Speaker 1: But then I remembered I was walleye fishing and had
Speaker 1: it in a walleye, I'd have felt nothing, just sudden
Speaker 1: dead weight on the end of the line, and when
Speaker 1: I hit it, before I knew it, the boat was
Speaker 1: being thrown onto the embankment. It happened at a second,
Speaker 1: but it felt like an eternity. The first man who
Speaker 1: was yelling at them, swearing, slapping the rod out of
Speaker 1: their hands. Uh, frankly, he was just a dick. Put
Speaker 1: it together, idiots, I'm broke. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and
Speaker 1: welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that spot burned its
Speaker 1: own streaming services by stupidly giving its Netflix password to
Speaker 1: that one broke friend it thought it could trust. I'm
Speaker 1: Joe Surmeli and I made in Samac And you have
Speaker 1: other broke friends, man, because I asked multiple times for
Speaker 1: the Netflix pass, where you just straight out refused to
Speaker 1: give it to me. Ob yeah, I must have other
Speaker 1: broke friends because I did not give it to you.
Speaker 1: Um No, if I was gonna send you something to
Speaker 1: thwart your poorness, it would be a better cordless drill perhaps,
Speaker 1: or I knew this was gonna come up for anyone
Speaker 1: who doesn't know what we're talking about. I posted like
Speaker 1: an i G story where I shared a tackle hack
Speaker 1: about using a drill to spool tip up lines fast.
Speaker 1: You're just connected to the top of like the spinner
Speaker 1: that holds your flag and you can just with that
Speaker 1: ship around instead of using like a one to one
Speaker 1: gear ratio, like you know whatever. And uh. Instead of
Speaker 1: people saying, wow, thank you for the tip, that's like
Speaker 1: really helpful, all I got was, why are you using
Speaker 1: that shitty Walmart house brand drill? Put it together? Idiots,
Speaker 1: I'm broke, dude, Like, oh he's broke. Oh he doesn't
Speaker 1: have an expensive drill. Yeah. Man, I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: People were hitting me up about it. Like one guy
Speaker 1: was like he said he copied the picture, was like, yo,
Speaker 1: come get your boy. Um. But there is a lesson
Speaker 1: there that that I've learned, that being you have to
Speaker 1: give thought to everything in the periphery of your social
Speaker 1: media post because that's what people see. Dude, Like I
Speaker 1: posted a picture of me and my garage not long
Speaker 1: ago to promo UM. Some some of the new mediator
Speaker 1: fish wet shirts and dudes are like looking at the
Speaker 1: rack of jackets way behind me, like you can't even
Speaker 1: make them all out, And they're like, is that one
Speaker 1: with the yellow and gray sleeve of Cabella's wind dropper
Speaker 1: from two thousand nine? And I'm just I'm like, but
Speaker 1: also I'm like, yeah it is damn you know, so
Speaker 1: people do people look at everything? Yeah, well, I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make smarter decisions about that going forward. And
Speaker 1: the guy who the guy who ripped on me hardest
Speaker 1: about the drill, was like, Bro, I mean, I'll send
Speaker 1: you a good power drill. Okay, bro, send me one
Speaker 1: d me. I'll give you my ship, send me like
Speaker 1: a three drill. Man, I'm about it. You should send
Speaker 1: him your ship. I would take him up on it.
Speaker 1: But actually, the tip you gave was a great tip.
Speaker 1: So I hope some people also appreciate the tip you provided.
Speaker 1: Since it is ice fishing season and I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: just kidding, just kidding, that's what we do. But it
Speaker 1: is ice season, and you know, I was thinking we
Speaker 1: talked plenty about ice last week. I thought I'd changed
Speaker 1: things up a bit, because even if you're doing a
Speaker 1: ton of ice fishing, winner I think is still kind
Speaker 1: of couch trip in season right, um, And I believe
Speaker 1: I've mentioned on the show before that you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not much of a TV viewer, but if I am
Speaker 1: watching TV, it tends to be a documentary or a
Speaker 1: documentary series. So U you know, I'm curious, right, do
Speaker 1: you have a favorite fishing related documentary? And I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about a movie like A River runs through it,
Speaker 1: I'm talking you know docs. Yeah, it would be live
Speaker 1: this stream the story of Joe Humphreys. Great choice that
Speaker 1: that is a fantastic documentary. Well, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: when when I uh, when I initially decided to watch
Speaker 1: it was actually right when the pandemic was going down.
Speaker 1: I think it had just was it like just released
Speaker 1: then or was that just when I got to it.
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly, but I feel like that timing
Speaker 1: is probably accurate. It was something like that. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I wanted to watch it, and I was worried that
Speaker 1: it was going to be like a super low budget
Speaker 1: like you know sort of thing, and it's not. Man,
Speaker 1: it is just a good no matter what your taste,
Speaker 1: it is a good documentary fisherman or not. Um. And
Speaker 1: for anybody who doesn't know who Joe Humphreys is one
Speaker 1: shame on you but too. He was the fly fishing
Speaker 1: instructor at Penn State for a bunch of years. He
Speaker 1: developed a whole bunch of techniques, particularly like tightline nymphing techniques,
Speaker 1: and he's written tons of books to that end. And
Speaker 1: he's just an all around, like really good guys a
Speaker 1: lot of folks role model. And that documentary is so
Speaker 1: much more than like the profile of an angler because
Speaker 1: his life story is super interesting as well. H Yeah,
Speaker 1: did I teared up watching it? Like I got a
Speaker 1: little emotion, And that's saying a lot considering I've watched
Speaker 1: hundreds of fishing documentaries, right, and none of them have
Speaker 1: ever made me tear up, But that documentary, Um, it's
Speaker 1: also cool for me because it was Joe that, in
Speaker 1: a roundabout way, got me to explore were the Limestone
Speaker 1: Spring creeks in Central pre A. I saw him in
Speaker 1: a VHS video in high school fishing on Penn's Creek
Speaker 1: and my buddy and I went like, holy sh it,
Speaker 1: that's not that far away. So in a way, Joe
Speaker 1: Humphries was sort of the reason I took my first
Speaker 1: ever fishing road trip. Um, you had mentioned this before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I said, I idolized the guy. You said he
Speaker 1: was a role model. He he was one of mine
Speaker 1: early on learning to fly fish. Um, it's funny because
Speaker 1: you know he's he's pretty old dude now, but he's
Speaker 1: still like super super with it and walking around the
Speaker 1: fly shows. And and just two years ago at the
Speaker 1: fly show in Jersey, I bumped into him and he
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't know who I am, but I told him
Speaker 1: that story. Like he was sitting in a chair and
Speaker 1: I was just like waiting in line for something. I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, Joe, you know you're the reason and
Speaker 1: and like doesn't know me from Adam. He was so tickled,
Speaker 1: stood up, shook hands, put a hand on my shoulder,
Speaker 1: and he's just like so nice. You just want to
Speaker 1: hang out with that guy all day. Like he's got
Speaker 1: to be amazing to fish with him. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I've met I've met Joe Humphries a handful of times,
Speaker 1: mostly at Edison. And the first time I ever met him,
Speaker 1: I was like it was like fourteen or fifteen or
Speaker 1: something like that. And one of my dad's friends who
Speaker 1: was more into fly fishing than my dad. Uh, my
Speaker 1: father set me up with this dude, Wally, and he
Speaker 1: was like, hey, let's go, uh, let's go to this
Speaker 1: Edison show. So me and while he went to the show,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get something for my dad, and
Speaker 1: so I picked a really nice net and I sought
Speaker 1: out Joe Humphries because I had seen like a bunch
Speaker 1: of people kind of congregating around him, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, I was fourteen fifteen, I
Speaker 1: didn't exactly know who he was, but I knew that
Speaker 1: he meant a lot to a lot of people. So
Speaker 1: I went and I spoke with him and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I got this net for my dad, would
Speaker 1: you mind signing the handle of it? And you know,
Speaker 1: Joe Humphries obviously like super gracious and he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, Like I'll sign it for you. He ended
Speaker 1: up talking to me a bunch and uh and I
Speaker 1: gave that net to my dad and I think he
Speaker 1: lost it, like immediately, that dude, that's a bummer. That's
Speaker 1: a bummer. Yeah. I actually wrote Joe a letter years
Speaker 1: before that, that last encounter, and he sent me a fly.
Speaker 1: It's a long story, but like I took it out
Speaker 1: on the stream and like lost it immediately. I'm like,
Speaker 1: why did I fish that? Joe Humphreys tied that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this I'd be interested to know. Now, what is your
Speaker 1: favorite fishing documentary? Yeah, so Live the Stream fantastic, like
Speaker 1: top three for me. But my my all time favorite
Speaker 1: fishing documentary is called Gotham fish Tails and it was
Speaker 1: made by Robert Moss, who, as far as I know,
Speaker 1: has has never really done anything else. He's not like
Speaker 1: some big fishing filmmaker. Um. And it was released all
Speaker 1: the way back in two thousand three. And what he
Speaker 1: does is he just follows recreational and commercial fishermen from
Speaker 1: all walks of life around New York City. Like there's
Speaker 1: no narration, he's not he doesn't really play a host.
Speaker 1: There aren't any really, there aren't really any like traditional interviews.
Speaker 1: The whole thing just moves on unscripted audio from each character.
Speaker 1: And frankly, um, you were you were saying you were?
Speaker 1: Would be your favorite documentary. It's so insane, very like
Speaker 1: d A. Pen and Baker. You know, Yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I have no idea, but I'll take the word Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan documentary the same type of thing. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: just very it's like frankly, it's cheaply made right, it's
Speaker 1: not flashy, but it just does such an incredible job
Speaker 1: of capturing who these people are and what it means
Speaker 1: to be an angler in and around New York City,
Speaker 1: and how the fishing community, both recreational and commercial, has changed.
