Speaker 1: Did not freshen up my tetan shot. And it's been
Speaker 1: three years my jaw has not locked, so I think
Speaker 1: by now I'm fine. He pulls like he is trying
Speaker 1: to like pull a young girl out of a well,
Speaker 1: and the sinker hits the bottom of my boat, and
Speaker 1: it sounded like a shotgun go off. So when Amazon
Speaker 1: drones start delivering groceries and spying through your windows, their
Speaker 1: wings might look a whole lot like fish fins. And
Speaker 1: this little baitcaster just disintegrated, and I just blurted out, wow,
Speaker 1: how about this in piece of ship. Good morning, degenerate anglers.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Bent the Fishing podcast that definitely told the
Speaker 1: inappropriate joke at dinner in front of your socially conservative
Speaker 1: and easily offended uncle. I'm Joe Surmelli Les guilty uh,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm consistently shocked at how easy it is
Speaker 1: to offend people these days. Like there was a time,
Speaker 1: and I'm not talking like way back in the day.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about time not long ago, when if I
Speaker 1: was making someone uncomfortable or offending someone, I was probably
Speaker 1: doing it on purpose. But early two thousands issues. But now, man,
Speaker 1: now everyone's so angry and mistrustful of everyone else. That
Speaker 1: we're like all listening to each other differently. I think.
Speaker 1: I think it's a different way of listening. Instead of
Speaker 1: listening to understand what another person is saying, we're listening
Speaker 1: to see if we can pick out clues about which
Speaker 1: side of the cultural divide the other person sits on,
Speaker 1: and if we hear, if we hear evidence that they're
Speaker 1: one of them, one of whoever we consider the bad people,
Speaker 1: then we we appose the whole interaction differently, like as
Speaker 1: if there are enemy we we just we start dissecting
Speaker 1: their speech for anything that we can latch onto in
Speaker 1: order to paint them in the most negative like possible
Speaker 1: and hopefully ruin their lives forever. Yeah yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the innocent and an accidental social faux pa. It's just
Speaker 1: it just kind of no longer exists, right, Like we're
Speaker 1: like we're all constantly under arrest and anything you can say,
Speaker 1: uh will be held against you in a court of
Speaker 1: public opinion. And just so we all understand each other, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about like overt hate speech, for for
Speaker 1: God's sakes, you know what I mean? Our comments like
Speaker 1: that intentionally demean or dehumanize anybody that that ship has
Speaker 1: never been cool. I'm talking about just honest and innocent
Speaker 1: slips of the tongue, like those times when your mouth
Speaker 1: moves before your brain can edit for context, um or
Speaker 1: what used to be called sticking your foot in your mouth, right,
Speaker 1: which I mean for if we're being honest based on
Speaker 1: on response, we've gotten to a few select pests segments
Speaker 1: on this show. Um, we've we've put our foot in
Speaker 1: our mouths here on Bend a few times, absolutely absolutely,
Speaker 1: and we have at least tried to own in a
Speaker 1: tone for those publicly when we do them. And and
Speaker 1: as someone who who speaks to a lot of people,
Speaker 1: you know, in a big format for at least part
Speaker 1: of my living, this is something I think about a
Speaker 1: lot because it's kind of always there on your mind,
Speaker 1: you know. But anyway, we're we're not We're not actually
Speaker 1: going to spend the remainder of the show dissecting how
Speaker 1: or why our culture has become so pitched against itself
Speaker 1: that one ill shaped phrase can lead to social unrest. No, no,
Speaker 1: we're not. There are plenty of other podcasts that you
Speaker 1: can turn to for that, Because this is a phishing
Speaker 1: show damn it, and at least in most cases, right,
Speaker 1: phishing boats remain relative safe spaces, places where you can
Speaker 1: just let down your guard a little and be yourself,
Speaker 1: even if that means saying something just monumentally stupid. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, on most fishing boats doing so just it
Speaker 1: will result in ball busting. And I believe in the
Speaker 1: power of ball busting among buddies. That is what. It's
Speaker 1: one of the things I do well, just good natured ridicule.
Speaker 1: It's it's how I show affection. Right. If I don't
Speaker 1: make fun of you from time to time, I probably
Speaker 1: don't like you. And people don't get that very concept anymore,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like men, I I make
Speaker 1: fun of you because I love you. And if I
Speaker 1: don't make fun of you, it's because I just don't
Speaker 1: care about you enough exactly. You are not you are
Speaker 1: not worth me coming up with some really good freaking material,
Speaker 1: you know, And you're not worth me trying to change
Speaker 1: your mind or your way of thinking by giving you
Speaker 1: a hard time. And you may have noticed, Joe and
Speaker 1: I like you and I we pitch each other ship
Speaker 1: because we respect and like each other. Right, And I
Speaker 1: would say I would move on that. I'd just say
Speaker 1: a solid thirty to forty percent of my interactions with
Speaker 1: my wife, the person whom I love and adore more
Speaker 1: than anyone else on the planet, involve us giving each
Speaker 1: other a hard time. That's what we do. And similarly,
Speaker 1: the absolute best days of fishing are the ones where
Speaker 1: you're free to be an idiot and get called out
Speaker 1: on it by your buddies. I don't mind being wrong,
Speaker 1: and I don't mind being told I'm wrong or being
Speaker 1: made fun of for being wrong, so long is there's
Speaker 1: someone there to lovingly but mercilessly set me straight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm an idiot on a daily basis, and
Speaker 1: I put my foot in my mouth daily. I did,
Speaker 1: And I can think of a million stories of the
Speaker 1: kind of jovial like ball busting that that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: and like, that's what makes fishing so great though, ironically, like,
Speaker 1: I think my worst defense is actually a much more
Speaker 1: literal foot in mouth, right, And I like, it's just
Speaker 1: what comes to mind first, because it's you know, put
Speaker 1: your foot in your mouth is our loose them. I mean,
Speaker 1: the worst defense I can think of. I was on
Speaker 1: a trip in Key West years ago with a huge
Speaker 1: group of writers. You've been on some of these, there's
Speaker 1: just a ton of people there and you don't really
Speaker 1: know all of them, right, And because you like, these
Speaker 1: are your colleagues in the sort of rarefied air, and
Speaker 1: you don't want to screw that up, you don't. But
Speaker 1: it's also like that guy's been here for five days
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure what he does or who he
Speaker 1: works for, but he's here. Um So anyway, so anyway,
Speaker 1: I end I ended up on a boat that was
Speaker 1: going pothole and for Barracuda's Big Ones, right, which is
Speaker 1: insanely fun, something I haven't done in years. Super fun.
Speaker 1: Um And as as those trips tend to go, there's
Speaker 1: often a rotten real sponsor. So the dude I was
Speaker 1: paired with that morning, right, I had seen him he
Speaker 1: was at dinner, but we hadn't spoken, so he just
Speaker 1: introduced himself, told me his name, we shook hands. I
Speaker 1: had no idea who he was. And the first kuda
Speaker 1: I hooked just smoked the reel I was using, I mean,
Speaker 1: just took a ripping run almost to the to the
Speaker 1: end of the line, right, and then the real just
Speaker 1: locked up and there was no turning it right. And
Speaker 1: this was the company's new hot ship in shore series
Speaker 1: that was supposed to be super tough, and this little
Speaker 1: baitcaster just disintegrated and I just blurted out, Wow, how
Speaker 1: about this piece of ship. Yeah, the dude was the
Speaker 1: guy who designed it. He was the designer of the
Speaker 1: real and I had no clue. And the captain was like, dude,
Speaker 1: and he awkwardly, This poor guy, he just awkwardly spent
Speaker 1: the rest of that day explaining to me why that
Speaker 1: one must have been a lemon bed for both of you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was something not exactly the kind of thing you're
Speaker 1: talking about, but I just like it was an opportunity
Speaker 1: to tell that story. I think that's a good example
Speaker 1: of the foot in the mouth. Though you were justified
Speaker 1: in that case, and he's wrong. I'm I'm gonna wager, though,
Speaker 1: that you are not going to publicly tell what company them. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you which it was. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you which it wasn't thought fishing. No such problems
Speaker 1: with those reels for me yet. A matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I just posted a shot kind of why I don't
Speaker 1: understand why so many people liked it that I'm glad
Speaker 1: they did. But I posted a shot on Instagram of
Speaker 1: my my neon green inception SZ just all gunked up
Speaker 1: right with two seasons worth of just duck weed and
Speaker 1: mung from snakehead fishing. And I haven't had a problem
Speaker 1: with that real yet. I haven't cleaned it. It's still
Speaker 1: doing its thing despite just like the layers of caked
Speaker 1: on goop no there, I'd say, they're like, they're like
Speaker 1: the time X of fishing reels. It takes licking and
Speaker 1: keeps on picking. And our friends over at thirteen Fishing
Speaker 1: appreciate all of you listeners out there is so much.
Speaker 1: This is big. They are offering you an exclusive forty
Speaker 1: percent discount on your next order just for bad listeners.
Speaker 1: This is not a five percent like we give you.
Speaker 1: Just use the code bent forty, check out yes and
Speaker 1: and score yourself a sweet deal. It's a really sweet deal.
