Speaker 1: Well, you know what, bass pro. I've breed fish since
Speaker 1: I was nine years old. You can kiss my exper tip.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, just like seventy or eighty year
Speaker 1: old lady comes around the corner with her fist cocked
Speaker 1: back all the way to Japan. Fresh amber, Greece is
Speaker 1: described as having a marine fecal odor. If you don't
Speaker 1: how to check your freaking line right away, I know
Speaker 1: we're gonna be doing some softcore stuff. Good morning, degenerate anglers,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Bent the Fishing Podcast. That just got
Speaker 1: a couple of stripers, will be bringing in for dinner.
Speaker 1: Won't be long and otherwise haven't seen anything yet. I'm
Speaker 1: Joe Surmelli Ah, and that was a solid, solidly obscure
Speaker 1: as well Jaws reference. They're well done, my friend. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know where you're going with it,
Speaker 1: but it was it was great. I liked that good. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's actually one of my favorite lines in the
Speaker 1: whole movie, and it slips past many radars. It's like
Speaker 1: a it's a quiet sleeper, but but it's not taking
Speaker 1: a shark fishing. I'm actually using that to take a
Speaker 1: striper fishing today. Stripers. Yes. Uh, if i'm you already
Speaker 1: took us, you already took us Mahi fishing in Jersey
Speaker 1: this week. Settle down there, guy, bring it down a notch.
Speaker 1: I do hope, seriously, I hope everyone listening has already
Speaker 1: watched episode one of B Side Fishing on Meteor's YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: If not, go watch it. It's amazing, you're missing out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but of course you guys watched. Of course they did. Man,
Speaker 1: I hope furse they watched it. These are my people.
Speaker 1: Uh seriously, though, huge thanks to everyone who did tune
Speaker 1: in to B Side Fishing this week, and if you didn't,
Speaker 1: per chance, just go find it as soon as you're
Speaker 1: done listening to Ben. Okay, I appreciate it, and I
Speaker 1: gotta say it feels good to be back in front
Speaker 1: of a camera while holding a fishing rod and also
Speaker 1: editing video again. I get to cut B side, which
Speaker 1: is super fun and I'm proud of it and I
Speaker 1: love doing that. No, you should be. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: very very well done. And uh, it's it's taken. Let's
Speaker 1: take a little longer than we want to do to
Speaker 1: get you bringing another show out, but it's here. Everyone
Speaker 1: can just settle down and got it happened. I promised
Speaker 1: it would. And I gotta say, striperfishient seems like a
Speaker 1: fitting theme for this week, considered the B sides all
Speaker 1: about like scenes. It's all about like fishing scenes, and
Speaker 1: fishing culture is more than the specific fish. And I'm
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by the stripers scene. I don't know as
Speaker 1: much about it firsthand as I would like, partially because
Speaker 1: and I'm ashamed of this, I've never caught one, but
Speaker 1: I'm I'm interested like it. It has my attention now.
Speaker 1: I I know you haven't caught one, but you know
Speaker 1: that's okay, And hopefully I'll be the one to change
Speaker 1: that lack of stripers for you at some point. Well together,
Speaker 1: But I think one of the reasons we get along
Speaker 1: so well is that we both have a deep appreciation
Speaker 1: of of sort of niche fishing scenes and cultures, even
Speaker 1: if we don't have much experience within them. Right I
Speaker 1: I have literally fish for West Coast steelhead one time
Speaker 1: in my life for about three hours and I caught nothing.
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm still very intrigued by the West Coast
Speaker 1: steel Sea and and the people in it. You know,
Speaker 1: very very much. So what we're doing this week, which
Speaker 1: we haven't really done before, is going all in on
Speaker 1: an entire scene. And it's not about the fish. It's
Speaker 1: about a fishing culture. And the striper scene is very
Speaker 1: near and dear to me because that's that's when I
Speaker 1: do happen to be a part of. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: did you like write a book about it or something?
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like sort of like something you
Speaker 1: might have some familiarity with, sort of sort of. I
Speaker 1: wrote The Complete Guide to Surf Casting, and I joked
Speaker 1: that I did that when I was twelve, Like it
Speaker 1: feels that long ago now, like it was so many
Speaker 1: years ago. Um. However, I'll go on record and say
Speaker 1: that what the publisher that book wanted was a one
Speaker 1: oh one style book. So it looks at surf casting
Speaker 1: in a very broad view and and touches on a
Speaker 1: lot more than striper's. But I lay no claim now,
Speaker 1: nor have I ever laid claim to being some kind
Speaker 1: of stripers surf sharpie or like the hardest of the hardcore,
Speaker 1: because I'm not. But I I surf fished my ass
Speaker 1: off for many years, and you know, did rub elbows
Speaker 1: with a bunch of guys that I can it are
Speaker 1: the Greats, one of which basically prompted the entire theme
Speaker 1: of this show. That's true, just so you guys get
Speaker 1: a window into how this all works. Like we have
Speaker 1: a conversation and they're like, hey, we should make a
Speaker 1: show around that. And yes, in this particular case, I
Speaker 1: got to sit in on that conversation and and I
Speaker 1: kind of felt like the geeky science kids showing up
Speaker 1: for basketball practice. But I learned a lot. Like I
Speaker 1: wasn't on the inner circle there, but I was fascinated him.
Speaker 1: I heard, I'm glad you were there. It was fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna share. We're gonna share an abridged version
Speaker 1: of that discussion in our Smooth Moves segment where we
Speaker 1: let guides and captain's talk about dumb or otherwise hilarious
Speaker 1: things that their clients have done. And this one it's
Speaker 1: a little longer than normal, but so is last week's.
Speaker 1: So I mean, we're just just we're playing around with
Speaker 1: these We're trying to give these stories a little more
Speaker 1: room to breathe and see how that works and let
Speaker 1: us know what you think. I should also preface this
Speaker 1: by saying I personally know what it takes to like
Speaker 1: heard and wrangle and babysit anglers when you're just standing
Speaker 1: in a river. And I cannot imagine having to guide people,
Speaker 1: like especially rookies, in the places and situations that Bill
Speaker 1: Wetzel goes. Why why so joining us today on smooth moves? Uh,
Speaker 1: somewhat of a legend in my area, Bill Wetzel is
Speaker 1: here with us. And Bill, you are like the dude
Speaker 1: in the Northeast surf scene. Are you not, like kind
Speaker 1: of like the Godfather? Would you call yourself the Godfather? No,
Speaker 1: I'm just a fisherman. I've been doing it a long time,
Speaker 1: you know, just a fisherman like anybody else. You know,
Speaker 1: my my talk is my home like anybody else. I
Speaker 1: just know more than everybody else exactly. But I mean
Speaker 1: be that as may you're you're the guy behind surf
Speaker 1: Rat's ball. I mean, you know, everybody whose surf fishes
Speaker 1: from Massachusetts, New Jersey knows who you are and why
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you on because we've had
Speaker 1: so many different kinds of guides offshore, fly guides on,
Speaker 1: some with moves. But I mean, you people pay you
Speaker 1: to take them surf fishing, and like not on a
Speaker 1: quiet beach somewhere, like you are the guy who will
Speaker 1: take people to fame spots like the Montalk Rocks big
Speaker 1: league surf fishing, where you're swimming out to rocks in
Speaker 1: the dark, crashing surf, dangerous situations. So I figure you
Speaker 1: had to have seen some shit in doing that for
Speaker 1: how long has been twenty two years? You told me
Speaker 1: something like that, twenty two years and you believe people
Speaker 1: freaking pay me for this? I do you know? I'm
Speaker 1: yelling at him, I'm screaming at him, get off the rock,
Speaker 1: get on the rock, and they yeah, well, And so
Speaker 1: I have to ask because I've I've I've played this game.
Speaker 1: I grew up around here, Like you know, how do
Speaker 1: you vet somebody who who who comes to you and
Speaker 1: is looking to be guided, like knowing what they're gonna
Speaker 1: get into? Is there like sort of a process for like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy can probably hang this guy. I don't want
Speaker 1: anything to do with what what do you do? Well?
Speaker 1: You know, the phone rang, so like if you get
Speaker 1: somebody's booking, the phone rings, and the first thing I
Speaker 1: asked them how long you've been fishing? And then I'm like,
Speaker 1: how's your agility? How old are you? You know? All
Speaker 1: those questions and they're like, oh you know, um, I'm like,
Speaker 1: and then if you want to book a trophy trip,
Speaker 1: my standard question is can you stand on a rock
Speaker 1: about a hundred fifty yards out into the water in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night with a thirty knight wind
Speaker 1: coming in your face six ft sets pounding on you.
Speaker 1: And if your answer is no, then you can't do
Speaker 1: a trophy trip, but you can do a regular trip,
Speaker 1: you know, so you know, and then and then I'll ask,
Speaker 1: I'll ask. You know, the equipment questions are big. You know,
Speaker 1: what kind of equipment do you have? What kind of
Speaker 1: line do you have? Uh? I don't know. Let me go,
Speaker 1: let me go check my line. If you got to
Speaker 1: check your freaking line right away, I know that you
Speaker 1: know you're we're gonna be doing some soft core stuff,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, We're not gonna be out
Speaker 1: on the freaking rocks. Most likely, I will push your
Speaker 1: ass hard if if if I feel that you're capable,
Speaker 1: I will push your ask even at my age, I
Speaker 1: will still push your eggs even if you're twenty two
Speaker 1: years old. This sounds more like a personal training session
Speaker 1: than a fishing trip. That's like, that's what I'm here.
Speaker 1: I got speaking of this, I got a quick story
Speaker 1: if you want to hear, that's what you're here for.
Speaker 1: So I just I just thought, it just popped in
Speaker 1: my mind. So I used to take this guy out.
Speaker 1: He was from France all the time. He's a good guy.
Speaker 1: Loved him. It booked me several times. This is many,
Speaker 1: many years ago. I was forty three at the time
Speaker 1: now in fifty six. So one night we had a
Speaker 1: northeastern rolling and it was blowing like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like get forty five knots here and you know, pissing
Speaker 1: rain New Moon. It's like one o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: and we're getting ready and I don't know, if you're
Speaker 1: familiar with the south side of Montalk, yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: we're going into the south side and not mont Talk
Speaker 1: with like a forty five not northeast winds huge. The
Speaker 1: water is like, you know, I don't know, like six
Speaker 1: to seven ft, you know. And uh, we're getting ready
Speaker 1: and he goes, hey, Bill, how old are you? I
Speaker 1: got three forty three. That's both I can't believe you're
Speaker 1: like an old man. He was like in his twenty
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh yeah, mother. I was like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: show you how old I am tonight. I didn't say that,
Speaker 1: but in my head, I just like snapped, Man, I
Speaker 1: freaking snapped, and I took him out, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be I'm gonna I said to myself, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be aggressive as I possibly can. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: exactly what I would do personally. So we start walking out.
