Speaker 1: They wear an electric filet knife on their belt daily
Speaker 1: in case impromptu cleaning of a hundred soccer lot pops up.
Speaker 1: Hashtag get psyched, hashtag you can do this hashtag Maybe
Speaker 1: I once saw a hippo chase a thirty foot double
Speaker 1: decker cruise boat and and the boat blinked first. And
Speaker 1: my personal favorite, the bomat fish whisper floating fish building.
Speaker 1: Good morning, degenerate anglers, Welcome to band, your trusted source
Speaker 1: for all the latest greatest sense attractings, fish oils, holy waters,
Speaker 1: and chum to dress your favorite mayfly parachutes. I'm Joe
Speaker 1: Surmelim Miles Nulty, and I never fish, at least I
Speaker 1: never fished dry flies anyway without first dunking them in
Speaker 1: a vial of holy water. It's the only way I
Speaker 1: can expire confidence in my technical trout fishing game. Listen, man,
Speaker 1: my my mom. Never without holy water my top. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do my entire life. There's been a vial or two
Speaker 1: in the linen closet, like in case someone's new car
Speaker 1: needs to be blessed. I'm okay, I'm not for protection.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And like she's not overly religious either, but
Speaker 1: there's always and like I'm not kidding, Like she'll come
Speaker 1: out and it's like, sprinkle it on the tires, Like
Speaker 1: you got a new truck, sprinkles on holy water on
Speaker 1: the tires. That's an We don't have any of that
Speaker 1: kind of ritual. You don't know what to say. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's great. I think that's fast. Like I genuinely
Speaker 1: wish we had something like that where we believed enough
Speaker 1: and something we'd be like, yes, I was making a
Speaker 1: joke about holy water and dry plis. You're like, no, No,
Speaker 1: that's a thing, dude. Next time you have a sore throat,
Speaker 1: I'll have her ship goes away, got covid holy water?
Speaker 1: Slug it. Anyway, Look, we all have we all have rituals, right. Um.
Speaker 1: It's another one of those things that seems to unite
Speaker 1: all anglers. And we may not all have the same superstitions,
Speaker 1: but we anglers all seem to cling to some form
Speaker 1: of personal faith or another. And I have to ask, like,
Speaker 1: do you have a particular you have a thing you
Speaker 1: do or don't do when you go fishing? Uh? You
Speaker 1: know I did, Like when I was younger, I definitely did,
Speaker 1: Like I had a lot of those things, and and
Speaker 1: I think primarily from what I remember, I was all
Speaker 1: about the lucky apparel, you know, like I had my
Speaker 1: lucky hat, I had lucky socks, I had a lucky shirt. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you know, I would change the combinations depending on
Speaker 1: what I felt like I needed that day. I don't
Speaker 1: remember pants, underwear, shoes having any special mysticism, and I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but like all other articles of clothing,
Speaker 1: we're fair game. And they were they were important, and
Speaker 1: they were specific, and they had like certain things that
Speaker 1: I did for them. I actually had a lucky pin
Speaker 1: that I would wear and don't have since given to
Speaker 1: my son. But anyway, these days, it's not so much
Speaker 1: what I wear. It's like it's it's interior, like I
Speaker 1: gotta get my head right. Yeah, no, it is. It
Speaker 1: is like that sounds stupid, but it's no, Like I
Speaker 1: really feel like like I need to find a sense
Speaker 1: of confidence and certainty that like I'm gonna catch a
Speaker 1: fish and and on those days that are long and
Speaker 1: slow and I'm just like not feeling it or I'm struggling,
Speaker 1: and and if if I get the sense that that
Speaker 1: that confidence is wavering, I will stop fishing and I'll
Speaker 1: like take a couple of minutes and get myself together
Speaker 1: and try and find that sense of confidence. And I
Speaker 1: think that's these days. I think that's as close as
Speaker 1: I get to having having a ritual or superstition, is
Speaker 1: that I gotta have my head right. Yeah, No, I
Speaker 1: identify with that. I do that all the time. You
Speaker 1: just have to stop and pause and like collect yourself
Speaker 1: and figure out why you're fishing. Like ship Um, it
Speaker 1: happens too often, a matter of fact. But I used
Speaker 1: to have I used to have a lucky Adida's hat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wore it for years, right, and then I lost
Speaker 1: it in a Ruba. But I still kept catching a
Speaker 1: bunch of fish on that trip after I lost it,
Speaker 1: So then I never bothered with another lucky fishing hat.
Speaker 1: I was like, f the lucky fishing hat apparently wasn't
Speaker 1: that lucky. So I don't know, I'm gonna cut you off.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but I like, you just reminded me of
Speaker 1: something because my last lucky fishing hat and this is
Speaker 1: super geeky and we'll say something about me, But it
Speaker 1: was like my my Little League All Stars hat that
Speaker 1: I held on too until it and it finally disintegrated.
Speaker 1: I found in my mom's house a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and had it had come apart, it was done. Oh,
Speaker 1: this Adida's hat was like it needed to be burned
Speaker 1: or thrown out regard. I mean it was literally it
Speaker 1: was disgusting. I mean it was like brown from years
Speaker 1: of sweat. But I thought it was lucky. And now
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't do lucky clothes anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: do good luck charms. However, I do firmly believe. How
Speaker 1: do I say that getting lucky the night before a
Speaker 1: fishing trip makes you luckier the next day? I have
Speaker 1: not expected I like this idea, I might have to adopt.
Speaker 1: Plus I like it, okay, But if you like that,
Speaker 1: here's the other here's the other part of it, and
Speaker 1: don't ask me where this all comes from. I also
Speaker 1: believe that pleasuring yourself the night before a trip is
Speaker 1: the kiss of death. Really, and now that that's been said,
Speaker 1: many people, including you, might hate me because you're gonna
Speaker 1: adhere to it, and you're thinking, well, I don't buy that.
Speaker 1: But just in case he's right, What if he's right,
Speaker 1: what if I'm so sorry, I'm gonna have to think
Speaker 1: about that you brought up superstitions, so that's just that's
Speaker 1: that's anyway. A lot of us we adhere to very
Speaker 1: specific superstitions. Of course, we'll get off the pleasure of
Speaker 1: yourself and go to the banana thing. We all know
Speaker 1: about that. Well it's kind of the same. But the
Speaker 1: banana thing, um, you know that's it's bad luck to
Speaker 1: bring bananas on the boat. That's probably the biggest overarching one. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean that that. I'd say that. I think that's
Speaker 1: the most common fishing superstition, right, like it's bad luck
Speaker 1: to bring bananas on a boat. That bad luck to
Speaker 1: bring banana's fishing, And people get super super heated about that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like I know guides and chartered like a lot of
Speaker 1: guys and chartered captains who will lose their minds when
Speaker 1: someone brings a banana on their boat. Yeah, so do
Speaker 1: I to the point where I almost find it obnoxious,
Speaker 1: Like not the belief per se. If you believe that,
Speaker 1: that's fine. But I know a handful of guys like
Speaker 1: their their their boats and trucks are like slathered with
Speaker 1: those no banana stickers with with a slash through them.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, come, on that's not that's like a
Speaker 1: salt life sticker, Like you really need that on your boat,
Speaker 1: you know. But um, there are some captains that will
Speaker 1: go so far as to demand their clients throw anything
Speaker 1: even banana related overboard. I've seen it. I've seen dudes
Speaker 1: throw banana boats, sunscreen off the boat. They don't like
Speaker 1: Banana Republic shirts. Um. Then I have my personal favorite.
Speaker 1: Is there there's a whole legend about slicing the tags
Speaker 1: off Fruit of the Loom underwear. Never mind the fact
Speaker 1: that Fruit of the Loom does not now, nor has
Speaker 1: it ever, had a banana on any of its tags. Okay,
Speaker 1: And I got so deep into that I actually wrote
Speaker 1: about it. There's a whole story about it. You can
Speaker 1: check out. It's a bar room banner piece on the
Speaker 1: metator dot com. It's called Fishing Superstition, Change your underpants Forever.
Speaker 1: That is seriously, go read that one. It's a deep
Speaker 1: dive and a head. It's a really deep dive. And
Speaker 1: I thought I knew all there was to know about
Speaker 1: this whole bananas and fishing and boats thing, and then
Speaker 1: you wrote that article and I was like, Oh, there's
Speaker 1: a lot I don't know. But what you don't cover
Speaker 1: in that one, and understandably so, because it's been covered.
Speaker 1: Is the real backstory and why bananas on boats are
Speaker 1: ad luck? Right and and and the truth of that
Speaker 1: is that that nobody really knows, Like there's no definitive answer.
Speaker 1: There are a few different ones, right like so, so
Speaker 1: most people think it has something to do with the
Speaker 1: banana boats of the seventeen hundreds that used to that
Speaker 1: that were that they were carrying the fruit from the
Speaker 1: Caribbean islands up to the mainland of North America and
Speaker 1: even Europe. And some people say that boats carrying various
Speaker 1: like varied fruit cargo would spoil if they had bananas
Speaker 1: on board, And so sailors began to assume that bananas
Speaker 1: were bad luck, because this is before people understood, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole ethylene gas thing that bananas give off, which
Speaker 1: actually does make fruit spoil. They're like, it's the bananas
Speaker 1: are bad luck. No, it's science. But there's another story
Speaker 1: that sailors would actually slip on the banana peels and
Speaker 1: hurt themselves like a freaking cartoon, which I don't buy.
