Speaker 1: The way I see that hybridization could have easily produced
Speaker 1: like a small math that didn't really fight, or like
Speaker 1: a large mouth that wouldn't eat pretty much anything you
Speaker 1: dropped in front of it. Question number one, do you self, No,
Speaker 1: we did not. We did not sell launches either. Guess
Speaker 1: who does Walmark, but he's got it all tied together
Speaker 1: with a giant Colt forty five belt buckle. I am
Speaker 1: not talking about the Billy D. Williams could forty five
Speaker 1: malt liquor. We were talking about the pistol, though I
Speaker 1: often opt for white sweatpants when I fish drive unless
Speaker 1: it's after Labor Day. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome
Speaker 1: to Ben to the Fishing podcast. That's better than Netscape,
Speaker 1: but not quite as good as asked Jeeves. When it
Speaker 1: comes to answering Huormo's burning fishing questions, I'm Joe sph
Speaker 1: Millie Miles Nulty. I was more. I was more web
Speaker 1: crawler and Legos WebCrawler. Web Crawler. Those are that my
Speaker 1: go to source for for cliffs notes and uh leisure
Speaker 1: suit Larry game hacks back in the nineties. Where as
Speaker 1: fun as this is that to drop stupid reverences where
Speaker 1: we're going. Dude, is this like the are were theming
Speaker 1: this show doom and slow download speeds or something. Oh no,
Speaker 1: but that would be a fun challenge. I would take
Speaker 1: that on. I don't want to do a doom show.
Speaker 1: Doom and Doom and dogpile. The sound effects alone, that grunting.
Speaker 1: It was just constantly grunting and gunfire. Um no, but
Speaker 1: I'm actually what I'm doing here is I'm ripping off
Speaker 1: something we dabbled with a while back. Remember that we
Speaker 1: did a one off segment with Tom Rosenbauer called the
Speaker 1: Right Question. Remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like
Speaker 1: that one. I thought that was good. We told was
Speaker 1: actually making that a segment where we we asked people
Speaker 1: about dumb we were gonna like. The whole idea was
Speaker 1: that we would take smart people who get lots of
Speaker 1: questions that are not so smart and and asked them
Speaker 1: to explain how to formulate better or smarter questions. The
Speaker 1: idea being if you ask better questions, you get better answers.
Speaker 1: But we never really like, we were never able to
Speaker 1: make it into a full set. If I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: We thought it was a great idea, but we didn't
Speaker 1: have that many opportunities to pull it right, and I
Speaker 1: still think it's a really good idea. It has merits.
Speaker 1: So just just for some fun today, I wanted to
Speaker 1: reframe it a bit and make it kind of personal because,
Speaker 1: as many of you guys know, I hope most of
Speaker 1: you know, Miles and I are very much open doors
Speaker 1: right like you d m U s a question or
Speaker 1: email a question to the Bent email account, we answer right.
Speaker 1: We love entertaining and telling good stories, but our job,
Speaker 1: you know, has for a long time also been helping
Speaker 1: people catch more fish and have fun doing so. And uh,
Speaker 1: I mean we also just love to talk fishing, Like
Speaker 1: punk music and fishing are really the only things I'm
Speaker 1: qualified to talk about. If we're not talking about one
Speaker 1: of those two things. I just kind of turned into
Speaker 1: a vegetable. Um. So, like we genuinely enjoy answering phishing questions. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll say Joe's better on the d M S. I'm
Speaker 1: better on the email. Fan which route you want to
Speaker 1: take it? But uh, you're setting up a theme for
Speaker 1: the show, dude, and you're just telling people about this now,
Speaker 1: like right now, who are listening into the show at
Speaker 1: this moment, So I don't exactly know how we're gonna, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how are we going to make an
Speaker 1: episode based around questions that we we haven't yet received.
Speaker 1: I'm struggling. Now that's a valid point. But see, I
Speaker 1: thought i'd use this opportunity to address the two most
Speaker 1: common questions I get and I'm sure if you get
Speaker 1: them or similar questions, and I want to talk about
Speaker 1: them and how you should rework them a little so
Speaker 1: we can help you. Okay, okay, help mat, help me,
Speaker 1: help me, help you, all right, this is this is fun.
Speaker 1: This is fun. Thank you, Jerry. And uh, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: curious to see. I'm guessing our questions will overlap, but
Speaker 1: let's see. Let's me too. Okay, So most common question
Speaker 1: number one, could you recommend a good fly outfit? And
Speaker 1: Lord knows I can recommend a good outfit for everything
Speaker 1: from bull reds to blue girls, right, it does. I
Speaker 1: will say it's trickier when dude says, where I'm fishing
Speaker 1: the mostly stocked trout, but there's also some huge car.
Speaker 1: Occasionally we get some giant pike in there are loads
Speaker 1: of perch. But those details I can work around, like
Speaker 1: I can. We'll figure that out. But the basic question,
Speaker 1: the initial question is always answered with another question every
Speaker 1: single time. And you know what it is? How much?
Speaker 1: What's the budget? What do you guys? You can't just
Speaker 1: ask an open questions like that without any expanding parameters
Speaker 1: there it is. I think that's a good tip kind
Speaker 1: of when you're asking anyone to recommend anything about gear
Speaker 1: like a recliner of walkman, that's that phone and fishing
Speaker 1: around whatever budget is critical and and you know you
Speaker 1: you have both. We know about gear, like we know
Speaker 1: about lots of fishing gear. We've had to be up
Speaker 1: on it as a lot of our jobs for a while.
Speaker 1: So like it doesn't matter the price range. We fished
Speaker 1: the snazzy stuff, we fished cheap stuff, and we can
Speaker 1: we can tell you which one you should get, Like
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. I don't care if you're trolling your cast
Speaker 1: or whatever. We probably have some some opinions, but damn it,
Speaker 1: we got what do you what do you? What do
Speaker 1: you got? How much can you spend? Like if I needed,
Speaker 1: say a good cranking rod, I would write, dear Joe,
Speaker 1: can you recommend a crank bait rod that could pull
Speaker 1: double duties? Say as a late swim bait rod and
Speaker 1: that we'll I'm gonna catch everything from big large mouth
Speaker 1: to SCHOOLI stripers. I'm looking to spend around two bucks
Speaker 1: because that's what I got see and i'd write back,
Speaker 1: dear Miles, first, excellent question, thank you for including your budget.
Speaker 1: I'd go with the thirteen Fishing Envy black two krunkenstein.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I recently use mine to put the
Speaker 1: screws to a bunch of ten and twelve pound stripers
Speaker 1: on the Delaware River and it was fantastic. He texted
Speaker 1: me photos the same day, just just to everybody knows,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't. Yeah. Yeah, you'd also say that because
Speaker 1: bent is officially brought to you by thirteen Fishing, a
Speaker 1: fact about which we were very very proud, and like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know that's this all sounds like a cheesy plug,
Speaker 1: but it's actually valid. Joe's Joe's not making that up
Speaker 1: about the stripers and and the crunk and steam earning
Speaker 1: his keith. This season, he's been using that thing a lot.
Speaker 1: I even used it a few times when I was
Speaker 1: out there with him. Anyway, we love rods and reels.
Speaker 1: Please check them out at thirteen Fishing dot com And
Speaker 1: now that we've covered that, what's question number two? What's
Speaker 1: your what's your second most fielded question that you wish
Speaker 1: we're I get this a ton? Okay, get this a ton.
Speaker 1: Me and my buds have two weeks off in September.
Speaker 1: We're planning a fishing trip. Where should we go? Or
Speaker 1: sometimes this ends with if you could pick one place
Speaker 1: to go, where would it be? And of course my
Speaker 1: answer is vana watt to for giant travallis, which isn't
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not really a good answer for these
Speaker 1: questions most of the time. But like once again, okay,
Speaker 1: budget is really important here too, but it goes, it
Speaker 1: goes far beyond that, like for starters, where where do
Speaker 1: you live? Where are you from? Not only yeah, because
Speaker 1: before you figure out what's gonna cost, you gotta know
Speaker 1: how far you're going where? Yeah? Yeah, No, I I
Speaker 1: get this one. I get this one all the time
Speaker 1: to like, help help us out, help us out, a little,
Speaker 1: help me, help me, help me help you. Are you driving?
Speaker 1: Are you flying? Are you like do you want to
Speaker 1: stay in a swank lodge? Are you car camping? Are
Speaker 1: you backpacking? Are you like? We're cool with gem and
Speaker 1: the whole crew of eight dudes into a Super eight motel.
Speaker 1: Do you do you want to get a guy? Do
Speaker 1: you want to get a guy the whole time, just
Speaker 1: the first day or you just straight d I Y
Speaker 1: like there there are so many elements of like pieces
Speaker 1: of information you could provide that would get you a
Speaker 1: better answer. Yeah, and quite often, I mean with stuff
Speaker 1: like this, the first round of answers dictates the second.
Speaker 1: It's like if you answered, ay, we're driving, then the
Speaker 1: next part of the choose your own adventure is, well,
Speaker 1: how far do you want to drive? You know, I
Speaker 1: always asked do you want? How many days off do
Speaker 1: you have? Exactly? Do you want quantity or quality? Is
Speaker 1: this a trophy hunt? Are you trying to feel coolers? Like?
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, you know, well I want to catch stripers,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna recommend a different place if you want
Speaker 1: them on fly than if you just want to soak
Speaker 1: bait and drink beer and wait for a cow. So
Speaker 1: this is what I'm again. I'm always happy to help
Speaker 1: with this, but you can't just say I have two
Speaker 1: weeks off, man, send me somewhere. Can't. It's not can't.
Speaker 1: I'm worried. I feel like I feel like we're going
Speaker 1: to come off as sounding snarky right now, and we
Speaker 1: all know, but we're being We're being snarky for the
Speaker 1: sake of entertainment, because that's why people partially listen to this,
Speaker 1: just to be entertained. But this really is all about
Speaker 1: asking good questions like, yes, don't ask what setup should
Speaker 1: I buy? Or where should I go fish? Be specific,
Speaker 1: like if you want a good answer, ask a good question.