Speaker 1: I can tell he's behind me. He's like, you sure
Speaker 1: this is all right? Bill? You gotta realize it's it's
Speaker 1: in the middle of night. It's a new moon. So
Speaker 1: on top of the rain, it's pissing rain, on the
Speaker 1: top of the big northeast winds in the big water
Speaker 1: it's completely black because it's the new moon on top
Speaker 1: of it all, you know, so you can't see anything.
Speaker 1: He's going, Billy's sure about this. I'm like, yeah, can
Speaker 1: get your ass out here. We're going. So and we
Speaker 1: get halfway out. We're about fifty sixty yards out and
Speaker 1: there's peanut bunker everywhere. Man, Peanut bunker getting washed off
Speaker 1: the reef into the deeper water. And I'm just like
Speaker 1: bugging and that just like pushed me even harder. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, so I just kept going and going and going.
Speaker 1: I see him behind me, and this is the same
Speaker 1: damn spot on the northeaster. I almost lost the customer.
Speaker 1: So uh so we were out there and we didn't
Speaker 1: we we're not getting ship. And I'm like screaming, you know,
Speaker 1: through the fruit, through the roar and everything. I can't
Speaker 1: believe we're not catching I just can't believe it. This
Speaker 1: is like, I don't know, like mid October, and we
Speaker 1: were out there in the surf, I guess for an
Speaker 1: hour and a half or so. You know, we walked back,
Speaker 1: we started walking back. I'm like, all right, next spot,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go on the south side again. We're gonna
Speaker 1: walk about a mile in He's hour and a half. Dude,
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm done, man, I'm exhausted. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: dropped him off. I went fishing. You know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if he booked me after
Speaker 1: that night again. You know, I mean we were he
Speaker 1: always booked me. He was good. I mean, we were
Speaker 1: booking like, I don't know, seven or eight trips a
Speaker 1: year with him. I think he'd moved though. I think
Speaker 1: he went to France or something. Really nice. Guy, Did
Speaker 1: you catch anything when you went back out by yourself? No,
Speaker 1: I walked. I walked. I walked about a mile and
Speaker 1: a half mile and a half I went way back in,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, man, it's the perfect conditions, you know.
Speaker 1: I went to a really risky spot, especially in that
Speaker 1: uh and with my waiters in a wet suit, and uh,
Speaker 1: I didn't catch anything that whole night. Man, It's bait
Speaker 1: everywhere too. I still you know those kind of nights
Speaker 1: haunt you, man. Yeah, yeah, I thought that was gonna
Speaker 1: go another way. I gotta admit, I thought it was
Speaker 1: gonna be like you dropped him off and then you
Speaker 1: went out and just wailed on him. Well, I've done
Speaker 1: that too. Does that happen often, even if it's not
Speaker 1: bad blood in the beginning, Like, do you just take
Speaker 1: guys out frequently at night and who are just like
Speaker 1: I can't do this? I mean, does it happen if yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, So like I'll take I'll take a
Speaker 1: guy out and we'll get out in the rocks, and
Speaker 1: the first thing I tell him, especially if I know,
Speaker 1: you know, they're not they might not be capable, and
Speaker 1: it's their first time. I mean, you got to realize
Speaker 1: it's like eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, one o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: and I've already Usually with a guy like that, I've
Speaker 1: already went through the steps and went through the easy stuff,
Speaker 1: and now it's time to get out in the rocks
Speaker 1: to you know. And I'll say, you know, if you
Speaker 1: get out there and you can't do it, you know,
Speaker 1: just let me know. We can go somewhere else. I
Speaker 1: always tell them if you're uncomfortable, and they'll say, Bill,
Speaker 1: I'm uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable. I'm just let let a couple
Speaker 1: of waves hit you, you know, And if they fall down,
Speaker 1: it's a good thing. If they like get knocked off
Speaker 1: their rock and fall down, as long as they don't
Speaker 1: get hurt, it's a good thing because now you're wet,
Speaker 1: and you know, you know what it feels like. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's part of my talking. You can get freaking knocked
Speaker 1: down and once in a while you gonna get hurt.
Speaker 1: Not often, hopefully. We've talked about wet suiting and rock
Speaker 1: hopping on this show, and this is a very foreign
Speaker 1: world to Miles. So like, now that you're hearing this,
Speaker 1: like you like, do you still want to do this?
Speaker 1: You want to do this? And this is this sounds
Speaker 1: like it's exactly up my alley. I'm I'm all about it, man.
Speaker 1: I've I've almost killed myself over way smaller fish than that.
Speaker 1: So it's the best man brother. Well, but hopefully, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you'll get you'll get some calls from this
Speaker 1: show from Iowa and Ohio and they'll be they'll be
Speaker 1: racing out for you to yell at them. I would
Speaker 1: be great. I think we have a lot of massacrests
Speaker 1: that listen to the show. It would be I don't
Speaker 1: really yell at them. I just I'm yelling. You know,
Speaker 1: it's always it's always windy, there's always serf. I'm just yelling.
Speaker 1: So so here's another one. Here's another quite for you man.
Speaker 1: Like you know, in a guide game, so often you
Speaker 1: know it's the guy's job to untangle your nuts and
Speaker 1: tie on your ship and this that and the other thing.
Speaker 1: But when you're putting a guy on a rock here
Speaker 1: and you're not and you're not like right next to
Speaker 1: the dude, how does that work? Like what if dude,
Speaker 1: fires went off, and it's like, screw no, man. I
Speaker 1: mean that that. You know, the older I get, the
Speaker 1: harder it gets, you know. I mean sometimes I've taken
Speaker 1: out two guys and I have one guy on this
Speaker 1: rock and and one guy on that rock, and I'm
Speaker 1: in this I call guide rock all the time, because
Speaker 1: I get the shittiest rockets, you know, like that big
Speaker 1: and I got both feet on it, and I'm like
Speaker 1: in my fifties, you know, and uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: one guy have his freaking he's all tangled up or
Speaker 1: he snagged on something, and and so then I have
Speaker 1: to get down off my rock in the surf, you know,
Speaker 1: way out in big water or light water, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and go untangle that guy. And meanwhile I got the
Speaker 1: guy on my right hand. Oh bill, Bill, I got
Speaker 1: on a fish or oh my god, I got a not.
Speaker 1: Now I've got two guys. I'm going back and forth
Speaker 1: in the surf between the two guys. Now, I know
Speaker 1: I look like I'm a fat guy and couldn't do that,
Speaker 1: but I trust to trust me. When I'm in the surf,
Speaker 1: I'm a different person. Man. I hope you guys found
Speaker 1: that as entertaining as we did. And while we don't
Speaker 1: normally plug websites on this show, if you're one of
Speaker 1: those masochists and you want the real Montalk surf experience,
Speaker 1: surf Rat's ball dot com, that's where you'll find Bill
Speaker 1: and not just to book them, because the guy is
Speaker 1: also just a wealth of surf casting info. And and
Speaker 1: let me stress, what you're booking here is truly an experience, right,
Speaker 1: I know, like we say that about a lot of booking,
Speaker 1: book your experience, experience. It's an experience. Strong chance you
Speaker 1: will catch some bass with Bill one way or the other.
Speaker 1: But like you, you book that for the whole show,
Speaker 1: not just the fish. You know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: mean it seems like you book it the test yourself.
Speaker 1: Can I can I hang with this guy? I want to?
Speaker 1: I'll it seems like my kind of jam, to be honest,
Speaker 1: And I can see you doing this. Yeah. Like part
Speaker 1: of the reason I say that is I imagined that
Speaker 1: whole late night rock hopping is a pretty solitary game.
Speaker 1: Like it's It's very different from packing a boat with
Speaker 1: buddies or setting up next to each other in a run.
Speaker 1: And I do like the social aspect of fishing. But
Speaker 1: to me, there's something about that solitary, really driven type
Speaker 1: of fishing that that attracts me. Yes, and you and
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, which is what makes Bills seeing you know,
Speaker 1: his gig kind of unique because really it's not a
Speaker 1: social thing. You know, on the beach in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day, with the truck out there and your buddies.
Speaker 1: That's one thing that the dot the drilled down kick
Speaker 1: out to a rock stand on a rock Um, it's
Speaker 1: not a social thing at all. You might show up
Speaker 1: with a buddy, but you might not see him again
Speaker 1: until you're both back at the truck hours later. You
Speaker 1: like hardcore surf fishing in Montauk and Block Island. It's
Speaker 1: a very me against nature kind of deal. But Bill
Speaker 1: has has somehow made it work as a guide gig
Speaker 1: and like for a long time, like he's been doing
Speaker 1: this a long time though I don't imagine he's getting
Speaker 1: like a lot of corporate bookings, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like where the entire the entire I T staff shows
Speaker 1: up to fish with Bill. You know a thing you
Speaker 1: can do do The entire I T staff might show up,
Speaker 1: but only half of them would still be around like
Speaker 1: when you dragged shovel on into the bar at the
Speaker 1: end of it, like you might have Psnutrician there. That's Darwinism,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Survival of the fittest? You know, need to
Speaker 1: we needed you need to scale down your I T.
Speaker 1: Department a little bit, you know what I mean with Bill,
Speaker 1: But speaking to bars, we are going to stay in
Speaker 1: Montalk for just a little bit longer and we're gonna
Speaker 1: scope out where many of the striperman in what is
Speaker 1: arguably the officiest town in the Northeast go for SuDS.
Speaker 1: Also keeping up with storytelling here, uh, this week's that's
Speaker 1: my Bar nomination and background is being brought to us
Speaker 1: by none other than Bent correspondent Captain Zach hammer Miller.
Speaker 1: We're just gonna kind of stay out of this one
Speaker 1: and just let him throw down because this joint holds
Speaker 1: a special place in his heart. Best God damn Bartender
Speaker 1: from Tim buck to to Portland's Maine Portland argument for
Speaker 1: that matter, This is Captain Zach the hammer Miller throw
Speaker 1: down fishing charters, And I am here to tell you
Speaker 1: if you were ever fortunate enough to roll through mont
Speaker 1: Talk a k a. The surf fishing capital of the
Speaker 1: world that you have to stop at one of the
Speaker 1: best bars I've ever been to in my life called
Speaker 1: Liar Saloon. It has everything you want in a little
Speaker 1: crappy dive bar at the end of the earth. It
Speaker 1: has a jukebox you could still play Pantera on a
Speaker 1: foosball table that sometimes eats your coins, and some rickety
Speaker 1: bar stools, and some very very scary bartenders. For instance,
Speaker 1: the first time I was going to Liars, it was
Speaker 1: about two am, and we were stumbling up from our
Speaker 1: motel just down the street, and we heard it was
Speaker 1: the only place that was open in town. And as
Speaker 1: we made our way through this giant dirt parking lot,
Speaker 1: there was a bunch of people on this wooden ramp
Speaker 1: that leads up to the bar, and they were outside
Speaker 1: smoking and having a drink and just hanging out. And
Speaker 1: when we made it halfway up the ramp, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this dude comes flying out of the door,
Speaker 1: hits the railing and falls down, and I'm like, holy
Speaker 1: sh it, what is going on here? So the dude
Speaker 1: gets up, and all of a sudden, this like seventy
Speaker 1: or eighty year old lady comes around the corner with
Speaker 1: her fist cocked back all the way to Japan, saying
Speaker 1: I'll give you another one if you come back here again.
