00:00:02 Speaker 1: Fly fishing for tarpin might be the most egregious example of fishing excess on the planet. So I don't know if you guys know the science behind a maxicab rocking to the top two quickly can be dangerous, just as the Greek dude with the wax wings or the kids and crisscross. But lets you figure all that out, then you can just sit back with the beer. Good morning, degenerate anglers. Welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that will not judge you for eating two of the three sandwiches you packed for lunch before eight am. I'm Joe Surmeli Miles Nulty, and yeah, why does that happen? Like why are you always starving at five am on a fishing trip? Like clackwork dude. People are like, why you three sandwiches? And I'm like, because I'm gonna eat two of them before we break the inlet. It always happens. I mean, I also think that disgustingly delicious roads necks are a mandatory thing to bring on any good fishing trip. Gotta have them, absolutely. I personally am a seven eleven, go go to Kato kind of guy. I always say to Kato, give me to Takato is the filly cheese steak one and they're rolling right next to the hot dog on the spinny thing there, so they getting used with some of that weener essence, you know. And I also, you know what als I love is bacon jerky, which is stupid because it's it's just a bag of bacon. There's really no jerky. You know. How about you? What what what do you? What do you grab? Oh man? I'm I am drawn to that greasy hot case like a moth to a mile cardial and barks and flame, dude. And and for as much as I love a halopenio corn dog that's been roasted lovingly under a heat lamp for thirty six hours, I'm not willing to compromise when it comes to coffee. I mean, all right, okay, I am willing to compromise if I have to, Like, if I don't have other options, I will swig down some thin bitter brew just for the caffeine, but I won't enjoy it. Well, thankfully, Miles, you don't have to, because, as a reminder, this podcast is in fact entirely fueled by Black Rifle coffee, and they have you covered. No matter what your coffee needs, whether you're indulging in a nice boogie pour over on a lazy Sunday morning or mixing up a quick dose of the instant before sprinting out the door on a Tuesday. Black Rifle will keep you flush with brew that's not only caffeinated, but very tasty, that is accurate, and with their coffee club, you can just sign up for what you want and they'll make sure you never run out. Go to Black Rifle Coffee dot com slash meat Eater to scratch your every last java itch today. Use the code mediator at check out, and they'll even take off your order. Did you say java itch? That's that's some ship that might require a low traman. Dude, did you add? Did you really write that thinking that will help us sell coffee? Man? Come on, it's a play on a common idiom. All right, you're the only one thinking about down south rash. The rest of us are. Yeah, no, the rest most of us. Most people don't have their head. They're we're just kicking back, enjoying our delicious coffee, and we do not appreciate your filthy interjections. Anyway. That's that's probably enough. Of that. We're supposedly here to talk about fishing, but I'm looking at the set list here in front of me, and uh, it actually seems like we're gonna stick with fungal infections metaphorically speaking, at least for the next few minutes, because we are leading off this week's show with my least favorite segment of all time, fungal infections. That was well put that I like that, But Myles is right. He's back, ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Lance V. And look, okay, we know that he can be kind of grading, all right, we get it. We we know that lance is not what anyone imagines when they, I don't know, say, say, gaze into the face of their newborn child and picture a successful, prosperous and productive future. But look, he is a reality, like it or not. Internet culture is alive and well, and fishing is not immune. And in fact, as listener Mike Mancini put it, this is a quote. Now, I am humbly requesting that you keep Lance V. I hate that guy. He's the absolute worst, and he's the perfect embodiment of what y'all are not. I love in all caps to hate in all caps that guy and he needs to stay Mike. This trolling with Lance is for you, buddy, the land, to the boats, to the lake, to the seed being up the n on nets. But your boy lands. What's happening, Qualified captains, it's your favorite Internet fishing guru, Lance Vie, here to aid you in continuing education about killing it as an online angler. This week we have a deep question from Josh why who writes guys come on this? Lance v guy is a freaking chuckle head. But if he had to pick just one Instagram filter, what would it be? I have to be honest, Josh, I didn't want to answer this question. In my opinion, this information is so powerful that it could shave years off your pursuit of at greatness and rocking to the top two quickly can be dangerous, just as the Greek dude with the wax wings or the kids and Criss Cross who spent decades in therapy to overcome their desire to wear their pants backwards hashtag Daddy Mac. But I decided to go for it, so brace yourselves. The answer is half a Listen. I know that was a lot to take in. Many of you are probably in shock right now. Don't torch yourself for all the mediocre fish photos you posted using Ludwig or Perpetua. Those wasted opportunities to grow your social media presence. You didn't know. You were so sure using Nashville on that tight shot of a bass pro brand crank bait would take your posts from worthless to art that your ten followers would say, my god, it's breathtaking. You were absolutely positive the slightly washed out look of the lark was perfect for another sun rise over the Paylake photo, and you were so wrong. But I'm here to tell you it's okay. We all make mistakes. Hashtag here with me. Haf A is the answer. It's always been the answer, and you need not understand why. The details come with similar consequences to figuring out who killed JFK or weather Vanilla Ice knowingly sampled that Queen song in Ice Ice Baby, listen, I've already told you too much, and I feared divulging for the information about the powers of half a could lead to issues regarding my personal safety or worse, a loss of sponsorship opportunities with hashtag Nights of Columbus. Josh, You're welcome, but I want to make it clear. I take no responsibility for how you or anyone else uses this information hashtag risk fact there. M M, well, that's actually gave me something to think about this time. You like, he really found a soulful place this week. I feel like we discovered some some hidden well spring of depth that none of us ever knew existed in in young Lance there. It's it's almost like it's almost like we're trying to hint at a more interesting and significant character so we can disappoint everyone for our own amusement in a subsequent episode, or or maybe Lance will surprise all of us with his development over time. It's like a slow process. You'll you'll just have to keep tuning in to see what happens. Because as long as you guys keep sending questions to Bent at the mediator dot com for Lance will keep passing them onto him, and he'll keep answering them a week or two after his deadline passes. That's how he rolls. Yep, yep, and uh. While I have been begrudgingly forced into recognizing the power and influence of twenty one century media, I have not given up on what I will always consider