Speaker 1: And I have just always loved it. It's basically an
Speaker 1: hour plus of of Bob the garbage Men, like multiple
Speaker 1: bomb the garbage Man's and one thing here, I will
Speaker 1: do one clip. Listen to this. This bridge is real
Speaker 1: productive late in the fall. I mean, you could call
Speaker 1: me it's still flu you're going out of side. You
Speaker 1: get some nice big sea bass. You got you flowers
Speaker 1: and you went to time. And that guy, that guy
Speaker 1: up there, it takes some nice keep up bass in
Speaker 1: the full. He's always up here. He gets at least
Speaker 1: one a week. Tuesday, I had over, I'm serious, but
Speaker 1: I only kept that seven. You only allowed to keep six.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been fishing for about twenty years in
Speaker 1: New York and we generally have a good time. You know,
Speaker 1: we have a better time of course if you catch fish,
Speaker 1: but even if it don't, we still have managed to
Speaker 1: have a good time for me. It's like psychological therapy
Speaker 1: for me to be out here next to the sea.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I was skeptical at first, but this
Speaker 1: sounds kind of right up my alley. Uh two questions.
Speaker 1: Is it on Netflix? And if so, may I have
Speaker 1: your password? No? And no, it is not on Netflix.
Speaker 1: A matter of fact, it's not on any streaming service
Speaker 1: i'm aware of. You can you can still buy it
Speaker 1: from Amazon on DVD. I don't know if anyone does
Speaker 1: that anymore. And I still have my DVD because that's
Speaker 1: how I found it. It It ended up on my desk
Speaker 1: when I was at Saltwater Sportsman, like my my very
Speaker 1: first year in the industry, and I reviewed it. But
Speaker 1: I can tell you it is currently on YouTube in
Speaker 1: full now you know how it goes with stuff like that. Right.
Speaker 1: How long it will be there, I don't know because
Speaker 1: I always assume it's pirated, you know, somebody ripped the
Speaker 1: d and threw it up there. But as of this recording, um,
Speaker 1: it's there, so you can go check it out. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: folks listening, there's two for you to watch this winner,
Speaker 1: But we're about to clue you into something else. You
Speaker 1: might want to watch, and we're going to learn all
Speaker 1: about it in this week's installment of Smooth Moves. Now,
Speaker 1: usually we we have like captains and guides come on
Speaker 1: to provide reality checks about their clients. But this week
Speaker 1: we've got none other than the Mike I Canelli dropping
Speaker 1: in to provide a little reality check on himself. Why
Speaker 1: why did joining us for Smooth Moves. We've got our
Speaker 1: old buddy Mike, Ike and Nelly here this week. It's
Speaker 1: been a while. What's going on? Mike? How are you guys?
Speaker 1: Good man? How's how's Winner treating you? Why do's treating me? Good?
Speaker 1: Our legs froze up right after Christmas, so I've been
Speaker 1: sort of locked up for a little bit. But here's
Speaker 1: the good news. The season starting in a few weeks.
Speaker 1: I'm head at the Florida. It's gonna be warm, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna catch It's gonna be great. Good for you man,
Speaker 1: So we don't live too far apart. Do you have
Speaker 1: good ice? Like could you walk on it? Or is
Speaker 1: that like the crap ice we have up here? Crap ice?
Speaker 1: So it's just enough to stop you from doing anything
Speaker 1: like really fun? Yeah, we have an amazing dog his
Speaker 1: name is Quincy, and his my ice hester and the
Speaker 1: dog has been cracking under his feet. So it's that
Speaker 1: kind of ice that you just can't get out on yet.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of depressing. It's it's it's like a
Speaker 1: purgatory time of year here. It's like there's not good
Speaker 1: ice on the lakes, but then there's tons of ice
Speaker 1: coming down the river here on the Delaware, so there's
Speaker 1: like not much to do there either. I tried to
Speaker 1: fish a few days ago and all the eddies that
Speaker 1: are worth fishing were frozen over. The rest was wide open,
Speaker 1: but like all the zones were just completely frozen over. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you're traveling, man, So you're going to Florida. That's cool.
Speaker 1: You've got some other stuff going on, one of those things,
Speaker 1: you know, we wanted to talk about a little bit.
Speaker 1: You have a thing dropping neck week February eight on YouTube.
Speaker 1: What is going on? Man? What do you got cooking? Yes?
Speaker 1: So I'm real excited about this one. It's um called
Speaker 1: a docuseries. I don't even know what a hell a
Speaker 1: docuseries is. But the team here that we work with,
Speaker 1: they convinced me to sit down. Over the course of
Speaker 1: like two weeks and just lay it all out, my
Speaker 1: life and my career, the state of the sport, the
Speaker 1: battling leagues, all of it. And Wow, the last time
Speaker 1: I did it was when I wrote the book, and
Speaker 1: I forgot how freeing talking about something like that is.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited about it because this isn't a normal
Speaker 1: you know, we're not out catching blue gil or catching sharks,
Speaker 1: and this is just a story about the sport, my
Speaker 1: life where we're at now versus back in the nineties. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm excited about it. The interesting thing is one of
Speaker 1: the league's which is s Angler Sportsman Society, the a
Speaker 1: S s UH, really supported us on this project and
Speaker 1: we've got some great original footage, some great original photos
Speaker 1: in with this docuseries. And I'm excited something different. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I feel like this is something
Speaker 1: that's sort of long overdue, and I'm glad to see
Speaker 1: that that you're doing it. Like um, you know, like
Speaker 1: any sport, there's a lot of of of behind the
Speaker 1: scenes stuff that I think the fans don't really understand. Um,
Speaker 1: but I guess you also sort of have to be
Speaker 1: careful a little bit making a documentary like this, so
Speaker 1: I feel like it could be a little bit edgy
Speaker 1: and kind of kind of what the sport has been
Speaker 1: been waiting for a little bit. I hope people like it.
Speaker 1: I mean, here's the deal. I I didn't throw anyone
Speaker 1: under the bus, but I told the truth and I
Speaker 1: think that's real and I think that's important. And you
Speaker 1: hit it on the head. Um, when people look at
Speaker 1: the sport from Afar, they're like, oh my god, they
Speaker 1: put got these guys on a platform. They think they're magical.
Speaker 1: Here's the reality it for this. We're regular dudes like
Speaker 1: everybody else. We got the same same problems, same issues. Um,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna hear on this. You're gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: talk about depression. I'm gonna talk about addiction. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: talk about divorce. Um, you're gonna hear what happened why
Speaker 1: eighty of the best pros left bass? The real reason
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear about it. Um, why I left Major
Speaker 1: league fishing to come back to bass. You're gonna hear
Speaker 1: about it. It's all true. That's exciting, man, I'm really
Speaker 1: pumped for that. Now that's gonna be on your YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: But you say you don't know what a docuseries is.
Speaker 1: It's kind of what Netflix has been built on. That
Speaker 1: to me sounds very like mainstream Netflix worthy. Man, you
Speaker 1: know it might be. I hope people look at it
Speaker 1: and they appreciate it. I did pour my heart out
Speaker 1: on this one. It was interesting because, you know, Joe,
Speaker 1: like you, I'm I'm a Jersey guy, and I grew
Speaker 1: up in an error when you're not supposed to have feelings,
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to cry, you're not supposed to tell
Speaker 1: the truth all the time. And this was one where
Speaker 1: I sat down and I mean I got I got emotional.
Speaker 1: I teared up at points, I I got chills at points,
Speaker 1: remember and stuff. So it was a neat project. I
Speaker 1: hope people like it. What's it called, Mike, It's called
Speaker 1: Never Give Up. That was a stretch, right coming up
Speaker 1: with that title. But I think everyone's life and everyone's
Speaker 1: career you go through a bit of a roller coaster,
Speaker 1: and and when you're at the bottom, sometimes you don't
Speaker 1: want to wait or you don't want to work to
Speaker 1: get back up to the top. So, like I said,
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's a great story of the sport.
Speaker 1: More than anything and I hope people appreciate it. I'm
Speaker 1: sure they will. Man, that's gonna be awesome. And it
Speaker 1: sort of plays right into you the segment we're having
Speaker 1: you on for here, so you're talking about this, this
Speaker 1: this docuseries sort of showing you the reality and you
Speaker 1: know how real you guys are so smooth moves, you know, normally,
Speaker 1: before we do that, Joe, before we do that, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start my own docuseries and it's going to be
Speaker 1: called utting in a word edgewise with Joe Sph Mellie.
Speaker 1: One thing I wanted to say be a long documentary talk. Man.
Speaker 1: What I was gonna say is, you know, I've grown
Speaker 1: up very much as like a recreational uh fisher, and
Speaker 1: a document is that ILK even though like the pro
Speaker 1: circuit in the tournament circuit has never really been something.
Speaker 1: It's been on like the periphery of a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that I've done, but it's never been anything that
Speaker 1: I focused on personally. I think the way that you're
Speaker 1: like approaching that is going to be super interesting not
Speaker 1: only for people who are interested in the tournament scene,
Speaker 1: but just for people who wanted to know more about
Speaker 1: the internal workings of an organization like that, and how
Speaker 1: it relates to the people that you know, you end
Speaker 1: up seeing on television. Yeah, I hope it does that. Um. Like,
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm here to tell you that pro
Speaker 1: fishing is no different than any other profession or sport
Speaker 1: or occupation. There's politics, there's drama, there's heart, there's success,
Speaker 1: there's all that stuff. And you know, I'll even mentioned
Speaker 1: other names. You know, guy, some of the best in
Speaker 1: the world, right Rick Klein, Kevin Van Damn, Rowland Martin.
Speaker 1: These guys all dealt with the same stuff too, right there.
