00:00:01 Speaker 1: Let me tell you, ryding New Jersey transit with a ten ft chunk and stick is a real pain in the ask. And this guy could not have possibly made me want to eat fish less? Have you ever knowingly sabotaged someone else's rig all the time? You know, you got the Mickey Finn and the bread ghost and the half bass wooly Bugger and the head wraps would started raveling within fifteen minutes of fishing them. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that calls on Friday looking to book a Saturday charter during peak season and does not understand why you are not available. I'm Joe Surmellie. I'm Miles Nolton. What the hell, man, are you in business or what I'm I'm telling you don't want to. I want to hire you to take me fishing, and you're telling me you're too busy to take my money. Huh. So you heard this one a few times back in the day, Moms, maybe once, maybe twice. I might have been yelled at like that. One of the many things that fuels the fire of professional fishing guides. Anyway, Listen, we certainly hope that there was no family ire at the Thanksgiving table yesterday, assuming you had a real live loved ones around that table, not ten iPads with zoom faces and a bucket of KFC. And if you did have real live people, we hope the intermazzoa between dessert and drinking until you passed out featured Black Rifle Coffee. Yes we do. We're a thankful bunch, but we're particularly thankful that the Bent podcast is a percent fueled by Black Rifle Coffee. Nothing compliments pumpkin pie quite like a steaming cup of a k espresso. Well, sweet potato pie actually pairs sublimely with their coffee or die Roast, which didn't know that. I also think they're the same pie. But anyway, head on over to Black Rifle Coffee dot com backslash Mediator on this very black Friday, stock yourself up, stock up on stocking stuffers for everyone you know, and enter the promo code Mediator to score off your order. So much stocking mm hmm yeah first, yeah, and we're stock to come. We're getting in the stocking season. Anyway, moving on to the fishing stuff from what I understand, which is limited, but I know people and I talked to you. I hear that Thanksgiving weekend is like kind of a big deal for for the striper crowd. Like that's not your way to really really get on that sure is, man, if you're a coastal angler in in New York, any Jersey stripers kind of go with Thanksgiving like football goes with Thanksgiving. And it was it was traditional for me for many years of my life to chase them either on the beach or from my old boat every Thanksgiving morning, and my buddies and I look forward to that greatly. Um the tradeoff though, right because then I'd be falling asleep with the table, and like my mom wasn't happy about that. And then that just kind of transferred over to my wife. And I've been scolded a Thanksgiving or two for basically being completely unengaged at dinner, you know what I mean, Just not interested in family chatter or even being in the same room sometimes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was a fun morning though, but you know, and then we had a couple of kids and I stopped fishing on Thanksgiving morning and the children just drained both of us. Um, though I do I do have some striper time set aside for this weekend, so we'll see good. I'm glad to hear that, man, And that is something I can totally like, I can connect with that, not the striper part, but the changing of the Thanksgiving like I've had. I've had a few different Thanksgiving traditions. For a while there, I was spending every single Thanksgiving over on the Big Horn, Like I would just skip the whole Thanksgiving things. I'd go to the Big Horn and just catch a ton of brown trout and shoot some pheasants or some geese or whatever. And and then there's a while there was no time where I was always I was floating rivers closer to home and deer hunting and also catching trout at the same time. And like, yeah, it was it was great. It was great. But you know, priorities change, life changes. There's nothing wrong with that. Change is good. And unless, of course, you happen to be one of those people who chooses to don know, forego certain comforts in order to to dodge responsibility for the rest of your life. And if there's one person, and we know who's a master of not having any responsibilities, it has to be legendary Striper Chunking expert Bob the garbage Man. You said it. He is a man beholden to no one but the tides and the stripers, and the lung darts, and the lung darts. Beholding to the lung darts. And if you've been with us from the beginning here this legend provided our first ever regional report. And and you might recall he was in pretty good spirits because he was talking about the spring and the height of COVID quarantine was keeping everybody off the water, so he was thrilled. So all these months later, I'm eager to