Speaker 1: Here's what you do. You buy a cheap pack of
Speaker 1: smokes with white filters, and you put your squid and
Speaker 1: your sparing on your hook, and then you break off
Speaker 1: a filter and you stick it over the point. You
Speaker 1: couldn't get your sausage fingers in there to whip finish
Speaker 1: on the size w D flour? Do you? I turned
Speaker 1: back to look at Bill to ask him if he's
Speaker 1: got the fish, and he has gone. So is the
Speaker 1: seat to my boat and the pedestal. Here's where we're
Speaker 1: gonna go back to those uh the anal rays. Please
Speaker 1: take us back to the anal raising. Good morning, degenerate anglers,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Bend, the fishing podcast that got its
Speaker 1: first fly tying kid in the sixth grade and twenty
Speaker 1: six years later, still can't figure out how to use
Speaker 1: a whip finished tool. I'm Joe SURMERII and joining me
Speaker 1: to co host today my boy Tim Landwer of Tight
Speaker 1: Lions Fly Fishing Company in Wisconsin, who people say looks
Speaker 1: like Joe Exotic from Tiger King. Tim. What's going on? Brother?
Speaker 1: Not much? Joe? How are you today? Bro? I'm great man.
Speaker 1: It's good to see. I'm so pumped to have you
Speaker 1: here spectacular. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, And it's fitting that
Speaker 1: you're here because we're gonna have some fun leaning towards
Speaker 1: the fly side of things today, particularly the tying side,
Speaker 1: which is a theme I've never really explored. But it's
Speaker 1: all gonna make sense in just a little bit. But
Speaker 1: before we move on, um, can you use a whip
Speaker 1: finisher or do you do it with your fingers? Like me?
Speaker 1: So I can use a whip finish. Yeah, well, whip
Speaker 1: finishing tool pretty well because we teach a lot of
Speaker 1: fly tying classes and stuff, but personally I just used
Speaker 1: my fingers, seeing okay. And for anybody who doesn't tie,
Speaker 1: it has no idea what we're talking about. It's the
Speaker 1: tool that finishes the fly, like makes the little nott
Speaker 1: and I've tried. It's like a Rubik's cube. Whoever invented
Speaker 1: its sadistic tool to try to teach it, and then
Speaker 1: you've got guys in your class who are left hand
Speaker 1: and you're like, dude, I'm sorry, I can't help you.
Speaker 1: There are no rebates either, but I can't help you.
Speaker 1: And you watch it on video and it's just like
Speaker 1: boo boo, But I'm like, I can do that. And
Speaker 1: I just Rubik's cube is perfect. It just like falls apart.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't work. And then it was it was
Speaker 1: like Lefty Cray or somebody years ago, like some old
Speaker 1: head was like, just use your fingers, and like I
Speaker 1: got the fingers thing down, so I just go with that.
Speaker 1: I used my fingers too. But yeah, it's a terrible
Speaker 1: tool joke. I also tie large flies. I don't tie
Speaker 1: Nimpson ship. So it's pretty big thread. So I can
Speaker 1: you know, I can get. You couldn't keep your sausage
Speaker 1: fingers in there to finish. I couldn't. That's why I
Speaker 1: just buy those. But anyway, so a little backstory. Um
Speaker 1: so you and I met last summer while filming an
Speaker 1: episode of dost Boat season two together. Um and you
Speaker 1: showed me your incredible smallmouth fishery on the Monomitee River.
Speaker 1: And that episode, along with the spot Burn video which
Speaker 1: sort of spawned out of dost Boat and was running
Speaker 1: the fly fishing film tour even help you guys make
Speaker 1: some serious gains and stopping a big soulfide mine that
Speaker 1: was proposed in the area. It was a big win.
Speaker 1: It's a huge win. It's a huge win. I can't think.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was awesome getting to fish with you
Speaker 1: guys last season. Um, but just shedding light on that
Speaker 1: mine and that sulfide mine, it's been a big win.
Speaker 1: We've kind of got the Mind Company on the run
Speaker 1: a little bit and um, you know, we're we're we're
Speaker 1: in a very very good place right now and it's
Speaker 1: it's thanks to you know, efforts from you guys and
Speaker 1: the film tour and stuff shedding light on that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's crazy, like so many people make content that
Speaker 1: sort of has a message or is like trying to
Speaker 1: push people somewhere, but then to have that first hand
Speaker 1: experience where it was like, oh damn, people actually watched
Speaker 1: that and that made a difference. It got people to rally,
Speaker 1: was very very cool. It was super powerful because our
Speaker 1: friends at the Coalition to Save Them a nominee, river
Speaker 1: Dale Bury and his wife, they had contacted me and
Speaker 1: they're like, I mean there were donations that were sent
Speaker 1: in from other countries, you know, like, yeah, the Mediator
Speaker 1: Crew and you guys have some crazy reach and have
Speaker 1: helped out some pretty significant conservation efforts. Are in particular,
Speaker 1: I mean it hits home to me. Yeah, so funny
Speaker 1: thing about that, right, So I like the first day
Speaker 1: of our shoot within a mile, I grabbed a spinning
Speaker 1: rod because we were trying to catch a pike for
Speaker 1: the table, right, and you put me in this little
Speaker 1: soft eddie and this monster Smally just hammered this jerk bay, right.
Speaker 1: It was not really supposed to be Smally water, and
Speaker 1: it was actually it was the first fish you saw
Speaker 1: on camera in the dost Boat episode. But when the
Speaker 1: footage was recut for the film Tour, we submitted the
Speaker 1: sequence of that fish, and I made a joke in
Speaker 1: the narration. I was like, sea fly, guys, I'll take
Speaker 1: a spinning rod out when I fly fish, and you know, nobody,
Speaker 1: It's okay, nobody's gonna die. And even though that video
Speaker 1: that the one for the film Tour was point nine
Speaker 1: percent fly, they refused to let that one conventional fish
Speaker 1: stay in the edit, Like, come on, man, I didn't
Speaker 1: even notice that. I got to re look at the end.
Speaker 1: I was I have selective, you know, like vision on
Speaker 1: on that stuff. I want to see it's all fishing, man,
Speaker 1: come on, So what's perfection? And we had such beautiful
Speaker 1: footage of me catching it on an omen black spinning
Speaker 1: rod from our sponsors, Third Team Fishing. But it was
Speaker 1: it was an incredible situation because if you recall, you
Speaker 1: threw it into that backwater, a fish eight came unbuttoned
Speaker 1: and then big and it was a twenty. It was
Speaker 1: a tape twenty. I remember some of the crew, Gregson
Speaker 1: and some of those guys like, well, we're all set,
Speaker 1: that's wrap done. We're done here. Oh man, Well anyway,
Speaker 1: so we'll get back to the fly scene now. So
Speaker 1: you run a very successful shop. You have for twenty
Speaker 1: years now. Um, so here's a question for you. What,
Speaker 1: in your opinion, is the most significant material that has
Speaker 1: changed the game in flies and say the last ten
Speaker 1: fifteen years. Man, that's that's a big one. That's it.
Speaker 1: You've been in my shop. You know how much time
Speaker 1: have you have every day? Yeah, you know, I'd have
Speaker 1: to say if we if we take a look at
Speaker 1: fifteen years and like impact on my my tying, I'd
Speaker 1: have to say it's been some of the feathers, like
Speaker 1: like companies like Whiting Farms who have bred such good
Speaker 1: feathers and offshoots of those feathers have come out from
Speaker 1: big shopping for muskie fly I'm sure, but man, you've
Speaker 1: been time for a long time. I remember tying atoms
Speaker 1: and it took me like four feathers from a cheap
Speaker 1: Indian neck to you know, like right right, and now
Speaker 1: you can do it. So i'd have to say feathers
Speaker 1: or next and synthetic game stuff because there synthetic walls
Speaker 1: have exploded to so I can't just say one. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny you bring up feathers. It's an interesting answer
Speaker 1: because I would say it's synthetic dubbing material. Now that's
Speaker 1: existed for a very long time, right, But I feel
Speaker 1: like it was sort of the simultaneous rise in the
Speaker 1: popularity of streamer fishing combode with the advent of like
Speaker 1: laser dub that made those materials explode. And I remember
Speaker 1: when I first got my hands on laser dub, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh mg, like this changes everything. No spinning hair,
Speaker 1: no playing with wool, Like this was the ship was
Speaker 1: the thing that was a thing that we could you know,
Speaker 1: you would just dub that onto a hook and make
Speaker 1: a dry fly out of it. We're now we're like
Speaker 1: we're taking giant clumps of it and you know, folding
Speaker 1: it back exactly. It's been completely repurposed in that regard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was like Kelly Gallup's Modern uh Trophy. That's that
Speaker 1: book was so impactful to me, a modern streamers for
Speaker 1: trophy tub. And even then you look at what is
Speaker 1: modified from a lot of his patterns were woolheads, hair
Speaker 1: heads and stuff. And now the advent of like you said,
Speaker 1: laser dub even in the muskie world, it's a mind bender. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the but the funny thing is, all these years later,
Speaker 1: now I see people post these bait fish patterns and
Speaker 1: they're just all synthetic dub and they look cool and
Speaker 1: I know they'll catch. But now I'm like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just all synthetic dubbing though, Like can you even spin hair? Bro?