Speaker 1: And that goes for phishing questions. You could ask any
Speaker 1: word to anyone through your local Chackel shop, or you're
Speaker 1: with a guide or a fishing body who knows more
Speaker 1: than you. Don't shortcut it with some kind of broad
Speaker 1: generalization because you're too lazy to figure out the details
Speaker 1: of what you need to know. Think about it, Ask
Speaker 1: a detailed question. That's it. That's if you want to
Speaker 1: get a lot out of it, you have to put
Speaker 1: something into the crafting of the question. More specific you
Speaker 1: are about what you want or what you want to do,
Speaker 1: the faster and easier that anybody can help you, whether
Speaker 1: it's us or someone else. And and we do want
Speaker 1: to help, like we enjoy that, we love being helpful
Speaker 1: when we can be. We really do. And I'll say
Speaker 1: that like, we really try to stay on top of
Speaker 1: answering everything and if you give me the information I
Speaker 1: need to help you. People have written me back and
Speaker 1: be like, oh my god, dude, you just wrote me
Speaker 1: a novel. Like yeah, because if I'm if I'm into
Speaker 1: your question, I'm a detail oriented person, so like I
Speaker 1: will go all in, I'm more likely to avoid it
Speaker 1: when I have to do too much work to get
Speaker 1: to what you're really asking first. But we really do
Speaker 1: love helping everybody. Um and um, you know who else
Speaker 1: loves to help you. Our friends Sammy Gerardo, owner of
Speaker 1: and Sun's Fly Shop and Franklin Lakes, New Jersey trout seas.
Speaker 1: It is in full swing. Hatches are popping off. You
Speaker 1: have questions, He's got answers, some of which he graciously
Speaker 1: supplied for this week's Regional Fishing Report. Hey, everybody, how
Speaker 1: he's doing. Sammy Jnado Jennado and Son's Fly Shop, Jesus
Speaker 1: christ as Spring. Anything you want to be hatching is
Speaker 1: hatching right now, so stop calling me. Just go fish
Speaker 1: size sixteen. I don't care what it is, just put
Speaker 1: it out there. That's all you need to do. I've
Speaker 1: been getting a crapload of calls this week. I hung
Speaker 1: up on most of them. So instead of a report,
Speaker 1: he's the five questions I'm just sick of hearing. Question
Speaker 1: number one, do you sell big No? We do not.
Speaker 1: We do not sell lawn chairs either. Guess who does
Speaker 1: Walmart post up title line to your toe? Take a
Speaker 1: nap call today? I don't care, see you later. Question
Speaker 1: number two? What color are they hitting on? Let me
Speaker 1: ask you a question? What call you sweatpants? Great? Question
Speaker 1: number three? What's the best time to go fishing? I
Speaker 1: couldn't tell you. I closed in ten minutes. Question number four,
Speaker 1: where should I go fishing? Answer? Under the power lines?
Speaker 1: You know you're there when your cell phone don't work.
Speaker 1: Question number five, Last and most least, I went what
Speaker 1: you just told me to go? How come I didn't
Speaker 1: catch nothing? Maybe because you bought your flies off some
Speaker 1: toddler on Instagram was turning them out like Slurper's at
Speaker 1: seven eleven. Maybe next time, assole support your local fly shop.
Speaker 1: I E. Gennado and Sons fly Shop, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Asked the right questions, you get the right answers. Spend
Speaker 1: the right amount of money, you might get a little
Speaker 1: bit more. The sweatpants thing was on point, man, I
Speaker 1: just I gotta say totally, totally, that's accurate. Went in down,
Speaker 1: you tie on a gray body, dry and call it done. Adams,
Speaker 1: you covered them. I live and die. I live and
Speaker 1: die by them, though I often off for white sweatpants
Speaker 1: when I fish dries. Unless it's after labor day. Then
Speaker 1: you can't wear them anymore. Hard hard to get the
Speaker 1: fish slam off sweatpants, especially the white ones. Yeah, think
Speaker 1: about thinking about your wordrop choice anyway. Speaking of sweatpants, uh,
Speaker 1: which I don't fish in. They've been worn a time
Speaker 1: or two by people who wound up featured on our
Speaker 1: Awkward Moments and Angling segment. We've seen some sweaty sweatpants,
Speaker 1: some soiled sweatpants. We've seen a lot, but not this week. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: very different. The dude in this photo that we're roasting
Speaker 1: or perhaps exalting, went head to toe crisp Denim Chris Dude.
Speaker 1: This dude is either awkward or just straight baller. And
Speaker 1: we're gonna let you decide for yourself. But I know
Speaker 1: which way I'm leaning back a picture. This week's Awkward
Speaker 1: Moments and Angling submission comes to us from listener Raise Abrawski. However,
Speaker 1: it is not It is not Raise Abrowski in the photo.
Speaker 1: In this photo is his Bud Skyler Hagen, And just
Speaker 1: very quickly this leads to it's too good of a
Speaker 1: spot to not drop an obligatory p s A. Remember,
Speaker 1: we can't use photos of your friends and relatives unless
Speaker 1: they give you permission to send them to us, and
Speaker 1: in this case, Skyler gave Ray his blessing, and thank goodness,
Speaker 1: thank you. This photo is both rad and like a
Speaker 1: total mind bender, and we love it. It took us.
Speaker 1: It took us some time to figure this one out.
Speaker 1: Which our favorite ones, right, the ones that you get
Speaker 1: right off the bat, they're just not as interesting. When
Speaker 1: we first saw it, Joe and I both assumed it
Speaker 1: was an old photo, like something taken in the mid
Speaker 1: eighties range. And I'll say if it had been, it
Speaker 1: would still qualify, because it's great, totally, totally, but the like,
Speaker 1: the more you look at it, the photo quality just
Speaker 1: didn't seem right. It didn't seem like an eighties era
Speaker 1: printed photograph that had been digitized. It just seemed a
Speaker 1: little too good. It looks like an eighties era image
Speaker 1: judging by like everything that's in it, like all the
Speaker 1: subject matter. But but if you really dig in, it's
Speaker 1: clearly a newer digital photo. And and then we eventually
Speaker 1: figured out that it was taken in and so we
Speaker 1: just we had to go with it. We had to
Speaker 1: get a full story. Yep, yep. So we're gonna dive
Speaker 1: right in here. Okay, and maybe listen, maybe grabbing notepads,
Speaker 1: you can keep track of all the elements were about
Speaker 1: to rattle off. That makes Skyler awesome. Okay, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of elements. So this this shot was taken in
Speaker 1: the dark. It's taken at night lit by a flash,
Speaker 1: which again at a quick glance, somehow managed to like
Speaker 1: nearly replicate that eighties photo graininess. Okays off, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So he's showing off a large mouth bass which maybe
Speaker 1: weighs two pounds, and that's enough. That's it about the fish.
Speaker 1: We need not say anything else about the fish, Okay.
Speaker 1: But he's got his spinning rod in his left hand
Speaker 1: and the bass is angling from the line that he's
Speaker 1: holding up in his right hand, and it's got a
Speaker 1: big old black jitterbug hanging out of its mouth, old
Speaker 1: school and right there nighttime jitterbugging Skyler is my people.
Speaker 1: Not many of us out there doing that. And it's
Speaker 1: not just that I gotta I gotta say, it's not
Speaker 1: just any jitterbug, but a jointed jitterbug dude goes what's up?
Speaker 1: Like extra extra points for the old school joint at jitterbug.
Speaker 1: He's also wearing a full Canadian tuxedo. The whole deal.
Speaker 1: Has got he's got. He's got the like the Wrangler
Speaker 1: style jeans, you know, the ones. They're snug, but they're
Speaker 1: broken in cowboys snug, not like hipster sky jean snug.
Speaker 1: That there's a there's a definite difference between those two fits. Yep.
Speaker 1: And he's up top when you move up from the
Speaker 1: jeans up top, he's got a much letter stonewashed jean
Speaker 1: jacket that there's also clearly been well worn and and
Speaker 1: just fits him right. It's just it's there. It's a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an extension of his body. But what ties this
Speaker 1: look together? What sets this apart? Because you know, Kenyan
Speaker 1: tuxed is good, some people wear it better than others.
Speaker 1: This dude wears it exceptionally well. But he's got it
Speaker 1: all tied together with a giant colt belt buckle. And
Speaker 1: so we are all on the same page. I am
Speaker 1: not talking about the Billy D Williams Cold forty five
Speaker 1: malt liquor. No, we're talking about the pistol, the cold
Speaker 1: forty Yeah, just big old pistol right there, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's great. Okay. Now moving moving up the tour, So
Speaker 1: look closely at the front pocket of that badass Jeane
Speaker 1: jacket and you'll see a freaking box of black and
Speaker 1: miles protruding out ever so slightly. And I've just gotta
Speaker 1: throw a shout real quick. My father's favorite fishing smokes
Speaker 1: for the record, black and that's cool. That's cool. I
Speaker 1: was more of a backwoods guy, but he liked those two.
Speaker 1: Those were the two options. Yeah, it's been a while,
Speaker 1: but both good. Anyway, Moving up to Skyler's face, Okay,
Speaker 1: you just can't miss how it's framed by what appeared
Speaker 1: to be a pair of vintage eighties glasses. Okay, and
Speaker 1: the best way I can describe them, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, It's like their aviator shaped but they have
Speaker 1: really thick frames, and these are are glasses glasses, not sunglasses, right,
Speaker 1: And like Mike, I swear my grandpap had those glasses
Speaker 1: glasses just like that when I was a little kid,
Speaker 1: and he'd keep them in one of those glasses protectors
Speaker 1: that you'd stick in your front pocket. Right. Um, they're
Speaker 1: like a much more like masculine version of glasses Dustin
Speaker 1: Hoffman worn in Tutsie. Um. And also when I look
Speaker 1: at at Skyler's face, Um, a particular actor comes to mind,
Speaker 1: and I want to see how good you are, okay,
Speaker 1: because we're gonna we're gonna dig deep here. To me,
Speaker 1: what I see right away is Billy's abka. Do you
Speaker 1: know who Billy's abka is? No, I have no idea,
Speaker 1: so you don't know him by name, right, But Billy's
Speaker 1: a is the actor that played Johnny in The Karate Kid.