Speaker 1: We love deals. You love deals. And I know someone
Speaker 1: else who appreciates a sweet deal. That would be Joe's
Speaker 1: good buddy. And while I angler extraordinaire Ross Robertson, he's
Speaker 1: exceptionally skilled when it comes to inserting his lower extremities
Speaker 1: into his orifice. I realized we just heard from him
Speaker 1: in a tackle Hacks not too long ago. But this
Speaker 1: smooth move, it just fit our the SEMs so perfectly
Speaker 1: that we'll all have to suffer through him again. Why, hey, guests,
Speaker 1: who's here today? Captain Ross Robertson? While I anger extraordinaire,
Speaker 1: dear dear friend of mine? Guess who's back? And guess
Speaker 1: where he is? He's sitting directly across from me. You
Speaker 1: want to know why? Because we are in Ohio at present,
Speaker 1: in your and your like little domain here filming an
Speaker 1: episode of dost Boat season three, and we're all we're
Speaker 1: all staying. The whole crew is staying together in this
Speaker 1: really bizarre house. So I thought, why not? Why not
Speaker 1: set up the mics, Joe, This is a cross between
Speaker 1: poor Man's real world and a bad frat house. That's
Speaker 1: what I feel. It's a huge house that sleeps like
Speaker 1: four hundred, but I don't know. It feels like it's
Speaker 1: like multiple houses sort of glue together. What they what
Speaker 1: they give us in beds, they take away in ceiling height,
Speaker 1: it's it's very a lot of angles, low ceilings. That
Speaker 1: door I'm looking at, there's a shower in here that
Speaker 1: no human taller than five feet could stand upright. That's
Speaker 1: that's the child shower. This door here, whoever the carpenter,
Speaker 1: if he did an amazing job making a triangle door.
Speaker 1: We're not here to talk about the house, though. We're
Speaker 1: here because it's always more fun to talk to you
Speaker 1: one on one. The look on your face, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: because you wear the smooth moves king like you live
Speaker 1: to like you know, you live to ship talk people.
Speaker 1: I don't it's that ship talk as much. But if
Speaker 1: you stand at Walmart, okay for like ten years, you're
Speaker 1: gonna see some stuff. Well, if you guide, you know,
Speaker 1: I've guided on over four thousand days, you're going to
Speaker 1: get a job at Walmart now. I'm gonna probably have,
Speaker 1: especially after after this, after this breaks, oh boy. But no, seriously,
Speaker 1: you're going to see some stuff like things happen in
Speaker 1: a boat. Man. People tell you things they don't normally
Speaker 1: tell you. I mean, I've got I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. Some of them we can't really talk about,
Speaker 1: but some of them, you know. I because I don't
Speaker 1: want to call anybody out individually, but this one here,
Speaker 1: But didn't you also tell me that You've had clients
Speaker 1: who've heard bent and smooth moves and been like, can
Speaker 1: you tell them the story of what happened to us?
Speaker 1: Yea true story, And I'm like no, because I feel
Speaker 1: like they're trying to force it all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: now we're doing things. I'm like, no, shenanigans have to
Speaker 1: happen exactly. I don't tell you went on smooth moves.
Speaker 1: Your actions tell you what. I'm just curious, like, what
Speaker 1: do you get? People say, remember that time I stuck
Speaker 1: my hook of my finger, you should do the bent thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's the one thing about you know, when I started this,
Speaker 1: it was all about fishing, and now the media and
Speaker 1: socials and people want to be insta stuff, and you go,
Speaker 1: it's just different. You know. People are like, hey, can
Speaker 1: I be like literally get in my boat. And it's
Speaker 1: not like, hey, we can get a big ten pounder today. Ross,
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, am I gonna make your insta feed today.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's part of the business. It's part of
Speaker 1: your business. But still at some point when you're a hardcore,
Speaker 1: like I'm a salty like fishing, wenot like saltwater. But
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying I'm I'm a grizzled working
Speaker 1: on my crow's feet, getting gray hair because of situations
Speaker 1: like I'm about to tell you, well, I think the
Speaker 1: last time we had you on for smooth Moves, that
Speaker 1: was when the drunk guy choked out a toy poodle
Speaker 1: in a parking lot. So let's say what I lay
Speaker 1: it on me? Man, what do you got this time?
Speaker 1: This one, we're going to entitle hypocrisy. Okay, so some
Speaker 1: people may get offended on this, but this has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with anyone's profession. But I'm just I feel
Speaker 1: like I have to bring it up because it's a
Speaker 1: little hypocrisy, you know. All Right, So I have a
Speaker 1: guy who I've known someone in his family forever, calls
Speaker 1: me and says, hey, I have a UM, I don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what the proper term would be. Let's call
Speaker 1: him a priest, okay, because wait, wait wait yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So he's somebody that's kind of like a priest or.
Speaker 1: You're making a joke, and he is a you know,
Speaker 1: depending on what your religion is, because I'm gonna keep
Speaker 1: this very vague, a pastor. Maybe if you're in a
Speaker 1: different religion, it doesn't matter any rate. Guy calls me
Speaker 1: and says, hey, man, I've got this guy and he's
Speaker 1: my he's my pastor or whatever again irrelevant, And he
Speaker 1: says he's got me through some stuff in life and
Speaker 1: he's just you know, he's always kind of gone above beyond,
Speaker 1: and you know, we I want to take the guy fishing,
Speaker 1: like he hasn't done the fishing things nice, so you know,
Speaker 1: be moving around. This guy just hasn't you know, he
Speaker 1: hasn't gotten to do the fishing that he used to write.
Speaker 1: So he said, hey, I want to take a trip
Speaker 1: for him. I'm like cool, And again to me, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, right, but it's always good to get good
Speaker 1: people in the boat. You know, at this point in
Speaker 1: my career, have the only thing dons like I kind
Speaker 1: of week that out pretty quick if I can. So
Speaker 1: I want to be the biggest a hole in the boat,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah I do, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah that it didn't happen to us boat. But anyhow,
Speaker 1: So here's the deal. This guy. We're out here and
Speaker 1: I explained to him it's not a prime time, but
Speaker 1: I got a deep bite go on, and I've been
Speaker 1: catching some pretty good fish. But it's it's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a grinder. I said, So you guys want
Speaker 1: to just go for the little eaters or do we
Speaker 1: want to try to get some picture takers. But the
Speaker 1: picture takers are going to be like, you gotta pay attention,
Speaker 1: we gotta listen. This is a different deal there. Basically
Speaker 1: we're controlled fishing. Bottom. Of course, I rarely ever ever
Speaker 1: have anybody go let's go fish for the little ones.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, hey, we're going, you know, like twenty
Speaker 1: miles this way or ten miles that way, Like we're
Speaker 1: not doing both, So you've got to make a commitment.
Speaker 1: We want the big ones. Okay, perfect. I don't like
Speaker 1: fishing for a little fish either, so but I know
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a lot more work for me. So
Speaker 1: we get out there, and I realized real quick, like, hey,
Speaker 1: these guys wanna have fun, but to make this to execute,
Speaker 1: they're not really listening real good. So you start with like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: you know, and you kind of keep amping it up,
Speaker 1: and uh, the guy says to me at one point,
Speaker 1: because we lose a couple of fish, and I mumble
Speaker 1: under my breath like because again, you know, I when
Speaker 1: we lose a fish. I want everybody have fun being serious,
Speaker 1: But if you're fishing with a captain or because I
Speaker 1: fish with guides, you know, I go down saltwater and
Speaker 1: I fish with a child, Like if that captain when
Speaker 1: we lose like a trophy fish, was it like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of like this guy. I'm a guy, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, now you don't have to sort of a
Speaker 1: tissy fit. I get it. But yet, if you don't
Speaker 1: give a ship at that point, like you have to
Speaker 1: make your point known that like you worked hard, like
Speaker 1: I just put you on them. It's hard, Like you're not.
Speaker 1: This is like trophy deer hunting. You're not. We're not
Speaker 1: going to have class deer coming because you're eating mountain
Speaker 1: dewing donuts And like, dude, I yeah, we'll get the
Speaker 1: next one. Yeah. Like and when I hear that we'll
Speaker 1: get the next one, I want to choke slash somebody.
Speaker 1: Just don't say anything. So like these guys are losing
Speaker 1: a bunch of fish to your little few f bombs
Speaker 1: out under my breath, like because because again we lost
Speaker 1: a few fish that I'm like, man, I know those
Speaker 1: were great, those were good fish, right, I just just
Speaker 1: what I do. I know it, and I uh. He starts, he'saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I really wish you'd clean up your mouth.
Speaker 1: And I tell me, you know what, You're right, I said,
Speaker 1: you're you aren't wrong. I said, you know what, I said,
Speaker 1: I do a lot of things wrong. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're you're not wrong. I said, but you know
Speaker 1: what here, I said, that's the worst case scenario thing
Speaker 1: I do. I said, I'll try to clean up for you.
Speaker 1: But I say to him, so what do you do
Speaker 1: for a living? I'm a pastor? And I'm like, oh right,
Speaker 1: So now I'm starting to understand things. Well, yes, not
Speaker 1: not that you have to be a pastor. You know,
Speaker 1: you could be a school teacher. I mean, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what you do. Work in a factory, doesn't matter. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: just trust people that don't curse. I'm with you, Okay.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to, don't I'd have to be. But
Speaker 1: so yeah, long story short. This guy gets on the
Speaker 1: second fish like and it goes and I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: lie to you. I would never say this, of course,
Speaker 1: until that's a much time has passed. I know immediately
Speaker 1: this is the one. This is either a sheep head,
Speaker 1: a catfish, or a giant wall you know, me and
Speaker 1: you have had this in person. And this guy is
Speaker 1: just going guerrilla mode. You know, I'm always joking with
Speaker 1: you to slow down reeling. I mean, he's got Bill
Speaker 1: Dance on his mind. I mean he's whipping that rod
Speaker 1: left right. I mean, like you just thought we were
Speaker 1: bumping around stumps, even though we're in the middle of
Speaker 1: nowhere water, right. So we get close and now this
Speaker 1: fish dude is straight up and down. Well it gets
Speaker 1: up a little farther Joe, and it looks like an
Speaker 1: Orco whale, and I see the white belly and I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: walle dude, I'm telling you, straight up, thirty plus centure
Speaker 1: if it's an inch giant, I physically have to reach
Speaker 1: over and grab the rod and reel about three ft
Speaker 1: up because this dude is trying to just reef right,
Speaker 1: like she's trying to rip the rod up like like
Speaker 1: a stand up tuna deal like. And I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: but there's no time to really talk, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. This this is like trying to tell somebody
Speaker 1: to stop at a stop, like you just you gotta
Speaker 1: kind of roll with at some point, no more directions.
