Speaker 1: He's also not wearing socks inside those work boots because
Speaker 1: he used his socks to wipe his ASTs. She literally
Speaker 1: looked like she was gonna have a heart attack because
Speaker 1: this was her prize little poodle. If I had used
Speaker 1: my tenants ager, you're Vexilla would be gone. I live
Speaker 1: in Washington State and we have hogs for steel head.
Speaker 1: I catched them all the time and avoid game officers
Speaker 1: while I take a picture of them and put them back.
Speaker 1: Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bent, the fishing
Speaker 1: podcast that cooked up a story and dropped the six
Speaker 1: of you in a meat grinder, leaving you wondering what
Speaker 1: happened to it because it used to be a podcast
Speaker 1: you could trust when asking for detailed directions to phishing spots.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Surmelie Miles, I'm Miles multi was was that
Speaker 1: a Was that a predator reference? Yes? It was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was, yeah, a predator, and it was an obscure
Speaker 1: one because really it's just my my roundabout way say.
Speaker 1: It's my roundabout way of saying. The theme for this
Speaker 1: week's show is Carl Weathers. So the theme I'll all right,
Speaker 1: all right, you're through me? But the theme sounds it
Speaker 1: sounds a little questionable, and as was the Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: sort of I mean, no more questionable than the reference
Speaker 1: you started with. But you know what, dude, I'll play good.
Speaker 1: Come down. I'm just thinking about this now. I would
Speaker 1: say though, that for the record, uh, I probably would
Speaker 1: have skipped a Saturday Night Live clip that you that
Speaker 1: you started with. I think I would have used this
Speaker 1: one instead. His name is Carl Weathers, and he's my
Speaker 1: new acting teacher and Lindsey, he's teaching me all these
Speaker 1: valuable life lessons. Okay, touche touche. I love I love
Speaker 1: I love the arrested development angle you took their Uh
Speaker 1: so does this? Does this mean you're in this? I mean,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a Carl Weathers show because I just
Speaker 1: want to. I want to clarify something to our listeners,
Speaker 1: Like we don't think about this ship weeks in advance.
Speaker 1: Often the theme like it's like sometimes hours before we
Speaker 1: record it. So this is not some it was. I
Speaker 1: was putting this together and I was like, Carl Weathers,
Speaker 1: that's the theme, dude, Like I said, I mean, if
Speaker 1: if nothing else, I'm like, I'm very very invested in
Speaker 1: seeing exactly how how you're gonna go about trying to
Speaker 1: pull this one together. So yeah, I mean I take
Speaker 1: that as a compliment from you, man, I feel we
Speaker 1: can both appreciate the challenge of loosely based on a
Speaker 1: fishing podcast episode on like a rated out eighties movie star,
Speaker 1: what could possibly go wrong? Maybe this was such a
Speaker 1: good afternoon. You know, I respect a writing challenge and
Speaker 1: a feat such as this, And I wish you nothing
Speaker 1: but luck. But before even let you really get started,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sidetrack you because that's what we do to
Speaker 1: each other. And uh, and I'm gonna tell you that
Speaker 1: a story. I once had a neighbor, like when I
Speaker 1: was in my twenties, and and this neighbor had a
Speaker 1: Golden Retriever named Action Jackson. Oh no ship cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: true story and so Action Jackson of course being the
Speaker 1: cult classic. Carl Weather's film from that is so over
Speaker 1: the top. It's like it's almost a parody of the
Speaker 1: genre of the action movie. It's it's so bad it's good. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know it's good, but it is what it is.
Speaker 1: Like you, that was when action movies peaked and then
Speaker 1: went over the top. And that's the clip that we
Speaker 1: just played also came from that movie, for the record,
Speaker 1: And uh, I personally have always thought that Action Jackson
Speaker 1: might have been the best dog name. It's good. It's
Speaker 1: up there. Particularly was like this huge golden retriever that
Speaker 1: was always standing in the backyard barking at people. And
Speaker 1: I was like, you have the perfect name. And and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna point out that I might be foreshadowing
Speaker 1: some things. You're gonna bring it later. I say, what
Speaker 1: you did there, that is good. Um, but look, I
Speaker 1: don't need luck. I'm going to Caral Weathers episode here today.
Speaker 1: It's done. It might not be good, but it's done.
Speaker 1: We're committed anyway, I will. It's happen. It's happened. It's happening. Um.
Speaker 1: If if I had to peg a real theme, maybe
Speaker 1: a sub theme, like a Subcarl Weathers theme this week's show,
Speaker 1: I guess it could be perseverance, which that hearkens us
Speaker 1: back to that old weekly word of yours perseverate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was I liked that one. Though you were not
Speaker 1: such a fan when I first I remember I first recorded.
Speaker 1: I was like, what do you think You're like so sure?
Speaker 1: So I'm glad. I'm glad to hear that you came
Speaker 1: around on that one. Final you admit that I was right.
Speaker 1: I have, I have, but probably because it just suits
Speaker 1: my own needs this week. So you know, um, this
Speaker 1: week you're gonna have to persevere through a few more
Speaker 1: caral weathers references, whether you like them or not. The
Speaker 1: smell of rank coolers, that's something else. What else? We got?
Speaker 1: A lure that might cause permanent ligament damage in your shoulders,
Speaker 1: and the stereotypical inshore cabella shopper are all things. Yep,
Speaker 1: we got we got things coming. Uh. Before we get there, though,
Speaker 1: you will have to persevere for through one of the
Speaker 1: thing we're leading off with a I don't know, dude,
Speaker 1: I never don't to describe a most unhumble that's good
Speaker 1: yet phenomenal angler, particularly when it comes to walleye or
Speaker 1: anything in the great legs. Uh. You know, I would
Speaker 1: go so far as to call to call Ross arrogant.
Speaker 1: I think I think that's fair. He's an arrogant man,
Speaker 1: which you know, could that's a quality you might want
Speaker 1: a fishing guide. I'll say that too. I think I
Speaker 1: think it's good. I want to like if if I'm
Speaker 1: hiring the guy, I want the guy who's like overconfident
Speaker 1: that we're gonna catch fish, not the guy who's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe true. That's a good Yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: you're right. So anyway, Ross Ross Roberts is back this
Speaker 1: week for the Smooth Moves segment. Uh our our favorite
Speaker 1: time to let guides and captains tell humorous stories or
Speaker 1: just bitch about things. Clients do whatever they feel like
Speaker 1: telling us, and Ross is gonna tell us about his
Speaker 1: favorite cocktail recipe that Mary's Whiskey before sun up with
Speaker 1: lap dogs and atrial fibrillation. Why joining us today on
Speaker 1: Smooth Moves one of my all time favorite people. It's
Speaker 1: a bold statement. I know, I know I'm seeing him
Speaker 1: on a screen right now in the look of shock,
Speaker 1: Captain Ross robertson bid water fishing. How are you my friend? Friend?
Speaker 1: One of I mean right now, I'm just overwhelmed. I
Speaker 1: feel like I feel overwhelmed because you showed up wearing
Speaker 1: a hat that says smooth Moves. Yeah, that is like,
Speaker 1: did you do was there was that thought through or
Speaker 1: just a complete accident? I mean, you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: a human train wreck. So probably not, but I mean
Speaker 1: smooth new suspension seats. I mean, seriously, you know what,
Speaker 1: I like it so much I'll let you plug the
Speaker 1: sponsor because I'm like, man, he sat down with this.
Speaker 1: This reminds me of the time I four show to
Speaker 1: where I had that says get over yourself. You remember
Speaker 1: that that was good too anyway, Um, so I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that's brand in more ways than one. But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have no problem with it. People. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just funny like people think me and you hate each other.
Speaker 1: It's funny. It is true when I mean just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I can tolerate you. Is the thing you said,
Speaker 1: my semi tolerable friend, because I remember things too. I've
Speaker 1: referred to you as that many times, my semi tolerable friend,
Speaker 1: Ross Robertson, semi tolerable friend, Ross Robertson. Do remind the
Speaker 1: listeners how many years you've got in now guiding for
Speaker 1: the Wally's there on LA. You know, I don't know exactly,
Speaker 1: but it's either twenty one or twenty two. So I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to finally get a smooth move story from you,
Speaker 1: because I know there's many I've I've heard many, um,
Speaker 1: but you got one shot, so hit us with the
Speaker 1: best man. What do you got? I got a lot
Speaker 1: of them. Of some of them we probably couldn't talk
Speaker 1: on here because you guys are not PC. But let's
Speaker 1: just be honest. Some of these things ain't meant for
Speaker 1: nowhere or even a kid record by. But when people
Speaker 1: are drinking in the boat, it's a no go for me.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll drink one or a dozen with you,
Speaker 1: but I'm late down. You know, that's just a no go.
Speaker 1: So I'm out there fishing and I get a guy
Speaker 1: that I realized from somehow from time we took off
Speaker 1: till the time we basically set up. This dude is
Speaker 1: hitting a flask and he is snookered. So I basically
Speaker 1: canceled the day. Said kind of make a little bit
Speaker 1: of an excuse up just to you know, so you cut,
Speaker 1: you cut your day. He was bad enough, like, because
Speaker 1: I mean, this dude is he almost knocks me out
Speaker 1: of the boat. Soon as we're getting ready to set
Speaker 1: up a batch. It's a game over, like this is
Speaker 1: this is a bad deal. I'm sure my insurance guys
Speaker 1: cringing right now. So anyhow, I've burned them back in
Speaker 1: and it was middle of the week, and so there's
Speaker 1: like nobody really around where tie tie up at the dock.
Speaker 1: It's on a river. Kind of useful innovation for a second.
Speaker 1: So I literally run to get my truck. I turned
Speaker 1: around and look, and this guy's like, I can heat
Speaker 1: because it's not that far away. He is untying the
Speaker 1: ropes and he's like, oh clear. And the boat is
Speaker 1: now like banging and spiking down this river. Thankfully, there's
Speaker 1: tied you from the dog of the ram on a river.
