Speaker 1: So there you go. If Elon Musk ever gets to
Speaker 1: build his creepy Martian utopia, we will have fish to
Speaker 1: thank for it. I actually at one point wondered if
Speaker 1: he was like real or not, like you may have
Speaker 1: been like a robot. Every time somebody says lake Minnetonka,
Speaker 1: I have to say to myself, why don't you purify
Speaker 1: yourself in the waters Lake Minatonka. I missed the days
Speaker 1: when you can marry people and not get it into trouble.
Speaker 1: Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Band the fishing
Speaker 1: podcast that refused to include any kids that couldn't skate
Speaker 1: in its roller hockey game. I'm Joe Surmellie A Miles Nulty,
Speaker 1: and I was one of those kids. I was not
Speaker 1: in the game, but you know what I I didn't
Speaker 1: care because I was at the skate park on a
Speaker 1: skateboard where we wouldn't let any of you barney as
Speaker 1: Blazers anywhere near the ramps or anything else for that matter.
Speaker 1: You weren't allowed. That's yeah, Look, that's fair. Skateboarder. You
Speaker 1: were always cooler, right, And I'm not talking extreme rollerblading.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about in a hockey context here, Okay, I
Speaker 1: I will say that I find it fascinating that skateboard
Speaker 1: has remained cool, but rollerblades have disappeared. And I know
Speaker 1: it makes perfect Now let's listen. Let's listen. Listen. I
Speaker 1: see the fat dropping out in terms of extreme rollerblading,
Speaker 1: like like the skate park that the kids that bothered you.
Speaker 1: But nobody rollerblades anymore, period, not for fitness, not for anything.
Speaker 1: Like I don't even know if kids play street hockey anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that's a thing. Like like kids,
Speaker 1: my kids age, what do they roll with on their feet?
Speaker 1: You don't you don't have roller skates, you don't have,
Speaker 1: you know, roller blades. I don't understand how that just disappeared.
Speaker 1: But other than fishing, it was the only sport I
Speaker 1: was ever into. I played street hockey weekly on blades
Speaker 1: that looked like ice hockey skates. I had the CCM
Speaker 1: official roller hockey skates, and even if I was playing goal,
Speaker 1: I kept the skates on. Most kids are like playing
Speaker 1: goal and putting my sneakers, and now you keep the
Speaker 1: skates on. I mean, I'm not sure if you're actually
Speaker 1: asking me what happened to rollerblades, because if that's the case,
Speaker 1: you were asking the wrong guy, because clearly I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to know because I don't care.
Speaker 1: We could we could call up my cousin. I guess
Speaker 1: he was. He was on the state roller hawking championship team,
Speaker 1: I think, but he was really he was my younger cousin.
Speaker 1: He was a badass. Oh, I'd like to know more.
Speaker 1: I'd like to know more about that. Could he not
Speaker 1: ice skate? Is that why it was Hawaii? So ice
Speaker 1: skating not so much. Gotta gotta gotta think about what
Speaker 1: was appropriate, got it and got it. And just to
Speaker 1: like close the loop on this, man, I think I
Speaker 1: know what replaced rollerblades for the kids, and and they're
Speaker 1: called razor scooters, and they're equally terrible. And I put
Speaker 1: rollerblades and razor scooters together with Tankara rods. Alright, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's where I put both of them into that category.
Speaker 1: Like they're the kind of thing, any of those things,
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you might you might have one
Speaker 1: hidden like way in the back of your garage under
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff, and like you might even use
Speaker 1: it occasionally when you were a hundred percent positive that
Speaker 1: no one that you respect is gonna see you. But
Speaker 1: if one of your buddies were to like, hey, what's
Speaker 1: what do you got back here, and like see that
Speaker 1: in your garage, you're gonna lie and you're gonna say
Speaker 1: it belongs to your kid. Oh god, the letters were
Speaker 1: gonna get about that one. We're gonna get letters about
Speaker 1: Razor scooters, rollerblades all together. I said it, oh man,
Speaker 1: but you know we like letters, thank god. So that's okay.
Speaker 1: Speaking of places that you you won't find ten carra
Speaker 1: stuff in Plaine View, let's head over to that was
Speaker 1: a really good you like that. It was really well
Speaker 1: the Upper Delaware on the Upper Delaware River. And I
Speaker 1: am very tight with the White Tail Fly shop crew.
Speaker 1: So we've got kind of a different smooth Move segment
Speaker 1: for you this week. I actually recorded this in the
Speaker 1: shop months ago during prime season with shop manager Pat Cook.
Speaker 1: And let's just say we're all familiar with the kind
Speaker 1: of nonsense guides on the water have to deal with,
Speaker 1: but we've yet to venture into the life of the
Speaker 1: shop guy, which is different. So here's a little taste.
Speaker 1: Why oh my little change of pace for smooth moves.
Speaker 1: Here this week. I am actually recording from inside White
Speaker 1: Tail Country Fly Shop and Starlight p A, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite shops on the planet and one of my
Speaker 1: favorite destinations. And you know, uh, smooth Moves thus far
Speaker 1: has been tailored to captains and guides telling stories of
Speaker 1: ridiculous ship that their clients have done. But we want
Speaker 1: to be all inclusive with the fishing industry, so we're
Speaker 1: gonna change it up a little bit today. And we've
Speaker 1: got Pat Cook here. How you doing, Pat? Doing pretty good? Good? Good?
Speaker 1: Now the shop guys, the unsung hero Pat, don't you
Speaker 1: feel unsung? Feel just kept in the corner like baby?
Speaker 1: So I want to I want to give I want
Speaker 1: to give voice to the unsung here. So um I
Speaker 1: figured um similarly to uh some some lunacy that that
Speaker 1: guides and captaincy. Um, this can be like groundhog Day, right,
Speaker 1: just the same questions over and over. Yeah, i'd say
Speaker 1: ten times, at least ten times a day. You get
Speaker 1: the same question normally what fly works, which is an
Speaker 1: easy one because I just say none of them, okay,
Speaker 1: But you've you've got to you've got to particularly stand out,
Speaker 1: um customer interaction that you're gonna give us on smooth
Speaker 1: moves today. So so lay it on me, man, how
Speaker 1: this what? What? What? What he got? Well? Uh, so
Speaker 1: I had a guy, let me think. I had a
Speaker 1: guy come in. He's a nice guy. You know, he
Speaker 1: was a nice guy, genuinely nice guy. Didn't know that
Speaker 1: any of this was happening, meaning meaning you were gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about him later. No, well, no didn't. I
Speaker 1: don't think he realized the things that he was saying.
Speaker 1: It was just one of those that's great. I actually
Speaker 1: at one point wondered if he was like real or not,
Speaker 1: like he may have been like a robot. So so
Speaker 1: it comes in, you know, he's Peter, and I don't Hey,
Speaker 1: how you doing? And he's he's like, oh great, you know,
Speaker 1: just passing through, you know. And I'm like, okay, you
Speaker 1: guys fishing. He's like, well, no, I only fish freshwater.
Speaker 1: I don't fish the rivers. I was like okay. And
Speaker 1: and also I thought maybe he missed, maybe he miss spoke,
Speaker 1: you know, give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe
Speaker 1: he miss spoke. So then I'm like, okay, where are
Speaker 1: you guys from? And he's like, oh, I live over
Speaker 1: by Lake kum As, I said, I do only freshwater fishing.
Speaker 1: This is a real conversational conversation. He said, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if you ever think about getting out on
Speaker 1: the rivers, we're here and he's like, yeah, I like
Speaker 1: the freshwater. This legitimately happens. So then he gets over,
Speaker 1: you know, he's looking around for a while, and he
Speaker 1: gets over by the hats and he wants to buy something.
Speaker 1: I can see that he wants support supports small business
Speaker 1: souvenir if you will, wants to get something. So he's
Speaker 1: looking at the hats and uh, He's like, well, why
Speaker 1: is this hat twenty dollars more expensive than this hat?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, one's waterproof. He says oh. He says, well,
Speaker 1: what happens to the hat if it gets wet? And
Speaker 1: I said, the waterproof one or the other one? He
Speaker 1: said the other one. He said, well, generally has to
Speaker 1: get wet. They collect dirt and they maybe lose a
Speaker 1: little of their form. And he says okay. So then
Speaker 1: he's trying to bolth on and then he says, well,
Speaker 1: why does this hat fit differently than this hat does?