Speaker 1: Like I'm like complete reverse, like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like it made it too easy, like the days
Speaker 1: of Dave Whitelock Chris Helm spinning hair. Like, yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: just back on some more laser dub, right right, But
Speaker 1: kidding aside, So listen up, because I'm about to drop
Speaker 1: a fresh bent contest on you guys that I'm really
Speaker 1: excited about. Okay, this is why I bring up these dubbings.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite dubbings is made by my budd,
Speaker 1: Aaron Littera of American Tide Flies out in Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 1: he makes this stuff called magnum dubbing. You familiar with that,
Speaker 1: I'm not not seen magnum dubbing, Okay, alright, So the
Speaker 1: fibers are really long, and he has all these great
Speaker 1: color blends, and if you're into tying streamers, this stuff
Speaker 1: is great, better, better than laser dub in my opinion.
Speaker 1: But Aaron did a thing for me. Um. Some of
Speaker 1: you have already seen this on my Instagram account. I
Speaker 1: teased it. Aaron has produced a one off special set
Speaker 1: of six magnum dubbing colors, all themed around bent right.
Speaker 1: So you cannot buy these. These are not for sale.
Speaker 1: This is the only complete I know. This is the
Speaker 1: only complete set I have, and I want to give
Speaker 1: it to one of you. So here are the colors. Right. So,
Speaker 1: we've got a nice light olive e tan called Nicotine
Speaker 1: Annis in honor of Bob the garbage Man, even though
Speaker 1: that dude would never tie on a fly. Um. We've
Speaker 1: got we've got like a nice contrasting flashy light gray
Speaker 1: called Mystery Tuna, a nod to the Subway tuna debate,
Speaker 1: the fake tuna in the sandwiches um a muted neon
Speaker 1: orange called hef a in honor of and V for
Speaker 1: all you Lance V fans after I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're just love the guy he wanted. Very few was
Speaker 1: a big fan of him. So we've got a flashed
Speaker 1: up shard truths called Dill Pickle Pringles and that's like
Speaker 1: for the serious Bend fans. That goes back to our
Speaker 1: our best tournament correspondent Ran Stimpkins. We've got a killer
Speaker 1: dark brown with purple accents called Mandy's Live Well after
Speaker 1: the Mandy Yorke story of a dude shifting in her
Speaker 1: live Well. And my personal favorite, which I will tell
Speaker 1: you right now I did not get pre authorized. I
Speaker 1: didn't care if he was mad. My favorite one is
Speaker 1: like this midnight black with iridescent accents called Ross Robertson's Soul. Yea.
Speaker 1: So these are all up for grabs, and here's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do between today, October eight and before the
Speaker 1: next show airs on Friday the fifteen. I will be
Speaker 1: monitoring those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on Instagram.
Speaker 1: But I want to see something you made that helps
Speaker 1: you catch more fish, Right, we gotta mix it up
Speaker 1: a little bit. I don't want to limit this to
Speaker 1: to fly tires, though I'm sure we're gonna see plenty
Speaker 1: of awesome flies. But this could be a jig, you
Speaker 1: tide allure, you repainted whatever. But I'm looking for something
Speaker 1: you made. And remember it's not a beauty contest. Tell
Speaker 1: me something about it, like the why often wins these
Speaker 1: things over the what, and I will post a winner
Speaker 1: on my Instagram page the morning of Saturday, October sixteenth, Tim,
Speaker 1: would you like to help me be a judge for this? Oh?
Speaker 1: My god, I'd like I'd like nothing more. I want
Speaker 1: to see these connections in these creations and and and
Speaker 1: the names have to be good too. I mean, it
Speaker 1: can't just be the fly like, Yeah, we got have
Speaker 1: some some stellar names in here. We're gonna consider all
Speaker 1: all things. But remember it's just like, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be the prettiest. I want to know the why.
Speaker 1: It's got to be something you made. Um, I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to it. Huge shout out to AAR because these
Speaker 1: are these are awesome dubbings. UM Collector's items. Maybe if
Speaker 1: any I don't, I don't know, maybe you can't even
Speaker 1: tie with them anyway, get me some of these I
Speaker 1: need some of these dumbings. Yeah, I think I can
Speaker 1: hook you up. I'm gonna be able to hook you up.
Speaker 1: So what we can do? Uh, But in the meantime
Speaker 1: we'll move on to smooth Moves, We'll get away from
Speaker 1: tying the flies and uh move along to people feeding
Speaker 1: them to fish poorly And joining us today is actually
Speaker 1: one of your own guide, Nate Simple, who also works
Speaker 1: for Tight Lines. So don't spoil it, but do you
Speaker 1: think you know what story of client insanity Nate's gonna tell?
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Joe. Nate is one of my
Speaker 1: closest friends and he's guided for me for about sixteen years.
Speaker 1: There is an absolutely train of craziness that I've heard
Speaker 1: over the last seventeen years, So I can honestly tell you, like,
Speaker 1: I have no idea what the hell he would have said.
Speaker 1: But I mean, there's literally hundreds of hilarious stories you
Speaker 1: could give us today for Smooth Moves. Why joining me
Speaker 1: today on Smooth Moves? Fly Guide Nate Simple One are
Speaker 1: the guys with the Tight Lines Fly fishing company crew
Speaker 1: out in Wisconsin who I met when I was out
Speaker 1: there shooting Dost Boat. How are you man? Not bad?
Speaker 1: How are you doing, Joe? I'm good, I'm I'm very good.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it's weird. We've hung out together because
Speaker 1: you were you were running one of the camera boats
Speaker 1: on that shoot, but we've never actually fished together. Like
Speaker 1: you sort of watched me fish from a distance, which
Speaker 1: is impressive, I know, and almost almost as kid as
Speaker 1: being on the boat together, but we never actually got
Speaker 1: to fish together. I'm like, do for another trip out there. Man.
Speaker 1: For a matter of fact, you were not really supposed
Speaker 1: to be in Dost Boat at all. But when it
Speaker 1: came to the part where we had to take the
Speaker 1: engine off that boat, I was like, somebody grabbed Nate. Okay,
Speaker 1: just getting Nat in there. So you actually kind of
Speaker 1: worked harder on boat mods in season two than I
Speaker 1: did on that episode. But anyway, man, so remind me
Speaker 1: how many years guiding? Now, how many years you've been
Speaker 1: doing this? This is fifty all right, there you go,
Speaker 1: and you've been with with tight lines for that long. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It just goes to show you. Man. Our friend Tim
Speaker 1: Landwherd who has been on the show many times. It
Speaker 1: must be a good due to work force. Stick around
Speaker 1: that long. He can see you can trash him though
Speaker 1: on this show. It's okay, Okay, he won't. He won't
Speaker 1: listen anyways. Yeah, probably not. Probably won't anyway. So you
Speaker 1: know what Smooth Moves is all about. Man, the floor
Speaker 1: is yours. Wow me make me laugh? What do you got?
Speaker 1: I know you've seen some ship I have. I have
Speaker 1: And when you hit me up for this a while ago,
Speaker 1: so many things we're running through my head. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I've got so many stories. Um. And one
Speaker 1: of them that came to mind that that I still have,
Speaker 1: like other clients have heard, um, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of become a little infamous. Up at camp was
Speaker 1: a guy who um, in the interest of anonymity in
Speaker 1: this guy actually being a decent dude, and he is
Speaker 1: fishing with me again like next month. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to use a pseudonym here and we'll call him. We'll
Speaker 1: call him Bill for the time being. Bill is good.
Speaker 1: Bill is good good. So anyways, Bill and I are
Speaker 1: in the boat with one of his buddies, and this
Speaker 1: is a preseason small mufflow. So we're we're on a
Speaker 1: on a small tributary to one of our big rivers,
Speaker 1: and it's May. Uh and this river river happens to
Speaker 1: drain a considerable percentage of the upper Peninsula of Michigan,
Speaker 1: which in the wintertime is it's cold, you know, to
Speaker 1: get a lot of snow. So this water that's coming
Speaker 1: down into the system, I mean, it's it's like a
Speaker 1: little bit above freezing in the first part of May.
Speaker 1: So anyways, we get on the water, everything's going smooth.
