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Speaker 1: We have a natural flood pulse of the lower miss

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Speaker 1: whereat you don't have it in the Upper miss you

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Speaker 1: don't have it in the Ohio, you don't have it

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Speaker 1: in the Arkansas. It's all damned all the way up.

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Speaker 1: So that's the unique nature of it. And the fact

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Speaker 1: that it joins the Missouri and goes another twelve hundred

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Speaker 1: miles makes it the longest free flowing stretch of river.

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Speaker 2: We've traveled in good ways down the Mississippi River in

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Speaker 2: the last three episodes to understand its power and size,

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Speaker 2: its ancient connection to man, the settlement of the Delta

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Speaker 2: in some of the world's richest soil, the great engineering

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Speaker 2: feat of taming the river, and the Great Flood of

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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty seven. We've covered a lot of ground, all

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Speaker 2: of this for the purpose of trying to understand how

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Speaker 2: the Mississippi River has impacted America. On this episode, though,

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Speaker 2: we're getting into the nitty gritty of river life and

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Speaker 2: the fisheries hell and status, and I think you might

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Speaker 2: be surprised by what you learned. I was doctor Jack Kilgore,

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Speaker 2: who's a fisheries biologist for the Corps of Engineers in Vicksburg,

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Speaker 2: Mississippi will tell us about the great beasts of this river,

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Speaker 2: the giant catfish, paddlefish, guars, and turtles. We'll also hear

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Speaker 2: about finding giant groundsloth claws, bison skulls, and dead bodies.

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Speaker 2: Will get to meet a man who spent the last

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Speaker 2: fifty years commercial fishing on the river and hear his

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Speaker 2: wildest stories. I really doubt you're gonna want to miss

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Speaker 2: this one.

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Speaker 1: I hear that a lot too. You know, look how

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Speaker 1: muddy it is, and it's got to be polluted. I've

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Speaker 1: heard it's not. I tell people it's not. In fact,

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Speaker 1: you know, I would catch a fish out of the

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Speaker 1: Mississippi Way before and eat it. Before I would eat

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Speaker 1: a fish out of my lake there in the subdivision.

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Speaker 3: Is that?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah.

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Speaker 2: My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear

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Speaker 2: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search

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Speaker 2: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the

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Speaker 2: story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.

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Speaker 2: Presented by f h F Gear, American made purpose built

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Speaker 2: hunting and fishing gear as designed to be as rugged

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Speaker 2: as the place.

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Speaker 4: As we explore, how are you doing good? How about you,

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Speaker 4: Klay Nukelem.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Bill, good to meet you.

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Speaker 2: This is my colleague and partner, Brent Reeves.

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Speaker 3: Brent, yes, sir, A yeah, pretty good.

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Speaker 2: Yeah you've been on the river this morning?

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, I went and got those hoping now.

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Speaker 2: So Brent and I just crossed the big River from

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Speaker 2: Arkansas onto the Mississippi side in a truck on a bridge,

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Speaker 2: and that's some uptown living. We didn't have to ferry

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Speaker 2: across it or build a raft. If you remember, Old

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Speaker 2: James Buchanan Eads was the first guy to build a

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Speaker 2: bridge on the bigger sections of the Mississippi in eighteen

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Speaker 2: seventy four. It's in Saint Louis. Where we get out

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Speaker 2: of the truck. The air is thick and muggy. It's

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Speaker 2: incredibly flat compared to where I came from. And if

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Speaker 2: you're not looking at a crop field, the vegetation is

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Speaker 2: as thick as a cane break. Welcome to the Mississippi Delta.

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Speaker 2: Bill Lancaster is a commercial fisherman and he's just come

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Speaker 2: off the water. He's wearing a ball cap, T shirt, shorts,

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Speaker 2: and white rubber boots. He kind of reminds me of

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Speaker 2: the country singer Tracy Lawrence, but a lot grittier. So

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Speaker 2: how long you been fishing on the Mississippi River?

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Speaker 3: Probably I probably started actually fishing in nineteen sixty nine. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: that's that's the year I bought my first hook and

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Speaker 3: net graduated from high school. My dad belonged to a

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Speaker 3: hunting club on the Mississippi. A good friend of mine

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Speaker 3: that was in the same grade that I was. We

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Speaker 3: moved over there that summer and commercial fished on the

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Speaker 3: river in the fall of sixty nine and then then

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Speaker 3: went off to the to the army. So you got

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Speaker 3: that winter. Yeah, So we we fished all summer over

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Speaker 3: there and sold fish, you know to a local guy

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Speaker 3: that was on the river at that time from Arkansas.

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Speaker 2: And you you were just like, hey, I can make

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Speaker 2: a I can make a living.

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Speaker 3: Well with this.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: We were, you know, eighteen seventeen, eighteen years old at

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Speaker 3: that time, you know, and we were up for pretty

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Speaker 3: much anything. But we you know, both grew up hunting

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Speaker 3: and fishing, you know, and we enjoyed, you know, being

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Speaker 3: on the river, and we thought, you know, that'd be

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Speaker 3: a great thing to do. It'd be fished this summer,

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Speaker 3: you know, and try to make a little money, just

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Speaker 3: something to do before we went off to the the service.

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Speaker 2: That was over fifty years ago.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sixty nine.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, so every year since then you fished, fished.

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Speaker 3: Off and on for a number of years, and then

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Speaker 3: started fishing full time, probably around nineteen eighty five eight

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Speaker 3: a year round, yeah, year round, Yeah, twelve months out

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Speaker 3: of the year. You know, it doesn't matter how cold

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Speaker 3: it is, how hot it is. You know, we fished. Yeah, wow, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You spent a lot of time on the river.

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Speaker 3: Oh I wish you know, I wish I knew exactly

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Speaker 3: how much time I had spent out there. Yeah, unbelievable.

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Speaker 2: Mister Bell is seventy one years old and has spent

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Speaker 2: over fifty years on the water. With all this talk

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Speaker 2: from Mark Twain about the treacherous river and its incredible power,

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Speaker 2: one of my first questions which struck at the heart

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Speaker 2: of my curiosity and had nothing to do with fish,

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Speaker 2: but had to do with close calls. I asked him

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Speaker 2: if he'd had any and you better believe that he had.

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Speaker 2: Eventually we're going to talk to him about fishing, but

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Speaker 2: not yet.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I've had a couple of experiences out there, I

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Speaker 3: was running a small sixteen foot boat with a fifty

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Speaker 3: horse motor on it, and earlier that week I had

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Speaker 3: broken the trim tab off of it. And when you

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Speaker 3: do that, the motor will torque hard to the right.

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Speaker 3: That trim tab is what keeps that motor running in

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Speaker 3: a straight line, even if you let off the tailor handle.

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Speaker 3: So I broke that trim tab off and I was

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Speaker 3: running hoop nets, and I had gotten through running the

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Speaker 3: hoop nets. I was headed back up river with about

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Speaker 3: a half a load of fish, and there was water

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Speaker 3: in the boat, and I was going to reach back

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Speaker 3: and pull the plug out and let it drain the

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Speaker 3: water while I was running back to the boat ramp. Well,

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Speaker 3: I pulled the plug out, had one hand on the

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Speaker 3: tailor handle, and I was running about half throttle, not

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Speaker 3: wide open. And somehow, when I pulled that plug out

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Speaker 3: and started to turn around, my hand slipped off that

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Speaker 3: tillor handle, and when it did, it made a hard

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Speaker 3: ninety to the right, and it sent me out of

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Speaker 3: that boat just in an instant. I mean I didn't

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Speaker 3: even realize what had happened. The first thing I knew

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Speaker 3: I was under the water. And when I came to

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Speaker 3: the surface, I could see the boat going off away

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Speaker 3: from it, still in gear. It had idle itself down

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Speaker 3: to idle speed and it was going off, you know.

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Speaker 3: But when it did that hard right turn, it threw

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Speaker 3: all the fish over to the left side of the boat.

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Speaker 3: You know, everything in the boat went over to the

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Speaker 3: left side when it made that hard right turn. And

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Speaker 3: when it did that, it sent the boat into a turn,

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Speaker 3: and it was running at half speed with the plug out,

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Speaker 3: coming around and making a circle. Well, I was in

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Speaker 3: the river, had my rain gear on, had boots on,

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Speaker 3: had blue jeans under the rain gear, you know, and

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Speaker 3: it was heavy.