Speaker 1: He's not listening anyhow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And before I
Speaker 1: tell only fire that, I just want to let you know,
Speaker 1: like this guy had told me like three times, like,
Speaker 1: hey man, you know this is how you need to
Speaker 1: live your life. You know this is you know you
Speaker 1: don't curse and you know you need to be this
Speaker 1: guy and everything. And so I'm kind of joshing a
Speaker 1: little bit because again he's a client, but I'm Josh
Speaker 1: and you're not listening to me, so I'm not listening
Speaker 1: to you. And so now we're at the point that
Speaker 1: the sinker is in the rod tip. And when I
Speaker 1: say in the drawd tip, he waned the sinker into
Speaker 1: the rod tip. But I've got like a seven ft
Speaker 1: leader and this thing is seven ft straight down. I
Speaker 1: can't quite get it yet, and I'm telling him to
Speaker 1: just stop. Really he's still trying to rewind the sinker
Speaker 1: into the rod tip. And now you just play as
Speaker 1: you know, you play him out like at some point
Speaker 1: they just kind of come up. I'm laing to happen,
Speaker 1: and the fish makes a little run. It can't get
Speaker 1: out like it wants to go. So I reach over
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to break the sinker out of the
Speaker 1: rod tip and he's like, what are you doing? What
Speaker 1: you're doing? And I'm like almost had him. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: this fish is like, this fish is not ready to go,
Speaker 1: and it's a giant. So I keep pulling line out
Speaker 1: and given this thing just he's green. And so now
Speaker 1: this fish is under the boat and I can't net
Speaker 1: it till it's like right there. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: he goes forget this, I got it, grabs that rod
Speaker 1: like three ft up and dude pulls. He pulls like
Speaker 1: he is trying to like pull a young girl out
Speaker 1: of a well that has been in it for like drowning. God,
Speaker 1: and the sinker hits the bottom of my boat, dude,
Speaker 1: and it sounded like a shotgun go off, and right
Speaker 1: there at the bottom of the boat, I'm gonna guess
Speaker 1: ten feet. I watched this thing swim away like I
Speaker 1: love seeing him swim away like that. You know, I
Speaker 1: love your Instagram pictures like touch it, Like there's something
Speaker 1: like the like a saltwater guy touched the leader. You know, Oh,
Speaker 1: let him go because I don't keep those, but you
Speaker 1: want to get a picture you want him to get
Speaker 1: a picture. You know, it's the biggest fish. While I
Speaker 1: was like, that's an accomplishment. As all of this is happening,
Speaker 1: he realizes that the fish is gone. He takes the
Speaker 1: rod over his fucking knee and breaks it into and
Speaker 1: says mother, and he just starts screaming, you sign a bitch, mother?
Speaker 1: What the and just going off. Me and the other
Speaker 1: guy are just standing there looking at him, like what
Speaker 1: just happened? And I just looked at the guy and
Speaker 1: I was like, hypocrisy much And He's like he was, dude,
Speaker 1: he was out of his mind. And then he like
Speaker 1: stopped and looked at me like he realized what he did.
Speaker 1: And he's like, oh my god, I'll buy the rod.
Speaker 1: And I go, oh, oh yeah you yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks thanks for confirming I'm blocking your car in the
Speaker 1: parking lot. And I'm like, I'm like, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, that one f bomb when we
Speaker 1: lost the other fish, I feel like this is worth
Speaker 1: two or three more, dude. It was. It was. It
Speaker 1: wasn't funny, but it was funny because obviously I want
Speaker 1: to get that fishing. I don't care if the guy
Speaker 1: is a great guy or a jackass. Like to see
Speaker 1: that happen, it's heartbreaking, but it just goes to show,
Speaker 1: you know, like you can't do whatever you want and
Speaker 1: get a fish in. I mean, I know you know that.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people that are our guide clients,
Speaker 1: just like hey Man Ross always catches him like we'll
Speaker 1: get them in. It's like, you still got to do
Speaker 1: the fundamentals. If you throw one over your head playing basketball,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna make it in the hoop, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. You gotta do the simple things to
Speaker 1: get it in. And he didn't understand. Okay, I gotta
Speaker 1: tell this one. He set me up too well because
Speaker 1: I have a very similar guiding story. I had this.
Speaker 1: I had this group of guys who would book a
Speaker 1: multi day trip with me every year, and and the core,
Speaker 1: like the core crew consisted of four gentlemen, but then
Speaker 1: they would usually bring another two to four friends to
Speaker 1: round out the party that would rotate. And yeah, exactly
Speaker 1: exactly the ones you don't know, yep. Now, I gotta
Speaker 1: say these are solid, reputable Southern gentlemen, and they fished
Speaker 1: with me a lot. They would do different kinds of
Speaker 1: trips each year. They would often have one or two
Speaker 1: family trips where they brought spouses and children, and those
Speaker 1: were pretty tame. They're like buttoned up, you know, But
Speaker 1: on the annual guys trip, the tone was just more irreverent.
Speaker 1: The beer, wine, and whiskey usually started flowing around ten
Speaker 1: am or so, and nobody ever got visibly drunk or obnoxious.
Speaker 1: It was fun and there was there was plenty of
Speaker 1: colorful language tossed around. So I'm guiding the first day
Speaker 1: of one of these guys trips and one of the
Speaker 1: anglers in my boat is a regular, a guy i've
Speaker 1: guided for over a decade. The other was a new
Speaker 1: member of the party, someone I've never met before. But
Speaker 1: I figured if he ran with this crowd, he had
Speaker 1: to be just a good, laid back dude, right, sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we're flowing the Upper Madison and we're catching fish
Speaker 1: and everybody's having a good time, and I've got my
Speaker 1: my self editor set to guys trip mode, you know,
Speaker 1: so I'm definitely dropping f bombs here and there when
Speaker 1: I feel they urged to. And finally, just before lunch,
Speaker 1: I asked the guy who I don't know, like, oh,
Speaker 1: what is it that you do for work. And he
Speaker 1: turns to me and says, I'm a pastor. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: actually the pastor at the church that all these guys attend.
Speaker 1: Oh God literally literally. So at that moment, like I
Speaker 1: start doing a mental tally of all the things I've
Speaker 1: said so far on the boat, like trying to go back, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, what have I said? And I haven't made
Speaker 1: any blatantly blasphemous statements, I'm pretty sure, but I've definitely
Speaker 1: been cursing consistently. So I sort of pause, and then
Speaker 1: I say to the guy pastor, I'm I'm sorry if
Speaker 1: I offended you with my foul language. I'll keep things
Speaker 1: cleaner from here on out. And the guy the guy
Speaker 1: looked at me with what I can only describe as
Speaker 1: a shit eating grin on his face and just said,
Speaker 1: what the are you talking about? Yes, yes, yes, beauty, beauty.
Speaker 1: You know, as you might imagine, the whole boat broke
Speaker 1: out laughter, and I'm pretty sure some beers were cracked
Speaker 1: soon thereafter, And it was it was a good reminder
Speaker 1: that context matters. Right on the boat floating down a
Speaker 1: beautiful trout stream on vacation with a casual sense of ease,
Speaker 1: and goodwills, permitting the air and conversation that can drop
Speaker 1: anyone's defenses. Yeah, the guy is a pastor, that's his job,
Speaker 1: but that's not all he is. And and that day,
Speaker 1: in that moment, he was just part of a group
Speaker 1: of friends having a good time. I love this guy, right,
Speaker 1: Like this is my kind of pastor. Like this sounds
Speaker 1: like a good church. Like if there was a Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ Church of latter day, go your self, asshole, I
Speaker 1: might actually attend and maybe end up in purgatory instead
Speaker 1: of going straight to hell, but not before I kick
Speaker 1: the hell out of you in this week's fish News.
Speaker 1: Fish News escalated quickly. Alright, So I gotta say congrats
Speaker 1: to you, my friend. Good on you, Good on you
Speaker 1: for that deep dive into the line pol hook removal
Speaker 1: method a couple of weeks back, because we have gotten
Speaker 1: quite a few notes from listeners that really appreciated that, right,
Speaker 1: And that's that's super cool because if we've even given you,
Speaker 1: like just a little tiny bit more confidence to do that,
Speaker 1: or made you slightly less scared of getting jab that's
Speaker 1: a win. Right, So I gotta say, man, that was
Speaker 1: that was your episode? And then you nailed that, but
Speaker 1: we also we also got some funny and informative notes
Speaker 1: about this. I was surprised, I will have bit. I
Speaker 1: was surprised the amount of feedback we got on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we did, we did, and we don't certainly don't
Speaker 1: have time to mention them all. But there's a there's
Speaker 1: a couple here I've pulled that I just have to
Speaker 1: shout out. Okay, so I'm gonna butcher this name. And dude,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but all the way from Australia, Yan Kuka,
Speaker 1: I think kucha kuka something. You know who you are.
Speaker 1: Nobody else We've never had another yan Okay, uh, thank
Speaker 1: you Yan, he wrote in And it turns out he's
Speaker 1: an emergency room doctor in Australia. He says, despite all
Speaker 1: the techniques available, the line pole is still the main
Speaker 1: one he uses on patients because it is the least
Speaker 1: trem mattic. And and this is interesting, this I'd like
Speaker 1: to know more about. He says. He's used it on hooks,
Speaker 1: like all the way up to heavy gauge shark stuff.
Speaker 1: That was the thing that caught how that works. I
Speaker 1: believe him because he's an er doc. I'm not, but
Speaker 1: he just tells his nurse like, can you get me
Speaker 1: the cable? Can you give me then? For because we
Speaker 1: had a few people right in they were like why
Speaker 1: not braid. I'm like, let me tell you why and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, I get it right, but a shark
Speaker 1: hook man, Like, what do you like? I don't know.