Speaker 1: They're not super humans. I mean, this is life and
Speaker 1: it's it's an interesting look I think. Um, at this
Speaker 1: stage in my career, even though I'm still tour fishing,
Speaker 1: even though I still have sponsors, I still have to
Speaker 1: maintain that line. It was nice opening up and being honest,
Speaker 1: you know, again, without throwing anybody under the bus from
Speaker 1: a name standpoint, It's felt very good to just say
Speaker 1: this is how it happened. Yeah. Well, we we had
Speaker 1: we had our buddies Carl and Brandon on the other day,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that Joe really kind of
Speaker 1: brought up was the fact that everybody wants to thinks
Speaker 1: they want to do this for a living, and and
Speaker 1: and things, these certain things is about it. But one
Speaker 1: thing that they don't consider is like the pressure and
Speaker 1: and all that stuff that comes with it. And I
Speaker 1: think it sounds like your doc series is like really
Speaker 1: going to cover that. I'm super excited. Yeah, it's definitely.
Speaker 1: You look at both those guys, uh. You know, carl
Speaker 1: And and Brandon are both probably the hardest working guys
Speaker 1: out there. And I'm saying that for real. They're dark
Speaker 1: to dark. They worked really hard. Their success shows. But
Speaker 1: the interesting thing is carl and Brandon, we're always have
Speaker 1: been branded as the nice guys. Very very early on,
Speaker 1: I got thrown under the bus is Bend the jerk
Speaker 1: off of professional fishing, uh And, And I was okay
Speaker 1: with that. I accepted that, right you know. ESPN did
Speaker 1: an article and said I was the bad boy of
Speaker 1: g Q did an article said I was the bad
Speaker 1: boy of fishing. I'm not bad. I've already I've already
Speaker 1: been in a street fight like once. I like any
Speaker 1: but I accepted it, and I you know, I I
Speaker 1: focused on what I thought was important and tried to
Speaker 1: grow my fan base, and uh, I'm passionate about fishing, right,
Speaker 1: so in hindsight, all that stuff to help me. But
Speaker 1: I really think they have it easier than I had it.
Speaker 1: Oh there you go, all right, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: well so we'll we'll we'll get into this story here again.
Speaker 1: This is perfect because we're talking about the behind the
Speaker 1: scenes reality and if the street fight happen to have
Speaker 1: anything to do with fishing, maybe that's your story today.
Speaker 1: Normally we have guides and captains on smooth moves to
Speaker 1: you know, bitch about crazy things their clients have done.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, we want one from your personal history,
Speaker 1: just sort of one of those Holy sh it, I
Speaker 1: can't believe I did that. Moments that that that makes
Speaker 1: what you do real to the weekend Angler, and I
Speaker 1: know you said you have tons of these, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be hard to pick. Oh my god. If you guys
Speaker 1: ever get bored and need material, please call me, because
Speaker 1: I really did. We can do this every Tuesday. Money.
Speaker 1: I've got a little pile of thoughts over in the thousands. Uh,
Speaker 1: that would fit this. But on the mike with Mike,
Speaker 1: I could by Uh, there's definitely been altercations and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, and I got some of those stories, but
Speaker 1: I sort of want to dip into the reality that, um,
Speaker 1: professional bass fishing is a very dangerous sport, right. You know,
Speaker 1: you look at like NASCAR, and it's very obvious, so
Speaker 1: the dangers there. You look at football, you look at
Speaker 1: those athletes, say, yes, I get it's very obvious. But man,
Speaker 1: fishing is you know, it's one of those sports where
Speaker 1: you don't know. And I'm gonna recall an incident that
Speaker 1: happened about ten years ago, uh down on in Orange,
Speaker 1: Texas on the Sabine River, and I was making a
Speaker 1: long run trying to get to fish that nobody else
Speaker 1: got to. And I found this one little bayou and
Speaker 1: it was about a five mile run through this real
Speaker 1: windy little slew and I I've always considered myself a
Speaker 1: not so great boat driver, and I'm being honest about it, right,
Speaker 1: I usually don't know too many speeds except forward and
Speaker 1: reverse and that's it, nothing in between. And I'm going
Speaker 1: up this slough and I remember at the last second,
Speaker 1: as I turned the slow corner, I see a slick
Speaker 1: on the surface of the water. And so I've stream
Speaker 1: fished enough to know that that means there's something underneath
Speaker 1: the water. And I remember hitting the throttle, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to pull the throttle back, and this stream is
Speaker 1: only about the width of three bass boats wide. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I pulled back, I instantly hit something. And when
Speaker 1: I hit it, before I knew it, I was being thrown.
Speaker 1: The boat was being thrown onto the embankment, and it
Speaker 1: was like it happened in a second, but it felt
Speaker 1: like in a turn. And this boat, I mean was
Speaker 1: just riding, riding up this embankment. There are branches and trees.
Speaker 1: I can hear the noise, and so one thing I
Speaker 1: remembers the noise of the branches breaking pure and and
Speaker 1: the boat went up, went up, and it just about
Speaker 1: got to the top and it and I mean it
Speaker 1: literally stopped. And in my partner and I we felt
Speaker 1: ourselves dult forward that it was the scariest besides the
Speaker 1: car accident. It was the scariest thing I've ever been
Speaker 1: involved in. And once we looked at my partner said,
Speaker 1: are you okay? We're both okay? All right, If we're okay,
Speaker 1: everything else's secondary. And I got out and started looking
Speaker 1: at what's going on here, and I climbed to the
Speaker 1: nose of the boat and look down, and that embankment
Speaker 1: on the other sound went down a couple hundred feet
Speaker 1: almost straight. Now, I mean we we came within twenty
Speaker 1: ft of We came within a bass boat length of
Speaker 1: going over that bank. It totally. So this was the
Speaker 1: craziest thing. So the tournament's still gone on. I'm only
Speaker 1: about halfway through the day. I'm looking around. I'm just
Speaker 1: it's there's trees this wide, you know, to the left
Speaker 1: and right of a giant, full size streets. And so
Speaker 1: I've actually been up that river gar fishing. I can
Speaker 1: picture it. It's it's windy and crazy and there's yeah, windy,
Speaker 1: crazy cypress trees. Just it's a zoo and we're up
Speaker 1: there and and and just by happenstance, this local comes
Speaker 1: idle the pass and he's like, we're like hey, hey,
Speaker 1: and and once we're no, we're safe. Right, my competitive
Speaker 1: mode still goes on. So I'm looking at my watch,
Speaker 1: I'm like, ship, i still got like three hours. I
Speaker 1: gotta catch a lima. So I'm like, hey, he's got
Speaker 1: toe straps. And the craziest thing. So we toe hooked
Speaker 1: the toe straps on the back of the eye and
Speaker 1: he's pushing, pushing, can't get it out, keeps trying, keeps trying.
Speaker 1: Finally the back of the boat comes off of that
Speaker 1: wedge of that stump and it comes down the embankment,
Speaker 1: just like a slipping slide, right in the water. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, my god, we're out, We're out. I hopped
Speaker 1: back in the boat. My partner has back in the boat,
Speaker 1: and I just know, I just know something's messed up.
Speaker 1: And I start the outboard and it cranks over Yamaha,
Speaker 1: sounds good. Idle back out to the main river, put
Speaker 1: it on pad and I'm gone, And I got the
Speaker 1: fish the rest of the day. Now, I didn't catch
Speaker 1: my limit I wanted. I caught a few, but uh
Speaker 1: as the reality right of of tournament fishing or those
Speaker 1: those scenarios. And I've been in twelve foot waves in
Speaker 1: a bass boat. I've had lightning crack around me. But
Speaker 1: it is. It is a dangerous sport for all everybody
Speaker 1: Washington listen and thinks it's not a dangerous sport. You're wrong.
Speaker 1: We're gonna hear some more stories like that, and they
Speaker 1: never give up docuseries. There's a lot of good ones.
Speaker 1: In there. There's a lot of good ones. There's definitely
Speaker 1: some of those altercations we talked about in there. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's some really strange, bizarre stuff that's happened with fans
Speaker 1: over the years. You're going to hear it all. It's
Speaker 1: all true. So what was the takeaway from that from
Speaker 1: that accident? Man? Like, did you tone it down after that?
Speaker 1: You know, I toned it down a little bit that
Speaker 1: next year, right, Like something like that happens, it's pretty
Speaker 1: present in your mind, but I think the competitor in
Speaker 1: me forced it out of my mind. And and and
Speaker 1: you know now I'm still driving like a maniac like
Speaker 1: I did then too. You know. Well, so you got
Speaker 1: never give up even when you tell your little straight
Speaker 1: up into the woods if you have to. As always, man,
Speaker 1: we appreciate you stopping by, Mike Stoked for this. Everybody
Speaker 1: listening in February eight next week check it out and
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll talk to you again down the road. Man.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, And if you ever need any a v
Speaker 1: audio technical difficulty troubleshooting, call will So that last part
Speaker 1: that that Mike close was with there where we was
Speaker 1: talking about if we ever need him for a v
Speaker 1: trouble shooting. He said that because it took him a
Speaker 1: little while to get online with us, right, He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not tech savvy. My wife, my wife Becky is
Speaker 1: like his I T person and she was not home
Speaker 1: and it was hysterical because he was getting frustrated, but
Speaker 1: we weren't. I just I I enjoyed it very much.
Speaker 1: Mike is always a good time And after we finished
Speaker 1: recording with him, we talked a little bit about sports
Speaker 1: docks uh in general, and how something like what he's
Speaker 1: doing might just have the sort of the tow appeal
Speaker 1: to folks outside of the fishing world, because I'm not
Speaker 1: much of a sports guy really, like I really don't
Speaker 1: care about about sports, but I still get sucked right
Speaker 1: into a good sports dock. Um. Matter of fact, one
Speaker 1: of our listeners pardon me for not remember exactly who
Speaker 1: recommended one called Untold Crime and Penalties, which is about
Speaker 1: the Dan Barry trash Ers hockey team, and holy sh it,
Speaker 1: was it wild. Like you, you don't need to care
Speaker 1: about hockey at all to get lost in that one.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate a good sports stock. Yeah, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: uh drink um. I really liked the last dance documentary
Speaker 1: about Michael Jordan's The Bulls, and uh, I don't really
Speaker 1: give a shit about basketball. Yeah, exactly, and that's why
Speaker 1: something's transcend Yeah, that's that's what I hate to say.