the nucleus of fishing culture. That is to say, skillful and well crafted writing. Yeah, real writing, as in words on printed paper, things we used to do in former lives. You and I both every so often we bring you our book recommendations, and this week Miles as viewing a brand spanking new title ten by one of our favorite authors, who also happens to be a buddy of ours as well, it's time for freaking philistines. What's it's a guy who doesn't care about books or interesting films and things, and unfas team. From a purely logical standpoint, sport fishing is stupid, pointless. We all know it. Even those of us who eat our catch occasionally or often will admit that's not the reason we fish. Fresh flesh is at best a bonus, at worst a justification. Fishing for sport is arguably hedonistic, cruel, narcissistic, selfish, sadistic, and foolish. It can also be miserable, boring, excruciating, interminable and obnoxious, but hot, damn when it's good, it's so good. I'm going to assume that if you're listening to this podcast, you know exactly what I mean. Because fishing attracts obsessives. It's a spectrum, of course, but every serious angler I've ever known skews toward compulsion. Monty Burke is obsessed with obsessives. He's built a career writing about them, and his latest book, Lords of the Fly, Madness, Obsession and the Hunt for the World Record Tarpan, continues the trend. This book profiles the rarefied subculture of individuals who have spent some or in certain cases, the vast majority of their lives trying to catch record Tarpan. If there are any heroes in this story, however, they don't carry fishing rods or i g f A certificates. The conquesting anglers are portrayed as what I would assume them to be, wealthy, entitled jerk offs who don't respect the fish, the place, or each other. The rootless guides who take those anglers fishing generally come off as arrogant, unscrupulous, and bitter. Just about every character in this book strikes as a deeply flawed human. If there's a hero in this story, it's a tragic one. The vanquished utopia that was the homelessauce of Florida. Tarpin Fishery of the nineteen seventies and eighties. Burke describes it almost as if it were the garden and the anglers who indulged in its fruits, the men who precipitated the fall. He writes, the stories from on the water were stupendous, almost too hard to believe, but also an aggregate too hard to ignore. On the Oklahoma Flat one day, Perez held the boat steady for Robinson as fish came at the boat from every direction. The tarpin began to form a daisy chain, and we were somehow in the center of it, says Robinson. It was thirty ft wide and fifteen feet deep with fish from the top of the water to the ocean floor. You could see flashes. It was solid tarpan. Chitam and Lopez arrived one morning at the Black Rock and had it to themselves. Hold on, Shitam said, just take your time. There's more fish here than night. Count Shitaman Lopez two were in the middle of a daisy chain. It turned out one comprised of some two thousand fish. Lopez hooked five fish and under two hours. Over the next ten days he jumped more than two hundred fish. He got sixty one of those to the boat. It wasn't just the numbers of fish, though. There were stories every day of massive fish seen but not hooked, or hooked but not landed, fish well over two hundred pounds. Everyone had a story, and those stories of the monsters never to be caught, but only seen or hooked, only to be lost, they were told with more relish, more vigor, and more feeling than the stories of the fish that were caught, even the ones that became world records. It makes sense in angling, as in life. It is the ones that get away, that haunt our dreams, that push us over the brink into a lustful madness. And Homas Sassa was the first place in these anglers lives where hot damn, those dreams just might come true. The book's narrative wends its way through a dozen different characters. All the famous names of saltwater fly fishing appear, apt cray palette huff records are created, then shattered, along with new line classes, new tackle, new boats. The fishing world descends upon this place where the tarpon are huge and plentiful. They take what they can as quickly as they can, and the place is left diminished. Some might say, decimated, and we absorb it all through Burke's deft and tactful voice. He remains a journalist in the best sense of that word, presenting the people, fish and events as factually as he can, except when he doesn't, diving into engrossing interludes and anecdotes that skillfully tip his hand as an obsessed angler himself, one who, like most everyone reading, missed the party and knows that any sense of moral superiority he might feel only comes from the fact that he wasn't lucky enough to be among the offenders. One of the aspects that makes this book so compelling is that honesty outside the billfish tournament scene. Fly fishing for tarpin might be the most egregious example of fishing excess on the planet. No one in this country eats tarpin. Fly tackle is probably the least effective method of catching one, and a good guide charges eight hundred bucks a day, and the most stupid, pointless, and obsessive offshoot of tarpin fly fishing culture is record chasing. People spend entire lives and fortunes trying to catch one fish whose gravitational pull can be measured as slightly greater than another. They don't care about any other fish they might catch. They don't even enjoy the experience of catching a record. The fish don't actually matter. They just represent challenge measurable benchmarks of validation. Lords of the Fly does not shy away from any of that. In fact, it's power lies and recognized thing that while this form of fishing might seem reprehensible, it's really just the inherent nature of sport fishing pushed to its furthest and perhaps ugliest extreme. So I have a confession, man, I have not read Lords of the Fly yet, but not because I'm uninterested. That it sounds thoroughly enjoyable. It's good I haven't read it because you have been promising to send me your copy for over two weeks. Now. I mean, I know, like the mail is slow, right, I get it, but it ain't that slow. So until that happens, I'll just have to sit here and reread Manti's Soubelly again. Yeah, all right, Look, it's the book is sitting on my desk. It's right here. I'm looking at it right now, and and along it's it's actually sitting stacked up with another book that I've been promising to mail to you for eight months. I don't know nine. It's all the same, and that's all on me. But look, I have always hated going to the post office. It's never been a chore that I relish or enjoyed or did with any sort of zeal. But the thought of standing in an hour long serpentine line in the middle of winter during a massive spike in COVID cases as uh, it's it's really depressed the old motivation, you might say. No, I get that. I understand I hate the post office too, especially during COVID. But what I also hear you saying is I can expect those books to arrive what post vaccine? Yeah, pretty much, so I'll put them on on the list of all the other ship I can look forward to when the day finally comes, seeing family, traveling, drinking in places other than my basement with people other than my wife, going fishing with a whole group of buddies instead of a select few that you assume are being careful. So great, thanks, Yep, you're welcome. That is sadly true. But uh, while some aspects of our lives fuel suspended, like