Speaker 1: He's just like pulled the snakehead like it's pistol his hip,
Speaker 1: like it's not even a good fish hold. He's got
Speaker 1: like the Khaki's on, you know, like Jacob State Farm.
Speaker 1: And I mean literally, he might have taken a photo
Speaker 1: of Jim Carrey and Dumb and Dumber to the cut
Speaker 1: and Corral and said, hey, give me one of those,
Speaker 1: and I just had to burst this bubble and be
Speaker 1: like that three isn't going to cut. Oh contrary, Jordan's son,
Speaker 1: your boy, Lance is extremely forficient with his desert and
Speaker 1: eagle long whip. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bent.
Speaker 1: The fishing podcast that counts the number of flies stuck
Speaker 1: in your baseball cap has its formulating early opinions of you.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Surmelli, I'm Miles Nulty, and we are we
Speaker 1: are pretty judge of people's fishing clothes. But I sense
Speaker 1: that you have a particular angle you're trying to get
Speaker 1: to with this this flies in the that thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: because yes we are judging, and yes I do here.
Speaker 1: So here's where I got this from, right, And buddy
Speaker 1: of mine sent me a meme, and I hate memes,
Speaker 1: but the one just said who's better. And it's a
Speaker 1: split photo, right, And on one side you've got a
Speaker 1: tight shot of someone wearing a fishing vest, and on
Speaker 1: the other side you've got a crop shot of a
Speaker 1: ball cap on a dude's head, and it is literally
Speaker 1: covered in flies. The whole thing is just like covered
Speaker 1: in flies. And it just got me thinking about how
Speaker 1: many times I've I've pretty much seen that dude, like
Speaker 1: at the fly show, like just walking around in a
Speaker 1: in a hat covered in bugs. And I've known a
Speaker 1: lot of people that stick special flies, flies that caught
Speaker 1: some memorable fish in their hat. And I think that's
Speaker 1: that's swell. When it's like an atoms or two, I mean,
Speaker 1: like that's that's fine. But I question, what is the
Speaker 1: message that you're trying to convey let's say, a Baker's
Speaker 1: dozen or more in your hat. I mean, so if
Speaker 1: we're gonna look at this, I think we have to
Speaker 1: talk about the outside significance that hats in general play
Speaker 1: in the social hierarchy of fishing. Right. And you've given
Speaker 1: this more thought than I am. Even this a lot
Speaker 1: of thought, right, Like I actually wrote a whole piece
Speaker 1: about this for the Drake magazine years ago, and since
Speaker 1: he teamed me up, I'm gonna read one of the
Speaker 1: closing paragraphs that I had in that piece. Fishermen wear
Speaker 1: stained lids as badges of pride and evidence of status.
Speaker 1: The tourists or recent arrival probably has a few pheasant
Speaker 1: tails and hoppers buried on top of the brim. The
Speaker 1: industry guy always has a clean one, prominently displaying corporate affiliation.
Speaker 1: But the best hats feel like oilcloth and looked like
Speaker 1: the extensions of the face they shade. And that was beautiful. Man.
Speaker 1: I used to get paid to write stuff back in
Speaker 1: the day, and I think, yeah, me too, And I
Speaker 1: think that's spot on. Uh. And you don't realize, now
Speaker 1: that you mentioned it, how much hats say about you.
Speaker 1: And and furthermore, like how much the thirty pieces of
Speaker 1: flair you add to them? Says when I see a
Speaker 1: dude write like a camo had at a gas station
Speaker 1: in Virginia or Ohio, and he's got the you know,
Speaker 1: the gold hook, the class of the clip, the fish
Speaker 1: hook clip, I mean. And that's that's why I think
Speaker 1: we gotta, we gotta move this out from the fly thing.
Speaker 1: I think it's a bigger conversation, right, because all anglers like,
Speaker 1: the hat matters no matter where you are. Totally, I'm
Speaker 1: not knocking fishing hats. I don't think I own a
Speaker 1: hat that is not somehow fishing affiliated the record, But
Speaker 1: but like when I see the dude with the camo
Speaker 1: and the and the clip, I'm like, yep, he knows
Speaker 1: where the catfish are. Sure, I want to I want
Speaker 1: to hang out with you. But when I see the
Speaker 1: young gun in a hat covered with flies, my gut
Speaker 1: is like sort of like simmer down a little bit tiger,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, which is arguably it's hypocritical
Speaker 1: because while I've never worn a hat with flies stuck
Speaker 1: in it, like misfit bugs and wounded soldiers are stuck
Speaker 1: all over like the passenger side of my truck. It's annoying,
Speaker 1: Like if you sit in the passenger side, you can't
Speaker 1: you can't see what's coming because there's like rabbit strips
Speaker 1: and ship in your face. That's a totally I think
Speaker 1: that's a good parallel. I think that's a good place
Speaker 1: to go, right because you either you can learn a
Speaker 1: lot about someone by looking at at the lures or
Speaker 1: flies or whatever they got stuck in their hat or
Speaker 1: their truck roofs um and look for me personally on
Speaker 1: this one. It's about functionality, laziness, and just pure disorganization
Speaker 1: because because I might stick a fly or or a
Speaker 1: small lure, depending on where I'm at, in my hat
Speaker 1: to let it dry out before I put away, Like
Speaker 1: I'm in the middle of fishing, I want to change out.
Speaker 1: You don't want to put the wet lure or fly
Speaker 1: back in the box, right, so I'll just I'll just
Speaker 1: pop it up there. I'll you know, throw a laser
Speaker 1: worm or or a small plug on my hat or
Speaker 1: in the in the visor or the roof of the truck.
Speaker 1: Right like when I'm breaking down at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I can see using whatever drying patches are
Speaker 1: available in hats and truck interiors of trucks both work
Speaker 1: that way. Function Yes, it's all for me. It's again
Speaker 1: functionality and disorganization. And I always have the full intention
Speaker 1: of putting them back where they belong of later, I
Speaker 1: just don't get around to doing it. The flies on
Speaker 1: the hat, they always come off because either they're they're
Speaker 1: gonna annoy me. I'll I'll stick myself or I'll catch
Speaker 1: them somewhere. They're they're not gonna stay, not because I'm
Speaker 1: worried about what it says, just because they're going to
Speaker 1: irritate me. But the stuff that's in my truck cab,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been there for years or I don't
Speaker 1: know how long, a decade maybe, and simply because I
Speaker 1: just haven't gotten around to doing something with it. There's
Speaker 1: no statement that I'm personally trying to make. But if
Speaker 1: the if the cab of your truck looks like the
Speaker 1: pegboard and Larry Dahlberg's basement, or or or the free
Speaker 1: hat you're wearing has three hundred dollars worth the perfectly
Speaker 1: good flies rotting on it, I do feel like that's
Speaker 1: an intentional statement, like you're trying to prove something. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you sparked something here because my truck is well
Speaker 1: over ten years old now and it looks as you've described.
Speaker 1: But I'm already saying, as soon as I get a
Speaker 1: new truck, I'm not letting this happen anymore. I'm sticking
Speaker 1: no flies in the visor. You say that now, but again,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do it just out of pure laziness. It's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Or I will buy an official thing to
Speaker 1: put on the visor to stick flies in. You gotta
Speaker 1: know that route to I don't know. I don't know. Look,
Speaker 1: I agree that like if you if your hat said
Speaker 1: so much about you though, and maybe my my special
Speaker 1: visor thing says something, then then you have to ask,
Speaker 1: like what does a rod vault say? Because I know
Speaker 1: what I think it says, which prompted me to take
Speaker 1: mine off my truck. But I'm gonna let you go first.
Speaker 1: I told I bought a rod Vault when they first
Speaker 1: came out, whatever that was, Like, I spent money. I
Speaker 1: purchased one because they are useful when you're guiding every day,
Speaker 1: which is what I was doing back then. But that
Speaker 1: same rod vault has been sitting in my garage since
Speaker 1: at least two thousand twelve, which is right around the
Speaker 1: time they turned into annoying status symbols out here where
Speaker 1: I live, not to mention billboards announcing to everybody who
Speaker 1: sees your truck, like there's expensive ship in here. If
Speaker 1: you want to break in, break into this point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think I think all this comes down to
Speaker 1: just age and experience and confidence within the cultural pecking order,
Speaker 1: right Like when you're young and you're trying to prove yourself.
Speaker 1: You gotta you like you gotta make noise, like you
Speaker 1: gotta crow and announced, like I'm here and I belong.
Speaker 1: And as you get older, I mean, you know who
Speaker 1: the you are and you don't seek validation in the
Speaker 1: same right like I don't. I don't need everybody around
Speaker 1: me to know. Like as I drive by it, I
Speaker 1: bet that guy fishes. I don't need that. You could
Speaker 1: not be more correct. I think we are seeing seeing
Speaker 1: eye to eye. Hear because when those vaults first came out,
Speaker 1: I couldn't get my hands on one fast enough and
Speaker 1: I wasn't guiding for anything, all right, And I actually
Speaker 1: I started with I'm not gonna name it, but the
Speaker 1: vault competitor. That was a box, not a tube, you
Speaker 1: remember those, And it literally rusted off the roof of
Speaker 1: the truck like I could poke my finger through it.
Speaker 1: And then I switched to a vault, but I didn't
Speaker 1: actually like it because a lot of my salt water
Speaker 1: rails didn't fit, and in no time I just completely
Speaker 1: stopped using it. It was more effort to get the
Speaker 1: rods in the vault than just throw a tube on
Speaker 1: the back seat. And when you're guiding, I get it.
Speaker 1: You don't want to break rods down and rebuild them
Speaker 1: every single day, and used the same rod every day,
Speaker 1: so exacting exactly. But at some point, and I guess
Speaker 1: this is the a thing, I realized how impractical this
Speaker 1: was for a recreational guy, because I store my rods
Speaker 1: in the garage in their tubes, and then when I'm
Speaker 1: going fishing, I take them out and build them so
Speaker 1: I can put them on the roof, and then when
Speaker 1: I come home, I disassembled them put them back in
Speaker 1: their tubes for storage in the garage. And the vault
Speaker 1: is just creating a very unnecessary step right in the middle. Right.
