise which became a big deal,
Speaker 1: and they particularly love to latch on and suck the
Speaker 1: life out of a slow moving, kind of lazy lake trout. Um.
Speaker 1: But there have been all kinds of initiatives happening over
Speaker 1: the last few decades to bring back these fish. So
Speaker 1: this recent finding is sort of like the big win
Speaker 1: various groups have been waiting for for a really long time.
Speaker 1: So here's a quote from DC Commissioner Basil Segos, and
Speaker 1: he said this right after the DC he confirmed that
Speaker 1: those were Lake trout fry. He said, today marks a
Speaker 1: key milestone in the restoration of Lake Trout in Lake area.
Speaker 1: After six decades of significant investments to improve water quality
Speaker 1: and habitat and promote sound fisheries management, this phenomenal Great
Speaker 1: Lake story of recovery is a testament to the perseverance
Speaker 1: of the researchers and biologists from d C and partner
Speaker 1: agencies who have worked tirelessly to help restore this fishery.
Speaker 1: So we both love lake trout. We've talked about it this.
Speaker 1: I know. I'm a big I'm a big lake trout fan.
Speaker 1: I believe you are too. Um And the one thing
Speaker 1: they don't talk about in this story is the incredibly
Speaker 1: stark difference in lake trout populations within a very short
Speaker 1: span of about seven miles. So Lake Erie flows into
Speaker 1: Lake Ontario, right, and it does that via the Niagara River.
Speaker 1: And while the Niagara River isn't very long, you've kind
Speaker 1: of got that whole Niagara Falls thing like right there
Speaker 1: in the middle of it. It's quite the obstruction. It's
Speaker 1: quite the obstruction to to to fish movement, right, but
Speaker 1: from the falls to the mouth of that river and
Speaker 1: throughout all of Lake Ontario, which is just like right there,
Speaker 1: it's like a stone's throwaway from Erie. The Laker population
Speaker 1: is crazy, Like I've fished it um a bunch, and
Speaker 1: the number of fish in Ontario and that river is
Speaker 1: just insane. But what really struck me is that I've
Speaker 1: spent a whole lot of time on Erie, just above
Speaker 1: Niagara Falls, um all over the place really, and it
Speaker 1: never dawned on me until I read this that I've
Speaker 1: never caught a lake trout there right, because there they're
Speaker 1: pretty aggressive fish, right, So if you're on the Lower
Speaker 1: Niagara or Ontario, it's like, yeah, you're targeting salmon, but
Speaker 1: you're gonna get some lakers, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like you're after small mouths, but some lakers throughout the
Speaker 1: day are probably gonna eat that tube. You know, your
Speaker 1: pining steelhead, you're catching lakers. And I've thrown a lot
Speaker 1: of musky lores and drug tubes deep and trolled crawler
Speaker 1: harnesses and RiPP jerk bits all over Lake Erie, and
Speaker 1: this story made me realize, like, wow, I have never
Speaker 1: had a by catch laker they're doing any of that.
Speaker 1: So as a big fan of Lake Trout, this is
Speaker 1: this is really great news and I hope this keeps
Speaker 1: trending in the right direction here. Yeah, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I saw this news and I'm really glad you picked
Speaker 1: it up because it felt like, you know, that's you
Speaker 1: know more about those fisheries than I do. You fished
Speaker 1: them a lot more than I have. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: didn't make the I didn't think about that parallel between
Speaker 1: Ontario and Erie and the difference in those fisheries, because again,
Speaker 1: I just don't know him that well, you take a
Speaker 1: little short highway drive, there's no lake trout and like
Speaker 1: just go right down the road and it's fill you
Speaker 1: with them. But I wonder if you know, as we
Speaker 1: all know, Lake Erie was a biological dead zone in
Speaker 1: the seventies and that never happened to the same extent
Speaker 1: in Ontario, and I wonder if that's the reason for
Speaker 1: the difference in the lake trout population. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it seems like it might be likely that one,
Speaker 1: you know, we all know about Lake Here in the seventies,
Speaker 1: lak here. He still holds that connotation for some people, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can't fish. There's no fish there are now, but
Speaker 1: there didn't used to be, Like fifty years ago, there
Speaker 1: weren't any. The thing you remember that was even when
Speaker 1: eries water was real bad, it all ends up in
Speaker 1: Lake Ontario. It flows Lake Ontario. So I mean, I
Speaker 1: know there's been different efforts and programs to keep the
Speaker 1: lake trout healthy on Ontario, but it is. It is
Speaker 1: stark and they all run the Niagara River to spawn
Speaker 1: by the thousands, so there's there's natural reproduction there. So
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't I don't think we have the answer.
