Speaker 1: I flew all the way to the Keys to catch
Speaker 1: my first amberjack on my new slow pitched chicken rod,
Speaker 1: and shark bet him in half. And that's not fair.
Speaker 1: You right to found uh Lake st Clair there because
Speaker 1: you said they're too easy to catch out there. But
Speaker 1: that don't matter. Still fun frick to catch. I do
Speaker 1: him two swabs up my nose and touch my brain
Speaker 1: to get up to Canada to ice fish this winter.
Speaker 1: And I came back at the end of the day
Speaker 1: and she had prinked o Taylor Swift photos and put
Speaker 1: them all over my guide jack room. Good morning to
Speaker 1: generate anglers, And welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that
Speaker 1: once got pulled over by a mounte for blasting closer
Speaker 1: to the heart too loudly a little too close to
Speaker 1: the four way moose crossing. I'm Joe Surmelie and I'm
Speaker 1: Hayden Samac And do I detect a hint of Oh Canada?
Speaker 1: Why else? Why else would you bother referencing Rush if
Speaker 1: you weren't going to talk about Canada? You know what
Speaker 1: I mean? I hate rush Man, I hate I hate
Speaker 1: prog in general. I hate yes, like if I liked
Speaker 1: watching assholes do math in front of a bunch of nerds.
Speaker 1: I'd have stayed in college. Oh come on, man, say
Speaker 1: Getty Lee. Who's Getty Lee? Getty Lee? Best base player ever? Cood? No,
Speaker 1: truth be told. I'm not really in the rush either.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan, but I am into Canada right,
Speaker 1: And we haven't checked in with Canada in a while, Like,
Speaker 1: we have lots of friends and listeners up there, and um,
Speaker 1: the last time we heard from one was in the
Speaker 1: Nibbles and SIPs and I was just braided for saying
Speaker 1: the name of a hockey trophy incorrectly. Like that's why
Speaker 1: I could voice memo. You couldn't find it within yourself
Speaker 1: to correctly pronounce Stanley. No, no, man, it was some
Speaker 1: obscure trophy. Damn it. It wasn't the Stanley Cup. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: have you ever fished in Canada? Uh? You know I haven't. Uh,
Speaker 1: But they're like, that's not to say I'm not like
Speaker 1: interested in it. There's a bunch of ship that I'd
Speaker 1: like to do up there, like you know, obviously like
Speaker 1: BC Salmon and Steele, Atlantics and Nova Scotia. I would
Speaker 1: love to do uh those like big old like ten
Speaker 1: pound Brookies and Labrador Yeah, yeah, I've I've done the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: so I scratched that. But the Labrador Brookies, man, I
Speaker 1: want to do that very badly too. I have not
Speaker 1: gotten there yet. And I remember, um, I guess it
Speaker 1: was a couple of years ago now when when Orvis
Speaker 1: dropped that video of those massive brookies up there hammering
Speaker 1: my master spooner flat. I was like, well, that's just terrible,
Speaker 1: Like had it been for me, you probably wouldn't be
Speaker 1: catching those. Tom Rosenbauer and I didn't get invited, so whatever. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like people skating for steel head, Like
Speaker 1: I never get tired of watching like brookies hit huge
Speaker 1: top water bugs like midday. That would be of course,
Speaker 1: not that would be wild. I mean, that's that's truly
Speaker 1: a bucket list thing. Um. You know, honestly, I just
Speaker 1: love to, like I can't believe I'm gonna say this,
Speaker 1: but to the surprise of many listeners, I would just
Speaker 1: love to walleye fish up in Canada, like you know,
Speaker 1: one of those smaller lakes, just like loaded with like
Speaker 1: eater size fish, most because of the flas Hey, man,
Speaker 1: don't be sorry, that works too. And I just want
Speaker 1: to point out to the Bent fans, I hope you
Speaker 1: were listening, because now there is a pro Walleye person
Speaker 1: here every week, you can no longer say that both
Speaker 1: Bent host dislike Walleye. Um. Yeah, and nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: that at all. And then there's there's so much water
Speaker 1: up there, so much unspoiled water compared to down here
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. Um. Anyway, if you were
Speaker 1: headed up to one of those eater walleye lakes are
Speaker 1: wonderful sponsors. Thirteen fishing could definitely get you more of
Speaker 1: them to eat faster, especially on hard water. Tis the season,
Speaker 1: I might suggest the micro magic Man, which is a
Speaker 1: tiny one in lipless crank and even though it's tiny,
Speaker 1: it's loud as hell. Okay, rattle them right in like
Speaker 1: a big Buck man. What do you know about rattling
Speaker 1: in big Bucks? Absolutely nothing, nothing whatsoever. Uh, thank you anyway.
Speaker 1: So why the Canadian theme? Why here? Why now? Okay,
Speaker 1: because we've got some big news um out of Canada
Speaker 1: to share with you guys. But I'm gonna let the
Speaker 1: man responsible for that big news tell you what's up.
Speaker 1: So let's fire up a little covering water segment with
Speaker 1: our old pal and brother from the north, Ja Siemens,
Speaker 1: I'm going in. I hold it all right, joining us
Speaker 1: today for covering water are old pal Ja Siemens. J.
Speaker 1: You've not been here in a while. How the heck
Speaker 1: are you? Man? It's been a minute. It's it's been good.
Speaker 1: It's winter now. It's all I see is white looking
Speaker 1: at my office. And uh, it went from open water
Speaker 1: season ice fishing season in a hurry. Yeah, it's still
Speaker 1: open water here and I'm still very okay with that.
Speaker 1: But um yeah, a little further north than we are.
Speaker 1: So I tee it up that you are here for
Speaker 1: a very specific reason today. You have an announcement to make.
Speaker 1: I wanted us to make it together. Something is happening
Speaker 1: today on the meat eat or YouTube channel. What is
Speaker 1: that we got? Uh, we got a new series drop
Speaker 1: and called The Canadian Angle. Something I've been chipping away
Speaker 1: out over the summer and it's gonna be a phishing
Speaker 1: series I'm hosting on the Mediator YouTube channel and m
Speaker 1: kind of the play on words on the Canadian Angle
Speaker 1: is me being a videographer but then also the angling
Speaker 1: side and being a Canadian. So I love it, man,
Speaker 1: It's very smart. It's like pet smart. Is it pets
Speaker 1: smart or pet smart? Like we don't actually know, um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, So I've been really excited about this.
Speaker 1: I'm really pumped that you are officially doing your own
Speaker 1: series now with Meat Eater UM episode one today. What
Speaker 1: are we looking at for episode one? Episode one? UM
Speaker 1: doing something unique? We went from kind of the food
Speaker 1: chain in the springtime. But you normally you go to
Speaker 1: the tackle store, you buy your leeches, and you go
Speaker 1: walleye fishing, right, But now I wanted to take it
Speaker 1: back a couple of steps. So we started off by
Speaker 1: going to the creeks in the spring as they're thawing
Speaker 1: and the sucker start running up the creeks. I know
Speaker 1: you just recently did a sucker video. So we started
Speaker 1: by netting some suckers and then from that chunked them up.
Speaker 1: I learned the art of leeching, so trapping leeches, which
Speaker 1: is something I've never done before. So I have a
Speaker 1: buddy in town here that is a commercial leech trapper,
Speaker 1: so he brought me along. We use those suckers we caught,
Speaker 1: went and set traps for leeches. Came back the next
Speaker 1: day there was leeches in our traps and then I
Speaker 1: finished it off by going walleye fishing on Lake of
Speaker 1: the Woods. So it's it's pretty cool showing how much
Speaker 1: work goes into getting the leeches, and then it's kind
Speaker 1: of the full full cycling things. Yeah, man, I mean
Speaker 1: that's a new one for me. I've never really given
Speaker 1: much thought to how the leeches end up in the
Speaker 1: tackle shop. I don't know anything about that. I understand
Speaker 1: why why you can pay so much of them. I
Speaker 1: understand why they're sixty bucks a pound. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you've seen how much work goes into doing that. Now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well so dude, I'm I'm very excited for it. We've
Speaker 1: we've had you one, We've done tackle hacks with you.