Speaker 1: There's like this whole host of theories out there. If
Speaker 1: you really want to get into this. But the one
Speaker 1: that I like best, the one that I've always told people, uh,
Speaker 1: is that banana bunches. Back then, the big into bananas
Speaker 1: would carry venomous spiders that were hidden in the nooks
Speaker 1: and crannies, and like at night, those spiders would would
Speaker 1: crawl out and bite the crew in their sleep and
Speaker 1: kill them. Also, so other ships would come upon these
Speaker 1: banana boats just drifting at sea with the whole crew dead.
Speaker 1: That's always been my favorite explanation to And it's a
Speaker 1: creepy image, isn't It's very hard. It's very creepy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that one. So there you go, Uh, do
Speaker 1: with that info what you will. But just remember that
Speaker 1: some people take the banana thing dead serious and it
Speaker 1: I mean, it really could be worse as far as
Speaker 1: universal fishing beliefs go. Um, that one's it's pretty innocuous, really.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could all believe in in you know,
Speaker 1: blood sacrifices to improve your fishing luck. We're not quite there,
Speaker 1: So I'm just all I could picture right now is
Speaker 1: Major League and getting Joe Boo with chicken. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that would be much messier, you know, that would be
Speaker 1: if like if if captains were like, we're not catching anything.
Speaker 1: Something's gotta die. That would be I think that would
Speaker 1: give fishing a really bad name. Speaking of blood sacrifices,
Speaker 1: Joe is going to open you up to the history
Speaker 1: of a term for a piece of fishing gear that's
Speaker 1: not as common as it once was. Webster's Dictionary defines
Speaker 1: fish as this week's word is priest. And I'm not
Speaker 1: talking about Father Guido Sarducci here, nor Father Caress and
Speaker 1: Father Marin, though you could say the priests were talking
Speaker 1: about exercise the spirits out of fish, and very rapidly
Speaker 1: and humanely at that, minus all the pea soup and
Speaker 1: cuss words. A priest is a small bat, usually shorter
Speaker 1: than a night stick, though they come in many different sizes,
Speaker 1: and they're crafted specifically for dispatching a fish with a
Speaker 1: sharp blow to the head. It's called a priest to
Speaker 1: play on the notion that it's giving a catch its
Speaker 1: last rites. Now, if this sounds like some backwoods tool
Speaker 1: whittled in an Appalachian holler, you could not be more wrong.
Speaker 1: The priest's origins date back many centuries to Europe, where
Speaker 1: were as common and necessary a piece of on the
Speaker 1: water kit, as your fish brain app and line cutters
Speaker 1: ring are today. Furthermore, priests were handed down through generations,
Speaker 1: held in the same regard you might hold a knife
Speaker 1: made in a local forge by an expert bladesmith. In
Speaker 1: many upper class angling circles in Britain and Scotland and France,
Speaker 1: fine handmade priests were presented as gifts. But even if
Speaker 1: you were poor, if you fished, you probably made yourself
Speaker 1: a trustee priest. So how do I know all this? Well,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, I own a book called A
Speaker 1: Collection of Fishing Priests by British author Dave Watson. It's
Speaker 1: not a very fat book, in fact, it's more like
Speaker 1: a magazine. And when I received an unsolicited complimentary copy
Speaker 1: years ago, I said to myself, who the hell writes
Speaker 1: a book about fishing priests? Now here we are today,
Speaker 1: and you're thanking me for being such a hoarder. In fact,
Speaker 1: I spent forty seven minutes digging around in my frigid
Speaker 1: attic to find this book. That's how much I love you,
Speaker 1: guys and way. Traditional priests were made from a wide
Speaker 1: variety of woods, including walnut, rosewood, boxwood, and maple. But
Speaker 1: one of the most popular woods was Lignum vita. Lignum vita,
Speaker 1: also known as guayacon, is actually the national tree of
Speaker 1: the Bahamas. It only grows in the Caribbean and was
Speaker 1: exported like crazy to Europe starting in the early sixteenth century.
Speaker 1: Lignum vita makes a superb priest because it's incredibly strong, hard,
Speaker 1: and dense. In fact, Europeans used Lignum vita for so
Speaker 1: much that these days it's actually classified as an endangered
Speaker 1: flora now similar to knife making, old school priests featured
Speaker 1: all kinds of unique embellishments and personal touches, such as
Speaker 1: brass heads and pewter bands. Some of the most extravagant
Speaker 1: priests in Watson's book, which date back well before the
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, are made of scrimshawled elephant and narwhal ivory
Speaker 1: and barren initials and royal crests. Now, if you're wondering
Speaker 1: when this whole priest thing died off over there and
Speaker 1: they got with the catch and release program, they kind
Speaker 1: of haven't. In fact, Hardy still manufactures trout priests today,
Speaker 1: except they have chrome plated brass thumping heads and e
Speaker 1: v a foam grip and an analyzed aluminum handle. Those
Speaker 1: barbarians right wrong. The fact of the matter is the
Speaker 1: priest stems from what many would call a smarter and
Speaker 1: perhaps even classier angling ethic than we have in the US.
Speaker 1: Even today. There are many European trout and salmon fisheries,
Speaker 1: including within Germany's Black Forest, where our beloved brown trout
Speaker 1: came from, where catch and release angling is strictly forbidden
Speaker 1: in the mind of the Brits and many other European countries.
Speaker 1: You do more to protect the fish by making it
Speaker 1: mandatory to kill your first one or two and stop fishing,
Speaker 1: instead of fighting and releasing say twenty fish in a day.
Speaker 1: It was, and in many cases still is the norm
Speaker 1: to simply catch you a salmin or two, give him
Speaker 1: a quick bonk with your priest, and walk away back
Speaker 1: to the cottage to enjoy your fresh catch and not
Speaker 1: molest anymore fish that day. But that's just not how
Speaker 1: things are done here, which is why we don't carry
Speaker 1: priests on trout streams. Now you can buy them here,
Speaker 1: they're just not called priests. We have uber American versions,
Speaker 1: such as the offshore angler aluminum fish bat the West
Speaker 1: Coast Thumpers, fish Bonker, and my personal favorite, the Bomack
Speaker 1: Fish Whisper floating fish Billy. Most of these can be
Speaker 1: purchased through bass pro shops or Cabella's. None of them
Speaker 1: are what i'd call heirloom quality. I love that one, man,
Speaker 1: that was That was I'm glad you pick that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a good choice. You know, when when I
Speaker 1: was when I was a salmon guide, I actually made
Speaker 1: my own priest out of a chunk of caribou antler
Speaker 1: that I found in the tundra. And like there was
Speaker 1: a there was a bench grinder at the shop at
Speaker 1: the camp, and I cut it down to this perfect
Speaker 1: fish beating size and I would tuck it in my
Speaker 1: waiter belt and carry around. And I was I was
Speaker 1: a confident that it made me look like a badass.
Speaker 1: M hm, that's neat. I'm sure you did. Cool. Cool story. Uh.
Speaker 1: And since we're on the subject of people thinking they
Speaker 1: look badass, let's let's take a look at an awkward
Speaker 1: moment in angling, but a picture. This week's awkward moment
Speaker 1: angling comes to us from Alex read and and and
Speaker 1: quick warning, Uh, we're about to make fun of a
Speaker 1: small child and and there was one thing when we
Speaker 1: were making fun of childhood, fishing photos of each other.
Speaker 1: But I don't actually know this dude, Like, do you
Speaker 1: know is this someone you know? Because sometimes we've done pictures. No,
Speaker 1: you don't know. No, No, I if it's a buddy
Speaker 1: of mine, I'll shout it out. Alex, I do not
Speaker 1: know you. So this is just some random kid. And
Speaker 1: so I I struggle. I'm struggling with this one. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm searching my conscience. Well, like, why am I the
Speaker 1: kind of person who's gonna insult a young boy? It
Speaker 1: looks like he's like seven or eight years old. Man,
Speaker 1: Oh god, I gotta know. I'm gonna I gotta, I
Speaker 1: gotta interrupt your melodrama here because we can just get
Speaker 1: on with it. First of all, yes, we are the
Speaker 1: kind of people who will tease small children, who amuse
Speaker 1: ourselves and others. But the point we have to make
Speaker 1: here is, um, the child is Alex, who is now
Speaker 1: a grown ass man, who sent us what he referred
Speaker 1: to as a This is like a family classic, right,
Speaker 1: This is like the one that the family goes back to.
Speaker 1: He sent this to us and asked us to make
Speaker 1: fun of it. So it's okay, it's all right. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're okay, we're good. Fine, Yes, I was. I was
Speaker 1: just I was working through it. I was trying to
Speaker 1: like figure out if it was okay with me. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you. You're taking a really long time. Nobody cares,
Speaker 1: nobody cares about what, No, nobody cares. Okay, we're doing it.
Speaker 1: So let's get to this photo. Okay, the year is
Speaker 1: and I know this because this photo comes with that.
