Speaker 1: So to stimulate those neurons, I commonly whip out my
Speaker 1: zippo and my soft pack of camels and light up
Speaker 1: a ciggy while battling five foot waves in whirlpools and
Speaker 1: no winning, because we're a bunch of inbred genetic deficiency
Speaker 1: to enjoy fishing for other inbred genetic deficients. If it's
Speaker 1: some kind of like you know, tweedledum olive, I don't
Speaker 1: need to know it's the name. It's there's a little
Speaker 1: green flight. That's what they're eating, right, So we're good.
Speaker 1: If you don't like my ads, I don't care. You
Speaker 1: can buy a canoe somewhere else. I'm not the only
Speaker 1: guy in America selling canoes. Good morning, degenerate Anglers, and
Speaker 1: welcome to Bent the Fishing Podcast. It's feeling confused because
Speaker 1: it's no longer sure if saying it stroke it on
Speaker 1: the water yesterday is a good or bad thing. I'm
Speaker 1: Joe Surmelie, I'm Miles Nulty, and I feel like we're
Speaker 1: I feel like we're about to dig into a core
Speaker 1: issue that's facing the fishing community. Yeah, this is d
Speaker 1: I think we're doing doing good things, doing good service
Speaker 1: for context. This all stems from a conversation Joe and
Speaker 1: I had recently when I went out and visited him
Speaker 1: on that that right coast out there, and some confusion
Speaker 1: ensued over the use of the verb to stroke in
Speaker 1: relation to fishing success. The words seems to have opposite
Speaker 1: meetings on our respective sides of the continent, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: Indeed it does, because in the conversation you you told
Speaker 1: me that out west, stroking it on the water meant
Speaker 1: you absolutely crushed it. You just hammered the fish. And
Speaker 1: when you said that, it forced me I actually had
Speaker 1: to check myself. I questioned my own longstanding use of
Speaker 1: the term, because I have always used it negatively, like
Speaker 1: stroked it to me means you had a really shitty day,
Speaker 1: like you caught absolutely nothing. The joke, the joke, of course,
Speaker 1: being that instead of catching fish, you are just out
Speaker 1: there like wax in the carrot, you know, flog flog
Speaker 1: in the bishop, instead of getting getting real ship done
Speaker 1: on the water. That's aition I knew, and I think
Speaker 1: I think in in further talking this out, I think
Speaker 1: I've seen the semantic difference in terms of where it
Speaker 1: breaks down. But we'll get there before we do though,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you you like you went on a
Speaker 1: deep dive? You did? You did? You did science on this?
Speaker 1: What what did you do? I did? I actually I
Speaker 1: conducted a little text survey among my buddies and the
Speaker 1: results we're kind of interesting. This for like a science fair.
Speaker 1: I would win for this, um stroke hypothesis. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: all I did, I just simply blast texted the question.
Speaker 1: When you hear an angler say we stroked it yesterday,
Speaker 1: what do they mean? So of the fifteen people pulled,
Speaker 1: which is not a lot of people, right, we're not
Speaker 1: small samples small sample size exactly, but you know time
Speaker 1: is of the essence. Okay, Um, I think they were
Speaker 1: more of it, Peter, Yeah, they just didn't answer me. Right,
Speaker 1: This is not going in a science journal anyway. Um.
Speaker 1: Of the fifth teen people pulled, eight of them said
Speaker 1: that it means you blanked, you skunked, scratched, zeroed. That
Speaker 1: is the definition. I know. Interestingly though, right, Um, these
Speaker 1: were all people that fish the Northeast saltwater scene specifically,
Speaker 1: so they were all Northeast salty guys. That fascinating point
Speaker 1: makes sense, it is, It is fascinating, and I I
Speaker 1: am actually truthfully kind of on the edge of my
Speaker 1: seat to hear the rest of the But before we
Speaker 1: do that, I gotta I gotta jump in and uh
Speaker 1: may I suggest that the rod and reel from our
Speaker 1: good friends at thirteen Fishing might help you East Coasters
Speaker 1: stroke it less and us West guys stroke them a
Speaker 1: lot harder and more often. Yes, you can. You can
Speaker 1: suggest that all you want, as you guys now know,
Speaker 1: bent is brought to you by the cool people at
Speaker 1: thirteen Fishing. In Yes, we have both been fishing a
Speaker 1: ton of their stuff this season. Um, and it's extremely
Speaker 1: kick ass, very well made. And I gotta say, whether
Speaker 1: you I don't stroke it good or stroke it bad,
Speaker 1: you will. You will look good stroking it because thirteen
Speaker 1: is not afraid to make reels and rods with some
Speaker 1: flair and pizzazz like I've been. I've been snakehead fishing
Speaker 1: with their bright green inception sz um beginning of this season,
Speaker 1: in the end of last um and that bait cast.
Speaker 1: If nothing else, I'm never going to lose it, like
Speaker 1: You'll never set it down in big brush and have
Speaker 1: to hunt for it. It's right, it might even glow
Speaker 1: in the dark, So good stuff. It's true. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just how many times did you just say stroke it
Speaker 1: in one paragraph? You know, by the end if someone
Speaker 1: were to count the strokes in this episode by the end,
Speaker 1: you know, and then time it with a Pink Floyd record. No,
Speaker 1: so trippy, bro. But anyway, anyway, anyway, I want to
Speaker 1: hear about the remaining seven inches in your poll. Tell
Speaker 1: me about the polls. Okay, so sick. Out of those
Speaker 1: remaining seven people had never even heard the term used
Speaker 1: by anglers. This was completely far into them. Two of them, interestingly,
Speaker 1: were local to me, and the others were from the
Speaker 1: Midwest or the South, which includes Florida. But here's the
Speaker 1: fun part. Here's here. This is science, right, guy, I
Speaker 1: think sociology. There you go, So you got you're smarter. Um.
Speaker 1: Despite never hearing anyone utter the phrase stroked it as
Speaker 1: it relates to fishing, they all guessed that it would
Speaker 1: have a negative connotation. All right, I think I think
Speaker 1: your your samples are are skewed considering that it's just
Speaker 1: your friends. But what's give me the last one? There's
Speaker 1: one more. And the remaining person was guide Marty Ye,
Speaker 1: who guides on the Upper Della, where he's a good
Speaker 1: friend of mine. He's been on this show. Uh. He
Speaker 1: was the only one in the very small sample of
Speaker 1: folks that said, stroke it means you nailed it, you
Speaker 1: crushed right. But Marty, But Marty, this is here we
Speaker 1: go again. Marty also spent lots of time in the
Speaker 1: rockies in Alaska, which means you know, he's hung out
Speaker 1: with you. Positive stroke with us with people. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: the last thing I'll add, because I enjoyed it. My
Speaker 1: buddy Jimmy Banano made it a point to clarify that
Speaker 1: stroke it means you blank, but stroked them means you
Speaker 1: hammered them. Though I've never even heard I've never heard
Speaker 1: Jimmy use either of those terms. I've never heard anyone
Speaker 1: in my circles say we stroked them. It's always we
Speaker 1: stroked it, and it always means today sucked now. And
Speaker 1: that's like, that is the critical point of difference. That
Speaker 1: the them is the thing that defines the difference in
Speaker 1: these two phrases from different parts of country. See, I've
Speaker 1: never heard anyone in my circle say they stroked it.
Speaker 1: But when someone says, oh, we stroked him, it means
Speaker 1: they absolutely wailed on the fact like that is that
Speaker 1: is the the highest. If you're gonna describe your day
Speaker 1: in terms that you know, it's it's next levels. Dude,
Speaker 1: we stroked him. That that was you got it done.
Speaker 1: So like when I heard you, like when we were
Speaker 1: it happened because we were driving around and you were
Speaker 1: calling friends for a fishing report, and I was sitting
Speaker 1: next to you and you're on your cell phone and
Speaker 1: I heard you talking about stroking it and the phrase
Speaker 1: felt a little awkward, but I thought, you know, I
Speaker 1: assumed it was the same thing as stroking them, when
Speaker 1: in actuality, it was a complete opposite. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: brought up the context so that people just don't think
Speaker 1: we were just talking about stroking it in general for
Speaker 1: hours while you were here. Make you bloody, Mary, We'll
Speaker 1: go sit on on the veranda and talk about stroking it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, it was a little it was. It was
Speaker 1: a little confusing. But I feel like through this this uh,
Speaker 1: this sociological deep dive and and regional questioning, I think
Speaker 1: we really solved the problem to day. Joe. I you
Speaker 1: know me too. I feel we've done work today, We've contributed,
Speaker 1: We've made you all better, smarter, people. I'm very proud
Speaker 1: of us, But let's move on from stroking our own
Speaker 1: egos to stroking our fan base because we've got a
Speaker 1: regional fishing report that we're excited about. This one, we
Speaker 1: haven't done one well. Difference as as the majority of
Speaker 1: listeners have caught onto at least, I think our regional
Speaker 1: reports give us license to to just do some satire
Speaker 1: and some fiction, to have a little fun. However, this
Speaker 1: week's report is a legit. Its report is a loose
Speaker 1: term here. It's more of a commentary. But uh, you
Speaker 1: guys might recall a news piece that Joe covered not
Speaker 1: long ago on on the West Virginia gold Rush. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we talked about how West Virginia stocks just these insane
Speaker 1: numbers of genetically modified golden trout pretty much more than
Speaker 1: any other state, and listener Zack Smith felt it was
Speaker 1: his duty as a West Virginia native to clarify why
Speaker 1: West Virginia is so nuts so for bright orange freak
Speaker 1: rainbow trout. And Zach actually got his first shout out
Speaker 1: on this show a long time ago. Some of you
Speaker 1: may remember he sent us an article that he wrote
Speaker 1: about chummy for trout um. But after this after the
Speaker 1: after the audio's act. Don't be shocked if we make
Speaker 1: him our our full time appellation correspondent. Hey, Fellers, this
Speaker 1: is just y'all's favorite trout trummer, Zach from West by God, Virginia.