Speaker 1: I when you said that, I was like, I was thinking,
Speaker 1: it looks like Cobra Kai Johnny. I don't know the
Speaker 1: actor's name, but that's exactly you didn't know. You didn't
Speaker 1: know his name, But Cobra Kai Johnny also in not
Speaker 1: just one of the guys, one of my favorite eighties actors,
Speaker 1: A great movie just one of the guys good. So yeah,
Speaker 1: when I was like, oh, it looks like Johnny, it
Speaker 1: does it does? Uh? That paints it. I mean you
Speaker 1: can see. I think you guys are getting getting a
Speaker 1: pretty good image of what we're talking about. But best
Speaker 1: of all, on top of Skyler's uh shaggy blonde mop,
Speaker 1: He's got this trucker hat. But I've definitely never seen
Speaker 1: before and it's hard to make out in the photo,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was in the email, and it
Speaker 1: says I'd rather be a roper than a doper. I
Speaker 1: went the hat. I don't know where that. We didn't
Speaker 1: We couldn't figure out where the phrase originated, but it
Speaker 1: is included in the lyrics of Ray Willie Hubbard's up
Speaker 1: against the Wall redneck mother, Damn the mother. I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: for the record, I have plenty of friends who can
Speaker 1: prove that the two are not mutually exclusive. But that's
Speaker 1: another story. Anyway, what's going on here? What is going
Speaker 1: on with Skyler? Is this? Is this a costume? Is
Speaker 1: this like or is this dude just that unique? Is
Speaker 1: he that much himself? Well, according to Ray, this is
Speaker 1: just Skyler. Ray rode to us and said Skylar works
Speaker 1: for John Dear, drives classic cars, and listens to hair
Speaker 1: metal loud. He gave me permission to send this photo.
Speaker 1: I asked if there were any notable points of interest
Speaker 1: from the night it was taken. He said, quote, we
Speaker 1: just listened to a bunch of rat and kicks and
Speaker 1: drank a lot of old style, caught a couple of fish.
Speaker 1: End quote. It's fascinating, isn't It's like a fascinating guy. Yes,
Speaker 1: he belongs in the outsiders or something. I can't. I
Speaker 1: can't quite place it. But you dug even deeper on
Speaker 1: the day. Of course I did, Of course I did.
Speaker 1: I just just for ships. I googled Skylar and found
Speaker 1: a little bit of info about him on the website
Speaker 1: of the University of Wisconsin Madison's College of Engineering. Apparently
Speaker 1: he want to fairly prestigious ward in grad school here
Speaker 1: if you d major award he Skyler completed his master's
Speaker 1: degree in mechanical engineering sixte His research was aimed at
Speaker 1: developing a compact system that can transfer electrical energy wirelessly
Speaker 1: across a rotating air gap between a stationary power source
Speaker 1: and a rotating electrical load. Totally got that. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he did too. He's a volunteer firefighter with two departments.
Speaker 1: He's the president of the u W Madison's Ham Radio Hub,
Speaker 1: and his hobbies include restoring antique electronics and ice fishing.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, he's he's just so American. I hate
Speaker 1: I hate to even call this photo awkward anymore, Dude, Like,
Speaker 1: just for this movie, I want to change the name
Speaker 1: of the segment to Photos of our Heroes because it's
Speaker 1: it's like, it's very perplexing. But I love it. I
Speaker 1: love Skyl, I love all the things. Ray. Thank you
Speaker 1: for sending this. Skyler. Don't ever change. Okay, you just
Speaker 1: keep cranking the rat and chugging old style and designing
Speaker 1: technology that will better our society. Okay, if you guys,
Speaker 1: God bless you. Guys have God bless you. If you
Speaker 1: guys have any awkward fishing photos to share that maybe
Speaker 1: you'd like for us to consider roasting or celebrating. I
Speaker 1: feel like we've opened a new chapter here. We we've
Speaker 1: celebrated more than roast of this time. Please send them
Speaker 1: to Bent at the meat eater dot com. I want
Speaker 1: a party with Tyler. Dude. The fact that he is,
Speaker 1: that he is rocking this look that he has this
Speaker 1: stease to use one of your favorite words. But it's
Speaker 1: like a super smart dude, not some country bumpkin. It
Speaker 1: just it just it makes him such a badass. He's
Speaker 1: a badass. You. I'm the guy he's gonna put a
Speaker 1: boot up your ass if you don't tell me where
Speaker 1: Shelley is he? Tyler, you need this guy. He's my boyfriend. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's there's a huge difference between hipsters that like paid
Speaker 1: top dollar for attire that in soho that like so
Speaker 1: it fuels shabby chic, and and the dude who wears
Speaker 1: a cult forty five belt buckle that he got from
Speaker 1: his grandfather. We didn't cover that, but it's a hand
Speaker 1: me down from his grandfather and smokes black and yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually hand me down from his grandfather and smokes black
Speaker 1: and miles while redesigning electronics for his tractor. Get out
Speaker 1: of here, yep, different world, just do it. Just get
Speaker 1: out of here, Yeah, get out of here. I may
Speaker 1: not know shit about tractors or any other motorized vehicles
Speaker 1: or devices, I admit that, but I am a force
Speaker 1: to reckon with when it comes to winning the championship
Speaker 1: belt buckle in the weekly fish competition we call fish news.
Speaker 1: Fish News. That escalated quickly, So here's a super fun
Speaker 1: shout out to kick things off. A lot of you
Speaker 1: have been reaching out asking us who the hell one
Speaker 1: the big b Side fishing giveaway, you know, the one
Speaker 1: where you got every single thirteen rod and really used
Speaker 1: in season one of the show. And we apologize for
Speaker 1: that announcement taking so long, but please understand that Miles
Speaker 1: and I are not the ones that like stick our
Speaker 1: hands in the baseball cap and and pull out the
Speaker 1: name on a tiny folded piece of paper. It's not
Speaker 1: our job, and honestly, at least I assume that's how
Speaker 1: it's done by whoever does. I'm certain that it's not
Speaker 1: like computer generator algorithmic. I'm certain there's a hat and
Speaker 1: folded paper. For sure, you got an intern writing all
Speaker 1: the names that thing exactly. The truth is all that
Speaker 1: stuff the contest have a ways that that's way above
Speaker 1: our heads. That's that's handled elsewhere other departments. I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So it's the truth is it takes
Speaker 1: a while for us to find out who wins these things.
Speaker 1: But just like we were all hoping, like we said,
Speaker 1: we were hoping a bed listener brought home the sweet,
Speaker 1: sweet taste of victory. So huge congratulations go out to
Speaker 1: Dylan Antillus antilus something like that. And and not only
Speaker 1: am I happy that this dude one because he's a listener,
Speaker 1: his backstory and the way that this has all coming together,
Speaker 1: it could not be more timely or appropriate considering what
Speaker 1: we were talking about in in last week's episode of
Speaker 1: the show. Yeah right, So last week's show was fly focused,
Speaker 1: but Miles and I both made the point that it's
Speaker 1: okay to take spinning gear when you fly fish. That's okay.
Speaker 1: You're not going to get in trouble. We do it
Speaker 1: all the time. But the real theme of that episode
Speaker 1: was to assuage any trepidation conventional anglers might have about
Speaker 1: getting in fly fishing right. And then along comes Dylan.
Speaker 1: And when Dylan hit me up upon hearing the news
Speaker 1: that he wont he was like, yeah, I'm a hardcore
Speaker 1: flag guy, but wouldn't you know it, I was recently
Speaker 1: thinking about buying some conventional gear, so the timing couldn't
Speaker 1: be which he should do because it's all about being
Speaker 1: a well rounded angler. And and Dilan Dillon was saying
Speaker 1: that he hasn't owned a spinning rod or a convention
Speaker 1: rod of any kind of like ten years some of
Speaker 1: his backstock, but he's already gotten his hands on some
Speaker 1: of that thirteen gear. And so just the other day
Speaker 1: he was out fishing on Buddy's canoe and he wanted
Speaker 1: to throw google bugs with his fly rod, but it
Speaker 1: was blowing I don't know, thirty or something. It was
Speaker 1: too windy. So he just happened to have all this
Speaker 1: new conventional gear. He busted that out through on a
Speaker 1: hula popper and started trashing large mouse, which is exactly
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. And there you go. That's the
Speaker 1: that's the real life, live version of our p s
Speaker 1: A right there, that story defined bent right like, that's
Speaker 1: our whole our whole stick. It's just fishing, man, It's
Speaker 1: all good no matter how you catch them. So that's perfect. Yes,
Speaker 1: and and congratulations again, Dylan, send us some photos. Uh,
Speaker 1: we want to see what you're getting. And now I
Speaker 1: think it's time we should we should move on with
Speaker 1: with our contest, Our own contest, Our weekly contest. Remember,
Speaker 1: Joe and I do not know which news stories the
Speaker 1: other guys bringing to the table. And at the end
Speaker 1: of all of this, our audio engineer, Phil, the Deacon
Speaker 1: of our digital water world, will pass judgment upon both
Speaker 1: of us. He will, he will. I believe it's my
Speaker 1: lead off this week or you're you're up, buddy, and
Speaker 1: what do you got? Okay, alright, so here we go.
Speaker 1: I first caught win this story on Wire to Fish,
Speaker 1: but uh, it's made the round since, including right over
Speaker 1: there to for the wind dot Com, which we all
Speaker 1: know is one of my favorite news sources. Because that
Speaker 1: I hope this is the story that I think it is.
