Speaker 1: Ice fishermen are free at for nine months of the year.
Speaker 1: They're free. It's called open water. I'd say at least
Speaker 1: half the stuff I'm making it's just going to people
Speaker 1: decorating cabins or lake houses and things like that. He
Speaker 1: recently said that cutthroat were the prettiest and everybody was like,
Speaker 1: you need to catch a native brook trout, my friend,
Speaker 1: get out of here with that noise. Go find a
Speaker 1: shed mark Kenyon, Joe, you sweet summer child. Good morning
Speaker 1: to Generate anglers, and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast
Speaker 1: that's getting its side hustle on selling mouse pads featuring
Speaker 1: sunrise and sunset photos we took on our skunk days.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Surmelli, I know that feeling man, and I'm
Speaker 1: made in Samac and I'm here to tell you that
Speaker 1: these are these are exceptional mouse pads. And you know,
Speaker 1: kidding Aside is a former hawker of my creative wares.
Speaker 1: Like three dollar mouse pad is one thing, but if
Speaker 1: you're selling something expensive, right, there is nothing more just
Speaker 1: blood boiling than when an influencer is like, hey, you
Speaker 1: know that stuff that you worked like real hard on
Speaker 1: and it's like really like valuable in that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you give me that for free, I'll shout you
Speaker 1: out to my four followers on Instagram. I hate that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that that does happen a lot, right. And look,
Speaker 1: that's not to say that we don't absolutely love it
Speaker 1: when we get something sent by a listener like we that, um,
Speaker 1: but to actively solicit that sort of thing, um, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of lame. And that's that's another way of saying.
Speaker 1: For the record, just so you guys know, Um, if
Speaker 1: you ever see me or Hayden posts something from a
Speaker 1: listener that somebody made, we did not ask for it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, it's cool. We have
Speaker 1: some cool people out there who are like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: make this. I'd love you guys to check this out.
Speaker 1: And if it's something that we can use and it's cool,
Speaker 1: we're We're always happy to do that and we will
Speaker 1: shout you out, but we certainly don't uh seek, you know,
Speaker 1: makers out and and ask for this stuff. Yeah, can
Speaker 1: I have that sweet decoy. We'll get to that later. Man.
Speaker 1: I own bottom. But that said, I can tell you
Speaker 1: truth from the bottom of my heart. Throughout my entire career,
Speaker 1: I have always tried to use my platforms whatever I
Speaker 1: had going on, whether it was you know, in a
Speaker 1: magazine story or gear round up or podcast or whatever,
Speaker 1: to give exposure to the little guys when I could
Speaker 1: and when appropriate, um, you know to. I have such
Speaker 1: a soft spot for for for people making really good,
Speaker 1: unique stuff and garages and basements and small operations all
Speaker 1: over out there. I love that stuff. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we both like share that similar outlook on the
Speaker 1: bespoke if you will, bespoke be spoke whatever. Uh And
Speaker 1: and as much as like I would like to buy
Speaker 1: all your cool plugs, rods, flies and whatever else you make, uh,
Speaker 1: are seemingly limitless outdoor podcast host money only goes so far.
Speaker 1: And Joe, I think you see exactly where I'm going
Speaker 1: with this. Yeah, you're going to Wendy's tonight because that's
Speaker 1: what you can afford. Uh. No, I to see where
Speaker 1: you're going, and I only elk liver bro. I think
Speaker 1: what you're getting at is we love our fishing, right,
Speaker 1: because you got to talk about I mean we do,
Speaker 1: we do that, that is true, right, we love responses
Speaker 1: in thirteen fishing. But that's not where I'm going with no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. We're going to shout them out a
Speaker 1: little later, as we always do, but the folks we
Speaker 1: want to shout out right now, are you guys listening,
Speaker 1: specifically those of you that have combined your creativity and
Speaker 1: skill with a love of fishing and have found a
Speaker 1: way to make a business out of it. That is correct.
Speaker 1: After a hugely positive response to our like should we
Speaker 1: shouldn't we question last week, we are starting a new
Speaker 1: segment called Makers, where we highlight the folks that you
Speaker 1: know make Now, to be clear, we're not talking about
Speaker 1: showcasing a cool fly you tied or a picture you painted,
Speaker 1: although we are very very proud of you. This Maker
Speaker 1: segment is really meant to, uh, to highlight folks who
Speaker 1: do it at least semi professionally, so like you know
Speaker 1: professional y, yeah exactly, Like maybe it's your main gig,
Speaker 1: but I I certainly know a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are teachers during the day and make some badass rods
Speaker 1: or whatever at night. So that's that's who we're talking about, um,
Speaker 1: And we thought it would just be a great way
Speaker 1: to help bring you guys up and get your names
Speaker 1: out there. And there are so many people deserving of
Speaker 1: just a little bit of highlighting here. Um, But as promised,
Speaker 1: let's highlight what's up with thirteen fishing because that's how
Speaker 1: the podcast gets made around here. Yes, indeed, we recently
Speaker 1: just did a staff ice fishing day out here a
Speaker 1: meat eater, and there were thirteen fishing rods as far
Speaker 1: as the eye could see, there were fifteen thirteen fishing rods.
Speaker 1: To be specific, they sent us what was it? It
Speaker 1: was the It was little Kalon reels on. I think
Speaker 1: the widow Maker rods. I can't I can't remember exactly
Speaker 1: which one they were, but everybody looked cool as hell
Speaker 1: with them. And I am in love with those Kalon reels, man,
Speaker 1: They're so smooth. And to be honest with you, I'm
Speaker 1: just about over ice here, and and you know, I'm
Speaker 1: ready to use the Kalon reels on on the open water.
Speaker 1: And I'm also ready to talk spring and summer with you.
Speaker 1: Joe man, what are you? What are you looking forward
Speaker 1: to using? The most? Uh? Shad Well? I got first
Speaker 1: of all, I got Chad on the brain. That is
Speaker 1: always the first significant thing that like really kicks off
Speaker 1: a fishing season here for me. Um, and I had
Speaker 1: a chance to use thirteen ft Steelhead rods for Chad
Speaker 1: last season. Um and they they are perfect for both
Speaker 1: casting really tiny darts or backtrolling. And you know, Chad
Speaker 1: have a lot of similarities to Steelhead, particularly that they
Speaker 1: they change direction very quickly, so those long whippy rods,
Speaker 1: and that that ability to sort of absorb those those turns.
Speaker 1: Steelhead rods traditionally have made great UM Chad rods, but
Speaker 1: the feet steel head are particularly good. But yes, it
Speaker 1: is warming up here. I'd say three weeks we'll start
Speaker 1: hearing reports of the first shot around here and I'll
Speaker 1: be out there. I have a full disclosure. I have
Speaker 1: never caught one on my first try of the year
Speaker 1: because it's generally too early. I'm just so itchy to go.
Speaker 1: You know. You hear like, oh they were too caught
Speaker 1: down here, and you're like, I'm going, I'm going right now.
Speaker 1: But it usually takes a week or two. But maybe
Speaker 1: that trend will be bucked this season. Maybe first time out,
Speaker 1: I'll get it done. Yeah, I'll tell you what, man, um.
Speaker 1: I let's see what number one. I used to do
Speaker 1: with the same thing with salmon all the time, Like
Speaker 1: you here about one and You're like, it's on No,
Speaker 1: it's not, dude. I would just I would just start
Speaker 1: going up at the end of August, man, just you know,
Speaker 1: to hang out and start getting my uh my sea
Speaker 1: legs under me or my salmon river legs as it.
Speaker 1: Where the other thing, man is. I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be on the East coast a little bit towards the
Speaker 1: end of April May. Oh well, and can still be
Speaker 1: in there. I know when you see them up high,
Speaker 1: there's plenty to do if there if there's not. But
Speaker 1: the last few seasons, surprisingly, man, I've had great shad
Speaker 1: fishing almost up to Memorial Day. So late late late
Speaker 1: May starts to get a little but like there's other
Speaker 1: stuff to do. Late April, that's like primo. Can't be
Speaker 1: late April. My girlfriend and I are planning in a
Speaker 1: Turkey hunt East Coast tours, so you know I might
Speaker 1: have to uh make a little detour um anyhow, Uh well, look, hey,
Speaker 1: I hope the early season Chad works out for you,
Speaker 1: and I love everything thirteammates. But I happen to know
Speaker 1: something that they don't make spearing decoys. That is a
Speaker 1: niche market right there. Niche indeed, mostly by mostly by
Speaker 1: local craftsmen. Yeah, we all see where you're going here,
Speaker 1: so just go ahead and get there already. Let's do
Speaker 1: it alright, folks. Today, in our first ever installment of
Speaker 1: our Makers series, we're talking to a friend of Bent,
Speaker 1: Ryan Ebert, to hear about his obsession with spearing through
Speaker 1: the ice and the decoys he makes to do it.
Speaker 1: Today we're doing our tool time salute was a real
Speaker 1: classic handmade that's a good looking rod. Yeah, well this
Speaker 1: is handmade quality ship we're talking here, all right. So
Speaker 1: joining us today on the Bent podcast is is my
Speaker 1: Instagram buddy and decoy carver extraordinaire, Wisconsin's favorite son, Ryan Ebert,
Speaker 1: now Joe. Before my tenure here on Bent, you and
Speaker 1: the beloved Mr Nolty mentioned Ryan on the podcast because
Speaker 1: he sent you a decoy and he say he sent
Speaker 1: me the greatest deco I've ever gotten. It's they're unbelievable.
Speaker 1: They unbelievable, and that's why his guest number one, have
Speaker 1: you gotten your Pikelope? Yet? I have not gotten a
Speaker 1: pike because Ryan still trying to decide if you're as
Speaker 1: cool as me and mine? Well, uh, since but since
Speaker 1: that faithful day. I've been a big fan of his,
Speaker 1: and while I do not have a pike lobe Joe,
Speaker 1: I do have a cut throat and I do have
Speaker 1: another like working decoy on the way. My my girlfriend
Speaker 1: called her first perch through the ice and it was
Speaker 1: like a big one. So in order to commemorate that,
Speaker 1: I solicited Mr Ebert for a for a replica perch.
Speaker 1: Um I have said to Ryan, Have I not said
Speaker 1: that you could actually just carve fish like in lieu
Speaker 1: of taxidermy. You're good enough to do that, I think
Speaker 1: where that could be another avenue for you, Like we
Speaker 1: have to explain that like these are not like the
Speaker 1: like gift shop decoys, Like your level of detail borders
Speaker 1: on taxidermy. I appreciate that. I don't know, I an
Speaker 1: artist's eyes as worst critic, so I'm not I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm quite at that level, but I get that.
Speaker 1: But I'm telling you they're good. I dude, I sold
Speaker 1: my pike a little for two grand on I think
Speaker 1: I got a commission coming. In addition, in addition to
Speaker 1: his to his decoys, uh, Ryan also does um like
Speaker 1: like a peril and in fact, I own like five
Speaker 1: of his t shirts or I I used to own
Speaker 1: five of his T shirts. Realistically, I'm allowed to hang
Speaker 1: on to one and my girlfriend, Uh, she's stolen the
Speaker 1: other four. Actually, dude, this is a total coincidence. No,
Speaker 1: it's not. He's rolling up a shirt. You got to
Speaker 1: cut some meat shirt on? Yeah, the Pike. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I swear, I swear I did not do that on
Speaker 1: purpose because we scheduled this very last minute. Anyhow, I've
Speaker 1: been a big fan of his. We have folks at
Speaker 1: the office who are a big fan of his. Uh,
Speaker 1: Seth and Chester demanded that I get them both Pike
Speaker 1: Spearing hoodies. Anyway, dude makes a nice shirt. But that's
Speaker 1: not really what he's here to talk with us about. Joe,
Speaker 1: what you want to You want to talk more about
Speaker 1: the decoys? I do. Yeah, So this is our this
Speaker 1: is our first Makers segment, which, by the way, if
Speaker 1: Maker's Mark is listening, is that not perfect? If Maker's
Speaker 1: Mark Whiskey would sponsor the Makers segment here on ben Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it only seemed right to kick this off
Speaker 1: with you, Ryan, because we we've just you know again,
Speaker 1: we have some decoys. We've been following each other on
Speaker 1: the instagrams, and I think decoys are are very interesting,
Speaker 1: right because fair to say, um that while they certainly
Speaker 1: have function, because there's a whole culture people out there
Speaker 1: that actually use them for spearing. They're one of the
Speaker 1: weird things that you can make in the fishing realm
Speaker 1: that also has a whole other life as sort of collectible. Right.