Speaker 1: I have not seen, but it's uh, it's in my
Speaker 1: queue anyway. Maintaining my title as news dominator is also
Speaker 1: in my queue. Your quiz was cute and all, but
Speaker 1: Phil clearly values proper journalism over gimmickry. So let's see
Speaker 1: what kind of consolation prize Phil has for you this
Speaker 1: week in fish News. Fish News. That escalated quickly, So man,
Speaker 1: tell you what I am the still getting feedback from
Speaker 1: listeners regarding the kids fishing limit that question we had
Speaker 1: and how limits separation varies state by state. Um, those
Speaker 1: are still rolling in. That is apparently touched a nerve.
Speaker 1: People are sharing all so sick you're taking this. I'm
Speaker 1: done talking too. But I I that's too bad, because
Speaker 1: I got a note from a listener via d M
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna say his name, but I just
Speaker 1: thought I would share this and then we'll stop talking
Speaker 1: about this. But I thought I would share this for
Speaker 1: some perspective on a rule that, as we said, many
Speaker 1: people might overlook. He says, about fifteen years ago, he
Speaker 1: was fishing with his stepson in Virginia and at the time,
Speaker 1: the smallmouth limit was five per person. They had kept
Speaker 1: seven total between them, but put them on the same stringer,
Speaker 1: and then at the ramp awarden checked them and asked
Speaker 1: who's fish these were, and of course they were like, well,
Speaker 1: these are ours, me and my stepsons. And he says, well,
Speaker 1: they're on the same stringer, so you're over the limit.
Speaker 1: Who's taking the ticket? Naturally, this guy didn't want his
Speaker 1: steps on to get in trouble, so he took it.
Speaker 1: And it was a hundred bucks for being over the
Speaker 1: limit and twenty dollars for each fish over the limit.
Speaker 1: And I'll say, all in all right, that's not the
Speaker 1: worst fine I've ever heard of. But he says to
Speaker 1: this day that violation is still on his record and
Speaker 1: comes up like every time he applies for a job.
Speaker 1: It has been a thing ever since. So it's just
Speaker 1: something to think about there when you're talking about a
Speaker 1: rule that's like, oh God, get real. Well yeah, got
Speaker 1: real for him, you know, yeah, yeah, I mean that's um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. That sounds like something that happened. Man,
Speaker 1: I believe him. I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, well you don't care,
Speaker 1: but I know that's that's fine. But it intrigued me
Speaker 1: enough that I I I felt like, after this whole thing,
Speaker 1: I had to know that the local rules UM, and
Speaker 1: I started, I will say I started. I tried to
Speaker 1: search it out on both in New Jersey and p
Speaker 1: A Fish and Game websites, and I couldn't find anything.
Speaker 1: So like, the answer online is not jumping out at you. UM.
Speaker 1: I called p A. They were mega awesome and helpful,
Speaker 1: and the lieutenant I spoke to you said, you know
Speaker 1: you're actually you're not gonna find you know. Wording verbiage
Speaker 1: to that explicitly says phish limits must be kept separate
Speaker 1: or anything like that. UM, and everything would be case
Speaker 1: by case, and these says, obviously, if you've got three
Speaker 1: guys on a boat and they're filling a single cooler,
Speaker 1: you know, fishing game knows what's up, barring any funny
Speaker 1: business like you know, one guy not having a license
Speaker 1: for them being over a combined limit, you know they're
Speaker 1: they're they're not gonna they're not gonna be hard line
Speaker 1: about that. He says, where people get in trouble is
Speaker 1: you catch your limit, your buddy catches his, you put
Speaker 1: him on the same stringer, and your buddy runs out
Speaker 1: to get a sandwich, you know. He says like, that's
Speaker 1: when they get suspicious obviously, when it's just one guy
Speaker 1: over the limit. So if you're not with the group
Speaker 1: or with that buddy, then they're gonna ask you more questions.
Speaker 1: So it sounds to me like, um, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: maybe that officer of Virginia, he might have been having
Speaker 1: a bad day because I don't know. I I think
Speaker 1: the listener that wrote in it he made an honest mistake,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, man, I'm really trying to stop saying yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I know I've had multiple listeners suggest yeah man, t shirts. Okay,
Speaker 1: you ask Garrett about that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so often
Speaker 1: in you know, conservation offenses or like whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it, it really does seem like there is
Speaker 1: a fair like margin of that law that's up to
Speaker 1: the interpretation of the officer who's like potentially issuing like
Speaker 1: the ticket or whatever. Yeah. Um, you know, I've personally
Speaker 1: been out and my dad, you know, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, forgot his license and officer came out and
Speaker 1: was like, do you have your license? And my dad
Speaker 1: was like, shoot, I don't have my license, and the
Speaker 1: officer was like, all right, well, your kid can stay
Speaker 1: here and keep fishing while you go run back to
Speaker 1: the house and grab your license and come back right
Speaker 1: and the end of it. Other times, like people can
Speaker 1: be like super super hard line on stuff that might
Speaker 1: that might surprise you, but I would be inclined to
Speaker 1: agree that the dude was just having a bad day,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, And I mean rules are rules, not
Speaker 1: condoning it, but just saying like that seemed like one
Speaker 1: where if both people were there, it's like, come on now.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to see what the scoop was in Jersey,
Speaker 1: but unlike the fine folks in p A that loved
Speaker 1: meat eater, I said who I was to the very nice,
Speaker 1: monotone lady that answered the phone at the d P
Speaker 1: office in Trenton, and she was like, yeah, okay, hold
Speaker 1: for transfer, and then I just ended up in a voicemail.
Speaker 1: So I don't I don't know about New Jersey. You
Speaker 1: guys are on your own out there anyway. Whoever wins
Speaker 1: news today will be eligible to have Phil Taylor record.
Speaker 1: Um his voicemail message on one of our phones. How
Speaker 1: about this up for grabs? Phil will do one of
Speaker 1: our voicemails. UM, yeah, yeah, I'm in for that. I'm kidding,
Speaker 1: although I'm sure we could arrange you. Remember this is
Speaker 1: a competition, Hayden and I do not know which news
Speaker 1: story the other Chap is bringing to the table at
Speaker 1: the end. There it is, there it is. Wait, hold on,
Speaker 1: hold up. I mentioned in a listener email we were
Speaker 1: talking about our our vocal ticks, like, for instance, I
Speaker 1: say like and yeah man, and sometimes can't put a
Speaker 1: thought together. And you, Joe you every now and again, man,
Speaker 1: you fall into this like British uh, like you'll say, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, you just said, Chap, I've heard you describe
Speaker 1: things as not like, oh, that's brilliant, like in an
Speaker 1: American way, like brilliant, like like that sort of accent.
Speaker 1: I know, but the flourishes applied, man, or good on
Speaker 1: you do that order bunch. Sorry, I just listener who
Speaker 1: wrote in this is what I was talking about. Continue
Speaker 1: listening that road in. I am more worldly and that's
Speaker 1: all it is. I have friends all over the world,
Speaker 1: and I enjoy international dialects. Damn it anyway, at the end,
Speaker 1: our audio engineered the Mighty Phil will declare a winner.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's it's your it's your lead this week,
Speaker 1: old boy, what do you got for us there? So
Speaker 1: thank you, Joe. So this story comes to us from
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. It seems that Russia has underestimated a
Speaker 1: bunch of Irish fishermen who don't want war games going
Speaker 1: down and their fishing grounds. Boy, oh, man's got to
Speaker 1: drag the Russians into this. So so, Russia had planned
Speaker 1: on doing some naval exercises some a hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: miles off Ireland's southern coast, which international law permits. There's
Speaker 1: no like, it's not like any sort of like stepping
Speaker 1: over a boundary. However, that would have put the Russian
Speaker 1: war games inside of Ireland's exclusive economic zone. Joe, do
Speaker 1: you know what exclusive economic zone is? Man? It's the
Speaker 1: easy Yeah you know me so, Yeah, we've touched on
Speaker 1: this before. An exclusive economic zone or easy is the
Speaker 1: stretch of ocean that in general extends like two miles
Speaker 1: off the coast of a nation to which that nation
Speaker 1: has exclusive economic rights. Uh. The context in which we
Speaker 1: touched on. It was the New England cod Fisheries, where
Speaker 1: in the mid seventies the Magnussen Stevens Act claimed the
Speaker 1: stretch of ocean extending two miles from the coast has
Speaker 1: sovereign territorial waters, in order to decurb various forms of
Speaker 1: overfishing by international vessels. Ye informations. Yes, um, so you're
Speaker 1: you know some fun facts are coming up. Though nations
Speaker 1: had been laying claims of varying dimensions to what they
Speaker 1: considered their territorial waters. In two the u unformally adopted
Speaker 1: two nautical miles as a standard. So interesting facts, Joe.
Speaker 1: Prior to this, sovereign territorial waters were considered everything was
Speaker 1: silvereign or sovereign. Are they different? Sovereign? Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign.
Speaker 1: There I can go back and edit all the ups
Speaker 1: if it is in fact sovereign. There's a good lad.
Speaker 1: I hate you so interesting facts. Prior to this, these
Speaker 1: territorial waters were considered everything within twelve nautical miles of
Speaker 1: the coast, and prior to that everything within three miles
Speaker 1: from the coast. The estimated maximum range of cannon fire.
Speaker 1: How do you like that? That's pretty I didn't know
Speaker 1: that because there's three mile rules for all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: I didn't know there was anything tied to cannon fire there.