Speaker 1: The kid keeps talking his ship, and the lady punched
Speaker 1: him square in the freaking face again. It was absolutely unbelievable,
Speaker 1: And from then on, every time I'm up there, they
Speaker 1: could have all my money, they could have all my time,
Speaker 1: they could have all my lies, they could their foosball
Speaker 1: table could eat all my coins, and their jukebox could
Speaker 1: take all my tokens for Pantera? What else do you
Speaker 1: want in a place that looks like it's better situated
Speaker 1: with Mark Wahlberg sitting at a bar in the perfect storm, then,
Speaker 1: liars salut, I feel like that was if b Arthur
Speaker 1: had a role in Roadhouse. That's how it would have
Speaker 1: gone down. Yeah, man, I want to drink there. I
Speaker 1: you can't make that kind of stuff up. I want
Speaker 1: to go. I want to drink there, and I want
Speaker 1: to go with Zack. Yeah you should. I mean he
Speaker 1: only drinks bush lattes, so I don't know if they
Speaker 1: serve that, but that that's yeah. But you're right, it's
Speaker 1: like it's like Roadhouse meats Golden Girls. Um, and of
Speaker 1: course I've been there and it's a super cool spot
Speaker 1: for sure, very iconic and very different from the wine
Speaker 1: bars and like tapas restaurants in the nearby Hampton's Like
Speaker 1: it's it's a cool spot. I'll just assume there's some
Speaker 1: level of exaggeration in that story because it's just that
Speaker 1: one probably, um, But it's based mostly on facts. So anyway,
Speaker 1: speaking of facts, we're about to throw some at you
Speaker 1: in this week's much anticipated fish News. Fish News that
Speaker 1: escalated quickly. Hey, so you know we already told you
Speaker 1: how pumped we are about b Side Fishing having finally
Speaker 1: dropped this week. But up if yeah, if you're a
Speaker 1: fan of episode one, and I hope you were, um,
Speaker 1: and you don't, as in, do not feel like waiting
Speaker 1: for the other episodes to roll out over the course
Speaker 1: of the next month, we can actually give you a
Speaker 1: secret code to watch them all right now, So grab
Speaker 1: a pencil and a post it note. The code is up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right,
Speaker 1: be a start, of course, I'm kidding. That's that's just
Speaker 1: the code to get an instant thirty Lives and Contra
Speaker 1: on Nintendo. But you already knew that assume you knew that.
Speaker 1: Of course I did, except except you forgot the select
Speaker 1: button select. So even if that was the code, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have worked worked at all. But we we actually
Speaker 1: do have a secret code that absolutely will work. Uh.
Speaker 1: Mediator just launched a newsletter called Fishing Weekly with Joe
Speaker 1: Surmillian crew. I guess I'm in the crew. And if
Speaker 1: you signed up for it, if you guys sign up
Speaker 1: for it, we will send you a link to watch
Speaker 1: every single season one episode of B side Fishing right
Speaker 1: this minute, right now. You get them all. Yep, you
Speaker 1: are you are the main guy in the crew, and
Speaker 1: that is all correct. Uh. And look, not only will
Speaker 1: signing up for our newsletter keep you plugged into all
Speaker 1: the cool new fishing ship we're doing a Mediator um,
Speaker 1: but you can consider this like a friendly email directly
Speaker 1: from me, your buddy Joe. See, I'm gonna say, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say dumb ship and write dumb ship. That will
Speaker 1: entice you to look at all the cool stuff that
Speaker 1: we're doing. There might even be there might even be
Speaker 1: like a degenerate corner of sorts where I recommend some tunage,
Speaker 1: some jams, maybe tell you what I think you should
Speaker 1: be listening to if you want us to think you're
Speaker 1: cooler than we already think you are. So that's another
Speaker 1: thing it's gonna do. There. There'll be music. Joe is
Speaker 1: also gonna be pointing out all sorts of dumb, weird,
Speaker 1: non phishing related ship he finds on the Internet, which
Speaker 1: I get on a regular basis, So now it's it's
Speaker 1: not just me. I'm always like if you watch that
Speaker 1: and you're like, no yet, I'm very busy. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen that, So they'll be the weird Joe ship. Plus,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just gonna use this as a space
Speaker 1: to keep you guys up to date on all the
Speaker 1: fishing content we're making, from new shows, two episodes of
Speaker 1: the podcast, to feature articles, all the good stuff, right,
Speaker 1: and all these gyms are gonna be exclusive to Fishing Weekly.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like the newsletter for the degenerate club
Speaker 1: that we're all in and if you don't sign up,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll be stuck listening to Yellow Card with Phil
Speaker 1: behind the comic bookstore. And I'm sure anymore there's probably
Speaker 1: a newsletter for that crowd too. Yeah, Phil going down
Speaker 1: swinging on that, Phil, get that I'm not sorry, Phil,
Speaker 1: I got I got one more bit of housekeeping before
Speaker 1: before we hit news. We we and I particularly got
Speaker 1: a lot of feedback about the debate that Joe and
Speaker 1: I did over birding and if it's lame or not,
Speaker 1: and a surprising number of you wrote in supportive birding
Speaker 1: and to criticize my lad cluster ability to argue in
Speaker 1: favor of its merits. Apparently I let a lot of
Speaker 1: people down there. Uh. I'm just gonna quote from one
Speaker 1: of my personal favorite emails that we got came from
Speaker 1: listener Katie Kilgis, and it was simply titled go birding assholes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a good one. This is a good one.
Speaker 1: Katie made some solid points, one of which being that
Speaker 1: I'm a dumbass because no one carries bird books anymore.
Speaker 1: They have apps for that because of course the du
Speaker 1: She recommended the Merlin bird i D which connects to Ebert,
Speaker 1: which is an international online database. Katie went on to say,
Speaker 1: quote Ebert is used by scientists all over the world
Speaker 1: to track migrants yearly from citizen scientists, one could argue
Speaker 1: Ebert is one of the greatest uses of citizen scientists
Speaker 1: out there. Even kids can use it, get your head
Speaker 1: out of the water and look up just once in
Speaker 1: a while. It's lame, but so are people. And uh,
Speaker 1: can I get an amend for that one? For Katie
Speaker 1: on that one, hey, man, it was good. It was
Speaker 1: it was good. It was good. She I just want
Speaker 1: to point out that she ended with loved the podcast,
Speaker 1: like it wasn't a total take. It's like you guys
Speaker 1: are kind of being MUCKs right now. I mean I think,
Speaker 1: like I like what you're doing, but like that was
Speaker 1: that was Yeah, So no, I very much appreciated that.
Speaker 1: Um is that all your housekeeping? That's all you got? Okay,
Speaker 1: So we can move on to our news data base,
Speaker 1: see what we do there, and then, as always, remember
Speaker 1: this is a competition. Miles and I do not know
Speaker 1: which stories the other guy is bringing to the table.
Speaker 1: When we are done, Uh, Phil, our engineer will declare
Speaker 1: one of us a winner. You've already taken a shot
Speaker 1: at Phil today, but then I followed up and took
Speaker 1: another shot, so we're both kind of on like even
Speaker 1: the ground being in Phil's favor. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But
Speaker 1: you do get to lead off, so have at it, man,
Speaker 1: fire away. I'm gonna I'm gonna lead with a story
Speaker 1: that's not exactly uplifting, because that's kind of my beat.
Speaker 1: I take the depressing ships, but it feels important, so
Speaker 1: here goes. On March, leaks were discovered in a holding
Speaker 1: pool that contained about four hundred million gallons of wastewater
Speaker 1: from the Piney Point Phosphate plant in Manatee County, Florida.
Speaker 1: The league worsened over the following days, prompting fears of
Speaker 1: a containment wall collapse, which would have sent a twenty
Speaker 1: foot wall of water cascading through residential and commercial areas
Speaker 1: UH and been a real bad deal. More than three
Speaker 1: hundred homes were evacuated, as well as the first floor
Speaker 1: of the county jail as emergency cruise first tried to
Speaker 1: shore up the reservoir, and after that proved unsuccessful, rushed
Speaker 1: to discharge the wastewater Crews avoided the potential catastrophe of
Speaker 1: a breach reservoir and subsequent flooding. But now nearly three
Speaker 1: million gallons of wastewater have been flushed into Tampa Bay,
Speaker 1: and the obvious question on my mind is how's that
Speaker 1: gonna impact the marine ecosystem and the fishery and the
Speaker 1: fish of course, So the Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Speaker 1: has repeatedly said that the wastewater meets water quality marine
Speaker 1: standards for discharge except for elevated levels of nitrogen, phosphorus,
Speaker 1: and pneumonia. And when I talked to Chris Whitman, co
Speaker 1: founder of the Florida based nonprofit Captains for Clean Water,
Speaker 1: he told me, quote, that's like getting pulled over and
Speaker 1: telling the cop you were meeting the standards for legal
Speaker 1: driving except for being drunk, speeding, and having a suspended license.
Speaker 1: So far, no evidence of fish or manatee kills have
Speaker 1: been reported, but the danger from this particular kind of
Speaker 1: pollution emerges in the long term, right because we've we've
Speaker 1: done we talked about this for in past episodes. We've
Speaker 1: covered the impacts that elevated levels of nutrients like phosphorus
Speaker 1: and nitrogen are having on marine ecosystems, especially in Florida.
Speaker 1: They're contributing to massive algae blooms, habitat instruction, fish kills,
Speaker 1: and and red hides like what happened in the Tampa Bay.
Speaker 1: Water Keepers estimate that this spill dumped the equivalent of
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand bags of fertilizer into the bay, which
Speaker 1: is definitely not something this estuary needs. Tampa Bay, Tampa
Speaker 1: has actually been a relative success story over the past
Speaker 1: few decades in terms of dealing with nutrient loading. In
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, much of the bays marine habitat
Speaker 1: and seagratts were decimated by phosphate plants and sewage, but
Speaker 1: through a lot of work and a lot of money,
Speaker 1: more than forty acres of sea grass has been been rehabilitated,
Speaker 1: and this event threatens to undermine all that recovery. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna have to kind of wait and see
Speaker 1: what happens with this situation. It's not like a we
Speaker 1: we can't exactly predict what's going to happen, and we
Speaker 1: will follow up with you as we need to. But
Speaker 1: this incident caused me to look into something I'd never
Speaker 1: even thought about before. Before this story broke, I gotta
Speaker 1: admit I didn't know anything at all about phosphate mining,
Speaker 1: and I certainly did not know that Central Florida is
Speaker 1: the phosphate capital of the world, producing one quarter of
Speaker 1: global supply. Oh I didn't know that either, right, No
Speaker 1: idea yeah, yeah, yeah, And like to be clear and fair,
Speaker 1: we need fertilizer. Like fertilizer is necessary if we're gonna
Speaker 1: you know, feed the world and all all the things
Speaker 1: we need to do for producing plants, all that important ship.