Speaker 1: It's just needs to needs to dig in on this.
Speaker 1: You talk about lake on Lake Erie and Ontario as
Speaker 1: these separate things, but if you know, if you really
Speaker 1: pay attention, dude, they're like right there, Like it's like
Speaker 1: millimeters on a map that separates them. So no, I
Speaker 1: see it, I see it. I just I also know
Speaker 1: them to be very different lake trout fisheries and I
Speaker 1: don't know why so smart people. I mean, right right now, yeah, exam,
Speaker 1: right now, it's just fry. I'm sure those super Aggara
Speaker 1: Walleye will will kill their share of them and they'll
Speaker 1: have to. I'll have to deal with that. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, this could be the road back to serious
Speaker 1: trophy laker fishing on Lake Erie, which I would not
Speaker 1: be sad about. We'll see what. We'll see what Phil
Speaker 1: was sad about or happy about. See who wins. And
Speaker 1: then after that we're gonna do We're gonna do a
Speaker 1: tackle hacks and and do a super deep dive on
Speaker 1: hook removal, which we've been hitting at this whole time.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get down to the nitty gritty to make
Speaker 1: sure you can pop some of those bars out. Your uncle,
Speaker 1: I'm afraid you're gonna have to get off my river.
Speaker 1: What did you say, my river? Get off my river?
Speaker 1: It's mine. You can tell because I spelled my name
Speaker 1: out with pebbles on the bank there it says Huey
Speaker 1: Lewis's River, No trespassing. And you can see there's a
Speaker 1: crudely designed skull and crossbones. They're on the bottom, so
Speaker 1: you know I mean business. Also, Miles is the winner.
Speaker 1: That's a power. Yeah, I'm getting hats coming from inside
Speaker 1: the city the flood. The first time I ever had
Speaker 1: to perform a serious hook removal was my first season
Speaker 1: guiding in Alaska. We were fishing for soak salmon and
Speaker 1: one of the clients snagged a fish right in the flank.
Speaker 1: When the angry ten pound buck took off upstream, the
Speaker 1: two odd shortshank wide gap egg hook popped out of
Speaker 1: its side and came flying right back at my client's face.
Speaker 1: He took it smack in the middle of the soft
Speaker 1: rubbery flesh of his upper lip. I turned to the
Speaker 1: other guy and asked, did you pinchers barb Nope? He responded,
Speaker 1: you nope. Ship. I pulled the spool of the heaviest
Speaker 1: monofilament that I had in my boat bag and cut
Speaker 1: off a section. I told the client to relax, that
Speaker 1: this would be relatively painless and that he had nothing
Speaker 1: to worry about. I didn't tell him that I had
Speaker 1: never actually done this before, because I figured he was
Speaker 1: already freaked out enough. Why pilot. As I prepared to
Speaker 1: remove the hook in the way that I had heard
Speaker 1: was supposed to work, I noticed that the client's legs
Speaker 1: were starting to buckle, so I suggested that he sit
Speaker 1: down while I performed the procedure. He did. I slipped
Speaker 1: the line around the hook, placed my finger where I
Speaker 1: thought it was supposed to go, and yanked hard. To
Speaker 1: my complete surprise, the hook came flying out clean. It
Speaker 1: was as though the lie I had told the client
Speaker 1: had turned into truth, and suddenly I had the confidence
Speaker 1: of a guide who had seen this work dozens of
Speaker 1: times before. As the hook came free, the client went
Speaker 1: into shock. His eyes rolled back into his head, and
Speaker 1: he started convulsing. The rest of the group, which consisted
Speaker 1: of his brothers and father, huddled in a tight circle
Speaker 1: around the client to prevent him falling or hurting himself.