Speaker 1: That's yeah. So the twelve of the you know, the
Speaker 1: twelve nautical miles was like modern times and like, you know,
Speaker 1: the three nautical miles was when they were still firing
Speaker 1: cannons at each other. Anyhow, well, I gotta say I'll
Speaker 1: just add real quick, like I've been offshore in Jersey,
Speaker 1: like way way out when the coast Guard is out
Speaker 1: there drilling and dude, like they don't mess it, like
Speaker 1: you're literally tunaficient and it's like, holy sh it, what
Speaker 1: was that and they like detonate something in your life
Speaker 1: damn sound wave just like it takes you off the deck.
Speaker 1: But they're totally allowed to do that. It's very cool.
Speaker 1: It's eerie, but it's cool. And we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: that in a minute. Um. Anyhow, the War Games, a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty miles off ireland southern coast would have
Speaker 1: put the Russians fifty miles inside of Ireland's easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know me. Yeah. Uh. There are two primary concerns
Speaker 1: with this. One is the short term obvious. It's awfully
Speaker 1: hard to fish with warships and artillery crowding up the
Speaker 1: fishing grounds. There's nothing like by catching the form of
Speaker 1: a Russian nuclear submarine. Not that commercial fishing off shore
Speaker 1: it's particularly safe in the first place. Um. The second
Speaker 1: concern is long term and slightly less obvious, human disruption
Speaker 1: and impact on future quotas. Human disturbance can have negative
Speaker 1: impacts on wildlife. Du right. But one thing biologists were
Speaker 1: particularly concerned with in this case was noise pollution generated
Speaker 1: by what are presumably not very quiet war games. Um.
Speaker 1: There's another So this is another thing that we've touched
Speaker 1: on in a previous fish News story when we discussed
Speaker 1: shark nets and their alternatives a couple of months ago,
Speaker 1: specifically drum lines, which, in case listeners don't remember, I
Speaker 1: know you do, Joe, are strings of devices that produce
Speaker 1: loud noises to deter sharks from frequenting an area. While
Speaker 1: drum lines can alter the behaviors of sharks, that they
Speaker 1: can also alter the behaviors of what I guess you'd
Speaker 1: call non target species. Um. So bring it back to
Speaker 1: war games in Ireland's e Z. Biologists are concerned that
Speaker 1: the noise generated could alter the behaviors of marine life.
Speaker 1: In turn, fishermen are concerned that once this unforeseen environmental
Speaker 1: factor is taken into account by fisheries biologists, uh, the
Speaker 1: war games will translate into reduced quotas for commercially sought
Speaker 1: after fish down the line. So like, theoretically, I mean
Speaker 1: like the impact could extend into next season. Now, if
Speaker 1: you're worthy, you don't understand the entirety of that long
Speaker 1: and confusing explanation of ease s and marine noise pollutions
Speaker 1: impact on commercial fish quotas. Fear not, because it is
Speaker 1: no longer a relevant piece of information going forward. Over
Speaker 1: the weekend, Russia decided to relocate naval exercises to areas
Speaker 1: presumably outside the easy as a gesture of goodwill. The
Speaker 1: news was received with elation by all, including the very
Speaker 1: predictably named Patrick Murphy, chief executive of the Irish South
Speaker 1: and West Fish Producers Organization, who of the victory said
Speaker 1: to the equally predictably named Irish CNN correspondent Donnie O'Sullivan,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic. Seriously, though, if you're interested, go check out
Speaker 1: the interview. If you YouTube, Russia blinks CNN Irish fisherman.
Speaker 1: That's what I did. You'll find it um is information
Speaker 1: dence and explains more than just the essential details as
Speaker 1: I've done here. They take you more through the how
Speaker 1: than the why. Uh, you know, basically how. These fishermen
Speaker 1: recognize that this was an issue, banded together and asked
Speaker 1: Russia please don't blow shut up in our easy um
Speaker 1: and and it and it goes to show what can
Speaker 1: happen when folks who care about a resource get together
Speaker 1: and you know, make an effort to protect it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's very interesting couple of thoughts on it, right. One,
Speaker 1: Like Russia, if I'm not mistaken, owns pretty much the
Speaker 1: biggest land mass in the entire world. Like y'all ain't
Speaker 1: got enough ocean that you can just do this ship
Speaker 1: in your part of the ocean. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: understand why we need to be all the way down
Speaker 1: off Ireland unless it's just too cold. But it's also
Speaker 1: funny because like here's a here's a group of commercial fishermen.
Speaker 1: This is their livelihood, and they're complaining that Russian warships
Speaker 1: might be too noisy for their fish. Meanwhile over here,
Speaker 1: like our guys are complaining that wind farms might be
Speaker 1: too noisy for their fish. And it's just a very
Speaker 1: stark difference in problems there when you think about it.
Speaker 1: You know, so good on the Irish boys for to
Speaker 1: disrupting or threatening to disrupt this, But good on you
Speaker 1: because yeah, these guys are I know, these guys are
Speaker 1: out there like fishing for whiting and stuff, and like
Speaker 1: you've got your little Irish commercial boat and they got
Speaker 1: a nuclear warship. So you know that's a that's that
Speaker 1: takes some brass to just try to We're talking about
Speaker 1: the Russians, not the wind farmers. Again, it's very stark
Speaker 1: what we're trying to disrupt here. Um. But anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: glad that works out. That's one less Russian thing to
Speaker 1: worry about. As of eight, at least the fishermen are okay.
Speaker 1: Please enter your password. You have one unheard message your dog.
Speaker 1: You borrowed my augar for that ice fishing article. Never
Speaker 1: held the article you still I'm giving me back the
Speaker 1: aug trying to get ahold answer your damn clone calling back.
Speaker 1: End of message, delete press seven save deleted. So you
Speaker 1: talked about commercial fishermen in Ireland. They're out there making
Speaker 1: their living from the sea. Let's talk about how you
Speaker 1: can make your money's right here in the good old
Speaker 1: us of A by catching fish. So a bunch of
Speaker 1: folks sent me this story, and I thank you all.
Speaker 1: And they did it because it ties back to a
Speaker 1: piece we covered many moons ago about a bounty that
Speaker 1: was placed on the heads of brown trout in Arizona's
Speaker 1: Glen Canyon stretch of the Colorado River. Now, when that
Speaker 1: story first dropped, the going rate was twenty five bones
Speaker 1: for any brown trout over six inches, and we joked
Speaker 1: at the time that all you meet chucker should just
Speaker 1: quit your jobs and head out, since you know you're
Speaker 1: all just brown trout slayers anyway, right, it seems perfect
Speaker 1: quick update on that As of December, the pay has
Speaker 1: been increased to thirty three dollars per brown trout and
Speaker 1: an additional fifty dollars for each three brown trout, three
Speaker 1: hundred bucks for each harvested brown UH containing a pit tag,
Speaker 1: fived bonus for the largest brown at the end of
Speaker 1: each month, five bonus for the most brown trout harvested
Speaker 1: at the end of each month. So you can you
Speaker 1: can uh or those pit tags are those the ones
Speaker 1: that a um CAW did a video of a similar
Speaker 1: bounty on rainbow trout, and I forget where it was,
Speaker 1: but it's Snake River, I believe. Yeah, But it's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a tag. It's not like one of
Speaker 1: the like the transduce through tags or whatever you'd call them,
Speaker 1: with the that are actually like outside the fish, like
Speaker 1: the ones with like you know, about an inch long
Speaker 1: with like a number on them. They're invisible and they're
Speaker 1: put into the heads of the trout. And the reason
Speaker 1: that they do that is so you must kill one
Speaker 1: um to to find out whether or not that the
Speaker 1: trout that you submitted has been tagged, because otherwise, like
Speaker 1: you could catch a trout look at it, so, oh
Speaker 1: this doesn't have the tag, and drop it back in
Speaker 1: and let it go. Yeah. To be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm not that familiar enough with the
Speaker 1: program out there. I know they want the brown trout out.
Speaker 1: So it seemed to me like, if you were collecting
Speaker 1: brown trout to put pit tags in them, why wouldn't
Speaker 1: you just not put those back either? Because it decentivises
Speaker 1: more people to go try and find Yeah, it may
Speaker 1: be as simple as that, and it sort of ties
Speaker 1: to the main story here. Um. So look, here's what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking. You pummel that scene off fall and winter,
Speaker 1: and then right around May you head up to the
Speaker 1: Umbia River and complete your annual earnings chasing northern pike minnows. Now,
Speaker 1: according to this story, this is the one you guys
Speaker 1: sent from the Tri City Herald. One Washington angler earned
Speaker 1: himself sixty one thousand dollars catching pike minnows in te
Speaker 1: Um And now a portion of the annual pay out
Speaker 1: for for Washington's pike minnah sport reward program is actually
Speaker 1: furnished by the Bonneville Power Administration and in nearly seven
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars was paid out in total right for
Speaker 1: this program. According to the story, that's actually down from
Speaker 1: eight hundred and forty thousand and twenty. And what they
Speaker 1: say is that's that's because, um, there were condition issues.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of grass and debris in h
Speaker 1: in the rivers during peak fishing times last year, which
Speaker 1: slowed down catch rates and productivity. UM. Now, to keep
Speaker 1: people out there fishing, Washington is offering a raise here
Speaker 1: to last season, they paid five bucks for every dead
Speaker 1: pike minnah. Uh, this season, it's gonna be six bucks
Speaker 1: each for the first twenty five pike minnows, eight bucks
Speaker 1: each for two hundred fish, and ten bucks a pop
Speaker 1: after two hundred. In addition, similar to the pit Tag deal,
Speaker 1: especially tag pike minnow are worth five bucks a piece.