Speaker 1: Now it's not good any place, but it's really bad
Speaker 1: and river, and it's also middle of the week. There's
Speaker 1: nobody around, Like I try to use launches where there's
Speaker 1: nobody around, right, So fortunately there's a courtesy doctor's I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say a hundred and some feet long. I literally run.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like a movie deal. I run
Speaker 1: like fest jump on the boat, literally almost breaking rods
Speaker 1: in the front deck. I get in the thing, get
Speaker 1: it under power, and tie it back up. As you
Speaker 1: can imagine, mega mega kissed at this point and about
Speaker 1: really done with life. So the other guy who is
Speaker 1: not snuckered, who's one of my regular guys and still
Speaker 1: fishes with me. He's like, already know, you know, he's
Speaker 1: just he's just he knows I'm about ready to go
Speaker 1: eight mode on this deal. So so now I get it,
Speaker 1: and I tell him, hey, listen, meet me on top
Speaker 1: of parking lot. We're gonna get your stuff out of
Speaker 1: the boat. I'm going home. Game over here. They're trying
Speaker 1: to take me to breakfast, lunch or whatever. I'm like done,
Speaker 1: pay me world, I'm because I don't want to go
Speaker 1: to jail. I'm gonna go home instead. So on the
Speaker 1: top of the deal here, I'm waiting. I can't find
Speaker 1: I don't see him. I don't see him, and now
Speaker 1: where he had to park with down a hundred yards
Speaker 1: away or something like that, and I'm looking, I don't
Speaker 1: see him, and I won't see him coming. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: screw it. I'm gonna drive my boat and truck in
Speaker 1: the car parking which is you know, there's barely there's
Speaker 1: not really a room turn around to do any of that.
Speaker 1: But I'm just like done over with this. So I
Speaker 1: drive down there and there's a little car in front
Speaker 1: of me, which I almost go ape shut on, and
Speaker 1: then I realized it's like some eight year old husband
Speaker 1: and wife. And I realized then that the wife is
Speaker 1: out and she's standing in front of a car. So
Speaker 1: I get out now, and I'm in a place it's
Speaker 1: like a semi in a you know, in a school
Speaker 1: parking lot, Like, I mean, this is logistically, this doesn't
Speaker 1: all work. And I look out and this woman it
Speaker 1: looks like she's having a heart attack. She has just
Speaker 1: like got her hand over. What's going on? Well, I
Speaker 1: look down and here's my dude laying flat on the
Speaker 1: ground in front of their car. And I'm like, did
Speaker 1: he get smoked? Did by the car? I mean, what's
Speaker 1: going on? And then I realized, like he's got this
Speaker 1: thing and he sits up and he's petting this dog.
Speaker 1: But all you can see is of rufus. Here is
Speaker 1: just this little tiny it looks like a lollipop in
Speaker 1: him because he's his arms are so big, he's like
Speaker 1: landing in it. From from my absolutely, he has this
Speaker 1: dog in a death grip but doesn't even realize it
Speaker 1: because he's that snickered, right, And this woman is like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. And I've got to basically go up
Speaker 1: there and be like, dude, let you let go of
Speaker 1: that dog, for I kick you and your dome and
Speaker 1: because this guy could kick the ship out all of us.
Speaker 1: I mean he's he's a big Yeah. Well hold on,
Speaker 1: hold on, I gotta I gotta check. Was the dog okay? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean Evan a rufus apparently. I mean, I didn't
Speaker 1: do a vet check or anything out. But he went home.
Speaker 1: He got in the car with a nice little old lady.
Speaker 1: She did not have a heart attack. I think that
Speaker 1: was probably the biggest thing in this whole deal, because
Speaker 1: she literally looked like she was gonna have a heart
Speaker 1: attack because this was her prize little poodle. I gotta say, man,
Speaker 1: for all the ways that this story could have gone,
Speaker 1: it really ended as well as it could. You You
Speaker 1: you did the track star sprint and and leap dit
Speaker 1: your boat back, didn't take anybody out in the parking lot,
Speaker 1: the lady old lady didn't die, and the dog was okay.
Speaker 1: And best of all, you didn't get into fisticuffs with
Speaker 1: your client. I really couldn't have seen this ending any
Speaker 1: other way that that was positive. So I'd say that's
Speaker 1: what I like. Positive stuff. I mean, there are a
Speaker 1: few that might do you ensued positivity. Huh, yeah, there
Speaker 1: there's a few, but my my lawyer and my insurance
Speaker 1: agent suggested we not talk about it. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like that this is good. So just in
Speaker 1: case that one shook you to the core, in case
Speaker 1: you were on the edge of your seat worrying about
Speaker 1: the well being Rufous the poodle. Just in case I
Speaker 1: was a messed up story. Maybe it was. It was,
Speaker 1: so let's heal. Here's Carl Weathers to sing you back
Speaker 1: to a happy place. What about a rain Have you
Speaker 1: ever noted you're feeling aside when a rainbows sky. I
Speaker 1: do not feel healed. I do not feel put back together.
Speaker 1: I do not feel suit like of dude, of all
Speaker 1: the Carl Weather's clips, like you could have gone Rocky,
Speaker 1: you could have gone Predator, you could have gone Happy Gilmore,
Speaker 1: Hurricane Smith, and and you went with that. That was
Speaker 1: where you went. You know why? Because I stumbled onto
Speaker 1: it accidentally. And just first of all, we don't give
Speaker 1: enough credit to nineties SNL monologues, and just just based
Speaker 1: on watching Carl's nineties SML monologue, I'm sure that was
Speaker 1: a horrible episode of the show, Like it was a
Speaker 1: terrible monologue. I feel like they might have been hard
Speaker 1: up for people at the time, but I love the
Speaker 1: obscurity of it. That's why I chosen and and that's
Speaker 1: where I have to I do have to give you credit,
Speaker 1: because I'm giving you full points for not being obvious.
Speaker 1: That was not where I would have gone at all.
Speaker 1: And credit there, And you know what, I'm I'm gonna
Speaker 1: thank you because you kind of teach me up. Because
Speaker 1: the book that I'm gonna drop in this week's installment
Speaker 1: of Freaking Philistines is also not the obvious choice, though
Speaker 1: it is one of the best essay collections I've read
Speaker 1: in a long time. What's a fast team. It's a
Speaker 1: guy who doesn't care about books or interesting films and
Speaker 1: things and unfast team. I love a good essay collection.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the tinder of literature. Reading a
Speaker 1: single essay doesn't require much commitment. You can grab a
Speaker 1: cup of coffee, share a few minutes of conversation, and
Speaker 1: then get on with your day. Or maybe you're having
Speaker 1: a good time coffee turns into lunch and you set
Speaker 1: the book aside after several hours, already looking forward to
Speaker 1: the next date or coffee rolls into lunch, after which
Speaker 1: you lose track of time completely. Take the book to
Speaker 1: bed with you and devour the whole thing. I appreciate
Speaker 1: options good chance. I'll review many essay collections, but I'm
Speaker 1: starting out with one that's kind of underground Fish Like
Speaker 1: You Mean It by David Zobe. I'll be the first
Speaker 1: to admit that the title leaves something to be desired,
Speaker 1: and the copy could have used a more stringent editor.
Speaker 1: But if you can set those two criticisms aside, you'll
Speaker 1: get to experience one of the best fishing books you've
Speaker 1: never heard of. The book spans most of Zobie's life,
Speaker 1: a series of vignettes, held together by two strands, fishing
Speaker 1: and the attendant strange characters he attracts, from his Lebanese
Speaker 1: family on the Virginia Coast to his contemporary itinerant ramblings
Speaker 1: in Homer, Alaska. Zobi collects a cast of people too
Speaker 1: eclectic to be entirely fictional, and fishing tales too humble
Speaker 1: to be made up. That humility is really my favorite
Speaker 1: aspect of Zobie's writing. Too many authors, especially those of us,
Speaker 1: who write about conquest pursuits like fishing and hunting, use
Speaker 1: the space between covers to argue their dominance or show
Speaker 1: off superior skill. You'll find none of that here. Mostly
Speaker 1: you'll find a person trying to make sense of his
Speaker 1: own major tragedies and minor successes through fishing. His family's
Speaker 1: immigrant shame, the decay of his hometown after the closing
Speaker 1: of shipyards, the sting of giving away fishing secrets to
Speaker 1: sell tackle, a disappointing career, a doomed relationship, a series
Speaker 1: of canine companions that just never lasts long enough. It
Speaker 1: sounds depressing, I know, but it's not. Zobe gets his
Speaker 1: readers through all that heaviness the same way he gets
Speaker 1: through it exceptional fishing stories featuring fascinating supporting characters, though
Speaker 1: to be fair, he throws in some great duck hunting
Speaker 1: stories too. Every time the narrative starts to feel like
Speaker 1: really sad, you're transported to a wyoming river or an
Speaker 1: Alaskan beach with a rod in your hands and a
Speaker 1: dog at your heels, waiting to chase salmon or trout
Speaker 1: or seals or sticks. Anyone who has ever felt fishing
Speaker 1: become escapism and perhaps wondered at what point it tips
Speaker 1: from being a healthy outdoor pursuit to a self destructive
Speaker 1: avoidance tactic will relate to this book, but it's not
Speaker 1: all deep water naval gazing. Zobe also turns his razored
Speaker 1: critiques outward from time to time, as in this section
Speaker 1: of an essay titled at the Cabella's. The story of
Speaker 1: Cabella's is one of the true rags to riches tails
Speaker 1: woven into the fabric of Americana. In Dick Cabella was
Speaker 1: working at his parents furniture store in Nebraska when he
Speaker 1: accompanied his father in Chicago with a purpose to buy
Speaker 1: more inventory in a water damage warehouse. He stumbled upon
Speaker 1: some cheap hand tiede flies from Japan. He knew they
Speaker 1: were too cheap to pass up, so he bought several thousand.