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Speaker 1: I kicked the.

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Speaker 3: Boots off, you know, to light myself up, you know,

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Speaker 3: and I was just dog paddling, try to stay afloat.

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Speaker 3: And the boat I could see it, you know, coming around.

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Speaker 3: It was gonna make a and it you know, it

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Speaker 3: looked like it might come back by me, you know.

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Speaker 3: So it started that turn. I said, well, if I

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Speaker 3: can catch it when it comes around, I can make it.

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Speaker 3: So we're floating down the current in the current, you know,

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Speaker 3: floating down river, and it's coming around just at I speak,

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Speaker 3: coming around. Well, when it did, it was just out

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Speaker 3: of reach. I was trying to get to it, but

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Speaker 3: it was just out of reach, and my hands just

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Speaker 3: barely missed the guntle on that boat. I was going

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Speaker 3: to just grab hold of the side of the boat,

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Speaker 3: you know, and hold on. Well I missed it, you know.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't quite close enough. So as it went around again,

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Speaker 3: it made a wider circle. It was widen itself out.

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Speaker 3: It was coming at a wider make it a wider

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Speaker 3: turn every time it went around. Second time it went

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Speaker 3: around it, I was lined up with it pretty good.

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Speaker 3: And when it passed me, I just locked my arms

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Speaker 3: over the guntle of the boat and just held on

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Speaker 3: until I got my strength up and got my wits

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Speaker 3: about me. You know, I just hung on and let

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Speaker 3: it be. It was dragging me through the water, and

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Speaker 3: I just rolled myself over the in the boat with

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Speaker 3: just brute strength. Just rolled myself over in the boat

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Speaker 3: and laid in the bottom boat for a second. You know.

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Speaker 3: Then I reached back there and I got the plug

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Speaker 3: back in and I got control of it.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: But if that boat hadn't come around and picked me up, Wow,

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Speaker 3: I probably would have been gone.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, really, you think you would have well, I would

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Speaker 2: have you right in the middle of the river.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well I wasn't in the middle, but I was

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Speaker 3: out out.

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Speaker 2: In You don't think you could have made it to

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Speaker 2: the bank.

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Speaker 3: I don't think I could. It was cold, so the

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Speaker 3: water wasn't that cold in October, you know. But it

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Speaker 3: was just the current and the weight, the sheer weight

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Speaker 3: of those that wet clothing and that rain gear, and

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Speaker 3: I had no life jacket on, nothing. It just sapped

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Speaker 3: my strength almost immediately. It was all I could do

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Speaker 3: to hold myself up. Yeah, just keep my head above water,

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Speaker 3: you know. That was that was one of the closer calls.

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Speaker 2: You just got back in the boat, got back in

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Speaker 2: the boat and probably say thank you lord.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, well my composure and it went onto the boat

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Speaker 3: ramp and carried on, carried on that day. Yeah, sold

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Speaker 3: a fish, you know, did it all? Yeah?

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Speaker 2: What does your wife say when you told her that story?

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Speaker 3: Well, she was everybody else I've told it to you.

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Speaker 3: You know, they just say, you know, you you just

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Speaker 3: it wasn't your time, you know, just lucky, you know.

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Speaker 2: You know Davy Crockett had a boat wreck on the

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Speaker 2: Mississippi River and he said, if you're born to be hung.

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Speaker 2: You'll never drowned. It wasn't his time to drown, that's right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: How old were you when that happened?

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Speaker 3: That was probably in two thousand and probably eight.

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Speaker 2: Okay, now you're seventy one.

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Speaker 3: Now I was in probably what sixties about or sixties?

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Speaker 2: Wow, that's incredible. Boat wrecks on the Mississippi are common.

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Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, the worst maritime disaster in

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Speaker 2: US history happened on the Mississippi River on April twenty seventh,

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Speaker 2: eighteen sixty five, near Memphis, Tennessee. Two hundred and sixty

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Speaker 2: foot long steamboat called called the Sultana was carrying Union prisoners,

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Speaker 2: just two weeks after the Civil War ended, who had

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Speaker 2: been released from a Confederate prison camp at Vicksburg. They

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Speaker 2: were headed to Saint Louis to go home to their families.

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Speaker 2: The boat had a carrying capacity of three hundred and

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Speaker 2: seventy six passengers, but they'd packed on two thousand, one

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Speaker 2: hundred and thirty seven people aboard. At two am on

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Speaker 2: that April morning, a boiler explosion sunk the ship in

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Speaker 2: a fiery ball of chaos. Eleven hundred and sixty nine

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Speaker 2: people died, most Union soldiers. Despite the size of the disaster,

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Speaker 2: the shipwreck didn't get much press because Lincoln had just

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Speaker 2: been assassinated, the war had been raging for years and

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Speaker 2: had just ended, and the country was tired of bad news,

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Speaker 2: and there was a possible government cover up because of

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Speaker 2: the overcrowded ship on a US sanctioned transport. Today, there

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Speaker 2: is a Sultana Disaster Museum in Marion, Arkansas. The boat

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Speaker 2: was missing for over one hundred years. It's sank in

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Speaker 2: the river, but in nineteen eighty two, over two miles

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Speaker 2: off the current river, the Sultana was located in an

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Speaker 2: Arkansas soybean field. The river bed had shifted that far

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Speaker 2: and the boat is still there. Soon, we're going to

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Speaker 2: talk about some fun stuff like the charismatic fish of

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Speaker 2: the Mississippi River with doctor Jack Kilgore, with who else,

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Speaker 2: and I think you'll be surprised to hear how well

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Speaker 2: they're doing. But I had to ask mister Bill another question,

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Speaker 2: kind of a dark question. And if you're listening with kids,

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Speaker 2: we're about to talk about d EA d people stand by.

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Speaker 2: Don't judge me. I'm just asking the questions that everybody's thinking.

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Speaker 3: But it's an interesting lifestyle. You know, you see a

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Speaker 3: lot of different things.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: You ever found a dead body on the river?

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Speaker 3: Yep, found a couple of those over that year. Really, yeah,

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Speaker 3: found two. Actually, what was the story. Yeah, I found

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Speaker 3: one just several years ago. She was right down here

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Speaker 3: south of town. Yeah, And I was going upstream. You know,

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Speaker 3: I've done running running gear. You know, it was in March,

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Speaker 3: it's cold. I was running upstream and I was just looking,

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Speaker 3: you know, out across the river, you know, just paying

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Speaker 3: attention to where I was going, and I saw something,

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Speaker 3: you know, floating downstream. You know, it looked a little

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Speaker 3: bit different, you know. Then I said, well, that's probably

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Speaker 3: a deer. You know, you see bucks, you know, somebody

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Speaker 3: had shot upstream or whatever coming down. I passed by

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Speaker 3: and I picked up big deer before, you know, I'm

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Speaker 3: a big deer, and you know, I said, I'm going

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Speaker 3: to go back and I'm going to look at see

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Speaker 3: exactly what that was. And then when I turned around

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Speaker 3: and I got a little bit closer to it, I

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Speaker 3: could tell I said, oh my lord, here we go.

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Speaker 2: Mister Bill reported these incidents to the authorities and worked

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Speaker 2: with law enforcement to help them recover the bodies, but

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Speaker 2: it's clear the Mississippi is no stranger to the dead.

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Speaker 2: In the first episode, we learned that Hernando de Soto,

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Speaker 2: credited as the first European to see the river in

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Speaker 2: fifteen forty one, had a water burial not far from

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Speaker 2: where the Sultana sank. My intent is not to be morbid,

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Speaker 2: but rather to present a slick scientific segue into the

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Speaker 2: next section of the podcast. But I'd say there's a

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Speaker 2: high probability that de Soto's body was eaten by an

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Speaker 2: alligator snapping turtle. If you know wild places, you know

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Speaker 2: that organic matter in water does not go to waste.

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Speaker 2: I now want to talk with doctor Kilgore about the

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Speaker 2: health of the Mississippi River. This first segment is a

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Speaker 2: bit of a review, but it will quickly get into

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Speaker 2: the new stuff.

