Speaker 1: And I swear it's like what Google does after you
Speaker 1: utter the word tuggy sandbox. Suddenly there are just tuggy
Speaker 1: sandboxes everywhere you look. He was all decked out. He
Speaker 1: had his develop beam in his bandy pack and his
Speaker 1: best and his hat on. I don't know if he
Speaker 1: faced all the time, and he was just like a
Speaker 1: lacko coup or like he was all about it. What
Speaker 1: action would you take if one of your paying robs
Speaker 1: let us say, oh, wealthy well to do lady had
Speaker 1: a little too much to drink and told you to off.
Speaker 1: We'll catch a whole bunch of blues. Will put him
Speaker 1: in burlap sacks, throw him in the car, makes vicha
Speaker 1: the next that Good morning, degenerate anglers. Welcome to Bent,
Speaker 1: maybe the only podcast that can tell you the taxonomic
Speaker 1: and rigging differences between wax worms, meal worms, blood worms,
Speaker 1: tape worms, ring worms, Canadian worms, San Juan worms, and
Speaker 1: squirmy worms. I'm just from elly A Miles Nulty and
Speaker 1: I'll take a dozen extra large Canadian crawlers and a
Speaker 1: worm blower, please, a worm blower. You don't hear that much?
Speaker 1: You mean you are? You are talking about those those
Speaker 1: little air needles you used to puff up your worms. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is exactly what I'm talking about. It's like for
Speaker 1: those you don't know. It's a it's a little plastic
Speaker 1: bottle with what I can only describe as a body
Speaker 1: piercing needle sticking out of the cab, and you stick
Speaker 1: that needle into the into your nightcrawler and give give
Speaker 1: the bottle little squeeze and voila. You got yourself a
Speaker 1: floating worm. Put that bad boy on a slip sinker
Speaker 1: or a lindy rig and a ride, just top off
Speaker 1: the bottom where the fish can find it easier. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And if anyone in the boat needs like a septum
Speaker 1: piercing or a tongue ring, just give it a good sterilizing,
Speaker 1: you know, pour a little hooch over it, crank up
Speaker 1: some nine inch nails, and just pop it right through.
Speaker 1: That's what you do. Oh that you made me physically
Speaker 1: cringe in my seat right there, because I this is true.
Speaker 1: When I was sixteen years old, I had my septum pierced,
Speaker 1: and you did for everyone who failed anatomy and physiology.
Speaker 1: The septim is that middle flat between your nostrils, like
Speaker 1: it's the bull ring. And I do not recommend letting
Speaker 1: the clerk at the dark side across the street from
Speaker 1: All and one a mall jam a large gauge needle
Speaker 1: through there. It hurts. And and also who won't make
Speaker 1: you look as cool as you hoped or help you
Speaker 1: get dates? Doesn't? It didn't work like that for me
Speaker 1: in the nineties anyway. Wow, wow, man, I had no idea.
Speaker 1: Whenever I think I had no idea, and then whatever
Speaker 1: I think of septim piercings, what is the I forget
Speaker 1: which Chris Farley movie it is. Doesn't he rip one
Speaker 1: out of dudes? Or now that's out of the nipples,
Speaker 1: he rips it out of the nipples. I never had
Speaker 1: the nipple ring that was only piercing I ever did.
Speaker 1: It was a bad idea. I would see you more
Speaker 1: and more as a nipple ring guy in your younger
Speaker 1: days than septim. If I'm being completely honest with you,
Speaker 1: you know it was. I just it was. It was
Speaker 1: a split second decision, and I regretted it almost immediately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I had my ear pierced, and I wore hoops
Speaker 1: ticker gauge hoops for for for too long. I wore
Speaker 1: them and it was like not long after my I
Speaker 1: was born. I was like, you know what it's been,
Speaker 1: It's been long enough. I don't like, I don't even
Speaker 1: know if this is in style anymore. Like none of
Speaker 1: my friends who had an ears pierced, like we're still
Speaker 1: wearing their stuff. Um, but I never had any desire
Speaker 1: to pierce anything else or like gauge my ears or
Speaker 1: any of that. But this does, This does take me
Speaker 1: back to two younger days and like time spent. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about hot topic, the piercing pagoda South Street in Philly,
Speaker 1: you know, like, and I'll tell you what. The whole
Speaker 1: nostalgia vibe you're setting up also makes me think of
Speaker 1: the new lunch Bugs soft plastic crawlfish. It does. It
Speaker 1: does allow me to quote from the thirteen Fishing website
Speaker 1: who sponsors the show. By the way, are good friends there. Um,
Speaker 1: bringing the lunch bug is like being the kid whose
Speaker 1: mom packed them a lunchable and a snack pack. These
Speaker 1: appendages slap harder than the capri. Son also included his
Speaker 1: donkey sauce in order to leave the lingering taste in
Speaker 1: the fish's mouth long after you've gone off. The recess
Speaker 1: also comes pre engineered to float, so you don't need
Speaker 1: to hit it with the wormblower to keep it riding
Speaker 1: up off the bottom. That's uh. I don't know who
Speaker 1: writes the copy. They should work for us here bent
Speaker 1: and you can say. You can say what you want
Speaker 1: about the wormblower. Man, it is legit. I was reminded
Speaker 1: of its power last summer fishing on a finicky bite.
Speaker 1: We were in a red lake, Minnesota, and one of
Speaker 1: the locals like pulled out the old school wormblower as
Speaker 1: his secret weapon when the we like the freshwater drum
Speaker 1: and the wallet both were totally snubbing the floating jigheads.
Speaker 1: So you pulled that bad boy out and it's it's
Speaker 1: a little barbaric, but it's highly effective. Yeah, And I'm
Speaker 1: not knocking the wormblower by any stretch. I just feel
Speaker 1: like that's a piece of kit. Once again, it just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem very prevalent in the Northeast fishing culture where
Speaker 1: I grew up, Like I know another places in the
Speaker 1: Midwestern stuff. Um but um you did in the beginning
Speaker 1: of this, I think have something you would try trying
Speaker 1: to tea up as like a as like a throwback talk.
Speaker 1: You've gotten away from that? What is that you're you're
Speaker 1: you're distracting me with all this state of the art
Speaker 1: thirteen fishing gear start off topic. Yes, we were going throwback, Wormblowers,
Speaker 1: bad Piercings, nine inch Nails, and a certain Spotify playlist.
Speaker 1: If you haven't checked out the Bent playlist on Spotify,
Speaker 1: we recommend you do so. My cousin Nikki shout out
Speaker 1: to Nick was so inspired by the Bent playlist that
Speaker 1: he made his own competing playlist. And you got to
Speaker 1: know Nick is is a is a badass DJ in Hawaii.
Speaker 1: He he created this fantastic radio show called Bridging the Gap,
Speaker 1: which you should definitely check out. But in his spare time,
Speaker 1: he also created the Bent versus Bridging playlist. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And I don't know Nick, but I want to now
Speaker 1: because Gauntless, Gauntlets, throne Um, and I gotta say, this
Speaker 1: is a damn good collection of music, right, It's really good.
