Speaker 1: If you buy Billy that shotgun, you are really going
Speaker 1: to have to be really nice to him forever. And
Speaker 1: she just starts crying, and I'm like, oh no, it's
Speaker 1: about that stupid eagle again. I do have personal experience
Speaker 1: targeting trophy goldfish. Every single line of his is tangled,
Speaker 1: and it is like the cluster of the century. Good morning,
Speaker 1: degenerate anglers. Welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that thinks
Speaker 1: birding is for people who just can't figure out how
Speaker 1: to fish. I'm Joe Surmillion, Miles Nulty, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I really don't want to agree with you. I don't
Speaker 1: want agree with you. Don't want to agree with me,
Speaker 1: which is your way of admitting that you actually do
Speaker 1: agree with me. No, I've known you long enough now, y'alls. No, not,
Speaker 1: that's not entirely true. Look, how how do I I
Speaker 1: actually do think that birds are cool? All right? Part
Speaker 1: of what I love about my house, for example, is
Speaker 1: the fact that my office slash spare bedroom slash place
Speaker 1: we store all the random crap we don't have space
Speaker 1: for as floor to ceiling windows. The lookout over this
Speaker 1: aspen grove. I'm in fact looking at that grove right
Speaker 1: now that sounds beautiful, And and I get to watch
Speaker 1: everything from robbins and starlings, two ravens and crows, to
Speaker 1: woodpeckers and flickers to hawks and osprey. And my personal favorite,
Speaker 1: of course is the black capped chicken ee, which I
Speaker 1: refer to as the Nelson Months bird because it's call
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like the signature laugh of Nelson Months,
Speaker 1: the bully from the Simpsons. So yeah, dude, I admit
Speaker 1: I like birds. I think birds are Yeah, yeah, birds
Speaker 1: they are cool. Certain ones are entertaining, like I love
Speaker 1: a good tuna chicker Gannett, especially like a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of them together dipping and diving into the ocean.
Speaker 1: You agree with me, I could watch that all day.
Speaker 1: In fact, I get upset when they stop doing that
Speaker 1: once they've started. You know what I'm saying. But I
Speaker 1: think you're into You're intentionally missing the point because it's
Speaker 1: a simple yes or no question. Do you go out birding?
Speaker 1: As in, do you set out from from your your
Speaker 1: your abode, from your home with binoes dangling around your
Speaker 1: neck and maybe a safari vest stuffed with manuals bird
Speaker 1: manuals and a log book and and actively say to
Speaker 1: yourself today, I'm going to look for birds, Like do
Speaker 1: you make looking for birds and actual goal that you
Speaker 1: will use your spare time? No, you're thinking about then
Speaker 1: you don't go birding air go. Okay, you agree birds
Speaker 1: are cool, but birding is lane. It is not that. No,
Speaker 1: all right, that's not exactly what I said. I think
Speaker 1: you were twisting my words. I would I would say that,
Speaker 1: all right, how do I You know what? Every year,
Speaker 1: every year and this year is no different. Every year,
Speaker 1: I swear I'm going to pick up a bird identifit
Speaker 1: Cation book and I'm gonna take that thing with me
Speaker 1: every time I go fishing, which is part of birding. Right,
Speaker 1: but have you bought the book? We actually purchased the book? No,
Speaker 1: But I'm my point is made. Wanting to like birding
Speaker 1: is not the same as actually burning. I want to
Speaker 1: like jogging and thigh masters. You was like THI master commercials. True,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's I want to like d I
Speaker 1: y home improvements. I want to like respoiling my reels.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean I actually enjoy any of those things.
Speaker 1: All right. I feel like I'm arguing a point I
Speaker 1: cannot win. I am not a burder. I don't, and
Speaker 1: I actually I don't think I want to be a birder.
Speaker 1: I just I'm not willing to go so far as
Speaker 1: to say birding is lame. Mostly, I mean mostly because
Speaker 1: I don't want to fully concede this argument to you,
Speaker 1: but also because I think, I because bird watching does
Speaker 1: add to my enjoyment of fishing. It is not at
Speaker 1: all like jogging or fixing a sink. I get that.
Speaker 1: I think if like pleasure boating, like I never understood
Speaker 1: just driving around on a boat for the reason that's
Speaker 1: what it is. I'm not going to shoot the bird,
Speaker 1: and like pleasure boating is like I'm just gonna piste
Speaker 1: away gas and ride around. But I'm not gonna do anything.
Speaker 1: It's gonna ride around. Doesn't make sense, um, But I
Speaker 1: I will ask, though, can you have a great day
Speaker 1: of fishing without seeing any birds? Yes? And like I said,
Speaker 1: your point is taken. I concede at least too as
Speaker 1: far as I'm willing to concede in these conversations. Birds
Speaker 1: are never going to be the main reason that I
Speaker 1: go out to the water, but they do. They add
Speaker 1: to my overall experience. I'm glad they're there, I enjoy
Speaker 1: the birds. Good. I accept your apology, and now that
Speaker 1: my domination of the argument is forever recorded here on Bend,
Speaker 1: I think we can actually get on with the show. Uh.
Speaker 1: And first up, we have a smooth move for you
Speaker 1: where we bring on guides, captains, outfitters, really anyone who
Speaker 1: works in the fishing industry, and we asked them to
Speaker 1: tell us a story about some entertaining ship the clients
Speaker 1: have done. This week, we're hanging out with with one
Speaker 1: of miles old buddies, Rick Mattney, who is going to
Speaker 1: tell us about a client who cannot enjoy fishing if
Speaker 1: no birds are involved. Why Joining us today in the
Speaker 1: guide shack is captain, guide, outfitter, lodge owner, boat mechanics chef,
Speaker 1: and outdoor plumbing expert Rick Manny. How you doing? Did I?
Speaker 1: Did I forget anything in there? I mean custom would
Speaker 1: work or TiO. You should see the road tracks I
Speaker 1: just built in my new boat. But yeah, other than that,
Speaker 1: Other than that, I had a pretty good little context.
Speaker 1: Rick and I live in the same town and have
Speaker 1: known each other for a very long time. In addition
Speaker 1: to guiding all over Montana, Rick runs a fishing lodge
Speaker 1: up in Wrangle, Alaska called Crone Chasers that I got
Speaker 1: lucky enough to get invited to one time. And like
Speaker 1: you just you primarily target steelhead, but you also do
Speaker 1: samon trips right, Yeah, where we started a fall, late
Speaker 1: summer fall foraging fishing trip. So that's kind of an
Speaker 1: all inclusive experienced trip that involves fishing in the creeks,
Speaker 1: fishing in the ocean, um digging clams, sending it out,
Speaker 1: shrimp pots, crab pots, harvesting berries, wild mushrooms, seaweed, all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. So it's like a full on almost
Speaker 1: like a nature inclusion trip. Uh. And we go out
Speaker 1: and basically get everything we need to survive on for
Speaker 1: dinner and come back to the lodge and cook it
Speaker 1: and preserve it and things like that afterwards. That tracks
Speaker 1: me because when I was up there, I think I
Speaker 1: had one of the greatest days of my life. We
Speaker 1: got to we were hiking around up in the Southeast
Speaker 1: Alaska rainforest. I will never forget I hooked seven seven
Speaker 1: dime bright steelhead on seven consecutive casts, which should never
Speaker 1: happen ever. And then and like we get done and
Speaker 1: Rick's driving us back to the harbor, and and like
Speaker 1: hold on, we have to pull over and pulled crab
Speaker 1: pots on the way back, and just brought in a
Speaker 1: bunch of fresh dungeons crab and that's what we got
Speaker 1: to eat for dinner. It was like it was truly glorious. Dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: correct to me, it's every day, I mean my life.
Speaker 1: It was your best day ever. That's when your best
Speaker 1: day ever, it's a twos day, you know, that's just
Speaker 1: you should see what Wednesdays are like. It gets real
Speaker 1: wild on Wednesdays. All right, Well, enough about how much
Speaker 1: better your life is than everybody else's. We brought you
Speaker 1: here to tell us ridiculous story about something a client
Speaker 1: has done. But before I have you tell that actual story,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do a little like short bonus, smooth move.
Speaker 1: What's the stupidest question you get asked on a regular
Speaker 1: basis the stupidest question that I get asked? And I
Speaker 1: think every single week of clients I've ever had in Alaska,
Speaker 1: someone has asked the question, what elevation are we at?
Speaker 1: As we're driving the boat on the ocean. And I
Speaker 1: don't think I have had a single week in twelve years,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, how many clients. I have to
Speaker 1: add that up. It's like like six clients. Someone in
Speaker 1: each four person group has asked that question at least
Speaker 1: once during the week, sometimes multiple times, but no matter what.