Speaker 1: It is because we can't not write um, so that's
Speaker 1: where I'm pulling from. For the wind dot Com, headline
Speaker 1: of this one is Texas Fisherman's mean mouth bass is
Speaker 1: a world record meanmouth bass. You say, what is that? Well,
Speaker 1: here's how undialed I am in the bass world. I'd
Speaker 1: never heard the term before this, but it is a
Speaker 1: true hybrid between a small mouth bass and a large
Speaker 1: mouth bass. I don't know about you, I never knew
Speaker 1: such a thing existed, Like I'd never heard the term um,
Speaker 1: and I certainly didn't know that this occurred enough to
Speaker 1: have a name like meanmouth. But more on that later.
Speaker 1: We'll do some mean mouth. I'm sorry, you've already obviously
Speaker 1: researched this. I thought it was a hybrid with a
Speaker 1: spot and a small mouth, but I could be wrong
Speaker 1: about that. Apparently this is your story, so I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to I'm not trying to mess you up. So
Speaker 1: I think a mean mouth. It works both ways. You
Speaker 1: can't have a hybrid between a small mouth and a spot.
Speaker 1: But there's no spot in the lake where the gent
Speaker 1: and this story is fishing. There's small amounts in large mouths.
Speaker 1: So as I understand it, it it works both ways. Right
Speaker 1: If I'm wrong about that some of you out there,
Speaker 1: I know there's a bassett out there who's like tearing
Speaker 1: his or her hair out until let us know, right, okay,
Speaker 1: because I'm just look, all I have to go on
Speaker 1: here is what's on for the wind, which is not
Speaker 1: much fair enough. Don't ask me questions that the Smithsonian
Speaker 1: should answer or something. Okay, it's just on the right anyway.
Speaker 1: So here's what happened. Whyatt Franken's was fishing the o
Speaker 1: h Ivy Reservoir in Texas. This is way back in
Speaker 1: March when he hooked this seven pounds nine ounce fish,
Speaker 1: and for those of you curious, all your bass heads
Speaker 1: that ate a mega bass swim bait. And upon landing
Speaker 1: the fish, Franken's was certain that what he had was
Speaker 1: a new lake record small mouth and that's what prompted
Speaker 1: him to have the fish weighed. And according to the story, um,
Speaker 1: while it was being weighed, some onlookers at wherever this
Speaker 1: was tackle shop or I who knows uh, suggested that
Speaker 1: it might be a hybrid. So Franken's sent scale samples
Speaker 1: into Texas parks and wildlife and wouldn't you know it,
Speaker 1: it's a hybrid. Now this is making bigger news recently
Speaker 1: because Franken's just got final certification from the i g
Speaker 1: f A that it is, in fact the world record
Speaker 1: mean mouth bass. So it's state record, lake record and
Speaker 1: world record right now now looking at right, yeah, it's pretty.
Speaker 1: It's cool. So now looking at the photo, if I
Speaker 1: caught that, I'd have called it a pure small mouth
Speaker 1: all day. I'm sure a lot of people are wondering
Speaker 1: what these things look like and other than to my
Speaker 1: at least like some slight large amount style patterning on
Speaker 1: the flanks, if I caught that, it probably wouldn't have
Speaker 1: crossed my mind. It looks way more small mouth to me.
Speaker 1: But interestingly so, here's a little history at the term
Speaker 1: mean mouth. It's been around. It was coined in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties when Dr William Childer's his colleagues at the
Speaker 1: Illinois Natural History Survey began studies on sunfish family hybrids.
Speaker 1: And listen to this right for the wind pulled a
Speaker 1: quote from in Fisherman from an old story, and here's
Speaker 1: what it says. The researchers noted that different black bass
Speaker 1: species didn't hybridize when stockton ponds with members of another species.
Speaker 1: I eat all males of one species with all females
Speaker 1: of another, but fertilizing large mouth eggs with small mouth
Speaker 1: sperm produced viable offspring that reproduced among themselves and with
Speaker 1: both parental species. Right gets better. The term mean mouth
Speaker 1: bass was born when Childers observed a school of large
Speaker 1: mouth small mouths attacking a female swimmer. There's a quote
Speaker 1: says the bass leap from the water and struck her
Speaker 1: on the head and chest and drove her from the pond.
Speaker 1: On another occasion, he watched mean mouths attack a dog
Speaker 1: that ventured in his shallow water. Yeah, this is from
Speaker 1: an old in Fisherman story. This is what they're saying
Speaker 1: about the mean mouths so exactly. Man Like, I've never
Speaker 1: heard of any of this, right, So just based on that,
Speaker 1: I'm very in on mean mouth bass And I was
Speaker 1: trying to find info on whether there's a place where
Speaker 1: they occur, you know, more frequently, but I kind of
Speaker 1: drew a blank there. It seems like the south and
Speaker 1: southeast might have more, but it's it's still pretty rare.
Speaker 1: And again, frankly, all the pictures I've seen, you know,
Speaker 1: I did the Google image church, they all look like
Speaker 1: a smalley to me, you know, like I may have
Speaker 1: caught twenty already, who knows. I think the variance is
Speaker 1: so subtle in most cases that it would slip by
Speaker 1: most people. Um. I did see a few that had
Speaker 1: like a belly so huge, they just looked more in
Speaker 1: large mouth shape. But for the most part, I think
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very tricky I d um. But hey, like,
Speaker 1: look they sound vicious. I have one quick I d
Speaker 1: question that you may or it may not know. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the ways to tell difference between those two
Speaker 1: is the dorsal fin right, and and whether they have
Speaker 1: a shallow or a deep notch in that dorsal fin
Speaker 1: Where's where's the mean mouth in in the dorsal notching?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Myles, I'll have to get back to you.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, why are you doing this to me? It
Speaker 1: is a valid question, But why are you doing this
Speaker 1: to me? Because I'm curious you think you think for
Speaker 1: the wind went into that much detail. Okay, I I
Speaker 1: don't know. I will follow up on that. I feel
Speaker 1: I feel small right now, do your research, I know.
Speaker 1: Do you like, all of a sudden, I'm in, like
Speaker 1: you know, freshman bio in college again, like did you
Speaker 1: read the thing? And I'm like, no, I didn't actually, Okay,
Speaker 1: I was playing guitars and drinking slurpees. Sound of a bit, uh,
Speaker 1: But anyway, Look, they sound vicious and they sound cool,
Speaker 1: which is great because that, by the way, I see
Speaker 1: that hybridization could have easily produced like a small mouth
Speaker 1: that didn't really fight, or like a large mouth wouldn't
Speaker 1: eat pretty much anything you dropped in front of it.
Speaker 1: So it just it sounds like a win all around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm all in. I want to know more about the
Speaker 1: mean mouth, so I have burning questions that the joke
Speaker 1: clearly can't answer it, so hopefully hopefully someone out there,
Speaker 1: hopefully someone out there will follow up. Uh I this this,
Speaker 1: There is no clear connection between meanmouth and what I
Speaker 1: want to talk about. First, I gotta say I'm I
Speaker 1: will say that my stories are thematic in that. Here's
Speaker 1: what I'll say. I'm going very different from you, because
Speaker 1: I can hardly think of anything more American than a
Speaker 1: mean mouth bass like that. That just feels so American.
Speaker 1: That should be our national fish. Not yeah, it absolutely should.
Speaker 1: And and the transition I have into what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: talk about is that I'm going to the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: I'm not going American at all in any of the
Speaker 1: stories I'm covering. I'm going I'm going far afield. So
Speaker 1: if you know anything about the Netherlands, you probably know
Speaker 1: or you hopefully know, that their geniuses when it comes
Speaker 1: to managing water. A full third of that country's land
Speaker 1: mass sits below sea level and and two thirds of
Speaker 1: it is floodplain. So the Dutch have been actively working
Speaker 1: on ways to reclaim land and mitigate floods since the century.
Speaker 1: Part of that part of that water management strategy is
Speaker 1: the use and maintenance of canals and dams and locks, right,
Speaker 1: because Amsterdam is super famous for all of its canals,
Speaker 1: but it's not the only city in the country that's
Speaker 1: got water running all through it. That's that's kind of everywhere,
Speaker 1: and nearby Utrics canals are just as impressive. And and
Speaker 1: though man made, have served to connect multiple river systems
Speaker 1: for thousands of years, and generally all these canals are
Speaker 1: thought of in pretty anthropocentric ways. They're like tools that
Speaker 1: people use keep water and checked and and and facilitate
Speaker 1: boat passage. But though they're man made in urban they
Speaker 1: are functioning aquatic ecosystems. Right. So during the summer months
Speaker 1: the locks get and regularly because of all the boat traffic,
Speaker 1: and when they do, it's not just boats, but they're
Speaker 1: also fish that are taking advantage of passing through. But
Speaker 1: during the winter, with a few boats moving, the locks
Speaker 1: can stay closed for extended periods of time. The last year,
Speaker 1: a Dutch ecologist was working on a project on the
Speaker 1: Utrich Canals and and noticed high concentrations of fish stacking
Speaker 1: up at one particular lock, and the fish were like
Speaker 1: waiting there, like okay, when we when this is gonna open?
Speaker 1: When we could pass through, not knowing that it wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna happen like they're gonna be there for a while,
Speaker 1: and as a result, the fish were getting exhausted and
Speaker 1: then they were getting easily picked off by birds who
Speaker 1: were figuring out easy meals. Right, So this ecologist explained
Speaker 1: the situation to the lock manager who was responsible for
Speaker 1: that lock, and the guy said, well, I want to
Speaker 1: open the door for the fish. For me, it's no problem.
Speaker 1: I lived nearby, but I have to know when exactly
Speaker 1: those fish are there, so I know when I have
Speaker 1: to open the door. So the ecologist partnered with the
Speaker 1: local water board to come up with a solution. They
Speaker 1: installed an underwater camera at the lock and set up
Speaker 1: a website to live stream the camera feed. They're hope.
Speaker 1: They were hoping that a few locals would check the
Speaker 1: live stream from time to time and if they saw
Speaker 1: fish waiting at the lock, they'd click a button, which
Speaker 1: they called a doorbell that would alert the lock manager
Speaker 1: so you could go and open it up. So that's
Speaker 1: they're hoping. Within two weeks, seven hundred and thirty five
Speaker 1: thousand people from all over the world had visited the
Speaker 1: live stream and the door was upset. The doorbell had
Speaker 1: been rung thirty two thousand times, and I'm just that
Speaker 1: dude had to immediately regret his decision to participate in
Speaker 1: this right, like, yeah, all of a sudden, he's this
Speaker 1: whole monitor, He's the sole monitor of the live stream.