Speaker 1: And he said, well, I'm not sure. It could be
Speaker 1: the crown in the hat. I didn't know what to
Speaker 1: say at that point. Um he ended up not buying
Speaker 1: the waterproof hat. He ended up buying the powder blue
Speaker 1: hat that I thought it might be for his daughter.
Speaker 1: But he said, this is gonna look great on me.
Speaker 1: Was it at least a white tail country flash? Now
Speaker 1: it was something else, big brand, not a small not
Speaker 1: a small shot. Okay, this is why I'm in favor
Speaker 1: of us expanding the smooth move concepts this way. I
Speaker 1: like this because even though even though that story doesn't
Speaker 1: have like an oh damn punchline at the end of it,
Speaker 1: you know, like where someone takes a dump in the
Speaker 1: livewell or falls out of the boat, it's it's more layered,
Speaker 1: and it realistically portrays what it's like to work in
Speaker 1: the fishing service industry, because that's what it is. Guys
Speaker 1: like guys like Pat deal with with this lunacy multiple
Speaker 1: times a day most of the days that they go
Speaker 1: to work. Yep, And it's it's it's more subtle, but
Speaker 1: in some ways it's almost funnier because all right, I
Speaker 1: guided for a lot of different shops over the course
Speaker 1: of my guiding career, and I never worked the counter,
Speaker 1: but I would see these poor kids show up every
Speaker 1: morning when I was waiting to meet my clients and
Speaker 1: they were opening the shop, and they just they had
Speaker 1: this look of resignation in their faces, like like yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of like Dante and Clerks when when they're opening
Speaker 1: the shop, you know, exactly. And just to mix, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna mix nineties comedy references here a bit, but like
Speaker 1: if past smooth moves or the equivalent of like Jim
Speaker 1: Carrey or Sinbad stand up, this one was squarely Stephen Wright.
Speaker 1: I get up the other day and everything in my
Speaker 1: apartment had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica
Speaker 1: or maybe Mitch Hedberg, Right, that's a cynical dude, And
Speaker 1: that's why I like them. And even if it wasn't
Speaker 1: in a fly shop, if you ever work in retail ever,
Speaker 1: you understand why this is comical, especially because you, like,
Speaker 1: you're so forced to stick to that customer is always
Speaker 1: right thing, even if you're just dying to be a
Speaker 1: total dick and you can't. And uh, anyway, look, I
Speaker 1: would love to get a few more shop owners in
Speaker 1: the mix. We know plenty of them, so that very
Speaker 1: well could happen. Yeah, we do. We know a lot
Speaker 1: of them, and hopefully they'll be here soon. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: let's let's keep up some of that that hot sales action.
Speaker 1: We're gonna move from buying ugly fishing hats that are
Speaker 1: not water to selling gently used fishing waiters that hopefully
Speaker 1: our waterproof in this week's sale, Ben, why did you
Speaker 1: put the hand to pave? You don't know what I'm getting? Man?
Speaker 1: What you didn't have to be so hurtful with me
Speaker 1: so angry? Today we've got a listing I found on
Speaker 1: offer up and this is from Philadelphia, p A. And
Speaker 1: everything about this listing is so Philly I can hardly
Speaker 1: stand it. This is a straight up Philly John right
Speaker 1: here for the people in the area that know what
Speaker 1: that term means. Up for grabs today we've got some
Speaker 1: used neoprene boot foot waiters. But here's the title of
Speaker 1: the listing. Phishing waiters spelled w A I T e
Speaker 1: r s, as in waiter in a restaurant, which must
Speaker 1: be like the you know, the pool waitress National Lampoon's
Speaker 1: vacation Um. Anyway, fishing waiters, nothing wrong with them, just
Speaker 1: got too fat. I'm still laughing quick. I gotta I
Speaker 1: gotta jump back for a second, though, I think you
Speaker 1: need to maybe do a weekly word on John, because
Speaker 1: I and many others out there have no idea what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. J A W N. But it's not
Speaker 1: a fishing term. Alright, well, Phillip, people still get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got nothing on that one. But when you did
Speaker 1: send me this, I I I laughed a lot and
Speaker 1: I'm still kind of laughing because of all the things
Speaker 1: that you just heard right like they're they're the misspellings.
Speaker 1: There's there's everything going on, and and just got too fat,
Speaker 1: like straight to the point. I actually I enjoyed it
Speaker 1: so much. I actually texted back L O L and
Speaker 1: I did. I hate text shorthand and I never used it,
Speaker 1: but I did. I did that. I did it. I know,
Speaker 1: I know you wrote to be I mean, let me see,
Speaker 1: I hate L O L, but I actually am doing
Speaker 1: that right now. So this listing forced you to briefly
Speaker 1: embrace text acronyms. Um Anyhow, the description mirrors mirrors the
Speaker 1: listing title. It reads, fishing waiters spelled the same way
Speaker 1: nine and a half. I just got too fat. But
Speaker 1: you know what, I feel like it's at least possible
Speaker 1: that that there's a shred of honesty here, Like he's
Speaker 1: doing this, I think it's totally to be honest. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: no it Uh. This one reminds me of the guy.
Speaker 1: It's a little less tragic, but it reminds me of
Speaker 1: the guys selling a surf gear because he hates his dad.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like my dad's selling because my dad's
Speaker 1: a Jersey Yeah that guy. Yeah, it makes me. I
Speaker 1: love this level of honesty in a in a in
Speaker 1: a sale post because it it reassures you. It's like
Speaker 1: saying there's nothing wrong with this gear, Like there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with these waiters. They're not leak in and and
Speaker 1: and getting you all cold. They just don't fit because
Speaker 1: I got fat. And I I believe that because he's
Speaker 1: willing to be that honest in his text, I think
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of a brilliant strategy. Really. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I also I sympathize with with his dilemma because
Speaker 1: lord knows, I've been there, Like I have friends be like, dude,
Speaker 1: you're giving me a practically brand new SIMS foul weather suit,
Speaker 1: are you sure? And I'm like, yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't really, I don't really, I don't wear gray anymore,
Speaker 1: you know, Like, didn't you just get this a few
Speaker 1: months ago? Yeah? Yeah, I did, you know. So I
Speaker 1: I feel you, brother, I feel like, oh man, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna touch I'm not gonna touch that one, Joe.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave that alone. Um. But I feel like
Speaker 1: we have to dive into the waiters a little bit
Speaker 1: because as much as I appreciate his presentation, I have
Speaker 1: a little issue with with this product and pricing. He's
Speaker 1: asking fifty bucks. But these are Fish America Pro gear waiters.
Speaker 1: These are not your sims G four z s people.
Speaker 1: These are these are like that stock brand that you
Speaker 1: find at Walmart or Kmart or whatever you got. And
Speaker 1: I'm not dogging on that kind of waiters. I've worn
Speaker 1: plenty of them, but I doubt they cost more than
Speaker 1: fifty bucks retail off the shelf. Yeah, I agree, because
Speaker 1: these are the caliber waiters I bought for years, like
Speaker 1: you know, school in college, and you just buy them,
Speaker 1: and I would always just expect to buy a new
Speaker 1: pair the following year. You know, they were what they were.
Speaker 1: But I was I was thinking the same thing because
Speaker 1: let's just say they were eighty bucks, right, So thirty
Speaker 1: bucks off isn't bad, but it's it's too risky of
Speaker 1: an item, right. Waiters are one of those ones like
Speaker 1: used waiters, You're you're taking a risk there because you
Speaker 1: will be very uncomfortable. So I mean, I assume that
Speaker 1: that the guy, you know, he's saying I got too fat,
Speaker 1: and he's being honest, right, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's still a risk. Like if I need to back
Speaker 1: up waiters and saw these at a yard sale or something,
Speaker 1: I'm still taking your word no matter how nice you
Speaker 1: come off, that they don't leak. So for you know,
Speaker 1: twenty bucks, I might, I might take that shot, but
Speaker 1: fifty I don't know. Yeah, I dropped twenty on it,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I'd go as high as fifty.