Speaker 1: But this industry has a problematic track record when it
Speaker 1: comes to environmental impacts. In Florida, the process of phosphate mining,
Speaker 1: this is way dumb down, but it goes something like this,
Speaker 1: extract or from the earth, treat it with phosphoric acid
Speaker 1: to extract the useful phosphate. You're then left with a
Speaker 1: whole lot of phosphogypsum, a radioactive waste product. And for
Speaker 1: every ton of the phosphate that you're hoping to get,
Speaker 1: you produce five tons of the phosphogypsum waste. You then
Speaker 1: pile that radioactive material into massive towers called jip stacks
Speaker 1: and cover them in water. The result is dozens of
Speaker 1: massive lagoons all over Florida full of radioactive water that
Speaker 1: also you know, happened to contain high nutrient loads and
Speaker 1: heavy metals just for the electric spice. Sure, sprinkle it
Speaker 1: in little there and it turns out And this is
Speaker 1: this is a part that wasn't very actively covered in
Speaker 1: a lot of the news. What happened to Piney Point
Speaker 1: was it was actually kind of a best case scenario.
Speaker 1: The pond that failed is one of three ponds on
Speaker 1: that site of of the defunct phosphate mind that went
Speaker 1: bankrupt in two thousand one. And that pond that failed
Speaker 1: is by far the least toxic of the three because
Speaker 1: it holds mostly seawater from a dredging project. If one
Speaker 1: of the other two ponds, which are full of jip
Speaker 1: stack waste, were to have failed, we'd be looking at
Speaker 1: a much more serious catastrophe. And just a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago, Governed the Santis announced a cleanup plan for
Speaker 1: Piney Point that could end up costing Florida taxpayers two
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to to mitigate and put back together
Speaker 1: this mess left behind by industry. And that's just one
Speaker 1: of many similar sites all over the state. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna close this segment with a with a statement put
Speaker 1: out by Captains for Clean Water because I very much
Speaker 1: respect those folks and the work they do their locals, Floridians,
Speaker 1: fishing guides who who just now work trying to protect
Speaker 1: the resources and the fisheries around their home state. They're
Speaker 1: they're just good people. Uh, and they know more about
Speaker 1: this than a podcast host in Montana. So here here's
Speaker 1: a quote from Chris Whitman to close it out. We
Speaker 1: need our state legislature to introduce meaningful policy that holds
Speaker 1: polluters accountable for environmental impacts like this. The Florida legislature
Speaker 1: has systematically dismantled regulations to serve and benefit special interests.
Speaker 1: These special interests, in this case phosphate mining, are profiting
Speaker 1: off of Florida's resources at the expense of our state,
Speaker 1: citizens and environment. They make their profits, exhaust the resource,
Speaker 1: and then leave the mess to ax pairs. We have
Speaker 1: to see new legislation that prevents special interests from continuing
Speaker 1: this kind of bad business that exploits our state and citizens.
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree with all that, dude, And this
Speaker 1: is like a it's a it's another terrible scenario. But
Speaker 1: isn't it sad to say, Like I I hear this
Speaker 1: story and I'm like, man, this is just so Florida.
Speaker 1: Like when I think of Florida over the last couple
Speaker 1: of decades, it's almost like, if it's not one thing,
Speaker 1: it's another like these poor guys are always just constantly
Speaker 1: fighting this battle YEP with with legislators and and just
Speaker 1: blind eyes being turned to just horrible shit happening to
Speaker 1: their ecosystems down there. And I had a long talk
Speaker 1: with Chris about this, and he made a lot of
Speaker 1: really great points that didn't make another story. But the
Speaker 1: thing he kept kept hitting on is it's not the
Speaker 1: industry's fault, Like, the industry is not breaking the law right,
Speaker 1: the legislature is not forcing them to be held accountable.
Speaker 1: They're just doing what they should, just doing good business.
Speaker 1: And it's it is, according to him, from his perspective,
Speaker 1: the responsibility of the legislature to enact laws that put
Speaker 1: these corporations in a situation where they have to be
Speaker 1: responsible for the forces them to do it the right
Speaker 1: way exactly. So, yeah, I know you're right. I get
Speaker 1: what you're saying. It's a tough spot because they're not
Speaker 1: breaking the law because the right law doesn't exist right essentially,
Speaker 1: that's what's happening. It's it's not that different from you know,
Speaker 1: the big fight that Captains for Clean Water has been
Speaker 1: part of is the sugar cane industry. And he made
Speaker 1: a lot of comparisons between sugarcane and yeah, exactly for sure.
Speaker 1: For sure. Well, um, I'm I'm certain we're gonna have
Speaker 1: some follow up on this May. We even have Chris
Speaker 1: on at some point to still still sort of a
Speaker 1: developing story. But since we're talking about laws and Florida,
Speaker 1: that is just could not be a better transition for me.
Speaker 1: We're gonna stay in Florida and we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: stay talking about laws in a different way. I, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, I have good news. Okay, Um, while
Speaker 1: Florida residents we don't know what is going to happen
Speaker 1: to Tampa Bay, you can finally sleep soundly again because
Speaker 1: after nearly a year on the LAMB, fugitive Daniel Arman
Speaker 1: Dares has finally turned himself into authorities, and as we
Speaker 1: all know, thanks to them never ending news coverage, Arma
Speaker 1: Dares is the criminal mastermind wanted for diving into the
Speaker 1: tank at the Gulf Coast town Center bass Pro Shops
Speaker 1: in May. I can feel the sigh of relief being
Speaker 1: breathed around the country right now this this story. So
Speaker 1: according to this story, this is from news press dot Com.
Speaker 1: This incident occurred on May Arman Dares has said repeatedly
Speaker 1: this is this is this is what he says. It
Speaker 1: just kind of happened. Oh so that was the reasoning,
Speaker 1: as if to suggest the mood just struck him, and
Speaker 1: per the story, he uh swam across the huge tanks expanse,
Speaker 1: hauled himself out and then ran dripping way out of
Speaker 1: the store. Okay, So I really enjoyed this one by that,
Speaker 1: So it's just going to get better. So I think
Speaker 1: it's safe to say that the twenty eight year old
Speaker 1: armada Is thought this would just be like ha ha funny.
Speaker 1: But no, like the authorities wanted him and they weren't
Speaker 1: going to just like they weren't gonna let up, right,
Speaker 1: And he was quickly identified as the tank jumper on
Speaker 1: the Facebook page Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers and charged with trespassing.
Speaker 1: But instead of turning himself in, he just ducked the
Speaker 1: cops and blabbed on the internet about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So here's a post armadar Is apparently put on the
Speaker 1: Facebook group Florida Boys with a Z Hunting and Fishing right. Also,
Speaker 1: this this post confirms uh, this incident was not his
Speaker 1: first dust up with the law. Okay, soccer expletive expletive.
Speaker 1: I'm tired of you looking for me like I'm some
Speaker 1: most wanted fugitive over a little tank dive ten question
Speaker 1: marks L O L. Come on now, well you know what,
Speaker 1: bess P. I've breed fish since I was nine years old.
Speaker 1: You can kiss my expletive about the three thousand dollar
Speaker 1: decontamination expletive. Yeah, I expletive expletive diving in. But who
Speaker 1: doesn't want to dive in that beautiful tank? And who
Speaker 1: has been blasted this hard and charged with felonies ten
Speaker 1: question marks? Since all since I came and read this,
Speaker 1: since all you authorities want to blast me like I'm
Speaker 1: some nasty criminal and offer awards, well, guess what, get
Speaker 1: to working even more because I'll turn myself in when
Speaker 1: I'm ready. You guys have put me out to be
Speaker 1: a drug dealing, robbing, aggravated battery in criminal. But guess what,
Speaker 1: I beat all those charges. So that's wrong. Expletive man,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. S mates. You guys are
Speaker 1: pathetic expletive expletive expletive expletive. This was printed in the
Speaker 1: news story. The whole, the whole, entire passage right, there,
Speaker 1: isn't that going? Well? Guess what? Arma Dares was arrested
Speaker 1: nearly two months later on the charges of trespassing. How
Speaker 1: did they finally get this guy? While the Sheriff's office
Speaker 1: received a call for service stating Armadares was on his
Speaker 1: way to the days in on South Cleveland Avenue threatening
Speaker 1: to shoot someone. He was he was at the motel
Speaker 1: the morning of July one, near a vehicle containing a
Speaker 1: pump action shotgun and more than two hundred rounds of ammunition,
Speaker 1: and charge with two counts of resisting arrest. Now, not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: he failed to peer in court twice in the months
Speaker 1: following his arrest, most recently in February and uh pulling
Speaker 1: another ace out of his deck. He moved to North Carolina,
Speaker 1: which could not extradite him back to Florida over bench Warrens.
Speaker 1: But I guess the heat was finally getting to be
Speaker 1: too much, because nearly a year after ruining what already
Speaker 1: sounded like a fairly shitty existence to swim with some
Speaker 1: bass and catfish, Armadaris is back in Florida and ready
Speaker 1: to face the music. He's gotten a lawyer. Likely, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna say by way of a billboard on some
Speaker 1: Florida back road. And this is the only quote in
Speaker 1: the piece from his lawyer. Right, we hear from the
Speaker 1: lawyer one time and he just says, we will take
Speaker 1: care of these warrants. We'll probably just go in dot
Speaker 1: dot dot and figure it out from there. So they
Speaker 1: over under that meth is somehow playing a role in this.
Speaker 1: You know, it's there's no question it sounds very methy
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, better call Saul is all I
Speaker 1: can think for this dude, exactly exactly, so I will say,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it sounds like dudes in all kinds
Speaker 1: of bad stuff. Like he's not like a nice dude,
Speaker 1: but there's also that little baby part of me that
Speaker 1: feels for him. It's like, Okay, I did a goofy thing.
Speaker 1: I jumped at a tank, and like you guys are
Speaker 1: really gonna like go this hard at me for that,
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, they did like to think that it's
Speaker 1: all the other things that are making them go hard
Speaker 1: at him. Maybe I'm wrong. Probably it's probably like, well
Speaker 1: he we we we already need to get him for
Speaker 1: these things, so like now we'll just had the tank.
Speaker 1: But he's making it sound like he's like an upstanding
Speaker 1: citizen except for this tank jump. Now that I'm saying this,
Speaker 1: it makes me think you don't cross bass pro man,
Speaker 1: Like if there is one entity in the fishing world
Speaker 1: that you can get but not not bass pro I
Speaker 1: mean now they're one and the same. So no, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna if you're going to cause problems in
Speaker 1: the with anybody in the fishing industry, that's probably not
Speaker 1: the right way to go. They have the resources to
Speaker 1: get you. Well, yeah, they have plenty of money and like,
Speaker 1: yeah they're that is true. They're not a little mom
Speaker 1: and pop tackle shop. They have resources and a legal team.
