Speaker 1: Hey guys, before we get started here, your boy messed
Speaker 1: something up with the recording. I mean, for those of
Speaker 1: you who don't know, Joe and I live on two
Speaker 1: separate parts of the country, so we do a lot
Speaker 1: of our recording via zoom and I managed to mess
Speaker 1: that up this week, so the audio quality isn't gonna
Speaker 1: be quite what you're used to. Um, this is my fault.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Please don't stop listening to the podcast forever
Speaker 1: and ever. All right, let's get to it. What do
Speaker 1: you do when you take a buddy to a spot
Speaker 1: and then show up in that spot and he is
Speaker 1: there with someone else that you don't know? What do
Speaker 1: you do? Then in the shot glass there's you know,
Speaker 1: it's filled with epoxy and at the bottom of that
Speaker 1: is a tied te kilo worm. What is the weirdest
Speaker 1: thing that you've ever called? Foul ball? Hit by Muky Wilson.
Speaker 1: The Quintussentio Honey Drift to Curler mouse By is my
Speaker 1: current supercent. Good morning to Jennered anglers, and welcome to Bent,
Speaker 1: the fishing podcast that has spent way more money on
Speaker 1: laura and flymaking materials than the number of lawyers and flies.
Speaker 1: It is actually produced, and I made it, samac and
Speaker 1: I feel your pain, dude, because uh, I mean that's
Speaker 1: that's what happens, you know. Yeah. Well I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, man, but like here's the trap that I
Speaker 1: fell into when I first started tying flies I made up.
Speaker 1: It looked as if I was trying to make potions.
Speaker 1: With the shopping lists that I put together. It was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I of peacock, uh mane of moose, and inevitably,
Speaker 1: I mean, like the thing is is like you go
Speaker 1: and you get a book that's like kind of like
Speaker 1: the first thing, and it has all the patterns in it.
Speaker 1: There was a series of mim I forget what they
Speaker 1: were called, but they were like kind of coil bound books, man,
Speaker 1: and each one of them had like, you know, a
Speaker 1: hundred two hundred patterns in it, and you would go
Speaker 1: through these yeah, and you would go through these things
Speaker 1: and you'd be like, oh, well, if it's in here,
Speaker 1: I obviously needed. So you'd end up with like like
Speaker 1: jungle cock eyes and ship you know, just like it
Speaker 1: you don't need, no, yeah, no, no, well yeah dude,
Speaker 1: so I bought I mean, yeah, you're right, like you
Speaker 1: can get carried away with lists and books. I also
Speaker 1: I'll just find like you you go to buy like,
Speaker 1: you know, buck tail, but then you see cool popper heads,
Speaker 1: so you're like, oh, those are cool, and then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that would look great with this, and then you just
Speaker 1: buy all this material for flies you didn't even intend
Speaker 1: to make. In fact, somebody even wanted. Like somebody gave
Speaker 1: me a tube fly adapter for my advice years ago,
Speaker 1: and it's sat here, and then one day I saw
Speaker 1: it and I'm like, I'm about this, And I went
Speaker 1: out and bought all the ship to make tube flies,
Speaker 1: thinking I'd use them for trout, and I made three.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't really like them or catch anything
Speaker 1: with him. But the thirty dollars worth material I just
Speaker 1: for the tube flies is still sitting here, like I've
Speaker 1: done all the things. Have you ever tried to build
Speaker 1: yourself a rod? When I was in ninth grade, I
Speaker 1: bought one of those like Cabela's rod making kids, And
Speaker 1: I remember I remember spending Halloween in high school and
Speaker 1: um spent all night trying to trying to build a
Speaker 1: rod that didn't It ended up working. Okay, what actually
Speaker 1: ended up happening to It was I didn't see the
Speaker 1: blank far enough in the in the court grip there,
Speaker 1: and I hooked a really big fish. I was. It
Speaker 1: was actually you know, as I so often call out
Speaker 1: on y, This was on lake wall and pop pack um.
Speaker 1: I still remember. I was trying to catch like some panfish,
Speaker 1: and I was on this dock, and this dock was
Speaker 1: on a drop, and I was fishing this little white
Speaker 1: streamer and all of a sudden, I'm kind of like
Speaker 1: watching the streamer come back towards me through the water
Speaker 1: and it gets about over this rop where it drops
Speaker 1: from like a shoal to I don't know, like thirty
Speaker 1: ft or something, and I just see the shape come
Speaker 1: up and it was a striper, and yeah, the striper
Speaker 1: waxed this thing. I set the hook and immediately like
Speaker 1: the ride just like disintegrate to my hand, and it
Speaker 1: broke in the grip. So now I was out a
Speaker 1: hundred dollars um, and being in ninth grade, the might
Speaker 1: as well have been ten thousand dollars, because like I, I
Speaker 1: I sure wasn't gonna buy another court grip for this thing,
Speaker 1: not to mention like it would involve like scraping the
Speaker 1: epoxy off the end of the blank. So what I
Speaker 1: did was I bored a hole through a bunch of
Speaker 1: wine corks that my mother had a you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't say yeah, yeah, yeah, And I cut the top
Speaker 1: end of it off with wire cutters about two and
Speaker 1: a half feet, threaded it through the hole in the corks.
Speaker 1: And that show is a story of my first ice
Speaker 1: fishing rock. Oh there you go, repurposed it. That's good.
Speaker 1: See I didn't even do that. See, I got sucked
Speaker 1: into it um one year and because I literally I
Speaker 1: stumbled across discount blanks. There were some blanks in a
Speaker 1: flea market and they were super cheap, and I also
Speaker 1: found out later they were also jumped. You have known better, Joe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. I never gave rod building a
Speaker 1: thought until that was in front of me. But like
Speaker 1: ten bucks for five blanks turned into under it in
Speaker 1: rod building material. I built one and it sucked. And
Speaker 1: here's why. So also because quick man, you know what
Speaker 1: the biggest problem with rod building is what it's so boring.
Speaker 1: It's not the most fun unless you're really good at well,
Speaker 1: even if you're really good at diamond wraps and stuff,
Speaker 1: that's tedious work. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what if your favorite part about tying flies is like
Speaker 1: building a good threadhead, then rod building rod building is
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah. So here's what I did. This was
Speaker 1: way back in the day, right, and I had just
Speaker 1: gotten back from a trip to Quebec, h and I
Speaker 1: shot a buck. So I thought it would be rad
Speaker 1: to work a piece of the handler to the grip.
Speaker 1: But it's just really hurt my hand, Like it was
Speaker 1: just really stupid. Like I don't know why you would
Speaker 1: do that. Well, you know what, man, you see all
Speaker 1: these like, um my, I do have a friend, uh
Speaker 1: Joey McAvoy who if you're in Pennsylvania. Yeah, he has
Speaker 1: a He has a guide service called Captain Joe's Guide Service.
Speaker 1: I might have to like redo that and plug it better,
Speaker 1: but it's Captain Joe's Guide Service. I think he'd Lake
Speaker 1: Harmony is like one spot that he guides on, which
Speaker 1: is fun. Man. He does like a lot of cool
Speaker 1: trips to post him on Instagram, and um he builds
Speaker 1: rods too, but he builds a lot of the handles
Speaker 1: out of like laithe turned wood. And I was always
Speaker 1: interested in how that would be because like, on one hand,
Speaker 1: you feel like could be uncomfortable, but on the other hand,
Speaker 1: if it's like turned the right wings extremely like ergonomic,
Speaker 1: it's like video game controllers don't really hurt your hands
Speaker 1: and they're not made out of super like soft cork. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of customers that have really pretty
Speaker 1: would turn handles, and they're they're okay, I mean to me,
Speaker 1: like the ones I have are like really heavily varnished
Speaker 1: in a pox seed, So it's great un till there's
Speaker 1: fish slime on them. They're slipperies. He well, I'm sure
Speaker 1: that I'm sure that Captain Joe's rods are not like that,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they're not. I think sure they're not.