Speaker 1: But hopefully, hopefully someone does buy these from from this
Speaker 1: particular individual, because I, as I've already said, I applaud
Speaker 1: their honesty and their their their sales technique, um, and
Speaker 1: I hope whoever winds up in them is very happy
Speaker 1: and stays dry and they fit great. We both got
Speaker 1: a very good laugh out of this one, and UH
Speaker 1: and all of you out there continued to send us
Speaker 1: just such good sale bin items and we love it.
Speaker 1: So if and when you find a listing that you
Speaker 1: think we should we should spend some time with, just
Speaker 1: pass along to Bent at the meat eater dot com.
Speaker 1: If you're the kind of person that would be skeptical
Speaker 1: of buying old hip boots out a garage sale, you
Speaker 1: might also be skeptical of our ability to deliver the
Speaker 1: most pertinent and accurate current events and fishing. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna try and earn your trust anyway. It's time for
Speaker 1: fish news. Fish news that escalated quickly. Alright, I have
Speaker 1: um kind of a cool shout out this week. I
Speaker 1: have to thank fifteen year old Marion Brosick because she
Speaker 1: let me borrow her net. Okay, now hear me out. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is great, Yeah, okay, Okay, you're gonna love this
Speaker 1: for multiple reasons. Marin is the are my buddy Eric
Speaker 1: bro Sick, and Eric he runs shuttle for us time
Speaker 1: to time on a particular river um p A n
Speaker 1: p A here in Northeast and a few weeks ago
Speaker 1: I'm het up with my bud Nick Rafts, who was
Speaker 1: a professional full time trout fishing guide on said river.
Speaker 1: He's been on the show. We've had nickels show right,
Speaker 1: And as as we're dumping his boat in, I'm looking
Speaker 1: around and I'm like, bro, you bring a net. And
Speaker 1: now Nick Nick claims his net must have been stolen,
Speaker 1: so I'll go with that. I'm gonna you know, I'll
Speaker 1: let him have it. Your net got stolen. But regardless,
Speaker 1: we had no net. Okay, And suffice it to say,
Speaker 1: like in this river, especially in the middle of the winter,
Speaker 1: you ain't hooking a lot of trout, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: if you pin one, you're gonna one a net. Right.
Speaker 1: So Eric was with us, and out of the kindness
Speaker 1: of his heart, he drove Nick's rigg with the with
Speaker 1: the trailer in tow to his own house and came
Speaker 1: back with two net options, both of which were extremely short,
Speaker 1: short handled wooden waiting nets like the standard waiting on them,
Speaker 1: No there were there were no magnets, so we just
Speaker 1: went with the one with the with the bigger hoop,
Speaker 1: which turns out to be the net Eric had made
Speaker 1: for Marin for Christmas a couple of years ago, custom
Speaker 1: complete with a lovely purple lanyard, and while it was
Speaker 1: awkward to wheel on a driftboat, we put a nine
Speaker 1: and twenty three in it. So Maren apparently heard about
Speaker 1: this later and was so happy her net came through
Speaker 1: for us. Um, she told her dad she should be
Speaker 1: on fish news. So, Maren, you've been on fish news. Okay,
Speaker 1: I thank you for the net loan. Um. You you
Speaker 1: had the proper tool. A full time professional trout fishing
Speaker 1: guide did not, and I thank you for that. Props
Speaker 1: to you, Maren, well done saving the day. I've got
Speaker 1: I've got one quick thing too, and several different listeners
Speaker 1: forwarded me this, so I'm just gonna cover it real quick. Um.
Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed how it seems like whenever we
Speaker 1: get on a roll with particular kinds of stories, something
Speaker 1: along those same lines just keeps popping up everywhere, Like
Speaker 1: like the last couple of weeks, we've each talked about
Speaker 1: Wells catfish eating birds, right, And I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do another full news story on it because two weeks
Speaker 1: in rows enough. But just this last week, National Geographic
Speaker 1: published a feature about Wells catfish titled Enormous Pigeon eating
Speaker 1: catfish Wreaking havoc on Europe's ecosystems. We we can't do
Speaker 1: it because we also told people duck lawyers are stupid,
Speaker 1: So we can't keep talking about all these bird eating fish.
Speaker 1: You know, we can't, but I do want to ship
Speaker 1: like seriously, thanks to everybody said to me. It's a
Speaker 1: really good read. And uh and I'll just for those
Speaker 1: of you aren't going to read it because most of
Speaker 1: you aren't. The coolest little nugget in there is about
Speaker 1: how Wells catfish in France have adapted to intentionally like
Speaker 1: feed on and prey upon the country's significant population of pigeons.
Speaker 1: And they kind of do it the same way that
Speaker 1: that sharks will grab prey off of beaches. The catfish
Speaker 1: are just like cruising right along the edge where we're
Speaker 1: the birds congregate and and and they wait for a
Speaker 1: pigeon to to get too close, and then they throw
Speaker 1: themselves up on shore or grab a pigeon and like
Speaker 1: flop back into the water. It's it's really cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and if you do read the article, there's this
Speaker 1: one photo it's so good. It's like a drone shot
Speaker 1: from above of this pack of Wells catfish circling this
Speaker 1: little island that's just covered up in pigeons. Sneaky, they're
Speaker 1: sneaky like that. Yeah, that's my shout out and and
Speaker 1: and suggestion for some quick reading. As always, this is
Speaker 1: a competition. Joe and I do not know which stories
Speaker 1: the other one is bringing, and at the end of
Speaker 1: it are illustrious and might add very handsome audio engineer
Speaker 1: Phil will declare a winner. And then after that we're
Speaker 1: gonna drip the soothing baritone of River Horse right into
Speaker 1: your ear holes. Joe, you're up first, man. That was wonderful.
Speaker 1: That was way to butter up. Philth that was that
Speaker 1: was good, buttering very good. Okay, So I get to
Speaker 1: kick here, and this is such a relatable story I
Speaker 1: can't even believe it. Very excited about this when it
Speaker 1: comes to us from Michigan's m live dot com and
Speaker 1: the headline is simply police solved mystery of a band
Speaker 1: an ice fishing gear. Now, to tell this story properly,
Speaker 1: I have to change their chronology and flow around just
Speaker 1: a little bit, because it's gonna make it funnier. Okay,
Speaker 1: So here's here's how breaks down. On Saturday, January nine,
Speaker 1: police were called to Melancamp Lake because someone reported that
Speaker 1: there was ice fishing gear on the lake near a
Speaker 1: sizeable hole in the ice that looked like a spot
Speaker 1: where someone fell through. Okay, And and by the time
Speaker 1: this was noticed, the hole it actually refrozen over, the
Speaker 1: story said, with a little more than an inch of ice.
Speaker 1: So definitely scary and something worth calling the cops over.
Speaker 1: Like that's that's freaky, right, um, And enrolled the Jackson
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office dive team the fire department, and they
Speaker 1: went all in. They broke through the ice, they checked
Speaker 1: for a body in the water, but all they recovered
Speaker 1: from the water was more ice fishing gear. There was
Speaker 1: just more ice fishing gear down the hole, right, So
Speaker 1: the police fascinating story. I wait, you're gonna love it.
Speaker 1: You're gonna love it. Uh. The police then went door
Speaker 1: to door asking if anyone had seen anything or if
Speaker 1: if anyone was missing, but but they weren't. There were
Speaker 1: no missing person's reports in the area. So the police
Speaker 1: put the photos of the recovered gear on social media. Um,
Speaker 1: and it was quickly recognized by a dad. They don't
Speaker 1: give the dad's name, but by a dad of two
Speaker 1: local fourteen year old boys, and he said, hey, I
Speaker 1: recognize that ice fishing gear, and then he confronted his sons,
Speaker 1: who had in fact gone ice fishing on January nine. Furthermore, okay,
Speaker 1: they were very upfront about having fallen through the ice
Speaker 1: while they were ice fishing. Okay, but they managed to
Speaker 1: get out safely. Um the day it happened, however, they
Speaker 1: came home wet and empty handed, and Dad said, well,
Speaker 1: where's all the ice fishing gear? And the kids told
Speaker 1: him it all went down the hall it's gone. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't. Obviously that wasn't true, because there was gear
Speaker 1: left on the ice, which prompted the call to police.