Speaker 1: But you could not tell this to twenty year old
Speaker 1: me plus And then I started seeing them on the
Speaker 1: roof of too many cars, like at these dinky nothing
Speaker 1: stocker streams around here, and I'm like, I need to
Speaker 1: take this down. Grown up me says, this is just
Speaker 1: hurting my gas milet its creating air resistance, and I
Speaker 1: am not getting the most out of this this vehicle.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely fact, dude. And and I will say
Speaker 1: it's hard to these days anymore. It's hard to find
Speaker 1: a vehicle without a rod vault on it out here,
Speaker 1: I mean, and it's not just trucks and guide rigs anymore. Now,
Speaker 1: they're riding around on beamers and outies. And I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it, but but that does remind me
Speaker 1: that we're talking about this, Like, I'm glad you brought
Speaker 1: this up, because I really should sell the rod vault
Speaker 1: that has now been sitting unused in my garage for
Speaker 1: the better part of a decade. And I should probably
Speaker 1: sell someone who drives a more expensive vehicle than I do.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say it sounds like you'll flip it
Speaker 1: quick to get around and put it on Craigslist. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, maybe I should consider the character in
Speaker 1: this week's Smooth Moves, because it's a strong chance that
Speaker 1: this particular person wants a rod vault on the roof
Speaker 1: of his Audie. Joining us to tell the story about
Speaker 1: this is our good friend, Captain Abbey Schuster of Kisman
Speaker 1: Outfitters on Martha's Vineyard, which bear in mind, is a
Speaker 1: small island completely surrounded by saltwater and some of the
Speaker 1: finest saltwater fishing in the world, meaning the Steamies and
Speaker 1: the Goddard sedges on your hat aren't particularly useful. Why
Speaker 1: joining us today for smooth moves? Um, we have Captain
Speaker 1: Abbey Schuster of Massachusetts. Abbey, how are you great? How
Speaker 1: are you? We're good, We're good. We're having a good
Speaker 1: time now. You not only are you? Are you a
Speaker 1: captain and guide of the salty variety in Martha's Vineyard.
Speaker 1: You also um own a shop out there because outfit.
Speaker 1: So you know, we've had a lot of captains and
Speaker 1: guides on smooth moves. We've also had some shop managers
Speaker 1: and things to get sort of the shop bullshit side. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think you're the first person that could speak
Speaker 1: to both, like your smooth move could go from the
Speaker 1: water to the counter. Yeah, you see a lot. That's
Speaker 1: a really nice way of putting that. And I know
Speaker 1: the shop hasn't been opened that long, but I'm guessing
Speaker 1: already in sort of your first season you've seen plenty.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give you the floor for for a
Speaker 1: smooth move story here, and you can go either way.
Speaker 1: You can go, you can go water or on land.
Speaker 1: Surprise us, well, they kind of go hand in hand
Speaker 1: because a lot of the times we guide people on
Speaker 1: the they'll kind of the shop, then we'll guide them, right.
Speaker 1: A common question that it's very confused. There are trout
Speaker 1: on our designer. Let me clarify that. But yeah, there
Speaker 1: are trout, but it's not like a trout fisher, Like
Speaker 1: you don't come to our designer to trap fish really
Speaker 1: like you would a lot of other places. I'm intrigued
Speaker 1: by this. I had no idea the brook trout. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there there's no moving water on the vineyard in
Speaker 1: little streams. My mind just got blown. Martha's vineyard more
Speaker 1: often night. It's cool. I mean, there's like pretty lush, plush,
Speaker 1: pretty secret. They're very small, but it's cool to catch.
Speaker 1: Surprising to get murdered tonight. It's been fun. But a
Speaker 1: lot of people are super shocked. They come in. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: where are the rivers and where are the ponds? Like
Speaker 1: why would you ever own a fly visioning store on
Speaker 1: an island, Like, well, actually there's a whole another side
Speaker 1: of five fishing ain't called the salt. And so this
Speaker 1: one guy in particular who ends up being a great guy,
Speaker 1: but he came to the shop a badge talked to
Speaker 1: me my brother, asking like tons of questions you know,
Speaker 1: he's new into this great probably spent like a total
Speaker 1: of like five days of my life talking to him
Speaker 1: about the trip. And he gets the boat six thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning, so excited, shows up in waiters, which,
Speaker 1: like I don't usually recommend for the boat because you know,
Speaker 1: it's a little dangerous, yeah right, and it's like rough
Speaker 1: out you don't so already I like knew there was
Speaker 1: something up, but you know, you can't really judge anyone.
Speaker 1: That's what I've learned. Guy everyone. And he shows up
Speaker 1: and he legitimately thought we were true fishing, like he
Speaker 1: had his truck flies, he had his three weight, he
Speaker 1: had every anything, so proud, and I just had to
Speaker 1: burst his bubble and be like that threely isn't gonna
Speaker 1: cut him. Like it took hours Arender a cover from
Speaker 1: the shock it was. I mean, it was like, I
Speaker 1: just don't know how he didn't pick up on it.
Speaker 1: So I have so much to say, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to start with this. The way I'd have played that
Speaker 1: had I been the guy, would have just been to
Speaker 1: take him out to the rips and look at his
Speaker 1: flies and pick out an atoms or some such and
Speaker 1: be like, no, you gotta mend it more. Just let
Speaker 1: him throw the three weight out there. That's one thing, okay,
Speaker 1: But so all right, So I we just learned something.
Speaker 1: I had no idea there were any trout on the vineyard.
Speaker 1: You're telling me that a lot of people on Martha's
Speaker 1: Vineyard assumed that you cater to a trout fishery. And like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like we don't guide anything, like there's no guiding trout
Speaker 1: on right right? Right? Yes? Oh yeah, So before before
Speaker 1: we leave, I got to back up to the guy
Speaker 1: in question, At what point did he realize you weren't
Speaker 1: trout fishing? Like? Were you already we were leaving the duck?
Speaker 1: And how did that go? Was he like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: are there trout out in the ocean? I just didn't
Speaker 1: catch I don't get it either. I mean he didn't
Speaker 1: he didn't get teleported to the island. I assume he
Speaker 1: flew and or took a boat there. It's like all
Speaker 1: surrounded by saltwater and ship too. Demands are our ponds
Speaker 1: and streams here sort of but like you're on a boat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: second question, did he catch any fish? Yes? And did
Speaker 1: that blow his mind? Yes? And they are so mean
Speaker 1: and I could understand like the teeth aspect, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think he's I think if if he couldn't comprehend
Speaker 1: the teeth, how did he do with theft grain line.
Speaker 1: I'm certain that you probably gave him actually better, but
Speaker 1: you know he got it after a lot of delicate
Speaker 1: nice Oh god, you just have to get it out there.
Speaker 1: No more nice casting. There you go. Everybody who's now
Speaker 1: going to clamor to Martha's Vineyard to go trout fishing,
Speaker 1: they know who to look up. They can look happy
Speaker 1: and take care of all your Martha's when your trout
Speaker 1: fishing needs. You might catch a striper, a big gass
Speaker 1: blue fish, but you'll go, you'll go trout fishing. You
Speaker 1: know what's weird, though, I really do want to catch
Speaker 1: a Martha's vineyrd trout now. And I'm sure, I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's not overly exciting. It's probably not even good fishing, really,
Speaker 1: but I'm so into catching I guess like the wrong
Speaker 1: things in the right places. That makes sense. Like you
Speaker 1: told me not too long ago that there are a
Speaker 1: small mouth bass in Hawaii, which I could Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was just validating an email we got from a listener,
Speaker 1: and yeah, there are, uh, and it's not like you're
Speaker 1: not talking about a lake erie type experience. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: could take you out to catch a small mouth, peacock, bass,
Speaker 1: and a bone fish all in the same day. See Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that fascinates me. And the other thing, I really
Speaker 1: enjoy his targeting species kind of like within cultures that
Speaker 1: view them differently. Like as an example, where Abbey and
Speaker 1: I live, a lot of people believe, um, a false
Speaker 1: albacore is only cool if you catch it on a fly,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like that's a coveted fly
Speaker 1: target and you'll kill yourself up here to get that
Speaker 1: shot at one. But some of the most fun I
Speaker 1: ever had fly fishing with him was in Florida because
Speaker 1: down there nobody cares about them. And the captain was
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, we'll get them all chummed up. And
Speaker 1: you've always go ahead and throw whatever you want at him,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We did. We've done this together.
Speaker 1: We were on that that media trip years ago in
Speaker 1: the Indian River Lagoon. I don't remember, man, whenever that was.
Speaker 1: That was like another lifetime ago. But yes, just like that,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, this snook bite was ship and
Speaker 1: the captains were all bummed, and I was. I was
Speaker 1: having a blast getting my arms pulled out of my
Speaker 1: sockets by Abbey's all day long. That was everything I
Speaker 1: love about albe fishing minus the pressure. And I enjoy
Speaker 1: that pressure, you know, when you're hearing your Montak or
Speaker 1: North Jersey like that. It's the pressure is fun of
Speaker 1: getting on these schools. But sometimes it's just more fun
Speaker 1: to stop fronting and just catch a shipload of fish,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Stop fronting, Stop front and
Speaker 1: stop front. You're always from so much front. And I
Speaker 1: actually know someone who would probably agree with you and
Speaker 1: and use that same unfortunate terminology. And I believe all
Speaker 1: his intentions are probably to help unite the fly and
Speaker 1: conventional worlds. Sh it's likely to end up blurrier than
Speaker 1: ever before. Who's that your boy? Lance V Is that
Speaker 1: you're talking about? Yeah, it has been a minute since
Speaker 1: we've heard from him, but I want to say give me.