Speaker 1: After a few seconds of shuddering and sputtering, the man's
Speaker 1: eyes popped open. He looked around the tight ring of
Speaker 1: familiar faces looming over him and asked, who's calling the play.
Speaker 1: From that day on, I was a complete believer in
Speaker 1: the mono loop hook removal method, and I have since
Speaker 1: used it to remove many hooks from many people, myself included.
Speaker 1: The idea is to use a section of strong line
Speaker 1: to back the hook and the barb out of the
Speaker 1: same hole that they went into. Here's how it works. First,
Speaker 1: you need heavy monofilament or floral carbon at least forty
Speaker 1: pound test. I do not recommend using braid for this
Speaker 1: cut at least a two foot section of that heavy
Speaker 1: mono and tie a strong loop knot in one end.
Speaker 1: I personally like the perfection loop, but you can use
Speaker 1: any loop knot so long as it does not slip
Speaker 1: under tension. Then do your best to isolate the hook,
Speaker 1: cut the hooker lure off the fishing line it's attached to.
Speaker 1: If the hook is on a lure, cut the split
Speaker 1: ring if you can, and get the lure out of
Speaker 1: the way of the hook. If that's not possible, tie
Speaker 1: a very large loop knot so that you can work
Speaker 1: it all the way over the lure. You want to
Speaker 1: get that loop of heavy mono as far down the
Speaker 1: bend of the hook as possible. You want to get
Speaker 1: it right up where the hook enters the skin. Once
Speaker 1: you've worked that loop of mono down the shank of
Speaker 1: the hook all the way to the skin, you're ready
Speaker 1: for the critical part. Stay calm and keep the person
Speaker 1: with the hook in them calm. If you can't, like,
Speaker 1: remember it's only hook. I mean, yeah, it's painful, but
Speaker 1: no one's gonna die, so just keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: Wind the tag end of the heavy mono around your
Speaker 1: dominant hand enough times that it won't slip no matter
Speaker 1: how hard you pull. Place the index finger of your
Speaker 1: other hand on the eye of the hook and hold
Speaker 1: it steady. This is crucial. Don't move that finger, don't flinch.
Speaker 1: Don't let that hook shank pull up, or bad things
Speaker 1: will happen. Tell the person with the hook stuck in
Speaker 1: them that you're going to count to three. After you
Speaker 1: count to one, yank as hard as humanly possible on
Speaker 1: that mono in the opposite direction that the hook entered
Speaker 1: the skin. Couple of things here. Always try to pull
Speaker 1: when the person isn't expecting it to keep them from flinching.
Speaker 1: Do not give a timid pull. You have to gank
Speaker 1: with everything you've got, and you have to pop that
Speaker 1: bar about on the first try. Make sure that you
Speaker 1: keep your finger on the eye of the hook to
Speaker 1: prevent the shank from lifting, or you'll bury the hook
Speaker 1: point deeper instead of backing it out. This method, it's
Speaker 1: not difficult and it's not complicated. I think the most
Speaker 1: important thing to making this work is confidence. If you
Speaker 1: pull hard enough and keep that shaft from rising up,
Speaker 1: the hook will come out and it will be surprisingly painless.
Speaker 1: You can then bask in the praise and glory when
Speaker 1: the barb leaves flesh and you've saved the fishing day.
Speaker 1: There are a few caveats that I should add first.