Speaker 1: And I gotta preface this by saying that I had
Speaker 1: just gotten a brand new boat from Adipose wonderful ball. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I've had like two days in this boat. It's
Speaker 1: still got that new boat smell. Everything stills, you know,
Speaker 1: shiny and ship. There's no cigarette stains and burn marks
Speaker 1: all over the place yet. Um So, anyways, we're we're
Speaker 1: going down the river and we're fishing small mouth, hoping
Speaker 1: to possibly get a shot at a muskie if one
Speaker 1: presents itself. And we're going down and because the water
Speaker 1: is high, because the water is cold, we're we're looking
Speaker 1: for those those gray, little soft spots, those little eddies,
Speaker 1: those little slicks and stuff like that. We finally come
Speaker 1: up to one and Bill, as well call him, is
Speaker 1: sitting in the back of my boat and he's really
Speaker 1: enjoying the day. And by enjoying the day, I mean
Speaker 1: he's sitting in one of the wonderful pedestal seats that
Speaker 1: at a Post puts in their boats, and he's got
Speaker 1: his feet up on the on the side of the
Speaker 1: boat and he's just chilling. And he pulls back and
Speaker 1: he throws a cast into this greasy, little kind of eddie,
Speaker 1: you know, some nice fom on and stuff. But he
Speaker 1: doesn't mend right away. It's just it's kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit of a lazy cast. And he was sitting
Speaker 1: down and casting. He's sitting and casting. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: sit and cast either. Just doesn't feel right anyway. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe there's a reason why he does that, but if
Speaker 1: there's not, he can't do that well. For me, it's
Speaker 1: it's that I'm greedy and I want to be able
Speaker 1: to see what's going on, and I feel like when
Speaker 1: I'm sitting I can't see a damn fact. So Bill
Speaker 1: throws this fly into this little eddie and he doesn't
Speaker 1: mend or anything, and maybe it's because he's sitting down.
Speaker 1: Current catches his line, rips the line right out of there,
Speaker 1: and as that fly is vacating this eddie, I see
Speaker 1: this big, like like a huge, huge small mouth just
Speaker 1: kind of levitate up behind his fly, go right after it,
Speaker 1: and then go, you know what, this water is really cold.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like working that hard throw this. So
Speaker 1: the small mouth goes back into his into his spot,
Speaker 1: and I immediately dropped the anchor and I stand up
Speaker 1: and I say to Bill, I said, Bill, get that
Speaker 1: fly back in there, but work the fly this time.
Speaker 1: Throw a mend into it right away. Get that fly
Speaker 1: slow down. So I dropped the anchor. I'm now standing up,
Speaker 1: looking to my right, right at the right ut of
Speaker 1: the shore, right into this eddy, and Bill, still seated,
Speaker 1: throws a nice cast right into the eddy. Fly hits
Speaker 1: the water, He mends, he mend's, and right on cue this,
Speaker 1: the murder minow is just kind of hanging there in
Speaker 1: that in that grease. Just suspend it, and this big
Speaker 1: small mouth just comes up and it just just disappears
Speaker 1: the whole thing, and I, in all my excitement, just
Speaker 1: hit him, hit him, hit him, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: the boat rocks violently. I hear this this ripping noise
Speaker 1: followed by a big splash, and there's this moment where
Speaker 1: I'm just frozen and I'm like, what the hell just happened?
Speaker 1: And I turned back to look at Bill to ask
Speaker 1: him if he's got the fish, and he has gone,
Speaker 1: so is the seat to my boat and the pedestal.
Speaker 1: So I'm doing this moment where I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And I look back at the water and the fish
Speaker 1: is still, like I can see it on the line
Speaker 1: because the line is it's a floating line, it's a
Speaker 1: short line, so I can see the line like bent
Speaker 1: into there. And I look back. I've got a bare
Speaker 1: boat floor, no seat, no pedestal, nothing in the back
Speaker 1: of my brand new boat, and my client is in
Speaker 1: the water. Bill is in the water behind me, in
Speaker 1: fifty degree water on his back. And if you've ever
Speaker 1: flipped like a snapping turtle on its back in the water,
Speaker 1: and you see him doing that thing where they're trying
Speaker 1: to right themselves, that's the invitation that I'm getting out
Speaker 1: of Bill right now. And thankfully for him, the water
Speaker 1: happened to be about three ft deep, so he stands up,
Speaker 1: lifts his rod tip up. He's still got the damn
Speaker 1: fish on and he he makes his way back to
Speaker 1: the boat. He gets a hand on the side of
Speaker 1: the boat. I don't know how he's not frantically gasping
Speaker 1: for air, because this water is, like I said, it's
Speaker 1: a little bo freezing. He got the life right out
Speaker 1: of here. Yeah, he kind of hands me the rod
Speaker 1: to hold onto the fish. Will he will. He tries
Speaker 1: to get himself back into the boat. And he gets
Speaker 1: back in the boat. We land the fish, and and
Speaker 1: I kind of turned on and I look at him,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what the hell did you do? You know?
Speaker 1: And and he, you know, had his feet up on
Speaker 1: the gut. And what I know happened was in his
Speaker 1: excitement that fish ate and he threw his entire weight
Speaker 1: and pushed with his feet back into that seat and basically,
Speaker 1: you know, did his impression of a guy at anytime
Speaker 1: fitness on the legs sled machine into the back of
Speaker 1: my damn this thing, and still had enough momentum to
Speaker 1: throw himself out the backside of the boat, you know.
Speaker 1: And oh man, yeah, so it was it was just
Speaker 1: I was shocked that a he didn't freeze to death
Speaker 1: and be he got himself back in the boat and
Speaker 1: and that I didn't kill it because he his first
Speaker 1: comment out of his milk was not like, oh ship, dude,
Speaker 1: I really messed that up, but it was like, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: this is clearly a manufacturer's flaw. And I was like, no, dude,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. But on a serious note, right, So that's
Speaker 1: that's funny that he went right to manufacturer's defect because
Speaker 1: I know who that guy is. I've met that guy before. Um,
Speaker 1: did you have to bail? I mean that had to
Speaker 1: be a potential hypothermic situation, right, No, So the sun
Speaker 1: was actually out, it was it was the air temperature
Speaker 1: was like seventy degree. So yeah, back in his big concern,
Speaker 1: the main thing that he was concerned about was not
Speaker 1: anybody's comfort or well being the rest of the trip.
Speaker 1: It was that the Copenhagen in his breast pocket was
Speaker 1: was was still dry. So once we once we got
Speaker 1: that resolved and figured out that we were good there, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we we kind of went on on our way.
Speaker 1: So I then had to do the you know, the
Speaker 1: call of shame and call the guys out at adipose
Speaker 1: and and uh, you know, they walked walked me through
Speaker 1: how to kind of resolve it, and and it was
Speaker 1: it could have been worse. I mean he could have
Speaker 1: ripped like the whole floor out and had water coming
Speaker 1: in the boat. But you know, they right away I
Speaker 1: was justin told me that in their like seventeen years,
Speaker 1: they had never ever seen that happen, never seen one
Speaker 1: getting ripped clean out of the Baltic birch. And the
Speaker 1: bolts that hold this sucker in like you know, they
Speaker 1: were like the size of my pinkie, these giant coarse
Speaker 1: thread epoxied in and just boom ripped them right out
Speaker 1: of there. So the thing you have to understand about
Speaker 1: Nate is Nate is about the most I know he's
Speaker 1: listening right now. He's like the most type a you know,
Speaker 1: very particular guy. I mean his truck. He's the guy
Speaker 1: that you want to buy his youth truck from because
Speaker 1: like it's that's like brands banking. Um. So I remember
Speaker 1: he got his new boat as a brand new boat,
Speaker 1: you know, only a handful of weeks old. And a
Speaker 1: lot of our guys rotate boats every couple of years.
Speaker 1: They have you know, things with some of the different companies.
Speaker 1: And I remember coming back to camp like completely just
Speaker 1: just a train wreck. And in one hand he's got
Speaker 1: the seat with like four bolts of these stainless deal
Speaker 1: boats hanging out like and and like this is this
Speaker 1: is kind of in the beginning of the guide season.
Speaker 1: I think it was in the beginning of the guy season,
Speaker 1: but like it's pretty tough to guide without a boat
Speaker 1: without a seat at the zero hour the day this happened,
Speaker 1: you saw the initial aftermath. I saw the aftermath. And
Speaker 1: in fact, we have seven or eight guys that worked
Speaker 1: through our operation. We're all cleaning up our boats and
Speaker 1: having beers. And you could see him just kind of
Speaker 1: squeal into the parking lot, you know, makes like a
Speaker 1: big U turn and drops So what the you know,
Speaker 1: one of these and it was it was spectacular. So
Speaker 1: and I think the worst part is nobody was hurt.