Speaker 1: His first ad ran in the Casper Tribune. Only one
Speaker 1: person answered. His next ad ran in Field and Stream.
Speaker 1: It read five hand tied fishing flies free postage. In
Speaker 1: handling this ad did the trick, Dick and Mary Cabella
Speaker 1: spent their free time filling out orders on their kitchen table.
Speaker 1: They collected the names and addresses of their first customers
Speaker 1: on recipe cards and sent them future offers. Regrettably, these
Speaker 1: were the first catalogs, the birth of a revolution. The
Speaker 1: flies in the postage to send them back to customers
Speaker 1: only cost the Cabella's fourteen cents, so they made a
Speaker 1: profit of eleven cents on each order they filled. There
Speaker 1: really were no free flies. There never were. This was
Speaker 1: the humble beginning of America's biggest outdoor gear company, the
Speaker 1: world's foremost outfitter we know today. While wandering around in
Speaker 1: search of the canine department, I found an Alaskan moose.
Speaker 1: He was a full body mountain. His paddles were the
Speaker 1: color of maple syrup. The hide seemed large enough to
Speaker 1: project a movie on his flanks. He was standing in
Speaker 1: a tumbling stream beside faue bowls, and to my amazement,
Speaker 1: there were actual rainbow trout in the stream, weaving in
Speaker 1: and out of the moose's spindly legs. I peered over
Speaker 1: what passed is a beaver dam and looked down at
Speaker 1: the fish. They were large for rainbows, some of them
Speaker 1: pushing twenty inches or so, the kind of fish you
Speaker 1: catch on the North plattin March if you can stand
Speaker 1: the wind and the cold, the tannic smell of the creek,
Speaker 1: the raw exposed. Scent of rot and fish struck me
Speaker 1: as original. A large man grazing on peanut brittle he
Speaker 1: had just purchased, leaned over beside me and looked down too.
Speaker 1: Those are some niceens, he said. A bit of brittle
Speaker 1: fell from his mouth, and the trout scrambled for it.
Speaker 1: The spell was broken, just like that. But that is
Speaker 1: the danger of semilacra. The experience itself. Just walking into
Speaker 1: the store has become the outing the goal. Going to
Speaker 1: the Cabella's replaces the need to climb mountain er find
Speaker 1: a grossbeak in your binoculars. A trip to Cabella's, any Cabella's,
Speaker 1: does not ask that you risk squitoes or a night
Speaker 1: on the uncomfortable ground. It only asked that you shop
Speaker 1: drowsy lee impulsively. It asks that you sign up for
Speaker 1: the instore newsletter, a Cabella's credit card. It asks that
Speaker 1: you fill your cards in your arms with products, that
Speaker 1: you haul them away happily and contented, as if the
Speaker 1: adventure is within these vaultage showrooms, not some other place without.
Speaker 1: You won't find this book at your local bookstore, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: so you'll have to turn to the Cabella's of the
Speaker 1: book world, good old Amazon to get a copy. Once
Speaker 1: you get past that unpleasantness, though, I think you'll only
Speaker 1: be disappointed when you find yourself staring at the back
Speaker 1: cover wishing there was another essay to read. I gotta admit, no, Lie,
Speaker 1: that book sounds incredible, and you you did pick the
Speaker 1: perfect passage because I can relate to that so much,
Speaker 1: and it's so terrible that he's right, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. Like, when the Cabella's first opened up out
Speaker 1: here in Pennsylvania, people set up campers in the parking lot,
Speaker 1: like they came for the weekend to the Cabella's instead
Speaker 1: of filling the camper into the wild. Absolutely yeah. And
Speaker 1: every time I'd go out there, there'd be another restaurant
Speaker 1: built up or another shopping center. It's just like all
Speaker 1: these things sprouted around that, and you just come spend
Speaker 1: the weekend at the Capella's. That's what she did. I
Speaker 1: could never figure it out. Um kind of related. My
Speaker 1: wife visited that Capella's with me exactly one time, and
Speaker 1: her takeaway was that she had probably never walked through
Speaker 1: as many fart clouds in a single day before. That
Speaker 1: was what she took away from from Capella's well, Peanut
Speaker 1: Bridle and hot dogs are not good for That's what
Speaker 1: I'll say. Um, and man like Dave nailed it on
Speaker 1: that one. And and a full disclosure. Uh, he's someone
Speaker 1: who I call an acquaintance. I think he's a really
Speaker 1: good guy in addition to being a good writer. But
Speaker 1: that is both a depressing and completely accurate passage and
Speaker 1: I feel like one that that all of us sort
Speaker 1: of as an outdoor community need to need to marry
Speaker 1: it on for a minute. And all of you out
Speaker 1: there should buy and read that book for sure. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just good. And Zobe, I think is a sorely
Speaker 1: underrated writer. Um. I used to edit his stuff when
Speaker 1: I've worked at Gray Sporting Journal, and it was like
Speaker 1: one of those ones when I saw his name in
Speaker 1: my email, I would I would know something good was
Speaker 1: coming and I wasn't gonna want to beat my head
Speaker 1: against the wall, and I always look forward to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see why, man, and you I gotta give
Speaker 1: you credit. You are the king of finding like this,
Speaker 1: this sort of underground dudes that write really really great stuff.
Speaker 1: And this is a great example. Uh. Sadly though, I'm
Speaker 1: probably never gonna read Fish like you mean it because
Speaker 1: I I don't do well with dogs dying. Well, there's
Speaker 1: not like I should clarify. It's not like a dramatic
Speaker 1: dog death is a part of the book. It's just that,
Speaker 1: like you see a series of dogs, like once he's
Speaker 1: fishing with one dog, and then the next story it's
Speaker 1: a different dog, and you know, like, okay, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't tall he doesn't detail that the dying of of dogs. No,
Speaker 1: this is not like situation. I may read it now
Speaker 1: that I know that, Okay, because I can't do dogs. Look,
Speaker 1: I can watch Carl Well his arm get torn off
Speaker 1: and feel nothing. But dogs dying is my kryptonite. So
Speaker 1: hopefully you've not conjured any kryptonite that will block me
Speaker 1: from emerging victorious in this week's current Events battle. Let's
Speaker 1: do some fish News. Fish New escalated quickly. All right,
Speaker 1: I just have one very tiny baby shout out this week.
Speaker 1: I just I have to do this. Remember last week
Speaker 1: we did the awkward moments in angling with Alex Reid
Speaker 1: as a young boy, and he was he was I
Speaker 1: can't forget he was posing with the blue girl after
Speaker 1: just having pissed his pants. He wrote in after last
Speaker 1: week's show. To just let me know that that same
Speaker 1: exact day, he also took his first dump in the woods.
Speaker 1: So in that photo that we ran, he's also not
Speaker 1: wearing sock inside those work boots, those little work boots,
Speaker 1: because he used his socks to wipe his ass. So
Speaker 1: that's like a little to the pea pants awkward photo.
Speaker 1: That's all I got. I'm like, I have to, I
Speaker 1: have to that that need the world needs to hear that.
Speaker 1: So that Alex. Alex had no idea what he was
Speaker 1: getting into when he allowed us into his personal history. Um,
Speaker 1: but he loved it. He's like, thanks for the five
Speaker 1: minutes of fame. Also, I ship in the woods and
Speaker 1: white white my ass with my socks. So he just
Speaker 1: he fed that. He didn't have to, he didn't have
Speaker 1: to offer that up, but he did appreciate it. Nope,
Speaker 1: the dude is a mass kist. I'm not gonna Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't have any housekeeping after that. It's we've we've
Speaker 1: we've soiled the whole segment. Oh but I'm bump. We
Speaker 1: are going to do news just a little differently this week.
Speaker 1: We're not We're not like totally stepping out. It's gonna
Speaker 1: feel familiar, but we're gonna we're gonna switch it up
Speaker 1: a little bit. So Joe and I were each gonna
Speaker 1: do just one single story and then after that we're
Speaker 1: gonna bring in a special guest who's who's going to
Speaker 1: cover a more in depth piece of news for us.
Speaker 1: And and and that's a that's that's a piece of news
Speaker 1: that neither Joe nor I wanted to have any personal
Speaker 1: involvement with whatsoever, for reasons that will become clear when
Speaker 1: you hear it. Just so you know, it's a little
Speaker 1: change up, but we we consider doing this more. It's
Speaker 1: not bad to have have somebody on every once in
Speaker 1: a while, So we're trying something here to try to
Speaker 1: people who know more than we um so. But despite
Speaker 1: all that, despite the changes, this is still a competition,
Speaker 1: and neither Joe nor I know what the other ones
Speaker 1: bringing to the table. And at the end, our illustrious
Speaker 1: audio engineer Phil will pick a winner. Just this week,
Speaker 1: he'll have three options instead of and uh, and Joe,
Speaker 1: you got the lead off this week, but you only
Speaker 1: have one shot at it, one shot, so you better
Speaker 1: you better be bringing the goods man. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: I hope you know it's one of the way like
Speaker 1: is not amazing, but the talking points after the debate
Speaker 1: it brings up I think is good um and something
Speaker 1: everybody can get behind. So this is from for the
Speaker 1: wind dot com that's part of USA Today headline angler
Speaker 1: breaks fifty year old catfish record, catch stirs controversy. So
Speaker 1: what happened here? Back in September, North Carolina angler John
Speaker 1: Stone caught himself a twenty three pound, five ounce channel
Speaker 1: cat which that's a big that's a that is a
Speaker 1: large channel catfish. I mean, I don't I don't care
Speaker 1: who you are. Twenty three pounds five ounces is a
Speaker 1: really good fish. And he filled out all the proper
Speaker 1: paperwork and submitted it for state record. Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The previous record was twenty three pounds four ounces and
Speaker 1: it has stood since nineteen seventy alright, so fifty years.