Speaker 1: And also there are people who just make, like make
Speaker 1: these things that are never meant to get used unlike yours,
Speaker 1: that are just like gift shop kitch. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'm curious to talk about, like what what really separates
Speaker 1: one from the other, what makes it? Is there something
Speaker 1: that makes a decoy more functional, uh and ready for
Speaker 1: the hard water than a lot of these things you
Speaker 1: just see people pump out to put at the at
Speaker 1: the gift shop. Yeah, everything that goes into it, I
Speaker 1: mean makes it more functional, from the swim, the type
Speaker 1: of wood, making sure it's properly sealed. Obviously, the price
Speaker 1: level kind of determines if a guy's putting it down
Speaker 1: in the water or putting it on the shelf. Um,
Speaker 1: I'd say at least half the stuff I'm making, it's
Speaker 1: just going to collectors or people decorating cabins or lake
Speaker 1: houses and things like that. Really half of what you make,
Speaker 1: you think it is at least? Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: I do see a slight sim like there's one similarity,
Speaker 1: they're not quite the same. We see that a lot
Speaker 1: in striper lures the guys turning that stuff out here.
Speaker 1: Not so much for decore, but I would say, if
Speaker 1: not more in some cases are bought to hold onto
Speaker 1: like they're never going to see water. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously it doesn't bother you, is the wrong word, because
Speaker 1: you're you're making money, but I assume you would prefer
Speaker 1: to see your decoys actually used on the ice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, every single decoy make even if I know
Speaker 1: it's like ultra decorative and probably never going to see
Speaker 1: the water, I'm still making it the same way. I'm
Speaker 1: using using cedar, I'm stealing it and prim in it
Speaker 1: and uh using spar you earth thing to clear coat
Speaker 1: it and making it to swim. Even though I know
Speaker 1: it's probably not going to go in the water, I'm
Speaker 1: still doing the same process regardless. Well, contributing to that
Speaker 1: statistic of the Ryan Ebert decoys that I own or
Speaker 1: am soon to own, R R and D Decorative that
Speaker 1: cut I had to make a cutthroat decoy. That's just
Speaker 1: like wonderful and that that uh that's it's proudly on
Speaker 1: my on my mantle before and I'm not knocking that.
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure, like, yeah, like they
Speaker 1: are art right. I'm not saying like it's weird to
Speaker 1: have one for decoration. My pikeolobe is decoration. But I
Speaker 1: before we go on, though, I do think we should
Speaker 1: explain just in case you're not familiar with with with
Speaker 1: pike spearing decoys, Ryan, just give us the quick version
Speaker 1: of what these things actually do. Why do you need this? So? Yeah,
Speaker 1: here in Wisconsin are big thing is surgeon spiring because
Speaker 1: we don't really have pike spearing um here, but Michigan, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: North Dakota, a whole bunch of ice belt states all
Speaker 1: have pike spearing. Uh So in the winter months, go out,
Speaker 1: take a dark house, whether it's a permanent shack or
Speaker 1: pop up shack. You cut a big ass hole in
Speaker 1: the ice, usually three ft by four ft um and
Speaker 1: then the decoy is your primary attractant for pike. You know,
Speaker 1: they're just as you guys know, they're just ultra aggressive predators.
Speaker 1: Um So, you're they're generally coming in and either I
Speaker 1: n it up or they're smacking that decoy and biting,
Speaker 1: chopping down on it, and then you're sitting above with
Speaker 1: a spear and and uh, yeah, that's how you get them.
Speaker 1: One question that I have is how did you get
Speaker 1: into making decoys? Like what was the genesis of ryany
Speaker 1: Bert decoit production? Here? So about fifteen years ago I
Speaker 1: got into pike spering through a good buddy I went
Speaker 1: to college with Um. We both went for graphic design,
Speaker 1: so that's where the kind of the peril design comes in.
Speaker 1: His dad was a warden up in Maynett County, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: and he was really big into pike spearing and carbon
Speaker 1: decoys and went up and Um, the very first outing,
Speaker 1: we didn't even see a pike or didn't have any luck. Um,
Speaker 1: but I was just hooked. You know, it's so different.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's more like probably bowl hunting than it
Speaker 1: is fishing. Like you're picking a spot. I mean you're
Speaker 1: not bouncing around like with tip ups or anything. You're
Speaker 1: not covering a big part of lake. You're it's like
Speaker 1: duck hunting out of chimney. I mean, you've got one
Speaker 1: little area, one little area that you're watching and you're
Speaker 1: hoping they come in, and you're just waiting and and
Speaker 1: it can be boring for hours on end, but then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, that five seconds of monster pike
Speaker 1: or any fish coming through, you know, it gets the
Speaker 1: heart pumping and and there's no guarantee a connecting either.
Speaker 1: It's it's not as easy as some guys think. You know,
Speaker 1: you're not just slaying them. So in a similarity to lures,
Speaker 1: right to lure making, like, what's in basic terms, what
Speaker 1: separates in your opinion, um and okay, decoy from a
Speaker 1: great decoy, Because you know, there's to use swim baits
Speaker 1: as an example, there's five swim baits, there's three dollars
Speaker 1: swim baits. They're all in one classification of doing the
Speaker 1: same thing. And you know, like there are people who
Speaker 1: will argue me in some cases with predator fish that
Speaker 1: if he's hungry and interested, like he's gonna eat the
Speaker 1: five dollars swim bait or he's gonna eat the five
Speaker 1: swim bait. But yet I still recognize that that in
Speaker 1: terms of action and what they do, they're obviously nuances.
Speaker 1: So what what in your opinion, should a decoy do
Speaker 1: to make it more potent or more attractive than a
Speaker 1: lesser decoy? What's the difference? The primary thing to swim? Um,
Speaker 1: it should should move forward in the water and make
Speaker 1: a nice slow circle. Uh. There are actually contests and
Speaker 1: classes and um shows that are have contests just for
Speaker 1: that and how the decoy swims in waters will swimming
Speaker 1: in a six foot tank and judge it all upon that. Um.
Speaker 1: From a collector's standpoint, it's all about the name. Um.
Speaker 1: So certain carvers, you know, develop a name or a following,
Speaker 1: and then that really ups the value of those decoys. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We did a news story a while ago that somebody
Speaker 1: unearthed the collection that they had authenticated it. I mean
Speaker 1: they were selling it South of Bees or something like that.
Speaker 1: I mean crazy amounts of money for some of the
Speaker 1: really old, unique stuff, right, Yeah. I think that was
Speaker 1: a Peterson decoy if I remember it correctly. Yeah, something
Speaker 1: like that. Carvers that have passed on, and you know,
Speaker 1: though that's a limited supply, decoys are not obviously anymore
Speaker 1: being added out there, and they get pretty valuable. So
Speaker 1: if you go into a tackle shop in Wisconsin or wherever,
Speaker 1: spearing happens. Are there also sort of stock mass produced
Speaker 1: decoys that you would just find next to everything else
Speaker 1: on the shelves in there. Uh, there's some, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some commercial manufacturers here again here in Wisconsin. Enough
Speaker 1: Pike experience, so you gotta pretty much go up to
Speaker 1: Lake Winnebago and go to any bars or gas stations
Speaker 1: around there, and you'll see him hanan and there, especially
Speaker 1: this time of year with the season just wrapped up yesterday,
Speaker 1: so you'll you'll see guys that make them all around
Speaker 1: the lake. And for sturgeon sparing, they don't care as
Speaker 1: much about the swim, they're just doing. It's generally larger, brighter,
Speaker 1: colorful decoysw I know, um, I know that a lot
Speaker 1: of these decoys, you know, typically run like, you know,
Speaker 1: fifty two hundred and fifty bucks. You know, if if
Speaker 1: you're worker, decoy is like that range. Yeah right, Um,
Speaker 1: I do know an extremely effective decoy that you can
Speaker 1: buy fors and it comes with it comes full of coffee.
Speaker 1: I sent um what Yeah, I sent Chester Floyd Sturgeon
Speaker 1: spearing with a friend of yours, John Murtz, John, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: um he I sent Chester up with a John Murtz
Speaker 1: decoy and he wanted to use it, but the hot
Speaker 1: thing on the lake happened to be styrofoam coffee cups styrofhone,
Speaker 1: it's probably ceramic, Yeah, like a regular coffee mug. Yeah,
Speaker 1: surgeon guys will throw anything down from disco balls, the
Speaker 1: barbie cars. I watched the dude put two duck decoy
Speaker 1: or I think they're kes decoys like back to back
Speaker 1: wrapped around. I mean, they'll just throw anything. A surgeon
Speaker 1: are a big curious dinosaurs, so you're just trying to
Speaker 1: throw stuff at them that they haven't seen before. So
Speaker 1: they're not always swimming traditional decoys on big that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: But the but the pike, because it's more of a
Speaker 1: predatory response. You want those decoys to swim in a
Speaker 1: very particular way, and you want them to be representative
Speaker 1: of something a pike might have, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: a pretty tory reaction to. Yeah. Yeah, generally you want
Speaker 1: them to swim better. But even though if you you
Speaker 1: want to mix it swim styles ones that are fast
Speaker 1: or slow, it makes something that are called like wiggle
Speaker 1: decoys that are finless and they kind of act like
Speaker 1: they're dying. They the islets on the bottom of the belly,
Speaker 1: so when you dig it, it it kind of does like
Speaker 1: a belly flip like a yeah, kind of like a
Speaker 1: big old like flutterspoon. Yeah yeah, yeah, especially on a
Speaker 1: slower day, you're just kind of throwing different stuff at
Speaker 1: him until you see what really gets them going. So
Speaker 1: perhaps a dumb question, right, because I certainly do understand
Speaker 1: the culture behind this fact dumb questions on the Bent podcast.
Speaker 1: H I I've always wanted to try pike spearing, right,
Speaker 1: I've I've never gotten a chance to do that. You
Speaker 1: guys got to open Yeah I should. Yeah, well I've
Speaker 1: been I've been wanting to do that for a while.
Speaker 1: But anyway, does anybody ever I don't know, use like
Speaker 1: a live sucker is a decoy with a couple of
Speaker 1: treble hooks in it, or maybe put some treble hooks
Speaker 1: on their decoy just in case. Every state has different
Speaker 1: obviously regulations. Um, so you can put what's called yeah
Speaker 1: cheater hook on a traditional decoy. Um. And there are guys,
Speaker 1: especially in Minnesota, they like to run a live sucker
Speaker 1: and usually a regular decoy. They'll run two down. Um. Yeah, again,
Speaker 1: anything just to see what's getting them go in that
Speaker 1: particular day. For Sturgeon spiring, you can't run anything with
Speaker 1: a hook and I don't think you can use live
Speaker 1: bait at all. Right, right, right, right, Well we have
Speaker 1: we have a couple of questions. I think we're we're
Speaker 1: aiming to sort of do this for all of our
Speaker 1: our makers segments because I think they I think they work. Um.
Speaker 1: But the first one would be who was your inspiration? Like,
Speaker 1: who did you learn from? Who was the biggest inspiration
Speaker 1: for your work? Yeah? S my buddies Dad that got
Speaker 1: me into it. Um, he's a retired warden. Now he
Speaker 1: definitely got me into the whole Pike sperience and I
Speaker 1: picked his brain starting out, you know, on making decoys
Speaker 1: and Um, Like I said, there's shows that I go
Speaker 1: to and I've met other carvers and just you know,
Speaker 1: gotten tips from everybody, and everybody's got such unique styles.