dinosaur DNA trapped in amber, for millions of years we press on. I'm simply saying that life finds a way. You know. I actually have a shirt with a snakehead skull on the front drawn like the Jurassic Park logo that says life finds a Way on the back. Yeah, it's It's one of my favorite t shirts. Shout out to Geek on the Water for giving me that anyway. One thing that is certainly pressed on this year is news. But we don't bring you the same horrible, divisive news you might find elsewhere here at Bent. We bring you something that just about all of us can come together on except me and Miles, of course, who are trying to vanquish each other. It's time for fish news. Fish news. That escalated quickly before we we hit fish news. A little housekeeping. I'm I'm sorry. I apologize to everyone out there, but I just I have to say this seriously enough. Just stop, I'm done, all right, and and and I will explain what I'm talking about. It's nothing political, it's nothing you might expect. It's all the things you know, but there's more. So. First of all, you may you hopefully didn't notice this, but when we were in the middle of recording fish news. Last week this happened. Hey dude, I'm sorry, we gotta pause. Something crazy just happened in my house and I gotta go check it out. Something Okay, I'm sorry. So what the hell was that? Well, that was the sound of my elderly neighbor mixing up the gas and brake pedals and driving her Subaru into the front of my house. This is where it's really happened. This This this happened last week. People. I so when we record this, like, we're on the computer so Miles and I can see each other, and and the part that I'll add is I couldn't hear it on my end, but you were just like something crazy just happened. But then you left and you didn't turn off your computer. So the last thing I saw was you standing in your hallway yelling at your wife, going are you kidding me? And I was like, oh, I should probably leave the sessions, Like, yeah, last night I saw that happened. So but all right, good news on that. No one was hurt. All right, nobody got hurt. The neighbor, who's a very nice woman, she was not hurt. None of us were hurt. Everybody's fine. That that's the really good news. The other good news is that, man, I have incredible friends. By the time that the tow truck had extracted the car from my home, two of my people, one a structural engineer and the other contractor had dropped everything they were in the middle of, like the middle their work day, to come over and assess the like the structural and tear to my house and put up a temporary support wall so the whole thing didn't fall down. And just to paint a clearer picture. What do I hear banging? Yeah, I'm sorry that My buddies they show like my kid, that's fine, We're good. So the house is still standing, but it's gonna be some months before it's back to normal again around here. You can check out our Instagram pages to see photos of the carnage and and the car in my house that's at water Miles and at Joe's from Ellie. But wait, there's more. That same day, a friend of mine, a signature Unqui Fly designer fishing guide generally good human Andrew Grillos, suffered a massive stroke, which is I mean, it's terrible. It's also hard to magic because we're talking. We're talking about a guy who does ultra marathons for fun. This is not the person you're gonna expect this to happen, to write, and and look, he's in for a long haul. He's in for a lot of medical bills with his family. And and listen, we've said it before, We're gonna say it again. We anglers, we look out for our own. So I'm asking everybody out there who has the ability to help, if you can get on Instagram, look up the hashtag flies for Andrew and and and bid on something if if you're able to, there's all kinds of amazing stuff up for grabs, from fishing gear to custom art to guide trips by buddy Nick English is actually auctioning off info like intel on his secret high alpine trout lakes that he's spending. Yeah. Yeah, So a lot of good people are chipping into help out and and if you're able to, I just ask that you please do so. Like I said, has been a NonStop dumpster fire for for lots of us. But on the bright side, you know, I gotta say, man, it's really show me that we are able to come together and look out for each other when we have to. And that's that's worth something, you know, it's valuable. Yeah, and and and no matter, no matter how much I think we all feel the vibe, if nothing else one way or the other, it's almost over, almost over. We're getting there. You know what what what it looks like when it passes? We don't know, but um, you know, just based on the calendar alone, like we're all us that we're almost out of the woods. We're going to see a change. We're almost out of the woods. Anyway, housekeeping complete, let's move on to the news you can use in the fish world. Reminder that this is a competition. Miles and I do not know what stories the other guys bringing to the table, and at the end of this session are magical audio engineer Phil will declare a news winner. I believe it is my week to lead off. Okay, alright, great, so let's let's lead off with this one um, which is kind of silly, but I just couldn't leave it alone. So as if e R doctors don't see enough action in this time of COVID, an e er in Egypt got put on notice when a man stumbled in gasping for breath because, as it turned out, he had a live fish stuck in his throat. You saw this story, didn't the story? Yes, okay to step on your thunder. But as soon as you said that, I was like, oh, I know where he's going. It's a very me kind of story. It comes it comes to us from t MS, which is the news equivalent of the Urban Dictionary, but still from the story. And when I say from the story, this is literally written like text messages like that's the kind like that's how their their their ship has written. So anyway, journalism and his finest people exactly. A guy who went fishing in Egypt got more than he bargained for when his catch for the day tried going down his gullet before he could even fry it up dot dot dot, and it almost killed him. This, this one man, This went down last week near Benny's sweep Swift, went something about ninety miles south of Cairo. When this poor fellow came stumbling into an e r down there, gasping for breath and unable to speak. He obviously obviously had something funky in his throat dash and that thing, it turned out, was a live fish. Doctors diagnosed the blockage in his windpipe after running him through an X ray and other tests, and then immediately got to work in extracting the damn thing with some tools. TMZ says, where the video I did. We'll get to the video and say there is a video, But you know the word is the guy was okay after all. But as for how this happened in the first place, bizarre, to say the least. Apparently, this dude caught this tiny fish and put it between his teeth to free up his hands so he could attend to another fish he had on the line. I'm still quoting here. This little bastard started swarming and broke free from his jaws grasp and went swimming in the dude's mouth. So I I tried to get a species I d but I came up short right this this this hard story, didn't say. But I looked, I couldn't. I couldn't find a good cross reference. It's a little silver fish with long red fins, maybe four inches long, and it kind of looks like a telapia, I think, or some kind of Yeah, who knows. I think I had all kinds of weird ship down there. But as as