Speaker 1: But late this January, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission
Speaker 1: certified Stones catch. And here's the fun part. Not only
Speaker 1: has it beaten the fifty year record by a mere ounce,
Speaker 1: it was caught in a private pond and as you
Speaker 1: might have, meat and people are going ballistic over this,
Speaker 1: especially since that previous fifty year record came from a
Speaker 1: public lake. So when, uh, when n CWR posted a
Speaker 1: photo and announced the certification on its Facebook page, all
Speaker 1: hell broke loose in the comments. And while I mean
Speaker 1: some were supportive, you know, some were supportive, but most
Speaker 1: of the men are calling it out as as straight
Speaker 1: up cheating, claiming, you know, Stone grew the fish, calling
Speaker 1: it a farm catfish, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1: Now it's a little a little more here to add
Speaker 1: another layer of drama. Another story on a different site
Speaker 1: about this catch notes that Stone is an at large
Speaker 1: wildlife commissioner, so people are even more piste off that
Speaker 1: he'd even try and have this certified because of that position.
Speaker 1: And um, I I looked at all the stories related
Speaker 1: to this that that popped up in the news feed,
Speaker 1: and I can't seem to find one where Stone is
Speaker 1: quoted or defending himself or anything like that. But frankly,
Speaker 1: if you really stop, he doesn't need to write because
Speaker 1: regardless of how you feel, North Carolina certifies fish from
Speaker 1: private water. You know, you might not like it, but
Speaker 1: there's there's no shadiness or wrongdoing on on their end
Speaker 1: as far as they're concerned. They don't care what kind
Speaker 1: of water it came out of. Um, you know, And
Speaker 1: in my opinion, I certainly understand the frustration here. Uh,
Speaker 1: but I also think it's fair to say there are
Speaker 1: so many details that we don't know, so it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to make a legit judgment call. I mean, just
Speaker 1: as an example, right, if in fact Stone has been
Speaker 1: hand feeding this cat for years in a private pond,
Speaker 1: essentially growing it, Yeah, that's totally lame and stupid. But
Speaker 1: nobody has made an official claim of that yet. Now
Speaker 1: on the flip side, a lot of people have private water,
Speaker 1: lots of them, right, So if I bought property with
Speaker 1: a pond on it and it coughed up, say a
Speaker 1: state record bass, why would that not count. I haven't
Speaker 1: manipul layd those fish or fed them. It was just there.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was an old farm pond that's been there
Speaker 1: since that was farmland. And now I bought my McMansion
Speaker 1: in North Carolina, there's a huge bass in there. But
Speaker 1: what people are saying is that it's not right to
Speaker 1: claim a record from water that not everyone can access.
Speaker 1: And that's certainly a very gray area, and there's no
Speaker 1: battle here. It's basically just people spouting off. But it's
Speaker 1: it's a gray area at least in terms of legality, ethically,
Speaker 1: different story based on the case, right, and just to
Speaker 1: to put a personal touch on it. For years, I
Speaker 1: belong to a private trout club in North Jersey and
Speaker 1: the fish there, I mean, dude, we fed them with
Speaker 1: automatic deer feeders, just spit out the food right to
Speaker 1: keep them in the stret private, privately stocked, and it
Speaker 1: was what it was. I used to call it the
Speaker 1: land of make believe, and it was like somewhere to
Speaker 1: get your jollys in the middle of winter. And I'm
Speaker 1: fairly confident I broke the new Jersey state brook trout
Speaker 1: record at least twice many years ago. Right now, technically,
Speaker 1: technically I could have weighed that fish in and claim
Speaker 1: that record, and honestly, in a way, it would have
Speaker 1: been more legit maybe than a private pond fish, because
Speaker 1: theoretically that fish was free to leave our private section
Speaker 1: and stream and go wherever it wanted. The food kept
Speaker 1: it there. But that fish could have went wherever it wanted,
Speaker 1: and it could have easily ended up caught in a
Speaker 1: public stretch of that same stream. But I've had I
Speaker 1: would have literally beaten my own ass if I ever
Speaker 1: even thought about doing that. It wasn't no, it wasn't
Speaker 1: on a little you weren't you weren't part of that club,
Speaker 1: I hope. No, No, this is Jared Little Jay's Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: But sorry I heard no, No, this is North Jersey. No,
Speaker 1: this is not the Little Jay tobaccle. But to me,
Speaker 1: I was like, I was holding this fish, going got
Speaker 1: what a lame loser move that would be. But it
Speaker 1: would have counted. The state wouldn't have said you can't
Speaker 1: do that. And the irony in that um is if
Speaker 1: that fish did leave that stretch, our stretch and get
Speaker 1: caught by some eight year old kid five miles down river,
Speaker 1: I have been like, good for him, get that record,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So it's it's, uh, there's
Speaker 1: so much debate there. I get the frustration, but it's
Speaker 1: hard to say. You know, it's the thing of the
Speaker 1: reason that that it's that we're both kind of I think,
Speaker 1: responding to this the same way as that we just
Speaker 1: don't care that much about the record thing like that's
Speaker 1: not that's not and I'm not trying to put this
Speaker 1: out of the judgment on the people who do, because
Speaker 1: I get that a lot of people they augment their
Speaker 1: enjoyment of fishing by putting particular goals on themselves and
Speaker 1: and working through those with constraints, which is what all
Speaker 1: records are all about. Right, Like this size fish on
Speaker 1: this line, that's what makes it fun for me. Cool
Speaker 1: you do that, That's not how I approach joy of fishing. Right,
Speaker 1: So this becomes like a pretty academic and kind of
Speaker 1: well not told, entirely subjective debate. It was legal, he
Speaker 1: can do it right? Right? Should he have done it? Now?
Speaker 1: Now there's there's where you can go around and round,
Speaker 1: But can he do it? Absolutely? He did it. He
Speaker 1: can so yeah, get over it if that makes bad
Speaker 1: And you're right, if you really like peel the like
Speaker 1: the layers away of why there's debate here for you
Speaker 1: and I, you're correct. I don't give a damn about
Speaker 1: record fish, like the only way I don't really care
Speaker 1: about a state record fish. I'll even take a step further,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna annoy some people that are listening to
Speaker 1: this right now. But you know, a lot of fish
Speaker 1: just have citations too, like citation catches. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's the thing out west, but out here it's
Speaker 1: like it's like in New Jersey as an example, it's
Speaker 1: like they'll say, if you want a pickerel citation for
Speaker 1: the year, the fish has to be over twenty three inches,
Speaker 1: like they designate all these different fish, all these different lengths,
Speaker 1: and if you catch one and send him a photo,
Speaker 1: like you get a citation to put on your wall.
Speaker 1: There are people who have like hundreds of citations, like damn, dude,
Speaker 1: you need that that bad, Like they post on facebooks like,
Speaker 1: huh another citation, white perch, Huh another side got for citation.
Speaker 1: Picke people still have all their like ribbons and trophies
Speaker 1: from high cool sports. That's so like, dude, the citation,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's like the bottom of the barrel. For
Speaker 1: me to care about a record, it would have to
Speaker 1: be something so mind blowing, like I would have to
Speaker 1: catch the next world record stripe bass or something like
Speaker 1: really covet something something storied. Yeah, mine class records. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't care. No, I mean, look, we talked about
Speaker 1: that whole we dug into that culture when we reviewed
Speaker 1: Monty Burk's new book, and and so this also makes
Speaker 1: me probably made me. Think of a previous book of
Speaker 1: money Burks, which was Sowbelly, which was all about there's
Speaker 1: a whole chapter in there about the guy who's trying
Speaker 1: to grow the world record large mouth bass, like intentionally
Speaker 1: and with a lot of chemistry and science, like what
Speaker 1: do you have your private pond for? I'm trying to
Speaker 1: grow the record large mouth. Watch it grow and then
Speaker 1: catch it and break the record? Yep. Also legal, is
Speaker 1: it anything I want anything to do with? No? Has
Speaker 1: the guy ever succeeded? No? But now that's the that's
Speaker 1: sort of the extreme extent that these things can and
Speaker 1: go to. And unless we change the rules somewhere and
Speaker 1: say like private ponds don't count, it only works on
Speaker 1: public water, then this debate continues to be just kind
Speaker 1: of mood. You're not going to do that, right, you
Speaker 1: know you're not gonna do that. So we don't really
Speaker 1: know the full story here, but um, either way, like,
Speaker 1: when it comes down to it, he didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, so deal with it. You know, I think
Speaker 1: it's lame, but deal with it. My my story actually
Speaker 1: ties into that because it's also about a large fish
Speaker 1: that will annoy the crap out of quite a few
Speaker 1: people listening, uh so from from my news story this week,
Speaker 1: we're checking in with Lakeville, Minnesota, and I just gotta say,
Speaker 1: really quick, that's gotta be the most literal down name,
Speaker 1: uh in the entire state. It's It's kind of like
Speaker 1: how they named my adopted home state Montana, which means
Speaker 1: mountains in Spanish. Or there's a down in Idaho called
Speaker 1: Titonia that sits right in the shadow of the Grand Teton. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so this story comes to us from Northland Outdoors and
Speaker 1: it comes by way of listener k lib prator or prator.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm butchering it, but either way, thank
Speaker 1: you Caleb, thanks for for sending along. Before I get
Speaker 1: into this, zo Joe, I feel like I have to
Speaker 1: give you personally a trigger warning because the following story
Speaker 1: may cause you extreme frustration, anger, envy, a general sense
Speaker 1: that the world is a deeply, deeply unfair place. So
Speaker 1: if you need to prepare yourself in some way to
Speaker 1: receive the information I'm about to impart, do so now,
Speaker 1: or just take off your headphones or whatever I do
Speaker 1: for the next couple of minutes. Is it about like
Speaker 1: clack Craft giving away a hundred boats for free to
Speaker 1: people or something like. It's not it might be worse
Speaker 1: than that for you. So I mean, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: stick around, just deep breathing, that's all I gotta say.