Speaker 1: We've done i think multiple smooth moves with you, the
Speaker 1: one where you sunk your boat that was a classic.
Speaker 1: But we have not had you here yet for covering water. Um,
Speaker 1: this is a little bit different than what we've done
Speaker 1: in the past. Hayden, What tell j what what covering
Speaker 1: water is all about? All right, So here's how covering
Speaker 1: water works. We're gonna put two minutes on the clock
Speaker 1: and rapid fire some questions at you and basically intentionally
Speaker 1: give you no time to answer. You can't think. You
Speaker 1: just got to react. And at the end we'll give
Speaker 1: you one full minute to expand on any answer that
Speaker 1: you like. We whichever answer you know was the biggest mistake,
Speaker 1: you can try and explain it away or completely retracted
Speaker 1: if you like, Yeah, you can just make it go away.
Speaker 1: So and I also I should point out there, like
Speaker 1: the last few covering waters, I put two minutes on
Speaker 1: the clock, but I don't know why because we we
Speaker 1: always go over two minutes just because we're having such
Speaker 1: a good time. But I think the whole point here
Speaker 1: is to sort of um, you know, the fire some
Speaker 1: things out there that will show us the wishing and
Speaker 1: the non fishing side of jay siemens, which is good
Speaker 1: now because we want people to love you on the
Speaker 1: Canadian angle even more so if you're feeling good, we
Speaker 1: will we will begin. So I mean to put two
Speaker 1: minutes on the clock here, and Hayden, I'm going to
Speaker 1: start and let's go now. Is modern technology making ice
Speaker 1: fishing too easy? No? What is the weirdest non target
Speaker 1: species you've ever caught? Oh? An eel? Okay? Do trolled
Speaker 1: muskies count? Yes? Absolutely? When is the last time you
Speaker 1: threw a daredevil oh man, probably seventeen years. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I bet you throw a lot of five of diamonds
Speaker 1: right once in a while, once in a while. Right
Speaker 1: there you go. Okay, finish this sentence. The band rush
Speaker 1: is uh before my time. Finish the sentence. I have
Speaker 1: no desire to fish for oh um, microfish, for minnows. People.
Speaker 1: Books have been written about it, volumes. I'm like, come on,
Speaker 1: all right, okay, in your free time, would you rather
Speaker 1: catch one trophy walleye or a whole mess of yellow
Speaker 1: perch trophy walleye? There you go. It's your career has
Speaker 1: taken a major turn and you have become the biggest
Speaker 1: Canadian rapper since Drake. Much like Action Bronson raps about food,
Speaker 1: you rap about fishing. What is your rap name? Your
Speaker 1: rap name? King Cod? I I did not know that
Speaker 1: question was coming. By the way, anyway, What's what's so
Speaker 1: good about Tim Horton's anyway, They're always open for fisherman,
Speaker 1: open around the clock. Name an underrated fish for the
Speaker 1: frying pan um, freshwater drum A good one, good one? Okay.
Speaker 1: The number one species still on your bucket list is
Speaker 1: GT Janer Valley, me too, man, mullet or bowl cut?
Speaker 1: What was the second one? Bowl cut? Oh? Bowl cut?
Speaker 1: I like the mullet for sure. There you go. Who
Speaker 1: is the greatest musky angler of all time? Mike Lazarus? Okay?
Speaker 1: Have you ever gone all in on a piece of
Speaker 1: gear or a technique only to have it proved to
Speaker 1: be a fad? And if so, what was it? Oh man?
Speaker 1: I feel like that's half the musky bits I own
Speaker 1: right on? All right, see if you remember this one?
Speaker 1: What was the last CD you purchased? Not music you downloaded,
Speaker 1: physical CD you purchased? Oh man, probably Taylor Swift? Okay, alright,
Speaker 1: alright when we got a time for one more hit?
Speaker 1: And hit him with one more? What is the most
Speaker 1: overrated lure in your opinion? Over rated lure? And? Oh man,
Speaker 1: that is a fantastic question. I think I think it's
Speaker 1: the five diamonds? Really? Oh? No, way, a controversial because
Speaker 1: that is a controversial one. Yeah, okay, that's interesting. So
Speaker 1: that's the most overrated lure of all time? Well? Do
Speaker 1: you that jokes about it? Because I just posted a
Speaker 1: picture on Instagram with my biggest pike ever on a
Speaker 1: five of diamonds, but in the same Yeah, it's that's
Speaker 1: a that's a big one. Oh. I gotta say, having
Speaker 1: spent enough time in Canada pike lodges, it's like your
Speaker 1: average owner, I feel like in a lot of these
Speaker 1: places is just like five of diamonds, five of diamonds. Five.
Speaker 1: It's like all they throw and I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: a good spoon. But there's a lot more out there
Speaker 1: than the five of diamonds, right, alright, alright, So so
Speaker 1: Joe kind of forced you into extrapolation on on that answer.
Speaker 1: Now you got one minute to choose one. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: So anyone you want, we'll give you. We'll give you
Speaker 1: a minute to to expand on any one of those answers.
Speaker 1: Oh man, let me think about which one was given
Speaker 1: given our audience. I might suggest the Taylor Swift one,
Speaker 1: but that's probably not the one that you want to do. No,
Speaker 1: I can talk about Taylor. No, I'm kidding, fan, whichever
Speaker 1: one you want. There was a fit when I guid it.
Speaker 1: I was sixteen years old guiding at the first lodge,
Speaker 1: the lodge that I sunk that boat at, and I
Speaker 1: mentioned to one of the girls in camp that I
Speaker 1: was a Taylor Swift fan and I came back at
Speaker 1: the end of the day and she had printed out
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift photos and put them all over my guide
Speaker 1: shack room. So I never really lived that one down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but in fairness, I'll give you one more, any any
Speaker 1: any any other ones you want to tell us more
Speaker 1: about the ice fishing. Is ice fishing getting too easy?
Speaker 1: I think it's growing the sport more than anything. I
Speaker 1: think you know now shocks from going to non thermal
Speaker 1: now they're thermal shack so you don't need as big
Speaker 1: of a heater, you don't need like as much propane,
Speaker 1: so it makes it easier to get on in the
Speaker 1: cold days. Electronics is getting better, which uh you know it.
Speaker 1: It keeps people more engage. If you can have a
Speaker 1: kid starting underwater camera, I think that's better than them
Speaker 1: staring at their phone in the shack. Right. All those
Speaker 1: things is making ice fishing so accessible. And that's the
Speaker 1: big thing with ice fishing is you don't need an
Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollar boat about to get into it acts
Speaker 1: and you get even here, three shack and a heater.
Speaker 1: You can fish in any conditions on any size lake.
Speaker 1: And uh, I mean obviously you can add to that
Speaker 1: and get a snowbile and all those other toys. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's becoming more accessible than every and that's why the
Speaker 1: sports growing so fast. And I think that's a great answer, man.
Speaker 1: And that's the side of it that I think people
Speaker 1: overlook that you know, everybody loves to gripe about while
Speaker 1: it's like playing a video game now, it's just too easy.
Speaker 1: You don't have to put the work in. But you're right, like,
Speaker 1: we need people to keep fishing going forward in the future.
Speaker 1: And if that is what's going to engage people to
Speaker 1: get out there and enjoy that more, that's that's one
Speaker 1: reason why it is definitely not a bad thing. Um
Speaker 1: so what are we're gonna see what kind of technology
Speaker 1: you're busting out on the Canadian Angle? Round one, Round one,
Speaker 1: little little side scan man, there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of live scope, but it's a
Speaker 1: little bit. It's at a little bit later on techno.
Speaker 1: I think I think season two, I shouldn't even be
Speaker 1: talking about Season two. No, no no, we're breaking the rules.
Speaker 1: We can't talk I know a little bit about Season two.
Speaker 1: We can't talk about that yet. We can't talk we'll
Speaker 1: just get through season all. I just want to say,
Speaker 1: Season one ends with one of my favorite fish of
Speaker 1: the season, so you gotta you gotta watch through right
Speaker 1: till the end. But uh yeah, I'm I'm excited for
Speaker 1: the ending fish for season one. Dude. They will keep watching.
Speaker 1: I will keep reminding them this was a lot of fun. Man.