Speaker 1: And also it is Captain Joe's fishing. Just just if
Speaker 1: you're if you're wondering, I gotta do my boy favor, man,
Speaker 1: I gotta you gotta set them up anyway, While I
Speaker 1: know that we have some very talented rod builders that
Speaker 1: listen to this show, like my buddy Captain Joe. For
Speaker 1: those of you that don't build your own rods or
Speaker 1: botch them like another Captain Joe, that being Joe sir
Speaker 1: Mellie and Hayden, you botched your too, I did about
Speaker 1: to be fair, I was, uh, you need to get
Speaker 1: friendly with our sponsors fishing. You do you do if
Speaker 1: if you suck at building your own lords or pouring
Speaker 1: your own soft flask, that you should link up with
Speaker 1: them as well. Just throw that out there, but yes,
Speaker 1: you should be familiar with them. I mentioned last week
Speaker 1: that I had a few of thirteens pan fish trout
Speaker 1: prototype rods um just a few days ago. Man, they
Speaker 1: sent me the production models along with some some mini
Speaker 1: kalen Sea reels. Let me tell you what like they've
Speaker 1: done with the omen pan fish trout rods. What bass
Speaker 1: companies do in that the range of models within the
Speaker 1: series is pretty impressive. I really if they have a
Speaker 1: five ft six inch ultra light that I love for spinners,
Speaker 1: especially on smaller streams because the short rods really accurate,
Speaker 1: and then a seven footer it's just the bomb for
Speaker 1: for small hair jigs are like running afloat and jig
Speaker 1: because the lank and softness lets you set the hook
Speaker 1: from like a mile away. Really cool stuff. Killer rods
Speaker 1: that is like one of the things that very much
Speaker 1: impresses me about thirteen Fishing. It's like the breadth of
Speaker 1: models that they put out, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like if you're trying to get into like some very
Speaker 1: specialized fishing and you're really trying to like fine tune
Speaker 1: your setup, I would say like a deep dive into
Speaker 1: the thirteen Fishing catalog is uh, definitely worth your time
Speaker 1: in consideration. And I'm excited to use uh, you know,
Speaker 1: some of their open water rods, but I haven't gotten
Speaker 1: I've gotten to those yet because it's uh, I mean,
Speaker 1: as we're recording this up where I'm meant to be
Speaker 1: fishing this week, it's like negative twenty two. Um. But
Speaker 1: but I've been biting my indoor time to tie some
Speaker 1: flies between these bouts of ice fishing. And I've always
Speaker 1: been curious about how a fly makes a leap to
Speaker 1: like commerci like you know how like sometimes you're tieing
Speaker 1: something and you're like, I can sell this like this
Speaker 1: this is a good this is a cool pattern. I know. Um,
Speaker 1: now you, Joe, you have one of the premier mouse
Speaker 1: patterns is credited to uh, to our very own Joe
Speaker 1: sor Mellie Man. Yeah, the Mr. Splinter has made the
Speaker 1: leap to commercial. I have one. It's my one. It's
Speaker 1: the only one I'll ever had. Do you want to
Speaker 1: know what the secret is to getting it there? I
Speaker 1: just knew a guy. That's the secret. I just I
Speaker 1: just knew a guy who would say yes, Um no,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm kidding. I mean, I didn't know a guy.
Speaker 1: But that's really not all kidding aside there there is
Speaker 1: more to it than that, um, some of which will
Speaker 1: explore today in our Smooth Move segment. Now, normally this
Speaker 1: is where we let guides and captains tell us about
Speaker 1: wacky ship their clients have done. But we're putting a
Speaker 1: little different spin on it at the vice. But I'm
Speaker 1: bumped this week with my old friend Brian Schmidt. Why
Speaker 1: so this is a little bit different. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: smooth Moves, it's often a captain or a guy, but
Speaker 1: we like to incorporate all people in the fishing industry
Speaker 1: where applicable. So joining us today is my old buddy
Speaker 1: Brian Schmidt, now currently of Brian Schmidt Bates. Right, you're
Speaker 1: you're still you're still making the baits. I see them
Speaker 1: on Instagram. Yeah yeah, yeah, so I I know you
Speaker 1: make a ton of bass jigs that looks really really cool.
Speaker 1: But it started out with wooden rats. I still have
Speaker 1: your rats. You're still making the rats, the big swimmer rats.
Speaker 1: You know, I haven't made one in a while. I
Speaker 1: don't have I don't have my witch shops set up
Speaker 1: right now. It's all kind of between my garage and
Speaker 1: in storage. So yeah, unfortunately I can't. I can't get
Speaker 1: to those at the moment. But I miss making those. Man,
Speaker 1: those were a lot of fun. You know, I've been
Speaker 1: seeing a lot as I get more into like the
Speaker 1: fishing realm of things is a fishing podcast hosts want
Speaker 1: to do. Um, I keep running into these, like these
Speaker 1: giant wooden rat luers. I kind of assumed that they
Speaker 1: were just for uh almost just for show man. Are
Speaker 1: those like legit to people? Like? Are people whacking ship
Speaker 1: on them? Absolutely? Yeah, I always I always thought it
Speaker 1: was kind of like a double edged sword maybe like Brian,
Speaker 1: If you'll agree on one hand, yes, they are just
Speaker 1: kind of cool trendy to look at, Like, there is
Speaker 1: that part of it, but like dudes in the know, man,
Speaker 1: like you could do some gnarly stuff with big rat
Speaker 1: top water swimmers. Are you hitting like large mouths with them.
Speaker 1: Is that most most that's that's mostly what they're for. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, man, I was wondered maybe if you weren't
Speaker 1: making as many rats because they were on the down
Speaker 1: swinging trendiness. However, you just said the wood shops not
Speaker 1: set up. However, we did not bring you here to
Speaker 1: to talk about baits, although we could all day and
Speaker 1: I highly recommend everybody listening check out Brian Schmidt baits,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a best dude. But we got to
Speaker 1: talk about your former life before full time bait maker.
Speaker 1: Remind me how many years you were the guy at
Speaker 1: Unqua Fly that vetted every single submission that came through
Speaker 1: from the tying hopefuls around the world looking to get
Speaker 1: their patterned in the catalog and commercialized. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: That was almost ten years. Almost ten years of my
Speaker 1: life I spent looking at people's quote unquote work. So well,
Speaker 1: let me ask you something, man, because I've always been
Speaker 1: like kind of interested in this. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I was interested in fly tying, and I'm still interested
Speaker 1: in fly tying. But like I would make these things,
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh, like I had a fly fishing
Speaker 1: mentor I've mentioned before this bus driver Tony, and I
Speaker 1: would show him this fly that I made, and he'd
Speaker 1: be like, well, that's just a I don't know, like
Speaker 1: a pheasant tails soft tackle variation. That's just a you know,
Speaker 1: this variation, that variation. What what would you say, Like,
Speaker 1: at what point do you go, oh, that's like a
Speaker 1: different fly. Yeah? That was the That was that absolutely
Speaker 1: best part of my job as far as looking at flies,
Speaker 1: was you know, trying to find those those particular bugs.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, you gotta understand kind of like what
Speaker 1: what I was doing on a day to day basis
Speaker 1: as far as Yeah, I was getting in looking at
Speaker 1: a lot of flies, but we were looking for something
Speaker 1: in particular, looking for something specific, not necessarily a batis
Speaker 1: a merger, not that specific, but we were looking for innovation.
Speaker 1: We were looking for something that did not scream pheasant
Speaker 1: tail because it looked just like a pheasant tail. Because
Speaker 1: you're not going to pay someone a royalty for another
Speaker 1: pheasant tail. And so there was that aspect of it
Speaker 1: that really it made the job a whole lot harder
Speaker 1: because you really had the you had to dig into
Speaker 1: why they were sending you what they were sending you. So, uh, yes,
Speaker 1: the big the biggest fly manufacturer, they're going to get
Speaker 1: whatever is you're going to get the guy who doesn't
Speaker 1: understand why uncle exists and he wants to show off
Speaker 1: that he took a fly class last week and look
Speaker 1: at this wooly bugger I made. Doesn't understand that we're
Speaker 1: not going to pay you anything for that because you
Speaker 1: were one of how many people in that particular class?
Speaker 1: How many classes went on that Tuesday? Now, dude, right?
Speaker 1: So so what like what did catch your eye? What
Speaker 1: caught my eye was innovative use of materials, innovative choice
Speaker 1: of materials, and ultimately what really what really got me
Speaker 1: excited was simplicity and a reason for the bug in
Speaker 1: front of me. So when I would open up, okay,
Speaker 1: I would have a pile of boxes and envelopes on
Speaker 1: my desk in the morning, all submissions, and I you
Speaker 1: could tell right off of the bat which ones you
Speaker 1: wanted to open first because of the care they took
Speaker 1: in packaging it. Yeah, you know that alone speaks volumes
Speaker 1: of what you're about to see. In most cases, not
Speaker 1: always right right? I mean one in particular, you can
Speaker 1: wrap up a turd, real pretty man, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a great example of a wtf did
Speaker 1: you bother to send me this thing? Why? I don't
Speaker 1: even understand why. You know, well, wait a minute, hold
Speaker 1: on one second before you do that, because that's kind
Speaker 1: of that's kind of why we're having Brian on because
Speaker 1: I thought, man, it would be fun all those years.
Speaker 1: And I should also point out that you personally, you know,
Speaker 1: came up with some incredible bugs during your tenure there.
Speaker 1: I still throw the Schmidder schmitter bait and the schmitter bug,
Speaker 1: which is the only fly I'm aware of that was
Speaker 1: modeled after the jitterbug. So um, you know you you've
Speaker 1: done this for a very long time. So that's what
Speaker 1: we thought would be fun. Like, there have to be
Speaker 1: some standouts before we get into there, because I I
Speaker 1: know Joeys just gritting his teeth at how I'm derailing
Speaker 1: this conversation, or maybe you want to get to the funny.
Speaker 1: I want to hear about the w TS question, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm just like voraciously curious man. Go man that I'm
Speaker 1: not Dude. I've known Brian for a long time and
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated by this like that job and there
Speaker 1: because there's so many people out there that that want
Speaker 1: that so badly. So to have the guy that looked
Speaker 1: at all those submissions ask away. Okay, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think an interesting way to contextualize you, Brian, for
Speaker 1: our listeners. Is there a specific fly that many many
Speaker 1: folks know that you bought to market via like a submission?
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah, the game Changer. Yeah, we had the
Speaker 1: game Changer first. All right, yeah, um, you know as
Speaker 1: far as what what people submitted and you know, making
Speaker 1: getting excited and making that happen, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: big one. Um. I mean most of Charlie Craven's Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean everything in the past. You know, while I
Speaker 1: was there for ten years, a lot of that stuff was.