Speaker 1: So this story is about John, and I'm gonna there
Speaker 1: will be a lot of butchered last names here. Everybody,
Speaker 1: just deal with it, uh, The stories about John Kuznia
Speaker 1: and his buddy Ben. Sorry on. John and Ben went
Speaker 1: out ice fishing a couple of weeks ago on Lake Charlie,
Speaker 1: where John keeps a permanent ice house in the winter.
Speaker 1: John owns a cabin on nearby Lake Ida, where he
Speaker 1: spends most weekends. These names are gonna be important later,
Speaker 1: so so make notes. But he prefers to fish on
Speaker 1: the smaller Lake Charlie. Okay, So John and Ben and
Speaker 1: Ben's dad Carl, got up nice and early and got
Speaker 1: out of the ice house and and they're they're fishing
Speaker 1: over about sixteen ft of water, and by seven am
Speaker 1: they were into a solid sunfish bite, just just having
Speaker 1: a good time yard the mint and and they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're small sunfish, but they're having fun. And after a
Speaker 1: while they noticed some pike were staging around the panfish school,
Speaker 1: and they started seeing pike take swipes at the hook
Speaker 1: bluegills as they were bringing them up, you know, And
Speaker 1: you know, dude, like I know, you've been in this situation.
Speaker 1: Anybody else has been in this situation knows. It's a
Speaker 1: pretty fun game. Oh yeah, it's a little it's like
Speaker 1: a video game. Yeah, it's definitely a little statistic, like
Speaker 1: you hook you a little fish and then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got one, I'm gonna let him swim around a
Speaker 1: little and see if the big pike wax out of
Speaker 1: It's fun. It's fun, right, totally little dirty maybe, but
Speaker 1: fun so. And every once in a while, when you're
Speaker 1: doing that with pike or other big big fish, a
Speaker 1: pike will grab onto one and it won't let go.
Speaker 1: Or sometimes I've even seen them like fully inhale the
Speaker 1: smaller fish head first and then the spines get stuck
Speaker 1: in their throat and then and now you're fighting this
Speaker 1: big pike on really light tackle. Yeah, it's just a
Speaker 1: good time. It's just it's a good time. So that's
Speaker 1: what John and Ben were up to on this particular day,
Speaker 1: and at some point John even managed landa a twenty
Speaker 1: seven pike, which I'm sure was super fun. So that's
Speaker 1: the scene that's going on. This is this is what's
Speaker 1: happening in the ice house. And yet no, they're just
Speaker 1: they're just they're just having a nice morning ice fish
Speaker 1: and playing god with the food chain, you know what's
Speaker 1: going on. Then all of a sudden, there flasher starts
Speaker 1: sliding across the floor of the ice house and luckily
Speaker 1: it gets wedged in the hole. It's Ben's flasher. Ben
Speaker 1: grabs grabs ahold of his flasher and he pulls it
Speaker 1: back a little. And then he and John see a
Speaker 1: huge fish hanging onto the transducer itself, just below the surface,
Speaker 1: and thinking quickly, Ben lifted up slowly on the transducer cable.
Speaker 1: The fish's head came up into the hole. John grabbed
Speaker 1: it behind the gilt plate and pulled out a fifty
Speaker 1: plus inch muskie on the transducer. M hm. After they
Speaker 1: pulled it up, the fish continued to bite down on
Speaker 1: that transducer. Because the ad told told Northland Outdoors it
Speaker 1: was honestly a minute and a half before that thing
Speaker 1: let go. I kind of tickled its mouth hoping it
Speaker 1: would open, and it didn't. So what I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a crazy story, but it's just it's so unfair to
Speaker 1: all the people who have spent years of their lives
Speaker 1: work their butts off trying to catch a fifty musky.
Speaker 1: It's so unfair. Now, I understand why you think this
Speaker 1: would this would anger me so much, but frankly, it
Speaker 1: doesn't anger me at all, because this is this is
Speaker 1: how this ship happens with muskies. Like, I'm convinced that
Speaker 1: if I'm ever going to catch a fifty plus inch muski,
Speaker 1: if if that's ever gonna happen for me, chances are
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a miracle because it's gonna bite some
Speaker 1: hot and tot or something that I'm throwing for small mouth.
Speaker 1: Well this so that's crazy enough as it is, but
Speaker 1: there's there's one more wrinkle that makes this even more
Speaker 1: hard to believe true, but hard to believe so and
Speaker 1: possibly even more unfair, depending on how you want to
Speaker 1: look at it. Because Lake Charlie, the little lake where
Speaker 1: they're fishing, it's not supposed to have muskies in it.
Speaker 1: The DNR has never stocked muskies there. It does, however,
Speaker 1: connect to larger Lake Ida, and you'll remember that's where
Speaker 1: John has a cabin a small channel, but the d
Speaker 1: n R has never stocked muskies in Lake Ida either.
Speaker 1: They have stocked muskies in Lake Miltona, which connects to
Speaker 1: the opposite side of Ida from Charlie. So I looked
Speaker 1: this up on Google Maps, and that fish, that fish
Speaker 1: made just a ridiculous journey because these are not like tiny,
Speaker 1: little short channels where they connect right next to each other.
Speaker 1: We're talking like fifty to a thousand foot long, super small,
Speaker 1: little skinny water channels, each of which cuts through a
Speaker 1: culvert under a county road. So this fish went on
Speaker 1: like a serious walk about to get there, only to
Speaker 1: be caught by biting and hanging onto a flasher transducer.
Speaker 1: And if that story doesn't prove how cruel and callous
Speaker 1: the fates of fishing are, I do not know what will. So. Okay,
Speaker 1: so a couple of things here, right. First of all,
Speaker 1: I hear you on the on the walk about, but
Speaker 1: I don't really know what I'm talking about here. But
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure musky grow fair slowly. So fish that
Speaker 1: big it ain't young, right, So that part doesn't doesn't
Speaker 1: freak me out, because if it's that big, it's had
Speaker 1: a whole lot of time to get to where it
Speaker 1: ended up. Right. But here's the other thing. If this
Speaker 1: happened to me, say say I was the guy and
Speaker 1: it bit the transducer and I pulled up this musky.
Speaker 1: While I would be like, holy sh it, I can't
Speaker 1: believe that just happened. It would not count as my
Speaker 1: trophy musky. And I'm not I'm not saying that to
Speaker 1: take away anything from these guys, but more in the
Speaker 1: sense of, like, well, yeah, every once in a while,
Speaker 1: this goofy stuff happens, And here's this impossible fish to
Speaker 1: catch chewing on a transducer, But like, that's still not
Speaker 1: even catching one by accident on smallmouth tackle or something.
Speaker 1: It'd be awesome. I would love it, but I like,
Speaker 1: I want to catch my big muskie fishing for a
Speaker 1: big musk. And you know, I don't think these guys
Speaker 1: are claiming like a big musky. They're telling it because
Speaker 1: it's just crazy as story. And there's even one there's
Speaker 1: one final thing. I gotta say that I just love
Speaker 1: how many things had to come together to make this happen.
Speaker 1: So uh. In the past, John has used a ten
Speaker 1: inch auger to drill holes in the ice. But he
Speaker 1: just recently bought a brand new Auger with a nine
Speaker 1: inch blade and uh and he was quoted as saying,
Speaker 1: if I had used my ten inch auger, you're Vex
Speaker 1: Loomer would be gone. Well, you know, one one last
Speaker 1: point of note, right, I think I think the part
Speaker 1: we're missing here. It's one thing that he's chewing on
Speaker 1: the transducer cable. But also, man, I know a lot
Speaker 1: of captains, especially salty guys, that if they're at a
Speaker 1: certain shallow depth, like say twenty ft of water or
Speaker 1: less bottom fishing or whatever it is, they'll kill the
Speaker 1: sonar because a lot of people believe that that ping,
Speaker 1: that that signal actually screws with the fishing, you know,
Speaker 1: in certain situations. So it's like another level to me
Speaker 1: because here's this thing down there, like transmitting. You have
Speaker 1: to wonder if there was something that tweaked that fish,
Speaker 1: and like would it have hit it if it wasn't on,
Speaker 1: you know, or was like something about that signal put
Speaker 1: an electromagnetic field in the water or something like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's just another one of those things
Speaker 1: that that adds to how mysterious and complex A puzzle
Speaker 1: it is with what fish will eat and when and why.
Speaker 1: We can never figure it out, which is why we
Speaker 1: keep doing it. Well, I'll have to put some electromagnets
Speaker 1: on my musky flies or something. For the first time,
Speaker 1: but hopefully not the last time. Here on fish News,
Speaker 1: we're gonna shut up and kind of kind of at
Speaker 1: least past the mic to our buddy and meat eaters
Speaker 1: fishing editors, Sam Longer. Now, Um, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: how real news organs kick it to the guy in
Speaker 1: the field to to bring some more light to a
Speaker 1: very big story than Miles or I could bring it
Speaker 1: on our own. Sam, what's going on? Man? Thanks for
Speaker 1: thanks for i don't know, stopping doing real work and
Speaker 1: coming to talk to us a little bit. It's nice
Speaker 1: to have somebody here besides me and Miles for a
Speaker 1: change in the news space. Well, thanks for pulling me
Speaker 1: away from my real work to talk about some interesting stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, this is technically we do have
Speaker 1: you here to talk about your real work because because
Speaker 1: this is one of those stories that uh, we weren't
Speaker 1: able to cover and uh and shouldn't be covering because
Speaker 1: it's super regionally focused and we need I mean, fact
Speaker 1: is everybody we needed to bring in the big guns
Speaker 1: and someone who was a local on this story. Otherwise
Speaker 1: we would have looked like a bunch of jerks really
Speaker 1: talking about by somebody where this hits close to home.