Speaker 1: It's from that era when the date in the picture
Speaker 1: was just automatic, clear like digitally stamped, the orange digitized
Speaker 1: in the in the bottom left corner of the photo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like it looked like like a like a digital clock. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that same kind of kind of tight. There are
Speaker 1: some young people who are probably because I remember you
Speaker 1: could you could turn that off in some cameras, but
Speaker 1: like my mom could never figure out how. So all
Speaker 1: of our photos, like in all the albums from that
Speaker 1: certain era there with the bright orange date stamp. Anyway,
Speaker 1: in this shot, young Alex stands proudly in his mismatched
Speaker 1: camo T shirt and hat, miniature work boots and jeans,
Speaker 1: like he's just finished a day of a legal child
Speaker 1: labor sweeping floors at the local steel mill or something
Speaker 1: like that. Oh man, we're digging a new load. And
Speaker 1: and uh, I'm gonna keep going after after that day
Speaker 1: of under the table less than minimum age work, it
Speaker 1: appears Alex blew off some steam at a local pond.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that catches my eye about
Speaker 1: this photo is the Roddy's holding right. It's it's It
Speaker 1: does have that closed faced zeb Coo style reel, you know,
Speaker 1: the one that's that comes standard on your your Spiderman
Speaker 1: Walmart fishing outfit that all kids get. And and you know,
Speaker 1: you know that rod you use it to like it
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything but catch little dinker pan fish or
Speaker 1: stalker trout. That's what that rod is for. But this
Speaker 1: rod that Alex holding is not that rod. This road
Speaker 1: has serious backbone like that. I know you're looking at
Speaker 1: That thing could handle like a big bass or a
Speaker 1: respectable catfish. It's got it's got some serious stubt to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I noticed the same thing, and it People who might
Speaker 1: not realize this, You like associate clothes, you know, push
Speaker 1: button roos with little kid rods, but they actually make
Speaker 1: giant ones like zeb coo, like there are people out
Speaker 1: there who prefer that for their cat fishing, like grown people.
Speaker 1: I think that's this That's what this rod looks like
Speaker 1: to me, like a grown person's push button catfish set up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and see, I don't think this was not Alex's first
Speaker 1: fishing rod. And in fact, the rod itself it's a
Speaker 1: good two ft taller than little Alex shot. And he
Speaker 1: would have had to have been like a pretty skilled
Speaker 1: kid to cast that thing, and also like a serious
Speaker 1: danger to anyone standing within his six foot radius right
Speaker 1: for at for a little a little kid plinging that
Speaker 1: thing around, and I'd I'd be scared. And Alex's mom
Speaker 1: or dad or whoever took him fishing was either very brave,
Speaker 1: very quick, or just not that smart. But whatever that
Speaker 1: fishing mentor may have lacked in self preservation, they definitely
Speaker 1: made up for in fishing knowledge. Because dangling from the
Speaker 1: end of that line is just an absolute slab, total slab,
Speaker 1: total slab. It's it's the things eight inches minimum, maybe
Speaker 1: over ten. And Alex hadn't yet learned the art of
Speaker 1: extending his arms out away from his body to make
Speaker 1: it like look even more impressive. But even though he
Speaker 1: didn't know how to do that. It still looks big
Speaker 1: freaking huge bluegull. It does. And I got one thing
Speaker 1: I cannot figure out is where this picture was taken. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Alex is standing on on paving stones in front
Speaker 1: of some some wood lattice, and it looks like he's
Speaker 1: in front of a house, not on a dock or
Speaker 1: at the edge of the water. But the fish is
Speaker 1: still hooked. So either this house borders a body of water,
Speaker 1: or they went fishing, they came home, and then they
Speaker 1: reattached the fish to the hook to stage the photo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I see, I don't think. I don't think this is
Speaker 1: stage because at Alex's feet right you could you could
Speaker 1: see a pile of maybe ten other fish, most of
Speaker 1: which are also stud bluegills, but a couple look like
Speaker 1: pretty decent bass, large amounts. Right. So, if you were
Speaker 1: a kid and you can either pose with a tenant's
Speaker 1: blueboat or a two pound bass, come on, come on,
Speaker 1: you're picking. You're picking the bass every day, or you're
Speaker 1: gonna put all the fish on a stringer and hold
Speaker 1: them all up together like you think they were. They
Speaker 1: were going to pose it. They would do the full
Speaker 1: stringer shot as well, Yeah, yeah, exactly, why not? All right,
Speaker 1: that's a good point, But I'm still I'm still not
Speaker 1: convinced because it seems to me like like those fish,
Speaker 1: the ones you're talking about, it looks like they just
Speaker 1: got dumped out of a bucket right there, just kind
Speaker 1: of laying in this in this, in this pile, and
Speaker 1: there's this puddle that's spreading across the paving stones. So
Speaker 1: I'm I think a bucket drop happened right there. That
Speaker 1: could be the case, or or maybe that puddle has
Speaker 1: another source, because if you focus just slightly north of
Speaker 1: that impressive spread of fish and look closely at Alex's jeanes,
Speaker 1: you will notice that he quite recently or perhaps it's
Speaker 1: still in the process of pissing his pants. And that's
Speaker 1: that's the clincher. Oh, it's true. It's true, dude. Like
Speaker 1: when you first sent me this picture, I didn't see it.
Speaker 1: It's like one of those when you see it, I mean,
Speaker 1: when you see it's like, what do you do it?
Speaker 1: Why would we make fun of this kid holding all
Speaker 1: these sweet fish? And then uh, and then I realized
Speaker 1: he had um treated himself. I got I got it
Speaker 1: from the big Lebowski. I gotta say, though, the best
Speaker 1: part for me is the look on his face, because
Speaker 1: I don't think that kid's feeling any shame, noever. I
Speaker 1: think he's just like none zero. He's He's staring straight
Speaker 1: into that camera with a self satisfied grand like almost
Speaker 1: in defiance, Like I pissed my pants. I also roped
Speaker 1: a pile hog fish today and that's that's dedication. Damn it. Oh.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of sad we used the Billy Madison pants
Speaker 1: being clipped last week because I could have doubled up complain.
Speaker 1: I'm also realizing we've run two pants being stories two
Speaker 1: weeks in a row. Uh, and that says something about
Speaker 1: our level of maturity. But this one was too good.
Speaker 1: We had to We had to do this one. It
Speaker 1: does It does say something about our level maturity, but
Speaker 1: it definitely says something about Alex's general sense of self confidence.
Speaker 1: First that he posed for this photo and second that
Speaker 1: he proudly sent it to us to be publicly called out.
Speaker 1: So thank you, Alex. Glad we got to share this
Speaker 1: family classic here. If you want to see this glorious
Speaker 1: photo for yourself, go check out me or Miles Instagram accounts.
Speaker 1: That's at water Miles and at Joe dot Surmelie one
Speaker 1: three eight. Thank you Alex for proffering yourself at the
Speaker 1: bent Alter ridicule. If you have an awkward fishing photo
Speaker 1: that you'd like to offer up for consideration, please send
Speaker 1: it to bent at the meat eater dot com. Your
Speaker 1: sacrifices benefit the good of us all indeed they do,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna continue benefiting the greater good right now
Speaker 1: because it's time for fish news. Fish news that escalated quickly,
Speaker 1: all right this week. Before we kickoff news, I've got
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to listener Eric Rude today
Speaker 1: because this has got to be one of the most
Speaker 1: whacked out things I have I have ever heard. All Right, now,
Speaker 1: do you remember you remember a while back we did
Speaker 1: that news story on odd bits, Remember that, and then
Speaker 1: we asked our fine listeners to please let us know
Speaker 1: the weirdest thing maybe they've ever used his bait, righte
Speaker 1: and we we've gotten some, but there haven't been any
Speaker 1: that I was like, oh, I never thought of that one.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been stuff like cigarette butts and and
Speaker 1: things like y yeah, yeah, yeah, forget all those because
Speaker 1: this is the this is the this is the ender
Speaker 1: right here. Okay, So Eric got hit me up on Instagram,
Speaker 1: right and he wrote, when I was eleven, I had
Speaker 1: my tonsils taken out and asked the doc if I
Speaker 1: could have them. No, he looked at my mother and
Speaker 1: she said he's his father's child, but go ahead. I
Speaker 1: later took said tonsils out and caught a couple channel
Speaker 1: cats on them in a local creek. Now I had
Speaker 1: the same look on my face you do right now
Speaker 1: when I read this, And of course I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: is this real? Are you serious? This really happened? And
Speaker 1: He's like, full scouts on her man. I caught channel
Speaker 1: cats on my top consols and then Eric and then
Speaker 1: Eric also pointed out that if any of you recall
Speaker 1: the photo that ran on the Meat Eat or insta
Speaker 1: page of a guy that shot himself in the army,
Speaker 1: he was shot in the arm with a crossbow. That
Speaker 1: was him, crossbow bolt and arm guy was also Eric Rude,
Speaker 1: who used his tonsils for catfish. Eric, you have led
Speaker 1: an interest in life. So I was like, I I
Speaker 1: have to I I mean, I believe him. He said
Speaker 1: he wishes the catfish he caught were bigger there's no photos,
Speaker 1: but apparently the tonsils did not yield very big bait pieces.
Speaker 1: I guess in eleven year olds tonsils are like not
Speaker 1: our kind of still those are not big chunks of meat.
Speaker 1: Those are I can see that the creativity, man I do.
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking it through. I'm like, what else is?
Speaker 1: What else could be done with that? I'm gonna leave
Speaker 1: it alone, though, Well, I think I think one of
Speaker 1: the funniest aspects if that was me and I had
Speaker 1: my tonsils out and ask keep my mom would be
Speaker 1: like you out of your mind? Absolutely not. It's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: Like my mom wouldn't have let me, let me keep
Speaker 1: my tonsils? Um, I don't. I don't know what my
Speaker 1: mom would have done that. I'm trying to think it through.
