Speaker 1: The first ten minutes were tiring. I was ready to
Speaker 1: give up, but my mom was yelling, don't give up.
Speaker 1: Keep railing it in. Can you imagine how big it
Speaker 1: would be if it wasn't in all that cold cold water.
Speaker 1: It looks like the climax to a horror film with
Speaker 1: fishing gear at it in, come out in the pulpit
Speaker 1: with a popping rod, and it's like it's dolphins. God
Speaker 1: damn it. Anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Good morning, degenerate anglers,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that overdoes it
Speaker 1: at Taco Bell and then calls DIBs on top punk.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Surmelli a Miles Nulty, and I'm I'm relatively
Speaker 1: certain that I have not eaten at a Taco Bell
Speaker 1: since I passed the legal drinking age. Get out of here,
Speaker 1: almost positive that that's the case. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: know that there's like a legitimate correlation there, or if
Speaker 1: they have anything to do with each other, but I
Speaker 1: think that's that's how long it's been. I'm also struggling.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm like killing time right now. Dude, I have
Speaker 1: I have, I don't know that I have a whole
Speaker 1: lot to add to that setup. If I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna guess that your theme is farting or
Speaker 1: black sheep. I don't know. It could be the nacho
Speaker 1: cheese chloopa, which I still enjoy now. It's neither of
Speaker 1: those things, though it could have been either one. Either
Speaker 1: one could have worked. The theme I'm going with this
Speaker 1: week is is fish camp. And to clarify, I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about swank lodges right, Like you and I have
Speaker 1: both been blessed with the opportunity to stay at some
Speaker 1: pretty choice lodges over the years. But I'm talking about
Speaker 1: those trips with a handful of your boys, like all
Speaker 1: packed into a shitty motel room or a rental cabin
Speaker 1: or a house. Right, nobody's cooking for you. You're not
Speaker 1: there to be pampered. You're there to fish and live
Speaker 1: in your own filth for a few days. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think the difference in our experiences most of mine have
Speaker 1: involved tents, not permanent structures like everything. When I think
Speaker 1: of fish camp, it's always either just sleeping out in
Speaker 1: the dirt or in a tent. But I'm with you,
Speaker 1: I do love fish camp. Yeah, me too. I don't
Speaker 1: love camping camping, so that that's why that varies. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I got this idea because I recently had one of
Speaker 1: those trips, and sadly it had been a while. Right,
Speaker 1: like for many of us listening, those trips are getting
Speaker 1: harder and harder to pull off, right because, like the
Speaker 1: one friend you could rely on to vomit in the
Speaker 1: family room and make you forfeiture, security deposit is now
Speaker 1: like running the children to ballet practice. Hold on, hold on,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that's another benefit to camping. There is
Speaker 1: no security deposit. You don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 1: Just I'm just gonna put that out. You got me there.
Speaker 1: But there's also not a shower, which is important to me. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know that guy, he just doesn't have time
Speaker 1: to be the guy that doesn't end up fishing on
Speaker 1: day one anymore. You know, he's too hungovers. So such
Speaker 1: as life. But before I tell you about my recent
Speaker 1: crashpad adventure, what was your favorite fish campaign? I know
Speaker 1: you've been on many. That's a hard one, man, I
Speaker 1: there are lots like I kind of want to wax
Speaker 1: poetic on on the oh the days when I was
Speaker 1: running Spike Camps as a guide. But I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: do that. I think I'm gonna focus on There was
Speaker 1: this this golden run in my late twenties that happen
Speaker 1: every year. I would quit my winner job whatever it
Speaker 1: was like six weeks before guide season would start, and
Speaker 1: I just I just packed the truck, I grabbed the dog,
Speaker 1: and I'd go. And there was this crew of three
Speaker 1: good fishing buddies who would join for at least part
Speaker 1: sometimes all of that trip. And I don't know. We
Speaker 1: did that for like I want to say, five straight years,
Speaker 1: just just exploring all over the Mountain West. We'd like
Speaker 1: find new places we'd never fished every year, but we'd
Speaker 1: also go back to favorite places. And it was it
Speaker 1: was fantastic. It was it was like, uh, as I said,
Speaker 1: a golden time, right, and and you'd have these I
Speaker 1: know you have this right. We'd we'd run into what
Speaker 1: I like to call single serving friends. When you're on
Speaker 1: the road, right and there are people you have no
Speaker 1: desire to stay in touch with, but they make those
Speaker 1: stories of those nights or days or however long he's
Speaker 1: been with them, and and you and your crew can
Speaker 1: can always talk about remember that dude we ran into
Speaker 1: in that parking lot and he gave us to that one.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, try this bait, and then we wound
Speaker 1: up drinking the hoops that he made in his bath
Speaker 1: and you get to hold onto those even though you're
Speaker 1: never gonna see those people again. And so we had
Speaker 1: a lot of those, and we caught a lot of
Speaker 1: big fish. So those that's my favorite fish camp memory, smattering,
Speaker 1: I I think my best ever, which yours is better.
Speaker 1: But it was in Louisiana, and for transparency, it was
Speaker 1: actually an industry gig with Sims and Coasta. It just
Speaker 1: happened that all the people they invited were like really
Speaker 1: good friends of mine that I fished with. That's nice separately, right,
Speaker 1: It just turned out that way, um. And they rented
Speaker 1: a house sight unseen in the Lower ninth Ward, not
Speaker 1: too far from the French Quarter. And it was weird
Speaker 1: because the place was immaculate and totally renovated, but like
Speaker 1: the house next door was partially burned down. Like it
Speaker 1: was a very that's very New Orleans. It's a very
Speaker 1: odd thing, um. And we would just get lit up.
Speaker 1: We caught a bunch of tuna, huge redfish, grilled food.
Speaker 1: Someone in the neighborhood like died of an overdose out front.
Speaker 1: It was just good hangs, just wild times in that house, Uh, Philip,
Speaker 1: it coming on. You know what else I hear is
Speaker 1: a wild time, Joe, tell me catching fish on the
Speaker 1: thirteen fishing truro, which I just did yesterday. Actually it
Speaker 1: is a wild time and thanks for bringing that up. Yes,
Speaker 1: so you know right the truro is thirteens version of
Speaker 1: like the very popular paddle tail swim bait right now,
Speaker 1: It's what everybody has one um and thus far I've
Speaker 1: only thrown them for Smalley's, but I appreciate the design
Speaker 1: very much right there, not uh straight copycat baits like
Speaker 1: other companies have pumped out. The body has three joints
Speaker 1: that allow it like flutters on the paws, and I've
Speaker 1: seen it. I know it does this. And they have
Speaker 1: um like a pretty snazzy keel design that keeps them horizontal.
Speaker 1: They do they do uh croppy and panfish like to
Speaker 1: grab the tail and shake it, but they can't. They
Speaker 1: don't get the hook. Just in case you're wondering that
Speaker 1: only the bass in the northerns do that. Let's not
Speaker 1: forget though that the part of the reason that all
Speaker 1: these fish want to consume them is that they're slathered
Speaker 1: in donkey sauce. Donkey sauce, which we like to slather
Speaker 1: all over this show as much as possible because we
Speaker 1: love thirteen and they sponsor us. Anyway, you were all
Speaker 1: of this, I think along your theme is because you
Speaker 1: recently spent some time in a modern day fish camp,
Speaker 1: a modern day version of fish camp, right and and
Speaker 1: I know all about this, I know where it was,
Speaker 1: I know you were with, But why don't you tell
Speaker 1: all of all the people out there? Give him the story? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this was in Ohio and I was there to
Speaker 1: film the final episode of doss Boat season three, right
Speaker 1: and now we were chasing some walleyes doing a little
Speaker 1: cat fishing. But we rented this monster of a house
Speaker 1: with a pool game room. They had freaking asteroids, pool table,
Speaker 1: the works. Right now. Granted it was old, like the
Speaker 1: whole place looked like it had been pieced together in
Speaker 1: the early nineties. But for like five straight days I
Speaker 1: got to hang with some really fishy people. My old
Speaker 1: buddy and uh, a friend of me will say of
Speaker 1: the show, Ross Robertson was one of them, Um, but
Speaker 1: I was. I was hanging with with dudes I consider legends.
Speaker 1: Photographer Brian Gregson, he's our boy. Filmmaker are a body
Speaker 1: who is a good friend of yours. Both of those
Speaker 1: guys I consider good friends, and I'm lucky to have
Speaker 1: known them for as long as you have. And uh, look,
Speaker 1: I'm happy for you, all right. I want to say
Speaker 1: that I am very happy. I know you guys had
Speaker 1: a great time. I know that good, good things happened.
Speaker 1: But I am pretty jealous. I know it's also true.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not. I'm not jealous of the walleye.
Speaker 1: You guys couldn't have. Fine, you and you and Ross
Speaker 1: can go have your walleye, but the hanging out and
Speaker 1: fish can't have the bullshit and the good people the
Speaker 1: cat fishing. I'm jealous all that. I am confident, however,
Speaker 1: that good things are going to come out of that trip,
Speaker 1: even though I wasn't there. Yes, and like I said,
Speaker 1: you were missed. We we poured one or five out
Speaker 1: for you. Um. And then in your honor, I set
Speaker 1: up the mics and decided to channel some of that
Speaker 1: storytelling gold into segments for the show, right, so let's move.
Speaker 1: Let's let's move into smooth moves where you guys know,
Speaker 1: we let guides, captains, anybody really in the fishing industry
Speaker 1: these days bitch about dumb or weird things their clients
Speaker 1: have done right. And this will be the first installment
Speaker 1: you'll hear from what I'm calling the dost Boat Ohio Sessions.