Speaker 1: But I think the guy like literally threw himself out
Speaker 1: of the boat like hooks that was so powerful, like
Speaker 1: launch himself out. It's funny because what I actually identified
Speaker 1: with the guy freaking out over his can of dip
Speaker 1: getting wet, because as an ex smoker of cigarettes, I
Speaker 1: feel that pain like I did. I once dropped in
Speaker 1: on a ten mile flow years ago and in the
Speaker 1: first quarter mile my lighter fell in and I did
Speaker 1: not have another and it was a miserable day for me.
Speaker 1: And steal that and and looking back on it now, right, like,
Speaker 1: what a stupid thing to ruin a day like That's
Speaker 1: terrible that you could ruin a beautiful day. But if
Speaker 1: you ever smoked or dipped like you get that too, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And if memory serves me correct, like he's doggy paddle
Speaker 1: and left handed and holding his tin up in the
Speaker 1: other hand, I mean he made it work, So I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think that Copenhagen got to drop of
Speaker 1: water on it. True true nicotine addict right there. Anyway,
Speaker 1: guess what else I'm addicted to. That would be winning
Speaker 1: at fish News against my new opponent, Hayden Sammock Fish.
Speaker 1: That escalated quickly, so I already gave him a shout
Speaker 1: out on Instagram last week. But I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: listener Dominic de flu Mary is on Instagram, so just
Speaker 1: in case, right, Uh, this New Yorker hit me up
Speaker 1: and said, hey, man, I found something in an old
Speaker 1: tackle box I want to send you and while he
Speaker 1: didn't say what it was, I I just knew and
Speaker 1: I was right. Um, Dom sent me a well used
Speaker 1: hippie spoon, right yeah, right, And for those of you
Speaker 1: that don't know what the hell I'm talking about, I
Speaker 1: did an end of the line segment on these spoons,
Speaker 1: which I grew up using for snapper blue fish. Um.
Speaker 1: And when I was a kid, there was a card
Speaker 1: of them on every counter at every Jersey shore tackle shop.
Speaker 1: And then I go to research them and it was
Speaker 1: like they never existed. There was like like, yeah, like
Speaker 1: Mandel effect. Somebody brought that up. They actually said that
Speaker 1: I have outsmarted the Mandela effect because of Dom's generosity. Um.
Speaker 1: But it was like they were just erased from time
Speaker 1: and history. But Dom has proven I'm not crazy. And
Speaker 1: of course my bud, Dave Hosler over at Pilecast he
Speaker 1: had to chime in and say like, well, how do
Speaker 1: you know you're actually holding that lord in your hand?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like like Bill Hicks said,
Speaker 1: this is all a dream, which which could be true.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I do appreciate it, dude. I
Speaker 1: love the bend listeners man say, helping us keep our
Speaker 1: sanity in more ways than one, exactly exactly. So what
Speaker 1: else do we need to talk about? I know lots
Speaker 1: of people think you're high when you record fish and
Speaker 1: I've insisted that you're not. That's just what you sound like.
Speaker 1: What would you like to speak to that at all?
Speaker 1: A little bit? I am most certainly not high. This
Speaker 1: is just my This is just what I sound like.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I will say I do have a little
Speaker 1: bit of a cold right now. And I was telling
Speaker 1: you about this this more and Joe about my day
Speaker 1: quill night quill sort of dilemma. Yeah, you have one
Speaker 1: but not the other, so you can't can't you can't
Speaker 1: cancel out the night quill with day quill. It's day
Speaker 1: quill you don't have, Yeah, it's day quill. I don't have.
Speaker 1: I only have night quill, and I've been trying to
Speaker 1: counteract that with copious amounts of coffee. So you know,
Speaker 1: if I sound particularly out of it this episode of
Speaker 1: fish News, rest assured, I am not. I I am
Speaker 1: just ill. You said you're sipping on some kind of
Speaker 1: wacky wild game stock you've put together. I am. Me
Speaker 1: and my buddies have been getting out after after some
Speaker 1: upland birds as of late, and I am drinking a
Speaker 1: master stock made of Hungarian partridge, sage grouse, some some
Speaker 1: duck feet left over from the duck opener this past Saturday, Montana,
Speaker 1: and a smoke tamhawk and just you know, various root
Speaker 1: vegetables as stock is inclined to be made of. I
Speaker 1: almost bought Canada at Whole Foods over the weekend, but
Speaker 1: it's really expensive. Dude. I couldn't I get high on
Speaker 1: wild game kids, although I couldn't help. But notice suddenly
Speaker 1: you've changed your Instagram profile picture back to fishing, which
Speaker 1: I appreciate. Yeah, you know, I had this one of
Speaker 1: of me when I had just gone out here, and
Speaker 1: I was all, you know, kind of puffy chested, with
Speaker 1: like a big old thirty eight strapped to my hip,
Speaker 1: and and and and then I was just kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I just don't feel like that right now.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I you know, we got bears out here, Joe,
Speaker 1: and I've heard, yeah, the grizzy kind. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: I've I've moved to carrying a glock twenty. And man,
Speaker 1: I will tell you what I used to like think
Speaker 1: that was the coolest thing to like be out in
Speaker 1: the woods and carrying around like this like strap and now, man,
Speaker 1: it's just it's gone to the point where it's just
Speaker 1: heavy and I try to carry that thing nowhere, including
Speaker 1: now my my Instagram profile pictures. So there you go.
Speaker 1: There you go, beautiful, beautiful. Well, well, well hurry you
Speaker 1: up here, we'll move on. We'll try and get through
Speaker 1: this before your your coffee and stock wear off and
Speaker 1: you just pass out at the microphone. Uh So remember
Speaker 1: this is a competition, Hayden, and I do not know
Speaker 1: which news stories the other dude is bringing to the table.
Speaker 1: And um, at the end we shall be filled with
Speaker 1: judgment bullets. Pardon the pun, which is actually a reminder
Speaker 1: to you to pardon your puns because clearly Phil didn't
Speaker 1: appreciate them last week. Um, and our sharp dressed audio
Speaker 1: engineer Phil Taylor will declare a news winner. It is
Speaker 1: your leadoff this week, sir? What you got all right? Man? Well?
Speaker 1: Last week you did a story on a on a
Speaker 1: potential state record being used for bait. Yeah, sure, did
Speaker 1: false alby, yes sir? Yeah, Well this week I have
Speaker 1: a story about a potential world record being eaten. Did
Speaker 1: you see this, I did, and I didn't grab it
Speaker 1: because it's your leadoff, and I was like, he's gonna
Speaker 1: go for it. So I was my my, my street smarts.
Speaker 1: I went for it, and h this story is kind
Speaker 1: of weird for a few reasons, and in the end,
Speaker 1: I don't actually like know how I feel about it.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna kind of do my best to
Speaker 1: sum it up real quick, and then I want to
Speaker 1: break it down a little bit. Is that cool with you?
Speaker 1: That's cool with me? Man break it down alright. So
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago in Connecticut, this dude, ben Tom
Speaker 1: Cooness catches what was believed to be a twenty one
Speaker 1: point three pound catfish, and a lot of people right
Speaker 1: now are thinking like, oh, like, you know, so what
Speaker 1: twenty small cat if you're talking blues or channels, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not channel channels blues and flatheads. I meant, yeah,
Speaker 1: But but this was no ordinary catfish. Uh. It was
Speaker 1: a white catfish, and anyone who knows anything about white
Speaker 1: cats knows that they pretty much never ever, ever, ever
Speaker 1: grow that big. Uh So anyway, the dude takes a
Speaker 1: bunch of photos. He gives the fish to his grandfather,
Speaker 1: who eats it, and he later sends all these photos
Speaker 1: to Connecticut's Fish and Wildlife Division, who confirmed as a
Speaker 1: state record, even going so far to announce it on
Speaker 1: their Facebook page. Ye yep, they went for it full send.