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Speaker 1: All the other great rivers of the word, the Congo,

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Speaker 1: the Nile, the Antsee, all of those they have near

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Speaker 1: the mouth of the river, whereas the Mississippi, the first

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Speaker 1: dam you encounter is up in Saint Louis, which is

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Speaker 1: twelve hundred miles up. However, a fish can take a

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Speaker 1: left on the Missouri and go another twelve hundred miles

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Speaker 1: to the Gavin's point dam on the Missouri. So I

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Speaker 1: tell people this that if you put all of that together,

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Speaker 1: there's almost twenty four hundred miles of free flowing Mississippi

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Speaker 1: Missouri River. There's nothing else like that in the world

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Speaker 1: except for the Amazon. All the other great rivers have

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Speaker 1: been dammed, which influences set thement, transport, water quality, migratory fish.

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Speaker 1: You know, it has all those negative impacts. And that's

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Speaker 1: one reason in particular the Lower miss because it has

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Speaker 1: an intact floodplain, it has a natural flood pulse. There

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Speaker 1: have been no extirpations or extinction of species in modern time.

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Speaker 2: Really, even with all the manipulation.

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Speaker 1: That's right, despite all that river engineering, we still have

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Speaker 1: a very robust, diversed aquatic assemblage in this river.

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Speaker 2: That's incredible.

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Speaker 1: And that's what we're trying to understand and protect and

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Speaker 1: conserve because it really has never been evaluated in a,

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Speaker 1: you know, in a very holistic quantitative way until the

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Speaker 1: last twenty years or so.

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Speaker 2: It's essential to understand the river is what it is

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Speaker 2: because of its intact floodplain, the batcher as it's called,

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Speaker 2: or the space inside the levees. Here's why a healthy

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Speaker 2: floodplain is important for fish.

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Speaker 1: What happens then is every spring, you know, the river

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Speaker 1: comes up and it floods, and the fish and other

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Speaker 1: aquatic organisms they follow that floodpulse up into the floodplain,

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Speaker 1: and what they encounter are tens of thousands of acres

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Speaker 1: of lakes, scatters, breaks, slews, just perfect habitat for spawning

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Speaker 1: and rearing and feeding. And then when the river begins

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Speaker 1: to contract and go back down, a lot of these

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Speaker 1: recently spawned fish will follow the retreating flood down into

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Speaker 1: the river and they repopulate the river, so they sustain

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Speaker 1: the numbers the biodiversity year after year because we have

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Speaker 1: a natural flood pulse of the lower miss whereas you

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Speaker 1: don't have it in the Upper miss you don't have

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Speaker 1: it in the Ohio, you don't have it in the Arkansas.

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Speaker 1: It's all damned all the way up. So that's the

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Speaker 1: unique nature of it. And the fact that it joins

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Speaker 1: the Missouri and goes another twelve hundred miles makes it

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Speaker 1: really one of the longest. Other than that, I think

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Speaker 1: it is the longest free flowing stretch of river.

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Speaker 2: The flood pulse, the movement of the river up and

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Speaker 2: down in its floodplain, feeds the fish of the river

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Speaker 2: and can be important for their breeding cycles. It's just

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Speaker 2: that simple. Doctor Kilgore will now talk about why having

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Speaker 2: extended stretches of free flowing, non damned rivers are good

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Speaker 2: for fish, and this might even bolster the tattoo idea

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Speaker 2: from episode one. Don't do it, but it's a good idea.

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Speaker 1: And so we do telemetry studies and we tag fish,

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Speaker 1: and we've had multiple examples of fish moving upstream one

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Speaker 1: thousand miles, moving downstream a thousand miles.

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Speaker 2: A thousand miles. Yea, what fish? What kind of fish

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Speaker 2: are doing that?

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Speaker 1: Sturgeon, paddlefish, the invasive karp, we've had, buffalo. They make

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Speaker 1: long migratory runs as well.

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Speaker 2: Why are they Why are those fish doing that? Like,

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Speaker 2: what's what's biologically advantageous about going that far?

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Speaker 1: Well? I think one reason is that they're spreading out

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Speaker 1: their progeny. Some of them, we believe, we don't know

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Speaker 1: for sure, have certain homing instincts, just like salmon, that

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Speaker 1: they'll actually go back to their natal spawning area or

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Speaker 1: in that general area. Some fish may move from the

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Speaker 1: Missouri down into the Mississippi, but they spawn in the Missouri.

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Speaker 1: They go back to the Missouri to spawn, so as

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Speaker 1: a homing behavior, it's a behavior we don't fully understand,

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Speaker 1: but we do know that there's there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: movement both upstream and downstream of fish.

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Speaker 2: Doctor Kilgore is an expert on fish, and as usual,

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Speaker 2: I was delighted when he talked about all the things

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Speaker 2: they don't know. Mysteries remain brothers, and he and his

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Speaker 2: teams have done some seminal work on the river and

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Speaker 2: still are. But let's talk catfish.

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Speaker 1: But the catfish. We have three species of giant catfish.

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Speaker 1: The new state record of Mississippi a blue cat was

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Speaker 1: broken last year one hundred and thirty pound blue cat.

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Speaker 1: We regularly catch fifty sixty pound flatheads and blue cats

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Speaker 1: out there. The catfish population is unexploited. I mean, there

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Speaker 1: are there are so many catfish in this river, and

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Speaker 1: there's so few fishermen really and there's and there's so

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Speaker 1: much habitat and it's in you go down the bigger

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Speaker 1: the catfish tend tend to be too. From based upon

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Speaker 1: a study we did, you know, in some ways, because

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Speaker 1: this river fluctuates fifty feet a year, and you got

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Speaker 1: these huge floods. You know, we haven't even reached the

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Speaker 1: carrying capacity of some of these fish. They can continue on,

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Speaker 1: and that's what's happened. Unfortunately, with the invasive carbon, they

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Speaker 1: found the lower Mississippi River to be very hospitable.

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Speaker 2: Unfortunately, now the catfish I'm interested in catfish. I would

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Speaker 2: have thought that commercial fishermen were hitting the Mississippi really hard,

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Speaker 2: but they're not.

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Speaker 1: Yes, they are, But the numbers of commercial fishermen have

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Speaker 1: dwindled over the years.

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Speaker 2: Is that a market thing or like the part of

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Speaker 2: farm raising catfish that was part of the decline forbid,

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Speaker 2: people aren't eating as much catfish as they yoused to.

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Speaker 2: Was that true?

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Speaker 1: I think we are. There's more store bought catfish. The

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Speaker 1: farm raised catfish certainly took a head on commercial fishing. However,

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Speaker 1: I worked with the commercial fisherman for years, Bill Lancaster.

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Speaker 2: We've already met mister Bill. He and doctor Kilgore, Old Brose.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I'll diverge for a minute and tell the

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Speaker 1: story about Bill. We were coming in and we'd been

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Speaker 1: out there sampling. We came into our boat ramping. Here

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Speaker 1: comes Bill in his boat and his boat was full

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Speaker 1: of fish. He's a commercial fisherman, of course, just full

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Speaker 1: of catfish in Buffalo. And we started talking to him

390
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Speaker 1: and we've told him that we're interested in catching sturgeon

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Speaker 1: on the Mississippi River and he goes, did you have

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Speaker 1: any suggestions? He goes, I catch sturgeon all the time

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Speaker 1: on my trot lines. Go really, well, would you like

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Speaker 1: to go out with us and show us?

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Speaker 3: And he did.

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Speaker 1: One January nineteen ninety nine, a cold January morning, we

397
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Speaker 1: went out with Bill. He had set trot lines on

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Speaker 1: the Mississippi River and one of the first hooks that

399
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Speaker 1: came up he had a ten pound pallid sturgeon, which

400
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Speaker 1: is the endangered species of sturgeon. MM and so okay, hey, Bill,

401
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Speaker 1: would you like to work with us on contract? And

402
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Speaker 1: so for twenty years we worked with Bill and we

403
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Speaker 1: put out over ten thousand trot lines, and we trot

404
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Speaker 1: lined all the way from the mouth of the Mississippi

405
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Speaker 1: River up to the chain of rocks in Saint Bos.