Speaker 1: So you are recently touched upon a topic that's hotter
Speaker 1: here than the Taco bell fire sauce. They using my
Speaker 1: microwab golden trout, and that's the West Virginia gold rush,
Speaker 1: all right. Now, First, and they explained why we've always
Speaker 1: stalked a higher proportion of goldie's in the other states.
Speaker 1: And no, it ain't because we're a bunch of inbred
Speaker 1: genetic deficiencies who enjoy fishing for other inbred genetic deficiencies.
Speaker 1: I mean, that would just be a quaintie dick. It's
Speaker 1: actually because of our affinity to the color gold, not
Speaker 1: the mineral. We ain't got golden into our hills, were
Speaker 1: sure as hell got cold. I mean, the two may rhyme,
Speaker 1: but that's about the limit to their relationship. So the
Speaker 1: best way to explain our affinity to the color, let's
Speaker 1: use a religious analogy to flesh this out. So in
Speaker 1: West Virginia, God is w vs football coach and Jesus
Speaker 1: is our w V basketball coach. So God, Jesus and
Speaker 1: all the other disciples will they wear blue and gold
Speaker 1: uniforms now they out come with the game on Saturday
Speaker 1: will impact what you're saying in your head on your
Speaker 1: knees in church on Sunday. Thus, the color gold holds
Speaker 1: a special place in our hearts. And let me tell
Speaker 1: you this, once our d n R figures out a
Speaker 1: way to pread blue trial, West Virginia will truly have
Speaker 1: exceeded our slogan of almost head, because at that time
Speaker 1: I'm gonna petition to have our slogan changed too. You
Speaker 1: know that song by Apple of the Dog say Hello
Speaker 1: to Heaven. That's right now. The funny thing about that
Speaker 1: is that there are actually blue trout like I remember
Speaker 1: I wrote about them years ago, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: it's a genetic mutation that naturally occurs in hatchery trout,
Speaker 1: which seems like an oxy moron. I'd i'd have to
Speaker 1: go re research, but I think, um, it's like the
Speaker 1: hatcheries can create all the golden trout, they want all
Speaker 1: the orange ones, but they can't create the blue trout
Speaker 1: on demand. That just kind of happens naturally, but only
Speaker 1: the truck trout, and and I've seen it written about
Speaker 1: most occurring in Pennsylvania hatcheries. So Zach will have to
Speaker 1: get a merry, merry band of coal miners together and
Speaker 1: hop the border and go on a rogue stocking mission.
Speaker 1: I guess that would that would really close the loop.
Speaker 1: And you're you're, you're right on the blue trout thing.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a random mutation that occurs in about
Speaker 1: point zero zero zero zero seven hatchery rainbow, so very rare.
Speaker 1: And and as you're saying, at least in Pennsylvania, they
Speaker 1: try to remove all the blue mutants from the stock
Speaker 1: before they plant the fish, like they don't want those
Speaker 1: getting into the trucks and out into the streams. And
Speaker 1: I don't know the reason behind that, but I know
Speaker 1: they don't. They don't want them getting out in the wild.
Speaker 1: But your chances of catching one are very rare. So
Speaker 1: that piece was a great fallow up too to the
Speaker 1: news story. Ran how about we uh, how about we
Speaker 1: stick with theme here, Let's do a follow up to
Speaker 1: a sale bin we did not too long ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're just we're just taking deep dives on previous segments here,
Speaker 1: but this one is a gem. This is so freaking good,
Speaker 1: this is amazing. I hope that all of you remember
Speaker 1: the ad we covered from craig List, written by Jerry
Speaker 1: Jared with the g Who's selling? Who's selling? Used canoe?
Speaker 1: And uh, we've learned there's more to the Jerry saga.
Speaker 1: There's a lot here we kind of dug in thanks
Speaker 1: to some help. And if you need either a used
Speaker 1: canoe or a cup of tea, you gotta go can
Speaker 1: But Jerry, why did you put the hand to pay
Speaker 1: You don't know what I'm getting. Man, you didn't have
Speaker 1: to be so hurtful with me, so angry. So a
Speaker 1: few weeks back, we did a sale bin about Jerry
Speaker 1: and he was the guy selling a canoe with no
Speaker 1: photo but a very compelling, if poorly copy edited Craigslist ad,
Speaker 1: and uh, Jerry gave us the idea for our Billy
Speaker 1: Wants a Shotgun stickers, which are coming soon. I can
Speaker 1: I can promise you that many of you expressed interest
Speaker 1: in this sticker, as we knew you would, Billy Wants Shotgun. Uh.
Speaker 1: After airing that segment, we got this email that, uh, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just dig into it here. It came from a
Speaker 1: guy named Bryan Adams, whose name we're trying really hard
Speaker 1: not to make fun of right now. But you must
Speaker 1: really love his music. Huh yeah, he's He's he's pretty,
Speaker 1: He's pretty good. I guess your gut am right, he is.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Brian can not help myself anyway. Bryan Adams
Speaker 1: rode into inform us that Jerry's post was not a
Speaker 1: random one off drunken lark like we thought it was. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: It turns out Jerry runs a regular satirical canoe sale
Speaker 1: operation out of his house and uh and best of all,
Speaker 1: Brian has actually met Jerry. And here here's what what
Speaker 1: Brian wrote us. He said, you missed the mark on
Speaker 1: Jerry slightly. He has been running ads for use canoes
Speaker 1: for well over a year, started pre COVID. He actually
Speaker 1: buys and sells quite a few of them, gets beat
Speaker 1: up ones for cheap hammers the dents out, and makes
Speaker 1: a few bucks. I know because I traded one with
Speaker 1: him last spring and made the swap at a Trent
Speaker 1: And gas station. So he actually does sell canoes and
Speaker 1: a lot of them, but is just looking for conversation
Speaker 1: you nailed that part. Yeah. Well, so Unfortunately Brian didn't
Speaker 1: elaborate on his exchange with Jerry. I know station, and
Speaker 1: I gotta say, right, this is like I grew up
Speaker 1: in Trenton, My childhood home was in Trenton. This is
Speaker 1: my turf, and I gotta say, um that that's probably
Speaker 1: like the most benign handoff that's ever happened at a
Speaker 1: Trenton gas station because I've spent some time, you know,
Speaker 1: at Trenton liquor stores before I was of age, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, so it is what it is, um, But
Speaker 1: I I can't imagine wanting to spend more than two
Speaker 1: minutes at a Trenton gas station. And I can't help
Speaker 1: but wonder how long Brian Adams got stuck there, Like
Speaker 1: what did they talk about? That's sadly we don't know. Uh.
Speaker 1: Brian didn't include those details, but he did send us
Speaker 1: links to a few more posts that Jerry has put
Speaker 1: up over the years. Yes, yes he did, and we
Speaker 1: thank him very much that we edited some of those
Speaker 1: together so that you can better understand and and further
Speaker 1: appreciate the unstable genius of Jerry the Craigslist canoe guy,
Speaker 1: and before you read these, I got worried because I
Speaker 1: was like, man, Billy wants a shotgun was real good?
Speaker 1: What if the stickers are being made and there's a
Speaker 1: better Jerry one liner in here? But I'm still pretty
Speaker 1: sold on Billy wants to show. I don't think I
Speaker 1: don't think there's a better one liner. But I'm glad
Speaker 1: we have more to to build on the lower of Jerry.
Speaker 1: All right, So so here we go, without further ado,
Speaker 1: some some of Jerry's greatest hits. Last year, I had
Speaker 1: a bunch of canoes laying around. Yes, I do have
Speaker 1: a mental problem involving canoes. So I ran these strange
Speaker 1: ads and tried to make them funny and invited everyone
Speaker 1: to have a cup of tea in my backyard. Well,
Speaker 1: I ended up selling a lot of canoes, and I
Speaker 1: met so many fine people. I sell Coleman's, Grumman's Old Towns,
Speaker 1: and all manner of fiberglass canoes. I try to keep
Speaker 1: them around three hundred bucks. If you see an aluminum
Speaker 1: canoe on Craigslist for six d I will have the
Speaker 1: same canoe for three. If you don't like my ads,
Speaker 1: I don't care. You can buy a canoe somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I'm not the only guy in America selling canoes, so
Speaker 1: we'll go on here. I had a guy bitch and
Speaker 1: moan at me for pretending to be clever, and I
Speaker 1: was told I should just post a picture. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to post a picture. I will be sixty shortly.