Speaker 1: The one thing I do question though, like do you
Speaker 1: really need to decontaminate that entire fish tank over one
Speaker 1: dude's women in it? Like come on, Like that's like
Speaker 1: one of the like money like on how much methidle,
Speaker 1: how much melted down robotusin or whatever is now and tank?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so yeah, yeah, speaking of substances that are
Speaker 1: worth far more than they probably should be at street value. Joe,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of Amber Grease? I actually do
Speaker 1: happen to know what Amber grease is? Yes? You do?
Speaker 1: You do? You want you want to you want to
Speaker 1: take this, I don't want to take it. I could
Speaker 1: tell you, I could tell the people what it is.
Speaker 1: To the best of my knowledge, it's giant gobs of
Speaker 1: like petrified solidified well vomit. That is worth shiploads of
Speaker 1: money if you know where to find it. And I
Speaker 1: know a guy. I don't know, but I know a guy,
Speaker 1: So that's straight That is straight upright. It is a
Speaker 1: dense waxy substance formed by the bile ducts in the
Speaker 1: intestines of sperm whales and sperm whales only not all
Speaker 1: whales just spurm. They didn't know that. And how about this?
Speaker 1: Giants guid beaks have been found within chunks of ambergrease,
Speaker 1: and the theory goes that the substance prevents sharp, undigestible
Speaker 1: objects like that from rupturing sperm whales and testines, right,
Speaker 1: because they eat cuttle fish and giant squid and they
Speaker 1: can't digest the beaks. So the theory is that the substance.
Speaker 1: They evolved the substance to kind of wrap up the
Speaker 1: sharp bits so it didn't come up from the inside out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and sperm whales probably expel amber grease like they do
Speaker 1: fecal matter, but if the mass is too large, they
Speaker 1: may vomit it up instead, hence the whale vomit thing.
Speaker 1: But bile just disagree on this point. No one's really
Speaker 1: sure how it comes out or even if it comes
Speaker 1: out fresh. Ambergrease is described as having a marine fecal odor,
Speaker 1: but as it flops around smrine fecal But as it
Speaker 1: floats around in the ocean and ages, it takes on
Speaker 1: a sweet, earthy, musky scent, which is often compared to
Speaker 1: rub being alcohol without the chemical extringency. Smell good. What
Speaker 1: does marine feel like? I know what dead rotten fish
Speaker 1: smells like, and I know what dogshit smells like. I
Speaker 1: don't know what like marine ship smells like? Who who
Speaker 1: says that? Okay? Several sources uh. Chunkes of ambergris can
Speaker 1: float around for years before eventually watching up on shore,
Speaker 1: which is where people usually find it. According to London's
Speaker 1: Natural History Museum, humans have used and valued rare ambergries
Speaker 1: for at least a thousand years, though its origin remained
Speaker 1: unknown until large scale whaling began in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: It's sometimes called floating gold or treasure of the sea.
Speaker 1: Or its other common name, as you pointed out, is
Speaker 1: whale vomit, which is somewhat less appealing straightforward. Early civilizations
Speaker 1: used ambergries for all kinds of applications, but it was
Speaker 1: highly prized as an aphrodisiac. Throughout the past few centuries,
Speaker 1: It's remained valuable because it contains and breen. I think
Speaker 1: that's how I'm both pronounced that which is added to
Speaker 1: perfume to make the scent lasts longer. In the last
Speaker 1: few decades, chemists have come up with with much cheaper
Speaker 1: synthetic alternatives, but super high end perfumes still used naturally
Speaker 1: occurring ambigras, so it remains incredibly valuable. High quality ambergris
Speaker 1: can sell for ten thousand dollars a pound, and an
Speaker 1: eight pound piece is considered a big find. But last
Speaker 1: February a group of Yemeni fishermen looked into a serious
Speaker 1: chunk of this stuff. I got a preface this by
Speaker 1: saying life is a commercial fisherman and Yemen there's never
Speaker 1: been like what we would consider kush comfortable or easy thing. No,
Speaker 1: these guys take take really small vessels out in the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Aiden, which is this water with the connects
Speaker 1: the Red Sea in the Arabian Sea and on like
Speaker 1: a particularly great outing. Like if every thing goes right,
Speaker 1: they're out for a few days and they come back
Speaker 1: to market with a full boat and everything goes perfectly.
Speaker 1: A Yemeni fisherman might earn the equivalent of fifty bucks
Speaker 1: each time, like when they really school right. But since
Speaker 1: civil war broke out in that already hard life has
Speaker 1: become like nearly impossible. Two thirds of the thirty million
Speaker 1: residents are relying on humanitarian aid right now, and and
Speaker 1: it's it's it's really tough for fisherman because many parts
Speaker 1: of the Yemeni coast are war zones, so fishing is
Speaker 1: prohibited in certain places, and and even unrestricted areas can
Speaker 1: just erupt in conflict like it's a bad deal. So
Speaker 1: the fisherman who found this ambergris in the story are
Speaker 1: from the village of al Qaisa. I believe an area
Speaker 1: okay an area in the Southern Aidan province, and that
Speaker 1: that zone like this is a board context. That zone
Speaker 1: they're they're in has less fighting and fewer restrictions. And
Speaker 1: on the day that they struck whale goal, they just
Speaker 1: happened to have this other guy on board with them
Speaker 1: who's from a village further north, and this guy had
Speaker 1: fled the war to to a more a safer part,
Speaker 1: to to earn a living. He was he was also
Speaker 1: a fisherman, but he's like, I can't fish my homeland,
Speaker 1: so I come south. He hopped on these guys boats.
Speaker 1: They went out and they're on their way to the
Speaker 1: fishing grounds and they pass a large dead sperm whale
Speaker 1: that had been floating around in the area for some time.
Speaker 1: One of the local fishermen told the Mideast I quote,
Speaker 1: we had passed by that same dead fish more than once,
Speaker 1: and we didn't give it any attention, as the sea
Speaker 1: is full of dead fish. But on this particular trip,
Speaker 1: they had that dude from the northern village with them,
Speaker 1: and he recognized that that was a sperm whale, and
Speaker 1: he like he knew about the ambergris, so he told
Speaker 1: him like, hold on, guys, we got forget about the fishing.
Speaker 1: We got taken this whale. And I could imagine the
Speaker 1: conversation that went on when they're like, you want us
Speaker 1: to do what He's like, no, no no, no, we gotta
Speaker 1: take in this whale. Carcass are you getting to the
Speaker 1: legality of this, because like, can you do that? I
Speaker 1: mean over here, what's like you cannot mess with a
Speaker 1: dead marine mammal. Okay, they're not concerned about that problems
Speaker 1: like a global law. I don't know, no, I there
Speaker 1: it is actually leval what they did. I tug you
Speaker 1: to that. It's it's legit. They're not they're not breaking
Speaker 1: any laws. Um. So they had to get a bunch
Speaker 1: of other boats to drag this thing in. And again
Speaker 1: this is guy's that outsiders convincing all these fishermen like, hey,
Speaker 1: stop doing what you're doing. You know it's gonna make
Speaker 1: you money. Trust me. We dragged this whale carcass and
Speaker 1: it's gonna be great. And then ultimately they got the
Speaker 1: whole village involved. Over over one fishermen helped drag and
Speaker 1: dismember this just like disgustingly rotten beast up on the beach,
Speaker 1: which again you're putting a lot on these guys, like
Speaker 1: now now now start hacking this thing up. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: did this dude? Like, isn't it also a gamble? Like
Speaker 1: did he know? How do you know? There's it's it's
Speaker 1: like in an oyster you could eat ten million oysters
Speaker 1: and not find a pearl, like you. Only five per
Speaker 1: cent of whale carcasses have this in him, and usually
Speaker 1: it's just a small amount. So he had to be
Speaker 1: a very compelling dude. And it worked out because they
Speaker 1: found a chunk of amber grease in that whale that
Speaker 1: weighed two hundred and eighty pounds. Oh my god. And
Speaker 1: so then they all had to like rally together and
Speaker 1: take turns guarding that foul smelling awfulness until they were
Speaker 1: able to like find someone to sell it to. And
Speaker 1: they sold it to a broker from the United Arab
Speaker 1: Emirates for the equivalent of one point five million dollars,
Speaker 1: which they then distributed throughout the community. So like most
Speaker 1: families got twelve thousand bucks, which is enough for a
Speaker 1: young fisherman to marry and build a house or to
Speaker 1: purchase his own boat, which is like a total game
Speaker 1: changer for these folks. And they distributed like the whole
Speaker 1: it was a village of a thousand families. They distributed out.
Speaker 1: Everybody got what they needed. They bought medicines for folks.
Speaker 1: Like was a really great story of not just hey,
Speaker 1: we found this thing and we pirated it and we
Speaker 1: have a couple of people got rich, Like they really
Speaker 1: used it to distribute funds throughout the community, and this
Speaker 1: whole fishing village is now better off for it. And
Speaker 1: it's just it's a rare bit of good news coming
Speaker 1: out a part of the world that doesn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of good news these days. And it came in
Speaker 1: the form of whale vomit I did. I gotta say, man,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like this is this is prompting me
Speaker 1: to do more research, because there's so much more I
Speaker 1: want to know, like how often does this wash up?
Speaker 1: Where does it wash up most often? Like can I
Speaker 1: find this Fourth of July weekend at like my in
Speaker 1: law's beach house, Like the most commonplace to find is
Speaker 1: the Bahamas? And I also wonder Amber Greece, k belize
Speaker 1: is that name? Because like it used to wash up
Speaker 1: there more or something, or at least it washed up
Speaker 1: there once. Yeah, But then my next question would be
Speaker 1: if I if I do on fourth of July weekend,
Speaker 1: like stumble on this right, Like who the hell do
Speaker 1: you call? Like now I gotta unload two pounds Amber Greece,
Speaker 1: Like we call the fish market, Like what who do
Speaker 1: you call? That ship on Facebook, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Facebook market Place. If that comes up, it's definitely gonna
Speaker 1: be a sale ban. I'm just saying, right, Yeah, but dude,
Speaker 1: I know I think that's I think that's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I also had no idea that anybody was still used
Speaker 1: not in cosmetics and perfume, Like that's got to be
Speaker 1: some super high end stuff because you think about it,
Speaker 1: it's sustainable. You don't actually have to I knew historically
Speaker 1: we used whale blubber for cosmetics and oil lamps, and
Speaker 1: that's why we killed like almost every whale. But the
Speaker 1: whale doesn't have to die to get this stuff. So yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I could see, especially in like the boutique world we
Speaker 1: live in, there's got to be some perfume makers whatever
Speaker 1: they're called, that are just like, man, you must smell,
Speaker 1: you must smell real good. So we'll move on from
Speaker 1: fecal matter. Is she smelled a marine? Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: great selling point there. I'm gonna stay I'm gonna stay
Speaker 1: on dead fish here. Uh, not not a big one,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them. And this is a short
Speaker 1: story that's just gonna I think lead to some some
Speaker 1: some conversation here. It also lets me stay in crime.
