Speaker 1: I'm gonna create more waste because I'm worried some yucko
Speaker 1: stuck is butter type in the catch him before I
Speaker 1: got there to order my pork roll sandwich. It's so
Speaker 1: awesome when one or both of your clients is leaning
Speaker 1: so far to one side of the boat that one
Speaker 1: of your oars will not touch the water. You're doing
Speaker 1: line class tractors to try to make a big name
Speaker 1: for yourself, scarbage. I didn't get the stream name. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me the stream name? The stream? Good morning,
Speaker 1: degenerate anglers, Welcome to Bend, the podcast that thinks your
Speaker 1: ability to make interesting conversation in the boat and always
Speaker 1: show up on time matters more than your proficiency with
Speaker 1: a rod or the size of your tackle box. I'm
Speaker 1: Joe Surmelli A Miles nultyon. Amen to that man. I
Speaker 1: will I'll take an interesting fishing buddy over and experienced one.
Speaker 1: Every single right, to be clear, To be clear, I'm
Speaker 1: not advocating ignorance. Right. If we've been fishing together for
Speaker 1: like five years and you haven't bothered to learn how
Speaker 1: to tie on a leader or back up a trailer,
Speaker 1: then you're just lazy or not. Actually that interested in fishing,
Speaker 1: in which case that strong chance I wouldn't, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be fishing with you for five years, like I would
Speaker 1: have given up on you a lot sooner than five years.
Speaker 1: But the argument I'm a big sake of the argument
Speaker 1: guy exactly. So I gotta say that part of what
Speaker 1: I love about my job I always have is that
Speaker 1: I've gotten fish with many different people and get exposed
Speaker 1: to just tons of different approaches in different places, different
Speaker 1: rigs and techniques. Um. But the flip side of that
Speaker 1: diverse fishing experience is that I'm constantly shown how little
Speaker 1: I actually know. You know what I mean, Like, I'm
Speaker 1: I've never been afraid to suck at a particular kind
Speaker 1: of fishing, so long as at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I've learned something, whether I could be a new nod
Speaker 1: or new rig or even just the habits of fish
Speaker 1: that maybe I don't target very often. So I feel
Speaker 1: like very well versed in a broad sense. But you
Speaker 1: get away from what you do and it's it's very
Speaker 1: shocking how little you actually know. Oh yeah, and you
Speaker 1: only figure that out by going and doing new things, right,
Speaker 1: Like the most recent example I have is fishing with
Speaker 1: you for shad. I've never seen a shad before in
Speaker 1: my life, and trying to figure out how to work
Speaker 1: those shad darts and like figure out the current and
Speaker 1: all the different things that you showed me was was
Speaker 1: a nice moment of realization, like I can figure all
Speaker 1: this stuff out. I can do it, but I don't
Speaker 1: know it, And had I been dropped there on my own,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been able to Like I I I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that I have learned the
Speaker 1: more fishing I've done in the more places I've learned
Speaker 1: that I just I suck at a lot of kinds
Speaker 1: of fishing. I'm I'm I'm a pretty good learner, but
Speaker 1: there are only certain things that I'm truly good at.
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping that with this particular episode that we've
Speaker 1: laid out that we maybe I don't know, I hope
Speaker 1: we encourage a few folks to feel comfortable sucking a
Speaker 1: little bit, like I hope by us stepping out and
Speaker 1: saying like, hey, we suck at a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: when it comes to fishing, and that's okay. I hope
Speaker 1: other people will take a q and be willing to
Speaker 1: do that. But I am I'm slightly hesitant about this
Speaker 1: week's theme. I gotta say, are you really a little
Speaker 1: like I'm not losing sleep? This isn't It's not the
Speaker 1: main thing that's keeping me up. But I'm just truly
Speaker 1: and I think you get this. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: this one's gonna land, right, because we're this fair. You
Speaker 1: say this episode is gonna focus on fly fishing, all right,
Speaker 1: And we talk about fly fishing on this show all
Speaker 1: the time, but in the past, Joe and I we've
Speaker 1: always made a concerted effort to make sure that we
Speaker 1: talk about something else too. We get some conventional stuff
Speaker 1: in there, we got some ice, we get we've never
Speaker 1: gone straight fly before. No, No, that's true. And I
Speaker 1: think what Miles is getting at is that we have
Speaker 1: a we have a pretty broad mix of anglers right
Speaker 1: who listened to this show. And we say all the
Speaker 1: time that we welcome everyone here at bent who likes
Speaker 1: to fish long as you're you're thoughtful and ethical about it.
Speaker 1: You're not like a dirt bag out there. Um, But
Speaker 1: we don't we we certainly don't want to alienate anybody,
Speaker 1: but the fly thing it can be kind of polarizing.
Speaker 1: We know that some of you are are dedicated fly folks.
Speaker 1: Some of you dabble with flag gear or at least
Speaker 1: you know, you're a little bit interested in it. And
Speaker 1: some of you are either completely unfamiliar or just outright
Speaker 1: like anti fly. And that's okay. We still we like
Speaker 1: all of you, that's you know, yeah, And and we
Speaker 1: hope that at least a couple of people will hear
Speaker 1: this and and maybe feel a little differently if perhaps
Speaker 1: you're on the anti side. But the thing is, it's June,
Speaker 1: and it is and June where I live, Like, all
Speaker 1: I think about when it comes to June is is
Speaker 1: rivers just boiling with hatching insects and every fish and
Speaker 1: every one of those rivers is chowing on those insects.
Speaker 1: And I have been, you know, when I've been out
Speaker 1: on the rivers, I have fish dry flies off and
Speaker 1: on for a few months. But right now, this particularly
Speaker 1: this week, is like the beginning of the prime time.
Speaker 1: So in the spirit of that, we were thinking we
Speaker 1: might spread a little unapologetic love for floating flies and
Speaker 1: surface feeding trout because it's fun. Yeah. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: we know there's there's gonna be some of you who
Speaker 1: are understandably skeptical about this, right. I mean, we look,
Speaker 1: we work at meat Eater, right, Steve Ronnella didn't build
Speaker 1: his fan base advocating for dainty dry flies and precious trout.
Speaker 1: But even even Steve will pick up the long rod
Speaker 1: from time to time and admit how much goddamn fun
Speaker 1: it is, right or can be? Um, You know, even
Speaker 1: if he's not a huge fan of fly fishing culture,
Speaker 1: that you've seen this, right, I have seen him do
Speaker 1: it with my own two eyes. That is all true.
Speaker 1: But I think before we we continue with our attempt
Speaker 1: at a full throated appeal for wy fly fishing is
Speaker 1: fun and not necessarily annoying or obnoxious, we do want
Speaker 1: to remind all of you out there that this show
Speaker 1: is brought to you by thirteen Fishing. It is, and
Speaker 1: that's that's a little awkward, for thirteen thirteen doesn't actually
Speaker 1: make any fly rods, at least not yet. It's not
Speaker 1: that uh, they don't yet. But even in in the
Speaker 1: heaviest insect hatch and dry fly fun, I still have
Speaker 1: an omen black casting rod at the ready in my boat,
Speaker 1: rigged up with the swim bait or a jerk bait,
Speaker 1: because here's here's a little tip. Here's a little tip
Speaker 1: for everybody out there. While the small and medium sized
Speaker 1: fish in the river are are distracted because they're stuff
Speaker 1: in their faces on teeny tiny bugs, sometimes like the
Speaker 1: really big fish take advantage of the smaller fish being distracted.
Speaker 1: So after I've cast some flies through a pool for
Speaker 1: a while and and have my fun, I'll usually pick
Speaker 1: up the short stick and huck some kind of a
Speaker 1: big bait in there a few times, just to see
Speaker 1: if if Walter p brown shout or maybe an opportunistic
Speaker 1: small mouth or pike is feeling a little frisky. I've
Speaker 1: had that work out well in the past. Absolutely, that's
Speaker 1: it's it's a great tip. Man and I may not
Speaker 1: agree about which hand we reel um on a bait
Speaker 1: caster right, because I'm a I'm a right I'm a
Speaker 1: right hand retrieved guy all the way, which I and
Speaker 1: I've been called out for it recently. People are like,
Speaker 1: why is your your handle on the wrong side. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I didn't switch hands yet when the photo was taken,
Speaker 1: Damn you, I cast right and real right, I do
Speaker 1: the switch. But anyway, we do both agree that there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with bringing a a conventional rod on a
Speaker 1: fly fishing trip. Lord knows I do it all the time,
Speaker 1: me too, or go you go the other way too.
Speaker 1: There's another wrong with bringing a fly rod on a
Speaker 1: conventional trip. That's fine too. And for those of you
Speaker 1: out there feeling unsure, we're just trying to give you
Speaker 1: license to go for it. Give it a shot, go
Speaker 1: for it, just try it out. Getting in the long
Speaker 1: rud doesn't have to be intimidating, even though some people
Speaker 1: make it out that way. It's it's not that hard.
Speaker 1: And going fly fishing it doesn't mean that you like
Speaker 1: gott to wear a tweed jacket with elbow patches or whatever,
Speaker 1: like a felt hat, which I think is stupid. And
Speaker 1: you don't have to extend your ky while drinking a beverage.
Speaker 1: You don't have to do any of those things. One
Speaker 1: last point, fishing and fly rod does not make you
Speaker 1: any less of a degenerate. It's true I do wear
Speaker 1: the tweet and it felt I choose to do so,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that that you have to My
Speaker 1: tweets actually getting tight. I need bigger tweet anyway, that
Speaker 1: was all true, and it's okay to bring a fly
Speaker 1: rod and not use it or only use it if
Speaker 1: the situation is right, right, And I think when I
Speaker 1: fish saltwater, I rarely go inshore saltwater fishing without a
Speaker 1: fly rod, but I never go with only fly rods.
Speaker 1: I just don't do that. And if the situation presents
Speaker 1: itself to get some miuse or stripers on the fly,
Speaker 1: it's like a total bonus and I might fly fish
Speaker 1: all day, but I'm never going out there with just
Speaker 1: that stuff. Right. So, anyway, today we we've kind of
Speaker 1: assembled a cast of Motley characters, all of whom are
Speaker 1: both professional fly angers and exactly the kinds of people
Speaker 1: you just want to sit around a fire and drink
Speaker 1: whiskey with. They're all they're all legitimately interesting, good folks.