Speaker 1: You know, it would be like Miles telling striper stories.
Speaker 1: That just doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah, well Myles can always
Speaker 1: be our our Hawaii correspondent, this is true. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: have a lot to cover their really what like two
Speaker 1: stories so far? Every um Anyway, with that, Sam's got
Speaker 1: a really interesting piece for us. And uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know everything you got, Sam, I know the basics
Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to seeing what you bring. And
Speaker 1: just to just to be clear, this ran on the
Speaker 1: meat eater dot com. That's where this this all precipitates from.
Speaker 1: Kah Sam. Yeah. So back in December, the Washington Department
Speaker 1: of Fishing Wildlife announced that they aren't going to allow
Speaker 1: anglers to fish for steel head out of boats on
Speaker 1: most of the coastal rivers this season, as well as
Speaker 1: banning bait and barbed hooks. But but that's nothing new.
Speaker 1: So as a lot of people are probably aware, native
Speaker 1: steel head runs have been in the shipter for the
Speaker 1: last four years that I mean going back a lot
Speaker 1: further than that, but like especially bad, and like even
Speaker 1: and predicted to be even shittier this year. Um and
Speaker 1: some folks are even speculating that these populations are on
Speaker 1: the brink of extinction. But wdf W believes that they'll
Speaker 1: be able to reduce the recreational catch rate by about
Speaker 1: fifty with these new regulations. But obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: people are super pissed about this, especially guides. They had
Speaker 1: a protest parade through Forks a few weeks ago. A
Speaker 1: change dot org petition to change these rules has gathered
Speaker 1: five thousand signatures. And boats are basically how guided steelhead
Speaker 1: trips work. The guide rows a driftboater raft right next
Speaker 1: to or right on top of the prime holding lies,
Speaker 1: and clients run through with plugs or drift gear, bobbers
Speaker 1: and worms, bobber dog rigs, jigs, indicator, nim friggs, you
Speaker 1: name it. But it's really effective. Uh. You know, one
Speaker 1: study show that guided anglers on the Soul Duck caught
Speaker 1: some eight percent of the steelhead caught in that river
Speaker 1: that year. UM. So, as you mentioned, I wrote an
Speaker 1: article about this for the Mediator website a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and that got people a bit stirred up. But like
Speaker 1: my message was this, you're in hiding right now, aren't you.
Speaker 1: You're location you don't know, ab somewhere, safehouse, Yeah, witness
Speaker 1: protection program. But I'm standing by my message, guys. And
Speaker 1: my message was I think you don't like Washington's new rigs,
Speaker 1: just you wait until the federal government gets involved. So
Speaker 1: to take a step back, I caught my first winter
Speaker 1: run steel head while skipping class during my senior year
Speaker 1: of high school up in the Skadget River. Just two
Speaker 1: months later. Two months later, the entire Puget Sound Distinct
Speaker 1: population segment of steelhead were listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Speaker 1: The Skatget didn't reopen for its world famous late winter
Speaker 1: fishery for a decade and and still hit or miss
Speaker 1: whether or not they'll have a season, and they're probably
Speaker 1: not going to have one this year. And this guy
Speaker 1: Comish that's still a Guamish. The snow Qualmy and a
Speaker 1: shipload of other rivers that start with the letters still
Speaker 1: haven't been reopened. The Washington Coast in Olympic Peninsula is
Speaker 1: one of only four steel head meta populations in the
Speaker 1: lower forty eight that haven't yet come under the umbrella
Speaker 1: of the Feds. Pretty much everything else is listed under
Speaker 1: the Endangered Species Act already, So they're a lot of
Speaker 1: different factors at play with why steel head of runs
Speaker 1: have fallen to fractions of a percent of their historical abundance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've covered a ton of them on here, like that's
Speaker 1: the frequent news item. Yeah, absolutely, And people people love
Speaker 1: to speculate wildly about what it is. And and one
Speaker 1: thing is for certain, it's never it's never anyone's it's
Speaker 1: never that person's fault, right right, right, right right. I
Speaker 1: don't know what's wrong, but it's not me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not me. It couldn't be me. Having
Speaker 1: read your story though, like the crux of what what
Speaker 1: you're saying and what you know is that as harsh
Speaker 1: as this is and as upsetting as it is to people,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's better than having the federal government come
Speaker 1: in and say nothing, no fishing, no, just shut it
Speaker 1: down completely exactly. And I mean the Endangered Species Act
Speaker 1: is designed to function it kind of as the iron
Speaker 1: fist of the federal government slamming down to prevent extinction.
Speaker 1: It's famously severe. I mean, like look at the controversy
Speaker 1: that's been going around spotted outs for thirty years. But
Speaker 1: it's also arguably effective if you look at species like
Speaker 1: wolves that have been recently delisted. But that same severity
Speaker 1: also makes it an effective deterrent. Like if you look
Speaker 1: back at eleven states and groups as far apart as
Speaker 1: environmentalists and oil developers and ranchers and hunters came together
Speaker 1: to design plans to save the Greater Sage grouse throughout
Speaker 1: the Inner Mountain West and then and then later that year,
Speaker 1: when the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed the
Speaker 1: grouse for listing, they ruled them to be quote warranted
Speaker 1: but precluded, which is basically an admission. That's a big problem.
Speaker 1: But the states are on top of it, so they
Speaker 1: can put their resources elsewhere. So that's exactly what Washington
Speaker 1: is trying to do with his boat fishing band. And
Speaker 1: you know, after publishing this article, my my name is
Speaker 1: is kind of being trashed, like you know, from the
Speaker 1: hump tulips to the hoe and back again. But like
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to pute this out to people, like
Speaker 1: I don't love this rule either. You know, I would
Speaker 1: ton of funds who are guides and I want to
Speaker 1: see them continue making a living. But like, and this
Speaker 1: rule messed up my own plans too. But I'm just
Speaker 1: really worried that if an es A listing comes down,
Speaker 1: this fishery is going to evaporate. And that's like not
Speaker 1: a boogeyman thing, like there are some of the litigious
Speaker 1: wild fish groups have already said that they're going to
Speaker 1: petition the US Fish and Wildlife Service under a more
Speaker 1: amenable Biden administration to list the coastal steel headstock and
Speaker 1: you know what, like they're probably gonna get it. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: so I just have I just have one question because
Speaker 1: see this is not my world. Admittedly, right, I am
Speaker 1: not as fluent on the West coast steel seen as
Speaker 1: you guys are. But before we get into because we're
Speaker 1: gonna be, I want I want you to read some
Speaker 1: of the things people have saying, uh I've been saying
Speaker 1: about you specifically. I believe you've you've queued up some
Speaker 1: comments that we'll get into. But this is just a question.
Speaker 1: We're out of ignorance. I mean, this system has been
Speaker 1: in place elsewhere out there for a long time, like
Speaker 1: the shoots. You cannot fish from a boat on the
Speaker 1: shoots most of the Scheina system too. Yeah, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: right right about the t shoots and like and like
Speaker 1: Steelhead Valhalla in around Terrace, British Columbia, nobody fishes from
Speaker 1: boats for steel head and haven't for a long time.
Speaker 1: And and to clarify, it's not that you can't put
Speaker 1: a boat on these rivers, you just can't fish out
Speaker 1: of it. So like I experienced on two shoots, you
Speaker 1: can use your boat to go from point A to
Speaker 1: point B, but then you have to get out and
Speaker 1: fish right correct correct, And and that's how a lot
Speaker 1: of people already do it. And and and there's also
Speaker 1: a valid argument to be made here that like, you know,
Speaker 1: the the Boga Shield is not the the shoots. You know,
Speaker 1: they're steep banks that are covered in rocks and moss,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's very dangerous. A lot of the
Speaker 1: a lot of the Steelhead seasons, the rivers will like
Speaker 1: barely ever come into shape, like not be too muddy
Speaker 1: to fish. And and so like a lot of people
Speaker 1: are arguinging like what about elderly people, what about young people?
Speaker 1: What about disabled anglers? And like I get that man,
Speaker 1: and and and originally there weren't concessions for those people.
Speaker 1: But I have heard that w df w IS is
Speaker 1: changing their tune there, and so that's that's good to hear,
Speaker 1: because like I've got buddies out there who are still
Speaker 1: fishing and rowing people down the rivers and their seventies
Speaker 1: and and and young folks and people who can't walk
Speaker 1: well like that, I feel like, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: very fair that the rules are a little bit different there,
Speaker 1: but like the fact of the matter is, like w DFD,
Speaker 1: but you had to do something, like the status quo
Speaker 1: here has failed, and restricting recreational anglers is the only
Speaker 1: tool they have available. They can't stop the Japanese High
Speaker 1: Seas trawlers, they can't stop the tribes, they can't stop
Speaker 1: warm water in the North Pacific, and and then and
Speaker 1: these rules have been getting more and more restrictive for decades.