Speaker 1: And is there a particular carver that you go I
Speaker 1: would like to maybe not make something identical to that,
Speaker 1: but I'm I'm using this dude's process more than others
Speaker 1: as a particular influence, not any particular one. There's definitely
Speaker 1: parts of my process that I can credit to different
Speaker 1: guys that have told me how to cut fins better
Speaker 1: or do like the guilt details better. Um. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's more of a technical influence and an artistic influence. Yeah, definitely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely don't try to copy anybody's style or if
Speaker 1: they do a particular thing that they're known for, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: You're not the bass pro shops of the carving world
Speaker 1: as yourself, right. Next question that we have for you, man, is,
Speaker 1: have you ever in your pursuit of pike decoy perfection
Speaker 1: have you ever like done an experiment it was just
Speaker 1: a total and complete, disastrous like failure, like something that,
Speaker 1: except in this context, you wouldn't want anybody to know
Speaker 1: about share that with people. Real quick utter failures. No,
Speaker 1: but I've had stuff that's really just made me pull
Speaker 1: my hair out. When I make the full size pike lope, man,
Speaker 1: those antlers really mess up my whole waiting process and
Speaker 1: getting it to swim. And I'll spend hours hours on
Speaker 1: one decoy on one full size pike getting it to
Speaker 1: swim paddlefish is the same thing because they got that
Speaker 1: real lawn, you know, nose on them, So that really
Speaker 1: makes the balancing of it super tricky. So but you've
Speaker 1: just brought up something interesting. So even if if I'm
Speaker 1: commissioning you to to make a decoy, that's going to
Speaker 1: be purely for decoration purposes, and you know that you
Speaker 1: are still making sure that thing swims if I wanted
Speaker 1: it to, absolutely, because if it doesn't swim, if I'm
Speaker 1: not making it correctly, it's not a fish decoy. That's
Speaker 1: what separates. That's what that that's what That's what levels
Speaker 1: you up right there is even if it's a decoration,
Speaker 1: it would perform if you needed it too. And I've
Speaker 1: done some like fish plaques, you know, putting mountain on wood,
Speaker 1: so that's purely decoration and and uh yeah that's a
Speaker 1: totally different thing. But yeah, if it's a fish decoy,
Speaker 1: I'm making it to swim. Like said, my whole process
Speaker 1: is the same either way, even if I know it's
Speaker 1: just going on a shelf. You hear that, folks, man,
Speaker 1: When you're buying a Brian Ebert decoy, you're not only
Speaker 1: getting an artistic representation, You're you're getting dedication to craft.
Speaker 1: And well, anyway, well thank you so much for like
Speaker 1: coming and talking to his man do you want to
Speaker 1: you want to tell our listeners where they can find you,
Speaker 1: you know, on social media, and then if they would
Speaker 1: like to buy something from you, where they might find
Speaker 1: you as well. Yeah, primarily my Instagram is where I'm
Speaker 1: sharing all my fish decoys and spear and apparel. So
Speaker 1: that's Ryany Art at Sea is what I saw most
Speaker 1: of my stuff through, which is also Ryany birt art
Speaker 1: Um also the on the board of directors for the
Speaker 1: nat No Fist Decoys Association, and we have a show
Speaker 1: in per Minnesota that's April twenties second, I think that weekend,
Speaker 1: So if guys want to meet me in person, you
Speaker 1: can come to that show and I'll have lots of
Speaker 1: decoys there. Pretty much every then I'm making right now,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of holding and setting aside for that show,
Speaker 1: So there's not much on my let's shop available right now.
Speaker 1: Right on Man, Well, we kicked it off with ice decoys.
Speaker 1: The possibilities are endless. Hayden loremakers, rod makers. Who will
Speaker 1: be next on Makers? Well, I'll tell you what. If
Speaker 1: you think that you are the next maker, what you make,
Speaker 1: we will assess it and then decide No. No email
Speaker 1: email us at bent at the meat Eater dot Com
Speaker 1: with with a little bit of paragraph about you and
Speaker 1: uh in an example of your art and uh hopefully
Speaker 1: you get to be uh you get to be on
Speaker 1: the show soon. What do you think Joe is had
Speaker 1: an appropriate plug there? Very appropriate? All right, thanks Ryan? Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Dude so cool. I love Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ryan stuff is truly outstanding. Um, you should all check
Speaker 1: him out if you haven't already. And while the ice
Speaker 1: is dwindling, I would say in my region, I know
Speaker 1: a lot of you still have good ice. Uh, and
Speaker 1: maybe you're not into spearing, but just hate the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, ice fishing just allows you to kind
Speaker 1: of drop a baitter jigs straight down. Yeah, I cannot
Speaker 1: stand that. It is just horrible. I just feel like, man,
Speaker 1: if this water we're just open, I could cast anywhere
Speaker 1: I wanted to know. Well, trolling thing, Man, don't ruin it.
Speaker 1: Don't ruin it. Because we've got a sail bin item today. Um,
Speaker 1: they can help you out if you just hate the
Speaker 1: fact that ice fishing is kind of a straight up
Speaker 1: and down thing. And this should be fun because I
Speaker 1: already know Hayden and I have different opinions about this item.
Speaker 1: Why did you put the hand pa, You don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm getting. Man, You didn't have to be so
Speaker 1: with me so angry. This Saleman entry comes to us
Speaker 1: from listener Isaac Linz, and it's a it's a weird one, um,
Speaker 1: because he said he saw this on Facebook marketplace, but
Speaker 1: he didn't supply a link to the item. And I
Speaker 1: went on Facebook Marketplace and searched, and I looked for
Speaker 1: it myself and I couldn't find it. But what Isaac
Speaker 1: told us was that after seeing it for sale somewhere
Speaker 1: out there on the uh inner webs, he he ended
Speaker 1: up wanting to dig deeper, and he he looked this
Speaker 1: product up and he found it on YouTube to videos uh.
Speaker 1: And that's what he sent was these two links to
Speaker 1: these videos. And the product is called the bait Transporter. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And now before we start picking this apart, let's just
Speaker 1: like describe this item in the simplest term. The bait
Speaker 1: transporter is it's like a flat wooden like kind of
Speaker 1: like planer board almost with like a point at one end,
Speaker 1: and below it is a motor and dangling from that
Speaker 1: is a downward your release clip. Fifty ft of court
Speaker 1: are connected to the motor, and what you do is
Speaker 1: you attach your fishing line to the release clip, slid
Speaker 1: the bait transporter under the ice, powered up, and off
Speaker 1: a goes carrying whatever lure or a bait you've connected
Speaker 1: fifty ft from the hole you drilled, and once it
Speaker 1: gets the end of the court, it turns and will
Speaker 1: continuously run in a fifty ft circle around your hole.
Speaker 1: Right now, neither of these videos made it clear to me,
Speaker 1: at least if the idea is to take a bait
Speaker 1: out right and then you snap the line out of
Speaker 1: the release clip and your bait falls, or you you
Speaker 1: effectively troll a spoon or a crank bait whatever under
Speaker 1: the ice. That's how they're showing it in action. They
Speaker 1: show this thing pulling a spoon behind it. My guess
Speaker 1: is that it will do both, but I have issues
Speaker 1: with both of those objectives separately, which which we'll get into.
Speaker 1: And just a little bit here. So now that we
Speaker 1: are we have a full understanding of what this product is,
Speaker 1: let's discuss who's selling it. His name is Ed Smith.
Speaker 1: I'm out here on Lake Superior today, beautiful day, or
Speaker 1: just off a little rainbow stream, and I have this
Speaker 1: new sport fishing device, and I'm gonna be using today
Speaker 1: something I invented. It's called a bait transporter. In case
Speaker 1: you're wondering, Yes, all the music and Ed's videos sounds
Speaker 1: like what was playing when the baby whale is finally
Speaker 1: born in Blue Planet is I'm pretty sure it's also
Speaker 1: like the stock of music that they My brother has
Speaker 1: a drone and he makes these drone videos, and I
Speaker 1: think that's the same stock music that they given to
Speaker 1: make the videos with. Very strange anyhow, it seems like
Speaker 1: a good salt of the earth dude. But he is
Speaker 1: also the kind of guy and I think we all
Speaker 1: know or no one that's like a basement tinkerer. Yes,
Speaker 1: Ed is a a mad scientists an engineer of sorts.
Speaker 1: But whereas some folks spend lots of money prototyping, it
Speaker 1: looks like Ed build his prototype or whatever he already
Speaker 1: had laying around the garage. It's like some prototypes I
Speaker 1: developed in high school. Yeah. So the name, even the
Speaker 1: name bait transporter is crudely burned into the wood plank,
Speaker 1: but it tapers at the end. It's like he ran
Speaker 1: out of room, Like you know, when you're writing some
Speaker 1: long ship and you're like, uh, I don't have enough
Speaker 1: room for the E and the R so like bait
Speaker 1: transporter or shrinks away and like it's there's there's barely
Speaker 1: enough room on there. Now underneath the motor that that
Speaker 1: moves this device that provides the thrust, it's just a
Speaker 1: small fish tank water pump, right, So basically it's got
Speaker 1: like a little jet drive going on. And the cord
Speaker 1: is fifty ft of that thick clear cord where you
Speaker 1: can see all the copper wiring inside. And then every
Speaker 1: few feet Ed put foam bobbers on the cord, strung
Speaker 1: bobbers on the cord to ensure that the cord would
Speaker 1: float underneath the ice instead of sinking way. And all
Speaker 1: of this glory uh and power is UH is run
Speaker 1: by a car battery that he has out on the
Speaker 1: ice with him. Yes. And now now, so like the
Speaker 1: case that End makes in his video is that despite
Speaker 1: all the electronics available these modern days, modernized fishermen still
Speaker 1: fish like caveman, meaning like they can only drop a
Speaker 1: lure in like a one ft area I guess on
Speaker 1: like the lake. So I'll let Ed explain what that means.
Speaker 1: This is a picture I drew of the very first
Speaker 1: ice fishure. Yep, he's a cave man over here. I
Speaker 1: have a picture of today's fishermen. He's got a camp
Speaker 1: and he's got a four wheel drive truck and a
Speaker 1: trailer and ice huts with televisions and stereos. There's he's
Speaker 1: got ice tents. He's got fish finders and underwater televisions.
Speaker 1: He's got snow machines. Have you luck here? Don't know
Speaker 1: what set he is doing the same thing as this
Speaker 1: guy over here. So that means since the beginning of time,
Speaker 1: ice fishing has never changed. So if you watch this video,
Speaker 1: he actually draws a caveman fishing and then compares it
Speaker 1: to another drawing of modern ice fishing, and and they're
Speaker 1: like something my kids would have. It's a very potent piece.
Speaker 1: It's very funny. It's very funny. Now Ed claims that
Speaker 1: with his device right, you can fish anywhere within seven
Speaker 1: thousand square feet of the whole and his tagline sort
Speaker 1: of like sort of his his tagline is that this
Speaker 1: device sets ice fishermen free. Now listen, Ed, I do
Speaker 1: appreciate the thought process and the work that went into this,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying that there's no ingenuity. It right,
Speaker 1: it does steer itself in the circle and all that.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was some thought put into this, but
Speaker 1: my gut reaction to the idea of this, this freeing
Speaker 1: of the ice fisherman, even before I get into the logistics,
Speaker 1: are that ice fishermen are free ad for nine months
Speaker 1: of the year. They're free it's called open water. Um.
