Speaker 1: I think it's crunken, steam crunk and steam crunk ron
Speaker 1: Stein or m Stein, I said, three quarters of your
Speaker 1: body will be flash and he said, and what is
Speaker 1: the allocation of water to those three quarters of my body?
Speaker 1: And before I was shown this modification, I was losing
Speaker 1: about the bites when I fished southwest. The follow up,
Speaker 1: Flawning and Boasting just tells me you actually don't have
Speaker 1: a brain cell in your head. Good morning, degenerate anglers,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Bend, the podcast that loves two stroke
Speaker 1: outboard fumes and the mildewy funk of live wells. I'm
Speaker 1: Joe Samli, I'm Miles Nulty, and I'm a dent. On
Speaker 1: board with this, I would be I realized neither of
Speaker 1: those smells are objectively pleasant, but both of them make
Speaker 1: me very happy. Yeah, dude, smell memory is a real thing.
Speaker 1: It is. It is, and and thank you for bringing
Speaker 1: that up because it lets me say some geeky shit
Speaker 1: I learned recently. The old factory bulb, which is the
Speaker 1: part of your brain that sends the smell, sends information
Speaker 1: straight to the hippocampus, the part of your brain that
Speaker 1: turns information into memory. Smells play a huge role in
Speaker 1: memory making, especially the long term memory. So this is weird,
Speaker 1: but I can actually recall the smells of fishing from
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, far better than arguably more important things
Speaker 1: like family members birthdays, which I'm terrible at remembering. I
Speaker 1: don't know why that is, but it's the smell thing.
Speaker 1: I can't smell birthdays, I can smell outboard vimes. Dude, No,
Speaker 1: I'm with you. And here's here's mine, right, my dad's
Speaker 1: old plan out tackle boxes, which as a kid like
Speaker 1: I I'd sneakily root around in all the time while
Speaker 1: he was had this weird man, it was almost like
Speaker 1: this fresh mulch slash sour milk smell. Do you know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about? I wouldn't have described it that way,
Speaker 1: but yes, I think I know what's talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've I've smelled it many times and many other tackle
Speaker 1: boxes over the years. And usually happens, I guess when
Speaker 1: like wet lawers are put away or and and then
Speaker 1: that box isn't open again for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Someone once told me it has something to do with
Speaker 1: gases given off by the plastic lawers getting trapped in
Speaker 1: the box. But that could be totally inaccurate. I don't
Speaker 1: really know the cause, but it's a vivid smell. It's
Speaker 1: a vivid smell. I don't think it's it's rust. I
Speaker 1: would buy the plastic over the rust. And like, to me,
Speaker 1: there's also this undercurrent of of like power bait funk
Speaker 1: somewhere in there, because there was always an arrant piece
Speaker 1: of power bait that got stuck someplace in the box
Speaker 1: and left alone. Yes, but what I will say that
Speaker 1: was like this is pre power bait, so like this
Speaker 1: is like my dad's boxes going back to the early
Speaker 1: eighties before all that. So it's just like plugs and
Speaker 1: a couple bags of plastic worms. No, you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: you precowerbated. It still had that very special I don't
Speaker 1: know what that smell comes from, but I know I
Speaker 1: know the smell of an old tackle box being open.
Speaker 1: That resonates me. And I appreciate the fact that we
Speaker 1: we share these things in common, and I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna push a little further and just to see if
Speaker 1: we have something else in common. I'm gonna ask you
Speaker 1: a stupid question. And I realized before it even jump
Speaker 1: on me. I realized it's a stupid question because it
Speaker 1: doesn't have a definite answer, But I'm gonna ask you
Speaker 1: anyway because I think it's just something that we need
Speaker 1: to talk about. I'm just curious to get your perspective.
Speaker 1: Do you consider fishing to be more art or science? Oh? God,
Speaker 1: that that could not be more loaded. Um, I know,
Speaker 1: I I think I know where you're going with this.
Speaker 1: But before we go off on whatever tangent you have
Speaker 1: in mind, just brief brief pause to remind everyone that
Speaker 1: this podcast is geared up fishing, right, Yes, that it is.
Speaker 1: Uh and and I can honestly say that thirteen Fishing
Speaker 1: does a nice job of combining art and science into
Speaker 1: fishing here because it's both effective and works on the water,
Speaker 1: does what's gotta do, and it's a nice looking it's
Speaker 1: aesthetically pleasing gear. Totally totally this this past shad season.
Speaker 1: I actually leaned on their fate steel line of steelhead
Speaker 1: of rods hard during the shad run out here and
Speaker 1: Chad turn fast like steely, so that extra length and
Speaker 1: softness combats these maneuvers nicely. Yeah, you also got the
Speaker 1: extra length to work through the seams and have a
Speaker 1: little bit more ability to move that line in the river.
Speaker 1: They were there an excellent choice. Those do make very
Speaker 1: fine river steel heading rods, I can say. But I
Speaker 1: actually got the shad fish with you this season for
Speaker 1: the first time, and they worked beautifully. It was great.
Speaker 1: Those fish, dude, those fish pole. I was. I was impressed,
Speaker 1: yea impressed. We won't give we won't give too much away, okay,
Speaker 1: but just strong chance Miles was here to shoot an
Speaker 1: episode of B Side Fishing with me for season two
Speaker 1: and taste those shad that he once claimed this very
Speaker 1: show or delicious with no personal experience at all. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what was the verdict? You will you will have
Speaker 1: to wait and see oh so much. I want to
Speaker 1: stay here, but I'm not gonna give anything away. You
Speaker 1: will all just have to go and watch that episode
Speaker 1: when it comes out. Oh yeah, all will be revealed there. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we got sidetracked, so you asked me if I consider
Speaker 1: fishing more art or science, which is, as you said yourself,
Speaker 1: kind of a stupid question because it's both where are
Speaker 1: we going? Like, what are we really trying to get
Speaker 1: at here? That's that's fair. I left it open edited
Speaker 1: because I was I was hoping you just kind of
Speaker 1: pick up the ball and roll with it and start
Speaker 1: saying some things. But I'm I'm really curious to know
Speaker 1: like where you land in the spectrum of intuitive versus
Speaker 1: pattern based fishing, Right, I think I think that's really
Speaker 1: the more specifically what I'm trying to get it. I
Speaker 1: will I admit that that for myself, I'm more of
Speaker 1: a science guy kind of when it comes to how
Speaker 1: I approach fishing. The guy, Yeah, this is true. You
Speaker 1: know this. I have spreadsheets from every season that I guided,
Speaker 1: logging all kinds of different data, you know, weather, water temperature,
Speaker 1: angler skill, what we fish, what worked, what didn't, how
Speaker 1: the bite changed throughout the day. And I still use
Speaker 1: that information like if I'm if I'm gonna go fishing
Speaker 1: on Saturday, I'll go back through all those logs and
Speaker 1: I'll look at them and and think, all right, what's
Speaker 1: the water temperature, what's the weather, And I'll try and
Speaker 1: use those previous experiences that I documented to help decide
Speaker 1: where I'm gonna go and what I'm gonna use. Sure, Sure,
Speaker 1: And I appreciate that. And I because I've had so
Speaker 1: many false starts with journals. It's not even funny, right,
Speaker 1: But I guess the way I'd sum it up is
Speaker 1: fishing to me is more art. But you can't like
Speaker 1: reach Da Vinci status without the science, or some level
Speaker 1: of science. They have to go hand in hand. Like
Speaker 1: I know a lot of guys that just seem to
Speaker 1: have the touch, you know what I mean, the knack.
Speaker 1: We're just fishier. And none of them are keeping detailed logs.
Speaker 1: They just know how to work this lor that fly
Speaker 1: a certain way in this scenario. But none of that
Speaker 1: matters if you don't have some understanding of the science
Speaker 1: behind your target. And I don't I put myself into
Speaker 1: this category. I guess like I consider whether in Tampson
Speaker 1: all that, But usually when I pick a lor fly,
Speaker 1: it just feels right. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not.
Speaker 1: But I tend to lean on my gut more than
Speaker 1: data I want. If I'm being honest, I've never been
Speaker 1: one of those guys that's just like inherently fishy, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm I'm I consider myself a very good angler.
Speaker 1: I've try fished a lot, but I'm not one of
Speaker 1: those people that just like, oh it just it just
Speaker 1: comes to me. There's no right or wrong like you're
Speaker 1: you're you're in good standing either way. Like I'm not
Speaker 1: making fun of that, no, no, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's a really it's a real thing
Speaker 1: within the fishing community. There are those people, and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie. Part of me kind of hates them
Speaker 1: that they just they have this weird sixth sense where
Speaker 1: they're like, Oh, I'm gonna use this and it's gonna work,
Speaker 1: Like why did that work? And I've always wanted to
Speaker 1: be more that way. I wish I had more confidence
Speaker 1: in my intuition. It's not like I'm afraid to change
Speaker 1: up my program in the middle of the fissure but
Speaker 1: it's not working. It's not like I'm stuck on whatever
Speaker 1: preconceived idea I started with. But I usually do that
Speaker 1: based on something that I see, like some evidence that
Speaker 1: that the bite might be shifting or or or something
Speaker 1: that's going on that keeps me in like maybe I
Speaker 1: should try this. But it's always based on theory and conjecture.