Speaker 1: You hook it up to the pickup truck or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But hey man, he's a doctor and
Speaker 1: they're good. So there you go. It's e er doctor
Speaker 1: approved the method. Um. He also um. He also backed
Speaker 1: me up on using pig skin like on a pork
Speaker 1: belly to practice, and he actually said pig skin can
Speaker 1: be slightly tougher than human skin, so if you can
Speaker 1: do it on pig skin, you'll have no problem ripping
Speaker 1: them hooks out your uncle. Okay, so pigskin there, you go,
Speaker 1: get yourself some big skin. Yeah, exactly. We all need
Speaker 1: that anyway. Um. So, while I did not get a
Speaker 1: last name, guide Sean from Flying Fish Outdoors said, great
Speaker 1: job on the description, Miles, but you guys forgot to
Speaker 1: talk after care. He's done. He's done this with clients
Speaker 1: a lot and just says, hey, I always carry I
Speaker 1: had dine um, and we will take the mulligan on that.
Speaker 1: That is a good that is a good point. And
Speaker 1: of course, if you're if your TETNAS shots aren't up
Speaker 1: to day, you should get one after you get stuck,
Speaker 1: which I will sadly admit I am lax about. Like
Speaker 1: I told that Tuna Loure story did not freshen up
Speaker 1: my tetanas shot. And it's been three years. My jaw
Speaker 1: has not locked so I think by now, But don't
Speaker 1: do what I do. Do it, don't don't listen to me.
Speaker 1: That was a PostScript I missed on the uncle story.
Speaker 1: He did get a TETNA shot at the r I
Speaker 1: imagine if you go to the hospital, that's just like
Speaker 1: part of it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So anyway, Hope and
Speaker 1: those jaw isn't locked up because he's going to be
Speaker 1: judging our news stories this week yet again, because yet again,
Speaker 1: this is a competition, Miles, and I do not know
Speaker 1: which stories the other guys bringing to the table. It
Speaker 1: is your lead this week, so have at it. It
Speaker 1: is And you know, I could talk about how the
Speaker 1: Columbia River is seeing the lowest return of summer steelhead
Speaker 1: in recorded history, and the numerous groups who are calling
Speaker 1: on Oregon and Washington to cancel the fall steelhead fishing
Speaker 1: season this year. But if you're a Western steelhead angler,
Speaker 1: you already know about that, and if you're not, you
Speaker 1: probably don't care. I for one, will not be fishing
Speaker 1: any of the Columbia system this year, and that's just
Speaker 1: frankly depressing as hell. And I don't feel like being
Speaker 1: depressed today, Joe, So I'm not going to talk about that. Instead. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about a different native fish that's
Speaker 1: been many years on the dangered list and was just
Speaker 1: recently declared recovered, the snail darter. I love a good
Speaker 1: snail darter, So to your point that what you're getting
Speaker 1: at there, I think snail darters are are They're nowhere
Speaker 1: near as glamorous as steel head, nor are they all
Speaker 1: that popular with anglers unless they're into the whole micro
Speaker 1: fishing thing. But damn it, I wanted a happy story,
Speaker 1: So we are talking snail darters all right, night on me.
Speaker 1: In case you've never heard of snail darter, they look like, well,
Speaker 1: they kind of look like Gobi's. They're not, but that's
Speaker 1: like the best way I can describe them. They're about
Speaker 1: three inches long with modeled green and brown camouflage on
Speaker 1: their backs. There in the perch family. Like all darters
Speaker 1: and and snail darters are only native to the Tennessee
Speaker 1: River drainage. Their primary food source is wait for it,
Speaker 1: freshwater snails, you know which. My thoughts on they got
Speaker 1: the name. Look, there are at least two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifteen recognized darter species living in the creeks, rivers, and
Speaker 1: streams of the US. The only reason this particular one
Speaker 1: rings a bell with anybody is because it was at
Speaker 1: the center of one of the very first Endangered Species
Speaker 1: Act controversies. Snail darters were identified in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: the same year that the Endangered Species Act was passed
Speaker 1: by Congress. They were found by a researcher who was
Speaker 1: investigating the potential impacts of the Teleco damn, which was
Speaker 1: in the process of being built on the Little Tennessee River.
Speaker 1: In snail darters were listed as endangered, which posed a
Speaker 1: potential problem for the dam. Its creation would destroy much
Speaker 1: of the snail darters remaining habitat, which was theoretically prohibited
Speaker 1: under the National Environmental Protection Act. This was one of
Speaker 1: the first significant tests of America's newly codified commitment to
Speaker 1: environmental protection. The dam had been in various stages of
Speaker 1: planning since ninety six. In the late sixties, the project
Speaker 1: game momentum and funding. The idea behind this dam was
Speaker 1: to create a reservoir that would bring economic stimulus in
Speaker 1: the form of recreation to an area that was stagnant
Speaker 1: and mostly destitute. Teleco is not a hydroelectric dam. It's
Speaker 1: only there to create a lake, to increase property values
Speaker 1: and make kind of a seemingly unpleasant valley into a
Speaker 1: more attractive place for homeowners in vases, some more water,
Speaker 1: skis and whatnot exactly, and and lakefront property. It was
Speaker 1: an expensive project based on the hopes that it would
Speaker 1: magically transform this area into a quote recreation wonderland. By
Speaker 1: the time the Snail Darter was listed under the essay,
Speaker 1: the dam was already seventy percent completed, the money had
Speaker 1: been appropriated, and the promise of economic vitality for the
Speaker 1: area felt imminent. Both the House and the Senate strongly
Speaker 1: opposed stopping the dam, and for the first time, though
Speaker 1: definitely not the last, the legislative branch of the government
Speaker 1: confronted the real tension between economic development and protecting native habitat.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy six, a law student at the University
Speaker 1: of Tennessee brought a citizen case against the Tennessee Valley Authority,
Speaker 1: claiming that the construction of the dam violated the s
Speaker 1: A and seeking an adjunction to halt the Damns construction.
Speaker 1: The case was batted around various lower courts. Just about
Speaker 1: every judge who heard the case recognized that the Damn
Speaker 1: represented a real threat to the snail darter, but stopped
Speaker 1: short of shutting down the dam. In seven, the Sixth
Speaker 1: Circuit Court of Appeals did finally issue the injunction, and
Speaker 1: the Damn construction came to a screeching halt when it
Speaker 1: was finished. This tiny little fish that nobody knew about
Speaker 1: and frankly very few people cared about, and to derail
Speaker 1: a public works project that had been planned for over
Speaker 1: four decades just before completion. The case then became the
Speaker 1: first Supreme Court challenge to the Endangered Species Act. The
Speaker 1: Tennessee Valley Authority argued that the government had already spent
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars on the project, and that an
Speaker 1: exception to the essay should be made in this case.
Speaker 1: Lawyers for the t v A also pointed out that
Speaker 1: Congress had continued to appropriate money for the project after
Speaker 1: learning that it would harm the lowly snail darter, and
Speaker 1: argued that in doing so, Congress had implicitly repealed the
Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act completely. Had the Supreme Court agreed with
Speaker 1: the defense in this case, the e s A would
Speaker 1: have been gutted and gone in But that's not what happened.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court disagreed and upheld the legality of the
Speaker 1: injunction and the validity of the essay. But the fight
Speaker 1: over economic development and the preservation of intact ecosystems that
Speaker 1: were still in the middle of today. It was just
Speaker 1: getting started just because of this case. In seventy eight,
Speaker 1: Congress amended the es A and brought quote some flexibility
Speaker 1: into the Endangered Species Act. They also created an Endangered
Speaker 1: Species Committee, which still exists today, sometimes referred to as
Speaker 1: the God Committee, and gave that committee the power to
Speaker 1: push through projects that violated the e s A if
Speaker 1: their broader economic value was sufficient to justify the costs.
Speaker 1: When that committee looked at Teleco, Damn in the unanimously
Speaker 1: denied an exemption, but not because of the snail darter,
Speaker 1: purely on economic factors. Turns out Teleco DAMN was gonna
Speaker 1: cost over seven million dollars a year to maintain and
Speaker 1: was expected to only generate about six million annually in
Speaker 1: economic stimulus. It would also put forty million dollars worth
Speaker 1: of agricultural land underwater. Boom and a story right, Damn's
Speaker 1: on economic policy and environmental policy that just happened overlap.
Speaker 1: Everybody wins no, that that's not what happened at all.
Speaker 1: Later that year, Senate and congressional representatives from Tennessee attached
Speaker 1: the rider to a national appropriations bill mandating the completion
Speaker 1: of Teleco Dam and later that year the reservoir began
Speaker 1: to fill. All sounds bad, but as I told you
Speaker 1: in the lead of this story, it's not because the
Speaker 1: snail darter gets happy. Ending the fish were transplanted to
Speaker 1: various tributaries of the Tennessee River from which they had
Speaker 1: been previously extirpated. The t v A also worked really
Speaker 1: closely with state management agencies to improve river flows and
Speaker 1: oxygen nation levels across multiple dams on the whole Tennessee
Speaker 1: River system. In order to improve habitat in the main Stem,
Speaker 1: and a week ago the fish were declared recovered. These fish,
Speaker 1: yeah right. These fish may be small, and we as
Speaker 1: anglers may not care about them, but they represent a
Speaker 1: watershed moment in the values of our nation. The congressional
Speaker 1: battle over Teleco Damn was the first time that the
Speaker 1: words environmental extremist were uttered on the floor of the House.
Speaker 1: It was the first time Americans had to confront the very,
Speaker 1: very significant opposition between development and the fish, wildlife, and
Speaker 1: ecosystems we claim to care about. Now. I started the
Speaker 1: whole story by saying I wouldn't talk about the state
Speaker 1: of Columbia River steelhead, but I changed my mind. We
Speaker 1: need to learn from our past, and even though I
Speaker 1: think the snail darter is a cautionary tale in many ways,
Speaker 1: it's also ultimately a success story. If we can find
Speaker 1: the will to protect and even rehabilitate snail darters fish
Speaker 1: with essentially zero advocates, we damn sure ought to be
Speaker 1: able to do the same for steelhead, one of North
Speaker 1: America's most iconic fish. Doing so is going to require sacrifices.