Speaker 1: I think she would have looked at me with the
Speaker 1: look that I've got on my face right now, like
Speaker 1: what why? What do you part? Was in a glad bag?
Speaker 1: Do you wrap them in gauze? Like? How do you
Speaker 1: get this home? Were they in the freezer for a time?
Speaker 1: With them? There were piece they had to have been anyway, Eric,
Speaker 1: that was that was trippy man um alright, So I think, uh,
Speaker 1: that concludes shoutouts this week unless you have anything. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna reserve my time for for my news stories because
Speaker 1: I got I got to to run a little long
Speaker 1: this week, so time okay, all right, then we can
Speaker 1: we can move on here to the real and actual,
Speaker 1: at least sort of news. And remember this is a competition,
Speaker 1: Miles and I do not know which news stories the
Speaker 1: other guy found. At the end of this the Magnificent
Speaker 1: Phil with his sidekick PS five, will weigh in and
Speaker 1: declare a winner. And as soon as he's done, we're
Speaker 1: gonna hear from all y'all's favorite. Mr Lance V. You
Speaker 1: have the floor. You are up big in excellent light,
Speaker 1: and I'm gon kick off with you kind of. You
Speaker 1: kind of set me up with that idea of pseudo
Speaker 1: news because the story that I'm gonna talk about has
Speaker 1: gotten some decent coverage already in other news sources, but
Speaker 1: really as pseudo news, and I'm gonna try and try
Speaker 1: and shoehorned into something valid. I'm gonna and focus on
Speaker 1: fish and fisheries. So you may have heard about the
Speaker 1: invasive hippos in Colombia? Right? Did you catch this one?
Speaker 1: You know? I I remember a jingling of that that, well,
Speaker 1: I'm very not well versed in the invasive hippo, so
Speaker 1: to get to give to give some basic context here
Speaker 1: for those who aren't really paying attention yet. Hippo's native
Speaker 1: to Africa, not South America, right and and and they
Speaker 1: got there thanks to the infamous drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Speaker 1: So Escobar created his own kind of like Noah's Ark
Speaker 1: at his estate with exotic animals from all over the world,
Speaker 1: and then after his death in the columb In government
Speaker 1: took over the place and the vast majority of all
Speaker 1: those animals got relocated as zoos, but the four hippopotamuses
Speaker 1: were allowed to remain, mostly because capturing and transporting them
Speaker 1: would have been like really difficult and expensive and dangerous.
Speaker 1: They're just like, leave the hippos. They're they're fine, it's cool.
Speaker 1: So over the past few decades, those hippos have thrived,
Speaker 1: and now from the original four, they're an estimated eighty
Speaker 1: to a hundred of them, and they're no longer confined
Speaker 1: to the ponds former property Escobar's drive through a safari
Speaker 1: they got out. At least half the population has relocated
Speaker 1: to the Magdalena, Columbia's largest and most productive river. The
Speaker 1: Magdalena runs the length of the western side of the country,
Speaker 1: and and that's that's the populated side, Like that's where
Speaker 1: all the major cities and towns and people it's it's
Speaker 1: basically it's like the Mississippi Columbia's it's their primary river,
Speaker 1: and it hosts a a pretty broad diversity of native fauna.
Speaker 1: Fish wise, we're talking like over two hundred different species,
Speaker 1: including a bunch of different cichlids and like really cool
Speaker 1: as catfish like you find all across South America. And
Speaker 1: there's this this weird looking miniature pike thing that's like
Speaker 1: really tiny, but it's like it's like a pike, only shrunk.
Speaker 1: It's I don't know if you'd fish for it, but
Speaker 1: it's cool. And the marquis to us anyway, Golden Dorado.
Speaker 1: But in a familiar story, the fish in that river
Speaker 1: they're not doing so well. Researchers estimate that fish populations
Speaker 1: have dropped as much as since for all the reasons
Speaker 1: you're you're probably thinking pollution, siltagan dam is illegal, or fishing,
Speaker 1: you know the deal. So many news outlets seem to
Speaker 1: be covering this hippo story just because they want to
Speaker 1: use the headline cocaine hippos, and I get that like
Speaker 1: that is a that is a frightening prospect. Hippos are
Speaker 1: are scary on their own, just like in a natural state.
Speaker 1: The idea of hippos running around on like a coked
Speaker 1: up rampa age, as if their finance bros blown off
Speaker 1: steam Atlantic City, that's legitimately frightening to me. But let's
Speaker 1: be clear, the hippos have nothing to do with cocaine,
Speaker 1: except for the fact that drug money brought them there
Speaker 1: in the first place. These are not coked up hippos.
Speaker 1: Don't believe all that. I'm less interested in the catchy
Speaker 1: headline and how the hippos got there in the first
Speaker 1: place that I am about how these invasive species are
Speaker 1: affecting the fishery and that ecosystem, and on that one,
Speaker 1: conclusions are mixed. So some researchers are understandably concerned that
Speaker 1: introducing non native large animals could further stress a river
Speaker 1: system that's already struggling. Hippos are very very good at
Speaker 1: moving nutrients from land to water. The herbivores that that
Speaker 1: wander around on the land at night, grazing on plants
Speaker 1: and grasses, but they spend the daylight hours sleeping, lounging,
Speaker 1: and pooping in the water. That poop carries nutrients, and
Speaker 1: as we've discussed lots of times before, too many nutrients
Speaker 1: and water can cause problems like algae blooms, cilento bacteria,
Speaker 1: as well as lowering oxygen levels and, according to at
Speaker 1: least one study, making fish more vulnerable. Two predators. Hippos
Speaker 1: are also known as as ecosystem engineers. By moving their
Speaker 1: massive bodies through muddy river channels and floodplains, they can
Speaker 1: change how water flows, creating or reshaping channels. Another concern
Speaker 1: is that they might displace or compete with native species
Speaker 1: like manatees and otters, but other researchers are not convinced
Speaker 1: that having the hippos around is necessarily bad for the
Speaker 1: Magdalena River right. Keep in mind, this river is pretty
Speaker 1: screwed up by human intervention, so some some scientists hypothesized
Speaker 1: that hippos might be refilling a niche. South America used
Speaker 1: to have a variety of of large herbivores like this one.
Speaker 1: It's it's weird. The toxodon, which I had never heard
Speaker 1: of before, and it actually looks like a hippo, even
Speaker 1: though it wasn't this. The might have been a semi
Speaker 1: aquatic large mammal and it was wiped out about eleven
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, probably by overhunting. But again that years ago,
Speaker 1: what were we talking about. More contemporary examples would include
Speaker 1: top hears, which are a pig like herbivores that also
Speaker 1: are found around the water. They love water and they're
Speaker 1: they're native to that area and they're currently endangered. So
Speaker 1: hippo's might and I stress, might be performing functions that
Speaker 1: these other animals used to do, dispersing seeds, moving nutrients around,
Speaker 1: and grazing and controlling stream side vegetation. But there's one
Speaker 1: thing that hippos are definitely doing to help out fish
Speaker 1: in the part of the Magdalena that they're currently occupying.
Speaker 1: They are scaring the crap out of poachers. Oh that's it.
Speaker 1: Twit Okay, I was waiting for the punchline, but okah,
Speaker 1: here it is. Here it is. But before the hippos
Speaker 1: started proliferating, illegal dynamite fishing was a pretty common occurrence
Speaker 1: around there, Like poachers would just show up and dynamite
Speaker 1: whole section of the river and take out all the fish.
Speaker 1: And now they're not doing that because hippos are straight
Speaker 1: up terrifying, Like can you imagine that? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they have those cheesy nature shows that are like top
Speaker 1: ten most deadly animals, and like people always think it's
Speaker 1: gonna be the lion or the liger or something. Now, dude,
Speaker 1: it's the hippo, like kill more people than oh yeah ship, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, why far? It's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like moose kill more people in Alaska than bears.
Speaker 1: Everybody got worry if the moose, you gotta worry about.
Speaker 1: Hippos kill far more people than all those scary predators
Speaker 1: in Africa. They may not eat people, but they sure
Speaker 1: do like the chomp crush and drowned them with those
Speaker 1: huge tusks. And hippos are not afraid of anything. And
Speaker 1: I can speak to this from personal experience. My first
Speaker 1: job out of college was a teaching gig ahead in Botswana.
Speaker 1: And even though I like I lived down south in
Speaker 1: the capital city, teaching gig in Botswana, Yeah yeah, when
Speaker 1: I was twenty one. It was my first job out
Speaker 1: of college. Go ahead, what have you done? I've said
Speaker 1: this before, like every time we do a new podcast.
Speaker 1: You were like I was zip line instructor and not
Speaker 1: like I'm like Jesus, I did, I didn't do that.
Speaker 1: But so anyway, when I when I was when I
Speaker 1: was teaching down there, like I lived in the capital city,
Speaker 1: which is in the south, but I would head up
Speaker 1: to the north to the Delta area whenever I got
Speaker 1: some time off to go fishing, obviously, and I very
Speaker 1: quickly learned to be afraid of hippos, Like I once
Speaker 1: saw a hippo chase a thirty foot double decker cruise
Speaker 1: boat and and the boat blinked first, like the boat
Speaker 1: was the one that bailed out of that situation. So
Speaker 1: I am far more wary of hippos than any other
Speaker 1: creature I've ever encountered when I was outside, Like bears, sharks,
Speaker 1: no hippos, dude. So far in Colombia, no one has
Speaker 1: yet been mauled, but it's kind of only a matter
Speaker 1: of time now. To sum this all up. In the past,
Speaker 1: I have talked about how I'm opposed to introducing new
Speaker 1: species to try and fix problems humans have created in systems.