Speaker 1: We're gonna start things off with our friend Alvin Adot,
Speaker 1: who we've had on the show many times before, but
Speaker 1: in case you forgot. Alvin is a former frontman for
Speaker 1: the Austin based funk band Bad Mother Goose and the
Speaker 1: Brothers Grimm, who started working in a fly shop during
Speaker 1: the day to help pay for his rock star lifestyle,
Speaker 1: and that led him down the guiding path, which is
Speaker 1: what he's been doing full time now for decades. Alvin's
Speaker 1: homewater is the Lower Colorado River around Austin, where he
Speaker 1: just puts a hurting on the large mouth and guadeloup
Speaker 1: by bass and the white bass and all kinds of
Speaker 1: other stuff. I've done it with him. It's super fun.
Speaker 1: But he also guides for red fish down on the coast,
Speaker 1: and he's spent many many years chasing trout in the Rockies.
Speaker 1: So yep, he's well rounded. Yep. Bottom line, Yeah, Alvin
Speaker 1: knows his ship, okay, And today he's here for a
Speaker 1: Smooth Move segment where we let guides, outfitters, shop workers,
Speaker 1: and anyone else who makes a living in the fishing
Speaker 1: industry tell stories about stupid or hilarious things that clients do.
Speaker 1: But this one is more instructive than most. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of times we're just making fun
Speaker 1: of people, but Alvin actually came with a useful, functional suggestion.
Speaker 1: Anytime you find yourself fishing out of a small boat,
Speaker 1: particularly someone else's boat, this is this is going to
Speaker 1: help you. And I really enjoyed recording this one. I
Speaker 1: had a good time. I kind of forgot the mic
Speaker 1: was even on. We were just bullshitting. If you've ever
Speaker 1: wondered what fishing guides talk about after everyone leaves, it
Speaker 1: kind of sounds like this, why why This move doesn't
Speaker 1: really have a name, but it has a solution. It
Speaker 1: has a you know, there's there's a cure for this move,
Speaker 1: and the cure is center up, get in the middle
Speaker 1: of the boat. This is one that just anybody that
Speaker 1: rows the boat boat pushes the boat. You got to
Speaker 1: stay in the middle of the boat. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's so awesome when one or both of your
Speaker 1: clients is leaning so far to one side of the
Speaker 1: boat that one of your oars will not touch the water.
Speaker 1: You know, you got that one. It's like digging in
Speaker 1: and the other ones like catching air because the boat's
Speaker 1: like on its gunnal. Yeah, So that's a that's a
Speaker 1: that's a that's that's a constant one. You know, like
Speaker 1: come on, man in in a In my my jet boat,
Speaker 1: there's a little logo that's on the on the bench
Speaker 1: that I have people stand on, and I've been tempted
Speaker 1: to actually put some rails or something on either side
Speaker 1: of the logo and be like, if you feel that
Speaker 1: rail under your foot, you need to take a step
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction. But it's it's a problem. You
Speaker 1: could just put down gaffer's tape and like a little
Speaker 1: like like create a little box, like do not step
Speaker 1: outside of the tape. I have seriously serious considered that.
Speaker 1: I just tell him, looks, stay on the logo, look down,
Speaker 1: and every once in a while, make sure you're on
Speaker 1: the logo. But see, I can take this a step further, right,
Speaker 1: because I don't know how many people I've rowed. It
Speaker 1: just happened not too long ago. The dude was perfectly
Speaker 1: centered because he had no choice because he was in
Speaker 1: the leg braces on the boat. But then we'd set
Speaker 1: up on a dry fly fish and he would cast
Speaker 1: with so much oomph that like the entire drift boat
Speaker 1: would be rocking like we were twenty miles off shore.
Speaker 1: And it's like, dude, I don't understand why you must
Speaker 1: put so much body energy into laying how to dry
Speaker 1: fly like there's no need for that. You guys have
Speaker 1: you have to dealt with that too, Like I don't
Speaker 1: understand it. Just stay the cat why why It's like, dude,
Speaker 1: I gotta get that fly out of there. And if
Speaker 1: I don't put somebody english into it. That thing is
Speaker 1: not gonna make it that thirty feet to the bank.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm not gonna do with my arms. I
Speaker 1: gotta do with my legs rattling around. Drinks are coming
Speaker 1: out of cup holders. Lay down the atoms, all right, dude.
Speaker 1: I used to have I used to have this really
Speaker 1: skinny one of those uh one of those Arkansas trout boats.
Speaker 1: It was like twenty ft long, but it was super skinny,
Speaker 1: and that thing would rock from side to side. You know.
Speaker 1: I had this one guy in particular. You know, it
Speaker 1: was it was like five to six false cast per presentation,
Speaker 1: and each one was just like you know, it was
Speaker 1: like he was trying to knock somebody out with these swings,
Speaker 1: and the boat would the boat would just rock from
Speaker 1: side to side so violently that my back would hurt
Speaker 1: at the end of the day from like me just
Speaker 1: trying to overcorrect to keep myself upright. Well, I had
Speaker 1: a client for many, many years. He was a really
Speaker 1: good client and good guy. But I won't use his
Speaker 1: real name because I don't have to. I just nicknamed
Speaker 1: him Captain Morgan. If he would ride in the back
Speaker 1: of my boat with his foot perched up on the
Speaker 1: gunnal the entire time, just completely throwing that thing off kilter,
Speaker 1: so that I was almost at a forty five degree
Speaker 1: angle rowing down the river all day and I would
Speaker 1: literally have to say, captain, bring it back to center
Speaker 1: for me, buddy, at least ten times a day. He
Speaker 1: always felt sorry, I'm so sorry, but within ten minutes
Speaker 1: and be right back on the gun. Dude, I've seen it.
Speaker 1: It's the creep. They can't help it. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: guys who know, Like you said, the captain knew he
Speaker 1: was supposed to stay in the center, but it's just
Speaker 1: like this weird creep thing. It's magnetic. You gotta put
Speaker 1: that foot as far away from the other foot as
Speaker 1: you can. So there you have it, everybody. Hot tip
Speaker 1: from Alvin to do if you really, really really want
Speaker 1: to piss off your guide, just keep rocking your body
Speaker 1: weight from one side to the other all day long. Alvin,
Speaker 1: thanks so much, man, really appreciate it. Hey, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. Man. See now, I really think that something
Speaker 1: most casual anglers just don't know about or think about.
Speaker 1: I think the centering your weight in small boats makes
Speaker 1: such a huge difference, and as we've discussed I have.
Speaker 1: I owned the mini Cooper of drift boats, as you
Speaker 1: called it. So having the dude upfront centered in in
Speaker 1: my boat in particular is extremely important to me. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's very important because we might all go in okay,
Speaker 1: it's not just a matter of being tilted, like we
Speaker 1: might dump the thing. You know. It's one of those
Speaker 1: things you're right, casual anglers don't think about because they
Speaker 1: don't have to. I had no idea about any of
Speaker 1: that until I was the one driving and rowing boats
Speaker 1: all the time, and because other people's sense of where
Speaker 1: they're standing has impacted my life so much right like now,
Speaker 1: it's just habit. I always keep an eye on weight
Speaker 1: and balance when I'm in someone else's boat. Especially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like one of those unwritten rules of courtesy that
Speaker 1: that people no notice. It's just not enough people, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna keep rolling with this. We're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna keep the theme here and bring you a fly
Speaker 1: fishing tackle tip that we also think will be equally helpful.
Speaker 1: Be forewarned, this this one gets a little technical. It's
Speaker 1: not difficult. This isn't a hard thing to do. It's
Speaker 1: just kind of specific, so you gotta pay attention. I'm
Speaker 1: getting hacks coming from inside the city. Hi the flood.
Speaker 1: So welcome back to tackle hacks. Joining us today our
Speaker 1: friend and uh Montana slash Washington State guide Kinsley, Scott Kinsley.
Speaker 1: How are you today? I am doing well. How are
Speaker 1: you guys? We are We are great. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: better after this because you are going to uh pull
Speaker 1: from from your many years of experience guiding, um, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna give us a tackle hack today, a little
Speaker 1: tip something, just a little little nugget for anglers to
Speaker 1: put in their pockets that will make them better on
Speaker 1: the water. At least that's the plan. Yes, and this
Speaker 1: one may not be applicable to all trout anglers, but
Speaker 1: for us here in western Montana, our bread and butter
Speaker 1: are foam dry flies with droppers the majority of our
Speaker 1: fishing through the entire season. Really, so my hack today
Speaker 1: to improve your dry dropper fishing, to make life a
Speaker 1: lot easier is using a shorter leader. So I run
Speaker 1: a seven and a half foot leader to my dry fly,
Speaker 1: and right out of the package, I actually chop off
Speaker 1: about a foot off the butt section of it. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I'll explain why. So I cut about a foot
Speaker 1: off of the butt section so that well di loop
Speaker 1: that comes on a leader out of the factory, I
Speaker 1: retire a perfection loop. So now we'll say my leader
Speaker 1: is down to about six and a half feet, so
Speaker 1: it's a pretty chunky taper. What that allows to do?
Speaker 1: Our fish here in Montana Western Montana specifically aren't very
Speaker 1: line shy spooky, especially if you're fishing a bigger bug,
Speaker 1: right we'll say, like salmon fly golden stone fly season.
Speaker 1: So with that six and a half foot dry fly leader,
Speaker 1: that allows me to then throw a much longer dropper.
Speaker 1: So say I throw a four ft dropper to you know,
Speaker 1: I have a salmon fly dry and I want to
Speaker 1: fish up pats below and I want four ft in total.
Speaker 1: That would cut my entire leader system down to about
Speaker 1: ten and a half feet, which is pretty manageable. Whereas
Speaker 1: if you were to keep that seven and a half
Speaker 1: foot leader right out of the package with then a
Speaker 1: four ft leader, you're pushing about twelve ft of leader
Speaker 1: in your cast. So if you can shorten that leader
Speaker 1: section up, it's still going to overturn your fly, but
Speaker 1: it's going to really compact things and make it a
Speaker 1: lot more manageable when casting. I love that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great tip. That makes a lot of sense. My
Speaker 1: only my only critique of that is a lot of
Speaker 1: the dudes I fly fish with couldn't do that because
Speaker 1: if they cut the perfection loop off, they wouldn't know
Speaker 1: how to tie a new one. YouTube your phone will
Speaker 1: teach you about seconds exactly. Yes, No, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a great tip. I wish that I had done that
Speaker 1: when I was when I was guiding, because it would
Speaker 1: have probably saved me a lot of tangles that I
Speaker 1: had to pick apart for the next oh forty five
Speaker 1: minutes or so. So next time you're you're out there
Speaker 1: throwing big dry droppers, chop off the back end of
Speaker 1: that leader. See how it works. Let us know how
Speaker 1: you do. Kinsley, Thanks so much, and uh we'll we
Speaker 1: look forward to another tackle hack from you soon. Thank you. Guys.