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Speaker 1: And that's how we figured out the status of the

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Speaker 1: sturching population. Wow, he's to catch.

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Speaker 2: Them on troutline ten thousand trot lines. I'd say, these

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Speaker 2: guys know the river as good as anybody. I want

410
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Speaker 2: to go back to mister Bill. I've got a question

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Speaker 2: about his fishing. What are you mainly fishing for when

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Speaker 2: you're on the river. What's your target species?

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Speaker 3: Two main species that's a buffalo fish and the catfish.

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Speaker 3: You know, all species of catfish, channel cat, blue cat,

415
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Speaker 3: and flatheadcit.

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Speaker 2: To the market everybody, it doesn't matter what kind of catfish.

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Speaker 3: It really doesn't pay the same. They prefer. They prefer

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Speaker 3: the blue cat and the antle cat over the flathead.

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Speaker 2: Really, yeah, that will be opposite out in just on

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Speaker 2: the street.

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Speaker 3: Wasn't it right. Yeah, a lot of people like the

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Speaker 3: flathead far as eating, but it's harder to dress. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's more waste probably to the flathead.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So form for the commercial market where people are

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Speaker 2: where they're processing a lot of fish, they want channels

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Speaker 2: and blue.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, channels and blue cat, you know, and preferably smaller fish.

428
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Speaker 3: You know, they don't they don't really care about the

429
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Speaker 3: big fish, you know, over thirty or forty pounds. You know,

430
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Speaker 3: they'll they will take one or two or three, but

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Speaker 3: they don't want to boatload of them. Really.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So you're not targeting big fish.

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Speaker 3: No, not at all. Yeah, anything sellable, you know, from

434
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:40,560
Speaker 3: a two pounds up to you know, fifteen to twenty pounds.

435
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 3: That's about the range. That's what i'd be looking forward.

436
00:23:43,760 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 2: What are you doing with the buffalo?

437
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:47,800
Speaker 3: Well, the buffalo are sold, you know, sold straight to

438
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 3: the market as is, you know they are. There's a

439
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 3: big demand here for buffalo, I mean a huge demand.

440
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 3: Probably probably sell more buffalo than catfish.

441
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,440
Speaker 2: Really, buffalo ribs, Is that what people are eating.

442
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:00,679
Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll take the ribs, you know, of course, when

443
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,000
Speaker 3: they dress a buffalo, they take the ribs out and

444
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:05,639
Speaker 3: then they have the loin, you know, which they cut up.

445
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:08,520
Speaker 2: What's your favorite fish to catch? What do you get

446
00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:12,159
Speaker 2: excited about when you see when you see a net flatheads?

447
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:15,160
Speaker 2: Probably really, even though that's not as marketable.

448
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but I can still sell them all that

449
00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 3: I catch, so you know, it doesn't it doesn't matter. Yeah,

450
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 3: but I like to see, you know, a net full

451
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 3: of flatheads when they come up. Why because you can

452
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 3: feel them before you ever, before you ever raised the net.

453
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,200
Speaker 3: You can tell what's in there just by the way

454
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 3: they're hitting that net, you know, way they feel, and

455
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 3: when you pull it to the surface, it just erupts

456
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 3: into a massive ball, you know, and then you can

457
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:40,119
Speaker 3: see them.

458
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 1: You know.

459
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 2: He's not targeting the big catfish. That's interesting, and he

460
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 2: sells more buffalo than catfish, that's interesting. But he loves

461
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 2: catching flat head. That is not surprising. Buffalo fish, the

462
00:24:55,320 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 2: genus Ichtiobis is a large suckerfish that's not gained as

463
00:24:59,840 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 2: much popularity as a game fish like catfish because they're

464
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 2: hard to catch on rod and reel and their bony

465
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 2: but they're very good to eat. Any fish restaurant in

466
00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 2: the South Worth it's watermelon salt is going to be

467
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:17,400
Speaker 2: serving fried wild caught buffalo ribs. It's a honky piece

468
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 2: of white meat on a single bone. You eat them

469
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 2: like chicken wings. I've got another question, And if I'd

470
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 2: left Mississippi without asking him this, I'd be forced to

471
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 2: resign for my position at meat Eater. You're not targeting

472
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 2: big fish for the commercial market. Yeah, but just in

473
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 2: your fifty years on the river, what's the biggest fish

474
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:42,919
Speaker 2: you've seen come out of Mississippi River.

475
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 3: I caught a one hundred pound blue cat in twenty seventeen.

476
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:52,680
Speaker 3: That's the biggest biggest fish I've caught. Caught a lot

477
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 3: of fish in the seventy down you know, sixty seventy

478
00:25:56,760 --> 00:26:00,680
Speaker 3: fifty sixty seventy pound range, but that hundred pounder was

479
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 3: the biggest that i've I've landed. I caught him on

480
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 3: the trot line too, using the I was using a

481
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 3: two hot stainless steel hook, A two. I was not

482
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 3: very big, you know, if you know anything about hooks,

483
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 3: you know, but it was. It was I think March

484
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 3: when I caught that fish. The water was super cold,

485
00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 3: and uh, you know he was. He just came up

486
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,480
Speaker 3: to the surface and I got the dip net under

487
00:26:24,520 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 3: his tail, and of course I knew he was big,

488
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 3: you know. I got the dip net under his tail

489
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:31,160
Speaker 3: and got him about halfway in that dip net because

490
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 3: he was too big to get in. Well, I guess

491
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 3: with the adrenaline I had pumping, you know, I just

492
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 3: rolled him over into the boat and then I looked

493
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 3: at him. I said, Wow, this is big fish.

494
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 1: Here.

495
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:42,440
Speaker 2: How long you think he was?

496
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 3: He's he was as tall as I was almost when

497
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 3: he was hanging when we hung him up the wig.

498
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 2: And you're not You're you're tall year six two. A

499
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 2: one hundred pound blue cat is giant. You're glad, I asked,

500
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 2: aren't you. In April twenty twenty three, the Rodden Reil,

501
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 2: Mississippi state record blue cat was caught in the river

502
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,159
Speaker 2: near Vicksburg and at weigh one hundred and thirty one pounds.

503
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 2: And just for reference, the world record blue cat weighed

504
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty three pounds and was caught in

505
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 2: a North Carolina lake. The world record flathead catfish weigh

506
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty three pounds and was caught in

507
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:23,680
Speaker 2: the lake in Kansas. The world record channel cat came

508
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 2: from South Carolina and weighed fifty eight pounds. And that's

509
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 2: a pretty good blueprint for the size of these cats.

510
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 2: So the blue cats get the biggest flathead second and

511
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 2: then channels. But most people prefer to eat flathead. And

512
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 2: it would be a miss if I didn't learn something

513
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 2: about the gear commercial fishermen are using on the river.

514
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 2: Here's mister Bill, what kind of equipment is a commercial

515
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 2: fisherman on the Mississippi River using.

516
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 3: Well, people use different kind of equipment. Some people you know,

517
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:58,440
Speaker 3: will fish maybe all gillnet, gil webbing, and then you know,

518
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:01,920
Speaker 3: you people that have the do mostly hoopnet, then you

519
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 3: have some that just trot line didn't like myself. For you, though,

520
00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 3: I do a little of all of it, depending on

521
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 3: what time of year it is and what kind of

522
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 3: fish I'm looking for.

523
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 2: A gill net is simply a net stretched across a

524
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 2: section of water that catches fish traveling up and down

525
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,719
Speaker 2: the river. A hoop net is shaped like a barrel,

526
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 2: often baited, but not always, and the fish enter into

527
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 2: a wide opening that nexts down and they can't get out.

528
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 2: A trot line is a long string with baited hooks

529
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 2: dropped off every few feet. I want to get back

530
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 2: with doctor Kilgore about his experience on the river. He's

531
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 2: gonna talk about the general health of the fishery and

532
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 2: some of his river sampling projects, and will bring up

533
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 2: an interesting idea the river as wilderness. What he said

534
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 2: was very surprising to me.