Speaker 1: And since he's the director of DOS Boat, we'll kick
Speaker 1: it off with the aforementioned are a bat Why so
Speaker 1: sitting with me here in Ohio, UM while filming DOS
Speaker 1: Boats Season three filmmaker extraordinary are a BIATI? You said
Speaker 1: you just woke up from a nap. You were napping downstairs?
Speaker 1: Was not napping? Because we're working so well, I trying
Speaker 1: to cover. We're between things happening, so you don't get
Speaker 1: in trouble in this um. It's kind of like a flophouse.
Speaker 1: I'd call it that we're in. Yeah, we're in this
Speaker 1: really bizarre little beach house and we well we I mean, look,
Speaker 1: we've been on the road now for two weeks, UM,
Speaker 1: and you've been seeing what we're doing. We go super early. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got a bed weight and so one of our
Speaker 1: models is, uh, you know, you sleep when you can, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And so I was just, yeah, catching up on a
Speaker 1: little little and to wake yourself up. You've got yourself
Speaker 1: a cold bush light, just a little bush light for
Speaker 1: the farmers. So I'm looking at the notes about the guest.
Speaker 1: My producer gave me it. Since here, you pretty much
Speaker 1: invented fly fishing videos, Is that accurate? Yeah? Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: just just invented I think videos in general. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: moving pictures, was like, we should make these pictures move
Speaker 1: But no, seriously, man, like you you have done so
Speaker 1: much on the video side, I mean, like pioneering things.
Speaker 1: You also a fishing guide for a while, right, I
Speaker 1: was a fishing guide growing up, um through high school
Speaker 1: and college. But you know, we were kind of in
Speaker 1: the right place at the right time, which is a
Speaker 1: lot of which is a lot of luck, right, um,
Speaker 1: in terms of you know, really surfing, skateboard, skiing, snowboarding,
Speaker 1: like had gone through these media like explosions and media growth,
Speaker 1: and so fly fishing you know, took place in a
Speaker 1: lot of places where those activities happened. Therefore a lot
Speaker 1: of people were inspired by that content. And just so
Speaker 1: you don't just shoot fly fit, you shoot all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. You're not just like the fly dude, right, Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I mean we that's kind of where we cut our teeth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I say we, you know I have to. I
Speaker 1: can't just say I because I always worked with so
Speaker 1: many really great people. Um, but you know, you had
Speaker 1: a bunch of young fishing guides who grew up skiing
Speaker 1: and skateboarding and you know that stuff and watching this media,
Speaker 1: and it was like, why don't we have that right?
Speaker 1: Why don't why why don't we have content that's more
Speaker 1: like lifestyle based in fun and exciting, um, you know,
Speaker 1: because you gotta remember fly fishing back then was like
Speaker 1: there was a lot of tweet right yeah, and like
Speaker 1: a river runs through and I just come out and
Speaker 1: people are like, oh my god, this is amazing. And
Speaker 1: it started to show this like other side and it's
Speaker 1: like so yeah. So there was actually an explosion right
Speaker 1: when we started making content. Um, it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: You have like probably six to ten different people with
Speaker 1: the same vision and they all started making content within
Speaker 1: like a year or two. Yeah, and then that blew
Speaker 1: up into like tom By the Drake magazine. You know,
Speaker 1: there were so many people making content almost overnight. Well
Speaker 1: so many it was like ten people. But that they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: let's have this event and let's let's make the five
Speaker 1: minutes of fly fishing video. What Tom had come from
Speaker 1: Powder magazine, right, So it's it's basically we just mimicked
Speaker 1: what what you're seeing in the other sports. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: well dude, seriously, mean, I've been watching your stuff for many,
Speaker 1: many years, and it's it's very cool that like you
Speaker 1: like you spend today pointing a camera at me, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, here's the thing I never thought would happen
Speaker 1: with man, But this has been this has been a
Speaker 1: very fun week. Um. But I mean, so we're doing
Speaker 1: smooth moves here, you know what that's all about? You
Speaker 1: could you could throw a smooth move from something you've
Speaker 1: seen while while film while guiding. You could go a
Speaker 1: lot of different directions. So I'm very I'm curious because
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know, like what's going to
Speaker 1: happen here. But the floor is yours. Man, make us laugh,
Speaker 1: make us WinCE, make us vomit. I don't know, so
Speaker 1: lots of stories. I think the one that I have
Speaker 1: not told before that like exclusive I'm thinking through how
Speaker 1: I can tell it and be very sensitive to different
Speaker 1: people involved. But basically, when I was a young fishing
Speaker 1: guide in the Roaring Fork Valley, um, like I said,
Speaker 1: we're just coming out of like a river runs through it.
Speaker 1: And so fly fishing had ballooned almost overnight into this
Speaker 1: activity that like everybody had to do when they're on vacation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you've got you know, everyone's like, wow, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be We're gonna be in the mountains. So we
Speaker 1: have to go rafting, and we have to go horseback riding,
Speaker 1: and we have to go fly fishing and like these
Speaker 1: old boxes and so we did a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of that, and so a byproduct is you just
Speaker 1: got a ton of characters all the time from all
Speaker 1: over the country, over the world, just tons of transient
Speaker 1: people trying fly fishing. So one morning we had some
Speaker 1: folks from the South and they showed up, you know,
Speaker 1: heavy accents, and they wanted to try out fly fishing.
Speaker 1: And so I had a gentleman who owned probably one
Speaker 1: of the biggest NASCAR race courses or like race facilities.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to name the exact one, but it
Speaker 1: was in the South, and there's you know there's been
Speaker 1: some funny movies made about that course the track, but
Speaker 1: uh so, anyway, we had this. We had this gentleman
Speaker 1: and uh he called me boy. You know, He's like,
Speaker 1: hey boy, because I mean I was twenty yeah. Nice
Speaker 1: and he's he was an older gentleman. He's like, hey boys, like,
Speaker 1: why don't you come over here and not help me?
Speaker 1: How do I set up this flywer thing over here?
Speaker 1: And like super nice guy but uh, you know, very
Speaker 1: very southern um And so I had these had him.
Speaker 1: I think I had his like his brother m a
Speaker 1: or somebody. We're fishing get him set up, and I'm
Speaker 1: downstream helping his brother and he's he's hooting and hollering
Speaker 1: at me and yell and he's like he's very excited
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, and he's motioning and he's like
Speaker 1: he's like, hey boy, you gotta a dot. I can't
Speaker 1: really hear him and through like the moment, like like
Speaker 1: the rumble of the river, and I'm like, and so
Speaker 1: I'm kind of I'm like, what do you like? What's
Speaker 1: going on? What? I'm like, what's up? But he's like,
Speaker 1: what do you need? He's like, boy, He's like okay,
Speaker 1: I get your net ready, it's coming down. He's like,
Speaker 1: grab your neck, get ready, and I'm like, I have
Speaker 1: no idea what's happening. And he's kicking and he's shuffling
Speaker 1: and he's moving around. He's like, Okay, here it comes.
Speaker 1: It's coming down, and he's really animated. I'm really excited
Speaker 1: about this, and I have no idea what's happening. And
Speaker 1: this there's all this mud and you know, bugs and
Speaker 1: all this stuff flowing down the stream towards us, and
Speaker 1: we're like fifty maybe down below him, and I start
Speaker 1: to see like something, there's like a bunch of color
Speaker 1: coming through the water, and um, this big pink shape
Speaker 1: starts to kind of emerge, and I thought, maybe, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe he's dropped something. Maybe he drops his water bottle,
Speaker 1: like I don't know. So anyway, I have my net
Speaker 1: ready and this big pink object flows through and I
Speaker 1: dip my net and grabbing come up and it's just
Speaker 1: a big vanny mustard. I mean, like just a baby
Speaker 1: arm of a of a dildo, and I mean the
Speaker 1: kind of takes like four D batteries, Like oh wow,
Speaker 1: he's got and stuff like this is a big one
Speaker 1: that's like three oh one level. You don't buy that
Speaker 1: when your first time, and was super bummed when they
Speaker 1: lost it right there, like it wasn't cheap and so
Speaker 1: and so I'm standing there. Wait before you go on, though,
Speaker 1: did he legitimately think you think he had a fish?
Speaker 1: Like he he? No? I think he was Okay, So
Speaker 1: it was stuck in some rocks by his feet, and
Speaker 1: he knew like he could see it, and he was
Speaker 1: really excited about what he had found. And then he
Speaker 1: wasn't on his rod. He wasn't. No, that would have
Speaker 1: been amazing, got it. I imagine I was imagining it
Speaker 1: until we clare Yeah, no, I'm sorry. I should have Yeah,
Speaker 1: I should have died. I should have just lied and
Speaker 1: said he actually hooked it. No, he no, he was
Speaker 1: really excited about this and he didn't want it. He
Speaker 1: wanted to get it and wanted me to net it
Speaker 1: and like didn't want it to escape. Right. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I he's still really excited. He's like, oh boy, oh boy,
Speaker 1: let's see that thing. And you know, I like walk
Speaker 1: up to him and I showed it to him and
Speaker 1: it's sitting in the net and he's looking at it
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, boy, could you imagine how big
Speaker 1: it would be if it wasn't in all that cold,
Speaker 1: cold water. So then uh so, anyway, so he had
Speaker 1: his prize and he was shaking it around and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so what he did is, you know, he'd shove
Speaker 1: in the top of his waiters and he was walking around.