Miles brought up there's there's a video. Did you watch the video? I chose not to. I was like, I don't want need to see that, honestly, man, it was rather anticlimactic, like it's it's it's really just the dude laying there with his mouth wide open and him wincing, and a bunch of doctors who are dressed in like street clothes, like nightclubbing clothes, saying suction suction, suction, suction, suction, and then out it pops. But just completely like completely anticlimactic. But I gotta say, as bonehead as that move might be, you know, holding a fish between your teeth, like I kind of get that right, Like I I've swallowed a split shot or two. I was holding in the teeth because both hands that were needed to unsnarl a bird's nest, you know what I mean. In the heat of the moment while fishing, the mouth can become a third hand um. And the only other thing that popped into my head was I would rather suffer through almost choking on a live fish having it in my throat than like deal with them when the candaru jobbers swims up the pea hole. Oh yeah, So that's it's a better outcome that. Yeah. I saw the same one and and TMZ being a batch of journalism, and I just had a feeling you were going to take this one. So I was like, I'm gonna leave that one highly of me, Like you're like, oh, Joe's trash from TMZ. Thanks, I'll be over here. It's some scientific journal I didn't I didn't get that science this time. In fact, my first story is not science at all, but it doesn't involve anybody almost choking on a fish. It does involve some some conflict and some drama around fishing though, so there there is a brew haha going on in my home state, Okay. Beach anglers and swimmers have been getting into scraps at one of Hawaii's most popular beaches, Almana Beach Park is a it's like this little oasis right in the middle of the island of wah Who's south shore, and that's that's the populated area of the Hawaiian Islands. That's that's where Honolulu, the capital city is, which is a significant city, and waiki Ki, which is a very popular and very crowded swimming and surfing beach, so fishing at Waikiki Beach has been outlawed for a long time. And if you've ever been there, like that makes perfect sense, right. It's so crowded there with so many tours and so many swimmers and surfers, it would be nearly impossible to castle line without hooking or entangling someone. And you know, tours still like that. No, it makes perfect sense. But I'm just laughing at myself thinking of like all the ass hats at the Jersey Shore or Fourth of July weekend, Like, dude's still gonna throw a mullet rig like between the swimming beach, like at the swimming beach anyway, go ahead. They're smarter Hawai. I mean, it's just been regulated there, right, And that's that's the thing. Like they live on tourism and they live on that beach, so they said no. And I have to say, I have seen some tanker bone fish cruising around Waikki Beach and it's super frustrating because they're just like so arrogant and non like you can't touch me, dude, what are you gonna do? Ye? But I mean that's a little frustrating, but again it's understandable. I wouldn't want to fish there. That's a bad thing. Uh, And other beaches in that same area have been seeing more and more regulations imposed on fishing because it's a popular zone. But all Mwana has always allowed anglers and it's never really been much of a problem. Right. The beach has a man made channel dug in at the parallels the whole length of the beach, so it's deep, it's sandy, it's protected from the surf, and that's why it's such a popular spot for swimmers. So in the past fishermen have just avoided that area because for one, it's crowded, and but more importantly, it's it's rarely been productive and they focus on on the rocks just to the east in an area called Magic Island. But this year with covid, Haois had beach closures and a travel band and just a general lack of activity in that channel, and so these huge schools of bait fish have moved in like big ones, and of course larger predatory fish have followed and now have all the anglers. And Dude, some of the photos I saw, it's just it looks like the whole thing is just devolved into utter chaos. It's like, so picture combat fishing, right, and your standard combat fishing. You got rods lined up, you know, four six ft apart, maybe the whole length of the beach, but then just throwing hordes of swimmers and kayakers and paddle borders all over the water where they're casting, and I guess people have started cutting lines and just like throwing lines out of their way. Fights have broken out. Several swimmers report getting snagged by hooks like it's it's ugly. So now the state DNR is trying to come up with solution, and that means regulations. Either they're going to close the beach fishing entirely, or they're gonna limit fishing into certain areas. And that looks like I mean, what that means is that south shore anglers are gonna lose more access. And it's just disappointing. Man, it's a very tangled web. But I mean, I don't want to fish there, Like, that's not my scene. I'm not gonna that's not the place I'm gonna go there. You don't want to deny somebody else if that's their spot though, what they have in their hometown, that's where they go. I just I just wish people could be a little more civil to each other and not need the state to come in and tell them like, Okay, you can fish here, but don't. Like I wish there could just be some basic communication and we can figure this out on our own. I realized that that's not how it's gonna work. But it's just like part of a general trend I think we're seeing all over the place, and it's it's disappointing, like I said, And the irony on this particular one though, is that by next year, this probably isn't gonna matter. Right, the tourist are gonna come back. All the people are gonna come back, The bait fishushed out, and the conditions are gonna go back to being what they used to be. But the rules and regulations are going to be in place. Then like that that access is going to be gone. Well that's but you just said something there, and that's that's kind of like the mental note I'm taking here. So you know, by next year, the pandemic hopefully has gone away and the big fish will will leave the area again. But if it's as chaotic as you're saying it is now, so I get it right, it was low traffic throughout the whole pandemic, big fish moving to cut eat the bait, and you know, they were a handful of dudes who got it on that first Then we're like, oh, ship. But if it's as nuts as you're saying it is now, dude, I mean, how how good can it still be? I mean, isn't that like the instant angling buzz kill like you got there? So what are they even fighting over? Like are they still ripping trivollis out of there like you know, ten a day or is it still as good as it was in the middle of the pandemic. I don't know, but I would guarantee it's not, as I say, clarification people, the middle I've spoken of the pandemic as though it has past, it is still still there in the middle of the lockdown. But I mean, we saw we saw some of that around here in the in the early spring during striper season, Like things were real good and there weren't that many dudes out, and then as soon as everybody got comfortable, well then they were out and those magic bites weren't happening anymore. I think I think it's all over and and that's the thing right, We're gonna end up with a bunch of new rules out of this, and that's just too bad. Just I think it