535
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, you're sampling the bottom of the

536
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: Mississippi River, so you're not just getting sturgeon. You're getting

537
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: these giant catfish we're talking about. You're getting a gar, buffalo,

538
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 1: drum goog, gasper goo, all of those fish. And over time,

539
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: you know, you start getting this appreciation that there's hardly

540
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: any limit to the number of fish that you can

541
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: catch out of this river. People are afraid to get

542
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: on it. They're afraid to fish for a good reason. Really,

543
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: you have to really know what you're doing initially, but

544
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 1: once once you understand the things you've got to watch

545
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: out for, it is a wonderful experience. And that's one

546
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: of my passions. I Mean, you go out there and

547
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: it's just I can look one way, and that's exactly

548
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 1: the way Mark Twain saw the river when he was

549
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: a cub pilot, and then you work look another way

550
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: and you see dikes and revetment. You know, that's modern

551
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: day Mississippi. But my point is that you can still

552
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: see a lot of natural features in this river that

553
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:57,480
Speaker 1: still exist and haven't changed over the eons.

554
00:29:57,640 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 2: You know. It's kind of I like to think a

555
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 2: lot about wilderness, and I really value like wilderness with

556
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 2: the capital W yes in that just a place untouched

557
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 2: by man. You wouldn't really think of a I wouldn't

558
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 2: think of a river system as a wilderness. And it's

559
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 2: not the perfect analogy, but what I'm hearing you say

560
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 2: is that you can be on that river and you're

561
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 2: dealing with something ancient. Yes, you're dealing with something very

562
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 2: old and intact, which is rare. Rarely would you go

563
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 2: into a natural terrestrial system today and be able to

564
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 2: We have places like this, but where you would say

565
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 2: this thing is a lot like it would have been

566
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 2: pre EUROPEA. Yeah, and you're telling me in the river

567
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 2: with the fish endangered species other than the invasives, it's

568
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 2: doing pretty well, which is kind of surprising to me.

569
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: It's doing very well in fact, really even with.

570
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 2: The pollution and all the stuff.

571
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: See the pollution, I mean, yes, we had before the

572
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 1: Clean Water Act, there were certainly polluted waters throughout our nation,

573
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: including the Mississippi River, but the legacy pesticides like the

574
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 1: DDT and the toxaphene, they are not detected in fish

575
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: tissue anymore.

576
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:09,720
Speaker 2: Okay.

577
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: And you hear about, oh, that the Mississippi River is

578
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: polluting the Gulf of Mexico with all that nitrogen, Well

579
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: that's true, you know, because it does drain all the agriculture,

580
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: almost all the agricultural land in the United States, so

581
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: there is fairly high nitrogen and phosphorus, but mainly nitrogen.

582
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: But it's not a form of pollution for the Mississippi.

583
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 1: It might be a form of pollution for creating a

584
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: golf hypoxia right dead zone, but it's not. But it's

585
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: actually a lot of this nitrogen is being sequestered in

586
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: the floodplains as a flood spreads out, and that's what's helping,

587
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:48,480
Speaker 1: you know, the plants and the soil to grow and

588
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: be nutritious and support the aquatic life there too. So, yes,

589
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: it is a wilderness. A colleague of mine, Paul Hartfield,

590
00:31:57,960 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 1: he worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service for you,

591
00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 1: he called it an engineered wilderness because you get the levees,

592
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 1: you know, you have the dikes, you have the revetment,

593
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:10,719
Speaker 1: So it is an engineered system. But it still did

594
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: not diminish or eliminate the natural features of this flood

595
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: polse type river that we have. I hear that a lot.

596
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: Oh you know, look how muddy it is, and it's

597
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: got to be polluted. I've heard it's not. I tell

598
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: people it's not. In fact, you know, I would catch

599
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: a fish out of the Mississippi Way before and eat it.

600
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: Before I would eat a fish out of my lake

601
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: there in the subdivision.

602
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that is kind of shocking to me.

603
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 3: I love it.

604
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 2: It's kind of surprising to.

605
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: Me and Bill Lancaster, the commercial fisherman. He has plenty

606
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: of customers, you know, that buy his catfish in Buffalo.

607
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: Like I said, commercial fishing and the commercial fisherman. Unfortunately,

608
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: as a dying breed, they're just not being recruited. I said,

609
00:32:56,800 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: it's probably the economics of it.

610
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 2: Well, me and me and Brent Reeves, you're gonna come.

611
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 2: Commercial fisherman a friend of ours. I've got I got

612
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 2: big dreams, big dreams.

613
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 3: Okay, there you go.

614
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 2: Big dreams, folks, big American dreams. If the bottom falls

615
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 2: out of the podcast market, I have a diverse financial

616
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 2: plan to make a living as number one stand up comedian,

617
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 2: number two, a commercial fisherman with Brent Reeves, with our

618
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 2: Sea Arc catfish boat Laura, named after the Laura and

619
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 2: Tied ice sheet. Number three. I'll work remotely as a

620
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 2: Nashville singer songwriter, and those things will obviously be a

621
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 2: supplement to me already being a major player in the

622
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 2: high end mule market. A. I don't know if I

623
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:47,960
Speaker 2: want to tell my plan or not. Somebody might steal it.

624
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 2: Cut that out seriously, though, we've got to get back

625
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 2: to what doctor Kilgore was talking about, we're treading in

626
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 2: some complicated water. Regarding the health of the river. I

627
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 2: was completely expecting Kilgore to say the big Muddy was

628
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 2: America's sewer, manipulated by man so much that it was

629
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 2: a dainty relic of its past. But that's not what

630
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 2: he said at all. From a fish perspective, the river

631
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:16,800
Speaker 2: is healthy. I've also got to mention two things that

632
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 2: were just not getting into in this series. Number one,

633
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 2: the dead zone in the Gulf. Number two, coastal erosion

634
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:28,919
Speaker 2: in Louisiana. There's a zone of hypoxia with very little

635
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 2: aquatic life in it in the range of seventy five

636
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 2: hundred square miles along the Gulf coast. This dead zone

637
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 2: is the result of excess nutrients primarily nitrogen and phosphorus

638
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 2: from agriculture, fertilizer runoff from lawns, and just human existence

639
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,800
Speaker 2: that pools in the non moving water of the Gulf,

640
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 2: creating algal blooms that suck up the oxygen in the water. However,

641
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:58,800
Speaker 2: nutrients in a moving current have less impact. These nutrients

642
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 2: aren't in and of themselves elves harmful, but in excess

643
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 2: they cause big problems. This drainage basin definitely has problems,

644
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 2: but the natural fishery of the river isn't suffering from this.

645
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:15,440
Speaker 2: I'd say that's a pretty incredible report considering a lot

646
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 2: of the environmental news that we hear on a day

647
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,920
Speaker 2: to day basis. And the hero of this fishery is

648
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 2: that intact natural floodplain inside the levees of the river.

649
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:28,400
Speaker 2: Don't forget it. The other thing that we're just not

650
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 2: getting into, which is a major issue, is the coastal

651
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:36,800
Speaker 2: erosion in South Louisiana, where they've lost over two thousand

652
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 2: square miles of land in the last fifty years as

653
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 2: a result of sea level rise and less sediment moving

654
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 2: down the Mississippi River. It's incredibly complicated and serious. However,

655
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 2: this next section is wild and we're going back to

656
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 2: talk to our friend and old boat captain Hank Burdine

657
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 2: about a significant factor influencing river health. It has to

658
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:05,280
Speaker 2: do with the monetary and cultural value of hunting.

659
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 5: Stand by within the what we call the batcher between

660
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 5: the levees, the land between the levees that flood. You

661
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 5: can't build a house, and unless you build it fifteen

662
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:20,320
Speaker 5: sixteen twenty feet up off the ground. So the majority

663
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 5: of the whole area down the river is in hungrams.

664
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 5: It used to be timber companies, but the timber companies

665
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 5: realized that there was an inherent value in those lands

666
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:38,840
Speaker 5: recreationally for hunting. And it was about in the seventies

667
00:36:38,880 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 5: and eighties that Anderson Cully, Chicago Meal, all these huge

668
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 5: timber companies that owned one hundreds of thousands of acres

669
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 5: of land between the levees said look, and we have

670
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 5: I can't eat it too. We leasing this land out

671
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 5: of these hun clothed for nothing. Really, why don't we

672
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:00,880
Speaker 5: sell them the land, keep the timber rights fifteen to

673
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 5: twenty years. They sell the land at top dollar for

674
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 5: recreational purposes, They keep the tumble for twenty years. They

675
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 5: got doubled up money. So the majority of all this

676
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 5: land now along the river is in private hunt camps clubs.