Speaker 1: And so throughout the course of the day, we're walking
Speaker 1: along this river trail and there's a ton of people
Speaker 1: from Aspen, you know, like look like little yoga people
Speaker 1: running around, bikers and like all the beautiful people are
Speaker 1: like out recreating and being healthy. Everyone's super nice, right,
Speaker 1: and so as you're walking, as they're coming by, they're like, oh, hey, boys,
Speaker 1: how's everything going. He catching new fish today? And every
Speaker 1: single one he would be like, yeah, well got this,
Speaker 1: and he'd reach in and tuck it and pull it
Speaker 1: out and and shake this big pig dog around and
Speaker 1: uh and I was like, I was like, dude, we're
Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna call the cops. So anyway, that's probably
Speaker 1: my Did you get a good tip that day for
Speaker 1: that net jab? Just the tip, just the tip boom,
Speaker 1: We're out a segment done right there. You know, this
Speaker 1: is true at the fish camp I mentioned earlier we
Speaker 1: like to fish as one stretch of river that paralleled
Speaker 1: a pretty busy trucking highway. You couldn't see the river
Speaker 1: for most of it, but it was right there. You
Speaker 1: could hear while you're fishing, could hear the trucks going by,
Speaker 1: and uh. On more than one occasion, I found sex
Speaker 1: toys circling in an eddy like right beside brown trout
Speaker 1: sipping delicate mayflies. It was. I haven't used that anywhere,
Speaker 1: but the metaphor always struck me as potent. It's gonna
Speaker 1: end up in something I write one day, I know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I gotta say I'm a little I'm a little
Speaker 1: surprised that took us this long to run into a
Speaker 1: dildo related story and smooth moves like that was that
Speaker 1: was inevitable. But well, that one was a ringer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's just it, right. It's not like we haven't
Speaker 1: heard others. It's not like nobody else has has thrown
Speaker 1: one out there, but it's mostly just been you know,
Speaker 1: like I found one, well, like you know, of course
Speaker 1: you found one who hasn't, or you get the dudes
Speaker 1: who are like my buddy rigged one and caught a
Speaker 1: fish with it, which, in my opinion, that's a cry
Speaker 1: for attention, like you're trying too hard when you do that.
Speaker 1: I have I've already given my opinion on penis shape
Speaker 1: lures solidly opposed. We don't need to revisit that was
Speaker 1: ironically though, we're going too later, whether you know it
Speaker 1: or not, but just ironically great, well, we all have
Speaker 1: that to look forward to on our a story. Of
Speaker 1: the reason I like that there the image that six
Speaker 1: of me is the guy parading around holding onto that
Speaker 1: thing in an as spin. That's that's what I appreciate
Speaker 1: about that story, is that the backdrop and the way
Speaker 1: that he treated it. Hopefully I'll be able to parade
Speaker 1: another victory trophy around Bozeman this week when I beat
Speaker 1: your ass in that weekly competition we call fish news
Speaker 1: fish news. That escalated quickly quick bit of sad kind
Speaker 1: of bummery news before we get started here, So we
Speaker 1: just don't you're horning in on my territory, Smellie, sad news.
Speaker 1: Is I own the sad news in fish news, not you.
Speaker 1: That's my that's my world. Sorry, how dare how dare?
Speaker 1: I said, without running it by first anyway, So we
Speaker 1: just covered ho Jack's Bar and grill, and that's my bar,
Speaker 1: remember dirty Wing Joint in New York, in New York's
Speaker 1: mud Shark territory. So several people hit me up to
Speaker 1: alert me that according to Google, it's closed permanently. Oh no,
Speaker 1: another another COVID casualty I that I could not figure
Speaker 1: out why it was closed. Um, but so I really
Speaker 1: wanted to go there, right And their website is still active,
Speaker 1: but it appears not to have been updated since very
Speaker 1: late last winter. So um. You know. We also had
Speaker 1: a guy right in and say that was a disservice
Speaker 1: because like those wings will like clear you out, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like you eat too many of
Speaker 1: those particular wings. So I don't know what the real
Speaker 1: story is, but we may never find out. So I
Speaker 1: just thought i'd bring that up case in case anybody
Speaker 1: was car tripping across the country right now, like headed
Speaker 1: there for those wings, turn around, okay, go somewhere else. Um,
Speaker 1: and if anyone has another suggestion for good wings and
Speaker 1: perhaps a good garbage plate, which they had at ho
Speaker 1: Jack's up there in the Salmon Belt, let us know
Speaker 1: you're familiar with the garbage plate, you know, you have
Speaker 1: something similar in Hawaii. I think it's your plate lunch
Speaker 1: where they just take like burgers and dogs and put
Speaker 1: them on a plate and then smother them with like
Speaker 1: gravy and all kinds of let's not playing for bigger
Speaker 1: genre food. You're thinking about the Loco Moco continue, That's
Speaker 1: what I was thinking. Anyway, They had garbage plates at
Speaker 1: the at the hoe Jacks, so I have to find
Speaker 1: a new place for them. Also, we definitely had some
Speaker 1: interest in the rosary bead split shot stick from that one.
Speaker 1: That one kind of hit right, so all I can say,
Speaker 1: right now, right, we'll we'll work on it, we'll, we'll
Speaker 1: see um. But we even had a few great suggestions,
Speaker 1: like like one dude said the cross should be a
Speaker 1: snag hook waited snag hook, not our and jarn. And
Speaker 1: then I had a fan reach out on instant he
Speaker 1: was like, I'm a pastor and a religious authority and
Speaker 1: I approved that sticker. So that's like a ringing in
Speaker 1: dar right there. So I like the one guy who
Speaker 1: wrote in and said, uh, you know, you guys have
Speaker 1: to get an actual Catholic to do the art on that,
Speaker 1: otherwise I'm going to be offended. I thought that was
Speaker 1: I thought that was pretty funny. Well, if anybody out
Speaker 1: there is a nun or a deacon that happens to
Speaker 1: be crafty, crafty with sharpie, I'm sure you're I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're listening to Bent and you write in so I
Speaker 1: don't know. We'll see see if we can make that work.
Speaker 1: I hope. So, I hope it comes together. And Uh.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, we have some some actual business to
Speaker 1: attend to, because it is time for fish News. Just
Speaker 1: so you're all aware, this is a competition. Joe and
Speaker 1: I do not know what stories the other person is bringing,
Speaker 1: and we are competing for I would say the adoration
Speaker 1: of our our Caesar, shall we call him the audio Engineer? Uh?
Speaker 1: This week, Joe is up first. Uh. And then I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna back clean up. So what do you got, Joe? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So a bunch of you find folks forward to this
Speaker 1: story along, and I thank you for that because it's
Speaker 1: giving me a reason to ship on trolling, which we
Speaker 1: all know is something I really enjoy personally. Um. And
Speaker 1: by now, I'm sure a lot of you have caught
Speaker 1: wind of the ne State record King Salmon caught in Michigan.
Speaker 1: But seriously, I don't think I've ever gotten this much
Speaker 1: of a kick out of a state record story before. Okay,
Speaker 1: so here's what happened, and we're gonna we're gonna reverse
Speaker 1: engineer a little bit, all right. So on Saturday August seven,
Speaker 1: nineteen year old Louise Martinez boarded ice breaker Charters in Luddington, Michigan,
Speaker 1: with his family. By seven thirty am, Louise had put
Speaker 1: a forty seven point eight six pound king salmon on deck,
Speaker 1: breaking the previous state record of forty six point zero
Speaker 1: six pounds, which had stood since nineteen seventy eight. A right,
Speaker 1: so old record, right, yeah, like double his eight Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly right. So this catch, of course just totally thrilled
Speaker 1: d n R. Because the fish was in really great shape, right,
Speaker 1: They got great samples from it to study, and according
Speaker 1: to those guys in the story, like this really says
Speaker 1: some pretty positive good things about the hell of the
Speaker 1: salmon population in Lake Michigan, and in particular their food source.
Speaker 1: Right to grow in that big they gotta be eating good.
Speaker 1: So it was it was like sort of all positive
Speaker 1: this catch, right. So those are those are the basic facts.
Speaker 1: But what makes this story awesome. Is Louise himself right?
Speaker 1: The first time the kid ever bought a fishing license
Speaker 1: was the night before this trip, Okay, so he did
Speaker 1: not angle, and the story says that this was the
Speaker 1: first time he was ever salmon fishing. But I think
Speaker 1: there's like some miscommunication here because I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: based on how they're playing up that that he only
Speaker 1: bought the license the night before this might have been
Speaker 1: his first time fishing period. So there's a little conflict
Speaker 1: in there, but regards maybe like he went when he
Speaker 1: was a kid before he had to biolys could be yes, right,
Speaker 1: So he just bought this license Friday night on the
Speaker 1: boat Saturday. So in the shot back of the dock,
Speaker 1: which I'll post in my Instagram story this week, Luise
Speaker 1: looks like he could kind of not give a shit, okay,
Speaker 1: And dare I say, like, be happier in front of
Speaker 1: a computer with a headset on than fishing. Now, listen
Speaker 1: before you jump on me and say, well that's not fair. Okay.
Speaker 1: Here are some quotes from Louise from the story. Okay,
Speaker 1: first one ringer, I honestly fell asleep the whole way
Speaker 1: until my mom said, you're up, and I was like what.
Speaker 1: They handed me the fishing pole. Fishing pole, and I
Speaker 1: started reeling the thing in. So that was the first one.
Speaker 1: Right away. I was like, oh, he was sleeping. They
Speaker 1: were trolling. There we go next quote. The first ten
Speaker 1: minutes were tiring. My arms were sore. I was ready
Speaker 1: to give up, but my mom was yelling, don't give up.
