Speaker 1: I too can picture myself standing there and blowing forty
Speaker 1: shots at permit a storm. They say, this town that's
Speaker 1: about to be lit up. You go to Walmart parking lot,
Speaker 1: you kind of put your blinders on, you walk through it,
Speaker 1: You pretend like you don't see anything. You get whatever
Speaker 1: you need done. Sleeper Marcilla pods Son in case of
Speaker 1: epic fishy ship happens in my dreams. Good morning, degenerate anglers,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that the cast
Speaker 1: of clerks would have been listening to at the quick
Speaker 1: Stop had podcasts existed in I'm Joe Surmelli, A Miles
Speaker 1: Nulty and uh and just hearing a reference to clerks
Speaker 1: makes me well, I guess it makes me want to
Speaker 1: cover myself in flannel and go to a Tower Records.
Speaker 1: All Tower Records on South Street in Philly, r I p.
Speaker 1: I spent so much time and money I didn't have
Speaker 1: there anyway. Besides podcasts, do you know what else they
Speaker 1: didn't have at the quick Stop? In what's that Delicious
Speaker 1: Black Rifle Coffee? Friendly reminder here that Bent is presented
Speaker 1: by our buds of Black Rifle Coffee and we are
Speaker 1: genuinely thankful for that, because it means we get to
Speaker 1: fuel our recording sessions with high quality caffeine instead of
Speaker 1: you know that quick stop sludge crap exactly. And you
Speaker 1: can fuel your fishing and daily grind with the good
Speaker 1: stuff as well by heading to Black Rifle Coffee dot
Speaker 1: com backslash meat Eater and when you do, enter the
Speaker 1: promo code meat Eater and score yourself off your entire order. So, Joe,
Speaker 1: are you aware that this is our first official podcast
Speaker 1: of the fall season. I am you are correct. September
Speaker 1: twenty two was the first day of fall. Um. Yeah, man, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm already feeling it out here on the East Coast.
Speaker 1: The nights are noticeably cooler the real thing, though, I
Speaker 1: recently helped my neighbor coveries pool, which is kind of
Speaker 1: the final finder. Um that. Yeah, while great fall fishing looms,
Speaker 1: I guess so does that long covid winter. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: pools are really not a thing out here. I don't
Speaker 1: know a single person with him because because five days
Speaker 1: a year you can use it. Yeah, our our fall
Speaker 1: started last month. You know, that's when when things got cool,
Speaker 1: which I I don't mind. I look forward to it.
Speaker 1: I like the fall. But I know what's coming right
Speaker 1: and and right about this time. With that knowledge sitting
Speaker 1: in my head, I'd like to be planning a trip
Speaker 1: someplace warm, you know, like someplace warm and salty with
Speaker 1: boat drinks and and big fish, and like that's that's
Speaker 1: what I want to be thinking. It's not like it's
Speaker 1: not like I take those trips every year. It's not
Speaker 1: like I jet off to the Southern Hemisphere every year.
Speaker 1: But I do like to imagine myself there, right And
Speaker 1: we don't get to do that because no one's going
Speaker 1: anywhere right now. But thanks to all of you out
Speaker 1: there who keeps sending us these copious emails nomin your
Speaker 1: favorite fishy watering holes from across the globe, I can
Speaker 1: still kind of take a little mental vacation. I get
Speaker 1: to live vicariously through you. Would appreciate and we'll tell
Speaker 1: you what we can get, so I appreciate it too. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: both Joe and I read all of these and and
Speaker 1: sometimes we actually get to, you know, sail away with you,
Speaker 1: like we do with this week's that's my bar best
Speaker 1: God damn bar tender from tim buck To to Portland, Maine.
Speaker 1: The Portland argument for that Matter. This week's That's My
Speaker 1: Bar nomination comes to us from listener Spencer Foster. Spencer wrote,
Speaker 1: I'm an archaeologist who works in Belize during the summer.
Speaker 1: Every time I finish a dig season, I take a
Speaker 1: few days to vacation and fish on a small island
Speaker 1: called kay Coker. In nine, a hurricane split this island
Speaker 1: in two, creating a channel known to the locals as
Speaker 1: the Split. This channel is a popular hangout for locals
Speaker 1: and tours to like for swimming, diving, and fishing. Towards
Speaker 1: the center of the channel, fishermen can hook into multiple species,
Speaker 1: including barracuda, snapper, parrot, fish, jack, and even the odd kobea.
Speaker 1: Directly next to the Split is the Lazy Lizard Bar
Speaker 1: and Grill, a beautiful little beach side awaysist that serves
Speaker 1: cold Belican, a local Belize and beer, and hot fried conk.
Speaker 1: As I'm throwing out cut sardines and squid, I can
Speaker 1: listen to the reggae tunes drifting out of the bar.
Speaker 1: If I get drained by the Caribbean sun, I can
Speaker 1: wander over and fuel up on calamari and a coke
Speaker 1: while watching young locals free dive for lionfish using homemade spears.
Speaker 1: My visits coincide with the off season, so I get
Speaker 1: to enjoy this without swarms of tourists. The global pandemic
Speaker 1: prevented me from visiting The Lazy Lizard this summer, but
Speaker 1: I'm already looking forward to next year. Now. This nomination
Speaker 1: just has so much going for it. There's a little
Speaker 1: bit of history, like a personal anecdote, but most important
Speaker 1: that vivid description. Yeah man, this did just That's sold
Speaker 1: it for me. It takes me back to my honeymoon
Speaker 1: and the kunk Shack and turks and caicos which we
Speaker 1: we ate at on day one and then every other
Speaker 1: day they're after because it was it was just that mellow.
Speaker 1: They were like bone fish cruising around and like conquer
Speaker 1: a million different ways, which is a food that I love.
Speaker 1: So um. Yeah, it's it's I think we're all feeling
Speaker 1: that little bit of of bummed out about not getting
Speaker 1: to hit some of these joints this year because of COVID.
Speaker 1: It'll be waiting for you, man, And I appreciate the
Speaker 1: the the comment about hitting it in the off season
Speaker 1: because you've probably been to a lot like I've gotten
Speaker 1: to visit so many cool bars in my travels. And
Speaker 1: because we're there fishing in the cold season or you know,
Speaker 1: a different time of year, it's not like peak tourism time.
Speaker 1: I know what he's saying, Like, it's a different vibe
Speaker 1: when you're not there when it is jam packed with people,
Speaker 1: or if it's jam packed it's only with the locals.
Speaker 1: It's a totally different experience. And I don't know about you, Joe,
Speaker 1: but personally I've never been to these and now I
Speaker 1: haven't either. That is one of those places that I've
Speaker 1: read and heard so much about, like the culture and
Speaker 1: the people in the ecosystem, and you know, obviously how
Speaker 1: good the fishing is. That I've always wanted to go.
Speaker 1: And you know, dude, I didn't have any plans to
Speaker 1: travel there in but the fact that I can't, that
Speaker 1: I'm actually barred from doing so, just makes me want
Speaker 1: to go so much more. And then we get this
Speaker 1: email and I'm reading it and I'm like momentarily transported
Speaker 1: out of my lockdown life and I'm I'm just for
Speaker 1: a minute, I'm not sitting in my home office, which
Speaker 1: is really just a plastic folding table in my bedroom,
Speaker 1: staring at this little screen. I'll stand in hip deep
Speaker 1: in the Blue Caribbean with a rod in my hand,
Speaker 1: and like some crusty salt on my shirt and like
Speaker 1: a sunburn just starting to blossom on my arms. And
Speaker 1: I could almost taste that Bellikan and conk, even though
Speaker 1: I've never had a Bellican, but I could imagine it,
Speaker 1: and I was. I was there for a minute. So Spencer,
Speaker 1: thank you for that like momentary vacation that I just got. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was just in my mind. It was an incredible description.
Speaker 1: And I too can picture myself standing there and blowing
Speaker 1: forty shots at Permit the entire time. I just got it.
Speaker 1: Just gotta throw a live crab at him. It's amazing. Um. Alright, Spencer,
Speaker 1: we hope you get back to kay Cooker soon. Uh
Speaker 1: just remember when you do and it's overrun with degenerate
Speaker 1: ben fans. The next time you go, you'll have only
Speaker 1: yourself to blame. And for the rest of you who
Speaker 1: want to blow up one of your favorite bars and
Speaker 1: and have all of us crawling all over it, please
Speaker 1: send us an email to Bent at the meat Eater
Speaker 1: dot com so we can continue building up this amazing
Speaker 1: segment of great bar recommendations. So while we all feel
Speaker 1: the pain of not being able to jet off to
Speaker 1: Belize right now to visit the Lazy Lizard, I can
Speaker 1: tell you you're free and clear to visit Diane's Pop
Speaker 1: Top in Pembine, Wisconsin. At least you could have such
Speaker 1: a great bar name. At least you could as of
Speaker 1: my us visit there in late June, so you know,
Speaker 1: back it up. Hold on, you got to drink in
Speaker 1: like a real live bar last summer. You went to
Speaker 1: a bar to drink. We're not talking about your back
Speaker 1: deck with like a home painted sign lit up with
Speaker 1: string lights and neon beer lights, right, real bar. I
Speaker 1: have that too in my backyard. But no, this was
Speaker 1: This was a real bar, and it was the only
Speaker 1: real bar I drank in all of last summer. And
Speaker 1: I won't lie, man, and I felt weird about it. However,
Speaker 1: the only people in the bar were the bartender and
Speaker 1: the guys I was with, right, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Diane's popa Top wasn't exactly raging like Studio fifty four, um,
Speaker 1: But there was a sign behind the bar, you know
Speaker 1: those black signs that are like litt And then you
Speaker 1: used like the neon pasteli markers over them to write
Speaker 1: the specials of the day existing bars, that's the only
Speaker 1: place that they're They're like, whoever came up with that
Speaker 1: only cells to bars? Yeah, I know exactly what're talking about.