Speaker 1: I'm just not one of those people that has some
Speaker 1: random hair brained idea popping in my head out of
Speaker 1: nowhere and then and then that works. You see, every
Speaker 1: time I try and make that happen, Like I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: today I'm gonna be doing something that doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: make sense because it works for everybody else that does.
Speaker 1: I just get blanked and then I'm frustrated, and then
Speaker 1: I go back to what I think, based on evidence,
Speaker 1: what I think should be working. Yeah. Yeah, And in fairness,
Speaker 1: I end up there a lot too. But I find
Speaker 1: it more satisfying when the wild card produces. I mean,
Speaker 1: especially like on our real a tough shitty day, and
Speaker 1: when it happens, I suddenly could care less why you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like in in the spring as
Speaker 1: an example, like when the water is still cold, like
Speaker 1: I know I should be fishing a jerk bait for smallis,
Speaker 1: but in times of desperation, when when everything that should
Speaker 1: isn't isn't producing anything, like I've thrown on a jitterbug
Speaker 1: and just been like, I don't know why not nothing
Speaker 1: else has worked, and then like it gets trashed. And
Speaker 1: with stuff like that, I feel like I'm not going
Speaker 1: to figure out why and it may never happen again,
Speaker 1: so just enjoy it, like, don't analyze it. No, I
Speaker 1: don't know why it happened. I agree, I agree. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like I I wish I had that. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna throwing the I've tried the jitterbug analogy
Speaker 1: and I end up being like, well that didn't work either,
Speaker 1: that was stupid, and that's usually doesn't. But every once
Speaker 1: in a while, it's like this water's thirty two degrees
Speaker 1: and he just came up and smoked that. That's. Nothing
Speaker 1: ever written in history about fishing says that should have happened.
Speaker 1: And your point is good, because you have to try
Speaker 1: those ideas for them to ever work. If you don't
Speaker 1: try them and you don't try them with confidence, they
Speaker 1: never work. And that is where I struggle. And for example,
Speaker 1: my father was the opposite of me. He was completely
Speaker 1: intuitive in the way that he approached fishing. That dude
Speaker 1: never read a fishing magazine or a book or a
Speaker 1: website in his life. Whatever decisions he made about what
Speaker 1: to fish or how to fish or wear to cat
Speaker 1: any fishing decision he ever made was never cluttered with
Speaker 1: any you know, like what you're supposed to do interference.
Speaker 1: He just didn't have any of that. He wasn't knowledgeable
Speaker 1: in the classic sense, and he wasn't actually a very
Speaker 1: good angler, but he caught bigger fish than me almost
Speaker 1: all the time, and to be to be I just
Speaker 1: want to tell everybody, I'm not saying anything that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have and didn't say to his face, Like if
Speaker 1: you were here right now, I would I would say, like, Dad,
Speaker 1: by the time I was ten, I was a far
Speaker 1: better fisherman than you. But like the fact that I
Speaker 1: was more skillful and informed didn't matter. He still caught
Speaker 1: the biggest fish and it drove me nuts. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been a better angler than my dad
Speaker 1: since I was born, I think. And he'll call me
Speaker 1: as soon as he hears this. As soon as he
Speaker 1: hears this, um, you know. And he hit the fire,
Speaker 1: no doubt, he nurtured the flame. But then I used
Speaker 1: that flame to burn the city down, and he was like,
Speaker 1: I can't keep up with this fire. It's just too
Speaker 1: much fire. That's that. That's another story for later. Anyway,
Speaker 1: We're gonna start things off today with the Smooth Moves
Speaker 1: about an unnamed famous person whose approach to fishing would
Speaker 1: most definitely skew towards the scientific approach. Why it is
Speaker 1: time again for smooth moves. You know the part of
Speaker 1: the show where we call up people who make their
Speaker 1: money taking other people fishing, and we get them to
Speaker 1: tell the stories of some of the most ridiculous things
Speaker 1: they've ever seen wall fishing with clients joining us today
Speaker 1: are good, good friend, Hilary Hutson, Hillary, how's it going, Hey,
Speaker 1: how's it going good? It's all about the stories, it is,
Speaker 1: and in that spirit, like the purpose of this segment
Speaker 1: is to bring everyone out there into that guy check
Speaker 1: for a little bit of those those complaining sessions. All right,
Speaker 1: So Hillary, with with that tea up, what did you
Speaker 1: bring for us today? Well, so many of us who
Speaker 1: guide in Montana end up taking celebrities. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you get anything from like a pro football coach to
Speaker 1: an actress to you know whatever. At some level, it's
Speaker 1: going to be somebody who has all of the money
Speaker 1: and all of the fame and fortune and all of
Speaker 1: the power. It's like it's space time, continuum, vortex of
Speaker 1: weirdness and that that was this particular day. And it
Speaker 1: kind of starts what by they're so famous that we
Speaker 1: had three boats of security with this person. I'm not
Speaker 1: mentioning this person's name, but he was late and at
Speaker 1: the last second decided to switch from a fly fishing
Speaker 1: trip to a whitewater rafting trip. And um, so, like
Speaker 1: I said, they're late, real late. It was like seven
Speaker 1: pm in July. We're supposed to put on it like
Speaker 1: four or five. And yeah. So the first thing I say,
Speaker 1: because I've got some snacks. We're all waiting at the
Speaker 1: pud in and so I've got some snacks and so
Speaker 1: I say to you know, super famous, rich, powerful portions,
Speaker 1: are you hungry? And he is terror stricken in his face,
Speaker 1: like he goes white, like he's not sure, and he
Speaker 1: looks at one of his handlers and he says, am
Speaker 1: I hungry And they say no, and he looks at me.
Speaker 1: He goes, oh, yeah, we just ate. That's why we're late,
Speaker 1: right of course, of course it is. So so then
Speaker 1: um we start walking down to the raft and we
Speaker 1: go to to get in and I kind of say, okay,
Speaker 1: I kind of watch your stuff get in here. And
Speaker 1: he says, now, will I be splashed on this trip?
Speaker 1: And I said, well, yeah, it's so hopefully they've told
Speaker 1: you it's a white water rafting trip, so you're going
Speaker 1: to be splashed. And he says, well, what proportions of
Speaker 1: my body will be splashed? Okay, I gotta cut in
Speaker 1: because we I so badly want all you people to
Speaker 1: know who we're talking about when we promised not to
Speaker 1: do that. But this is just reaffirming that this person,
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, is actually a robot. But also,
Speaker 1: but also let's keep in mind, like you don't get
Speaker 1: to the level that he's at without being some sort
Speaker 1: of superhumpan. So there you go. Um, and he says,
Speaker 1: what proportions of my body will be splashed? And I
Speaker 1: don't know why, how or why, I just like kept
Speaker 1: cool with that. But I said, three quarters of your
Speaker 1: body will be splashed, And he says, and what is
Speaker 1: the allocation of water to those three quarters? So I said,
Speaker 1: I said, I believe you will be evenly splashed along
Speaker 1: the left side of your body, since you're on the
Speaker 1: front left side, and I feel that you will be
Speaker 1: periodically splashed um on the right hand side of your body.
Speaker 1: And he nods like that's a normal, you know, totally normal.
Speaker 1: So we get on the boat and we go he's
Speaker 1: he's um great listener, like really like trying super hard
Speaker 1: the paddling like very much present and kind of there
Speaker 1: and is looking around at the beautiful surroundings here that
Speaker 1: we have in the crown of the continent. And so
Speaker 1: he says this is nice, and I say, well, isn't
Speaker 1: it amazing? I say, this is yours, This is your
Speaker 1: public lands. And I at this point see this opportunity
Speaker 1: because this is the kind of person. We want to
Speaker 1: understand that this is our shared environment. These are our
Speaker 1: public lands. Here we are two and a half million
Speaker 1: acres of wilderness between the Bob Martial Wilderness and the
Speaker 1: Great Bear Wilderness, Scapegoat Wilderness and Glacier National Park. Here
Speaker 1: we are. And I tell him this is your land.
Speaker 1: This is your land. And he sits up straight and
Speaker 1: looks over to one of the boats of his security
Speaker 1: and handlers and says, do I own this? And I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: oh goodness. I think he thinks he was, because I
Speaker 1: just told him this this is your land. You own this.
Speaker 1: I teld him that this is yours. He says, is
Speaker 1: this mine? He asked them, Is this mine? And I said,
Speaker 1: I said well, And they say and they're they're looking
Speaker 1: at each other like, I don't know, maybe it is
Speaker 1: maybe we bought this I'm not sure, and so I
Speaker 1: have to clarify. And we have a public lands lesson,
Speaker 1: and we talked about this, you know that, and I
Speaker 1: kind of even get into this is this is Native
Speaker 1: American land like and what I mean, this is like
Speaker 1: history lesson. We get super super deep in it. And
Speaker 1: it was remarkable to see somebody learn about their public
Speaker 1: lands like that. And he listened. Was remarkable that he listened.