Speaker 1: So a couple of weeks past, and now they're saying
Speaker 1: that without examining the fish itself, because Grandpa ate it right,
Speaker 1: they cannot say that Tom cooness Is catch was definitely
Speaker 1: a white catfish. So now Joe, they're res sending the
Speaker 1: record citing that the image, citing the images as ambiguous
Speaker 1: and inconclusive. Yep, yep. So to that end, DEEP, that's
Speaker 1: Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which kind of
Speaker 1: seems like it might be at hides with itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: put out a statement on Facebook saying, due to questions
Speaker 1: raise both internally and by outside sources, DEEP is recalling
Speaker 1: its initial declaration of a new state record white catfish
Speaker 1: caught in Coventry Lake, and that's the one obviously caught
Speaker 1: by Tom coonas yep. Anyhow, Tom coon is, for his part,
Speaker 1: is really upset about this, like maybe not quite like
Speaker 1: Otter people obsessed about this or upset about it rather,
Speaker 1: but frankly he feels like the whole thing is total
Speaker 1: bullshit and is reportedly so angry. He's quoted as saying
Speaker 1: his teeth hurt from grinding. What do you what do
Speaker 1: you think about that? Joe? Uh, Well, knowing a little
Speaker 1: bit about this story, I um, I think it's a
Speaker 1: bit much because I know you're gonna get into sort
Speaker 1: of both sides of the story here, So I we'll
Speaker 1: let you go on and pass judgment later. Um, but
Speaker 1: I'll just pray like there's there's things he would have
Speaker 1: done better too to stop his teeth. Yeah. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, well, well we'll get into that, but like
Speaker 1: I can see both sides of this, and we'll start
Speaker 1: from Tom Cooness's kind of follies. On one hand, all
Speaker 1: the pictures of this dude's catch that I've seen have
Speaker 1: been like shitty, you know, And granted they are night
Speaker 1: fishing pictures, Joe, which is it's always tough. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: those things tend to be shitty, But I mean not
Speaker 1: a single one is in like sharp focus, right, They're
Speaker 1: all kind of like strange, weird sort of angles, and
Speaker 1: there aren't any pictures and this is like kind of
Speaker 1: like the one that speaks to you know Deep's point,
Speaker 1: there aren't any pictures of that show really definitive features,
Speaker 1: particularly the rays of the anal fin in great detail,
Speaker 1: because the untrained night, it's very hard to tell channel
Speaker 1: from white. Like you really got to know what you
Speaker 1: look at for, right yeah. And we're going to get
Speaker 1: to that in just a little bit too. But let
Speaker 1: me bring up the second point right quick, and it's
Speaker 1: that this dude obviously knew that he had a very
Speaker 1: likely record. You know, he had a scale with him,
Speaker 1: He took a bunch uh yeah, I mean it kind
Speaker 1: of seemed to me he knew there was some big
Speaker 1: gass white catfish where he was fishing exactly. Yeah. White
Speaker 1: catfish is an obscure is a relatively obscure fish, right yeah,
Speaker 1: And he clearly knew that there were some big ones
Speaker 1: in here. He had a a scale with him. I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, man, but when I'm just like
Speaker 1: going and catfishing off the dock, and I do a
Speaker 1: lot of that, very rarely do I bring like a
Speaker 1: scale with me, And if I do catch one, very
Speaker 1: rarely do I make like such extensive effort to like
Speaker 1: document like the fish. If I catch like a big,
Speaker 1: big old cat fish, you have a point, Like the
Speaker 1: only thing I carry a scale for his snakeheads, because like,
Speaker 1: if it's a ten pounder, I want to know. I
Speaker 1: don't want to guess and be like I think that
Speaker 1: one was ten, Like that's a big deal, so I
Speaker 1: want to know. Otherwise I don't never have a scale
Speaker 1: with me. I don't care. Right, So, like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that he knew that he had
Speaker 1: like record potential here and here. But here's the weird thing.
Speaker 1: He took all these pictures, but then he like didn't
Speaker 1: release it right, right, So I mean at that point,
Speaker 1: why not just bring the fishing right, but but to
Speaker 1: give it to his grandfather so to like eat it.
Speaker 1: You're killing the fish anyhow, And if you think you
Speaker 1: have a state record, you might as well bring the
Speaker 1: thing in. Well, that's what I'm saying. He's so he's
Speaker 1: so upset about this that his teeth are grinding. But like,
Speaker 1: if you cared that much about nailing a state record,
Speaker 1: then do it the right way and document it properly.
Speaker 1: Take the fish in somewhere a fishing will be weighed
Speaker 1: and looked at. So that's what I mean. I don't
Speaker 1: understand how Maddie can be because he didn't do a
Speaker 1: particularly good job of proving it. Bro just like look
Speaker 1: at the pictures that you took, yeah and be like no,
Speaker 1: that one's like blurry, that's not gonna fly. You're like,
Speaker 1: you're dealing with potentially a world record could go beyond
Speaker 1: it could go beyond state, right, it was big enough
Speaker 1: that it could have been world Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you know that you have this potential record, like, take
Speaker 1: the time to document it appropriately, particularly if you're not
Speaker 1: concerned about getting it back into the water you are
Speaker 1: alive and well yep, yep. So anyway, so those are
Speaker 1: the strikes that I have against ton coon Iss in
Speaker 1: all of this. Basically it comes down to his inability
Speaker 1: to take a grip and grin and maybe like a
Speaker 1: slip in decision making. It does seem a little weird,
Speaker 1: but looking at all this, I don't think it was
Speaker 1: because he was like trying to get one over on
Speaker 1: somebody to like claim a false record. Well, probably not,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's also easy to be swayed, like
Speaker 1: you've seen this with records before, where somebody catches something
Speaker 1: and some other guy on the piers like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: what that is, don't you, And you just like kind
Speaker 1: of take their word for it. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe he tooks pictures and later on somebody was like,
Speaker 1: that's what. Who knows, We'll never know. That's all speculation.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter. I mean, well that that's kind
Speaker 1: of the problem with this whole story is like the
Speaker 1: entirety of it is speculation on multiple levels. So anyway,
Speaker 1: let's move on to deep here. They should never never
Speaker 1: have announced this publicly. No big mistake. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: understand how it got through it all, particularly something is
Speaker 1: potentially controversial as this, And here's where we're gonna go
Speaker 1: back to those, uh the anal rays for those please
Speaker 1: take us back to the anal rays, back to the
Speaker 1: anal races. Why do I feel like that's going to
Speaker 1: be in the podcast description? It might be for those
Speaker 1: who don't know, Uh. Species of catfish, particularly those under
Speaker 1: twenty is pounds, can be really hard to tell apart.
Speaker 1: You know, you look for things like head shape, the
Speaker 1: color of like chin barbles. But one of the most
Speaker 1: telling features and the one that most biologists look to
Speaker 1: in a positive identification, are the numbers of rays on
Speaker 1: the annual been of a catfish. Now, like the ray
Speaker 1: is that line that comes down that kind of supports
Speaker 1: like that thin membrane right? Um, Anyhow, blue cats typically
Speaker 1: have thirty to thirty five channel casts typically of twenty
Speaker 1: four to twenty nine, Whites have twenty two to twenty five,
Speaker 1: and flatheads have fourteen to seventeen. Now you can already
Speaker 1: see right like whites and channels have a In fact,
Speaker 1: they have a little bit. Yeah, they overlap exactly, so
Speaker 1: I mean, so that should speak to you know how
Speaker 1: kind of closely these catfish tend to be an appearance, um,
Speaker 1: with the number one distinguishing feature being size. Right, but
Speaker 1: you have a twenty pound white catfish, now you're really
Speaker 1: in some like gray area, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: All that has to say without being able to count
Speaker 1: those anal rays, it can be really hard to tell
Speaker 1: the difference between a channel cat and a white cat.
Speaker 1: And without being able to do that, they should have
Speaker 1: never announced this record. However, I will say to Tom
Speaker 1: Cunas's credit as a dude who has a reputation among
Speaker 1: his pals as a bait chucking catfish enthusiast and someone
Speaker 1: who has seen a ton of twenty pound channel cats.
Speaker 1: I think, based on Tom cunas is pictures shitty as
Speaker 1: they are, I have to agree with him, and I
Speaker 1: genuinely think that he caught a world record white cat
Speaker 1: and I think that thus lead Deep's decision to rescind
Speaker 1: that record is in fact bullshit. It looks like a
Speaker 1: white catfish to me, you know, particularly like with the
Speaker 1: shape of that head. I mean there's one picture that
Speaker 1: you see where like the it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: profile view of the catfish on some grass, and man,
Speaker 1: that does not look like a channel catfish to me. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll tell you what, Man, I I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure I agree that it's bullshit because it
Speaker 1: just seemed like a rushed decision to begin with, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So again without knowing the backstory,
Speaker 1: like who knows who made that call? And who knows who?
Speaker 1: You're thinking, like, what's does anybody care about this? What's
Speaker 1: the difference? Throw it up there? Like, but then you
Speaker 1: know it takes somebody later record, Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. So it's it's almost double the previous white
Speaker 1: catfish record. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that record stood
Speaker 1: for like what like fifty years or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's it's an it's an old record. Um. But it's
Speaker 1: also just funny how these things always play out because
Speaker 1: it's not like UM's it's not like Ben is gonna
Speaker 1: be rolling in in catfish Tackle endorsements over this. What
Speaker 1: I mean, like, there's some big money records out there,
Speaker 1: like you catch the world record striper, you're famous, you
Speaker 1: catch the world record yellow fin whatever, you're famous. You know.
Speaker 1: But and it all just comes back to if it
Speaker 1: mattered that much to you, if it would have meant
Speaker 1: that much for you to hold that record, you could
Speaker 1: have done You should have You should have. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: then you wouldn't be on Ben, haven't you talk about him?