Speaker 1: So like, if you didn't see this coming or something
Speaker 1: like this coming, you just haven't been paying attention. And
Speaker 1: the last thing I want to say is kind of
Speaker 1: where we're coming from here, where I'm from coming from here,
Speaker 1: I suppose it's like it's a big part of our
Speaker 1: ethos at meat Eater to have respect for and deference
Speaker 1: to biologists and wildlife managers. They have a tough job,
Speaker 1: and too many hunters and anglers have shipped talked to
Speaker 1: them for too long. Like, I'm not happy about this decision,
Speaker 1: but I understand why it was made, and I hesitate
Speaker 1: to second guess a game agency that's trying to save
Speaker 1: a game species from extinction. And there have been public
Speaker 1: forums and public comment periods throughout all of this process,
Speaker 1: but very few people were willing to tune in until
Speaker 1: something happened that they didn't like. So, Like, the last
Speaker 1: thing I want to say to anybody who who who
Speaker 1: hates me over this is like, if you don't like
Speaker 1: this rule, I get involved in the process and be
Speaker 1: part of the solution. Yelling at me is not going
Speaker 1: to accomplish anything. And I just really don't feel like
Speaker 1: steel has steel Head owe us anything like, but we
Speaker 1: owe the steel Head like all we can do to
Speaker 1: keep them around, and we like definitely owe it to
Speaker 1: the generations to follow. Like my best friend, one of
Speaker 1: my best friends who have been fishing steel Head with
Speaker 1: for fifteen years, had a son this year and he
Speaker 1: is convinced that his son won't be able to fish
Speaker 1: native steel head with us on the Olympic Peninsula, and
Speaker 1: that breaks my heart, man. And I just I just
Speaker 1: feel like, I feel like, you know, at least at
Speaker 1: least they're trying, at least at least some measure of
Speaker 1: attempt is being made to save these fish. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I think I think a couple of things that we
Speaker 1: got thrown here before we before we close out. One,
Speaker 1: if you if you don't know anything about this particular
Speaker 1: subculture of of anglers in this particular area, they might
Speaker 1: be the most divided and angry group of fishermen that
Speaker 1: I've ever come across, too, And that's that's important for
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know about this. The other
Speaker 1: thing is is in your article that I read, you know,
Speaker 1: on on some of those systems, all these fish are
Speaker 1: getting caught at least once, and some of them are
Speaker 1: getting caught multiple times, right according to the statistics. And
Speaker 1: I think that's an important point throw out. It's like
Speaker 1: the escapement is getting past the nets, but they're all
Speaker 1: getting caught and released by anglers and that has an impact.
Speaker 1: And and before we let you go, because we want
Speaker 1: you to tell us some of the awful hate mail
Speaker 1: that you've gotten, because we find that entertaining. But I
Speaker 1: should point out that three different friends of mine after
Speaker 1: reading your article reached out to me and and like
Speaker 1: said straight up, like, hey, man, is Sam okay? Is
Speaker 1: someone is anyone gonna are people who had heard him? So,
Speaker 1: like I think before we close out saying, why don't you,
Speaker 1: why don't you give us an example of the kind
Speaker 1: of crazy feedback you're getting from people and how upset
Speaker 1: they are because you were trying to tell this what
Speaker 1: I consider to be a journalistic story about the state
Speaker 1: of things. Yeah, and you know, and before I do that,
Speaker 1: Miles and I am okay, and thanks for asking, Um,
Speaker 1: but right now, because nobody knows where you are right yeah,
Speaker 1: the safe house. Um. But you know, I I heard
Speaker 1: from one of the top guides out there the other
Speaker 1: day and I was totally expect DM to thrash me.
Speaker 1: And we had a really great conversation about this and
Speaker 1: found a lot of middle ground. And so I do
Speaker 1: believe that a lot of rational people are kind of
Speaker 1: seeing what's happening here in its totality, not just kind
Speaker 1: of what's in front of their face, and I have
Speaker 1: gotten more positive comments than negative. Just read the negative.
Speaker 1: Just read the negative. We were happy to hear that,
Speaker 1: but we want to hear the train wrecord. So this
Speaker 1: fella said, you ever research South American king salmon and
Speaker 1: how they got there? I mean really researched it. See,
Speaker 1: you are spewing propaganda and a rhetoric dot dot. The
Speaker 1: simple problem is there aren't brought steel head. The simple
Speaker 1: solution all caps more steel head. Furthermore, w DFW is
Speaker 1: funded yearly by Federal Endangered Species moneies. Therefore they would
Speaker 1: go bankrupt if wildfish ever came back. Also researched the
Speaker 1: quinnult misspelled. It is amazing how they get off sime
Speaker 1: returns on all these warm weather years and with all
Speaker 1: the bad nets. Quinlt is the best steel head fishery
Speaker 1: in the entire Pacific Northwest. And he closes by saying
Speaker 1: something distasteful about my friend and employer, Stephen Ronnello that
Speaker 1: I would rather not repeat. I think we shouldn't. We
Speaker 1: got time for one more. You got one more, just short,
Speaker 1: really cutting good one, whether the spellings right or not.
Speaker 1: I also got this one bullshit. I live in Washington
Speaker 1: State and we have hogs for steel Head. I catch
Speaker 1: them all the time and avoid game officers while I
Speaker 1: take a picture of them and put them back. Well,
Speaker 1: I can't argue with that kind of science. We can.
Speaker 1: We could spend so much more time reading those shorties,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure there's some good ones. But um, dude,
Speaker 1: it's it's a great article. It was an important article,
Speaker 1: and we're happy that you came on to talk to
Speaker 1: us about it here. I'm also gonna say Phil that
Speaker 1: Sam is eligible for a win this week. I think
Speaker 1: I think any any one of us could win based
Speaker 1: on the work we've done here, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be me or you Joe, but Phil,
Speaker 1: you make your choice. Agreed. We'll see what Phil has
Speaker 1: to say, and then we're gonna move into trivia with
Speaker 1: our good buddy Robert Hawkins. For obvious reasons, Sam Londren,
Speaker 1: you're the winner of fish News. But Miles, don't sell
Speaker 1: your story short I mean it had everything, suspense, mystery, action,
Speaker 1: put that all together, and you've got to stow go on.
Speaker 1: You've gotta be highly skilled for these shows. You understand
Speaker 1: that you're well versed there. You're very smart men, all right,
Speaker 1: joining us today to play a little trivia. My good buddy,
Speaker 1: Mr Robert Hawkins, owner of Bob Mitchell's Fly Shop in St. Paul, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: Bobby nachos As you're knowing, How are you doing, my friend?
Speaker 1: We are we are doing well. We're gonna have a
Speaker 1: little fun today. UM. So just just to fill everybody in, UH,
Speaker 1: the month was November, the year when you, sir, caught
Speaker 1: a fifty seven in muskie on mill Axe Lake on
Speaker 1: the fly, claiming the current world record fly caught muskie.
Speaker 1: And you and I over the years have talked about
Speaker 1: this ad nauseum, and you've talked to so many other
Speaker 1: people about it. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that
Speaker 1: you were tired of talking about it. Fair to say,
Speaker 1: we're not going to talk about it now either. This
Speaker 1: is just the jumping off point for your first trivia
Speaker 1: question today. I hope that you are ready to play. UH.
Speaker 1: At just north of one hundred and thirty two thousand acres,
Speaker 1: mill As is the second largest lake in Minnesota, and
Speaker 1: I'd say it has a pretty solid reputation as a
Speaker 1: top fishing destination, not just in your home state, but
Speaker 1: also around the country. Would you agree with that. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the question is how many current Minnesota state record
Speaker 1: fish do you think we're plucked from the mighty waters
Speaker 1: of Malax? Is it a eleven, B, four C, zero
Speaker 1: or D one. I'm gonna say four four, So you're
Speaker 1: going you're going low number there. Um. If that's your
Speaker 1: final answer, that is incorrect, then the answer is zero. Wow.
Speaker 1: Presently there are no state record fish uh in Minnesota
Speaker 1: from from Malax, which I found very interesting because it's
Speaker 1: one of the most heavily fished bodies of wa are
Speaker 1: there and I hear all kinds of good things. But
Speaker 1: a quick follow up to that, I happen to notice
Speaker 1: while doing research that Minnesota's current state record muskie measured
Speaker 1: fifty six inches and wide fifty four pounds and has
Speaker 1: stood since ninety seven from winn of Gosh. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure you know all about that, but I mean, dude,
Speaker 1: technically you beat that on the fly. And I understand
Speaker 1: you had no intention in keeping that fish, but had you,
Speaker 1: you would hold the state record spot right now? Would
Speaker 1: you not? Potentially? The thing with Minnesota as they do
Speaker 1: it by weight and not by length and the girth
Speaker 1: on that on the wind of a gotious fish may
Speaker 1: have outdone my fish by maybe a pound or two.
Speaker 1: So mine may have been a pound or two short
Speaker 1: of what that fish wade, uh if that makes sense. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we'll never know, but the potential definitely exists. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it was for Minnesota's state record fish to
Speaker 1: be fly caught. Okay, that's impressive. That's that. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: so we'll get off the record fish. We'll go to
Speaker 1: another video that you were in, because there's there's awesome
Speaker 1: video of that fish being caught. But there's another clip
Speaker 1: out there. In fact, we used it in the promo
Speaker 1: video to announce the launch of Bent, in which you
Speaker 1: were being filmed in the final throws and cleaning a
Speaker 1: yetti cooler in which beef jerky sandwich is another sort
Speaker 1: of edibles had been marinating with the lid clothes for
Speaker 1: what was it, two months, two weeks something like that,
Speaker 1: at least, well at least a couple of three weeks.
Speaker 1: But my garage gets My garage is like a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty degrees in the summer, so maybe two weeks
Speaker 1: a hundred, two weeks and a hundred and and it's
Speaker 1: jerky sandwich is anything was there, anything else was in there?