Speaker 1: I mean, the guy's brilliant. You can you can drop
Speaker 1: an idea on his on his plate and in a
Speaker 1: week you've got exactly what you hoped for. So to
Speaker 1: give you an example, okay, So the Juju series, Okay,
Speaker 1: those all came out, you know while I was at Umpqua,
Speaker 1: and it was like, hey, you know RS two sell
Speaker 1: like unbelievably well, Um, your Juju sell It's like unbelievably well,
Speaker 1: do you smell what I'm stepping in here, buddy, and
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, the juju r as to emerge her.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I go for that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know yeah that so oh on my side, I
Speaker 1: got to see trends of sales too, and things that
Speaker 1: would sell. And if Charlie Craven's name was attached to
Speaker 1: it was gonna sell. And if it was a really
Speaker 1: highly sought after pattern period, it was gonna sell. So
Speaker 1: you blend those things together and holy you know, the
Speaker 1: guy can come up with stuff, you know. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so a lot of those patterns came out. You know
Speaker 1: that people, I mean, everybody knows those patterns. Um, does
Speaker 1: that answer your question? Is that what you totally? Totally
Speaker 1: It's exactly what I was interested in, man, that is
Speaker 1: exactly what I was interested So I will now cease
Speaker 1: to derail the conversation and I will pass it over
Speaker 1: to Joe. Joe, we can talk about the greats all day.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, Charlie Craven, awesome, Blaine Chocolate with the
Speaker 1: game changer. But like, having talked to you in the past,
Speaker 1: like you you were saying like you would get these
Speaker 1: crumpled envelopes and It's like, why would you send a
Speaker 1: fly that you want us to consider so poorly? So
Speaker 1: so hit us, man, give us some examples of the
Speaker 1: ones that have stuck with you after a decade of like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe somebody just sent me this. Well, one
Speaker 1: in particular was I remember when hairline came out with
Speaker 1: fluoresce and be chein and you know, so this goes
Speaker 1: back aways and within like a month, Man, I had
Speaker 1: this envelope that it was smushed to begin with. It
Speaker 1: was just like a letter envelope, and inside it we're
Speaker 1: some like bait holder hooks, micro bait holder hooks and
Speaker 1: white thread that they just lashed this colored be chain too,
Speaker 1: and inch worms those were the green ones, the San
Speaker 1: Juan worms was were the hot pink ones, and they
Speaker 1: were all labeled differently. Right, they just made worms out
Speaker 1: of a piece of bee chain and white thread on
Speaker 1: a bait hold. Nailed it, nailed it genius, right. I
Speaker 1: was surprised you didn't get Like, I'm surprised you didn't
Speaker 1: just get like two of those little be chains on
Speaker 1: that bait holder hook with a white thread and somebody
Speaker 1: be like, this is a milted egg. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: that well that, you know, to give the guy credit.
Speaker 1: Pretty I think it was a guy regardless, UM, give
Speaker 1: give that person credit. The inch worm was exactly one inch.
Speaker 1: He did cut that, you know. Yeah, so that was
Speaker 1: one and it's just you open it up and you
Speaker 1: you look at it and you're like, well, I responded
Speaker 1: to everybody. You know, I had to, you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to let him know that it got there and
Speaker 1: in what condition and if that's not the condition that
Speaker 1: they meant it to be in, then you know, please
Speaker 1: try again. UM and or hey we're interested in We're
Speaker 1: not um and those some of those just leave your
Speaker 1: scratch in your head, like do we pretend to got
Speaker 1: lost in the mail? Like? You know, I don't want to.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be an insult with no matter what I
Speaker 1: say it, I don't mean it to be. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. The funny thing about that one, though, is
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure, I hate to say it, but
Speaker 1: they'd probably catch fish. And if you needed to get
Speaker 1: like a San Juan down in a run real quick,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it would work. But I think the idea
Speaker 1: of that becoming a commercial pattern, like that's where that misses.
Speaker 1: That's what I need to know, would never like you're
Speaker 1: not making that? Oh? I mean, can I guarantee it's
Speaker 1: like one of the best croppy bluegill things you could
Speaker 1: tie on, you know what I mean, like just got
Speaker 1: under a bobber and wait, you know, and it's like
Speaker 1: a great tip, but a terrible flock. Absolutely, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's a great it's a great thought press process,
Speaker 1: but but by no means royalty worthy, you know. And
Speaker 1: if we're gonna tie up fingers, you know, this is
Speaker 1: another thing I had to think about. Two. If we're
Speaker 1: gonna tie up fingers, and then I mean when I'm
Speaker 1: saying fingers factory time tying. Yeah, yeah, if we're gonna
Speaker 1: tie up fingers, do we want them time red size
Speaker 1: eighteen copper John's or or these right righte all month long? Man? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, so the size yeah, those like you know,
Speaker 1: what's what's good? Yeah, not gonna We're not gonna do that.
Speaker 1: What was the smallest size atoms you guys sold? Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: I bet you it was a twenty I think it
Speaker 1: was a twenty six while I was there, jeez, I
Speaker 1: think and I know we did. We did special patterns
Speaker 1: for for shops that were smaller um but wow, but
Speaker 1: you know those were Yeah, those were Silver Creek Outfitters
Speaker 1: and this is that they were going to go through
Speaker 1: them and they kind of needed something like that, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessary for everywhere. You know. Yeah, yeah, got
Speaker 1: the eight dollar tarpin flies. Man size Adams should be
Speaker 1: thirty bucks, no kidding, no kidding, And yeah you're not.
Speaker 1: I've I've I have literally watched girls just crying their
Speaker 1: eyes out trying to parachute is I'm not even joking,
Speaker 1: And you just stand there feeling absolutely side of fly fishing.
Speaker 1: Nobody thinks about you just go into the nice shop
Speaker 1: and pick them out with the little tweezers and put
Speaker 1: them in a cup. It's like a woman cried making
Speaker 1: that absolutely bowled her eyes out, contemplated life as she
Speaker 1: knew it. Man, you know absolutely for that stupid twenty
Speaker 1: six that you're gonna stick in the tree Garante. So
Speaker 1: what else you got? Man? Sometimes you get these really
Speaker 1: really well packaged boxes and you open it up and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh this there's something, this could be awesome,
Speaker 1: and and yet you keep digging at it and you
Speaker 1: open up this diorama and literal like seventh grade school diorama,
Speaker 1: and there's shot classes glued to this little picnic table,
Speaker 1: and in the shot glass there's clear you know, it's
Speaker 1: filled with a POxy and at the bottom of that
Speaker 1: is a tied tequilo worm and there's mono tied to
Speaker 1: a Yeah that's awesome, man, I's sweet. So absolutely, you know,
Speaker 1: this is the kind of thing that you're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna parade this around the building and show everybody.
Speaker 1: Whatever of these flies ended up as like desk toys.
Speaker 1: Everyone that we speak of today we'll have in one way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, Yeah, for a for a short period
Speaker 1: of time, until it was you know, returned to them. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the diorama, there was a if I'm not
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, there was actually a an umbrella,
Speaker 1: you know, like a cocktail umbrella that was spundy and
Speaker 1: then glued to make it look like it was really
Speaker 1: poorly done, but it was made to look like an umbrella. Okay,
Speaker 1: So this whole diorama you get and you're like, again
Speaker 1: scratching your head, like what am I exactly looking at?
Speaker 1: Because is the killer worm? The fly? Is the umbrella?
Speaker 1: The fly? Is this just a you know, right, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't. Yeah, so that was another one that I
Speaker 1: was just left scratching. Man, I didn't know. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what the of it. I didn't know. I didn't
Speaker 1: really know what to do with it. Um. I couldn't
Speaker 1: even get to the to the tequila fly because it was,
Speaker 1: you know, under a POxy into the shot gun. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it did have mondo tied to it so that you
Speaker 1: knew that it was to look at it, you know,
Speaker 1: it did have but you had a little picnic table
Speaker 1: that was made out of toothpicks, and uh at the
Speaker 1: whole nine yards man, it was. It was a little
Speaker 1: beach scene. It was. It was phenomenal. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: what uh, I think you've given some great advice here
Speaker 1: for anybody ag ainy of the hopefuls out there that
Speaker 1: think they might have that pattern on what not to do.
Speaker 1: But um, dude, let's let's let's leave it here, like
Speaker 1: above all else, Like the the biggest thing to consider
Speaker 1: if you're a fly tire and you're like, I think
Speaker 1: this has chops, what's the number one thing like thing
Speaker 1: to check off before you even go any further with it.
Speaker 1: You really have to have a reason for why you
Speaker 1: did it, man. I mean you have to know that
Speaker 1: there isn't that it isn't duplicating something. And if it
Speaker 1: seems as if it's duplicating something, there needs to be
Speaker 1: an evolution of why the existing didn't work and you
Speaker 1: needed to alter it. So that was that's what I
Speaker 1: looked for. That was the innovation. Like I said before,
Speaker 1: that was what I was looking for, you know. And
Speaker 1: to be very honest with you, the Juju is probably,
Speaker 1: in my mind, one of and this may sound silly
Speaker 1: because of how simple it is, it's probably one of
Speaker 1: the most innovative trout patterns out there because it took
Speaker 1: something absolutely not trout midge pattern material and made exactly
Speaker 1: what it should be. Sure sure. So in other words,
Speaker 1: this fly catches a lot of fish for me and
Speaker 1: my boys. Is not necessarily like a great jumping off points.