Speaker 1: So any anyhow, you know, it's a messy story, and
Speaker 1: I think both Tom Coonas and Deep could have done well.
Speaker 1: That they could have both been smarter in dealing with
Speaker 1: this potential record. No matter how you look at it, Yes,
Speaker 1: one thing is for sure. I bet Tom Coonas is
Speaker 1: pretty annoyed with his buddy for taking such a shitty
Speaker 1: grip and grin beyond the lack of a sweet Instagram post.
Speaker 1: You set me up beautifully because your story ties to
Speaker 1: shitty photos uh, mine ties to uh kind of an
Speaker 1: amazing photo crystal clear, like just clear is an unmudded
Speaker 1: lake to quote clackwork orange. Um. And And so I
Speaker 1: was torn this week, Right, I was gonna go with
Speaker 1: the headline disgraced ex Governor Andrew Cuomo scene fishing with dog,
Speaker 1: But then I was like what I was supposed to
Speaker 1: do with that? Right? So this is this sort of
Speaker 1: a goofy little story I came across in the Daily Star,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't leave it alone, right, the headline of
Speaker 1: this one fish captured smoking cigarette on camera save before
Speaker 1: gobbling the entire thing. And what this is? Yeah? Right,
Speaker 1: this is one of those classic j C newspieces that
Speaker 1: really it's not the story so much as the dumb
Speaker 1: commentary it will lead to. Uh still a little interesting though, right.
Speaker 1: So the fishing question is a blunt nosed lizard fish
Speaker 1: and the photo was taken off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida,
Speaker 1: by underwater photographer Steve Kovak's earlier this year. Um, it's
Speaker 1: very clear, very vivid, and the little fish even has
Speaker 1: the correct end, the filtered end of the heater in
Speaker 1: its tiny little mouth. Um. Now even Kovaks admits he
Speaker 1: took the shot because it was funny, right, but he
Speaker 1: also felt bad because he figured that the little fellow
Speaker 1: was just seconds away from engulfing the entire cancer stick,
Speaker 1: assuming it was some kind of prey, So as soon
Speaker 1: as he got the shot, he immediately grabbed the butt
Speaker 1: um to save the fish. So, just in case you've
Speaker 1: never heard of a lizard fish, there's actually a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of different species throughout the Atlantic, and these skinny
Speaker 1: little suckers that lie half buried in the sand with
Speaker 1: their eyes, you know, just sticking out and they wait
Speaker 1: for small crustaceans to drift overhead and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So clearly this lizard fish um thought that camel was
Speaker 1: a shrimp. So what's crazy, though, is that the photo
Speaker 1: was so good it got entered into the Ocean Photography Awards,
Speaker 1: which curates. Yeah, they curate and judge the most stunning
Speaker 1: oceanic photographs from all over the world on a yearly basis. Right,
Speaker 1: and while Kovacs didn't win anything, he got a highly
Speaker 1: commended quote highly commended. I guess it's like an honorable
Speaker 1: mention nod for his smoking lizard fish. Uh. And of
Speaker 1: course they didn't. They didn't recognize Kovacs for the beauty
Speaker 1: and the shot, but rather as part of a conservation
Speaker 1: category that highlights how human waste affects marine environments, right,
Speaker 1: making those fish starts smoking. See exactly, Yeah, I now so,
Speaker 1: And I gotta say, I'm surprised he didn't win, because
Speaker 1: if you're trying to paint a picture of what dirt
Speaker 1: bags humans can be, like to me, like this is
Speaker 1: it because it's very easy to show big things, right,
Speaker 1: like discarded commercial fishing nets or giant balls of mono
Speaker 1: or oil spills, like these huge impactful things like the
Speaker 1: one in California this weekend. Exactly, Yeah, there was one
Speaker 1: in California that was newsworthy to um. But people flick
Speaker 1: a button the water so nonchalantly and bam, like there
Speaker 1: it is, like there's the photo. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: That has to be like this single most frustrating thing
Speaker 1: that I see people do, Like regularly, do you do
Speaker 1: people smoke in Montana anymore? I feel like people don't
Speaker 1: smoke anymore? Well, you know, Number one, there is like
Speaker 1: one dude in my apartment building that smokes and I
Speaker 1: always see him and its just like coming from like
Speaker 1: you know, the East code. That would be something that
Speaker 1: I would have never thought about. But now I like
Speaker 1: identify that dude as like the guy who smoked siggs
Speaker 1: in the apartment, you know what I mean. And so
Speaker 1: that's what I'm not coming down on smokers at all,
Speaker 1: but I firmly believe that people are more sympathetic to
Speaker 1: heroin addicts in the year that people who smoked like
Speaker 1: smokers are like hardcore outcast. But we're getting off topic.
Speaker 1: That's not the point. The point is like the impacts
Speaker 1: of a single cast off smoke but are right there
Speaker 1: in front of you, right, But the category was actually
Speaker 1: one by a shot I didn't think was nearly as good, um,
Speaker 1: and it was. It was. It was a more a
Speaker 1: eel wrapped in old heavy gauge mono dead on the bottom,
Speaker 1: which like that's impactful. But I actually thought the cigarette
Speaker 1: button lizard fish mouth like drove the point home further,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Yeah, to what we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier. Man Like in Montana, I don't really
Speaker 1: see like people like flicking siggs into like beautiful trout streams.
Speaker 1: But when I was back on the East Coast, I
Speaker 1: almost got in a fight with somebody on the Salmon
Speaker 1: River one time, which is easy to do. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. If you're looking to fish and fight,
Speaker 1: you go up to the Salmon River man the Yeah,
Speaker 1: this dude was on the other end of the or
Speaker 1: the other side of the bank, and I saw him
Speaker 1: smoking a signal okay, man, smoke your sig, and he
Speaker 1: flicks it into the water. I go, hey man, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's probably because I was on the other side
Speaker 1: of the bank, but I go, hey man, you know,
Speaker 1: you dropped something. And the dude like kind of looks
Speaker 1: over at me and then looks down pretends not to
Speaker 1: hear me. Hey man, you dropped something. And he goes what.
Speaker 1: I go, you dropped your cigarette? And he goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. I go, Well, don't you think you all
Speaker 1: to pick it up? Yeah? So that kind of that
Speaker 1: kind of a scene straight out of Roadhouse right there. Hayden,
Speaker 1: good for you. No, No, it wasn't It wasn't that cool. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I was kind of emboldened by the fact that I
Speaker 1: knew that there was really no place to cross from
Speaker 1: about a quarter mile up in a quarter mile the
Speaker 1: hut at a point. Well, so okays, well so, and
Speaker 1: I'm not see now I'm gonna get off on that tangent,
Speaker 1: right because the front half of this story, the actual facts.
Speaker 1: That's like the angel on Joe's shoulder telling that part.
Speaker 1: But then here comes the demon because there is a
Speaker 1: part of me that has to laugh at this slightly
Speaker 1: because on numerous occasions I've seen trout rise to a
Speaker 1: flicked cigarette butt. And one time, and I will never
Speaker 1: forget this, I was probably eighteen and and fishing with
Speaker 1: a buddy in northeast Pennsylvania, matter of fact, and we
Speaker 1: had a decent hatch going, but I was like a
Speaker 1: knee a fight on fly at the time, and I
Speaker 1: was trying like hell to feed these fish and they
Speaker 1: wouldn't rise to my ship, like let alone rise and
Speaker 1: snubb it. There was just no response. And my buddy
Speaker 1: flicked a smoke, which, for the record, I do not
Speaker 1: now nor have I ever condoned that. Like I didn't
Speaker 1: like it at the time, but damn if one of
Speaker 1: those fish didn't come up and take a shot. And
Speaker 1: these were holders, not fresh stock, he's like not like
Speaker 1: truck dummies, okay, um, So I tried to float him
Speaker 1: like a white wooly bugger, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, you want cigarette butts, let me
Speaker 1: see what I can do here. But it didn't work though, right,
Speaker 1: and then furthermore, and this is even worse. But it's funny.
Speaker 1: When I was a teenager, I worked in the detail
Speaker 1: bay of a car dealership and there was this old
Speaker 1: dude and all he did was party boat fish for fluke,
Speaker 1: and he was a ringer to man, like he caught
Speaker 1: the ship out of big fluke. And I asked him
Speaker 1: one time. I was like, done, What's Like, what's the secret? Man? Like?