Speaker 1: See I told you in a podcast many moons ago.
Speaker 1: I've been saying all along that all you need to
Speaker 1: catch fish in Montana is a big gass check and
Speaker 1: that was just confessed Western Montana. She clearly what it is.
Speaker 1: Do not listen specified Western Montana, and she did that
Speaker 1: on purpose because she grew up on the Missouri where
Speaker 1: that's not true. And I don't know why, but the
Speaker 1: trout and western Montana are dumber. I don't know why
Speaker 1: that is, but I I am going to try this
Speaker 1: trick out because I haven't had a chance to do
Speaker 1: it yet, and we're coming to salmon fly in Golden
Speaker 1: Stone season for any any day now, really, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna try this one. But I was thinking
Speaker 1: about it and this rigging, this tip that she gave,
Speaker 1: I think it's more broadly applicable than than Kingsley realized.
Speaker 1: I would suggest that this one's useful for people who
Speaker 1: are curious about fly fishing but don't live in a
Speaker 1: place with trout streams. So right the rig she was
Speaker 1: talking about, the big dry fly with the dropper set up,
Speaker 1: that is sort of a classic out West Rocky Mountain
Speaker 1: trout set up, But I actually use something very similar
Speaker 1: for panfish and bass on lakes. I've adapted that rig
Speaker 1: for warm water species, and I think that her leader
Speaker 1: had would be perfect for that situation. So here's here's
Speaker 1: my version that i'd suggest you guys trying to likea
Speaker 1: do exactly what Kinsley suggests. Chop that leader to make
Speaker 1: it a more magable length. Then to the end of
Speaker 1: it ties something big and buoyant, a small popper fly
Speaker 1: or a diver, maybe a cicada, hey maybe, and then
Speaker 1: tie a three to four foot section of a leader
Speaker 1: off the bend of the hook, you know, like four
Speaker 1: six pound tests something like that, and then put any
Speaker 1: kind of weighted fly that you like on that. I
Speaker 1: personally I'm a big fan of prince nymps or hair's
Speaker 1: ears because they just look a little bit like everything,
Speaker 1: and they'll work really well on panfish. Or I'll throw
Speaker 1: on like a wooly bugger if I'm after bass. You
Speaker 1: pitch that thing up toward a weed line in the lake,
Speaker 1: You let it settle, and then give it short strips
Speaker 1: with long pauses in between. You'll either get to watch
Speaker 1: that floating fly get inhaled, or more likely, the floating
Speaker 1: fly will just disappear when a fish eats the bottom fly.
Speaker 1: So seriously try out the next time your your lake
Speaker 1: fishing in shallow water along weedlines. I think you'll be
Speaker 1: impressed with how well it works. Solid tip man and
Speaker 1: like a blind side for me has always been stillwater
Speaker 1: trout on the fly, and I've I've done very little
Speaker 1: of that, but I actually got to do it many
Speaker 1: years ago in Montana on a small lake and it
Speaker 1: was the first time I ever threw drys on stillwater
Speaker 1: for trout, and dude, it was a blast. I must say, Like,
Speaker 1: it's a totally different game. You you've done it, so
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. It's like these fish are cruising,
Speaker 1: so you're just kind of letting your stuff bob around
Speaker 1: out there and like ride the wake and ride the
Speaker 1: ripple and they just come out of nowhere and slurp it.
Speaker 1: You can't really target him like a head in the river.
Speaker 1: So much fun, so much fun. But it's it's a
Speaker 1: lot of useful information today. I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know what's wrong with us. So I know we're actually
Speaker 1: we're actually we're actually having we have value today, um,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna keep that going right now, We're gonna
Speaker 1: keep our value up as we head into fish News.
Speaker 1: Fish new sescalated quickly, so I have one shout out
Speaker 1: this week before we get going on news, going out
Speaker 1: to listener Eric Haffman, and this is a response to
Speaker 1: our last That's My Bar segment where we wax nostalgic
Speaker 1: about ketchup in glass bottles, and Eric totally validated me
Speaker 1: on this one. Thank you, Eric. Yeah, okay, but I
Speaker 1: have more to say about it, okay. So we talked
Speaker 1: about how you don't see that anymore, and and in that,
Speaker 1: in that That's My Bar, I brought up the butter
Speaker 1: knife trick where sometimes you start the ketchup in the
Speaker 1: glass bottle with a butter knife to stick it in
Speaker 1: there and get it going, which you said was a
Speaker 1: childish maneuver, a rookie move, and that's fair anyway, Eric
Speaker 1: rode in to say you should never use a butter
Speaker 1: knife to start catch up in a glass bottle because,
Speaker 1: according to the servers in a bar near him that
Speaker 1: also uses glass catchup bottles, if someone sticks a butter
Speaker 1: knife in the bottle, the bottle is now deemed unsanitary
Speaker 1: and tainted and must be thrown away. Now, I I
Speaker 1: I will admit that I, like many of you, probably
Speaker 1: never considered this. Okay, I didn't, and I get I
Speaker 1: admit I didn't. I didn't consider that like that is
Speaker 1: a much stronger argument than my stupid like Oh that's
Speaker 1: for kids. That that was his is like a legitimate reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but I still take issue right now. It
Speaker 1: makes now I do, and I'll tell you why. It
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. I get it. But this also feels
Speaker 1: to me like one of those things people in the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties like gave zero shits about. Like they
Speaker 1: were smoking sections on airplanes. Children were shooting each other
Speaker 1: with BB guns instead of nerve guns. And your dad
Speaker 1: would help you build the ramp that would allow you
Speaker 1: to jump the creek on a bike sand's helmet, so
Speaker 1: nobody was worried about a butter knife tainting ketchup. And
Speaker 1: my point is, while the knife and the catchup thing
Speaker 1: isn't wrong, this I don't know. It just feels like
Speaker 1: a very millennial observation to me, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like there's there's there's more important ship to worry about.
Speaker 1: So really, I guess er, thanks thanks for ruining catch
Speaker 1: up in glass bottles the last bastion of Americana, Because
Speaker 1: now it's not slight. It's like going to the doctor.
Speaker 1: I don't have cancer if you don't tell me I do,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? So now I will never
Speaker 1: be able to look at a glass catchup bottle and
Speaker 1: go oh man, like, what nasty ass stuck their butternuts?
Speaker 1: I think, thanks, I think you're Your anger here is misplaced.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's Eric fault. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a service fault, at least restaurant fault. If you want
Speaker 1: to blame someone, you can blame like the health department
Speaker 1: for trying to keep you safe. It's not really Eric's fault.
Speaker 1: It's just like I didn't need to know that. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna excuse me, do you have a single serf packets?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna create more trash. I'm gonna create more waste
Speaker 1: because I'm worried some yucko stuck is butter knife in
Speaker 1: the ketchup before I got there to order my pork
Speaker 1: royal sandwich. Damn it. Anyway, That's that's my shout out
Speaker 1: of the week. You haven't this week? We I think
Speaker 1: we got to talk about I think I think we
Speaker 1: have to talk about the elephant in the playlist. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: well okay, well we're gonna get to that because, as reminded,
Speaker 1: us is a competition. Miles and I do not know
Speaker 1: which news stories, the other dude is bringing to the
Speaker 1: table and at the end, judgment shall be passed by
Speaker 1: the mighty Phil our audio engineering. What Miles is referring
Speaker 1: to UM is that Phil has officially contributed now to
Speaker 1: the Bent Spotify playlists, which many of you guys seem
Speaker 1: to be enjoyed. We can be getting a lot of
Speaker 1: great notes on that. The numbers are ticking up, you're
Speaker 1: you're listening, um, and if you're not rocking out with this,
Speaker 1: you can find the link to the playlist in my Instagram. Mile.
Speaker 1: But Miles and I were thinking right that down the line,
Speaker 1: maybe we'd start asking show guests time to time to
Speaker 1: recommend a few tracks that will add here and there.
Speaker 1: But it seemed only right that since we we've already
Speaker 1: discussed Phil's musical taste, we let him throw down some choices.
Speaker 1: And man, can you learn a lot from from having
Speaker 1: somebody create a Spotify playlist for you at Phil. Phil
Speaker 1: was all over the place, right from Wilco to Kanye
Speaker 1: West to Steely Dan. Don't forget heart. There was some
Speaker 1: heart in it. It was really it was eclectic and
Speaker 1: I like that, and uh, Miles, so we we whittled
Speaker 1: it down to three selections of pills that are now
Speaker 1: officially in the Bent playlist, the first one being The
Speaker 1: White Stripes Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine. We
Speaker 1: both agreed on that one. I'm actually a White Stripes fan.
Speaker 1: I always liked the White Stripes, and kudos to fill
Speaker 1: He didn't. He didn't select really one hit. They were
Speaker 1: all B sides, you know what I mean. And I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. I like that. Now you chose this was
Speaker 1: your pick. Run the Jewels, Goonies, verse et. I don't
Speaker 1: know anything about Run the Jewels. Oh come on, killer Mike,
Speaker 1: Now you gotta love it anyway. Yes, that's some classic,
Speaker 1: classic conscious Atlanta hip hop right there. So okay. So
Speaker 1: finally we went with um, Mexican Wine by Fountains of Wayne.
Speaker 1: That was that was my choice, And I said that
Speaker 1: because I don't I don't know, but I mean, you're
Speaker 1: not a Fountains of Wayne guy. But I was a
Speaker 1: fan of their first album. Um. They had a song
Speaker 1: called Sink to the Bottom. I Want to Sing to
Speaker 1: the Bottom, and I rocked out to that right when
Speaker 1: I was a wee lad. And the first time I
Speaker 1: ever heard it was when they played it live. On
Speaker 1: the Jenny McCarthy show. Do you remember the Jenny McCarthy show,
Speaker 1: sadly I do, yes, it was awful, but that is
Speaker 1: where I I discovered Fountains of Wayne. So anyway, if
Speaker 1: you hear those tracks pop up, you now know they
Speaker 1: are from Phil, who, upon being asked to contribute, said,
Speaker 1: and this is a direct fail quote. This is probably
Speaker 1: the least consequential thing I've done at meat Eater, and
Speaker 1: I've never felt more pressure. So pressure, the pressure is now, Phil,
Speaker 1: You've done good. Your songs are in. The pressure is
Speaker 1: now on, Miles as it is your leadoff for news
Speaker 1: this week. Hit me alright, Okay, pressure is on. See
Speaker 1: how I do? Uh, my first one is gonna come.