Speaker 1: Hands down, while driving on the ocean, someone asked, what
Speaker 1: elevation are we at? You know they're trying to sound
Speaker 1: so smart. These guys are smart. You know, these guys
Speaker 1: are CEOs of big corporations, are incredibly intelligent people. You know,
Speaker 1: they're kind of the upper echelon. And then something like
Speaker 1: that comes out of their mouth and you just discredit
Speaker 1: everything else they've done in life. That's almost as good
Speaker 1: as the like when does the river circle back to
Speaker 1: the truck question that that we get in Montana? Uh?
Speaker 1: That that was good, But I know that's not the
Speaker 1: main event. Later on us tell us, tell us the
Speaker 1: real story you got for us? Okay, the real one
Speaker 1: I got. I mean, I've guided for almost twenty five
Speaker 1: years now, since I was young. My dad had an
Speaker 1: out fitting company, so I've had all walks of life,
Speaker 1: everything from hunting and fishing both. But there's a fishing podcast.
Speaker 1: We gotta go to fishing, and there's one story that
Speaker 1: sticks to mind, and it was just it was one
Speaker 1: of those things that it was pretty late in my
Speaker 1: guiding career. So I had a whole bunch of experience
Speaker 1: and I did something that that I probably should have
Speaker 1: never done, and I had this lady called me up
Speaker 1: and she wanted to book a guided fishing trip. And
Speaker 1: the reason she wanted to book a guy a fishing
Speaker 1: trip is because she's never seen a bald eagle. Her
Speaker 1: name is Mary from Atlanta, Georgia, and the hotel where
Speaker 1: she was staying at said the best chance she'd have
Speaker 1: at seeing a bald eagle was to float down a
Speaker 1: river because that's where the eagles are because they feed
Speaker 1: on fish. That's what the lady at the hotel said.
Speaker 1: So her husband fishes a little bit and she he's
Speaker 1: gonna go along. So I meet him. I agreed to
Speaker 1: take him on a trip and I was like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: well I'm sure I guarantee you we're going to see
Speaker 1: an eagle. I did the one thing that a guy
Speaker 1: should never do, hold out the guarantee word. And so
Speaker 1: we go. She's never fished before. I get her set
Speaker 1: up with a rod and she's like, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: really not interested. I just want to see an eagle.
Speaker 1: So I'll just right in the back of the boat,
Speaker 1: totally fine. Husband gets up front, starts catching fish. We
Speaker 1: go on with the day. I completely forget about trying
Speaker 1: to find an eagle right away and h because I'm
Speaker 1: too into the fishing. And lunchtime we sit down and
Speaker 1: Mary's sitting in the back of the boat. She hasn't
Speaker 1: said a word all day. I didn't even realize that
Speaker 1: she was back there, just quiet as a church mouse.
Speaker 1: And I turned back around when she was eating her sandwich.
Speaker 1: I was like, Mary, what's her a. You haven't said
Speaker 1: a word all day. She's like, we haven't seen an eagle.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, hang on, just let me
Speaker 1: look around. I'm sure I can find one from where
Speaker 1: we're sitting right now. I just I forgot about it.
Speaker 1: I forgot to look for the eagle. My bad. I
Speaker 1: see an eagle every single day, usually ten or twenty
Speaker 1: of them, and I couldn't find an eagle for the
Speaker 1: life of me on the Yellowstone River in Paradise Valley
Speaker 1: in July. Like that just doesn't And so we continue
Speaker 1: floating and she's getting mopier and mopier, and then about
Speaker 1: we get down to where the takeouts, probably maybe a
Speaker 1: quarter mile down river, and she's like, how far did
Speaker 1: the takeout And I was like, oh, maybe thirty more minutes.
Speaker 1: We uh, we got probably a quarter mile left. And
Speaker 1: she just starts crying, like just crying, and I'm like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: it's about that. It's about that stupid eagle again. And
Speaker 1: I was like, she's like, we still have it, seated eagle,
Speaker 1: and she's just kind of moping and crying and just
Speaker 1: on QE and osprey comes over the top of the
Speaker 1: river starts back pedaling, and I was like, maybe an osprey.
Speaker 1: I know it's not an eagle, but it's an osprey.
Speaker 1: And look how it's see how it stalls out. It's
Speaker 1: gonna dive and catch a fish right in front of us.
Speaker 1: And she's crying at this point in time, just sobbing.
Speaker 1: It's not an eagle. And this offsprey dives, comes flying
Speaker 1: out of the air, smokes a white fish right in
Speaker 1: front of us, and a tail out gets it and
Speaker 1: starts coming up the river towards us. And as it
Speaker 1: gets to maybe twenty five or thirty yards from us,
Speaker 1: you hear this this noise from wind on the wings,
Speaker 1: and an eagle comes in and just d Rills drops
Speaker 1: the fish. Fish lands on the gravel bar and skips
Speaker 1: eagle on the osprey kind of do a couple of
Speaker 1: circles having it out. Eagle lands and starts eating on
Speaker 1: the fish, and this lady is bawling uncontrollably at this
Speaker 1: point in time, like Mother Nature couldn't a cue this
Speaker 1: up better for me, especially on the one time I
Speaker 1: guaranteed we'd see an eagle, so I thought for sure,
Speaker 1: and we're I can see the tape count like I
Speaker 1: thought we were. I was, you know, in hot water
Speaker 1: and done forever and uh so the moral of the
Speaker 1: story is, as a guide, never say the word guarantee
Speaker 1: that had had a happy ending. But it was. It
Speaker 1: was a very emotional roller coaster for me, to say
Speaker 1: the least. I had no idea where this was going.
Speaker 1: When I was I was wondering, like if you would
Speaker 1: like hit one like with your windshield on the way
Speaker 1: out of the parking lot or something like that. Unfortunately not.
Speaker 1: This is the most uplifting and positive smooth moves of
Speaker 1: what I think so well. Most all my other stories
Speaker 1: are so tragic. I didn't think we wanted to go there, No, no,
Speaker 1: we Yeah, we could go either way, but that we're
Speaker 1: we're for once, we're coming out of smooth moves. I
Speaker 1: think we're not. We're not like terribly making fun of
Speaker 1: anybody or or feeling sad about ourselves. So Rick, thank
Speaker 1: you for that. I'm gonna ask again after hearing that story,
Speaker 1: are you are you still unwilling to admit that burning
Speaker 1: is lane? Yes? In fact, actually, you know what. That
Speaker 1: story reminded me of one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: do love bird watching. The story touched on two things
Speaker 1: that can save your ass if you're guiding on the
Speaker 1: Yellowstone River, which is something that I've done a lot
Speaker 1: of eagles and whitefish. I once I once had a
Speaker 1: float on the Stone with a dude who was very,
Speaker 1: very into birding. And this is why I remember the
Speaker 1: details on this. He was so stoked. He counted fifty
Speaker 1: different eagles, both bald and golden, in a single day,
Speaker 1: and that was very lucky, and it was great because
Speaker 1: the fishing was terrible, but that dude left happy as hell.
Speaker 1: And similarly, on that particular river, even when the trout
Speaker 1: are just about impossible to find, you can always count
Speaker 1: on the white fish. The white he has always come through. Sure,
Speaker 1: and I get that. I if if seeing birds can
Speaker 1: somehow ad ad a spark to a slow guiding day,
Speaker 1: that's great. A matter of fact, my good buddy, Captain
Speaker 1: Eric kerber Um, he had a group that they used
Speaker 1: to kim for offshore birding every season and he would
Speaker 1: get full price for a tuner run. All he had
Speaker 1: to do, Yeah, all he had to do was run
Speaker 1: fifty miles out, put out a chump slick and let
Speaker 1: these people ogle all the different offshore birds picking in
Speaker 1: the slick. And he was like, it's it's easiest money ever. Due,
Speaker 1: easiest money ever. We we we had bear viewing trips
Speaker 1: when I was working in Alaska, and those are the
Speaker 1: ones you wanted, man, because like that same deal, same price,
Speaker 1: you get paid the same All you gotta do is
Speaker 1: drive the boat around and find the bears to sit
Speaker 1: there and eat it twinking. But anyway, let's move on
Speaker 1: to trying to flip each other birds in the battle
Speaker 1: we call fish news fish new. That escalated quickly, So
Speaker 1: before we start news, let's do a little housekeeping. And
Speaker 1: I'm excited about this housekeeping because we've got a big
Speaker 1: We've got a big announcement. Right, So since I joined
Speaker 1: the Meat Eater team, a lot of you guys have
Speaker 1: been like, hey, dude, when are you gonna get another
Speaker 1: video series? Like where you've been? Well, I was out
Speaker 1: shooting the first four episodes all last fall, and I
Speaker 1: spent all winter cutting them and working with our badass
Speaker 1: production team to whip them into shape. And guess what,
Speaker 1: the time has come. B Side fishing is what it's called.