Speaker 1: The guy who wrote me and bitched me out is
Speaker 1: obviously a douse, light, a shush, laugh, a buzz kill,
Speaker 1: and to kill joy, probably sexually frustrated in Wonder's whoy.
Speaker 1: Nobody likes him. I know why I have to fifteen
Speaker 1: foot smoker canoes. I like that name. I imagine myself
Speaker 1: headed down a Class five set of rapids in Colorado
Speaker 1: or possibly Tanzania. To the right, a waterfall in certain Death.
Speaker 1: To the left, just a Titanic set of rapids, or
Speaker 1: was it the other way around. Remember I'm almost sixty
Speaker 1: and forget a lot of stuff. So to stimulate those neurons,
Speaker 1: I calmly whip out my zippo and my soft pack
Speaker 1: of camels and light up a cigy while battling five
Speaker 1: foot waves in whirlpools. Life jacket, you asked, those are
Speaker 1: for young children, and we will we will just say whimps,
Speaker 1: and I'm a smoker in a smoker get it, ha,
Speaker 1: These smokers are fine canoes. One is painted green and
Speaker 1: the other just aluminum. Come buy one and hit the
Speaker 1: rapids while having a hot tea. I am Jerry. Come
Speaker 1: out chat while you buy a canoe and go enjoy America.
Speaker 1: Oh god, they're so good. We're gonna We're gonna do
Speaker 1: a couple others really quick. I can't help myself. The
Speaker 1: context The title for this next one was glad, I'm
Speaker 1: not a soda can canoe. Okay, so here's how this
Speaker 1: one's gonna go. Originally this ad was glad, I'm not
Speaker 1: a beer can canoe. Some self righteous bastard must not
Speaker 1: have liked the word beer and flagged my ad. What
Speaker 1: insert your personal expletive. No one forces you to like
Speaker 1: the ad, so just move on and do whatever the
Speaker 1: hell it is you do with your life. Loser, Now
Speaker 1: to the ad. Imagine you were a piece of aluminum
Speaker 1: or even some box side, or would you rather be
Speaker 1: a soda can or a canoe? Soda cans crushed up
Speaker 1: and thrown in landfills, or recycled into more soda cans,
Speaker 1: or made into seven thirty seven maxes. Canoes can live forever,
Speaker 1: pleasing their owners and becoming much loved family members for generations. Okay,
Speaker 1: last one, I'm gonna do one more. That's the one.
Speaker 1: What an outstanding weekend. Several people came out, bought canoes,
Speaker 1: and went out and had fun. They took control of
Speaker 1: their lives and told their partners to either hop in
Speaker 1: a canoe and have fun, or go hide in a
Speaker 1: corner and make sad weeping noises back to the canoe.
Speaker 1: It is an older old town. That should indicate to
Speaker 1: you that this canoe is made of tough, hard light fiberglass.
Speaker 1: It is red in all caps. It's about thirteen feet
Speaker 1: and four inches. Many people I have found like the
Speaker 1: short canoes, easily handled, stored, and thrown about. The guys
Speaker 1: look for the thirteen foot canoes and think they are
Speaker 1: like twenty ft long. Something about the male perception of length. Ah,
Speaker 1: if you take it over Niagara Falls, you probably will die.
Speaker 1: I assume no liability for such behavior. So swing on
Speaker 1: by by it, have a blast in nature, feel the joy,
Speaker 1: and send me a picture of your first outing. I
Speaker 1: will give you a cup of tea to go. H oh, jerry.
Speaker 1: If you're out there and you're listening. You put the
Speaker 1: craft in online, use watercraft sales. I will drink a
Speaker 1: hot toddy to you, sir. Yeah. I second that. Maybe this,
Speaker 1: maybe this eventually leads to Jerry on the show. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know, but a big, a big thank
Speaker 1: you to Brian Adams for alerting us to the depth
Speaker 1: of Jerry's catalog. This is for you, Brian. It's true
Speaker 1: everything do it fun the best thing to come from
Speaker 1: that for me. Where the terms douse light and shush laugh?
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm gonna start using them, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, hey man, you're such a shush laugh douse light?
Speaker 1: Over here? Where? Who says that? Where is it? What
Speaker 1: is that? I think I think you're kind of undermine
Speaker 1: the purpose of those, like when you drop in front
Speaker 1: of them, they're like, dounse light is one of those
Speaker 1: insults that sounds dirty but isn't, Like that's the whole
Speaker 1: point of it, Like, oh, that dude's a douse light.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're saying something you shouldn't, but you're
Speaker 1: not that. I like those. I'm a fan of that,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think I would like to work those
Speaker 1: into my vernacular as well. Uh, and hopefully you won't
Speaker 1: be calling me either a doubts letter shows laugh after
Speaker 1: I completely destroy you in the weekly competition that we
Speaker 1: call fish News. Fish news that escalated quickly. All right,
Speaker 1: before we hit news, just a couple of things we
Speaker 1: got to cover first. I have some very sad news
Speaker 1: to report. You might remember that in the the inaugural
Speaker 1: installment of our That's My Bar segment, I shouted out
Speaker 1: the sipp and dip in Great Falls, Montana and the
Speaker 1: iconic and venerable piano Pat who brought so much joy
Speaker 1: to drinkers and parties for over fifty years. I'm sad
Speaker 1: to say Pat died earlier this week, and in a
Speaker 1: rare if there's if there's an upside to this, which
Speaker 1: I mean she She died peacefully, all reports indicate with
Speaker 1: her family, so that's great. But if there's an upside
Speaker 1: in a rare showing of bipartisan agreement, every single major
Speaker 1: politician in the state of Montana, both Republican and Democrat,
Speaker 1: paid tribute to her, every single one. Uh. And I'd say,
Speaker 1: like achieving that nearly impossible feet just shows how universally
Speaker 1: beloved she was here in Montana. Uh, and how much
Speaker 1: we all love drinking in bars, so please just how
Speaker 1: about how about everybody right now take a minute and
Speaker 1: uh and join us in raising a drink to Pat.
Speaker 1: I when I heard about this, I was personally sad
Speaker 1: because I will never get to experience this. Like since
Speaker 1: this first came up, I was like, one day after
Speaker 1: the COVID's whenever it may be, like, I will get
Speaker 1: out there and I want to go to this bar.
Speaker 1: I want to go to a lot of the bars
Speaker 1: we've covered, but that one has always stuck with me.
Speaker 1: People have even suggested since then, they're like, you need
Speaker 1: to have piano pat on. What a bunch of people
Speaker 1: would would do with her on this show? We considered it.
Speaker 1: So it's sad. It's sad. It's sad. Um So sorry
Speaker 1: sorry to have to pass that news on, but it
Speaker 1: seemed important to let everybody know. Uh. I also need
Speaker 1: to make a correction on a story I reported last week.
Speaker 1: I erroneously claimed that the two and forty pound lake
Speaker 1: sturgeon caught by US Fish and Wildlife sampling crew was
Speaker 1: brought in on Rod and Reel. I think that was magical,
Speaker 1: thinking I was being overly positive. I don't know, I will,
Speaker 1: I have to say to you. When I read that story,
Speaker 1: it was kind of vague, like I interpreted it that
Speaker 1: way too. They had a whole thing about fighting the
Speaker 1: fish and bringing it in, and I just made an
Speaker 1: assumption that they were doing it on rod and reel.
Speaker 1: But uh, listener, Jason Kitechuck or Kitchuck, I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: who's a former employee of the Detroit office of the U. S.
Speaker 1: Fish Wildlife Service. Very politely, thank you, Jason, very politely
Speaker 1: informed me that the fish was actually caught on a
Speaker 1: set line. So Joe and my dream of going and
Speaker 1: being part of a sampling crew that's catching these fish
Speaker 1: on rod and reel, that's probably not ever gonna happen.
Speaker 1: So another another dream doused dashed at the head of
Speaker 1: this No doubts remember doust like dolls l shush laugh, Yes, correct.
Speaker 1: Oh well, so that's what we got up top and
Speaker 1: moving on to fish news. Just a little reminder, this
Speaker 1: is a competition. Joe and I do not know which
Speaker 1: stories the other person is bringing to the table, and
Speaker 1: we are competing for the admiration, the love and the
Speaker 1: attention of our audio engineer, Phil who at the end
Speaker 1: will crown one of us the Grand Champ winner for
Speaker 1: the week. Uh, and I think it's you this week.
Speaker 1: You got to lead off? It is It is my
Speaker 1: It is my lead off. Um, So we'll get right
Speaker 1: down to it. This has got to be one of
Speaker 1: the most interesting poaching stories I've ever come across because
Speaker 1: it has a It has a different twist than like
Speaker 1: the usual, you know, like bunch of ship heads losing
Speaker 1: their licenses and being racked with fines they most likely
Speaker 1: won't ever pay anyway, like when they hit the guys
Speaker 1: at the bridge here in Jersey. That's typically what happens.