Speaker 1: This comes from my original home state, where the Board
Speaker 1: of Land and Natural Resources is clearly not messing around.
Speaker 1: All right, do not mess around in Hawaii, and you'll
Speaker 1: you'll hear about this will make sense in a second.
Speaker 1: So last month they issued the largest fine in state
Speaker 1: history for an aquatic resource violation. A six hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty three thousand, eight hundred and forty dollar fine was
Speaker 1: issued to a Heilo man who dumped and poison into
Speaker 1: Pa stream in order to kill and collect huge quantities
Speaker 1: of Tahitian prawns for illegal sale. I didn't get the
Speaker 1: stream name. Can you tell me? The stream name is
Speaker 1: the stream? There you go? You got it? Yes, I did.
Speaker 1: Tahitian prows are not native to Hawaii, despite their misleading name.
Speaker 1: The species is found throughout East Africa, the Indian Ocean,
Speaker 1: and Indonesia, and then over into the Marqueses Islands. Hawaii
Speaker 1: state workers introduced to Hitian browns into two streams on
Speaker 1: two separate islands, Moluchai and Oahu in nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: Fifteen years later, the prawns were found in forty two
Speaker 1: different streams on every single Hawaiian island, and though humans
Speaker 1: are responsible for the original introduction, the spread and proliferation
Speaker 1: occurred without any help because after hatching, Tahitian prawn larva
Speaker 1: wash out to see where they spend a month growing
Speaker 1: and molting, and just before reaching maturity, the young prawns
Speaker 1: seek out whatever fresh water source they can find and
Speaker 1: make their way upstream, where they spend the remainder of
Speaker 1: their lives. And this life cycle makes them exceptional colonizers
Speaker 1: and that's how they got everywhere. Fascinating so it's not
Speaker 1: like steel had to go to the same stream. They'll
Speaker 1: just find the closest fresh water. They just spread out,
Speaker 1: got you, got you right, and so so they've been
Speaker 1: common residents of most freshwater systems in Hawaii since the seventies,
Speaker 1: and they're they're considered in vase have as they may
Speaker 1: compete with native shrimp and prons, but their impacts have
Speaker 1: not been closely studied, so no one's sure how bad
Speaker 1: of a deal they are. And since they've been around
Speaker 1: for fifty years and everything hasn't collapsed, they kind of
Speaker 1: sort of like they're not that bad. But harvest is allowed,
Speaker 1: and the Department of Land Natural Resources has no bag
Speaker 1: limits onto hitian prons. You can take as many as
Speaker 1: you want. Common and legal methods of take include nets, spears,
Speaker 1: and spotlights, but dumping a bottle of poison into the
Speaker 1: water and then scooping up all the dead prons as
Speaker 1: they float downstream is both illegal and incredibly destructive. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: this practice seems like it's starting to become common, or
Speaker 1: at least common enough to draw significant attention and resources
Speaker 1: from the White Deal at all. Because people like prons
Speaker 1: right like prawns are good exactly, and and you know,
Speaker 1: the legal methods of pron hunting can yield seems like
Speaker 1: from what I can tell, can yield like a big
Speaker 1: meal in a few hours of collection. You can get
Speaker 1: a company dozen't But poachers can just dump a bottle
Speaker 1: of ant poison the stream and and get like fifty
Speaker 1: to a hundred pounds or more in minutes. And then
Speaker 1: they take those fresh prawns and they sell them on
Speaker 1: the roadside, and they make quick cash. Poisons like that
Speaker 1: kill indiscriminately, and they have long lasting negative impacts. According
Speaker 1: to state biologist Troy Sakihara, the illegal and unethical use
Speaker 1: of these pesticides in streams have shown to cause extremely
Speaker 1: damaging and long lasting effects into all aquatic stream animals,
Speaker 1: native and non native. These pesticides are highly toxic to
Speaker 1: all aquatic animals and result in extensive recovery time, particularly
Speaker 1: for native and endemic stream life. Typically, non native and
Speaker 1: invasive species are the first to repopulate these impacted areas. Therefore,
Speaker 1: these types of activities can severely alter the natural biological
Speaker 1: conditions and overall health of the stream ecosystem. So real bad,
Speaker 1: that's what he's saying. Yeah, and beyond decimated the stream life.
Speaker 1: This practice is also dangerous for the people who consume
Speaker 1: the poison shellfish. Right like the side of the road,
Speaker 1: it's full of a poison you don't know. So all
Speaker 1: this is to say that cracking down on this practice
Speaker 1: has become a high priority for for the Hawaii deal
Speaker 1: in r last July, enforcement officer Edwin Shoshido got an
Speaker 1: anonymous tip about one such incident. Shashido knew that he
Speaker 1: had an opportunity to make an impact, and so he
Speaker 1: spent the next two months building this case. He partnered
Speaker 1: with the Division of Aquatic Resources and the Department Agriculture
Speaker 1: to collect water, soil, and prawn samples, all of which
Speaker 1: tested positive for benethren, a toxin commonly found in commercial
Speaker 1: insect poisons. He tracked down eye witnesses, and like you,
Speaker 1: just spent a ton of time on this. He was
Speaker 1: ultimately successful in prosecuting the offender, whose actions resulted in
Speaker 1: the death of approximately six thousand, two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: Tahesian prawns, in addition to who knows how much other
Speaker 1: aquatic wildlife. The guy got find a thousand dollars per
Speaker 1: dead prawn, two dollars for unlawful use of poisonous substances,
Speaker 1: plus another eight thousand sixty bucks to pay for the
Speaker 1: overtime the officers Shushido and the other staff put into
Speaker 1: the case. The chair of the Hawaii Board of Natural
Speaker 1: Resources set it's sentencing this very significant fine. Let's illegal
Speaker 1: fishers know that we take these matters very very seriously.
Speaker 1: Responsible citizens acting as witnesses and our officers are watching
Speaker 1: streams closely, and if you're engaged to these types of activities,
Speaker 1: eventually the law will catch up with you. This kind
Speaker 1: of illegal and extremely horrible fishing behavior collecting prawns and
Speaker 1: streams using poison is unacceptable, and we will enforce it
Speaker 1: at every turn. And I just I wish all poaching
Speaker 1: and wildlife cases were prosecuted this way, right, because so
Speaker 1: often the story ends with the offender like there's this
Speaker 1: whole thing, and then the offender gets a nominal sanction
Speaker 1: or like a little fine, and I think that ends
Speaker 1: up doing far more harm than good because the message
Speaker 1: from those cases it's not that big a deal. Breaking
Speaker 1: fish and wildlife laws is really not that big a deal,
Speaker 1: so people keep doing it. If if, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: conservation officers are allowed and encouraged to prioritize catching offenders
Speaker 1: and hit them with big fines like this that also
Speaker 1: include the cost of overtime that all the people who
Speaker 1: caught them put into it. I think that might actually
Speaker 1: make people think twice. So I'm I'm shouting out. I'm
Speaker 1: applauding Hawaii deal in our and especially officers Shashido for
Speaker 1: for this one. I think I think there's a job
Speaker 1: really well done, dude. I think I think it's amazing.
Speaker 1: And man, there's there's gonna be a lot of connections
Speaker 1: between stories today. We've done some some some things in
Speaker 1: similar veins, and I completely agree. The thing is like,
Speaker 1: the fine is what it is. Dude's got to pay it.
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, as fin as you deal
Speaker 1: with people in these cases that don't have a ton
Speaker 1: of money, and it's like, well, you can you can
Speaker 1: lay that fine on a guy. That doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: the state's canna get all that money out of it.
Speaker 1: That's Neil, and you know, and there's actually similarities here
Speaker 1: on the mainland. I feel like we've talked about it
Speaker 1: in this show at one point, but I had a
Speaker 1: good buddy who is a veteran guide on the Salmon
Speaker 1: river out here, and back in the Wild West days
Speaker 1: of poaching, that wasn't uncommon to have these salmon run
Speaker 1: up these little side trips and dude would dump a
Speaker 1: ten gallon bucket of bleach in and the other dude
Speaker 1: would stand at the bottom with a pitchfork. That happened
Speaker 1: like in New York State. Yeah, yeah, like that was
Speaker 1: a thing that people used to do. So the idea
Speaker 1: of poisoning a run like that to get what you
Speaker 1: need is it happens elsewhere and that's the same deal.
Speaker 1: So then you're selling these salmon that like smell like
Speaker 1: bleach and their gills are white, and it's like, who
Speaker 1: wants to freaking eat that? I will say, though I know,
Speaker 1: I know those prawns are are invasive, but I've seen
Speaker 1: stuff on TV, like the legit guys that do it
Speaker 1: with the flashlights and the real small spear guns like
Speaker 1: a little like needle Dart. I think it's cool as hell,
Speaker 1: Like I would like I would like to try that.
Speaker 1: The only reason I haven't done it is because I
Speaker 1: grew up on a wah who and I know that
Speaker 1: there are clean streams on a wall who where you
Speaker 1: can do this and feel comfortable about it. I don't
Speaker 1: know which ones they are, like like the streams I
Speaker 1: grew up, and you don't want to eat out of those,
Speaker 1: right right? And that's the other thing with all this poisoning.
Speaker 1: It's like, now, if you want to do it on
Speaker 1: the up and up, how do you know which one
Speaker 1: hasn't been ant poisoned to death? You know, well, if
Speaker 1: there are bronze living in it, you're probably pretty safe.
Speaker 1: From what I like. Everything I read, it just wipes
Speaker 1: them out. Yeah. Well, you know the other thing too.
Speaker 1: I appreciate ingenuity in terms of like getting legal meals
Speaker 1: or harvesting more crabs or whatever it may be. But
Speaker 1: is this the only way you would think? Like it
Speaker 1: wasn't something? Why isn't one of the old timers like
Speaker 1: hooked up a car battery and shocked him or something like?
Speaker 1: Can't we figure something out like that? We have to
Speaker 1: poison the entire stream, Like my grandpa used to dig
Speaker 1: worms with a car battery and two electrodes, stick them
Speaker 1: in the ground, buzz them up. Upcome the worms. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's ingenuity, you know what I mean. We're not harming anything. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: it's I'm with you. I think it's a really cool
Speaker 1: way of vesting food. And uh, next time I on
Speaker 1: the neighbor island with cleaner water, I'm definitely gonna do
Speaker 1: this because I think that'd be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I think, I think it looks awesome. And you've given
Speaker 1: me the simplest transition because we're going from invasives too invasives.