Speaker 1: An Episode one is dropping next Tuesday on Mediator's YouTube channel. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So all those all those emails and d m s
Speaker 1: and like skywriting and telegraphs that we've been getting, Actually,
Speaker 1: when's Joe's new shoe? We want a new Joe show?
Speaker 1: Where's the Joe Show? We've been working on it all right,
Speaker 1: That's what I've been telling you. We're on now I'm
Speaker 1: working on it. There were some unavoidable a cups, but
Speaker 1: the time is nigh. So take all that energy that
Speaker 1: you've been pouring into letting us know how badly you
Speaker 1: want more videos from Joe and use that to now
Speaker 1: tell everyone you know, all your friends, the rest of
Speaker 1: the world's finally here and everyone should go watch it
Speaker 1: because it's it's definitely got some bent vibe to it. Oh,
Speaker 1: totally that it does. It's got a bit of bent
Speaker 1: hibe to it. And mostly explorers, Um, underappreciated fisheries or
Speaker 1: odd ball fisheries in unexpected places, which is something I'm
Speaker 1: familiar with doing. In fact, I'm kicking off the series
Speaker 1: in dirty Jersey because it's kind of like the capital
Speaker 1: of the unexpected, right, Like everyone seems to think Jersey
Speaker 1: is a tiny rat race covered in highways. Um, you're wrong.
Speaker 1: That's actually Delaware without a stitch of open land. But
Speaker 1: that's that's not really true, right, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: Jersey to the court, Jersey proud. Plus let's be honest um.
Speaker 1: Which was one of those hiccups. Talking about hiccups, was
Speaker 1: was a very like stay local kind of year, Like
Speaker 1: we weren't exactly jet setting all over the place to
Speaker 1: film stuff in. So I'm like, here's what I'll do.
Speaker 1: I will start off in Jersey. I know it, well,
Speaker 1: yes you did, and and uh, I was one of
Speaker 1: those people who just believed the media hype about Jersey,
Speaker 1: which isn't true. And I've learned a lot actually from
Speaker 1: about Jersey fishing opportunities in the past few months. And
Speaker 1: so will everybody who watches this. So new episodes will
Speaker 1: go live on the Meat Eater YouTube channel every Tuesday
Speaker 1: for the next month. And and since things are finally
Speaker 1: starting to open up again, we are already starting to
Speaker 1: shoot the next batch, starting to expand the range a
Speaker 1: little bit, moving, moving outside of Jersey. Who who knows,
Speaker 1: I might even make a cameo in one, So we
Speaker 1: expect expect to see more Joe Show launching later this year.
Speaker 1: You're you're all welcome anyway, that's great, go watch that,
Speaker 1: But we're here for another purpose. Moving on to fish News,
Speaker 1: a little reminder, this is a competition. Neither Joe nor
Speaker 1: myself know what the other ones bringing the table, and
Speaker 1: we're trying to compete for the love, affection and attention
Speaker 1: of Filled the Engineer, a man who's personal hygiene is
Speaker 1: above reproach this week. This week it is Joe's lead,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious to see what you what you brought? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: very excited about b side. Less excited about the news
Speaker 1: stories I found this week, But that's okay, that's fine. Um.
Speaker 1: And and this first one here, I'm gonna admit that
Speaker 1: I grabbed really for no other reason. Than it offers
Speaker 1: me an opportunity to comment on and criticize a common thing.
Speaker 1: I hear anglers say. All right, so this comes to
Speaker 1: us from Syracuse dot com headline Angler's tail. I caught
Speaker 1: a fourteen and a half inch goldfish and own a
Speaker 1: Daga Lake with my fly rod, and it is a
Speaker 1: tail so gripping. I'm surprised that hasn't already been optioned
Speaker 1: by Netflix. I'm actually fasted that that. Had I seen that,
Speaker 1: I would have clicked on it because I have done
Speaker 1: some goldfish fishing. So please continue, oh man, then I
Speaker 1: might make you feel bad too by the end of this.
Speaker 1: So so, a few weekends ago, as the story goes,
Speaker 1: Joe Selliver was fishing the mouth of Bloody Creek where
Speaker 1: it enters Ownandaga Lake. He was looking for bass and
Speaker 1: carp but he also spied two goldfish, and, according to
Speaker 1: the story, spent quite some time sidecasting a wooly bugger
Speaker 1: on his foreweight to them with no luck. Okay, they
Speaker 1: were just being just lockyall them gold That's been my
Speaker 1: experience with the with the goldfish too. You're gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna come out looking real bad here, damn it. It's fine,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just keep going shit uh and Yester, when
Speaker 1: he was about to call it quits, one of them
Speaker 1: went full beast mode and ate the wooly bugger. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: first bit of commentary which ties back to our discussion
Speaker 1: um about the lure of the Palomino trout. Because I'm
Speaker 1: convinced that if you see a bright orange fish, whether
Speaker 1: it's a trout or a goldfish or whatever like, you
Speaker 1: must target it. You cannot, you cannot leave it alone.
Speaker 1: And for most anglers, myself included, I would have probably
Speaker 1: have spent some amount of time trying to catch these
Speaker 1: goldfish if I saw them. Okay, So to get back
Speaker 1: the goldfish is now committed, and I shall read from
Speaker 1: the story. Sulliver said his heart was pounding as the
Speaker 1: fish took a run up the brook that flows underneath
Speaker 1: the owner Daver Lake Parkway and into the lake on
Speaker 1: the northern edge of the Butterfly Garden. He said he
Speaker 1: had the fish on for about ten minutes. When it tired.
Speaker 1: He solicited help of a couple who were there at
Speaker 1: the time, walking with their two children and cheering him
Speaker 1: on as he battled a fish. So here's my question.
Speaker 1: I said this was gonna lend itself to a commentary.
Speaker 1: How often have you heard a fisherman tell you they
Speaker 1: had a fish on or fought a fish for ten minutes? Right?
Speaker 1: How often have you heard that like that? But it
Speaker 1: does roll all the time. I find it to usually
Speaker 1: be hyperbole. Okay, okay, because it rolls right off the
Speaker 1: tongue very smoothly, right, And I always feel like it's
Speaker 1: the go to whenever you're recounting what you believe to
Speaker 1: have been an epic battle after the fact, like it's
Speaker 1: like ten minutes you ever like you ever noticed that.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just much fair. But like, listen, if you
Speaker 1: get your phone out and you set a time here
Speaker 1: for ten minutes, like to sit there like for ten
Speaker 1: true minutes, and then and then think about it and
Speaker 1: tell me how many fish you've caught that you legitimately
Speaker 1: fought for a full ten minutes. And I'm certainly not
Speaker 1: not saying doesn't happen like in salt water and you're
Speaker 1: talking about tarkman or a tuna, right, But I've caught
Speaker 1: like countless forty plus pound stripers and didn't fight none
Speaker 1: of them for ten minutes. I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: fought a steel head for ten minutes. I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: barring extreme circumstances where like a fish, you know, like
Speaker 1: zips down a run and you've got to really chase it.
Speaker 1: Aside from maybe gator, gar or or sturgeon, there are
Speaker 1: no freshwater fish that take ten minutes to land. So
Speaker 1: I'm saying all this because I buy that, I that
Speaker 1: I think that's straight. Okay, So if it took ten minutes,
Speaker 1: a true ten minutes to tire this squat fat fourteen
Speaker 1: and a half inch of goldfish, then we are seriously
Speaker 1: underestimating the power of the goldfish. Now, little did I
Speaker 1: know that you have gold fishing experience, So maybe you
Speaker 1: can shed some light on this. But minutes for a second.