Speaker 1: Balance Like, generally, I think that's a bad idea, So
Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna take some heat here, but I'm kind
Speaker 1: of on board with these hippos colonizing and protecting this river.
Speaker 1: Like alright, like I said, the river is in pretty
Speaker 1: bad shape already, and and biologists think it's unlikely that
Speaker 1: the hippo population will get completely out of control because
Speaker 1: they're they're geographically restricted in this one river valley, and
Speaker 1: you've got the Andes Mountains on the east that are
Speaker 1: a solid, impassable barrier, so there's no danger of them
Speaker 1: getting into the Amazon, which would be a legitimate So
Speaker 1: I just personal benion on this one. I've I've read
Speaker 1: a fair amount I think. I I think the approaches
Speaker 1: like the scientists should keep monitoring the situation which they're doing,
Speaker 1: and see how it plays out. And like if things
Speaker 1: get worse, if if the manatees start dying off, or
Speaker 1: the river chemistry gets all out of whack, or the
Speaker 1: fish start disappearing even faster, kill the hippos. It's not
Speaker 1: like they're hard to find. But in the meantime, I
Speaker 1: kind of say, like keeping eye on things and see
Speaker 1: how this one plays out. I kind of like the
Speaker 1: hippo's guarding against the illegal fishing. I'm all for this, dude,
Speaker 1: throw a few below the Connor window. Damn in Maryland.
Speaker 1: You want to have striper poaching problems there anymore? All
Speaker 1: these guys with trout clubs in North Jersey, get you
Speaker 1: a club, hippo not a problem, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I like it. I do too. I didn't go there.
Speaker 1: There's a whole other story about how hippo's almost became
Speaker 1: brought over to America's as a food source back in
Speaker 1: the day. Yeah, it almost happened, but thankfully someone thought better.
Speaker 1: They almost got brought over to Florida. Here's a strange segue,
Speaker 1: um that I had nothing until you just said that. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you were if they ever were to come here
Speaker 1: to Florida or wherever, and you had to filet a
Speaker 1: hippo for the table, you might want an electric file
Speaker 1: at knife. I would, and they're supposedly delicious. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: throw that out there, and I would definitely want an
Speaker 1: electric fila. Listen, I knew a person who shall definitely
Speaker 1: go nameless that once swore that not in this country,
Speaker 1: but in another country whereas where it was heptable. He
Speaker 1: once enjoyed semanity, and he was like it's delicious, it's
Speaker 1: out of control. Good, I believe it. It's okay. So
Speaker 1: we're not fleeing any hippos that I'm aware of, but
Speaker 1: listen up for everyone who who loves a good fish fry,
Speaker 1: and in this case, I'm particularly talking to my southern friends.
Speaker 1: Right now, Rapila is recalling one and twenty eight thousand
Speaker 1: battery operated filet knives because then some bitches are catching fire. Yes,
Speaker 1: so this this comes to us, uh from the Minneapolis
Speaker 1: Star Tribune. Um and it says a Twin Cities company
Speaker 1: is recalling one thousand battery operated fishing knives after a
Speaker 1: dozen or so caught on fire. So it's not like
Speaker 1: they're all catching on fire, but but enough to to
Speaker 1: make this a thing. Um. And of course Rapila USA
Speaker 1: is based in Minnetonka, which now, for a second week
Speaker 1: in a row, gives me license to say, why don't
Speaker 1: you purify yourselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. Well,
Speaker 1: this is a much less in depth poignant story than yours,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to continue on. Uh. They issued the
Speaker 1: recall last week of these rechargeable filet knives after it
Speaker 1: learned of batteries overheating when plugged into a charger not
Speaker 1: produced by Rappel, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. Now,
Speaker 1: the knife in question here is the Rapple Ion, which
Speaker 1: which runs on rechargeable lithium batteries, and I don't own one.
Speaker 1: I've never used one, but I looked it up and naturally,
Speaker 1: when you buy this knife, it comes with a charger.
Speaker 1: So the statement they made is a little unclear because
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if Rapple is saying this sometimes happened
Speaker 1: with the charger they provide but did not produce. In
Speaker 1: other words, it's not like a wrapper a brand charger
Speaker 1: that comes with it. They buy chargers and give you
Speaker 1: one of the knife. Or are they saying this issue
Speaker 1: is occurring when a charger that is not the charger
Speaker 1: they provided is being used to charge the knife, which
Speaker 1: is also possible because I'm only speaking for myself here.
Speaker 1: I have a ridiculous habit of losing charging chords, particularly
Speaker 1: those like when when they for ship that I don't use.
Speaker 1: Often know what I'm saying, Like I I have at
Speaker 1: least three rechargeable spotlights in the garage. I can't find
Speaker 1: the damn cord for any of those. You know, like my, my,
Speaker 1: my pork, it's been enjoying the power wheels a TV
Speaker 1: for a year. It's like it's like inching along the
Speaker 1: living room. I don't know what I do with the court, right,
Speaker 1: so I can I can totally see some fish dudes
Speaker 1: like getting all excited about the knife, charging it, using
Speaker 1: it for a while, losing the cord and just like
Speaker 1: Jerry rigging it to a lawnmower battery. You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I have I have good friends in Louisiana, right, Like
Speaker 1: they wear an electric filet knife on their belt daily
Speaker 1: in case impromptu cleaning of a hundred suck a lot
Speaker 1: pops up. But if something needs charging, uh and and
Speaker 1: you have no cord, that boys will also figure out
Speaker 1: how to charge it for you. So I'm not really
Speaker 1: it's it's it's very unclear, But I find it mildly
Speaker 1: funny because these aren't cheap, right, they cost a hundred
Speaker 1: bucks that they're good knof, So you could see somebody
Speaker 1: getting this, you know, some meat fisherman for Christmas and
Speaker 1: like you know, walking out back within glue one fifty
Speaker 1: full of speckled trout all excited, and that suckers just
Speaker 1: melting on the cutting board. Um. Luckily though, none of
Speaker 1: these fires have caused any injury or major damage. And
Speaker 1: Rappila is good people, And here's what they say. Anyone
Speaker 1: with one of these knives should stop using it. Immediately
Speaker 1: remove the battery and look for a white E t
Speaker 1: L Safety certification label on the battery and if it's
Speaker 1: If you have one of these and it's not there,
Speaker 1: contact Rappila and they will send you a free replacement
Speaker 1: battery so your knife does not burn up. They will
Speaker 1: hook it up. And if anyone in my area had
Speaker 1: this issue and just feels naked without their electric blade,
Speaker 1: holler at me, because I have about six of them
Speaker 1: that I never use. So the generosity at the end
Speaker 1: of that statement not just from from from what do
Speaker 1: you do you use electric file at knives I have?
Speaker 1: I don't, So I don't want to go too deep
Speaker 1: into this because it could eat up some time. I
Speaker 1: really I love something about using just a classic filet knife.
Speaker 1: And and there's a the purest part of me that
Speaker 1: doesn't really like electric file And I was having said
Speaker 1: all that if you got cut up a ton of fish,
Speaker 1: they're super efficient, they're super fish. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: have a problem with them. I don't like denigrate other
Speaker 1: people for using them. No, I just personally like a
Speaker 1: nice filet knife in standard form, and we're on the
Speaker 1: exact same page. I like, I get it if you're
Speaker 1: a charter captain down south or and like you like
Speaker 1: every day you have to do a mess of trout
Speaker 1: and reds, totally get it. I don't catch enough fish
Speaker 1: for that. Like I am just not that good, you know.
Speaker 1: I can't remember the last time I brought home enough
Speaker 1: fish and I was like, oh, ship, this is so daunting.
Speaker 1: I need power tools. And then if I have something
Speaker 1: like really special like a tuna, I don't want to
Speaker 1: rips all through that. So like you, it's like delicate
Speaker 1: brain surgery, Like I want to feel the knife tip
Speaker 1: touch every rib, you know what I mean. So there
Speaker 1: you go, watch out. Don't let your file at knife
Speaker 1: burn up. Where are you gonna go with that? Mile?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, that is that is a hard one. I
Speaker 1: will say it before we leave it completely. I do
Speaker 1: still use the classic Rappola file at knife that sent
Speaker 1: straight up a knife absolutely that are that are a
Speaker 1: dexter baby. Those are the ones I have always used them,
Speaker 1: and I've always had good luck with them they make,
Speaker 1: so I'm glad to hear that they're standing by it,
Speaker 1: even if they may have made a little bit of
Speaker 1: a mess up there. I'm gonna hearken back a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks to a story that you were telling about
Speaker 1: the lower Susquehanna, I think, and the flatheads, right, and
Speaker 1: like you were talking about how there were all these
Speaker 1: rumors of huge fish in that river, right, not just flatheads,
Speaker 1: but all kinds of different fish, and a bunch of
Speaker 1: the lower rivers around you. Yeah, say not that one
Speaker 1: in particular, but all these eastern rivers with that sort
Speaker 1: of lower damned in it's always like that's where the
Speaker 1: big ones are, got them. Yeah, And if you remember,
Speaker 1: my response was like, well don't say sample remember, like
Speaker 1: like a total snooty and no, that's not a thing here.