Speaker 1: Don't try this if the hook is someplace critical, like
Speaker 1: an eyeball or a vein or a testicle, or if
Speaker 1: the hook looks like it's wrapped around attendant or embedded
Speaker 1: in a bone. Be smart and recognize when something is
Speaker 1: best left to a physician. Second, while this works on
Speaker 1: pretty large hooks, there is a limit to the size barb.
Speaker 1: I will try to extract myself. The biggest I've done
Speaker 1: personally is a four ought, and I'm not sure I
Speaker 1: would go too much bigger than that. Taking a hook deep.
Speaker 1: It's just part of fishing. It's it's a rite of
Speaker 1: passage in some ways. If you fish long enough, you
Speaker 1: will bury one in yourself or someone else. You've You've
Speaker 1: really only got two options. You can debarb all your
Speaker 1: hooks lose a lot of fish, or you can learn
Speaker 1: how to effectively remove barbed hooks from yourself and others.
Speaker 1: That is a totally legitimate way to take hooks out
Speaker 1: of people in a pinch, right I acent. I will say, however,
Speaker 1: that I'm not sure just listening to a podcast segment
Speaker 1: makes anyone an expert on hook removal. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't You don't. I thought I did a good job.
Speaker 1: You don't think that was a sufficient like that that
Speaker 1: my description was not sufficient? No, I just I just
Speaker 1: think medical practices in general require more than just a
Speaker 1: radio edit, Like like I don't want my doctor to
Speaker 1: tell me they've never actually for in this particular procedure,
Speaker 1: but like they heard a guy heard a guy describe
Speaker 1: it once. You know, that doesn't seem like like sufficient
Speaker 1: like preparation to me. I once ended up right true
Speaker 1: story with a heavy gauge treble from a tuna popper
Speaker 1: in me, like like in my side flab, like I
Speaker 1: rubbed up against the rods that were in the vertical
Speaker 1: holders on the center console, right, and I did it
Speaker 1: while I was lunging to the to the to the
Speaker 1: stern to grab a trolling rod that went off and
Speaker 1: I like rubbed up against it, pined me in place.
Speaker 1: Now we're sixty we're sixty five miles off shore, right,
Speaker 1: And the buddies I was with had never done a
Speaker 1: line pole. They never had to take a hook out
Speaker 1: of anyone. So the site of insertion, it was, it
Speaker 1: was too far behind me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like I could reach around and feel it, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't turn around to a blind because yeah, because I've
Speaker 1: done it to myself many lots of times. But there
Speaker 1: was there was no way, right, And and they he
Speaker 1: didn't feel that my description of what to do was
Speaker 1: sufficient prep Like I'm saying, like, no, man, like, look,
Speaker 1: you grab the flab and pull it tight, pull it
Speaker 1: as taught as possible, and you gotta go one to
Speaker 1: three and rip it. And like they just were uncomfortable, right,
Speaker 1: They didn't. They didn't know, so they're like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't feel right about this. Um. And while I'm
Speaker 1: sure your little segment there was was more comprehensive than
Speaker 1: my yelling at them to just wrap the line around
Speaker 1: the hook and pull, I just still don't think it
Speaker 1: qualifies as a hook removal certification course. Um. Like, at
Speaker 1: least watch a YouTube video or two or better yet,
Speaker 1: I've heard that you can you can kind of sort
Speaker 1: of practice this on oranges. Oranges like thee yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like like the skin of an orange is a little
Speaker 1: like human skin, kind of like how they practice they
Speaker 1: practice tattoos on pig skin, right, not the same elasticity,
Speaker 1: but similar density. So you can try putting a few
Speaker 1: hooks and oranges and practicing at least the basics of
Speaker 1: this process before you have to actually do it on
Speaker 1: a squirming, bleeding friend or family member. All right, that
Speaker 1: that I give you That practice is a good idea,
Speaker 1: that sounds that seems sound. I will admit that the
Speaker 1: first time I ever did the line pole was on
Speaker 1: a real, live human and I had to pretend like, oh,
Speaker 1: I've totally done this before, don't worry. Uh, And it worked,
Speaker 1: But it is it is uncomfortable. I think starting with
Speaker 1: fruit might have been a better choice. But back to that,
Speaker 1: what happened on the boat, Like did you just get
Speaker 1: were you just stuck pinned to the console? Like what
Speaker 1: how did that end? Now? So, I mean it was
Speaker 1: kind of it was kind of stupid. They just they
Speaker 1: thought the line pole was a bad idea. They refused
Speaker 1: to do it, and they just felt better about pushing
Speaker 1: it through, like that's what they knew. And because I
Speaker 1: couldn't do it to myself. Oh, I just I was like, well,
Speaker 1: either I'm gonna have a hook and me all day
Speaker 1: or I don't know, go to the hospital later like
Speaker 1: I'm not we're not going in the bite is good.