Speaker 1: So then continuing on from the story, Since he had
Speaker 1: no net, Celliver asked the husband to hold his fly
Speaker 1: rod while he went back to his car a short
Speaker 1: distance away to get one, and then after netting the fish,
Speaker 1: Celliver related on the ground next to his fly rodd
Speaker 1: for a photo and then released it. I mean, the
Speaker 1: way I look at this is if that fish were
Speaker 1: so strong and cunning as you claim, why would you
Speaker 1: trust some dude to hold your fly rod, Like what
Speaker 1: if the fish went bulldozing often to the sunset? Again, like,
Speaker 1: what are the odds that that dude would know how
Speaker 1: to palm the drag and stop it? Anyway, Interestingly, the
Speaker 1: story does note that Onondaga was once considered one of
Speaker 1: the most polluted lakes in the country and that I
Speaker 1: did not know. It has, however, been getting cleaner and
Speaker 1: over the last few years. And what some experts in
Speaker 1: the story you're saying is that the goldfish were introduced,
Speaker 1: you know, via tank dumps years ago, like they were
Speaker 1: in most places, but because they're so hardy, they managed
Speaker 1: to survive those years of heavy pollution better than a
Speaker 1: lot of the native species. And while they are invasive,
Speaker 1: New York d C doesn't think that their population in
Speaker 1: Onondaga is particularly troubling, and they note that they never
Speaker 1: really see small goldfish in the lake. The ones that
Speaker 1: are there have been there for years, and when they
Speaker 1: do get one in a net study or something, it
Speaker 1: is always a freaking tank. So if trophy goldfish is
Speaker 1: on your life list, it seems Unadaga Lake is the
Speaker 1: place to be. I know you're making fun of this,
Speaker 1: and I understand why because it's ridiculous, and I com like,
Speaker 1: come on, I own the ridiculousness of what I'm about
Speaker 1: to say, but I'm going to say it anyway because
Speaker 1: I do. I do have personal experience targeting. But the
Speaker 1: trophy goldfish. There's a there's a little suburban pond in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood not too far away from here. This's guy
Speaker 1: like pan fish and bass, and it's it's super fun
Speaker 1: to just go there and kill a few hours and
Speaker 1: catch some fish. Right. And one one year, this was
Speaker 1: a while ago, we were out there just after ice
Speaker 1: out and and messing around and just like you're saying,
Speaker 1: you see this orange thing glowing, and like, holy god,
Speaker 1: what is that? And there were just a few of
Speaker 1: these eight to ten inch goldfish that we're living in
Speaker 1: this little suburban pond. And we became a buddy bind
Speaker 1: and I got a little obsessed. And and they are
Speaker 1: their their cart man, they're really smart. They're really hard
Speaker 1: to fool on anything. Like forget about the bass and
Speaker 1: the pan fish, those things are dumb. The goldfish became
Speaker 1: the prize anytime we went in fish there, and it
Speaker 1: went from being this thing that we did a suburban
Speaker 1: pod was like Oh yeah, I throw away. You catch
Speaker 1: a few fish, you know, make a fish, fry whatever,
Speaker 1: kill a couple hours too. Like, dude, do you think
Speaker 1: we're gonna be able to get like one of the
Speaker 1: ten inch goldfish to eat today? And I know it's dumb.
Speaker 1: I totally know it's dumb, but listen, it became this, this,
Speaker 1: this search, and we eventually did to catch a couple
Speaker 1: of them and it was super fun. It's not dumb.
Speaker 1: It's just not news. Okay, Like, dude catches goldfish, Like
Speaker 1: that's not news. I didn't call the didn't call the
Speaker 1: Bosman Daily Chronic will be like I got a goldfish.
Speaker 1: I know you didn't, But I mean I've done similar stuff,
Speaker 1: like you know, love to fly fish for a carp
Speaker 1: There's a couple of ponds around the way that we're
Speaker 1: just loaded with COI. Obviously somebody put them there years ago,
Speaker 1: like they're these wild lakes, but somebody dumped COI in
Speaker 1: there and like just to screw around, Like that's what
Speaker 1: you would go and target in these lakes. So like
Speaker 1: I I get it, but I don't know anywhere that
Speaker 1: has true goldfish that I've ever targeted. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I wouldn't throw a trout magnet at it if I
Speaker 1: saw it, or you would, or what would. I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm just saying on your local pond, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: look at that orange thing. O'm my gosh at that,
Speaker 1: and then when it didn't eat, you'd get obsessed. I'm
Speaker 1: willing to bet. But to having said all that, like
Speaker 1: I think the I think the fourteen inches a little
Speaker 1: bit of stretched. I question I have I have the
Speaker 1: picture of it. I mean it's it's now, it's it's
Speaker 1: squat dude. I mean like it's like it's like a
Speaker 1: uber football. Yeah, there's a photo of it. But like
Speaker 1: you ever seen those those those those those pellet head
Speaker 1: trout or like coi that are just way not long
Speaker 1: enough to it looks like where they wouldn't even have
Speaker 1: the tailpower to swim, like they just like wattle through
Speaker 1: the water. That's where this fish looks like. So I'm
Speaker 1: not buying that. Like it took you up the shoots
Speaker 1: into the butterfly garden pond, into the backing. I mean
Speaker 1: it sounds perfect. Like that's that's my experience with them.
Speaker 1: It's totally like a suburban scene, like they get the
Speaker 1: kids walking in the background of the dog park. Yet
Speaker 1: that's that's where you go to catch your your trophy
Speaker 1: goldfish for sure, the big hogs. Uh, maybe that'll be
Speaker 1: a b side. One day, we'll go goldfishing you and
Speaker 1: I would I would love to do that. I would
Speaker 1: love to see your response to that. And I think
Speaker 1: people would either be like, this is the dumbest thing
Speaker 1: I've ever seen, or they'd begrudgingly go, all right, that
Speaker 1: looks like fun. I'm surprised there as hard as you say,
Speaker 1: because compared to wild carp like goldfish nibble at anything
Speaker 1: you put in the tank. I know, and it didn't
Speaker 1: think they were going to be hard. We did not
Speaker 1: think they were gonna be challenging. They pretty interesting. But
Speaker 1: I'll say this, don't This is not a good reason
Speaker 1: to put goldfish into anybody of water. And if you
Speaker 1: do catch them, take them out and kill them. That's
Speaker 1: what we always did because they're not say sure, sure
Speaker 1: isn't Yeah, I don't do that. Don't do that. Uh.
Speaker 1: But this kind of parlays. I'm gonna switch over into
Speaker 1: another um story about tank fish and ornamental fish that
Speaker 1: people love and and this one comes to us from
Speaker 1: Sora News twenty four in Japan, whose tagline is bringing
Speaker 1: you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia today, which has
Speaker 1: got to be a bad translation. I hope, but I'm
Speaker 1: not sure anyway. The headline is, isn't it technically yesterdayre yesterday? There?
Speaker 1: Though today? If you're getting here that's valid. Maybe that
Speaker 1: maybe that's what. Maybe that's I see. They're just more
Speaker 1: clever than me, so the headline. The headline is Japanese
Speaker 1: police searching for men who stole one point one million
Speaker 1: yen in tiny fish story. I thought about this one,
Speaker 1: but I didn't do it. I'm glad you did. It's
Speaker 1: a good one. It's a good one. The primary story
Speaker 1: here is about the theft of three hundred Japanese rice fish,
Speaker 1: also known as medacadaca, are small fish native to East Asia.
Speaker 1: To give you some frame of reference, uh, race fish
Speaker 1: look a lot like guppies. They live in shallow ponds, marshes,
Speaker 1: tide pools, and importantly race patties, where they have likely
Speaker 1: cohabitated with humans for thousands of years. Madaca are extremely
Speaker 1: popular ornamental fish and have been kept as domesticated pets
Speaker 1: and span since around the seventeenth century. They're hardy and
Speaker 1: colorful by nature, but they've also been selectively bred to
Speaker 1: increase their coloration, much like carp right. Certain strings now
Speaker 1: range from like a creamy orange to vibrant yellow, red,
Speaker 1: or green, and in recent years these fish have become
Speaker 1: increasingly popular as status symbols, causing their value to rise.
Speaker 1: Rarer breeds now sometimes self for huge sums of money.
Speaker 1: A one inch fish can go for ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: ten grand for a one incher. I didn't read that deeply,
Speaker 1: Holy shit. If you can get the really the rare ones,
Speaker 1: most of them aren't that, but like the really rare one,
Speaker 1: this little guppy looking fish, ten grand guarantee they're feeding,
Speaker 1: they're raising him and feeding him too. Bass in Texas
Speaker 1: right now, I hope so. An unidentified fish breeder in
Speaker 1: Nakama City, Japan, had plans to open up a new
Speaker 1: store called Meddaca Eka or House of Medacca, and he
Speaker 1: was planning to open on March thirty one in order
Speaker 1: to capitalize on this this growing rice fish craze that's
Speaker 1: that's happening in Japan. He had been breeding various kinds
Speaker 1: of medocca for months in open air ponds and everything
Speaker 1: was going great. It was all on track for his
Speaker 1: big grand opening of the new fish store when a
Speaker 1: thief cut the perimeter fence at two thirty am on
Speaker 1: March and scooped out about three hundred medocca from the
Speaker 1: open ponds in which they were being reared. The fish
Speaker 1: that this individual stole are worth between fifteen and fifty
Speaker 1: bucks each. Okay, these aren't the super expensive ones, but
Speaker 1: that's still a lot. And it seems like the fish
Speaker 1: band was selective in choosing his targets. The expectation by
Speaker 1: police anyways, that he knows the market. There's someone an
Speaker 1: insider who was doing it. The whole raid was caught
Speaker 1: on security camera and you can see, like it's it's
Speaker 1: not great footage, but you can see the suspect creeping
Speaker 1: around and like checking the tanks and figured out which
Speaker 1: one he wants and then just like super definitely scooping.
Speaker 1: He's he's got his fish scooping game unlock. He's he's
Speaker 1: clearly done this before. The victim told Japanese media quote,
Speaker 1: I think of it more as a kidnapping than a theft.