Speaker 1: So there was one of those in in in this
Speaker 1: bar and it said, due to COVID nineteen, we will
Speaker 1: be staying open because I'd rather be drunk when the
Speaker 1: world ends. So I had no idea what the specials were,
Speaker 1: but I got that message loud and clear, and I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, Okay, give me a peber,
Speaker 1: give me a PBR. But I made a new friend
Speaker 1: while I was up there, and you're about to learn
Speaker 1: all about him in our segment dedicated to letting professional
Speaker 1: guides and captain's vent about stupid things their clients do. This,
Speaker 1: my friends, is Smooth Moves. Why joining us today on
Speaker 1: Smooth Moves? My good buddy Tim land where, owner of
Speaker 1: Tight Lines Fly Fishing company in northern Wisconsin. What's going on? Brother?
Speaker 1: Not much? How are you doing? Man? I am good man,
Speaker 1: I miss you and having spent a few days sharing
Speaker 1: stories with Tim um, I know this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a good smooth move. Remind us how long You've been
Speaker 1: a professional guide since I was probably eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: so and guiding part time from eighteen until now when
Speaker 1: I'm forty seven, So it's been a couple of years now.
Speaker 1: It's so yeah, yeah, right. A lot of sun, man,
Speaker 1: a lot of sun. So you do a lot of
Speaker 1: small mouth fishing, a lot of muskie fishing. Uh, and
Speaker 1: you've seen some goofiness. So so hit us man, give
Speaker 1: us the w t F moment that comes to mind
Speaker 1: that just stopped you in your tracks. I know it's
Speaker 1: probably a hard decision. There's a lot of those moments, Joe.
Speaker 1: But I'd have to say, as a guide, you know,
Speaker 1: you have certain pieces of water that you go down
Speaker 1: that may have some dangers and things on it. And
Speaker 1: we have one specific little back channel that we fish
Speaker 1: all the time, and over the course of about four years,
Speaker 1: a paper hornets wasp nest is built on it and
Speaker 1: it is massive. It's like the three ft long draping
Speaker 1: from the tree hornets on it. But every time I
Speaker 1: sneak through this, you have to tell your customers, like
Speaker 1: ladies and gentle man, grab a seat, I'm going to
Speaker 1: sneak through this. You point out the hornet's nest. You
Speaker 1: point this out, I mean like like a lot, Like
Speaker 1: that's a paper hornet's nest. And you know, when people
Speaker 1: are excited about fishing, they see greasy water, they start
Speaker 1: to see through the guy's eyes, they start to see
Speaker 1: a spot that they have to fish. And this particular day,
Speaker 1: the guy just, I mean he just kept casting, kept
Speaker 1: casting when we see this greasy slick of water, and
Speaker 1: the dude stands up and I can see him stand
Speaker 1: up and line up, and before the words get out
Speaker 1: of my mouth, he sends a rope through that hornet's nest.
Speaker 1: I mean that like the double hall, like the full
Speaker 1: oh dude, And immediately I watched it wrap around the
Speaker 1: entire nest, like it wasn't going to disturbed the nest.
Speaker 1: And at this moment, it's like the Holy ship moment
Speaker 1: of like, ha, I wonder what we're gonna do now,
Speaker 1: because we are just a hair maybe ten feet downstream
Speaker 1: from this hornet's nest. So I had to tell the guy.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, very calmly, sit down own it. Pull
Speaker 1: my EpiPen out from the side hatch of my boat.
Speaker 1: So so we get downstream and I have the guy
Speaker 1: rip off all of his fly line without and I
Speaker 1: can see the hornet's nest wobbling up there with the
Speaker 1: current pulling the line. He pulls all of the fly
Speaker 1: line out and we just get downstream, and now we've
Speaker 1: got about another fifty yards of backing on top of
Speaker 1: the fly line, and I'm like, okay, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to pull it tight now. And he pulls it tight,
Speaker 1: and he cuts the hornet's nest directly in half. Fellas
Speaker 1: there had to be I don't know, between a million bees,
Speaker 1: and and it was just crazy because you could see
Speaker 1: them all freaking out, the bees freaking out because I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I had no words
Speaker 1: for him on the I'm sorry. We get downstream and
Speaker 1: I could see like the massive bees coming closer to
Speaker 1: figure out where. Like the disturbance wasn't like I'm giving
Speaker 1: everybody like the critigue, like, okay, we all get out
Speaker 1: of the boat. We're gonna have to get out of
Speaker 1: the boat. So I'm just gonna jump in because like
Speaker 1: we're somebody's gonna go into anaphylactic shock if we don't.
Speaker 1: But fortunately the vs were disoriented and they dispersed but
Speaker 1: that was one of the most holy ship moments I've
Speaker 1: had because I had dodged that nest for years. Well,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, did you are did you also
Speaker 1: ruin a landmark? Because that's one of those things with guides,
Speaker 1: like when you talk like, yeah, we were just just
Speaker 1: downstream of Hornet's nest. It was it was. It was
Speaker 1: one of those things because if somebody fished that back channel,
Speaker 1: like you were going past Hornet's nest. And and then
Speaker 1: I came back and told the fellows the story about it,
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, man, that was a cool Hornet's nest.
Speaker 1: I just gotta jump in here to him and give
Speaker 1: you credit on the like, okay, strip off the line
Speaker 1: very very quickly, Like that could have gone really without
Speaker 1: without quick thinking, that could have gone much much, much
Speaker 1: worse than it did. And and getting it getting enough
Speaker 1: scope out there that you could, you know, give it
Speaker 1: a yank without them finding you was a stroke of
Speaker 1: brilliance in a very tense moment. So like, kudos to you. Man,
Speaker 1: that's a good guy, because most people I know would
Speaker 1: have just yanked down in one shot and it would
Speaker 1: have been just yeah, yeah, I mean, and and the
Speaker 1: fact that you got to him before he started his
Speaker 1: front cast. I mean it was little little little quick applause,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank he knew it. And and the thing is,
Speaker 1: I will say, myles though, like looking back on it,
Speaker 1: like I had played out that scenario in my head
Speaker 1: every time I went past that hornet's nest, like somebody's
Speaker 1: gonna catch it, you know. You know, man, people think
Speaker 1: good guiding is like all about just finding the fish,
Speaker 1: knowing where the fish are and what they're eating, but
Speaker 1: it's it's not. I think a good guy is the
Speaker 1: guy who like has a positive mental attitude all day
Speaker 1: because rest as short, Like I'll be piste off about
Speaker 1: something and he's the guy that's like assuring me that
Speaker 1: my skills will come together and there's fish right around
Speaker 1: the bend. But that's just what I look for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the cheerleader aspect, right, like is a cheerleader aspect.
Speaker 1: There's the psychologist as by the counselor aspect, like a
Speaker 1: good guy. I can't remember said a good guy is
Speaker 1: like a bartender and a counselor who can't prescribe meds.
Speaker 1: I don't know some some I butchered that quote, but
Speaker 1: it's something like that just finding the fish. Though for
Speaker 1: guid's that's truly bare minimum. That's like C minus level guiding.
Speaker 1: If all you know is where the fish are, really
Speaker 1: good guys do so much more. And I think Tim's
Speaker 1: instincts in that situation are the perfect example, right, because
Speaker 1: like he's got that guy feeding out the line instead
Speaker 1: of letting the client just yank his way into anaphylactic shock,
Speaker 1: you know, And and all the while he's still rowing
Speaker 1: the boat and piloting it and and thinking about four
Speaker 1: different things ahead. Like that's a good guide. That's that's
Speaker 1: managing to to do several different things at once. Like
Speaker 1: I give him a lot of props there, and and
Speaker 1: he's got solid instincts for sure. Just like I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I think it's safe to say all good
Speaker 1: anglers trust their instincts. You agree with that, yeah, oh absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: even like if they're mostly wrong, but they will just
Speaker 1: insist that their instincts are spot on all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not saying our instincts are right, but like,
Speaker 1: if you don't have confidence in what you believe and
Speaker 1: yourself as an angler, you're screwed. You're not catching shit.