Speaker 1: I'm doing the crime thing today. I'm like the c
Speaker 1: S I to catch predator, America's most wanted for anglers today.
Speaker 1: So we already got some bitch that had the audacity
Speaker 1: to jump in the bass pro tank. Uh, let's move
Speaker 1: on to catch criminal. Um. Anyway, this is a this
Speaker 1: is a short but poignant story. Um. And this comes
Speaker 1: from Arizona's a Z family dot com headline. Police make
Speaker 1: arrest after one thousand pounds of fish were dumped in Phoenix,
Speaker 1: and it's it's such a short story. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna burn through it. Police have arrested a
Speaker 1: suspect in connection to one thousand pounds of fish that
Speaker 1: were found dumped along a Phoenix road on Tuesday. Police
Speaker 1: sergeant and Justice said detectives were able to develop probable
Speaker 1: calls to arrest forty two year old Russell Omar Howard Thursday.
Speaker 1: It started when police were called to the area of
Speaker 1: fifth teenth Avenue and Pinnacle Peak Road for reports of
Speaker 1: illegal dumping. When officers arrived, they found a large pile
Speaker 1: of trash, including several dead fish. Arizona Game and Fish
Speaker 1: confirmed to Arizona family that at least one thousand pounds
Speaker 1: of carp and gizzard, chad boxes and trash from a
Speaker 1: spear fishing tournament at Lake Pleasant over the weekend. We're
Speaker 1: dumped in the area of Fifteenth Avenue and Pinnacle Peak Road,
Speaker 1: and this dude now faces one count of criminal littering,
Speaker 1: which is a Class six felony. So I did a
Speaker 1: little research in the Lake Pleasant spear fishing. Didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about it. And this is a big deal there,
Speaker 1: Like it's a um you know, fairly big tourist destination.
Speaker 1: It's it's very clear, at least from the videos I've seen,
Speaker 1: and it seems a lot of people go there to
Speaker 1: spearfish for strypers, serious dudes. And I was trying to
Speaker 1: find information on this specific tournament to see if it
Speaker 1: was judged by total weight or what. Um I didn't
Speaker 1: really find much, but regardless, this is very similar, in
Speaker 1: my opinion to the Sebago Lake trout story we covered,
Speaker 1: um you know, in that this act, like this ship
Speaker 1: gives an entire faction of anglers a bad name. And
Speaker 1: in the case of Spega, it was ice fisherman looking
Speaker 1: kind of like pigs basically for for leaving all these
Speaker 1: dead fish on the ice, and I think this, like
Speaker 1: what happened here in Phoenix, this is something that not
Speaker 1: only tarnishes the spear fishing community, but bow fisherman for sure.
Speaker 1: And for the record, I don't know if I don't
Speaker 1: know if I've ever said this on this show, but
Speaker 1: I actually I really enjoy bow fishing, and it's it's
Speaker 1: not something that I do often, but I find it
Speaker 1: extremely fun. And I can also say that I've never
Speaker 1: been in a position where I had to figure out
Speaker 1: what to do with the forty five carpie shot because
Speaker 1: I can't shoot whereth the ship Like I just I'm
Speaker 1: really and and as I'm as I'm doing it, I'm
Speaker 1: like aim low and then I know all the things
Speaker 1: this somehow at the last second, it just doesn't touch
Speaker 1: the fish. So this is not a personal issue that
Speaker 1: I have, um but you know, what happens to piles
Speaker 1: of common carp whether they were shot with a spire
Speaker 1: arrow is is one of those things that I think
Speaker 1: people in general sort of turn a blind eye to.
Speaker 1: It's like everyone knows the vast majority of the time
Speaker 1: those fish are probably gonna be wasted, like not many
Speaker 1: people are finding plates for a hundred pounds of fried
Speaker 1: common carp meat. Um. But what keeps people from going
Speaker 1: overly ballistic about the sport is simply not seeing it,
Speaker 1: you know. And um, you know, one of the guys
Speaker 1: I used to shoot with, he swore that he had
Speaker 1: people eager to take his fish to eat. And again,
Speaker 1: up here on the river, you're not having a hundred
Speaker 1: fish night like you would in Texas or where you know.
Speaker 1: It's it's just not you don't shoot that many fish. Um.
Speaker 1: And another buddy of mine, he said he had the
Speaker 1: best racket going because he trade the carp with commercial
Speaker 1: lobster guys for lobsters, because apparently carp make like exceptional
Speaker 1: trap bait. But yeah, exactly, the lobster guys say that
Speaker 1: man common carp is terrific lobster bait for their traps. Um.
Speaker 1: But I mean, look, I never saw any of that
Speaker 1: in my own eyes. I trusted that was the case
Speaker 1: because these were buddies of mine, and that made me
Speaker 1: sleep a little easier after my one or two boat
Speaker 1: trips a season. And I don't want to make it
Speaker 1: sound like I was overly upset about taking a few
Speaker 1: carp out of the river. But I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a rodding real guy first that that mostly catches
Speaker 1: and releases, which is why I would never bow fish
Speaker 1: like twice a week all summer. Like it's it's too
Speaker 1: much like a trip here and there. Every once in
Speaker 1: a while, I can get behind that um. But you know,
Speaker 1: those fish could have ended up in a dumpster, which,
Speaker 1: while that might upset some people too, it's far better
Speaker 1: than dumping the fish on the side of the road
Speaker 1: because less chance for people to see it. And it's
Speaker 1: it's dumb moves like this that ruined ship for the
Speaker 1: responsible guys, or at least, I should say, the guys
Speaker 1: with enough sense to recognize that if you're going to
Speaker 1: waste a bunch of carp and shad like you waste
Speaker 1: them away from prying eyes. And I hate to say it,
Speaker 1: I hope the dude gets hit with the charges like
Speaker 1: that's a that's a that's a ship move. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The dumping is is a is a. Really, there's no question,
Speaker 1: that's not even a gray area. That's just that's just terrible.
Speaker 1: But the the issue of what to do with rough fish,
Speaker 1: then you both fish and I gotta I gotta step back.
Speaker 1: Common carp, I get gizzard shed Are those non native?
Speaker 1: Are those invasive? Are those an issue in the body
Speaker 1: of water that we're talking about here that I don't know,
Speaker 1: I would think not. I mean, man, gizzard chatter kind
Speaker 1: of everywhere. Yeah, So, I mean, like I can see
Speaker 1: that I get the justification common carp invasive fish problematic.
Speaker 1: I I struggle with the just the wanton waste of
Speaker 1: native fish species and rough fish. It's it's something that
Speaker 1: I actually I don't have a problem with both fishing
Speaker 1: and all, and I also enjoy it, but I don't
Speaker 1: do it very often, partially because I'm like, man, I
Speaker 1: shoot a couple of carp the hell? I mean, you
Speaker 1: put one in the garden or whatever, in a buddies garden, because,
Speaker 1: as we've already talked on the show, I've never successfully
Speaker 1: done that. But what do you do after that? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily want to eat them, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to have to figure out what to do with them.
Speaker 1: I recognize that it's is it legal to throw them
Speaker 1: away in a dumpster? I don't actually know the answer
Speaker 1: to that question. I don't I don't know it either.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's probably a state by state thing I
Speaker 1: truly don't know. But what I can tell you about
Speaker 1: the gizzard Chad, at least from some of my experience here,
Speaker 1: it's like I know a lot of bow fishermen that
Speaker 1: it's like, can I shoot that? Can I legally shoot that? Yes?
Speaker 1: Then I'll fire at it, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: And like gizzard Chad, it's like, oh, that is okay
Speaker 1: for me to shoot at, So I will shoot at it.
Speaker 1: Like I never really shot at a ton of gizzard Chad,
Speaker 1: Like I just that's not what I was out there for.
Speaker 1: Like you're trying to whack a couple of carp and
Speaker 1: it is what it is. But the question of why
Speaker 1: would you do that? Because you can? Because I just
Speaker 1: know there are bow guys who are like that, Like
Speaker 1: everything that comes into the lights, like can I shoot that? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: boom like and it's hit and this is and I
Speaker 1: know I hit this all the time. But this is
Speaker 1: where it brings me back to the big mouth buffalo thing,
Speaker 1: which we all know. I'm fully obsessed with big mouth buffalo,
Speaker 1: admit it. And I'm not excited about them being such
Speaker 1: a popular target for both fishers because I want them
Speaker 1: to be around for other reasons, because they're part of
Speaker 1: the ecosystem, and because I want to catch them. In
Speaker 1: other ways, I get harvesting a few them because I
Speaker 1: know they're delicious and great. If that's what you're doing,
Speaker 1: do it. It's legal. But I I struggle with the
Speaker 1: just the going out and just killing a bunch of fish.
Speaker 1: To kill a bunch of fish, particularly if they're native
Speaker 1: fish like suckers that are part of the ecosystem like that,
Speaker 1: that doesn't sit well with me. I can't condone that. Well,
Speaker 1: this is this is totally op ed. We're certainly not
Speaker 1: coming to a conclusion on this, But just to to
Speaker 1: point out that, I mean that dude's kind of a
Speaker 1: jerk for dumping all those fish there. And no matter
Speaker 1: where you stand on both fishing, I mean, you can't
Speaker 1: that that is exactly the kind of thing that gets
Speaker 1: hackles up in. This makes us look it makes us
Speaker 1: look bad. So I'm sure you know, hey, you know
Speaker 1: how to find us bend at the mediator dot com
Speaker 1: way in let us know what you think. We're gonna
Speaker 1: let Phil. We're gonna see what Phil thinks of us
Speaker 1: and our stories this week. Um, and then As soon
Speaker 1: as we're done doing that, believe it or not, I
Speaker 1: am getting us back on the striper scene with a
Speaker 1: freak in Philistine. I read a book. Joe read a book,
Speaker 1: so stay dude for that. It was educational, it was informative,
Speaker 1: it was entertaining. Miles, let's shower you in some amba.
Speaker 1: Grise you're the winner this week by referencing both the
Speaker 1: Konami Code and Fallout Boy. Yes, Joe, I got that reference.
Speaker 1: It seems like you guys are trying to both pander
Speaker 1: too and mock me at the same time. I feel
Speaker 1: like Carrie. If you guys end up crowning me prom
Speaker 1: queen next week, I swear to God, I will not
Speaker 1: even wait for that pigs blood. I will you up.
Speaker 1: What's to Fhilistine A guy who doesn't care about books
Speaker 1: or interesting films and things, But when David de Benedetto
Speaker 1: is on the run hit bookstore shelves in the early
Speaker 1: two thousand's, my soul was crushed. And at the time,
Speaker 1: I was in college, often fighting to stay awakened class
Speaker 1: because I'd been surf fishing all night, or skipping it
Speaker 1: entirely to catch the right tide on some North Jersey Jetty.