Speaker 1: That's just the the fact it will. It's going to
Speaker 1: require sacrifice from industry, from power generators, from agriculture, from homeowners,
Speaker 1: and from anglers. Collective sacrifice is the only way we
Speaker 1: get big ship done. But we are capable, I believe
Speaker 1: of both sacrifice and achievement. So let's kind of let's
Speaker 1: get this going. Let's move from the snail darters to
Speaker 1: the steel head. Let's get something going. Guys. I would
Speaker 1: very much like to agree that we all have that
Speaker 1: in this, but I just I can't. I can't help
Speaker 1: but keep going back to the fact in this one
Speaker 1: that it was ultimately squashed because the state wasn't going
Speaker 1: to make enough money off the recreation, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like it's still the main driver, and like there
Speaker 1: was something you said that you know, they they they
Speaker 1: sort of proposed this as a recreational wonder land. I
Speaker 1: think if we could just anytime somebody says we should
Speaker 1: do this because it will be a recreational wonder land,
Speaker 1: that should be the thing that stops us from doing it,
Speaker 1: because I feel like this story has happened out like
Speaker 1: look at the Sultan Sea, like as an example, California,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, one day Sinatras they're having
Speaker 1: in mind tie next thing. You know, it's a barren
Speaker 1: waste land. So like a lot of these things, I
Speaker 1: just don't think work out anyway. Um. I mean, I'm happy.
Speaker 1: I'm happy for the for the fish, and you would
Speaker 1: think it would be easier for fish we care more
Speaker 1: about because you can also measure the economic impact of
Speaker 1: steelhead and what money they bring in. So I told
Speaker 1: that story, I mean one like, I did really want
Speaker 1: to go with something positive, but I feel like it's
Speaker 1: I think it's really emblematic of a lot of the
Speaker 1: fights that we run into. And the fact that it
Speaker 1: was the first Supreme Court challenge to the ESA is
Speaker 1: worthy of noting. And it was over this fish, right,
Speaker 1: and look in the end, the damn one out right,
Speaker 1: the Congressional pork one. But we still found a way collectively,
Speaker 1: through many, many years and a lot of money to
Speaker 1: bring these fish back. So I'm not I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that the way that it was handled with the snail
Speaker 1: dre like, let's use that as a blueprint for bring
Speaker 1: back steelhead. That's not the point I'm trying to make.
Speaker 1: What I'm trying to make is if we can pull
Speaker 1: it off with those fish in those circumstances, come on,
Speaker 1: there's gotta be a way that we can balance all
Speaker 1: the different needs to keep Steelhead coming back. You're right,
Speaker 1: and it is out there somewhere, and you've done a
Speaker 1: story here on sort of a resurrection, something something coming back.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna use that to transition into my
Speaker 1: first story. Though. It's so funny because you kick this
Speaker 1: off with like sort of a fake out story and
Speaker 1: I'm not even lying right there that I was actually
Speaker 1: going to use this story with this headline. This is
Speaker 1: a real one from this week newest worry. Experts say
Speaker 1: friendly dolphin in Cornwall could kill people or be killed.
Speaker 1: But me and my anti dolphin league have already proven
Speaker 1: you so wrong that I passed. I'm like, why drive
Speaker 1: this point home any further. Okay, I don't need to
Speaker 1: hear any more about the dolphin hate, but I'm still
Speaker 1: gonna turn it on your turf a little bit here
Speaker 1: because it was you, not me, that already informed are
Speaker 1: adience about David DeLong. Does that name ring a bell?
Speaker 1: It does so. DeLong was credited as the first guy
Speaker 1: in the country to create a plastic worm, and you
Speaker 1: talked about him right in the end of the line
Speaker 1: segment about cream worms, which sort of overshadowed DeLong, like
Speaker 1: they kind of stole his thing a little bit. Well,
Speaker 1: according to this story on Ohio's w k y C
Speaker 1: dot com, the DeLong Lower Company is reopening after being
Speaker 1: closed for a decade and the new owners are setting
Speaker 1: up shop just outside of Akron, Ohio, where DeLong got
Speaker 1: its start. Now this is significant because right after World
Speaker 1: War Two, a lot of people don't know this Acron,
Speaker 1: of all places, was actually a huge hub of tackle manufacturing. Right.
Speaker 1: Not only not only did DeLong set up shop there
Speaker 1: after pouring that first rubber worm, kind of getting it
Speaker 1: right there in Acron was also home to Flugger back
Speaker 1: in those days, Arbi gassed Um as well as as
Speaker 1: as the Cream family and there Orm operation, which again
Speaker 1: kind of had a better marketing strategy then DeLong. But
Speaker 1: what many people may not even realize is that the
Speaker 1: long lures lasted for a very long time. In fact,
Speaker 1: early in my career, I remember getting my hands on
Speaker 1: some DeLong eels right that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people didn't even realize they made. That had like a
Speaker 1: little niche thing going here in the striper scene. Um,
Speaker 1: they are making again. I saw it on their website,
Speaker 1: a five inch killer Sandy l It's k I L
Speaker 1: R sandyal and man. Back in the day, that was
Speaker 1: one hell of a surfcasting teaser for the fall when
Speaker 1: the bass were on sand els Um. And yet I've
Speaker 1: been out of those four years, Like I saw that
Speaker 1: and almost forgot they existed. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: the killer eel. So I'm excited. Right. So it's shut
Speaker 1: down ten years ago, but new owners, Steven Ziegler and
Speaker 1: Aaron Futrelle, bought the business back in May, and while
Speaker 1: they fully understand the risk in this, they're hopeful that
Speaker 1: they can make a go of it. And that's a
Speaker 1: very historical company. And here's why I think they have
Speaker 1: a shot. You know how vintage is very in right now,
Speaker 1: right everybody loves vintage, and how sometimes you know something
Speaker 1: that that's old has the tendency to become new again. Well,
Speaker 1: in fishing, we're always looking for the latest and greatest
Speaker 1: and coolest and most modern. But if you look on
Speaker 1: Delong's website, they're keeping it really o g. Most of
Speaker 1: what they make is pre rigged, and pre riggedlors have
Speaker 1: caught piles of fish for decades, but nobody really uses
Speaker 1: them anymore. That's that's not an in thing at all.
Speaker 1: Similar to the cream worm, same deal. Um. So what
Speaker 1: you have though, you have this cool vintage appeal, But
Speaker 1: now they're made with a little bit more modern plastic
Speaker 1: than the old stuff. Right there, they're cranking out more
Speaker 1: modern colors. Um. And you know, generations of anglers have
Speaker 1: already proven that you can catch the hell out of
Speaker 1: fish on a lot of this old school pre rig stuff.
Speaker 1: So not only are they making all kinds of of
Speaker 1: pre rigged bass worms, they've got some salty stuff and
Speaker 1: some pretty neat pan fish slash ice offerings, really cool
Speaker 1: pre rigged tiny old school stuff including uh and and
Speaker 1: maybe somebody else makes this and I don't know about it,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen it. They're making soft plastic fish
Speaker 1: eyeballs for places where you can't use a real fish,
Speaker 1: I like on the ice for panfish. Um. And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what I dude, I'm grabbing some of this
Speaker 1: stuff because I think it's retro and cool, and nobody
Speaker 1: out there can say, like, yeah, but that stuff doesn't work.
Speaker 1: It's been working since nineteen So I I really I
Speaker 1: love the resurrection angle there. I really hope these guys
Speaker 1: can make a go with DeLong um again. It's like
Speaker 1: what's old is new? This is actually this has been around,
Speaker 1: but if you go look at some of this stuff,
Speaker 1: it's very different compared to what's out there now, and
Speaker 1: we want different. So I think it's got some legs.
Speaker 1: You know. No, that's that's really interesting, And I agree
Speaker 1: with you. I think this. You know, it depends on
Speaker 1: how the businesses managed and marketed and handle, but I
Speaker 1: think this could absolutely work. I would I would say
Speaker 1: that tackle manufacturing happens to be a growth industry right now.
Speaker 1: Uh so the guys timed it pretty well. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: they're even making stuff like that that you just don't
Speaker 1: see anymore. Like remember when we were kids, you'd buy
Speaker 1: a rubber frog that would come pre rigged on the
Speaker 1: hook with the wire flipped down weed guards that they're
Speaker 1: making trailers frogs with those hooks already in them. But
Speaker 1: they were terrible. They were lifeless, right, They had that
Speaker 1: pre rigging thing, but those old ones were just molded
Speaker 1: plastic that didn't move, So you're just dragging a lifeless
Speaker 1: frog around. That's the thing where I think that the
Speaker 1: new owners recognize, like, how do we mix what worked
Speaker 1: old school and what people recognize remember and and sort
Speaker 1: of upgrade that. So I don't remember off the top
Speaker 1: of my head, but they're called but they're making they're
Speaker 1: making frogs with the old school rigged weedless hook but
Speaker 1: now they've got some legs that look like they're gonna move.
Speaker 1: And it's pretty cool, wacky colors and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's worth at least checking out. I think it's cool.
Speaker 1: You were talking about an old technology and fish, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about a new technology easy. I went
Speaker 1: really long on my first story, so I'm keeping this
Speaker 1: one short. And for those of you been listening for
Speaker 1: a while, you might remember around a year ago, I
Speaker 1: was on this kick about bioengineering, specifically how fish could
Speaker 1: help engineers design all kinds of new technology, from cloaking
Speaker 1: devices to super armored, two more efficient battleships, predators suits totally,
Speaker 1: and I moved away from those kinds of stories because
Speaker 1: I felt like people might be getting tired of them.
Speaker 1: But it's been a while, so I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bring one back. The same researcher who did the study
Speaker 1: on incorporating carp scale design into body armor. Remember that
Speaker 1: one so same guy recently published a paper looking into
Speaker 1: the engineering intricacies of fish fins, which I hadn't thought about,
Speaker 1: but makes sense. That's why they have that job and
Speaker 1: not me. Researchers have long known that fish fins are
Speaker 1: incredibly effective and efficient, allowing fish to navigate and maneuver
Speaker 1: underwater quickly, precisely, and with minimal energy expenditure, but they
Speaker 1: didn't understand the specific mechanisms that make fins such fine instruments.