Speaker 1: Keep reeling it in. Right, Okay, these are yeah, and
Speaker 1: then here comes the clincher. The fish started to jump
Speaker 1: out of the water. You could see it, and they
Speaker 1: were like excited because it was huge. I was like,
Speaker 1: it's just a fish. There's nothing special about it. At
Speaker 1: least that's what I thought. So people people are comparing
Speaker 1: this to winning the lottery, which I get and I
Speaker 1: would say is accurate. Right, you bought a license to
Speaker 1: night before you go out on a boat and like
Speaker 1: bang state record King. I just think it's funny because
Speaker 1: like the gravity of the situation, I think is is
Speaker 1: really kind of lost on him, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, cool, okay, Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: imagine fish, Yeah, Like I imagine that this is how
Speaker 1: like Phil would behave in this situation and I mean
Speaker 1: like impossible to wake up that morning, like I don't
Speaker 1: want to go fishing, sleeping in the wagon Queen family truck,
Speaker 1: stir on the way to the dock, and then just
Speaker 1: curling up on the bench seat of the boat and
Speaker 1: going back to sleep. Um anyway, So final thought for debate,
Speaker 1: because this story illustrates something I've always thought very well. Right, So,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, the person and who should get credit
Speaker 1: for breaking the forty three year old record is the
Speaker 1: captain of the boat, not the guy that reeled it in.
Speaker 1: Because in trolling scenarios, especially like this, where clients are
Speaker 1: just being handed the rod, the boat is catching the fish,
Speaker 1: the captain is finding the fish and choosing the lords.
Speaker 1: And personally, like I rag on trolling all the time.
Speaker 1: It's not that I don't ever do it, but the
Speaker 1: only time I feel like I'm part of the victory
Speaker 1: when trolling is when I'm actively working and like setting
Speaker 1: that spread like intuna trolling, I want to be dirty
Speaker 1: and you know, rigging the vally who and deciding how
Speaker 1: far back this will go and how far back that
Speaker 1: will go, so that when something gets bit like you
Speaker 1: feel like your intuition and knowledge helped make that happen, right,
Speaker 1: But just recently so where we were filming dost Boat
Speaker 1: in Ohio with my boy Ross Robertson, and he put
Speaker 1: us on some really nice wall eyes he always does.
Speaker 1: I credit him with the biggest walleye I ever reeled in,
Speaker 1: was with him years ago, super dialed super out and
Speaker 1: I appreciate that so much. But he he noticed that bite,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, he grabbed that rod, he
Speaker 1: handed it to me. I reeled and followed instructions. You know,
Speaker 1: so nice fish. But did I catch that fish? I
Speaker 1: don't think I did. Like if that had been a
Speaker 1: record fish Ross caught that fish. I just I just
Speaker 1: reeled it in. So happened to be holding the rod,
Speaker 1: and I just happened to the rod. So not taking
Speaker 1: anything away from Luis, although maybe like a tiny bit
Speaker 1: just because it's funny, because I don't think he wanted.
Speaker 1: I don't think he wanted to be there anyway, Okay,
Speaker 1: But I mean I just always get a chuckle out
Speaker 1: of these trolled records in a lot of these scenarios
Speaker 1: because it's like, man, you just happen to be there,
Speaker 1: It's exactly right. So we're just the warm body on
Speaker 1: the crank that's correct, which which requires very little skill,
Speaker 1: like maybe a little bit of endurance, Like, oh, you
Speaker 1: had to reel it in for ten minutes. I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry for you, but like there's no skill there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, and I'm not taking away I mean
Speaker 1: a forty seven pound king that's going to huge, right,
Speaker 1: that's a huge king. But even then, I mean, when
Speaker 1: you're in a charter boat scenario, you know you got
Speaker 1: at least a captain maybe a mate too, doing the
Speaker 1: same thing, telling you, like real slower, real faster, moving
Speaker 1: over here, point your ride this way, do this, do that,
Speaker 1: and as long as you were listening and following instructions,
Speaker 1: chances are you're gonna land it, you know. So I
Speaker 1: just think about that stuff when you know there's so
Speaker 1: many guys out there they're like really chasing something that
Speaker 1: would kill to be the guy that that has the state. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1: So I think right now this is a great moment
Speaker 1: for me to admit that I saw this story in
Speaker 1: about eighty different places and I never read it. Oh
Speaker 1: and and this was like, I'm so glad you did,
Speaker 1: because I looked at that I was like, this is
Speaker 1: there's nothing here, There's no there there, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I know, I'm admitting that I'm wrong right now. I
Speaker 1: want to apologize to all the listeners who sent it
Speaker 1: to me, like, dude, you gotta check this out. And
Speaker 1: I just made an assumption that was totally incorrect, that
Speaker 1: this was not like record cool. Well do we skip
Speaker 1: over a lot of record stories, a lot of roodcasts.
Speaker 1: We do fish news. There's some kind of record horseshit
Speaker 1: every week. Most of them is like guy went caught it,
Speaker 1: and that's what I assumed. So when you never read it,
Speaker 1: but I'm so glad you did, because this those quotes
Speaker 1: were absolutely old, and I can only imagine. I haven't
Speaker 1: dug into it, but I can only imagine the anger
Speaker 1: and the victual and the fighting going on between people
Speaker 1: who are like that kid didn't deserve that fish. I've
Speaker 1: been drying my whole I can only imagine. And that's
Speaker 1: what makes for a lot of our good banter. Right.
Speaker 1: We talk a lot about disagreements between anglers, or factis angling, right,
Speaker 1: Like fishing culture just has all these layers of confrontation,
Speaker 1: some of which are healthy and fun. Like our constant
Speaker 1: good natured walleye bashing. Others are more annoying, like the
Speaker 1: superiority complex that fly fish. It's even the ones who
Speaker 1: suck like really cling to as an entity, and and
Speaker 1: others are actually destructive, like the obnoxious social media battles.
Speaker 1: Right that we talked about that. But there's one thing
Speaker 1: that brings most of us together. Dolphins. Just about everybody
Speaker 1: loves a dolphin, and and why wouldn't you dolphins? You can,
Speaker 1: you can go ahead and do that, but you're you're
Speaker 1: in the minority because dolphins are like smart, curious. I'm
Speaker 1: spending two US on gas and I'm off sure. I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's ship busted everywhere there. I'm on the bow, I'm
Speaker 1: on the pulpit, I'm out on the pulpit with a
Speaker 1: popping rod, and it's like it's dolphins. God damn it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, God, that's okay. You can have that opinion,
Speaker 1: but you're a getting I think you will recognize that
Speaker 1: you're in the minority. I mean, dolphins are like aquatic puppies.
Speaker 1: Just about everybody like, like, there are a few people
Speaker 1: out there who hate puppies, and I think they're equal
Speaker 1: to the dolphin. Haters. If I had to guess, I personally,
Speaker 1: I don't agree with you because I've seen I've seen
Speaker 1: lots of dolphins in my life. I've swam with dolphins,
Speaker 1: I've surfed with dolphins. I've I've watched them ride god
Speaker 1: knows how many bow wakes. I've even had them steel
Speaker 1: fish off my line, and they still make me happy
Speaker 1: every single time. And I think that most people can
Speaker 1: agree with that. Do you ever see one with your
Speaker 1: kids on the beach and you're like, look, kids, there's
Speaker 1: a dolphin but they don't ever see it because it's
Speaker 1: only rolling every once in a while, and like it
Speaker 1: goes from cute to like angry. I'm like, look right there,
Speaker 1: keep looking, don't there was? Did you see it? And
Speaker 1: they're like, now, I didn't see anything, Like just sorry,
Speaker 1: you're getting me going on dolphins and he were. At
Speaker 1: some point, We're gonna have to dig into your dolphin hate.
Speaker 1: But I'm still confident that you were in the minority.
Speaker 1: But I recently learned something about dolphins that I never
Speaker 1: knew before. Are you familiar with mud ring feeding? Uh? Yes,
Speaker 1: that's where they get up real shallow right different, But
Speaker 1: we'll we'll cover we'll cover off on that one too,
Speaker 1: like that's they're gonna rein. But I think of like
Speaker 1: it's a tactic. They still okay exactly, And and and
Speaker 1: dolphins have all kinds of creative and interesting feeding techniques.
Speaker 1: They've come because they're smart. And I'm sure you've seen video.
Speaker 1: And the one that you're talking about, uh, is called
Speaker 1: strand feeding. Right when you get this whole group of
Speaker 1: dolphins and they push bait fish upshallow and they actually
Speaker 1: create their own bow wave that throws bait fish up
Speaker 1: onto the sand, and then the dolphins throw themselves up
Speaker 1: just enough on land to eat the fish, and then
Speaker 1: they can kind of scoot back into the water. They
Speaker 1: also do something called crater feeding, where they swim along
Speaker 1: the bottom and they send out those sound waves in
Speaker 1: order to echo locate. They can actually echo locate prey
Speaker 1: that's hiding under the surface of the sand. And then
Speaker 1: when they find when those hidden nuggets, they swim up
Speaker 1: a little, they get ahead of team, and they plunge
Speaker 1: their beaks down in the substrate and come up with
Speaker 1: their snack, and they leave behind these big craters in
Speaker 1: the bottom. Is why it's called creator feeding. They've also
Speaker 1: got this other behavior with the the highly technical name
Speaker 1: of quote fish whacking, where they use their flippers to
Speaker 1: knock bait fish into the air and then spin back
Speaker 1: around and consume the stun prey. But maybe the coolest
Speaker 1: and most cooperative dolphin feeding behavior is mud ring feeding.
Speaker 1: This is first observed in the Florida Keys and then
Speaker 1: written up for the first time a few years later,
Speaker 1: and it goes like this. A group of bottle nosed
Speaker 1: dolphins finds a school of baitfish, almost always mullet, on
Speaker 1: a shallow flat. One of the dolphins then starts swimming
Speaker 1: rapidly in a wide circle, keeping its tail near the
Speaker 1: bottom and kicking up a plume of mud. That dolphin
Speaker 1: accelerates and closes the circle, and it creates like a
Speaker 1: mud plume enclosure with the bait fish inside, and upon
Speaker 1: being caught in what is essentially like a mud pen,
Speaker 1: the bait fish try to escape by jumping out where
Speaker 1: the pot of dolphins is waiting to catch them with
Speaker 1: open mouths. It's pretty cool. It's it's definitely worth looking
Speaker 1: up on YouTube the next time you're bored. I have
Speaker 1: either seen this on Blue Planet or buil Dance saltwater.