677
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:20,320
Speaker 2: So really in a way, and that's why the hunting,

678
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 2: the value of hunting, and the money that honey brought

679
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 2: in is helping preserve the wildness of the Mississippi River.

680
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely yeah.

681
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:32,879
Speaker 5: And when you talk about a hunting club, you're talking

682
00:37:32,880 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 5: about catfish point twelfth, our negg hunt club, you know,

683
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 5: hunting and point dunt Own.

684
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 2: I mean from from Memphis all the way down to

685
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 2: New Orleans along the Mississippi River inside the levees, is

686
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 2: hunting camps.

687
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 5: From Memphis, I would say, all the way on down

688
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 5: toward getting close to badon Rouge.

689
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, he's hunting camps, hunting camps from Levity to Levy.

690
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 5: They don't want those trees cleared. If they do, it's

691
00:37:57,320 --> 00:37:59,640
Speaker 5: select cutting. I mean the tumble companies are out of

692
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 5: it now. But they've got a managed program. Yeah where

693
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 5: they go in so let cut the tree, leave this,

694
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 5: leave that have their food blot all like that.

695
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 2: And that's powerful for the health of the whole system

696
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:15,359
Speaker 2: as these as these natural floodplains inside the levees which

697
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:19,720
Speaker 2: your man made but are remained timbered and managed, managed

698
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 2: for wildlife, and I mean it's a wildlife mecca. It's

699
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 2: a wildlife mecca. Water systems are a product of their

700
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:31,240
Speaker 2: riparian zones. The value of hunting camps inside the levees

701
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 2: of the river being managed for wildlife, which is primarily whitetail,

702
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 2: turkeys and ducks, is creating a healthy natural floodplain unique

703
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 2: to the world at one time the value is in timber,

704
00:38:44,280 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 2: but that is changing. I can't express what an incredible

705
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 2: conservation story this is, once again hunters of the good guys,

706
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:57,760
Speaker 2: saving habitat and wild places at a time in Earth's

707
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 2: history when it couldn't be more or important. That's the

708
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 2: muddy boggy truth. I now want to talk to the

709
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:10,840
Speaker 2: dock about the big fish other than catfish of the

710
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 2: Mississippi River.

711
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: Yes, there are several different species of fish that I

712
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 1: categorize as iconic megafauna. The first is what we've been discussing,

713
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: are sturgeon. There are two species of sturgeon that live

714
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 1: their entire lives in the Mississippi River, the palid and

715
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:34,360
Speaker 1: the chovell No sturgeon. The Pallid is the federally endangered species,

716
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 1: whereas the shovel Nos is not. But they only get

717
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: here in the lower miss maybe ten or fifteen pounds.

718
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: They're not like the giant sturgeon that you see along

719
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,760
Speaker 1: the coast. And the reason, of course that the demise

720
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 1: of sturgeon was due to the building dams and the

721
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: caviar market. But today sturgeon are thriving and you can

722
00:39:56,719 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: almost walk on their hacklebacks. You know, they're so really

723
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 1: the two most abundant bottom oriented fish are blue cats

724
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 1: and chauvenet.

725
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 2: Sturgeon more than the other cat fish, more more than more.

726
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:12,359
Speaker 1: Than flathead, more than channel catfish. Blue cats are by

727
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: far number one of the big bigger fish. Sturgeon come

728
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:18,759
Speaker 1: in number two based upon our trotline catches. Wow, the

729
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:24,359
Speaker 1: largest North American fish alligator gar. An alligator gar really

730
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:26,719
Speaker 1: got a bad rap. What happened to them is that

731
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 1: people misunderstood them. I mean, they get to three hundred

732
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:32,880
Speaker 1: pounds plus and they're ugly and they're mean looking. I

733
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: can understand that, but they misunderstood them thinking that alligator

734
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,959
Speaker 1: gar are eating their sport fish. They're bass, they're blue gill,

735
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 1: they're croppy, and so they put a bounty on their head,

736
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:47,920
Speaker 1: considering them a rough fish, and they just about wiped

737
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:50,840
Speaker 1: them out. And then they started doing scientific studies and

738
00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 1: found out, well, they eate shat, they're not eating, you know,

739
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 1: our sport fish. And plus they're an apex predator of

740
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River. We did not want to eliminate an

741
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: apex predator. And they may also be a bi all

742
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,520
Speaker 1: control for some of the invasive carp and so once

743
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 1: we we hated them, and now we love them. And

744
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:15,319
Speaker 1: there's hatchery programs introducing them back into the Mississippi River

745
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: and we're slowly seeing them come back.

746
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 2: How big you said, three hundred pounds? How long would

747
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 2: that fact?

748
00:41:21,840 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 3: Ten feet?

749
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:23,239
Speaker 2: Ten foot long.

750
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:29,400
Speaker 1: The other iconic megafauna which is even more interesting than

751
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 1: all the other fish, all the paddlefish, spoon bil catfish,

752
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:37,320
Speaker 1: and they're very abundant here, although they also have the

753
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: black eggs, and so now they're being targeted for the

754
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,920
Speaker 1: caviar because all the sturgeon are now protected. So all

755
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: the states are really watching harvest of paddle fish. But

756
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: the paddlefish, they can get over one hundred pounds. They're

757
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 1: their gentle giants, just an amazing you know, and they're.

758
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 2: You call them. You call it a spoon bill catfish. Yes,

759
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:00,399
Speaker 2: is it a cat fish?

760
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 4: No?

761
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 2: Okay, that's just the kind of colloquial.

762
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: That's why it's a colloquial name. The sturgeon and the

763
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 1: paddlefish are very primitive. They were around during the age

764
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: of the dinosaurs, that's how long they have lived the

765
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 1: same with the alligator guard they're very primitive. Fish.

766
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 2: What does it mean biologically? Like, what does it say

767
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 2: biologically when a species is so stable for millions of years.

768
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 1: They have overcome the evolutionary challenges of adaptation. They have

769
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: adapted to that environment to be perfect. But these fish

770
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: are uniquely adapted to this flowing water fluvial environment. And

771
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 1: if you take away that flow, you take away that

772
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:45,799
Speaker 1: flood pulse, then you eliminate those species. And that's what's

773
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 1: happened in the upper Mist. You don't see a lot

774
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 1: of paddlefish and sturgeon things up there because of the dam.

775
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,320
Speaker 2: But would they be considered an indicator species?

776
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: Yes, for free flowing natural river system.

777
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:01,239
Speaker 2: I like the idea of that that fish that old

778
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 2: would indicate that he kind of has met his optimum design, Yes,

779
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:11,560
Speaker 2: and to exploit the environment that he's got, and then

780
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:15,480
Speaker 2: we could deduce that if he's still here, the conditions

781
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 2: are like they were a long time ago.

782
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,400
Speaker 1: Well, and the main channel of the Mississippi River provides

783
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: the same sort of habitat quality that it did pre Europeana.

784
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: So that's why we have had no extinctions or extirpatients.

785
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 2: That's that's amazing to me. What other natural system can

786
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 2: we say exists in relative similarity to pre European arrival.

787
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,919
Speaker 2: The only places that could compare would be our wildernesses

788
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:51,879
Speaker 2: with the capital W the federally protected terrestrial wilderness. That's

789
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 2: some wild stuff. And I'd love to see a three

790
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 2: hundred pound alligator gar, wouldn't you. Let's hear doctor Kilgore

791
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 2: talk about something a lot smaller that lives in this river.

792
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 2: This surprised me.

793
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:09,799
Speaker 1: The river shrimp are prior to you know, the exploitation

794
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:13,520
Speaker 1: of white shrimp and brown shrimp along the coast, which

795
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: is where we get most of our shrimp. Now, the

796
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 1: river people and the Indians, indigenous people would eat the

797
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 1: river shrimp because there are billions of them out there. Well,

798
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:28,360
Speaker 1: we'll put a troll through there, and the trall sometimes

799
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 1: is so full of river shrimp we can't even get

800
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: it on board. And you can imagine how important those

801
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: river shrimp are to the forage base of.