Speaker 1: The thing is of the reason I I feel like
Speaker 1: we have to talk about it is because when I
Speaker 1: looked at that playlist, I immediately thought, damn, how did
Speaker 1: I forget about that song? He's got something about a
Speaker 1: Waitress by the Ziggins. He's got Happy Boy by the
Speaker 1: Beat Farmers. He's got Voodoo Glow Skulls that makes us hot. Yep,
Speaker 1: I find myself listening to it often. It's a great
Speaker 1: max props to Nick for he has Cold Beverage by
Speaker 1: g Love in the special Sauce. That's a Philly band
Speaker 1: that's like Hometown Pride. G Love right there and some
Speaker 1: are Loving from Greece as covered by the Vandals, which
Speaker 1: you have not heard that. It's not just the standard
Speaker 1: covers right now. It's raunchy. They they reworked some lyrics. Um,
Speaker 1: but I will say man like, while while his playlist
Speaker 1: might be tighter than ours, is it better? I don't know,
Speaker 1: and we think, Um, you all should decide, Okay, So
Speaker 1: look up the Bent Verse bridging playlist on Spotify, um,
Speaker 1: and let us know if you think it's better than
Speaker 1: the Bent playlist. We'll also we'll throw some links up
Speaker 1: on our instagram ms two so you guys can find
Speaker 1: it easier. But our playlist, it really continues to grow
Speaker 1: and evolve. In our first guest today, Mr brad Leone,
Speaker 1: our buddy, Um, he actually added a few tracks to
Speaker 1: the Bent mix and lately, we've been asking select guests
Speaker 1: to contribute a few jams, and Brad added get this
Speaker 1: Ghoul's Night Out by the Misfits, because it turns out
Speaker 1: he's a huge Misfits fan, which means I like him
Speaker 1: even more. He also went to school with bass player
Speaker 1: Jerry only Kids, and was backstage at the Reunion show
Speaker 1: in Newark, New Jersey a few years ago while I
Speaker 1: was in the Nosebleeds for two ticket, so like, I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, of course you are. He's like backstage bro,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, of course you are. Um. He Also
Speaker 1: he also dropped cool Water and he wanted it by
Speaker 1: the old school country singer Marty Robbins. Okay, And while
Speaker 1: I appreciate that choice very much, I hope he doesn't mind.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take a little liberty with that pick, and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna switch it to the Hank Williams Senior
Speaker 1: version of cool One because that one it's much more
Speaker 1: sad and depressing. And while I'm not a country music guy,
Speaker 1: Hank Williams Sr. Was like a badass mother like, he
Speaker 1: was pure punk rocks, and I'm a huge fan. I
Speaker 1: might even add more Hank anyway, Brad and I are
Speaker 1: going to get all the stalgic about blue fish party
Speaker 1: boats in this week's Smooth Moves. Why so today with
Speaker 1: us on Smooth Moves, we got a familiar voice, Chef Angler,
Speaker 1: friend of the show, Brad the only welcome back, sir, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Yeah, so all right, this
Speaker 1: is this is a little out of your normal element
Speaker 1: where we're messing up the segment a little bit. Like normally,
Speaker 1: what we do here is we get a guide or
Speaker 1: a charter captain or a shop ride or somebody to
Speaker 1: tell a story about a client doing something stupid. But
Speaker 1: in talking to Joe, we are all for showcasing the
Speaker 1: diverse menager of entertaining stupidity that just happens to blossom
Speaker 1: on fishing trips. Like we're we're opening it up. So
Speaker 1: even though you're not a guide or a charter captain, uh,
Speaker 1: you do still have a good story to tell us.
Speaker 1: So what's your smooth move? Yeah, so smooth move. You know,
Speaker 1: I haven't done many big charter outfits like personal ones
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but like growing up, you know,
Speaker 1: we went out on party boats to bunch, chase and
Speaker 1: strike bass and you know, that's your paying to go
Speaker 1: out on someone's boat. So I think that that puts
Speaker 1: us in the in the category of qualification here. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited because like some of the most crazy
Speaker 1: shit I've ever seen in my life has been on
Speaker 1: a party boat. Yeah, I could write a book about it.
Speaker 1: So there, absolutely, there, incredible And we were going out
Speaker 1: and like hopefully, if anything at the end of the
Speaker 1: days for someone who is not familiar with the fish
Speaker 1: I'm about to talk about, or a party boat or
Speaker 1: anything for that matter, we can all learn something here.
Speaker 1: So we're going out. This one that I was young,
Speaker 1: you know, I was going out with my dad out
Speaker 1: of New Jersey, out of u What the hell is
Speaker 1: that in? Wherein the hawks at? Is that Bellmar? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Bis Bellmar? Right? Oh yeah, I'm going out of New
Speaker 1: Jersey there on the party boat. And uh, you know
Speaker 1: the one guy next to me, you know strangers, you know,
Speaker 1: there's one guy next to me. He was all all
Speaker 1: decked out. He had his LLL bean and his in
Speaker 1: his you know, his Fannie pack and his vest and
Speaker 1: his hat on and he had he had a trout
Speaker 1: vest on on a party boat like this dude was
Speaker 1: like ready to go. Like he was probably like I
Speaker 1: don't know if he fished all the time, and he
Speaker 1: was just like a lack o kok or like this
Speaker 1: was just like his first time and he was all
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, you were what you were. You you'll
Speaker 1: fish and you wear the vest. That's everyone knows that.
Speaker 1: You know. He was ready. He had his rags and
Speaker 1: his little tonaim flippers and he was ready to do,
Speaker 1: you know, and like and that's great and like so whatever.
Speaker 1: So we're fishing. We're going out for stripe fast, you know,
Speaker 1: a half day boat or something, and before you know,
Speaker 1: we're you over throwing diamond jigs. Before you know, we're
Speaker 1: getting into these bluefish and like pretty good sized bluefish,
Speaker 1: twelve fourteen pounders. It's nice ones, you know, ten ten
Speaker 1: pounders or whatever. And I'll never forget this, you know,
Speaker 1: my dad, you know, my dad always told me. But
Speaker 1: this guy, he's fighting this fish, you know, a big
Speaker 1: shit eating grin and he gets this thing up on
Speaker 1: the deck, you know, and he goes and picks it
Speaker 1: up with you know, thumbs it like a bast and
Speaker 1: he was just like there was just blood his rag
Speaker 1: and there's always a little cute little here he had
Speaker 1: was just covered in his own blood and uh, and
Speaker 1: then the whole trip he just like he was just
Speaker 1: wrapped up into the paper towels and paper or something
Speaker 1: and he sat in the cabins. But pointing to the
Speaker 1: story being, you know, those those yellow like demons, they've
Speaker 1: got some razor teeth and you can't just go you
Speaker 1: can't just go shoving your fingers in any kind of
Speaker 1: fish's mouth. So that's a great tip. But also, now
Speaker 1: that I know the story, I'm going to guess that
Speaker 1: the vest and all that ship was a sign of
Speaker 1: of of of not knowing what he was doing. He
Speaker 1: was not a veteran. It probably was his first time.
Speaker 1: But man, dude, I have seen you only make that
Speaker 1: mistake once, and I have seen so many people do
Speaker 1: that over the years. And what people don't know is
Speaker 1: those fish, I don't know, if you know this, they
Speaker 1: actually have an ant coagulant in their saliva. So like
Speaker 1: if you get oh yeah, dude, if you get if
Speaker 1: you get nipped by a blue fish, and they will
Speaker 1: like take the they will take the tip of your
Speaker 1: thumb off. You won't even feel it right away. Like
Speaker 1: their teeth are so razor sharp. But then it bleeds
Speaker 1: forever and ever. Yeah, like his friends get a sent
Speaker 1: to the blood and the water exactly, that's what they do,
Speaker 1: Like Piranha commodo dragons. They're also the only fish that
Speaker 1: will eat till they're stuffed and then vomit and keep eating.
Speaker 1: That's also true. That's the real thing that bluefish do.
Speaker 1: But just spit stuff up on the deck. And I
Speaker 1: love them, one of my favorite fish. Oh dude, they're
Speaker 1: they're a blasts and we don't have time to get
Speaker 1: into it. But like I missed those days when we
Speaker 1: were kids of going out nighttime blue fish, and there's
Speaker 1: not that many around anymore. Those nighttime blue fish trips
Speaker 1: don't run. But man, like the amount of gaffs I've
Speaker 1: been seen go through hands and fingers torn up onlines
Speaker 1: on those old blue fish boats, I miss it. Like
Speaker 1: I hope that swings back around for my kids because
Speaker 1: it's it's such an experience that I miss it a lot.
Speaker 1: But cheers to the party boat and ocean health man. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: we should all get together on a party boat at
Speaker 1: some point down the line. Oh my god, I would
Speaker 1: love to do that. Miles, you're gonna have to fly out.
Speaker 1: We'll go out in the party boat, right, maybe we won't.
Speaker 1: You do not need to convince me about this. I was.
Speaker 1: I was off fishing with Joe last month. It was
Speaker 1: a blast. I will go do that again any day.
Speaker 1: And the party. I've heard so much about the party
Speaker 1: boat scene. I feel like I just have to experience
Speaker 1: it for myself because people start freaking them. Hold your
Speaker 1: ride out straight, movie rod moved down. Fish, it's nuts.
Speaker 1: We'll come a whole bunch of coming down the line.
Speaker 1: You're walking down, over and under people's rodsulos. We'll catch
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of blues. Will put him in burlap sacks,
Speaker 1: throw him in the car, makes of each other next around.
Speaker 1: This is a lot of fun boys. I may not
Speaker 1: know shit about blue fish. I don't. I've never caught one.
Speaker 1: But even I know you don't lip a blue fish
Speaker 1: like that's a terrible idea. Yeah, but I didn't. You
Speaker 1: also ask me if you should lip a bow fin
Speaker 1: when we fished for those. Am I remembering that right
Speaker 1: that happened? I did that I did in my defense,
Speaker 1: if you look at a both in their teeth are
Speaker 1: not nearly as obvious, like if you you look at
Speaker 1: a blue fish and you just see teeth both in
Speaker 1: it's it's it's more subtle behind the gums exactly. So
Speaker 1: I will admit that wasn't my my smartest moment. I
Speaker 1: will defend it, but admit that it was kind of
Speaker 1: a stupid thing to say. Yeah, Well, hopefully you're feeling
Speaker 1: a little smarter than that today because you are going
Speaker 1: to need all the wits you got to compete against
Speaker 1: me in fish news. Fish news. That escalated quickly. We've
Speaker 1: got a little bit of exciting housekeeping before we get
Speaker 1: rolling into news this week. Meat Eaters new audio book
Speaker 1: al Right, Campfire Stories, Lowest Calls recently dropped, and this
Speaker 1: is this is a pretty cool project. Um that anyone
Speaker 1: that listens to any of the Mediator podcast or just
Speaker 1: really kind of like appreciates a great story. I think
Speaker 1: we'll really dig you'll really enjoy this. We obviously like
Speaker 1: the the auditory format of storytelling. We do a lot
Speaker 1: of it. We think it's powerful. And the theme of
Speaker 1: this audio book, and it's only an audio book, you
Speaker 1: can't get a hard copy, the theme is close calls.