Speaker 1: So right, Yeah, no, I'm not about pretty wrong, not
Speaker 1: at all. But that got me thinking right and it
Speaker 1: helped me, like, it gave me a little context to
Speaker 1: get out of my my western river focus that because
Speaker 1: because like most of the major rivers out here are
Speaker 1: very aggressively monitor and it managed and I just I
Speaker 1: got stuck in my own experience, and I forgot that's
Speaker 1: not the case in most places, Like that's not the
Speaker 1: case most of the country. Uh, And it is here
Speaker 1: because the fish populations are just so valuable to local economies,
Speaker 1: right they they management agencies are told, like, keep an
Speaker 1: eye on this because it's shorworth a lot of money, right,
Speaker 1: that's what they have to do. So in order to
Speaker 1: do that, management agencies rely on on a technology that's
Speaker 1: been around since the sixties called electro fishing. And I
Speaker 1: know you're familiar with this, but but other people might
Speaker 1: not be, and to vastly oversimplify it, Like it involves
Speaker 1: using these machines that create a low level electric field
Speaker 1: in a small area of water, and the fish that
Speaker 1: are around are simultaneously stunned and drawn to the source
Speaker 1: of the current. So you stick these wands, these two
Speaker 1: ones into the into the water and like it's crazy, man,
Speaker 1: the pool just these fish come to the service that
Speaker 1: I've done it. I've done it. It's it's nuts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's insane. And then you know, the biole just turned
Speaker 1: the and the text turned these things on. All the
Speaker 1: fish come up, they they net them. It's just like
Speaker 1: this crazy net game, trying to get them before they
Speaker 1: flow out of the pool and throw them into buckets
Speaker 1: so they can they can measure them, they can count them,
Speaker 1: and then off of that they make estimates about the
Speaker 1: population of the river and how well the fish are doing.
Speaker 1: And right now, that's not only the gold standard for
Speaker 1: measuring fish stocks, it's just about the only way we
Speaker 1: know how to do it that makes any sense, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's about all we got. But it's really expensive, it's
Speaker 1: really labor intensive, and it does have some mortality, Like
Speaker 1: some fish do die from the shocking and the handling.
Speaker 1: White fish especially, Man, I've seen I've seen whitefish hit
Speaker 1: that current and their gills explode, like it's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 1: It's just like blood ships up and they're done. I've
Speaker 1: only ever done it for trout. And while most of
Speaker 1: them are okay, like you gets some tiny fingerling, like
Speaker 1: there's casualties of war. Not many, but they're they're right.
Speaker 1: And I'm not dogging on electrophishing. Like you said, it's
Speaker 1: a gold standard and it's really important, but that those
Speaker 1: are just the realities. It's it's it's super expensive, it's
Speaker 1: super labor intensive, and there there are some some casualties.
Speaker 1: So while electro fishing is it's gonna remain the most
Speaker 1: comprehensive tool for monitoring fish stocks, another option might be
Speaker 1: coming up soon. In the past couple of weeks, I
Speaker 1: found two studies that were published about using environmental DNA
Speaker 1: known as e d NA to detect fish and bodies
Speaker 1: of water. Right. So, so fish, just like any other
Speaker 1: living creature, they shed their DNA into the environment around them,
Speaker 1: and this technology allows researchers to just take a water
Speaker 1: sample and then test that sample for the presence of
Speaker 1: particular fish. So one study which was out of Oregon
Speaker 1: State University, this one's focused on native fish like desirable fish,
Speaker 1: and they found that they could use e d N
Speaker 1: a testing to track the presence of native cutthroat and
Speaker 1: headwater streams, which is a particularly hard thing to test for. Right,
Speaker 1: because they do make those electro phishing backpacks, like you
Speaker 1: can carry them on your back, But carrying those things,
Speaker 1: those shocking packs with a crew of fisheries text like
Speaker 1: way deep into the mountains. Yeah, yeah, it's it's rough.
Speaker 1: And so if this like the the idea behind this
Speaker 1: is is that instead of having to do all that,
Speaker 1: you could just send one person up there to collect
Speaker 1: water samples all the way up and and figure out
Speaker 1: where the fish are and where they aren't. And and
Speaker 1: I want to I want to stress that the researchers
Speaker 1: are very clear on this that e d N A
Speaker 1: testing will not replace shocking surveys, but it offers a cheaper,
Speaker 1: easier compliment, right, Like, there's no with with with this.
Speaker 1: With this method, with e DNA, you can't tell the
Speaker 1: size of the condition of the fish. You just know
Speaker 1: that they're there, so you won't replace it. But it's
Speaker 1: an interesting compliment. And I see, I don't want to
Speaker 1: jump ahead because I don't know where you're going, but
Speaker 1: I I have a lot of questions which I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are no answers to, like dilution, Like how how
Speaker 1: far up in that system do you need to be
Speaker 1: to get the water if I get it, if there's
Speaker 1: if there's cutties in the headwaters, how far down can
Speaker 1: I sample and still get an accurate read before all
Speaker 1: that DNA is diluted. I think it's pretty localized. Otherwise
Speaker 1: it wouldn't tell him much, right like, they know, Hey,
Speaker 1: just in this stretch right here, we know they're here.
Speaker 1: Um and and so that part useful interesting. But I
Speaker 1: also found another study out of Cornell same week that
Speaker 1: shows another way that fisheries managers might use E d
Speaker 1: n A. In that study, the authors were focusing on
Speaker 1: invasive species. Specifically, they were testing on a round gobies,
Speaker 1: which are small fish that are originally native to Eurasia.
Speaker 1: And then and they got into the Great Lakes in
Speaker 1: the nineties through a ship ballast and they just took over.
Speaker 1: And we're not gonna we're not gonna get into the
Speaker 1: Gobi debate right now. We've we've touched on that before.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that again, but that's not the point of
Speaker 1: the story. The point is that just by testing water
Speaker 1: samples and lakes, they were able to determine the presence
Speaker 1: of gobies, not only that, the density of the Gobi
Speaker 1: population and even their origin and levels of genetic diversity,
Speaker 1: So like where these particular gobies came from and and
Speaker 1: and how genetically the verse they were if they just
Speaker 1: came from single source origins, and this could be really
Speaker 1: useful and cost effective for monitoring and stopping the spread
Speaker 1: of invasives. Right just by taking a water sample and
Speaker 1: looking at it, scientists might be able to determine if
Speaker 1: non natives are starting to get a foothold somewhere, and
Speaker 1: if they are, how fast they're reproducing and with what
Speaker 1: level of success. Right, So, so, like one of the
Speaker 1: major issues that we see with with specificy with things
Speaker 1: like gobies and zebra muscles is that they're they're super small,
Speaker 1: and they're they're pretty well camouflaged, right, so by the
Speaker 1: time anyone actually sees them, they're probably everywhere, or agencies
Speaker 1: have to be like crazy diligent and spend tons of
Speaker 1: money to monitor whether or not they show up, right,
Speaker 1: And this this technology could allow those resource managers to
Speaker 1: get out ahead of invasive aquatic species and make targeted
Speaker 1: and effective mitigation plans. So that's where I see as
Speaker 1: being really cool. Yeah, I mean that's very fascinating. Again
Speaker 1: that there's so many questions though, I mean it sounds
Speaker 1: like with the with the Gobi study, they can do
Speaker 1: so much with so little. But then I I immediately
Speaker 1: jumped like two snakeheads. So if if you have a
Speaker 1: lake or or whatever impoundment connected to a known waterway
Speaker 1: where they are, like, how many snakeheads have to get
Speaker 1: in there before just a water test? Let you even
Speaker 1: know they're there. You know what I mean. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's I'm being rhetorical right now. I just find that
Speaker 1: part fascinating, Like if two snake heads get in there
Speaker 1: and it's a three acre body of water, or will
Speaker 1: they read How they seem to have refined that so
Speaker 1: quickly to gobies is pretty awesome like that, And I'll
Speaker 1: tell you I'm all for it just for for safety reasons,
Speaker 1: because I've shocked fish twice in my life, and the
Speaker 1: first time I had to watch from the sidelines because
Speaker 1: I was the idiot that showed up with studded boots
Speaker 1: studded metal studs in his waiting boots and they were like, ha,
Speaker 1: you were the boots with the studs. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to stand over there on the bank, so um yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then the second time I got to
Speaker 1: talk like if you fee your heart fluttering at all,
Speaker 1: please let somebody know. I'm like, you know what, I
Speaker 1: just I just want to look at the trout in
Speaker 1: the bucket. You do the shocking. It's it's I've only
Speaker 1: done it with the backpack ones in high mountain streams,
Speaker 1: which again I can attest their heavy and they're real
Speaker 1: pain in the has to carry up long trails. Um,
Speaker 1: I've never got to do the boat surveys. I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to. Yeah, no, me, they're me there. It looks
Speaker 1: super cool. But this is uh man, there's so much
Speaker 1: there's so much we can do with that, so many places.