see how he's fired. Calling as usual from the pay phone at the corner of Baltic and mL K in Atlantic City, New Jersey, here's the soothing voice of Bob g. Hello out Dan Radio Land. This is Striper Chunk and expert Bob the garbage Man, Briton and Nana now Ski calling in your weak the East Coast Stripeer Report. Just to cut to the chase. It's been a real shifty week. Frankly, it's been a shifty few months of I'm being honest, Ever since this whole COVID bullshit blew over every place I try to fish, looks like the t Jetty mook Fest Bulitz oh One. The fall run of Momos is in full swing. Let me tell you what I mean, Jesus, I walked out to the drain pipe behind Port Authority the other night. It's thirty eight degrees blown thirty out of the north and there's three guys in track suits from South Philly thrown rubber trout on catfish tackle. Like before this year, me and Crazy Terry from the Pond Shop was the only two people that fished out there. I'm losing my mind just to scratch out five to six low fifties. I'm taking the train up to Nork to hit some high level sleep of ship in the meadow lands. And let me tell you, riding New Jersey Transit with a ten foot chunk and stick is a real pain in the ass. Anyway, I ain't got any more uplifting news from the rest of the coast. My old buddy Joey the Gut and Montalk says the place is over run with kids from Parks Slope dressed like Benetton ads casting fly rods had taken sunset pictures at Chaguan, Tony, Bologna and Zuini up in nauset Beach says, these firsty dipshits up there throwing datas at Blitz and hobby seals because they can't tell the difference between a large, hairy mamo and a stripe bass. Dear God, please return this country to full lockdown. I can't take this ship anymore. That's what I got for you is this week goodbye. Okay. First of all, First of all, based on on this whole uptick in in angler participation that we keep talking about so much on the podcast and that we we support generally, uh nothing, nothing at all about just heard surprises me. I think I think anybody and everybody we we we saw that coming, right. It was inevitable. It was inevitable. And second, I have this weird inkling now that you might be you might be hopping on a bus and going over to Newark this weekend. I yeah, I might be, man because that wasn't completely uplifting news about the bite. And he's the man on the ground. So I kind of I cap off my travel time to catching my low fifty pounders minutes any longer, any long we ever drive in that, I'll just settle for the thirty and forty pounders that night. You know rough life, You got a rough life, not Bob. Bob. He covers the ground and he knows that to cover water, and so do we. Matter of fact, we are loading a new segment into the chamber this week, one that's designed to help you learn as much personal and maybe not so personal information about notable, respected people in the angling community in record time. Because you're busy, you don't have time to sit through a whole interview, we condensed it for you. We've got a new and I would say special treat for you today where we are debuting a fully unique segment we're calling Covering Water because we're gonna be all over the place with this one, and fittingly, I think to to be be with us for the inaugural guest is our really good friend Oliver and I what's up man, Oliver? What's up? Man? It's up? Boys? Are you guys? Shure them the right choice of this? I don't get out very much positive, no question at all of our minds. Anybody, anybody who has UH checked in with the Toss Boat series knows Oliver well and UH and and knows the kind of fire and heat he is going to bring and and besides, like he's willing to put up with our our our crazy stupid ideas like this, So he's the perfect guy really to start this off. In my opinion, Yes, you're willing to be a guinea pig, and we appreciate that. Absolutely. He has no fear. So the way this is gonna work, we are gonna put two minutes on the clock and Joe and I are going to rapid fire pepper you with questions. Your job is not to think too much, just just react, and we're gonna get through as many questions as we can in two minutes. When the buzzer strikes at the end of those two minutes, then we will give you a full minute to elaborate on something you feel like we all should know better to understand what you were saying. One that needs you think needs clarifications. There's gonna be many, so you're gonna but you're gonna have to pick one. Yep, yep, all right, man, did you ready play? Yeah? That sounds like a terrible game show. I'm down. That's exactly what it is. It is a terrible game show. All right, you boys? Ready clock starts? Now, who's the greatest angler? Of all time, Jordan Kobe or Lebron Have you ever knowingly sabotaged someone else's rig all the time? At least favorite fish to target bill fish, m spring bite or fall bite. Most revolutionary