802
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 2: How how would they have caught How would have Native

803
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 2: Americans caught river shrimp?

804
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 1: They could put traps in there where you can, like

805
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 1: a weir or something. And because what they do is

806
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: they they swim and walk along the bottom of the

807
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 1: Mississippi River all the way up to the Ohio. They

808
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: can go over dams, they can they can go up

809
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 1: to the Missouri. But in order to complete their life cycle,

810
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: they have to go back down to salt water. So

811
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: those little shrip have to walk all the way back

812
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:06,239
Speaker 1: down one thousand miles to get to the gulf to

813
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 1: complete their life cycle.

814
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 4: Who knew?

815
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 2: Now, though, I want to talk about turtles and the

816
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:17,800
Speaker 2: big picture of fish in the river. Yeah, tell me

817
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:19,120
Speaker 2: about the turtles.

818
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 1: Along the river into the swamp areas. You get these

819
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: alligator snapping turtles that can get over one hundred pounds

820
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,960
Speaker 1: I mean actually several hundred pounds. And you know there

821
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:35,320
Speaker 1: are another primitive species as relatively unchanged over the years,

822
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: and they have that specialized appendage on their tongue. They

823
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: can remain under water for hours and hours, and they

824
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 1: open their mouth and they stick out their tongue and

825
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 1: they have this little red appendage that flips back and

826
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 1: forth and that attracts the unwary fish close to their

827
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:53,800
Speaker 1: mouth and bang, you know, they'll snap shots.

828
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:55,320
Speaker 2: They have a little bait they go.

829
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:58,040
Speaker 1: They're tracting their bait to Wow, this is.

830
00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 2: The out the alligator snapping that's right.

831
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: The alligator, snapping turtle. Like I said, there's about one

832
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: hundred species of fish that maintain reproductive populations in the

833
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:12,400
Speaker 1: Lower miss If you include the tributaries, then there's probably

834
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: about two hundred and fifty species of fish that are associated.

835
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 2: How does that compare with the other rivers of the world.

836
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:19,880
Speaker 2: Is that that's quite biodiversity?

837
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: Yes, it is, But it's nothing compared to the Amazon,

838
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: which has probably over two thousand species of fish. Wow,

839
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I know, I mean Amazon is such a anomaly.

840
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: You know, like Amazon's the NBA and we're playing like

841
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 2: in yeah high school one a basketball dow d.

842
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, I mean, you can't compare any river

843
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,280
Speaker 1: of the world to the Amazon. It's in a class

844
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 1: by itself. The outflow of the Amazon is up to

845
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: twenty million cubic feet per second at a major floods

846
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: on the Mississippi, we only get two point five million

847
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 1: cubic feed per second. Wow, It's ten times higher, and

848
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: it's longer. The drainings basin is wider, and there's no dams,

849
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:10,360
Speaker 1: no damn Amazon, whereas all the other great rivers of

850
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,680
Speaker 1: the word, the Congo, the Nile of the ant Sea,

851
00:47:14,360 --> 00:47:17,480
Speaker 1: all of those they have dams near the mouth of

852
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 1: the river.

853
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 2: The Amazon is a beast. I waited until the end

854
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:24,719
Speaker 2: of the series to mention it because it makes our

855
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:28,600
Speaker 2: beloved Mississippi look like a creek. The Amazon is the

856
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:33,879
Speaker 2: river all rivers are compared to. Doctor Kilgore has spent

857
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 2: a lot of time on the Big Muddy, and I

858
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 2: want to hear him talk about the perils of navigating

859
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 2: the river. You said that people are afraid to get

860
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:48,280
Speaker 2: on the river because of how dangerous it is. Anybody

861
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,359
Speaker 2: in American history that has been on the Mississippi River

862
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:56,320
Speaker 2: has some boat wreck story. Our boy Davy Crockett crashed

863
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 2: a boat just south of Memphis and nearly died on

864
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 2: the Mississippi River. And then you know all of Mark

865
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:05,719
Speaker 2: Twain's riding talk about the dangers of Thessissippi River. And

866
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:09,240
Speaker 2: today it's still dangerous, even though it's it's been tamed

867
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:10,240
Speaker 2: from those days.

868
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 3: Right.

869
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 2: What do you You said there was some safe some

870
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 2: things that you would look for you can be safe.

871
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 2: What would those be?

872
00:48:18,600 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 3: Well? Uh?

873
00:48:19,760 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: I mean for me, Number one is I watched the

874
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 1: wind because there's nothing worse being on the Mississippi River.

875
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:31,320
Speaker 1: When you have a south wind pushing against a northern

876
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:36,480
Speaker 1: moving river and the waves are like this. So in

877
00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:39,680
Speaker 1: small boats that we're in, you know, we're just we can't.

878
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:41,839
Speaker 1: You know, you can't get on plane. You know you're

879
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 1: getting inundated by all this water. It can be very

880
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,719
Speaker 1: dangerous out there in high wind. The most dangerous thing

881
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 1: out there are the stone dykes, There's no doubt about it.

882
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: We've had some tragic stories about folks leaving Vicksburg and

883
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:59,279
Speaker 1: never being seen again other than their boat turned over

884
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:02,040
Speaker 1: because of a You have to first of all, know

885
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:04,920
Speaker 1: kind of where the dikes are, what the tailtale signs

886
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:07,719
Speaker 1: of these dikes, because they may be underwater, but they're

887
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:09,719
Speaker 1: still not deep enough and you can still hit your

888
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 1: lower unit on it and flip the boat. So you

889
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: have to know and have navigation charts. Is good, but

890
00:49:15,120 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, I'm familiar with this river around here.

891
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 1: I know where all the dikes are. But if you don't,

892
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 1: you better be real careful and stay along the booy

893
00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 1: line because the coastguard generally not all the time, but

894
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:31,719
Speaker 1: they'll adjust the booyes according to the flood height. And

895
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: then the other thing you have to watch out for

896
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: the towboats, because towboats can't stop on a dime, so

897
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 1: you don't want to get in front of them. But

898
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: when they're pushing upstream, they're creating these really big wakes

899
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:46,800
Speaker 1: and that's going to slow you down too, So you

900
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 1: know you have to be able to take these wakes

901
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 1: slowly and get out of it. You don't want to

902
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: hit them hard because it'll flip your boat too if

903
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 1: you're careful. So it's the wind, the stone dikes, and

904
00:49:56,680 --> 00:49:59,719
Speaker 1: the towboats. But once you have a feeling and understanding,

905
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like I said, it's a wilderness

906
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: out there. Usually the only people, the only thing you

907
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,239
Speaker 1: see out there are the part of the toboats. You

908
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 1: don't see a whole lot of recreational boats out there. Yeah. Now,

909
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: during the summer, if it's a nice day, that sand

910
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 1: bar across from Vicksburg gets got boats up and down

911
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 1: that thing. People are just laying out on the beaches.

912
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 1: That's another thing about the Mississippi River. It's got these

913
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 1: giant point bars. There is more sand beaches along the

914
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 1: lower Mississippi River than all along the Gulf Coast, Is

915
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: that right?

916
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:31,879
Speaker 3: Yes?

917
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:37,759
Speaker 2: Do y'all remember when Hank Berdine called the Mississippi America's

918
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 2: fourth Coast.

919
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:39,759
Speaker 1: I like that.

920
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:43,800
Speaker 2: I'm doing some cleanup work with doctor Kilgore. I wanted

921
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 2: to ask him about shipwrecks, and turns out he was

922
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 2: holding out a great story on us this whole time.

923
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 2: So you think, are there a lot of shipwrecks in

924
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 2: the Mississippi River hundreds hundreds.

925
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: Hundreds, and some of them may be in a n

926
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: agfield because the Mississippi River has changed course as at meanders.

927
00:51:01,600 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: Remember that meander belt. A guy named Henry Fisk, he

928
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 1: did this geomorphic study and he mapped out all the

929
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:10,759
Speaker 1: meander belts on the Mississippi River over the last ten

930
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:14,719
Speaker 1: thousand years. And it's it's beautiful. I mean, you just

931
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 1: can't believe all these meander bins that have cut off.