Speaker 1: I'm more sad than angry, which strikes me as melodramatic.
Speaker 1: H and I'm you know, the fish robbery's fine, that's
Speaker 1: not the most interesting part of the story, Like some
Speaker 1: fish got robbed. Cool, But this got me reading about
Speaker 1: medaca and the fish themselves, which I didn't know about
Speaker 1: until I found the story. And one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that these particular fish are so popular has to do
Speaker 1: with their legendary fecundity. In optimal conditions, they can reproduce
Speaker 1: every day, no kidding, they can reproduce daily. Madocca were
Speaker 1: the first vertebrates to successfully breed in space. A healthy
Speaker 1: brood was conceived and hatched aboard the space shut of Columbia.
Speaker 1: In their popularity as ornamental fish, you know, this kind
Speaker 1: of really expect for their last story now jeopardizes the
Speaker 1: survival of the wild mendocca because, as is so often
Speaker 1: the case, right as we're just talking about people, people
Speaker 1: release their unwanted pets, right and those ones carry the
Speaker 1: genes that have been selectively bred, and those go and
Speaker 1: hybridize with local populations. Fient of wild mendocca now carried
Speaker 1: domesticated jeans and and the wildfish, which were once pretty
Speaker 1: muted in color, are now turning out vibrant orange. So
Speaker 1: you know, they're pretty easy for predators to spot. They're
Speaker 1: getting they're getting nabbed. It's not working out. Fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I got one final note on the stolen fish
Speaker 1: before before we move on. Uh. Though the suspect remains
Speaker 1: at large, sore A News claims that Yakuza involvement cannot
Speaker 1: be ruled out. Apparently, Japanese organized crime known as Yakuza,
Speaker 1: have recently been dabbling in the illicit fish business. Last week,
Speaker 1: Japanese maritime officers intercepted a ship and arrested the entire
Speaker 1: crew after they were caught poaching sea cucumbers, which are
Speaker 1: apparently referred to as black diamonds. Did you know that? No,
Speaker 1: I didn't hear that before. Now they've got massive value
Speaker 1: on on the elicit trade market around Asia as food,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know. And ce cucumber poaching has become
Speaker 1: a significant problem in parts of Japan. The authorities now
Speaker 1: believe that Yakuza are running sea cucumber rings. And here's
Speaker 1: one last I gotta say. And this is pandering, I
Speaker 1: admit it. But the captured boat was named the Going Mary,
Speaker 1: a reference to a popular anime series One piece and
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that means, but I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that Phil does so. Just a couple of thoughts, um I.
Speaker 1: I always laughed when when the Yakuza comes up, because
Speaker 1: they're like this super secret Japanese mob. Yet every time
Speaker 1: Discovery Channel is doing some like looking for the Lost
Speaker 1: Ninja Sword or artifacts story, like they're on speed dial.
Speaker 1: Ands like we're sitting down with the Yakuza today, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like it's like all freaking time.
Speaker 1: And also, I mean I hear you, like the dude
Speaker 1: is being a little dramatic about kidnapping. But I'm sorry, man,
Speaker 1: Like just think about this, right, he was just basically
Speaker 1: about to open a store called House of Madaca and
Speaker 1: then somebody jacked all his madaca, So like can you
Speaker 1: imagine like you were about to open a coffee shop
Speaker 1: tomorrow and then like somebody just came and stole all
Speaker 1: the beans like the night before. I mean, yeah, like
Speaker 1: what what? No? I feel bad for that guy. Don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, but he was he was anthropomorphizing him
Speaker 1: a little hard for me. I didn't get in some
Speaker 1: of the other quotes, but it's like they're more of
Speaker 1: my friends than my pets like, that's a sad life. Dude,
Speaker 1: you were gonna sell them, Let's be honest, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what they they'd also be valuable to certain folks
Speaker 1: in Chicago. That's my that's my transition as bait into
Speaker 1: this next story. And I'm kind of calling on our
Speaker 1: Chicago area listeners to provide more detail after the airing
Speaker 1: of the show, because I know you will, because I
Speaker 1: got a little education on power lining, and I'm a
Speaker 1: little intrigued but also a little turned off. Do you
Speaker 1: know what power lining is? I don't fill my ear.
Speaker 1: I got nothing on. Oh man, Okay, alright, So I
Speaker 1: had heard the term before, but I guess I never
Speaker 1: really I didn't. I didn't follow through enough to get
Speaker 1: a full grasp on on the technique until this story
Speaker 1: popped up on w t T you News dot com.
Speaker 1: And it's just a little news expose into this Chicago
Speaker 1: born method of fishing where anglers fire up to fifty
Speaker 1: baited hooks way out into the harbor with a fire extinguisher. No, yes,
Speaker 1: and this is all perfectly legal, okay. From the story,
Speaker 1: the fishing lines often have several hooks with bait, allowing
Speaker 1: fishermen to wait for what could be bites from multiple
Speaker 1: fish at once. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources sets
Speaker 1: a fifty hook limit per person in early spring. Starting
Speaker 1: mid to late March, power liners are angling for coho
Speaker 1: and chinook salmon from the harbor. When Lake Michigan warms
Speaker 1: up in the summer, the salmon will swim further away
Speaker 1: into deeper water. Right, So I again, I've I've heard
Speaker 1: about this, but like so, just like glancing blows, I
Speaker 1: never really understood the mechanics. And there's a video with
Speaker 1: this newspiece and the reporter is hanging out with this
Speaker 1: dude florin Delano, and he has this jan kie steam
Speaker 1: punk looking homemade contraption on wheels, right, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of long ass barrel and all kinds of bells jingling
Speaker 1: on it, and there's like conventional reels screwed to the frame,
Speaker 1: and it's got like a huge spool of line, like
Speaker 1: one of those thousand yards spools you buy to fill
Speaker 1: like offshore reels, right, and at the bottom it's just
Speaker 1: this industrial size fire extinguisher. And he explains you start
Speaker 1: with eight to ten ounces of lead at the bottom
Speaker 1: of your line, and then so you load that into
Speaker 1: the gun and then that comes out on like like
Speaker 1: a rubber line that connects to all your baited hooks,
Speaker 1: and you just freaking open that extinguisher, just hitter and
Speaker 1: it just fires the whole rig like three yards out
Speaker 1: into the harbor. And there's there's no rods involved here.
Speaker 1: This is hand lining essentially, right. And again I'm a
Speaker 1: little hazy on the specifics of the of the rigging
Speaker 1: and mechanics, but then it appears that like he just
Speaker 1: retrieves this he's got it's like a surf rod with
Speaker 1: a spinning reel, but just the butt section as far
Speaker 1: as the first gather and guy just like a short
Speaker 1: little and like that's what he reels in these these
Speaker 1: lines with. And this is a thing, dude, Like this
Speaker 1: is a known thing that happens in Chicago every year,
Speaker 1: and it's it's perfectly on the up and up. They're
Speaker 1: there are fans listening right now going like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I want to tell you everything about because I've had
Speaker 1: people like say, like, dude, you should try power lining,
Speaker 1: and they send me like a picture of a fire extinguisher,
Speaker 1: but like, this is not computing. I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what this means. Well, now now I get it.
Speaker 1: Now I understand, and and I'll tell you my favorite
Speaker 1: part though. In this little video, he's talking to the
Speaker 1: reporter and he brings in this little coho. It's early
Speaker 1: in the year, so the fishing is not great yet,
Speaker 1: but he brings in this little coho and when he
Speaker 1: brings it in, every single line of his is tangled
Speaker 1: and it is like the cluster of the century. Like
Speaker 1: he's trying to be cool for the camera, but it's
Speaker 1: gonna eat serious time righting the wrong long that this
Speaker 1: man has created during his interview segment, I mean, it
Speaker 1: is just lines going every which way and this one
Speaker 1: little coho wrapped in nineteen hooks and like everything is
Speaker 1: all tied together now. Interestingly, they also interview a woman
Speaker 1: who runs a local tackle shop at Montrose Harbor in Chicago,
Speaker 1: which is apparently power lining ground zero and the method
Speaker 1: was actually it's been around since the nineteen fifties, but
Speaker 1: back then, I guess fisherman would would throw lines out
Speaker 1: with an anchor on the end and have multiple baited
Speaker 1: hooks for salmon um and using the fire extinguisher to
Speaker 1: blast bates. That's just a modern adaptation, but it's perfectly
Speaker 1: on the up and up. And my thoughts are this,
Speaker 1: there's obviously a scene here, like there's a culture, there's
Speaker 1: a power lining culture. There's a cult of guys that
Speaker 1: do this, and I think that's cool, right, I'm always
Speaker 1: intrigued by these little scenes. But to me, like this
Speaker 1: is this is for meat on the table only, like
Speaker 1: other than enjoying blasting eight ounces of lead three yards
Speaker 1: with a fire extinguisher, Like is this fun? Like you're
Speaker 1: hand lining in three yards of line? They could have
Speaker 1: a shipload of salmon? Like is that a good time?