Speaker 1: N I gotta make a confession. Yeah, um, this is
Speaker 1: gonna surprise no one. But I'm an idiot. And when
Speaker 1: I first heard about this, particularly how you call them
Speaker 1: northern pike minnows. But I thought like it was it
Speaker 1: was like a bounty on uh, like the minnows of
Speaker 1: the northern pike. You mean like pike fry, you mean
Speaker 1: like juvenile pike. No, incorrect, It's a whole other species. No,
Speaker 1: I know. And I cleared this up with Miles when
Speaker 1: he like dropped his story like last year or whenever
Speaker 1: it was. But yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. I don't
Speaker 1: know your honesty. I appreciate your honesty. No, but no,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a whole separate deal. And what's funny again,
Speaker 1: is there there there are are pike minnows. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's the northern or a different one, like
Speaker 1: where they're protected. I believe in parts of the Colorado
Speaker 1: River where there's giant ones that like those are protected.
Speaker 1: Yet up there, we we want these to go away.
Speaker 1: And for anybody who doesn't get that, what's wrong with
Speaker 1: pike minnose, Well, they're pretty voracious, right, and they gobble
Speaker 1: up young salmon and steelhead, and as we know, as
Speaker 1: we've talked about, those two fish kind of take top
Speaker 1: honors out there in those systems um as well as
Speaker 1: in the Snake River, and this reward program is also
Speaker 1: in play there. So it's the Columbia and the Snake River,
Speaker 1: Washington and Oregon. So this is from the story kind
Speaker 1: of fascinating. Biologists estimate that the reward program has reduced
Speaker 1: predation on young salmon and steelhead by up to fort
Speaker 1: from levels before the program began. The program's annual goal
Speaker 1: is to remove ten percent to of pike minnows that
Speaker 1: are nine inches or longer in the two rivers in
Speaker 1: Washington and Oregon, and estimated at eleven point three percent
Speaker 1: of pike minnows were removed, So I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: pretty significant. It's working. So this past year's top earner,
Speaker 1: the guy that ended up with sixty one k personally
Speaker 1: checked in seven thousand five pike minnows, seven of which
Speaker 1: were tagged, therefore worth a lot more coin. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've caught seven thousand life, right boy. So I'll
Speaker 1: get to that for all you, like, for everybody out
Speaker 1: there is like listening, like I need to go do this.
Speaker 1: Just hang on. Understand some things. His wife, this guy's wife.
Speaker 1: She also contributed one thousand, seven hundred pike minnows, thus
Speaker 1: boosting the final cash payout even further. And the story
Speaker 1: seems to suggest that they may in fact just kind
Speaker 1: of do this for money, like that just might be
Speaker 1: what these two folks do. This is their income, and hey,
Speaker 1: I mean that ain't bad, right um. The next three
Speaker 1: top earners in the program during the past season each
Speaker 1: had payouts between thirty thousand and forty thousand dollars. So
Speaker 1: this is the tricky part, right um. To get back
Speaker 1: to those brown trout for a second. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people wrote in after and said, yeah, but
Speaker 1: you gotta understand, it's not like Glen Canyon is rife
Speaker 1: with them, Like there's not that many, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, and they want them gone, So it's not
Speaker 1: like a brown trout sligh fest. When you go down there,
Speaker 1: you kind of work for browns in that system. A
Speaker 1: little bit of the same deal here as I understand it,
Speaker 1: pike minnows are not super hard to catch. They can
Speaker 1: be really tricky to find. And having visited the Columbia,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a huge river system. Um you know,
Speaker 1: it's super wide, super deep. So from what I've read
Speaker 1: and see it on YouTube, they'll eat almost anything, right,
Speaker 1: They'll eat a spinner, they'll eat a spoon, simple piece
Speaker 1: of cut bait, worm, whatever. But one angler in the
Speaker 1: story was quoted as saying, like you can go to
Speaker 1: a spot one day and you'll catch a pile, like
Speaker 1: I'll just you'll put up just a shipload of these
Speaker 1: fish and the next day they're just gone and they
Speaker 1: may never be in that spot again. So like this
Speaker 1: guy who earned all this money, you said, you haven't
Speaker 1: caught seven thousand fish in your life. For all of
Speaker 1: you hopefuls out there current drafting letters of resignation to
Speaker 1: your employer, keep in mind that like these top earners,
Speaker 1: the time they put in is ridiculous, Like this is
Speaker 1: not like blue gill fishing, like these dudes basically devote
Speaker 1: every waking minute. You know what does sound a lot
Speaker 1: like it sounds a lot like crappie fishing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. Now, I don't know enough about the science
Speaker 1: or the behavior of pike minnows. It's something I've never targeted,
Speaker 1: but it almost seems to me like they just are
Speaker 1: always on the move, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: they're just piled in here and then they're gone. But um, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I mean you could you can make some coin, that'd
Speaker 1: be it would be hard for me. Me drink um.
Speaker 1: The guy who sent in the story about getting getting
Speaker 1: pinched on the stringer put yeah, man in his own
Speaker 1: d M parentheses arrow, pointing to it drink. So that
Speaker 1: is infecting people. I just wanted to say. So there
Speaker 1: you go, go out and make some money catching pike minnows. Um,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna catch some heat from Phil here.
Speaker 1: We've got pike minnows today or the Irish whatever you're
Speaker 1: more into Phil, I don't know if you're Irish. Phil
Speaker 1: is probably very Irish. You're right, okay, yeah yeah, And
Speaker 1: as soon as we're done being judged by Phil, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do an end of the line. That sort of
Speaker 1: keeps up the theme of of drama. This week. We've
Speaker 1: talked about a lot of dramatic documentaries. Were like, we'll
Speaker 1: keep the drama going with a special story, a ballad line,
Speaker 1: a ballad an ode an homage, end of the line homage,
Speaker 1: Hayden Samic quit playing war games with my heart. You
Speaker 1: are the winner this week. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I do have a bit of Irish in me. When
Speaker 1: I'm not editing podcasts, you can find me out in
Speaker 1: the woods looking for hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers and blue moons,
Speaker 1: pots of gold, rainbows and the red balloons. Also, my
Speaker 1: ass is so pale that it kind of looks like
Speaker 1: the stay puffed marshmallow man, all kind of scrunched up
Speaker 1: and piste off, you know, after they shoot him with
Speaker 1: the proton pack. Yeah, well that's not loud enough. This
Speaker 1: story begins in Port Clinton, Ohio, in July, where I
Speaker 1: was hanging out with my bud, Ross Robertson while filming
Speaker 1: the Walleye episode of dost Boat season three. Now, during
Speaker 1: that trip, we had a little downtime, and I'm always
Speaker 1: interested in visiting tackle shops when I'm on the road,
Speaker 1: especially in places like Port Clinton, as they cater too
Speaker 1: vastly different angling needs than the shops back east. So
Speaker 1: there we were in Fisherman Central, which is a badass shop,
Speaker 1: and there I was staring down an entire wall of
Speaker 1: smith Bick rogue jerk baits. I've already covered the rogue
Speaker 1: on end of the line and told you about its
Speaker 1: roots and how I've come to love this low, especially
Speaker 1: for trout, but it doesn't have a cultural stronghold in
Speaker 1: the far Northeast where I live like it does elsewhere.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm lucky to find simple silver and gold
Speaker 1: rogues back home, and if I do, they're generally the
Speaker 1: deep diving models, not the smaller, suspending super rogue Junior.
Speaker 1: Because that, my friends, is my money maker, and Fisherman's
Speaker 1: Central had it in colors I didn't even know existed,
Speaker 1: one of which, and admittedly the one that was least
Speaker 1: appealing at the time, was a bloody crawfish red. Now
Speaker 1: I bought two of every color that day, but only
Speaker 1: one in that red. Those lawyers just sat in my
Speaker 1: garage until November, when me and somebodies get more serious
Speaker 1: about floating for big browns on a local river that
Speaker 1: just tends to fish better in the colder months. Now,
Speaker 1: for no particular reason, I tied on that red robe
Speaker 1: during our first float of the season, and in a
Speaker 1: few short miles it was smashed by three nice small
Speaker 1: amounts three browns between seventeen and twenty two inches, and
Speaker 1: it moved several more fish that day. Maybe there is
Speaker 1: something to the red, I thought. But then in the
Speaker 1: last run a whopper trout hit it so hard that
Speaker 1: it snapped my leader. Knowing I'd be going back soon,
Speaker 1: I decided, rather than hurry up and order more lures,
Speaker 1: I just make one. So I took an old silver
Speaker 1: suspending super Rogue Junior that was missing an eye, broke
Speaker 1: out the airbrush, compressor and the copic markers, and spruced
Speaker 1: it up with new eyes, a fresh black back, blood
Speaker 1: red sides, and a brighter orange belly. And I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you, it looked really great. I was really proud
Speaker 1: of myself. And then like an idiot, I sealed it
Speaker 1: with clear enamel spray and all the marker ran and
Speaker 1: then it just looked like total shit, or so I thought.
Speaker 1: Next round on the river, I had my bud and
Speaker 1: frequent vent guest, Jim Fee chuck that lure that looked
Speaker 1: like it was painted by a preschooler, and we had
Speaker 1: some pretty terrible conditions that day, But wouldn't you know it,
Speaker 1: a tiger trout, a small brown, and a fatty over
Speaker 1: twenty inches a k a. The nicest wild stream brown
Speaker 1: Jim had caught in years, piled on to that rogue.