Speaker 1: So all sixteen of the stories are true tales of survival,
Speaker 1: grit and maybe a little misfortune in the outdoors. And
Speaker 1: there are a few very hairy fishing related stories in
Speaker 1: the midst We got the hunting in the survival stories
Speaker 1: courses media, but there the fishing makes an appearance. Here
Speaker 1: it pops up. One example, my good buddy Thad Robinson
Speaker 1: of Geo Bass Fame tells the story where he was
Speaker 1: fishing and filming on a remote river in Columbia and
Speaker 1: he and his his crew were hammering giant fish, Like
Speaker 1: they got in there and just started hammering giant fish,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, the local cocaine cartel shows
Speaker 1: up and things get real interesting from there. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: like on a personal note, I remember seeing that they
Speaker 1: touch on that in Geo Bass if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: But then hearing it this way, you get the backstory
Speaker 1: that you didn't get if you saw that, like it goes,
Speaker 1: it goes deeper. You know. I got the back story
Speaker 1: at a bar years ago, and so I'm glad that
Speaker 1: it is now immortalized on test. Yes, and there's also
Speaker 1: just add there's a ripper of a story from our
Speaker 1: own colleague Brodie Henderson about his guiding days when he
Speaker 1: saved a four year old kid that was trapped under
Speaker 1: a boat and Matt like, dude, it gets the pulse
Speaker 1: up like I I almost call that the most haunting
Speaker 1: story in the collection. But we don't want to give
Speaker 1: too many details away, right, We don't want to spoil it.
Speaker 1: We don't want spoil No spoilers, no spoilers. You can
Speaker 1: find Campfire Stories in the Meteor store. We think you
Speaker 1: should check it out. It'll give you something cool and
Speaker 1: and very well polished to listen to on Fridays after
Speaker 1: listening to our nerdy less cool, perhaps less polished ramblings
Speaker 1: here on bent Oh I do. I think our audio
Speaker 1: engineer Phil would argue with the unpolished partner statement. But
Speaker 1: but Phil, don't worry like that. But we're not talking
Speaker 1: about the audio quality, just the content. You polished these
Speaker 1: territories to a high mirror shine on a weekly basis. Um.
Speaker 1: Phil also declares a news winner every week because remember
Speaker 1: this is a competition. Miles and I do not know
Speaker 1: which news stories the other guy is bringing to the table,
Speaker 1: and it is your leadoff this week, my friend. All right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lead with my big story and then go
Speaker 1: into my less big, stupider story. We talk a lot
Speaker 1: about red tides and fish kills in Florida, and there's
Speaker 1: a good reason why we keep hitting that topic and
Speaker 1: why it keeps coming up. Water mismanagement in Florida is
Speaker 1: steadily decimating some of this country's greatest fishing. And you
Speaker 1: can say what you will about Florida. God knows, we
Speaker 1: have made our fair share of Florida men and salt
Speaker 1: life jokes, right, but I will admit publicly that there's
Speaker 1: a strong case to be made the Florida is the
Speaker 1: greatest fishing state in the nation. It really is. The
Speaker 1: problem is we're ruining it. And to get a better
Speaker 1: understanding of the history and impacts of freshwater mismanagement in Florida,
Speaker 1: I really recommend that you read an article on the
Speaker 1: Meat Eater dot com by our good friends Sam Longdren.
Speaker 1: It's called Florida Water Crisis is new leadership Finally turning
Speaker 1: the tide. That article came out a few years ago,
Speaker 1: so the takeaways are a little dated, but Sam does
Speaker 1: a great job of contextualizing how and why we got
Speaker 1: to the situation we're in now, where every couple of years,
Speaker 1: red tides bloom on one or both coasts, of Florida
Speaker 1: and millions of fish die, which is happening right now,
Speaker 1: and the primary reason for the unnaturally large red tides
Speaker 1: and consistent fish kills has to do with how we've
Speaker 1: changed the way freshwater moves through the state of Floriaida. Historically,
Speaker 1: Central Florida's annual deluges of rain slowly snaked through the
Speaker 1: Cassimmee River, filled up Lake Okeechobee, the eighth largest natural
Speaker 1: lake in the country, and and drifted and filtered south
Speaker 1: through the massive marsh system that once covered basically all
Speaker 1: of South Florida, which were called Everlades, before finally winding
Speaker 1: up in Florida Bay. Through the twentieth century, we've changed
Speaker 1: the hydrology of that area to allow people and agriculture
Speaker 1: to exist in those South Florida swamps and marshes. As
Speaker 1: Sam describes in the article, we did this by quote
Speaker 1: controlling Lake os size and temperament by redirecting much of
Speaker 1: the water that used to flow down through the Glades
Speaker 1: west out the Cloosa Hatchie River to Pine Island Sound,
Speaker 1: and east out the St. Lucy River to the Indian
Speaker 1: River Lagoon. The natural flows southward through the Everglades into
Speaker 1: Florida Bay was largely blocked to protect growing communities and
Speaker 1: infrastructure and to promote sugarcane agriculture here to the southeast
Speaker 1: of the lake. At the time, the project was nothing
Speaker 1: short of miraculous. Enterprising, and brilliant Americans had tamed a
Speaker 1: volatile inland sea and transformed a wasteland of treacherous swamp
Speaker 1: into an oasis of habitable and highly arable land. The Everlades,
Speaker 1: starved of fresh water, have been shrinking and dying ever since.
Speaker 1: About half of the original blades are now urban or
Speaker 1: agricultural areas. Much of the rest is drying up or
Speaker 1: suffering saltwater incursion. Pine Island Sound and the Indian River
Speaker 1: Lagoon are experiencing the opposite problem, too much fresh water,
Speaker 1: in the form of billions of gallons of nutrient laden
Speaker 1: water diverted from the lake to the Atlantic and the
Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico. That's a very simplified version of what's
Speaker 1: going on. I recommend you read the bigger picture, but
Speaker 1: that gives you some sense what I'm talking about. We
Speaker 1: know the problem, The question is what are we gonna
Speaker 1: do about it? And for years, anglers, conservationists and Dedicated
Speaker 1: groups like Captains for Clean Water and Friends of the
Speaker 1: Everlades have lobbied and Spot for Water Management to consider
Speaker 1: the impacts on fish and fisheries. After two years of meetings, modeling, debates,
Speaker 1: and heated discussions, the Army Corps of Engineers just recently
Speaker 1: put forth a recommended Lake Okachobee Systems Operating Manual that
Speaker 1: would help dictate what happens to the lake's water. The
Speaker 1: draft big this is this is big news. I kind
Speaker 1: of buried the bead here, but this is big news.
Speaker 1: The draft, which has a weird title. It's titled Plans
Speaker 1: c C, would more than triple the quantity of water
Speaker 1: flowing south through the Everglades into Florida Bay and cut
Speaker 1: discharges into the St. Lucy Estuary by about two thirds.
Speaker 1: These changes could yield significant positive impacts for the southern
Speaker 1: and eastern coast of Florida, but the plan is it's
Speaker 1: currently written, fails to address water discharge issues out of
Speaker 1: the Kloosa Hatchie River on Florida's west coast. Captains for
Speaker 1: Clean Water, a group of anglers in Florida who have
Speaker 1: been fighting to protect fisheries for years, and full transparency
Speaker 1: It is run by a couple of guys who I
Speaker 1: consider friends. I genuinely think they're doing great work, but
Speaker 1: I'm also buddies with them, so keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: They put out the following statement. Plan CC provides a
Speaker 1: good starting point, but needs significant modifications in order to
Speaker 1: provide the most benefit to all stakeholders. Making these modifications
Speaker 1: will decrease the likelihood of toxic discharges to the St.
Speaker 1: Lucy and Closa Hatchie Estuaries, ensure drinking water supply for
Speaker 1: millions of Floridians, provide dry season hydration the Everlades, and
Speaker 1: help to mitigate hyper salinity in Florida Bay. The Core
Speaker 1: is planning to spend the next month on a quote
Speaker 1: listening tour to get feedback on the proposed plan before
Speaker 1: finalizing the decision in August. And so now, right now,
Speaker 1: this moment is the time to get involved. So many people,
Speaker 1: so many people have done huge amounts of work to
Speaker 1: arrive where we are at this exact moment. The next
Speaker 1: ten years of water management in Florida will be decided
Speaker 1: by this plan, and it's gonna be a make or
Speaker 1: break thing. Yeah, this is I cannot stress this enough.