Speaker 1: If that sort of takes a hold, if we start,
Speaker 1: if they the speed at which this seems to be going,
Speaker 1: and the ways that E d n A like just
Speaker 1: taking a water sample and knowing what's there and in
Speaker 1: what density and where it came from, that could be
Speaker 1: very useful information. Absolutely so the only tie in I
Speaker 1: have is um. If you're a sushi fan, perhaps one
Speaker 1: could argue that a shocked fish would taste more delicious
Speaker 1: as it was less stressed than one that falls on
Speaker 1: the end of the line. How about that it comes
Speaker 1: up quickly? You know. I had to, you know, because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go culinary here, a little bit a little funky, um,
Speaker 1: not so fresh. And I'm gonna assume that we do,
Speaker 1: in fact have plenty of listeners like me, and I
Speaker 1: believe you that just go gagaf for sushi. I am
Speaker 1: a sushi at I just and and even though because
Speaker 1: where I live. I do get the opportunity to make
Speaker 1: my own on occasion. If we get tuna ber neither
Speaker 1: sea bass or whatever, I'm just as happy to go
Speaker 1: to a restaurant or get the mysterious half price sushi
Speaker 1: buffet sushi, or sushi from the sushi department at shop. Right.
Speaker 1: I don't really care, right, I just love sushi. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, at least I'm guessing this was very different
Speaker 1: for you growing up in Hawaii. But for me, as
Speaker 1: a kid in the Northeast, sushi was was very weird
Speaker 1: and like you really had to go out of your
Speaker 1: way to get it, like to a restaurant in Philly
Speaker 1: or New York. Right, I'm sure you grew up right exactly,
Speaker 1: but like Little League Picnics. Well, there you go. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's very different, but now it's it's everywhere here, right,
Speaker 1: And um. What people may not realize though, is that
Speaker 1: the sushi we consume now is actually like a relatively
Speaker 1: recent invention, first appearing in the early twentieth century, and
Speaker 1: what we eat is sort of like a dumb down,
Speaker 1: pretty more presentable version of traditional sushi. And I found
Speaker 1: this story on the site Atlas Obscura titled to make
Speaker 1: Japan's original sushi first age fish for several months and
Speaker 1: it's it's it's actually a really fascinating article centered around
Speaker 1: a seventy five year old sushi restaurant in the city
Speaker 1: of Wakiyama that specializes in making sushi in its ancient form.
Speaker 1: And they they call this sushi narazushi. And to make it,
Speaker 1: you pack rice into salted fish carcasses and let it
Speaker 1: age for months. And uh, the owner of the restaurant says,
Speaker 1: since you're fermenting it, the taste is more similar to
Speaker 1: cheese or yogurt than fish. Okay. And furthermore, at this restaurant,
Speaker 1: for fifty three U s dollars per taste, they will
Speaker 1: serve you thirty year aged sushi. And it says it's
Speaker 1: so dirt composed thirty year and it says it's so
Speaker 1: decomposed that it's textually more of a thick gruel than
Speaker 1: a modern day sushi roll. It says, while some chunks
Speaker 1: of fish keep their shape, time and bacteria liquefies the
Speaker 1: mixture to the point that it can only be used
Speaker 1: as a condiment, like you just put a dollop of
Speaker 1: it on some on some rice and it's said to
Speaker 1: be sour, pungent and mildly sweet. Um. But this style
Speaker 1: of sushi, this fermented sushi, was first recorded in Japan
Speaker 1: in the eighth century. And of course back then this
Speaker 1: was out of out of necessity, right it was. It
Speaker 1: was a preservation method. But now it's considered a delicacy
Speaker 1: because it takes so long to make. And fun thing
Speaker 1: I learned from this is that the word sushi is
Speaker 1: actually derived from the Japanese word for sour. Never knew that, um.
Speaker 1: And there's so much interesting stuff about sushi history in this.
Speaker 1: It's quite a rabbit hole. But it's funny because it
Speaker 1: illustrates um a full sort of coming around of sushi
Speaker 1: in that the O g sushi. You know, it was
Speaker 1: the nasty fish fermented for years. Then as refrigeration technology advanced,
Speaker 1: there was no need to ferment, and sushi, as as
Speaker 1: we know it started as a legit fast food or
Speaker 1: street food in Japan, and then it became this weird, fancy,
Speaker 1: mysterious thing to US Americans for decades and now in
Speaker 1: one you can buy it at a gas station. So
Speaker 1: like it's kind of crazy, like how the whole the
Speaker 1: whole pattern came full circle and um, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean I love one. Someone says, like I usually get
Speaker 1: the California Roll, but I got crazy and tried eel
Speaker 1: last time. Yeah, okay, try this. So for the sushi
Speaker 1: freaks out there that you know, I love a good
Speaker 1: piece of blue fin o G sushi was nasty fermented
Speaker 1: fish paste. That's what I got. I try it, though
Speaker 1: I would be if I was at that restaurant. I
Speaker 1: feel like I had to try that just to say
Speaker 1: I did. Oh yeah, I would definitely, I would try it.
Speaker 1: You lost me a gruel, that was the That was
Speaker 1: the word I didn't. I didn't interject that. That was
Speaker 1: right from the article. They said, Yeah, it has the
Speaker 1: texture of gruel, but it's fifty three bucks to taste.
Speaker 1: Fifty three dollars for like a little pat of thirty
Speaker 1: year aged sushi. I mean, I'll try I'll try anything
Speaker 1: pretty much for the most part, but especially if someone
Speaker 1: else is buying. Somebody's like, yeah, I'll treats let's see
Speaker 1: how it goes. No, I mean that that was that
Speaker 1: was fascinat Like I really appreciated that deep diving to
Speaker 1: sushi don't have a ton of follow up, but like
Speaker 1: that was I'm glad you did that. Like I didn't
Speaker 1: know a lot of those things. It's kind of an
Speaker 1: oddball thing. But like I you know, I love I
Speaker 1: love cutting my own sushi when I have the right
Speaker 1: fish for it. And we're so like sushi consumed, but
Speaker 1: really like we like it's new school stuff. We eat
Speaker 1: all these roles and fancies, sauce crap, that's all modern days.
Speaker 1: That's not what they were eating back in the day.
Speaker 1: So hopefully Phil like sushi and I impressed him with that.
Speaker 1: You also have, I wrote, I wrote it down this time. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we got coked out, hippo's we got burning knives.
Speaker 1: Phil's got sushi to deal with. Um and and I'm
Speaker 1: very gonna skip e d n A of fish as
Speaker 1: a conservation tool. Just can skip over that one. Did
Speaker 1: I forgot to jot that one? And then I was
Speaker 1: trying to think of like the keyword to use in
Speaker 1: the last second, so that Phil, you can also consider that.
Speaker 1: UM And we'll see, We'll see where we land with
Speaker 1: Phil Miles Nulty, You're the winner. Disney just announced that
Speaker 1: they were to be refreshing the Jungle Cruise ride to
Speaker 1: get rid of some outdated tableaus. And I think the
Speaker 1: solution here is simple. We just send forty or so
Speaker 1: of these Escobar hippos up to Orange County. Let the
Speaker 1: guests swim around and hope for the best. That's a
Speaker 1: thrill ride. And on another note, while pleasuring yourself before
Speaker 1: a fishing trip may bring bad luck, I can tell
Speaker 1: you that it only brings good luck to podcast editing
Speaker 1: the land, to the boats, to the lake, to the sea,
Speaker 1: being up the nets with your boy lads. What's up,
Speaker 1: pass wives, It's me, your boy Lance V here yet
Speaker 1: again to help you take your status as an Internet
Speaker 1: fishing legend up another level. I mean, you're not ever
Speaker 1: going to be a legend like me or Biggie John B,
Speaker 1: so forget that. But if this gets you four or
Speaker 1: five new followers that aren't your aunt or old summer
Speaker 1: camp counselor I've done my job and you actually get
Speaker 1: to spend a day feeling good about yourself hashtag self healing.
Speaker 1: This week's question comes from Jake B, who writes, Holy Smokes,
Speaker 1: no more segments with Lance. I am forced to skip
Speaker 1: through it. If you must keep that segment, please do
Speaker 1: it at the very end, so I can just stop
Speaker 1: the podcast when I hear him begin to talk. It
Speaker 1: is awful. However, I'm thinking about doing some Instagram live videos.
Speaker 1: Any tips, amazing question, Jake B. It's the live separates
Speaker 1: Internet fishing legends from losers. Going live means you can't
Speaker 1: do sixty three takes of your shitty fishing tip video
Speaker 1: before posting. You think you're ready to mount up with
Speaker 1: WARRINGNGY and the regulators, we'll see hashtag get psyched, hashtag
Speaker 1: you can do this hashtag maybe. Whatever you do, do
Speaker 1: not announce that you'll be going live days or hours
Speaker 1: before you actually go live. Just dream your raw show
Speaker 1: consciousness to the masses whenever the mood strikes. Promoting an
Speaker 1: upcoming live video just tells the world that your word
Speaker 1: nobody who show up, which is sures that no one
Speaker 1: will show up. If you're as brilliant as I think
Speaker 1: I am, the world will stop whatever it's doing to
Speaker 1: tune in. Hashtag trust me. Also, don't prepare anything. Spend
Speaker 1: the first forty five seconds stalling until one of your
Speaker 1: friends drops a stupid comment that will allow you to
Speaker 1: transform the entire live session into a group chat between
Speaker 1: you and your squad. Here's the secret. People don't tune
Speaker 1: into live videos to learn something. They want to feel
Speaker 1: like they're part of your inner circle, and the best
Speaker 1: way to let them in is by prattling on about
Speaker 1: inside jokes and stories that only a small amount of
Speaker 1: people watching will't understand. Anyway, that's it for me, Your
Speaker 1: boy Lance Vye, hope that helped you. Must do the
Speaker 1: courage of snoop line, Jake B. Maybe I'll catch you
Speaker 1: next week live from your mom's house, or if things
Speaker 1: go my way, live from the Admirals Club at the
Speaker 1: Goon Squad's private airport. This will come as a shark
Speaker 1: to absolutely no one, but I have neither posted nor
Speaker 1: watched an Instagram live video ever in my life. Not surprising, Uh,
Speaker 1: It's actually extremely rare that I tune into anything live,
Speaker 1: and if I do, it's always my pure happenstance, Like
Speaker 1: I happen to be on Instagram when I get the
Speaker 1: alert that some friend of mine is now live, so
Speaker 1: I'll just jump over at a dumb comment and right
Speaker 1: about the time when they read it and go, hey,
Speaker 1: Josie is watching, I'm xing out. I'm gone because I
Speaker 1: find's heads Then I like, I'm there. I'm I'm there
Speaker 1: to be a jerk. Yeah, because I find most live
Speaker 1: social videos awkward to watch anyway, So I click over
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I want to see how awkward he's
Speaker 1: looking and feeling right now doing this, and I find
Speaker 1: him pent awkward to produce. I've done it a few
Speaker 1: times Facebook. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it.