Speaker 1: Can He's like, I got it, I got it, I
Speaker 1: got it. I'll look, I'll look. Okay, I get annoyed
Speaker 1: when my phone dings at me more than like four
Speaker 1: times a day. This guy was getting pained over two
Speaker 1: thousand times a day from strangers all over the world, like, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: some fish want to get in here. Dude, he dude,
Speaker 1: go open That would be so awful, um and so
Speaker 1: pretty quickly, like they just switched over to a system
Speaker 1: where he would open the locks at regular intervals every
Speaker 1: day and got rid of the doorbell bugging him. And
Speaker 1: you could look at the story and think, what a
Speaker 1: bunch of idiots, right, Like they could have just they
Speaker 1: could have just done that in the first places, had
Speaker 1: the guy opened up the locks three times a day
Speaker 1: and and problem solved. Instead, they wasted all this time
Speaker 1: and then annoyed the hell out of him for no
Speaker 1: good reason. But I'm guessing that this worked out far
Speaker 1: better than the ecologist could have ever hoped. Right, if
Speaker 1: he had just quietly struck a deal with the lock
Speaker 1: manager to open the gates a few times a day
Speaker 1: and let the fish through, the problem would be solved
Speaker 1: for those fish at that spot in that one canal.
Speaker 1: But that's it, And instead he created a system that
Speaker 1: allowed people from all over the world to interact with
Speaker 1: the fish that he cares about in these Dutch canals. Right,
Speaker 1: all these people are now feeling like they're personally helping
Speaker 1: these fish get past a barrier, and in doing that,
Speaker 1: he's he's raised a bunch of awareness not just about
Speaker 1: the aquatic ecology of urban Dutch waterways, but urban waterways everywhere,
Speaker 1: and that's a huge wind. Right. Additionally, the camera allowed
Speaker 1: him to collect data on the specific fish species moving
Speaker 1: through the canal and confirmed that it's an important migration route. Right.
Speaker 1: The cameras captured various different species, including endangered European eels
Speaker 1: that we're using the canals as part of their catagermus spotting.
Speaker 1: So with with with the summer boating season full swing,
Speaker 1: the locks are now opening regularly and the doorbell has
Speaker 1: been shut down. But there municipality has confirmed that it
Speaker 1: will be back in operation next winner, but hopefully not
Speaker 1: actually painting that poor poor luck manage anymore. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what that man. I am not at all surprised
Speaker 1: by those numbers, um because like just as one example,
Speaker 1: and you know this happens all over the country, but
Speaker 1: like the Fairmount Damn in Philadelphia on the school gool,
Speaker 1: they had a fish cam in their fish ladder and
Speaker 1: I would look at it every day and not for
Speaker 1: a minute, like nine nine point nine percent of the
Speaker 1: time there would be nothing. You'd just be looking at
Speaker 1: water and bubbles, and I would sit there for twenty
Speaker 1: minutes and stare at it like waiting for what. I
Speaker 1: don't know. They had all their archive greatest moments, Like
Speaker 1: you go to the archives still it's like, oh a
Speaker 1: carp and it's like, oh my god, strip but like
Speaker 1: I never saw any of that ship, but I would
Speaker 1: still watch it. There's what there's nest cams like so
Speaker 1: he's doing nothing. And then um, like the one thing
Speaker 1: that we used to use a lot still do back
Speaker 1: in my surf fishing days, they had all the surf
Speaker 1: cams set up, which were more for surfers. I mean
Speaker 1: they were in surfing websites, but I mean came in
Speaker 1: really handy when you're that far away and you want
Speaker 1: to look at the at the surf, but like you
Speaker 1: don't watch it for thirty seconds and know, okay, like
Speaker 1: you sit there and you're just watching waves break on
Speaker 1: the computer for thirty minutes, Like what am I looking for?
Speaker 1: So I'm really not at all surprised by those numbers.
Speaker 1: People just love that, like live, live, love it stuff.
Speaker 1: I should just like set one up in my yard.
Speaker 1: I'd get a million hits. It's like, look at Joe's yard.
Speaker 1: You could be anything people, somebody will watch it. But
Speaker 1: this takes it to another level because they had a
Speaker 1: chance to actually engage. They could they could push a
Speaker 1: button and make something happen with those fish on the
Speaker 1: other side of the world, Like you want to talk
Speaker 1: about people. People are not that different from rats pushing
Speaker 1: the button for the cheese, Like they want that immediate
Speaker 1: feedback and when you get it, like, I totally understand
Speaker 1: why it blew up. The only thing, the only thing
Speaker 1: that would have been better and funnier is imagine if
Speaker 1: they hardwired it so when you hit it, the lock
Speaker 1: just opened, like all day long, and I'll just be
Speaker 1: like it would have been broken, Yeah, you would just
Speaker 1: you would have just killed the entire lock. Really struggling
Speaker 1: on a transition here, I don't have one. Uh. I
Speaker 1: was stretching there to try. But that's okay. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go back domestic. We're gonna go to Florida for what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say is some fairly significant news out of Florida.
Speaker 1: It appears that the three decade ban on harvesting Goliath
Speaker 1: grouper is closer than it's ever been to being lifted.
Speaker 1: That's that's actually it's fairly significant, right. So this story
Speaker 1: comes from Florida Phoenix dot com and was written by
Speaker 1: Craig Pittman. And for those unaware, right to kill or
Speaker 1: not kill Goliath Grouper is a huge debate in Florida.
Speaker 1: It's been a flashpoint for many, many years, and and
Speaker 1: and to fully understand what's happening, you just need like
Speaker 1: a wee hint of backstory. And I'm sure most of
Speaker 1: you know what a Goliath grouper is. You've seen the
Speaker 1: TikTok videos of people catching eight pounders off the dock
Speaker 1: at the public ramp with a fifty wide, or hand
Speaker 1: lining them with ropes offshore and so forth. Um, And
Speaker 1: presently I believe you are free and clear to target
Speaker 1: Goliath's no problem there. But they cannot be brought into
Speaker 1: the boat, so they're they're still pretty protected now. Pittman
Speaker 1: accurately notes that goliaths tend to post up in an
Speaker 1: area and call at home, and that could be a
Speaker 1: wreck off shore or a bridge, whatever. But his point
Speaker 1: is that their home bodies so like they're kind of
Speaker 1: easy to find because they don't really leave. Like, once
Speaker 1: you know that goliaths are here, they're they're they're pretty
Speaker 1: much gonna be there all the time, and divers will
Speaker 1: tell you so a fisherman, I guess that they're also
Speaker 1: pretty curious. That they're just genuinely curious fish. Some people
Speaker 1: say they're they're gentle giants. They're not these like big
Speaker 1: aggressive monsters, but they check stuff out. Um. And all
Speaker 1: of that contributes to why they were nearly decimated by
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties, right because they were easy to
Speaker 1: catch um and even easier to shoot underwater. Guys would
Speaker 1: use powerhead on a spear gun, and for for many
Speaker 1: decades people sold them to fish markets and restaurants and such,
Speaker 1: so in the ban on killing them went into effect.
Speaker 1: The thing is, according to Pittman, right, there was really
Speaker 1: no accurate count of how many goliaths remained when that
Speaker 1: band went into effect, nor is there really a solid
Speaker 1: account of how many there are now. So the notion
Speaker 1: that they they've rebounded substantially enough to allow harvest is
Speaker 1: really based, you know, basically on what anglers and and
Speaker 1: divers are sitting. It's just like, yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: more of them out there, but nobody's really out there
Speaker 1: counting or studying those numbers specifically, um, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: wildlife officials are saying they comeback is a huge win.
Speaker 1: Populations are thriving and all as well. So what's happening
Speaker 1: is you've got environmentalists and and folks tied to like
Speaker 1: the echo tour diving industry that need goliaths for clients
Speaker 1: to look at when they're down there diving. They're saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, these fish are doing really really good. Let's
Speaker 1: keep it up. And then you have a large amount
Speaker 1: of Florida anglers saying, hey, there's too many of these things.
Speaker 1: Can we please start killing them again? Right? So, here's
Speaker 1: a here's a quote from the story that sort of
Speaker 1: gives you a little bit more detail. Pittman writes, there
Speaker 1: were calls to end the goliath grouper fishing ban in
Speaker 1: two thousand one, two thousand eleven, and again that's because
Speaker 1: some people don't appreciate goliath groupers the way those echo
Speaker 1: tour divers do. Instead of cute, they use words like
Speaker 1: lazy and irritating angler. This is a quote that he
Speaker 1: used here. Anglers fishing for snook, snappers, koba and other
Speaker 1: species routinely tell of how they were reeling in their
Speaker 1: catch to the surface when a Volkswagen sized goliath grouper
Speaker 1: grabbed their fish and snapped their line, The South Florida
Speaker 1: Sun Sentinel reported in two thousand one. Pittman says the
Speaker 1: hardest push to lift the band came three years ago,
Speaker 1: and it produced the biggest push back. When we're it
Speaker 1: spread that the Wildlife Agency was considering letting anglers catch
Speaker 1: and keep one hundred goliath groupers. Some fifty six thousand
Speaker 1: people signed petitions against it. But now it appears Fish
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Conservation Commission Chairman Rodney Burretto is giving the
Speaker 1: angling groups what they want, and he says in the story,
Speaker 1: I think the time has come and I think we
Speaker 1: should look at where we've come in thirty years with
Speaker 1: this fishery. Believe it or not, it's another great conservation story.