Speaker 1: So this one, this one though, this comes from the
Speaker 1: Florida Keys, and I found the story on the website
Speaker 1: of the Miami Herald and for starters. The culprit's name
Speaker 1: is Henry dan Zig. No, how lucky is that? How
Speaker 1: blessed must he feel on a daily basis? I mean
Speaker 1: Glenn Danzig. His his real last name is Ann Zwini,
Speaker 1: so they're not related because he added the Danzig later.
Speaker 1: This guy's real birth name is Henry Danzig, which is
Speaker 1: completely irrelevant to the rest of the story, but I'm
Speaker 1: a Danzig fan, so anyway, here's what happened, right. Danzig
Speaker 1: is a hardcore I'm gonna do it every I know
Speaker 1: I know, I'm gonna try to get through it. Danzig
Speaker 1: is a hardcore, lifelong angler that lives in Tavern here,
Speaker 1: and according to the story, he fished so much that
Speaker 1: he actually kept a fridge in his yard that he
Speaker 1: would stock with fresh filets, and anyone in the area,
Speaker 1: uh in need of a meal could always pop by
Speaker 1: and grab some of Danzig's catch of the day for
Speaker 1: your charge. He was also known on occasion to cook
Speaker 1: inexpensive fish dishes made from the fish he caught at
Speaker 1: a small diner in the area that he co owns.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that as generous as Danzig was
Speaker 1: with his haul, he spent a lot of time fishing
Speaker 1: in Bohemian waters, and he got busted by the coast
Speaker 1: Guard last May for bringing back five pounds of reef
Speaker 1: fish from the Castle Bank in the Bahamas. Now that's
Speaker 1: not all at once, mind you. That's sort of like
Speaker 1: the grand tally that the coast he's estimate, uh, since
Speaker 1: they sort of caught onto what he was doing the
Speaker 1: day he got boarded. Danzig and his son and three
Speaker 1: friends had a hundred and sixty seven reef fish of
Speaker 1: various species on board, but he didn't have a license
Speaker 1: to fish in Bohamian waters according to the documents on board.
Speaker 1: And as I understand this, if he had just been
Speaker 1: giving the fish away, it sounds like he'd have only
Speaker 1: had to deal with not having the proper Bahamian license.
Speaker 1: But because he was occasionally selling it in his restaurant
Speaker 1: for commercial gains, it means a charge of a legal
Speaker 1: commercial fishing kind of sticks like he sort of violated
Speaker 1: the Lacy Act, which bands trafficking in a legal fish
Speaker 1: and wildlife right now, according to his lawyer, Dan Gelbert,
Speaker 1: as as he got busted, Danzig fest up. Delbert says,
Speaker 1: you know, he gives most of his fish away to neighbors,
Speaker 1: local organizations, businesses, and friends. But but Danzig knew they
Speaker 1: had him on the sale thing. And and here's what
Speaker 1: he had to say. Quote from the piece, he says,
Speaker 1: I was fishing where I shouldn't have been. We are
Speaker 1: all stewards of our beautiful waterways and I should have
Speaker 1: known better. Now, according to his lawyer, he fully cooperated
Speaker 1: with authorities and immediately asked what he could do to
Speaker 1: make this right. So here's what he did. He struck
Speaker 1: a plea agreement with the U. S. Attorney General's Office.
Speaker 1: Now Danzig might sound like a diner owning fish head
Speaker 1: keys bum, but he's actually a Morgan Stanley financial advisor.
Speaker 1: So he was like, hey, how's about I buy the
Speaker 1: Royal Bahamian Defense Force a brand new thirty ft contender
Speaker 1: tournament with twin Yamaha to fifty four strokes is an apology,
Speaker 1: and the Royal Bahamian Defense Forces were like, sure, okay,
Speaker 1: So he bought them a boat that will help them
Speaker 1: catch more poachers. That is the specific purpose of this
Speaker 1: go fast boat is to help the Bahamian authorities catch
Speaker 1: more poachers like Danzig. Now, to afford that boat, he
Speaker 1: had to sell his own boat, which was a thirty
Speaker 1: nine ft contender called Bodacious. That boat was, of course,
Speaker 1: involved in his own crime, so guess it's it's like
Speaker 1: part of his sort of wiping the slate clean and
Speaker 1: starting over. And Danzig also won't be serving any jail
Speaker 1: time because of his quote extensive record of service to
Speaker 1: his community, which included fundraisers and giving jobs to young
Speaker 1: people at his restaurant. Okay, Apparently several Tavernier residents showed
Speaker 1: up to his sentencing and they were all like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's a real good dude. Gives me fishing stuff,
Speaker 1: good guy, don't throw him in jail, and that that
Speaker 1: kind of work. So, uh, I don't quite know how
Speaker 1: I feel about this. To be honest, it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like he's screwed up once, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 1: it sounds like, over the long course of time, he
Speaker 1: was routinely running to Bohemian waters and bringing back loads
Speaker 1: of fish without a license. So I'm torn between you know,
Speaker 1: he's a good guy that made a bad mistake and
Speaker 1: good on him for righting his wrongs, or he actually
Speaker 1: knew dan well what he was doing and just happens
Speaker 1: to be lucky enough to sort of buy his way
Speaker 1: out of it. I don't really know which one it is,
Speaker 1: but I have never heard a case like that be
Speaker 1: be rectified by dude going, let me buy you a
Speaker 1: three thousand dollar book. Call it good. Okay, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: I can feel like my own perception of this is
Speaker 1: like a swinging pendulum, because on the one hand, I'm
Speaker 1: like serial poacher, he knows what he's doing, it's the
Speaker 1: serial thing. It's not like he went out there and
Speaker 1: like one day he was like, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: didn't know I was supposed to be here, but I've
Speaker 1: never been here before. Courton the Coast Guard makes it
Speaker 1: sound like they had proof that he was routinely running
Speaker 1: into behavian waters with no license, so like he knew
Speaker 1: what he was doing and he was he knew it
Speaker 1: was across crossing the line literally in figuratively. But I
Speaker 1: also wish that the response of every poacher was akin
Speaker 1: to this one. Well sure to like, it's not the
Speaker 1: we all we all do wrong. I don't, I don't
Speaker 1: care who you are. We we all sin and and
Speaker 1: cause other people's arm and cross the line from time
Speaker 1: to time. But it's it's how you respond to that
Speaker 1: that really matters. And I think that, uh, this is
Speaker 1: a shining example of responding. Possibly the other The other
Speaker 1: place my mind goes, though, is that this guy has
Speaker 1: the means to do that. He's not poaching fish because
Speaker 1: he's real hungry, right, and and not everybody has the
Speaker 1: ability to just be like, look here's a boat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and look we've talked on this show before. I have
Speaker 1: some captain buddies down there that you know, when they
Speaker 1: were running, especially during the COVID pandemic, Like if they
Speaker 1: had extra fish, they would throw on Facebook, like we
Speaker 1: have some extra Kingmac, we have whatever if anybody in
Speaker 1: town needs fish. So it seems like for everything this
Speaker 1: this dan Zig dude is done. There's like a tiny
Speaker 1: counter argument, like I commend you for having a fridge
Speaker 1: where locals can come get fresh fish for free. Absolutely
Speaker 1: also pointed out contactless delivery during the pandemic. It's like
Speaker 1: you don't even have to talk to dan Zig. Dan
Speaker 1: Zigg is inside doing Danzig things. You can just show
Speaker 1: up and grab you some yellow tail snapper. But like
Speaker 1: that much of it, like you're you're catching, like you're
Speaker 1: supplying an awful lot of people. It sounds like like
Speaker 1: that's that's a lot of fish. Why don't need five
Speaker 1: hundred pounds of fish that you're mostly giving away? This
Speaker 1: as a very complicated character. I would like to I
Speaker 1: would like to interview him. I would, I really would.
Speaker 1: I would love to be able to sit down and
Speaker 1: just kind of pick Danzig's brain. We'll pick Glenn Danzig
Speaker 1: against Henry dan Zigg in a in a point counterpoint
Speaker 1: on fish poaching. I like it, So can you arrange
Speaker 1: that Danzig? Did you get on the Danzig Show? Danzig episode?