is. I think it's I think it's a loss. Well, I'll also say you never want to see access taken away from anglers and totally with that um at the same time, like, you know, I meant what I said, Like I see that in the summer with my kids on the beach. You know, it's a crowded beach, and I know the guy is really not trying to hurt anybody, but still, man, is it a great idea that to to have to circle hooks sitting out there on a you know, in an area where there's people boogieboarding, Like, first of all, why would you even want to do that? Like come back in the evening, get your ass up in the early morning, and fish that cutting like that's when the fishing is good anyway, you know, So I I kind of get that. But look, if those anglers are struggling now because the crowds are back up and maybe those gt s aren't aren't aren't running the cut like they were, I might have the solution for them based on this story which comes to us from Arizona's East Valley Tribune headline Walmart Mason man get chummy over his invention from the story A fishing lore of sorts made by a Mason fisherman will soon hit the shelves of Walmart after clearing a hurdle in the retail giants search for products made by Americans small business owners. Chum pods, water situble pods of chum that can be used during fishing, was created by Pierced Outdoor as a company formed by fisheries biologists and Mason native Grant Pierce. The pods are similar to laundry detergent pods and are useful for fishermen looking to save time. I assume by that they mean like not having to wait so long for a fish to eat their bait as is customary and fishing like the patients. We gotta, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta pare down on the patients, is what I'm saying here. But anyway, uh. Pierce was one of a seventy I HAVE businesses that made it from a screening process involving eight hundred small businesses from across the country that pitched their US manufactured products during very quick thirty minute one on one meetings with Walmart and Sam's Club Exacts during their first ever virtual open call for for products for for businesses. And uh, apparently this is part of something that Walmart launched in as a commitment to help boost job creation and US manufacturing through buying an additional two and fifty billion dollars in products supporting American jobs by three Right, So right off the bat, I have to say, if Walmart is really holding to this initiative, right, that that's awesome, right, cool, more more American manufacturing loved. And also I have to can you know, congratulate Grant for getting selected considering the story says the most popular categories of products pitched during all these sessions were food, health and wellness, and personal care. So he got in with fishing tackle essentially um. And I looked up this chum pod and it is clearly modeled after the tide pod, which is clever, clearly, right. But what's most clever to me is, unlike a chum product that you you broadcast, Actually you you bait your hook and then you add a chum pod to the end of your hook because it's light and small, and then you cast your bait out there, and now the chum is going to dissolve right around your bait wherever it. And I'm not knocking the design at all, right, but every time I see something like this, I wonder, like, will this be the chum product that produces a shift in the consumption of such things, because Lord knows, I've seen them all, and I've gotten samples of them all over the years, and I've used most of them, and no matter how much I've wanted to believe, I just have not found anything like this that offers a very noticeable advantage. And I remember, like in saltwater you had chum aerosol sprays and there was the bait bomb you'd send down on the line. It would like explode mid depth, you know, um, And none of it ever seemed to work as well or better than just regular roll, ground up bunker or mackel chum. So I don't really see any prepackaged synthetics or or or these natural pre mixed chums really interrupting the natural chum market in saltwater. But then in in freshwater, I'm curious if you agree, like I just feel like the average dude who fishes freshwater doesn't incorporate chum or think about chumming that other than carpet exactly exactly, so, and that's that's that's one of the things I'm thinking about here. It's like, even if you don't like sit in a lawn chair for stock trout, how many of that, dude, are you flipping onto chum? And what you said about cats and carpet is true. That's where I see this stuff falter, Like it's always marketed to all types of anglers, Yet the only guys who I think would really latch on our carpon cat guys. So if you call it, you know, catfish pods or carp pods maybe, but got a bluegill on the bag. And if you need a chum to catch bluegills, like try golf, you know, figure skating. I don't know. So I look, I wish grant the best, right, I really do good on you, But like, has the consumer research really shown that that these things tear it up? Like are we itching for more easy chum options for freshwater? I mean, here's what I said there. I think they're enough hardcore cat fishing folks in this country to make a product like this work. But if it were me, and it's not. And maybe he knows something about market research. I don't because I haven't dug into it and that's not my area of expertise. But I would be focusing it on that more niche demographic and not trying to go broad. That's that's what That's what my gut would tell me to do. But again, I'm not a marketer, so what the hell do I know? Yeah, no, no, and neither of I. But just just looking at the website, like you see the baits that these pods are paired with, they're clearly catfish and carp baits. Many many episodes ago, we talked about that that self baiting hook yep, thing with the corn that slid down. You're talking about that, like this is useful to everyone, Yet you watch the videos, it's all pay Lake catfish. So I appreciate the sort of the innovation and the thought that goes into some of this stuff. But I mean, at the same time, man, like it's all designed for sitting on a piece of bait for a long time for a fish that is mostly feeding by smell. And you know, I go buy a half dozen shrimp if I want to go catch catfish. They work just fine. Like I don't need to chum for them. They just eat that so um again. Best of luck, man. I just over the years, it's been a lot of them. I just have not seen any of these, Like, dude, you're not gonna believe this product, this bait bomb, this chum bomb, this this that, like they all come and go. I'd say Grant's already won because he got into He's gonna make some money. He's gonna buy some good, good gamble on their part, Yes exactly. I like that's the kind of thing I like to see in terms of someone being innovative and interesting in their attempt to make a living or make some money off of the outdoor community. But the story that I'm about to drop is the exact opposite. Okay, so I've got a story about someone who I can only describe as as a despicable human, a narcissist, a complete narcissist ass hat who considers his own social media feed and personal ego trip the most valuable commodity on the planet Lance V. Even worse than Lance man. I know, it's amazing. I gotta say, I'm not sure I should cover this story for a few reasons I'm getting more excited just keep talking. Yeah, I mean the first reason is because this has being covered. It's got pretty decent play around outdoormany already, so