Speaker 1: It really is. We should be applauding ourselves. So the
Speaker 1: commissioners voted six to one to tell their staff to
Speaker 1: come back in October. This October with a formal proposal
Speaker 1: for what they called a limited harvest, And what I
Speaker 1: gather is that if it passes, you'd have to enter
Speaker 1: a lottery and essentially draw a Goliath tag, and there
Speaker 1: would only be one hundred tags given out. The one
Speaker 1: hundred is still what's on the table. So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I kind of have mixed feeling about it because for starters,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not convinced killing one goliaths would
Speaker 1: do that much damage. Again, nobody really knows the numbers,
Speaker 1: but based on anecdotal evidence and videos alone, it seems
Speaker 1: like there are a lot of goliaths. And if you
Speaker 1: were to go full on open season or something right
Speaker 1: like one fish per day or whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: then I get it, but I really don't think this
Speaker 1: will be that impactful but second, I don't know unless
Speaker 1: you're selling the meat. I also can't really understand why
Speaker 1: you want a three plus pound grouper like that much meat. Personally,
Speaker 1: I would much rather catch smaller group of species or
Speaker 1: snappers down there than uh, you know, take a five
Speaker 1: hundred pound goliath, especially considering I mean it is how
Speaker 1: easy they can be to find in hook. You know,
Speaker 1: that's true, Like I would I would almost feel guilty.
Speaker 1: And and final thought, uh, you know about people being
Speaker 1: upset about a goliath occasionally taking your yellow tail snapper off,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like like like deal with it like
Speaker 1: it's it's to me, It's like that's nature, man, Like
Speaker 1: I've had it happened. It's a bummer, right, but they
Speaker 1: lived down there. Sorry, Like that's just I don't I've
Speaker 1: had it happened. Doesn't mean I want to go shoot
Speaker 1: the goliath with a three fifty seven over it. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd argued that sharks take just as much, if not more,
Speaker 1: fish off the line and then then goliath. So I
Speaker 1: sort of see both sides here. But it's interesting on
Speaker 1: the last because this this band is held for so long,
Speaker 1: and again this is not the first time it's come
Speaker 1: real close, you know, I mean, And the reason that
Speaker 1: ban has held along and why is this is such
Speaker 1: a deal is mega fauna, right like big things. People
Speaker 1: like big things and we care about big things, and
Speaker 1: and not that I don't. I think Glad Cooper super
Speaker 1: interesting and I agree with just about everything you said.
Speaker 1: The the other piece though, that I feel like it's
Speaker 1: missing from this is it has to be studied. Like
Speaker 1: if we're gonna, if we're gonna make a management decision,
Speaker 1: I don't think it should be based on anecdotal evidence
Speaker 1: of divers and fishing and be like, now there's a
Speaker 1: lot more that that. To me, I think it's probably accurate,
Speaker 1: But I feel like this should be based on some
Speaker 1: kind of actual evidence and data. That's that's the piece
Speaker 1: for me that's missing here. I don't think a hundred
Speaker 1: like if if it's really just a hundred tags, that's
Speaker 1: to me that that's not gonna And these things are
Speaker 1: are are almost everywhere, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: if you think about it, that's not that many fish.
Speaker 1: That's not gonna be a boon for the fishing industry,
Speaker 1: right like a hundred people going out and that doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: The was gonna make way more money. Like that tag
Speaker 1: is not going to help the guy who's piste off
Speaker 1: that like five out of ten fish he hooks on
Speaker 1: his favorite wreck it's taken by a glient, right, that's
Speaker 1: not gonna help him. It's gonna be like, yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's it's you're gonna have charter captains
Speaker 1: in specific places that really want that tag. They may
Speaker 1: never use it, but it's like, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: this in case I have that client that like insists
Speaker 1: on taking this fish, because it's also not gonna do
Speaker 1: anything to revive, you know, commercial sale. It's a hundred
Speaker 1: fish now, right, I mean yeah, I think to me
Speaker 1: it smacks of a symbolic move that that it's really
Speaker 1: what it is. I think that if they can get
Speaker 1: this through, then it opens up the door to have
Speaker 1: more wild, widespread harvest down the line. That's my guess
Speaker 1: is that that's where this is going. And I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether
Speaker 1: or not that's a responsible decision because again we don't
Speaker 1: have any data. So yeah, well, I mean that's I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's it's still gonna be a long way
Speaker 1: out because he just they want the proposals by October.
Speaker 1: Then that's got to all pass. So we'll see. I
Speaker 1: mean this like like Pittman wrote, Man, this has been
Speaker 1: knocked down with almost an identical proposal three times, so
Speaker 1: I'm curious. See, I'm sure we'll follow up on that
Speaker 1: one absolutely. Uh. This one. The only connection I've got
Speaker 1: between that one and this one is it's also about
Speaker 1: a fish that folks have been really trying to recover.
Speaker 1: It is also about a fish. It's about a fish
Speaker 1: and fish to people care about. That's that's about all
Speaker 1: I got. I'm sticking international, but for this one, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna report on a mouse play. And actually I want
Speaker 1: to want I want to do this right, So Phil, Phil,
Speaker 1: can I get a little ominous music the Great Australian
Speaker 1: mouse Plague of Thank you? Phil? Okay. So, Australia has
Speaker 1: been dealing with horrible drought the past few years, which
Speaker 1: has led to massive bush fires and all kinds of
Speaker 1: other issues, anemic rivers and reservoirs, low oxygen levels, massive
Speaker 1: algal blooms. But last year the weather turned. They got
Speaker 1: plenty of rain, plenty of moisture, very few fires. Uh,
Speaker 1: and and vastly improved water quality that also led to
Speaker 1: a banner year for farmers and for mice. And when
Speaker 1: I when I said mouse plague, I wasn't being hyperbolic.
Speaker 1: That's the technical term used when mouse populations hit a
Speaker 1: threshold of eight hundred to one thousand individuals per hector,
Speaker 1: which equals about two point five acres if you speak American,
Speaker 1: a lot of mice. A researcher for the National Science
Speaker 1: Agencies said that trying to count the mice in Australia
Speaker 1: right now would be like trying to count the stars
Speaker 1: in the sky. For months might have been ravaging fields
Speaker 1: and causing all kinds of problems across the Eastern Australia.
Speaker 1: The industry group New South Wales Farmers estimate agricultural losses
Speaker 1: in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The mice are
Speaker 1: a huge problem for people, but there kind of turned
Speaker 1: into a huge boon for the fish. According to numerous
Speaker 1: Australian news outlets, murray Cott anglers are reporting that the
Speaker 1: fish are taking advantage of the abundant supply of mice
Speaker 1: falling into the water, which makes sense because murray cott
Speaker 1: eat everything right, They eat everything. The fish this year
Speaker 1: are an excellent condition. If you if you look at
Speaker 1: the photos, you just see these these huge giant standard
Speaker 1: bellies on fish of all different sizes, not just the
Speaker 1: big mature ones, but even the smaller ones are fat.
Speaker 1: The only complaint that local anglers have is that most
Speaker 1: every fish they catch regurgitates half digested mice, sometimes ten
Speaker 1: or more, and the smell is quote not the prettiest.
Speaker 1: This is this is all very welcome news from mary
Speaker 1: God which have been struggling in the past few years.
Speaker 1: The droughts took up a massive toll on the fish,
Speaker 1: and then when the rains finally did come in early,
Speaker 1: they watched so much sentiment of the rivers and dropped
Speaker 1: temperatures so rapidly that some, like the Fame mccruary, experienced
Speaker 1: severe fish kills. So anglers are rejoicing about finally getting
Speaker 1: some favorable conditions. Murray cod have plenty water, oxygen, and food,
Speaker 1: and this all sounds like a happy ending, except you
Speaker 1: know that that whole mouse plague is still an issue.
Speaker 1: As the weather cools into winter, all those mice are
Speaker 1: looking for shelter and homes and buildings. They're they're invading houses,
Speaker 1: they're invading neighborhoods. They're like lay waste to hay and
Speaker 1: straw and crop stores. The government is under serious pressure
Speaker 1: to do something about all these mice. Researchers are working
Speaker 1: on genetic bio control solutions, like releasing modified mice in
Speaker 1: the wild that could theoretically lead to rendering female mice infertile,
Speaker 1: but that technology isn't ready. It might help control future outbreaks,
Speaker 1: but not this one. That's like a heavy. That's a
Speaker 1: heavy solution, had some futuristic ship right there, setic warfare.
Speaker 1: The solution proposed to deal with the immediate problem is
Speaker 1: a poison called Broma di alone, which is currently banned.
Speaker 1: The state has applied for a permit to use the
Speaker 1: poison along the perimeter of crop fields in order to
Speaker 1: get the mouse plague under control. The problem is that
Speaker 1: this poison breaks down very slowly, and lots of different
Speaker 1: animals eat mice, dogs, pigs, poultry, owls, hawks, eagles, and
Speaker 1: murray cod are all chowing down on the plentiful road
Speaker 1: and lie. If the mice are laced with this poison,
Speaker 1: which the Minister of Agriculture referred to as napalm for mice,
Speaker 1: then it will likely end up in the fish as well.
Speaker 1: Local fisheries groups and anglers are coming out against the
Speaker 1: decision and even threatening potential lawsuits. Since murray coott are
Speaker 1: listed as a vulnerable species and subject to federal protections,
Speaker 1: there may be another option. The New South Wales Farmers
Speaker 1: Group has requested the government provides zinc phosphate instead, which
Speaker 1: also kills mice and breaks down within twenty four hours
Speaker 1: of consumption. It would be less effective at getting rid
Speaker 1: of the mice, but also pose less of a threat
Speaker 1: to the food chain. I don't actually have a clear
Speaker 1: takeaway on this one. Like a mouse playing sounds awful,
Speaker 1: like as you saying it, as as a man who's
Speaker 1: I've dealt with some mice. I eventually had to call
Speaker 1: in professionals because I would get him in my basement,
Speaker 1: like they'd run around the drop ceiling in my finished basement,
Speaker 1: and like one or two mice is fun, like you
Speaker 1: like you set the peanut butter and you sit down
Speaker 1: there and like hear him to and I'm like, yeah, gosh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean. But I hate I
Speaker 1: hate mice in the home. So this if you look
Speaker 1: at the back Dude, you look at some of the video, like, well,
Speaker 1: I saw something on TikTok and there was like some
Speaker 1: kind of farm conveyor just like it was like a
Speaker 1: waterfall of mice coming off the top of a conveyor
Speaker 1: directly into a burning barrel. Like they like it was
Speaker 1: it was crazy. It's like, it's not funny, but it
Speaker 1: is like it's literally like one of those farms that
Speaker 1: like moves fruit and grain, and it was just like
Speaker 1: dumping like a niagara falls of mice in the in
Speaker 1: the like burning napalm. It all looks awful like I
Speaker 1: would I would absolutely hate to be living in the
Speaker 1: midst of that. But I'm also I'm rooting for the
Speaker 1: Murray God, like they're finally and they're finally catching a break.