Speaker 1: So what is the catch here, Well, well, the gear
Speaker 1: and the whole were found on Meloncamp Lake, and on
Speaker 1: January nine, the dad had given the boys explicit instructions
Speaker 1: to not fish on Meloncamp Lake the day of the incident.
Speaker 1: The boys lied and said they were on Little Wolf Lake,
Speaker 1: which was a dad approved ice fishing venue. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: as a parent, there's certainly the very scary, unfunny aspect
Speaker 1: of this. But if you can't appreciate the humor, because
Speaker 1: in our teenage years, we've we've all like figuratively been
Speaker 1: right here and created an inadvertent ship storm for ourselves.
Speaker 1: That just spirals. Okay, and I figure after the scare.
Speaker 1: After they got out of the water. You know, these
Speaker 1: two were like, okay, dude, we cannot tell Dad. We
Speaker 1: were on Melancamp Lake. And I bet one of them
Speaker 1: was probably even like, but we left a rod in
Speaker 1: a chair out there, and they just just leave it.
Speaker 1: We'll just tell Dad we lost it. We lost everything
Speaker 1: because fourteen year olds like there, your mind is so
Speaker 1: obsessed with lying your way out of your immediate problem
Speaker 1: that I guarantee they did not have the foresight to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but if somebody sees a rod in a giant hole
Speaker 1: and a chair out there or whatever, they might call
Speaker 1: the cops. I was, I was here. I remember, like
Speaker 1: you know, we had a family boat with a big cabin,
Speaker 1: and like my dad left me and a buddy down
Speaker 1: there overnight. He headed home, and me and my my buddy,
Speaker 1: we were like seventeen, stayed down there. And he's like,
Speaker 1: I don't care what you do tomorrow, just don't run
Speaker 1: a boat from the bait shop. Like, what's the first
Speaker 1: thing you do the next day? You go run a
Speaker 1: boat from the bait shop. You don't want to fish
Speaker 1: on the dock. So I get it, um, But to
Speaker 1: bring closer to this, right, the dad went to the
Speaker 1: police station. When he went to reclaim his gear, he
Speaker 1: brought the kids with him, and the officer quoted in
Speaker 1: the story, he says, if you could have seen the
Speaker 1: looks on these kids faces when the dad brought them in,
Speaker 1: they were scared to death, and the kids got it
Speaker 1: talking to about the importance of being truthful and listen
Speaker 1: to your parents. But the cops said, he really thinks
Speaker 1: the dad was hoping that that he'd be a lot
Speaker 1: harder on them, but he just couldn't do it. He
Speaker 1: was just happy they were okay. He just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: But I understand that, right I would have hoped that
Speaker 1: to have been, like, here's a hundo, you can cut
Speaker 1: him and throw him in a sell or, so I'll
Speaker 1: come back and get them. You know, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't want to have to deal with this ever again.
Speaker 1: Can you can you help me? All? That's what I appreciate.
Speaker 1: It's like a goofy little thing, but I appreciate, like
Speaker 1: it's like that one detail that a fourteen year old
Speaker 1: you overlooked, that just took that like now there are
Speaker 1: police involved and knocking on doors and calls to action
Speaker 1: and dive teams just because you couldn't just run back
Speaker 1: out and pick up the chair and the rod. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is one of those most where I wish I could.
Speaker 1: I wish I could talk to these kids, but I
Speaker 1: also wish I could talk to fourteen year old me
Speaker 1: and say, you know, if you start the lies, they're
Speaker 1: just gonna stack up on top of each other and
Speaker 1: eventually they're gonna be too many lies for you to
Speaker 1: keep track of and you're gonna be screwed. So just don't.
Speaker 1: Just don't do it. Just don't start what happened here, kids,
Speaker 1: just you know ice safety. Listen to your dad, says me.
Speaker 1: The dad, now who didn't listen to my dad, just
Speaker 1: forget everything. I just said, yeah, I know my kids
Speaker 1: are gonna like fourteen year old We wouldn't listen to
Speaker 1: four year old me would be like whatever, old man,
Speaker 1: I don't care. I'll tack on. Good on you for
Speaker 1: going ice fishing for a couple of fourteen years, going
Speaker 1: out on their own. Not that doesn't happen enough anybody.
Speaker 1: I had no problem with that at all, And good
Speaker 1: on the dad for allowing that to happen, even though
Speaker 1: it's a dangerous activity. Yes, yes, I can support that.
Speaker 1: Uh and then we haven't really gotten to it yet,
Speaker 1: but we will at some point in this show have
Speaker 1: a substantive discussion about the massive advances in technology and
Speaker 1: ice fishing. There's been a lot of coverage about that
Speaker 1: kicking around lately, there has, and I haven't picked any
Speaker 1: of it up. But because there's not not been in
Speaker 1: the thing that I'm like, I gotta bring it to
Speaker 1: to fish News. But I will say that that I
Speaker 1: can't wait for us to find the right avenue for
Speaker 1: that conversation because I think it's one that people want
Speaker 1: to want to hear from us about. And though the
Speaker 1: story on butt Cella has nothing to do with ice
Speaker 1: fishing ice fishing gear, it does have to do with
Speaker 1: fish and technology and uh and and I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go with a story about robot fish and and
Speaker 1: and not the robotic fish lures that that you brought
Speaker 1: in and we discussed a few weeks back. Still think
Speaker 1: those are lame hooks off it's a robot fish, and
Speaker 1: just saying these particular robot fish I think are far
Speaker 1: more interesting than than those things. So that's that's that's
Speaker 1: my my intro there um Roboticists at Harvard University have
Speaker 1: come up with what they call blue bots, which are
Speaker 1: four in robot fish loosely designed to mimic Indo Pacific
Speaker 1: reefish called blue tangs. These blue bots they have they
Speaker 1: have tails that flap just like like a fish, and
Speaker 1: that's how they they propel themselves with the water, and
Speaker 1: they have dorsal fins that can move to control their direction.
Speaker 1: They also have three and sixty degree camera eyes and
Speaker 1: then blue led lights on their backs, and these fish
Speaker 1: can be programmed to visually locate one another and mimic
Speaker 1: some of the complex schooling behaviors of real fish. For example,
Speaker 1: the blue bots they can arrange themselves into that that
Speaker 1: swirling tornado that bait fish do when they're trying to
Speaker 1: avoid predators. They spiral around and not run into each
Speaker 1: other and keep that tight tex. They can go out
Speaker 1: and locate objects in their environment and then alert the
Speaker 1: others in the school to where the location is, so
Speaker 1: they all they all go there together. And that might
Speaker 1: not sound particularly impressive, but but the the ultimate goal
Speaker 1: of this technology, which is developed based on observations of
Speaker 1: actual schooling fish in the wild, it could have some
Speaker 1: pretty badass implications. For example, they think it might help
Speaker 1: in aiding open water rescue missions, UH, seeking out and
Speaker 1: destroying harmful invasive species like lionfish, monitoring deep water infrastructure,
Speaker 1: helping us better understand how and why fish school improving
Speaker 1: self driving cars, or even finally allowing us to colonize Mars.
Speaker 1: All right, that's a that's a big one there. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where that's that's the one you didn't secum up.
Speaker 1: The key is the developing robots that utilize collective intelligence
Speaker 1: to dictate their actions, just like schooling fish to Instead
Speaker 1: of individual intelligence, it's a collective intelligence. And and here's
Speaker 1: a kind of a long quote that I think sums
Speaker 1: it up pretty well from Wired magazine. This is the
Speaker 1: power of the crowd. A team of blue bots in
Speaker 1: constant communication and an exceedingly simple form of communication at
Speaker 1: that can work together to accomplish a mission. This is
Speaker 1: more fantasy than reality for now, but think about going
Speaker 1: to Mars. If Elon Musk and all the other rich
Speaker 1: guys want to pull that off. Before humans can inhabit
Speaker 1: the planet, they'll need shelters, so you would have to
Speaker 1: send robot teams beforehand. And on Mars there's no way
Speaker 1: to control the robots because there's too much latency for
Speaker 1: a signal to go from here to Mars, so they
Speaker 1: really need a high degree of autonomy without humans around
Speaker 1: to fix the mistakes. They'll have to cooperate perfectly to
Speaker 1: pull off complex construction tasks, all while navigating the rough
Speaker 1: Martian to rain that's so heavy and scary. So there
Speaker 1: you go. If Elon Musk ever gets to build his
Speaker 1: creepy Martian utopia, we will have fish to thank for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we'll get there and be like, oh, thanks
Speaker 1: for building all this welcome, and they'll kill us because
Speaker 1: now they live there, right, don't having these people seen?