Speaker 1: I'm so pumped to have the Canadian Angle launching today. Um.
Speaker 1: I know that's running for at least four weeks, yeah,
Speaker 1: four weeks, um, But dude, this has been a blast.
Speaker 1: And maybe maybe down the road, you know, I'd love
Speaker 1: to have you in a B side. Maybe I'll be
Speaker 1: in the Canadian Angle. We'll see, But I know everybody
Speaker 1: wants to put me on the ice. I know I'll
Speaker 1: get there, I promise. So again, the Canadian Angle drops today.
Speaker 1: You definitely need to check that out. Maybe I'll even
Speaker 1: be in one with Jay down the road. Who knows, right, Um,
Speaker 1: but man, he is. Jay is just a terrific angler,
Speaker 1: and I'm so excited that he's doing some official work
Speaker 1: with the Meat Eater. Yeah. He's also just like a
Speaker 1: really really nice fella, like like that guy that your
Speaker 1: grandma would meet and would afterwards to be your Your
Speaker 1: friend is such a nice young man. Yeah, yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: well he is. Man. We've said on this show that
Speaker 1: that Canadians are just generally nicer people than us, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm about to further that notion. Can we
Speaker 1: do if you don't mind, we do a quick voice memo.
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to make this an entire
Speaker 1: Nibbles and SIPs segment, but I want to play it
Speaker 1: only well. I mean it's callers from Canada, right obviously,
Speaker 1: of course, yes, yes, yes, yeah, So this comes from
Speaker 1: north of the border and it was sent to me
Speaker 1: by at nerf Work boys, so I'm thinking that's North
Speaker 1: Fork nerf Work. I love that. Um and and he
Speaker 1: says his name is Cletus, which may or may not
Speaker 1: be an alias, but he's very nice. So let's listen
Speaker 1: real quick. Oh hey there, this is cleats up from
Speaker 1: Nerfer County in Canada. I got carp story too for you.
Speaker 1: It starts selling musky fishing on Lake Sint Clair there,
Speaker 1: and I know that U you ain't too fund uh
Speaker 1: Lake St. Clair there, because you say they're too easy
Speaker 1: to catch out of there, But that don't matter. Still fun,
Speaker 1: it's bricked to catch. So we was on the fall
Speaker 1: fishing them in the river mouth there and uh, guy,
Speaker 1: I'm throwing these big rubber dogs. I hooking to a monster.
Speaker 1: That's what I think, at least they and uh, we're
Speaker 1: fighting him for like ten fifteen minutes. All the boats
Speaker 1: around us are like, oh, my goodness, is a fifty inchur.
Speaker 1: So I get her up boat side and nod to
Speaker 1: think where she's a fifty inchurer? But guess what she
Speaker 1: ain't She a big old carp. She's the biggest carp
Speaker 1: I ever did see a big old rubber lips bigger
Speaker 1: than big enough to make any old European carp fisherman
Speaker 1: blush bad. So uh yeah, big old carp Lake St. Clair.
Speaker 1: Didn't catch any musky, And uh that's my nibbles and
Speaker 1: SIPs for you. We'll see if she gets on there.
Speaker 1: But so you just have a great old day there
Speaker 1: all right now? Oh yeah, thank you Bud Well clean
Speaker 1: us from the great Northern uh the great north Woods.
Speaker 1: What did you say? Well, yeah, but he's not that
Speaker 1: far north. If he's fishing St. Clair, he's got to
Speaker 1: be right outside Detroit, so he's not like you know,
Speaker 1: the but it reminds me of me and my buddy
Speaker 1: David Uh. We used to have this gag whenever we'd
Speaker 1: go ice fishing. We go by the alias is Ourselves
Speaker 1: of Cletus and Jebediah. And every time, yeah, every time
Speaker 1: I tip up, will go off. Please go, get go,
Speaker 1: get out on that tipple right now. I bet that
Speaker 1: didn't get annoying happening all day long, all day Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, man, you're drinking of beer. Man,
Speaker 1: it just gets funnier and funnier. I love how he
Speaker 1: takes a very backhanded shot at you for saying that
Speaker 1: you don't like the same Claire. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know which is it's not true, Okay. I have
Speaker 1: suggested in the past that St. Clair has a reputation
Speaker 1: for being the easiest place to catch muskies. But I
Speaker 1: didn't give it that reputation. Damn it. Like I didn't
Speaker 1: make that up. That's a that's a known thing in
Speaker 1: muskie circles, especially if you're trolling, which a lot of
Speaker 1: people do there. Like the guy who's never spent hours
Speaker 1: breaking his wrist throwing a double cow girl gets his
Speaker 1: fifty there and he's like got it. I'm like no,
Speaker 1: you didn't. You got it, but you didn't earn it.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Musky fishing is interesting to me,
Speaker 1: but like as much as I am, I guess you'd
Speaker 1: say fly fishing inclined. I much rather do muskies conventional.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you're and you're a very smart man. You're
Speaker 1: smarter for that, um totally. I Lord knows, I've learned
Speaker 1: that fly fishing for muskies anyway. I gotta say I
Speaker 1: got such a kick out of this voice memo there.
Speaker 1: But because this has happened to me, I am not
Speaker 1: a muskie zealot. I chased them time to time. And
Speaker 1: there's a lake not far from me at all that
Speaker 1: is classified as a trophy musky lake. I fished it
Speaker 1: probably a dozen times over the years, never seen a muskie,
Speaker 1: never moved a muskie. But the last time I was
Speaker 1: out there, I got thumped and this fish was not small.
Speaker 1: And I'm full on, like my buddy lunges for the
Speaker 1: net game on this is it finally pound carp with
Speaker 1: the glide bait in its back. That was it. That
Speaker 1: was the last time I ever fished that lake looking
Speaker 1: for a muskie. What I'm saying, yeah, Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: can definitely see how that would be a little bit
Speaker 1: of a kick in the ass. Um. You know, my
Speaker 1: leg sort of running joke out here is like is
Speaker 1: it the fish of the day or is it another
Speaker 1: ass hooked whitefish? You know what I mean exactly? Yes,
Speaker 1: speaking of a of a little kick in the ass,
Speaker 1: I'm about to deliver another one when I beat you
Speaker 1: in a weekly competition we like to call fish news.
Speaker 1: Fish news. That escalated quickly, so not really much housekeeping
Speaker 1: this week. Um. The only thing I got what I
Speaker 1: was called out on a mispronunciation, and I'd like to
Speaker 1: rectify that if I may. Uh in our our last
Speaker 1: that's my bar. We covered Eagle Valley Resort in what
Speaker 1: I said was posh, Nevada, and that was supposed to
Speaker 1: be pronounced poh shit, posh poch. I still don't really
Speaker 1: know how to pronounce pos pos posh, that's what posh. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: if you talk to Remy Warren, he will probably also
Speaker 1: reprimand you for saying Nevada if you are from that area. Nevada, Nevada. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. Now that's been the same guy hit me
Speaker 1: on that too, and I was like, I don't care
Speaker 1: that much about it as a dude who regularly fails
Speaker 1: to pronounce ship that he reads, I feel your pain
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm here for you. Man. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 1: a big deal. It's gonna happen, but but I feel
Speaker 1: like I have to say what happened. So posh is
Speaker 1: spelled p I O C h E, and listener end Parks,
Speaker 1: who sent the submission even spelled it out phonetically from
Speaker 1: my dumbmass, but he wrote p dash oh dash with like.
Speaker 1: So looking at it again now I see that he
Speaker 1: meant it to be po but like, in a moment
Speaker 1: of haste, because I'm always juggling four things, I took
Speaker 1: it at face value and just read it as posh,
Speaker 1: as in posh pie you know who was inferior to
Speaker 1: Ginger your spice. So sorry, Nevada, Nevada, I apologize. I
Speaker 1: I could see how you would make that mistake. I
Speaker 1: was gonna rip on you if that makes sense. Thank you. Go.
Speaker 1: Uh So that's it. That's housekeeping this week. Let's get
Speaker 1: on with it. Remember, fish News is a competition. At
Speaker 1: the end of this are apparently non stovetop loving audio
Speaker 1: engineer Phil will declare a winner. I know, I know,
Speaker 1: or maybe not right. Last week I think we irked Phil.