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks later, that ugly rogue jacked another
Speaker 1: twenty two for me and moved a few more and
Speaker 1: scored a giant pickerel, And just like that, my halfass
Speaker 1: custom lure kind of became the one. In fact, it
Speaker 1: closed out the season on that river with a twenty
Speaker 1: five in brown, the biggest I'd taken there to date,
Speaker 1: and the lure, which by then I had quietly dubbed
Speaker 1: Sweet Rusty, had become my most trusted jerk bait in
Speaker 1: a matter of about a month and a half. On
Speaker 1: January PM, Sweet Rusty died tragically, and I do mean tragically,
Speaker 1: because Rusty's final swim was while targeting, of all things, walleyes. Now,
Speaker 1: if you've been listening to Ben for a while, you
Speaker 1: know walleyes are not really my jam, but inevitably, come midwinter,
Speaker 1: my cabin fever gets so excruciating that I talked myself
Speaker 1: into visiting one of several known walleye wintering holes on
Speaker 1: the Delaware River. And these are all places that just
Speaker 1: get pounded, and my success at any of them over
Speaker 1: the years has been nominal, mostly because if it's freezing
Speaker 1: cold and I'm walleye fishing and I don't get bit
Speaker 1: in like fifteen minutes, I completely lose interest. But on
Speaker 1: the January twenty five visit, I had something I didn't
Speaker 1: have before, sweet Rusty. I thought maybe this Jackson Pollock
Speaker 1: theme bait would be as much of a ringer in
Speaker 1: walter World as it had been in Browntown. It was
Speaker 1: on the second retrieve that I got thumped, or at
Speaker 1: least that's what I thought at first, But then I
Speaker 1: remembered I was walleye fishing, and hadn't been a walleye,
Speaker 1: i'd have felt nothing, just sudden dead weight on the
Speaker 1: end of the line. No, my friends, it was a
Speaker 1: rock that Rusty had connected with, and the poor fellow
Speaker 1: came back in twirling just under the surface, only half
Speaker 1: a lip remaining on his face, and I was heartbroken
Speaker 1: for Rusty who would survived miles of river, thousands of casts,
Speaker 1: repeated knocks off bank, would crushing blows from big browns
Speaker 1: and pickerel. This was an embarrassing demise. It was like
Speaker 1: a valiant soldier surviving many heated firefights only to be
Speaker 1: killed later by a nerf bow and arrow. Now, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, and kidding aside, Rusty is
Speaker 1: nothing but a suspending super rogue Jr. And I own
Speaker 1: a bunch of those, So what's the big deal? Right?
Speaker 1: He didn't swim any differently than the rest of them.
Speaker 1: So was my botched paint job really the magic? I
Speaker 1: mean maybe, But my guess is had I been fishing
Speaker 1: factory red or silver instead, all the eats and moves
Speaker 1: would have happened anyway. The fish were just on they
Speaker 1: were chewing. The only reason I stuck with Russ was
Speaker 1: because I had confidence in them, even if deep down
Speaker 1: I knew that was an unfounded confidence, because I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like other people on the boat weren't moving
Speaker 1: or catching trout on other ship. I think most anglers
Speaker 1: have owned similar lures, and in some cases they may
Speaker 1: be legitimately tweaked to perform differently than they would right
Speaker 1: out of the package. But most of the time that's
Speaker 1: not really the case. Most of the time nothing's been tweaked.
Speaker 1: It's just that this black jitter bug or whatever just
Speaker 1: has the it that the rest of them don't. It's
Speaker 1: got the mojo, the juju, the juice, and they are
Speaker 1: all different ways A lure fly can attain this mojo.
Speaker 1: But while you can replace and replicate pretty much any
Speaker 1: lure or fly, you can't easily build in the confidence
Speaker 1: that you add in the original. I'm sure some of
Speaker 1: you have lures like sweet Rusty, and whether they're living
Speaker 1: or they've passed on, we'd love to hear about them,
Speaker 1: So send your homage to Bent at the meat eater
Speaker 1: dot com. You know that was that was kind of
Speaker 1: a sad story, Joe. I did I not say it
Speaker 1: would be dramatic? Dramatic? I can. I can sympathize with this, though,
Speaker 1: because you know that when I'm conventional fishing, I'm doing
Speaker 1: like a lot of like chunking and soft plastic ship
Speaker 1: like I don't really mess around with like stick baits
Speaker 1: too much. Um. And then I, you know, I fly
Speaker 1: fish a bunch and that's typically like a pretty transient
Speaker 1: um like like flies are transy, man, you never really
Speaker 1: hang onto them too long unless you're not using them.
Speaker 1: It's not but everything else. Yeah, you can hold onto
Speaker 1: like a bugger or some ship. But like anyhow, um,
Speaker 1: my favorite lie like ever is this one I tie.
Speaker 1: It's like a it's a copper tongue head, so copper
Speaker 1: colored tongue head with an orange hot spot. Uh CDC
Speaker 1: soft tackle, a pheasant tail body with like a little
Speaker 1: ostri turtle is like the thorn, not ostri turle up
Speaker 1: peacock curl is the thorax. And then I I tail
Speaker 1: it with CDL which if if you guys aren't as
Speaker 1: hip as I am, that's a cock de leone, which
Speaker 1: is just like it's basically a spate tackle fiber kind
Speaker 1: of you know, but it's like barred and it's it's
Speaker 1: a really good tailing material. Anyhow, I love that fly.
Speaker 1: I hate tying that fly. So when I would like,
Speaker 1: I I tie him in like you know, sets of
Speaker 1: three and four, and when I would get to that
Speaker 1: fourth one. This happened this past winter. Man, I just
Speaker 1: did not feel like tying more of those, so I
Speaker 1: just remember seeing this beat up crusty one in my box.
Speaker 1: That was just I mean, it had like pheasant tail
Speaker 1: fibers like popping out of the middle, like the the
Speaker 1: hotspot was coming undone. And I just prayed to the
Speaker 1: fishing gods, please please let this last throw a handful
Speaker 1: more trout and and I'll be happy. And I kept
Speaker 1: repeating that prayer and on on some Hanukah sh it.
Speaker 1: You know. It was like the oil just kept lasting
Speaker 1: and then I lost it, and then I I was
Speaker 1: equally heartbroken. Yeah yeah, Well what's funny about this is
Speaker 1: I posted this really goofy Instagram video about losing about
Speaker 1: the destruction of rusty, and I said it to candle
Speaker 1: in the wind. And maybe I made it too sad
Speaker 1: because people from all over were hitting me up, like
Speaker 1: send me that Lord, and I will fix it. Like
Speaker 1: people are likes, he's not gonna die on my watch,
Speaker 1: you know, people like get a guitar pick in retro fit.
Speaker 1: I'll drop everything and and triage just for you. And
Speaker 1: I appreciate that so much from the bottom of my heart.
Speaker 1: But while sad like I was, I was also mostly
Speaker 1: joking like I wasn't. I wasn't like losing sleep over
Speaker 1: did call me in tears that one night. But I
Speaker 1: think you'd like drank a little bit too much or
Speaker 1: something that was something else that we won't know. I'm kidding, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, like it was a great lure. I might
Speaker 1: actually fix it. I've been given some great suggestions, but
Speaker 1: still like, like it wasn't like it didn't crush my soul,
Speaker 1: especially since I have more of those, and I have
Speaker 1: piles of Loco special jerk baits from our sponsors thirteen Fishing,
Speaker 1: some of which I've already added similar red accents to um.
Speaker 1: They make a three to five foot diver, a six
Speaker 1: to nine ft diver, and the three to five is
Speaker 1: my jam. They actually have, unlike many stick baits, jerk baits,
Speaker 1: a weight transfer systems, so they bomb. And also the
Speaker 1: hooks that come on them are scary sharp, way sharper
Speaker 1: than Smithwick Rogue factory hooks, so that is something to
Speaker 1: keep in mind. That they are not that I have
Speaker 1: used mind yet because everything here is I don't know,
Speaker 1: frozen solid, but they but they do catch shirt sleeves
Speaker 1: quite effectively. Hey, you know you know what else is sharp?
Speaker 1: The question we got from one of you out there
Speaker 1: for this week's bent Helpline. What do you laugh without Martin?
Speaker 1: You're not an idiot, You're not Jam Looney, how boy,
Speaker 1: You're a fisherman. What's your emergency? So, for the first
Speaker 1: time in bent Helpline history, we have our our first
Speaker 1: audio question this week. Correct me if I'm wrong, and
Speaker 1: this is an audio question this week, right, sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this one comes from Jim Morrison. Um, not of
Speaker 1: the doors, although it's a great Jim has actually been
Speaker 1: following me and my stuff for a long time, so
Speaker 1: it's cool that that Jim has worked his way into
Speaker 1: bent here and um, it's nice because we have to
Speaker 1: do a little bit less reading this week, Jim. So
Speaker 1: here's Jim's question, directly from Jim himself and John Hayden.
Speaker 1: I love the show, got a good one for you guys.
Speaker 1: So let's talk first mate, some tips. What is the
Speaker 1: driver of a tip for first mate? Is it the
Speaker 1: catching of the fish or the overall experience? This past
Speaker 1: summer I had a first um, which was a bad
Speaker 1: first mate. We had charter five guys went five a
Speaker 1: guy um two. Two of my buddies have never really
Speaker 1: fished before offshore. So the first mate was yelling at them, swearing,
Speaker 1: slapping the rout out of their hands. Uh, Frankly, it
Speaker 1: was just a dick um. When it was time to
Speaker 1: leave at the end of the day, the three of
Speaker 1: us tipped him a hundred bucks each who've all fished before,
Speaker 1: and the two guys who frankly had a bad time
Speaker 1: stiff him. I want to get your thoughts on that, um,
Speaker 1: what distinguishes how you should tip a first mate. It
Speaker 1: always creeps me out to get those voice members from
Speaker 1: beyond the grave, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the number was from France. Uh yeah, exactly. Um. So
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I think this is. This is
Speaker 1: a terrific question, and this pops up for me at least,
Speaker 1: I don't know, six seven times a year from people
Speaker 1: who are traveling to book charters who just don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of experience iNTS with this um. And I
Speaker 1: really wish that there was an easy, definitive answer, but
Speaker 1: there is not. Although I will say this tipping in general,
Speaker 1: I think, in my opinion, it's ultimately about service. Like
Speaker 1: you can put percentages on it and say like, oh,
Speaker 1: well that you know it's customary to tip. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: might be customary if you're pleased with your service to
Speaker 1: give somebody twenty percent of whatever it may be. But
Speaker 1: like if it's shitty service, basically people want to know, well,
Speaker 1: how do I figure out how much to give a
Speaker 1: first mate? How do I figure out how much to
Speaker 1: give a captain? It's ultimately stemming from how good of
Speaker 1: a time you had and how hard they worked, so
Speaker 1: to jump right in, you know, with with Jim scenario
Speaker 1: here where you had two guys that knew what they
Speaker 1: were doing and the first mate was awesome with them,
Speaker 1: and two guys that kind of didn't and the first
Speaker 1: mate treated him like shit. Assuming that those two guys
Speaker 1: who got treated like ship were good friends of mine,
Speaker 1: I not have tipped the mate anything because, like, to me,
Speaker 1: it's like you're there for the whole experience, you're all
Speaker 1: on the boat together, and if you're being an ass
Speaker 1: to my boy like that would have factored into me
Speaker 1: tipping the guy. Yeah, I think like this is a
Speaker 1: particular um. This is like kind of a conundrum that
Speaker 1: you run into on chartered boats. Sometimes it's it's it's
Speaker 1: not like it's not like shitty service at a restaurant,
Speaker 1: because anybody whets shitty service at a restaurant is going
Speaker 1: to be like, well that was shitty service. Um, if
Speaker 1: you're on like a fishing charter and you're coming from
Speaker 1: the position where like you don't know anything about fishing,
Speaker 1: So yeah, dude, I mean if this happens, man pay
Speaker 1: the charter blank the mate. Yeah, I mean, and that's
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, Like that's you. You
Speaker 1: reserve the right to do that. And how you determine
Speaker 1: what that tip is worth, I mean, in very simple terms.