Speaker 1: The details of this get a little walky even for me,
Speaker 1: but the short of it is that their structures combine
Speaker 1: rigidity and flexibility. Makes sense, Yeah, yeah. Fins are made
Speaker 1: up of any number of rays right, what some people
Speaker 1: call spines, with fleshy webbing in between those rays, and
Speaker 1: fish can manipulate the individual rays within the same fin independently,
Speaker 1: given them very precise control m h. Each ray in
Speaker 1: a fin is made up of multiple segments of hard
Speaker 1: material that stack on top of much softer collagen, making
Speaker 1: them the perfect balance between bouncy and stiff. According to
Speaker 1: Francois bart a lot. I could get off on a
Speaker 1: joke with that comment, I know. According to lead Authrough
Speaker 1: the study quote, until recently the function of those segments
Speaker 1: hadn't been clear, so he dug in to figure out
Speaker 1: what exactly those segments do. He told Science Daily, all
Speaker 1: of the segments essentially create these tiny hinges along the
Speaker 1: ray or the spine. When you try to compress or
Speaker 1: pull on those bony layers, they have a very high stiffness.
Speaker 1: This is critical for the raid to resist and produce
Speaker 1: hydrodynamic forces that push on water. But if you try
Speaker 1: to bend individual bony layers, they're very compliant, and that
Speaker 1: part is critical for the rays to deform easily from
Speaker 1: the base muscles. Barth. The Latin team have successfully recreated
Speaker 1: as as complicated all that sounds to me, I I
Speaker 1: just the way I picture it is like tons of
Speaker 1: tiny little hinges within the ray, Like they are a
Speaker 1: bunch of really stiff small pieces connected with collagen stack
Speaker 1: up into a ray. That's how I pictured in my head.
Speaker 1: I I'm with you. It's it's heavy and interesting. What
Speaker 1: are we making out of it? What are we making
Speaker 1: out of well? So the team have successfully recreated fin
Speaker 1: structures that incorporate all those hinges with a three d printer,
Speaker 1: so they're actually recreating them in plastic. The kind of work.
Speaker 1: So they're moving along, and the hope is that this
Speaker 1: technology will inform both aircraft and submersible designs. So like,
Speaker 1: take a second, imagine a drone with wings that have
Speaker 1: the dynamic capacity for subtle adjustment like a fish is
Speaker 1: fin right, So it's like a design like that. It
Speaker 1: is probably a long way out, but it could completely
Speaker 1: transform aviation. So when Amazon drones start delivering groceries and
Speaker 1: spying through your windows, their wings might look just a
Speaker 1: whole lot like fish fins. Bring that up all this
Speaker 1: to talk about the Amazon. I couldn't help myself, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, Well it's it's a drone. I might not
Speaker 1: crash too so far that's uh, that hasn't existed. Hard
Speaker 1: to do. I think that's fascinating. Man. We've had a
Speaker 1: lot of good ones. Remember the shark skin on the
Speaker 1: bottom of boats to make the more efficient in the water.
Speaker 1: So at least this is going to aviation and submersible
Speaker 1: technology like not you know, I don't know a swift
Speaker 1: or sweeper that like we'll get under your couch without
Speaker 1: you bending over or anything like that. You know, well
Speaker 1: I would too with fish fin technology. UM. Always fascinated
Speaker 1: by these man. You know, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: things that we claim we can borrow from fish to
Speaker 1: make our lives better. I wonder, like, thirty years from now,
Speaker 1: how like how much will this will be just common?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, between the armor and the fins, Like,
Speaker 1: how much of this are we really going to see?
Speaker 1: Remember the one we did on on the potentially biodegradable
Speaker 1: plastic made out of fish carcasses. Yes, that would be great.
Speaker 1: I'd love to see that. Yeah. Yeah, Well, no matter
Speaker 1: no matter how smart the people are coming up with
Speaker 1: all these things we can we can we can do
Speaker 1: with fish carcasses and whatnot. Um, I I still don't
Speaker 1: think they're going to impress Peter very much. And I
Speaker 1: would I would like to say before I begin this,
Speaker 1: uh this last story, that I go out of my
Speaker 1: way to like really never give any press to Peter,
Speaker 1: but today I have to. And I'm sorry because this
Speaker 1: is just too much fun and and and too much us.
Speaker 1: I think we'll have a little bit of a good
Speaker 1: time here. So we've taken some pretty deep dives on
Speaker 1: the show about birds wrapped in fishing, line right, And
Speaker 1: what we ultimately agree on is that you you need
Speaker 1: to be a steward out there. I think most of
Speaker 1: you people listening are, and while certain things are going
Speaker 1: to happen that we can't easily fix a remedy, we
Speaker 1: make the effort to not leave mono lying around or
Speaker 1: you know, get that lore or fly out of a
Speaker 1: tree if possible, and so on. Nobody, including us, wants
Speaker 1: to see birds wrapped up in fishing line. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: last week Peter thought, hey, you know, Labor Day weekend
Speaker 1: long weekend is fast approaching. Families might be thinking about
Speaker 1: using that long weekend to fish, so we best hustle
Speaker 1: up and put out some fresh anti fishing propaganda and
Speaker 1: change some minds. But this time, rather than go with
Speaker 1: the your dad's a murderer cruelty to fish angle that
Speaker 1: I actually don't think worked very well for them over
Speaker 1: the years, now it's birds getting wrapped in fishing line
Speaker 1: that is now the main reason you should never, ever,
Speaker 1: not ever once go fishing. And basically now they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: if you fish, clearly you also give zero shits about
Speaker 1: the health of birds in our environment. So wait, because
Speaker 1: the punch lines still coming. So they released a video
Speaker 1: of PETA team in full PETA uniform responding to a
Speaker 1: call that looks like it's a Pea T shirt. Okay,
Speaker 1: can you It was like like a furry costume was
Speaker 1: picturing like a furry convention, so so much better. It's
Speaker 1: really just a Pea T shirt and hat. Alright, alright,
Speaker 1: trying to be a little dramatic, you know. So they're
Speaker 1: in the full PETA uniform responding to a call about
Speaker 1: a blue heron hanging from a tree via discarded fishing line,
Speaker 1: and of course, as you can imagine, it's very sad music.
Speaker 1: They went back to the Sarah McLaughlin deal. It's very downer.
Speaker 1: And in the story it says quote while they were
Speaker 1: able to paddle to the scene and free the heron,
Speaker 1: the badly injured bird died on the way to emergency
Speaker 1: veterinary care, and countless other animals endure similar fates as
Speaker 1: a result of discarded fishing tackle. Now I watched this
Speaker 1: video and they did not paddle all the way to
Speaker 1: the bird. The opening scenes are the crew in said
Speaker 1: PETA uniforms loading their kayak onto a small center console
Speaker 1: boat that is brimming with rigged fishing rods, which suggests
Speaker 1: to me that they leaned on some local angler or
Speaker 1: charter captain to get them and their kayak to the
Speaker 1: entangled heron. Now, isn't Here's what I'm saying, right, whoever
Speaker 1: owns that boat, whoever that guy is, I don't fault him. Right,
Speaker 1: Like if someone said to me, like I was coming
Speaker 1: into the dock and they were like, hey, dude, there's
Speaker 1: a burden trouble we want to save it. Can you
Speaker 1: give us a lift? I'd say, yeah, sure, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, no problem, Like again, all four
Speaker 1: saving birds don't want to see bad things happen to birds.
Speaker 1: But is it just me? Or is the hypocrisy a
Speaker 1: little strong there? You know what I mean? Like the
Speaker 1: organization comes down so fiercely on anglers. I would just
Speaker 1: assume they wouldn't even give someone who fishes the time
Speaker 1: him of day, you know what I mean? Now, Like
Speaker 1: maybe one rod, fine, Peter can look the other way.
Speaker 1: A guy with one rod might just be like a
Speaker 1: little bit horrible. But but this happened in Virginia, and
Speaker 1: I I know some Virginia boys. I got some Virginia friends.
Speaker 1: And most of the time when you've got six fairly
Speaker 1: heavy rods rigged and ready on the bow, like you're
Speaker 1: angling to put some reds or flounder or cats or
Speaker 1: croakers in the damn cooler. And according to Peter in
Speaker 1: their own story, by their own words, such people quote
Speaker 1: hook gentle animals through their sensitive amounts, watch them slowly suffocate,
Speaker 1: and sometimes even gut them while they're still alive. Okay,
Speaker 1: they used to pull the hog out and they used
Speaker 1: to eat it, your hypocrites, ohyah. So so maybe the
Speaker 1: average non angler wouldn't have caught that, but I did.
Speaker 1: I saw it, Peter, And shame on you, Like that's
Speaker 1: not right, Like we can't be that hard. If we're
Speaker 1: so awful, why would you even dared get on a
Speaker 1: boat with six rigged fishing rods with maybe popping quicks
Speaker 1: and knocker rigs on them, you know, so very I mean,
Speaker 1: the thing about Peter is that they don't. They have
Speaker 1: never trafficed in the logic. And I think I think
Speaker 1: I think the people at high Up and Peter would
Speaker 1: admit that. I think they'd be like, no, no no, no
Speaker 1: appeals to logic or not. What we do. We appeal
Speaker 1: to emotion. That's what we do, sure, and that's why
Speaker 1: the you know, most of our membership is made up
Speaker 1: of children between eight and fourteen. I mean, that's who
Speaker 1: they're targeting to be like, your parents are terrible, don't
Speaker 1: do this. They're they're they're just plucking those emotional heartstrings
Speaker 1: without having to do the messy work of making it
Speaker 1: makes sense. And they're very good at that they are.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because this this video was was only
Speaker 1: a couple of days old when I watched it, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just just commenting on what I see
Speaker 1: with my own eyes. The view count on this one
Speaker 1: was very low. They were like twelve comments, and it
Speaker 1: was all people that were just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: praise you for this content, for the herring. I mean,
Speaker 1: if if if we want to you just fall it off.