Speaker 1: But like, when do you know, like how do you
Speaker 1: know when to trust your instincts? Or when do you
Speaker 1: admit that your instincts are totally full of ship? Like
Speaker 1: how do you know how to figure that out? I don't.
Speaker 1: I just generally assume that six of my instincts are
Speaker 1: full of shit every time. But this question, I see,
Speaker 1: I see where you're going here, and this question of
Speaker 1: self trust verse self doubt, I think, uh, it's an
Speaker 1: important one to us fisher folks. So Miles here is
Speaker 1: going to delve deeper into it. In this week's weekly word,
Speaker 1: Webster's Dictionary defines fish as The word for this week
Speaker 1: is perseverate. I first learned this word from an old
Speaker 1: girlfriend in the middle of the conversation and where she
Speaker 1: was becoming an ex girlfriend and was listing the personality
Speaker 1: traits she most hated about me. The common definition is
Speaker 1: to repeat something insistently or redundantly, but the word comes
Speaker 1: from psychology, and yeah, that X was a psych major.
Speaker 1: The words clinical definition is the repetition of a particular response,
Speaker 1: regardless of the absence or cessation of a stimulus. In
Speaker 1: other words, it's when we keep doing something long after
Speaker 1: that thing has stopped working. All right, So some of
Speaker 1: you are probably wondering what the hell ex girlfriends and
Speaker 1: clinical psychology terms have to do with fishing, And that's
Speaker 1: a valid question. But I think this word and a
Speaker 1: similar one with a slightly different meaning, get at one
Speaker 1: of the central questions we all faces, anglers. The Latin
Speaker 1: roots of perseverate are per meaning through, and severus, meaning
Speaker 1: strict or earnest. These are also the roots of another
Speaker 1: word that might be more familiar, persevere, which means to
Speaker 1: persist steadfastly in pursuit of an undertaking task, journey, or goal,
Speaker 1: even if hindered by difficulty, distraction, obstacles, or discouragement. Perseverating
Speaker 1: is bad, persevering is good. But how do we identify
Speaker 1: the line that separates the two. Anybody who spent any
Speaker 1: significant time fishing knows this dilemma. You you have an
Speaker 1: idea of what should work, like, say, a cold front
Speaker 1: just pushed through, and you know, you just know the
Speaker 1: fish are going to be sluggish, so you work finesse tactics,
Speaker 1: slow and deep, but it ain't happening. What do you do?
Speaker 1: Do you switch it up, go with something you have
Speaker 1: less confidence in, or just keep pushing what you think
Speaker 1: should work and have confidence that if a fish is
Speaker 1: gonna bite anything at all, it's what you're doing. All
Speaker 1: good anglers persevere. We keep casting, keep working patterns and
Speaker 1: systems that we think should catch fish. But at what
Speaker 1: point does persevering turn into perseverating? When are we being patient?
Speaker 1: And when are we just repeating the same action and
Speaker 1: hoping for a different result. You know that whole definition
Speaker 1: of insanity thing. Really, this etymological distinction is the timeless
Speaker 1: and central question of fishing. Should change spots, change bates,
Speaker 1: change retrieves, or keep grinding it out, trust my first
Speaker 1: instinct and wait for the bite to turn on. I
Speaker 1: can't answer that question for you, but I do think
Speaker 1: that knowing the difference between perseverating and persevering separates the
Speaker 1: good anglers from the great ones. And on that note,
Speaker 1: you have officially persevered through the first half of our show,
Speaker 1: which brings us to the part where we pump you
Speaker 1: full of info on recent fish related happenings so you
Speaker 1: sound more hip to the scene at the bay check.
Speaker 1: Let's roll out some fish news. Fish news that escalated
Speaker 1: quickly our top story this week, though not actually part
Speaker 1: of fish News Proper Meat Eaters Season nine, Part one
Speaker 1: is now streaming on Netflix. Yes, yes it is. If
Speaker 1: you can't get out and fish this weekend, which sorry
Speaker 1: for you, but you got an option. You can binge
Speaker 1: your way through some fresh media episodes. And for all
Speaker 1: of you out there who completely lacks self control, we
Speaker 1: are exercising it for you this season. Part two of
Speaker 1: season nine will come out early next year. So just
Speaker 1: consider this like our civic duty. It's it's like portion
Speaker 1: control for media. You can't have the big gulp, you
Speaker 1: just get like the mini can. Well I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not entirely sure I'll be fishing this weekend. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be too busy sulking and rehashing in my head how
Speaker 1: I lost news last week. I mean, you're still up, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know why you'd be sulking
Speaker 1: over still being ahead all time. I have appealed this
Speaker 1: to the High Court of Meti Eater just so you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I know. It's it's gonna get ugly. It's
Speaker 1: gonna cost me a lot of money, but apparently not
Speaker 1: enough Radio Shack gift cards to fill. But that's okay,
Speaker 1: because I'm feeling pretty good this week. As a reminder,
Speaker 1: Miles and I have no idea which news stories related
Speaker 1: to fish and fishing the other guy has found. This
Speaker 1: is a competition and it is judged at the end
Speaker 1: by our podcast engineer Phil Taylor. Okay, Soil Phil, All
Speaker 1: hail Phil. Phil is the man. Uh And this is
Speaker 1: a risky move for me because I get to lead
Speaker 1: off and I'm going first. I gotta come in a
Speaker 1: little somber though, So we're gonna kick this off with
Speaker 1: a tragic tail that makes my blood positively boiled. This
Speaker 1: comes to us from USA Today headline fans rally behind
Speaker 1: pro Best angler after robbery. A Pro Best angler from
Speaker 1: Kentucky was robbed of more than fifteen thousand dollars worth
Speaker 1: of gear after arriving in Texas for a weekend tournament,
Speaker 1: but Matt Robertson still competed after receiving an overwhelming show
Speaker 1: of support. Now, other sources on this story say that
Speaker 1: the value of the goods was closer to twenty thousand dollars. Okay,
Speaker 1: Robertson arrived in Jasper, Texas last week in advance of
Speaker 1: the Bassmister Central Open on Sam Rayburn reservoir. His truck
Speaker 1: was picked clean. However, during his wife's visit to a
Speaker 1: nearby Walmart, No, according to Robertson, there was eleven years
Speaker 1: worth of accumulated gear in that truck, and he told Bassmaster,
Speaker 1: I had everything in big totes, including all my tools,
Speaker 1: jack tire, iron, anything I might need in case of
Speaker 1: an emergency. They unloaded everything and they left my spare tire.
Speaker 1: That's that's my nightmare, honestly, Like I I do have
Speaker 1: nightmares about that because if if someone got ahold of,
Speaker 1: you know, your stash of fishing gear, someone you can
Speaker 1: you can place the stuff that you can buy, but
Speaker 1: some of that's irreplaceable, man, like, you can't get it back.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna get to my fix for that in
Speaker 1: a little bit, okay, but agreed totally. That is also
Speaker 1: my biggest nightmare. And the story goes on to say
Speaker 1: that Robertson was flooded with offers of money, but he says,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, I know people work hard for their money.
Speaker 1: So the dude refused to take it, which I kind
Speaker 1: of respect that. But it goes on to say that, however,
Speaker 1: Robertson reluctantly accepted a tackle store gift card from a
Speaker 1: fellow pro who was not scheduled to fish the Open,
Speaker 1: and he used that to buy just enough gear to
Speaker 1: fish the three day tournament. Now, so so many things. Right, First,
Speaker 1: the person who did this scum of the earth. You
Speaker 1: go straight to hell. That's number one. But two, I
Speaker 1: don't feel like this could have been random. Right. There
Speaker 1: was a photo in the article showing some of the
Speaker 1: tackle he lost, and it was a lot. Man. I mean,
Speaker 1: this wasn't hit like an orchestrated hit. I there there's
Speaker 1: no way that whoever did this didn't know exactly what
Speaker 1: was in that truck, because this isn't like a break
Speaker 1: the window and steal the iPod deal, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And I assumed that maybe this was a
Speaker 1: late night run to Walmart, butN this was broad daylight
Speaker 1: and there were plenty of other people in the parking lot,
Speaker 1: and like nobody thought something was weird there. That unload
Speaker 1: had to take time, right, Yeah, I mean, weird stuff
Speaker 1: happens to the Walmart parking lot all the time. Let's
Speaker 1: be asked. You know, you go to Walmart parking lot,
Speaker 1: you kind of put your blinders on. You walk through it.
Speaker 1: You pretend like you don't see anything, You get whatever
Speaker 1: you need. There's whole websites devoted to the weird things
Speaker 1: that happened to Walmart. Because I was out of Walmart.