Speaker 1: I think we rattled Phil's cage. He did call his
Speaker 1: assholes and then declared Lake Trout the winner of Fish News.
Speaker 1: So Phil, we're sorry. I won't even ask about Rice
Speaker 1: Erroni or a pizza flavored hamburger Helper or Lipton microwave
Speaker 1: noodles because now we know that's not what you're about. Okay, fair,
Speaker 1: But Hayden, what are you about? It is your leadoff
Speaker 1: this week? Man, what do you got? Alright? So Joe,
Speaker 1: this week in Fish News, we're going back to Australia. Hey,
Speaker 1: little minute work right there, Phil? Thanks? So today we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about the Great Barrier Reef. And this is
Speaker 1: going to surprise a lot of people. We're not going
Speaker 1: to talk about how totally it is. That's refreshing. I
Speaker 1: mean we are, but only to contextualize some like good news.
Speaker 1: So did that end? Here's the little ray of hope
Speaker 1: for one of the great wonders of the natural world.
Speaker 1: This comes to us from the Washington Post. This week,
Speaker 1: scientists observed a massive coral spawn on the Great Barrier Reef.
Speaker 1: That's it. Uh, that's not really there's not really like
Speaker 1: a bunch to the story. It's just kind of something
Speaker 1: that happened. It's a fact. So you may be asking,
Speaker 1: why bring this up? This is a weak ass story, Hayden,
Speaker 1: where you rushed and had a bunch of other ship
Speaker 1: on your plate. First of all, yes, that's exactly what happened. Secondly, Uh,
Speaker 1: this story does have some legitimate meat on the bone,
Speaker 1: but we have to look beyond the actual event and
Speaker 1: talk more about the implications of this event. Um, everybody
Speaker 1: knows the coral reefs are in trouble. How much trouble
Speaker 1: do you ask? A study conducted by the Global Coral
Speaker 1: Reef Monitoring Network published in October of this year, concluded
Speaker 1: that between two thousand nine and two thousand and eighteen,
Speaker 1: climate change is killed four of the world's coral reefs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a big deal and it's everywhere. It's all it's
Speaker 1: it affects like all coral reefs everywhere. Yeah, for a
Speaker 1: lot of folks, we hear warm and a eate it
Speaker 1: with bad And that's where our understanding of the issue
Speaker 1: between coral and climate change ends. Because information is power,
Speaker 1: I want to offer you an explanation of what actually
Speaker 1: goes down and exactly why the warming is bad even
Speaker 1: for these tropical reefs. Uh, just what because information? Because
Speaker 1: information is power. That's like a PS. That's like a
Speaker 1: g I Joe p s a for bent whatever Joe.
Speaker 1: When we when we think of coral, we typically think
Speaker 1: of shades of like pink, orange, blue, green, etcetera, etcetera. Well,
Speaker 1: that coloration is largely due to the algae that covers
Speaker 1: the coral itself. Coral has a symbiotic relationship with algae.
Speaker 1: The coral provides it with a home, and in turn,
Speaker 1: the alergae feeds it. When coral becomes stressed due to
Speaker 1: outside pressures, including but not limited to a warming environment,
Speaker 1: the coral expels that algae. This is called coral bleaching. Basically,
Speaker 1: as a result of the vacated algae, the coral turns white. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this lack of algae now not only means the coral
Speaker 1: is is white is joe summertime farmer's tan, It also
Speaker 1: means that the coral now has nothing to eat, which
Speaker 1: caused it to starve and die. Yeah, So that those
Speaker 1: are like the images that they try and tug at
Speaker 1: the heartstrings with where it just looks like a wasteland
Speaker 1: of like dried bones where coral reef used. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's serious, and lately it's been occurring it as scale
Speaker 1: much larger than has ever been seen before, including mass bleachings.
Speaker 1: In fact, the first mass bleaching event ever observed killed
Speaker 1: eight percent of the world's coral reefs in a single year.
Speaker 1: I think the second mass bleaching event that year was
Speaker 1: my hair, but that's a different We will now for
Speaker 1: some good news. It has been observed that coral reefs
Speaker 1: can indeed recover from a bleaching event. In smaller bleaching
Speaker 1: events when the root cause has been controlled and conservation
Speaker 1: practices implemented, there's been a significant recovery within those coral reefs.
Speaker 1: Here's the good news. This is what they're hoping can
Speaker 1: happen here, and the fact that the coral is still
Speaker 1: spawning points to reproductive potential even under pressure. So really,
Speaker 1: this story highlights one big important point. We can do
Speaker 1: something about a problem even when it's gotten, you know,
Speaker 1: cross the line into a dire situation. Things are never
Speaker 1: really too far gone to at least recover a meaningful
Speaker 1: portion of And just because the situation is dire doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that it has to end in certain doom. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: I mean we've we've covered stories here before about like
Speaker 1: there's other organizations that are trying to move and replant coral. Um.
Speaker 1: But I you're making a good point here, and you
Speaker 1: can apply this to a lot of different conservation stories. Um.
Speaker 1: We often feel the need to be like, well, it's
Speaker 1: it's all screwed and it's never coming back. Um. But
Speaker 1: it's the wrong attitude and you sort of have to
Speaker 1: start somewhere and and sort of find the good in
Speaker 1: all of these problems. Um. So I mean, dude, that's
Speaker 1: that's good news for the entire environment. Plus all the fish.
Speaker 1: If all those dead zones that that you see, all
Speaker 1: those bleaching um you know videos, it's just it's horrible. Um.
Speaker 1: If that has the potential to come back, then that's
Speaker 1: good for everybody, even if it is on a small portion. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we can really look to other conservation success stories
Speaker 1: to give us hope here. You know, one that comes
Speaker 1: to mind is, you know the wild turkey population in
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century. I mean they were like something
Speaker 1: like thirty thousand wild turkeys left in America and now
Speaker 1: and if if you have eyes. You see turkeys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I see turkeys and I'm not even looking
Speaker 1: for him. I almost hit turkeys with my car. And
Speaker 1: when when it comes to like the wall A specifically,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're doing all sorts of interesting things. Um.
Speaker 1: There there's been a legitimate recovery of coral reefs in
Speaker 1: the time of COVID when tourism has slowed down, Like
Speaker 1: that's like a big part like the problem. Um you
Speaker 1: also see art the success of artificial reefs. So there
Speaker 1: is a lot of potential for good. And you know,
Speaker 1: don't listen to a news story that's just totally you know,
Speaker 1: forecasting doom and gloom and irreversible, forever forever damage and
Speaker 1: just resign yourself to it. You know, there is always
Speaker 1: something that can be done in the name of conservation
Speaker 1: to either protect what we have or hopefully, is is
Speaker 1: the case with this, you know, eventually restore to its
Speaker 1: to its original luster. Yeah, man, no, this is great.
Speaker 1: I I The only thing I think is funny is
Speaker 1: it's sort of it's like all news these days. It's
Speaker 1: also just depends on who you talk to, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like it's kind of like, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I had to say. It's kind of like with COVID,
Speaker 1: like you read the headlines. One day it's like we're fine,
Speaker 1: and the next day like in the same we're all done. Yeah, whatever,
Speaker 1: good news is always more uplifting. Um. And I guess
Speaker 1: there are some people who would say that, um, there's
Speaker 1: some success in the recovery of sharks. Sharks have a
Speaker 1: lot of problems, and that's gonna that's gonna tie you
Speaker 1: into my story here. But I just I don't want
Speaker 1: I want to start this by saying very quickly and
Speaker 1: I'm surprised in your hasty went Carl Reef verse grabbing
Speaker 1: this Because yes, we know that a new state record
Speaker 1: muskie has been caught in Minnesota, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a big deal, seeing that the state record has stood
Speaker 1: for sixty four years, kind of a big deal. I'd
Speaker 1: like to congratulate angler Nolan Sprinkler on that catch, which
Speaker 1: weighed fifty five pounds fourteen point eight ounces. But if
Speaker 1: I'm being totally honest, the story surrounding it isn't all
Speaker 1: that compelling to me, right, Like, like he went muskie
Speaker 1: fishing on Lake Malax, plus pounder happened to eat his lore.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a gist, right, it's awesome, but instead
Speaker 1: I chose a complete sleeper of a story buried in
Speaker 1: the news feed, mostly because it allows me to make
Speaker 1: fun of people and I think we'll have a better conversation.