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's there's more to the story. We won't
Speaker 1: figure it all out today, but it's like just had
Speaker 1: me going, oh good for him? Oh yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 1: I love the complexity of this when it's not a
Speaker 1: simple good guy bad guys seeing well done, Bahama is
Speaker 1: good on you enjoy that conder with twin to fifty
Speaker 1: yamahas go catch some poachers. Um. I think that the
Speaker 1: bridge between that story and my next one is unsustainable
Speaker 1: harvest of fish and finding ways clean simple bridge, make
Speaker 1: that to make that work? Uh? And this one that
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about, Dude, I've been so stuck on
Speaker 1: the c Spiracy thing, like I can't get it out
Speaker 1: of my head, and how annoyed I am about it,
Speaker 1: and I just keep finding myself like in my mind
Speaker 1: arguing with the makers of c Spiracy all the time,
Speaker 1: which is pointless and dumb because they're wrong. But have
Speaker 1: you watched it multiple times? No, just the ones. I
Speaker 1: don't want to do it again. I just want to
Speaker 1: be watching it over and over. It's an ongoing dialogue
Speaker 1: in my head with people who don't know eggs ist
Speaker 1: and me telling them why they're wrong and creating problematic propaganda.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna talk about another example of science disagreeing
Speaker 1: with that c spiracy propaganda. A study recently published in
Speaker 1: the journal Marine Policy suggests a potentially effective solution for
Speaker 1: maintaining sustainable fish stocks in marine ecosystems, even in areas
Speaker 1: that are being unsustainably fished. And just to be clear, no,
Speaker 1: the answer is not ending all fish harvest and to
Speaker 1: stop eating fish. That's not the answer. In fact, this
Speaker 1: research seems to suggest that implementing strict protections in a
Speaker 1: limited part of an area can produce significant positive impacts
Speaker 1: on the fish population across the whole area. Researchers in
Speaker 1: Kenya wanted to figure out which management tools could provide
Speaker 1: the greatest benefit to their fair stocks, so they looked
Speaker 1: at these two distinct areas where different regulations on commercial
Speaker 1: fishermen were being aggressively enforced. In one area, they had
Speaker 1: fishing gear restrictions, including a ban on fine meshed nets
Speaker 1: and another gear that's considered destructive, and another area, the
Speaker 1: gear went totally unrestricted, but thirty percent of the fishing
Speaker 1: grounds were set aside as a no take marine protected
Speaker 1: area where fishermen were not allowed to harvest any life
Speaker 1: at all. And the results of this were stark. Fish
Speaker 1: populations in the area with the protected zone rose by
Speaker 1: forty two huge jump, and individual catch rates for for
Speaker 1: the individual fishermen fishing there increased twenty five times faster
Speaker 1: than in the area with gear restrictions. So that's that's
Speaker 1: those are staggering, I can say like that, that's huge.
Speaker 1: According to the researchers, no take protected areas were quote
Speaker 1: far more effective at sustaining stocks of fish than restricting
Speaker 1: destructive gear. And here's how it worked. The different regulations
Speaker 1: were implemented in two different counties, which from what I
Speaker 1: can gather is that the terminology that Kenya uses to
Speaker 1: divide up their fishing zones. Researchers monitored a half dozen
Speaker 1: boat landing sites in each county, recording fish catches at
Speaker 1: each and and here's the really unique aspect that makes
Speaker 1: these findings particularly valuable. The team monitored these fisheries and
Speaker 1: regulations for twenty four years before publishing the results, making
Speaker 1: this the longest ever longitudinal study of detailed fish catches
Speaker 1: for an inshore marine area. No kidding, that's wow. Twenty
Speaker 1: four years years, take that ship at Spiracy, read some
Speaker 1: online articles, and spend six months flying around the country
Speaker 1: the world. The time and resources required to conduct multidecade
Speaker 1: studies like this have previously impeded testing the long term
Speaker 1: effectiveness of no take marine protected areas. Right like m
Speaker 1: p as have been a hot topic for a while,
Speaker 1: but no one's ever had the ability to study them
Speaker 1: for this long. Most research on mp as has been
Speaker 1: based on much shorter duration studies or on simulation models. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: the findings of this research actually support what those simulations
Speaker 1: have suggested. According to the studies lead author Dr Tim Clanahan, quote,
Speaker 1: the not take area in Mombassa occupied thirty percent of
Speaker 1: the studied fishing grounds. Fortuitously, this is the target for
Speaker 1: protection being proposed for the oceans, which is rarely tested
Speaker 1: and based on the results of simulation models. The empirical
Speaker 1: support for the models and the conservation proposal is reassuring.
Speaker 1: Adds to the evidence that no take protected areas of
Speaker 1: sufficient coverage may compensate for the lost fishing grounds, particularly
Speaker 1: when fisheries are not sustainably fished. So This is just
Speaker 1: one study in one particular area, but it seems like
Speaker 1: a pretty damn comprehensive and compelling one. It seems to
Speaker 1: suggest that if we can find a way to successfully
Speaker 1: protect thirty percent of the world's oceans for at least
Speaker 1: a couple of decades, the resulting increased productivity in the
Speaker 1: other seventy percent of the fisheries will more than make
Speaker 1: up for what we lose in fishing areas. And I'm
Speaker 1: not like, I'm not being all Pollyanna. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that would be easy. Like the feasibility of trying to
Speaker 1: do that and enforce it is huge. Yeah, And that's
Speaker 1: what pops into my head. It's like, okay, great plan. Now,
Speaker 1: like if you just take one fishery, like bluefin in
Speaker 1: the US, it's like, how do you decide who gets
Speaker 1: stuck with thet of protected area, you know, off their coasts?
Speaker 1: I mean, like figuring out which areas need that protection
Speaker 1: has got to be mess. It's it's it's it's a mess. There,
Speaker 1: there's there's no question. And and but the thing is like,
Speaker 1: at least this offers some hope. Yeah, right, and this
Speaker 1: is this is what we need more of in my opinion,
Speaker 1: we we need informed research that says like, hey, we
Speaker 1: can deal with these massive problems if we can find
Speaker 1: ways to implement the changes, and and I find that
Speaker 1: far more productive and inspiring and effective than I don't know, say,
Speaker 1: emotional and fear based media screaming that the oceans in
Speaker 1: the planet are doomed and it's all your fault because
Speaker 1: you ate sushi last night like that. That's not going
Speaker 1: to guess where we need to be. It's it's movements
Speaker 1: like this and say, hey, we suggest that if we
Speaker 1: can find a way to set aside, there's hope. That's
Speaker 1: what gets people going. That's what gets ship done, not
Speaker 1: not scaring the pants off of everyone and tell them
Speaker 1: that they're evil. I wish more people would would hear
Speaker 1: this and get behind this, as opposed to the headlines
Speaker 1: that the sspiracy kid is making now demanding that the
Speaker 1: president just like shut down all seafood something like that,
Speaker 1: like just demanding demanding we're just walking away from science altogether.
Speaker 1: It's just who cares? Who cares what science? To say?
Speaker 1: I feel that I'm right, yeah, well, very very uplifting,
Speaker 1: and the twenty four years is sticking with me, like
Speaker 1: that's like, that's hard to mess with. Twenty years to
Speaker 1: me seems like such a such the right amount of time. Again,
Speaker 1: I always go back to snakeheads, but twenty years ago
Speaker 1: they were going to destroy the entire East Coast. Twenty
Speaker 1: years is a long time, and now look how that's
Speaker 1: come around. So like, if you have that much data
Speaker 1: that many years to decades worth, that's much much harder
Speaker 1: to argue with population dynamics change slowly. You've got to
Speaker 1: have a time scale to really look at that in
Speaker 1: a way that makes any sense exactly. You did talk
Speaker 1: about gear are restrictions though, So I'm gonna transition into
Speaker 1: self imposed gear restrictions, things I say you should not
Speaker 1: be using. I like the thing we're moving into Joe's
Speaker 1: personal opinion on gear here, All right, what do you got?
Speaker 1: We are? And sometimes I feel like I'm beating a
Speaker 1: dead horse by ragging on technologically advanced lawyers. But it's
Speaker 1: it's like kind of become it's kind of become my beat.
Speaker 1: Like the loyal listeners of Bent have come to expect
Speaker 1: that I will keep them apprized of horseshittery coming down
Speaker 1: the pike in Laura gimmickry, so I'm doing it's this
Speaker 1: is my duty. Not long ago, I did that story
Speaker 1: about the hackers hacking into the smart heater and the
Speaker 1: Casino fish tank. Remember that, and you made fun of
Speaker 1: me a little bit because it had so little to
Speaker 1: do with fishing, though it was worth it for fills.
Speaker 1: Nod to Ocean's eleven alone. Okay, that that was the
Speaker 1: best fill response we've ever had. Anyway, when when I
Speaker 1: did that report, I said, everything keeps getting smarter and smarter.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about animated lures and robotic lures on
Speaker 1: this show. But the Model zero from Japanese company wait
Speaker 1: for it, smart lure, it's not just a clever name,
Speaker 1: has leveled the game up. Okay, you're animated lure is
Speaker 1: now in Nokia. It is already obsolete, and this is
Speaker 1: the iPhone thirties. So I will spare us the pr
Speaker 1: speak in the beginning of this article on New Atlas
Speaker 1: dot com about how the biggest problem facing anglers everywhere
Speaker 1: is keeping track of which strategies work. Okay, we don't,
Speaker 1: we've heard that before. We'll just we'll cut to the chase.
Speaker 1: The Model zero is a pretty big jerk. Bait style lure,
Speaker 1: and it looks very similar to a like a Yourssouri
Speaker 1: crystal minnow if you guys can picture that, if you
Speaker 1: know what that looks like. On the back, however, is
Speaker 1: this weird hinge metal maybe plastic metallic fin that I
Speaker 1: assume is supposed to kick back and forth like a tail,
Speaker 1: But to me, it's so awkward. It looks like it
Speaker 1: would get in the way of the fish getting the
Speaker 1: rear hook. And of course, the Model zero is super smart.