Speaker 1: I saw a dude jump out of his truck and
Speaker 1: cracky youngling on his way in, Like you're opening a
Speaker 1: beer to go refreshing. You need to be well hydrated
Speaker 1: for that Walmart run. I get it. But all all
Speaker 1: the sources of this story feature security cam photos of
Speaker 1: a white Chevy Tahoe believed to be the purpose caught
Speaker 1: on tape um and the public is being asked to
Speaker 1: keep a lookout for it. But I don't even fully
Speaker 1: understand that because in a couple of those shots, like
Speaker 1: I can damn near read the entire license plate. So
Speaker 1: I I hope that you know the local swat team
Speaker 1: and suiting up right now, because that's what I want.
Speaker 1: You know. While all theft is obviously low, I just
Speaker 1: find the stealing of fishing gear extremely low. Like I
Speaker 1: cringe when I see those posts pop up on forums
Speaker 1: and on social media, like somebody jack my tackle bag
Speaker 1: out of my truck like that, Just that just burns me.
Speaker 1: I think every few years it seems like someone decides
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a good idea to break into all
Speaker 1: the guide rigs around here because they know where they're
Speaker 1: going to be, right, and they know that there's usually
Speaker 1: some cash for the shuttle driver in there, and there's
Speaker 1: usually some gear. But it is vigilante justice and that's
Speaker 1: what keeps it from being anything that happens often honestly,
Speaker 1: because the whole community of anglers around here finds out
Speaker 1: who it is. Because the towns aren't that big, and
Speaker 1: bad things happen to the that generally have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the police. So and I mean they're trying
Speaker 1: to sell it, So what happens. It usually pops up
Speaker 1: for sales somewhere and that's how they nail them, right. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: to get back to your your fear of having your
Speaker 1: gear stole, And just a final note because you'll appreciate this. Uh,
Speaker 1: the day we had our security system installed here at
Speaker 1: the house, my wife was unavailable to weigh in on
Speaker 1: sensor placement. And it's a scam anyway, right because the
Speaker 1: the the these services advertised like cheap monthly fifty bucks
Speaker 1: a month, secure your house. Yeah, but then you find
Speaker 1: out the package only comes with four free sensors, so
Speaker 1: it's like pick the four most likely places someone will
Speaker 1: break in, or you up the bill a couple grand
Speaker 1: and arm every possible entry port. Right. So I bought
Speaker 1: a handful of extra sensors that day, and I put
Speaker 1: every single one in the garage. So we've since upgraded
Speaker 1: the home in its entirety. Right, But at the outset,
Speaker 1: they were like many weak points in the part where
Speaker 1: my family sleeps, but the garage was Fort Knox, dude,
Speaker 1: and my wife was when she came home, she was pissed.
Speaker 1: But I had a valid argument, right, and this is
Speaker 1: I'm not even kidding, thanks to something I saw on
Speaker 1: c S I which taught me nobody ever expects a
Speaker 1: locked door behind a locked door. So in other words,
Speaker 1: people will break into a garage assuming the door inside
Speaker 1: the garage from the house to the garage is unlocked.
Speaker 1: And that's stuck with me. And now mine is mine
Speaker 1: is is always locked that door. But I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know I was breaking into this place. I had
Speaker 1: come in through the garage, and she kind of conceded,
Speaker 1: but not really. She knew exactly what I was doing,
Speaker 1: So there you go. I mean, I like that you
Speaker 1: had that rational ready to go like, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's not about my gear, honey, it's it's science. I
Speaker 1: learned it from C. S. I hold on. I appreciate
Speaker 1: that very much. And you know, I actually this is
Speaker 1: this is true. Until I got married to my wife.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever lived in a house where
Speaker 1: we locked the doors. It's just the Northeast way. Man.
Speaker 1: I love that Maybury idea, and I visited a lot
Speaker 1: of places where it's like that. I am, I am.
Speaker 1: It's just in grain, like I'm just a nut job,
Speaker 1: or like I don't keep anything of value in my truck.
Speaker 1: Like no, I'm not getting I think it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Like it's just so to contextualize this. This isn't like
Speaker 1: an idealistic thing for me. It was I grew up
Speaker 1: in house where you couldn't lock the doors because everything
Speaker 1: was screened in, so all you had to do was
Speaker 1: just punched through the screen and you're in. So it
Speaker 1: didn't really matter. Our house got broken and do many
Speaker 1: times when I was a kid, but we just couldn't
Speaker 1: lock it. Design problem. Welcome to the tropics. This is
Speaker 1: in Hawaii. Yeah, this is where I grew up in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: like literally the giant screened in porch. There's no way
Speaker 1: to secure that, like you just couldn't do it, and
Speaker 1: they had as a major design flaw. And then in
Speaker 1: college I lived in this this this house where I
Speaker 1: think we just lost the keys within the first week
Speaker 1: and then no one even bothered. It was just like whatever,
Speaker 1: we got broken into there too. We also we also
Speaker 1: had several of the guys on the couch, so there
Speaker 1: was usually an alarm system there because somebody was on
Speaker 1: the couch pretty much twenty four hours a day. But
Speaker 1: still we got broken into there. And then after that,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I just kind of got out
Speaker 1: of the habit of it. I never did it, but
Speaker 1: but I married a woman who had just come from
Speaker 1: New York and now it is like locked up all
Speaker 1: the time. This has nothing to do with fishing, and
Speaker 1: I ventured far and wide. I'm sorry about that, but uh,
Speaker 1: I also don't have a great segue to get from
Speaker 1: what I was like trying to buy some time for
Speaker 1: a segue, and I don't exactly know I having to
Speaker 1: get there. Apparently Phil counts the segways because my first
Speaker 1: one sucked last week. And then I lost so year turn.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say that that locking the door on
Speaker 1: a house that, even though I'm getting used to it
Speaker 1: now is is outside of my comfort zone. And for this,
Speaker 1: this first story, I also went far, far outside of
Speaker 1: my personal comfort zone into a strange, alien land that
Speaker 1: seems primarily populated by teenagers and maybe tweens. Uh. That's right.
Speaker 1: I wandered into the land of TikTok. Oh. Man, isn't
Speaker 1: that against the law? Now, you shouldn't say that publicly?
Speaker 1: I mean I did. It's true I went there. I
Speaker 1: will also admit it was not my first foray into
Speaker 1: into TikTok land. Uh. My god daughter a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago showed it to me. But at that time
Speaker 1: and I think she was like ten, and at that time,
Speaker 1: from what I could tell, she just used it to
Speaker 1: learn and practice dances. So I just didn't pay any attention.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, cool, yeah, take your dancing whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know what this app is. I fancy myself
Speaker 1: pretty up on like modern media. But that's one where
Speaker 1: I draw the line of the old man, like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what the hell that is. God, damn TikTok
Speaker 1: appy kids. I don't know. I don't know what. I
Speaker 1: don't get it again. All I know is it used
Speaker 1: to be for dancing, but apparently it's evolved because I
Speaker 1: hear now it's a national security threat. But also this
Speaker 1: week I learned that one can find some strange and
Speaker 1: obscure fish news in the swirling cosmos of TikTok. I'm
Speaker 1: very curious. This is interesting. You're also giving away your sources,
Speaker 1: so you know, I don't think it's going to be
Speaker 1: a regular well that I draw from. Lacey Scott, a
Speaker 1: sculptor by trade with a large TikTok, following shared a
Speaker 1: story about rehabilitating a goldfish named Monstro this summer. And
Speaker 1: you know, in case somehow you missed this, here's a
Speaker 1: little recap. In April, someone turned an unwanted ten year
Speaker 1: old goldfish into a pet store that Lacey frequents. The
Speaker 1: fish was in rough shape, barely able to swim, and
Speaker 1: developing lesions on his belly from just laying there on
Speaker 1: the gravel motionless. Pretty Much everyone in the story except Lacey,
Speaker 1: was just waiting for this old, decrepit pet fish to die.
Speaker 1: But not lazy, No. She took him home and set
Speaker 1: up a quote hospital tank where she worked on rehabilitating him.
Speaker 1: Several months later, not only was he eating, swimming, and
Speaker 1: lesion free, but he grew substantially and his color changed
Speaker 1: from jet black to this gorgeous, vibrant orange. And so
Speaker 1: Lacy posted a story to her account, and I gotta
Speaker 1: say it feels like a collaboration between the Humane Society
Speaker 1: and Children's International. We get to see Monstro's metamorphosis from
Speaker 1: a detected, dark, solitary abuse case to stunning colorful fish
Speaker 1: twirling in a big, clean tank among the company of
Speaker 1: other fish, all set to inspirational piano music. And if
Speaker 1: anybody is looking for a textbook definition of pathos, just
Speaker 1: check out this video, because you got it. Seven and
Speaker 1: a half million people watched Lacy's Monstro story. You know
Speaker 1: you know what that means, right, She's gonna be the
Speaker 1: next pit Bulls and Paroles. She'll have it. She'll have
Speaker 1: an Animal Planet show the gold Rehabilitator don And I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I get it. We all need a little good media
Speaker 1: right now, right Like, I mean, hell, that's that's part
Speaker 1: of the DNA of this show. But a goldfish, I mean, really,
Speaker 1: what's the t So okay, all right, all right, And
Speaker 1: let me let me be clear here though, I'm not
Speaker 1: throwing shade at anybody in the story, especially not Lacy
Speaker 1: or the pet store or even the original owner. In fact,
Speaker 1: they all get props from me because they didn't do
Speaker 1: what millions of other goldfish owners do when they're tired
Speaker 1: of the fish that their kids want at the fair.