Speaker 1: You know, dude, I hear you, Like you know what.
Speaker 1: This harkens me back to remember that that story many
Speaker 1: moons ago about how they realized like shark fins or
Speaker 1: sharks could like make COVID vaccine faster, and there was
Speaker 1: like there's organizations that were like, play don't hurt the sharks,
Speaker 1: but everybody is so over the COVID that it's like
Speaker 1: I don't care about the sharks right now, make the vaccine.
Speaker 1: That's what's gonna that could easily happen here because I
Speaker 1: get it. On the Murray Cod, that's great, But in
Speaker 1: the overall scheme, that's like two guys fighting against neighborhood
Speaker 1: after neighborhood going just God, please get rid of these
Speaker 1: mice somehow, because that's brutal, man. And then even still,
Speaker 1: no matter how you kill them, then you still a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of dead mice. They don't just like blow away.
Speaker 1: So it's just it's like a bad it's just a bad,
Speaker 1: bad scenario, man. Yeah. Yeah, the whole thing is is
Speaker 1: pretty nasty. And and yeah, like I said, there's that
Speaker 1: little glimmer in the middle, like the Murray Card are
Speaker 1: doing great, but we're overrun with a vermin. Yeah, I'll root,
Speaker 1: I'll root for the Cod with you. But if any
Speaker 1: we have we don't, we have some. We have some
Speaker 1: fans down under those that do. And like I'm, I'm
Speaker 1: wouldn't surprise if I hear someone that are just like
Speaker 1: f the Murray Cod. Right now, dude, I can't have
Speaker 1: I can't have food in my home. Okay, They're in everything,
Speaker 1: So we feel for you. Guys. Uh, Phil, you can
Speaker 1: go down and do a mice crusade, kill some mice. Um.
Speaker 1: You can shoot a grouper in the head, maybe in
Speaker 1: the farta pretty soon catch a mean mouth ring the doorbell.
Speaker 1: We'll we'll hear from Phil see who won this week,
Speaker 1: and then right after that we'll talk about another bass
Speaker 1: that's kind of an oddball in finn clips. Miles. If
Speaker 1: you feel your phone blowing up right now, it's because
Speaker 1: I just sent you two thousand push notifications letting you
Speaker 1: know that you're the winner this week. Whether it's not
Speaker 1: letting a disheveled doc managers sleep for days on end,
Speaker 1: or deciding that the name of a state of the
Speaker 1: art research boat should be Boatie mcboat face. It's truly
Speaker 1: incredible what can be accomplished when a bunch of random
Speaker 1: strangers come together on the Internet with a common goal
Speaker 1: in mind. The Internet What a magical place where I
Speaker 1: go to have only positive experiences with absolutely no detrimental
Speaker 1: effects on mental health or social skills. Did you know
Speaker 1: that there are claw game machines in Japan that you
Speaker 1: can control from anywhere in the world. You just you
Speaker 1: pay money and you can control the claw that's in
Speaker 1: Japan and I'm in Montana. And then after you win
Speaker 1: the stuff, they send it to you and I never
Speaker 1: have to leave my house. I can do this forever, forever, forever.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking bass, not America's bug eyed obsession, the
Speaker 1: large mouth or the less appreciated but far more interesting cousin,
Speaker 1: the small mouth either. No, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: a different type of black bass, one that's a hot
Speaker 1: topic these days if you pay attention to fisheries management circles.
Speaker 1: Spotted bass or spots range from East Texas across the
Speaker 1: Golf Coast to the Florida Panhandle. They're also native throughout
Speaker 1: the Ohio River basin and the central and lower Mississippi
Speaker 1: River basin. The colloquial term spotted bass actually refers to
Speaker 1: two separate but nearly indistinguishable species, one of which is
Speaker 1: causing a whole lot of problems for their more popular relatives,
Speaker 1: but we'll get to that in a minute. In eighteen hundred,
Speaker 1: the French naturalist Bernard Germaine la Sepede described and named
Speaker 1: both large mouth and smallmouth bass. Though he'd never actually
Speaker 1: seen a live specimen, he did get a skin mount
Speaker 1: of a smallmouth and the mail with the dorsal fin
Speaker 1: partially broken off, though, which is how smallmouth bass became
Speaker 1: known as Micropterus dolomu. Micropterus means small fin, and if
Speaker 1: you remember episode twenty seven where we asked Mandy Yurick
Speaker 1: about smallmouth history, you already know about the dolomu part.
Speaker 1: Dolo might give my name and mother my name. A
Speaker 1: couple of decades later, another Frenchman, Constantine rough Nesque, was
Speaker 1: the first scientist who recognize spotted bass as a separate species,
Speaker 1: but he was kind of an eccentric outcast, so his theory,
Speaker 1: though correct, was ignored for another hundred years or so.
Speaker 1: If you're wondering why French naturalists played such a big
Speaker 1: role in identifying North American fish, you gotta remember the
Speaker 1: time period. The US had recently parted ways with the British,
Speaker 1: so the French were our closest allies, mainly because the
Speaker 1: French can't resist any opportunity to irritate the Brits. The
Speaker 1: spotted bass was officially recognized in n when Michigan theologist Dr.
Speaker 1: Carl Hubbs definitively proved them to be a distinct population
Speaker 1: and not just a subspecies of small mouth. He originally
Speaker 1: named them Kentucky bass, mistakenly believing that they only existed
Speaker 1: in that state. Spotted bass kind of looked like a
Speaker 1: cross between a large mouth and a small mouth. They're
Speaker 1: colored like a large mouth, but their jaws don't extend
Speaker 1: behind their eyes like small mouth. Spots have a shallow
Speaker 1: notch in their dorsal fins, where as large mouth have
Speaker 1: a deeper, more pronounced notch. Spots also have rows of
Speaker 1: relatively distinct horizontal spots below their lateral line, hence the
Speaker 1: name spotted bass. From the time of their official discovery,
Speaker 1: up till the mid nineteen eighties or so, spots weren't
Speaker 1: much of a topic of conversation. They were around, and
Speaker 1: people caught plenty of them, but they weren't all that exciting.
Speaker 1: Spots generally don't get as big as either large mouth
Speaker 1: or small mouth, so there was something of an afterthought.
Speaker 1: But in California fisheries, biologists were experimenting with planting different
Speaker 1: strains of bass in their relatively new reservoir systems to
Speaker 1: feed on all the other fish they had introduced there.
Speaker 1: Spotted bass were transported from Louis Lake in Alabama and
Speaker 1: put in Paris Lake, California Department of Fishing Games specifically
Speaker 1: chose individuals from Louis Lake because the spotted bass there
Speaker 1: had a tendency to grow larger than other populations. Less
Speaker 1: than a decade later, Paris Lake was pumping out record
Speaker 1: spots nearly every season. That population was used to stock
Speaker 1: other California lakes, where the fish continued to grow to
Speaker 1: impressive proportions big enough to get bass anglers fired up.
Speaker 1: In Bullard's Bar Reservoir kicked out the current world record,
Speaker 1: which weighed in at eleven pounds four ounces. Fisheries and
Speaker 1: bucket biologists to like thought they were onto something. Spots
Speaker 1: have a reputation as pretty indiscriminate feeders, making them willing
Speaker 1: targets even when other bassar locked up. When introduced into
Speaker 1: new systems out west, the first few generations got massive fast,
Speaker 1: so soon anglers started bringing spots from places that were
Speaker 1: known to produce larger specimens, primarily in Alabama and northern Georgia,
Speaker 1: to their home waters. These anglers thought they were doing
Speaker 1: their lakes and themselves a favor, bringing in larger versions
Speaker 1: of the stunted spots to beef up their bycatch. Ironically,
Speaker 1: those imports are now decimating the most hallowed sport fish
Speaker 1: in some places. In two thousand eight, searchers discovered that
Speaker 1: Alabama spotted bass are actually a completely different fish from
Speaker 1: the originally described Kentucky spotted bass. Though the two are
Speaker 1: identical to the naked eye, the only way to tell
Speaker 1: them apart is to count the poured scales in a
Speaker 1: fish's ladder line with a magnifying glass. If it has
Speaker 1: seventy or fewer, it's a Kentucky spot. If it has
Speaker 1: seventy one or more, it's an Alabama bass. Alabama bass
Speaker 1: create problems for both smallmouth and large mouth, which Kentucky
Speaker 1: spotted bass generally don't. Steve Salmons, an Auburn Fisheries scientists
Speaker 1: who specializes in black back species, describes them this way.