Speaker 1: He listened, and I could tell he was like putting
Speaker 1: it somewhere. I don't know exactly where or if there's
Speaker 1: room up there for it, but it seemed that he
Speaker 1: was kind of filing in a way, UM, which I
Speaker 1: really appreciated. UM. And then I'll end by telling you
Speaker 1: that one of our other guides had an internship at NASA,
Speaker 1: his lifelong goal. He's this young kid, super young kid,
Speaker 1: internship at NASA. And uh, famous powerful person said well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, you can't. You shouldn't go work in
Speaker 1: the government. You gotta work for for private sector. You
Speaker 1: gotta work for the private sector. It got so tense
Speaker 1: that I said, oh, Kayden, this guy, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh bluddy, no, don't worry, no matter like how rich
Speaker 1: and famous and powerful, you get all roads lead back
Speaker 1: to glacier. You could just end up being a fishing
Speaker 1: bomb for the rest of your life. And rich, famous,
Speaker 1: powerful person looks at him and says, Cayden, don't listen
Speaker 1: to her. That's just her. You can be whatever you
Speaker 1: want to be you put your mind to it. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but to me, it feels mean that we're not telling
Speaker 1: people who that was about. No, we we promised I
Speaker 1: knew you're we're Beholden Sworen not to reveal the identity,
Speaker 1: and the person in question here could crush us, like
Speaker 1: he could erase us from the planet with one key stroke.
Speaker 1: So we're not taking that chance. Yeah, I know, I know,
Speaker 1: you're right, We'll drop it. I gotta say that, while
Speaker 1: I love that story and I found it fascinating portrait
Speaker 1: of a person whose brain just works differently than my own,
Speaker 1: it wasn't really a fishing story, Like he didn't never
Speaker 1: really go fishing. That's true, that's true, he was supposed to,
Speaker 1: but he changed it up. But Hillary is a fishing
Speaker 1: guide and that's the purpose of that segment. So I
Speaker 1: think it still fits kind of like the book that
Speaker 1: I'm about to describe this week, right, that's right. You've
Speaker 1: got a freaking philistine segment this week where you're going
Speaker 1: to try and convince all of us to read a
Speaker 1: book that has nothing to do with fishing at all.
Speaker 1: Good luck with that fist. It's a guy who doesn't
Speaker 1: care about books. Are interesting films and things that I'm
Speaker 1: quick disclaimer. Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller is
Speaker 1: not a book about fishing, but it is about fish
Speaker 1: kind of. It's also about the desperate impulse to identify
Speaker 1: patterns and impose order on the world around us. Our
Speaker 1: collective need to construct a coherent framework on the human
Speaker 1: experience so we can feel some sense of comfort in control. Anglers,
Speaker 1: like scientists, don't just want to know that something works.
Speaker 1: We want to know why. We need narratives based on
Speaker 1: our experience to explain natural phenomena and resist chaos. Anglers,
Speaker 1: in my experience, to test chaos, and in that way,
Speaker 1: at least, Lulu Miller is one of us. Miller's first
Speaker 1: page states quote, it's not if it's when chaos is
Speaker 1: the only sure thing in this world, the master that
Speaker 1: rules us all. My scientist father taught me early on
Speaker 1: that there is no escaping the second law of thermodynamics.
Speaker 1: Entropy is only growing. It can never be diminished, no
Speaker 1: matter what we do. Miller goes on to explain she
Speaker 1: was indoctrinated into this truth at the age of seven.
Speaker 1: Standing on a picturesque seaside doctoring a family vacation, she
Speaker 1: asked her father the meaning of life. He responded, nothing. Chaos,
Speaker 1: he informed her, was our only ruler. This massive swirl
Speaker 1: of dumb forces was what made us accidentally and would
Speaker 1: destroy us imminently. As special as you might feel, he
Speaker 1: told his young daughter, you are no different than an aunt.
Speaker 1: A bit bigger, maybe, but no more significant. Miller describes
Speaker 1: her father as quote a lively man who studies ions
Speaker 1: the particles that carry the electricity that powers all life, heartbeat, lightning,
Speaker 1: even thought itself. He doesn't use seatbelts or return addresses,
Speaker 1: drinks copious amounts of beer, and enters the water whenever
Speaker 1: possible with the belliest of flops. He seems to permit
Speaker 1: himself just one lie to constrain his otherwise voracious hedonism,
Speaker 1: to form a kind of moral code. While other people
Speaker 1: don't matter either, treat them like they do. What could
Speaker 1: be a grim reality has instead pumped his life full
Speaker 1: of vigor has made him live big and good. But
Speaker 1: that vacuous truth affected Miller differently than her father. For
Speaker 1: a smart child with an overactive mind who might skew
Speaker 1: toward narcissism, the terrifying truth of her own insignificance landed heavily,
Speaker 1: and it's ripples sculpted the trajectory of her life. This
Speaker 1: book traces the peaks and troughs of those ripples, and
Speaker 1: the unexpected people discoveries, tragedies, and joys to which their
Speaker 1: nihilistic force pushes the author. One of her primary discoveries
Speaker 1: is a man named David Starr Jordan's Jordan was arguably
Speaker 1: the most important theologist of all time. He and his
Speaker 1: crew discovered named and classified morph species than anyone else
Speaker 1: in history. He was the founding president of Stanford University.
Speaker 1: He was also a staunch and outspoken pacifist at a
Speaker 1: time when that wasn't really a thing, and a leading
Speaker 1: American proponent of the eugenics movement, but we'll get into
Speaker 1: that later. Miller was attracted to Jordan because, as she says, quote,
Speaker 1: it was his day job to fight chaos. He was
Speaker 1: a taxonomist, the kind of scientists charged with bringing order
Speaker 1: to the chaos of the earth by uncovering the shape
Speaker 1: of the Great Tree of life. His specialty was fish,
Speaker 1: and he spent his days sailing the globe in search
Speaker 1: of new species. He and his crew would eventually discover
Speaker 1: a full fifth of the fish known to man in
Speaker 1: his day. By the thousand, he reeled in new species,
Speaker 1: dreaming up names for them, punching those names into shiny
Speaker 1: tin tags. In Jordan's Miller hoped to discover the secret
Speaker 1: to finding peace in a world ruled by chaos, so
Speaker 1: she embarked on her own journey. Only, instead of discovering
Speaker 1: and cataloging the world's fish, she set out to learn
Speaker 1: everything she could about the man. Along the way, Miller's
Speaker 1: fascination and faith in Jordan becomes nearly title, sometimes flooding inland,
Speaker 1: other times receding to bear mud, like when she discovers
Speaker 1: his role in the American eugenics movement without getting too
Speaker 1: far afield here. Eugenics was a fringe belief coined in
Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century by a British scientist who theorized
Speaker 1: that the forces of evolution could be manipulated to select
Speaker 1: for a master race of humans. By breeding out traits
Speaker 1: he incorrectly believed to be associated with blood, poverty, criminality, illiteracy,
Speaker 1: feeble mindedness, promiscuity, and more. This grossly misguided concept gained
Speaker 1: traction in some circles of biological study and was one
Speaker 1: of the primary justifications for the Holocaust, as well as
Speaker 1: lots of other terrible atrocities. Point being, Jordan's association with
Speaker 1: this movement tarnished some of his shine in Miller's eyes.
Speaker 1: Worst of all, Jordan's suffered no repercussions for his vociferous
Speaker 1: championing of racist pseudoscience during his lifetime. He got off
Speaker 1: scot free. The legacy of his life's work cataloging so
Speaker 1: many of the world's fishes, however, was not so lucky.
Speaker 1: I'll let Miller take it from here on out. What
Speaker 1: David Starr Jordan's set in motion by practicing the art
Speaker 1: of taxonomy, by following Darwin's advice to sort creatures by
Speaker 1: evolutionary closeness, led to a fateful discovery in the es.
Speaker 1: Taxonomists realized that fish, as a legitimate category of creature
Speaker 1: do not exist. Birds exist, mammals exist, amphibians exist, but
Speaker 1: fish in particular do not exist down in the water.
Speaker 1: Beneath their costumes of scales exist all kinds of creatures.
Speaker 1: There are Sarcopterygii, the lungfish and the sealy cants are
Speaker 1: evolutionary cousins in a sense mermaids with lungs on top,
Speaker 1: tails on low, then across some huge evolutionary divide, or
Speaker 1: the actino terr g I, salmon, bass, trout, eels, gar
Speaker 1: Though they appear like twins of the sarcoptery g I,
Speaker 1: slimy and scaly and fishy as can be, on the inside,
Speaker 1: they are a world apart. Then you've got the sharks
Speaker 1: and rays, the conjrict these as they are called, a
Speaker 1: puzzling group in their smooth skin and voluptuous bodies. I
Speaker 1: always thought I recognized a closeness to mammals, but it
Speaker 1: turns out there even further from us than the scaly
Speaker 1: trout and eels, much older evolutionarily, the category fish hides
Speaker 1: all of this, hides nuance, discounts intelligence, It Jerrymander's close
Speaker 1: cousins away from us, creating a false sense of separation.
Speaker 1: To preserve our spot at the top of an imaginary ladder, Dude,
Speaker 1: quit with my head and everybody else's head. If fish
Speaker 1: don't exist, then like, what the hell have I been
Speaker 1: out catching lately? If there are no fish, how can
Speaker 1: there be fishing? Were you listening, Joe? Did you listen
Speaker 1: to anything that I just said? Yes? Mostly yes? There.