Speaker 1: I feel like I say this every time we hear
Speaker 1: from Give him a chance, though, because I I get
Speaker 1: gets such a thrill out of continuing to monitor the
Speaker 1: love and hate mail we get about Lance. And uh,
Speaker 1: I was recently actually struck by a comment from a
Speaker 1: listener in a Facebook for him that effectively said, if
Speaker 1: you guys would just stop and listen to Land as
Speaker 1: he speaks the truth and the land, to the boats,
Speaker 1: to the like, to the sea, up the net, but
Speaker 1: the boy lands. What's up, pot Liquors, It's me. The
Speaker 1: Internet's most winning is fishing influencer celebrity Lance Fee. The
Speaker 1: other day, when I was ripping face when boy Brandon
Speaker 1: p and contemplating how awesome I am, I realized it's
Speaker 1: been a while since I checked in. But those losers
Speaker 1: over at the Meat Beater Fishing podcast. Turns out I've
Speaker 1: been getting a lot of questions. Unfortunately, most of them
Speaker 1: are pretty stupid and we better answered by your high
Speaker 1: school guys counselor who now serves tat shows at Sonic
Speaker 1: Hash had tots and life lessons, but have no fear
Speaker 1: eternally devoted fans. I got you. I'm somehow managed to
Speaker 1: fish one decent question out of the biker bar toilet
Speaker 1: buffet that Joe and Miles handed me. This comes from
Speaker 1: Jordan's c who writes, I've known four different guys by
Speaker 1: the name of Lance in my life, each one more
Speaker 1: of a deuced than the last. I thought my current supervisor,
Speaker 1: Lance was the king of all douches until I listened
Speaker 1: to the Google squad fan girl that is Lance Fee.
Speaker 1: Yet I'm still interested to know what does this all
Speaker 1: knowing fish god, sparkly boat driving instat fella think about
Speaker 1: flipping Monster Largemouth on the fly. Great question. Jordan's first
Speaker 1: off a clarification. The only thing sparkly about me is
Speaker 1: my eyes, at least according to your girlfriend. My free
Speaker 1: nitro Z seventeen, however, doesn't sparkle at all. That's because
Speaker 1: Monster Energy and Big Willi's Furniture store paid more Benjamin's
Speaker 1: than you. Make it a month to wrap my ship
Speaker 1: in Matt black Fire. To ensure that statement is accurate,
Speaker 1: I confirm your wages with your supervisor, Lanch, who was
Speaker 1: so tax sharp and visionary I'm considering hiring him as
Speaker 1: my junior merchandising assistant hashtag corporate ladder. Anyhow you might assume,
Speaker 1: I think fly fishing is only for kimbucha drinking yupsters
Speaker 1: who waste their trust funds on pointless crap like hiking
Speaker 1: boots and books. Oh contrair, Jordan's son, your boy Lance
Speaker 1: is extremely proficient with his desert eagle long whip. I
Speaker 1: consider it the ultimate tool for asserting dominance. I like
Speaker 1: to walk right into a gaggle of snooze sucking flat
Speaker 1: brammers with avocado eoli in their beers while they're trying
Speaker 1: to get their meat tugged. I'll fish right behind them
Speaker 1: with a megabass vision one tin on a destroyer P five,
Speaker 1: just when they think their loops can't get any more
Speaker 1: flaccid as a result of the free clinic I'm putting on.
Speaker 1: Just when Jasper and Cody is about to throw one
Speaker 1: of his soft doctor squash hands and my axe body
Speaker 1: washed face, I switched over to the fly rot and
Speaker 1: give them the advanced clinic hashtag. Oh you didn't want
Speaker 1: this one. You see, Jordan's fly fishing was invented so
Speaker 1: dipshits could act like they're better, smarter, and more skillful
Speaker 1: anglers than anyone who doesn't fly fish. I'm simple ease,
Speaker 1: you can fly fishing first intended purpose, but I go
Speaker 1: the extra mile so people understand catching one nice fish
Speaker 1: on the fly is actually a super weak victory because
Speaker 1: there are forty other fish in that hole that didn't
Speaker 1: eat your mob fly. It's like what I think I
Speaker 1: heard Mother Teresa or maybe laid Jason on a cartoon once.
Speaker 1: It's not about how much you do, but how much
Speaker 1: love you put into what you do that counts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the truth is I can't stand lands. Whoever, whoever re
Speaker 1: upped his contract needs to be beat with an ugly stick.
Speaker 1: And I'm looking at you, Sirmellie. I think I think
Speaker 1: you were probably responsible for that, and I'm also hoping
Speaker 1: to metaphorically beat you with an ugly stick in this
Speaker 1: week's fish News. Fish News that escalated quickly. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we need to kick off here real quick with a
Speaker 1: shout out to Mr Wyatt Carol, the winner of our
Speaker 1: first ever Bent contest. Phil. How about a little celebratory
Speaker 1: sound effects surprise us? Thank you Phil. Anyway, you guys
Speaker 1: may recall that we ran a contest that ended last Friday,
Speaker 1: and uh, all we asked was that you guys tag
Speaker 1: photos on the Instagram with Degenerate Angler and Bent Podcast.
Speaker 1: And normally if something with those tags catches our attention,
Speaker 1: it would just earn you stickers. But for one week,
Speaker 1: your use of that tag offered a shot at some
Speaker 1: sick sick bro hand poured soft plastic swim baits and
Speaker 1: a hard swim bait painted up however you wanted from
Speaker 1: our bud Brant Hashmoto of hashmoto concepts and why itt
Speaker 1: w what why came through? Man? That was and you
Speaker 1: know he had some pretty stiff competition. I will admit, yes,
Speaker 1: But I think there's a lesson here for for anybody
Speaker 1: who's following along and maybe thinking about future contests, and
Speaker 1: that is that you and I are storytellers. That's what
Speaker 1: we are, that's what we do, that's what we care about,
Speaker 1: and we are like we're suckers for a good yarn
Speaker 1: far more than we are for straight hero shots. That's
Speaker 1: just that's not gonna get it done with us, for sure,
Speaker 1: for sure. And that's not to say that like the
Speaker 1: right photo can't take it, but why it's photo at
Speaker 1: first glance might not have grabbed you, but you you
Speaker 1: have to combine it with this story. That's that's what
Speaker 1: got us here. There's there's some subtlety there. I mean,
Speaker 1: it caught your intention at first because you're like, what
Speaker 1: is that dude wearing? Clearly we like to make fun
Speaker 1: of people's apparel, So there's that but and you know,
Speaker 1: to that end, this this totally could have been in
Speaker 1: our awkward moments in angling second. You see you see
Speaker 1: why he's just like holding the snakehead like it's pistol
Speaker 1: his hip, like it's not even a good fish. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's he's got like the Khaki's on, you know,
Speaker 1: like Jake from State Farm. And and he's got this
Speaker 1: fully pressed Aloha shirt. And turns out the shot was
Speaker 1: taken after one of White's first days when he was
Speaker 1: student teaching. I'm gonna give I'm gonna give props to
Speaker 1: all the teachers out there and say that you deserve
Speaker 1: time to unlind on the water after dealing with all
Speaker 1: that you deal with with the Yeah, and there's one
Speaker 1: thing about this we didn't even notice when we picked
Speaker 1: why it's photo the shirt is actually a Pokemon print,
Speaker 1: so I didn't see it right away. Yeah, why it
Speaker 1: nailed him in. He was appealing to you with the snakehead,
Speaker 1: he hit me with the teacher angle, and then he
Speaker 1: was also courting Phil with the Pokemon loved nailed the trifecta,
Speaker 1: he did. And furthermore, he said he had no pliers
Speaker 1: or multi tool that day, so he couldn't get the
Speaker 1: hook out of the fish. If you catch snakeheads, they
Speaker 1: got a real hard mouth, so when you hit him,
Speaker 1: good like, it's in there. So he didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do, so he just threw the fish on the
Speaker 1: floor of his car with its still attached to his
Speaker 1: line to the end of the rod and just took
Speaker 1: care of it at home. And I'm gonna assume there
Speaker 1: were some fish tacos happening that evening. Anyway, you can
Speaker 1: see why it's photo on my or miles Instagram pages
Speaker 1: we posted him up last week. They are still there.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Brent for supplying the goods for this contest,
Speaker 1: and rats to Wyatt who tells me why it says
Speaker 1: he's leaning towards a pumpkin seed pattern on his lore
Speaker 1: and may even incorporate the Bent logo. So how about that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we can license it to him for a
Speaker 1: small fortune or just do it. It's okay, do it.
Speaker 1: I got. I got one more quick but very important
Speaker 1: update before we get to news this week. Are really
Speaker 1: good friend and colleague Ryan Callahan has just launched season
Speaker 1: two of his show Cow in the Field. If you
Speaker 1: don't already know cal he should. He's the director of
Speaker 1: Conservation here at Meteator. He hosts are Hunting and Fishing
Speaker 1: Conservation podcast, Cal's Weekend Review, which we're both big fans of.
Speaker 1: He's also one of the best outdoorsmen I know and
Speaker 1: just he's genuinely an all around good dude, good lots
Speaker 1: of fun. It's not an act, it really is. So anyway,
Speaker 1: Season two of Cal's video series just launched on the
Speaker 1: Mediator YouTube channel. Go watch it for the first episode.
Speaker 1: This week he's trapping grizzly bears with Idaho Fishing Game,
Speaker 1: and next week you can watch him roping invasive rainbow
Speaker 1: trout on the South Fork and Snake River. Good stuff.
Speaker 1: Check it out. Anyway, Without further ado, it is time
Speaker 1: for news and and quick reminder, this is a competition.
Speaker 1: Neither Joe or I know what the other is bringing
Speaker 1: to the table, and at the end of it are
Speaker 1: well well quoifed and uh and smart smart engineer Phil
Speaker 1: is gonna hop in and declare who is the winner
Speaker 1: and who is the saddest of sad losers. Speaking of
Speaker 1: said losers, I'm still a little bit bummed about last
Speaker 1: week Phil, I mean, really he won with Pokemon I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, we don't know what the other guy's
Speaker 1: bringing in the table, but we I know how to win.
Speaker 1: And Phil, now you you throw a pikachui. There you
Speaker 1: got it. I will find a way to bring pokemons
Speaker 1: into every news. Uh. Joe gets to lead off this week,
Speaker 1: and and I'm just hoping it does not involve Japanese
Speaker 1: cartoon characters. Joe take it away. No it does not. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I'm starting out this week with the story from
Speaker 1: for the Wind dot Com, which I love. You take
Speaker 1: the science journals, I will take for the win. But
Speaker 1: this is pretty cool and we're heading off to the
Speaker 1: Golf Coast for this one headline. Angler makes rare catch
Speaker 1: of prehistoric fish while surf fishing. Okay, and I read
Speaker 1: a fishing guide from Michigan. Was surfishing on an Alabama
Speaker 1: beach when he hooked something big that puzzled onlookers about
Speaker 1: its identity. Even the angler was baffled, thinking a shark
Speaker 1: was at the end of his line. Instead, when David A.