Speaker 1: It's not. It's not not not unless your boys happened
Speaker 1: to own like a really veil Valley Anglers or something,
Speaker 1: you know, something like that. And that's the other thing
Speaker 1: to think about too. You know, if you walk into
Speaker 1: these shops, whether it's a flas shop or a retail
Speaker 1: bass shop, every peg is taken, every fly box then
Speaker 1: is filled filled you you need to you need to
Speaker 1: relocate something to have yours in that real estate, right
Speaker 1: you know, so if you look at a board of
Speaker 1: winning patterns and you're like, oh, mine isn't gonna fit
Speaker 1: in here? No, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's the business
Speaker 1: side of it. Well this was fun, man, it was
Speaker 1: good catching up. Hey, do you have any more questions
Speaker 1: before we sign off here? I feel like you like
Speaker 1: you're thinking. I could see you thinking, mm hmmm, um uh,
Speaker 1: I can think I have some follow up questions, Joe.
Speaker 1: You and I have been kicking around, ah, you know,
Speaker 1: in an idea for a segment called Makers, So maybe
Speaker 1: we'll have to revisit sometimes down the line. What do
Speaker 1: you think about that? Brian would definitely fit if we
Speaker 1: if we end up kicking off a maker's segment of
Speaker 1: the show, for sure. Anyway, everybody needs to look up
Speaker 1: Brian Schmidt Bates, that's all one word, correct, Brian on
Speaker 1: the instagrams and uh yeah, and follow him because he
Speaker 1: makes some some some badass stuff. And one thing I
Speaker 1: can say about you is you are absolutely not making
Speaker 1: anything to catch Fisherman. Everything has a reason, just like
Speaker 1: you've talked about with the flies and um, it is
Speaker 1: all very good stuff. So yeah, man, if we kick
Speaker 1: off some maker segment down the road, we will have
Speaker 1: you back. But in the meantime, dude, thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you for the the funny fly fail stories. Yeah yeah, guys,
Speaker 1: it was fun. Thank you for having me. So we
Speaker 1: hinted at that segment about people who make stuff in fishing,
Speaker 1: and props to you, Hayden. That was that was Hayden's
Speaker 1: idea was Yeah, no, it was your credit yourself. Damnit. Uh,
Speaker 1: let us know what you think about that, because we
Speaker 1: really do value your opinion and we'd be curious to hear, um,
Speaker 1: how many of you guys would be interested in something
Speaker 1: like that. As a big fan of the show How
Speaker 1: It's Made, I'm all for it. Yeah, you you also
Speaker 1: like How It's Made? There, Joe, do you like How
Speaker 1: It's Mad? Do you really? I see? I figured you, like,
Speaker 1: I figured you were gonna give me crap for that. No, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, what I like? Here's the thing, man, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. I can't stand to watch it that like,
Speaker 1: I don't like it's hard for me to just watch
Speaker 1: something that's like purely entertainment, like Family Guy is like
Speaker 1: not something I'm interested in. It has to have some
Speaker 1: sort of like even if it's drunk history. I watched
Speaker 1: drunk History all the time because I'm like, Okay, well
Speaker 1: it's funny, but I'm also like kind of learning some ship.
Speaker 1: You know. I'm really surprised. I was expecting to get
Speaker 1: some some flak for that, because it's like, at some
Speaker 1: point robot Chicken loses its appeal and I just want
Speaker 1: to like sit with a bourbon and listen to the
Speaker 1: common narrative about how space heaters are made after a
Speaker 1: long day. It's like it's like a sedative, but in
Speaker 1: a very good way, you know how. Well, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna keep that in my back pocket next time.
Speaker 1: I'm having trouble falling to sleep and I haven't watched
Speaker 1: it in a little bit. But anyway, Uh, listeners, please
Speaker 1: let us know how you feel about that maker segment
Speaker 1: and let our audio engineer Phil know why you think
Speaker 1: I was the dominator in this week's fish News. Fish
Speaker 1: News that escalated quickly, real quick before we jump in,
Speaker 1: you know, by listening to request. We spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time on prostitutes on ice last week, which was
Speaker 1: fun and formative at all. But um, some big things
Speaker 1: also happened in Florida right recently that we've we've yet
Speaker 1: to touch on, and we just want to do that
Speaker 1: briefly here and you'll understand why. Um. Not long ago
Speaker 1: I reported on what was a big win for Captains
Speaker 1: for Clean Water. I say was, and that's going to
Speaker 1: be important. Um. Back in November, the Army Corps of
Speaker 1: Engineers finally revised its plan for how Lake Okeechobi's water
Speaker 1: will get managed. As a reminder, um, Laco used to
Speaker 1: let water naturally filter south to the Everglades, and that
Speaker 1: water has now been diverted east and west, and that's
Speaker 1: now killing the Everglades, it's starving them. At the time,
Speaker 1: Captains for Clean Water said, you know, hey, look the
Speaker 1: war is not over. But this new plan is a
Speaker 1: great first step for the future the Everglades, as the
Speaker 1: new plan made a lot more sense than m the
Speaker 1: previous water management plans. So just a few short months ago,
Speaker 1: this this felt like a step in the right direction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So uh, Now, the folks that benefit like the most
Speaker 1: from water diversions are the folks in the sugar industry,
Speaker 1: and in in Florida, that's known as big sugar. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: these are incredibly influential people in Florida and now they're
Speaker 1: trying to fast track bill s B two five zero eight.
Speaker 1: And in simple terms, this bill is tied to budget
Speaker 1: procedure and therefore is not intended to undergo like substantial
Speaker 1: policy change. Uh. There would only be one chance for
Speaker 1: public comment, and if it passes, Florida could be left
Speaker 1: with outdated, like nineteen forties approach to managing their waterways.
Speaker 1: It would also mean three million in Everglades restoration money
Speaker 1: held hostage by the bills passing. So no good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a bad deal and it kind of came
Speaker 1: up out of nowhere. So what we're encouraging you guys
Speaker 1: to do to actually head over to the Meat Eatter
Speaker 1: dot com and read the detailed story about this by
Speaker 1: our colleague Maggie Hudlow. She was actually in Tallahassee on
Speaker 1: the ground for the rally held by a ton of
Speaker 1: captains to protest. Yeah, yeah, she was down there doing
Speaker 1: her thing. And even if you don't read the story,
Speaker 1: or if even if you don't ever plan to fish
Speaker 1: in Florida, at minimum, take one minute to go to
Speaker 1: Captain's for Clean water dot org and sign their petition.
Speaker 1: It takes seconds. Uh, you don't get out on any
Speaker 1: email lists, they promise, and I know for a fact
Speaker 1: you won't. Just doing that can really make a difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And while we're on this, like conservation be a little
Speaker 1: bit here um listeners, Joe and I have been talking
Speaker 1: and we came up with a little idea that we
Speaker 1: I guess we'd also like your input on UM. We
Speaker 1: only have so much time with you guys each week,
Speaker 1: and because of that, we're only hitting one news story
Speaker 1: of piece, and we like to have a little bit
Speaker 1: of fun here on Ben. We don't want it to
Speaker 1: be all like doom and gloom. We wanted to be entertaining,
Speaker 1: but you know, we strive to kind of make a
Speaker 1: combination here meet in the middle ground where we're giving
Speaker 1: you some entertainment, but we're also giving you some like
Speaker 1: important information, and sometimes that means that we're not able
Speaker 1: to hit every conservation story out there. So we're going
Speaker 1: to try something at the top of news starting next
Speaker 1: week called Conservation Minutes. Yeah, because we think we think
Speaker 1: it's important that you guys know what's going on. Even
Speaker 1: if we're not detailing every one of those stories. So
Speaker 1: this is gonna be just a very quick hit on
Speaker 1: what's going on in the fish conservation realm, and of
Speaker 1: course we'll keep working. The biggest stories are the ones
Speaker 1: we think are our most important or interesting to all
Speaker 1: right into the regular news coverage. But we're pumped to
Speaker 1: try that. I think that'll be good. I think more informed.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be good. And you know, we
Speaker 1: have so many like talented colleagues over here at Meat
Speaker 1: Eater that cover this stuff in ways that we might
Speaker 1: not have time to in this like podcast format, so
Speaker 1: you know, we'll we'll also be kind of directing you
Speaker 1: to a bunch of that stuff. And man, I I
Speaker 1: think it's gonna it's gonna be good. And I think
Speaker 1: for the people who are really interested in that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, like I am and like you are, Joe,
Speaker 1: it's going to be kind of a valuable, like you know,
Speaker 1: kind of what do they call it, like an aggregation
Speaker 1: of important conservation news. Yeah, it basically just lets us,
Speaker 1: you know, keep you keep you up on the important
Speaker 1: stuff when like something so good like prostitutes on ice
Speaker 1: comes along and we just can't leave that alone anyway.
Speaker 1: So that's we did a joint report on prostitutes on
Speaker 1: ice last week, which means getting back to normal. Here,
Speaker 1: it's your lead this week. What do you got? Okay, Joe?