Speaker 1: The whole thing seems super awkward to me, unless you've
Speaker 1: got an insane following. In my opinion, it's the fastest
Speaker 1: way to figure out how many people are not tuning
Speaker 1: into your ship. Like, if you need something to make
Speaker 1: you feel better about yourself, do not go live on
Speaker 1: social media, don't listen to Lance. Yes, those are words
Speaker 1: to live by for everybody. And uh and that actually
Speaker 1: leads me nicely into our final segment of the episode,
Speaker 1: where we give you the history of lures, baits and
Speaker 1: flies that we live by. It's time for end of
Speaker 1: the line. That's not loud enough. The rattle Trap wasn't
Speaker 1: the first commercially produced lipless crank bait. That honor goes
Speaker 1: to the Cordell hotspot, but no one casually refers to
Speaker 1: lipless crank baits as hotspots. No, they're called traps, despite
Speaker 1: the fact that several other baits of a similar design
Speaker 1: preceded them. The Swimming Minnow by You, Boogie, Pico Perch,
Speaker 1: and water Gator all came out around the same time
Speaker 1: as the hotspot, and all featured the small profile, tight wobble,
Speaker 1: rapid sync, and high hook up ratio. But the rattle
Speaker 1: trap was the one that made lipless crank baits the
Speaker 1: dominant lures they are today. The rail trup was the
Speaker 1: brainchild of World War Two veteran Bill Lewis. Lewis piloted
Speaker 1: B twenty four bombers, which were called flying coffins by
Speaker 1: the airman who flew them. Louis survived thirty combat missions,
Speaker 1: some of which included supporting ground troops during the D
Speaker 1: Day invasion at Normandy. He also flew voluntary support missions
Speaker 1: to resupply troops after the invasion. His heroism earned him
Speaker 1: the Distinguished Flying Cross Medal. Lewis then came home to
Speaker 1: pursue his education, first at the University of Alabama and
Speaker 1: then at the Chicago Academy of Art, from which he
Speaker 1: launched his career as a commercial artist. But Louis was
Speaker 1: never really satisfied working for someone else. He had that hustle,
Speaker 1: also known as entrepreneurial spirit depending on where you grew up.
Speaker 1: By day he was drawing logos and headers, but by
Speaker 1: night he was making bass lures in his garage in Alexandria, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: Weekends would find him selling those lures out of the
Speaker 1: trunk of his beat up car popular boat ramps. Much
Speaker 1: of the time, Lewis would end up partying with his
Speaker 1: spinner rates, plastic worms, and other lures below cost, just
Speaker 1: so he could get enough gas money to make it
Speaker 1: back home. This went on for decades, but Lewis remained undeterred.
Speaker 1: Legend has it that all changed one day in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen sixties. Lewis and a friend were fishing a
Speaker 1: slow bite on Toledo Bend, cruising around the reservoir trying
Speaker 1: to find some active fish, when they saw a crowd
Speaker 1: of boats piled into the Sabine River channel. Upon investigation,
Speaker 1: they found that none of the boats were fishing except one.
Speaker 1: The rest of the flotilla had gathered to watch in ows.
Speaker 1: The two anglers pulled in fish on nearly every cast.
Speaker 1: Bill recognized one of the anglers as a buddy he'd
Speaker 1: given some lures to and naturally asked him, to which
Speaker 1: the guy replied, that silly rattling thing you gave me,
Speaker 1: you got any more of them? Not today, Lewis responded.
Speaker 1: Story goes that Louis and his fishing partner both tied
Speaker 1: on some of his rattling lure prototypes and proceeded to
Speaker 1: experience actions similar to what they witnessed in the channel,
Speaker 1: catching bass after bass despite the slow bite, some of
Speaker 1: which were in the eight pound class. That afternoon, Lewis
Speaker 1: drove home through a rainstorm and his trusty Ford station
Speaker 1: wagon with wipers that didn't work. As he crawled back
Speaker 1: to Louisiana, his right hand on the steering wheel and
Speaker 1: his left hand manually operating the windshield wiper, a name
Speaker 1: for the new lure came to him, the rattle trap.
Speaker 1: The rattle trap success proved not to be a fluke,
Speaker 1: and Lewis's business took off pretty quickly. By seventy the
Speaker 1: rattle trap was a common lure, and by the nine
Speaker 1: eighties it was rivaling the plastic worm as the dominant
Speaker 1: bait in bass tournaments. The Bill Lewis Company grew into
Speaker 1: one of the only successful fishing companies to manufacture just
Speaker 1: one product. That's how good rattle traps were and are.
Speaker 1: They might be the most versatile hard bait of all time.
Speaker 1: You can rip them fast and shallow for aggressive fish,
Speaker 1: or count them down and work them slow when the
Speaker 1: bite is sluggish. They're one of the few baits with
Speaker 1: a reputation for catching both large numbers of bass as
Speaker 1: well as truly big bass. Some pro anglers refer to
Speaker 1: it as an idiot bait, meaning that just about anyone,
Speaker 1: regardless of skill or experience, can tie on a trap
Speaker 1: and catch fish with it. Tommy Martin, a veteran pro,
Speaker 1: has been quoted as saying a lot of pros wish
Speaker 1: the rattle trap had never been invented for that very reason.
Speaker 1: In modern bass angling, traps remain legendary for their effectiveness
Speaker 1: in heavy grass during cold months where I live in Texas,
Speaker 1: Martin said, from January through March, if you're not fishing them,
Speaker 1: you're not in business. I first discovered the power of
Speaker 1: the rattle trap fishing a peacock bass pond with my
Speaker 1: dad and one of his buddies. I will never forget
Speaker 1: when that guy whose him, I can't remember, tied on
Speaker 1: a trap, cast it out, and retrieved it. The sound
Speaker 1: emanated up from the water and through the boat. It's
Speaker 1: somehow simultaneously hit high and low frequencies, the kind of
Speaker 1: sound you weren't sure if you were hearing or feeling
Speaker 1: like a grouse drumming. That sound is what defines the
Speaker 1: rattle trap, and to this day I can recall it
Speaker 1: exactly in my head. The dude then proceeded to whale
Speaker 1: on peacocks all day while my dad and I flailed
Speaker 1: with our spinner baits and standard cranks. He finally let
Speaker 1: me use one, this weird rattling thing painted to look
Speaker 1: like some kind of a bait fish with blood dripping
Speaker 1: off the sides bleeding shed. He told me, all fish
Speaker 1: love that color. I started saving up car wash money
Speaker 1: the very next weekend, and the lures I went on
Speaker 1: to buy provided countless memorable days and fish. Bill Lewis
Speaker 1: died in two thousand five, but his signature bait continues
Speaker 1: to both win tournaments and help regular anglers catch their
Speaker 1: lifetime fish, even kids like fifteen year old Tyler Getsman
Speaker 1: of Willis, Texas, who lended a thirteen pounder on a
Speaker 1: trap in January of last year. I don't personally fish
Speaker 1: them as much as I used to, but when I do,
Speaker 1: there's only one color I reach for, the bleeding chad. Well,
Speaker 1: that about wraps it up. But for those of you
Speaker 1: now feeling pious, this week's book of fishing Revelations includes
Speaker 1: the worst trespass and angler can make against the fishing Gods,
Speaker 1: the most sacred fishing tool in history, the fact that
Speaker 1: some of our listeners are as cool as Miles Davis.
Speaker 1: And the lure that first rattled the grassy crypt where
Speaker 1: big best slumber in winter, It works in summer too.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's not just a wintertime lure anyway.
Speaker 1: Keep those awkward photos, bar nominations, sale bin items in general,
Speaker 1: feedback flowing to bent at the meat Eater dot com,
Speaker 1: tell us when we screw up, tell us when we
Speaker 1: strike a nerve. This week, we want to know about
Speaker 1: your fishing superstitions, especially the weird of the funny ones
Speaker 1: lead on us. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, And I'm hoping
Speaker 1: you'll send us some good ones, and if you do,
Speaker 1: they might get mentioned in a future episode, in which
Speaker 1: case will send you a special limited addition Degenerate Angler's
Speaker 1: care package. Um, if you don't believe in such things,
Speaker 1: you could still get some stickers. If something you post
Speaker 1: using that Bent podcast and degenerate Angler hashtag on Instagram
Speaker 1: catches our attention, like Big Brother or the Eye of Saron,
Speaker 1: we're watching you,