Speaker 1: Here's what it does. It monitors the depth it reached
Speaker 1: during every retrieve. It's exact movement patterns like speed, amount
Speaker 1: of pauses, etcetera, water temperature and the amount of sunlight
Speaker 1: penetrating the water at whatever depth it was running at.
Speaker 1: After the retrieve, simply hold the Model zero next to
Speaker 1: your phone and it transferred all that data into an
Speaker 1: archive in the smart lorder app. Furthermore, and this is
Speaker 1: the best part, it has a GPS function and instantly
Speaker 1: creates a map showing the tracks of everywhere it's been
Speaker 1: so and we've all been here. If you're like, wait,
Speaker 1: did I already cast under that tree? You just fire
Speaker 1: up your phone, fire up the app, and you'll know
Speaker 1: and be like I did, I already put one under
Speaker 1: that tree. I say, this takes more time just throwing
Speaker 1: an extra cast up under that tree. Or look at
Speaker 1: pulling out your phone and looking at your map and
Speaker 1: being like, oh, I did already. Like this is what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, right Like, this is why this this stuff
Speaker 1: is so stupid. Um, And I gotta tell you there's
Speaker 1: there's a video in the article with just a couple
Speaker 1: of seconds of underwater footage, and I'm here to tell
Speaker 1: you the Model Zero it swims like ass like it's
Speaker 1: not good, Like it does not have good action, like
Speaker 1: it seems to me like they very strategically did not
Speaker 1: give you a lot of underwater clips of it moving
Speaker 1: because I don't think it moves very well. The company's slogan,
Speaker 1: by the way, which I I'm sure was lost in
Speaker 1: Japanese to English translation, is for anglers who love the
Speaker 1: discoveries at fishing is the company's slogan. UM. You can
Speaker 1: also share your data with all the other fraction of
Speaker 1: a percent of people who are using the Model zero
Speaker 1: in your area. But my favorite part of the article
Speaker 1: was was this of warning right direct quote. While this
Speaker 1: is an interesting concept. It should of course be noted
Speaker 1: that anglers regularly lose lures when larger fish snapped the line,
Speaker 1: or when the lures get snagged on underwater objects, to
Speaker 1: which I say, why don't you make it smart enough
Speaker 1: to avoid underwater objects? Smart guy, Okay, and then it
Speaker 1: goes on. Additionally, because the technology is specific to the
Speaker 1: Model zero lure, users can't gather data on the performance
Speaker 1: of lures made by other manufacturers. No ship, I mean
Speaker 1: that's like the no kid. You don't say um now
Speaker 1: if you want one, which you don't, because this is
Speaker 1: a muskie striper's size lure. It's a giant lure, and
Speaker 1: it has to be as these things usually start out.
Speaker 1: It has to be big because you're fitting like a
Speaker 1: motherboard and chips and all kinds of stuff inside the lure.
Speaker 1: But if you did want one, you can purchase one
Speaker 1: right now on Kickstarter hundred and forty bucks for one
Speaker 1: Model zero leveling up smart Lord's right there. Wow uh
Speaker 1: oh yeah. This thing sounds essentially worthless and stupid. But
Speaker 1: my concern here is, as we know, technology continues to
Speaker 1: improve and get smaller and more efficient, and what if
Speaker 1: every rattle trap you buy in the future. Don't see it.
Speaker 1: Don't see it because because I because I am convinced,
Speaker 1: right and I will, I will die on this hill.
Speaker 1: I am convinced that all these things will only ever
Speaker 1: really cater to like people who peripherally fish, or like
Speaker 1: this gimmicky stuff, or or get sold on the idea
Speaker 1: that this is going to take them from a zero
Speaker 1: at fishing to a hero. Whereas real died in the wool.
Speaker 1: Anglers are never going to jump on this. What about
Speaker 1: the tournament scene, because tournament angling dictates what's cool and
Speaker 1: popular and fishing, and tournament anglers will adopt any technology
Speaker 1: that I think gives them a leg up because there's
Speaker 1: money on the line, right, But I think we're a
Speaker 1: long way away from this being accepted as standards in
Speaker 1: practice in fishing, and in the meantime, I don't see
Speaker 1: tournaments allowing this kind of thing, not right now anyway.
Speaker 1: M hm, you know No, I hope you're right. I
Speaker 1: hope I hope that doesn't doesn't happen, and I hope
Speaker 1: you continue to stay on this beat. I enjoy this
Speaker 1: beat very much like we don't tell these stories if
Speaker 1: I see them, because I'm like, oh, Joe's got that.
Speaker 1: I know, we do what we do a lot of
Speaker 1: gimmick bashing on here and and I enjoy it very much.
Speaker 1: But again, like to your point, like we look at
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff, like the zombade we've brought
Speaker 1: that up. I don't know any serious hardcore offshore captains
Speaker 1: who hurried up to buy that, and that's been around
Speaker 1: for a while. So that's how I feel about this stuff,
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's not really being made for people
Speaker 1: who seriously fish, at least not yet. I think that's
Speaker 1: and that's that last piece that that concerns me. But
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be because, like you said, it's not happening now,
Speaker 1: so why worry about something that may or made a
Speaker 1: hype in the future. Good. So that's I mean, you're
Speaker 1: you're you're reporting on the collection of data in a
Speaker 1: way that I think is is potentially problematic. My final
Speaker 1: story is also about the collection of data and fish,
Speaker 1: but in a way that I think is just fantastic.
Speaker 1: I might have a new favorite fishing state, even though
Speaker 1: I've never ever fished there. I also I also might
Speaker 1: have a new fishing hero, even though I've never even
Speaker 1: met the guy. But I'll explain it all. You just
Speaker 1: came out here, so it's obviously not New Jersey and
Speaker 1: you've met me, so clearly I'm not your hero. No,
Speaker 1: this is not an homage to why you're my hero. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I just recently learned about the Virginia game fish tagging program.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with this? I'm not all You're in
Speaker 1: for a treat. Frequent listeners to this show will know how.
Speaker 1: Like Joe likes gimmicks, I love citizen science and and
Speaker 1: the role that that anglers can play in monitoring managing fisheries.
Speaker 1: I think that's so cool because I mean, it's the
Speaker 1: two things we look for at the market. I got
Speaker 1: for gimmicks and you're looking for citizens season Scie. Does
Speaker 1: anyone anyone? But for as much as I love it,
Speaker 1: And we've talked about some programs in the past, very
Speaker 1: few states effectively leverage, in my opinion, the potential value
Speaker 1: of their anglers, and and it seems like maybe none
Speaker 1: do it as well as Virginia. So back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, leadership from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, the
Speaker 1: Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, and the Virginia saltwater Fishing
Speaker 1: tournament started kicking around the idea of developing a program
Speaker 1: that would involve sport anglers and tagging and monitoring red
Speaker 1: fish populations. Fast forward along ways in the Virginia Game
Speaker 1: Fish Tagging Program officially began with the scope of mission
Speaker 1: that was ended up being far beyond just keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on local red fish. The program trains and equips
Speaker 1: a group of about a hundred experienced anglers as volunteer
Speaker 1: fish taggers. The anglers tag all the target species that
Speaker 1: they catch and releasing Virginia waters and maintain meticulous records
Speaker 1: of the fish, like the size of the fish and
Speaker 1: the tag numbers. This group of dedicated anglers submitted nearly
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty thousand tag records. The program also
Speaker 1: supports significant community outreach to build awareness among all the
Speaker 1: states marine fishers and encourage them to report any tag
Speaker 1: fish that they catch, so anyone who catches and calls
Speaker 1: in a tag fish can get like a little reward
Speaker 1: in the form of free hats and T shirts. Twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: the program received over thirty five thousand recapture reports, proving
Speaker 1: once again that that we fishermen have an illogical love
Speaker 1: of free hat shirts and other cheap crap, and that
Speaker 1: we really like feeling like we're part of a community.
Speaker 1: The program gathers a huge amount of data every year
Speaker 1: about local fisheries that costs researchers very little, like comparatively
Speaker 1: compared to what they have to spend to gather that
Speaker 1: volume of information. I think they're spending nothing. Revenue from
Speaker 1: fishing license sales and I'm matching grant from the Virginia
Speaker 1: Marine Institute of Marine Sciences pay for all the tags,
Speaker 1: education and outreach materials, data management, and of course this
Speaker 1: suite of free giveaway crap. The program also produces annual
Speaker 1: reports based on the information that that they collect and
Speaker 1: and those are available to the general public, so so
Speaker 1: anglers can see they can actually see how their personal
Speaker 1: efforts contribute to keeping track of their local fish populations.
Speaker 1: And I read a bunch of these reports and I
Speaker 1: found them just fascinating. It's if you geek out on
Speaker 1: this stuff like I do, you should check them out.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty clear, like I've I've definitely made
Speaker 1: this clear. I love everything about this program, and I
Speaker 1: wish this model were adapted and adopted all over the country.
Speaker 1: But one of the unique and I think very smart
Speaker 1: aspects of this program is the fitch on which they focus.