Speaker 1: This is a cool story, though though it's a bit
Speaker 1: it's a bit complex. I'm gonna do my best to
Speaker 1: break it down in orderly fashion here. But it comes
Speaker 1: from Hakai magazine, which is great. That's a really good magazine.
Speaker 1: We highly recommend it. Excellent writing. Uh. And it centers
Speaker 1: around the blood worm trade. And I realized that blood
Speaker 1: worms are not exactly a ubiquitous bait. They're actually a
Speaker 1: very niche bait used in salt water. But if you're
Speaker 1: a Northeasterner like me from the mid Atlantic, you probably
Speaker 1: understand their importance. Um. So blood worms are these big,
Speaker 1: ugly meannass seaworms. They can be really long, they can
Speaker 1: be a foot long. They have legs that run down
Speaker 1: the side. It looks like like like a blood red fringe. Um.
Speaker 1: And while you can use them for a wide variety
Speaker 1: of saltwater species. They are most commonly used at least
Speaker 1: where I live, for stripers and white perch, particularly in
Speaker 1: the early season when the resident massard just waking up
Speaker 1: because it's we have these fish in the back bays.
Speaker 1: They're not chasing bait all over. The water is cold,
Speaker 1: so they feed on the sand flats and the mud flats,
Speaker 1: and blood worms are a choice bait, very important. Now.
Speaker 1: These worms are primarily harvested in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes,
Speaker 1: and believe it or not, they are one of Maine's
Speaker 1: most valuable commercial fisheries. And according to this story, yes,
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, the worm trade in Maine was valued
Speaker 1: at north of six million dollars total um. And what's
Speaker 1: so cool about it is the deep tradition tied to
Speaker 1: this worm harvest. They have to be dug by hand.
Speaker 1: You cannot use automated machinery. Right. Um, you still can't
Speaker 1: dig for these worms on Sundays in Maine. And while
Speaker 1: this number has shrunk, it's estimated that there's still about
Speaker 1: seven and fifty miners that dig worms at least part
Speaker 1: time for supplemental income and nowadays, the going rate for
Speaker 1: like a really choice worm is about sixty cents per worm.
Speaker 1: Um Now, because these live worms, you know, don't live
Speaker 1: super long, this trade is all based around speed to market.
Speaker 1: Worms are dug, packed and overnighted in most cases to
Speaker 1: bait shops across the country, which is why a dozen
Speaker 1: of the damn things is so expensive. They are an
Speaker 1: insanely expensive bait. Especially, Oh man, you're gonna put me
Speaker 1: on the spot. It's been so long since i've it's
Speaker 1: it's more than ten bucks a dozen, maybe even up
Speaker 1: around fifteen bucks a dozen. I mean, it would have
Speaker 1: to be if if the diggers are getting sixty cents,
Speaker 1: and then they've got to get overnighted, and their story
Speaker 1: exactly right if you put all those factors together. Plus
Speaker 1: now the story is saying supply and demand because of
Speaker 1: of you know, the pandemic, pushing more people to fish,
Speaker 1: they can't keep up. And I know there was a
Speaker 1: blood worm shortage around here this past spring. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you can only dig so many by hand. And Tricky
Speaker 1: told I only ever used them when I knew they'd
Speaker 1: be critical, right, like, we're doing this, we need to
Speaker 1: have blood worms or we're not going to be successful.
Speaker 1: It's not something I've I've used much. You can catch
Speaker 1: fluke on them sea bass, but they're just so damn
Speaker 1: expensive that um, I've rarely ever done that. Now, when
Speaker 1: you buy these worms, they come packed in seaweed and
Speaker 1: it's a relatively common brown algae simply called wormweed. And
Speaker 1: to cut to the chase here, right, Amy Fowler, a
Speaker 1: marine biologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, has been
Speaker 1: studying this worm weed for for years. This started in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven. She's taken samples from bait shops, from suppliers,
Speaker 1: and it turns out that it's a major contributor to
Speaker 1: introducing invasive species to other bodies of water. And this
Speaker 1: worm weed that these worms come packed and is filled
Speaker 1: with micro organisms, and the most critical are periwinkle snails
Speaker 1: and green crabs um and she believes those particular species
Speaker 1: ended up in several places that they should not be
Speaker 1: as a direct result of the bait trade. Furthermore, the
Speaker 1: worm weed itself can take hold and has done so
Speaker 1: in areas of both chest Peak and San Francisco Bay
Speaker 1: because these main worms are shipped all the way across
Speaker 1: the country. Right, Because what happens. Right, you finished with
Speaker 1: your worms. It's seaweed you're throwing in the water. Right.
Speaker 1: You don't think you don't think anything of it. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: I could go on and on about the invasives within
Speaker 1: the worm weed, but that's really not the most interesting
Speaker 1: part of the story. What's fascinating is that it's been
Speaker 1: proven that shipping blood worms in worm weed provides no benefit.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make them live longer. They don't eat it, right,
Speaker 1: it just acts like this natural moist packing peanut material. Um.
Speaker 1: But distributors have skipped the weed in overnight shipments to
Speaker 1: Europe just to reduce weight and just letting the worms
Speaker 1: roll around and styre from containers, and they survived just fine.
Speaker 1: Though it's kind of a daylight and a buck short.
Speaker 1: California outlawed the importation of worm weed, and guess what
Speaker 1: the worms headed. They are now packed in wet cardboard
Speaker 1: strips or newspaper and they do just fine. So it
Speaker 1: seems the simple solution is just stop packing the worms
Speaker 1: in worm weed, Except the harvesting of the weed goes
Speaker 1: hand in hand with the traditional style of blood worm
Speaker 1: harvesting in Maine. Like one guy who just harvest worm
Speaker 1: weed in this story says he gets about seven bucks
Speaker 1: a bag and can make eight bucks on a good
Speaker 1: low tide. Just collecting the weed for the worms to
Speaker 1: be packed in right, doesn't actually serve any benefit. It
Speaker 1: serves no benefit, it doesn't keep it, it serves really
Speaker 1: no benefit. So, um, a lot of the bait distributors
Speaker 1: in Maine are basically saying like that, Like Fowler is
Speaker 1: passing on this information. She's talking to these guys, and
Speaker 1: a lot of them are just basically saying like, yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: this is how we've been doing it for decades, and UM,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna risk putting anyone out of work, meaning
Speaker 1: the weed harvesters, by changing my ways. So even though
Speaker 1: Fowler suggests that while it may hurt the finances of
Speaker 1: a select group of manners, these weed collectors, the bait distributors,
Speaker 1: would actually save money in the long run by switching
Speaker 1: to a different packing material or skipping it all together.
Speaker 1: She also says if you simply rinsed all the worm
Speaker 1: weed in fresh water before packing, it would get rid
Speaker 1: of a lot of these Cleinger honors. But there's there's
Speaker 1: one distributor interview in the piece that says, yeah, rinsing
Speaker 1: all the weed that's just too onerous, time consuming, and
Speaker 1: contends and contends that the solution is educating anglers that
Speaker 1: buy worms not to discard the worm weed in the water,
Speaker 1: so to put the full responsibility on the buyer of
Speaker 1: the blood worm. Oh, I could not disagree with that more. Yeah.
Speaker 1: To me, it's it's plans and and and like I said,
Speaker 1: I've used blood worms. It's not something I buy a
Speaker 1: ton of. But as far as long as I can remember,
Speaker 1: you buy blood worms. They come in seaweed. Never thought
Speaker 1: anything of it. I threw that seaweed in the water,
Speaker 1: never gave it a thought. It's it's organic. Um. So
Speaker 1: you know, Fowler was even saying in this piece, like
Speaker 1: a lot of times when you're trying to pinpoint where
Speaker 1: certain invases are coming from, it takes so long to
Speaker 1: find the source, Like there's so much work put into
Speaker 1: the exact way that this thing got from here to here.
Speaker 1: And she's like this one's playing his day, like we
Speaker 1: could track it, Like these are all places that have
Speaker 1: this high use of blood worms, and the blood worms
Speaker 1: are packed in this seaweed that gets discarded. But it
Speaker 1: just sounds like tradition is too strong. Nobody, nobody wants
Speaker 1: to listen. It's just like now we're just gonna We're
Speaker 1: gonna do that. That's what we do. Oh that is
Speaker 1: that is maddening. I wish that everyone could see my
Speaker 1: face right now because it's just like scrunched up frustration.
Speaker 1: Because this is not a hard but as you were saying,
Speaker 1: this is not a hard problems, it's not it's not
Speaker 1: and and there is there is one, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I sort of see a parallel, believe it or not.
Speaker 1: You know, you have these these old timy worm harvesting
Speaker 1: operations that have worked with you know, this guy and
Speaker 1: that guy to collect all their weed for so long.
Speaker 1: I sort of see a parallel. I think New Jersey
Speaker 1: and Oregon in the last two states where it's um
Speaker 1: illegal to pump your own gas, an attendant has to
Speaker 1: do that for you, and like for many many years,
Speaker 1: it's like, can we just like save money and like
Speaker 1: we are happy to pump our own gas. But it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but just simply killing that would put so many people
Speaker 1: out of work. So I sort of see the loyalty
Speaker 1: in the tradition there and not wanting their buddies and
Speaker 1: the people they've worked with forever to be out of
Speaker 1: a weed harvesting job to come. Yeah, dude, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't that that analogy doesn't work for me because
Speaker 1: there is no downside other than a slightly higher cost
Speaker 1: per gallant fuel. This one you're talking about. We're transporting
Speaker 1: and basis species all over the country in the world,
Speaker 1: and all we have to do is stop doing this.
Speaker 1: It confers zero benefit other than a job like that.
Speaker 1: To me is the definition of of having of creating
Speaker 1: a job that is detrimental and has no value. And
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to hate on the weed harvesters out there.
Speaker 1: This is not a personal attack at any of you.
Speaker 1: But I think maybe you want to start getting into
Speaker 1: digging worms. Perhaps that might be the way that you
Speaker 1: could transition. Uh. Still still similar, similar activity, it seems.
Speaker 1: And it's did I tell you what? It is a
Speaker 1: nasty job, man. This is like a low tide window.