Speaker 1: This is a big deal, And all I'm asking you
Speaker 1: to do is send an email and and grab a
Speaker 1: pen because you're you're you're gonna need to write this
Speaker 1: address down. You're not gonna remember this this email address.
Speaker 1: I will also put it in my Instagram, even though
Speaker 1: I'm terrible about that, and to get you a little
Speaker 1: carrot to get you to to check it out, I
Speaker 1: will put it in a post that includes a very
Speaker 1: embarrassing photo of me with a solid mullet holding a
Speaker 1: tarpet in Florida, so you can look forward to that anyway,
Speaker 1: Oh on our repost that then I'm into Please write
Speaker 1: an email too, ok at Chobe that's okay, E E
Speaker 1: C H O B E E Watershed Restoration at U
Speaker 1: S A C E dot Army dot M. I l oh,
Speaker 1: they got to shorten that up. You got that wet
Speaker 1: that they need a bit ley Lincoln there man something
Speaker 1: that No, you didn't I know you didn't get that.
Speaker 1: That's okay. You can check out my I G. You
Speaker 1: can check out Joe's edgy. And if you're feeling overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by this, there's an easier, though somewhat less impactful thing
Speaker 1: you can do. You can go to the Captain's for
Speaker 1: Clean Water website and they have this this very straightforward
Speaker 1: form letter that's like a call to action that they
Speaker 1: will help you send if you want to go that route,
Speaker 1: um that that would simplify it. It might not be
Speaker 1: as impactful, but you could do that road as well.
Speaker 1: I just gotta say, this is one of those rare
Speaker 1: moments when we can actually have a positive influence on
Speaker 1: our fisheries and and it really will not take more
Speaker 1: than ten minutes of your time. Yeah, yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting, like for as much trouble as Florida as having,
Speaker 1: there's so many conservation issues out there where like it
Speaker 1: takes so long just to pinpoint the root of the problem.
Speaker 1: And even though it's not really as simple as I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make it sound, this is one where it's like
Speaker 1: there's kind of sort of a switch we can flip
Speaker 1: to stop all this, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: we know exactly what the issue is, and certainly there's
Speaker 1: just an incredible politics and and so much involved in that,
Speaker 1: but it's a very identifiable problem, so you know what's
Speaker 1: going wrong. We we know the problem. Yeah, and were
Speaker 1: actually there. This is a moment where there's movement to
Speaker 1: change the way that that water is utilized and managed,
Speaker 1: and it's crucially important that we get this right. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, man Um, Like you said, the
Speaker 1: next ten years are going to be so critical in
Speaker 1: this fight. Like if it doesn't flip within the next
Speaker 1: ten years, maybe even sooner like it will, it's going
Speaker 1: to get to a point of no repair. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I'm I was really happy to see this news pop up,
Speaker 1: and I very much hope that the outcome of this
Speaker 1: is one that that benefits the fish and the fisheries
Speaker 1: in Florida and the anglers all of us who want
Speaker 1: to go fish there, because it's pretty amazing. Yeah, Florida.
Speaker 1: So Miles has just enriched us and and and giving
Speaker 1: us a call to action to do something great. I'm
Speaker 1: going to do no such thing with this story other
Speaker 1: than to say, hopefully within the next ten years the
Speaker 1: glades are good, because maybe within those ten years my
Speaker 1: son will be selling his first boat for a bigger
Speaker 1: boat that maybe he could run down there in Florida
Speaker 1: in the in the newly rejuvenated every Glades. I don't
Speaker 1: know that was a dumb transition ten years. Yeah, you'll
Speaker 1: understand in a minute. Okay, because I've been pretty bombarded
Speaker 1: about my first little story and I appreciate everyone sending
Speaker 1: it along. I actually saw it as a Facebook post
Speaker 1: before it became real news, which I use real lightly.
Speaker 1: But this is this is just so fantastic. Okay, Uh,
Speaker 1: this is from wish tv dot com out of Indiana, headline,
Speaker 1: tiny tug boat takes Lake Monroe by storm. And yes,
Speaker 1: the tiny tug boat in question is a tuggy sandbox.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, like the same one that you have
Speaker 1: in your backyard, the one that you got off of
Speaker 1: the Craigslist ad with the woman that didn't speak in English.
Speaker 1: That one. Yeah, she just pointed it ship same one,
Speaker 1: And I was gonna say it's like the tuggy seems
Speaker 1: to have inadvertently become like the official boat of the
Speaker 1: Bent podcast ever since we brought it up in that
Speaker 1: Sale Been segment a while back. Because in that segment,
Speaker 1: I noted that the tuggy is no longer made. It's
Speaker 1: been out of production for a while, making it a
Speaker 1: hot commodity already. And now I believe this podcast has
Speaker 1: driven the price higher. Right, Like I posted a shot
Speaker 1: on Instagram from a listener of an abandoned tuggy flipped
Speaker 1: over in a trout stream, and people were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we took that how to pack that thing out like
Speaker 1: an elk? Right, So, needless to say, I've gotten just
Speaker 1: all manner of tuggy photos since then, But now here
Speaker 1: comes this story, and I swear it's like it's like
Speaker 1: what Google does, like after you utter the word tuggy sandbox,
Speaker 1: suddenly there are just tuggy sandboxes everywhere you look. That's
Speaker 1: how I feel like it's been since that sale been
Speaker 1: anyway from the story. A Facebook post by the Indiana
Speaker 1: Department of Natural Resources drew plenty of attention over the weekend.
Speaker 1: In the post, d n R officers on Lake Monroe
Speaker 1: appeared to be ticketing a man in a tiny tug boat.
Speaker 1: That's not exactly what happened, though, so everyone who sent
Speaker 1: this to me, right, because in the picture you see
Speaker 1: tattoo dude in a tugg e and like off the
Speaker 1: side of the frame is an arm coming out with
Speaker 1: a citation right to hold hold, hold hold on. Let
Speaker 1: me ask a couple of questions. I need, I need
Speaker 1: to see this in my head. Is he floating on
Speaker 1: a body of water? In sandbox. He's floating in the
Speaker 1: tuggy sandbox. There is an electric trolling motor on the sandbox,
Speaker 1: and it looks like the d n R boat is
Speaker 1: sidled up next to him. All you see is a
Speaker 1: d n R officer's arm coming out of the side
Speaker 1: of the frame handing in paperwork. Okay, continue, Okay, So
Speaker 1: everyone who sent this claimed to me that he was
Speaker 1: getting ticketed because his tug he wasn't registered, tuggy didn't
Speaker 1: have numbers, okay, which made sense in my head because
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, like, if you're the kind of person that's
Speaker 1: you know, going to uh turn a tuggy into an
Speaker 1: actual usable vessel, you might not be too concerned about numbers. Okay,
Speaker 1: but he does also have a trolley motor, like I said,
Speaker 1: But that's that's that's inaccurate. The DNR replied to their
Speaker 1: post and explain the encounter in more detail. They said,
Speaker 1: to answer the question if he was receiving a ticket, No,
Speaker 1: the boat is registered and I was handing him his
Speaker 1: registration paperwork back. He was totally legal and a fun
Speaker 1: guy to chat with. This is so much Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was like, damn, dude, registered, is tuggy like that's exceptional.
Speaker 1: So who is this tuggy pirate? Well, it's Kentucky native
Speaker 1: Nick Riley, of course. And while I wish there was
Speaker 1: more detail, because there isn't. Nick has apparently restored and
Speaker 1: made many Tuggies seaworthy. What like this is a thing
Speaker 1: he does often in his spare time. And in this
Speaker 1: man on the show, Oh I'm getting there, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: In the story he said, we have cup holders, we
Speaker 1: have boat cleats so we can tie up to other boats.
Speaker 1: We recently just put a Bluetooth speaker in one. I
Speaker 1: didn't bring that one with me, but you can have
Speaker 1: tunes while you're driving your boat. So listen, Like this
Speaker 1: dude is like he's like pimping out Tuggies. It's not
Speaker 1: a stunt. There were like several photos he provided of
Speaker 1: his home where there's like you know how car guys
Speaker 1: have like five cars in the driveway. Dudes got like
Speaker 1: all different model Tuggies and all different all different stages
Speaker 1: of restoration. Right, He's like the American restoration guy specifically
Speaker 1: for Tuggies. And what I was getting at with the
Speaker 1: boat earlier is like seeing that my son Jamie, he
Speaker 1: he loves his tugg e and b is literally fishing,
Speaker 1: like off the couch with rubber sharks and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Like I'm starting to wonder should I send our tuggy
Speaker 1: to Nick for restoration? And Nick, if you're listening, let's talk.