it might be old news for some of our listeners. Um. Second, because this this walking skid mark has just a vacuous soul that seems like it can only be filled with with public tension. And I'm worried that I'm by talking about him further, I'm only giving him what he wants. And and third, I'm just generally wary of the culture of outrage that we seem to be embracing right Like, we're defining ourselves by images and actions that we condemn publicly. And I don't want to feed into any of those three things. But all that said, I do condemn what this person is doing. And and my goal is not so much to inspire your outrage as to just get the word out about this so that no one supports this person's business. What are we talking? I was like, I feel like you know what you're what you're talking about. And I told him, like we all have, we have power in our wallets, not in like our keyboard cancelation desires so, so that's how we should do it, okay. So. David Lesh is a former professional skier whose new goal in life seems to be winning gold as an internet troll. Since he failed at skiing last July, Less started building his personal brand as a desecrator of public lands and waters when he was caught ripping his snomobile around a designated wilderness area in Colorado. And let me reiterate, it was July. There was no snow, so he was just tearing up a protected, literally protected and sensitive tundra ecosystem for kicks, and and he got caught by the executive director of the foundation that looks after that area. Uh, got fined five dollars in order to perform fifty hours of community service. After that, he rode a dirt bike unprotected grasslands, drove his snowmobile around a private ski resort while it was closed, and quote accidentally crashed his brand new plane in California's Half Moon Bay. And I say accidentally in air quotes because investigators are still looking into the suspicious circumstances surrounding the crash, because let's just happened to be in a position to skip his plane across the surface and come to a stop lightly and easily completely unharmed after the plane lost power. And he also just happened to have cameras set up to capture the whole thing and it's aftermath perfectly to create a viral video showing how badass he is before sinking a massive jet fuel, oil and other contaminants into the ocean and then ship. Starting in June, he really really embraced his image as a self interested outdoor influencer. He's the guy that the Instagram accounts Turns of Yellowstone and Insurrect were made for, and you should check those out because like, seriously, this is it's him. So first he posted a photo of himself walking and swimming in an area that's closed to protect sensitive habitat and archaeological sites. That incident earned him five federal citations. Then this October he posted another picture of himself taking a dump in the iconic Maroon Lake near Aspen. So the background paints the stunning picture of a high mountain fall landscape, but like soaring snow skiffed peaks and aspen groves glowing orange and yellow and fall colors, and its crystal clear prismatic lake and then the whole thing is ruined by Lesh butt naked hanging onto a dead faultree and drop it a deuce right in the water. And the symbolism there is just two on the nose. Man. You can't make that up. Now, I gotta say, Lesh And and many of his fans and supporters are claiming that everyone's just getting trolled and worked up over a joke. The photo was doctored and none of it actually happened. And fans he has fans like there are people who actually are like thousands of sport Yeah, And and I gotta say, it doesn't matter whether it was photoshop or not. Like the guy has built this image of coolness around disrespecting our waterways, and the impact of how those photos will influence the behaviors and attitudes of the millions of people have seen them is a whole lot more detrimental than a single turn in the lake. Last week, a judge barred Lesh from all federal public lands. That's every federally controlled public land, millions and millions of acres of public land across the country for least the duration of the federal court case against him. And I think that's a start, But I really hope that band extends for the rest of his life. You and I don't have any control over that, sensing like we we we can't decide what the joke is gonna do, or how he's gonna get sentence or anything. But here's what we can control. Lesh somewhat ironically owns an outdoor clothing brand called Vertica. Yes, so I would like all of us to just make sure that we and anyone who we can convince, never gives that brand a single dollar. Let me see it again, Vertica with a K. He's made for super sportive people. Yeah, so it wouldn't fit me anyway, So screw you. Lash. There's there's also a citizen led petition circulating right now to revoke his business license, and I signed it. I mean, dude, I even donated a few bucks to the cause. So if the last thing I will says, if you, if you're one of the people who follows this this jackass, just just stop like jerk Offs like this guy don't deserve the power and influence that they have accrued, and they won't go away until we ignore them. So I just hope, I honestly hope he loses business and I hope that that people stop paying attention to him and he just disappears. That's what I think, that's the best possible outcome. First, I don't know how I'm not up on this. I guess I'm just not really paying enough attention to the to the news here. But I gotta say, we and the odors like, there have been so many things like fish pictures and so many different things that that we've latched onto and like sort of berated guys. So to have somebody particularly go for the throat like that, I didn't. I never I never thought I would I would see such a thing like that. You are, there's no such thing as bad press, which is obviously what's going on here. So even like when we've in our industry had people ripping on dudes about holding a fish that was pulled off or red or whatever it comes, and it goes and there's arguments on both sides. But to see somebody just embrace being an outdoor jackass to this level, um, I don't know, man, what do you do with What do you do with that guy? You know? Like, like I said, I hope that you're the only way you can kick him in the stones Is by hurting his bottom line, right, Like I'm again, I fear that I'm feeding into exactly what he wants because I'm giving him more attention, which he clearly craves. But I'm doing it not because i want people to get outraged. I'm doing it because, like I want to see his businesses fail, and I'd like to see him broke. Well, I agree with that. I'd also like to see him come out and do a tuna charter with the Brooklyn v out of Brooklyn, New York and act like a jerk off on that trip eighty miles off with them boys. Well, we certainly don't support Lash. We don't want you to support Lash, but we do support fishing guy at Hillary Hutchinson, who's very awesome and a steward of the outdoors. She's the opposite, Yes, exactly. And as soon as as soon as Phil weighs in to decide who who wins the whole kitten caboodle here this week, we're gonna kick it over to a tackle hack for the ages from our friend Hillary. It's gonna make you a little uncomfortable, but you're gonna go damn. That was That was one of the smartest things I heard all week, for his story of the fish who looked around at twenty four mere seconds before he had seen enough, and for introducing the nation's