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna start with the question, man, what is
Speaker 1: the weirdest thing that you've ever caught? A foul ball
Speaker 1: hit by Mooki Wilson bullshit. Yeah, I'm not kidding when
Speaker 1: I was a little kid. Oh oh, I get it.
Speaker 1: You're not You're catch got you? Okay, I'm messing with you.
Speaker 1: I don't know, dude. I have caught so many weird
Speaker 1: things that like, I don't even know. There's not one
Speaker 1: that springs to mind, is like damn right right now,
Speaker 1: we've all gone a barracuda in Jersey once. That's pretty weird.
Speaker 1: A little tiny barracuda in Jersey about that. So we've
Speaker 1: all gone out, we've all caught a non target species,
Speaker 1: like you know, you're going for catfish or whatever and
Speaker 1: you hit a I don't know, a barracuda in New
Speaker 1: Jersey because those are definitely fresh and saltwater speak. But
Speaker 1: have you ever have you ever caught the wrong class
Speaker 1: of animal? Wrong class of animal, like the wrong phylum
Speaker 1: in the in the in the Latin, I don't well
Speaker 1: caught something that was an animal but not a fish.
Speaker 1: I've hooked a million birds like throwing lures, a striper
Speaker 1: blitz and like gulls, you know, every once in a while. See, man,
Speaker 1: you don't gotta be about windmills. He don't gotta be
Speaker 1: worried about windmills killing birds. It's just Joe Surmelie. Uh So.
Speaker 1: So the story comes from NBC ten in Boston. Angler Keith,
Speaker 1: I think it's pronounced plassan, which is uh it might
Speaker 1: be anyway. Keith Keith was an ice fisherman from Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Uh And he knew he had something big on his
Speaker 1: tip up, but I don't think he expected that something
Speaker 1: to be thirty pounds and furry. You see, Keith caught himself.
Speaker 1: There's a joke. There's a joke there. And what he
Speaker 1: just said, I'll tell you what. I was ice fish
Speaker 1: with my dog and he was running into into like
Speaker 1: this group. Next was he ran into all their tip
Speaker 1: ups and they almost caught something a thirty pounds in
Speaker 1: furry in the in the way of Boone the yellow lab.
Speaker 1: Uh So, he caught himself an otter um. There's a
Speaker 1: video I saw young Lady did this. I had a
Speaker 1: feeling you were going to. Yeah. So there's a video
Speaker 1: of the incident itself, as well as an interview with
Speaker 1: NBC ten that Keith decided to take in his car
Speaker 1: for some reason. It's like hilarious. There are tubs of
Speaker 1: gear and shipped behind him. So, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I would you for the news and you're sitting in
Speaker 1: your truck. It's weird. I loved it, man, I think
Speaker 1: I'd like this dude. Anyhow, the interview in the footage
Speaker 1: they used are like pretty vanilla, you know, very NBC ten.
Speaker 1: But I found the dude's Instagram and holy sh it,
Speaker 1: is his video way more. I'll send it to It's
Speaker 1: Keith's custom would flags do make some like pretty cool
Speaker 1: wood flags? And the very first thing on that Instagram
Speaker 1: page is the uh is the video? So to get
Speaker 1: into that video, first off, the dude is swearing like
Speaker 1: a sale and that's not only relatable, but it also
Speaker 1: makes way more sense why NBC ten used approximately six
Speaker 1: seconds of this minute long video because I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure those were the only six seconds where
Speaker 1: there wasn't a swear share between the two anglers in it. Now,
Speaker 1: that's part one that I really like about this video.
Speaker 1: My next favorite part of the video is what Keith's
Speaker 1: buddy tries to do, which, um, I mean it looks
Speaker 1: like he tries to gill lift the otter in the
Speaker 1: same way you might try to gill lift a pike. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are ce I didn't see any of this because
Speaker 1: I've only seen the NBC ten. It was very tame.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. Um. The first problem is that an
Speaker 1: otter does not have gills, making it hard to gil lift.
Speaker 1: The second problem is what otters do have, and that
Speaker 1: is insanely sharp teeth. If you want to see what
Speaker 1: a piste off outer can do, go ahead and google
Speaker 1: otter attack and Hotter? Will you up very well? They
Speaker 1: want to kill him all over in Britain. Yeah, right right,
Speaker 1: that's what we call a call back in the industry, fellas. Um.
Speaker 1: Very wisely, Keith dissuades his companion from trying to handle
Speaker 1: the otter any further. Now, you hear Keith say that
Speaker 1: they're going to cut the line, But then he changed
Speaker 1: his heart and things that he might be able to
Speaker 1: get the hook out as it's already in the corner
Speaker 1: of like the otter's mouth, like it's just barely in there.
Speaker 1: It's not like this otter like swallow. No, that's another
Speaker 1: thing that makes a story like palpable. If you had
Speaker 1: had like a writhing otter in there, that would not
Speaker 1: have been great Anyhow. This otter is, I got to mention,
Speaker 1: the otter is adorable and honestly like remarkably calm during
Speaker 1: the whole ordeal. It just kind of like comes up
Speaker 1: like if you ever see like the National Geographic where
Speaker 1: they like videotape like seals coming through like the ice
Speaker 1: holes in the Antarctic. It's just like it's just like
Speaker 1: kind of coming up and like taking some breaths, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem overly angry. Um, It not thrashing, it's
Speaker 1: not biting at everything. And dare I say it's snoot
Speaker 1: looks very popable. Oh man, do you participate in Snooter
Speaker 1: Saturday with your dog on Instagram? No? But I boomed
Speaker 1: that dog Snoot all the time. Dude, I can't disagree
Speaker 1: with this because I gotta tell you, like you can't
Speaker 1: help but feel a little bad for it, right, because
Speaker 1: like it's struggling down there, and then when they finally
Speaker 1: do get it through the hole, and like his little
Speaker 1: nose just comes up and he's just like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: felt I felt bad for the otter. I felt bad
Speaker 1: for him because he wasn't he was kind of cute anyway.
Speaker 1: In the interview on NBC ten, Keith mentions that he
Speaker 1: was sure he had a state record on the line,
Speaker 1: and although it may not have been the walley or
Speaker 1: muskie or whatever else he was hoping for, I'd say
Speaker 1: you can confidently claim the Massachusetts otter catch and release
Speaker 1: record through the ice. I think this was a cool story.
Speaker 1: And what I appreciate is I know that feeling of
Speaker 1: having something on the line and you're like I have
Speaker 1: no idea what I have on here, dude, but like
Speaker 1: whatever this is, like this is some crazy ship right now,
Speaker 1: and like you're just going through your head of like
Speaker 1: fifty muskie or thirty pound wall like crazy. I don't
Speaker 1: think I would have like thought, I would have been
Speaker 1: like god, damn, I would have been pissed. It would
Speaker 1: have been pissed that it wasn't a fish. And then
Speaker 1: I did feel bad for the little guy a little. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the otter is adorable, but you know what
Speaker 1: I actually my question was how often does stuff like
Speaker 1: this happen? And as it turns out, Joe, it kind
Speaker 1: of happens like a lot. He is, by no leans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's by no means like the first person to catch
Speaker 1: an otter through the ice. If you if you just
Speaker 1: google otter through the ice and you click the little
Speaker 1: video thing, a bunch of ship comes up. I'm same
Speaker 1: with muskrats, beavers not so much. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: interesting the mamalion by catch that uh seems mostly through
Speaker 1: the ice. Because this happened more. I would bet it
Speaker 1: happens more ice fishing than open water. You've never heard
Speaker 1: of it open world. Well, Joe are very own Brody Henderson.
Speaker 1: I showed him this video and he told me about
Speaker 1: a tangle he got in with a an otter while
Speaker 1: he was streamer fishing one time. Yep. So I mean,
Speaker 1: did it actually go for the streamer? Because because I
Speaker 1: know people that have snagged beavers um. In fact, I
Speaker 1: know somebody had happened to at night while mouse fishing,
Speaker 1: but it didn't eat the fly. Yeah, no, I I
Speaker 1: didn't ask him too much about I mean, like you know.
Speaker 1: We we we're very hard at work in the mediator
Speaker 1: office and sometimes it doesn't allow for extended conversation. I'll
Speaker 1: ask him about it, um, but no, My my impression
Speaker 1: was that the otter went for the streamer man. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what they do, that's how they feed. I can
Speaker 1: see it. I've never I've never had that happen. I've never,
Speaker 1: at least I've never seen anything in person, though I
Speaker 1: do know of a confirmed account from a buddy of
Speaker 1: mine that hooked a freaking seal in the mouth trolling
Speaker 1: a rubber show for stripers. Now, they're extremely smart, like
Speaker 1: kind of like dolphins. You don't ever hear anybody hooking
Speaker 1: a dolphin that like, like a dolphin never eats your lore.
Speaker 1: They eat and you know, yeah, because they know it's fake.
Speaker 1: And I always thought, you know, seals were pretty smart too,
Speaker 1: and not that one. But they were literally trolling back
Speaker 1: Bay along these sod banks and I remember seeing the
Speaker 1: video of it, the reels just dumping and they're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is an eighty pound striper or something.