Speaker 1: I always just look at it like kind of like
Speaker 1: the cost of goods. So just hypothetically, if you're if
Speaker 1: you're paying for a charter, like an in short charter,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. Um, we'll say an in short
Speaker 1: charter on averages six d bucks seven bucks. I mean,
Speaker 1: just in this day and age, like I think of
Speaker 1: that scene not to bring up the Christmas vacation where
Speaker 1: the grandmother's like if you rub, I have a painful burrow.
Speaker 1: I here, and if you rub it for me, I'll
Speaker 1: give you a whole quarter. Well, like, dude, in this
Speaker 1: day and age, like if if a mate was good,
Speaker 1: I always look at it like the kids should be
Speaker 1: at least getting you know, a hundred bucks total, like
Speaker 1: chip in from all the guys or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And if he was a rock star, you can go
Speaker 1: from there, right, Um, I mean you could call it.
Speaker 1: I mean that's sort of you know, in the ballpark.
Speaker 1: But how you determine what was good? I think he's
Speaker 1: on case by case. It's certainly wouldn't be for me
Speaker 1: how many fish we caught. As an example, we go
Speaker 1: out dog fishing. We might have a horrible day. They
Speaker 1: might not be biting. It might totally suck. But if
Speaker 1: that dude's constantly cutting crabs, making sure your bait bucket
Speaker 1: is full, helping you get unstuck running up on the bow,
Speaker 1: you know, to put two anchors out, set two anchors
Speaker 1: in rough ass ice, cold season, the wind, Like he's
Speaker 1: working his ass off to to to make your trip
Speaker 1: as successful as possible. For me, it's always more determined
Speaker 1: by that how hard did he work? It's not what
Speaker 1: you caught, that's how hard did he work? Yeah, to
Speaker 1: come back to like the waiter, you know, uh analogy right,
Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't poorly tip a waiter who gave you
Speaker 1: excellent service because the food sucked, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like that's not on the waiter. The waiter did everything
Speaker 1: that they could that said, man, um, you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna tip a guy like this in one of two ways.
Speaker 1: You know, You're either gonna tip them by like letting
Speaker 1: him stroke his own ego and be like, look, I'm
Speaker 1: the man, I know how to catch fish. These guys
Speaker 1: are idiots, you know, great, that's his tip, man that
Speaker 1: that dude got to like feed his ego for the trip,
Speaker 1: and you know whatever. But if you have another dude
Speaker 1: who's like trying his hardest man and isn't trying to
Speaker 1: feed his ego, that's when you tip that guy. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And another way to look at it too, in certain scenarios.
Speaker 1: I think more so that you'll see this more in
Speaker 1: fly fishing, because there's no first mate in fly fishing.
Speaker 1: But you know, you you book a fly guide, you
Speaker 1: float the river, you wade, whatever it is. I know
Speaker 1: a ton of fly guys, and there are some guys
Speaker 1: who like your tip is directly tied to how many
Speaker 1: fish they caught that day. They You know, these people
Speaker 1: don't think about the fact that the guide can't catch
Speaker 1: them for you. He can put you on them. He
Speaker 1: could take you to where they're rising. He can give
Speaker 1: you the bug and he can coach you through that,
Speaker 1: but he can't. He can't execute the cast unless you
Speaker 1: want him to, and then he hands you the rod.
Speaker 1: But I think, um, for the good guys in that scenario,
Speaker 1: they also have the respect to tip based on what
Speaker 1: did I learn? Okay, well maybe we didn't have a
Speaker 1: great day of fishing, but like, did this guy improve
Speaker 1: my cast? Did he teach me something about entomology I
Speaker 1: didn't know before. That's another way to look at it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the final thing that um, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to kind of touch on is like the
Speaker 1: general DeMier of the guide. There are a couple of
Speaker 1: different types of guys you'll run into. There's like the
Speaker 1: guy who wants everybody to go out and have a
Speaker 1: good time and isn't really taken it that serious. You know,
Speaker 1: you're at a bachelor party, you're with a couple of
Speaker 1: your buddies, and like you're trolling for Mahi in some
Speaker 1: like tropical like destination and you don't really care too
Speaker 1: much about like the fishing. You care more about like
Speaker 1: the fun and the experience. Like that's one kind of
Speaker 1: guy to run into. The opposite of that maybe in
Speaker 1: the same general area is if you go on the
Speaker 1: bone fish flats with like a hard and salt water guide,
Speaker 1: that experience is like more serious because you're really trying
Speaker 1: to pursue something. And a lot of times those kind
Speaker 1: of guides they'll give you like tough love on stuff. Man,
Speaker 1: they'll because they want to function as a team and
Speaker 1: they want to be successful too. But there is a
Speaker 1: fine line between giving you a little bit of tough
Speaker 1: love and like, you know, seeing how good of an
Speaker 1: angler you are and like trying to help you live
Speaker 1: up to that and being a dickhead and you know,
Speaker 1: and like that's something you gotta have the confidence to
Speaker 1: recognize and be like, I didn't like that, and this
Speaker 1: is not the way that this should have gone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, people ask me for guide and captain recommendations
Speaker 1: all the time, and if there's one piece of advice
Speaker 1: I can give you with it and this ties to
Speaker 1: tipping talk to basically exactly. In my opinion, your experience
Speaker 1: starts a long time before you ever end up on
Speaker 1: the boat or wherever. And you know, people hit me
Speaker 1: up and they're like, well, I have my son is
Speaker 1: five and we're going here and I'd like to do this,
Speaker 1: and who do you recommend? I'm you gotta pick up
Speaker 1: the phone and I'm like, give every detail, be super explicit.
Speaker 1: I'm bringing my son. All he wants to catch is
Speaker 1: a barracuda. It doesn't have to be a big one.
Speaker 1: We don't have to be out all like, don't just
Speaker 1: jump on a boat blind because in his resume he
Speaker 1: says he targets the thing you want to target, Like,
Speaker 1: ask a million questions and if the guy or or
Speaker 1: or girl kind of blows you off and act like
Speaker 1: they don't have time to answer all your questions, wrong, wrong,
Speaker 1: wrong guide, wrong guy. They're there there to make your
Speaker 1: experience exactly what you wanted to be. And assuming they
Speaker 1: do that, then they deserve as much tip as you
Speaker 1: want to give them. Tip, tip them out. Same time,
Speaker 1: if you get on a boat and the mates and
Speaker 1: asshole and you're not going to tip him, I would
Speaker 1: go right to the captain be like, sorry, dude, your
Speaker 1: maid's an asshole. You know, like he needs to know
Speaker 1: that if if that's really affecting your experience. So no,
Speaker 1: no hard and fast rule there, but it is at
Speaker 1: your discretion and the best thing you can do is
Speaker 1: ask a million questions before booking any any charter guided trip.
Speaker 1: Um Jim, thank you for that. Thank you for the
Speaker 1: voice memo too. That was a nice change. Good to
Speaker 1: hear from you. We we accept voice memoss Yeah, we
Speaker 1: love them emails. You can hit us up on d
Speaker 1: m um Bent at the Meteor dot com if you
Speaker 1: want to go that route. Please keep those questions coming.
Speaker 1: We are really enjoying this. A lot of them have
Speaker 1: been super awesome and um you might get years answered
Speaker 1: right here on the Bent helpline. So that's it for
Speaker 1: this week. Thanks again to Micha Conelly for dropping by
Speaker 1: when in doubt, whether you're watching a fish documentary or
Speaker 1: running a jet boat or or or screaming at a
Speaker 1: shitty first mate like you stole it all of Micai
Speaker 1: Canelly go all in on that. You know what I'm saying. Also,
Speaker 1: never give up on sending those awkward photos, sale bin items,
Speaker 1: bar nominations, and helpline questions to Bent at the Meat
Speaker 1: Eater dot com and keep using those degenerate Angler and
Speaker 1: Bent podcast hashtags and go ahead and follow them yourself.
Speaker 1: It will give you something to scrutinize other than my
Speaker 1: shitty power tools because that's what we all want to see.
Speaker 1: Hayden's power tools. I don't forget. If we re share
Speaker 1: anything that you tag, you get some sweet vent stickers,
Speaker 1: and if you want to up your chances of us resharing,
Speaker 1: we accept tips in the form of bitcoin, homemade Lure's
Speaker 1: hand tie flies, and Walmart gift cards. Send the drill,
Speaker 1: be right. View videos,