Speaker 1: You know, the one they assumed be dead in a week,
Speaker 1: but somehow it ended up surviving for over a decade.
Speaker 1: And now the kids growing up and gone, and what
Speaker 1: the hell are they gonna do with the stupid goldfish.
Speaker 1: They don't want to kill their kids pet, but they
Speaker 1: don't want to take care of it either, so you know,
Speaker 1: they just set it free in a local pond. Let
Speaker 1: me go back to nature or whatever. Those are the
Speaker 1: people that I would like to publicly shame right now.
Speaker 1: You people, you're the problem because goldfish are barely natural.
Speaker 1: In fact, here's something we should all know. Invasive goldfish
Speaker 1: are a major problem worldwide, spreading bacteria and disease and
Speaker 1: competing with native wild fish. So listen up. If you
Speaker 1: can't be bothered to care for your pet fish, take
Speaker 1: responsibility for your actions and kill it. Quickly setting the
Speaker 1: fish free in your local pond, or even flushing it
Speaker 1: down the toilet will result in one of two outcomes.
Speaker 1: Either that fish will die as slow, painful death, or
Speaker 1: it will find a home in a local ecosystem and
Speaker 1: mess things up. Goldfish are carp and as you've probably heard,
Speaker 1: carp are wreaking havoc across North American fisheries. Goldfish are
Speaker 1: no different from their hated cousins, just because they've been
Speaker 1: selectively bred for the past two thousand years to be
Speaker 1: pretty Getting rid of goldfish once they've gained a foothold
Speaker 1: in a waterway is nearly impossible. They are impervious to
Speaker 1: electro shocking, so the only way to get them out
Speaker 1: is to poison every fish in the system and start over. Washington, Texas, Minnesota, California, Alaska, Nevada,
Speaker 1: and Colorado, among other states, are dealing with major goldfish outbreaks.
Speaker 1: And this isn't just an American problem. Canada, the UK, Australia,
Speaker 1: they're all fighting the goldfish hordes. So monstro might make
Speaker 1: for a touching TikTok story, but don't be fooled. He
Speaker 1: is an ecological time bomb just waiting to be unleashed.
Speaker 1: So I love the goldfish game at the old the
Speaker 1: old carnivals there back in the day. I won to
Speaker 1: one year. My mom kind of adopted them and named
Speaker 1: them Jack and Diane, and they lived on a they lived.
Speaker 1: They lived yep, little diddy, big meloncamp fan, my mom,
Speaker 1: and they lived in a fishbowl in our kitchen. Jack
Speaker 1: only survived for about two years. Diane lived in a
Speaker 1: fish bowl with no filter yep, I mean forever much.
Speaker 1: They are much much tougher fish than than people realize.
Speaker 1: And I don't have anywhere around here that has a
Speaker 1: population of them. I know this happens. I know it's
Speaker 1: a problem. I know it's a thing. Um. Every once
Speaker 1: in a great while, though, I'll bump into, you know,
Speaker 1: a few dudes like I couldn't find live shiner, so
Speaker 1: they go buy a bag of goldfish and uh, no
Speaker 1: justification here, but I mean that orange pickerel chain pickerel dude,
Speaker 1: a big orange goldfish hanging under that's not it's not cool.
Speaker 1: It's not cool this. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm not
Speaker 1: endorsing it at all. I've I've seen it, but I
Speaker 1: don't have anywhere overrun with goldfish. Though, I've had aquariums
Speaker 1: my whole life, and I'll I'll never forget this. As
Speaker 1: soon as you started telling this story, took me right
Speaker 1: back here. I stopped at the big pet mart here
Speaker 1: one time years ago. I forget what I was buying.
Speaker 1: But this this mother and this son who was I
Speaker 1: don't know, ten or eleven, they literally come running in
Speaker 1: like the houses on fire, with a tupperware container with
Speaker 1: a goldfish that has flipped over, and they're like screaming
Speaker 1: for someone to help them. They're like, please, someone, please,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, it's a poor fourteen year old
Speaker 1: kid work in the aquarium section. He's like, um ma'am,
Speaker 1: I like it was dead. It was dead as ship
Speaker 1: the hattles. But dude, it was like it was like
Speaker 1: their dog just got hit by a car. It was like,
Speaker 1: they're like, please do something like I was like dollar
Speaker 1: ninety nine by another one, you know what I mean? Well,
Speaker 1: I had a goldfish that lived for a similar amount
Speaker 1: of time, but I didn't realize what I was holding
Speaker 1: onto and we didn't flush until it was dead, so
Speaker 1: I don't have to, you know, look back in shame. Yeah, okay, well, uh,
Speaker 1: this next story, we're gonna talk about a fish that
Speaker 1: not even the Mighty Lacey could revive. Okay, this this
Speaker 1: is a funky one. Okay, and this one caught my eye.
Speaker 1: This is from the U K's Guardian headline King's Trophy
Speaker 1: found preserved in centuries old Danish shipwreck. Oh man, I
Speaker 1: almost did this one. I'm so glad I didn't good
Speaker 1: on me. So this is this is kind of cool.
Speaker 1: I appreciate this the short one, but I appreciate it. Uh.
Speaker 1: A two meter long sturgeon and for US Americans that's
Speaker 1: nearly seven feet a species today near extinction, has been
Speaker 1: found preserved in the pantry of a five hundred year
Speaker 1: old Danish royal shipwreck in the Baltic Sea. As a
Speaker 1: quote here says, during archaeological excavations in two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: a wooden barrel submerged inside the shipwreck revealed the almost
Speaker 1: complete and well preserved remains of a sturgeon fish, Archaeologists
Speaker 1: from Lund University in Sweden wrote in a recent article
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Uh and the discovery
Speaker 1: was possible thanks to special characteristics of the Baltic, a
Speaker 1: semi closed sea with low oxygen levels. So apparently as
Speaker 1: I understand it. Um Aside from that low salinity, there's
Speaker 1: a number of factors that make the Baltic excellent at preservation,
Speaker 1: including a clay bottom. Apparently a clay bottom has a
Speaker 1: much better job of preserving. So this boat belonged to
Speaker 1: King Hans, and the story says Hans sailed to Sweden
Speaker 1: in fo on his best vessel, the Gribbs, hunting, the
Speaker 1: most imposing warship in the region, with the aim of
Speaker 1: restoring a union of the three Scandinavian countries under his crown.
Speaker 1: And uh, this says we interpret the fish not so
Speaker 1: much as a gift, but as a prestige display, said
Speaker 1: Brendan Folly of Lundon University. But the ship sank on
Speaker 1: its way. King Hans lived, but how much do you
Speaker 1: want to bet? He was like, holy shit, tell me
Speaker 1: someone got the sturgeon off the boat. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. This is a part of that story that
Speaker 1: I was left lag on like the ship's sake, King
Speaker 1: Hans survived, How did he survive? What happened that part
Speaker 1: of the story, and that it's not there I looked
Speaker 1: for it now. He got off on the lifeboat. But
Speaker 1: the sturgeon went down and like someone went to the
Speaker 1: guillotine or whatever over that. And I did find this
Speaker 1: really funny because what struck me is they believe that
Speaker 1: the fish was a show of prestige, which even though
Speaker 1: it was salted in the pantry, it's really no different
Speaker 1: than taxidermy now, right, like how much you want to
Speaker 1: bet the whole voyage. The servants were like, sire, should
Speaker 1: we cook the large sturgeon tonight? And King Hans was like, no,
Speaker 1: not until King Henrick and Lord Jerk and look at
Speaker 1: that's some bitch. Ain never gonna believe that ship. It's
Speaker 1: like me as a little kid, I always had a
Speaker 1: frozen something in the freezer, or I'd have some poor
Speaker 1: bass or catfish roasting in the cooler because my dad
Speaker 1: had to see it, and then my uncle had to
Speaker 1: see it, and we had to drive it over from
Speaker 1: my Grandpa Dossey. So King Hans, I understand you, I
Speaker 1: get it. And I thought that was I thought that
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. It was a great story, and part
Speaker 1: of what I liked about it was was that it
Speaker 1: showed how they learned more about the range of the
Speaker 1: Atlantic sturgeon from finding that, and because that that species
Speaker 1: is pretty much gone at this point. We we we've
Speaker 1: done a really good job of destroying it. But it's
Speaker 1: some of the only evidence have that in those waters
Speaker 1: over in that part of the Atlantic, they used to
Speaker 1: apparently be swimming around and no one seen him there
Speaker 1: for a very long time. So I thought that was
Speaker 1: a great, great choice show it was. It was a
Speaker 1: good story, my my. Only the only thing they have
Speaker 1: a picture I guess from a dive cam underwater, but
Speaker 1: like I can't really it's a very hazy picture, like
Speaker 1: you see the edge of the barrel, but I'm not
Speaker 1: clearly seeing the fish unless you found a different source
Speaker 1: than I know. I would like to really get a
Speaker 1: good look at it, you know. But again, sturgeon kind
Speaker 1: of like we we talked about I think last week,
Speaker 1: cartilaginous fish, not not so much bony. They don't preserve
Speaker 1: that well, makes sense. I'm sure it's been delicious. I all,
Speaker 1: I know that's brand for that long, you know. We
Speaker 1: I just want to point out that I think one
Speaker 1: thing we do well on this show, at least this segment,
Speaker 1: is we draw from a diversity of sources. We've got
Speaker 1: USA today, We've got the Guardian, we've got TikTok, and
Speaker 1: now we're gonna be uh, we're gonna be pulling something
Speaker 1: from a very different source. Uh. And this is, you know,
Speaker 1: once again from a scientific journal. We really, we really
Speaker 1: cover the gamut. And you know, I think there are
Speaker 1: very few things that just about everyone can agree upon. Okay,
Speaker 1: but one of those things is that fish or slimy.