Speaker 1: I was also scheming about how I get my break
Speaker 1: in the outdoor journalism game, and one night it hit me,
Speaker 1: how cool would it be to follow the entire stripe
Speaker 1: bass migration up and down the East Coast and document it.
Speaker 1: It had never been done before, that is, until the
Speaker 1: Benedetto did it and wrote an entire book about it.
Speaker 1: I got over it pretty quickly, though, and I even
Speaker 1: wrote to Benedetto an emailed telling him how jealous I was,
Speaker 1: but also how much I loved the book, because, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, despite there being several other great books about
Speaker 1: the stripers scene out there, none came close to capturing
Speaker 1: the entirety of it so beautifully. Growing up in the nineties,
Speaker 1: stripe bass were almost non existent to me. They were
Speaker 1: mythic on a tinable, and their rebound coincided with that
Speaker 1: point in my life when you're just old enough to
Speaker 1: do whatever the hell you want, and also when you
Speaker 1: had very little responsibility. And I was already in love
Speaker 1: with chasing stripers, but On the Run made me feel
Speaker 1: like I was part of something so much bigger. On
Speaker 1: the Run kicks off in Maine on Labor Day weekend
Speaker 1: two thousand one, just prior to the attacks on September eleven,
Speaker 1: and it ends in late November on the outer banks
Speaker 1: of North Carolina. But what happens in between has less
Speaker 1: to do with fish and much more to do with people.
Speaker 1: De Benedetto spent time with all the most notable characters
Speaker 1: in every faction of the striper scene, and plenty of
Speaker 1: less notable people fighting to preserve these fish or fighting
Speaker 1: to make a living catching them. Every new person he
Speaker 1: encounters presents a new perspective and new adventure. De Benedetto
Speaker 1: famously opens the book Terrified as he skishes with Paul Melanik,
Speaker 1: a Montalk local that swims out and drifts hundreds of
Speaker 1: yards offshore while dangling live eels. He gets to witness
Speaker 1: legendary surfcaster Tony Stetsko almost come to blows with another
Speaker 1: angler on the beach that crowded him, and he sits
Speaker 1: down with former world record holder Alan mc reynolds and
Speaker 1: learns that catching such a coveted fish may have been
Speaker 1: more cursed than blessing. And in one of my favorite scenes,
Speaker 1: he rubs elbows in a Rhode Island bar with a
Speaker 1: group of guys. I idolized as a teen surfcaster. He's
Speaker 1: brought to this bar after diving with well known spear
Speaker 1: fisherman and underwater videographer Mike lap Two. Here's a taste.
Speaker 1: When we arrived, lap two spotted a few trucks in
Speaker 1: the parking lot with fishing rods locked on their roofs.
Speaker 1: Looks like the gangs here, he said. Inside where the
Speaker 1: yuppy day course seemed more suitable to a gathering of
Speaker 1: sailing skippers, lap two told the hostess, we're with a
Speaker 1: group that smells like fish. At the table, everyone went
Speaker 1: by their handles from the site stripers Online. The group
Speaker 1: consisted of crafty Angler, Tattoo, d Z, and hab There
Speaker 1: was also a fellow iron Mike, who didn't belong to
Speaker 1: stripers Online. According to lap two, these guys were among
Speaker 1: Rhode Island's most hard horse striper. Fisherman Habrek, who was
Speaker 1: built like a linebacker and sported a thick handlebar mustache,
Speaker 1: was the center of attention. When I sat down, he
Speaker 1: pulled out a lower box full of varying sized needle
Speaker 1: fish long plugs that range in size from the width
Speaker 1: of a broomstick to that of a pencil. Iron Mike
Speaker 1: and Tattoo started rubbing their hands together. Most sharpies feel
Speaker 1: habrecs needle fish have no equal when it comes to
Speaker 1: seducing big bass. When stocks run low at tackle shops,
Speaker 1: anglers will often call Habrec pleading for a personal shipment.
Speaker 1: You won't believe the things guys will be for these plugs.
Speaker 1: I had to stop giving out my number, he told me.
Speaker 1: When Habric opened the box, Tattoo snatched up a sharp
Speaker 1: troose needle fish and ran it under his nose like
Speaker 1: a fine cigar. Oh this is real nice, he said.
Speaker 1: Cries of plug Ho went up around the table. Plug
Speaker 1: Ho is a term of derision for any member of
Speaker 1: s O L who displays loose morals. The quest for
Speaker 1: hard to come by. Plug. Everyone at the table was
Speaker 1: jazz for the fall run. It was proving to be
Speaker 1: the best in recent memory. The bait had stayed close
Speaker 1: to shore for the past few weeks, and day long
Speaker 1: blitzes were common. When I told the guys that the
Speaker 1: fishermen on the islands and Vineyard Sound were having a
Speaker 1: meek year, there was little sympathy. Iron Mike, a spark
Speaker 1: plug of a fellow who got louder with each beer
Speaker 1: and seemed to somehow work in every sentence. Had landed
Speaker 1: a fifty one pounder on a HAB's needle fish just
Speaker 1: a few days prior. It can be boom or bust
Speaker 1: in the fall, and we're booming this year, he said.
Speaker 1: I asked the group about the sharing of information on
Speaker 1: the internet. Many fishermen I had met on my trip
Speaker 1: aboard the idea of posting secret strategies and drops on
Speaker 1: fishing websites. This gang was no different. General information was fine,
Speaker 1: but posting a report with the exact location of where
Speaker 1: you whacked the fish was a deadly sin. We all
Speaker 1: had to pay our dues. Why should some lurker who
Speaker 1: doesn't know squat have the privilege of being told where
Speaker 1: to go and what to use. The learning process is
Speaker 1: part of the sports, said Tattoo. Some members had even
Speaker 1: devised a code for exchanging information. The following day, Tattoo
Speaker 1: sent me an example. It read, the pattern is open.
Speaker 1: You're cleared for twinkies. It was twenty times before puke.
Speaker 1: Pink was the color of the sky. In nine seven times,
Speaker 1: I like pink. I like to swim. Metal twelve was
Speaker 1: a good year. Pukers like steel six times. Di Benedetto
Speaker 1: didn't have a crystal ball, but he unknowingly captured what
Speaker 1: I'd consider the last years of true purity in the
Speaker 1: stripers scene. Message Boards were a thing, but this was
Speaker 1: long before Facebook and Instagram. You still had to put
Speaker 1: in your time, maybe lean on a mentor get in
Speaker 1: with the right crowd. You needed more than a photo
Speaker 1: to be considered the man, or to earn a reputation
Speaker 1: as a sharpie. Everybody in their uncle wasn't a custom lawmaker.
Speaker 1: John Haberac made lawyers that caught fish, not fisherman, and
Speaker 1: would probably be piste off about how much people will
Speaker 1: spend on one of his plugs these days as a
Speaker 1: collector's item. Now hab is sadly gone, so as Tony Stetsko,
Speaker 1: and so is Al mc reynolds. But saddest of all
Speaker 1: is that the run de Benedetto followed has gone to
Speaker 1: Nobody catches stripers in the outer Banks anymore. Striper numbers
Speaker 1: are on the decline, and the textbook route they once
Speaker 1: followed has been altered by everything from beach replenishment to
Speaker 1: over fishing, to global warming and beyond. But I owe
Speaker 1: this book for a lot more than solidifying my love
Speaker 1: of striper fishing, because not long after it was published,
Speaker 1: De Benedetto became the editor in chief of Saltwater Sportsman,
Speaker 1: which had recently moved to New York City, and through
Speaker 1: a few lucky connections, I got to interview for an internship.
Speaker 1: And when I met Dave, he said, aren't you the
Speaker 1: guy that emailed me about my book? And he gave
Speaker 1: me my first full time magazine job ever in two
Speaker 1: thousand five, And here I am now still on my
Speaker 1: own run in the craziness that is the fishing industry.
Speaker 1: All right. First off, everyone, everyone, Joe tackled a philistine segment.
Speaker 1: Phil Can we get a round of blows for Joe
Speaker 1: on that own blues? Thank you? I am hooked on
Speaker 1: fish and on phonics this week. So it turns out
Speaker 1: you don't just write books, do you know how to
Speaker 1: read them too? Thank you? Uh. Also, you managed to
Speaker 1: hit a classic book that I've never read, though it's
Speaker 1: been it's been recommended to me more than once. Uh,
Speaker 1: And so I need to get on that. It sounds
Speaker 1: like it sounds like it's It actually does a very
Speaker 1: very good job of capturing the entirety of of the
Speaker 1: fishing culture that we're talking about, and that's not easy
Speaker 1: to do. I personally very much enjoyed the Pete McDonald
Speaker 1: and Tosh Brown book The Blitz, which profiled the scene
Speaker 1: in a similar way, at a different time period and
Speaker 1: in a more visual format. But I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to enjoy that that longer form narrative even better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you will, you you would love this book. And the
Speaker 1: first time I read that book, um, and it had
Speaker 1: a pretty profound impact on me. And little did I
Speaker 1: know that within just a couple of years I to
Speaker 1: be working for David Benedetto at Saltwater Sportsman and would
Speaker 1: end up meeting, uh, you know, or corresponding with so
Speaker 1: many people in that book. So in a way, it's
Speaker 1: like a part of my surf fishing roots. Dude, This
Speaker 1: whole this whole episode is like a little window into
Speaker 1: Joe's origin story, right it is it is and and
Speaker 1: as well as being a peek into one of the
Speaker 1: biggest and most engaged fishing subcultures in the country, it's
Speaker 1: just I mean, it's huge, right if you look at
Speaker 1: the numbers, Striper fishing is massive, but it's so localized, right,
Speaker 1: and and so a lot of us, myself included, even
Speaker 1: hard wranglers, have no personal frame of reference with this,
Speaker 1: but we're aware of it, and at least for me,
Speaker 1: like even though I don't have that direct experience, I
Speaker 1: get it, like I understand what's going on because it's
Speaker 1: still fishing, right, because like so exactly at one point
Speaker 1: when when you and Bill what's what we're talking and
Speaker 1: I was just sort of sitting there listening to being like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is amazing, we had to stop the interview, just
Speaker 1: like like mid interview, just it off so YouTube could
Speaker 1: geek out over who had the rarest custom wooden striper plugs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we literally both got up for a second. We're like
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and like got up to grab some Hammo
Speaker 1: to have a plugs showdown over zoom. Right. He threw
Speaker 1: down first though, He's like look what I got. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, as he would say, oh yeah mom. So
Speaker 1: I presented a metal lips surface swimmer made by Twisted,
Speaker 1: which I could go on and on about it, but
Speaker 1: just suffice to say I've been offered a lot of
Speaker 1: money for it because it's a rare one, and none
Speaker 1: of it, like you guys were going deep and none
Speaker 1: of the specifics of any of those baits or the
Speaker 1: bait makers or the particular like paint jobs. None of
Speaker 1: that made any sense to me, Like it meant nothing
Speaker 1: to me. I got what was going on. I understood like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a pecking order thing, who's got the weirdest,
Speaker 1: coolest bait. But but I definitely, even though I didn't
Speaker 1: know those exact names or why they were special, very
Speaker 1: much recognized the style of the lures. Right the individual
Speaker 1: exact lures themselves, no idea, but I can see the
Speaker 1: style like I see the DNA of where those came from.