Speaker 1: Rose finally pulled the fish close to shore at Orange
Speaker 1: Beach after a forty minute battle, he and others discovered
Speaker 1: it was a golf sturgeon. It was a rare catch
Speaker 1: of the prehistoric fish, which is listed as threatened. This
Speaker 1: is never in my wildest dreams what I have imagined
Speaker 1: landing such a rare species, ever, Rose told for the Wind.
Speaker 1: While I knew there were a n A drums sturgeon
Speaker 1: along the Northwest coast, it never even crossed my mind
Speaker 1: that there were this species swimming about the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 1: So a couple of things here. Thing one, The range
Speaker 1: of the golf sturgeon has has shrunk immensely historically. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's it's crazy. Historically the sturgeon ran all the rivers
Speaker 1: that dumped into the Gulf from Florida across the Texas,
Speaker 1: but everything from from dams to contaminants to over fishing
Speaker 1: has reduced their range to just a couple of river
Speaker 1: systems basically between the Florida Panhandle and the east side
Speaker 1: of the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana. So very rare to
Speaker 1: just see one, let alone catch one thing too. I've
Speaker 1: known Dave Rose for years, and when I read this,
Speaker 1: I was like, David A. Rose, Holy sh it, man,
Speaker 1: I know that guy. I know him. Dave is a
Speaker 1: writer that I worked with for a very very long time. Um,
Speaker 1: and we even ended up on a few media trips
Speaker 1: together back in the day. In fact, he helped me
Speaker 1: spool some reels on an Arkansas trout trip we were
Speaker 1: on and that was like two thousand nine, and it
Speaker 1: turns out he caught the sturgeon on some of the
Speaker 1: freebee line we acquired on that trip. Oh man, I
Speaker 1: so I did see I have been. I saw this story.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I didn't pick it up because you clearly
Speaker 1: have the end with it. But you know the dude.
Speaker 1: I know the dude. So I heard I I saw
Speaker 1: the headline, but I didn't dive into it till it
Speaker 1: was closer to news time and I read it. I
Speaker 1: was like, David Rose, what so I called him up right?
Speaker 1: So what this for the wind story doesn't tell you
Speaker 1: is that Dave is admittedly not salty, right. He's a
Speaker 1: Northern Michigan guy. He's an ason sweetwater and on frozen sweetwater.
Speaker 1: But when I spoke to him, he was like, yeah, man, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't do salt, Like I'm an idiot
Speaker 1: and salt water right, So that makes it more fun.
Speaker 1: So the real thing Dave said when he first saw
Speaker 1: this fish was what the is that? And then this
Speaker 1: isn't the story, Dave says. An onlooker and I both
Speaker 1: glanced at each other with a puzzled look and said
Speaker 1: out loud in unison, a sturgeon. But Dave told me
Speaker 1: the alllookers said what the hell is that thing? Followed
Speaker 1: by sturgeon? So those are the real quotes that that
Speaker 1: did not make for the way, And yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's Orange Beach. I love it down there, but like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, it's Orange Beach, like you know, vacation land.
Speaker 1: So Dave caught this thing on a freaking Pompano rig
Speaker 1: bated with shrimp. Yes, and if you don't know anything
Speaker 1: about Pompano, they're small and relatively small mouth, right, So
Speaker 1: we're not we're not talking about big hooks here, but
Speaker 1: seeing how rare golf sturgeon arm and how very very
Speaker 1: federally protected they are. What I wanted to know, um
Speaker 1: was if Dave was worried, And yes he was. And
Speaker 1: he says, even though he knew nothing about this, like
Speaker 1: he knew the rarity of it. He figured that out
Speaker 1: and he's like, my priority was keeping that thing's head
Speaker 1: in the water. You know what I mean, Like, he
Speaker 1: did not want to make a big scene out of it,
Speaker 1: and of course they got I mean just a couple
Speaker 1: two or three quick snaps, and they sent the fish off.
Speaker 1: And he was worried about the well being of the
Speaker 1: fish so much that he didn't even really properly measure it,
Speaker 1: which he says, in hindsight, he should have um even
Speaker 1: if it was just like you know, cutting a piece
Speaker 1: of mono and measuring at at home. Later he didn't
Speaker 1: have a tape or anything. He wasn't expecting this, But
Speaker 1: later he looked up the record in According to Dave,
Speaker 1: the record on the books for golf sturgeon weighed eighty
Speaker 1: four pounds, and he and others estimate his fish measured
Speaker 1: over six feet and weighed in the neighborhood of a
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty pounds. Now, I don't know, nor does
Speaker 1: he if, like an I g F a release record
Speaker 1: is even feasible because you're not supposed to knowingly target
Speaker 1: and mess with the sturgeon. But I mean, just like
Speaker 1: for posterity's sake, an official measurement, you know, would have
Speaker 1: been cool. Like theoretically Dave might have caught the biggest
Speaker 1: hook and line golf sturgeon ever. I mean, yeah, but
Speaker 1: Dave strikes me the type of guy at one who
Speaker 1: wouldn't care that much about it, and two would understand
Speaker 1: that the only reason there isn't a record for that
Speaker 1: is because by the time I g f A was
Speaker 1: doing records, those fish were decimated. Like, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a hollow record. If he were to do totally no,
Speaker 1: Dave's no, he's absolutely not chasing that. In fact, and
Speaker 1: this is this is why I love Dave. He told
Speaker 1: me his favorite thing about this, because I remember, is
Speaker 1: it dude from northern Michigan down their own vacation, right,
Speaker 1: he's down there in his shorts catching catching some rays, right, No, no,
Speaker 1: no pokemons. But he said his favorite thing about this
Speaker 1: and all this attention is that, and he's right. It's
Speaker 1: like the quintessential fishing story, like you just put bait
Speaker 1: on a hook and you cast it out and you
Speaker 1: just absolutely never know what's gonna eat, even when you
Speaker 1: think you do. So he I mean, he's down there
Speaker 1: on vacation, doesn't do much saltwater fishing, and he's like,
Speaker 1: all I wanted was to catch a pompano and I
Speaker 1: still haven't caught one, so like he still has never
Speaker 1: caught a pomana. So I was, I was so blown away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like florid when I saw it was Dave
Speaker 1: so cool. Story that is beyond once in a lifetime,
Speaker 1: you know, it really is. And clearly David is our
Speaker 1: kind of people. And uh and and my next story
Speaker 1: is is also about our kind of people doing a
Speaker 1: very different way. And before we get to the actual
Speaker 1: story I want to talk about, I'm gonna start out
Speaker 1: with a shout out to to a listener of ours,
Speaker 1: Jared la privost I believe his name. A few weeks back,
Speaker 1: Jared sent an email titled Phishing and Fluid Mechanics, which
Speaker 1: made sense because he was responding to a philistine segment
Speaker 1: I did about wild thoughts from wild places, right and
Speaker 1: and in that boat David Qualman, I talked about David
Speaker 1: Qualman's ability to make even fluid mechanics interesting because he's
Speaker 1: such a good writer. Well, that resonated with Jared, who
Speaker 1: sent who sent the email? And on that email he
Speaker 1: attached a paper he had written in his junior year
Speaker 1: of college for a fluid mechanics course, and that paper
Speaker 1: studied drag force on crank baits and yeah him yeah
Speaker 1: in the abstract. In the abstract to it, he wrote,
Speaker 1: although drag force isn't as common as the force of gravity,
Speaker 1: it is still very present in everyday life, especially when
Speaker 1: you are an angler. Fisherman experienced drag forces not only
Speaker 1: when they drive their boats, but every time they cast
Speaker 1: their rod. And I'm just giving props right now to
Speaker 1: Jared for turning an engineering assignment into an excuse to
Speaker 1: go fishing, right, because that's what that was, and it
Speaker 1: was he did a great job. I hope he got
Speaker 1: a good grade on the paper, but I I can
Speaker 1: see through what he's doing there. He's like, how do
Speaker 1: I how do I turn this into a into an
Speaker 1: excuse to go fishing? For for credit? I did a
Speaker 1: report once on a dude who owned a fly shop,
Speaker 1: which meant, like to do all the research, I just
Speaker 1: went and sat in the fly shop the ship. But
Speaker 1: the guy like, come on, and I guess I gotta
Speaker 1: give props to you on this too. But I want
Speaker 1: to call out Jared because he's he figured out much
Speaker 1: earlier in life than than myself that that science and
Speaker 1: math are applicable to really cool ship. Right If I
Speaker 1: had been. If I've been smart enough to approach science
Speaker 1: classes as opportunities to better understand principles of fishing, you know,
Speaker 1: I might have tried to calculate something other than the
Speaker 1: minimum quantity of work necessary to achieve a passing grade,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like that, that was really
Speaker 1: the only equation I was working on. By the time
Speaker 1: I figured out science was not just applicable but central
Speaker 1: to the things I love to do, like fishing. I
Speaker 1: was just I was way too old to start a
Speaker 1: new career bad like that. That ship is sailed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the actual subject of of my first story is not.
Speaker 1: The story comes from the Fondelack Reporter, but it has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with Sturgeon saying that because we've been
Speaker 1: getting Fonderlack and Sturgeon really hard. Jared Ott is an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old senior at Fondolac Stem Academy. Now Jared's
Speaker 1: from Wisconsin, so you know he's dunked a few worms
Speaker 1: in his day once once or twice, and in fact,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what he was doing while brainstorming his senior project.
Speaker 1: The assignment was to come up with a solution to
Speaker 1: a real world problem. So Jared went to local lake
Speaker 1: to fish crawlers. While like noodling on on the big assignment,
Speaker 1: because what else are you gonna do it? He started
Speaker 1: getting frustrated because the fish were short striking and stealing
Speaker 1: all his bait, and boom that right then is when
Speaker 1: inspiration hit. Jared decided that he was going to design
Speaker 1: a fish hook that would make it more difficult for
Speaker 1: fish to remove the worm without getting pinned. When his
Speaker 1: school got shut down due to COVID, Jared had time
Speaker 1: to solder together a bunch of different designs and beta
Speaker 1: test them. In other words, Jared spent much of the
Speaker 1: COVID lockdown telling his parents he was working on school
Speaker 1: project while going fishing. So again, well done, Jared, super
Speaker 1: smart kid. The file design that he came up with
Speaker 1: looks like a miniature jay hook attached about halfway up
Speaker 1: the shank of a standard bait hook. So picture you
Speaker 1: know your standard bait worm jig head hook, and then
Speaker 1: about halfway up the shank there's a little mini jay
Speaker 1: hook soldered right there. And according to according to Jared,
Speaker 1: the design quote secures the worm better so the fish
Speaker 1: can't take it as easily and have to fight harder,
Speaker 1: which means getting more of a tug on the line.