Speaker 1: It's a light rod. It's just dumping, and then like
Speaker 1: a mile back up with it with with his a
Speaker 1: storm had right in the corner of his mouth. That's
Speaker 1: that's the only time I've no God, no, they just
Speaker 1: ended up cutting a lot like you weren't reeling that
Speaker 1: in that there was no way you were working it
Speaker 1: to the boat, and as if you chased it, it
Speaker 1: would just swim a million miles an hour the other direction,
Speaker 1: like there was no catching up. So uh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: please enter your password. You have one unheard message. Oh
Speaker 1: hey man, thanks for us the audio for like a
Speaker 1: sixth time in a row. Now, um, like I said,
Speaker 1: if this happens to gonna find a new host. Totally unprofessional.
Speaker 1: End of message, Delete press seven, save deleted. All right,
Speaker 1: so we'll go from let's go from cute little otters
Speaker 1: to stone called death. About that, because, as Sergeant Barnes
Speaker 1: once famously said, everybody gotta die sometime, right, And if
Speaker 1: you're a fisherman, why not give back to the fishes
Speaker 1: when you kick the bucket by having yourself memorialized in
Speaker 1: an artificial reef ball. It creates habitats for the things
Speaker 1: you spent your entire life ripping from the sea and
Speaker 1: dropping in hot conola oil. It only seems I needed
Speaker 1: to point out that you just missed a way up
Speaker 1: sleeping with the fishes. Pun but go ahead, Yeah, you're right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: shame one, shame on me. Anyway. Reef ball memorials. This
Speaker 1: is not new, okay. Florida Bay's company, Eternal Reefs, has
Speaker 1: been providing this service since the late nineteen eighties. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they take the cremated remains of folks, they mixed
Speaker 1: them with concrete, cast them into a reef ball and
Speaker 1: then drop that to the bottom. Let you get the story,
Speaker 1: what is it? Because that's way more palatable than being
Speaker 1: turned into chumh. Yes, we're gonna get to that though,
Speaker 1: because I kind of suggest that later and you'll understand why.
Speaker 1: According to the story I'm pulling from, and this is
Speaker 1: in the Guardian, there are more than three thousand of
Speaker 1: these memorial reef balls in twenty five offshore sites ranging
Speaker 1: from Texas to New Jersey. Friends and family are then
Speaker 1: provided with the GPS coordinates of their loved ones reef ball.
Speaker 1: So if the dead coral wasn't enough for you, you
Speaker 1: can also be dead. So well, hey man, but these
Speaker 1: are you're jumping the gun because these promote coral growth, right,
Speaker 1: So anyway, I get the impression that this service based
Speaker 1: on your reaction because you've never heard of it was
Speaker 1: kind of low key, right. I I had heard about
Speaker 1: it many years ago. In fact, I remember reporting about
Speaker 1: it almost twenty years ago at Saltwater Sportsman. But since then,
Speaker 1: a couple of things have changed, right, people in general,
Speaker 1: the next generation, maybe your generation, has gotten a lot
Speaker 1: more eco friendly, and eco friendly alternatives to traditional burial
Speaker 1: have gotten more and more trendy. Then you add in
Speaker 1: the pandemic, which I guess made people think the entire
Speaker 1: population of Earth was doomed, and reef ball memorials have surged.
Speaker 1: In fact, Eternal Reefs says uh the number of annual
Speaker 1: requests for information tripled during the pandemic. Right, so Eternal
Speaker 1: Reef also has competition. Now there are other companies doing
Speaker 1: the same thing. Matter of fact, according to the story,
Speaker 1: and operation recently started doing this in the U k Um.
Speaker 1: And it's not a simple startup because you need a
Speaker 1: lot of government permits and permission to just go start
Speaker 1: dumping things offshore. Right. You can't just run out there
Speaker 1: in your in your boys boat. Um. But the guys
Speaker 1: who run the operation over there say they are bombarded
Speaker 1: by calls from folks looking to replicate the model. These
Speaker 1: are people, Yeah, they want to get in on the
Speaker 1: incorporating dead people into reef balls action. Personally, I've always
Speaker 1: thought this was kind of cool, right, and and as
Speaker 1: a man that has fished a lot of artificial reefs,
Speaker 1: I'm very much for them. And they certainly do work.
Speaker 1: Like you mentioned, Carl, it's not just habitat. They give
Speaker 1: corals and things places to cling to um and so
Speaker 1: there's no denying that they create habitat and it's a
Speaker 1: way to promote life after you're gone. And here's a
Speaker 1: quote from the piece. You're providing structure for fish to
Speaker 1: swim through and a place for plants to grow, said
Speaker 1: seventy seven year old Janet Hawk of Indianapolis. My first
Speaker 1: impression was that they were really ugly. Then I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: it would be so nice to be down there with
Speaker 1: little orange fish darting through the holes in my ball.
Speaker 1: No reaction to you, I'm going to take the joke
Speaker 1: there on. Sometimes there's just no sport in it. Man.
Speaker 1: That was it was a useless quote that I threw
Speaker 1: in there just for that, and you just huffed at
Speaker 1: me anyway. But you know, it's even more trendy than
Speaker 1: eco friendly alternatives to shift these days, super hardcore eco
Speaker 1: people cutting down trendy eco friendly alternatives and telling you
Speaker 1: why they're not actually that good for the I love
Speaker 1: this game. Okay, so uh. In the story, according to
Speaker 1: Rosie Inman Cook, manager of the Natural Death Center charity,
Speaker 1: cremation is a disaster because she says, it releases of
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide into the atmosphere with each body. Furthermore, the
Speaker 1: concrete manufacturing industry is responsible for eight percent of global
Speaker 1: CEO two emissions. Okay, let me let me tell you
Speaker 1: back to your chum, right, yeah, well, let me tell
Speaker 1: you like the problem with her logic. You know, it
Speaker 1: creates a lot more carbon dioxide people who are still alive.
Speaker 1: You're right, So what's the alternative? Then you run up
Speaker 1: the chum. I wasn't thinking that, but I mean, if
Speaker 1: you think about it, what's what's more eco friendly? Is
Speaker 1: an old school burial at sea? Right? Like if you
Speaker 1: if you that also promotes and sustains life, does it not?
Speaker 1: If you just weighed somebody down with sand in like
Speaker 1: a biode garritable bag, the crabs would thrive and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. Um, anyway, I I still think
Speaker 1: it's a neat idea despite the CEO two emissions, though,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you I was thinking about this right.
Speaker 1: If I did it, I wouldn't want my reef ball
Speaker 1: dropped on a reef I'd asked to be dropped in
Speaker 1: like a really popular lake cove in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, so it would just like snag the ship
Speaker 1: out of lures and stuff. So like every time your
Speaker 1: boys are there, they'd be like, God, damn it, Smelli
Speaker 1: just got another asshole, or or like put it. Put
Speaker 1: it somewhere really inconvenient, like where voters had to market
Speaker 1: to know to avoid me. But then sit, I can
Speaker 1: watch boats that weren't aware of me lose props and ship.
Speaker 1: So like I'm creating habitat and laughter in death. Heyden,
Speaker 1: can we sign you up for a reef ball? I'll
Speaker 1: make sure it gets wherever he wanted to go? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, um, gosh, do I have a lot of man,
Speaker 1: I have so many thoughts about this. Man, I have
Speaker 1: so many thoughts giself. You know, I'll tell you a
Speaker 1: funny thing that I was thinking off air once we
Speaker 1: once we stop this recording. Uh, They're welcome listeners. You
Speaker 1: know what that is? Also like like do you know
Speaker 1: what like the red tape around this is like primarily
Speaker 1: is it just like creating structure. Does it have anything
Speaker 1: to do with like the disposal of a body? No, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's none, there's none of that there. There really is
Speaker 1: no red tape, right. One thing I did not address though.
Speaker 1: People are curious about a cost, so like a funeral
Speaker 1: these days, you're looking at spending like ten grand on
Speaker 1: a funeral, So you're looking at I think three to
Speaker 1: six thousand to have yourself turned into a reef ball.
Speaker 1: But there's there's no red tape. I mean they do
Speaker 1: this alongside of organizations that build artificial reefs. So my
Speaker 1: impression is that if you have one of these organizations
Speaker 1: that has spent all the time and money cleaning you know,
Speaker 1: twenty uh decommissioned subway cars, well it's like if they're
Speaker 1: heading out and it and it lines out, like they'll
Speaker 1: hang onto your reef ball in Florida and make sure
Speaker 1: it gets to those people so that you end up
Speaker 1: on the reef in your state or like where you
Speaker 1: want to be. There's no red tape. People complaining yet,
Speaker 1: like this is a dumb idea because of Ceo too.
Speaker 1: You two can ride the subway for all of eternity. Um, right,
Speaker 1: the you know what I want? I want when I die.
Speaker 1: I would like to, uh what the ship is that
Speaker 1: that stuff that they put Han Solo in in Star Wars.
Speaker 1: I don't know, real quick, Phil, Phil, We're gonna kick
Speaker 1: it to Phil, Phil, Please let us know what the
Speaker 1: stuff was that they put Han Solo in. Um, if
Speaker 1: you feel like it. I would also love to know
Speaker 1: if you were a reef ball, where should we drop you. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: hold on a second, no no, no, no no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let you transition there because I need
Speaker 1: to tell you my end game here. My end game
Speaker 1: is I want to be preserved in that stuff, and
Speaker 1: then I want to find like the most annoying tourist
Speaker 1: snorkeling destination possible, and then I want them to preserve
Speaker 1: my body in that take me out there and kind
Speaker 1: of like just tuck me into the reef so I
Speaker 1: can scare the ship out of tourist snorkelers as they're
Speaker 1: trying to enjoy their holiday, preferably where a bunch of
Speaker 1: little kids dive with their parents. That's good, but I
Speaker 1: hate to break it to you. It's not that original.