Speaker 1: It was one or the other, I don't remember. I
Speaker 1: sure hope it was build out. But but here's how
Speaker 1: this counts as as fish news actually newsy. Since this
Speaker 1: feeding behavior was first recorded twenty two years ago, it's
Speaker 1: only ever been seen in Florida. Dolphins are known to
Speaker 1: have localized fishing tactics, certain behaviors that a group of
Speaker 1: dolphins in one area figured out and then they passed
Speaker 1: down through the generations, and mud ring feeding has up
Speaker 1: until now, remained totally unique to the dolphins that are
Speaker 1: in and around Florida, But researchers recently observed bottlenose dolphins
Speaker 1: in Belize doing the same thing, and this appears to
Speaker 1: be a totally new behavior for this population. Now, my
Speaker 1: first assumption upon reading this was that some dolphin from Florida,
Speaker 1: like got a wild hair, maybe gotten in some trouble
Speaker 1: with its Floridian pod, and just bailed the belieze. But
Speaker 1: it turns out I don't I don't know very much
Speaker 1: about dolphins, because I was completely wrong. They don't do that.
Speaker 1: They don't just bail out and go to a different Yet,
Speaker 1: researchers hypothesized that the Belize dolphins figured out the strategy
Speaker 1: on their own. They're not just biting the style of
Speaker 1: their Florida cousins, like like high school kids from Michigan
Speaker 1: after spring break. Since Belize has significant mud flat habitat
Speaker 1: much like parts of Florida, it makes sense that the
Speaker 1: dolphins might independently discover that they can crawl bait by
Speaker 1: stirring at the mud in a circular motion. I for one,
Speaker 1: am no fan of mullet when I'm flats fishing, and
Speaker 1: so I'm I'm hoping that dolphins worldwide start figuring out
Speaker 1: how to just kill them on the flats, and that
Speaker 1: I someday get to observe this phenomenon in person while
Speaker 1: I'm sidcasting to either tarpan or Jack's standing on a flat.
Speaker 1: That's what I hope. Why the mullet hatred. What's wrong
Speaker 1: with some mullets up on the flats? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think you know as well. They're they're the most unpredictable,
Speaker 1: neurotic fish out there, and you're you're stocking up on whatever,
Speaker 1: like your jack's or your bone fish or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, some mullets is like
Speaker 1: it goes flying out of the water and spooks everything
Speaker 1: within within the area, like the fish that you're just
Speaker 1: trying to get up on for no reason. You didn't
Speaker 1: do anything to that mullet. They just throw themselves out
Speaker 1: of the out of the water for no reason, to
Speaker 1: freak everything out. I I know that happens. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's ever happened to me specifically, because I
Speaker 1: feel like, yeah, like bone fishing and stuff I've always
Speaker 1: done in in like Abaco or Turks and Caicos, and
Speaker 1: I feel like there were no mullet there on those flats.
Speaker 1: That has happened to be more times than I can count.
Speaker 1: But I mean seeing it in Louisiana where you're going
Speaker 1: skinny for Red's and it's like, mullet, mullet, mullet, Oh
Speaker 1: four hundred mullet just went into the sky. We need
Speaker 1: to go over there over there. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't share the same hatred for mullet those dolphins.
Speaker 1: You like mullet but hate dolphins. I think that that
Speaker 1: puts you in a very unique category. No, I think
Speaker 1: it's just it's just a difference in what we do.
Speaker 1: Like in the in the the the salt seen over here,
Speaker 1: dolphins can either throw you off, like you'll burn some
Speaker 1: gas chasing dolphins because you you just mayhem out in
Speaker 1: the distance and you think it's stripers or whatever. Done that.
Speaker 1: And I've also been in scenarios where like you're on
Speaker 1: a good bunker pod and you know you're marking bass
Speaker 1: or something underneath it, and the dolphin has just come
Speaker 1: in and it's like, wow, that's done. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: I've never had that happen. The other one, I've definitely
Speaker 1: chased down dolphin thinking oh, something going on over there,
Speaker 1: but I've never happened. I'll tell you. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've experienced this, even though I know you've
Speaker 1: been there. The scariest, meanest, most asshole dolphins are the
Speaker 1: freshwater pink dolphin. But I also love them. I think
Speaker 1: they're kind of amazing. I thought they were super neat
Speaker 1: until I'm like, I just want to release this nice
Speaker 1: peak hot bass that after all the fight and all
Speaker 1: the fun it's given me, I just wanted to go
Speaker 1: back to its home. And they you want to talk
Speaker 1: about correlation between puppies and dolphins, those things were like dogs,
Speaker 1: man Like, they would not go away. They were like
Speaker 1: dogs begging at a dinner table. Almost the entire time,
Speaker 1: there were one or two of those pink dolphins around
Speaker 1: our boat and they would come take your hand off
Speaker 1: at the wrist if you let them, like they were aggressive,
Speaker 1: you let it, peacock go. I have video where we're like,
Speaker 1: please please get back to the roots, SNAr a little fish,
Speaker 1: and like just pink dolphins blowing them up out of
Speaker 1: the water. So I have some of that video myself. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so pink dolphins. Yeah, dolphins. Hey, let us know you
Speaker 1: love them or hate him. I don't know. They're okay.
Speaker 1: Even when I was a kid, Like, somebody give me
Speaker 1: a shark coloring book and a dolphin and whales coloring book.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't want the dolphin and whales coloring.
Speaker 1: What's wrong with you? I don't want that. What's wrong
Speaker 1: with you? I have no transition whatsoever to this story.
Speaker 1: I've been struggling to think on it. Uh, there's there's
Speaker 1: no there's no clear connection. So I'm just gonna get
Speaker 1: into it. Um. This one comes from the Banger Daily News,
Speaker 1: uh main for those of you who don't know where
Speaker 1: Banger is, and it sets up an interesting debate. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: according to this story by Bob Mallard, Maine is poised
Speaker 1: to receive four point five billion dollars from the Federal
Speaker 1: American Rescue Plan designed to help states recover from losses
Speaker 1: due to the COVID nineteen pandemic. Okay, Now, three point
Speaker 1: two billion of that goes into COVID testing, vaccinations, unemployment
Speaker 1: benefits like super COVID directly related things, Okay, But it
Speaker 1: leaves an extra one point three billion sort of just
Speaker 1: hanging out there, which can be used. According to the story, However,
Speaker 1: Governor Janet Mills sees fit and she says she's gonna
Speaker 1: put that money into the main Jobs Recovery plan to
Speaker 1: help boost the economy. But she's already earmarked twenty million
Speaker 1: of this taxpayer money to quote modernized to fish hatcheries
Speaker 1: and install upgrades at all eight of the Department of
Speaker 1: Inland Fisheries and Wildlife hatcheries. Right. So Mallard, who's is
Speaker 1: pretty well known guide, outdoorsman and writer, right, he's been
Speaker 1: around um, is asking is that really what we should
Speaker 1: be doing with that money? And if so, is that
Speaker 1: fair to the non fishing masses. Right? So, Mallard says
Speaker 1: that the wildlife and Fisheries Department claims recreational fishing brings
Speaker 1: million to the state economy annually. But then he did
Speaker 1: other research with the Federal Reserve that shows Mains gross
Speaker 1: state product was sixty six point two billion, And I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for the numbers, but they have to be there.
Speaker 1: It matters, right, And so what that means is that
Speaker 1: recreational fishing represents less than one half of one per
Speaker 1: cent of the total gross state product. So then Bob
Speaker 1: goes on to say that there's a press release that
Speaker 1: claims there were three licensed anglers in Maine, and that's
Speaker 1: residents and non residents combined, but the real number was
Speaker 1: more like two. If that's true, he says, if you
Speaker 1: do of the math and look at Mains one three
Speaker 1: million residents, less than fift percent held a license in
Speaker 1: So what he thinks is that this is a reaction.
Speaker 1: This this this money going to hatcheries is a reaction
Speaker 1: to the bumping license sales in which a lot of
Speaker 1: states saw, right, we don't need to beat that to death.
Speaker 1: There were a lot more anglers out there, a lot
Speaker 1: more licenses sold. Um. But he brings up the argument,
Speaker 1: which is a fair one. I think he says like, hey,
Speaker 1: can we bank on those people year after year, or
Speaker 1: as the pandemic slowly fades out and people get back
Speaker 1: to work in a little bit more normal life and
Speaker 1: so on, will they be there Because twenty million is
Speaker 1: a pretty big investment in like sort of an uncertain
Speaker 1: future in that department. Right, So I'll wrap this up
Speaker 1: with with a quote from the story, and this is
Speaker 1: sort of drives his his his problem with all this
Speaker 1: home Mallard Rights. Most disappointing was mills statement that hatcheries
Speaker 1: were at the core of mains fisheries. This statement is misleading, dangerous,
Speaker 1: and somewhat self serving because the state government does the stocking.
Speaker 1: The idea that stocking is the most important component of
Speaker 1: Maine's recreational fisheries completely ignores what Maine is best known for,
Speaker 1: wild native fish. So to promote the stocking of hatchery
Speaker 1: raised fish, many of which are non native over wild
Speaker 1: native fish, including some found primarily or solely in Maine,
Speaker 1: is a disservice. And we've certainly covered issues in Fish
Speaker 1: News before with problems that Maine has had with non
Speaker 1: native species. So I don't know, I grabbed this because,
Speaker 1: like to some you could hear, oh, man, that's great,
Speaker 1: they're gonna put Main's gonna put all this money into
Speaker 1: into fishing. But here's the guy who's pretty hard core angler,
Speaker 1: pretty plugged in, and I actually see some of his points.