Speaker 1: You're right. There are creatures that live in water and
Speaker 1: we catch them and call them fish. I'm not no
Speaker 1: one in fact is arguing the physical existence of bass
Speaker 1: or stripers, But the concept of fish, the way we
Speaker 1: look at fish as one singular and related type of life,
Speaker 1: is not supported by scientific evidence. It's I get it.
Speaker 1: It's a mind bender, and it poses some semantic problems
Speaker 1: for the term fishing, but that's not really the point.
Speaker 1: The point is that book changed the way that I
Speaker 1: think about fish, and and also eugenics. Yeah, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I I prefer to keep you genics out of my fishing.
Speaker 1: But hopefully one of us found a story this week
Speaker 1: that can change the way our listeners think about fish,
Speaker 1: which means it's time for fish news. Fish news that
Speaker 1: escalated quickly. Hey, so before we dive headlong into those
Speaker 1: current events, here's an important message in case you missed
Speaker 1: it in my social media or mediator social media this week.
Speaker 1: The final episode of season one of B Side Fishing
Speaker 1: drop this week, and it's sort of a I'll call
Speaker 1: it like a rap party bonus. We're giving one lucky
Speaker 1: winner every single thirteen fishing rod and reel that you
Speaker 1: saw me use in season one of B Side. That
Speaker 1: is correct, yes, but I want to clear I I
Speaker 1: gotta clear one point up there. It's don't think Joe's
Speaker 1: gonna just jam like of the actual beat up that
Speaker 1: he's destroyed and mail it to your house. Good point.
Speaker 1: We're we're kind of little rent on the show, but
Speaker 1: we're not that little Rent. No, you're actually gonna be
Speaker 1: getting like brand new, never used versions of all the
Speaker 1: rods and reels that were featured on camera. But it's
Speaker 1: new stuff, not instroid stuff. Indeed, indeed and all total. Right,
Speaker 1: that's about eleven smackers clams worth of tackle in one shot.
Speaker 1: Now in that mix will be their heaviest Omen green
Speaker 1: and prototype TX saltwater spinning rod and reel, which I
Speaker 1: used to smash those mahi's in episode one. You're gonna
Speaker 1: get an Omen black spinning rod and a smaller Prototype X.
Speaker 1: I use those to chase pickerel and a Krankenstein bait
Speaker 1: caster match with a big old concept a three low
Speaker 1: profile reel. Think it's getting here. I think it's kronken Stein,
Speaker 1: Crone or Ramstein. Yeah, uh, that's that One's that's the one.
Speaker 1: The kronken Stein was what you used in the final
Speaker 1: episode to hammer on the Delicious Dog, right, Yes, it was,
Speaker 1: and it was. It was actually a really perfect outfit
Speaker 1: for for light tackle talking because I was using jags
Speaker 1: and it it paired very well with talk jigs. However,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, whoever
Speaker 1: wins that strong chance they're not going to be using
Speaker 1: it for talk just maybe you never know, but I
Speaker 1: doubt it. And that's okay because really what that outfit
Speaker 1: is is is killer for is swim baiting. Right, It's
Speaker 1: a great swim bait rod and a heavy crank baiting outfit,
Speaker 1: great for bass. I plan to use mine for snakehead frogging,
Speaker 1: and you could probably hurt you know, some pike or
Speaker 1: salmon with it too. It's it's a really good combo.
Speaker 1: I I used it for for pike, actually for swim
Speaker 1: baits and crank baits for pike, so I I can
Speaker 1: vouch for that. The question now, of course, is how
Speaker 1: do you win this glorious package of rods? And really
Speaker 1: it's good question. Head on over to the meat eater
Speaker 1: dot com slash fish and look for the pop up
Speaker 1: to enter and uh and be quick about it because
Speaker 1: you only have un till mail eleventh. That's four time
Speaker 1: runs out. Best of luck. I hope you win. And
Speaker 1: and that's I'm talking about the royal you, the editorial you.
Speaker 1: I just I just want a Bent listener to win.
Speaker 1: But that's that's what I want. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: let's move on. Let's see who wins Fish News. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's and remember this is a fierce competition. Miles and
Speaker 1: I do not know which stories the other guy is
Speaker 1: bringing to the table. At the end, our audio engineer
Speaker 1: Phil will pick a winner. Assuming he's not out fly
Speaker 1: fishing for basking sharks in Guam. I know he takes
Speaker 1: one week a year off to do that. Anyway, it
Speaker 1: is your leadoff, my friend, get us roll in here,
Speaker 1: all right. I'm gonna start with a story that's still developing,
Speaker 1: but we have covered because it could impact one of
Speaker 1: the most popular fisheries in North America. It appears that
Speaker 1: the walleye population and Lake of the Woods may be
Speaker 1: in trouble. Earlier this week, the Canadian Broadcasting Company published
Speaker 1: an article reporting that the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources
Speaker 1: and Forestry is concerned about the number of walleye they're
Speaker 1: finding in spring netting and creel surveys on on the
Speaker 1: Big l The potential bombshell in this, however, is m
Speaker 1: n RF's claim that recreational harvest on Lake of the
Speaker 1: Woods is above the level of sustainability. The ministry does
Speaker 1: note the commercial and subsistence harvests are also allowed on
Speaker 1: the lake. According to the CBC, m n RF is
Speaker 1: currently working with the Lake of the Woods Fisheries Advisory
Speaker 1: Council to develop a new recreational walleye management plan. The
Speaker 1: details of that plan have not been released, but could
Speaker 1: include altering bag and slot limits and changing the walleye season.
Speaker 1: The group is hoping to have new regulations in effect
Speaker 1: for January one next year. So that's what I found
Speaker 1: reported on the CBC, which is a source that I
Speaker 1: know and can kind of vouch for, But and an
Speaker 1: article in the local Ontario newspaper, The Canora Miner goes
Speaker 1: a little further. According to the Minor, Lake of the
Speaker 1: Woods is the most at risk inland fishery in Ontario,
Speaker 1: both in terms of likelihood of collapse and the resulting
Speaker 1: socioeconomic impact if the fishery does collapse. The Minor quotes
Speaker 1: m n RF as saying that the walleye population is
Speaker 1: approximately half of what is needed to sustainably support current
Speaker 1: levels of harvest, and that's a huge fish deficit. If
Speaker 1: you're familiar with Lake of the Woods, you you get
Speaker 1: why this is a big deal, right. Lake of the
Speaker 1: Woods is one of the premier walleye fishing lakes in
Speaker 1: the world, and it's a big uh and and people
Speaker 1: who the Upper Midwest are kind of insane when it
Speaker 1: comes to walleye. Lake of the Woods is super unique.
Speaker 1: It it straddles the US Canada border and a provincial
Speaker 1: border in Canada, so it's jointly managed by fisheries departments
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, Manitoba and Ontario. Manning any world class and
Speaker 1: extremely popular recreational harvest fishery is complicated and difficult, but
Speaker 1: trying to juggle that management between three different agencies makes
Speaker 1: a task even more complex. So far, Ontario is the
Speaker 1: only one of the three to publicly address this issue,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that they're all, you know, theoretically dealing
Speaker 1: with the same population of fish. In fact, Minnesota's dn
Speaker 1: R reports that the walleye population is just slightly below
Speaker 1: average and and that's an average day back. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna I'm just gonna do it quick foreshadowing. We did
Speaker 1: not crossover on stories, but we came close. And my
Speaker 1: story it's we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna talk some
Speaker 1: walleyes today. Go on, this is so much wallet today,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's the it's the walleye time of year.
Speaker 1: Uh So, the Minnesota dna R site high harvest levels
Speaker 1: the past two years and weak recruitment from is factors
Speaker 1: for slightly lower levels of harvestable size walleye, but nothing
Speaker 1: reported by the Minnesota side comes close to the dire
Speaker 1: predictions from their counterparts on the northern border of the lake.
Speaker 1: This is all concerning from a fishery perspective, just for
Speaker 1: those of us who care about fish, but the real
Speaker 1: challenge here will be the economic variables. Walleye fishing on
Speaker 1: Lake of the Woods is like it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: overstate how popular it is and ice fishing in particular
Speaker 1: is like it's one of the places to go, and
Speaker 1: it gets more popular every year. On the Minnesota side alone,
Speaker 1: recreational anglers harvested over a half million pounds of walleye
Speaker 1: in in about three and a half million hours of fishing,
Speaker 1: though the numbers for out yet they're predicted to be
Speaker 1: significantly higher as more and more people got out fishing
Speaker 1: last year for the COVID thing. Though I couldn't find
Speaker 1: comprehensive figures for the economic value of of Lake of
Speaker 1: the Woods fishing, Ontario estimates that the province brings in
Speaker 1: a hundred and twelve million dollars from anglers, and I
Speaker 1: think it's safe to assume that Minnesota's numbers are comparable.
Speaker 1: Changes in management could help maintain that wallet popular, but
Speaker 1: would most certainly hurt fishing related businesses, which, at least
Speaker 1: on the Canadian side, have already taken a major hit
Speaker 1: from the travel restrictions. Things get even more sticky if
Speaker 1: regulations get tighter in Canadian waters, but not on the U.