Speaker 1: Terminator man like this is this is exactly how this
Speaker 1: ship begins. I'm not I'm not actually all that that
Speaker 1: excited about the colonizing Mars thing. But the other ways
Speaker 1: that they're thinking about using this technology I think is
Speaker 1: really cool, like like track it down line fish, like
Speaker 1: sending these things out of seeking destroy robots to kill
Speaker 1: lion fish, super cool, monitoring infrastructure, super cool, keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on on ecosystems without having to send people out,
Speaker 1: all very useful. My only concern is, like if we
Speaker 1: send out deployed too many of these. It feels like
Speaker 1: we're sending a lot of potential trash out of the oceans.
Speaker 1: But I see how the benefits could out with the risks. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And and on one hand, there's the part of me
Speaker 1: that's like, this is too much, this has gone too far.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't, I don't want this. But if
Speaker 1: all the things you rattled off, these could do like
Speaker 1: little lion fish sniper butts, That's cool, that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Like that's I want in on that, like like that program,
Speaker 1: just like reef and they just like seeking. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's badass. Um. Also, I have to imagine that
Speaker 1: the animated Lord people are knocking on the door, because
Speaker 1: this right here is the next iteration of the a
Speaker 1: rig just a whole school of um I have one
Speaker 1: animated Lord. When you have a whole and time you
Speaker 1: could you can just make your own baseball. They've all
Speaker 1: got a hook in them. They all speak to each other.
Speaker 1: See what you've done. See the ideas we're giving people? Now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna ruin fishing. Okay, good transition here, though, because
Speaker 1: because my next story sort of ties that future uristic
Speaker 1: technology and where it's going with like is that good
Speaker 1: or bad? And there's kind of some good things. I
Speaker 1: don't know anyway, This is local to me, but the
Speaker 1: the overriding subject cannon is affecting a lot more people
Speaker 1: in a lot more places. Okay. So this is from
Speaker 1: the app dot com headline you can fish our turbines. Okay.
Speaker 1: So there's a there's a big proposal. It seems to
Speaker 1: be moving to the next phases to build a giant
Speaker 1: wind farm off the Jersey coast. Okay, and now the
Speaker 1: whole field of those massive turbines that have ey sword
Speaker 1: millions of acres and ruining what we're stunning views in
Speaker 1: some places in my opinion anyway, this would be a
Speaker 1: new thing for Jersey. But these turbines already exist off
Speaker 1: many other coasts, including Rhode Island. Apparently there's a farm
Speaker 1: of them off Rhode Island. The proposal for Jerors put
Speaker 1: the turbines ten to twenty miles off shore, a little
Speaker 1: southeast of Barnegat Inlet Um. So this is from the story.
Speaker 1: There are many details to be worked out regarding the
Speaker 1: Atlantic Shores offshore winds lease site. The wind energy developer
Speaker 1: has a message to fishermen, they are welcome to try
Speaker 1: their luck there. And today I say, thanks Atlantic Shore
Speaker 1: off Shore Wind. But let me say something, we planned
Speaker 1: on it already, Like we were kind of already going
Speaker 1: to do that no matter what you said, okay, and
Speaker 1: the developers said it will it will not exclude anglers
Speaker 1: from the roughly eighty three thousand acre wind farm. They
Speaker 1: just asked that we please not tie off our boats
Speaker 1: to them. And I mean, that's a fine rule. Best
Speaker 1: of luck with that too. Suffice it to say, in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, Transit has a hard enough time policing anglers
Speaker 1: that trespass on the railroad tracks to catch stripers at
Speaker 1: the bridges on land. Um. And I mean there's even
Speaker 1: a real guy sitting in a little railroad house there,
Speaker 1: and that's a problem. So don't be shocked people if
Speaker 1: some folks tie off to your turbines. Just a heads up. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the turbines off Rhode Island are already a fishing hotspot.
Speaker 1: Per the story, I don't know that much about them,
Speaker 1: that's just from the story. And then it says and
Speaker 1: I find this caveat interesting. Um, jes how well turbines
Speaker 1: attract fish is still under much study. It says that
Speaker 1: Noah actually conducted a study on this and found that
Speaker 1: black sea bass, which are a really important species here
Speaker 1: commercially and recreationally, are sensitive to the sound created by
Speaker 1: wind turbines, so they don't like them. Um. In fact,
Speaker 1: many anglers, both on the commercial and recreational side, have
Speaker 1: raised a concern that the electromagnetic field that that these
Speaker 1: turbines and the whole field of them will create will
Speaker 1: actually scare fish away. Um. And the developers say that
Speaker 1: because the cables will be they're gonna be buried at
Speaker 1: least six ft below the ocean floor, this won't be
Speaker 1: a problem. So here's what I say, man, Like, I'm
Speaker 1: all for other sources of energy, but I god, I
Speaker 1: hate looking at those things that I'm sure I've been
Speaker 1: to so many places where it's just miles of them
Speaker 1: in every direction. So at least they're they're not an
Speaker 1: eesre offshore like at least they're their way out there,
Speaker 1: so they're not you know. Um. But that said, I'm excited,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't give a damn about black
Speaker 1: sea bass really, but I mean, there's gonna be Mahi
Speaker 1: and Kobea and to me, it creates sort of one
Speaker 1: of those who knows kinds of areas where where all
Speaker 1: kinds of odd ball shit will show up, you know,
Speaker 1: like we live. We live in that area where sort
Speaker 1: of the southern species and fisheries kind of cross over
Speaker 1: here in the summer, like kingfish king Max as an example,
Speaker 1: they're called off Jersey all summer long. But it's pretty random,
Speaker 1: like you just catch one out there in the great
Speaker 1: wide open while you're targeting something else. Right now, you
Speaker 1: put a bunch of of of turbines out there, you're
Speaker 1: providing exactly the kind of structure that they cling to
Speaker 1: down south where there's oil rigs. So I, I mean,
Speaker 1: I find it from a fishing standpoint very exciting. We've
Speaker 1: never had anything like this here and rig fishing in
Speaker 1: the Gulf has always been one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be a few years out before this
Speaker 1: is established, I think, and we can go fish them.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, man, it's something different. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know where you are on the wind farms,
Speaker 1: Probably a lot I could say about wind Yeah, I
Speaker 1: do have a lot of I can say about wind farms.
Speaker 1: I'm not opposed. Let me, let me start there, and
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm in favor of finding alternative sources of
Speaker 1: energy that that we can make work and that are
Speaker 1: viable and actually productive. I think though that technology has potential,
Speaker 1: it also has potential drawbacks. What I'm what I you
Speaker 1: you teat up the oil rig thing, which is exactly
Speaker 1: that's where I went to, right, because those are such
Speaker 1: important spots for for for anglers in the Gulf, and
Speaker 1: you just go target so many fish every yeah, and
Speaker 1: then so much stuff, and there's there's sort of like
Speaker 1: I don't I don't mean to be crass or cynical,
Speaker 1: but there's already sort of this like cultural cage match
Speaker 1: between petroleum and UH and alternative energies. And I feel
Speaker 1: like we can just extend this out into fishing and
Speaker 1: be like, all right, who's got the best fish habitat
Speaker 1: oil rigs and wind farms and like, you know, find
Speaker 1: another way for us to fight over what kind of
Speaker 1: energy sources we put up. Not that that's a good thing,
Speaker 1: but I am curious to see how it goes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say riggs are gonna win because looking at
Speaker 1: sounds like this offshore turbines, you know, it's not like
Speaker 1: a straight telephone pole going into the ocean. There is
Speaker 1: a base and and legs, but there's just not as
Speaker 1: much metal and hidy holes and things down there as
Speaker 1: an oil ring. Um. But I I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I think over time it would actually have the potential
Speaker 1: to create, you know, consistent fisheries here that are not
Speaker 1: consistent Cheep's head, King Max, stuff like that. That kind
Speaker 1: of pitter patter around here beaunifar between. But man, you
Speaker 1: put some some metal out there like that, I'm I'm excited.