Speaker 1: Or I'm just gonna have to let him do it.
Speaker 1: And it was brutal. I mean it was just in brutal, dude,
Speaker 1: because it was in such a soft spot of meat
Speaker 1: that like it took twenty tries for him to put
Speaker 1: enough force to finally pop the hook through. But like
Speaker 1: we're sixty five off, what choice do I have? You know? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is truly awful. I've never had to push one
Speaker 1: through or go to the hospital personally, and I hope
Speaker 1: none of our listeners will after listening to this episode either,
Speaker 1: So go back, re listen to that tackle hack. Watch
Speaker 1: some YouTube videos do a few dry runs on poor
Speaker 1: innocent citrus. If you're wondering what kind of hook you
Speaker 1: should practice pulling out of the fruit bowl tonight while
Speaker 1: you rewatch b side Fishing, Joe has the perfect suggestion
Speaker 1: in this week's end of the line, Well that's not
Speaker 1: loud enough, Burt b ten S. Some of you listening
Speaker 1: right now just went, yeah, man, you know it, damn skippy.
Speaker 1: And chances are if you're one of those people that
Speaker 1: understands what others may interpret as a bingo calling or
Speaker 1: a secret launch code, you tie your own flies to
Speaker 1: drill that down even further. I bet you tie your
Speaker 1: own streamers specifically. Perhaps you're even a hashtag streamer junkie.
Speaker 1: I mean I am, and I credit none other than
Speaker 1: Brian Wise of fly Fishing the Ozarks, who has been
Speaker 1: on this show with fueling my early streamer junkiness back
Speaker 1: in the day, or like eight ten years ago something
Speaker 1: like that. It was Brian's tying videos on YouTube that
Speaker 1: opened my eyes to all sorts of streamer patterns I'd
Speaker 1: never heard, ever seen before, and he often tied them
Speaker 1: on Gama Katsu B ten s hooks, so I ordered
Speaker 1: myself a pack in size too and pie Gali. I've
Speaker 1: just never looked back. Now. I understand there are plenty
Speaker 1: of great hook options out there. All the kids are
Speaker 1: digging on the Arax hooks nowadays. You've got your cheese
Speaker 1: and your fire holes and so on, and they all
Speaker 1: make fine products. But I just like the B ten
Speaker 1: s better, and since it's never really been broke, I've
Speaker 1: never really found a reason to fix it. The BA
Speaker 1: ten is classified by Gami as a stinger hook, and
Speaker 1: while some may argue, I call it the best all
Speaker 1: around big fly hook ever made. I buy Size twos
Speaker 1: impacts of one D and without a doubt I tie
Speaker 1: on that particular hook more than any other. Betends have
Speaker 1: a long shank, but not too long. The point also
Speaker 1: doesn't extend as far forward as it would on a
Speaker 1: traditional streamer hook. That point is also angled up, but
Speaker 1: not too much, just slightly closing the gap just a bit,
Speaker 1: making it easier, in my opinion, for fish with slightly
Speaker 1: smaller mouths to still get pinned on the larger flies
Speaker 1: you tie on this hook. These hooks just have like
Speaker 1: the perfect anatomy and their killers of course incorporated into
Speaker 1: a dungeon or a cheech leach, but their use extends
Speaker 1: far beyond meaty streamers. Beat ends are very strong and
Speaker 1: they're also very light, making them my go to for