Speaker 1: S side, where anglers are currently allowed four walleye per day. Now,
Speaker 1: Minnesota has historically shown a willingness to tighten restrictions when
Speaker 1: walleye population struggle. The famed Malax, once the premier walleye
Speaker 1: harvest fishery in the state, now has strict regulations and
Speaker 1: harvest caps, allowing anglers just one fish per day in
Speaker 1: a very narrow slot, and they close down all walleye
Speaker 1: harvest once a predetermined threshold is reached, which sometimes happens
Speaker 1: even before open water fishing begins. Though Minnesota DNR has
Speaker 1: imposed these kinds of draconian restrictions in the past, they
Speaker 1: might be wary of doing it again. Aggressive management on
Speaker 1: Malas has maintained the trophy walleye fishery, but the limited
Speaker 1: ability to keep fish drove many walleye anglers elsewhere and
Speaker 1: has harmed local businesses, And the result of that has
Speaker 1: been a whole lot of anger and frustration aimed at
Speaker 1: the DNR. So this is one of those stories we're
Speaker 1: gonna keep an eye on. It's it's almost impossible to
Speaker 1: overstate Minnesotan's passion for catching and eating wallet. I cannot
Speaker 1: express what a big deal that is. And to be fair,
Speaker 1: it's not just Minnesota, but like all over the Upper Midwest,
Speaker 1: in parts of Canada, it's like a religion out there.
Speaker 1: I personally don't get it. I don't get I'll say
Speaker 1: it again, I don't understand the wallab session while I
Speaker 1: while I'm fishing, usually it's usually trolling or jigging. Not always,
Speaker 1: but usually trolling or jigging, And I consider those to
Speaker 1: be some of the most boring ways that you can fish. Uh,
Speaker 1: while I like, they don't bite that well there, it's
Speaker 1: usually like a timid bite. And they don't fight. They
Speaker 1: don't fight, they don't. I would fish smallmouth over Wiley
Speaker 1: every single thousand, million d percent every time. And finally,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say one more thing here, and this is
Speaker 1: what's gonna get me some hate mail. While I are
Speaker 1: not as good to eat as people make them, not
Speaker 1: to be said that the pike taste just as good
Speaker 1: as while I and perch er better. There, I said it,
Speaker 1: That's what I think. But I'm alone in this. I'm
Speaker 1: in a small minority, and I get how important these
Speaker 1: fish are. Okay, well, so I'm gonna we're gonna reserve
Speaker 1: banter because I Am not kidding you. Man, Like, for
Speaker 1: a second I thought we crossed over, but we didn't.
Speaker 1: But my first story is gonna go it's just hand
Speaker 1: in glove with this, like it's almost like a continuation
Speaker 1: of this. UM and I just kicked back and and
Speaker 1: remind everybody. We recently had j Siemens on the show
Speaker 1: for Smooth Moves, and uh, you know, Jay lives in Ontario,
Speaker 1: and during that conversation we also touched on our lack
Speaker 1: of ability right now as US residents to visit Canada
Speaker 1: to go fish due to covid um. A matter of fact,
Speaker 1: the province of Ontario where Jay lives, just recently got
Speaker 1: thrown into a very very strict lockdown because it seems
Speaker 1: the covids are flaring like a pack of hemorrhoids up there.
Speaker 1: And not only are Americans still not allowed to visit,
Speaker 1: you can't even cross province borders within Canada right now.
Speaker 1: So if you live in Quebec, you can't go to Ontario. UM.
Speaker 1: And we've we've certainly touched on how these restrictions are
Speaker 1: hurting Canadian fishing operations, but what I've never considered was
Speaker 1: the impact this border closure could have on US fisheries,
Speaker 1: not until I found this story on the website of
Speaker 1: Minnesota's Twin Cities Pioneer Press. Now you just talked about
Speaker 1: Lake of the Woods. It's neighbor like they're practically touching.
Speaker 1: Is Lake Vermillion? Okay, way way up at the Tippity
Speaker 1: top of Minnesota, real close to the border. Um And
Speaker 1: according to this story, all the folks, and there are
Speaker 1: lots and lots of them that made an annual trek
Speaker 1: to Canada to fish, are trying to maintain that Northwoods
Speaker 1: experience despite those border closures and inability to visit their
Speaker 1: you know, favorite Canadian lodge. So what's the next best thing?
Speaker 1: Fishing and staying at US lakes that are as far
Speaker 1: north and close to the border as possible. Right, So,
Speaker 1: the lodges and motels and such around Lake for Million
Speaker 1: have seen such an uptick and visitors since the pandemics
Speaker 1: started that people in the community are genuinely concerned that
Speaker 1: that lake is going to get over fished in particularly
Speaker 1: the wall Eyes, because like we just talked about, that
Speaker 1: tends to be the draw. That's what people hop the
Speaker 1: border for fill those coolers, right, But with the border
Speaker 1: closed now, the pressure is not being evenly distributed throughout
Speaker 1: all these different lakes people will travel to. And keep
Speaker 1: in mind this this is just about Vermillion. You just
Speaker 1: talked about Lake of the Woods. I'm sure this is
Speaker 1: happening in other lakes across the country. So the current
Speaker 1: walleye limit at Vermilion is four walleyes under twenty inches
Speaker 1: and one over twenty six inches per day. Those are
Speaker 1: the state rags and it doesn't appear that Minnesota's Department
Speaker 1: of Natural Resources is going to change that. And I
Speaker 1: have a better perspective on that now because you mentioned
Speaker 1: that they were with Malax. They were sort of like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: maybe we shouldn't have done that, Like like there's some hesitancy.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a that's a whole we could do
Speaker 1: a whole fish news on that. Man, it's exactly a
Speaker 1: deep dark tale. But there are some piste off people
Speaker 1: right right. It's it's very twisted. But but right now
Speaker 1: um D n R is not not looking to change that.
Speaker 1: But the Vermilion Lake Association is stepping up to thwart
Speaker 1: possible long term impacts, and they've created a coalition of
Speaker 1: fishing guides, resort owners, local businesses, and even the local
Speaker 1: le Jibway tribe to ask anglers to keep only two
Speaker 1: walleyes per day instead of the legal limit of four. Now,
Speaker 1: this is voluntary of course, right, Um, they're they're trying
Speaker 1: to convince englers to keep only two walleyes between twelve
Speaker 1: and eighteen inches, no trophies, five crop eas instead of
Speaker 1: legal ten, and also not to keep any bass or
Speaker 1: muskies at all. And the Lake Association has been passing
Speaker 1: out hundreds of laminated cards all over the area hoping
Speaker 1: it will get anglers to adopt these voluntary bag limits. Now, again,
Speaker 1: tying back to your story, man, this could be a
Speaker 1: hard road for multiple reasons, one being that the high
Speaker 1: walleye bag limits have been touted for years by these
Speaker 1: resorts and businesses. People want to go there because they
Speaker 1: can keep a lot of walleyes, so this was a
Speaker 1: huge selling point, and it's it's it's not easy to
Speaker 1: change minds. But again, to go back to Minnesota d
Speaker 1: n R, Right, they're not really fully on the side
Speaker 1: of this coalition. And here's a quote from the story.
Speaker 1: Et Everts Tower, Area Fisheries supervisor for the Minnesota d
Speaker 1: n R said the agency supports the effort to release
Speaker 1: more fish, but she said the lake's walleye population is
Speaker 1: not in any immediate danger even with more anglers catching
Speaker 1: more fish. Test netting in recent years shows the lake's
Speaker 1: walleye population to be robust, She noted. She says, yes,
Speaker 1: we're seeing more pressure on Lake Familion, but the walleye
Speaker 1: fish remains very healthy. We believe it could sustain a
Speaker 1: higher harvest for a few years without any issues. But
Speaker 1: we're never going to disagree with someone releasing a fish
Speaker 1: if they want. So. Again, you're saying Ontario looking at
Speaker 1: Lake in the Woods is like who whoa, whoa whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: whoa whoa big problem here. It's Minnesota going, I don't
Speaker 1: really problem. So they're saying the same thing on Vermillion,
Speaker 1: which is like the next door neighbor of Lake of
Speaker 1: the Woods, right, So, I mean it's a great experiment
Speaker 1: in terms of self regulation. Um, you know, and the
Speaker 1: way I see it, I'm sure you too cutting back
Speaker 1: a bit until things on the COVID front and the
Speaker 1: visitors normalize even more. It's not gonna hurt certainly can't
Speaker 1: hurt anything. But I mean, I hate to say it.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't put that much faith in tourist anglers.
Speaker 1: I just don't. I see this here with strypers, you know,
Speaker 1: like these guys complain we need to protect him, we
Speaker 1: need to protect him, but then they take their boat's
Speaker 1: limit because it's like, well this is my one trippy year, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we should protect these but like I'm just coming out
Speaker 1: twice a year, like I'm not. I'm keeping it's it's
Speaker 1: it's the same thing as that. It's like, well, no, no,
Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta come up with good management solutions,
Speaker 1: but not not near me, so I don't don't make
Speaker 1: it effect me and my experience exactly exactly, you know. So, um,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you did that story because I meant listening
Speaker 1: to that, it's like, man, there's a lot of similarities,
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting connections here going on between these two.