Speaker 1: Here's what I'll say. I think. I think if there
Speaker 1: are any offshore wind farm developers listening to the show,
Speaker 1: fat chance. But if you are, here's your opportunity to
Speaker 1: get a large chunk of people on board with you.
Speaker 1: If you want to get local support. Tell them you're
Speaker 1: gonna redesign the basis of those things to have more
Speaker 1: structure and hidy holes and intentionally create fish gathering habitat,
Speaker 1: and I bet you get a whole lot more fishermen
Speaker 1: on board. Put a bent logo on every single blade.
Speaker 1: What does that say? It's moving really fast? I can't
Speaker 1: see it. Uh. Look, I think if that happens, it
Speaker 1: will create a potentially great fishery for a very localized
Speaker 1: group of folks. And as we do sometimes we focus
Speaker 1: on very localized stories and this, this next one I've
Speaker 1: got is one of those super localized stories. But I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty interesting. Um. The final story of the
Speaker 1: day comes to us from the local Minneapolis ABC affiliate
Speaker 1: with the headline Lake Minnetonka anglers rush to save thousands
Speaker 1: of game fish and like, if you go check this out,
Speaker 1: it's a totally standard local evening news segment. Like it's
Speaker 1: just it's a lot of really bad b roll of
Speaker 1: like scenery and dead fish and this frozen creek cut
Speaker 1: together with just one interview of an older gentleman who's
Speaker 1: hanging out around the creek. I think after the story
Speaker 1: it already kind of ended. And I'm not I'm actually
Speaker 1: not ragging. I want to be clear, I'm not ragging
Speaker 1: on local news reporters, because those folks get like five
Speaker 1: buck one camera in twenty minutes to go and shoot
Speaker 1: and edit a ten minute piece and it sucks for them.
Speaker 1: But I'm just I'm just trying to set the scene here.
Speaker 1: But here's this is the crux of the story. Minni haaha,
Speaker 1: Creek runs through Minneapolis and and it's it's the centerpiece
Speaker 1: for a series of urban parks around the city. The
Speaker 1: creek connects Lake Minnetonka, which is the like the aquatic
Speaker 1: playground of the Twin Cities, to to the Mississippi River.
Speaker 1: A few days ago, residents and anglers around Minniehaha Creek
Speaker 1: started noticing these huge numbers of fish congregating in the
Speaker 1: pool just below Gray's Bay Dam, and a significant proportion
Speaker 1: of those fish were dead or dying. Gray's Bay damn
Speaker 1: separates Lake Minnetonka from Minnehaha Creek, and it was built
Speaker 1: in nine to control seasonal flooding. From May through October,
Speaker 1: the Watershed District opens the head gates and monitors the
Speaker 1: flow to roughly mimic natural seasonal patterns while holding back
Speaker 1: any catastrophic floodwaters. But from December through April, those gates
Speaker 1: get completely shut. And when that happens, the creek loses
Speaker 1: most of its influence and it doesn't run dry, but
Speaker 1: it loses most of that flow out of the out
Speaker 1: of the lake it and it ices over and then
Speaker 1: oxygen levels start to drop, and when that happens, all
Speaker 1: the fish that are they're hanging out in that creek,
Speaker 1: start looking for a more suitable habitat, but they're kind
Speaker 1: of screwed. Downstream passage gets blocked by minni haha falls,
Speaker 1: and then if they try and go upstream back in
Speaker 1: the lake, they run in the dam. So the result
Speaker 1: is exactly what you see captured in this local news story.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's this big creek, like a big pool
Speaker 1: right at the head of the creek, and it's just
Speaker 1: full of fish and they're all slowly running out of oxygen.
Speaker 1: They got nowhere to go. Not surprisingly, a group of locals,
Speaker 1: many of whom seem to be anklers, decided they were
Speaker 1: going to step in and try and save the fish,
Speaker 1: or or at least the specific fish that they hope
Speaker 1: they could catch in the future. Right. They're they're definitely
Speaker 1: selectively being like, oh, there's a nice bath. There's exactly
Speaker 1: and all these all these folks have been like showing
Speaker 1: up there and gearing up with waiters and nets and
Speaker 1: like someone just have treble hooks and snagging lines and
Speaker 1: they're just gathering fish, piling them into wheelbarrows and then
Speaker 1: ferrying them over the dam and and drilling holes in
Speaker 1: the lake and dropping the fish through the holes in
Speaker 1: the ice back into the lake. Okay, so Ken Martinson,
Speaker 1: the angler who was interviewed for the local news story,
Speaker 1: estimated that they had saved about two thousand fish, specifically
Speaker 1: looking at bass, northerns, and big muskies. The Minnesota Department
Speaker 1: of Natural Resources told the local news station that the
Speaker 1: annual fish skills are quote a natural process every year,
Speaker 1: and that some fish will die as oxygen levels go
Speaker 1: down with the ice cover. The DNR added that winter
Speaker 1: fish rescues are not generally done as nature takes its course.
Speaker 1: So I am all for allowing nature to take its course,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that does mean winter kill, whether we're talking
Speaker 1: about terrestrial or wildlife. Animals die in winner. That happens,
Speaker 1: and and we can't and we shouldn't try and save
Speaker 1: them all. But calling this particular situation a natural process
Speaker 1: just it doesn't. It doesn't work for me because it's
Speaker 1: it's a direct result of closing the damn and that's
Speaker 1: not natural, right, Like, I want to be clear, I'm
Speaker 1: not saying Minnesota dn R is wrong. It's there, it's
Speaker 1: their logic, it's it's the justification that they used. There.
Speaker 1: The new natural the natural as we've made it kind
Speaker 1: of I'm if so if they were if they had said,
Speaker 1: if they had just said, you know, something like that
Speaker 1: watershed has healthy game fish numbers and the winter killing
Speaker 1: minnie haha, creek doesn't pose enough of a threat to
Speaker 1: the overall populations to justify the resources it would take
Speaker 1: for a fish rescue. I would be totally fine with that.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, cool, that's a bummer, but I get
Speaker 1: it so so like I wish that. I get that
Speaker 1: that may have not sounded as good in a in
Speaker 1: a press release statement, but I feel like that's the
Speaker 1: more honest answer, and I wish that that's what they'd
Speaker 1: gone with. And despite all that, if I were one
Speaker 1: of those local anglers and I walked up on all that,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I'd be wadering up and grabbing my
Speaker 1: nep net and being like, oh, there's there's a good one.
Speaker 1: I'm getting that. I'd do the same thing that these
Speaker 1: folks are doing. I think I would, like even if
Speaker 1: even if I knew that the outcome didn't really matter
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of the health of fisher, Like,
Speaker 1: even if I knew that saving that one muskie was
Speaker 1: completely symbolic. Because the chances of me ever catching that
Speaker 1: musky in the future are zero, I think I'd still
Speaker 1: do it. I do it. I mean, yeah, I it'd
Speaker 1: be hard to see big muskies and northerns just just
Speaker 1: flopping there but just dying sadly. If you and I
Speaker 1: walked up on this and it was like a bunch
Speaker 1: of suckers or something, I I probably wouldn't And that's
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of my point, right that it's totally
Speaker 1: a symbolic act that makes those those folks feel good.
Speaker 1: And I'm not dogging on either the d n R
Speaker 1: or those people because I get where both of them
Speaker 1: are coming from. I wish the DNR being a little
Speaker 1: more honest about it. But I also think if I
Speaker 1: were one of those anglers, even if I knew it
Speaker 1: was a pointless thing to do, I'd probably be down
Speaker 1: there scooping with them. And one one final point I
Speaker 1: have to add here there there's a literary angle for
Speaker 1: me in their story. Mini Haaha Creek is named for
Speaker 1: a fictional character in the epic Longfellow poem Song of Hiawatha.