Speaker 1: Since two thousand, the program has collected data on redfish,
Speaker 1: black drum, speckled trout, flounder, kobea, black sea bass, sheepshead, spadefish,
Speaker 1: taw tog, and gray trigger fish. And that's it. You'll
Speaker 1: notice that the marquee inshore saltwater species of Virginia straight
Speaker 1: bass not there. Straight bass populations are already heavily monitored
Speaker 1: by a variety of local and federal agencies. And and
Speaker 1: the same could be said for like bluefin tuna. Right.
Speaker 1: So this program, it's so smart. They intentionally focus on
Speaker 1: fish that are available to people fishing both from shore
Speaker 1: and boats, and that don't get primary intention from from
Speaker 1: fisheries researchers already, which allows it to do a great
Speaker 1: job filling an information gap and using anglers to do it.
Speaker 1: I could think of so many things this should be
Speaker 1: adopted for local We've just talked about this. Yes, everybody's
Speaker 1: all over the stripers. Where's the weak fish, where's the
Speaker 1: blue fish? There's not enough time or money for the
Speaker 1: agencies to be on that the same way they are
Speaker 1: with the stripers. So a program like this could help
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. So there's the whole overview of the program,
Speaker 1: which clearly I think is fantastic and I knew you
Speaker 1: would love it. Perhaps even more fantastic is the guy
Speaker 1: who catches tags and releases more fish than anyone else.
Speaker 1: Ed Shepherd of Yorktown, Virginia. Yeah, this dude, This dude,
Speaker 1: my hero. He's fitted between two and ten thousand fish
Speaker 1: with tags every single year since two thousand seven. His
Speaker 1: lifetime total now sits above eighty three thousand fish. You
Speaker 1: cannot have a program like this without an edge Shepherd,
Speaker 1: Like he has to exist like everybody in the office
Speaker 1: collecting this data. Like you can like almost like picture
Speaker 1: meeting Ed on the beach or in the bay, and
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, that dude over there, he's out here
Speaker 1: tagging short flounder every single day like every he has
Speaker 1: for whatever is happening in his life, whether he's retired
Speaker 1: or whatever it may be, Like he's just made he
Speaker 1: has just made this his life's work. And so even
Speaker 1: more impressive, he catches all every single one of his
Speaker 1: fish from public fishing piers, every one for him. He's
Speaker 1: not He's not only targeting the most pressured fish, he's
Speaker 1: also catching fish with the highest percentage of recapture right
Speaker 1: because he's fishing in the places where the most people fish,
Speaker 1: so there's a good chance that the fish he tags
Speaker 1: gets caught again. So not only is he putting out
Speaker 1: the most data, he's putting out the most valuable data.
Speaker 1: True hero, real American hero right here is people suggest
Speaker 1: they're like, how do you catch more fish? I'm like,
Speaker 1: have the kind of time that Ed has to just
Speaker 1: be out there that often. And that's that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Like they give out awards every year to the top
Speaker 1: five fish taggers, and and they have, you know, the
Speaker 1: photos of everybody holding their troovies, and Ed's always there
Speaker 1: like DS and everyone and and the only consistency I
Speaker 1: can see is pretty much everybody in any of those
Speaker 1: photos is a retired dude. And I have a new
Speaker 1: life goal, Like, straight up, when I retire, I want
Speaker 1: to be Ed of wherever I'm living. I want to
Speaker 1: be like the guy who just goes fishing all the
Speaker 1: time in the name of science. That's what I want
Speaker 1: to do. That's who I want to be. Well, you know, dude,
Speaker 1: we've we've ragged and I've heard about it. We've ragged
Speaker 1: on like the citation angling stuff, like you know how
Speaker 1: you catch this fish fish state dude, Like this is
Speaker 1: way more noble, Like I don't want to care about
Speaker 1: your citation pickroll. Like if you've tagged hundred whatever for
Speaker 1: this year, that is helping your state manager species. That's
Speaker 1: way cooler than your damn state citation award. I don't
Speaker 1: care about the sitation. I care about your tag records. Yeah, citations,
Speaker 1: tancara cross what else? Don't what else? Don't I like
Speaker 1: every Wally We don't like Wally eyes anyway. Last point,
Speaker 1: last point. Anybody who's out there listening that lives in
Speaker 1: Virginia you want to get involve. The program recruits and
Speaker 1: trains new volunteers every December about fish handling and proper
Speaker 1: tag insertions, so you can you can get on this.
Speaker 1: And if you fish around Virginia Point and you catch
Speaker 1: any tagged fish, just please report it because that's what
Speaker 1: makes all this work. You can you can find all
Speaker 1: the information you want about any of the stuff, including
Speaker 1: the reports, just online. Just go to m r C
Speaker 1: dot Virginia dot gov and they'll get you lined out
Speaker 1: with everything you need. There you go. Well, Phil has
Speaker 1: plenty of data to sift through this week to declare
Speaker 1: a winner. And as soon as we're done hearing from Phil,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna keep up with the local regional
Speaker 1: slang thing that we we've already got going in this episode,
Speaker 1: we're gonna move into the weekly Word and hopefully when
Speaker 1: you're in Virginia you will catch a fish that does this,
Speaker 1: that does the weekly Word to your rod. Because I
Speaker 1: am the kind of sucker who would fall for the
Speaker 1: model zero. I have fallen for Joe Sairmelli this week. Joe,
Speaker 1: you're the winner. Wow. This week we had Brian Adams,
Speaker 1: we had Danzig. I just want to keep this train rolling.
Speaker 1: Maybe next week we'll get George Clooney the Competition bass Angler,
Speaker 1: or Madonna the Fishing Guide from Louisiana. I feel for you, guys,
Speaker 1: but it could be much worse. I know of a
Speaker 1: journalist named Jeffrey Epstein who I think is on the
Speaker 1: verge of either legally changing his name or just walking
Speaker 1: into the ocean. Webster's Dictionary defines fish as sticking with
Speaker 1: the theme. In this week, when I was fishing with
Speaker 1: Joe recently, I tied into some stout American chad that
Speaker 1: had my trustee thirteen fishing fates steelhead rod folded completely
Speaker 1: over in heavy current. I looked at Joe and said
Speaker 1: something to the effect of, hell, yeah, we're getting corked.
Speaker 1: Instead of embracing the celebratory sentiment of what he knew
Speaker 1: I was trying to communicate, Joe instead decided that moment,
Speaker 1: right in the middle of me trying to land a
Speaker 1: hefty row shad, was a good time to start a
Speaker 1: semantic debate. Corked, He asked, who says corked? Nobody says
Speaker 1: that I was too busy landing a fish to properly
Speaker 1: argue with him. But I have since wondered where the
Speaker 1: phrase came from. Did I make it up? Is it
Speaker 1: just unique to my group of fishing buddies. I don't
Speaker 1: have a definitive answer, certainly not the answer I was
Speaker 1: hoping for, which would be solid proof that corked is
Speaker 1: a legitimate and widely used fishing term and Joe just
Speaker 1: doesn't know what he's talking about. But I do have
Speaker 1: a theory about where the term came from and how
Speaker 1: it made its way into my personal lexicon. First off,
Speaker 1: where I live. Corked is a slang expression for getting
Speaker 1: one's rod completely folded over by a big fish. It
Speaker 1: may not be ubiquitous and certainly isn't common among people
Speaker 1: over forty, but it is well used. I cannot, however,
Speaker 1: find any evidence of its adoption in the broader angling community,
Speaker 1: at least not in that context. Best I can tell,
Speaker 1: corked is shorthand for bent to the cork, which is
Speaker 1: a widely accepted phrase in fishing to describe when a
Speaker 1: fishing rod flexes all the way to the handle, which
Speaker 1: is traditionally made of cork. This phrase is common enough
Speaker 1: that the now defunct magazine American Angler named their newsletter
Speaker 1: bent to the cork. So at least I can validate
Speaker 1: the longer form version of court. But the story doesn't
Speaker 1: end there, because corked is a well documented slang term
Speaker 1: in the fishing community out west with a completely different meaning.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been corked off? I have, and I've
Speaker 1: had words with other anglers and guides over it. Corked
Speaker 1: off or corked describes when another angler or boat breaches
Speaker 1: fishing etiquette by cutting you off. Say you're working your
Speaker 1: way down a shoreline or a run and another angler
Speaker 1: boat jumps in ahead of you, Well, you just got
Speaker 1: corked off, also known as low holding. In this context.
Speaker 1: The term court comes from the commercial salmon fishing scene
Speaker 1: in Alaska. We've all seen how competitive and cut their
Speaker 1: recreational fishing can get. Will picture what that could be
Speaker 1: like when tens of thousands of dollars are on the line.
Speaker 1: Just like in weekend fishing, commercial fishing has accepted etiquette,
Speaker 1: and setting your nets right in front of someone else
Speaker 1: has already established nets to intercept the fish before them
Speaker 1: is considered a major breach of code. Traditionally, floats on
Speaker 1: gillnets were made of cork, and dropping your nets ahead
Speaker 1: of someone else's came to be known as corking them
Speaker 1: off or corking them, as is often the case. Commercial
Speaker 1: fishing vernacular trickled down to the recreational scene, and getting
Speaker 1: corked off came to describe a similar behavior in any
Speaker 1: fishing situation. My theory is this, somewhere along the line,
Speaker 1: bent to the cork and corked off became intertwined in
Speaker 1: some fish addled brain, or maybe just got mixed up
Speaker 1: by some google. Either way, since we all love shorthand,
Speaker 1: and bent to the cork is kind of a mouthful,
Speaker 1: especially when you're in the heat of big fish battle.