Speaker 1: And I gott admit I don't actually understan end that
Speaker 1: quote very well, Like the issue that we're trying to
Speaker 1: solve was not feeling the strike, but keeping the worm
Speaker 1: on the hook. And and and then I look at
Speaker 1: the photos. I'll be straight, I'm not totally sold on
Speaker 1: this product, but just I have fished him. I've just
Speaker 1: looked at the pictures. And Jared seems like a pretty
Speaker 1: smart guy, and he claims that the worm keeper hook
Speaker 1: has performed very well and extensive testing both for him
Speaker 1: and a bunch of his fishy buddies who he gave
Speaker 1: him to. In fact, he's so confident in this design
Speaker 1: he has already patented it kids a team. He's already
Speaker 1: got his own fishing hook. That's smart of course, Like dude,
Speaker 1: you got a patent everything just in case nowadays, right,
Speaker 1: Like I I get that, I have, I have some
Speaker 1: questions here, Okay, I'll be done. Secondly, not surprisingly, Jerry
Speaker 1: got himself a scholarship to Michigan Tech, where he plans
Speaker 1: to study mechanical engineering. He also told the fond Lack
Speaker 1: Reporter that he hopes to license his hook to tackle
Speaker 1: manufacturers in the near future, but so far none have
Speaker 1: ponied up for the rights. If if anybody listening wants
Speaker 1: to reach out to Jared and see about buying some
Speaker 1: of these direct you can find him. You can shoot
Speaker 1: him an email at that's O T. T Phishing Hooks
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. And if you do and you
Speaker 1: buy some, let us know how they work, because I'm
Speaker 1: again I'm skeptical looking at the photo, but I'm curious.
Speaker 1: Had the promo code bent for zero some? Uh? So? Okay,
Speaker 1: did he get the scholarship because of these hooks? No?
Speaker 1: Like it was like crazy start engineering car. So all right.
Speaker 1: So I'm picturing like a J style bait holder hook,
Speaker 1: like standard bait holder hook, and then up to shanks soldered.
Speaker 1: Now is it back to back or are the points
Speaker 1: on the same side of the hook? The points are
Speaker 1: fully lined up? Okay, And that's like a little egg
Speaker 1: hook kind of soldered to the shank of a bigger
Speaker 1: J hook. But it's not an egg hook. It's it's
Speaker 1: a it looks like a mini J hook attached to
Speaker 1: the main J hook. Okay, that's it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be an egg hook. I I get it. I'm picturing
Speaker 1: this in my head. I was wondering if they were opposing,
Speaker 1: like the one on the back the point went one way,
Speaker 1: because here's the thing, right and again I feel like
Speaker 1: there's pieces that I'm missing, But there I feel like
Speaker 1: we're talking about two separate things here. This hook, I'm
Speaker 1: certain keeps a worm on the hook better. That's just
Speaker 1: like there's two points, there's two hooks. You're pinning it
Speaker 1: on two hooks. But short striking, at least in my experience,
Speaker 1: whether it's a bluegial or whatever happens because the fish
Speaker 1: are smart enough or wary enough to only pick at
Speaker 1: whatever part of the worm is wiggling and overhanging the hook.
Speaker 1: So while this this may stop them from pulling it off,
Speaker 1: it can't make them commit to just hoover in the
Speaker 1: whole worm down. So I'm a little unsure of how
Speaker 1: it equates two more fish pinned worm on the hooks
Speaker 1: more secure. But if the little some bitches are just
Speaker 1: nibbling at the end of the worm and they're not
Speaker 1: vacuuming it, what what I am? That's that's where I'm
Speaker 1: a little I'm with you, and maybe maybe that is
Speaker 1: the genius of this is just it's a little a
Speaker 1: little tougher to steal the bait. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: like if you got those those little dinkers or the
Speaker 1: wary fish that aren't taking it in. I don't think
Speaker 1: this is solving that problem. Yeah, exactly, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I wish them the best. I also
Speaker 1: think it's one of those things there are so many
Speaker 1: fishing products, like Lord knows what we see, and we
Speaker 1: just saw one that was sent to us. We won't
Speaker 1: go into it, but like it comes out and it
Speaker 1: seems like this thing that is going to be embraced
Speaker 1: by all fishermen. But really, if you're not dunking nightcrawlers
Speaker 1: and and whole nightcrawlers at that right, not breaking off
Speaker 1: little pieces like you normally do, like this is not
Speaker 1: serving that many people. Yeah, okay, but again, if this
Speaker 1: were I will say this, if the if some fishing
Speaker 1: tackle company we're sending me a press release about this,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't look twice. The reason this is a cool
Speaker 1: story is because Jared is an eighteen year old kid
Speaker 1: who was on COVID sabbatical and came up with this
Speaker 1: as his senior project. And that is why I like
Speaker 1: this story. I don't think it's going to set the
Speaker 1: fishing world on fire. No, And you know what, you inadvertently,
Speaker 1: you just you just brought up a sort of a
Speaker 1: roundabout point that is or can be a big problem
Speaker 1: with fishing tackle in general. This could be the smartest
Speaker 1: thing in the world, right, and this kid put a
Speaker 1: lot of time into it, and bravo to that. If
Speaker 1: you can get a VMC or a Gamma Katsu to
Speaker 1: go in on this, you're made. But this is also
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that can be picked up by
Speaker 1: the as seen on t V P and then right
Speaker 1: away all your hard work is now skewed into This
Speaker 1: is a gimmick, like it matters. So there are so
Speaker 1: many fishing products I've seen, and I'm sure you've seen
Speaker 1: where you're like, if that was Rapileus selling that to
Speaker 1: me and not this company, it would be the greatest
Speaker 1: thing in the world. I think that's fair. I think
Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right. And they're they're cautionary tales
Speaker 1: literally one the roadside of fishing history that we could
Speaker 1: point to for that. I mean, I I always think
Speaker 1: of it like, you know, the banjo Minnow and the
Speaker 1: Flying Loure like we like to make fun of them
Speaker 1: because there are these as seen on TV products. If
Speaker 1: Striking dropped the Flying Lure, it would it would have
Speaker 1: just been a whole different connotations. So if I wish
Speaker 1: him the best man, and I hope that if he
Speaker 1: licenses this out like he does it with the right company,
Speaker 1: who will will will will make it work for him?
Speaker 1: What I mean, I hope it works. I do too.
Speaker 1: I'll go from making better connections with worms to making
Speaker 1: love connections. About that I like it. There you go.
Speaker 1: Then this is not a weighty story, though it is
Speaker 1: going to help I don't know, maybe some of our
Speaker 1: young single listeners maybe. And frankly, the information here is
Speaker 1: also it's stuff that I think you and I could
Speaker 1: have given um just from personal harder and experience. But
Speaker 1: everything these days has to be picked apart as it
Speaker 1: relates to social media. Right. So this story is from
Speaker 1: the tab dot com, which is a UK based site
Speaker 1: that describes itself as a site covering youth culture and
Speaker 1: student culture run by journalists who like being first. Okay,
Speaker 1: and the journalist that wrote the story, I'm covering the
Speaker 1: journalists that wrote the story I'm covering here is Katie Thacker,
Speaker 1: and Katie is apparently extremely perplexed by why men feel
Speaker 1: using phishing pictures as their profile photo on Tinder is
Speaker 1: a smart thing to do, right, and she knows, She writes, right,
Speaker 1: I have many many men questions for the men of
Speaker 1: our world. Why must you leave the toilet seat up? Now?
Speaker 1: Remember this from the UK? So I love this one
Speaker 1: though it made me laugh. Why do you insist on
Speaker 1: spreading your legs as far open as possible on public transport?
Speaker 1: And then I started thinking about it, and I'm like, dude, yeah,
Speaker 1: like dudes right in the subway? Why are you always
Speaker 1: like s s on the subway? About that? When I
Speaker 1: was when I was in New York, they were like
Speaker 1: banners above the subway seating that said, like, dude, stop
Speaker 1: the spread. That was before COVID, so it didn't have
Speaker 1: the same connotation of like, you know, full on spread ego.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I never thought about it. I never thought
Speaker 1: about it until I read this. And so she goes on,
Speaker 1: why do you feel the need? Demand's playing my literal
Speaker 1: degree to me. But honestly, not a single one of
Speaker 1: these is more pressing than why on Earth men feel
Speaker 1: the need to include pictures of them holding a fish
Speaker 1: in their tender profile picture. Could you really not have
Speaker 1: just gone for that picture of you in a bar
Speaker 1: or in your mates garden? God even a Snapchat filter
Speaker 1: at this point? Right, So she says, fueled by confused
Speaker 1: and semi discussed and a desire to answer the pressing questions,
Speaker 1: I swiped right for every boy with a fish pick
Speaker 1: I could possibly find and ask them why. Here's what
Speaker 1: they had to say for themselves. And spoiler alert, in
Speaker 1: true male fashion, these are like the shittiest answers ever,
Speaker 1: Like they are pretty much the shittiest, most unsatisfying answer.
Speaker 1: So I there's a ton of them, because like, she
Speaker 1: really went for it and like interviewed a ton of
Speaker 1: these dudes. SA, I'll breakdown just a couple. She started
Speaker 1: out with Joe, who looks like the lead singer of
Speaker 1: Blur Circle ninety four holding a carp right, And remember
Speaker 1: Katie is just kicking off the messaging with the same question,
Speaker 1: why did you choose that photo for your profile? And
Speaker 1: this guy starts out what an interesting question, then follows
Speaker 1: up with because I like to fish and I think
Speaker 1: it's a decent photo, And then When she pressed him further,
Speaker 1: asking if he thinks he's the star of the photo
Speaker 1: or the fish, he comes back with, I think the
Speaker 1: fish gives the photo an agenda, Like what the hell
Speaker 1: does what does that even mean? What's the agenda? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. If we're trying to be like smart there, okay,
Speaker 1: then then I don't know. Then we have another Joe,
Speaker 1: And apparently there's a lot of guys named Joe on
Speaker 1: Tinder that like use fish photos. That's just a side note.