Speaker 1: I see what he's trying to do here. But isn't
Speaker 1: part of the skill and and fun um of ice
Speaker 1: fishing about being able to you know, first off, go
Speaker 1: wherever you want on the lake on foot, not needing
Speaker 1: a boat, and then you know, finding the perfect spot
Speaker 1: to drill a hole and you're hoping that you're you're
Speaker 1: you're sitting right on top of the fish. Like that's
Speaker 1: just kind of what ice fishing is to me. So
Speaker 1: this this kind of changes the game. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's positively, but you ice fish more than
Speaker 1: I do. So I want to hear your thoughts. Yeah, Joe,
Speaker 1: you sweet summer child man. I think it's okay. So
Speaker 1: is Ed's invention a little hokey? Sure, you know, um,
Speaker 1: but there are things that I like about it, and
Speaker 1: some of the things that I like about it would
Speaker 1: be what you might consider a critique of it, except
Speaker 1: you gotta think about it the right way. So that
Speaker 1: copper line is like really good because my initial thought
Speaker 1: was like, well, why don't you just take like a
Speaker 1: remote control like I'm sure they have some remote control
Speaker 1: submarine or like you know whatever, and just like you know,
Speaker 1: zip it around underneath the ice with like a crank
Speaker 1: bait attached to it. And then I realized that, um,
Speaker 1: steering it back to the whole blindly would be really difficult,
Speaker 1: So like plus one for the giant copper core to
Speaker 1: My next critique was, man, isn't that like a lot
Speaker 1: of like a car battery. Isn't that like a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff to like bring out? And then I thought
Speaker 1: about it for three seconds. I was like, Bro, you
Speaker 1: camp on the ice all the damn time. The amount
Speaker 1: of crap that you bring out there with you, like
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even notice the car battery, So I like that. Um,
Speaker 1: or it's not that I like that, it's just like
Speaker 1: it's a non issue. It's a moot point. Um. My
Speaker 1: other kind of critique is this is basically the ice
Speaker 1: fishing like equivalent, or I guess the terminal tackle equivalent
Speaker 1: of like side scanner compared to your like drop down
Speaker 1: the whole transducer. You know what I mean, Like you're
Speaker 1: you're basically uh as a side scanner amplifies your visible
Speaker 1: area or radar area. The uh what the what the
Speaker 1: hell does he call this thing bait transporter? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: bait transporter increases your your your fishable area in a
Speaker 1: very similar way. Now here are my like here are
Speaker 1: some actual critiques that I have over like number one,
Speaker 1: head godly, man, make the thing look better, Just put
Speaker 1: put some more time into like presentation. Man, it's fine,
Speaker 1: just spray paint the whole thing and just start over
Speaker 1: with a nice graphic. Man, that'll that'll get you so
Speaker 1: much further immediately. Next thing I have like a problem
Speaker 1: with is uh, I'm not sure how fish would react
Speaker 1: to this underwater from the standpoint that everything is like
Speaker 1: kind of lethargic. I don't know exactly how fast this goes,
Speaker 1: but I wonder how effective, like in a a type
Speaker 1: of fishing that demands such a subtle presentation, how effective
Speaker 1: that like trolling at whatever speed might be? So um
Speaker 1: wait wait wait if ed Wards show up and give
Speaker 1: you this would you run out of the ice and
Speaker 1: give her a goal. Would you use this product? Would
Speaker 1: I use this product? Well, if somebody, out of the
Speaker 1: kindness of their hearts is going to send me a
Speaker 1: bait transporter, I would indeed give it a shot. Would
Speaker 1: I bring it every time? No? But one thing that
Speaker 1: I immediately kind of thought of was it might be
Speaker 1: kind of effect to define like cocone e, because they're
Speaker 1: like attracted to like big shiny, like fluttering things. And
Speaker 1: I thought that you might have some utility there. Um, okay, Like,
Speaker 1: do I want to go fish with it? No? Not really, man,
Speaker 1: I will, I will be honest with you, not really,
Speaker 1: But mark my words, I'm gonna call it now. In
Speaker 1: ten years, inside of ten years, there will be a
Speaker 1: product very similar to Ed's bait transporter, and it will
Speaker 1: be widely used by by ice fishermen. And I think
Speaker 1: that it will be widely used in combination with the
Speaker 1: side scan sonar. So there you go. Those are my
Speaker 1: thoughts on it. Yeah, all right, So let me crack
Speaker 1: my neck and crack my knuckles before I begin here.
Speaker 1: So oh god, wait, that's no fair, man. I didn't
Speaker 1: know you were gonna make me do it all at once,
Speaker 1: and then you were gonna like roll overbuttle at me. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I was doing. I wanted to hear your
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear your thoughts first. It is not
Speaker 1: in the notes that that is how this was gonna work. Account.
Speaker 1: I thought I was just offering my thoughts and like, well,
Speaker 1: you got you ice fish more than I do. So
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna bring up some practical things. Great man
Speaker 1: walk walk me into a blind um. All right, So
Speaker 1: for starters, right, the bait transporter has a go pro
Speaker 1: attachment on it facing backwards, which tells me that the
Speaker 1: intention is to troll with it, because why would you
Speaker 1: need to go pro if you're not expecting a fish
Speaker 1: to eat behind it. The first thing that came to
Speaker 1: mind for me was the sound. This has got to
Speaker 1: be making all kinds of sound underwater and you're dragging
Speaker 1: this court around. Is that attractive to fish? But more
Speaker 1: so unless you're targeting like you brought up cocony or
Speaker 1: or even trout. But if it turns out to be
Speaker 1: like pelagic fishing boats where like some of them are
Speaker 1: tuned in frequencies that like the fish end up liking,
Speaker 1: and some of them are just like dead. So you
Speaker 1: have these like bait. I'm not saying it will never work,
Speaker 1: but what sounds really good. Well, what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: if you think about depth. So if you're gonna pull
Speaker 1: a spoon or or jig or crank bit or whatever,
Speaker 1: well that's great if the fish are trying to target
Speaker 1: or swimming one to three feet under the ice. As
Speaker 1: soon as you increase the depth of the loure, like,
Speaker 1: the deeper you try to send it, the less action
Speaker 1: it's going to have with that thing moving in a
Speaker 1: wide circle, like even though that's moving around. The deeper
Speaker 1: you go, the less that's going to translate to to
Speaker 1: the action that the lure is supposed to have. So
Speaker 1: I don't really fully understand. Would be like if you
Speaker 1: were to side scan, right, And a lot of this
Speaker 1: argument contingent is contingent on you having a side scan,
Speaker 1: But it would be interesting to like drive around, get
Speaker 1: it over where you think the fish are, and then
Speaker 1: just like dead stick it. Well, okay, I thought of
Speaker 1: that too. So let's say you legitimately use this thing
Speaker 1: the place a bait or something, and you keep consistently
Speaker 1: getting bit at the eleven o'clock hour on your turn
Speaker 1: fifty ft away from your hole, Think you wouldn't just
Speaker 1: go drill a hole over there instead of dealing with
Speaker 1: wires and cables and stuff. I mean, that could be
Speaker 1: a good That could be a good way to find it,
Speaker 1: because I'll tell you what, in the time that it
Speaker 1: would take you to drill like those sixty holes to
Speaker 1: encompass like a fifty ft sixty or sixty degree radius,
Speaker 1: you can just do that in one turn with the
Speaker 1: handy bait transporter. Okay, now here's another. Here's another thing.
Speaker 1: Let's say let's say the bait transporter does its job
Speaker 1: and like a twenty pound pike comes over and grabs
Speaker 1: whatever you're pulling. You're gonna fight that fish through a
Speaker 1: tiny hole with a tiny rod while you're also dealing
Speaker 1: with fifty feet of cable and a moving object in
Speaker 1: the same hole. Like, dude, how often have you gotten
Speaker 1: tangled just in your transducer that's bobbing right there? So
Speaker 1: I don't see how that doesn't equate two mad tangles. Dude.
Speaker 1: Here here's my argument there, man um. I would say
Speaker 1: that like the one wire that is going down the
Speaker 1: hole in immediately bank in ninety degrees is less in
Speaker 1: the way than my like heavy transduce, sir, that's like
Speaker 1: hanging down three ft below like what I'm fishing. Okay.
Speaker 1: And my last thing was if you're going to use
Speaker 1: this for bait delivery, like to drop a dead bait
Speaker 1: further away from you or something, it doesn't move particularly fast.
Speaker 1: So are you really is it really more efficient to
Speaker 1: keep pulling this thing in by hand dragging all the
Speaker 1: cord in, setting the release clips, sending it back out
Speaker 1: and it goes along real slow? Like is that more
Speaker 1: efficient than just drilling more holes in the area to
Speaker 1: find the fish? To me, I think if it was
Speaker 1: just I think if it was just going out and
Speaker 1: doing one I would agree with you. I'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta send this thing onto it goes out fifty
Speaker 1: yards you know, or fifty ft or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: But because it's like running that circle, I would say that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that is more efficient. I would say definitely takes less time. Well,
Speaker 1: the only thing I will say I I don't agree
Speaker 1: that this is gonna be the next big thing, right,
Speaker 1: And it's not going to be like side scan because
Speaker 1: side scan lets you see to the side, which would
Speaker 1: allow you to move your whole base just on what's
Speaker 1: on your screen from side scan. But I do think
Speaker 1: if there was something here, like you know, we got
Speaker 1: to get to the to the you know, to the Tesla,
Speaker 1: and Edge just built the Ford model A you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, like years and years and years down
Speaker 1: the line. Maybe there's something here that you know, acts
Speaker 1: like a I don't know, a drone that goes one
Speaker 1: way and then just automatically comes home. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I think to make that technology really efficient, um,
Speaker 1: it would be a really expensive item. And I don't
Speaker 1: think your average ice fisherman is gonna go for that.
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna go out hand oger his holes,
Speaker 1: jig up his perch, drinks some beers, and go home.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't see it, but I could be wrong.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Man. Well, the
Speaker 1: president for ice fishing being expensive has already been set.
Speaker 1: You know, our buddy Jay Semans out there with those
Speaker 1: snow bear things dropping down like the six thousand dollar
Speaker 1: side scan total set up. But that's not the average person, dude,
Speaker 1: that's not your average guy. And for something to make it,
Speaker 1: I think the market has to be affordable and a
Speaker 1: lot of people have to want it, right, Like, that's
Speaker 1: not well, you know you know who else is? Uh?
Speaker 1: Is not the average guy? Our buddy Ed. Well, now
Speaker 1: Ed's getting after it. I I give a lot of
Speaker 1: credit to Ed. It's it's not it's not Ed, but
Speaker 1: you know he's He's created something here that I've I
Speaker 1: felt was worth debate. Also, um, we know of it
Speaker 1: because of Isaac. So Isaac, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: sending this. Yes, this was a really fun one. We'll
Speaker 1: put a clip of this product in our Instagram stories
Speaker 1: today so you guys can check it out. And if
Speaker 1: you find something fish or fishing related on your favorite
Speaker 1: online classified, that's just ridiculous. Uh, please keep sending those links.
Speaker 1: Send that link to Bent at the meat eater dot com.