Speaker 1: Corked became a term with multiple definitions, one positive and
Speaker 1: one negative. I use it both ways, and frankly never
Speaker 1: even recognized the conflict until Joe started pitching me ship
Speaker 1: in the middle of the Delaware River. Okay, so I
Speaker 1: have heard the phrase bent to the cork before, right,
Speaker 1: but not cork. That seems like such a West Coast
Speaker 1: thing to me. Like it just sounds like it should
Speaker 1: be automatically followed by the word bro. No, that's fair,
Speaker 1: that's fair. I don't know. You've got me questioning it
Speaker 1: like i've when we when we talked about doing this
Speaker 1: for this segment, I was I hadn't thought about it much,
Speaker 1: and now you're making me self conscious about that particular
Speaker 1: particular exclamation. I might I might have to cut that
Speaker 1: from the repertoire. I don't know. We'll see, well, think
Speaker 1: about it, think about it at time. Anyway. Let's let's
Speaker 1: cap off this week's show with a little trivia for
Speaker 1: a change. We'll skip end of the line for trivia here.
Speaker 1: And I actually recorded this with my good friend Joe
Speaker 1: Demo Daris of Cross Current Guide Service way back during
Speaker 1: last summer's mousing season. But you guys have actually seen
Speaker 1: Joe more recently in uh in b side fishing. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Joe D. And you hit the radioactive Passaic River chasing
Speaker 1: after some some long toothye pike. Yes, in Joe D's
Speaker 1: clack a craft, which I gotta say, watching that on
Speaker 1: camera looked a hell of a lot room here then
Speaker 1: your boat, and I'm gonna I'm gonna out you here
Speaker 1: because Joe Cie here has like the mini Cooper of
Speaker 1: clackic crafts. I have I fished out of so many
Speaker 1: drift boats in my life, but I have never never
Speaker 1: been in one like yours until I came out to visit.
Speaker 1: I mean it, it's totally a clack It's it's a
Speaker 1: drift boat, yeah, only smaller. Yeah, yeah, I don't care.
Speaker 1: I told you what I paid for it, and even
Speaker 1: you were like, oh my god, I would have bought
Speaker 1: that twice. I would have. I would have. It's just
Speaker 1: it's it's weird. It's different. It feels very narrow, like
Speaker 1: there's no room to stand. It's it's it's weird. It's
Speaker 1: great for one person. It's really when I never fished
Speaker 1: by myself in my drift boat, I I do. But anyway,
Speaker 1: if if any of you out there have ever wondered
Speaker 1: where drift boats as a general term, like where the
Speaker 1: term drift boats came from? This trivia is for you.
Speaker 1: You gotta be highly skilled for these shows. You understand that,
Speaker 1: don't want the Are you well versed there? You're very
Speaker 1: smart man? All right? Playing trivia with us today, my
Speaker 1: good friend Joe Dimodaris of Cross Current Guide Service, Joe
Speaker 1: how Art thou I am good? I am? I am
Speaker 1: also good because I am at your place, the guide
Speaker 1: Shack on the Upper Delaware River doing a little on
Speaker 1: location session here while we're doing some mouse fishing. So um,
Speaker 1: we gotta get you down for trivia, man, um, Are
Speaker 1: you good at trivia? No? No, you don't go to
Speaker 1: the bar and new trivia and that's I used to
Speaker 1: do that, and like, actually it's funny you mentioned that,
Speaker 1: like you know, probably forty years ago playing trivia pursuit
Speaker 1: at the bar and every time you lost, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's fun. That's all school. They just have the cards
Speaker 1: on the table and I've been if you lost, you
Speaker 1: had to drink a shot. And I mean there was
Speaker 1: a lot of times like I just like I lost,
Speaker 1: I couldn't play. After six questions, I was done. Well,
Speaker 1: there's absolutely nothing at stake here to lose or wins, so, um,
Speaker 1: you don't have to do any shots if you get
Speaker 1: these wrong. But I always try and tailor my trivia
Speaker 1: questions to the person playing. And I figured, you've got
Speaker 1: thirty years experience rowing drift boats and guiding. So here's
Speaker 1: question number one. Okay. While many believe the idea for
Speaker 1: driftboats first came from crude logging skiffs in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, history traces origins of the drift boat with
Speaker 1: many of the same features that they have the day,
Speaker 1: back to the nine twenties. Which of the following rivers
Speaker 1: is considered the birthplace of the modern drift boat? Would
Speaker 1: that be A the Rogue River, be the Mackenzie River,
Speaker 1: see the Colorado River, or d the di Shoots River. Wow,
Speaker 1: I thought it was like Captain Ahab chasing wales around.
Speaker 1: Those were dories, it was. The driftboat is an offshoot
Speaker 1: of the dory. But what I'm saying is, at some
Speaker 1: point in history it was Okay, that is right. Modern
Speaker 1: drift boats were born in the Pacific Northwest, and it
Speaker 1: was the Mackenzie River where these specialized whitewater capable crafts originated,
Speaker 1: and they were known as Mackenzie boats. And fun fact,
Speaker 1: designer Woody Hindman, because I did my research, was the
Speaker 1: guy who figured out that these boats would be much
Speaker 1: more efficient if they were pointed at each end. Sweet yeah,
Speaker 1: and would he probably, you know, had like two bucks
Speaker 1: worth of material and trees he felled himself. And all
Speaker 1: these years later, you know, we'll pay twenty grand for
Speaker 1: one and then upgrade it with the LED lights and
Speaker 1: the built in US be charger world's most expensive rowboat exactly.
Speaker 1: But I do have one more for you. This one's
Speaker 1: a little bit more fun, uh, since we are up
Speaker 1: here mousing doing a little night mouse fishing. That's the
Speaker 1: thing you and I enjoy doing together. Tell me which
Speaker 1: one of the following is not an actual mouse fly
Speaker 1: that is out there in the world tied on YouTube?
Speaker 1: I found all these, So which one of these is
Speaker 1: not an actual mouse pattern? Is it a the weaponized mouse?
Speaker 1: Be the cousin it mouse see Ichabod's art a mouse
Speaker 1: or d the oh, mickey, your so fine. One of
Speaker 1: those is not an actual mouse pattern? All right, Now,
Speaker 1: this is really hard for me that you know, it's
Speaker 1: very difficult because I'm terrible at knowing names of patterns.
Speaker 1: I really am. My sneak at like guys talking. I
Speaker 1: knew this was going to be a harder question than
Speaker 1: the Mackenzie drift bos people people talk about, like, you know,
Speaker 1: the itchy ball fly, and I don't have a clue,
Speaker 1: you know, I just know like that looks yeah, officially
Speaker 1: eat that thing. I'll use it. Right, Because you're a
Speaker 1: guide in practical when it comes to applying flies to
Speaker 1: I don't need to know the name of it, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't you know whatever? You know, even if dry fly, right,
Speaker 1: if it's if it's some kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: tweedledum olive, I don't need to know it's the name.
Speaker 1: It's there's a little green flight. That's what they're eating. Right,
Speaker 1: So we're good. But based on the names you listed, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a wild shot. You have to go
Speaker 1: with d Oh, mickey, you're so fine? Is not a
Speaker 1: mouse pattern? Yeah? That's correct. WHOA, that's correct? Because people
Speaker 1: are so ate up with this mouse ship that it
Speaker 1: really I feel like it could have been. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: that it will be now, soby will tie that by
Speaker 1: next week after hearing this totally well, thanks for playing
Speaker 1: trivia and good on you. That was two for two.
Speaker 1: So that's it for this week. Remember if you're headed
Speaker 1: to Jerry's and you should be to pick up a canoe.
Speaker 1: He is sixty and probably won't know how to take
Speaker 1: a selfie with a mouse fly called the Hey Mickey,
Speaker 1: You're so fine has not been patented, but would likely
Speaker 1: slay gold and blue trout in West Virginia and Bent
Speaker 1: to the cork and corked are not actually the same thing.
Speaker 1: Despite what us out West Brobras trying to say, keep
Speaker 1: those Salman items, bar nominations, awkward photos, news stories, and
Speaker 1: everything else coming. Please to Bent at the mediator dot com.
Speaker 1: We always love hearing from you guys. Also, we love
Speaker 1: seeing those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on the Graham.
Speaker 1: Those are, in fact the fastest way to earn a
Speaker 1: sticker pack from us. Those packs may eventually include stickers
Speaker 1: that say shut up and fished douse light. If we're
Speaker 1: gonna stick with the Jerry making stickers. I don't know
Speaker 1: we're gonna we probably have to license that from Jerry
Speaker 1: anyway until next week. Don't forget. No matter how you
Speaker 1: stroke it, at least you're stroking it in the open air,
Speaker 1: surrounded by nature, instead of in your parents basement on
Speaker 1: the couch that used to belong to your mo mom
Speaker 1: and peepop