youth to I'm sure what will be known as the chum Pod Challenge. Joe Sir Melie is the winner this week. Back to the Future Part two got a lot wrong about the year. There were definitely not enough pod products, not enough dishwasher pods, tied pods, chum pods. But I'd say the most egregious lack of foresight was that Marty McFly had the chance to go see Jaws nineteen in a real life movie theater full of people, rather than as a drop on HBO Max plus Prime. Bring on the vaccines, I can drown my self and butter flavored topping. I'm getting hats coming from inside the city the flood. Joining us today for the Tackle Hacks is our good friend Hillary Hutchinson, who's a good friend of the show and and a friend of mine. It's great to see you. How are you, Hillary? Hey, what's up? Most people probably don't know this, but uh, the first time Hillary and I actually hung out was years ago when we were both at the same lodge in Alaska, and due to weather, got completely sucked in and were unable to to leave that lodge for I think like four days. So we just we just fished the local river as much as we could and and raided the liquor cabinet at the lodge every single day until it was time to go home. Yeah, it was not terrible, and we were highly successful at both of those things in the pouring rain, pouring pouring rain, which is why you know, as you mentioned, we couldn't leave the lodge to go out to the surrounding fish or ease um. But it was awesome. I was like, they need to put that program on the brochure because we had a ball. It was so much fun, it really was. And it was like there was a weather window when we could fly in, and like we couldn't fly again until it was our day to fly out. It was just we were just stuck there on the island with tons of liquor and rainbow trout and silver salmon. So it was it was not bad. I was I was stranded oncet to weather like that, only it was somewhere where there was nowhere to walk to fish and all the dudes I was with did not drink. So that sounds like a good time you guys had that one time, but sounds like maybe you were actually on the television show Lost in some sort of purgatory and Acosta Island, Quebec. Anyway, this is not my segment. You keep going. We we did. We did have have good times on that one and I remember it fondly. But we didn't actually bring you here to reminisce about Alaska fishing. We brought you here to lay a tackle hack on us. So what do you got, Well, I you know, we have a prime dry fly season here in northwest Montana. I'm on the Middle Fork in the North Fork of the Flathead and people are coming here for you know, world class of dry fly fishing, which means you have to keep the fly dry and all the regular hacks, um are the ones that you know, I have done forever and ever. Like everybody kind of uses that shammy on the inside of their shirt, but I fish the white water stretch and so I'm in and out of the water all the time. Um and uh. And then people use like their shammy for their sunglasses all the time. But again, like put that in my pocket. I'm just soaking wet all the time, so those get wet an Ambedu patches like thirty dollars, and once those things get wet, they stay wet. So I found something I think is pretty unorthodox. I haven't seen anybody else do it, and it works super good, and I suggest other people to try it. I started cutting into squares sanitary napkin like Maxi pads or pantyliners, um, the thin ones, the thin ones, and you can get them cheat and you can go to Costco miles. Why don't you go to Costco and move by like the jumbo pack of the thin pantyliners or Maxi pads, and then you cut them into squares and you don't need to get the brand name ones. You just get the cheap oh, you know, fred Meyer ones or whatever and um. And the reason I caught them into squares is so that they don't look like what they are, so you don't have like wings, and so that you know, Klaient doesn't look back and and see me like, you know, squeezing the fly with the Maxi pad and then they you know, take it back and put it in their mouth or something, you know. So um. So yeah, I cut them into squares or circles or something so that you can't tell, or rectangles or something so that it doesn't look like what it is and so that it can be small and just in your hand. And UM. I have done a couple of things. One I have um double stick taped them into the inside of my jetty go box so like my big waterproof tackle box and um, so that I can just like push the fly up against it. Um. And then I have also had them in stacks, like I can have a whole stack of bomb um for the whole season, and you can reuse them because they just absorb and you just kind of keep keep them in there and keep reusing them and so um it just squeeze it on there and it just takes the water right out. So and if they get wet, it's crazy. So I don't know if you guys know the science behind a maxi pad, but they if they get wet, all the moisture goes to like to the bottom and though the top layer of them still stays dry. And that's the whole point. Like that's why you see in the commercials they're like keep your dry all day, so keep your fly dry all day, um and so so unlike the other things like an Amado patch or or your shammy or whatever. Um, those once they get wet, they're wet. Once this gets wet, like if you keep in your pocket and you jump it up, like the bottom of it gets like heavy and kind of stays wet, but the top still works, so you still you get to continue to use it. So it's it's a good one. I know it sounds weird, and I can't wait to like fish with some of my buddies in Southwest Montana who are just like a man's man and they go by all the you know Maxie plus as as unconventional as weird as you may think that is. It is the best tackle hack we have had yet, by far, by far far, and a winner, no doubt, and I cannot wait to see the jump in sales for generic maxipads as soon as this particular episode airs. Hashtag not sponsored, I have a paid partnership. If any of those companies do want to get on with with supporting this podcast, we're welcome to entertain the always looking for advertisers. Absolutely would be amazing if you guys had the podcasts sponsored by like stay Free. I think we're gonna just call that a life goal and say thank you so much Hillary for coming on again and for dropping that nugget of wisdom on us anytime. That's what I'm here for. A brother. That's a good one, all right. So right after we recorded that, I actually rated the bathroom cabinet and stuck a couple of penny lions and my fly fishing kit. I haven't I haven't had chance to use them yet because you know, it's cold, but I'm looking forward to doing it. And like actually trying that out win drive last season comes back around. You know what, how, I'll admit it, I did the same thing. Like Hillary brought the freaking fire with that tackle hack. She just put everyone else past and present tackle hackers on notice. And though we didn't actually do anything if you think about it, other than make stupid comments throughout the whole thing, I'm proud that we offered up some legit useful knowledge this week. And while we're almost out of time, we do have one more tidbit for you guys. Yeah, it's a it's time for end of the line, but this week we're gonna change things up just just a little bit. Yeah, it's it's kind of like point counterpoint, perhaps crossfire Miles is actually gonna take the lead on a rig that truly rocked the world of fishing, and I'm gonna jump in right after him for a minute or two and tell you