Speaker 1: They just are. And all you out there do a
Speaker 1: quick Google image search for fish flop Friday and thank
Speaker 1: me later. Speaking of fish being slimy, it's pretty common
Speaker 1: knowledge among anglers anyway that fish have a layer of
Speaker 1: mucus on their skin. That mucus layer is important. So
Speaker 1: if you're planning to release the fish, try to avoid
Speaker 1: scraping it off. Don't handle the fish more than necessary,
Speaker 1: use rubber nets if you can, don't drag the fish
Speaker 1: up under grass or rocks or sand or the deck
Speaker 1: of a boat. Keeping that mucostal layer intact helps protect
Speaker 1: fish from bacteria viruses. And I know some of you
Speaker 1: out there saying, yeah, yeah, enough with the fish handling
Speaker 1: one oh one. We know all this, Like people have
Speaker 1: been telling this this for years. What's the point. Well, ever,
Speaker 1: notice that it's not just fish that are slippery. Just
Speaker 1: about everything that lives underwater has that similar slippery feel,
Speaker 1: be a planter animal. And that's not an accident, it's
Speaker 1: an evolutionary trait. That mucus layer does more than ward
Speaker 1: off infection, it also reduces friction. Do you ever try
Speaker 1: running in water? Yeah, it's it's hard. It's because they
Speaker 1: don't get chubb rub, is what you're telling me. Well,
Speaker 1: because of the mucoastal slime. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Uh,
Speaker 1: and threw them off. Totally threw me off, and you
Speaker 1: totally totally got in my head there. Uh, all right,
Speaker 1: objects moving through water create far more dragon friction than
Speaker 1: those moving through air, so it makes sense that anything
Speaker 1: living in water would have evolved some way of reducing
Speaker 1: that drag. Both seaweed and fish have little pockets in
Speaker 1: their skin, and those pockets are reservoirs for mucus. Those
Speaker 1: reservoirs maintain the outer slime layer, both helping to prevent
Speaker 1: infection and creating a more slippery surface so that fish
Speaker 1: can pass through water more easily and plants don't get
Speaker 1: whipped around is violently by waves are current? Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: with you. Yeah, as you're well aware, Joe, I am
Speaker 1: fascinated by bioengineering. That is, borrowing design principles honed through
Speaker 1: eons of natural selection and applying them to modern technology
Speaker 1: to make it more efficient. And you know natural Yeah,
Speaker 1: it says exactly what you just said in your Instagram.
Speaker 1: Bio all the time and put all about it. And
Speaker 1: so ships, right, especially those those huge long distance cardo ships,
Speaker 1: they lose a tremendous amount of energy to fluid friction.
Speaker 1: So I found an article published last week in the
Speaker 1: journal Physics of Fluid. You know, we've got the Guardians,
Speaker 1: we got ticktok, we got Physics of Fluid, and that
Speaker 1: it explains how ships hulls might be redesigned to mimic
Speaker 1: fish and seaweed skin in order to make them up
Speaker 1: to more efficient. And it also broke down the exact
Speaker 1: physics of how that works. And I'm not even gonna
Speaker 1: try to explain that because I have no idea what
Speaker 1: I read. I don't understand it. But I do like
Speaker 1: the idea of redesigning cargo ship holes to act more
Speaker 1: like fish skin. In theory, the holes would be covered
Speaker 1: in small cavities that are constantly supplied with a natural,
Speaker 1: non toxic lubricant, maintaining a slippery surface and significantly diminishing
Speaker 1: the ship's fuel consumption. So just remember, kids, what your
Speaker 1: hands before you touch the boat, because you don't want
Speaker 1: to pull off the slime layer. So I've never served,
Speaker 1: but you're from Hawaii, so I assumed you have. Yes.
Speaker 1: Is this like sex wax for your board? No? No,
Speaker 1: that's the opposite. So what you wax a board in
Speaker 1: order to make it stickier so that when you you
Speaker 1: wax the top of your board so that when you
Speaker 1: stand up you get some friction and something to grip on.
Speaker 1: You don't bottom. That's why my bookie that's why my
Speaker 1: bookie boards never went anywhere when I was a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're doing it. You're definitely doing that wrong. Whoops. And
Speaker 1: you know, we got a little extra neugget of knowledge
Speaker 1: in there for all of those folks who don't know
Speaker 1: anything about surf and surfboards. Will cover those topics in
Speaker 1: another episode of fish News. In the meantime, we're waiting
Speaker 1: with bated breath to see who Phil will choose for
Speaker 1: this week's winner. And as soon as Phil has done
Speaker 1: declaring a victor, we're going to kick over to a
Speaker 1: new segment called Sage Lee Wisdom. With River Horse, It's
Speaker 1: going to take you away from the hustle and bustle
Speaker 1: of life for a little while. You will forget about
Speaker 1: the covids and just mellow out. Man, we promise, Let's
Speaker 1: be honest. It sounded a little try hard, but Miles
Speaker 1: Nolte is the winner this week. I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: asked for his Goldfish manifesto, but he provided it anyway,
Speaker 1: So extra credit given where extra credit is due. If
Speaker 1: one was wondering what criteria I used to determine the
Speaker 1: winner every week, it's the same criteria that the judges
Speaker 1: used to determine no Vacancy the winner of the Battle
Speaker 1: of the Bands at the end of School of Rock. Hey,
Speaker 1: now this is River Horse coming to you from the
Speaker 1: deep deep South with the little Sage Lee Wisdom. Enjoy.
Speaker 1: Have you ever stopped to wonder about water? The miracle
Speaker 1: of it all, or the fact that it's even here
Speaker 1: on this earth? The average drop of water is aloft
Speaker 1: in the sky for ten days or more, making a
Speaker 1: journey around the globe. How far has it traveled in
Speaker 1: its lifetime? Perhaps it was a shimmering turquoise wreath and
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, or even a lonely glacial alpine lake before
Speaker 1: it found its way to you. Most people run inside
Speaker 1: when it rains. Not me. I love it. Here's a
Speaker 1: story about the beauty of rainstorms, and hopefully the next
Speaker 1: time you're in one, you'll stand there joyously and flat
Speaker 1: out revel in it. My brothers and sisters, this is
Speaker 1: called cloudburst. A storm, they say this town is about
Speaker 1: to be lit up. Empty roads far and wide. They've
Speaker 1: bellied up and tucked themselves away in cookie cutter neighborhood mansions.
Speaker 1: There is handwringing in front of flat screens, alongside grave
Speaker 1: concern that the least land rovers will need to go
Speaker 1: to the car wash again for a fresh wax and polish.
Speaker 1: I've run for it as well, straight for the water.
Speaker 1: I'm in the canoe on a lake. I live for rain.
Speaker 1: The first tendrils of wind lift in nimbus, ever, dark
Speaker 1: and undulating like boiling kettle water, envelop every scrap of horizon.
Speaker 1: I feel the subtle brevity of warmth in the air,
Speaker 1: swimming upward, exchanged for far more bearable cool. And then
Speaker 1: the first few untethered unmoored drops bigger than you might think,
Speaker 1: and surreal in the way they side slip at an
Speaker 1: angle from the skies, and live running straight down, same
Speaker 1: as a river, which is simply water in the act
Speaker 1: of falling to other places, same as us. Sometimes I
Speaker 1: forego pulling the hood over my hair. I am much
Speaker 1: more a fan of immersing myself than it. All Native
Speaker 1: Americans have always felt rains to be signs of change.
Speaker 1: This is true change. Your stars now mine are heavy
Speaker 1: and bleeding fruit these days, more so, holding hopes a
Speaker 1: lot that I can keep this ship ever studied the
Speaker 1: helm and savor it. All of us have seen tumult
Speaker 1: and train wrecks along the way. So if and when
Speaker 1: days are sweeter than sweet, appreciate them and holds your breath.