Speaker 1: I'm really not kidding because he's only three, right, so
Speaker 1: there aren't exactly a lot of personal watercraft options for
Speaker 1: three year old. I've looked into this, okay, Like the
Speaker 1: smallest kitty kayak you can buy is still too big
Speaker 1: for him. Um. But the crazy thing is, like getting
Speaker 1: a tuggy to float is not easy. It requires real
Speaker 1: work because they don't have a bottom, right, and the
Speaker 1: shell is just thin, hollow plastic that's open on the bottom.
Speaker 1: And I've watched a few videos. I don't think these
Speaker 1: dudes where his skill is nick Um. But if you're
Speaker 1: serious about floating one, like guys, pump him full of foam,
Speaker 1: you know, like shoot him up with foam. You gotta
Speaker 1: make them water tight, you gotta build a bottom. It's
Speaker 1: legit work. But if ours floated, I'd totally drag it
Speaker 1: behind one of my boats and let the kid bob
Speaker 1: aroun on a laker in the bay, you know, tie
Speaker 1: him off to a little rope, give him a little fish,
Speaker 1: Like how badass would it be for him to tell
Speaker 1: people later like I got my first boat at three?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Would you first boat? Oh?
Speaker 1: It was eighteen, no three, I had my first book.
Speaker 1: And it's a perfect for him. So I'm extremely tempted.
Speaker 1: I want to just do Like I want to do
Speaker 1: a covering water segment with this guy and find out,
Speaker 1: like how did he get into tug your restoration where
Speaker 1: I'm betting we can get him. What's the most that
Speaker 1: anyone's ever paid him for a tuggy? Like there are
Speaker 1: so many things I would love to know. Man, maybe
Speaker 1: he's interested in doing. Like if I cover the shipping,
Speaker 1: do a custom bent tuggy. Oh man, your kid running
Speaker 1: around the custom bent tuggy? Yeah, then all I then
Speaker 1: all I have is build a custom trailer for the
Speaker 1: cozy coop and the kids off. I already I'm not
Speaker 1: even kidding, Like I put rod holders and everything he has,
Speaker 1: everything he has, he wants a piece of PVC on
Speaker 1: for his little ice fishing rod. Yeah. I hope this
Speaker 1: goes somewhere. I really hope that we get some followed
Speaker 1: through on this and it goes somewhere. You know, you
Speaker 1: were talking about d n R officers who who ultimately
Speaker 1: we're doing the right thing and coming through. Uh. In
Speaker 1: this case, some DNR officers did some really good work,
Speaker 1: and you know, it wasn't a perfect outcome, but I
Speaker 1: think I think we can give them some credits. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna close out my contributions this week with a
Speaker 1: short one and and this is sadly another story about
Speaker 1: fish poachers in the great state of Oregon, which we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to come back to. Thirty one year old
Speaker 1: Tyler Warren was recently sentenced to three years of federal
Speaker 1: probation and forty hours of community service for illegally taking
Speaker 1: bull trout from the Metolius River. He also got a
Speaker 1: thousand dollar fine and a three year suspension of his
Speaker 1: fishing license. Warren was not alone. His buddy, thirty year
Speaker 1: old Thomas R. Campbell, was right there with him back
Speaker 1: in December when the two harvested an unknown number of
Speaker 1: bull trout out of the Metolius. These two are clearly
Speaker 1: not MENSA candidates, because the following day, Campbell posted photos
Speaker 1: of himself with what looked like dead bull trout to Instagram,
Speaker 1: which tipped some people off. Can I interrupt you for
Speaker 1: one second and just tell you that if the tug
Speaker 1: E hadn't become news, we were crossing over. I had
Speaker 1: this and the tugg E news dropped and I was like,
Speaker 1: tugg E beats poachers. But this is a good story
Speaker 1: and the the outcome is right up your alley. Tell
Speaker 1: you for the win again. Yeah, there you go. I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're doing it. They post these foes to Instagram
Speaker 1: and then tip some folks off. So investigators then go
Speaker 1: in and they seized Campbell's phone where they found just
Speaker 1: damning evidence, Like there are pictures of these guys cooking
Speaker 1: bull trout filets. There's a picture where they're posing with
Speaker 1: a dead bull trout that they stuff and they stuffed
Speaker 1: like a beer can in its mouth. Uh. There's another
Speaker 1: photo where they're carrying two bags full of bull trout filets.
Speaker 1: It was pretty yeah. Yeah, And last year Ambule was
Speaker 1: sentenced to five years federal probation, a six thousand dollar fine,
Speaker 1: and three hundred hours of community service to be served
Speaker 1: on habitat restoration and conservation projects, which I support. Now,
Speaker 1: bullshroutter listed is threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but
Speaker 1: the Matolis River has a relatively healthy population and it's
Speaker 1: one of the few places in the U s where
Speaker 1: anglers are allowed to target them. Keeping bull trout, however,
Speaker 1: is a federal crime. Not to mention, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of a shitty thing to do. If you ask me,
Speaker 1: go wax some rainbows, bonk a few browns. I don't care.
Speaker 1: Bull trout are not in grade shape these days. And
Speaker 1: the thing is, incidents like these they jeopardize what little
Speaker 1: bull trout fishing opportunities are left in this country. For examp,
Speaker 1: my state, Montana, we only have one watershed left where
Speaker 1: you're allowed to fish for bullies. And so I'm not
Speaker 1: so much pissed about the individual fish like that sucks.
Speaker 1: Killing those fish sucks, But I'm I'm more pissed about
Speaker 1: what this does to the public image of anglers and
Speaker 1: the potential that incidents like this have to convince management
Speaker 1: agencies that the public just doesn't responsible enough to to
Speaker 1: have nice things like being allowed to fish for bull trout,
Speaker 1: and they can easily go in and shut that down
Speaker 1: if it looks like people are gonna keep doing idiocy
Speaker 1: like this. And my final question is like, what's up
Speaker 1: with fish poaching in Oregon? Just a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: we we ran that story about the group of folks
Speaker 1: who were stealing steelhead out of O. D. F W's
Speaker 1: fish traps. Is this is this random coincidence or or
Speaker 1: is fish poaching a rampant problem in Oregon? That I
Speaker 1: don't know. That's what made me think of you, because
Speaker 1: I remember at the end of that story we were saying, like,
Speaker 1: what's enough punishment for these guys? Like a million years
Speaker 1: of community service that's all based on habitat restoration. So
Speaker 1: when I read this, I was like, oh, like they
Speaker 1: hit that kid. Now three hundred hours of community service
Speaker 1: that has to be done on habitat restoration, which I appreciate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was because at the end of that story, though,
Speaker 1: I called out and I said, what do you guys
Speaker 1: think would be an appropriate punishment to fit this crime?
Speaker 1: And we got some We didn't get a ton of responses,
Speaker 1: but we got a few suggestions, and interestingly, they all
Speaker 1: the common denominator was that the violator in question should
Speaker 1: suffer some kind of public humiliation. That was what all
Speaker 1: of you seem to want the most of, like like
Speaker 1: make these people publicly humiliated and have to own their
Speaker 1: crime that way. So, for whatever it's worth, from here
Speaker 1: on out, I'm gonna make a point of calling these
Speaker 1: folks out by name whenever I report on fish poaching incidents.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that our little podcast here is going
Speaker 1: to act as a significant detern for bad behavior, but maybe,
Speaker 1: like maybe one or two people will think twice before
Speaker 1: doing something stupid to avoid getting called out by us,
Speaker 1: And to me, that's enough that that that's success. Well,
Speaker 1: one thing this story didn't really clarify that I'm curious about.
Speaker 1: If you look at the charges and the sentencing, Warren
Speaker 1: got significantly fewer hours, significantly lighter probation, but yet the
Speaker 1: damning evidence was pictures of him, like it seemed like
Speaker 1: from the story, doing the worst stuff. So I figure
Speaker 1: that dude had the better lawyer and like snitched on
Speaker 1: the other guys because all the damning photos were of him.
Speaker 1: Yet the Campbell dude that So I don't know what
Speaker 1: was going on there, and I also don't understand I
Speaker 1: would imagine there, I don't know, maybe some COVID related stuff,
Speaker 1: But like you said, they just got sentenced. He just
Speaker 1: got sentenced very recently, but that's a big gap between
Speaker 1: December and now. Like I'm not sure why that took
Speaker 1: so long. But they also pleaded guilty so that they
Speaker 1: didn't fight this. I mean, how are you gonna not
Speaker 1: guilty when their photos of you holding giant bags of
Speaker 1: filets of dead bulltog You can't be like no, no,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen, Like, how you can are you gonna
Speaker 1: plead not guilty? There? Yeah, so good sentencing, and I agree, Like,
Speaker 1: let's just even if it's a short story, let's just
Speaker 1: keep calling poachers out by name, get their names out there. Yep, yep, totally.