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm I'm I'm asking. I'm not being snarky,
Speaker 1: like if any of you out there do this, set
Speaker 1: us straight, like shoot an email at the band at
Speaker 1: the mediator dot com and let us like what am
Speaker 1: I missing? But power lining? Dude? My guess is that
Speaker 1: the fun here is in the tinkering. It's to make
Speaker 1: your shooter right. It's in the designing and testing and
Speaker 1: setting up your your contraption for firing the lines. I
Speaker 1: could be totally wrong, people like no, no, that makes sense?
Speaker 1: That could that would? I could see people really geeking
Speaker 1: out on like, oh, you use the I don't even
Speaker 1: know any I was gonna say, are the kid get
Speaker 1: that home? Deepot? You gotta go to the deep deep
Speaker 1: fires if you really want to get your distance, like
Speaker 1: I don't. I can see that being the part that's
Speaker 1: really attractive. But my question is this though, does it
Speaker 1: have to be a compressed error projectile or can you
Speaker 1: use like I mean, could you use other things like gunpowder?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know about gunpowder. This is the
Speaker 1: part I don't know. I mean, really, they're they're talking
Speaker 1: to one dude, and I'm sure that's painting such a mind.
Speaker 1: It's just like scratching the surface of the whole scene.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen guys use bait cannons powered by
Speaker 1: propane and stuff to like launch surfbates out and the
Speaker 1: camel line is and stuff. So I'm I'm wondering, Um,
Speaker 1: there probably are all different ways to to make your
Speaker 1: your shooter. They're probably guy he's calling it a shooter
Speaker 1: doesn't even know what's called to this. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you guys call these, Okay, right,
Speaker 1: and you're probably right about about their being like a
Speaker 1: little you know who. Stuff is better, But this dude
Speaker 1: I'll tell you right now, this was some cobble together
Speaker 1: ship man. Like this dude was straight up trying to
Speaker 1: get salmon. He even says like, even if you see
Speaker 1: why caught salmon in the store, it's a week old,
Speaker 1: Like I want the fresh stuff, so it's just like
Speaker 1: whatever blasted out there. Yeah, you know, but I I'm
Speaker 1: intrigued by the whole thing. And the lady at the
Speaker 1: bait shop she's like, I sell everything you need for
Speaker 1: power lining, but she can't sell the fire extinguishers and
Speaker 1: she's not a lot to sell fire particular license. So
Speaker 1: I'm sure we're gonna get a little lit up on
Speaker 1: this and we will follow up because I want to
Speaker 1: know more. It's intriguing. Fat I didn't. I was totally
Speaker 1: in the dark. And now another best power lining to
Speaker 1: fire out of freaking for goldfish, right, dude, done seal
Speaker 1: It picked the dates, uh, sticking with the theme of
Speaker 1: technology and fish. Um, you know, it seems like I've
Speaker 1: gone away from this, but early on the show, I
Speaker 1: was I was leading really heavy on stories about how
Speaker 1: how fish shape technology and new products, like either through
Speaker 1: bio design or repurposing fish by products to create new materials.
Speaker 1: And I got. I will admit I kind of overdid it,
Speaker 1: so I got away from those stories for little while,
Speaker 1: so wouldn't feel repetitive. But don't think I've lost my
Speaker 1: fascination with this topic. No, no, no, I have not,
Speaker 1: and it will continue to resurface from time to time.
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, researchers from Memorial University of Newfoundland presented
Speaker 1: a paper at the American Chemical Society proposing using fish
Speaker 1: oil as an alternative to petroleum disolate in making plastics.
Speaker 1: M Dr Francesca Curtain, the principal investigative studies, said a
Speaker 1: fish oil based polyurethane could help meet the immense need
Speaker 1: for more sustainable plastics. Lots of researchers are currently looking
Speaker 1: to develop plant based plastic alternatives, but according to the
Speaker 1: website Science Daily, these two come with the drawback. The crops,
Speaker 1: often soybeans, that produced the oil require land that could
Speaker 1: otherwise be used to grow food. So Curtain and her
Speaker 1: team sought out a different, viable based material that they
Speaker 1: could source using only currently existing waste. They're they're based
Speaker 1: in Newfoundland, like I said, where Atlantic salmon farms are
Speaker 1: a huge business, and so they decided to try oils
Speaker 1: extracted from fish parts that are often discarded after the
Speaker 1: fisher process. So we're talking heads, skeletons, and guts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the team figured out a way to turn the fish
Speaker 1: oil into a polyurethane like polymer that doesn't use any
Speaker 1: petroleum based materials. They hope to find real world applications
Speaker 1: for this fish plastic, like packaging, fibers and clothing. In
Speaker 1: case you're wondering, Dr Curtain told Science Daily quote, when
Speaker 1: we start the process with the fish oil, there's a
Speaker 1: faint kind of fish smell, but as we go through
Speaker 1: the steps, that smell disappears. So you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about your fancy new fleece jacket smelling like fish
Speaker 1: until you, of course inevitably wipe your fish slime coated
Speaker 1: hands on. It won't start out that way, and you
Speaker 1: can do yourself. And this all sounds well and good.
Speaker 1: I'm all four finding as many viable alternatives to plastic
Speaker 1: as as possible. My wife and I actually struggle with
Speaker 1: this weekly because we we know plastics have all kinds
Speaker 1: of drawbacks, but they're also everywhere. Like example, last week,
Speaker 1: our kids schooled in an Easter egg hunt, which was
Speaker 1: lots of fun for the kids, and and our son
Speaker 1: came home with this basket of plastic eggs filled with
Speaker 1: shitty candy, and he was he was elated, right, he
Speaker 1: was on cloud nine. And despite all that joy and
Speaker 1: loving seeing how happy my kid was, part of me
Speaker 1: was cringing picturing the future of those fake egg shells
Speaker 1: that he enjoyed for no more than half a day.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to be the fun, hating crazy
Speaker 1: guy who ruins children's holidays, being like, yeah, you think
Speaker 1: that's fun, now, wait till it poisons a baby dolphin.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna like your Easter eggs so much then, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be that guy. I don't want
Speaker 1: to ruin kids fun. These are just your standard They
Speaker 1: open in half plastic Easter eggs. There's standard blastic Easter eggs. Man,
Speaker 1: I just got stuck in my head on it. Right,
Speaker 1: But he got to bring that so he got to
Speaker 1: find the eggs and bring the eggs home. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: then you use them every year for the next eight
Speaker 1: years for your home at home Easter egg hunt. Yes,
Speaker 1: I realized there are lots of alternatives here. What I'm
Speaker 1: trying to like, I'm trying to communicate to people. Is
Speaker 1: it like this is the thing that I overthink, right,
Speaker 1: And I I'm not one of those crazy guys like
Speaker 1: all plastic must go, you're killing the world. At the
Speaker 1: same time, I want to think about plastics, and I
Speaker 1: understand the repercussions. It's something that I think about from
Speaker 1: time to time. Anyway, my point here is that if
Speaker 1: we can start making I don't know, plastic easter eggs
Speaker 1: out of fish waste, that's great. I think that would
Speaker 1: be great. I would I would love to see that.
Speaker 1: But I also have to wonder what happens that this
Speaker 1: technology does take off? Right, you can you can find
Speaker 1: enough fish oil to run a small little study on
Speaker 1: the viability of this product from some fish farm waste.
Speaker 1: But to scale this to the level required to meet
Speaker 1: global plastic consumption, and that'll that'll require a little bit
Speaker 1: more source material. And I just wonder. And the next
Speaker 1: thing I wonder is like, well, what what what happens
Speaker 1: if fish skeletons become a valuable commercial commodity? Like where
Speaker 1: what do we the yakuza is gonna get on this year? Man?
Speaker 1: A lot of you guys have written in and asked
Speaker 1: us if we've seen C Spiracy on Netflix and we
Speaker 1: are going to We have not watched it yet, but
Speaker 1: believe me, but I sort of know the gist and
Speaker 1: that's the first thing that pops into my mind. That's great. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: I don't know what side of the argument on C
Speaker 1: spiracy on I'm just saying in general because I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, so I can't pass judgment. But as soon
Speaker 1: as you brought this up, that's what I'm thinking. That's great.
Speaker 1: If this is an alternative to plastics, Boy, howdy do
Speaker 1: we use a lot of plastics? And if it's that good, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: Like we're already worried about taking too many fish to
Speaker 1: eat if we need them to make plastic, this could
Speaker 1: be a very big problem. It could be a very
Speaker 1: big issue. I'm with you on the spars. We My
Speaker 1: wife actually talked about last night should we watched this.