Speaker 1: You are, you know, balls deep and muck like. It
Speaker 1: is hard work. I believe it's it's it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Here here's the other thing I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: what by by putting this on let's say that the
Speaker 1: the onus is on anglers, right, Well, that's not actually
Speaker 1: gonna fall on anglers because the way, the only way
Speaker 1: this really works is if now every other state where
Speaker 1: blood worms are used for fishing has to create a
Speaker 1: regulation whereby if you have blood worm weed, you cannot
Speaker 1: dispose of it. And that's just another thing that wardens
Speaker 1: have to now use their time looking out for which
Speaker 1: they don't have the time of the resources do and
Speaker 1: they don't want to do. And that that to me
Speaker 1: is obnoxious when it could have been handled at the source.
Speaker 1: And and that that helps me kind of like continue
Speaker 1: my theme of the week, which is which is calling
Speaker 1: out game and wildlife enforcement officers in a positive light,
Speaker 1: because you know, these these are men and women who
Speaker 1: take a lot of ship, oftentimes unfairly, and they rarely
Speaker 1: get credit for all the good work that they do. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: they don't want to police your worm weed. They don't
Speaker 1: want to do that, but they'll have to, perhaps even
Speaker 1: though it could have been solved elsewhere in the supply chain.
Speaker 1: Right And and I'm gonna start this one. This is
Speaker 1: the actual story here is short and kind of dumb,
Speaker 1: but I like it anyway. But I'm gonna start it
Speaker 1: off with with the story of my own. Uh So,
Speaker 1: the first time my wife and I took our son
Speaker 1: out on our boat, it was a beautiful June weekend
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. The kid was seven months old.
Speaker 1: We met up with some friends and their kids. We
Speaker 1: all launch our boat is at at this busy river
Speaker 1: access point in the Madison and our friends were out
Speaker 1: of head just a little bit and I just eased
Speaker 1: our sixteen foot drift boat out of the current when
Speaker 1: I saw Warden waving me back over to the bank,
Speaker 1: and you know, complied immediately as I always do, and
Speaker 1: I was not concerned, right, I've I've talked lots of words.
Speaker 1: I've been checked many times. I pulled up next to
Speaker 1: guy like I got all my paperwork, I got all
Speaker 1: my safety equipment. I'm I'm legit, no problem. What do
Speaker 1: you what do you need to see? But then he
Speaker 1: looks at me and he says, uh, sir, do you
Speaker 1: have a life jacket for that child? And I was
Speaker 1: just totally thrown because I didn't the kids. I mean,
Speaker 1: the kid wasn't even crawling yet, so the idea of
Speaker 1: him needing a life jacket, it simply hadn't crossed my mind,
Speaker 1: which is stupid, because I knew the law, right, Like
Speaker 1: I knew that all kids twelve and under half to
Speaker 1: wear a PFD at all times. I had to do
Speaker 1: that when I was guiding, but I just I never
Speaker 1: thought about it with an infant who couldn't get away.
Speaker 1: I just didn't thy right. So, like I mean, blame it.
Speaker 1: Put him on the bat he's not going anywhere. Fine,
Speaker 1: I blame it on a year and a half of
Speaker 1: sleep deparation, whatever. But I was utterly unprepared. And and
Speaker 1: it be in this beautiful weekend day, right, the ramp
Speaker 1: is super crowded, there are people everywhere, and the officer
Speaker 1: was understanding, but like he kind of just he's like
Speaker 1: he was explained, my god, I'm sorry, man, but like
Speaker 1: I have to. I have to pay attention to this.
Speaker 1: I am. It's something that we're focusing on this year,
Speaker 1: particularly this river, is making sure kids are safe because
Speaker 1: we've had some issues and which I can't right. So
Speaker 1: he's like I said, I can't. I can't just look
Speaker 1: the other way on this. And what he could have
Speaker 1: done was he could have told us, all right, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but you gotta you're you guys are out of here.
Speaker 1: You don't have a life jack for that kid, pull
Speaker 1: the boat jack up, put it on the trailer, which
Speaker 1: would have been a really, really lame way to end
Speaker 1: my son's first ever float trip. It would have been
Speaker 1: a real disappointing day and I would have been upset,
Speaker 1: my wife would have everybody was upset. But the guy
Speaker 1: he didn't gotten over right though. If nothing else, he
Speaker 1: would have moved right on to other things. But but
Speaker 1: that's not what he did, and that's where I your son.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't have remembered. No, he wouldn't have cared at all.
Speaker 1: It would have been like feed me and let me
Speaker 1: sleep and scream at you. Um. But the the officer
Speaker 1: didn't do that right. So instead he went back to
Speaker 1: his truck and he pulled out an infant life jacket
Speaker 1: of his own and loaned it to my son so
Speaker 1: that we could legally complete our float. I'll say he did.
Speaker 1: He did also issue me a citation, but I chalk
Speaker 1: that up to the price of stupidity on my part,
Speaker 1: like I deserved that. The point is that like these
Speaker 1: aren't the stories that usually get told, right, the ones
Speaker 1: where wildlife officers go out of their way to help
Speaker 1: people are it's usually hear the other ones, And in
Speaker 1: this case, I was breaking the law, and that dude
Speaker 1: had every right to just pull us off the river
Speaker 1: and go about his day, but he chose to loan
Speaker 1: some of his personal property so that we could we
Speaker 1: could have fun and we could do what we're doing.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what he did. And so that I
Speaker 1: thought of that because I just read this other story
Speaker 1: from the local news on Lake Tuscaloosa in Alabama from
Speaker 1: last weekend. Tyler Cunningham took his girlfriend Mackenzie Boyd out
Speaker 1: on his bass boat and he told her that he
Speaker 1: wanted to sneak in a little bit of fishing before
Speaker 1: they had to head out to a friend's house for
Speaker 1: a dinner party. So they hit the water dress in
Speaker 1: their Sunday bass like fully ducked out to go bass fishing. Okay,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden Mill Lake, Cunningham cuts the outboard,
Speaker 1: gets down on one knee, pulls out a rigg and
Speaker 1: proposes to Boyd, who's like totally surprised. I love I
Speaker 1: love your response. There. I give the dude credit because
Speaker 1: I actually pulled off the surprise part and and you
Speaker 1: know she accepts everybody's happy blah blah blah. It's a
Speaker 1: touching moment, Sir Mellie. But then on the way back
Speaker 1: to the ramp, the couple gets detained by State Wildlife
Speaker 1: officers because they don't have life jackets or a fire
Speaker 1: stigmature on board. Now, similarly, by law, the off could
Speaker 1: have issued a couple of citations and that would have
Speaker 1: been the end of this story. But they didn't. They
Speaker 1: did it differently. They they let the couple off of
Speaker 1: the warning, which I think is a nice thing to
Speaker 1: do for a young couple of probably broke I know
Speaker 1: I was a young couple. But then they also used
Speaker 1: this event as an opportunity to do a little pr work,
Speaker 1: and this is what I think was pretty smart. The
Speaker 1: officers took photos with the couple and then they put
Speaker 1: up a Facebook post that I gotta say it's kind
Speaker 1: of clever. And so here here's how it read. Quote
Speaker 1: quite an eventful boat ride on Lake Tuscaloosa from Mackenzie L. Boyd,
Speaker 1: who was first detained with a request for her hand
Speaker 1: in marriage, and then once again with requests for licenses
Speaker 1: and registration. Officers Stanley and Halloway congratulated Mackenzie and her
Speaker 1: bow Tyler Cunningham, and remind them that the secret to
Speaker 1: a long and successful life together includes life jackets and
Speaker 1: accessible fire extinguishers. Okay, I I know this is this
Speaker 1: is kind of a cheesy story, and I get now.
Speaker 1: I have something to say. If you don't say that,
Speaker 1: I want to give both the officers involved and the
Speaker 1: Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division a lot of credit
Speaker 1: for how they handled this, because, as we've already said,
Speaker 1: as I've mentioned, wardens generally have difficult, thankless jobs, and
Speaker 1: while they are always exceptions, the vast majority of the
Speaker 1: wardens that I've ever dealt with have been courteous and
Speaker 1: polite and professional. And you you may get it. Yes,
Speaker 1: you may get annoyed at getting checked or or getting
Speaker 1: a citation for doing something accidental or stupid. I get that,
Speaker 1: But you gotta remember that these are men and women
Speaker 1: their primary responsibilities to protect the fish and wildlife that
Speaker 1: we all really care about. And think about the sum total,
Speaker 1: think about the good versus harm, and think about how
Speaker 1: often like they have to deal with people being jerks
Speaker 1: to them. Yes, and and and then take a step
Speaker 1: back and recognize that when they have these moments to
Speaker 1: like throw some levity in the situation, I think that
Speaker 1: it is incredibly valuable and I love when they do it,
Speaker 1: and and I thought that was very well handled. Here's
Speaker 1: what I will say, which which just really goes back
Speaker 1: to the to the couple, right. I don't know, dude,
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of boats. I have boats now.
Speaker 1: The life jackets are always in the boat, like, they
Speaker 1: don't ever come out of the boat. The fire extinguisher
Speaker 1: doesn't come out of the everything is always in the boat. Like.
Speaker 1: That's like common sense to me. So when I hear
Speaker 1: people on larger boats that get hit for having no
Speaker 1: life jacket, like you, what do you take your life
Speaker 1: jackets on and off the boat? Everything? Even if you
Speaker 1: wear right, Like, even if you wear the suspenders type,
Speaker 1: the comfortable ones, I still have the shitty orange ones
Speaker 1: jammed in there to be up to code in case
Speaker 1: I forget the suspenders. So you're like, you're always legal.
Speaker 1: I don't understand that. I don't understand that either, the
Speaker 1: same on my boat. I'm with you. Well, so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna close here with one that um no no levity
Speaker 1: from fish and game officials was warranted for this one
Speaker 1: because it's it's pretty ugly and there's really not a
Speaker 1: great punchline other than like we're gonna crunch some numbers
Speaker 1: here and you're gonna be like what right. So this
Speaker 1: one comes from Michigan's m live dot com headline two
Speaker 1: Michigan men find eight point five thousand dollars for poaching
Speaker 1: hundreds of walleye, pan fish and perch. Right now, it's
Speaker 1: it's not that difficult to dig up approaching story. We
Speaker 1: are I mean, like, we're all connected here, we are run,
Speaker 1: we are locked in. Um. I was gonna say, it's
Speaker 1: not really that hard to find a poaching story on
Speaker 1: the local outdoor police blotterer somewhere, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like there's always somebody doing something. But this one's pretty
Speaker 1: over the top. So this is from the story in
Speaker 1: a single day in March, Stanley garb As Jr. Sixty
Speaker 1: eight years old of Caseville and Bruce Warren, fifty three,
Speaker 1: of Pigeon. We're allegedly over the perch daily catch limit
Speaker 1: by sixty Fish. Authorities also found hundreds more walleye, pan
Speaker 1: fish and perch in garbage is freezer. The case began
Speaker 1: in March from the Department of Natural Resources received a
Speaker 1: tip on its report all poaching hotlines, So there you go.