Speaker 1: It's on the loose now. The whole sky is red
Speaker 1: lighting buckets upon buckets, poor down, and it feels so
Speaker 1: good to stand in our casts out. So many exploding
Speaker 1: droplets are blooming to and fro that it appears as
Speaker 1: if every damn fish in the world is rising. What
Speaker 1: else in simple nature feels this sensual and alluring, so
Speaker 1: unquestionably all encompassing and soulful. Who is the fool that
Speaker 1: invented the roof, and why is the rest of the
Speaker 1: world under them instead of being out here on with
Speaker 1: the head lamp. I'm going to fish on through the
Speaker 1: night and ride the hips of this storm until she leaves,
Speaker 1: and afterward, from a bedroll in the back of the
Speaker 1: truck looking up at the stars, I'll be watching the weather,
Speaker 1: wanting with desire for endless lifetimes of rain. All right, So,
Speaker 1: do you know what river Horse is. I'm a little
Speaker 1: afraid to ask, but tell me. Tell me. He's the
Speaker 1: Ena of fishing. He's the entire collection of time life,
Speaker 1: pure mood CDs for anglers. My house could be on
Speaker 1: a fire burning, and if I had river Horse talking
Speaker 1: in my ear, I'd be like, this is fine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is all it's all good, it's all right, because
Speaker 1: we lean on the funny and the humor at Bent
Speaker 1: so much. But his segment just reminds me of one
Speaker 1: of those stress apps, which are very popular right now,
Speaker 1: because there's commercials on TV all the time to tell
Speaker 1: you to just stop what you're doing and listen to
Speaker 1: the sound of a waterfall for thirty seconds. So I look,
Speaker 1: this was our first one from river Horse. I appreciated it.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys did and appreciated that reset. And um,
Speaker 1: I really hope we hear from him more often, man, man,
Speaker 1: so do. I I freaking love that dude. And it's
Speaker 1: it's not just his voice, but that guy Craft's words
Speaker 1: as well as anybody that's writing about fishing. In my opinion, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's brilliant. I I I don't. I will never be
Speaker 1: able to write like River no one, no one that
Speaker 1: I know of Ken, So I hope he's on a
Speaker 1: bunch more too, because I cannot think of a better
Speaker 1: person to have speaking calmly to my ear holes as
Speaker 1: we navigate the global dumpster fire of anyway and uh
Speaker 1: and switching from soothing dulcet tones to what I consider
Speaker 1: to be nails on a chalkboard. We're about to check
Speaker 1: in with our barely tolerable correspondent Lance v Yes, yes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Lances back, ladies and gentlemen, to bring us his own
Speaker 1: version of wisdom safe totally saying brom telling you how
Speaker 1: to win an Internet fishing And I'm sure this will
Speaker 1: inspire a whole new delusive of hate mail in the
Speaker 1: bent inbox that we have to read. Bring it to
Speaker 1: the land, to the boats, to the lake, to the sea,
Speaker 1: being up the n on net. But the boy lads, yo,
Speaker 1: your boy lance v here again dropping all the knowledge
Speaker 1: on how to be a true Internet angler, not just
Speaker 1: some poser with a stiff rod in a five connection.
Speaker 1: This week, I'm gonna teach you how to get the
Speaker 1: best fish photos to post online. Okay, so you caught
Speaker 1: a nice fish. Good for you. It's probably half the
Speaker 1: size of my smallest fish ever. But hey, we all
Speaker 1: start somewhere now. Don't just take a couple of pictures
Speaker 1: and let it go. Let it go, let it go,
Speaker 1: hat tag frozen. This may be the best fish you
Speaker 1: ever fondle. Don't waste the opportunity by getting all sappy
Speaker 1: and looking like a tool. Think about the future, think
Speaker 1: about the gram. Here are the top six tips to
Speaker 1: help you get the most out of that fish numero.
Speaker 1: You know, portable studio. I shouldn't even have to say this,
Speaker 1: but if you've got a Gorilla pod to hold your
Speaker 1: cell phone right, I sleep for mar Carilla pods son
Speaker 1: in case some epic fishy ship happens in my dreams.
Speaker 1: It's as critical as your fishing rod. Selfie mode burst
Speaker 1: ten second timer. Don't even come at me with a
Speaker 1: three second timer. Bullshit. You cannot craft the perfect post
Speaker 1: in three seconds unless you're remember of the Google squad
Speaker 1: hashtag skills for days. So now let's assume you actually
Speaker 1: caught something Numero does. Switch it up. Show for that
Speaker 1: fish around the lake like you're an uber driver on
Speaker 1: a meth bench. At each new spot, put on a
Speaker 1: fresh outfit and grab a round of picks. Run through
Speaker 1: your tackle box, pull out all your most expensive baits
Speaker 1: from your favorite brand partners, and then play a game
Speaker 1: I like to call pin the lower on the hog face.
Speaker 1: With the right planning execution, you can turn one hog
Speaker 1: into twenty and spread your greatness out for years to come.
Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, you need twenty pairs of
Speaker 1: sunglasses because nobody wears the same pair longer than half
Speaker 1: a season. Numero trace spray and for sam Prey, spend
Speaker 1: at least fifteen minutes taking pictures of the fish out
Speaker 1: of water. Don't listen to all that environmental bullshit about
Speaker 1: keeping them wet. Fish breathe oxen just like you, me
Speaker 1: and John B. There's plenty of oxygen in the air.
Speaker 1: Hashtag science Numero quatrall act like you've been there. Only
Speaker 1: idiots a softball dad smile for the camera. Even if
Speaker 1: that fish is a p B. I'm gonna wear a
Speaker 1: look on my face like here's what a decent one
Speaker 1: looks like for your reference suckers. Numero O five brim
Speaker 1: up shades on mask off. I'm not losing the sick
Speaker 1: lids or Gucci shades obviously. If I'm wearing them and
Speaker 1: you can clearly see the logos, I'm sponsored by them
Speaker 1: or we're in heavy negotiations regarding sponsorship. Meetings and calls
Speaker 1: and ship are happening. But if you can't see my
Speaker 1: face because there's a dope ass and sand clown posse
Speaker 1: buff covering my grill, how is everyone going to know
Speaker 1: that I'm the one holding the hog? First, I tilt
Speaker 1: my flat brim up just enough, but make sure the
Speaker 1: logo is still showing. Ivy shades are for your protection
Speaker 1: because without them I could see right through you. Also
Speaker 1: shave because beards are hippies. Hashtag modeling tips Numero six
Speaker 1: Kama suit for that beast. Sure we all know the
Speaker 1: basic group and impost and it's a classic for a reason.
Speaker 1: Wide angle, long arms big fish, but don't be afraid
Speaker 1: to mix it up. Hold it over your head like
Speaker 1: Simba created in the front of your junk, lay it
Speaker 1: down on the deck and spoon it. Get creative and
Speaker 1: you might just turn into a legend like the dude
Speaker 1: who invented the fish bra. Props to you, Homie for
Speaker 1: real hashtag genius. Worry about how and when to use
Speaker 1: photoshop later, most because I haven't gotten the pirty copy
Speaker 1: of the program. My boy at Call of Doogie said
Speaker 1: he's securing, but first you gotta get the wrong material,
Speaker 1: and that all starts with a dope photo. Don't waste
Speaker 1: a big fish on your case any fish by not
Speaker 1: getting the right picks. If you're not gonna get good shots,
Speaker 1: why even bother going fishing. That's it for me, Lance V. Sorry,
Speaker 1: you had to listen to the rest of this dumbass
Speaker 1: show just to get my moment of shine. If you
Speaker 1: can't listen to the ship anymore, you need to go
Speaker 1: peep the Google squad on YouTube. Get with their program
Speaker 1: now before I joined the team and take it over.
Speaker 1: Just mass and googs, mad love, don't you ever answer
Speaker 1: any emails? Man to be young and have the luxury
Speaker 1: of taking four frames of one fish to nail that
Speaker 1: perfect shot. Isn't what the kids are doing these days.
Speaker 1: What the lances of the world. Keep them, keep them everyone.
Speaker 1: I vividly remember taking film to the drug store and
Speaker 1: most of the role on the disposable Kodak point and
Speaker 1: shoot camera was empty. But I couldn't wait the three
Speaker 1: months or whatever it would take to fill the role,
Speaker 1: and I had to have those first five gripping grins
Speaker 1: on the roll back immediately, and I would always just
Speaker 1: take them on half empty camera, only to two days
Speaker 1: later get back blurry and cut off fish. I mean
Speaker 1: you have to. You had to, because if you kept
Speaker 1: that one around like that disposable camera was going to
Speaker 1: get a drop of water at some point and then
Speaker 1: the whole roll shot. Do please, You're gonna make me
Speaker 1: have to go back to therapy. Because the biggest weak
Speaker 1: fish I ever caught I had on a disposable point
Speaker 1: and shoot camera. I mean massive. I should have mounted it.