Speaker 1: In the last decade, they kind of I think so
Speaker 1: like there was nobody even there bothering to troll them.
Speaker 1: And like, if you're, by the way, if you're one
Speaker 1: of those people out there that are like you just
Speaker 1: live to troll ship, You're welcome because I just gave
Speaker 1: you the AMMO. I'm not doing it, but by all means,
Speaker 1: get on the video and be like how about them
Speaker 1: six fishing rods with the knocker rigs, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? And one could also say that herron in
Speaker 1: the eyes of many anglers, is just like one step
Speaker 1: above cormorant, you know what I mean. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to save the fish, yeah, you might
Speaker 1: want to whack. Just let that heron go. Just get
Speaker 1: out there and take out some cormorants and it will
Speaker 1: all be good. Uh, we'll see who who Phil has
Speaker 1: mercy on this week. Gave him a lot to think
Speaker 1: about there. As soon as we're done, we're gonna jump
Speaker 1: right into fin clips. Um. If you didn't think you
Speaker 1: knew anything about the snail darter, let's see what you
Speaker 1: know about gold eye Joe Surmill for your eagle eyed
Speaker 1: Peter video viewing this week, you have been crowned the
Speaker 1: winner by me, just as an eagle. Don't get cotton
Speaker 1: some fishing line. Also, when you were sharing your story
Speaker 1: about DeLong Lures, a beloved company shuttered for decades only
Speaker 1: to reopen again. When some passers by spot smoke rising
Speaker 1: from the chimneys, it reminded me of something else, a
Speaker 1: similar story. Come with me and you'll be in a
Speaker 1: world of your imagination. You don't think that maybe David
Speaker 1: DeLong will hide five golden bass lures in bait shops
Speaker 1: around the world, invite these five lucky winners to the factory.
Speaker 1: Just think about it. There will be a chocolate river
Speaker 1: filled with muskie, the snasberries taste like salt water, and
Speaker 1: one lucky winner will be taken up to his great
Speaker 1: glass catamaran into the sky, where they'll be given the
Speaker 1: keys to DeLong Lowers and let their wildest dreams come true.
Speaker 1: Just make sure you don't get tempted to steal their
Speaker 1: ideas and sell them off to Heart or Venom or
Speaker 1: some other lure company that I just googled or else. Well,
Speaker 1: you lose good day, sir. Pictured the scene late summer
Speaker 1: in southwest Montana, fingers wrapped around or handles in the
Speaker 1: middle of a drift boat floating into that blurry geographic
Speaker 1: edge where craggy peaks and vertical creeks give way to
Speaker 1: the meandering grasslands of the prairie. I'm in my third
Speaker 1: season as a fishing guide, salty enough to have earned
Speaker 1: intimacy on a respectable number of river miles, but green
Speaker 1: enough to still find myself in unknown territory when I
Speaker 1: get sucked into the gravitational pull of multi boat trips.
Speaker 1: This was one of those trips. The outfitter I was
Speaker 1: working for called the play lower Yellowstone. This is back
Speaker 1: in the day when anything below Big Timber felt as
Speaker 1: remote as come Chotka, and we were well below Big Timber.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact that I had to follow the caravan
Speaker 1: to find the put in and stay within range of
Speaker 1: the other boats to make sure I didn't miss the
Speaker 1: take out, everything had gone surprisingly well. The clients rod
Speaker 1: stayed bent most of the day, and the gentleman in
Speaker 1: the back, who would later go on to fish dozens
Speaker 1: of days with me, even managed a two foot brown
Speaker 1: trout on a size sixteen dry fly. I was feeling heroic,
Speaker 1: but at six pm we were still drifting pitching grasshoppers
Speaker 1: along brushy banks beside overgrazed fields, and I had no
Speaker 1: idea where we were. For me, the fish had fallen
Speaker 1: back on the priority list. We had already caught plenty,
Speaker 1: and I was more concerned with making sure we didn't
Speaker 1: end up floating to billings. The clients cast their flies
Speaker 1: to the edge of a big back eddy behind a
Speaker 1: rip rap point I hardly noticed the aggressive slash on
Speaker 1: the surface, but yelled out set instinctively. The client in
Speaker 1: the front lifted his rod, and the strangest thing happened
Speaker 1: there in the golden light of the late afternoon, against
Speaker 1: the backdrop of sun bleached grasses, the fish broke from
Speaker 1: the water and shook its head. I thought I was hallucinating,
Speaker 1: because I knew damn well there are no baby turpin
Speaker 1: in the yellow Stone River. But if forced to identify
Speaker 1: that fish off one distant jump, that's probably what I
Speaker 1: would have gassed. Once we scooped it into the net
Speaker 1: and I got a good long look at the deep bodied,
Speaker 1: silver scaled specimen with its massive, jaundiced eyes, I had
Speaker 1: even less idea what I was looking at. The client asked,
Speaker 1: what is that? It's a Missouri river shed. I responded,
Speaker 1: hoping that the confidence in my voice would smother any
Speaker 1: follow up questions. Maybe the client, being from South Carolina,
Speaker 1: knew little about the native species of the Rockies and
Speaker 1: the plains, or maybe he was just polite enough not
Speaker 1: to want to make me look like a jackass in
Speaker 1: my own boat. Either way, he acted satisfied with my answer.
Speaker 1: We released the fish and hit the take out ramp
Speaker 1: just at dark over Beers. Later that night, I told
Speaker 1: one of the other guides about the mystery fish. Well,
Speaker 1: that was a gold eye, he explained. You catch those
Speaker 1: in the lower river, where the white fish end the
Speaker 1: gold eye begin. Hia don alisoids can be found all
Speaker 1: over North America, from the Quebec Ontario border to the
Speaker 1: Canadian Rockies, from central Montana to Louisiana, and throughout the
Speaker 1: Missouri and Mississippi river systems. I wasn't that far off
Speaker 1: in my creative renaming of this fish. The word alisoidas
Speaker 1: the Latin name for the species, actually means shed like.
Speaker 1: They look remarkably similar to shad, but they are not
Speaker 1: at all related. I was not the first person to
Speaker 1: have difficulty classifying these fish. Either. Gold eye and their
Speaker 1: cousins moon i are not closely related to any other
Speaker 1: living fishes. Though their ancestors go back at least thirty
Speaker 1: four million years in the fossil record, they're the only
Speaker 1: ones left in their genus and order. Taxonomists and biologists
Speaker 1: have struggled to figure out where these somewhat generic, silvery
Speaker 1: looking fish fit into the evolutionary puzzle for a long time.
Speaker 1: And they still don't really know. Up until recently, these
Speaker 1: fish were thought to be related to African knife fish,
Speaker 1: though that hypothesis seems to have been recently discounted. Gold
Speaker 1: eye are generally found in large rivers like the Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio,
Speaker 1: and read. They prefer to hang out in eddies and
Speaker 1: backwaters adjacent to the main flow. As with so many
Speaker 1: fish that don't have strong commercial or recreational value, much
Speaker 1: about these fish remains kind of mysterious. Despite their wide
Speaker 1: distribution and relatively high abundance, no one has ever observed
Speaker 1: gold eye spawning. We know they spawned sometime between late
Speaker 1: winter and spring, depending on the latitude, and that some
Speaker 1: populations make spawning migrations of a hundred miles or so.
Speaker 1: Most sources claim that their broadcast spawners, but one paper
Speaker 1: hypothesizes that males cut their anal fins to the vents
Speaker 1: of females, and that both the male and female release
Speaker 1: their game meats into the male's cup fin, which sounds
Speaker 1: at least a little more intimate and satisfying than broadcast spawning.
Speaker 1: Those fertilized eggs are coated in oil, which makes them
Speaker 1: semi buoyant, meaning the eggs don't sink, they suspend and
Speaker 1: drift just below the surface. While this is common in
Speaker 1: marine fishes, it's almost unheard of for freshwater species. After
Speaker 1: drifting for about two weeks, the eggs hatch into larvae
Speaker 1: that continue to hang out on the surface, suspended vertically
Speaker 1: looking skyward. Whereas most smaller freshwater fish grow and reproduce
Speaker 1: quickly as an evolutionary strategy, gold eye take their time.
Speaker 1: Males don't reach sexual maturity for six to nine years,
Speaker 1: and for females it can take up to a decade.
Speaker 1: Even though these fish rarely exceed twenty inches in length,
Speaker 1: they can live up to thirty years. Gold Eye got
Speaker 1: their name from their oversized and distinctive yellow orange eyeballs,
Speaker 1: which are one of the few characteristics that set them
Speaker 1: apart from moon i. Unlike moone i, gold eye are
Speaker 1: better able to see and feed in turbid water, and
Speaker 1: are therefore more likely to be found in flows that
Speaker 1: lack clarity than their moony relatives. Though woefully unsung, these
Speaker 1: fisher tailor made for light tackle fishing. First off, they
Speaker 1: eat anything, and I mean truly anything they can get
Speaker 1: ahold of, While the majority of their diet consists of
Speaker 1: aquatic and terrestrial insects. They also eat plenty of bait fish.
Speaker 1: Earlier this summer, my buddy Rick Mattne, who's been on
Speaker 1: the show before, called to inform me that his clients
Speaker 1: had caught no less than a dozen gold eye on
Speaker 1: mouse flies that day. You can fish for them just
Speaker 1: about any way you want. Dry flies, nymphs, streamers, spinners, spoons,
Speaker 1: small jerk baits, worms, crickets, minnows, you name it. If
Speaker 1: you get it in front of a gold eye, it'll
Speaker 1: probably get lunched. They are most active at night and
Speaker 1: during low light periods, but can be caught any time
Speaker 1: of the day. Once hooked, most gold ie will give
Speaker 1: you at least one good jump. They like to put
Speaker 1: on a show. I've only heard two knocks against gold Eye.