Speaker 1: She's like, I don't want to be that depressed right
Speaker 1: before bed. There's a lot to debate because I've already
Speaker 1: read articles saying like this is bullshit, and so we
Speaker 1: have to we will know. We gotta get with it,
Speaker 1: all right, That's enough about you know, terrible news and
Speaker 1: ruining the oceans and conspiracies and organized crime. I think
Speaker 1: I think, well, you know, there might be a connection,
Speaker 1: not because we're going to go from here into into
Speaker 1: the sale bin where a certain individual might or might
Speaker 1: not be selling something or might just be trying to
Speaker 1: lure you into into his backyard for other reasons. It's
Speaker 1: a great one, and we'll get to it as soon
Speaker 1: as we hear from Phil and see if your anime
Speaker 1: deal worked. I thought that one piece was a reference
Speaker 1: to a bathing suit and not a one piece of
Speaker 1: treasure that will make you the pirate king, which is
Speaker 1: what one piece is apparently actually about. So sorry, Miles,
Speaker 1: your plan didn't work, but you win anyway. Congrats. Now
Speaker 1: we just wait for Michael Mann or Scorsese to direct
Speaker 1: the Yakuza fish crime movie and it will sit in
Speaker 1: the pantheon of other fish crime movies like a Spenter,
Speaker 1: a Pet Detective, and the fish called Wanda. I guess
Speaker 1: I also have a new excuse to you is whenever
Speaker 1: I upload a podcast late, Phil, why was this late? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, Yakuza involvement cannot be ruled out. Why did
Speaker 1: you put the hand to pay? You don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm getting man, what you didn't have to be so
Speaker 1: hurtful with me so angry. It's time for sale, Ben,
Speaker 1: where we tell you about a sort of fishing related
Speaker 1: item for sale somewhere on the Internet like Craigslist or Facebook, Marketplace,
Speaker 1: something like that, one of one of those those seller
Speaker 1: to seller things we can find. It doesn't matter, really,
Speaker 1: it's just the modern flea market in an electronic space,
Speaker 1: is all it is. Exactly that is exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: And this week's comes from listener Justin Martin. And the
Speaker 1: truth is that this one almost slipped by me because
Speaker 1: it's it's missing the most important asset for selling anything online,
Speaker 1: a photo, like I need to see what I mean? Like, dude,
Speaker 1: a Craigslist post with with no photo. That's like some
Speaker 1: ninth ship man, that's like the beginnings of Craigslist. That
Speaker 1: just doesn't work anymore. No, No, it's marketing one O one.
Speaker 1: You gotta have you have some imagery there, But this
Speaker 1: post includes no imagery at all, which is uh. It's
Speaker 1: it's additionally strange because it seems like the seller actually
Speaker 1: put some time into writing the copy, but this Craigslist
Speaker 1: post he may have been blackout drunk when he did it,
Speaker 1: but he definitely, like he definitely like crafted a narrative
Speaker 1: that he worked on. And you think that at least
Speaker 1: walk out and take a couple of crappy pictures to
Speaker 1: boost the appeal, Like you're gonna put that much time
Speaker 1: into it. Just snap a blurry photo like everybody else, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the photos in these posts in general are terrible,
Speaker 1: and I guess this stuff still sells, so just walk
Speaker 1: out there and snap it. Good point, but I can
Speaker 1: only assume what else? Can you think? This canoe that
Speaker 1: he's selling looks so bad that he figures his best
Speaker 1: shot at selling the thing is just going with the
Speaker 1: verbal pitch, and once he gets you all the way
Speaker 1: there to look at the thing, you might still buy it,
Speaker 1: no matter what kind to shape it's in. Either that
Speaker 1: either that or like you said, he's too drunk to
Speaker 1: care if anyone buys it. And he spends his nights
Speaker 1: amusing himself by writing up somewhat nonsensical Craigslist ads, which
Speaker 1: I kind of admire, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's either admirable or really really sad. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure which, And you know what, who, For our purposes,
Speaker 1: we don't care, because we're not we're not looking to
Speaker 1: buy the thing. We just want a good laugh. And
Speaker 1: I gotta say, like, this post is just entertainment gold.
Speaker 1: It is phenomenal. It's so good. It's so good. So
Speaker 1: without further ado, we'll just read you this Craigslist ad.
Speaker 1: Okay with it? With a few interjections were necessary, So
Speaker 1: here we go. Okay, inexpensive canoe two dollars. This is
Speaker 1: the time that tries a canoe seller's soul. Look outside,
Speaker 1: Do you want to hop in a boat? Possibly tip
Speaker 1: it over and freeze? Neither do I. But the shortest
Speaker 1: day the year is behind us. The druids have celebrated,
Speaker 1: and the days all get longer. And hold on, hold on,
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta throw a quick interjection in here,
Speaker 1: because the next part, not the rest of it, makes
Speaker 1: total sense. But the next part gets extra weird because
Speaker 1: this post went up in January. So the next line
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense at all. But you gotta let
Speaker 1: that go. You gotta suspend your your cynicism. Here, we're
Speaker 1: here for the laughs. Just enjoy it, roll with it, Okay,
Speaker 1: So he continues, Christmas is upon us, and Billy wants
Speaker 1: a shotgun. Now I'm gonna interject, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: stop there because I just have to throw out there
Speaker 1: like I've been sort of noodling on like that, maybe
Speaker 1: what would the next bent sticker be? And now I'm
Speaker 1: suddenly stuck on a Billy wants a shotgun sticker? Like
Speaker 1: I think I would put a sticker that says that
Speaker 1: on my wares, on my trucker bolt. It resonates with
Speaker 1: me in a similar way to the line Buster wants
Speaker 1: to fish did Buster wants to fish stickers all over?
Speaker 1: Because there was a group that made those wants a shotgun.
Speaker 1: We'll worry about stickers later. I'm gonna back up so
Speaker 1: you get the full effects. I'll start again here. Christmas
Speaker 1: is upon us, and Billy wants a shotgun. I have
Speaker 1: no problem with this. I support every person's right to
Speaker 1: bear arms, of course, unless it's somebody who's really angry
Speaker 1: with me, and believe me, there are a few of them.
Speaker 1: If you buy Billy that shotgun, you are really going
Speaker 1: to have to be really nice to him forever, because
Speaker 1: who wants to have a gun battle with the offspring
Speaker 1: or the ex wife could get ahold of it and
Speaker 1: it's all downhill from there. Pause, pause, because I just
Speaker 1: need to break down the rhetorical strategy here. Dude is
Speaker 1: selling a used canoe, and in a very few short
Speaker 1: sentences he's managed to touch on Second Amendment rights, murderous
Speaker 1: ex wives, disappointing children at Christmas, but potential patricide, and
Speaker 1: the fact that numerous people would like to see him dead.
Speaker 1: He's gone way off the rails here. I just way off.
Speaker 1: I'm not like an expert in sales or anything, but
Speaker 1: I don't think that's like an effective strategy if you're
Speaker 1: trying to sell it a new al right, continue, continue
Speaker 1: moving on. So next passage, next quatrain. So get Billy
Speaker 1: a canoe. This is a fine fifteen foot Colman, red
Speaker 1: in color, no defects, no cracks, and a pleasure to paddle. Also,
Speaker 1: there is no possibility of an accidental discharge. It's cheaper
Speaker 1: to buy this fine canoe right now. That might be
Speaker 1: a lie, but who knows. The demand for watercraft is
Speaker 1: through the roof. Reserve your seat now in this fine
Speaker 1: Colman at a fantastic price. I am Jerry. Give me
Speaker 1: a call. Come sit in my yard, have a cup
Speaker 1: of tea and freeze with me. Oh and and that's it.
Speaker 1: That's the entire post. No photo, just brando right. And
Speaker 1: and those last few lines explain the whole thing for me.
Speaker 1: Jerry doesn't want to sell a canoe. He doesn't. He
Speaker 1: doesn't Jerry want Jerley wants a friend. That's JR. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing Jerry already tried the personal section what used to
Speaker 1: what they used to call it um casual encounters on
Speaker 1: craig List. They got rid of that, and Jerry is
Speaker 1: upset about it. He's one of the people missing casual
Speaker 1: encounters or or he just like maybe he took the
Speaker 1: same strategy into casual encounters that he took into selling
Speaker 1: canoe and it didn't quite we didn't. It didn't work.
Speaker 1: It didn't work, and he failed miserably. So now he's
Speaker 1: looking around his house trying to figure out what he
Speaker 1: can pretend to sell just to get some poor schmuck
Speaker 1: to come have a cup of tea with him. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I you got me think now. I just
Speaker 1: wish we had copies of Jerry's personal ads, Like can
Speaker 1: you image with that? Son of Like everyone in my
Speaker 1: life hates me people, you know, I've never thought like
Speaker 1: can you look up a seller on Craig's list, like
Speaker 1: previous his post like there could be a book here
Speaker 1: with Jare Jared's I like to call him Jared. Jared
Speaker 1: deserves a book deal. I think that's uh, that's what
Speaker 1: we learned here. Oh man, that was good one. Thanks
Speaker 1: again to Justin Martin for sending it along. And if
Speaker 1: you find anything amusing for sale that's even vaguely fishing related,
Speaker 1: please send it to Bent at the meat eater dot com.
Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to call Jerry. I wish you would.
Speaker 1: I almost called Jerry. And and here's the one thing
Speaker 1: we did not mention in that I might be able
Speaker 1: to hang out with Jerry. Jerry, Jerry, he could possibly
Speaker 1: be a writer on this show. Okay, but I also
Speaker 1: bet Jerry's in the backyard birding. Uh Okay, So hold
Speaker 1: on pause, because if you're using birding as a euphemism
Speaker 1: for sitting in your yard drinking cocktails, which is clearly
Speaker 1: what Jerry's doing, I'm saying that's another point for the
Speaker 1: like a positive point for the birding camp. I can
Speaker 1: definitely see myself lounging on some patio furniture with a
Speaker 1: glass of buffalo trace just kicking back, staring the trees
Speaker 1: and and and saying things like hey, was was that
Speaker 1: affiliated woodpeckers? God dammit, you kids, shut up scared Dad's birds? Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see that too. And the other thing we
Speaker 1: we found to mention um per Jerry's ppose he lives
Speaker 1: like just a stone's throw from me, by the way,
Speaker 1: like Jerry, he's kind of down the street. So we'll say,
Speaker 1: but again, just because you like to drink whiskey in
Speaker 1: your yard doesn't mean you like birding. So given the choice,
Speaker 1: I know, I know you would go fishing instead. That
Speaker 1: is accurate. I would and uh. And to cap off
Speaker 1: this lofty episode, I think we have to close with
Speaker 1: an end of line about a winged lure that's kind
Speaker 1: of similar to birding. What do you think it's a
Speaker 1: good idea or stupid idea? It has remained steadily popular
Speaker 1: with least some people for a very long time, and
Speaker 1: it's it's recently become kind of cool again. Well it's
Speaker 1: not loud enough. Lures get famous in one of two ways.
Speaker 1: Either they catch fish or they catch anglers. I always
Speaker 1: assumed that the crazy crawler fell into the ladder camp
Speaker 1: It's one of the strangest looking baits ever produced, but
Speaker 1: also one of the most recognizable and iconic. The Crazy
Speaker 1: Crawler looks like a giant locust or maybe a mutant hummingbird,
Speaker 1: a segmented cylindrical body with aluminum wings attached to either
Speaker 1: side on hinges. How could you not be intrigued by
Speaker 1: such a lure? How does it work well? A fish
Speaker 1: actually eat it? And if so why? The Crazy Crawler
Speaker 1: was originally invented by Jim Donnelly of ho pat coll
Speaker 1: New Jersey in thees as the signature bait for the
Speaker 1: Donnelly Lure Company, which never really took off. Heading purchased
Speaker 1: the design in order to compete with a wildly popular
Speaker 1: Arbi gas jitterbug. The Crawler is a top water bait
Speaker 1: that rolls from side to side as it's retrieved. The
Speaker 1: metal wings alternately reach out and grab the water, resulting
Speaker 1: in an action similar to a swimmer doing the crawl stroke.
Speaker 1: The grasping wings and rolling body produce a lot of
Speaker 1: wiggle and leave an impressive bubble trail. Any fish in
Speaker 1: the vicinity knows something's happening on the service and can
Speaker 1: easily track the commotion to its source. Though the design
Speaker 1: of the lures relatively complex, fishing it couldn't be simpler.
Speaker 1: Whereas stick style walking baits like spooks require a somewhat
Speaker 1: technical retrieve to be effective, crawlers are almost foolproof, just
Speaker 1: cast amount reel man. The holy Trinity of vintage surface
Speaker 1: bass plugs includes the Hula Pap, the Jitterbug, and the
Speaker 1: Crazy Crawler. But while I have clear memories of my
Speaker 1: childhood fishing mentors chugging those first two baits across Calm
Speaker 1: Lakes at dusk, I can't recall anyone ever fishing a crawler.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing them in my uncle's tackle box, but
Speaker 1: I can't think of a single time I saw him
Speaker 1: actually fishing. Now. To be are, my family wasn't big
Speaker 1: believers in service bates in general, So the fact that
Speaker 1: our little clan had no faith in crawlers doesn't meanlyy
Speaker 1: don't work. Carlers actually have devoted fans who claimed these
Speaker 1: baits listened the most exciting takes they've ever seen, but
Speaker 1: they're still better known as collectors items than confidence bates.
Speaker 1: I always thought of crawlers as the original gimmick lure.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, people buy them. They've got hinges
Speaker 1: and metal wings. Joe's already given you his take on
Speaker 1: the suicide duck, and I always thought the crazy crawler
Speaker 1: fit into a similar category, but it turns out I
Speaker 1: might be wrong about that. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: I went fishing with Oliver and I if you don't
Speaker 1: know him, Oliver is one of the most intelligent and
Speaker 1: innovative anglers in modern fishing. He created the Big Bass
Speaker 1: Streams brand and channel, and has been instrumental in demonstrating
Speaker 1: how effective big swim baits can be for bass and
Speaker 1: other freshwater predators. We've had Oliver on the show before,
Speaker 1: and featured him on a couple episodes of Dos Boat
Speaker 1: bottom line. He's a fishy dude who's not afraid to
Speaker 1: try unconventional approaches or tactics, but he also doesn't use
Speaker 1: anything that doesn't get bit So he and I got
Speaker 1: out together for an early fall mission targeting big pike,
Speaker 1: and I expected Oliver to toss in eight to ten
Speaker 1: in swim bait, but instead he picked up a rod
Speaker 1: rigged with what looked like a crazy crawler on steroids.
Speaker 1: The Hell's that? I asked him, Oh, this, he said,
Speaker 1: this is a prototype of little something I've been working on,
Speaker 1: I called the Ryan Gosling, and then he flashed that
Speaker 1: smug grin of his that usually means he's about to
Speaker 1: completely outfish. He was something you know nothing about. The
Speaker 1: Ryan Gosling looked very much like a gosling with metal wings,
Speaker 1: and though it didn't light up the pike that day,
Speaker 1: Oliver continued to test it and fisheries across the country
Speaker 1: and elsewhere in the world. A few months later, he
Speaker 1: sent me a video of the gosling getting gobbled by
Speaker 1: a fifty three muskie and later, possibly even more impressive,
Speaker 1: a forty eight inch murray cod in Australia that probably
Speaker 1: weighed seventy pounds. That pro type eventually became a production
Speaker 1: lure from Mega Bass, though on a smaller size and
Speaker 1: sadly without the Ryan Gosling name. The ie Wing one
Speaker 1: five takes the central old DNA of the Crazy Crawler
Speaker 1: and updates it with features like an internal weighted pendulum
Speaker 1: system and customizable wings for easy tuning, and Mega Bass
Speaker 1: wasn't the only company to update the crawler style in
Speaker 1: reason years. There are numerous wing service lures on the
Speaker 1: market today, including the smuggler from Chase Bates, which is
Speaker 1: shaped like a parrot and is definitely a gimmick. But
Speaker 1: all that leads me back to the ultimate question about
Speaker 1: these lures. Are they popular because they're actually effective or
Speaker 1: are they popular because we love the idea of watching
Speaker 1: a fish come to the service to eat something that ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I know fish hit these lures sometimes, but are they
Speaker 1: ever really the best option for a given situation. I'll
Speaker 1: probably never know, but I misseduced by the idea of
Speaker 1: them working as anyone. And if I ever do get
Speaker 1: a giant bass or muskie or murray cod or anything
Speaker 1: else to blow up on one, I could see myself
Speaker 1: becoming a full on convert. And that concludes our ornithology
Speaker 1: lesson for the day. If you're filling out your bird books,
Speaker 1: key sightings include a reminder that guide should never ever
Speaker 1: guarantee anything. Some guy in Philly is using canoe sales
Speaker 1: as a way to phone a friend Oliver, and I
Speaker 1: definitely knows which bird is the word. And if you
Speaker 1: drink enough cocktails in your backyard, you might convince yourself
Speaker 1: you hear Neson months laughing at you from the chrees.
Speaker 1: Please keep those bar nominations, sale bin items, awkward fishing photos,
Speaker 1: news suggestions, and updates on your grandpa's hernia surgery coming
Speaker 1: to Bent at the Meat Eater dot com. Yes, and
Speaker 1: also keep posting your heroic and or not so heroic
Speaker 1: shots with the hashtags Degenerate Angler and Bent Podcast on Instagram.
Speaker 1: And finally, keep in mind today's words of wisdom from
Speaker 1: Jerry Billy wants a shotgun.