Speaker 1: If you ever scoffed at those and like, don't think
Speaker 1: you should call call okay, because here's here's an example
Speaker 1: of where that worked. UM Advising that Garbas was at
Speaker 1: his residence in possession of a few hundred perch, dn
Speaker 1: R Conservation Officer josh Wright proceeded to the home and
Speaker 1: called the Huron County Sheriff's office for assistance. Deputy Joshua
Speaker 1: Loss arrived first and confirmed that there was quote a
Speaker 1: lot end quote of perch being fall When Right arrived,
Speaker 1: he received permission to count the fish that had been
Speaker 1: caught that day, and we're being processed by Garbage and Warren.
Speaker 1: He counted one and seventy. They were each over the
Speaker 1: day by sixty perch. Right then found an additional eighty
Speaker 1: five bags of frozen fish in four freezers at Garbage's residents.
Speaker 1: The filets were fought and counted. Once everything was falled
Speaker 1: and counted, it turned out dude was over his possession
Speaker 1: limit by thirty five walleye two under and forty pan
Speaker 1: fish and three hundred and ninete perch, right, God do
Speaker 1: I mean? So this is my assessment short story again,
Speaker 1: Like there's there's no quotes from these guys or anything. Um.
Speaker 1: But on top of their fine, the combined fine of
Speaker 1: eight point five k um, naturally, these men also face
Speaker 1: the loss of their licenses you know, forever. Um. But
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna go out on a limb here and
Speaker 1: say that, you know, similar to my worry about the
Speaker 1: prawn deal, the loss of a fishing license will will
Speaker 1: not necessarily stop these guys from fishing, because like, these
Speaker 1: violations to me are so egregious. I'm guessing that these
Speaker 1: two old timers basically give zero ships. Like if you're
Speaker 1: if you're one or two over the limit and try
Speaker 1: to be sneaky and you got caught, that's one thing.
Speaker 1: But if you're willing to go three perch over the limit,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm betting you don't actually care about the rules.
Speaker 1: You have not read the annual compendium, you probably never will,
Speaker 1: And I don't really think if like you can't get
Speaker 1: a license, you're not going to go out on the
Speaker 1: lake at night or or do what you're gonna do.
Speaker 1: Just my assessment, great bust like, good on them for
Speaker 1: for busting this one. Um and again similar to the
Speaker 1: Hawaii story. I mean, that's a hefty fine. They're they're
Speaker 1: really trying to get after these dudes. But I always
Speaker 1: question will it really matter in the end. I mean
Speaker 1: it is. It is a hefty fine, but not compared
Speaker 1: to the six and thirty thousand dollars. But if if
Speaker 1: Phil is gauging just on fines, you have wanted to
Speaker 1: clearly I'm gonna I'm gonna be quick here. I don't
Speaker 1: understand why anybody like I get eating fish, I get
Speaker 1: harvesting fish. Having that many fish, particularly freshwater fish, and
Speaker 1: freezer doesn't make that much sense to me. I don't
Speaker 1: There's something going on there that I can't wrap my
Speaker 1: head around. I try to be I try to be
Speaker 1: compassionate about like these people whose stories come up, but
Speaker 1: this one really I just struggle with. And to your
Speaker 1: other point, yeah, these all the fines here may not
Speaker 1: ever get paid, these people who may not be able to.
Speaker 1: But I do think that having a story that puts
Speaker 1: the word out there that can dissuade other people totally
Speaker 1: making similar choices. And that's where particularly the prawns story,
Speaker 1: like oh ship, they can come after me for a
Speaker 1: half million dollars. Probably not worth it to poison some
Speaker 1: some prawns tonight. Um, but that you're you're probably right.
Speaker 1: These individuals likely can't pay these fines and likely won't
Speaker 1: change their behavior, but hopefully it changes the behavior of
Speaker 1: many others who might otherwise make similar stupid choices. That's
Speaker 1: my hope. Yeah, well, I mean, unfortunately, it's it's always
Speaker 1: hard to get to uh you never really can see them.
Speaker 1: Then to find the follow up to these kinds of stories,
Speaker 1: Like I always you read them and you read, you know,
Speaker 1: the fines, but then there's never anything about whether dude
Speaker 1: actually ended up paying them. So we may never know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll keep an eye out. Um, Phil
Speaker 1: has got a lot to ponder here. I think we
Speaker 1: did a good job, like instead of staying just very
Speaker 1: on man, just totally connective. So difficult job for Phil,
Speaker 1: our guest DJ of the week. We're gonna hear from him,
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna do a little covering water with
Speaker 1: a tarpin. Legend will go full salty miles. I do
Speaker 1: not judge based on which one of your subjects procured
Speaker 1: the largest fine. I rate under three categories spunk, sizzle,
Speaker 1: and SPF, and I think within those parameters, the winner
Speaker 1: is obvious. Joe Surmelli, congratulations. Just for a glimpse behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, I sent Joe and Miles big list of
Speaker 1: songs to choose from, and I did not hear a
Speaker 1: single word back. So I just assumed that they probably
Speaker 1: saw the Buddy Rich Big Band on there and regretted
Speaker 1: asking me to contribute. And we're just gonna pretend that
Speaker 1: it never happened. But no, thanks for including my songs. Guys,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. I can't wait to see what selections river
Speaker 1: Horse makes. I'm going in I can hold it wasting
Speaker 1: his valuable time with us. Today we have infamous tarping
Speaker 1: guide and photographer David Mangum. What's going on, man, Hey,
Speaker 1: how you doing infamous? Infamous? Ye? We'll see well so
Speaker 1: so so. I I was intentional, man, I used infamous
Speaker 1: to describe you because you've I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: earned or cultivated this this this this kind of reputation
Speaker 1: right like Bill the rumor mill has it that you
Speaker 1: can be abrasive maybe on the water? Is that is
Speaker 1: that legit? Did you like really deserve that, or is
Speaker 1: just really good brand marketing. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it depends whether you mean to the boats
Speaker 1: that are near me or to the people on my boat.
Speaker 1: So h the answers would be different. But no, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think when I was younger, I was
Speaker 1: a little more abrasive, But in my old age, I've
Speaker 1: I've soppened up. Let's say, how's that? How's that? I
Speaker 1: like that? I think we all mellow with age, and
Speaker 1: I know I do, yeah a little bit. We've asked
Speaker 1: you here to to do this. I guess you'd call
Speaker 1: it our version of an interview. But you know, instead
Speaker 1: of like conducting a well thought out, proper interview, we
Speaker 1: just blurred out a bunch of ships and see what
Speaker 1: you come back with. So here's how it's gonna work.
Speaker 1: Joe's gonna put two minutes on the clock, and then
Speaker 1: he and I are gonna we're gonna like pepper you
Speaker 1: with rapid fire questions. The goal is to get through
Speaker 1: as many of these as we can in two minutes,
Speaker 1: which means you can't really think about it. You just
Speaker 1: you just got to react. It's a I think I
Speaker 1: describe it as like a verbal roar shock test. First
Speaker 1: thing that comes to your head just say, but in
Speaker 1: the spirit of fairness, we will give you one minute
Speaker 1: at the end to to like, expand and elaborate on
Speaker 1: whichever answer you think is is most interesting or stupid.
Speaker 1: Sound good? Okay? Sure, all right, Joe, you're ready and
Speaker 1: Clark is starting now. Roughly how many clients have you
Speaker 1: made cry in your career? Zero? Worst place you've ever
Speaker 1: been hooked? Uh? Eyelid. One sentence that describes how you
Speaker 1: feel about boon flies. Uh god, I don't even know
Speaker 1: it since his garbage finish the sentence. I cringe whenever
Speaker 1: a client tells me they've um got high expectations. Yes,
Speaker 1: there go the words that come out of your mouth
Speaker 1: when you see someone trout set on a tarpin blate
Speaker 1: blip blie, believe. What's the greatest tarpin destination outside of
Speaker 1: the US? I'm gonna have to go Guinea Bissau? Oh okay, alright,
Speaker 1: far flow Florida man stories funny or annoying? Oh god,
Speaker 1: both pivotal point in a tarpin fight. People screw up
Speaker 1: most often both side um just too much bend in
Speaker 1: the rod. Okay, greatest angler of all time Zane Gray. Oh,
Speaker 1: saved by the bell or fresh Prince of bel Air
Speaker 1: Fresh Prince? Yeah? Nice? Black flag no effects or blink
Speaker 1: one two black flag? Oh excellent? Name a bucket list
Speaker 1: species you haven't checked off your list yet? Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to go with black marline. Okay, Yeah, greatest
Speaker 1: fly ever invented? Spoon fly? No kidding? Um? Oh maybe
Speaker 1: the maybe the toad, Gary Mer's toad. Okay, and we
Speaker 1: have we have time for one last question here. Chasing
Speaker 1: line class records cool or lame? Somewhere in between depends.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to do, There's a lot you have
Speaker 1: to answer with that question, but somewhere in between. It
Speaker 1: all depends on the person chasing. Fair enough, fair enough,
Speaker 1: I mean, now you've got you got your one minute
Speaker 1: to elaborate. If that's the one you want to go
Speaker 1: on again. Yeah, well, I you know, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the difference between folks that chase line class records. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, some folks that have been angling their whole
Speaker 1: life and have caught everything and they're trying to make
Speaker 1: it more challenging. You know, they don't care if they
Speaker 1: catch that fishes and they've already caught tons of them,
Speaker 1: so they challenge themselves by trying to do some line
Speaker 1: class records. If you're doing line class records to try
Speaker 1: to make a big name for yourself and you're starting
Speaker 1: out angling, and you start out doing it scarbage were
Speaker 1: We recently reviewed the Monty Burke Lords of the Fly
Speaker 1: book that kind of goes through that that that whole culture.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've read it, man, but it's
Speaker 1: it's a really good one. I have, I figured since
Speaker 1: you were in there. So to each his own, I
Speaker 1: think is the is my feeling on it. I think
Speaker 1: in some ways it's great chase the line class records.
Speaker 1: In some ways, I don't know. I'm hot and cold
Speaker 1: on it, but I think I'm warming up to it
Speaker 1: a little more after you know the the book and
Speaker 1: kind of looking into the hearts of some of those
Speaker 1: people to do it. So then we appreciate you. You're
Speaker 1: taking the time to talk with this man and coming
Speaker 1: on here. We hope to talk to again soon. So
Speaker 1: I've never actually hung out with Dave, but we we have.