why the whole thing is bullshit. Well, that's not loud enough. Technically speaking, the Alabama rigs shouldn't fit this segment because it isn't a lure, bait, or fly, but we're making an exception on this one. The a rig is a spider web of spoke like aluminum arms that radiate out from a central jig head and are tipped with five or more separate lures, usually soft plastic swim baits. Those aluminum arms can also feature spinner blades in the middle of them, and the resulting morass of conglomerated fish attractors essentially allows anglers to cast and retrieve an entire school of simulated bait fish. Supposedly, and not surprisingly, they could be quite effective. I say supposedly because I myself have never fished in a rig, but their impact is hard to dispute. The Alabama rig was invented by a guy named Andy pass who claims he came up with the idea while watching tuna chase sardines on the Blue Planet documentary series. That makes for a good story, but I find it a little suspect for reasons that Joe will cover in just a minute. Whatever his inspiration, Post built a prototype of the rig in his garage in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in July two thousand eleven. In October of that same year, professional bass angler Paul Elias had one of Pasta's prototypes in the boat with him while competing in an FLW event on Lake Guntersville, Alas wasn't doing so hot at the outset. In fact, he hadn't voted a single fish when he decided to try out Passes rig, and then he caught fifteen pounds of fish in forecasts. After that, he returned to the spots where he blanked earlier in the day and landed twenty more fish. Alias won the tournament, and the A rig became the biggest controversy and bass fishing overnight. Within a year of its invention, it was banned from b a SS tournaments, and within three years it became illegal in all major bass tournament circuits, fishing one in or out of competition is now against the law in eight states. Suffice to say, lots of people got real mad at this rig, real quick. Much of the A rig hate out there gets cloaked in seemingly rational conservation arguments. Some call a rigs problematic because anglers often catch multiple fish at once, but that doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny. The vast majority of bass anglers are releasing their catches, and even if they are keeping dinner, the bag limit doesn't change just because they're watching multiple fish at once. Another dig in the interest of fish welfare stems from claims that fish often get foul hooked by a rigs, but no one offers any evidence that foul hooked fish suffer a higher immortality rate on release. In fact, I'd argue that a wound in the flank or the back is far less detrimental than a hook deep in the mouth back near the gills, so that one doesn't work for me either. Finally, many states ban these rigs by claiming that they have too many hooks, but those same states have no issue with anglers throwing lures tipped with three separate troubles. For a total of nine barbed hook points, and if I have a math right, that's four more than on a standard A rig Let's just stop with the holier than now conservation cloak and call this what it is. People hate a riggs because their scene is too effective, which makes them feel like cheating. Anglers are competitive, so even though fishing isn't baseball, A rigg catches get snubbed like the Barry Bonds home run record. Ultimately, A rigs are like anchored putter's adhesive, football globes and laser speedos. People refuse to use them, not because they don't work, but because they think doing so diminishes the sport of fishing, and they view anglers who do use them as morally deficient. But if we can set aside that subjective sense of superiority, I think we'll all recognize that we've got to give Andy pass credit. Whether we choose the fish A riggs or not, whether we hate him or not, his invention has had a bigger impact on fishing than anything else in at least a generation. See I give Andy Poss zero credit because as far as me and every other striperman from Maine to Delaware, is concerned the a rig has existed since the nineteen fifties or sixties, maybe earlier. We're sure, okay, but we are sure they were called umbrella riggs, and I'm very sure. I hate salty umbrella riggs as much as I hate freshwater a rigs. According to my research, legend has it a skipper in Montauk, New York got the idea for the umbrella rig after watching a skipper in Nova, Scotia pull strips of beer cans on a metal bar that was likely for tuna, though not stripers. So is this all bullshit? Perhaps? But regardless, salty umbrella riggs have a wingspan of up to four feet and can feature a dozen or more rubber shads, surgical tube teasers, or light metal spoons. They were traditionally slow trolled on wire line, both to help get them deeper and to stand up to the resistance they create, especially after a big cow bass latches on. These days, guys pull umbrella riggs on a heavy braid and somehow use that to claim it's more sporting than the wire days. I frankly don't care what you pull an umbrella rig on. I find it boring as hell. Note I did not say it's ineffective, because much like the a rig, it catches a mess of fish. I also did not say there's no art to slow trolling stripers, because there is. You can't simply heave an umbrella rig overboard and kick back with a beer. You have to know how to adjust the trolling speed based on the current, how to get the rig to the proper day, and where to actually pull the thing. But once you figure all that out, then you can just sit back with a beer and wait while the boat dribbles along at an obnoxious two miles per hour. I'm sorry, but my addiction to striper's comes from the hit. I love seeing one boil on a popper. I love when my live bunker gets nervous and you know he's about to get tail thumped and inhaled. I love the dead stop when I'm reeling a shad around the tip of a jetty. Slow trolling umbrellas robs you of all that good stuff. You just wait for the broomstick to bend in half, grab the rod and steadily really in the three feet of wire or braid behind the boat. It's no fun, if you ask me, and in my opinion serves only as a means to get bass in the box, not as a means to enjoy all the sporting qualities they offer. Andy Poss just stole the classic Northeast rig, shrunk it down to a barely castable size, and called it a bass bait, inadvertently creating the only umbrella rig that cannot be fished effectively while drinking a Budweiser or Narrogansett. Well, that's all we have for you this week. For those of you looking to run this down on the A P wire, I have a problem with the Java. Itche is the answer to life's ultimate question, like an install filter version of the number forty two. And Hillary Hutchinson knows how to give your dry lies wings. If you enjoyed any of that, help us spread the word, tell your friends, tell your local tackle shop, give us some stars, and if you're feeling inspired, maybe drop us a line. Send those emails to Bent at the meat Eator dot com, unless, of course, you fish Alabama riggs, in which case just send in a miles because I don't really want to hear from you until next week. We're hoping you can find some water that's either thought enough to reel through or frozen enough to walk on, and if not, maybe just catch up on back episodes of the show and when you run out of those, look up fishing with John on YouTube. You'll thank you later

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