Speaker 1: They are underwater statues and things doing. Isn't there some
Speaker 1: lake in Wisconsin where there's like a Jason vorhees at
Speaker 1: you on the bottom where it I'm pretty sure I've
Speaker 1: seen that. Unless it was a hoax, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to come up with something else. Man, Well, anyhow, make
Speaker 1: cast out of mushrooms and something so you completely degrade
Speaker 1: and then people can, like, you know, pick the bulllettes
Speaker 1: where you died. Yeah, I want to just be buried
Speaker 1: hole just in case there's like some weird caveat when
Speaker 1: I get to heaven. Anyway, why don't we kick it
Speaker 1: over to Phil Man. Yeah, we're gonna kick it over
Speaker 1: and Phil now already tried to kick it over to Phil.
Speaker 1: Uh Phil star wars reef balls. Um. Let us know
Speaker 1: who won this week, would you? And when we've done
Speaker 1: hearing with Phil, we've got a little sage lely wisdom
Speaker 1: from the sultry lips of our bud river Horse. And
Speaker 1: instead of talking about flies that won't work, this was
Speaker 1: about one that probably worked a little too well. Joe,
Speaker 1: Sir Mellie, you are the little orange fish swimming through
Speaker 1: the holes in my ball. This week, you're the winner.
Speaker 1: I think these reef balls are a rat idea. I
Speaker 1: wanted to laugh at them at first, but then I
Speaker 1: thought that I'm going to be that weird Disney adult
Speaker 1: that gets his grandchildren apprehended by Disney security after they
Speaker 1: scatter my ashes into the waters of Pirates of the Caribbean. Hey, now,
Speaker 1: this is River Horse coming to you from the Deep
Speaker 1: South with some sagely wisdom. Today's story is about a
Speaker 1: big old mouse fly, but it's also about being a
Speaker 1: lifelong learner, chasing your passions and not being afraid to
Speaker 1: have some good old fashioned fun. Today's story is called
Speaker 1: here Kitty Cat. There's fifty ft of seven eggs leading
Speaker 1: from the red leather couch into the bedroom, and all
Speaker 1: hell is about to break loose. She's in there, throwing
Speaker 1: on a sundress and some boots for the day, as
Speaker 1: angelic and stunningly beautiful and momentarily innocent as ever. I've
Speaker 1: been testing endless variants of big gass mouse flies from
Speaker 1: lakes to rivers all over Texas for most of the summer.
Speaker 1: Even the supper table is covered with him. A rodent
Speaker 1: hat gone wild. I've got one of them tucked just
Speaker 1: under the dresser by her toes, ready for prime time.
Speaker 1: Once I gently start stripping the tippet, it's all about presentation.
Speaker 1: I pause for a few seconds and then get the
Speaker 1: mouse guet rolling along under her feet molasses slow and
Speaker 1: tantalizingly sweet. God damn it. Ribber horse comes the howl
Speaker 1: from the flank of the house. She storms into the
Speaker 1: front mouse number thirty eight, being strangled in her hand,
Speaker 1: flings open the bungalow door and lets it fly onto
Speaker 1: the lawn. Doesn't make it far getting stuck in the
Speaker 1: cactus other than me being in the doghouse until I
Speaker 1: make it up to her with white wine and steaks
Speaker 1: on the girl. There's no damage done since you have
Speaker 1: to clip the hook for these sort of fun tests.
Speaker 1: Life only makes sense to me when I chase all
Speaker 1: of the random and errant curiosities that have about the world,
Speaker 1: exploring and delving in and trying to seek the highest
Speaker 1: quality of whatever it is I'm into at the moment.
Speaker 1: The quintessential honey dripper toe curler mouse fly is my
Speaker 1: current self assignment. Even I sometimes wonder what gives fishing
Speaker 1: a mouse with sack and grace. Ain't rocket science. There
Speaker 1: are only a few things you have to do, including
Speaker 1: fire a cast with a double hull that takes no prisoners.
Speaker 1: About the only time I give a look seat of
Speaker 1: my back cast is when I'm mousing it up. And yes,
Speaker 1: I get an odd pleasure from seeing the fly cruising
Speaker 1: past ten feet off the water, those precious tiny ears
Speaker 1: pinned back hard, that tale, erect and proud, acting as
Speaker 1: a fuselage stable, Sir, Always land the mouse fly on
Speaker 1: something dirt, banks, tree limbs, lily pads, docks, floating logs,
Speaker 1: and sandbars. Strip them slower than slow, for you have
Speaker 1: nothing but time. Maybe begin with a few trembling whisker twitches,
Speaker 1: then a strange refried bean aftermath wobble mm hm, the
Speaker 1: old backfire too, and then make it happen with a
Speaker 1: big old disco inferno. Get that mouse on back to you,
Speaker 1: and don't forget to hang on tight for the wild eat.
Speaker 1: With time and continued derelict waterborne mouse misadventures, the experiments
Speaker 1: are finally whittled down to a last pair of mice types.
Speaker 1: After all these months in cast, two backyard brawlers have
Speaker 1: delivered the goods and done the most extensive damage to
Speaker 1: lone starfish. There is the mesmerizing wooly deer hair version,
Speaker 1: the size of a free range chicken, aptly monikered buck fever,
Speaker 1: and the massive pauper too odd hook called here Kitty,
Speaker 1: and he decide which one of these rodents wants the
Speaker 1: victory lap. For a long while, I'm uncertain until I
Speaker 1: get a wedding invitation in the mail for my buddy.
Speaker 1: One of my friends, you see, is an absolute A
Speaker 1: one certified dinghis He's the kind of guy that thinks
Speaker 1: he's sexier than sexy, but he's a good friend and
Speaker 1: we just deal with him. It seems like he's getting married.
Speaker 1: What a perfect place to bring the mouse flies and
Speaker 1: see what happens. I'm a very spiritual soul, and Mother
Speaker 1: Earth and Great Spirit are always in my life. But
Speaker 1: one of my favorite churches will always be the Water
Speaker 1: for Church. Today. I arrive at the wedding way early
Speaker 1: so I can set up the mice on long leaders
Speaker 1: and unleash it once the ceremony begins. They will even
Speaker 1: be video cameras rolland to record the whole event for
Speaker 1: mouse and wedding posterity. On my wedding invitation. I even
Speaker 1: take a sharpie marker and add river Horse plus two guests,
Speaker 1: Buck Fever and here Kitty, dearly beloved, and all lovers
Speaker 1: of wedded bliss and mouse flies, we are gathered here
Speaker 1: today to absolutely freak the heck out of the first
Speaker 1: twenty rows of people. And as the musician Prince once said,
Speaker 1: let's go crazy. Do you, buck Fever and here Kitty
Speaker 1: promised to unleash your steadfast love to all large mouth
Speaker 1: bass and full moon brown trout for eternity. With everyone
Speaker 1: finally at the altar and the wedding ceremony going full bloom,
Speaker 1: I know it's time I start stripping the mouse flies
Speaker 1: right to the feet of the bride and groom. It's
Speaker 1: on and that's our sagely wisdom for today. My friend
Speaker 1: is still at dinghis but he's found the love of
Speaker 1: his life and maybe he'll forgive me someday. As for me,
Speaker 1: fishing mouse flies always rules. I found the best one here, Kitty.
Speaker 1: Let's always remember that in life. Don't take it all
Speaker 1: too seriously. Laughter is the sweetest medicine, my brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: and there isn't much sweeter than a ten pound bass
Speaker 1: eating a mouse River horse Man. Haven't heard from him
Speaker 1: in a while. Kind of missed that, dude. This one
Speaker 1: hit home for me for two reasons. One because I
Speaker 1: love mousing for trout, that's an obvious one, but also
Speaker 1: because I actually tried to do something similar once but
Speaker 1: was halted for fear of hr disciplinarian. And and this
Speaker 1: was way back when the live target Field Mouse first
Speaker 1: came out. Hollow body Lord. Yeah, it's a hollow it's
Speaker 1: like a hollow body frog, but it's a mouse um
Speaker 1: and man like it's it is incredibly realistic. At the time,
Speaker 1: it was like mind blowing how much this thing looked
Speaker 1: like a little mouse, just like sitting there poised um.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was still working in New York
Speaker 1: City in the in the UH for Field and Stream
Speaker 1: when they still had their offices there, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to put it in the break room and set up
Speaker 1: a hit on camera and just let it roll for
Speaker 1: social media. But my boss was like, that is funny
Speaker 1: as shit, but hell no, absolutely not, because like you know,
Speaker 1: like old margin accounting would walk in and have a
Speaker 1: heart attack or somethin And there was also the whole
Speaker 1: like filming people unaware. Yeah, well, I'll tell me you're
Speaker 1: not really supposed to do that. I'll tell you what,
Speaker 1: there's no one in the office listen to the Bent
Speaker 1: podcast anyhow, I'm gonna do that and you can vicariously through.