932
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 2: So you maybe twenty five miles from the current Missippi

933
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,759
Speaker 2: River today and find a I mean, the channel could

934
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:27,080
Speaker 2: have been there. So you got a shipwreck exactly four

935
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 2: hundred years ago on your place.

936
00:51:28,600 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 1: That's right. We discovered one on the Old White River

937
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:34,560
Speaker 1: right where the White River comes into the Arkansas. The

938
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 1: Old White River mouth is kind of a meandering shoot,

939
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:40,239
Speaker 1: and we were there during low water, and we looked

940
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: up there and there was this long wooden boat that

941
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 1: had been exposed by the bank slopping off. And we

942
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:50,440
Speaker 1: reported to the Arkansas folks and they had heard about it,

943
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 1: but they came out and excellent hold of it. It

944
00:51:53,280 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 1: was an eighteen hundreds version of it.

945
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:57,279
Speaker 2: I don't know, Isaac. Can you believe he wasn't going

946
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:00,880
Speaker 2: to tell me the story he's holding out on. What

947
00:52:01,360 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 2: other interesting things have you found in the river.

948
00:52:04,360 --> 00:52:06,279
Speaker 1: I haven't found him, but I've been with folks who

949
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 1: have found him. A giant ground sloth claw.

950
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 2: Wow, how big is that?

951
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 3: Yeah?

952
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:15,919
Speaker 1: It's probably eight or nine inches long, curved black, unbelievable.

953
00:52:16,080 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: And I've seen all kinds of teeth and Indian artifacts

954
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,920
Speaker 1: like old bottles. You'll find old bottles, You'll find pieces

955
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:30,440
Speaker 1: of pottery, You'll find old whiskey jugs, pieces of the

956
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: old whiskey jugs, and find china that used to be

957
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:35,760
Speaker 1: on the boats that sank out there. You'll find chips

958
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: of them.

959
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:38,680
Speaker 2: Do you ever see the bison skulls?

960
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:39,239
Speaker 3: Yes?

961
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:42,200
Speaker 1: In fact, yeah, they Bradley another guy down there, we

962
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 1: were walking on one and all of a sudden his

963
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:47,040
Speaker 1: foot hit something and he starts digging around and he

964
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,120
Speaker 1: picks up an entire intact bison skull. Wow, that was

965
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: preserved out there.

966
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:53,560
Speaker 2: You should have pushed him out of the way, and

967
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:54,719
Speaker 2: I touched it first.

968
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 1: Yeah.

969
00:52:56,280 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 3: Yeah.

970
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 1: When we say okay, let's take a break on this

971
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:00,880
Speaker 1: gravel bar, and we all just spread out, you know

972
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 1: where everyone's looking. Some people are running, you know, for

973
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:05,960
Speaker 1: big stuff, and others are just going real slow looking

974
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:06,359
Speaker 1: at wild.

975
00:53:06,719 --> 00:53:08,799
Speaker 2: The river just constantly revealing news.

976
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 3: It does.

977
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:13,479
Speaker 2: When Brent and I start commercial fishing and we find

978
00:53:13,520 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 2: our first shipwreck, trust me, that will be the first

979
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 2: thing we bring up in conversation for the rest of

980
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:22,320
Speaker 2: our lives. Hopefully it's not Laura Misty would get burned

981
00:53:22,360 --> 00:53:24,440
Speaker 2: out quick on a shipwreck story if I found one

982
00:53:24,719 --> 00:53:29,200
Speaker 2: or was ind one. Undoubtedly, the Mississippi River is one

983
00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:34,480
Speaker 2: of America's most extravagant natural systems, rivaling the Rocky Mountain Range,

984
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:38,839
Speaker 2: the Appalachians are great deserts, our giant inland lakes, our

985
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:43,960
Speaker 2: majestic coastlines. This river, its size, and its location has

986
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:48,879
Speaker 2: been a fundamental component of what makes America America, both

987
00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:53,439
Speaker 2: functionally and culturally. I want to end by asking mister

988
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 2: Bill about why he's dedicated his life to working on

989
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:03,360
Speaker 2: the river. You love fishing the river. Yeah, Why what

990
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:06,440
Speaker 2: is it that you love about fishing the Missisi River?

991
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 4: Oh?

992
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:10,680
Speaker 3: Just the solidarity of it. Yeah, just being out there.

993
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:13,120
Speaker 3: If you're out there, you know, before the sun comes

994
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:14,759
Speaker 3: up and you see the sun come up or you

995
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:17,880
Speaker 3: see the sun go down, it's just a almost a

996
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:21,319
Speaker 3: spiritual experience. You know, when there's nobody, you know, there's

997
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:25,240
Speaker 3: nobody to talk to, there's nobody around, you don't see anybody.

998
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 3: You're just out there in the wilderness. You know, almost

999
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:34,319
Speaker 3: like like you know, you're the only person on earth. Yeah.

1000
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:48,680
Speaker 2: In episode one of this series, we learned about the

1001
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 2: river's incomprehensible power and size, along with man's ancient connection

1002
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:57,839
Speaker 2: to it. The first Europeans saw it in fifteen forty one,

1003
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:01,160
Speaker 2: and we'll never know when the first Native America, the

1004
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:05,840
Speaker 2: first human sought time has forgotten. In episode two, we

1005
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 2: talked about how the Mississippi Delta was one of America's

1006
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:12,760
Speaker 2: last frontiers that kept civilization that babe because of constant

1007
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 2: flooding until the advent of levies, long after most of

1008
00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 2: America was settled. We talked about the plantations, slavery, sharecropping.

1009
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:24,719
Speaker 2: We talked with mister Earl Jasper about growing up in

1010
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 2: the Delta and the sharecropping family that was big. We

1011
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 2: talked about the art and literature of the Delta and

1012
00:55:32,080 --> 00:55:35,239
Speaker 2: how prior to the Civil War this region was one

1013
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,759
Speaker 2: of the richest places in America, fueled by some of

1014
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:42,680
Speaker 2: the richest alluvial soil in the world. On episode three,

1015
00:55:42,760 --> 00:55:46,440
Speaker 2: we talked with author John Barry about the engineering feats

1016
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:50,560
Speaker 2: that defined the century staring men sought to tame the river,

1017
00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 2: and how human nature and ego helped formulate the circumstances

1018
00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:59,640
Speaker 2: for America's most costly natural disaster, which changed America forever,

1019
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 2: Flood of nineteen twenty seven. On this fourth episode, we've

1020
00:56:03,719 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 2: talked about the health of the fishery of the Mississippi River,

1021
00:56:07,120 --> 00:56:09,680
Speaker 2: and I am highly encouraged to learn that the river

1022
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 2: is thriving, and much of it has to do with

1023
00:56:12,120 --> 00:56:16,840
Speaker 2: an intact floodplain preserved by the value of hunting camps

1024
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 2: inside the levees. We've just begun to scratch the surface

1025
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:24,920
Speaker 2: of really understanding this river. Like I've said so many times,

1026
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 2: there's so many directions this story could have gone, and

1027
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:32,719
Speaker 2: I just had to choose some directions to go. But

1028
00:56:32,840 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 2: I believe every American ought to know about the Mississippi River.

1029
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 2: I started off with a knowledge gap that plagued me

1030
00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 2: and a desire to understand this river is a natural

1031
00:56:44,040 --> 00:56:47,520
Speaker 2: system and how it's impacted America. And I think we've

1032
00:56:47,600 --> 00:56:52,799
Speaker 2: taken a pretty big swing and understanding the Mississippi River.

1033
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:58,719
Speaker 2: I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear gris Hey.

1034
00:56:58,880 --> 00:57:03,320
Speaker 2: Be sure to check out the Phelps acron Inhale, exhale,

1035
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:06,360
Speaker 2: grunt and bleak call for deer hunting. It's made of

1036
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:09,360
Speaker 2: fine white oak wood and we only made five hundred

1037
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 2: of these calls, and they've even got my dad gums

1038
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:16,320
Speaker 2: signature on them. For real. I stand by these calls

1039
00:57:16,360 --> 00:57:20,280
Speaker 2: as incredible deer calls. Nothing else on the market like it.

1040
00:57:21,280 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 2: Have a great week and I look forward to talking

1041
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:27,080
Speaker 2: with the folks on the Render next week.