Speaker 1: And that's where we're going to as we close out
Speaker 1: the show because because in this week's end the Line segment,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about how so many lures considered classics
Speaker 1: and the striper scene actually have Midwest ingenuity to thank
Speaker 1: for their design. Well, that's not loud enough, Burt. The
Speaker 1: Creek Chub Pikey Minnow might be the most iconic vintage
Speaker 1: lure ever produced. With its scooped out nose, uniquely taper tail,
Speaker 1: and of course patented step down metal lip, the Pikey
Speaker 1: Minnow pops into most of our heads when we imagine
Speaker 1: old fishing lures. Before Repolic came to dominate the plug scene,
Speaker 1: there was Creek Chub. So the Pikey was Creek Chubb's
Speaker 1: biggest selling lure and most recognizable design. It wasn't the first.
Speaker 1: The Wiggler, designed way back in nineteen o six by
Speaker 1: three Fishing Buddies from Garrett, Indiana, was the first lure
Speaker 1: to incorporate a diving lip or a mouthpiece as they
Speaker 1: originally called it. This was the first timond recorded history
Speaker 1: that an inanimate object personified the wiggle of a frightened
Speaker 1: bait fish, a minor miracle of spontaneous generation. Modern anglers
Speaker 1: hardly even notice. From nineteen sixteen to the mid nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: Creek Chub and the pike he min Oh dominated freshwater
Speaker 1: fish and fishing and set a standard for lure quality
Speaker 1: never again seen in production lures. The company only used
Speaker 1: white cedar wood for the bodies. Each lure was hand
Speaker 1: painted with at least seven and sometimes up to fourteen
Speaker 1: coats of paint. They devised a proprietary netting through which
Speaker 1: they could apply that paint to create a realistic scale
Speaker 1: pattern on each bait. The steel trouble hooks were imported
Speaker 1: from Norway. That insistence on quality ultimately became their undoing is.
Speaker 1: Once plastic hit the market, Creek Chub simply couldn't compete,
Speaker 1: and in the company went out of business. Entire books
Speaker 1: have been written about the history of this company this lure,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to belabor all the specifics, but
Speaker 1: I think contemporary anglers forget how groundbreaking this lure was.
Speaker 1: Because of their popularity, Creek Shub naturally found their baits
Speaker 1: attached to some of the most controversial big fish dust
Speaker 1: ups of all time. First, the holy grail of American
Speaker 1: fishing records, George Perry's twenty two pound, four ounce large
Speaker 1: mouth that stood as the all tackle bass record for
Speaker 1: almost ninety years, was caught on a creek shub. Only
Speaker 1: no one's totally sure which Creek Chub, since Perry's story
Speaker 1: changed throughout life. It wasn't a pikey minnow, we don't think,
Speaker 1: but no one's totally sure. The pikey minnow is at
Speaker 1: the center of a different and only slightly less heated
Speaker 1: record fish controversy, the world record muskie. The standing record
Speaker 1: weighed sixty pounds eleven ounces and was caught in ninety
Speaker 1: nine by Louis Spray from the Chippewa Flowage in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: but from nineteen sixty nine to two the record was
Speaker 1: actually held by Art Lawton, who claims who have caught
Speaker 1: a muskie four ounces heavier from the St. Lawrence River
Speaker 1: in New York on a pikey minnow. In the I
Speaker 1: g f A declared Lawton's record fraudulent, stating that modern
Speaker 1: scrutiny of available evidence showed it to be smaller than
Speaker 1: its certified weight and length. I would love to digress
Speaker 1: into the churning operatic drama that surrounds these two muskie
Speaker 1: record chasers in their fish, which includes no shortage of
Speaker 1: outlaw buffoonery and alcohol fuel transgressions on basic decency. But
Speaker 1: we're not here to talk about the muskie record. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the pikey minnow, and regardless of any bs around,
Speaker 1: particular records and fragile egos, this bait may have caught
Speaker 1: more big fresh water fish than any other By the
Speaker 1: time Rappola even crossed the pond. Pikey minnows were allegedly
Speaker 1: responsible for a twenty pound large mouth in four, a
Speaker 1: thirty six pound pike in n seven and eighteen pound
Speaker 1: walleye in nineteen thirty three, an eleven pound small mouth
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one, and another eleven pounds spotted bass
Speaker 1: in nineteen That's plenty enough to solidify its place in
Speaker 1: fishing history. That was very good. But I'm going to
Speaker 1: step in now and add a pinch of salt to
Speaker 1: your pikey history because this is our Stripers show, and
Speaker 1: there's more to this story. So everything that you just
Speaker 1: said is accurate, and the pikey has certainly solidified its
Speaker 1: place in freshwater fishing history. Prior to World War Two,
Speaker 1: the stripers surf casting scene as we know it now
Speaker 1: didn't really exist, and if you wanted to catch them,
Speaker 1: you soaked bait. In fact, lobster tail was a common
Speaker 1: offering because lobsters are actually considered something only poor people
Speaker 1: eight back in the day. Now, there were also some
Speaker 1: metal lures and tin lures being slung around. But when
Speaker 1: the boys came home from war, surf casting, like many
Speaker 1: other scenes, boomed. Those surfcasters figured out quickly that those
Speaker 1: muskie and pike sized pikey minnows were equally appealing to
Speaker 1: stripe bass. And because as you noted, they were made
Speaker 1: so well they could also stand up to them. There
Speaker 1: was so much demand for Pikeys on the coast that
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty Creak Chub introduced the Striper Pikey, an
Speaker 1: even heavier duty version of the original than In nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three, Creak Chub dropped the Surfster. It had this
Speaker 1: stepped lip similar to the Pikey, but a fatter, rounder,
Speaker 1: more tapered body than a Pikey, which was kind of
Speaker 1: more cigar shaped. It was the Surfster that would become
Speaker 1: the template for many similar plugs, including those Bill Wetzel
Speaker 1: and I were geeking out about on that Zoom call
Speaker 1: of ours. Metal lipped swimmers is the category of laura
Speaker 1: we're talking about, because they fly far in the surf.
Speaker 1: They're built to take a beating. They wobble and roll
Speaker 1: across the surface and create a really distinct v wake.
Speaker 1: While Creek Chub may have had a big chunk of
Speaker 1: the market for a time, like you said, by the
Speaker 1: late sixties, the Surfster and many of their other lines
Speaker 1: had been discontinued, and nobody was really throwing pikes in
Speaker 1: the surf at all anymore. Aside from plastic Lores dominating
Speaker 1: the market. By then, other brands of metal lips swimmer,
Speaker 1: notably Stand Gibbs Danny Swimmer, had sort of taken hold,
Speaker 1: partly at least I think, because they were made in Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: and striper fishermen were then and are now fiercely loyal
Speaker 1: to local plugmakers. Today, there are hundreds of small shop
Speaker 1: regional builders that turn metal lips swimmers, all of which
Speaker 1: share design elements with the pike and the surf stir.
Speaker 1: And while I know plenty of striper guys that proudly
Speaker 1: display vintage pikes on shelves, I don't know anybody that
Speaker 1: chucks them. So you mentioned that Creek Chubb went out
Speaker 1: of business in which is true, but the name was
Speaker 1: purchased by Prad Colure's shortly thereafter, and Creek Chubb does
Speaker 1: still exist today, though everything now is made out of plastic.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, in the early two thousands, and what
Speaker 1: I assume was an attempt to capture the growing surf
Speaker 1: market as striper populations rebounded, prad Co did a saltwater
Speaker 1: pikey reissue, pumping out all the get sizes made of
Speaker 1: molded plastic and featuring trusted modern striper colors like yellow
Speaker 1: school Bus and blur Pool, and I remember getting a
Speaker 1: few samples and being super pumped about them, but to
Speaker 1: be honest, I don't think I ever threw them because
Speaker 1: when it came down to maximizing time on the beach,
Speaker 1: standing there in the surf, I trusted the beat up
Speaker 1: Gibbs and R. M Smith's and lefty swimmers already in
Speaker 1: my surf bag. And I think most striper guys felt
Speaker 1: the same way. And as fast as the reissued pikes appeared,
Speaker 1: they were gone from tackle shop shelves. So that's it
Speaker 1: for this week, and we hope you enjoyed our little
Speaker 1: foray into the striper scene. And I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 1: if we pick another scene down the road and go
Speaker 1: all in again because this was fun. Yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: definitely will. I'm I'm I'm calling DIBs on on Telapia
Speaker 1: because we all know how much you got it, you
Speaker 1: got you got it? Yeah, I do, I do, you gotta.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're missing something though. I feel like
Speaker 1: there's an there's a very smoky elephant in the room
Speaker 1: that we need to talk about. How did our residents
Speaker 1: straper surf expert Bob the garbage Man not show up
Speaker 1: in this episode, Like, how did you not bring him in?
Speaker 1: This is a terrific question. I'll tell you what happened.
Speaker 1: I sent him an outline of the show topics and
Speaker 1: he looked it over and was like, I'm not interested
Speaker 1: as soon as he saw the things we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about. But he did leave this message for me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: telling Niles, I'll catch more strivers on them creek choves
Speaker 1: and asking or wherever the he lives anywhere out here
Speaker 1: and you'd learn more about strips from Curious George goes
Speaker 1: fishing and that directory of notable Mook's book you was
Speaker 1: talking about or whatever. There you go. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I just lost whatever whatever street cred I may have
Speaker 1: once had with Bob. Hopefully we haven't lost any with
Speaker 1: all of you out there listening, but if we have,
Speaker 1: let's know, just send an email to Bent at the
Speaker 1: meat Eater dot com. It's also the perfect place to
Speaker 1: send us bar nomination sale ban items, awkward photos, news leads,
Speaker 1: and all that other good stuff we're looking forward to. Yes,
Speaker 1: and finally catch up on b side fishing on YouTube,
Speaker 1: damn it and tune into b Side next week to
Speaker 1: watch me hunt down the lowliest, most unappreciated member of
Speaker 1: the Esox family. Those who know me know exactly what
Speaker 1: that is. We've also always got eyes on those degenerate
Speaker 1: Angler and Bent podcast hashtags, and if anyone now has
Speaker 1: eyes on my rare twisted Swimmer with the Mahi Mahi
Speaker 1: paint job, of which like one or two were ever made,
Speaker 1: back off, because that ship's not for sale. Si