Speaker 1: So um, here we go. This comes from the website
Speaker 1: Eureka alert dot com headline Jaws of Defeat Angler's emotions.
Speaker 1: I love a good fun. Yeah, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: we all know. Uh, jaws of defeat angler's emotions towards
Speaker 1: shark depredation is key to conservation. Now, by depredation, what
Speaker 1: they're talking about, what this entire story is centered around,
Speaker 1: is a shark attacking a fish that you are reeling in.
Speaker 1: I just want to be clear on that. So here's
Speaker 1: the lead directly from the story. In a broad scale
Speaker 1: study recently published in Fisheries Research, researchers from the University
Speaker 1: of Massachusetts Amherst quantified the emotional and behavioral responses to
Speaker 1: shark depredation in recreational fisheries. Are saying that people don't
Speaker 1: like it when sharks like munch their forty pound yellow fin.
Speaker 1: Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, but that's kind
Speaker 1: of what I'm saying The study found that anglers and
Speaker 1: especially recreational fishing guides experienced depredation were more likely to
Speaker 1: have a negative response towards sharks, and we're thus more
Speaker 1: likely to target sharks for additional harvesting. So well, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's debatable, right, we'll get there. So
Speaker 1: the article suggests that um depredation is an ever increasing
Speaker 1: problem for two reasons. One um is that long standing
Speaker 1: shark conservation efforts are allowing shark populations in certain regions
Speaker 1: to bounce back, so there are more sharks. The second
Speaker 1: is that the number of recreational salt water anglers is
Speaker 1: growing year over year, so more struggling fish onlines for
Speaker 1: sharks to eat. I would agree with both of those things,
Speaker 1: absolutely no argument there. Um. I've heard from several bodies
Speaker 1: in Florida in particular, that it does team like there
Speaker 1: are more sharks than ever, and we do know it's
Speaker 1: getting more crowded on the water. So you did you
Speaker 1: happen to see that video with the zombie shark? No,
Speaker 1: what's the zombie shark? I half almost picked it up.
Speaker 1: It's just a video somebody took. They they were reeling
Speaker 1: and it looked like a reef shark and it got
Speaker 1: attacked by I think a bull shark. And I mean
Speaker 1: like half this thing's body is missing and still swimming
Speaker 1: around like trying to get off the line, but also
Speaker 1: trying to snag like other fish in the chumps lag.
Speaker 1: I don't disbelieve that. Man, they don't have large brains,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it takes a while for them to fade
Speaker 1: in moments of trauma. And it's actually anyway Gray's. Castleberry,
Speaker 1: lead author of the study, believes that this rampant depredation
Speaker 1: is quote helping to drive the perception that sharks are
Speaker 1: a threat, which in turn could lead to retaliatory actions
Speaker 1: that could lead to over harvesting of sharks. So for
Speaker 1: this study, Castleberry and her team sent a survey to
Speaker 1: loads of recreational saltwater anglers and guides across North America.
Speaker 1: Five and forty one of them responded. Survey questions included
Speaker 1: which kinds of fish were most often depredated and uh,
Speaker 1: in a nutshell, how did you feel when the mean
Speaker 1: shark took the yellow tail snapper off your line? Not good? So,
Speaker 1: according to the findings, over of respondents noted that they
Speaker 1: had had a fish taken by a shark at least
Speaker 1: once in the last five years. Of that group, well
Speaker 1: over half had seen more than twenty depredation events in
Speaker 1: the same time period and had actually seen the shark
Speaker 1: take their catch. Furthermore, the study found that while the
Speaker 1: anglers were more likely than guides to feel a sense
Speaker 1: of all or even excitement when witnessing shark depredation, guides,
Speaker 1: who tend to experience depredation more frequently were far more
Speaker 1: likely to feel anger, distress, and sadness. Perhaps even importantly,
Speaker 1: the surveyed guides were overwhelmingly more likely to respond to
Speaker 1: depredation by harvesting sharks in the hopes of reducing their
Speaker 1: numbers and so protecting the fish stocks they target. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously I have no idea who these surveyed guides were
Speaker 1: or where they fish, though I bet most of them
Speaker 1: are Southern. But something about those yeah, yeah, but something
Speaker 1: about those reactions doesn't add up to me, right in
Speaker 1: my opinion, it would be more likely to be the
Speaker 1: other way around, and I've witnessed it the other way
Speaker 1: around countless times. If we're saying part of the problems
Speaker 1: that there are so many new anglers on the water.
Speaker 1: I would think it's the new beat that gets his
Speaker 1: or her first tarpet or grouper or kingmac chomped off
Speaker 1: the line. That would be more sad. And I've seen
Speaker 1: that happen. I just years ago on a bone fish
Speaker 1: trip um and it was tough, like tough fishing, bad weather,
Speaker 1: and I was with the dude that had never done
Speaker 1: this before, and he hooked one monster fish on the
Speaker 1: last day, shark took it and he was devastated. Now, Conversely,
Speaker 1: every time I've been out in the Gulf or Florida
Speaker 1: with a season captain, it's been around and someone gets sharked,
Speaker 1: they don't freak out about it, you know why, because
Speaker 1: getting it's just it's just part of the game. Getting
Speaker 1: sharks is just part of the game. There's a name
Speaker 1: for it in saltwater fishing. It's called paying the tax man.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you gotta pay the tax man. That's just how
Speaker 1: it goes. And while it's a bummer, I don't know, like,
Speaker 1: you don't get all whiny about it. It's just part
Speaker 1: of the gig, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean I'd be
Speaker 1: inclined to think that, like a lot of these folks
Speaker 1: who were getting who are surveyed and getting excited about
Speaker 1: seeing like the depredation event. I would think that maybe
Speaker 1: a lot of them were like charter casuals, you know,
Speaker 1: like they don't get they just don't. Yeah, they take
Speaker 1: a video and they're like, oh, I'm gonna send it
Speaker 1: to all my friends. You know. I I kind of
Speaker 1: think the same thing. Um. I'm more surprised, you know,
Speaker 1: because I don't fully understand these captains responding that getting
Speaker 1: sharked will make them kill more sharks. Now, it's one
Speaker 1: thing to say it will, Like I've heard captain say oman,
Speaker 1: I'd love to kill every one of these best and
Speaker 1: sharks on this reef. But I've never known one or
Speaker 1: met one that, like, on a day off, makes the
Speaker 1: effort to go out to the grouper grounds and harvest
Speaker 1: as many sharks as legally possible in an effort to
Speaker 1: reduce their numbers. I'm not saying that never happens, um,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying there aren't people out there who
Speaker 1: do illegal cowboy shit. But I find the notion slightly
Speaker 1: silly because it's, you know, it's it's the ocean, like
Speaker 1: these fish roams, so you kill some, they will replenish
Speaker 1: um in cases where like every other fish is getting sharked.
Speaker 1: I've seen captain's move to try and get away from them.
Speaker 1: But I can't help but interpret the whole study as
Speaker 1: as sort of cloaked in like new school whin nous,
Speaker 1: Like I flew all the way to the keys to
Speaker 1: catch my first amberjack on my new slow pitched chicken rod,
Speaker 1: and the shark bet them in half, and that's not fair.