Speaker 1: How you catching all these dormats? And he says, here's
Speaker 1: what you do. You buy a cheap pack of smokes
Speaker 1: with white filters, and you put your squid and your
Speaker 1: sparing on your hook, and then you break off a
Speaker 1: filter and you stick it over the point. And now
Speaker 1: you shoot a little shed of crab oil on in
Speaker 1: that filter, and the filter keeps you a bait on
Speaker 1: the hook. But as it gets wet, it gets all
Speaker 1: soft and wavy, and the whole time it's releasing that
Speaker 1: crab oil. And I was like, damn, now, I definitely
Speaker 1: I don't condone that either. At all, but I also
Speaker 1: oddly appreciate the old timing ingenuity like that would have
Speaker 1: been like a legit taps tip in field and stream
Speaker 1: like circu n you know what I mean? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, man, I actually don't really see the
Speaker 1: problem with that. In fact, I would pose it that
Speaker 1: that is better than a lot of the soft plastics
Speaker 1: that we lose in the water all the damn time. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what if there was a study done like
Speaker 1: now again, these are these are these are unsmoked cigarette filters.
Speaker 1: He wasn't smoking him doing this, He would buy a
Speaker 1: pack of clean smokes. I don't even think he smoked,
Speaker 1: and would just break off the unsmoked filter. Definitely smoked,
Speaker 1: probably I don't remember. But you know what, I bet
Speaker 1: you if you did a study like a bunch of
Speaker 1: soft plastics on the bottom or some unsmoked plane cigarette filters,
Speaker 1: you're right. I mean I think it was mostly cotton.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's maybe condone it maybe you do. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I thought I thought it was great. So those
Speaker 1: are my cigarette butt stories. Uh, Phil could could grab
Speaker 1: a smoke this week, filtered or unfiltered. Um, you know
Speaker 1: he could. He could could check out the anal rays
Speaker 1: of your story. Whatever he wants to do, we're gonna
Speaker 1: kick it over to Phil and see who won this week.
Speaker 1: And then after that me and our guest co host
Speaker 1: Tim Land where we're going to get a drink, do
Speaker 1: a little that's my bar, Hayden. It's a shame you
Speaker 1: couldn't stop that guy from throwing his cigarette into the river,
Speaker 1: because I can only assume that that same cigarette floated
Speaker 1: downstream right into the mouth of a lizard. Fishing was
Speaker 1: eventually photographed by Steve Kovacs, leading to Joe's victory this
Speaker 1: week in fish News, Hayden, I hope you feel better,
Speaker 1: but to be honest, I'm kind of worried about you,
Speaker 1: and so is a friend of mine. Hayden. It's me McGruff,
Speaker 1: the crime dog. McGruff. What are you doing here? I'm
Speaker 1: just worried about my good friend, Hayden Sammick, who, between
Speaker 1: his nicotine, his night quill, his coffee, and the fact
Speaker 1: that he's stoned out of his gourd every week on
Speaker 1: fish News, clearly has a problem. Allegedly McGrath allegedly, allegedly
Speaker 1: allegedly are right. You're right, but even so, I've written
Speaker 1: a song just for the occasion. Hayden listened closely. Try marijuana,
Speaker 1: don't try it at all. It's like me eating your
Speaker 1: head on a wall. And if your gamble with life,
Speaker 1: you can lose it because your life is a gift.
Speaker 1: Don't a music best? God damn bartenders from Tim buck
Speaker 1: to to Portland, Maine an argument for that matter. So
Speaker 1: when I set this up with Tim, he said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you know I've got a bar for you, and it's
Speaker 1: been a minute since we've had a quality That's my
Speaker 1: bar here on Ben I'm always interested in new places
Speaker 1: to drink. So where are you taking us? Oh man?
Speaker 1: This was this is a tough one, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to take you to Nelson's Hall in Bidders Club on
Speaker 1: Washington Island, Wisconsin. Okay, there's a lot of great fish
Speaker 1: bars in Wisconsin. Man, Like I think that we've had
Speaker 1: more Wisconsin bars in this segment than anything else. Well
Speaker 1: it should be. I mean, I think you can just
Speaker 1: do a Wisconsin that's my bar bar episode here. But
Speaker 1: so so this is an interesting place because there's some
Speaker 1: history to it. So I'll lead up to that. But
Speaker 1: if you're heading north up the thumb of Wisconsin and
Speaker 1: you travel through what's nor known as the Door County Peninsula. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: the Bay a Green Bays on your is to your
Speaker 1: east and Lake Michigan's to your west. It's just basically
Speaker 1: a long country road that runs to the absolute tip
Speaker 1: of the thumb um of the Door County Peninsula. Now,
Speaker 1: the Dor County Peninsula is super popular and it's it's
Speaker 1: been known as the Cape Cod of the Midwest. I
Speaker 1: mean they didn't know that, Okay, yeah, yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a really cool area. You know. Both sides of the
Speaker 1: roads are lined with people, little shops, ice cream places,
Speaker 1: and they're mostly Illinois plates. Right. No, I would never
Speaker 1: call that, that would be wrong. Um. But as you
Speaker 1: travel to the tip, you get to the very chip
Speaker 1: and there's a ferry line there. That's a car ferry
Speaker 1: and it's a twenty minute ride and it takes you
Speaker 1: to Washington Island. Now, see, I've never heard of Washington Island.
Speaker 1: I just learned something. As a bass fisherman, you need
Speaker 1: to know because like I hate to do a whole
Speaker 1: lot of spoiling of some of this stuff. But like
Speaker 1: Washington Island's bass season doesn't open up until the first
Speaker 1: part of July because the spawn lasts a lot longer,
Speaker 1: you know, into that, so they have kind of some
Speaker 1: of their own special regulations. But between the Bay of
Speaker 1: Green Bay, Lake, Michigan, and Washington Island during tournament season
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, they caught smallmouth bass that
Speaker 1: were eight pounds two ounces. Dude, I broke seven once
Speaker 1: in my life. That's impressive, and seven is an impossible
Speaker 1: number hard, you know, for the right and actually funny
Speaker 1: thing is that one of the places I've done it
Speaker 1: was in Sturgeon Bay. That's as far out on the
Speaker 1: peninsula as I've been. So I've only ever been to
Speaker 1: the middle. I haven't gone any further nor you're close.
Speaker 1: You just keep heading north and you take that ferry
Speaker 1: line across. But so that gets me to the bar.
Speaker 1: You take this ferry boat all the way across to
Speaker 1: the bar, and you run into a small town. Washington
Speaker 1: Island is not like the Dori County Peninsula. It has
Speaker 1: a hundred some miles of paved road on it. But
Speaker 1: there's like downtown is seven buildings and three of them
Speaker 1: are bars, because that's what it should be. Um. But
Speaker 1: what's cool about Nelson's Pub we'll get into the fishy
Speaker 1: part of this pub. But the interesting couple of facts
Speaker 1: is number one, it's the oldest bar serving alcohol continually
Speaker 1: in Wisconsin. Now, it's an interesting statistic because if you
Speaker 1: take a look at it, after the Eighteenth Amendment kicked
Speaker 1: off in ninety effectively prohibiting the production and sale of alcohol,
Speaker 1: they were still operating. Now, I'll tell you how this
Speaker 1: all went down. So this is why this is. People
Speaker 1: like I'd go in there and order the wings and
Speaker 1: out and leave. It's great, this is good, ud come on.
Speaker 1: So um, they have been the largest server of I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm botching this up here, but Angustura bidders.
Speaker 1: All of us have seen bidders, you know. Um, it
Speaker 1: was actually more made of clothes and some other stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's ninety proof. Well, the gentleman that opened in
Speaker 1: Nelson's Hall was Tom Nelson. And Tom Nelson had opened
Speaker 1: that place in like eighteen ninety nine, and once prohibition hit,
Speaker 1: is out of luck, you know, what what are you
Speaker 1: doing on this island? So he started serving bidders, just
Speaker 1: the just the bidders through prohibition. Now that was still
Speaker 1: illegal because bidders are ninety proof. Well, here's the fun
Speaker 1: part that brings it to my family scheme. My grandfather
Speaker 1: was an attorney in Sturgeon Bay and my grandmother was
Speaker 1: born on Washington Island and through loopholes as a stomach tonic.
Speaker 1: They had written it's not really legislation and go, but
Speaker 1: they basically worked through a loophole where they were still
Speaker 1: allowed to serve stomach tonic all through prohibition slick still today,
Speaker 1: the Bidders Club is the largest consumer of anger store
Speaker 1: bidders in the entire world US. Now see, I did
Speaker 1: not know much about bidders before this. Right. In fact,
Speaker 1: the last time I had bidders was with you. You
Speaker 1: made me an old fashioned and garnished it with with
Speaker 1: pickled ramps your child forage. They were trying to give
Speaker 1: you the full Wisconsin thing you have to have a
Speaker 1: They were delicious, but shame on you for making your
Speaker 1: kids supply your booze garnages. But that it's good, it's
Speaker 1: good racket. We got going beyond that though. My grandmother
Speaker 1: says she was a Manhattan drinker, which is like another
Speaker 1: old school drink, like an old Fashioned. But I remember
Speaker 1: every time she ordered one at a restaurant she ordered
Speaker 1: extra bidders. So I always associated bidders with like old
Speaker 1: people drinks. So anyway, now I assume obviously you took
Speaker 1: the shot. You're part of the bidders club, You're part
Speaker 1: of the pleader's club. You do the shot, you're part
Speaker 1: of the club. And it's still is still history. But
Speaker 1: the fishy part of the bar is like the island
Speaker 1: itself still is like buried in you know, fishing history.