Speaker 1: So this Joe is mean mugging with the well's catfish
Speaker 1: and he looks like he's in sync in the nineties
Speaker 1: with the spiky hair, and um, Katie says, pretty much
Speaker 1: all his photos included fish, and he just said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm always fishing, and I don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: photos without fish, so I can relate. I can relate.
Speaker 1: Most pictures of me have fish in them, but be
Speaker 1: I'm also not trying to date people on Tinder, so
Speaker 1: I could see how this would not work on Tinder,
Speaker 1: because if you're always fishing and have no photos without fish,
Speaker 1: like the ladies might assume you have no time for
Speaker 1: them and or no friends. So that's like another knock
Speaker 1: against too many fishing pictures. Uh, nineteen year old Euan
Speaker 1: posing with the carpet. This is so sweet and personally relatable.
Speaker 1: He explained to her that fishing is just a hobby
Speaker 1: for him right now, but he took a fisheries management
Speaker 1: course in school and is hoping to turn fishing into
Speaker 1: a career. And boy, this takes me back because like,
Speaker 1: my first nationally published article happened when I was still
Speaker 1: in college, and I remember bringing that magazine The Clash,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I was so proud. I was
Speaker 1: like the story I wrote about a scrape bash and
Speaker 1: don't want a sportsman guys look, And like all the
Speaker 1: girls in my journalism classes were like, wow, cool, so
Speaker 1: you and good on you for the career goals, but like,
Speaker 1: don't play up your future in fishing as a selling
Speaker 1: point for your datability. You could trust me on that.
Speaker 1: And uh, finally, my personal favorite dude named Ashley is
Speaker 1: posing with a big carp tells Katie, well, I recently
Speaker 1: lost a lot of weight at the only recent pictures
Speaker 1: I have of myself our fish photos. But then comes
Speaker 1: back to her and he's like, how come all your
Speaker 1: pictures you're posing with wine, and she's like, you know what,
Speaker 1: he's got a good point, and maybe I need a
Speaker 1: new hobby. So just a little expos like we always
Speaker 1: joked about like that, like this, this has come up elsewhere,
Speaker 1: but I feel like she actually took the journalistic deep dive,
Speaker 1: and it's like I'm going to swipe right and I
Speaker 1: am going to ask all these dudes um, and none
Speaker 1: of them had particularly satisfying answer. I mean, I disagree.
Speaker 1: I think I think that that honest answer of well,
Speaker 1: I don't really take pictures of myself except when I
Speaker 1: have when I catch a fish. I think that's totally
Speaker 1: legit and I can relate to that. So it may
Speaker 1: not be satisfying. It may not answer some like deep
Speaker 1: existential questions she wants to understand about dating particular men,
Speaker 1: but it is honest, no, no, no, and it is honest.
Speaker 1: I just have to look at it like like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not out there looking, we're not on Tinder, right,
Speaker 1: so I have to look at it from a perspective
Speaker 1: like if you're on Tinder trying to meet girls, and
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know about you, but I've also
Speaker 1: had some friends who at some point since I've known that.
Speaker 1: We're like, dude, I met this girl, she fishes her
Speaker 1: ass off, this is awesome, and then ever works out,
Speaker 1: Like they think that they want that, but then like
Speaker 1: it doesn't work out. So it's like, if you're going
Speaker 1: for somebody to fish with, maybe, but if that's not
Speaker 1: your m oh, I don't know. Man, It's like nothing
Speaker 1: but fish pictures on Tinder. Look, I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: on this. I'm not gonna pretend to be here, but
Speaker 1: I will say one thing like this, and I'm dating
Speaker 1: myself because uh, I didn't ever do much online dating.
Speaker 1: There was like a half a second where I was
Speaker 1: on match dot com and it resulted in the worst
Speaker 1: dates of my entire life. So I quickly got off
Speaker 1: of it. But I had a friend who who did
Speaker 1: something similar, but it was very thoughtful and very intentional.
Speaker 1: Every picture he put up was of him with a
Speaker 1: fish or with something he'd hunted, and I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: is that really like smart strategy? And and he was
Speaker 1: very honest. He's like, look, this is a huge part
Speaker 1: of my life. I love to hunt and fish. I
Speaker 1: want to be honest about this, and I want to
Speaker 1: find I don't I don't care if, if whoever I
Speaker 1: end up dating. I don't care if that woman wants
Speaker 1: to participate in these with me or not. But I
Speaker 1: want I don't want to false advertise. This is who
Speaker 1: I am and this is what I do. And it
Speaker 1: just kind of cuts through some of the bs and
Speaker 1: weeds out folks who are going to be an way
Speaker 1: by that. I get you. That's the strategy too, That's
Speaker 1: strategy too. So I my last story, here's the only
Speaker 1: connection I can find. We both we both went with
Speaker 1: some maybe some low hanging fruit this week, and and
Speaker 1: and I've been I've been getting pretty serious for a while.
Speaker 1: And I'll get back to serious stories, I'm sure next week.
Speaker 1: But I felt like everybody needed a break from all
Speaker 1: the bummers that I keep talking about. So this one,
Speaker 1: this one, this one is kind of a science story,
Speaker 1: but it don't don't don't have high hopes. So a
Speaker 1: while back we we talked about long fin Damselfish and
Speaker 1: how they developed relationships with certain shrimp to help their
Speaker 1: algae gardens. Remember that one, and and that that particular
Speaker 1: case works out well for all the parties involved. The
Speaker 1: shrimp get protection, the fish get gardens that are well
Speaker 1: fertilized by the shrimp poop. That's called a symbiotic relationship.
Speaker 1: And sometime after we ran that story, I was looking
Speaker 1: up other symbiotic aquatic relationships and I stumbled on a
Speaker 1: story about sea cucumbers and star pearl fish which claimed
Speaker 1: that these two different organisms have a symbiotic relationship as well.
Speaker 1: But the details struck me as odd. I do not
Speaker 1: have a delicate way of putting this all Just people
Speaker 1: unt star pearl fish seek out crevices in which to live,
Speaker 1: and they are known to favor the anuses of c cucumbers.
Speaker 1: Of course, according to National Geographic a pearl fish will
Speaker 1: find a sea cucumber bum by smell and then dive
Speaker 1: in head first, quote, propelling itself by violent strokes of
Speaker 1: the tail. Now, the c cucumber does have the musculature
Speaker 1: to close down its anus, but only for so long
Speaker 1: because sea cucumbers breathe through their butts. So the pearl fish,
Speaker 1: if it gets thwarted, just has to wait it out
Speaker 1: and then wriggle on in. And And despite how that
Speaker 1: sounds to us, anthropomorphizing biologists once believe this relationship to
Speaker 1: be mutually agreeable, and they had a couple of reasons
Speaker 1: for things and that. First, it seems like pearl fish
Speaker 1: may have evolved to coexist with cucumbers. The inside of
Speaker 1: a sea cucumber maybe like a safe, protected hole to
Speaker 1: hide in, but it's not hospitable. Sea cucumbers produce sapping in,
Speaker 1: a toxin that kills most aquatic creatures, which is why
Speaker 1: other fish don't exploit the same gap, shall we say.
Speaker 1: In fact, see cucumbers would succumb to their own internal
Speaker 1: poisons if they didn't also produce a kind of anti venom.
Speaker 1: Pearl Fish, on the other hand, just produce mucus, lots
Speaker 1: and lots of mucus, six to ten times more mucus
Speaker 1: through their skin than the average fish, and this mucostal
Speaker 1: membrane acts as a barrier against the sapping in and
Speaker 1: also provides a natural lubricant. Another reason biologists once thought
Speaker 1: that cucumbers must be benefiting from hosting the pearl fish
Speaker 1: is that they have the capacity to expel them. Sea
Speaker 1: cucumbers can spit out their their respiratory trees a ka.
Speaker 1: Their lungs a k a. The crevices where pearl fish
Speaker 1: hide when they're threatened, and then grow new ones like
Speaker 1: they're capable of coughing up their lungs and grow new
Speaker 1: ones if they have to, but they don't do this
Speaker 1: when infiltrated by pearl fish, right, So for those reasons,
Speaker 1: it seems like there's got to be something in this
Speaker 1: for the sea cucumbers. Relatively new research, however, has found
Speaker 1: this is not they mutually agreed upon relationship. In in
Speaker 1: many cases it's it's what's known as a commensalist relationship,
Speaker 1: meaning that just the pearl fish is getting something out
Speaker 1: of this. But you know, at least the c cu
Speaker 1: cumber gonna like puts up with it. Parl fish gets
Speaker 1: something of it. But many I feel, really you're making
Speaker 1: me feel really sad. It gets worse, It gets worse.