Speaker 1: small mouth poppers, master splitter mice, and anything else that
Speaker 1: needs to work on the surface. All gamkatsus are corrosion resistance,
Speaker 1: So when I need a hook for a false albacore
Speaker 1: candy or schoolly straper deceiver, guess what it is. It's
Speaker 1: B ten s size too. I even use them for
Speaker 1: both in flies, which is saying something because their mouth
Speaker 1: is hard enough to bend carbide steel, yet I've never
Speaker 1: had one bend out a B tent. Truthfully, I might
Speaker 1: go as far as calling the B ten as the
Speaker 1: greatest all around hook period, well beyond fly fishing, and
Speaker 1: because I kind of buy them in bulk, they kind
Speaker 1: of find their way into my conventional bags as well.
Speaker 1: They're actually my first choice for nose hooking a fluke
Speaker 1: or swim bait because that little bit of extra shank
Speaker 1: length creates I guess what i'd call a sturdy your
Speaker 1: pivot point and to my eye, my plastics wag better
Speaker 1: than they do on a short shank. They're also great
Speaker 1: hooks for fishing delicate live baits like peanut bunker, and
Speaker 1: I've had Mahi mah he's up to twenty pounds do
Speaker 1: their damnedest to get loose after eating one of those
Speaker 1: peanut bunker, and they failed. Most importantly, no matter how
Speaker 1: you use this hook, you can count on it being
Speaker 1: raised a sharp and I can tell you from experience
Speaker 1: those needle points don't really roll over. I've honed a
Speaker 1: few that have dulled, but only after multiple trips, multiple
Speaker 1: rounds of use, and like way too many connections with
Speaker 1: rocks and wood. Now, maybe I'm just biased, but I've
Speaker 1: used a lot of hooks, and I swear the b
Speaker 1: ten as just grabs faster and more often, and when
Speaker 1: they go in, they go in buttery smooth. And I
Speaker 1: know this because I've driven about ten of them through
Speaker 1: my thumb while packing bucktail on the shank without a
Speaker 1: packing tool, and I once had one buried in my
Speaker 1: heel for a solid twenty minutes before realizing it because
Speaker 1: it just went in so clean I didn't even feel it.
Speaker 1: So that's all we have for you in this week's
Speaker 1: Angler e m T Certification course. Remember to always say
Speaker 1: that you're going to count to three, but pull on one.
Speaker 1: Never flinch off the shank, don't grab the pike when
Speaker 1: your guide tells you not to. And oranges provide a
Speaker 1: perfectly acceptable stand in for human flesh in a pinch,
Speaker 1: at least according to Joe. Also, I'd say never trust
Speaker 1: a guy who eats the orange peel garnish out of
Speaker 1: his cocktail, just saying, if you actually try that orange
Speaker 1: trick out or know of a better alternative to mimic
Speaker 1: the human dermists, tell us about it, send an email
Speaker 1: to Bent at the meat Eater dot com. Also, keep
Speaker 1: tagging the good stuff with the Dennered Angler and Bent podcast,
Speaker 1: and if we like what we see, we send you
Speaker 1: good stuff. You might get some stickers, but listen, please
Speaker 1: don't flood us with disgusting pictures of hook stuck in bodies,
Speaker 1: because we already get plenty of those. It's pretty routine.
Speaker 1: And uh, I don't know. We'd much rather see your
Speaker 1: cat or perhaps a nice potted plant. Don't go, don't go,
Speaker 1: says to my life