Speaker 1: Is that the best use of that money? Right now,
Speaker 1: I think I actually agree with him. I kind of
Speaker 1: think I do too. Instead of hatcheries, if that money
Speaker 1: had been earmarked for habitat restoration, right, I don't. I
Speaker 1: think it would be an easier argument to support, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that has a broader based value for more citizens.
Speaker 1: When you're talking about hatcheries, you're really just talking about
Speaker 1: the people who want to go fishing and keep fishing, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think I think that's a pretty salient
Speaker 1: point the thing. And this is not not really germane
Speaker 1: to your story. It's sort of a sidebar. But only
Speaker 1: fient of Main residents hold a license. Shocking. That's according
Speaker 1: that's according to his math. Yeah. I mean, I'm just
Speaker 1: going by by his research and what stats he had
Speaker 1: in the story. But I mean, regardless, I mean I
Speaker 1: get the point that he's making. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of states make this claim, and it makes you wonder
Speaker 1: what the government agency says oh, well, this state makes
Speaker 1: so this much money off fishing per year. But do
Speaker 1: you really know that? Is that inflated? Is that padded out?
Speaker 1: You don't really know. But at face value, I mean
Speaker 1: you see it in a press release like Maine to
Speaker 1: spend twenty million on fishing, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's very easy. I think for some fishing
Speaker 1: folks be like, oh, good for them, that's good. That's yeah,
Speaker 1: stimulus money going doing the right things and the right stuff.
Speaker 1: But when you really break it down, it's like, ah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, we're better. They could do better with that.
Speaker 1: I think the same thing here with Jersey, like do
Speaker 1: we need to redo all our fish hatcheries like they're
Speaker 1: making fish and supporting what everybody needs for the stock
Speaker 1: er season in the spring, Like that would would that
Speaker 1: be the best use of similar money here? No, I
Speaker 1: don't think it would. So just kind of puts a
Speaker 1: different spin on some some Covidy stuff and it gets
Speaker 1: I like, I like how he's thinking, I like how
Speaker 1: he's questioning. Yeah, I know that sounds like a really
Speaker 1: interesting piece. Um, I have zero connective tissue between that,
Speaker 1: we had none. No, that's not my first transition was seamless. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was. That was good. That was there. But I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna follow up on something from previous Fish News.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm about to do. I'm following up in
Speaker 1: the story I told a few weeks ago about Josh Jorgensen,
Speaker 1: also known as black tip h and the very large
Speaker 1: tarpan that he caught in the Pacific. In that segment,
Speaker 1: I said, I wanted to dig deeper into that population
Speaker 1: of fish without having to cover questionable handling. World records
Speaker 1: are angry. YouTube commentary Well, today, listener Ben Kurth sent
Speaker 1: me some additional reading on the topic of tarban in
Speaker 1: the Pacific. But before I get into that, let's do
Speaker 1: a quick recap. Over the past few decades, anglers on
Speaker 1: the Pacific side of southern Central America and northern South
Speaker 1: America have been encountering tarpan, which initially caused quite a
Speaker 1: stirb but is becoming more commonplace. The researchers know how
Speaker 1: the fish got there. Some controversy remains over whether the
Speaker 1: fish are migrants, if they're reproducing, and impact they're having
Speaker 1: on the ecosystem. In the video, we talked about Jorgensen
Speaker 1: and his guide refer to the tarpan they catch as
Speaker 1: quote invasive, a loaded and possibly inaccurate term. I wanted
Speaker 1: to dig in and better understand this population of fish
Speaker 1: and what we do and don't know about them. When
Speaker 1: anglers talk about tarpan, they're talking about Atlantic tarpan. There
Speaker 1: is another species called Indo Pacific tarpan, but they're not
Speaker 1: a primary sport fish and they don't get nearly as big.
Speaker 1: Atlantic tarpin have historically been found in well, the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: and they've been happily cruising around in that one ocean,
Speaker 1: munching on baitfish and gulping air for about a hundred
Speaker 1: and thirteen million years. Just over a century ago. In
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen, the Panama Canal was completed, connecting the Atlantic
Speaker 1: and Pacific Oceans through the isthmus of Panama. Tarpan we're
Speaker 1: first spotted in the Pacific locks of the Panama Canal
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen thirties, and then ten years later
Speaker 1: large adults were identified swimming around in Panama Bay. They
Speaker 1: have slowly spread up and down the coast and are
Speaker 1: now found from Guatemala to the Columbia Ecuador border, with
Speaker 1: large adults becoming more and more common in the southern
Speaker 1: part of that range, which is where Jorgensen caught his fish.
Speaker 1: The most recent comprehensive study that I could find about
Speaker 1: this topic was published in twenty nineteen in the journal
Speaker 1: Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, and after reading that
Speaker 1: study and a number of other sources, both research based
Speaker 1: and anecdotal, I feel like I have a better grasp
Speaker 1: on the situation. There is no doubt that tarpan have
Speaker 1: migrated through the canal. Interestingly enough, concern over aquatic species,
Speaker 1: specifically sea snakes, migrating from the Pacific to the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: almost prevented the canal from being built. Biologists ultimately concluded
Speaker 1: that sea snakes couldn't survive the passage because of much
Speaker 1: of the canal's fresh water. They were correct. The sea
Speaker 1: snakes never made it through, but other species have. Tarpaner
Speaker 1: thought to be the first fish that successfully traversed the
Speaker 1: fifty miles of saline, brackish and fresh water and then
Speaker 1: came out the other side. Studies have shown that adult
Speaker 1: tarpan have plenty of suitable habitat and forage in the Pacific,
Speaker 1: so why haven't they just taken over that coast. To
Speaker 1: answer that, you gotta look at reproduction. We know tarpin
Speaker 1: are moving through the canal, but are they successfully spawning.
Speaker 1: Juvenile tarpin as small as seventeen centimeters have been found
Speaker 1: in a few places, but in fifty years of sampling,
Speaker 1: no tarp and larvae have been found on the Pacific side.
Speaker 1: They have, however, been detected at the locks on the
Speaker 1: Atlantic side. It's possible the juveniles or larva are making
Speaker 1: their way through the canal, but it seems pretty unlikely.
Speaker 1: So the question remains, what's going on tarpin. Our broadcast
Speaker 1: spawners the adults gathering in these big groups several miles offshore,
Speaker 1: and they mixed the milt and the eggs and and
Speaker 1: then the fertilized larva. Then ride wind and currents inshore,
Speaker 1: and they're looking for brackish canals and lagoons. Because they
Speaker 1: mature slowly, young tarpan need a place to live where
Speaker 1: other creatures won't eat them. Tarpan spend up to the
Speaker 1: first decade of their lives in low oxygen backwaters where
Speaker 1: other predators just can't get to them. They can't live there,
Speaker 1: there's not enough oxygen tarpink and gould air. Ye, the
Speaker 1: Pacific coast experiences far more tidal shift than the Curban side, right,
Speaker 1: And so that means that those baby tarpan really don't
Speaker 1: have a place to live on the Pacific side, right,
Speaker 1: because all those mangroves and lagoons and those those brackish
Speaker 1: habitats they get completely flushed out of the low tide.
Speaker 1: There's no once it makes sense. I mean, even if
Speaker 1: you just know about fly fishing, like belize, it's all
Speaker 1: Eastern side because they have all the shallows and all
Speaker 1: the mangroves and stuff on that side of Central America. Right. So,
Speaker 1: so there's a real lack of habitat for young tarpan
Speaker 1: to get through that life stage over there. The most
Speaker 1: likely hypothesis seems to be that the tarban they're spawning
Speaker 1: in the Pacific, but very few if any, of those
Speaker 1: larva are able to find habitat where they can grow
Speaker 1: and mature. Right, So what you end up with over
Speaker 1: there is this perfect scenario for growing truly enormous fish. Right,
Speaker 1: Some adults are moving through the canal and a very
Speaker 1: few juveniles may be surviving into adulthood. That means the
Speaker 1: tarpan that are on the Pacific side. They just don't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of competition from their own species, right,
Speaker 1: and fewer apex predator fish in a system often means
Speaker 1: that individuals have the opportunity to grow exceptionally large, which
Speaker 1: might explain the crazy huge fish that Jorgensen landed recently. Yep,
Speaker 1: finally I'm gonna hit on that invasive species tag. According
Speaker 1: to researchers, tarpan are not, allow me to repeat, not
Speaker 1: considered invasive. That is inaccurate because there are no observed
Speaker 1: negative impacts of tarpan and the Pacific and no imminent
Speaker 1: threat of a population boom. They are not labeled as invasive.
Speaker 1: That's just a fact. Furthermore, they're not likely to become
Speaker 1: an invasive species for several reasons. First, like we just
Speaker 1: talked about, the Pacific coast lacks abundant habitat for juvenile recruitment. Second,
Speaker 1: tarpan are highly susceptible to over fishing. They're pretty easy
Speaker 1: to catch relatively, and they're very slow to reproduce and grow.