Speaker 1: In that poem, the protagonist's great love Minnie haha, meets
Speaker 1: an untimely and tragic but unavoidable end when she dies
Speaker 1: in the midst of a severe winter. Oh man. So
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you had a poetic flare,
Speaker 1: you might say that the game fish in that creek,
Speaker 1: that that they get trapped. Every winner just kind of
Speaker 1: adhering to a fate inherent in the name of the
Speaker 1: creek where they are, you know. Ah, there's also a
Speaker 1: musical tie. And didn't didn't Prince say why don't you
Speaker 1: purify yourselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka? Was that?
Speaker 1: Or was that Chappellee Chapelle? Every time some I appreciate
Speaker 1: every time somebody says lake Minnetonka, I have to say
Speaker 1: to myself, why don't you purify yourself in the waters
Speaker 1: of Lake Minnetonka? So thank you. Yeah. So that that's
Speaker 1: That's where I'm ending on. That one was with was
Speaker 1: was longfellow? Well Phil can take over now, Phil, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm quickly trying to remember what we talked about Minni
Speaker 1: ha ha, scooping muskies and piking the wheelbarrows? What did
Speaker 1: I talk about today? Lying, dirty, lying teenagers who who
Speaker 1: scared scared their parents to death. It's a Smorg's board
Speaker 1: of opportunities of fish news here for you. Phil picked
Speaker 1: the morsel that seems most delectable. Joseph Millie, you're the
Speaker 1: winner this week. And guys, before you find all my
Speaker 1: fishing gear on the ice and unraveled this for yourselves,
Speaker 1: I have something to tell you. A few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I made this joke about how I couldn't find a
Speaker 1: PS five in stores, and you guys very graciously wish
Speaker 1: that I found my PS five for Christmas, and I
Speaker 1: gotta come clean. I've had a PS five since November.
Speaker 1: In fact, I play so many video games that Sony
Speaker 1: invited me to a private preorder waiting room to get
Speaker 1: it directly from them. So there you have it. I'm
Speaker 1: a pasty indoor kid. And if I ever turn in
Speaker 1: this podcast late, it was probably because I spent the
Speaker 1: entire day playing demon souls like a middle schooler during
Speaker 1: summer vacation. And now this is a river Horse coming
Speaker 1: to you from the Deep South with some Sage Lee wisdom.
Speaker 1: Today we're gonna take a little trip to the country club.
Speaker 1: What's that you ask, Verhorse, Are you a member of
Speaker 1: a country club? Why? Yes, The whole earth is our
Speaker 1: country club. But as far as this particular country club
Speaker 1: goes ah nah. But there's golf there. Do I play golf?
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good one. If I did, my driver
Speaker 1: would be in eight weight and my golf ball at
Speaker 1: dear hair frog. But you know what is there that
Speaker 1: I do find quite interesting? A bunch of bass ponds
Speaker 1: along the course. So let's go check it out. Come
Speaker 1: along the country club with an initial membership vie a
Speaker 1: fifty thousand bucks and another grand a month for dues.
Speaker 1: Sits along a few ponds that, based on satellite images,
Speaker 1: are dark, greasy, weedy and sublime. I try to imagine
Speaker 1: paying fifty grand for something, but that doesn't really register
Speaker 1: even my flat skiff. I sold a guitar to get it.
Speaker 1: One of the secrets of fancy country clubs is that
Speaker 1: the greens are shut down for maintenance one day a week. Here.
Speaker 1: That day is Monday. That's why I like to stop
Speaker 1: on by. According to the groundskeeper, the bass are from
Speaker 1: a strain first stocked in the nineteen forties. They are
Speaker 1: absolute slabs. He tells me. Oh that's interesting, I replied
Speaker 1: from the truck, feigning boredom. The first couple of trips
Speaker 1: I went there. The place was empty. As with any
Speaker 1: set of gates with a guard, it's best to act
Speaker 1: like you belong there. I rolled through it a respectful
Speaker 1: but confidence twenty miles and hold a pair of fingers
Speaker 1: out the door. Hey, hey, so good to see you,
Speaker 1: and keep right on rolling to the back park a lot.
Speaker 1: I've never really understood the concept of golf, although I've
Speaker 1: always known a life without obsession is worthless, so I
Speaker 1: can relate on some level. Still, do they realize how
Speaker 1: many stellar fly rods you could buy instead of a
Speaker 1: set of clubs, an eight weight versus a five iron?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? Behold the shooting head with the
Speaker 1: clouser or frog attached and watch this ninety ft draft.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately for me this time, when I show up to
Speaker 1: fish golf as one, there's a tournament going on from
Speaker 1: far away, it looks like the crowd is congregated against
Speaker 1: the distance side of the course, leaving the seedy backwater
Speaker 1: ponds open. Well, it's where I want to fish anyway,
Speaker 1: Quickly line up the fly rod and go for it.
Speaker 1: There's something about casting a fly road we all unconsciously
Speaker 1: know a simple rhythm of it puts the rest of
Speaker 1: the world in the rear view mirror. It doesn't even
Speaker 1: seem real to me. I'm already lost, gliding a stout
Speaker 1: frog the size of a hard bowed egg, deep into
Speaker 1: the recesses of the cove when I realized that the
Speaker 1: petting green above me is filled with hundreds of golf fans.
Speaker 1: Some of them are looking down at me. Let I
Speaker 1: see telephoto lenses, film cameras, polo shirts with the colors up,
Speaker 1: and even the guy holding the flag. And then I
Speaker 1: see the wicked take of a seven pounder crushing the frog,
Speaker 1: and I strips it hard while the throngs of a
Speaker 1: crowd stopped the golf tournament to cock. The bass finally
Speaker 1: ms alongside the manicured grass bank of the putting green,
Speaker 1: where we can all get a good look at him broadside,
Speaker 1: just for good measure. He tells gravity to kiss his
Speaker 1: ass and tail walks with gills blared and heaving the
Speaker 1: last few feet of water. I can't breathe for a second.
Speaker 1: It's so beautiful. Thousands of the fans scream and a plod,
Speaker 1: and some dork ask gives a long cat co whistle.
Speaker 1: Then I see golf carts coming my way, A lot
Speaker 1: of them. Oh lordy, this is about to get exciting.
Speaker 1: You obviously aren't remember here. Do you know who is
Speaker 1: that up there? Bellows the course official after he removes
Speaker 1: the unlit cigar from his mouth, going for levity, as say,
Speaker 1: whoever it is, just saw me stick a sweet bass.
Speaker 1: The country club cop proves to be a tough audience
Speaker 1: in yells that's bleep in certain name of famous veteran
Speaker 1: pro golfer. Here he's trying to qualify for the U
Speaker 1: S Open. Get in the cart now. Thus begins the
Speaker 1: golf cart slow and bizarre raety of shame. I slide
Speaker 1: into the seat next to him, or what's left of it.
Speaker 1: We crawled past the onlookers with their frowns, smirks and
Speaker 1: disgusted glares. I miss the days when you could moon
Speaker 1: people and not get in trouble. These guys could have
Speaker 1: used a good rowdy pressed ham the old hogback growler.
Speaker 1: I know I'm pushing the limits pretty hard already, and
Speaker 1: I'm still not sure if there'll be a trespassing ticket.
Speaker 1: So I behave and break down the rod. One two three,
Speaker 1: I count five other golf carts following at the parking lot,
Speaker 1: I refrain from many more jokes as I show them
Speaker 1: the tail lights of the truck and reach for a
Speaker 1: beer from the cooler. I recently found yet another country
Speaker 1: club down the road from our former president lives. The
Speaker 1: membership is more than a hundred thousand bucks a year.
Speaker 1: Sweet Jesus, what do they have in there? Tarban Oh,
Speaker 1: I'll let you know next Monday. And that's our sagely
Speaker 1: wisdom for today. And what have we learned? Let the
Speaker 1: world be your country club? Now get out there and
Speaker 1: stick em. Well, that was my favorite stagey wisdom yet
Speaker 1: river Horse, mind too? You nailed it, Man, mind too, Man,
Speaker 1: you absolutely nailed it. But I mean truth is I
Speaker 1: am and river Horse knows this. I'm a sucker for
Speaker 1: anything that pokes fun of golf or golf culture. I
Speaker 1: actually worked for for a short time as a server
Speaker 1: at a country club for a few months and uh
Speaker 1: and it was so many things, security guard, country club.