Speaker 1: I want to I want to know what those contents
Speaker 1: were that created such a putrid, epic dry heaves. You know,
Speaker 1: there's always loose potato chips with water slashing around. Um,
Speaker 1: there's you know, half spilled beers usually in there. Um,
Speaker 1: probably some grapes that which thought we were going to
Speaker 1: eat to be healthy, but didn't. You know, I've never
Speaker 1: heard somebody wretch quite like that. We might have to
Speaker 1: repost that on our on our social mind. I think
Speaker 1: we do. I think we do. And it sounds to
Speaker 1: me like a primordial soup, like you might have actually
Speaker 1: spawned some new creatures, new life that never before existed
Speaker 1: on this planet came out of that cooler. It's so
Speaker 1: unfortunate what Aaron missed, Like all the that was, like
Speaker 1: the he in the video, it was so much more
Speaker 1: before that, even too came across. So this is kind
Speaker 1: of a goofy little question, but we're all going to
Speaker 1: learn something from it. So based on that experience. Which
Speaker 1: of the following is not recommended for use in removing
Speaker 1: foul odor from your cooler? A charcoal, catts, be baby powder,
Speaker 1: see cat litter, d baking soda to those is not
Speaker 1: recommended for removing incredibly foul odors from For the record,
Speaker 1: I don't know the answers to these either, so I'm
Speaker 1: puzzling over this as much as you are. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, I mean charcoal's I'm gonna say cat litter
Speaker 1: because it probably has some sort of like chemical in
Speaker 1: it that's not supposed to be in your cooler. Maybe
Speaker 1: Actually the made up one here is be baby powder.
Speaker 1: All the rest are recommended, at least on the interwebs,
Speaker 1: for removing rank odor from your cooler. However, I will
Speaker 1: say the most common one, the one I see use
Speaker 1: most any guesses. No bleach is disinfecting. We're just talking
Speaker 1: about like there's like such an embedded stink like you're
Speaker 1: just trying to get odor out, not necessarily disinfect And yes, charcoal,
Speaker 1: charcoal or cats so uh. Fun fact, if if you
Speaker 1: ever have a mishap like Mr Hawkins here, get you
Speaker 1: some of them Kingsford filled that sucker up, close the
Speaker 1: lid and let it marinate for a few days. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this has been really fun, and we thank you so
Speaker 1: much for playing today. Thank you enthusiasm. That's what we
Speaker 1: like here on Bent do I think we I think
Speaker 1: we need to bring back and re share that video
Speaker 1: of Hawkins dry heating over the cooler because it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's just so gross and guttural, and yet it's informative.
Speaker 1: There's a lesson there. There's a lesson there, but less there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a quick lesson at the end. We'll reshare the
Speaker 1: video this week, um At. Speaking of guttural right, I
Speaker 1: once fished a lore that made me make guttural noises
Speaker 1: and also made me dry heath Ala Hawkins. I learned
Speaker 1: that just this week. Something I learned from from this
Speaker 1: week's end of line segment. So Joe's Joe's gonna mimic
Speaker 1: his good friend Bobby Nacho's there, and he's gonna get
Speaker 1: all gross and guttural and informative. He's gonna give you
Speaker 1: some tips on what you should never do when getting
Speaker 1: into the chopper in the Amazon. Well, that's not loud enough, Burt,
Speaker 1: Perhaps up, you're very familiar with the wood shopper. It's
Speaker 1: also very possible you've never heard of it. I liken
Speaker 1: this lure to a great band with a devout cult
Speaker 1: following that tried to get a major label record deal
Speaker 1: for decades, only to eventually burn out, leaving a smattering
Speaker 1: of even lesser known cover bands in its wake. The
Speaker 1: wood Shopper is a top water hardbeat, and while they've
Speaker 1: been made in many sizes, the six to eight inch
Speaker 1: models were the most common. The design is rather simple.
Speaker 1: You've got a painted cigar shaped body, and at the tail,
Speaker 1: between that body and the rear treble hook is an
Speaker 1: oversized metal double blade propeller. Like many baits featured here,
Speaker 1: there is some haze and mark to the story of
Speaker 1: the wood Shopper, but my research points to it being
Speaker 1: an original creation of Ozark mountain Lures. It debuted in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties and was primarily marketed as a muskie bait.
Speaker 1: Ozark's design actually featured a propeller at the head and
Speaker 1: the tail, and while there's not tons of info on
Speaker 1: the inner webs about these early versions, I get the
Speaker 1: sense that, aside from catch muskies, these top orders became sleepers,
Speaker 1: if you will, for giant large mouth bass as well.
Speaker 1: The wood shopper was designed to be versatile. You could
Speaker 1: steadily real one in making those blades buzz in the
Speaker 1: body wake. You could slow roll a chopper to create
Speaker 1: a lazy bubble trail, or you could violently snap a
Speaker 1: wood chopper to make a rip saw racket on the surface.
Speaker 1: And it's that last dance move that pushes our story forward.
Speaker 1: The wood shoppers design has arguably inspired and influenced many
Speaker 1: other successful baits, perhaps most notably the Whopper Flopper. But
Speaker 1: just as my beloved misfits inspired bands like Metallica that
Speaker 1: would go on and have platinum records and make billions
Speaker 1: of dollars, the wood shopper by itself never really achieved superstardom. Still,
Speaker 1: Lard Jensen owner Phil Jensen saw potential and purchase the
Speaker 1: wood chopper design from Ozark Mountain loures In. Once Lar
Speaker 1: Jensen took over, they quickly got rid of that front propeller.
Speaker 1: In the late eighties and early nineties, peacock bass fishing
Speaker 1: in the Amazon was getting more and more attention from
Speaker 1: a American anglers, and what they learned was at the
Speaker 1: sound of a wood schopper being jerked across the surface
Speaker 1: and mock one bursts created an auditory kill queue for
Speaker 1: monster peacocks better than anything else. Now I'm guessing here,
Speaker 1: but removing the front prop created less resistance, allowing early
Speaker 1: pioneers to rip those choppers a little harder and a
Speaker 1: little faster. Shortly after Aller Jensen purchased the wood chopper
Speaker 1: and angler by the name of Doc Lawson broke the
Speaker 1: all tackle world record for peacocks with a twenty seven
Speaker 1: pounder using the lore. In short order, Allergens and wood
Speaker 1: chopper became standard kit for Amazon peacock hunters looking for
Speaker 1: big dogs. In fact, is one piece I read suggested
Speaker 1: if you showed up in the Amazon without wood choppers,
Speaker 1: you who are labeled a complete novice. Throughout the nineties
Speaker 1: and into the early two thousands, between the rise of
Speaker 1: the Internet and more lodge operations opening in South America,
Speaker 1: peacock fishing in the Amazon slowly more from a game
Speaker 1: for the rich and fortunate two pretty affordable to more people,
Speaker 1: and the wood shoppers reputation as the trophy peacock lure
Speaker 1: only strengthened, but it didn't strengthen enough. Apparently. In two
Speaker 1: thousand six, Phil Jensen sold his entire company to wrap them,
Speaker 1: and by two thousand eleven, the Lard Jensen wood schopper
Speaker 1: was out of production. Because despite the lure's prominence in
Speaker 1: the peacock scene. The small market of Amazon bound anglers
Speaker 1: simply generated too little money to justify its place in
Speaker 1: the catalog, and by then it seemed nobody was really
Speaker 1: using a wood shopper for anything but peacock bass. I
Speaker 1: finally got to the Amazon, and sure enough there wasn't
Speaker 1: Allergensen wood shopper anywhere in sight. But as it often
Speaker 1: goes with defunct plugs, a small batchmaker steps in to
Speaker 1: fill the void. The lodge I stayed at set us
Speaker 1: up with rip rollers, pretty much carbon copies of wood
Speaker 1: shoppers made by high roller Lures out of Gainesville, Florida. Now,
Speaker 1: having spent years watching videos of massive peacocks crushing shoppers,
Speaker 1: I couldn't wait to fish them. But then I did
Speaker 1: a very dumb thing. My first night at the lodge,
Speaker 1: Me and the fellas got our drank on and we
Speaker 1: failed to drink any water between the adult BEVs. So
Speaker 1: the next morning, while my excitement overrode any hangover, and
Speaker 1: I was pretty bright eyed and bushy tail, when I
Speaker 1: made my first cast with a rip roller and started chugging,
Speaker 1: things took a turn harder, sir, is all our guide said,
Speaker 1: So I ripped that lord harder, more hard, sir, he said,
Speaker 1: after my second retrieve, And that's when I realized to
Speaker 1: work a roller a shopper like you're supposed to, you're
Speaker 1: gonna burn out the arms and shoulders. Now, normally I'd
Speaker 1: say bring the pain, but within an hour the remnant booze,
Speaker 1: dehydration and degree heat at the equator caught up to
Speaker 1: me and I about collapsed with my head spinning. I
Speaker 1: slugged three waters back to back and then fought to
Speaker 1: keep those down, and then I think I just kind
Speaker 1: of laid on the deck for a good long while
Speaker 1: until I recovered lesson, learned about hard liquor in the Amazon,
Speaker 1: and side note, I fished that rip roller right proper
Speaker 1: for the rest of the trip, And while I stuck
Speaker 1: a couple, my biggest peacock, a thirteen founder, hit a
Speaker 1: big storm chug bug, which I probably could have worked
Speaker 1: effectively being like full blown Lemmy drunk. So that's all
Speaker 1: the time we have this week. If you happen to
Speaker 1: just fast forward through the entire show and just to
Speaker 1: this very spot, you missed a deep dive into Carl
Speaker 1: Weathers that any's biography could not touch with a ten
Speaker 1: foot surf right. Oh man, you sure did, but listen, um,
Speaker 1: don't miss out on your chance to be on this show.
Speaker 1: Keep those bar nominations, salebin items and awkward photos rolling
Speaker 1: into Bent at the meat Eator dot com. Remember, if
Speaker 1: we use anything you sand, you will get a sweet
Speaker 1: little care package of stickers from us. Or just say
Speaker 1: hi right in, say what's up? Or you guys suck
Speaker 1: whatever whatever you want. Uh, and don't forget we got
Speaker 1: eyes on those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags. You
Speaker 1: can get stickers if if you grab our touch in
Speaker 1: that way too. Yeah. And once you realize your minimal
Speaker 1: fishing successes aren't producing a graham worthy shot that catches
Speaker 1: our attention, and you're gonna give that shoot up, You're
Speaker 1: gonna concentrate on golf. Finally, I've been waiting for a
Speaker 1: happy Gilmore reference this entire episode