Speaker 1: You've got one that they're saying, you know, whistle blowing,
Speaker 1: saying the wal Eyes are like really really down, and
Speaker 1: then you've got concerned citizens saying we don't want our
Speaker 1: Walleyes to be down in d n R. Going no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, they're fine. You could totally whack them for
Speaker 1: a few more years, it won't matter. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell a little story, a quick story here that
Speaker 1: maybe we'll it won't solve this problem, but but just
Speaker 1: something for people to chew on to follow up on
Speaker 1: my claim about the palatability of Wales. So when we
Speaker 1: were filming uh last season of DOS Boat, we went
Speaker 1: up to Red Lake, which is another very famous Minnesota
Speaker 1: walleye fishery, and we targeted eater size meaning smaller sized
Speaker 1: UH freshwater drum and all the local walley angers were like,
Speaker 1: those things are gross. They're slimy bastards. That's where we
Speaker 1: got the title for that episode, slimy bastards, because literally
Speaker 1: that's what they call them. So this didn't make the
Speaker 1: episode because we just did it kind of on our own.
Speaker 1: But we had our our our resident culinary expert, Daniel Pruett,
Speaker 1: fry up a chunk of walleye, a chunk of croppy,
Speaker 1: and a chunk of freshwater, jump seasoned and cooked exactly
Speaker 1: the same. And I did a blind taste test with
Speaker 1: three local hardcore walleye guys who were convinced they hated drum.
Speaker 1: They all in a blind taste test drum is their
Speaker 1: favorite of the three croppy second, I swear to God
Speaker 1: that happened, and then they all assume that their favorite
Speaker 1: was the walleye. Of course they did, so I'm I'm
Speaker 1: saying this is a small again, small sample, not a
Speaker 1: lot of evidence, but there is I have some evidence
Speaker 1: to suggest that the love for Walleye is as much
Speaker 1: cultural and nostalgic as it is actual. Yeah, fair, fair,
Speaker 1: So there you go a lot a lot of walleye
Speaker 1: talk this week. I'm gonna hit some wallete here again,
Speaker 1: bringing on, We're gonna, we're gonna talk wise, that's not
Speaker 1: all I'm gonna talking about. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like we've been talking about this combination more
Speaker 1: people getting out fishing and and the fact that, unlike
Speaker 1: what we were saying, some some fisheries are in really
Speaker 1: good shape right now. But there are a lot of
Speaker 1: state records getting broken this spring, and like so many
Speaker 1: that I just I really took notes. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do a quick big fish rundown because records records montage, Yeah,
Speaker 1: records montage, because you know there are there are a
Speaker 1: lot of them, and who doesn't want to talk about
Speaker 1: big fish. So first again, sticking with walleye, North Dakota
Speaker 1: has a new state record, and I'm gonna butcher some
Speaker 1: words in this one, so just everybody deal with it.
Speaker 1: Jared Shipkowski, he's not Polish, landed a thirty three in
Speaker 1: sixteen pounds landed the thirty three in sixteen pounds six
Speaker 1: ounce walleye trolling crank bits on a Missouri River reservoir
Speaker 1: called Lake Owahie. I think it's a hell of a fish.
Speaker 1: But Shipkowski didn't break some long standing record because the
Speaker 1: previous record got set just three years ago. In fact,
Speaker 1: the Missouri river system, unlike Lake of the Woods, seems
Speaker 1: to be producing an incredibly healthy walleye population these days.
Speaker 1: Before the state high mark for while I had stood
Speaker 1: since nineteen fifty nine, But in the past four years
Speaker 1: at least six fish over fifteen pounds have been caught.
Speaker 1: So the state went sixty years without seeing a fifteen
Speaker 1: pounder and now they're coming at least one every single year,
Speaker 1: and that to me is a sign of of super
Speaker 1: successful management. So, uh, if you completely disagree with me
Speaker 1: and and you love while, I maybe go to North
Speaker 1: Dakota instead of Lake of the Woods. Just thought, next,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna cross one border to the west
Speaker 1: into my home state of Montana and Montesa, not really
Speaker 1: known for large mouth bass. I saw this, I was thinking, man,
Speaker 1: they have them there. Uh, we're more of a cold
Speaker 1: water fishery destination. But Brandon Wright set a new state
Speaker 1: record this month with a twenty two and a half
Speaker 1: inch nine and a half pound large from a Treasure
Speaker 1: State lake. I realized, a fish that size is like
Speaker 1: standard for warmer parts of the country. But that's a big,
Speaker 1: preciously big northern large mouth. That's yeah. I was gonna say, no,
Speaker 1: you're wrong about that, dude. Nine is big. I don't
Speaker 1: care where you know, but I mean if you're in Florida, like,
Speaker 1: it's big, but it's not. It's not newsworthy. It's just big.
Speaker 1: But and and like to give you guys a sense
Speaker 1: of how rare large mouth fishing is out here. That
Speaker 1: was the first large mouth bass Right had ever caught
Speaker 1: in his life. And he caught it on a worm.
Speaker 1: So I'm guessing. I'm guessing homeboy was targeting walley like
Speaker 1: he was just dunt get a worm, hoping to get
Speaker 1: some walleye and he just ran into the state record
Speaker 1: green bass. Uh. Forming over to Missouri. It's a good
Speaker 1: year for car Devil and Rich caught a new record
Speaker 1: spotted gar, weighing in at ten pounds nine ounces back
Speaker 1: in February, and the last month, Anthony Sure set the
Speaker 1: new benchmark for long nosegar in the state at thirty
Speaker 1: two pounds ten ounces. There's a there's a warming angle
Speaker 1: to this fish. Sure had a good friend pass away
Speaker 1: recently and that friend's wife called Sure to break the
Speaker 1: news and asked him to go out that day and
Speaker 1: catch a fish and his friend's memory. Sure and his
Speaker 1: girlfriend were croppy fishing when they saw this monster car
Speaker 1: and they actually managed to catch it. He's now going
Speaker 1: to mount the fish in honor of his deceased fishing buddy,
Speaker 1: which awesome. That's a story. Yeah, finally, this one isn't
Speaker 1: actually a technical state record, but it's a hell of
Speaker 1: a fish and a good story. A US Fish and
Speaker 1: Wildlife Service sampling crew caught a two hundred and forty
Speaker 1: pound lake sturgeon that stretched to nearly seven feet in
Speaker 1: length and four feet in girth. The fish was caught
Speaker 1: in the Detroit River, a notoriously noxious waterway that's still
Speaker 1: still somehow maintains a relatively strong annual spawning around a sturgeon.
Speaker 1: This particular fish is estimated to be over a hundred
Speaker 1: years old, which means it this fish has personally seen
Speaker 1: the progression of that river from a relatively pristine waterway
Speaker 1: to an industrial cesspool to its more recent rebound in
Speaker 1: the wake of the Clean Water Act. That fish has
Speaker 1: seen some ship literally and yeah. Also, until reading this story,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that the Fish Wildlife Service sampled sturgeon
Speaker 1: by catching them on rod and reel. That's how they
Speaker 1: sample it, meaning that those fisheries texts literally get paid
Speaker 1: to go fishing for sturgeon. I'm sure they don't much,
Speaker 1: but still, like, that's a sweet gig. That's a b side, dude,
Speaker 1: Detroit River sturgeon. I gotta hook up with them. How
Speaker 1: do I have a volunteer on that boat? Guys, if
Speaker 1: you're listening, you know where to find this um. The
Speaker 1: thing I found most impressive of that was, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to say it, but just the Detroit River part. It's like, really, man,
Speaker 1: like that's I've seen the Detroit River and I know
Speaker 1: it's better than it used to be, but it's like, man,
Speaker 1: that fish, like you said, has a hundred year old fish.
Speaker 1: It has seen the everything dirtiest of the dirt in
Speaker 1: that river. So very impressive. Is that all your records
Speaker 1: that's it. That was it. That was wrapped it up
Speaker 1: with a sturgeon. Good. Let's jump from fish records to
Speaker 1: criminal records. Oh banger, right there, right there, when at
Speaker 1: least expect it. Um, So I actually scrubbed a story
Speaker 1: I had ready to go to quickly sub this in
Speaker 1: and I have listener Justin. It's either Dare or day
Speaker 1: or I don't know to thank for it, um. And
Speaker 1: a few of you guys actually tipped me off to
Speaker 1: this last weekend, but Justin was first, so he's he's
Speaker 1: getting the shout out. So. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: saw this, but there is a viral photo making the
Speaker 1: rounds on social of some clown in Florida bear hugging
Speaker 1: a juvenile tiger shark lifting it out of the water,
Speaker 1: and the setting appears to be in Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: setting appears to be in in one of Florida's freshwater
Speaker 1: spring rivers, you know what I'm talking about. Like, it's
Speaker 1: very narrow and shallow, crystal clear um. And in the
Speaker 1: background of this our families swimming and tubing and paddling,
Speaker 1: and the kid holding it looks exactly like Jeff Spicoli.
Speaker 1: And I feel like this is now the second or
Speaker 1: third time I've said someone from a Florida story looks
Speaker 1: like Jeff Spicoli on bent It's irrelevant. So obviously, at
Speaker 1: first glance, you're wondering, did this tiger shark swim up
Speaker 1: this river where it may have injured these folks recreating?