Speaker 1: You know, sharks shouldn't be allowed to do that. Like
Speaker 1: That's how I'm interpreting a lot of people who responded
Speaker 1: to this. Um, I don't know. I think it's a
Speaker 1: bit of a fruitless study in my opinion. You're worried
Speaker 1: about over harvesting sharks, like you know, there's there's tens
Speaker 1: of thousands that are illegally finned at sea and dumped
Speaker 1: by commercial operations the world over. Um, you know, recreational
Speaker 1: anguage that might be but heard about having dinner taken
Speaker 1: off the line, Like come on, So I I just
Speaker 1: I just found this strange and interesting. Yeah, it seems
Speaker 1: like a like a weird it's just a weird demographic
Speaker 1: to survey about these. To your point, I've never seen
Speaker 1: somebody who's been like that shark took my like, you know,
Speaker 1: my yellow fin. I'm gonna go get that shark. My
Speaker 1: dad does a he lives down in Turks and he
Speaker 1: does Yeah. Yeah, he does a ton a ton a
Speaker 1: ton a ton of plagic fishing, and he has sharks
Speaker 1: ripped tuna from him all the damn time, constantly, And
Speaker 1: in fact, they're talking about how they haven't seen that
Speaker 1: many sharks. Ever, I would venture to say, like most
Speaker 1: of the really big tuna that like he's having, not
Speaker 1: like you know, he's like having like an extended fight
Speaker 1: with end up getting bitten half by a shark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm not suggesting that there's no merit to
Speaker 1: this happening more often, right, Like I said, I've heard
Speaker 1: that from from several people. I just don't understand, like
Speaker 1: what the what There's there's nothing in the article about like, well,
Speaker 1: what's the end result here? Okay, So we find out
Speaker 1: that most people hate sharks when they take their fish
Speaker 1: off the line, But how that translated into some kind
Speaker 1: of of of action, I don't know, Like there's more sharks,
Speaker 1: so it's gonna happen more like you wanna you want
Speaker 1: to play the game. You gotta pay the taxman now
Speaker 1: and again, maybe you gotta pay him more than you
Speaker 1: used to. But like, what what do we do about that?
Speaker 1: It's you know, I understand, man, and I can understand
Speaker 1: like the sentiment to like, you know, if I shoot
Speaker 1: like a deer or something and it gets eaten up
Speaker 1: by coyotes, Yeah, I'm gonna spend a little bit of
Speaker 1: time predator hunting. But I feel like that's a lot
Speaker 1: differ and then being like they took my wah, who
Speaker 1: I'm going to become a shark fisherman allah, like Captain Quinn,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And I mean, you know, even if
Speaker 1: you had some guys that were so upset that they've
Speaker 1: had that mentality of I'm gonna go out to a
Speaker 1: reef and like, whack a bunch of sharks, I don't know, man.
Speaker 1: The captains I know who live in extremely sharky territory, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Florida and Carolina is in the Gulf, most
Speaker 1: of them don't want anything to do with sharks unless
Speaker 1: they have clients that specifically asked to be taken out
Speaker 1: to catch sharks. You know what I'm saying. Um, So
Speaker 1: I I have no idea what the limits are. It's
Speaker 1: it's very That's the other thing too, It's all over
Speaker 1: the place with what you can and cannot keep, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like like to use black tips
Speaker 1: as an example. I'm pretty sure there's a season or
Speaker 1: maybe year round like, but I think it's one per
Speaker 1: boat and that's legally all you could take in Florida.
Speaker 1: And Florida people if I'm wrong, But I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to make a point here that in most there's not
Speaker 1: many instances where you can legally just go out and
Speaker 1: and be like, I'm I will kill as many as
Speaker 1: I hook today to get him off this reef. That's
Speaker 1: kind of impractical, you know, you eat shark, ever I do.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been a long time, um, and Lord
Speaker 1: knows that that things have changed in that arena. And
Speaker 1: I'm not even saying that's a bad thing. But I
Speaker 1: did a lot of mako fishing back in the day
Speaker 1: and and thresher and um, you can hate me for that,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't really do it much anymore, and
Speaker 1: the rules have changed. But I'm also not going to
Speaker 1: sit here and say that mako and thresher shark aren't
Speaker 1: like mouth wateringly freaking delicious. Man. I mean, I'd pick
Speaker 1: I picked either of those against swordfish any day. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's good. It was common for years growing up all
Speaker 1: the sea here restaurants at the Jersey Shore, you could
Speaker 1: get a mako steak like that was that was nothing,
Speaker 1: you know. I remember I remember going into a market
Speaker 1: when I was a kid and seeing like a mako shark,
Speaker 1: you know, mako shark steaks behind the counter, and being like,
Speaker 1: I gotta go eat that, man. You know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it really it is fantastic. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I you have to recognize with makos in particular, there's
Speaker 1: something else in the news about trying to get the
Speaker 1: entire world to agree not to target them commercially anymore. Um,
Speaker 1: people do not catch them here the way they did
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, and even before that, it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, it was in the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: it was like all the makoes you wanted. It was
Speaker 1: good when I was younger. Lately, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not that easy to go out there and do that anymore. So, UM, certainly,
Speaker 1: certain unless unless you're like a charter fishing like X
Speaker 1: frat boy, not you know, letting his fly hangover and
Speaker 1: catching seven pounders. Yeah, you know it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to come down. I mean, smooth move reference. I know,
Speaker 1: I know that. But like I I'm not gonna lie. Man.
Speaker 1: If somebody invited me out on a mako trip and
Speaker 1: we called a keeper. I do that so infrequently, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a charter captain that's out there shark fishing
Speaker 1: week over week in season. Yeah, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know how terrible I would feel about
Speaker 1: keeping a legal one because I'm not going to do
Speaker 1: that ten times a year. You know it's probably been
Speaker 1: I don't think you should feel bad about that. If
Speaker 1: I see a thresher in the bunker when I'm striper fishing, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not opposed to trying to catch that. It's all
Speaker 1: delicious anyway. Um That's what I got. So people stop
Speaker 1: being sad about the sharks or just I don't maybe
Speaker 1: try not saltwater fishing in Florida because it's gonna happen eventually. Uh, Phil, coral,
Speaker 1: reefs or sharks, which one takes your fancy? This coral instantly?
Speaker 1: I also believe Phil looks good in the color coral.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. I think Phil looks good
Speaker 1: no matter what he wears, So we will we will
Speaker 1: hear from Phil and then, um man, we're gonna crank
Speaker 1: the metal and rock the mullet for pretty good awkward
Speaker 1: moments in Joe and Sharks. Sharks and Joe's tailor as
Speaker 1: old as time and it's still never it's old Joe.
Speaker 1: You're the winner this week. Hayden. Maybe you shouldn't have
Speaker 1: rushed and put some more time into your story, but listen, man,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I had to choose because I don't want
Speaker 1: you to feel embarrassed. But if you do, you could
Speaker 1: always And Hayden, I'll let you go with just a
Speaker 1: little bit of advice that my grandfather told me the
Speaker 1: night before he died. He sat me down next to
Speaker 1: his bedside, told me to lean in closer and whispered
Speaker 1: in my ear Phil, M I miss him so much.
Speaker 1: Why did you take a picture a life block? We
Speaker 1: got called out recently, Yes we did. On Instagram. Listener
Speaker 1: at hunt Fish Sleep seven suggested that lately we have
Speaker 1: not been adequately roasting our awkward moments victims, like we
Speaker 1: haven't been harsh enough for something hunt sleep Fish seven
Speaker 1: looks like a real estate agent for vampires. Boom roasted
Speaker 1: huntling Fish. I didn't know that was coming. Anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: going to disagree with with him slightly because, in fairness,
Speaker 1: not long ago, I told a poor young fly angler
Speaker 1: his favorite fishing shirt looked like the wall paper from
Speaker 1: a circuit nineteen seventy two pornos set. But okay, man, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll will try well, we'll try and dial it up
Speaker 1: a bit, and this week we have it's a it's
Speaker 1: an inadvertent two fur Okay. So listener Mike Baldwin sent
Speaker 1: a photo and I said, yep, yes, I will take that,
Speaker 1: and then he immediately sent another one he followed up
Speaker 1: and I was like, and I'll be taking that one too, thanks.
Speaker 1: So we got a double feature here from Mike. So
Speaker 1: let's start with the first shot. We'll get right into
Speaker 1: it here. Now, this was taken in vintage. Right now,
Speaker 1: Mike is holding a bow fin down at waist level,
Speaker 1: and that's big brownie points right there, right because he
Speaker 1: may have been the only guy taking photos with bow
Speaker 1: fin because that hadn't gotten cool yet. Right, it's cool
Speaker 1: now with the frogs and stuff, but not back then.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Yeah, two thinks I can't
Speaker 1: believe that photos from and also I was gonna get seven.