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of shitty jobs, man, and uh
Speaker 1: and but that one was like my own personal hell, right,
Speaker 1: and I have so many like we don't have time
Speaker 1: sometimes in another context, I will maybe write a book
Speaker 1: about it. But there weren't even any bass ponds on
Speaker 1: the course that I could go sneak away and fish
Speaker 1: and get fired. It's well, they see. This actually makes
Speaker 1: me realize how jealous I am of river Horse and
Speaker 1: guys like him in general. And I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. Never in my life have I
Speaker 1: fished somewhere I wasn't supposed to be right, But on
Speaker 1: those rare rare, very very rare occasional super rare um
Speaker 1: I wasn't exactly relaxed while I was doing it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. The river Horse breaker. Yeah, not now.
Speaker 1: But then you have dudes like river Horse that not
Speaker 1: only do they pull it off, but they're just totally
Speaker 1: chill about it and they're not sweating the consequences. And
Speaker 1: I admire I admire that confidence. I admire that attitude
Speaker 1: of like it's all good and so what if we
Speaker 1: get caught, man, nothing bad is gonna happen. Where I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh fine, let's we'll just get in and make a
Speaker 1: couple of casts and get the hell out of here. Okay,
Speaker 1: just get in real quick, and Castle will go because
Speaker 1: I'm I don't want to go to jail. Okay, he'd
Speaker 1: river Horse would tell me like I like you let
Speaker 1: the man bring you down. It's probably say to me, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: river Horse would would never like judge like that. I
Speaker 1: don't I think I can confidently say. I think his
Speaker 1: response will be something like, that's your journey Homebray, you
Speaker 1: find your own whips sticking it to the man. Maybe
Speaker 1: he'll call in and tell me I was wrong. But
Speaker 1: but that's how I think you would respond, And I
Speaker 1: hope not alright. So so moving on, speaking of the man,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna skip end of line this week
Speaker 1: for once, not forever. It's coming back soon, but just
Speaker 1: this week. And uh. Instead, we're gonna slot in a
Speaker 1: tackle hacks because we've got a really good one from
Speaker 1: the Big bass Man himself, also known as our buddy Oliver.
Speaker 1: And I this is a This is a great tip
Speaker 1: for for people like river Horse who sneak into golf courseponds,
Speaker 1: because you gotta maximize your efficiency before the security gets you.
Speaker 1: Uh and and if you're only gonna get intent casts,
Speaker 1: this tip is gonna help you make them count. I'm
Speaker 1: getting hacks coming from inside the city, Hi the flood
Speaker 1: joining us today on tackle hacks, very good friend of
Speaker 1: the program. Bass fishermen among all other fisheries extraordinaire. Oliver
Speaker 1: and I have big bass streams. What's going on? Man? Boys,
Speaker 1: appreciate you being here, I think, uh, I think it's
Speaker 1: fair to say that that we can all learn something
Speaker 1: from you and your skills. You certainly get around and
Speaker 1: fish for all kinds of different species, even though you
Speaker 1: are most associated with bass. So I'm very curious because
Speaker 1: of your repertoire and and all the different things you
Speaker 1: fish for, what you got for us for a tackle
Speaker 1: hack today? What is the the simple trick that is
Speaker 1: stuck with you that you lean on often that can
Speaker 1: help us all perhaps achieve our own big bass dreams? Well? Uh,
Speaker 1: common flure style amongst multiple species is a jighead and
Speaker 1: a soft plastic. I've heard of this he somewhere. That's
Speaker 1: the thing. It kind of makes me cringe when I
Speaker 1: look at guys that post these keeping piles of you
Speaker 1: soft plastics. Like Man, I had an incredible day. I've
Speaker 1: got a hundred dollars worth those soft baits that I
Speaker 1: just burned through. When I grew up, Man, I was
Speaker 1: really poor, so I would literally take every soft plastic
Speaker 1: bait I was catching fish on that would rip off
Speaker 1: my Texas rig worms, off my Carolina rigs, off my
Speaker 1: little dater head and grub setups. And I would go
Speaker 1: home and I'd take a lighter and I would melt
Speaker 1: them all back together so I could keep using them
Speaker 1: and keep catching fish. And that still can be a thing.
Speaker 1: But one one tackle hack that I figure it out,
Speaker 1: especially when you're working with the jighead and a soft bait,
Speaker 1: is to secure that plastic body with half a drop
Speaker 1: of superglue. So all you wanna do is take your jighead,
Speaker 1: thread the head of your plastic up to the shank,
Speaker 1: and then apply that glue to that shank here right
Speaker 1: on that curve, and push that bait into place. And
Speaker 1: one single swoop, clean motion, and that little dab of
Speaker 1: superglue is gonna achieve a couple of things. It's gonna
Speaker 1: lock that plastic body onto that jighead, so when you're
Speaker 1: getting short strike, your bait's not getting its pants pulled
Speaker 1: down and now deemed inoperable. That's its most important component
Speaker 1: in feature for me, as it keeps you actually fishing
Speaker 1: all of the time, all right. And then of course
Speaker 1: the cheap side of me, I mean, the frugal side
Speaker 1: of me really likes the fact that I can catch
Speaker 1: you know, ten fish on a swim bait body like this,
Speaker 1: if you know, lady luck is on my side instead
Speaker 1: of one fish per bait. So I'm a huge fan
Speaker 1: of superglue in general. I use it for way too
Speaker 1: many things, you know what i mean, even in fly tying,
Speaker 1: Like sometimes I'm just lazy and like just put it,
Speaker 1: you know, drop superglue on there. But what I'm curious
Speaker 1: about because I've heard about putting superglue on the collar
Speaker 1: of say a jighead, sort of slathering on the jam
Speaker 1: and it on. But you're talking about this one drip
Speaker 1: down the the sort of the slick shank of the hook, right,
Speaker 1: So I'm curious does it hold it in place securely
Speaker 1: enough to do all those things but also make it
Speaker 1: so you don't destroy your bait if you have to say,
Speaker 1: change colors. Oh see, at that point, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: cut the jighead off, okay and grab another bait because
Speaker 1: it just it's not worth it. Got you, okay, I understand, Okay,
Speaker 1: So you just gonna change out the whole jig head
Speaker 1: and sort of have all your colors lined up, but
Speaker 1: then those are all secure and they stay on there. Yeah. Typically,
Speaker 1: you know, you can figure out whatever color combo or
Speaker 1: jakehead weight combo is working in a particular scenario, so
Speaker 1: hopefully you'll have a narrowed narrowed down by then and
Speaker 1: you're not having to continually switch. I love it, man,
Speaker 1: and particularly people spend a lot of money on hand pores.
Speaker 1: I mean, the handboard stuff is such a big deal
Speaker 1: now and I use a lot of it, but I
Speaker 1: just I mean it is softer, generally speaking than a
Speaker 1: lot of the molded stuff. So I have that problem
Speaker 1: with hand poors a lot, and I use a lot
Speaker 1: of handpoard swim baits like for dolphin and stripers out here.
Speaker 1: So there you go, glue on the shank. So that's
Speaker 1: it for this week, and I'd say we've completely outfitted
Speaker 1: you for a mashup of sports. NG. You're now fully
Speaker 1: prepared to roll and blade over to the off course
Speaker 1: with your ten car rode while wearing questionable waiters and
Speaker 1: an overpriced powder blue hat. Please send selfies are you
Speaker 1: doing these things? Well? That was that was? That was
Speaker 1: well done? And send those please if they had those exist,
Speaker 1: send them. Also send bar nominations, sale bin items, thoughts, comments,
Speaker 1: and concerns to Bent at the meat eater dot com.
Speaker 1: We really do love hearing from you, and remember, if
Speaker 1: we use anything you send in the show, you get
Speaker 1: a killer sticker pack from us. Likewise, we always have
Speaker 1: eyes on those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on Instagram.
Speaker 1: You might get stickers by tagging us up to we
Speaker 1: are watching you. We really do hope you're all getting
Speaker 1: out on the water this weekend, whether that be liquid
Speaker 1: or solid. However you find it, go enjoy it. And
Speaker 1: if you're getting out for trespassing, don't tell the man
Speaker 1: we told you to do it. Do not implicate us
Speaker 1: in matter