Speaker 1: But nay, look closely at the dead or very near
Speaker 1: dead tiger shark and it's got a rope around its tail. Now.
Speaker 1: When Justin first sent this, he only had a few
Speaker 1: social media post to forward. I think it just happened
Speaker 1: last Saturday evening. Um. This was in the Chazahowitska River
Speaker 1: on Florida's West coast, locally known as the Chaz and
Speaker 1: the posts he sent were from onlookers describing the scene,
Speaker 1: and what they said was a larger boat, which can
Speaker 1: be seen in other photos that eventually surfaced motored up
Speaker 1: the river dragging this barely alive tiger shark on a rope,
Speaker 1: and some people, including Spaccoli here, jumped at the chance
Speaker 1: to pose with it, but most people were like kind
Speaker 1: of piste off and a little bit horrified and started
Speaker 1: calling f w C real fast. So what I don't
Speaker 1: know is exactly how far away. These yahoo's with the
Speaker 1: shark had had to go to bring it to where
Speaker 1: these photos were taken. But regardless, what I had initially
Speaker 1: told Justin was to let me know if this becomes
Speaker 1: sort of real news, Like right now it's just social
Speaker 1: media chatter, but perhaps this will develop further. And sure enough,
Speaker 1: a couple of days later, Justin hits me back with
Speaker 1: a link to Fox News Tampa and it's game on. Okay. So,
Speaker 1: according to the story, witnesses say that they saw this
Speaker 1: crew of ass hats capture the shark. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't again, I don't know where who saw them captured
Speaker 1: or where. It doesn't say exactly where that was. And
Speaker 1: then they dragged it to this section of the river
Speaker 1: with the spring where people swim, and an onlooker quoted
Speaker 1: in the piece says, people were tormenting the shark and
Speaker 1: you using it as a photo prop. And this is
Speaker 1: directly from the story. Several concerned citizens called the Florida
Speaker 1: Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission it's illegal to harvest tiger
Speaker 1: sharks in Florida waterways. F w C says it is
Speaker 1: aware of the incident and is investigating. Then late less Monday,
Speaker 1: the agency noted issued two notices to appear to the
Speaker 1: individuals allegedly involved, though they did not publicly identify them,
Speaker 1: and another news story that followed up said they're going
Speaker 1: to be charged with taking a prohibited species out of
Speaker 1: the water, and they have court dates, per Fox News,
Speaker 1: and will be facing second degree misdemeaners. And really, there's
Speaker 1: not much to say about this other than this is
Speaker 1: just like asshole behavior, right, Like, even if you found
Speaker 1: the shark dead, which I doubt, it's still a species
Speaker 1: you can't meddle with. And for the life of me,
Speaker 1: like in this day and age, I cannot figure out
Speaker 1: why people do ship like that, like knowing it could
Speaker 1: end up on the internet, or maybe even in this
Speaker 1: is hoping it ends up on the internet, and then
Speaker 1: you expect absolutely no consequences. And this isn't the first
Speaker 1: time that that's something like this with sharks has happened.
Speaker 1: Do you remember there was a video from Florida, oh
Speaker 1: Man four or five years ago dudes dragging a shark
Speaker 1: backward behind a boat, running it wide open, right. Um,
Speaker 1: it made its round, Yeah, it was all over. The
Speaker 1: internet made its rounds. They all got nailed as they
Speaker 1: should have um, but I just I just can't get
Speaker 1: my head around doing these things videoing it or or
Speaker 1: taking a shark to a spot loaded with people who
Speaker 1: all have phones with cameras and just saying it's all
Speaker 1: in good fun. This will be fine, like the axelon
Speaker 1: or one thing. But the follow up flawning and boasting
Speaker 1: just tells me you actually don't have a brain cell
Speaker 1: in your head. So you know, I mean, look, there's
Speaker 1: not much to say on this. I think you come.
Speaker 1: This is why shark fishing and Florida both get a
Speaker 1: bad rap. Yes, because there's some very response sable son
Speaker 1: responsible and there are so many stewards of the resource
Speaker 1: and great anglers in Florida, but you don't hear much
Speaker 1: about them, you hear about this kind of this ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. I'm I'm I have very good friends down
Speaker 1: there who do the land based shark fishing thing very responsibly.
Speaker 1: You know, they leave no footprint, leave no trash, they
Speaker 1: do it at night, they don't do it on public beaches.
Speaker 1: But it's it's this kind of stuff that ruins the reputation.
Speaker 1: You know that that shark fishing has left that it's
Speaker 1: hanging on too, so we'll see more might develop there.
Speaker 1: But justin I do appreciate that um as promised. Man,
Speaker 1: you sent the newspiece and I made it news. So
Speaker 1: we'll see what Phil has to say about all this,
Speaker 1: see where his heart lies in this whole deal. He's
Speaker 1: got a tough one to figure out this week. I
Speaker 1: don't don't. He does, he does, and he does. And
Speaker 1: then when we're done with that, we're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 1: have a tackle hack from our bud, Mike. I canelli
Speaker 1: that will help you stick more walleyes or perhaps a
Speaker 1: state record. Guys, you called it already. This one was
Speaker 1: neck and neck, and I think I'm just going to
Speaker 1: give the week to Joe because I don't think he's
Speaker 1: wanting a while and I feel kind of bad for him.
Speaker 1: So Joe, you're the winner. The walleye is kind of
Speaker 1: a funny fish because I don't even think I had
Speaker 1: heard of a walleye until I met my wife, who
Speaker 1: is from Minnesota, and to her, the walleye was seemingly
Speaker 1: the only fish that existed. I mean, this isn't going anywhere.
Speaker 1: I don't really have a point or a joke here.
Speaker 1: I just had that one single thought about Walleye. How
Speaker 1: are you guys, You guys doing good kids, good kids, healthy, awesome,
Speaker 1: glad to hear it. I'm getting coming from inside the city.
Speaker 1: Hi the flood. It's time now for our very regular
Speaker 1: and unexpectedly useful segment Tackle Hacks, where we ask talented
Speaker 1: people for legitimate fishing information instead of peppering them with
Speaker 1: stupid questions or asking them to make fun of their
Speaker 1: friends and clients. Today we have the one and only
Speaker 1: Mike I can tell you with us. So put down
Speaker 1: your Nintendo switch, grab a pen, and take some notes. Mike.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you being here again, man, Always a pleasure. Thanks guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I know you do a lot of this kind
Speaker 1: of thing on your own channels, Like I don't know.
Speaker 1: It seems like every time I check in there, I
Speaker 1: you have some kind of a tip or suggestion, and
Speaker 1: I look at it and I wonder, like, damn, why
Speaker 1: have I never thought of that? You're just You're just
Speaker 1: a font of fishing info. So, without further ado, please
Speaker 1: lay a bit of that on us and the listeners. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I do love it. I've loved this aspect of
Speaker 1: fishing since I was a kid. You know, you're always
Speaker 1: trying to find a build a better mouse trap, find
Speaker 1: something that will catch more fish. There's a lot. I
Speaker 1: couldn't think of a good one that would be really,
Speaker 1: really good until I dumbed it down. And I want
Speaker 1: to give you a real easy one that has put
Speaker 1: so many more fish in my out, especially when we're
Speaker 1: talking about bass fishing with soft plastics. It's a modification
Speaker 1: that you can make to any brand of hook you're
Speaker 1: using on yourself plastics. You could make the modification on
Speaker 1: around bend an extra wide gap, a straight shank, a
Speaker 1: flipping hook doesn't matter, so style a hook um, none
Speaker 1: of that matters. And the tips easy. It's bending the
Speaker 1: point of the hook off of the eye of the hook.
Speaker 1: It's off setting the point from the eye of the hook,
Speaker 1: you know. And and before I was showing this modification,
Speaker 1: I was losing about of the bites when I fish
Speaker 1: soft plastics. Right, whether it's a worm, a soft stick, bait,
Speaker 1: a lizard or tube didn't matter. I wouldn't lose about
Speaker 1: of the bites. I'd get the bite, i'd set the hook,
Speaker 1: I'd come back empty. And you know, when I started
Speaker 1: making this model, vacation. It changed that ratio and now
Speaker 1: I miss very few bites. And it's simple by by
Speaker 1: taking the point of the hook off of the eye.
Speaker 1: When you have that forward pull pressure, that pull point
Speaker 1: and you and you set the hook instead of the
Speaker 1: point of the hook being straight in line with where
Speaker 1: you're tying it, it's offset. I like to call it
Speaker 1: about three degrees. Doesn't have to be perfect. Three degrees
Speaker 1: set off to the right or left. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you you bend left or right. But when you
Speaker 1: offset it from the eye the hook and you apply
Speaker 1: that upward pressure sideward pressure, it makes that hook go
Speaker 1: in easier and more of a positive hook up. A
Speaker 1: positive hook set right, you get more meat is what happens.
Speaker 1: So the easiest way to do it is get your pliers,
Speaker 1: get your needle nose, grab the point of the hook,
Speaker 1: but not on the point itself, but where the hook
Speaker 1: bends up to the point, grab it with the needle
Speaker 1: nos and just turn it. Have to write three degrees.