Speaker 1: Do please write in or hit us up and let
Speaker 1: us know what you think of the bait Transporter. I'd
Speaker 1: really cure you say if you guys think it's a
Speaker 1: great idea or not. Again, I'm not trying to take
Speaker 1: anything away from this guy, but come on, it's it's
Speaker 1: a lot going on. It's a lot happening. I think
Speaker 1: you're going to hear that it's genius. Also, if you'd
Speaker 1: like to hear what a winning news report sounds like,
Speaker 1: stay tuned. Is I crushed Joe in this week's installment
Speaker 1: of fish News Fish News that escalated quickly, Hey, real quick,
Speaker 1: just because I forgot to mention it last week. As
Speaker 1: trout season openers approach, Uh, some of you guys that
Speaker 1: have procreated and produced smaller versions of yourself may be
Speaker 1: interested in a in a piece I recently published on
Speaker 1: the meat Eater site about taking your little people trout
Speaker 1: fishing and uh, how to help craft them into better
Speaker 1: trout anglers. Specifically, it was actually a very fun one
Speaker 1: to write. So that's on the meat Eater side. If
Speaker 1: if that does something for you, Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: a meat either. We've been putting out a lot of like, uh,
Speaker 1: the child related content, you know what I'm there's a
Speaker 1: whole book. Steve's got a whole book coming out so
Speaker 1: very much so lately. Um, and it's it's a very
Speaker 1: fun thing to write about if you have the kids. Anyway,
Speaker 1: last week we mentioned that we'd kick off a little
Speaker 1: thing uh in news here called Conservation Minutes at the
Speaker 1: front of news each week as a recap we're doing
Speaker 1: that just because you know, we have limited time here
Speaker 1: every every week with the news um and it's hard
Speaker 1: to cover everything, you know. Yeah, so we just want
Speaker 1: to keep you like kind of posted on what's going on,
Speaker 1: even if we don't have time to like dive into
Speaker 1: it long term, you know, would be like fun man,
Speaker 1: would be a like eventually we could do like a
Speaker 1: like a daily show thing with like an auxiliary corresponding
Speaker 1: like a like a like a reporter or something like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe down the line. I thought, I thought it would
Speaker 1: be funny anyway, So Joe, uh, you're doing the minutes
Speaker 1: this week. Let's let's see what you got. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: A couple of things real quick here. Uh So, for
Speaker 1: the first time since nine, Florida anglers may be able
Speaker 1: to take a goliath group or home for dinner. A
Speaker 1: vote will be made by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Speaker 1: Commission this week on the final version of fishing regulations
Speaker 1: for goliath grouper that was drafted and initially approved in October.
Speaker 1: We covered that story back then, talking about how many
Speaker 1: anglers say, hey, look, there's plenty of them out there,
Speaker 1: so let's do this, and then the scuba industry is
Speaker 1: saying yes, but leave them alone because our clients like
Speaker 1: to look at them. Um. The rules feature a highly
Speaker 1: regulated limited harvest of these fish, which can grow over
Speaker 1: six hundred pounds and eight feet in length. So we'll
Speaker 1: see what happens there. That's a lot of meat. Man,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna kill one, how about a twenty pounder
Speaker 1: six hundred pounds. That's a bit one other thing here,
Speaker 1: so Best Pro Shops owner Johnny Morris is reviving the
Speaker 1: World's Fair of Fishing in Springfield, Missouri this spring. The
Speaker 1: event will showcase two hundred exhibitors representing over fifty manufacturers
Speaker 1: across boating, fishing, and outdoor gear. Um. There will be
Speaker 1: more than five hundred thousand square feet of merchant dice,
Speaker 1: much of it on sale. It reduced prices from boats
Speaker 1: to rods the clothing now. The event expects to bring
Speaker 1: upwards of three hundred thousand people in over the course
Speaker 1: of five days, especially with added incentive though not for me,
Speaker 1: from acts like Dirk Spentley, Luke Bryan, and Hank Williams Jr.
Speaker 1: Hank Hank Williams Jr. I'd watch him. I got cursed
Speaker 1: out by him once I brought that up one fourth
Speaker 1: long story anyway. Yes, we don't have time for that
Speaker 1: right now. But he called me an m r ef
Speaker 1: heer and kicked me off his property. Um. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: brought up that story because Marris, who's big time conservation
Speaker 1: is his earmarked fifty percent of the proceeds from all
Speaker 1: of that, both admissions to the fair and concert tickets
Speaker 1: for outdoor conservation. So if you're in that neck the
Speaker 1: woods and going to that, you are giving back a
Speaker 1: little bit with that one. There you go. Okay, conservation minutes, man,
Speaker 1: You know I hate to make you. I hate to
Speaker 1: make you talk so much. Um, And we got it
Speaker 1: on mind. Yeah, I know you don't mind. We we
Speaker 1: got a figure it out a little bit better. Maybe
Speaker 1: whoever's lead it is, uh, the other person reads the
Speaker 1: conservation minutes. But all that said, Joe, it is your
Speaker 1: lead today. So you're gonna have to keep You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to keep talking what you got for us in
Speaker 1: this week's fish news. Yeah, don't forget the mighty fill.
Speaker 1: Our audio engineers gonna judge this. I don't think Phil
Speaker 1: should should consider conservation minutes. I think that the battle
Speaker 1: still has to range stories and listen ironically. Um. Like
Speaker 1: we said with Conservation Minutes, it's not to say we
Speaker 1: won't cover bigger stories where appropriate. And I actually have
Speaker 1: one that's that's very conservation bent this week. So a
Speaker 1: few listeners sent this along and I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 1: It comes from the website biographic dot com um, and
Speaker 1: it covers an initiative to get rid of brook trout
Speaker 1: in New Mexico. UM. Brook trout are found throughout the
Speaker 1: American West, including in the Rockies, Sierra Nevada, and Cascades.
Speaker 1: But what some people may not realize is that they
Speaker 1: are actually invasive there. Now, if you live east of
Speaker 1: the Mississippi, you know, especially if you grew up in
Speaker 1: the northeast where Hayden and I did, this may come
Speaker 1: as a surprise because brook trout wild and native ones
Speaker 1: especially are kind of a big deal out here, Like
Speaker 1: they're this, Yeah, they're the state fish in Pennsylvania and
Speaker 1: New Jersey were talking earlier, We were talking earlier. Man,
Speaker 1: those are like my favorite things to fish for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, the big deal here, and they're arguably the
Speaker 1: most beautiful trout species. Um. You know, it's against it, well,
Speaker 1: I know, although Mark Kenyan just recently did the six
Speaker 1: Fish Man was listening. I hope, I hope he's listening.
Speaker 1: He recently said that cutthroat were the prettiest, and everybody
Speaker 1: was like, you need to catch brook trout. Mark sounds
Speaker 1: gonna say, get out of here with that noise, Go
Speaker 1: find a shed Mark Kenyon. Anyway, Uh, you know, brookies
Speaker 1: are so intertwined with East and culture and prize that
Speaker 1: it could be hard to imagine them being highly unwanted
Speaker 1: and actually a real pain in the assid elsewhere. Um.
Speaker 1: According to the story, which provides a fascinating history lesson, um,
Speaker 1: just so we understand what's going on the Mississippi River.
Speaker 1: That's the natural barrier that stopped those fish from from
Speaker 1: from getting west, from migrating naturally, and they theoretically could
Speaker 1: have uh through the Mississippi, but it's just too warm.
Speaker 1: So that was like the natural barricade, which means every
Speaker 1: brook trout west of the Mississippi was planted and planning
Speaker 1: was rampant. Hold on, hold on, I'm sorry, I I'm
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in your news story. I in the wintertime,
Speaker 1: like a brook trout couldn't just I mean it could,
Speaker 1: but if you think of Um, where a lot of
Speaker 1: these wild and native brook trout are in comparison to
Speaker 1: the Mississippi. I mean, you'd be talking about fish swimming
Speaker 1: from the headwaters in North Carolina and West Virginia and wherever,
Speaker 1: all the way down to the Big Water, all the
Speaker 1: way to the Ohio River or whatever. I had like
Speaker 1: a totally like childlike conceptualization of what you were talking about,
Speaker 1: know what I am, Like, little cold water estuary going
Speaker 1: right down to the edge of the Mississippi and another
Speaker 1: cold water estuary just right on the other side. No no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no. That's why I'm saying it's theoretically possible
Speaker 1: for them to do that. But last time, no no,
Speaker 1: no no. But I mean, plus, you got to consider predation,
Speaker 1: Like if you're a six inch brookie swimming through the Mississippi,
Speaker 1: something is speaking eating you, you know what I mean. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: planning was rampant during the era when European settlers were
Speaker 1: arriving in the US and droves and as they migrated west.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't know what kind of fish they
Speaker 1: might find out there. They thought it would be a
Speaker 1: good idea to take brookies along. They like trout, They
Speaker 1: know trout, and then is the rail system developed. Um,
Speaker 1: they had special fish cars that were designed just this transport,
Speaker 1: and along the route they would just stop at track
Speaker 1: side lakes and rivers and either offload the fish with
Speaker 1: trucks or just fill milk cans and run them down
Speaker 1: and dump them. Um. It was. It's a really interesting story.
Speaker 1: It said. During this time, during the late nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: what was referred to as acclamization was in vogue. And
Speaker 1: it means that people back then wrongly believed that introducing
Speaker 1: a species improved ecological conditions. Yeah. Yeah, it's like we're
Speaker 1: gonna make that better, right, And it's a great quote
Speaker 1: from the story. It says, as author Kim Todd writes
Speaker 1: in Tinkering with Eden, ponds and lakes, rather than being
Speaker 1: viewed as complex ecosystems, were treated as outdoor aquariums waiting
Speaker 1: to be filled, and says even the Sierra Club, which
Speaker 1: now campaigns against invasive species, was involved back then transplanting
Speaker 1: large numbers of brick trout another trout in the lakes
Speaker 1: and streams along its guided routes through the High Sierra
Speaker 1: so that paying customers could have and all then tick
Speaker 1: Wilderness experience UM. So bottom line, as as pretty as
Speaker 1: wild brookies are, they they're also pretty voracious and they
Speaker 1: outcompete native species for food and habitat, which brings us
Speaker 1: back to this current eradication effort. UM Graduate students from
Speaker 1: the Department of Wildlife and Conservation Ecology have been shocking
Speaker 1: Leandro Creek in New Mexico in an effort to compare
Speaker 1: brook trout numbers to native Rio Grand cutthroats, which are
Speaker 1: one of the most malign trout species um in the country. Today,
Speaker 1: the Rio grands are are found in only ten per
Speaker 1: cent of their historic native range, and brooke brookies and
Speaker 1: Rio grand cutthroats are the only trout that live in
Speaker 1: this tiny stream, and the team was seeing five brookies
Speaker 1: for everyone cutty when they shocked. However, that's most that's yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly right now. However, most of the brook trout good one.
Speaker 1: Most of the brook trout the team captures they are males,
Speaker 1: and that it's because Leandro is the host of an
Speaker 1: ongoing experiment using trojan trout. That is that is that
Speaker 1: like a is that is that a trout condom? Uh? No,
Speaker 1: I think it's playing off the trojan horse. But what
Speaker 1: you're talking about breeding and trojan condoms too, you know, pocketfull,
Speaker 1: pocketfull of trojan I think Prince said, is that where
Speaker 1: trojan condoms. You can research that on your own time.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep going on here. So what is a
Speaker 1: trojan trout? A trojan trout is a lab produced brookie. Um,
Speaker 1: it's that. That's that they are made to carry not one,
Speaker 1: but two copies of UM Y chromosomes that codes maleness,
Speaker 1: So they have no X chromosome to pass on. So
Speaker 1: to break that down, these lab made trojan brookies, they
Speaker 1: can spawn with the female wild female brook trout in
Speaker 1: the stream, but they'll never pass on the chromosomes to
Speaker 1: create more female brook trout. Uh, it sounds like it's
Speaker 1: gonna work. Well, well maybe so. The program has been
Speaker 1: going on since these Trojan brook trout have been implanted
Speaker 1: in several streams across the Vermijo Reserve. However, Um, this
Speaker 1: actually all started way back in two thousand eight when
Speaker 1: fisheries biologist Dan Shield came up with this idea and
Speaker 1: started making brookies at a hatchery in Idaho. I believe
Speaker 1: it was now you said this is gonna work. This
Speaker 1: hasn't been in practice long enough to determine if it will.
Speaker 1: But just to give you an idea, the New Mexico
Speaker 1: streams um first had these Trojan brookies implanted in eighteen.
Speaker 1: By the end of the second spawning season, of the
Speaker 1: fish captured in Leandro Creek were mail and also thirty
Speaker 1: percent of the juveniles captured from test streams in the
Speaker 1: area were the mail offspring of the y y trojan
Speaker 1: brook trout. So the idea, right is that this will
Speaker 1: eventually cause the brookie populations to just burn out because
Speaker 1: there won't be any emails. So you say, will it work?