Speaker 1: Alabama bass are an extremely adaptable, aggressive fish that tend
Speaker 1: to be able to outcompete or hybridize with almost any
Speaker 1: other bass species they come in contact with. Georgia, East Tennessee,
Speaker 1: and North Carolina bass fisheries have been hit particularly hard
Speaker 1: in the past decade, where some world class smalmouth and
Speaker 1: large mouth fisheries have seen signal eificant declients. In some
Speaker 1: North Carolina bass lakes, anglers now report catching three Alabama
Speaker 1: bass for every one large mouth or small mouth Bill. Frasier,
Speaker 1: conservation director for the North Carolina b Ass Nation, was
Speaker 1: quoted as saying we had national class fisheries rivaled only
Speaker 1: by Texas and Florida. Now they are ruined to make
Speaker 1: things worse. While the Alabama bass and California reservoirs grew
Speaker 1: to trophy size, it appears that in many systems where
Speaker 1: other bass are already present, introduced Alabama spots don't get
Speaker 1: much larger than Kentucky spots. This is yet another reminder
Speaker 1: that bucket biology is a bad idea. Moving fish between
Speaker 1: waters is illegal, but more importantly, it can backfire. I
Speaker 1: realize anglers who do this usually think they're doing themselves
Speaker 1: and other people of favor, but most North Carolina bass
Speaker 1: anglers aren't feeling too appreciative. The good news, however, is
Speaker 1: it spotted bass are both plentiful and tasty, and if
Speaker 1: anglers in the nose you cutting up a limit of
Speaker 1: spots at the boat ram, they'll probably give you a
Speaker 1: nod of approval, Whereas if you do the same thing
Speaker 1: with a pile of large mouth or Smalley's, you might
Speaker 1: get your trailer tires slashed. So I'll tell you what, man,
Speaker 1: many people over the years have tried to lure me
Speaker 1: into the spotted bass game. And it's not that I
Speaker 1: don't want to do it. I just haven't gotten around
Speaker 1: to it. But I've been tipped off to these as
Speaker 1: like seasonal river runs for them in the South and
Speaker 1: mid Atlantic that sound really awesome, really amazing. I also
Speaker 1: get photos from people now and again and they're like,
Speaker 1: did I just catch a large mouth croppy hybrid? And
Speaker 1: I asked where they live, and one hundred percent of
Speaker 1: the time it's in spotted bass territory. And I'm like, nope,
Speaker 1: that is just the spotted bass. Yeah, And that's applicable
Speaker 1: because we actually get a fair number of fish I
Speaker 1: D requests and I like those. I think those, Yeah, I'll.
Speaker 1: I have been known to go all in and like
Speaker 1: call in my friends if I don't instantly recognize them,
Speaker 1: which I don't, and I will. I don't know always
Speaker 1: figured out, but I will do the research and see
Speaker 1: what I can find out, because now I'm just invested. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too. I had a listener dm me a fish
Speaker 1: he caught in California, in San Francisco Delta. No clue
Speaker 1: what it was, but I spent almost forty minutes trying
Speaker 1: to figure it out. I took a guess. I said,
Speaker 1: I think it's this, but if I'm wrong, you know,
Speaker 1: let me know. And he actually he eventually followed up
Speaker 1: and I would dude, I was way off, and it
Speaker 1: was so it was so long ago, this is months ago.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what it was. But it was
Speaker 1: like the blue line, swamp, Gobi loach sucker or something.
Speaker 1: I I know, I know what you're talking about, cause
Speaker 1: he sent that to me too. It was a long
Speaker 1: time ago because I also I did it incorrectly and
Speaker 1: he followed up It's like, nope, it's this. So both
Speaker 1: of us lost some credibility with with whoever that was.
Speaker 1: But more recently I got one from uh Nick squeally
Speaker 1: I think, let's how he says his name, squalia And
Speaker 1: it turned out to be a blue head chub with
Speaker 1: these badass spikes coming up. Yeah, also known as tubercles
Speaker 1: uh And you can see that photo on my Instagram.
Speaker 1: But the point it is, we really do like to
Speaker 1: help out and and We're like, well, no, we can't
Speaker 1: always help, but when we can, and then when we
Speaker 1: have time, and Joe is going to close out the
Speaker 1: show with our end of line center this week by
Speaker 1: schooling it's up on a fly that's not only falling
Speaker 1: off of many radars, but often gets misidentified when radars
Speaker 1: do pick it back up. Well, that's not loud enough.
Speaker 1: The crease fly was invented by Long Island, New York
Speaker 1: based captain Joe Blattos in the late nine nineties to
Speaker 1: imitate peanut bunker, a primary food source of the local stripe,
Speaker 1: bass and blue fish. And the quote I read online
Speaker 1: Blados once described the crease fly as a round popper
Speaker 1: that got run over by a truck, and that's actually
Speaker 1: a spot on description. Crease flies have a short, sparse tail,
Speaker 1: usually made of a pinch of synthetic flash material or bucktail,
Speaker 1: and the body is simply a piece of craft foam
Speaker 1: that starts out sort of bullet shaped, but as then
Speaker 1: folded over around the hook shank and glued together to
Speaker 1: create the profile of a bait fish. Add some eyes,
Speaker 1: maybe get creative with some magic markers, Slather the foam
Speaker 1: in apoxy, and you've got a crease fly. But the
Speaker 1: thing is, you probably don't got a crease fly, because
Speaker 1: this pattern manages to be both a staple or completely
Speaker 1: absent in fly boxes depending on who you talk to.
Speaker 1: If you're a guide in the wool salty fly guy
Speaker 1: that fishes the northeast, strong chance you've got a crease
Speaker 1: flyer too. In fact, it might even be as essential
Speaker 1: to you as a cloudser Minnow outside of this area, however,
Speaker 1: I feel like the issue is that people just aren't
Speaker 1: sure what to do with one, why they need it,
Speaker 1: or what it does exactly. A matter of fact, the
Speaker 1: proper method of fishing a crease fly is often debated
Speaker 1: in fly forums, and in my opinion, there really is
Speaker 1: no right or wrong answer most people, except that the
Speaker 1: crease fly is designed primarily to be fished on the surface.
Speaker 1: What I think throws people off, however, is that they
Speaker 1: expected to fish like a popper. They try to fish
Speaker 1: it like a popper, and when it doesn't work like
Speaker 1: a popper, they cut it off and tie on a popper.
Speaker 1: Because of the crease flies lightweight, slim profile, and thin head,
Speaker 1: it doesn't throw a ton of water, and if you
Speaker 1: try to overstrip it to make it chill, you'll often
Speaker 1: find that you just pull it right out of the water.
Speaker 1: The crease fly is about creating a subtler commotion. It
Speaker 1: gurgles a bit, darts a bit, and if you finesse it,
Speaker 1: it'll even die of a bit. I've found that to
Speaker 1: make it work effectively, it's more about wrist twitching than
Speaker 1: using your whole forearm to work that sucker like a
Speaker 1: muskie fly. In essence, when fish correctly, the crease fly
Speaker 1: is what i'd call a near surface fly, constantly causing
Speaker 1: a general rucus on and just below that salty film.
Speaker 1: But other keyboard commandos insist that the crease fly was
Speaker 1: always intended to be a completely subsurface pattern, and they
Speaker 1: say that what Blottos wanted was for it to be
Speaker 1: fished on an intermediate sinking line that would form a
Speaker 1: belly and pull the fly under during the retrieve. Now,
Speaker 1: without asking Blottos, the truth may never be found. But
Speaker 1: the real truth is the crease fly catches fish with
Speaker 1: both presentations, making very very versatile. It's a favorite of
Speaker 1: mine from mahi mahi as well as stripers, particularly in
Speaker 1: wide open water with no current and in those scenarios
Speaker 1: I actually favor the intermediate sinc tip line method, and
Speaker 1: find that if you can get a crease fly under
Speaker 1: just a few inches, man, when you hit it, that
Speaker 1: thing's got a little wiggle, little shimmy, little wobble that
Speaker 1: those fish just cannot resist. Now, as a river fly,
Speaker 1: it's not as effective because it takes very little water
Speaker 1: flow to override the action you're trying to achieve with
Speaker 1: the rotten line. But I have caught a mess of
Speaker 1: large mouths on creased flies over the years, barely twitching
Speaker 1: one across the surface of a flat com pond on
Speaker 1: a muggy summer evening. Now, perhaps even better than the
Speaker 1: creased flies ability to catch fish is how simple it
Speaker 1: is to tie. Furthermore, it gives you a nice, roomy
Speaker 1: canvas to flex your artistic abilities on. I actually tie
Speaker 1: them with my kids, often letting them add rainbow colors
Speaker 1: and scribbles and whatever else they want before sealing them
Speaker 1: up with a POxy. I've been known to add bluegill patterns,
Speaker 1: frog colors for bass, fire, tiger patterns for pike, and
Speaker 1: subtle pinks and purples to mimic salty bait fish. If, however,
Speaker 1: you just totally suck acid coloring, leave him white, don't
Speaker 1: get trash just as hard. So that's it for this week.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we've not left you with questions like should I
Speaker 1: really be fishing under the power lens? Which you should?
Speaker 1: And our spotted best actually cooler than small mouths, which
Speaker 1: they might be? Or can you be metal and be
Speaker 1: into him radio? Yes you can. Finally, should I buy
Speaker 1: flies from a local shop instead of off Instagram? Yes
Speaker 1: you should, man, But while you're on Instagram not looking
Speaker 1: for cheap flies, tag stuff to generate Angler and Bent podcast.
Speaker 1: We see all of it. We see it all, and
Speaker 1: if we grab something you tag for a repost, you
Speaker 1: get stickers. Also, please please do keep all your questions,
Speaker 1: comments and concerns coming to Bent at the metator dot com.
Speaker 1: We love hearing from you, and I was serious about
Speaker 1: sending us questions. Right. If we get enough good ones,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll build a whole show around them around your questions,
Speaker 1: or maybe we'll make them a regular segment like we
Speaker 1: originally tried to. Who knows all things are possible, Assuming
Speaker 1: that you guys send us good questions, that's that's what
Speaker 1: we need. We'll also take bar nominations, news items awkward
Speaker 1: photos and sales and submissions. Also, if you haven't jumped
Speaker 1: onto the Bent Spotify playlist of tunes we created just
Speaker 1: for you, we're actually just for us, you're missing out.
Speaker 1: It's it's the best playlist ever, according to ten weirdos
Speaker 1: on the Internet. Yeah, I just don't have the ween
Speaker 1: tracks playing around. The children's kind of picked, kind of
Speaker 1: picked the raunchiest and most emotionally scarring ones. Speaking of Rogie,
Speaker 1: don't forget to erase your ask Jeeves search history before
Speaker 1: donating your old computer to the local Catholic school. The
Speaker 1: Woman the Best My Life