Speaker 1: That simple little modification has put so many more fish
Speaker 1: in the boat. For me. It's one me tournaments. Um.
Speaker 1: It goes from being you know, seventy five in a
Speaker 1: day to to pent in a day, from hooks to
Speaker 1: landing hook ups to landing fish. So turn the point
Speaker 1: off of the ie the hook when you're fishing soft plastics.
Speaker 1: It's it's an amazing tip and it makes it makes
Speaker 1: me feel like slightly dumb because as a saltwater guy,
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with non you know, offset hooks for
Speaker 1: Yet do I ever make that tweak when I'm fishing freshwater? No,
Speaker 1: I have not, And why see, I've done it, but
Speaker 1: I've never done it with soft plastics, and so I'm
Speaker 1: definitely gonna start doing that now that that absolutely makes sense.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't that make sense? The offset works, It ups
Speaker 1: your hooks at ratio and so many other places. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't it work here. It's a good one. It's helped
Speaker 1: me catch a lot more fish. And I got to
Speaker 1: work with v m C, and all of v MC
Speaker 1: hooks that are approved have the three degree offset right
Speaker 1: out of the pack, which is nice too nice. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go pick up a pack of those right
Speaker 1: about now and try that out. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: will do the same. But remember, like I was saying,
Speaker 1: you could just retro fit the hooks that you already have,
Speaker 1: you don't have to buy new stuff. So we love
Speaker 1: that kind of hack. This is exactly you know. We're
Speaker 1: gonna lose our reputation as being a totally useless fishing
Speaker 1: podcast to keep doing stuff like this. But I very
Speaker 1: much appreciate you coming on and sharing that little nugget
Speaker 1: with us. Thanks a lot. I take care man, Thanks guys.
Speaker 1: Come on, man, We're not a completely useless fishing podcast.
Speaker 1: Not completely. That was kind of harsh. It was. It
Speaker 1: was your right, but we we let off the show
Speaker 1: with a story about a guide trip that had no fishing,
Speaker 1: and then reviewed a book by an author who may
Speaker 1: never have fished a day in her life. So well,
Speaker 1: I agree that this podcast is far from useless. I
Speaker 1: think it's safe to say that our insight, it's extend
Speaker 1: beyond the confines of fishing. Yeah, that's fair. But also,
Speaker 1: come on, that was a legitimately useful tackle hack. I
Speaker 1: just will add one caveat Okay, if you is this
Speaker 1: is a great tip, but if you partake in a
Speaker 1: fishery that requires circle hooks when hocking bait, just check
Speaker 1: your legs before you bend them out, because sometimes inline
Speaker 1: in that scenario is law. Otherwise, killer tip, that's a
Speaker 1: good call. That's a good call, and it's it's timely
Speaker 1: because some of those legs are going in now and changing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, heads up on that one for those of
Speaker 1: you fish circle hooks and bait. But in most situations,
Speaker 1: I think we can agree ikes tackle hack is a
Speaker 1: good call and we are grateful to him for sharing it.
Speaker 1: So thanks, like, and I believe you were about to
Speaker 1: give us a suggestion for a particular lure. You might
Speaker 1: use that hack on the next time you go fishing.
Speaker 1: And also when you consider to be one of your
Speaker 1: your hail mary try it Outbates, Well, that's not allowed enough.
Speaker 1: Are you in a blade baits? For as long as
Speaker 1: I can remember, blade baits are just something I've kind
Speaker 1: of had kicking around. There's probably one buried under all
Speaker 1: the jerk baits and one of my jerk bait trays
Speaker 1: right now. There could be one hanging out with my
Speaker 1: chatter baits or jigs. Honestly, I can't remember the last
Speaker 1: time I threw one, because for me, a blade bait
Speaker 1: has always been a hail mary lure. Now, listen, I
Speaker 1: understand that some of you are upset right now and
Speaker 1: I never said a blade bait wasn't productive. I never
Speaker 1: said it didn't catch fish. I'm well aware of its potency,
Speaker 1: having interviewed dozens of guides over the years that practically
Speaker 1: live and die by the things, but most of them
Speaker 1: are Walleye guys, which I am not, so that's one
Speaker 1: less use I personally have for blade bits. I'm also
Speaker 1: fully aware that they crush on ice out small amounts
Speaker 1: on many northern lakes, but once again, I don't do
Speaker 1: much ice out smally fishing on lakes. Blade baits, like
Speaker 1: the Cicada, blade Runner and steel Chad, we're simply not
Speaker 1: staples and the fishing scenes where I grew up, But
Speaker 1: I always wanted them to be my secret weapon because
Speaker 1: they are, after all, elegantly simplistic and definitely classic to
Speaker 1: the best of my research. It all started with the
Speaker 1: head and sonar, which the company introduced in nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1: Blade bait designs vary slightly, but they all share characteristics
Speaker 1: of the O G sonar. In essence, the lure is
Speaker 1: nothing more than a small cigar shaped hunk of lead
Speaker 1: with a huge metal shark fan on its back viewed
Speaker 1: from the side. However, these two elements give the lure
Speaker 1: the profile of a bait fish like shad. There's a
Speaker 1: double hook at the tip of the fin, which is
Speaker 1: technically the tail of the bait, and another double hook
Speaker 1: hanging under that lead belly. On the central spine of
Speaker 1: the fin are three to five line tie eyes that
Speaker 1: slightly altered the lure's action depending on which one you
Speaker 1: tie off to. Blade baits are extremely versatile because they
Speaker 1: can be fished vertically or horizontally, and they were really
Speaker 1: one of the first subs faceloors that leaned into a
Speaker 1: fish's attraction to sound and ability to home in on
Speaker 1: vibration with their lateral lines. Now, no matter how you
Speaker 1: present a blade bait, it will shimmy back and forth
Speaker 1: like a rattlesnake's tail. The faster you jigger reel, the
Speaker 1: more pronounced the ripping, zipping vibrations it emits. This is
Speaker 1: why blade baits are so potent on the ice and
Speaker 1: right after ice out, because they can be gently finessed
Speaker 1: around sluggish fish, but it's often that short, abrupt zip
Speaker 1: off the bottom that gets a frosty Otherwise lockjawed bass
Speaker 1: or pike or walleye to take a swing Knowing all
Speaker 1: of this about blade baits, I've tried to make them
Speaker 1: work for me over the years, mostly in some of
Speaker 1: the deep dark holes on local smallmouth rivers, and I
Speaker 1: think another part of the reason why I never have
Speaker 1: more than one on me is because nine times out
Speaker 1: of ten, when I do try to properly fish one
Speaker 1: in those deep dark holes, I lose it. In my experience,
Speaker 1: heavy blade baits and rocky rivers don't play very well together.
Speaker 1: Blade baits, at least my blade baits have zero ability
Speaker 1: to deflect off hardcover like a square bill, or slip
Speaker 1: between the boulders like a fluke. They just wedge like
Speaker 1: a doorstop. I break them off and go back to fishing,
Speaker 1: something I have more confidence in. But then on very
Speaker 1: rare occasions, a blade bait can do no wrong for me.
Speaker 1: That's mostly in high dirty water situations. It's usually a
Speaker 1: last ditch effort, after working through the arsenal and being
Speaker 1: at my wits end, that I'll spy that lonely blade
Speaker 1: bait and say, oh, what the hell. Instead of letting
Speaker 1: it fall, I just hawked the thing out there a
Speaker 1: mile and reel it back at lightning speed. And this
Speaker 1: doesn't work all the time, but I've turned around a
Speaker 1: few bronze less days doing this for the magic to happen. However,
Speaker 1: I'm convinced I have to rediscover the blade bait every
Speaker 1: single time. I swear if I go out and tie
Speaker 1: it on right away trying to recreate that success, it fails.
Speaker 1: I have to go through my entire bag first, at
Speaker 1: least ten casts per lure, and then maybe the blade
Speaker 1: can save the day. That's about all we have in
Speaker 1: this week's tour through the Fishing Museum, but we sincerely
Speaker 1: hope that you enjoyed the still life portrait Hillary Hutchinson
Speaker 1: painted of a man too smart to know if he's
Speaker 1: hungry or if he personally owns the Bob Marshall Wilderness,
Speaker 1: the postmodern film of a lungfish morphing into a black
Speaker 1: Angus burger, the Greco Roman statue of Mike and Elly
Speaker 1: triumphantly bending fish hooks to his iron will, And a
Speaker 1: blade bait that's not really on the cutting edge, but
Speaker 1: you should probably still have a couple. And if all
Speaker 1: of that was just a little too strange for you,
Speaker 1: right us and let us know at bent at the
Speaker 1: meat Eator dot com. Also if you haven't already, go
Speaker 1: to the meat Eator dot com back slash phish and
Speaker 1: sign up for our fishing weekly newsletter. You'll get an
Speaker 1: email every Tuesday straight from me, updating you on all
Speaker 1: the art and science we pour into our fishing shows,
Speaker 1: articles and news coverage, plus all write up weekly suggestions
Speaker 1: on what you should be listening to, watching and reading. Then,
Speaker 1: over time I'll start telling you what to wear as well,
Speaker 1: so you're just clones of mem