Speaker 1: It also appears that that both in, which is it
Speaker 1: looks like a pretty respectable both fish. It's it's not
Speaker 1: small nuts good fish. It appears that that both in
Speaker 1: is on a stringer, which makes me wonder if Mike
Speaker 1: ate the bothin, because eating both isn't something I don't
Speaker 1: think you'see super often. No, No, they're like they're not
Speaker 1: that popular for food fishing. You're right, there does appear
Speaker 1: to be an old school like nylon rope stringer in
Speaker 1: its mouth. I'm not sure if he ate it. Um,
Speaker 1: but I am sure of is that nobody else has
Speaker 1: ever gone both in fishing in the super tight, screaming
Speaker 1: red nuth ugger pants that Mike is wearing in photo
Speaker 1: number one. Now that now look, this photo is cut off.
Speaker 1: It's cut off mid thigh on Mike, So they could
Speaker 1: be sweats, they could be short. Yeah, but at first glance,
Speaker 1: like when you just look at it, it's like ship,
Speaker 1: where have I seen those pants before? Oh? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the beat It video. This is like this kind of
Speaker 1: reminds me like a like an uncle ted like Ted
Speaker 1: Nugent outfit. Yes, yes, maybe, but like definitely like the pants.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so the shirt. So Mike is wearing a
Speaker 1: faded early nineties style, like what i'd call like a
Speaker 1: bum equipment style sweatshirt. Now those, of course they've they've
Speaker 1: become fashionable once again. But this one appears to have
Speaker 1: been purchased in the Chicago theater district. It just says Chicago,
Speaker 1: and there's a clip art style graphic of a saxophone
Speaker 1: and the laughing and crying masks that are like the
Speaker 1: universal symbol for theater. They probably have a real name
Speaker 1: or something, but I don't I don't know what that is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I honestly have no idea either. But forget all that.
Speaker 1: Can we please get to you know what I want
Speaker 1: to talk about? Man? Yeah, you're gonna talk about the hair. An,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about the hair, do it? Uh? So
Speaker 1: Mike is uh I'll tell you what, man, it is
Speaker 1: a hell a hell of a blond mullet. It's special.
Speaker 1: It's special. It's parted straight down the middle, it's flowing
Speaker 1: shoulder locks for days, not like he seems to be
Speaker 1: a pretty tall guy. I our guess this dude is,
Speaker 1: you know, but the mullet actually makes him significantly taller. Yes,
Speaker 1: While I'm sure it's just the way that his hair
Speaker 1: might have fallen that day, the best way I could
Speaker 1: describe it to, you know, someone who hasn't gone to
Speaker 1: Joe's Instagram and seeing this picture, Um, it's imagine a
Speaker 1: bald man with flowing locks. And I'm gonna we'll get
Speaker 1: to this in the roast too, but flowing locks around
Speaker 1: the sides. And then he just plopped a two page
Speaker 1: just right on the top of his head and didn't
Speaker 1: press it down. He just he threw it up in
Speaker 1: there and caught it, you know. Yeah. See, I think
Speaker 1: I think it's just like Moost Quaft or Permit maybe.
Speaker 1: But it looks, Yeah, it looks very strange. So here's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do to spice up awkward moments. Hayden
Speaker 1: just mentioned a roast right now. Hayden has examined the
Speaker 1: photo and come up with a series of actual roast
Speaker 1: style shots based on it, and I don't know what
Speaker 1: they are, right, So we're gonna say, let's see how
Speaker 1: many land phil phil can we get, Like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like some crackling fire or something, So go ahead. Photo
Speaker 1: number one of Mike Baldwin. Uh sorry, in advance, Mike,
Speaker 1: you asked for this. Dude small. It looks like it's
Speaker 1: trying to get away from his head. Brian eno saw
Speaker 1: this picture and decided it was time to cut his hair.
Speaker 1: That was not gonna land with a ton of people,
Speaker 1: but the ones that just got that got it real good.
Speaker 1: Dude looks like he thinks Brian Bosworth is still going
Speaker 1: to turn it around. Dude looks like the medicine man
Speaker 1: and Dances with Wolves bleach his hair and got into
Speaker 1: prog rocky. Dude looks like an undercover cop trying to
Speaker 1: bust a hockey t. He said, it is that all
Speaker 1: you got? That's all I got for that one. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give it to the Dances with Wolves. It's not
Speaker 1: easy to work at Dances with wolves reference in Man.
Speaker 1: That was great. Okay, so then we have Now we
Speaker 1: have a second shot of Mike. I mean the first
Speaker 1: shot he looks kind of tall and skinny and like,
Speaker 1: you know, the ensemble could make him We'll say, like
Speaker 1: the keyboard player in Minute Work or something like that.
Speaker 1: Right now, by contrast, in photo too, Mike is squarely
Speaker 1: the roadie for Ministry or Dokin or something. It's quite
Speaker 1: a transformation. Same bullet, which looks a little bit more
Speaker 1: like it looks less. I don't know planned this time.
Speaker 1: It's like the moment, it's natural state, right, just uh,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden though, Mike's looking buff, dude, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's jacked all of a sudden, right, And now he's
Speaker 1: he's wearing like navy Dickies pants, a vintage Puma T
Speaker 1: shirt with the sleeves cut off, and he's got a
Speaker 1: pair of pit viper shades hanging around his neck. Now
Speaker 1: this reminds me a bit of um, you know that,
Speaker 1: like that that classic old shot of Schwarzenegger, like holding
Speaker 1: a tiny girl in a bikini cradling her. Right, because
Speaker 1: Mike is holding up a chain stringer, stretching it out
Speaker 1: in front of him between both arms, and it has
Speaker 1: to weigh like fifty pounds. Yeah yeah, the dude. I
Speaker 1: tried to count, and I'm putting like the combined number
Speaker 1: of like Perch and Bluegill and Croppy on that stringer.
Speaker 1: It has to be close. It's got easily easily, which
Speaker 1: based on this hall. Now, I'm kind of thinking he
Speaker 1: probably ate the bowfin. I think I think Mike likes
Speaker 1: to eat fish. So um, there's a setup there. That's
Speaker 1: what photo too looks like. Do your thing, man, give me,
Speaker 1: give me the roast of Mike Baldwin. Photo number two.
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, dude, sure it says puma, but his
Speaker 1: hair says tiger king. These are all more mullet jocks.
Speaker 1: Dude looks like Hull Cogan's step brother. Dude was wearing
Speaker 1: vipers before vipers were cool. Like everyone else who wears vipers.
Speaker 1: Shot at the Vipers Viper wars. You've just been just
Speaker 1: scorned right there. Dude looks like he's strung those fish
Speaker 1: on the dream catcher he had hanging from his truck's
Speaker 1: rear view. Dude looks like a character they cut from
Speaker 1: Wet Hot American Summer because he was too unlikable. Mike,
Speaker 1: I don't mean any of this, man, I'm just don
Speaker 1: Mike sent this in. Don't apologize. This is what happens
Speaker 1: on awkward photos. The dream catcher was brilliant. That was
Speaker 1: the one that was the one right there, So there
Speaker 1: you go. We changed it up a little bit. I
Speaker 1: I hope that was a bit more up to snuff
Speaker 1: at hunt Fish Sleep to f seven. Um and Mike,
Speaker 1: we can't thank you enough for sending these shots. They
Speaker 1: are fantastic. I love the vintage stuff. Uh, we can
Speaker 1: have a really good time with it. Such a tremendous
Speaker 1: ape dre pockey hair whatever else the vandals called it.
Speaker 1: And hey, if you have a photo you'd like us
Speaker 1: to consider for a roasting, you know where to send
Speaker 1: it bent at the meat eater dot com. Okay, I
Speaker 1: still feel a little bit bad about it, because you'll
Speaker 1: get over that as as we move along here, you'll stop.
Speaker 1: He's got to be a good sport he sent him,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, you know that that was pretty fun. Um,
Speaker 1: and I encourage our listeners to start adding their own
Speaker 1: roast one liner in the comments on these photos on
Speaker 1: the good old Insta Slam. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: could stand to be a little bit inspired, and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't mind a little bit of inspiration from our listeners. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: those were fun. They were a nice touch. I really
Speaker 1: I like I like the one liners and UM encourage
Speaker 1: this too. I also encourage you to dig deep in
Speaker 1: the archives like Mike did. Because I love a good
Speaker 1: vintage vintage. To me, vintage shots are always more fun
Speaker 1: so much. Yeah, he had the hair, the puma, even
Speaker 1: like the cheap nylon rope stringer, all classics Mike very
Speaker 1: much appreciated. And speaking of classics, uh, I believe you're
Speaker 1: closing us out today with one yeah, yes, yes, Sarah.