Speaker 1: We'll see again. I don't know what's going to do anything,
Speaker 1: but that's what we're gonna We're gonna do that here.
Speaker 1: That's our little part. Okay, Well, I'm gonna close out
Speaker 1: with a feel good story here, I think, uh, I
Speaker 1: think we should do that. Uh. And I don't really
Speaker 1: have a good I don't really have a good tie,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna try and make one. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna move along and say this is a feel good story. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think it may have hit on a premise
Speaker 1: that could be adopted all over the world. So This
Speaker 1: comes from the Drum dot com and the story is
Speaker 1: about a fishing tournament of sorts in Mexico and this
Speaker 1: happened on the West coast in Mositlan, where like in
Speaker 1: all Mexican coastal towns, you have a lot of commercial fishermen.
Speaker 1: And bear in mind, of course, that when we're talking
Speaker 1: about commercial fishermen in Mexico, like I'm I'm not really
Speaker 1: referring to like a crew on a big trawler, right,
Speaker 1: We're talking about the thousands of independent guys that go
Speaker 1: out every day in tiny pongas and row boats and
Speaker 1: whatever they can cobble together to try and catch a
Speaker 1: few fish to sell and feed their families. And and uh,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a group of folks that I mean,
Speaker 1: these guys have a pretty hard life, right, These guys
Speaker 1: struggle to make a couple bucks a day at best,
Speaker 1: and that's due to many factors, you know, making any
Speaker 1: sort of living this way in the into orders of
Speaker 1: Mexico is just getting tougher and tougher and tougher all
Speaker 1: the time. And of course one of those big factors
Speaker 1: is pollution. So beer Giant Corona, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: summer beers. They came up with a concept they called
Speaker 1: plastic fishing. And what they did was they got eighty
Speaker 1: of these local, independent commercial fishermen to compete against each
Speaker 1: other in a tournament to see who could haul in
Speaker 1: the most discarded plastic in a single day. All right,
Speaker 1: And there was a video in the article that documented
Speaker 1: this whole deal, and Corona went all in, like they
Speaker 1: hyped it up prior, like they were, you know, had
Speaker 1: trucks with the loudspeakers driving around the poor neighborhoods, you
Speaker 1: know where these fishermen live, and like hyping this thing up.
Speaker 1: And then at the actual event, they set up a
Speaker 1: stage and had a way in just like you'd see
Speaker 1: to at an off shore tournament. And this was all
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Now. The winners of the event, right, get
Speaker 1: this hauled in a whopping eight hundred and fifteen pounds
Speaker 1: of discarded plastic. Here's the cool part, right, here's the
Speaker 1: cool part. To incentivize this whole thing, Corona offered to
Speaker 1: pay the same price per kilo of plastic as the
Speaker 1: fishermen we're getting for a kilo of fish, So that
Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifteen pounds of plastic ended up being
Speaker 1: worth fourteen thousand, eight hundred pesos, which is about what
Speaker 1: these guys would make if they were lucky in a
Speaker 1: single month of fishing. Right, So you might say, though,
Speaker 1: what about the other seventy nine contestants that worked their
Speaker 1: asses off Corona Roped in Mexico Recicla, the country's largest
Speaker 1: recycling operation, and all the other contestants sold their haul
Speaker 1: to them for slightly more in some cases than the
Speaker 1: going rate per kilo for fish. So in this case, right,
Speaker 1: the goal was to show these fishermen that you can
Speaker 1: actually make money fishing for the plastic that is making
Speaker 1: it harder for you to catch the fish. Now, right,
Speaker 1: Will there be a long lasting effect here? Will these
Speaker 1: guys continue to collect plastic or use that as a
Speaker 1: means to supplement their fishing income. Who knows, right, that's
Speaker 1: yet to be seen. But I think the whole model
Speaker 1: here has play everywhere. Like if you turn something into
Speaker 1: a competition and it gets people to react, right, and
Speaker 1: if you can offer real prizes or money, I think
Speaker 1: it's possible to change attitudes about some of this kind
Speaker 1: of work. Like, yes, we all participate in river clean
Speaker 1: ups here and there, and and you do those things
Speaker 1: because you care you want to volunteer your time. But
Speaker 1: this model could almost make this stuff like a lot
Speaker 1: more fun. I think like people get riled up over
Speaker 1: a good way in at a tournament, right you tack
Speaker 1: on a free meal and beer at the end. Fully
Speaker 1: adopt the fishing tournament model like Corona did down in Mexico,
Speaker 1: and I could see this really working. I thought this
Speaker 1: was extremely cool and I hope it leads to more tournaments.
Speaker 1: If you will likeness, I do too. I think a
Speaker 1: couple points one. Turning something like this into a tournament
Speaker 1: is like you said, it's a fun way to raise awareness.
Speaker 1: It's a great one off it it gets some attention
Speaker 1: on the topic. But the broader question I have is
Speaker 1: can they turn this into a commodity? And by that,
Speaker 1: I mean you're saying they were able to sell some
Speaker 1: of this plastic at a premium rate to this recycling
Speaker 1: So I'm guessing. I'm guessing they could only do that
Speaker 1: because the recycling company came down or came over, came
Speaker 1: from wherever they are, and was there at the event,
Speaker 1: so they didn't have to worry about the additional shipping costs.
Speaker 1: But is there a way to scale this so that
Speaker 1: people could turn that refuse and the plastic that we
Speaker 1: want to get out on the oceans into a commodity
Speaker 1: that's worth their time and effort. That would be something
Speaker 1: I'd like to see it. Yeah, and certainly this doesn't
Speaker 1: touch on that. I mean, it's just covering one event,
Speaker 1: But I mean I think that's sort of what this
Speaker 1: is hinting at. But you're right that I don't know,
Speaker 1: do these guys have the means when Corona is not
Speaker 1: calling in, you know, the army trucks from the recycling
Speaker 1: place to get that stuff to them to sell. But
Speaker 1: I mean it certainly opens up the door to another
Speaker 1: way of thinking. Yeah, it makes me think there might
Speaker 1: be a way to do that. It might. It makes
Speaker 1: me think that there might be some possibility where if
Speaker 1: you get the infrastructure right and you get the discarded
Speaker 1: plastic to the recycling plan and they saw it as valuable,
Speaker 1: this could be a sustainable model if if someone was
Speaker 1: able to put that infrastructure in place. I would love
Speaker 1: to see that that grow. So you know, if you
Speaker 1: guys are out there and you do that kind of
Speaker 1: infrastructure work, you should think about picking this up. Well,
Speaker 1: I am I'm so proud of Corona. That's such a
Speaker 1: nice thing they did. I'm gonna go buy another case
Speaker 1: of their beer this summer and enjoy one. We're gonna
Speaker 1: hear from Phil uh see, who he deems the winner
Speaker 1: this week. He's got some choices to make, and then um,
Speaker 1: right after that, we're gonna you even smarter, and Miles
Speaker 1: is gonna do a little freaking philistines so that you
Speaker 1: guys read more. You need to read more, all right,
Speaker 1: You guys are really playing nicely into your roles this week,
Speaker 1: with Miles bringing in the important yet heavy stories about
Speaker 1: endangered species and the dire state of Florida's Gulf Coast,
Speaker 1: and Joe bringing in a story about a guy literally
Speaker 1: writing a sandbox across the water. I can't decide. I
Speaker 1: can't decide. I know I say this is hard every week,
Speaker 1: but this week I mean it. And if I've learned
Speaker 1: anything about my life so far, it's to just run
Speaker 1: away from your problems if you can't deal with them.
Speaker 1: So I've taken inspiration from Joe's story, and I've a
Speaker 1: fashioned a pontoon out of some empty barrels what most
Speaker 1: mostly empty barrels of crude oil, And I've attached this
Speaker 1: outboard motor here and uh, you know, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: take this week off. See you guys next week. Don't worry.
Speaker 1: I promise I'll pick a winner. Okay, what's a fasting.