lore ever invented? Mega bass one tender. Okay, okay, nas are little nas x? Come on, man, nasty nas. Yes, most sensitive area you've ever been hooked in, Oh boy, back in my head? Okay. Yeah, the species you've never caught that's highest on your list. The dumbest way you've ever broken a rod, letting my girlfriend take my rod, sock off my Mega bass hedgehog destroyer. That was pretty dumb. Rank the following fish from from worst to best. Rock bass crappy perch readier. Oh that's brutal rock bass perch by a readier. Did I miss one? All right? Okay? The Magne rebought catapultar Nike pumps. Oh Nikes, you gotta have the pumps. Man excellent choice. Cheetos or kale chips. Cheetos. One piece of tackle you cannot live without a hook. That's it, buzzer done. That hook could be like a family feud, like boom survey says, so okay, man, so of all those, there's gotta be one that you want to expand on a little bit. Do you have it locked in? Yeah, let's go with Alner. First question, your clocks running. You got a minute to explain yourself, all right. As a youngster from California, I watched this man from a whole another world, catching everything and doing it in a very scientifically minded approach, and you broke things down in a way that I could understand, even though half the time the fish that he was targeting we didn't even have in l A. Yeah, but it was a mindset and that approach that I could take from an adapt to my fishing styles. Because I was watching this man like doing it, his body of works spoke for itself in my mind, and that stuff is transcended generations. It's transcended the onset of this social media age where anybody and everybody has a platform and there's no filter for the content that's being put out there anymore. And Alan, there is still a G. He was on my boat last year writing these big swells on Relax like a gangster and like just smacking big walleye and small mouth. Alan, there's a G. So we've got a few more hot seaters lined up for covering water going forward. But listen, we want to hear about it from you guys. Did you like the segment? Did you hate it so once you've been turned off of fishing for life? Who would you love to see us grill on high heat? What questions would you ask him or her? Let us know by sending an email to bent at the meter dot com. We love giving you things to think about. We want to spark your creativity and your thoughts, like what is Hank Parker's favorite Beastie Boys song? Or is it possible for Larry Dhlberg to make a lure that doesn't catch a shipload of fish? I don't think so for the record, But now we're gonna give you lots more to think about, uh in the realm of current events, because it is time for fish news. Fish news that escalated quickly, So before we get all newsy on you guys, this is where we like to do a little housekeeping time to time, throw out some fans shoutouts, and I just have to throw one out very quickly to at Zach underscore salon life. I don't know Zack's full and the aim was not provided, but he sent us a joint message on the instagrams just to let us know that, um, he saw Pantera in a packed house in Atlanta many years ago and apparently are very brief. Pantera verse Slayer pit debate has resonated with a ton of y'all. Yeah, it seems like it really, it really hit a chord there. Yeah, like we should probably do a music podcast instead of fishing, because that's like, that's like the thing, all the fish stuff, not that you guys don't write in about that, but like the Pantera Slayer thing anyway, um Zach wrote, and I'm quoting here amash pit, the size of the venue erupts, and my skinny ass in parentheses at the time closed parentheses tries to get to the side of the pit and I get literally stabbed in the gut. So, yeah, Pantera is wilder than Slayer, and I needed clarifications. So I just wrote back stabbed question mark like with a shiv, and he says, yep, shank with a four inch boot knife. Great show until the stabbing. I love that we we did the exact same thing because I essentially responded to him in precisely the same enter and said, like, you mean literally stabbed, like when you say stabbing, stabby stabbed right, And he's like, oh yeah, no, I got stabbed. So dude, you win. Craziest pit story I've ever heard. Um And I just wanted to say thanks for that. So that's my my shout out of the week right there. Yeah, and I gotta I gotta come in with a little correction. A couple weeks ago, I did an end of line segment on the SUK which I totally stand by, but apparently I butchered the name of the town where Frank Suek came from anonymous mistake, though I've done the same. So the town is spelled a N T I g O and I pronounced it antigo with a hard t. And and quite a few of you wrote to tell me how very wrong I was about that. Apparently the t is silent, which I've never heard of before. Um, so it's an ego, an ego, I don't know, something like that. But but