Speaker 1: You know, there's still families that commercial fish for white
Speaker 1: fish and stuff like that. But I mean there are
Speaker 1: so many people that come up. There's kind of still
Speaker 1: one of those hidden secrets where these bass guys are
Speaker 1: up there and it's like they're catching six pounders. You know,
Speaker 1: there's giant northerns and all the harbors. All my islander
Speaker 1: friends are going to be furious with me talking about
Speaker 1: this ship right now, but but you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So so that's my bar, you know, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of it, And I yeah, man, and I really
Speaker 1: appreciate all the history and tradition there. We had. Another
Speaker 1: bar might have also been in Wisconsin where you had
Speaker 1: to shoot yeager and our crowd juice when you caught
Speaker 1: your first muskie. So I like I like the bidders better.
Speaker 1: The side note here, though, also is it is also
Speaker 1: known as the second most haunted establishment in the state
Speaker 1: of even Better. Even Better. One of these days, maybe
Speaker 1: you can take me there. I will join the Bidders Club.
Speaker 1: We'll see a ghost and it'll be great. How if
Speaker 1: you have a bar you listening that you want shouted out,
Speaker 1: tell us about it in an email to Bent at
Speaker 1: the meat Eater dot com. So we are almost out
Speaker 1: of time, but to the bitter end, and see what
Speaker 1: I did there. We aim to pump you full of
Speaker 1: useful information between all the fart jokes and off color humor.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to close it out with an end
Speaker 1: of the line segment that ties did it again? Back
Speaker 1: to our very loose theme of fly tying. Uh Tim,
Speaker 1: I'll ask you what just what comes to mind when
Speaker 1: I say sparkle mindow? Oh my god, Well, sparklement a
Speaker 1: great trout streamer around our spring creeks. And also, if
Speaker 1: I'm in real big trouble on a small mall guide trip,
Speaker 1: I can wiggle a sparkle middle around in the rapids
Speaker 1: and catch eight inches like crazy. There you go, there,
Speaker 1: you go. Hell, you might even be able to incorporate
Speaker 1: a little bit of nicotine annis or mystery tuna dubbing
Speaker 1: into your sparkle minnows. Here's the fullback story on them. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not loud enough. Here's the description of Coffee Sparkle
Speaker 1: Minnow on the Duragler's website. Coffee Sparkle Minnow might be
Speaker 1: the sleeper streamer often passed up in the fly bin.
Speaker 1: This fly absolutely destroys trout on almost anybody of water
Speaker 1: in the West. I would agree with that statement, though
Speaker 1: it messes fish up well beyond the West. But listen,
Speaker 1: before I get into this fly, I have to ask
Speaker 1: who the hell is coffee? Like I like to provide
Speaker 1: background on my end of the line choices. Though despite
Speaker 1: four billion and one references to Coffee Sparkle Minnow on
Speaker 1: the inner webs, my search for Coffee's first name or
Speaker 1: his story failed, And maybe I didn't try hard enough.
Speaker 1: But then again, like I'm not spending an entire day
Speaker 1: looking for that, like that should be easy. I even
Speaker 1: suffered through many awkward and scripted tying tutorials on YouTube
Speaker 1: that sounded like this, today We're gonna be tying the
Speaker 1: sparkle mino, one of the most versatile streamer patterns and
Speaker 1: beloved by many. Just how did they get it so sparkly?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you how today. But not one tire
Speaker 1: that I watched provided the first name or backstory of
Speaker 1: the elusive coffee. I'm sure someone listening knows and will
Speaker 1: educate me, so let's just move on to the fly.
Speaker 1: The sparkle minnow is what I'd categorized as a guide
Speaker 1: fly now. God flies are relatively easy and fast to tie,
Speaker 1: so a guide can knock out a fresh dozen the
Speaker 1: night before a trip. But guide flies also tend to
Speaker 1: appeal to the fish first and the angler second. As
Speaker 1: dur Anglers pointed out in a bin next to drunken,
Speaker 1: disorderly circus peanuts and flukean zombies, the sparkle minnow is
Speaker 1: unlikely to grab the attention of the tourist bro full
Speaker 1: of piston vinegar in the shop on the Madison that
Speaker 1: has been dreaming about a brown trout with a hook
Speaker 1: jaw that makes up three quarters of its body since
Speaker 1: he booked this trip a year ago. Jokes on him, though,
Speaker 1: because the sparkle minnow is both a numbers fly and
Speaker 1: a size fly. The sparkle minnow isn't some giant jointed behemoth.
Speaker 1: It's essentially a modern wooly bugger. It's tied on a
Speaker 1: standard size streamer hook. It has a cone head and
Speaker 1: a two tone maraboo tail with a bit of flash.
Speaker 1: The body, on the other hand, is pure flash. In
Speaker 1: most cases, tires lean on a brush of angel hair
Speaker 1: or ice dubbing, but you can also create the pattern
Speaker 1: with a dubbing loop. The end result is a minnow
Speaker 1: pattern with a flared, kind of fat, chubby middle. It's
Speaker 1: a great sculp and imitator in darker colors, and a
Speaker 1: general bait pattern and lighter colors. But the way I
Speaker 1: described the action, it's kind of like wattles and wobbles
Speaker 1: on the strip. Lots of guys also dead drift them
Speaker 1: simply letting all that soft flash and mariboo pulse and breathe.
Speaker 1: Bottom line, it's a really really versatile fly. In truth,
Speaker 1: I lean on the sparkle minnow more for small mouths
Speaker 1: than trout, because they just seem to love killing that
Speaker 1: thing all season long, regardless of water conditions. For trout fishing,
Speaker 1: at least out east where I am it's more of
Speaker 1: an ace in the hole. And when the sparkle minnow
Speaker 1: bite is good, it's it's often really really good. Sometimes
Speaker 1: in trout fishing you feel the need to reduce your flash,
Speaker 1: be more subtle, especially in cleaner water. But there have
Speaker 1: been many tough days, and you know those days where
Speaker 1: you're getting flashed and swiped but not pinned, where a
Speaker 1: drop in fly size and a ramping up of the
Speaker 1: metallica we could say makes the play. Often, though not always,
Speaker 1: I find that a sparkle minnow either catches like all
Speaker 1: the fish or none at all. Now in the spring,
Speaker 1: if there's l wife herrings spilling over the damn on
Speaker 1: the west branch of the Delaware, you can damn well
Speaker 1: rest ashored. I'm chucking a sparkleman out. It's become one
Speaker 1: of my staples, and I suggest you don't overlook them
Speaker 1: in the fly bin because it's one of those flies
Speaker 1: that you don't really need until you do. And that's
Speaker 1: vague and weird, but I also know most of you
Speaker 1: guys know exactly what I'm talking about. So thanks for
Speaker 1: this one coffee, whoever you are. So that's it for
Speaker 1: this week. If you'd like a materials list. Recreating the
Speaker 1: magic of this episode will require for extremely strong bolts
Speaker 1: and a fresh can of skull, a few shots of
Speaker 1: bidders from the Land of Illinois license plate. It's an
Speaker 1: a p B for a guy named Coffee and an
Speaker 1: eyebrow piercing just like Joe exotics. Tim cannot thank you
Speaker 1: enough for hanging out with me today, man, Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me brother. I appreciate as Yeah. Man, super good times.
Speaker 1: Tim not only provided a great bar for us today,
Speaker 1: but also a great employee with plenty of client buffoonery
Speaker 1: to share. So thanks again to Nate Sipple. And if
Speaker 1: you guys have anything to share, like bars, salem and items,
Speaker 1: awkward photos, uh nibble and sip, voice memos and so on,
Speaker 1: send them to Bent at the Meat Eater dot com.
Speaker 1: Joehan pumped up to see what these guys come up
Speaker 1: with that dubbing on homemade lures and flies. Man, Yes,
Speaker 1: just make sure you know post hashtag degenerate Angler and
Speaker 1: Bent podcast. And I'm jealous. I kind of want some
Speaker 1: of that dubbing. Man, I'm gonna I'm gonna pull some streets.
Speaker 1: You might be able to do another another run just
Speaker 1: for you, but I don't know. I make no guarantees.
Speaker 1: You may have won our hearts today to him, but
Speaker 1: you may not be eligible to win the dubbing. But
Speaker 1: for those of you that are eligible to win, remember
Speaker 1: to let the superglue on your fingers dry before grabbing
Speaker 1: another pinchon Chew way Back, Love and love