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the here's the thing. While this process
Speaker 1: takes much longer, it's like a long game deal, it
Speaker 1: could definitely be a better alternative to dealing with invasives
Speaker 1: with things like wrote note right, a chemical They've used
Speaker 1: that in Maine as an example to rid certain systems
Speaker 1: of smallmouth. The problem with with chemically treating, of course,
Speaker 1: is that you risk killing the fish you're trying to
Speaker 1: save to get rid of the ones you don't. But
Speaker 1: you know, all good things take time. Man. I'm actually
Speaker 1: like this story was on like the periphery, Like I
Speaker 1: thought about taking this one. I didn't read all the
Speaker 1: way through it. But this is one of like the
Speaker 1: first um conservation solutions of this ILK where I've like
Speaker 1: heard and be like, oh, that actually sounds like pretty tenable.
Speaker 1: So it makes perfect sense. It's just how long does
Speaker 1: it take to play out? And here's a final note,
Speaker 1: And you're gonna find this interesting because I was blown
Speaker 1: away by this right here. Um. It turns out that
Speaker 1: east of the Mississippi, several states, including Tennessee and North Carolina,
Speaker 1: are also very interested in Trojan trout, ironically to save
Speaker 1: their native brookies, which are being overtaken in many watersheds
Speaker 1: by non native rainbow trout. So we've stopped so many
Speaker 1: rainbows on the East coast that they are actually breeding
Speaker 1: strongly enough in certain areas that little wild rainbows are
Speaker 1: overtaking our prized native brookies. So these states want these
Speaker 1: labs and hatcheries to start creating Trojan wy y rainbows
Speaker 1: for us to put in these mountain trickles in North
Speaker 1: Carolina and West Virginian stuff to get rid of the rainbows. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm genuinely excited about this. Man. You hear this kind
Speaker 1: of story played out with like early you know, I'm
Speaker 1: using quotes wildlife management, you know, particularly like I was
Speaker 1: talking with somebody about this the other day, like wild
Speaker 1: life diplomacy, like uh, like Roosevelt dropped all those elk
Speaker 1: down in New Zealand. You know, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's it's weird that coinciding with the ease of international travel.
Speaker 1: A lot of folks were like, you know what, you know,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a great like gift to uh to
Speaker 1: give to this this country that I'm hoping to build
Speaker 1: relations with an invasive species. Yeah, yeah, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think this is a really fascinating approach. The thing
Speaker 1: is if you're looking at it on this very small scale,
Speaker 1: these small streams, these headwaters in the east and these
Speaker 1: small streams, I mean they're doing this in streams you
Speaker 1: could jump across, right, you know, like Pennsylvania Blue Line
Speaker 1: type of streams. Um, But like, is is this translatable
Speaker 1: to Asian carp to snakeheads? Would it? Eventually? I Mean,
Speaker 1: now you're once you jump into these big systems where
Speaker 1: you're trying to eradicate something in this huge water ship verse,
Speaker 1: seeing how it works just in this one stream first,
Speaker 1: you know, is that viable? But um, I think it's
Speaker 1: a it's a very noteworthy and and and cool study.
Speaker 1: Um I love the idea, but I really did, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it seems like a good way to like manage
Speaker 1: these really delicate ecosystems that are these blue lines and
Speaker 1: these like headwaters. And I remember, you know now on
Speaker 1: the East Coast, one thing that we don't often do
Speaker 1: is you know, it's not like out here in Montana
Speaker 1: where like all the fish are fishing for a wild
Speaker 1: you know, the on the on the East coast. One
Speaker 1: of the I mean I never killed wild fish on
Speaker 1: the East Coast, No, never, um. But one of the
Speaker 1: few wild fish that I did kill was in a
Speaker 1: particularly good brook trout blue line that will remain nameless.
Speaker 1: I had fished it a couple of times, and you
Speaker 1: know it was one of those spots and I've told
Speaker 1: you about this place. You fish it like twice three times,
Speaker 1: you know it's spring or summer, and otherwise you're try
Speaker 1: and keep the pressure on it off it rather but
Speaker 1: you could do like, you know, a bunch of like
Speaker 1: I mean, you can catch all the brook trout you
Speaker 1: wanted out of there and just have a ball. And
Speaker 1: I call it brown trout in there one time. You
Speaker 1: better believe, man, I pulled that thing up and popped
Speaker 1: its gills, and you know, I mean, I ate it.
Speaker 1: But the yeah, I mean, the irony of all this
Speaker 1: is that every most of the things we love are
Speaker 1: theoretically invasive. There's brown trout down the street from you
Speaker 1: in Montana because somebody put them there, you know. So
Speaker 1: I always get a little bit of chuckle out of
Speaker 1: that when I when I see these things. Although in
Speaker 1: this case we're we're at least dealing with true natives.
Speaker 1: Rio grands are true natives. The brook trout out here
Speaker 1: are true natives. Um, But you know, it's it's like
Speaker 1: this is an example of where planting ultimately was a
Speaker 1: bad deal. At the same time, you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are other rivers and New Mexico that are loaded
Speaker 1: with rainbows and browns that people love, but they weren't
Speaker 1: there either. Somebody dumped them too. So it's always like,
Speaker 1: you know, a little like ha ha, say a rainbows
Speaker 1: in Mexico are no no, no, I mean like wild,
Speaker 1: I think, so I don't I I don't know that
Speaker 1: for sure, but I mean they're wild throughout the Rockies,
Speaker 1: and there's Rockies in New Mexico. Are there not? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're not wild on like this side of the
Speaker 1: Rockies because we're east of the Continental Divide here. Like
Speaker 1: I'm listeners, I'm bad at geography, and that's basically what
Speaker 1: I'm asking Joe about, who appears to be equally bad
Speaker 1: at geography. No, you are west of the divide in Bozeman,
Speaker 1: are you not? Now at geography? I leave the East
Speaker 1: coast and I forget that not every river flows north
Speaker 1: to south. So anyway, Um, but yeah, fascinating, Udy, really
Speaker 1: curious to see how that plays out in the long game.
Speaker 1: Please enter your password. You have one unheard message needsborn
Speaker 1: in front of a bitch if you give away one
Speaker 1: of my fish and holes by GEO tagging him on
Speaker 1: social media on the flash of end of message, delete
Speaker 1: press seven, save deleted. Alright, So I hate to do it,
Speaker 1: but we have to talk about something that we'd call,
Speaker 1: um like a major bummer. But take heart that it's
Speaker 1: like being used to avoid major tragedy. Washington State, after
Speaker 1: careful science based consideration, has imposed major restrictions on a
Speaker 1: particularly beloved fishery. Um. I'm going to read a real
Speaker 1: quick section from the official press release put out by
Speaker 1: the w d f W. In an effort to me
Speaker 1: management objectives and provide necessary protection for dwindling wild steelhead populations,
Speaker 1: the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife today announced a
Speaker 1: full closure to all sport fishing throughout the Washington Coast
Speaker 1: and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Uh, dude, I
Speaker 1: know that there's some like steelhead. Dude, like just cringing
Speaker 1: in my pronunciation of that. So it's it's either fuca
Speaker 1: or fuca when it's probably I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: he's gonna say fuca. We have to bleep those now
Speaker 1: that it's a proper anyway. The full closure will take
Speaker 1: effect Tuesday, March one. So this happened on what was
Speaker 1: that Tuesday? Oh? Yes, because it says Tuesday, March one.
Speaker 1: I'm dumb. The closure follows the review of preliminary data
Speaker 1: that suggests the forecasted returns are likely coming back is
Speaker 1: low as thirty percent of what fishery managers expected, foreshadowing
Speaker 1: perhaps the lowest return ever recorded in some rivers. Based
Speaker 1: on historic return timing, most hatchery steelhead runs have ended,
Speaker 1: and the wild steel head returns are more than one
Speaker 1: third of the way complete and and this is like
Speaker 1: a there is an inception quote a quote inside a quote.
Speaker 1: Throughout our conversations with anglers and the broader coastal community,
Speaker 1: we've been upfront about our commitment to designing fisheries that
Speaker 1: meet our conservation objectives, said Kelly Cunningham, w d f
Speaker 1: W Fish Program Director. With this preliminary data in hand
Speaker 1: that now suggest coastal steelhead returns are significantly lower than
Speaker 1: we've expected, we need to take bold, swift actions for
Speaker 1: the future of these runs. Now, yeah, now this is tough,
Speaker 1: and there are multiple sides to what's going down here
Speaker 1: right away, people and I think we gotta say, like
Speaker 1: west Side Steelheader's heart goes out. But I mean, if
Speaker 1: this is what it's going to take to to build back,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are some people who agree with this.
Speaker 1: The same thing has been suggested on the Striper coast,
Speaker 1: like how about we just not fish for them for
Speaker 1: a few years? So, you know, so I feel so
Speaker 1: bad for you guys, but maybe drastic measures. You know,
Speaker 1: right away, people are going to be disappointed, and this
Speaker 1: is going to hurt a bunch of guides who make
Speaker 1: their livelihood pursuing these fish. Um, there is no doubt
Speaker 1: about that. But here's the thing, at least for now,
Speaker 1: it appears it's short term right the forest through the
Speaker 1: trees man um. The fact is steel had been declining
Speaker 1: for at least the last seventy years. A recent study
Speaker 1: titled Historical Records reveal changes to the migration, timing and
Speaker 1: abundance of winter steel head in Olympic Peninsula rivers, Washington State, USA,
Speaker 1: by John R. McMillan, Matthew R. Sloat, Martin Leerman, and
Speaker 1: George Pess discovered as much as a fifty decrease of
Speaker 1: returning steel head in the op the study gets into
Speaker 1: a lot of hard all the facts and much of
Speaker 1: the outlook is, you know, at least on the current trajectory,
Speaker 1: grims not good. Yeah, So historically the runs used to
Speaker 1: begin in It is like a little background on all
Speaker 1: the on all this and this is something that I
Speaker 1: gleaned from the study. Right, So, historically the runs used
Speaker 1: to begin in November, but the runs have been getting
Speaker 1: progressively later. A lot of folks like, don't even get
Speaker 1: a jump on steelhead fishing until, you know, I think
Speaker 1: like January is when a lot of folks consider that
Speaker 1: season to be starting in earnest um. The authors of
Speaker 1: the aforementioned study hypothesized that this is not so much
Speaker 1: the fish as a whole, like simply delaying their return
Speaker 1: to freshwater, or like shifting run timing. Rather, what they
Speaker 1: think that we're witnessing is a shortened run, perhaps having
Speaker 1: lost the early returning steel head in their entirety. So
Speaker 1: rather than like it makes sense because in no migratory
Speaker 1: fishery generally speaking, do all the fish come at one time,
Speaker 1: Like you get this wave and this wave and and so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're saying, so if there you know, to break it
Speaker 1: down like real quick, if there are three waves right,
Speaker 1: one starting in November, one starting in December, and one
Speaker 1: starting in you know, January, February, they're saying that the
Speaker 1: first and second waves are just like not happening, doesn't exist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's not that all these fish have decided to
Speaker 1: move over to the later wave, it's that they no
Speaker 1: longer exist. Now, there's a lot to back this up.
Speaker 1: Historical ledger. The authors discovered detailed runs from nine to
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty that were significantly larger than what some scientists
Speaker 1: even estimated. This is an impact on how we interpret
Speaker 1: the runs we experience today. So we're working with a
Speaker 1: new data set. Up until fairly recently the steel head
Speaker 1: runs on the Olympic Peninsula were continued. We're considered to
Speaker 1: be strong. However, with the new context provided by a larger,
Speaker 1: more complete data set, the level of decline has become pronounced.
Speaker 1: To put simply, there used to be far more steelhead
Speaker 1: than we thought, and we've lost a lot of them.
Speaker 1: So anyway, all all that to say, while being like
Speaker 1: relatively recent in terms of I guess like the broad
Speaker 1: scope of a fishery's history, the steel had have been
Speaker 1: sliding for longer than thought. Um. Now, to get him
Speaker 1: more like local boots on the ground, take by someone
Speaker 1: who is intimately familiar with the OP and the steelhead fishery.