Speaker 1: One specific type of pearl fish goes full on parasitic
Speaker 1: and actually has been known to consume the sea cucumbers,
Speaker 1: going adds from within. Moreover, in certain circumstances, the cucumber
Speaker 1: innards can get pretty crowded. Pearl Fish are generally territorial
Speaker 1: and solitary, so in most cases, just one pearl fish
Speaker 1: will reside in a sea cucumber at any given time,
Speaker 1: but in rare cases, perhaps when sea cucumbers are scarce
Speaker 1: or for spawning reasons, multiple pearl fish will cohabitate inside
Speaker 1: a single cucumber. One researcher found fifteen pearl fish inside
Speaker 1: a cucumber and was quoted as saying, if indeed the
Speaker 1: fifteen fish entered for sexual reasons, one cannot help but
Speaker 1: think of the orgy that must have taken place inside
Speaker 1: the sea cucumber. And biologist quote and that my friend
Speaker 1: concludes today's segment on Things you Never wanted to know
Speaker 1: about sea cucumbers. Yeah, I can't. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: so many jokes but they're also inappropriate that I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't. There's children listening to this show. What is
Speaker 1: a pearl fish? Look, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: It looks like a little money eel, like candeer, like
Speaker 1: the candaroo catfish, kind of like the cantyo. Yes, so
Speaker 1: if you got those two together, you'd have a terrible
Speaker 1: time from just all all all orifices. Yeah, I I look,
Speaker 1: I don't. I again, like, there's so many things that
Speaker 1: come to mind that I cannot, I can, I will not,
Speaker 1: but I will say, despite how awkward and ikey that is,
Speaker 1: and how truly like I just while you were saying it,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about like a poor c cucumber and
Speaker 1: hearing that that arms of an Angel song they play
Speaker 1: over the Sad Dogs commercial, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like when they're trying to like and it already doesn't
Speaker 1: have much going on, Like it's already a c cucumber,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, It's already like a pretty
Speaker 1: kind of miserable existence, you know what I mean? So like, man,
Speaker 1: that's that's terrible. That is terrible. Um, So we'll see,
Speaker 1: we'll see. Phil feel free to if you want to
Speaker 1: add to the c cucumber but whole relationship. Maybe your
Speaker 1: jokes would be more appropriate. I don't know, but we'll
Speaker 1: we'll end feeling terrible for c cucumbers. We'll hear from
Speaker 1: Phil and then we'll uh, we'll make you guys feel
Speaker 1: terrible for one of our listeners in Awkward Moments in
Speaker 1: Angling Miles. You seemed almost ashamed to be sharing that
Speaker 1: last story, but you shouldn't be, because you were the
Speaker 1: winner this week, and as someone who used to sling
Speaker 1: tacos at Sonic for a living, I have a message
Speaker 1: for Lance V. Hey Lance, go cherry lime made with
Speaker 1: your fry sauce and put it in pearl fish mucus.
Speaker 1: That felt good? Well, did you take a picture? A life? Back?
Speaker 1: All right on the block? In awkward moments, we've got
Speaker 1: Mr Pavelo McGlave And before we even get into this
Speaker 1: stellar photo, I've got two notes right off the bat here.
Speaker 1: One I'm calling it the most awkward photo that we've
Speaker 1: had yet the move had I'm calling it the most
Speaker 1: And we have had some very funny, very awkward photos,
Speaker 1: but in my opinion, this one transcends them, because in
Speaker 1: no way do you need to be an angler to
Speaker 1: find this shot awkward? Right Like, any human being on
Speaker 1: the planet would look at this and go, oh, that's
Speaker 1: awkward as hell. Doesn't matter if you fish or not,
Speaker 1: which is ironic because it's also the first photo we've
Speaker 1: ever used that does not contain a fish, nor was
Speaker 1: it even taken on the water. Yeah, it's not a
Speaker 1: grip and grin right Like, the whole idea of this
Speaker 1: segment was to make fun of grip and grins, which
Speaker 1: which might leave you and and kind of leaves me
Speaker 1: wondering how the hell this photo even qualifies. But let's
Speaker 1: just say that this photo proves beyond any shadow of
Speaker 1: a Doubt's passion for angling has been a defining characteristic
Speaker 1: since he was very, very young, and then he was
Speaker 1: willing to publicly assert his love of fishing, no matter
Speaker 1: the social repercussions that might come. Who cares, because you
Speaker 1: see Pavel sent us his fifth grade school photo. You
Speaker 1: remember fifth grade because I hide you. Those were some
Speaker 1: heavy years where you're just you're just starting to figure
Speaker 1: out that that social pecking order, and you know, we
Speaker 1: were all starting to learn, like who who was a
Speaker 1: bully and who was getting bullied? And when I'm looking
Speaker 1: at this photo, I'm I'm pretty sure I know that
Speaker 1: Pavel was intimately familiar. Shall we stay with bullying? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd have to agree. And I know this because I
Speaker 1: would have been the asshole that bullied him. Okay, However,
Speaker 1: in fairness, I got mine later. Because here's a fun tip. Kids,
Speaker 1: When you go to high school in suburban New Jersey
Speaker 1: and it's time for archery and Jim, do not bring
Speaker 1: your own bow. Just use the garbage bows provided by
Speaker 1: the gym teacher, because nobody, and I do mean nobody
Speaker 1: will be talking about how cool you and your matthews
Speaker 1: are at lunch Okay, So in fifth grade, I probably
Speaker 1: would have have bullied Pavelo a little bit, but I
Speaker 1: got mine later by showing my aftdoor enthusiasm. See, I
Speaker 1: would have I would have liked had solidarity with Babo,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't have said it out loud because I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want you to beat me up. Fair Okay, anyway,
Speaker 1: let's let's get into this photo. And we're gonna start
Speaker 1: with the background here because it's very nineties, and in fact,
Speaker 1: it harkens me back to my kindergarten class photo in
Speaker 1: which I'm sitting on a carousel horse right, with a
Speaker 1: pastel color drop cloth behind me, and I'm crying. It's
Speaker 1: a classic family photo. I'm very upset. Um. And then
Speaker 1: I remember, I don't know if you if you did
Speaker 1: this right, but in my elementary school, um, while every
Speaker 1: kid was shot on a plane background, you had to
Speaker 1: specify what the background would look like in the hard
Speaker 1: copies and you could get like prisms and geometric patterns
Speaker 1: and john but my my mom, my mom was always like, hell, no,
Speaker 1: you will get the soft blue, right we did. We
Speaker 1: didn't have any of that where I went to school.
Speaker 1: It was soft blue and that was it. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: we had we had, we had choices, okay, but the
Speaker 1: backdrop and and of Pavel's school photo, it's it's like
Speaker 1: nothing I've ever seen. Oh no, man, Like I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's loosely based on Jurassic Park. Like
Speaker 1: that's what I see when I look at this, Like
Speaker 1: the actual the actual background has a jungle theme going on.
Speaker 1: There's the dense ferns and and some purple flowers and
Speaker 1: I got I hope that it's what you described, right.
Speaker 1: I hope this is one of many shitty digital background
Speaker 1: options that the kids could pick from, because it's bad.
Speaker 1: I hope everybody didn't have to have that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, you know what it looks like.
Speaker 1: It looks like the predator's body when he has his
Speaker 1: cloaking device activate it, Like the jungle is about to
Speaker 1: come alive and take Pavel. That's a totally no. Poor
Speaker 1: Pavel is about to get taken by by the predator
Speaker 1: for sure. And there he is, right, little little Pavelo,
Speaker 1: and he's leaning against an extremely fake boulder with some
Speaker 1: some fake flora scattered on it, and makes me think,
Speaker 1: that's what I think when I look at this that
Speaker 1: all the kids had to be shot on the same background, right,
Speaker 1: because because those props seems so specific to that background.
Speaker 1: And I guess that, like, you know, if mom and
Speaker 1: dad hated the jungle theme, then it was kind of
Speaker 1: like tough ship. But that seems weird. Well yeah, no,
Speaker 1: but in some cases, like like the unicorn in kindergarten,
Speaker 1: I had no choice. You were sitting on the unicorn.
Speaker 1: So if your parents hated you want a unicorn, tough
Speaker 1: shit like that's and that's what I think. Whatever it was,
Speaker 1: but but see that's what I thought. But Pavel he
Speaker 1: says no, because I followed up and he told me
Speaker 1: at his school you could choose your background. So this
Speaker 1: was his choice, which makes it cooler. Right, So he
Speaker 1: shows the background and shows the back, correct, because I
Speaker 1: guess they sort of had like little movie set options
Speaker 1: for your photo. And as you just noted, they also
Speaker 1: had prop choices, which explains why Pavel has a spinning
Speaker 1: rod slung over his shoulder. Okay, right, so again we're
Speaker 1: in the jungle with some boulders and ferns and a
Speaker 1: fishing rod, and I got a reward points simply for
Speaker 1: the fact that a fishing rod was even offered absolutely
Speaker 1: prop there, but I also gotta I gotta deduct a
Speaker 1: few of those points because there's no line on the reel. No, no,
Speaker 1: it's but it's still great. Okay. It does leave me
Speaker 1: wondering two things. First, what were the other prop options? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: I'm there? Imagine there was a baseball bat and a
Speaker 1: football and maybe like a super cheesy skateboard. But what
Speaker 1: did Pavelo decide against in order to land on the
Speaker 1: lineless fishing rod? And the second thing, I'm wondering, did
Speaker 1: any other kids at all pick the fishing rod? Was
Speaker 1: pavel the only one? I would love to know that
Speaker 1: because I wondered that too. That's a bold and possibly
Speaker 1: stupid choice. Again, think back to fifth grade. Fifth graders
Speaker 1: aren't the innocent angels that their parents want to imagine
Speaker 1: them being. Fifth graders are assholes. That's why South Park
Speaker 1: is brilliant, Like, that's the whole point of that show.
Speaker 1: Even money, I'm I'm I'm putting up even money that
Speaker 1: says he earned himself at least one new nickname and
Speaker 1: a black eye over this photo. But Paul didn't care, Like,
Speaker 1: look at that, dude, he doesn't care he's owning it.
Speaker 1: He's like, this is who I am, this is what
Speaker 1: I'm about. And if I'm being honest, he was gonna
Speaker 1: catch up beating with or without the fishing rod brom.
Speaker 1: It was gonna haveppen ahead. He might he might have
Speaker 1: defended himself with the fishing ride after the photo was released.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, so beyond the fishing ride, he's wearing corduroy
Speaker 1: overalls with a white polo shirt and and that's there's
Speaker 1: not much to rip on there. Okay, fine, but man,
Speaker 1: his haircut is straight up Lloyd Christmas. And I mean literally,
Speaker 1: he might have taken a photo of Jim Carrey and
Speaker 1: dumb and dumber to the cut and corral and said, hey,
Speaker 1: give me one of those. I mean, it's fun, but
Speaker 1: it's it's even worse. It's not just as the Lloyd haircut.
Speaker 1: It's like that, but worse because it looks like he
Speaker 1: just got back from a family vacation in Mexico or
Speaker 1: Panama or something, because he's got the two pieces of
Speaker 1: braided hair capped off with rasta beads. Yes, really, the
Speaker 1: hair beads are so glorious. They're so glorious, right, and
Speaker 1: he did he told us he just came back from Mexico,
Speaker 1: and you know, he came back to class like I
Speaker 1: was just in ma. Yeah, I got Rosta beads in
Speaker 1: my You don't have that, okay, and they're they're so
Speaker 1: fantastic it's barely worth mentioning the friendship bracelet with a
Speaker 1: tag that's way too long, so like on his wrist,
Speaker 1: on the fake rock that you'd see in the aquarium store.