Speaker 1: I should it was it was, It was massive, and
Speaker 1: like two days later I went trout fishing and it
Speaker 1: rolled out of my fishing vest into the water and
Speaker 1: that was the end of that. Yeah, I mean done,
Speaker 1: the fish was delicious, But I don't have a photo.
Speaker 1: Your memories probably better because, like to be to be honest,
Speaker 1: I don't have any stories like that. I don't have
Speaker 1: any of my own fish pictures that really stick out
Speaker 1: for me. But I do have entire hard drives of
Speaker 1: other people's fish photos from all my years of guiding,
Speaker 1: right because I was just taking pictures of other people's
Speaker 1: fish and sending them to them. And the weird thing,
Speaker 1: And this is true. I can look back on those
Speaker 1: photos and some of them are well over a decade old,
Speaker 1: and I can remember the exact details of those fish,
Speaker 1: like the whole where we caught them, the weather that day,
Speaker 1: what they ate. But I cannot tell you a damn
Speaker 1: thing about any of the people holding those fish. Like
Speaker 1: I could pass those people on the street and have
Speaker 1: no idea who they are. I don't know their names,
Speaker 1: I don't know where they're from, I don't know anything
Speaker 1: about them. But I remember those fish. I remember the
Speaker 1: stories of their fish. Well. Yeah, and you know, I see,
Speaker 1: I'm a people person. But I give you a pass
Speaker 1: on that because you were a guy that was work.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just like new people every single
Speaker 1: day day after day, which I think like gives you
Speaker 1: a pass on not remembering exactly who caught what. So
Speaker 1: I mean that makes sense to me. Big fish are
Speaker 1: memorable for you people not so much. But in the
Speaker 1: case I'm about to explain, I actually do remember the
Speaker 1: fish and the angler, and four nights ago and almost
Speaker 1: forty years ago, September twenty one, Albert McReynolds called a
Speaker 1: world record striper in my home state of New Jersey.
Speaker 1: And here in my office check this out right, I
Speaker 1: have one of the original photos of al and that
Speaker 1: massive bass hanging at a local marina. And it's it's
Speaker 1: not a print that somebody made later. Okay, it's not
Speaker 1: a copy. It is one of the originals, developed from
Speaker 1: the film that was in the camera. That. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's awesome, and it's a it's a
Speaker 1: long twisted story about how I got that photo. Okay,
Speaker 1: that I'll save for another time. But right now, since
Speaker 1: we're almost out of time, here comes our end of
Speaker 1: the line segment, a tribute, if you will, to McReynolds,
Speaker 1: a classic lure and his legendary catch. Well that's not
Speaker 1: allowed enough. This week, in honor of the recent passing
Speaker 1: of one of surf fishing's greatest legends and most debated anglers.
Speaker 1: I am calling out a very specific lure, all right,
Speaker 1: the Rebel Minnow Salt Order version five and a half
Speaker 1: inch model black back over silver. And I'm sure many
Speaker 1: of you are familiar with the smaller sweetwater version of
Speaker 1: this classic, right. It's been a staple in the bass,
Speaker 1: pike and trout scenes for many decades. But it's the
Speaker 1: big cousin with those three shiny stainless trebles that caught
Speaker 1: Al McReynolds a seventy eight point eight pounds striped bass
Speaker 1: on the night of September twenty one, nineteen two. For
Speaker 1: twenty nine years, that fish stood as the all tackle
Speaker 1: world record striper, and so Connecticut angler Greg Meyerson took
Speaker 1: an eighty one point eight pounder to the scale in
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven and beat it right now. Meyerson's fish
Speaker 1: was caught from a boat. Mc reynolds landed his from
Speaker 1: the Vermont Avenue Jetty in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and
Speaker 1: it's a catch that has always been shrouded in mystery,
Speaker 1: and many people claim the conditions that night were far
Speaker 1: too rough for al to have even been on that
Speaker 1: jetty casting. Others claim he on the fish washed up dead.
Speaker 1: Some say a commercial fisherman gave him the striper, and
Speaker 1: it has been written about over the years ad nauseum
Speaker 1: spawning pro and anti McReynolds camps within the striper scene.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, despite all the unknowns tied to
Speaker 1: that fish, the bottom line is that it was qualified
Speaker 1: by the I g f A. And the fact alone
Speaker 1: that it was caught off the beach prompts many surfcasters
Speaker 1: to this very day to vow that Meyerson's boat fishes
Speaker 1: quote not my world record. As a young kid, I
Speaker 1: actually got to lay eyes on one of the few
Speaker 1: replicas of the McReynolds bass in existence. And I mean
Speaker 1: you could fit a basketball in its gaping mouth without
Speaker 1: it touching the sides. That's no bullshit. It was far
Speaker 1: wider and taller than me, the eight year old gawking
Speaker 1: at this unfathomable fish hanging in a museum in Bringing
Speaker 1: in New Jersey. And I remember so vividly in that
Speaker 1: cavernous bucket mouth someone had stuck a five and a
Speaker 1: half inch rebel minnow black back over silver. And even
Speaker 1: back then, at that young age. I remember staring at
Speaker 1: that Laura and thinking, there's no way, there's there's no
Speaker 1: way in hell it caught this fish to quote, no effects.
Speaker 1: It was like feeding a tic tac to a whale,
Speaker 1: like a hot dog in a hallway. Now, what I've
Speaker 1: never doubted is that a bass that size would eat
Speaker 1: that lure all right. According to the legend, a school
Speaker 1: of giant striper's had mullet pinned against the rocks that
Speaker 1: fateful night, and that lure that rebel would have matched
Speaker 1: the size and profile of those mullet. But having fought
Speaker 1: big bass in the high forty pound range, knowing their power,
Speaker 1: I could just never get my head around the idea
Speaker 1: that that little hollow plastic rebel lasted for what McReynolds
Speaker 1: claimed was an hour and twenty minute battle on twenty
Speaker 1: pound test mono to boot. So all of those relatively
Speaker 1: small trebles stayed glued in that thick, massive jaw for
Speaker 1: that long during a fight that McReynolds himself said made
Speaker 1: his back ache and caused his forearms to lock. It
Speaker 1: always just seems so damn unlikely. But see that's the fun.
Speaker 1: Without these little questions, without all these little mysteries, and
Speaker 1: there there are a lot more than just the lure
Speaker 1: tied to this catch. It makes me wonder if we
Speaker 1: would even be talking about the McReynolds bass today. The debate,
Speaker 1: the mystique, the allure of the whole thing is what
Speaker 1: has kept the story in the forefront of the surfishing
Speaker 1: and striped basque cultures. And sadly, on Sunday may tent
Speaker 1: Al mc reynolds past away, And though he had fans
Speaker 1: as well as detractors, better or worse, he will live
Speaker 1: on as a legend in the stripers scene, and that
Speaker 1: rebel minnow will forever be known as the lore that
Speaker 1: earned him that status. Right on, Well, you know what
Speaker 1: A cheers to Al, because the truly great fish are
Speaker 1: the ones that come with truly great stories, and and
Speaker 1: that man, that is a great story. That's it for
Speaker 1: this week. We hope you guys enjoyed the moment of
Speaker 1: Zen from River Horse got smacked down by the epiphany
Speaker 1: that a gorilla pod is more critical than you're on
Speaker 1: and real and finally understand that when your guide says,
Speaker 1: please don't cast right now, you shouldn't freaking cast. Listen
Speaker 1: to your guide has always if you like what you're hearing,
Speaker 1: have comments, suggestions, concerns, bar nominations, or just want to
Speaker 1: shoot the ship. We adore hearing from you, so hit
Speaker 1: us up at bent at the meat Eater dot com.
Speaker 1: Please we we read every one of them, and we
Speaker 1: appreciate everyone. We yes, leave us a glowing review Wherever
Speaker 1: you consume your podcast, those really matter. Whenever you consume coffee,
Speaker 1: it should be black rifle coffee, and man, we hope
Speaker 1: you let him up this weekend. Hey, one last note
Speaker 1: before we go. You know, Miles and I work on
Speaker 1: a lot more here at Meat Eater than just Bent,
Speaker 1: So we're asking for a little assist for a future
Speaker 1: project featuring a whole cast of meat Eater characters far
Speaker 1: more famous than us. That is true, That is true.
Speaker 1: And seriously, if you've ever had a near death experience
Speaker 1: while fishing, we'd love for you to send just like
Speaker 1: a basic gist of the story to Bent at the
Speaker 1: meat Eator dot com. Okay, now to be clear, we're
Speaker 1: not talking about your buddy Tommy getting hooked in the
Speaker 1: calf meat with your musky buck tail. Okay, We're talking
Speaker 1: about heavy hitting stories that left you thankful to be
Speaker 1: alive and we do appreciate your input. And speaking of
Speaker 1: listener emails that we love again, a listener named William,
Speaker 1: who did not provide a last name, rode in and
Speaker 1: said we should close every show with until next time,
Speaker 1: get Bent. And I don't know about every show, but
Speaker 1: just for you, just this week, William, until next time,
Speaker 1: Get Bent,