Speaker 1: I reached out to my buddy Lee Geist. Lee's a
Speaker 1: lifelong resident of the OP as well as a member
Speaker 1: of this year's Coastal Steelhead Advisory Committee, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I was, I was like, hey, man, do me a favor,
Speaker 1: give me a quote, And he said, the OP has
Speaker 1: if you have a moment where you're not depressed, please
Speaker 1: give me a call if you if you want to
Speaker 1: come down from the roof. He said, the OPI has
Speaker 1: been in steep decline, and it's no secret. I think
Speaker 1: the way we determine in season runs is not very reliable.
Speaker 1: So the slightest hint of being under escapement, and folks,
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, escapement is the number of
Speaker 1: salmon or steelhead or other anadrumous fish uh that gets
Speaker 1: through the gauntlet of anglers, commercial fisherman and predators to
Speaker 1: reach spawning grounds. So when Lee says under escapement, he's
Speaker 1: saying under objective spawning numbers in essence. Um Anyway, he
Speaker 1: says that I think the way that we determine in
Speaker 1: season run size is not very reliable, so the slightest
Speaker 1: hint of being under escapement requires heavy handed moves by
Speaker 1: the agency. I want to be fishing badly, but it's
Speaker 1: comforting to know that those fish will be unmolested in
Speaker 1: March for the first time in a long time. And
Speaker 1: that's a big deal, um I. And it has come
Speaker 1: back to me that's the end of the least quote.
Speaker 1: I know we all like to blame like the commercial boogeyman,
Speaker 1: but and we talked about this in our Madison River
Speaker 1: conversation a while back. Uh, pressure from recreational anglers in
Speaker 1: the guide community has a real impact. We'd like to
Speaker 1: think that like catch a release fishing is is harmless
Speaker 1: way to like, I don't know, like essentially play with
Speaker 1: a fish. But once it gets beyond a certain scale
Speaker 1: or like a you know, a a Gladwell tipping point,
Speaker 1: it changes fishes patterns and behaviors, including when it comes
Speaker 1: time to spawn. Anyhow, Lee, thank you for the quote. Uh, Joe,
Speaker 1: your thoughts, Well, what you said is is correct. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, if you go back a few decades, Uh,
Speaker 1: we we can talk about um, west side steel compare
Speaker 1: that to East Coast stripers. For the guys out here.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is there we're not as many people
Speaker 1: out recreationally fishing for those fish. Like in all fisheries,
Speaker 1: there has been um an uptick in in pressure. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't care what it is. That's the age
Speaker 1: we live in. It's a social media thing. It's an
Speaker 1: internet thing, you know, so when you know, even to
Speaker 1: compare the two again, even though we're talking about these
Speaker 1: steel had running these massive rivers, super big rivers, long rivers, right,
Speaker 1: they're still in this confined space, which makes them vulnerable. Right,
Speaker 1: they're gonna use certain passages to move up. Guys, figure
Speaker 1: that out, um, you know, versus striper in the ocean.
Speaker 1: But even then you look at something like spawning season here. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, if there's three thousand boats in Raritan Bay
Speaker 1: on a Saturday where they're all spawning verse two hundred
Speaker 1: boats thirty years ago or a hundred boats thirty years ago. Shit, yeah,
Speaker 1: like for anybody to say that, Um, you know, recreational
Speaker 1: fishing for for certain things, um like is no longer
Speaker 1: a factor. In other words, there's always been this attitude
Speaker 1: of like commercial commercial commercial, like recreational guys, the government
Speaker 1: could let us do whatever we want and it's never
Speaker 1: gonna have an impact. Now that's not true. Like, that's
Speaker 1: just you know, false false thinking. Um. There are instances
Speaker 1: where I agree more or less, like, Um, tuna is
Speaker 1: an example. I don't I don't think there's enough people
Speaker 1: with the means to go tuna fishing with the right
Speaker 1: boat and the amount of money, uh for that to
Speaker 1: make much of you know, as much of an impact
Speaker 1: as big commercial operations. So it varies, um, you know,
Speaker 1: a little, little by little, depending on the what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. But I mean, once those steel had getting
Speaker 1: a river, it's just another trout in the stream. So
Speaker 1: you think about your favorite trout stream. Forget about a
Speaker 1: migratory run. If that got pounded, you know, over and
Speaker 1: over again and people were taking fish and harassing fish.
Speaker 1: Like you said, any fishery will adapt to that pressure
Speaker 1: and the fish will behave differently. Um it kind of
Speaker 1: you know. I I won't call him out by name,
Speaker 1: but we recently got a letter from a listener about
Speaker 1: his struggles on the Salmon River in Palaska. That's East
Speaker 1: Side Steel, right manufactured fishery. Dude, having good fishing there
Speaker 1: is harder than it was ten years ago. I don't
Speaker 1: care what anybody says. And that's some of that is
Speaker 1: because of some sort of pitfalls with with runs and
Speaker 1: year classes. But okay, all those fish are still there.
Speaker 1: You can't tell me they're not adapting to pressure. They
Speaker 1: are getting harder to catch than they used to be.
Speaker 1: So um, I think, as painful as this is now,
Speaker 1: I would bet the bulk of the devoted West Side
Speaker 1: steel crew is like you know, like likely said, good,
Speaker 1: give him a frigging break for one season through March
Speaker 1: to just you know, be completely left alone, unmolested, you know,
Speaker 1: no fighting. Because I'm also I'm not an expert, but
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure the further these fish get up the system,
Speaker 1: the further away they get from the coast. They've been
Speaker 1: through damns and an onslaught of this and that and
Speaker 1: the other thing. You know, you catch them up the system,
Speaker 1: now you're you're also fighting a fish that's been through
Speaker 1: a lot of ship So it's very reasonable to say
Speaker 1: that that fish might not have as good of a
Speaker 1: chance to survive or or get to where it needs
Speaker 1: to to spawn. So ultimately, UM, I do think this
Speaker 1: is a good thing, despite it being a bummer right now.
Speaker 1: If I was out there, I would be an advocate
Speaker 1: for this, I would say, good, you know, let's just
Speaker 1: do it anyway. Um, we're gonna hear what Phil has
Speaker 1: to say. What what conservation message he was more into
Speaker 1: this week, since uh, you know, nobody can can can
Speaker 1: mount their their steel head on the west coast, how
Speaker 1: about some tips on the best way to get that
Speaker 1: seven inch native brookie from the ten carra rod to
Speaker 1: a plaque over your mantel. So we're gonna hear from
Speaker 1: Phil and then We're gonna go right to the bent
Speaker 1: helpline and give you some thoughts on that. I normally
Speaker 1: edit the show at home, but today I'm working from
Speaker 1: the office directly across from Hayden Samach, who not only
Speaker 1: tried to write my own fish News judgment jokes, but
Speaker 1: tried to declare himself the winner. Hayden, why do you
Speaker 1: deserve to win win fish News this week? Well, filled,
Speaker 1: because I'm bigger than you, and the winner this week
Speaker 1: is Hayden Samach. What do you laughing at, Martini? You're
Speaker 1: not an idiot, You're not a gamblooning hellboy, You're a fisherman.
Speaker 1: Best what's okay? So today on the bent helpline, Um,
Speaker 1: we have a question from Bradley Dalton. Uh. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if Brad was just interested in what we
Speaker 1: thought or he meant to have this as a submission,
Speaker 1: but he Brad, If you're listening, uh, here's your answer man.
Speaker 1: So his question was, Guys, I'm pretty much a want
Speaker 1: to be angler and have never had a fish mounted.
Speaker 1: But since my understanding is that all fish mounts are
Speaker 1: plastic anyway, why the heck would someone want a plastic
Speaker 1: bath toy? Stuck on the wall. I sure wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to stay at a plastic dear face, but would love
Speaker 1: a monster buck in the man cave. These pictures are
Speaker 1: from Anderson University in South Carolina when I went to college,
Speaker 1: and these are real fish. Bradley is attached three images
Speaker 1: of of skin mounts, old fish, but real fish. If
Speaker 1: they used to do it this way, why not now?
Speaker 1: Thanks Brad Dalton, uh South Carolina. So Brad, Brad, Brad, Brad,
Speaker 1: there's there's a yeah, go ahead. Well, you know, to
Speaker 1: be honest, we I started writing him back. In fact,
Speaker 1: I finished writing him back and then realized that the
Speaker 1: link to tax dermy would make this ideal for our
Speaker 1: Makers themed Bent podcast. We're having this one? Well not well,
Speaker 1: not only would I do that, I'll add to that
Speaker 1: that if we if we as we press on with
Speaker 1: the Maker's deal, there are there is a a skin
Speaker 1: mount taxidermist out there that I absolutely want to have
Speaker 1: on that segment. So this is a good sort of
Speaker 1: lead into what we would talk about there. But I
Speaker 1: think there's no other way to start an answer to
Speaker 1: Brad other than Brad is extremely wrong on many count
Speaker 1: I'm not being rude I'm just being honest. First of all,
Speaker 1: like to call replica taxidermy a bathtub toy plastic is
Speaker 1: extremely false. And also to say that to hint that
Speaker 1: nobody does skin mounts anymore is also very false. There
Speaker 1: so many different options these days. If you want to
Speaker 1: fish on your wall and in the room I'm sitting in,
Speaker 1: I have all of them, so I can speak to this. Okay.
Speaker 1: So the way that I want to answer this, Joe,
Speaker 1: is I want to do like you have a soft
Speaker 1: spot for skin mounts. Yes, I do, I do, but
Speaker 1: but like not like to the exclusion of other things.
Speaker 1: But you like them, I do. Now, I don't dislike
Speaker 1: skin mounts, but I am a proponent of the fiberglass mounts,
Speaker 1: and and we'll and we'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker 1: So why don't you start off talking about the skin
Speaker 1: mounts and then I'll pick it up with the fiberglass replicas.
Speaker 1: What do you think? Yeah, I mean that that's well,
Speaker 1: I I yeah, But I can't do that exclusively because
Speaker 1: it's not a you're the replica guy and I'm the
Speaker 1: skin mount guy. It's it's totally case by case. And
Speaker 1: I am certainly a huge fan of replica amounts. That's
Speaker 1: mostly what I have. But I think, um, first of all,
Speaker 1: they're fiberglass, not plastic. That's neither here nor there. The
Speaker 1: bad reputation that replica mounts get, right, it is from
Speaker 1: the fact that you can get them from a bunch
Speaker 1: of different sources. And I am here to tell you
Speaker 1: if you catch a fish, or for that matter, shoot
Speaker 1: a shoot an animal, deer, elk, whatever, and like you
Speaker 1: really want that thing on your wall, that is not
Speaker 1: the time to pinch pennies. Like there is no such
Speaker 1: thing as budget taxidermy. I don't care whether it's skin
Speaker 1: or replica or what. So, yeah, I mean just to
Speaker 1: use um. I'm looking right now. The first bass stripe
Speaker 1: bass I ever call it, that was that was broke
Speaker 1: forty pounds. I had a replica mount made. I had
Speaker 1: that made by a small time operator in Philadelphia who
Speaker 1: was own throughout the area for his detailed paint work.
Speaker 1: So even though it was a replica, right, his paint
Speaker 1: work is phenomenal. I love So, I love how I
Speaker 1: ted you up to talk about skin mounts and instead
Speaker 1: you've just like totally trodden over all the replica arguments
Speaker 1: to make. But I'm getting Well, that's too bad. You
Speaker 1: let me speak first. This is the always always, but
Speaker 1: I can't I can't talk skin without without explaining this. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's a it's a beautiful replica mount. Likewise,
Speaker 1: you catch a forty pound bass and you only want
Speaker 1: to spend a couple of hundred bucks, you can get
Speaker 1: a mount out of Florida. There are are like King
Speaker 1: Sailfish mounts, Grace tax Redermy, they make exquisite replica mounts.