Speaker 1: One they don't get real big. A fifteen injur is respectable,
Speaker 1: and a twenty inch or is a hog. But come on,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's true for most trout fisheries. The other
Speaker 1: complaint I've heard is that they lack stamina. They give
Speaker 1: you a couple of good runs, a jump too, and
Speaker 1: then give up. But to me, that's hardly a major problem.
Speaker 1: What do you expect from a fish that rarely cracks
Speaker 1: two pounds. Since that first day I had one coming
Speaker 1: to my net as bycatch, I have enjoyed many a
Speaker 1: fine evening fishing for gold eye. I generally target them
Speaker 1: in late summer when they're eager to come to the
Speaker 1: surface for grasshoppers, ants, and beetles. I've never eaten one personally,
Speaker 1: but I've heard they're similar to shed and herring. Good smoked,
Speaker 1: but not something you want to bother fling due to
Speaker 1: the bones and the oil. Speaking of their oily meat,
Speaker 1: I do happen to know that freshly caught gold I
Speaker 1: make dynamite cut bait for channel cats. I have never
Speaker 1: caught a moone i myself, but I hear that they
Speaker 1: are very similar. If you live anywhere near a large
Speaker 1: river between the Rockies and the Appalachians, chances are good
Speaker 1: one or both of these fish are swimming around close
Speaker 1: to home, and they're probably not seeing a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1: Next time you're in the mood to try something different,
Speaker 1: grab an ultra light rod or five weight and go
Speaker 1: prospects some slack water pockets, and remember, no matter what
Speaker 1: your eyes or your guide tell you, it's not a
Speaker 1: baby tarpet. So while I am familiar with moone I,
Speaker 1: I was actually pretty unaware of this fish. I gotta
Speaker 1: say most people are most people are we we we
Speaker 1: We've had a few listeners hit us up about given
Speaker 1: the moon I some love. But the truth is I've
Speaker 1: never personally caught a mooney, so I can't speak to them.
Speaker 1: I can't do that segment. But if there are anything
Speaker 1: like gold at which they are are, then I consider
Speaker 1: them totally badass. Yeah and and sadly, I can't do
Speaker 1: the moon I either because I I haven't caught one either.
Speaker 1: Right and this summer, yeah no, this summer I was.
Speaker 1: I was in their presence. However, while shooting a B
Speaker 1: side episode for this upcoming season, they were in the river.
Speaker 1: I was fishing, dude. I was fishing with Tyler Winner.
Speaker 1: He caught one, um and I even switched to like
Speaker 1: dry and wet flies, real small stuff, specifically looking to
Speaker 1: hook one for a little while. But the water was
Speaker 1: just it was crazy high. It's kind of a long story,
Speaker 1: you'll see it later, but the conditions just weren't great.
Speaker 1: So I spent some time trying. It just didn't happen.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, I think there's there's something in the
Speaker 1: future maybe should be considered about gold iron MOONI because
Speaker 1: they are underappreciated, really cool fish, particularly on a fly rod.
Speaker 1: But but on anything they Yeah. Anyway, on the subject
Speaker 1: of missed opportunities, Joe is about to tell you about
Speaker 1: his uh shall we say, rocky relationship, a particular fly
Speaker 1: pattern that lots of people swear are by, but me personally,
Speaker 1: I have yet to even tie one onto the end
Speaker 1: of my line. But perhaps after this I'll finally get
Speaker 1: on the bus. Well, that's not loud enough. The Drunken
Speaker 1: Disorderly streamer, often shortened to just the D and D,
Speaker 1: was created by Michigan based trout guide Tom Lynch, and
Speaker 1: the drunk came into existence about fifteen years ago, and
Speaker 1: one could even argue that this pattern marked the very
Speaker 1: first blatant attempt by a fly tire to recreate the
Speaker 1: action and presentation of a very specific conventional lure, in
Speaker 1: this case, the classic rapple of floater. Since then, fly
Speaker 1: anglers have largely embraced this premise, leaning on everything from
Speaker 1: synthetic paddle tails to plastic lips to make their streamers
Speaker 1: look more like lures, which is ironic, is it not.
Speaker 1: I've always thought so, because while tying flies that do
Speaker 1: lure things is okay, I guess just picking up a
Speaker 1: spinning rod and casting laure's that do lure things is
Speaker 1: not acceptable to many of these fly dudes. But I digress.
Speaker 1: I interviewed Tom Lynch about the D and D years ago,
Speaker 1: and what he told me is that he believed it
Speaker 1: was the erratic jack knifing that made a classic rapple
Speaker 1: is so effective. He believed that that quick kick to
Speaker 1: the side that revealed the laura's full profile and flash
Speaker 1: was the ultimate trigger. This explains the unique downward angled,
Speaker 1: wedge shaped head of a drunken disorderly, which is carved
Speaker 1: out of tightly packed deer hair. Tom will tell you
Speaker 1: straight up that that head is one modeled after a
Speaker 1: rappleas lip, and I will tell you that the first
Speaker 1: time I ever used the D and D, I hated
Speaker 1: the damn thing. Drunks are available in several sizes, but
Speaker 1: the O, G, D and D is approximately four inches long, jointed,
Speaker 1: sporting two hooks, packed with flash and rounded out by
Speaker 1: mallard feathers and rabbit strips strategically ashened to make the fly, keel,
Speaker 1: jackknife and pivot. The first D and D I ever
Speaker 1: owned was given to me by a guide buddy on
Speaker 1: the Upper Delaware River that all he said to me
Speaker 1: was these are really good man. A few months later
Speaker 1: I tied the fly on during a miserable float on
Speaker 1: the same river, after miles of moving zero fish on streamers,
Speaker 1: and said, you know what, this thing really sucks? Man.
Speaker 1: All I knew of it was that it was modeled
Speaker 1: after the rapilists. So I cast and stripped in long,
Speaker 1: steady pulls, assuming it would dig and wobble like a
Speaker 1: stick bait. But all it did was spin around awkwardly
Speaker 1: and really pissed me off. Of course, the problem here, however,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the fly. It was just my ignorance. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't get educated until the following winter, when I met
Speaker 1: my buddy and guide Nick Raftist on the Lehigh River
Speaker 1: in eastern Pennsylvania. Tie on a drunk, he said, bullshit,
Speaker 1: I said, But then he explained a few things. He
Speaker 1: had been fishing his drunks on longer leaders, maybe seven
Speaker 1: ft instead of the usual four or five we both
Speaker 1: like for streamers. He was using a heavier sink tip,
Speaker 1: helping to create a belly between the fly and the
Speaker 1: end of the line faster on splashdown. I took his
Speaker 1: word for it, figuring I'll give this a mile before
Speaker 1: I switched to a different pattern. Nick also explained that
Speaker 1: it's all in the wrist. Don't overwork it, he said, short,
Speaker 1: fast wrist strips, and all of a sudden, I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you that drunk came to life kicking this way
Speaker 1: than that, spinning around on itself, diving down on one
Speaker 1: strip and rising up on the next, and within a
Speaker 1: quarter mile I had a brown come out and just
Speaker 1: freaking slam it. And I'd end up taking four more
Speaker 1: solid fish throughout the day, which is a high number
Speaker 1: for the time of year and the part of the
Speaker 1: river we were fishing on. Now, in the years since,
Speaker 1: I've caught hundreds more browns on a D and D.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I won't go streamer fishing without one.
Speaker 1: I have witnessed its magical ability to conjure up strikes
Speaker 1: when no other streamer has on way more than just
Speaker 1: one occasion, almost suggesting that when a drunk is doing
Speaker 1: its thing and really working properly, it makes trout so
Speaker 1: freaking mad. They just have to kill it, even if
Speaker 1: they're not really in the mood to chew. Like most
Speaker 1: gaudy streamers, the drunk kicks the most ass in slightly high,
Speaker 1: slightly stained water, but even in low clear water it
Speaker 1: has really earned its keep, and not just on trout
Speaker 1: but small mouths too. Yes, you could say I've grown
Speaker 1: to love fishing the drunk. Tying it. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: well not so much, because it's arguably one of the
Speaker 1: most difficult streamers to tie. Getting from the tail through
Speaker 1: the collar, that's a piece of cake. Anyone can do that.
Speaker 1: But screw up that head and it's over. It simply
Speaker 1: will not perform. It will not swim if that head
Speaker 1: is slightly off. And I've gotten to the point where
Speaker 1: if I nail the head on the first try in
Speaker 1: one out of four attempts, I'm pretty proud. But really,
Speaker 1: at the fly tying desk, I hate this fan fly Well,
Speaker 1: we are just about out of opportunities to say things
Speaker 1: that might get us fired or humiliated. But before we go,
Speaker 1: remember that priests, pastors, rabbis, ministers and moms, monks and
Speaker 1: other religious leaders might just leave their piety at the
Speaker 1: dock and turn into regular foul mouth anglers when they
Speaker 1: go fishing. Amen, our friends at their team fishing don't
Speaker 1: care how much of a degenerate you are and are
Speaker 1: offering you off your next purchase. Amen. Again, there are
Speaker 1: no tarpin shed or herring in the Mountain West, no
Speaker 1: matter what your idiot guide tells you. And Joe doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be drunken disorderly to admit he's wrong about
Speaker 1: the drunk and disorderly. No, I do not please send
Speaker 1: any and all stories of you putting your feet in
Speaker 1: your mouths, as well as any bar nominations, sabin items,
Speaker 1: awkward phishing photos, and phish news suggestions to Bent at
Speaker 1: the meat eater dot com and keep on tagging your
Speaker 1: posts with the Generate Angler and Bent podcast. And if
Speaker 1: you want to keep up with all the stupid things
Speaker 1: your fellow degenerates say and do on the socials, you
Speaker 1: might want to follow those hashtags as well. And finally,
Speaker 1: I'd just like to give a special thanks to my wife, who,
Speaker 1: though not an actual surgeon, has skillfully removed my toes
Speaker 1: from my tonsils more times than I can down