Speaker 1: We have quite a few mutual friends. But I've never liked,
Speaker 1: never had a beer with the guy. He's as you know,
Speaker 1: he's an icon in the saltwater fly fishing world. But
Speaker 1: he definitely has that reputation, like a long standing reputation
Speaker 1: of being a hardass, right. Oh yeah, yeah, dude. I
Speaker 1: know people who fished them back in the day. They
Speaker 1: were like scared, they were a little bit scared. And
Speaker 1: I don't I don't personally know him either, but supposedly,
Speaker 1: supposedly he's this super amped up hothead, but that that
Speaker 1: was not the guy who showed up for interview. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's just mellowed out because he's
Speaker 1: gotten a little older, he was just in a like
Speaker 1: a chill mode because we caught him, you know, in
Speaker 1: the off season, not between crazy Tarp and Trip, or
Speaker 1: if he's just trying to like soften his public image,
Speaker 1: which is also a possibility. But he was not um
Speaker 1: at all like the intimidating, aggro dude that he's been
Speaker 1: made out to be. I feel like I feel like
Speaker 1: he's hired a PR consultant or something. Someone you got,
Speaker 1: you got an interview, come up, Okay, here's what you
Speaker 1: gotta do. Take three volume wash it down with this.
Speaker 1: I don't know. He wasn't He wasn't the he didn't
Speaker 1: show up anyway as as the image that he's been
Speaker 1: built up to be. And I don't know if I
Speaker 1: disappointed or if I was relieved about that. I was
Speaker 1: kind of ready for this edgy interview that was that
Speaker 1: was combative, and it just wasn't like that at all.
Speaker 1: It was he was kind of tame. Actually, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe he's different when he hits the water,
Speaker 1: which would mean that he has something in common with
Speaker 1: a classic fly you're gonna tell us about in this
Speaker 1: week's end of the line, which also happens to be
Speaker 1: my favorite dry fly. Well that's not loud enough. One
Speaker 1: mid March years ago, a former fishing buddy and I
Speaker 1: skipped down for a few rain soaked days. The trip
Speaker 1: turned into an exercise and cognitive dissonance misery amid euphoria.
Speaker 1: Three days of steady downpour with tempts that never crept
Speaker 1: above the low forties. The air and water were nearly indistinguishable,
Speaker 1: being about the same temperature and saturation level. We set
Speaker 1: up camp in the rain, rendering our shelters wet from
Speaker 1: the start. And leaving us no escape, no warm, cozy respite.
Speaker 1: So we just stayed on the river from daylight to dusk,
Speaker 1: because though our bodies may have been damp and cold,
Speaker 1: we experienced three days of the most spectacular trout fishing
Speaker 1: either of us had ever seen before or since. Insects
Speaker 1: emerged from the water in sheets, creating a near mirror
Speaker 1: image of the falling rain, and just about every trout
Speaker 1: settled at the surface with their mouths wide. The gray
Speaker 1: light and steady drizzle made them far less spooky than
Speaker 1: usual on this particular tail water, and since the weather
Speaker 1: was more Southeast Alaska than Fort Lauderdale, the spring break
Speaker 1: crowds were absent. We didn't quite have the place to ourselves,
Speaker 1: but with hoods up and eyes focused, we hardly saw
Speaker 1: another soul. The first morning we set up in a long,
Speaker 1: slick covered and feeding fish. Two different insects were hatching
Speaker 1: tiny midges and just slightly larger slate colored mayflies called batas.
Speaker 1: The fish seemed to be alternating between bugs, so I
Speaker 1: kept switching flies. One fish would be focused on midges,
Speaker 1: while the fish just below it only wanted mayflies. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: my buddy standing just downstream remained consistently hooked up without
Speaker 1: ever retiring. I finally broke down, while shivering and trying
Speaker 1: to thread hair thin mono into a miniscule hook eye again, Dude,
Speaker 1: what are you using? And atoms size twenty, he replied,
Speaker 1: Rod still bent. Kind of look like a midge cluster,
Speaker 1: kind of looks like a batis. I dug into my box,
Speaker 1: tied on a size twenty Adams, and didn't change flies
Speaker 1: again for the rest of the trip, except when one
Speaker 1: got chewed beyond recognition or broken off by a big fish.
Speaker 1: If I could, I would rename the Atoms the gray
Speaker 1: area with a gray dubbed body and some buggy hackle.
Speaker 1: It's the prototypical anything fly. You can find it in
Speaker 1: sizes that range from damn near invisible like what we
Speaker 1: were fishing in that rainstorm hatch, to holy sh it
Speaker 1: is that hummingbird. Depending on how it's tied, it can
Speaker 1: imitate midges, mayflies, catas, even ants, and fool everything from
Speaker 1: the most naive backcountry opportunists to the most selective tailwater scrutinizers.
Speaker 1: The Atoms was invented in Michigan in two The story
Speaker 1: goes like this, Charles Adams, an attorney and avid fly
Speaker 1: angler who regularly traveled to Michigan to fish the famous
Speaker 1: Boardman River, found him self in a position familiar to
Speaker 1: almost anyone who trout fishes. He was on the Mayfield
Speaker 1: pond one summer evening and found fish rising to some
Speaker 1: kind of insect that he could not identify or imitate.
Speaker 1: Now Adams couldn't tie flies. He was your standard relatively clueless,
Speaker 1: wealthy sport. So the next day he went to local
Speaker 1: fly tire Leonard Halliday, and described in broad and general
Speaker 1: terms the confounding bug. Holliday lashed golden pheasant feathers to
Speaker 1: a size fourteen hook to create the tail, coarsely dubbed
Speaker 1: the body with gray wool yarn, and then made oversized
Speaker 1: wings and hackle from rooster neck feathers. Halliday handed the
Speaker 1: creation to Adams, who fished at the following day and
Speaker 1: reported incredible success. Being a humble Midwestern fellow, Holliday decided
Speaker 1: to name the fly not after himself, but the man
Speaker 1: who commissioned it, telling Lee Adam's initial success on the
Speaker 1: new fly didn't come on the pond where the mystery
Speaker 1: hatch actually went down. Instead, he proved its effectiveness on
Speaker 1: the nearby Boardman River, where the insects would almost certainly
Speaker 1: have been different, which makes the perfect origin story for
Speaker 1: this fly that can imitate just about anything. Also, fittingly,
Speaker 1: the modern Atoms in your fly box or local fly
Speaker 1: binds doesn't include a single one of those original materials
Speaker 1: from Holiday's invention. Over the past ninety years, the fly
Speaker 1: is transformed. What was once a bushy, oversized, and frankly
Speaker 1: kind of sloppy looking fly morphed into a relatively sleek
Speaker 1: and sparse profile as American fly tying evolved. Unlike modern
Speaker 1: fly marketing, where a tire swaps out a single material
Speaker 1: and then claims to have invented a whole new pattern,
Speaker 1: the Atoms evolved steadily but completely, without ever losing its name.
Speaker 1: It became a collaborative pastiche of American fly tying tradition
Speaker 1: as a whole, with dozens of different innovators adding their
Speaker 1: own flare to it over the decades without demanding any credit. First,
Speaker 1: the golden pheasant tail changed to brown or grizzly hackle
Speaker 1: fibers sometime in the mid nineties. Next to go was
Speaker 1: the wooly yarn body, which has a tendency to absorb
Speaker 1: water and cause the fly to sink, replaced by much
Speaker 1: more buoyant muskrat fur. Then the wings and hackle shifted
Speaker 1: to an upright cat skill style. Eventually the fly lost
Speaker 1: most of its original form. Today's Atoms sports a calf
Speaker 1: tail or poly yarn parachute instead of hackle tip wings,
Speaker 1: and a synthetic dubbed body. The only attribute it shares
Speaker 1: with the original is the color gray, a generic stand
Speaker 1: in that can pass for just about anything. The Atoms
Speaker 1: is a perfect reminder the profile and presentation matter more
Speaker 1: than exact representation when it comes to fly fishing. Cut
Speaker 1: off the tail, pick out the dubbing a little, and
Speaker 1: it looks like a cat as. Keep it sleek and
Speaker 1: it can imitate just about, and you may fly on
Speaker 1: the planet as long as you get the size right.
Speaker 1: Most of all, it's the perfect fly to use when
Speaker 1: you encounter a situation like the fly's namesake Charles Adams
Speaker 1: did on that Michigan pond in the early twenties, when
Speaker 1: fish are feeding on some kind of bug that you
Speaker 1: can't seem to identify. You don't need a text photos
Speaker 1: to some aquatic entomologist friend. Just grabbing atoms of appropriate size,
Speaker 1: and make a good cast. So that is all we
Speaker 1: have in the fly bin for you guys this week.
Speaker 1: We hope that we didn't piss off any of our
Speaker 1: fly furious listeners or our glorious sponsors thirteen Fishing, who
Speaker 1: doesn't make fly rods but does make badass rods of
Speaker 1: many other kinds. But if we did, anger you, take
Speaker 1: a deep breath, find your center, get a grip on
Speaker 1: that tapered leader, and cut about a foot off the
Speaker 1: butt end. Seek inner clarity on the reasons why you
Speaker 1: are chasing those line class records in the first place,
Speaker 1: and reconnect with the whole family of flies named Adams.
Speaker 1: Nice mouthful. It was a lot, but I liked I
Speaker 1: liked puns in that. And if you're struggling with your
Speaker 1: feelings about fly fishing or this episode, or have any
Speaker 1: questions that we might be able to help with, drop
Speaker 1: us a line. Email us at bent at the meat
Speaker 1: eater dot com. Also, I just gotta say, all of
Speaker 1: you out there, you've been kind of slacking on the
Speaker 1: awkward photos and the bar nominations lately. Between we love
Speaker 1: those segments and they don't exist without your help. So
Speaker 1: send us what you got, help us out keep them going,
Speaker 1: please please, please do, and don't forget to drop the
Speaker 1: Degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on the Gram for
Speaker 1: additional chances to win stickers from us. And finally, keep
Speaker 1: in mind that most of us learned to fly fish
Speaker 1: on a neighborhood pond with a shitty, second or third
Speaker 1: hand set up we bought cheaper stole from a family member.
Speaker 1: You don't need a trust fund and a frequent flyer
Speaker 1: account to have fun with a long rock. Give a shot,
Speaker 1: h