Speaker 1: With all the subsistence fishing in that part of the world,
Speaker 1: tarpan are gonna get caught and they're gonna eat. If
Speaker 1: they're a rapes, this is gonna happen. And third, that
Speaker 1: part of the world is also experiencing pretty rapid coastal
Speaker 1: habitat degradation. Again, that's a problem for tarban and as
Speaker 1: part of the reason that they're listed as a vulnerable
Speaker 1: species globally. All of that is just best guesses. We
Speaker 1: don't know any of it. For certain eighty years feels
Speaker 1: like a long time for tarban too have been swimming
Speaker 1: the Pacific. But if you think about it, that's only
Speaker 1: sick for seven generations of fish. It's it's possible the
Speaker 1: tarpin could find a foothold and take over on the side,
Speaker 1: but the evidence suggests that's just not likely to happen.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, though, the coast is probably the best bet.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for a record fish, that's probably where
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen. So you think it's shifted out of Africa,
Speaker 1: it was Africa forever. I know it was. I'm I mean,
Speaker 1: I I think based off of what I no one
Speaker 1: else is saying that, Like, that's just me stepping out
Speaker 1: a little bit. But if you think about a new
Speaker 1: species in an open system, where they have the ability
Speaker 1: to grow without much competition from themselves. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's a good chance. Well, if somebody gets down there
Speaker 1: and gets one, let us know, it won't be me.
Speaker 1: I did a two one time. I don't ever need
Speaker 1: to do that ever ever. Again, you're good. Once once
Speaker 1: was plenty. Well there you go. Man. I mentioned last
Speaker 1: time this came up that I had heard whispers about
Speaker 1: this and like little sort of you know, talk about
Speaker 1: the Pacific side. But it's fascinating to to hear that
Speaker 1: take on it, and that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: They just don't have the shallows that the East side had. Uh.
Speaker 1: What I want to know though, is more about what's
Speaker 1: the Indo Pacific tarpin? Should I be chasing that or
Speaker 1: is it like is it like the bone fish in
Speaker 1: San Diego Bay? Do you ever hear of those? I
Speaker 1: have heard of those, see, but you haven't been excited
Speaker 1: enough to go look for them, because people are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not excited enough to go on an Indo Pacific
Speaker 1: carbon trip. If I happened to be somewhere fishing where
Speaker 1: they existed, I would probably chase them because it would
Speaker 1: be cool. But they don't get very big comparatively, they're
Speaker 1: they're pretty small. Okay. Where do they live? Well, the
Speaker 1: Indo Pacific, So you're talking like Japan, Australia. Who aren't
Speaker 1: slang terms for these regions? Where there you go? So
Speaker 1: they they are not invasive, Phil, you got a lot
Speaker 1: to chew on this week. I took a little shot
Speaker 1: at you, so maybe that hurt me. Miles called you Caesar,
Speaker 1: so maybe that'll help him. I don't know. We're gonna
Speaker 1: hear from Phil. We're gonna he's gonna declare a winner,
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna move on to awkward moments and angling.
Speaker 1: And this one is really awkward and kind of scary,
Speaker 1: and I'm really hoping more rather than fewer of you
Speaker 1: watch the movie that I reference in this segment. Phil, Honey,
Speaker 1: it's time to wake up. What I gotta wake up?
Speaker 1: It's time to edit the podcast? Mom? Yes, okay, you ready? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's let's do the podcast. How do I How do
Speaker 1: I do it? Okay? See that button there, the blue one?
Speaker 1: Push that one? Okay, okay, good now edit edit? And
Speaker 1: then what do I click? Now? Okay, now I want
Speaker 1: you to export hit the export boton. Oh that's right,
Speaker 1: okay X export to Await MP three, MP three Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, you got it? I did it. Good job.
Speaker 1: And the winner for best engineered podcast episode of all
Speaker 1: time goes to Phil for episode fifty four of Ben.
Speaker 1: Is there anyone that you'd like to thank? WHOA? I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess, Uh the guy upstairs? J C. My boy,
Speaker 1: how's the view? Uh? Tony at Arby's Joe, Sir Mellie
Speaker 1: the winner of fish News this week. Oh my mom, Mom,
Speaker 1: thanks for waking me up. And I couldn't have done
Speaker 1: it without you. Phill, Honey, it's time to take out
Speaker 1: the track mob. Shut up. You're embarrassing me. Guy. When
Speaker 1: did you take a picture at the Life Black? So
Speaker 1: last time on Awkward Moments, we had a young lady
Speaker 1: holding a striper that looked like she was about to cry,
Speaker 1: remember this, while her husband stood behind her with a
Speaker 1: sinister look on his face. And I joked that it
Speaker 1: looked like a movie scene where a female victim is
Speaker 1: held at gunpoint and told like to start walking and
Speaker 1: don't say a word. Right. Well, this week's awkward photo
Speaker 1: conjures another movie scene, and and it's the ending to
Speaker 1: sleep Away Camp and the look on antagonist Angela Baker's
Speaker 1: face during the big end reveal that she's actually been
Speaker 1: a boy the entire time. Now, if you don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, look up the ending of Sleepaway
Speaker 1: Camp on YouTube and you will agree she makes one
Speaker 1: of the most terrifying faces ever. I had never heard
Speaker 1: of this movie. Come on, you never heard of it
Speaker 1: on Sleepaway Camp? No clue. But at your request for
Speaker 1: this segment, I did look it up and I watched
Speaker 1: the final scene and yeah, the faces that, I guess
Speaker 1: you could call the face terrifying. To me, it looked
Speaker 1: stupid and cheesy more than terrifying. And I have zero
Speaker 1: desire to watch that film. But I see why you
Speaker 1: wanted that reference. I totally get it because the expression
Speaker 1: on the face of the person in this photo really
Speaker 1: does mirror the one where that the one that that
Speaker 1: movie ends on. It's very close. It's right there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this week's photo was sent to me via d
Speaker 1: M by listener Luke Zekel, and he writes this was
Speaker 1: taken on the Upper Genesee River in New York. By
Speaker 1: the way, boom, there's another shout out for the gym everywhere, right,
Speaker 1: We're making the Jenny famous on the bench. Um. This
Speaker 1: was taken on the Upper Genesee River whilst fishing for
Speaker 1: smallmouth with mass flies. I bumped into a decent brown trout,
Speaker 1: which was my first mass trout. He then adds side note,
Speaker 1: this fish was caught after switching out a master splinter
Speaker 1: that I had thrown for two hours with no bites
Speaker 1: and immediately hooked up on its replacement. Wait minute, who
Speaker 1: was it you, Joe did? Did you invent I master
Speaker 1: splinter fly? It's it's possibility, that's my patterns thought. The
Speaker 1: thing is, what you don't know is that we're usually
Speaker 1: inundated with people fawning over how much they loved Joe
Speaker 1: and the splinter and blah blah blah. You're like so
Speaker 1: great for making it. So I gotta say I appreciate
Speaker 1: this because that was a very well turned, subtle dig.
Speaker 1: Because I don't know about you, but I mean, do
Speaker 1: you think do you think he was suggesting maybe that
Speaker 1: your fly sucks? You know? I kind of think he
Speaker 1: was kind of think he was saying, my fly you
Speaker 1: But guess what, Luke, Okay, ten and fifteen other people
Speaker 1: say you're wrong? Okay. Anyway, regardless regardless of the fly.
Speaker 1: That's okay, I don't care what she caught it on
Speaker 1: props on the first night, Right, that is an accomplishment,
Speaker 1: and luckily that accomplishment was documented just so well, just perfect.
Speaker 1: So onto the photo. He's night fishing. So obviously the
Speaker 1: photo was taken in the dark, which is perfect because
Speaker 1: if I were going to make a fly fishing themed
Speaker 1: horror a movie, I think I would want this photo
Speaker 1: for the poster. Yes, and we'll we'll do that. That's
Speaker 1: a great idea, by the way, it's a whole new genre.
Speaker 1: We'll talk, we'll talk. Yeah. So Luke. Luke stands in
Speaker 1: the foreground on what looks to be a muddy flat
Speaker 1: He's wearing socks and sneakers, two tone gray board shorts,
Speaker 1: a black under armor hoodie, and a very snazzy sling
Speaker 1: pack right across his chest. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Now
Speaker 1: Luke is shaggy blonde and wearing what i'd call I'll
Speaker 1: call emo style glasses. Is that still thing? Is emo
Speaker 1: still a thing? I think? So? I still I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is anymore, but I think
Speaker 1: I like it. Got It's hard to quantify because I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is. I think of emo is
Speaker 1: Wheezer Blue Album, but that's people say I'm wrong. Anyway,
Speaker 1: He's got a red baseball cap on backwards and strapped
Speaker 1: around his dome is like a it's a pretty serious headlamp.
Speaker 1: Right to me, it looks like the kind spelunkers use. Right,
Speaker 1: Maybe that's that's his other me, maybe he's a spelunker.
Speaker 1: You never know. He's to see anybody in the caves
Speaker 1: on the Genesee River let us know. Uh, he's also
Speaker 1: got his fly right in his mouth. And while I
Speaker 1: have to clarify, I mean no way, shape or form
Speaker 1: like knocking the gear, because we're all about fishing what
Speaker 1: you can afford. Just for context, just for context, it
Speaker 1: appears to be like an older Martin or Shakespeare combo,
Speaker 1: which I can tell because of the thickness of the
Speaker 1: butt end, the green coloring, and the rod has like
Speaker 1: the E v A grips instead of cork. So not digging,
Speaker 1: just setting up the photo. Nope, nothing, nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 1: I fished with a very similar rod for many, many years.
Speaker 1: But it does strike me as a little odd that
Speaker 1: his chest pack would sell for double the price of
Speaker 1: his rod. Reel and line combined. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was a gift, maybe he was borrowing it
Speaker 1: from some boogie friend, doesn't really matter. Let's focus on
Speaker 1: the image, which has this very strong ethereal quality to it. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: and taking a quick photo in the dark using your
Speaker 1: phone flash just tricky. And whoever took this doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like they have solid photography skills really now now, And
Speaker 1: like pretty much everything except Luke's middle is blurred, like
Speaker 1: blurred to the point where it feels like it's not
Speaker 1: entirely there or not entirely solid, and that likely didn't
Speaker 1: result in what he was going for. I'm guessing he
Speaker 1: was going for like a bragboard shot of his first
Speaker 1: mouth brown but what he got was definitely not that
Speaker 1: I would, however, say, it's it's a lot more interesting. Oh,
Speaker 1: totally totally right. So Luke is looking down, but not
Speaker 1: at the blurry twelve inch trout in his right hand.