Speaker 1: There are clearing houses that will knock out a forty
Speaker 1: pounds striper for you for not very much money. And
Speaker 1: it is gonna look like dogshit. Like the paint job
Speaker 1: is not gonna be good. It's it's gonna look like shit. Um.
Speaker 1: So you well, as with everything skin or not, you
Speaker 1: have to pick who you're working with, and more you pay,
Speaker 1: the more you're gonna like it for the most part. Um.
Speaker 1: But to look at something like a forty pound striper
Speaker 1: as an example, one forty pound striper looks like the
Speaker 1: next forty pound striper looks like the next one, like
Speaker 1: the next one, like the next one. There is not
Speaker 1: a whole lot of unique um characteristics of that fish.
Speaker 1: So therefore, if that's the case, you're talking about a
Speaker 1: dolphin you called on vacation, or a sailfish or a
Speaker 1: striper huge proponent. I mean, if you want to of
Speaker 1: letting you know, the sailfish go, or even if you
Speaker 1: take the mahi home to eat, there's no reason you
Speaker 1: can't have your fish tacos, but need to save that
Speaker 1: for a skin mountain. Now Likewise, there have been instances
Speaker 1: where I just felt skin was the the option I
Speaker 1: would be happier with in the long run. Prime example,
Speaker 1: I have a silver salmon here on my wall. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna get into the whole story because it's very long,
Speaker 1: but there was a very specific reason why I chose
Speaker 1: to have that fish mounted. It was kind of like
Speaker 1: a a hell week and that was the closer after
Speaker 1: a lot of hard work. It's a particularly big fish,
Speaker 1: and I call it in nil Shick, Alaska, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't get my head around the idea of having some
Speaker 1: dude in Florida who may or may not have ever
Speaker 1: seen or held a silver salmon um painting up a
Speaker 1: silver salmon for me. So in that instance, I had
Speaker 1: a skin mount made, and I had it made at
Speaker 1: a taxidermist in nintil Shick. I paid a shipload of
Speaker 1: money for it. But that was one where I'm like,
Speaker 1: I want the real fish there. I want the skin
Speaker 1: from the salmon that I caught on my wall. So
Speaker 1: I am certainly not opposed to skin mount taxidermy. But
Speaker 1: for me, there has to be I think, the right reason.
Speaker 1: Like I know, I know guys in the striper world
Speaker 1: who don't kill any stripers, but if they catch their
Speaker 1: fifty or sixty pound dream fish, hey, there might not
Speaker 1: be the right mold for that out there. It's like
Speaker 1: they would sacrifice that one that they've been trying for
Speaker 1: for so long to have the real skin on their wall.
Speaker 1: So it's it's totally case by case, right, Okay. So
Speaker 1: to bring it back to the question, people do in
Speaker 1: fact still skin mount fish. Um. Now his question about
Speaker 1: why you would want a a plastic bath toy is
Speaker 1: he describes it, bro, you just haven't seen good ones.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't. I don't really know what to
Speaker 1: tell you. But so here's the reality. Like those replica amounts,
Speaker 1: A replica amount is a fiberglass mold of a certain
Speaker 1: fish and they come in they can come in size
Speaker 1: I believe you can custom order um like a bunch
Speaker 1: of sides, because you take those measurements. You take the
Speaker 1: length and the girth. Yeah, you take you take length
Speaker 1: and girth. And if anybody's thinking about doing this, shoot
Speaker 1: tons of video, tons of pictures, like do a video pan.
Speaker 1: The more detail they have, the better. For the most part,
Speaker 1: these days, a fish will already of sacrifice its life
Speaker 1: to make the mold that you need. However, if you
Speaker 1: did catch something that's like a world record or you
Speaker 1: can also you know, send that into be molded. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they'll even cut you a break because now the outfit
Speaker 1: is now gaining a mold from your fish. So on
Speaker 1: the rare occasion it can be completely customed. For the
Speaker 1: most part, Um, you know, no fish has to die.
Speaker 1: There's a mold already there. One already sacrificed itself. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: So okay, So the deal here is that, as Joe
Speaker 1: was alluding to, man, you can take photographs of the
Speaker 1: fish that you wish to have on your wall, and
Speaker 1: then you can release that fish. Um, you send them
Speaker 1: in the pictures, they look at it. Uh, they paint
Speaker 1: the fish in the exact same way the good places
Speaker 1: do that's what separates the difference. Yeah, Like they'll they'll
Speaker 1: go in within like an airbrush, and they'll do it specifically.
Speaker 1: You're not just saying like I want a striper of
Speaker 1: this size and they're going like, great, we have three
Speaker 1: of them on the shelf here, and they're sending you
Speaker 1: one because it does not have the same markings. They're
Speaker 1: going through with all the care of how a taxidermist
Speaker 1: would paint a skin mounted fish anyway. Yep, you know,
Speaker 1: because that's the other thing. When you get a skin
Speaker 1: mounted fish, it's not like it's not like mounting like
Speaker 1: a deer or a turkey, where like the for or
Speaker 1: the plumage retains its color, the skin just becomes uh
Speaker 1: you know, like gray, you know, I mean it just
Speaker 1: it just becomes whatever, like you know, detail less color
Speaker 1: um you know, a a a piece of fish skin
Speaker 1: turns into in the taxidermy process and they have to
Speaker 1: paint it anyway. Really, what you're paying for is like
Speaker 1: I guess, the attention to detail in like the scale articulation,
Speaker 1: but by the time they put the finish on it,
Speaker 1: that allows that thing to stay in like in a
Speaker 1: stable form. They've lacquered over those scales anyway, It's not
Speaker 1: like you can get your finger under there. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and I would I would venture to guess. I sort
Speaker 1: of know, but I'd love to talk to an expert.
Speaker 1: Skin Mounted taxidermy has come a long way. Like so,
Speaker 1: I collect old skin mounts. I find it flea markets
Speaker 1: and stuff. And as as Brad pointed out, you see
Speaker 1: these old ones, they look like trash. Well why is
Speaker 1: that they didn't have the technology back in the day
Speaker 1: to get all the oil out of the head and
Speaker 1: out of that fish, and over time it will degrade.
Speaker 1: I think that's gotten a lot better with with good
Speaker 1: skin mount guys. Most of the time they never use
Speaker 1: the fish is real head, so the skin is real.
Speaker 1: Often the fins, like the peck fins and things are
Speaker 1: are plastic and added later, and they use a head
Speaker 1: so that that that that lasts a lot longer. That
Speaker 1: was the case with my salmon still looks great all
Speaker 1: these years later. I got a walleye over here. Its
Speaker 1: head is like dripping onto my floor, you know. And
Speaker 1: so and the other thing with it too, is that
Speaker 1: when you send a fish to the taxidermist, much much
Speaker 1: to the dismay of the breeze, you do not get
Speaker 1: that fish back, like, you don't get to eat it.
Speaker 1: You don't you don't get to eat it. So really,
Speaker 1: when when you when you take everything into account, you're
Speaker 1: basically killing a fish for no significant gain. And oftentimes
Speaker 1: the fish that you want to kill is like a
Speaker 1: good breeding fish based Really, I don't know if folks
Speaker 1: know this, but I'm pretty sure it's whales and humans
Speaker 1: are the only things that live beyond their like reproductive capabilities, right,
Speaker 1: So any large fish that you're killing probably has the
Speaker 1: potential to be one of the best breeders in that
Speaker 1: in that like you know, stock of fish. So yeah,
Speaker 1: with a lot of things, with a lot of things,
Speaker 1: not not all but you but you're right, but you're right.
Speaker 1: I will throw Okay, well I was gonna say that. Um.
Speaker 1: The other thing that you like run into it is
Speaker 1: like tarpin, right. Tarpin famously are not a good fish
Speaker 1: to eat. In fact, like there's that I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's like a rumor or like an actual thing
Speaker 1: where they tried to make cat food out of them
Speaker 1: in the fifties, but even the cats wouldn't need them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's urban legend, but I've heard that. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's like just why do it? Man, There's just
Speaker 1: like no point in it. And what the other thing is,
Speaker 1: you're going to have something that like retains its shape
Speaker 1: and structure like forever. I'm not aware of any instance
Speaker 1: where like a fiberglass fish replica has turned to ship. No,
Speaker 1: they won't aware of a million skin mounts that have
Speaker 1: done exactly that. And I'll throw one more out before
Speaker 1: we get off of this. Actually, uh told to have
Speaker 1: a mixed media in terms of fish on my wall. Here,
Speaker 1: I have become the biggest freaking proponent of having your
Speaker 1: fish would carved. Now. The trick to this though, is
Speaker 1: commissioning a really exceptional carver, because if the guy is
Speaker 1: not like top notch, then they can look more like
Speaker 1: bath toys than the replica. Um but Rich Metzger shout
Speaker 1: out to him. He's he's local per Casey, Pennsylvania. He'd
Speaker 1: be another great guy to have on as a maker. Um.
Speaker 1: He has done two fish from me, a snake head
Speaker 1: and a tiger trout. And it's not cheap. But like
Speaker 1: we said, if you want it done right, it's not
Speaker 1: going to be cheap. The beauty of wood carving if if,
Speaker 1: if the guy is really good, Um, it's a one
Speaker 1: of a kind. So if you order a forty pound
Speaker 1: stripe bass from a replica house, you are getting the
Speaker 1: same shape, size, fish, same orientation as a million other
Speaker 1: people that caught a forty pound stripe bass. You get
Speaker 1: your trout or large mouth or whatever would carved. You
Speaker 1: can have that sucker facing down, up, sideways, tail moving, body,
Speaker 1: half bent, anything you want. It is the ultimate customization
Speaker 1: of amount. And Rich is so good. He actually carved
Speaker 1: a large mouth that was on the cover of field
Speaker 1: and stream for us back in the day. That's that's
Speaker 1: that's my deal. Like, I think that's even better than replica.
Speaker 1: I think that might be what I ought for next time.
Speaker 1: Should the finances allowed, So Brad, in order to uh,
Speaker 1: just to quickly summit our answer number one, you can
Speaker 1: still get a skin fish mount number two, Uh, you
Speaker 1: are not correct in your assessment of quality. Replicamounts. Man,
Speaker 1: they're good. The fish doesn't have to die. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have it for longer, and you know you'll probably be
Speaker 1: extremely happy with it should you choose to go that
Speaker 1: route in the future. And finally, Joe recommendation for wood carvers.
Speaker 1: That is a I think that's a really solid way
Speaker 1: to go. Man, Yes, it is. Like I said, though,
Speaker 1: you got to do your research and find the right guy. Um,
Speaker 1: the guy used man some of his work. They look
Speaker 1: more realistic than the skin and fiberglass mounts I have. Hey,
Speaker 1: if you've got a question for the Bent help line
Speaker 1: we can help you answer. Do please send that to
Speaker 1: Bent at the metator dot com and um maybe we'll
Speaker 1: rap about your problems and concerns right here on the
Speaker 1: Bent helpline. So that's it for this week. Hopefully we've
Speaker 1: inspired you to get out and make something, whether that's
Speaker 1: a sandwich, a memory, or a payment on your student loans.
Speaker 1: No man for bell, No payments on student loans. Don't
Speaker 1: don't do that. You'll get a financial trouble. I'm not.
Speaker 1: Don't come to you for financial advice. Thanks again to
Speaker 1: Ryan Ebert for joining us, and don't forget we love
Speaker 1: it when you tell us which fishy dive bars we
Speaker 1: should join you at. So keep those bar nominations, sale
Speaker 1: bin items, awkward photos, questions, and whatever else you want
Speaker 1: to send coming to Bent at the b D dot com. Yeah,
Speaker 1: keep using those degenerate angler and bent podcast hashtags, especially
Speaker 1: if you post something that you made, whether that was
Speaker 1: in a fine craftsman shop setting or walk completely intoxicated
Speaker 1: in the cheapest motel room on the river. Yes, and
Speaker 1: please don't inundate us with every fly you've ever tied.
Speaker 1: Don't don't go bad. Love me, love my