Speaker 1: It's like a normal friendship slit with a whole other
Speaker 1: friendship bracelet dangling from it. Anyway, Yeah, and Pablo, this
Speaker 1: is classic, and we cannot tell you how happy we
Speaker 1: are that you sent it. But this is my takeaway. Okay.
Speaker 1: I think it's so rock star that you opted for
Speaker 1: the jungle motif and grab the fishing rod and your
Speaker 1: mom or dad let this fly. Okay, bravo, Because if
Speaker 1: I had been in this situation, just like left to
Speaker 1: my own fifth grade devices to choose my own school
Speaker 1: photo adventure. As soon as my mom got these, she
Speaker 1: would have been like a serious I can't put this
Speaker 1: ship in Grammy's Christmas card. When it retakes, you're signing
Speaker 1: up for retakes. That's what would happen. Nope. When you
Speaker 1: bawl up like Pavel, there are no retakes. Remember, if
Speaker 1: you'd like to be voluntarily tortured on this show like
Speaker 1: pabl uh, send your awkward photos to Ben at the
Speaker 1: meat eator dot com. Because these are kind of the
Speaker 1: highlights of our existence. Okay, true, you know it's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nothing gives us more joy than being handed a photo
Speaker 1: and given license to essentially craft our own version of
Speaker 1: the story behind it. Yes, because we are all about
Speaker 1: giving you the backstory, which is what we do every
Speaker 1: week in our end of the line segment where we
Speaker 1: profile a particular lure, bait, or fly. This week, Miles
Speaker 1: is going to tell you about one that blends two
Speaker 1: of those categories together and in doing so, makes the
Speaker 1: old new again. Well it's not loud enough. If you
Speaker 1: mentioned the pistol peat in the fly shop, good chance
Speaker 1: no one will know what you're talking about. If someone does,
Speaker 1: they'll either pretend they don't or shoot you a look
Speaker 1: reminiscent of that time you ripped a loud fart in church.
Speaker 1: The widely available pistol pets are strangely absent in the
Speaker 1: fly scene. They're ignored or ridiculed a joke at best,
Speaker 1: at worst a effirmation of an art form and insult
Speaker 1: to delicate sensibilities. Calling the pistol pea fly pattern isn't
Speaker 1: exactly accurate. They're more of a style, a product line
Speaker 1: of classic wet flies like wooly buggers, woody worms, and renegades,
Speaker 1: with small propeller blades added right behind the eye of
Speaker 1: the hook. The flies themselves are totally unremarkable. They're cheap, crappy,
Speaker 1: third world country tide flies, but the added hardware sets
Speaker 1: them apart. Pistol Pizza distributed by a company called High
Speaker 1: Country Flies out of southern Colorado. Story goes that Chris
Speaker 1: Fieria was a fishy kid who liked to tie flies.
Speaker 1: He discovered that putting propeller blades turned his mediocre flies
Speaker 1: into fish catching machines. Being an entrepreneurial lad, he started
Speaker 1: his own little cottage industry, selling them around his hometown
Speaker 1: of Trinidad, Colorado. He kept that up as a way
Speaker 1: to make some extra cash all the way through college
Speaker 1: in High Country Flies Incorporated. Began large scale production of
Speaker 1: various pistol piets in Mexico and established national distribution. Though
Speaker 1: I've never once seen a pistol peat in a fly
Speaker 1: fishing shop anywhere in the country. You can find their
Speaker 1: trout kits and bass pro shops, Stick Sporting Goods, Walmart,
Speaker 1: and just about every big tackle store in the country.
Speaker 1: Most of those kits include a half dozen different propeller
Speaker 1: flies and three clear plastic casting bubbles so that they
Speaker 1: can be effectively used with a spinning rot. That pretty
Speaker 1: well explains what happened to this fly. See. Purists love
Speaker 1: to argue about what counts as a fly. Some people
Speaker 1: will only use flies made of natural materials. Others will
Speaker 1: only use floating flies they tied themselves. The parameters of
Speaker 1: purity are blurry and subjective, but a large segment of
Speaker 1: the fly fishing scene claim anything with a propeller or
Speaker 1: a spinning blade or a diving lip isn't a fly,
Speaker 1: it's a lure. And those same folks will point to
Speaker 1: the pistol pete as a relatively new and disgraceful bastardization
Speaker 1: of the glorious history of American fly fishing. But here's
Speaker 1: the thing. They're wrong, because if you actually look into
Speaker 1: the early days of American fly fishing the nineteen twenties
Speaker 1: through the nineteen fifties, fly lures were common. Back then,
Speaker 1: fly rods weren't the floppy, graphite levers of judgment and
Speaker 1: division we know today. Fly rods were tools for delivering small,
Speaker 1: lightly weighted presentations. Up until the late fifties, many of
Speaker 1: the major tackle companies made miniature spinners, plugs, crank baits, poppers, gurglers,
Speaker 1: and wigglers, all expressly designed for use on fly tackle.
Speaker 1: Sometime around nineteen sixty these lures disappeared. I'm speculating here,
Speaker 1: but my best guess for why that happened has to
Speaker 1: do with fishing rod technology. Conventional rods in the early
Speaker 1: twentieth century you were far different than what we have today.
Speaker 1: Most were made of steel and topped with level wine reels.
Speaker 1: They weren't capable of accurately and effectively casting the small
Speaker 1: light lures that are sometimes necessary for fooling spooky river trout.
Speaker 1: In those days, fly rods were the only practical option
Speaker 1: for fishing small and delicate After World War Two, fiber
Speaker 1: glass rods and spinning reels emerged as the dominant gear
Speaker 1: of choice for medium to light fishing situations. Fiberglass rods
Speaker 1: are far lighter and more sensitive than steel and have
Speaker 1: infinitely more flex which allows them to cast lighter lures.
Speaker 1: I theorized that the market for fly lures died around
Speaker 1: this same time because fly rods became unnecessary for everything
Speaker 1: but the lightest insect imitations. Right around this same time,
Speaker 1: fly fishing started splintering off into its own subculture. Once
Speaker 1: fly rods weren't strictly necessary a situationally effective fishing tools,
Speaker 1: using one became a statement, which then led into them
Speaker 1: becoming identifiers of a sort of weirdo counterculture in the
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, and then after a river runs through
Speaker 1: it came out symbols of elitism, purity, and status in
Speaker 1: the nineties and early two thousands. And that brings us
Speaker 1: back to the pistol peat, which hit the national market
Speaker 1: right around the time Brad Pitt's hat went floating across
Speaker 1: movie theater screens. It was a bad time to try
Speaker 1: and market fly lures to the fly industry, which was
Speaker 1: asserting itself as totally separate from and morally superior to
Speaker 1: conventional tackle. The thousands of independent fly shops popping up
Speaker 1: around the country refused to carry anything as low brow
Speaker 1: as bait or lures in order to serve their rapidly
Speaker 1: growing self important high dollar niche. Pistol peats caught the
Speaker 1: hell out of fish, but no way hardcore fly anglers
Speaker 1: were going to publicly endorse or use their products at
Speaker 1: that time, So High Country Flies made a smart pivot
Speaker 1: and started marketing their wares to spin fishermen, who continue
Speaker 1: to catch the hell out of fish on their crappy
Speaker 1: flies with bow propellers. They're probably the only fly company
Speaker 1: on the planet willing to suggest tipping their wares with
Speaker 1: corn if you're getting short strikes. But twenty one century,
Speaker 1: fly culture has moved on. Fly design has gone away
Speaker 1: from natural materials and delicate patterns. The contemporary fly scene
Speaker 1: is younger and less beholden to the norms and mores
Speaker 1: of the previous generation. Modern fly tires are racing each
Speaker 1: other to make flies that act more and more like lures.
Speaker 1: Most of the major fly companies now have at least
Speaker 1: one fly with the spinner blade. You can get flies
Speaker 1: that swim like jointed jerk baits, flies the gurgle like jitterbugs.
Speaker 1: The fact is that fly lures are hot again, even
Speaker 1: though no one's calling him that. Pistol peats, however, are
Speaker 1: not part of that new wave of cool flies, and
Speaker 1: I think there are two reasons. First, as I've mentioned,
Speaker 1: pistol piazza are not particularly interesting from a fly tying perspective.
Speaker 1: They're low quality old batterns that just have some hardware attached.
Speaker 1: They work, but they're just not that interesting. Second, High
Speaker 1: Country flies through their lot in with the conventional crowd
Speaker 1: thirty years ago, and even though modern fly design is
Speaker 1: getting closer and closer to gear fishing, the fly scene
Speaker 1: still clings to some sense of differentiation from a superiority
Speaker 1: to the gear scene. Don't cry for High Country, though,
Speaker 1: considering their distribution in every major sporting goods chain in America,
Speaker 1: I think they made the better business choice. So that's
Speaker 1: it for this week. If your mission was to glean
Speaker 1: nothing but style tips from this episode, you've learned that,
Speaker 1: under no circumstances should young boys put rasta beads in
Speaker 1: their hair on family vacation. Your skills make you look
Speaker 1: cooler than how you transport or fly rods, and if
Speaker 1: you've got enough dry flies on your hat to get
Speaker 1: you through an entire season, maybe you should use them
Speaker 1: and try accessorizing by I don't know clipping hemos to
Speaker 1: your shirt every time you leave the house. Instead, you've
Speaker 1: heard the fashion tips here first, remember to keep those
Speaker 1: sale bind items, bar nominations, memes that you have no
Speaker 1: idea would ever become theme of entire episode, and whatever
Speaker 1: else you want us to see her here coming to
Speaker 1: Bent at the mediator dot com. Yes, we love hearing
Speaker 1: from each and every one of you, and we love
Speaker 1: seeing those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on the Instagram.
Speaker 1: Using them, remember, is the fastest way to get yourself
Speaker 1: a little sticker selection from us. It is. And uh,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a rod vault stick them on,
Speaker 1: I might have one that I'd be willing to trade for.
Speaker 1: Vintage beanbag chair, a copy of Young Einstein on laser disc,
Speaker 1: and also a laser disc player,