Speaker 1: It's a guy who doesn't care about books or interesting
Speaker 1: films and things, then unfasting. The book selection this week
Speaker 1: is called Keeper, a memoir written by Martin Donovan, who
Speaker 1: worked as a riverkeeper on the River Test. If you've
Speaker 1: ever heard of the River Test, you know it's one
Speaker 1: of the most renowned of all English chalk streams, which
Speaker 1: are perhaps the most famously stuffy and elitist fishing spots
Speaker 1: on the planet. Some regard the Test as the birthplace
Speaker 1: of modern fly fishing, which is to say that a
Speaker 1: handful of stiff aristocrats wrote books about fly fishing in
Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds that featured this river. If you're
Speaker 1: up on your fishing history, you might have heard of
Speaker 1: Frederick M. Halford, whose books at the snooty tone that
Speaker 1: has plagued fly fishing culture for the past a hundred
Speaker 1: fifty years or so. Halford's books also sparked the British
Speaker 1: nobilities embrace of fly fishing in the late nineteenth and
Speaker 1: early twentieth centuries. Fishing access in England and much of
Speaker 1: Europe differs from the states. In Canada, where most water
Speaker 1: is held in the public trust. Over there, private ownership
Speaker 1: extends beyond the banks and beds to the water itself
Speaker 1: and even the fish swimming in that water. Americans find
Speaker 1: it difficult to comprehend the gulf that separates nobles from
Speaker 1: commoners in Britain. I mean, don't get me wrong. Wealth
Speaker 1: disparities in this country create a huge divide between the
Speaker 1: rich and poor, but the scope of generational privilege that
Speaker 1: separates the noblie from the plebeians over there remains at
Speaker 1: a level we have not yet achieved. We can still
Speaker 1: fish much of our water, at least so long as
Speaker 1: we can afford a license. In some basic tackle. Shock
Speaker 1: streams are different. They flow past vast a stage that
Speaker 1: sprawl along their banks, and these are usually owned by
Speaker 1: some noble family or another. The family hires land managers,
Speaker 1: who oversee the homes and the grounds and the river.
Speaker 1: The land management agency then hires a river keeper to
Speaker 1: maintain the fishery, look after the flora beside and within
Speaker 1: the stream, and act as host and guide to the
Speaker 1: various guests that the nobility invites or allows to pay
Speaker 1: for the privilege of fishing their beat. Riverkeepers are generally
Speaker 1: blue collar workers with expansive knowledge of stream ecology, fishing,
Speaker 1: and social dynamics, who also wear callouses on their hands
Speaker 1: thick enough to work a shovel in a skythe Though
Speaker 1: the Uppercross family technically owns their stretch of river, the
Speaker 1: place belongs to the river keeper. Riverkeepers and their families,
Speaker 1: if they have them, live full time in the cottages
Speaker 1: beside their piece of water. They manicure the walking paths
Speaker 1: and the swaying clumps of vernunculous weed. They study their
Speaker 1: beat daily, with guests spotting fish and delicately guiding. They
Speaker 1: may not own the beat, but they know it more
Speaker 1: intimately than anyone alive. Riverkeepers often spend their entire careers
Speaker 1: working one single stretch of water, and then passed that
Speaker 1: stretch on to their children or other family members. The
Speaker 1: dream of becoming a keeper transfixes many young anglers, but
Speaker 1: few actually get to realize how bloody difficult a job
Speaker 1: it is. Martin Donovan is one of the gifted and lucky.
Speaker 1: In the late nineties, when he was just twenty eight
Speaker 1: years old, he managed to land a job as a
Speaker 1: riverkeeper on the nursing beat of the River test right
Speaker 1: near his hometown. A decade later, he wrote a memoir
Speaker 1: that chipped away the veneer, obscuring the hallowed but mostly
Speaker 1: unrecorded profession. This is not a scandalous tell all about
Speaker 1: how horrid the aristocracy are through the eyes of an
Speaker 1: everyman hero. It's an honest and often self deprecating book
Speaker 1: that catalogs his love affair with a river he would
Speaker 1: otherwise never have been allowed to fish. The mentors that
Speaker 1: helped get him his opportunity and a title little swath
Speaker 1: of the myriad strange, awful and wonderful characters with whom
Speaker 1: he interacted. There are no villains, per se, and if
Speaker 1: there is a hero, it's the river itself. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you a couple of samples, first from a chapter
Speaker 1: where he's trying to find a river keeper job and failing.
Speaker 1: My first real chance at a keeper's job was, as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, having waited so long, I was very
Speaker 1: excited about the possibility. I had one or two very
Speaker 1: friendly interviews and a tour of the river with the headkeeper,
Speaker 1: Bernard Aldrich. He told me that there had been nearly
Speaker 1: eighty applicants who had been whittled down to a remaining three,
Speaker 1: who then had to face a final interview with the
Speaker 1: land agents. In basic terms, land agents act as the
Speaker 1: grossly overpaid link between the wealthy estate owners and the
Speaker 1: common man who works their land. On matters of personnel
Speaker 1: and estate management. They bridge the gap between those two
Speaker 1: disparate classes of people, thereby cutting out the necessity of
Speaker 1: awkward direct communication between his lordship and the riverkeeper. I
Speaker 1: found myself in front of three rather dour looking men.
Speaker 1: None of them made eye contact, and my deliberately fixed
Speaker 1: and confidence smile was therefore wasted. As I settled uneasily
Speaker 1: into the chair, there was no smiling or welcoming, just
Speaker 1: a straight, cold stare which seemed to pass right through me.
Speaker 1: They introduced themselves, but at such speed that I didn't
Speaker 1: catch any of their names. I was nervous, but I
Speaker 1: felt prepared for the interview and was ready for anything
Speaker 1: they threw at me. The middle one cleared his throat
Speaker 1: and prepared to fire off his first question. What action
Speaker 1: would you take if one of your paying rods, let
Speaker 1: us say, a wealthy well to do. Lady had a
Speaker 1: little too much to drink and told you to off. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it was a question I hadn't given much thought to,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking that perhaps reading up on the
Speaker 1: history of the Mount Baton family may have been a
Speaker 1: waste of time. As the sweat prickled onto my forehead,
Speaker 1: I wrongly thought that maybe this was the time to
Speaker 1: give an amusing answer. Well, if she had already given
Speaker 1: me my tip, then I probably would just golf. I
Speaker 1: can't be sure, but I think the one on the
Speaker 1: right briefly smiled. The other two glanced down at their
Speaker 1: paperwork with lifeless sculls to remind themselves of my name,
Speaker 1: so they could quite deliberately put a long pencil line
Speaker 1: right through it when the interview ended. The second passage
Speaker 1: recounts Martin's first experience fishing the beat that would later
Speaker 1: become his home and his first interaction with the man
Speaker 1: who would become his primary mentor and whom he would
Speaker 1: eventually replace. During My Mischievous youth, nursing was considered out
Speaker 1: of bounds and the wrong side of the water meadows
Speaker 1: for us test would nippers, Although it was only half
Speaker 1: mile or so away, We only ventured over once. We
Speaker 1: came over with our rods and bread and started fishing
Speaker 1: on a little stretch of water we knew to be private.
Speaker 1: Fishing on new waters was very exciting, and although we
Speaker 1: didn't catch anything, we had great fun exploring different parts
Speaker 1: of the river. After a couple hours of fruitless casting,
Speaker 1: we saw a stranger walking down the banks towards us,
Speaker 1: and we laid flat on the ground, probably thinking that
Speaker 1: if we couldn't see him, he wouldn't see us. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: his eyesight was better than we had hoped, and while
Speaker 1: giving us a telling off, he reeled in both our
Speaker 1: lines and told us we were in big trouble. We
Speaker 1: stood there, apologizing and hoping to God he wouldn't tell
Speaker 1: our dads. The stranger told us that we'd have to
Speaker 1: walk up mill Lane and see the river keeper, who
Speaker 1: would decide our punishment. It seems quite incredible in this
Speaker 1: day and age that we actually did walk up to
Speaker 1: see the keeper, but we were too scared not to. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: if I catch it the nippers fishing on the river,
Speaker 1: they usually tell me to ugger off, or they'll call
Speaker 1: their dad's. When we got to the keeper's cottage, he
Speaker 1: was outside saying goodbye to a couple of fishermen. So
Speaker 1: we stood in silence, heads bowed nervously, waiting to admit
Speaker 1: to him that we've been fishing on his river. As
Speaker 1: the fisherman drove away, he turned towards us, and I
Speaker 1: felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand
Speaker 1: straight up in fright before either of us had a
Speaker 1: chance to speak, he asked us if we had caught anything,
Speaker 1: and then he told us to make sure we didn't
Speaker 1: fish on his stretch of river again, or more importantly,
Speaker 1: didn't get caught fishing on his stretch of river again.
Speaker 1: With that, he said goodbye and disappeared to the house,
Speaker 1: waving as he walked through the door. We stood there
Speaker 1: for a couple of minutes, looking at each other, not
Speaker 1: quite knowing what to do. Then the door of the
Speaker 1: fishing cottage opened again, and his head popped out and
Speaker 1: asked if there was anything else we wanted. My mate
Speaker 1: held up his flask and asked if we could have
Speaker 1: some water. The keeper came back to the gate, took
Speaker 1: our flask, and disappeared into the house again. A few
Speaker 1: minutes later, he returned with a lask and said that
Speaker 1: he hoped the water was okay because it tasted a
Speaker 1: little different down Mill Lane, and perhaps we should try
Speaker 1: it before we left. We thanked him and said it
Speaker 1: would be fine, and that we really should be getting home.