Speaker 1: It's almost like he's staring at his friend's feet, like
Speaker 1: he's staring into the abyss of yea yeah. And if
Speaker 1: you photoshop the rod out of his mouth, it would
Speaker 1: just look like he's screaming, right, uh, And once again
Speaker 1: not kidding his face at the end of Sleepaway Camp, right,
Speaker 1: So take the rod and the fish out of the shot,
Speaker 1: and this is like some like evil psychopath that just
Speaker 1: lunged out the woods that or it looks like this
Speaker 1: was taken at the precise moment, like he was stabbed
Speaker 1: in the gut by the psycho killer at the end
Speaker 1: of a movie, at the end of the heart. It's
Speaker 1: one of the could go either way. He's either the
Speaker 1: victim or the killer, but either way it works. It
Speaker 1: looks like the climax to a horror film with fishing
Speaker 1: gear at it in and I think what probably actually
Speaker 1: happened is he was trying to get situated for the photo.
Speaker 1: He's like yelling instructions to the photographer while holding his
Speaker 1: rod and his teeth, but he's just like, whatever, I
Speaker 1: don't care. Fish isn't that big. He snapped the thing
Speaker 1: before anybody was ready. He didn't bother to look at
Speaker 1: it and just told me, no worries, man, I got it.
Speaker 1: Looks great. But he didn't get it, at least not
Speaker 1: in the way that Luke was. I'm sure hoping Luke's
Speaker 1: left hand is this just a fleshy blur, so he
Speaker 1: must have been waving it or moving around and that
Speaker 1: motion resulted in it gives it the appearance that Luke
Speaker 1: just has no left arm. Yeah, left arm doesn't exist, no,
Speaker 1: for sure. And did I picture with the rod just
Speaker 1: being like, oh, Carl one truck one and he just
Speaker 1: went click and like picture man um. But yeah, and
Speaker 1: the and the position of the blurry left hand, it
Speaker 1: makes it look like he's got one t rex arm,
Speaker 1: which adds to the creepiness of the whole thing. Right,
Speaker 1: And I know people know what a t rex arm
Speaker 1: is like. If Luke was chasing you with his arms
Speaker 1: and t rex posture and it's look on his face
Speaker 1: like snarling and possibly drooling, you'd be terrified. I would.
Speaker 1: I would run away if I if I ran into
Speaker 1: this dude on the river. It's good, Luke, congrats on
Speaker 1: the first mouse brown. Yeah. Man, I'm sorry Joe's fly suck,
Speaker 1: but I'm very happy for you whatever. I'm not sorry
Speaker 1: about what we said about your photo because frankly, it's scary.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're a very nice dude, but this image
Speaker 1: could give people nightmares. And if you do get nightmares,
Speaker 1: let us know. And if you've got an awkward photo
Speaker 1: that could make us laugh, or haunt our dreams, whatever,
Speaker 1: Send it to Bent at the meat Eater dot com,
Speaker 1: and you just might end up getting roasted on the show.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I feel bad, but I do.
Speaker 1: I do kind of think we made Luke sounds scary.
Speaker 1: It was appropriate, but I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: approp I don't know it was right. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't feel that bad. I'm sure he's not I'm sure
Speaker 1: he's a lovely young man, right, but in that just
Speaker 1: that Nano's second in time, right, his face looks like
Speaker 1: like like the screaming spider creature head thing from the Thing.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and I found it frightening. I found it frightening.
Speaker 1: You're it was begging to be called out that it
Speaker 1: is kind of a horrifying image while also being hilarious
Speaker 1: And speaking of being frightened, Joe is going to close
Speaker 1: out the show with an end of the line segment
Speaker 1: about a fly you will not find for sale because
Speaker 1: he invented it, but it's super easy to tie and
Speaker 1: based around one hell of a fish Camp story that
Speaker 1: will also keep up with this week's um low hanging
Speaker 1: sub theme fish Well, that's not loud enough. Fair warning,
Speaker 1: I'm changing names and locations for this one. Matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I've never told this story publicly, but given our theme
Speaker 1: of fish Camp, and despite trying like how to come
Speaker 1: up with something better, I just kept coming back to this,
Speaker 1: knowing in my heart that the time is now and
Speaker 1: I'm doing the right thing. Years ago, in the before times,
Speaker 1: meaning the pre kid times, a group of my best
Speaker 1: fishing buddies and I would make an annual pilgrimage to
Speaker 1: fish for steelhead in let's say Michigan. I had been
Speaker 1: friends with a few veteran guides in the area who
Speaker 1: always graciously helped secure a crash house and graciously invited
Speaker 1: me and my buds to crash at it while subsequently
Speaker 1: helping us get on the fish. What you ended up with, however,
Speaker 1: were two factions in the house, the older guys and
Speaker 1: the punk asked twentysomething's and we all got along smashingly,
Speaker 1: but naturally we all had different routines too. The older
Speaker 1: crew would drink a Scotch with dinner and turn in
Speaker 1: about nine pm, which was right around when my crew
Speaker 1: was ten beers into a mandatory thirty carrying on while
Speaker 1: most Extreme Elimination Challenge roared on the TV in the
Speaker 1: family room. It was around eleven PM when nature called
Speaker 1: my friend Ron, we'll say Ron. When he came back
Speaker 1: from the bathroom, he looked shaken and upset. What happened? Man,
Speaker 1: we asked, Ron had opened the wrong door in the hall.
Speaker 1: Instead of the bathroom, He opened the door of one
Speaker 1: of our guides, Barry, who was lying fully nude on
Speaker 1: the top of his made bed reading a magazine. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a pornographic magazine, nor did Ron catch him in
Speaker 1: the act of pleasuring himself. As I recall, Ron said,
Speaker 1: I think it was like a woodworking magazine. Barry was
Speaker 1: equally startled, of course, and at a loss for words,
Speaker 1: just blurted out, do you need something naturally upon here
Speaker 1: in this The rest of us just completely lost our ship,
Speaker 1: and for the entire rest of that trip we didn't
Speaker 1: let Ron forget that he saw Barry's junk. Fast forward
Speaker 1: to the following summer. Back in those pre ki days,
Speaker 1: I had all the time in the world to completely
Speaker 1: refill steelhead boxes before the next winner, and after churning
Speaker 1: out a hundred fresh estas eggs. I decided to get creative.
Speaker 1: I tied a fly that combined the power of the
Speaker 1: San Juan worm with the jigginess of the cloudser. I
Speaker 1: put two pink bead chain eyes on a nimp hook,
Speaker 1: added a little pinch of pink ice tub, and finished
Speaker 1: with a long, pink shineel tail that i'd singe and
Speaker 1: roll into a point. It looked more like a bone
Speaker 1: fish fly than a steelhead fly, but I thought in
Speaker 1: shallower runs I might be able to fish it without
Speaker 1: the obligatory thirteen to fifteen split shot on your leader
Speaker 1: that winner me. The same crew of Buddies and Barry
Speaker 1: made the annual track, but compared to the year prior,
Speaker 1: the fishing was a little slow. About midway through the
Speaker 1: first day, having gone through twelve colors of eggs and
Speaker 1: fleas with no luck, I tied on my creation, and
Speaker 1: within a dozen drifts, no kidding, I was tied into
Speaker 1: a steelhead. Not a huge fish, but it was a victory,
Speaker 1: and after I released it, Ron came over and said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: what what did it eat? Now? The fly had no name,
Speaker 1: but at that point, despite my disdain for penis shaped lures,
Speaker 1: I looked at the bug in my hand. I saw
Speaker 1: the resemblance and just said Barry's wiener. I gave a
Speaker 1: Barry's wiener to Ron and a couple of the other dudes.
Speaker 1: Now did they destroy No, But we stuck a few
Speaker 1: more steeles on that little jiggy worm. The problem was
Speaker 1: that Barry was just as curious about the pattern, which
Speaker 1: we told him we called the BW. For the next
Speaker 1: few days, every time Barry yelled out, did you hook
Speaker 1: that on the b W? We about died. Now it's
Speaker 1: been too long since that crew got together for steel
Speaker 1: But if we did, I guarantee someone would still have
Speaker 1: one of the original b ws in their fly box
Speaker 1: and the story still wouldn't have gotten old. So that's
Speaker 1: it for this week. If you're headed a fish camp,
Speaker 1: and boy, we hope you all remember failing to not
Speaker 1: could result in fly being named after your package you're
Speaker 1: trying to shoot that night, Brown, make sure we can
Speaker 1: see more than dead people. And if you want your
Speaker 1: fish camp adventure filmed, r A Bati will do it
Speaker 1: for bail money. I've also heard I have it on
Speaker 1: good authority, are runs a special hire him to film
Speaker 1: your King Sira GT. Twelve flies free now If you
Speaker 1: want free stickers, all you have to do is keep
Speaker 1: using those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on Instagram.
Speaker 1: If we repost something you tag, you get stickers. Simple
Speaker 1: as that. You can also get swag from us if
Speaker 1: we use something you sent on the show. So please
Speaker 1: keep all those salban items, bar nominations, awkward photos, and
Speaker 1: anything else you'd think we'd like. Come into Bent at
Speaker 1: the meat eater dot com. And if you find a
Speaker 1: set toy in the river, maybe next to some majestically
Speaker 1: rising trout, remember to fill it on newspaper so it
Speaker 1: doesn't slide all over the place.