Speaker 1: Did you ever tell you about my mouse pattern? No, yep,
Speaker 1: it was. It was pretty good. It was a it
Speaker 1: was a let me think about this. You tied it
Speaker 1: on a streamer hook, right, and the tail you use
Speaker 1: one of those squirmy wormy like in pink, and then
Speaker 1: you would also tie those in for the feet. So
Speaker 1: the first thing you do is you'd wrap the hook
Speaker 1: down and thread tie in the tail, and then you
Speaker 1: tie into each individual feet by just making like an
Speaker 1: inch long section, crossing it across the hook shank in
Speaker 1: two spots, and then you'd have like you know, like
Speaker 1: the foot and the tail out. Then you'd take a
Speaker 1: zonker strip and you'd wrap it all the way around
Speaker 1: right um. And then what you would do is you
Speaker 1: would take a little beasts of foam like what you
Speaker 1: use for like a chubby or whatever, and you make
Speaker 1: your ears with it. And then you would take a
Speaker 1: bass or like a like a sunny um foam like
Speaker 1: you know, like one of those popper bodies. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: actually you would. You would put that on first. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you put that on first, like you were doing it
Speaker 1: as a bead head, but you put it in reverse,
Speaker 1: so it was like a cone pointing towards the eye
Speaker 1: of the hook. It's a sneaky beat style head slider head.
Speaker 1: And what was cool about that pattern is like the
Speaker 1: because it was squirmy wearing material, the tail and the
Speaker 1: feet would be like have like a ton of action
Speaker 1: in them. And because you didn't have any foam towards
Speaker 1: the back, it would kind of sit lower in the
Speaker 1: water towards the back end, so it would look like
Speaker 1: how a mouse swims. And then those foam ears you
Speaker 1: could use that is kind of like a little poper.
Speaker 1: It would displace a bunch of water um, you know.
Speaker 1: So so to bring this full circle Man to tie
Speaker 1: a couple of those and mousing is something that I
Speaker 1: absolutely want to do, hopefully when I come visit this summer.
Speaker 1: I do have a pretty good idea of where I
Speaker 1: might pitch some ice around here, but you'll have to
Speaker 1: share some spots when I come back east Man, which
Speaker 1: leads perfectly into this week's installment of the bent helpline,
Speaker 1: where we'll discuss when it is and it's not okay
Speaker 1: to share fishing in funk? What are you laughing at, Marktini?
Speaker 1: You're not an idiot, You're not a gamblooning. How more,
Speaker 1: you're a fisherman. What's your emerging tee? So here's one
Speaker 1: via the instagrams from at Blue Water Johnny. Okay, uh,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is gonna be an interesting one.
Speaker 1: I'm very curious to hear your take on this. So
Speaker 1: so here's what he writes. He says, so, what do
Speaker 1: you do when you get called into an insane bite
Speaker 1: by some guys, you know, something that's on the dead
Speaker 1: down low and lasts for weeks. But you get told
Speaker 1: by the guys let's call them crew A, that you
Speaker 1: can't tell anyone. You go and smash them on their advice.
Speaker 1: Then your boys ask, hey, man, what yep to catching Annie?
Speaker 1: You kind of have to lie to your bros or
Speaker 1: burn crew a. What would Bent do? This is a
Speaker 1: dilemma of biblical proportions sort of maybe yeah, kind of? Well,
Speaker 1: I honestly, man, I think it's like pretty cut and dry, dude.
Speaker 1: It's like, if you're gonna go hit that bite. Man Um,
Speaker 1: you pretty much just have to like not tell folks
Speaker 1: where you were. You can tell them like maybe if
Speaker 1: it's a for instance, if somebody was like, hey, man Um,
Speaker 1: I saw you like banging them on cough and flies
Speaker 1: the other day. Uh where you know what's up with that?
Speaker 1: You can we go do that? I would be like, uh, man,
Speaker 1: I I can't really take you to like where I
Speaker 1: was because like that's like something my buddies showed me,
Speaker 1: and you know, they told me to kind of keep
Speaker 1: it on the hush hush, but I will tell you that,
Speaker 1: like it's kind of going off on like the West
Speaker 1: Branch of the Delaware, And I also listeners for all
Speaker 1: these examples, I always use the West Branch of the
Speaker 1: Delaware because like yeah, yeah, yeah, like you know, it's
Speaker 1: a large trout from New York Pennsylvania probably there, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean in the summertime, millions of bugs
Speaker 1: coming off. Yeah. I mean. So this is a tougher
Speaker 1: one for me because, as I've joked before, like I
Speaker 1: barely have one solid set of fishing friends, let alone
Speaker 1: too that might conflict you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: where one would be worried about the other one was doing. Um,
Speaker 1: but I will say I am. I'm extremely loyal with
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. If you if you show me something,
Speaker 1: uh great example, I got let in this summer to
Speaker 1: Sheep's Head in New Jersey. That's a thing. It's like
Speaker 1: getting more and more popular. But the guys who were
Speaker 1: good at it, they don't talk about it. And I
Speaker 1: knew one guy and I pestered him until finally he
Speaker 1: was like yes, And I realized that he was going
Speaker 1: to give me like three years worth of of hard
Speaker 1: work and knowledge in one shot. Hang on, shut that
Speaker 1: dog up. My wife's yelling at me because she's on
Speaker 1: a meeting too. Anyway, Anyway, what were we saying something
Speaker 1: about fishing, fishing, Yeah, yeah, okay. So so I realized that, like,
Speaker 1: this dude is about to show me in a few
Speaker 1: short hours what took him years and seasons to dial
Speaker 1: in in one shot. And we had a great day
Speaker 1: and we took very strategic photos downward into the boat.
Speaker 1: So you saw nothing. And I've been asked a million
Speaker 1: times under no circumstances of my giving that up, like
Speaker 1: I will not do that. So you know, I I
Speaker 1: I'm very respectful of that, but to your point you
Speaker 1: sort of hinted at it. Um, you can't be just
Speaker 1: like a total jerk about it. But if you're if
Speaker 1: you're doing this in one specific area, I might say
Speaker 1: the river or be like, hey it's on man, get
Speaker 1: out there and explore, like the whole river is on
Speaker 1: fire right now, dude, just get out there and and
Speaker 1: check it out. The other thing that you could do
Speaker 1: is just be like straight up honest with your with
Speaker 1: your secondary buddies i e. Not Group A. You just go, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I mean we had a really good day and like, dude,
Speaker 1: it is on fire like in A. But you know
Speaker 1: you can give them like a general area again, but
Speaker 1: you can't. But just be honest, Just be like, but
Speaker 1: the person who took me really asked me not to
Speaker 1: tell anybody, so like, I just can't. I'm really sorry,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna give you like the sheepish look like
Speaker 1: a bit. Come on, bro, you just stick to it, man,
Speaker 1: Just be like no really, because then you know, even
Speaker 1: worst case scenario, your buddies and Group B will have
Speaker 1: enough trust in you to take you to their spots
Speaker 1: because if there's one thing they know about, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not where you call it that giant brown trout.
Speaker 1: But it said if you get a good spot, you
Speaker 1: keep it on the download exactly. And that is that
Speaker 1: is worth so much in fishing because another question he
Speaker 1: could have asked, which might have even been a better question,
Speaker 1: is what do you do when you take a buddy
Speaker 1: to a spot and say, don't tell anybody, and then
Speaker 1: show up in that spot and he is there with
Speaker 1: someone else that you don't know? What do you do? Then?
Speaker 1: I am lucky and that I have never you believe,
Speaker 1: I have never had that happen to me. Though I
Speaker 1: have had people call me up and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: can I go to this spot with so and so?
Speaker 1: And sometimes I'm like I'd prefer you didn't, and sometimes
Speaker 1: depending on the spot, I'm like, yeah, go ahead. But
Speaker 1: they had the courtesy to reach out and be like
Speaker 1: that spot you showed me, I would like to take
Speaker 1: my friend, Brian. Is that okay? Hey? I will say
Speaker 1: this though, uh strong chance if y'all send some comments
Speaker 1: about what you would do to that friend if if
Speaker 1: you showed up and he was in a spot you
Speaker 1: said not to be at with somebody else. I just
Speaker 1: want to know, like, what your reaction would be, would
Speaker 1: there be whips, chains, just fists, just words? What would
Speaker 1: you do? Um? Let us know and keep those questions
Speaker 1: coming to Bent at the Meat Eater dot com. Maybe
Speaker 1: we'll answer them right here on the ben helpline. So
Speaker 1: that's it for this week. If you were about to
Speaker 1: unleash that streamer you thought was original to the masses,
Speaker 1: sorry if we squashed your hopes and dreams, but I
Speaker 1: would like to say thanks again to Brian Schmidt for
Speaker 1: joining us. Also, I'll reiterate that if you prefer to
Speaker 1: deliver your rodents on a swim bait rod instead of
Speaker 1: a fly rod, look him up. He makes badass giant
Speaker 1: rats in umbrella rig of rats. Also look us up.
Speaker 1: Keep sending those sale bin items, bar nominations, questions, and
Speaker 1: awkward photos to Bent at the Meat Eater dot com
Speaker 1: and keep using those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtag
Speaker 1: so we can see what you got going on. Yes,
Speaker 1: please do. And finally, keep in mind that ranting about
Speaker 1: spot burns just raises your blood pressure and that's not good.
Speaker 1: Just choose the healthier option, take out a bankload, and
Speaker 1: just buy the entire river so we don't have to
Speaker 1: listen to you anymore. Take your own advice joke