Speaker 1: So we've spent some time in the Chile North this week,
Speaker 1: So let's hit an end of the line that not
Speaker 1: only maintains Mike's vintage vibes, but we'll say, brings back
Speaker 1: a little little summer vibe as we head into the
Speaker 1: cold season. Well that's not loud enough. I've already sung
Speaker 1: my praises for the arbor Gas Jitterbug here on end
Speaker 1: of the line, and when I did, I noted that
Speaker 1: while the Jitterbug is in many ways forgotten, that walking
Speaker 1: waddling wake Baits still has a huge cult following. But
Speaker 1: there's another member of the arbor Gas lineup that I
Speaker 1: can't quite say the same thing about. While the company
Speaker 1: has never stopped producing the Hula Popper, I hear even
Speaker 1: fewer people talking about that classic than the Jitterbug, which
Speaker 1: is a shame. So I'm going to talk about it.
Speaker 1: In case you're unfamiliar with the hula popper, it looks
Speaker 1: much more like a frog than a baitfish. It has
Speaker 1: sort of an hour glass shape with a fat, wide
Speaker 1: middle and a smaller head with a large, gaping mouth. However,
Speaker 1: unlike later poppers with deeply scooped mouths, the inside of
Speaker 1: a hula's mouth is shallow and flat, which throws water
Speaker 1: faster and farther, and gives the lower a slightly higher
Speaker 1: pitch than other poppers. Large models have two troubles dangling
Speaker 1: from the belly. Smaller models sport one trouble. But what
Speaker 1: really makes a hula popper a hula popper is the signature,
Speaker 1: thin rubber hula skirt hanging off the back. Arba Gast
Speaker 1: introduced the hula popper ine, and it was that rubber
Speaker 1: hula skirt that made it so unique. The company patented
Speaker 1: the hula skirt in ninety eight, but not for use
Speaker 1: on the hula popper. The hula skirt was invented for
Speaker 1: Arbor Gast Hawaiian Wiggler, their first public offering that never
Speaker 1: really took hold and has been long discontinued, but owner
Speaker 1: Fred Arber Gast was the first person to figure out
Speaker 1: that a rubber skirt could hide a hook while also
Speaker 1: making a bit a bit more weedless, and as we
Speaker 1: all know, while the Hawaiian Wiggler didn't last, rubber skirts
Speaker 1: have kind of stood the test of time. But the
Speaker 1: hula skirt on a hula popper isn't hiding any hooks.
Speaker 1: It's there purely to add action, and honestly, the hula
Speaker 1: popper is probably one of the least weedless top waters ever,
Speaker 1: which I always found kind of funny because the most
Speaker 1: iconic coola pattern is frog, which you'd probably want to
Speaker 1: throw in some pretty sloppy stuff. I've never used any
Speaker 1: frog pattern hulas, nor do I have much interest in
Speaker 1: the full size double treble hula. My ringer has always
Speaker 1: been the small one and a quarter inch hula in
Speaker 1: all black. Between the size, shape and color and that
Speaker 1: tail fluttering away, this particular hula model kicks ass because
Speaker 1: it looks more like a bug than a bait fish
Speaker 1: or frog, yet it's just heavy enough that it can
Speaker 1: be delivered very effectively on a light spinning outfit. The
Speaker 1: tiny black hula is the conventional angler's equivalent of the
Speaker 1: Google bug. Or Mr Wiggly, which smallmouth fly anglers lean
Speaker 1: on hard. I first discovered its power as a teenager
Speaker 1: while waiting a local Smalley stream, and as I recall it,
Speaker 1: the fishing kind of sucked that day, but it was
Speaker 1: one of those hot summer afternoons with dragonflies just kind
Speaker 1: of zipping all over the place. I don't even remember
Speaker 1: how that tiny black hoola ended up in my tackle kit,
Speaker 1: but just as they often do with poper flies, a
Speaker 1: smally sipped that thing off the surface before I ever
Speaker 1: had a chance to twitch it. I quickly figured out
Speaker 1: that subtlety was the key. Don't over pop a tiny hula,
Speaker 1: just let it ride and give it the occasional nudge.
Speaker 1: I've done this with tiny houlas and other colors too,
Speaker 1: but none of them produced like that jet black, as
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of you already know. While that classic
Speaker 1: arbigas houla skirt looks cool rate in the water, it
Speaker 1: has a tendency to get really dry and crispy if
Speaker 1: it sits too long in a tackle box without getting splashed. Now.
Speaker 1: I once read that a tiny schmear a vasoline on
Speaker 1: that skirt between uses will prevent this, but like, who
Speaker 1: who has time for that? I don't. I just use
Speaker 1: that o G skirt that comes with it until it's
Speaker 1: dry and brittle, and then just lash a bunch of
Speaker 1: silly legs on the back of the tying bise and
Speaker 1: call it good. I mean, it works just as well. Now.
Speaker 1: If any of you kids are just too cool to
Speaker 1: fish an old timey hula popper, arbor Gasts recently tried
Speaker 1: to appeal to you directly with the hula poper to
Speaker 1: point out it comes in mod funky colors like black Death,
Speaker 1: blue Kill, coach Hog, and white Zombie. Instead of a
Speaker 1: rubber hula skirt. There are flashy feathers on that tail,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to like them, I really did, But
Speaker 1: I still like my plain black classic mini hoola better,
Speaker 1: which by the way, is light enough to cast on
Speaker 1: a seven or eight weight fly rod if you're feeling
Speaker 1: extra dirty. Ah, Bula poppers are classic, but often like
Speaker 1: kind of kind of viewed as a little bit of
Speaker 1: an odd ball. I remember, like I was going to
Speaker 1: uh I was going to summer camp when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, and I was packing up a little tackle
Speaker 1: box and ship, and I had, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: you always pre string your rod with like that first
Speaker 1: lure that you're gonna throw when you're a kid, you know,
Speaker 1: you never you never get there and wait to see
Speaker 1: how it is You still do that now? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well I picked a hula popper and my dad looks
Speaker 1: at me, goes, what are you trying to start off
Speaker 1: with the weirdest thing you could think of? Ah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but come on, that's that's wrong though, I remember. I remember. That's,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, that's when I first started,
Speaker 1: uh maybe not thinking that everything my dad said about fishing.
Speaker 1: Was absolutely gonna say, your dad is the problem here,
Speaker 1: not the hula popper. Your dad is the one preaching.
Speaker 1: He's stopping the children of today throwing the whole of
Speaker 1: poppers with that attitude, I highly recommend the hold of popper.
Speaker 1: That's why I did a whole end of the line
Speaker 1: on it. Anyway, So look that's it for this week.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, Canada, it was good figuratively hanging with
Speaker 1: you again. And if you're planning to literally hang out
Speaker 1: in Canada, remember a negative rapid anagen COVID test is
Speaker 1: not acceptable at the border. You either have to get
Speaker 1: the Q tip jammed up your snooter, or you can
Speaker 1: keep ice fishing on the same pressured park pond in
Speaker 1: your neighborhood down here in the States. I do them
Speaker 1: two swabs up my nose and touch my brain to
Speaker 1: get up to Canada to ice fish this winner, don't forget.
Speaker 1: Check out episode one of the Canadian Angle on meat
Speaker 1: Eator's YouTube channel, and while you're playing around on your phone,
Speaker 1: send a bar, nominations, sale bin item, voice memo, awkward photo,
Speaker 1: or anything else you think we might be able to
Speaker 1: use on the show to Bent at the meat eator
Speaker 1: dot com. Also keeping up with those bent podcasts in
Speaker 1: the generat Angler hashtags there but we love seeing them there.
Speaker 1: But so, maybe you stag a carp with your hold
Speaker 1: of paper take a little photo for us there. But
Speaker 1: so you just have a great old day there. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, buddy,