Speaker 1: At the bottom of Mill Lane, we stopped and opened
Speaker 1: the flask, which he had filled with beautiful cold orange juice.
Speaker 1: I can remember standing there many years ago, drinking orange
Speaker 1: juice and thinking, what a kind thing to do, and
Speaker 1: what a lovely man. That was my first encounter with
Speaker 1: my second river keeping guru, the legendary Vic Foot. I've
Speaker 1: said it before, man, I'm fascinated by British fishing culture,
Speaker 1: but usually not the tweetie chalk stream kind. I've just
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've never had I never wanted to
Speaker 1: do it that way, you know. I mean, it never
Speaker 1: seemed to like grab me to fly over there and
Speaker 1: try that. Um like, I want to know more about
Speaker 1: like baiting, roach, carp and chubb swims, not you know,
Speaker 1: lord and ladies trout. Yeah, I hear that. I hear that.
Speaker 1: But as I said, this book fascinates me because it
Speaker 1: splits the world's Yeah, it's it's this window into the
Speaker 1: blue collar work that keeps all those lord and ladyships
Speaker 1: in Fish, which I can kind of resonate with. It's
Speaker 1: not the same as as the guiding culture over here,
Speaker 1: which is part of why it was interesting. And I
Speaker 1: actually hadn't thought about that book for the better part
Speaker 1: of a decade, and we started working on this Philistines
Speaker 1: bit and and then I found it as I was
Speaker 1: looking through my bookshelf and picked it out. And I've
Speaker 1: forgotten how enjoyable it was. And I think it's because
Speaker 1: it bridges that sort of cultural gap in a way
Speaker 1: that that you can relate to. And you're also kind
Speaker 1: of laughing at those lords and ladies, but you kind
Speaker 1: of you turned out liking some of them. You you
Speaker 1: get it a little more. Well, it's strange that actually works,
Speaker 1: because I actually did I did something similar for this
Speaker 1: week's end of the line. I've actually been thinking about
Speaker 1: covering a particular spoon that is like seared into my
Speaker 1: childhood memory but seems to have completely this appeared from
Speaker 1: Fishing's historical records. Well, that's not loud enough this end
Speaker 1: of the line. I gotta tell you it's it's really
Speaker 1: it's like a cry for help, okay, because I don't
Speaker 1: have all the information. I'm seeking the information from you
Speaker 1: in a desperate attempt to prove that I'm not crazy,
Speaker 1: we aren't living in the matrix, and I'm not uncovered
Speaker 1: like a dark conspiracy. It all starts with the ACME
Speaker 1: Tackle Company, which all of you are familiar with, whether
Speaker 1: you know it or not, arn't. Lavelli founded ACME in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, just three years after he and his
Speaker 1: brother formed a jewelry polishing an electroplating company. Lavely took
Speaker 1: some of the jewelry and bent the shapes to create
Speaker 1: metal fishing lures. Acme's big break, however, came when Lovely
Speaker 1: struck a royalty deal with a company called Engineering Design
Speaker 1: Associates e d A was making a lure and Lovely
Speaker 1: wanted to handle marketing it. He tweet the design slightly
Speaker 1: and then gave it a jewelry caliber polish which hadn't
Speaker 1: been seen on other metal lures of the day, and
Speaker 1: the Castmaster was born. ACMEE went on to develop some
Speaker 1: of the most popular metal lures ever, including the Phoebe,
Speaker 1: the Sidewinder, and of course the Little Cleo, which is
Speaker 1: so damned popular it even has its own Wikipedia page.
Speaker 1: All of those lures are still in production today, made
Speaker 1: it Acme's facility in Rhode Island, and while I've used
Speaker 1: all of them my entire life, my fondest memories are
Speaker 1: of the Acme lure that seems to be an anomaly
Speaker 1: or maybe like a glitch in that matrix. When I
Speaker 1: was a little kid, my family rented a house every
Speaker 1: summer in Long Beach, Child in New Jersey, and I'd
Speaker 1: spent hours and hours sitting on the thirteenth Street Bulkhead
Speaker 1: fishing for little snapper blue fish and barning Get Bay. Now,
Speaker 1: my grandmother, who used to vacation with us, owned debate
Speaker 1: and tackle shop, and the lore she'd recommend that I
Speaker 1: cast every summer for those blues was her number one
Speaker 1: best selling snapper laure in her shop, the Acme Hippie.
Speaker 1: The hippie was only about two inches long, made of
Speaker 1: thin chrome and kind of being shaped, didn't have much taper,
Speaker 1: and it was just sort of rounded off at each
Speaker 1: end like a band aid. As a young impressionable kid
Speaker 1: that didn't know any better, I assumed every one of
Speaker 1: the Jersey shore casting for snapper blues was throwing a
Speaker 1: hippie bolstering this notion was that the best of my recollection.
Speaker 1: Every divy little tackle shop and dime store at the
Speaker 1: Jersey Shore had a card of hippies somewhere near the register,
Speaker 1: and every summer my Grandma would buy me a couple
Speaker 1: of new ones early in the vacation. As years passed
Speaker 1: and I became more proficient and angling, I drifted away
Speaker 1: from the tiny metal hippie, realizing that Hopkins or cast
Speaker 1: Masters or crocodile spoons were really all just as effective.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I hadn't given the old hippie another
Speaker 1: thought for thirty some odd years until I ended up
Speaker 1: on a podcast that required me to talk about old lords,
Speaker 1: and I went a searching. What I essentially found, though
Speaker 1: it was nothing, it almost appears that they act mee
Speaker 1: hippie never was. Now. I know that's not true, because
Speaker 1: I used the damn things for years, and my daddy
Speaker 1: used them before me. But after searching for it a
Speaker 1: bunch of different ways, I found only two pieces of
Speaker 1: Internet evidence that proved the hippie existed. The first was
Speaker 1: on an ancient fly by Night tackle website still listing
Speaker 1: Acme's era Snapper Blue kit. It was of course sold out,
Speaker 1: but there in the pixelated thumbnail of the product is
Speaker 1: the hippie. The other hit took me to a Russian
Speaker 1: tackle site. But when I got there, the photo of
Speaker 1: the hippie I clicked to get me there was nowhere
Speaker 1: to be found. Try as I might, I could uncover
Speaker 1: no history of the hippie. I didn't get a single
Speaker 1: hit from a single message board thread discussing it. Nothing.
Speaker 1: So how could something so widely available for so many
Speaker 1: years of my life just vanish into the ether? I
Speaker 1: have one theory, aside from the theory that the Russians
Speaker 1: are somehow involved. Could it be that the hippie had
Speaker 1: too offensive of a name, forcing ACNE to rub it
Speaker 1: out permanently as the world got more PC don't scoff
Speaker 1: at that, because when Andrew Grillos is potent dry fly
Speaker 1: the Hippie Stomper was picked up by Orvis, they thought
Speaker 1: changing the name to the Hollow Humpy was a smarter move.
Speaker 1: In reality, I guess the Acme Hippie simply wasn't popular
Speaker 1: enough in markets outside kids chasing snapper blues and jersey
Speaker 1: to run with bangers like the Phoebe and Cleo, and
Speaker 1: it was just sort of phased out. But considering there
Speaker 1: are forums and threads and fake news about everything on
Speaker 1: the planet on the Internet, the lack of hippie content
Speaker 1: and reference is startling. So please, if you grew up
Speaker 1: fishing the hippie let me know. Help me figure out
Speaker 1: whether this was reality or just some weird dream I had,
Speaker 1: Because I know the truth it's out there. That's all
Speaker 1: we have in this week strolled down nostalgia Lane. But
Speaker 1: for those of you who did irreversible harm to your
Speaker 1: short term memory in your younger years, here are a
Speaker 1: few things that were never good ideas. I do not
Speaker 1: recommend using word blowers for facial piercings. Brad Leone does
Speaker 1: not recommend sticking your digits in a blue fish face,
Speaker 1: Martin Donovan does not recommend partying with British Land managers.
Speaker 1: And Joe does recommend that you help him solve the
Speaker 1: mystery of what happened to the hippie spoon. Please I'm
Speaker 1: going nuts here, okay. I also recommend that you send
Speaker 1: more awkward photos bar nomination, Salbin items, fish news stories,
Speaker 1: and lightly used facial jewelry to bent at the meat
Speaker 1: eater dot com. Drop the hashtags degenerate Angler and Bent
Speaker 1: Podcast for the chance to win sweet sticker art. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and don't forget to check out Nikki's Bent Verse bridging
Speaker 1: playlist on Spotify and let us know who wore the
Speaker 1: nineties better use ms last b