no tea in there, even though it looks like there's so people throw us a bone on that one, like that's not fair. No, no, no, no no, But I mean that's not an obvious like we should have known how to say that one is the t ever silent. But I do appreciate you guys keeping me honest and keeping us honest and letting us know I hold no ill will towards you. Please continue doing that, let us know when we screw something up, because we want to know, we want to learn. Yes, we do, we do, all right, So that concludes housekeeping. Um, we're gonna get to uh to the real news this week. Remember, Miles and I do not know which news stories the other is bringing to the table. And at the end of this our audio engineer Phil will weigh in and declare a news victor. And I'll just go ahead and say, right now, you're gonna win this week because both of my stories are dumb, and I aired on the side of humor more than hard news because you know what, my God, do we all need to laugh right now? Absolutely? You know I can't even this world and laughter cure is all. So I am airing. I am herring on the side of humorous this week. I just couldn't help myself. So here we go, thank you. So anyway, um it it is largely believed I would say that the coronavirus originated in bats over in China. Now some of you are going, no, hell it did, It's a conspiracy. Now, we're not going to go off on all the conspiracy theories, all that noise for the sake of this new story. We're just gonna go with the narrative that because the Chinese kind of eat some weird ship, this whole problem started with an infected bat that someone picked up for brunch. Okay, uh. We also know that the virus went nutty around the wet markets in Wuhan where said bat was supposedly sold, and all these months later, what you don't see is a Chinese official on live TV pulling an Ozzy Osbourne and showing a bat to let the masses know that see the bats are okay now, in an attempt to reboost bat sales and help all the poor bat farmers or hunter gatherers or whoever these people are that that supplied the bats. But um, the people of Sri Lanka did see this exact thing happened recently, but with a fish. And this is from the New York Post. The headline here x Sri Lankan official chumps on a raw fish during news conference. Okay, now from the story, a former Sri Lankan fisheries minister chomped on a raw fish on a Tuesday press conference as seafood sales in the nation have plummeted over coronavirus concerns. And here's a quote. I am making an appeal to the people of this country to eat fish. Don't be afraid you will not get infected by the coronavirus dilip what a Racchi Wadaracha said before biting into this fish. Last month, the Central Fish Market outside the nation's capital Colombo was the site of a major coronavirus outbreak that led to thousands of county wide infections. Since the and fish sales and consumption in Sri Lanka have plunged. Tens of thousands of tons of fish have gone unsold because of this. And the final quote here is are people who are in the fisheries industry cannot sell their fish. People of this country are not eating fish. What a Racchi said at the news conference. Um. And he also had this to say before eating the fish. And you could tell from this quote dudes upset and not messing around. Now we've both watched this and this guy could not have possibly made me want to eat fish less. Okay, He throws a plastic shopping bag on the table, pulls out what looked like to mackerel and and somewhat hesitantly holds one like corn on the cob and just takes a giant bite out of the fish's back, right behind the dorsal fin, and like you hear the spine crunch in his mouth, and you can like hear the f a squish, and blood runs out of the fish and drips on the paperwork in front of him. He then holds up the blood stained paperwork and shows everyone in the bite in the fish is back while his hot Mike is picking up the sound of him like chewing back whatever mackerel bits are left in his mouth. Now you saw the cut version. There's a longer version though, and I swear there's a point where he he gags a little. Okay, but if that was supposed to make me want to run to the fish market, like God help these people, and I mean it also goes without saying this whole thing is totally based on unfounded panic. Corona has never been linked to fish. I mean, hell, dude. One of the first segments you and I ever did on this podcast was about how you will not get any sort of Corona type virus from a fish. But obviously the people are blaming this outbreak in a crowded market on the fish being sold. They're not the whole shipload of people at the crowded mark, not the crowds of people like snooze and breathing on Chela. Know, it must be the face. It must be the mackerel. So I just could This video is so worth a watch. Um, you know, good, good effort to that guy. But yeah, it's just you didn't help the seafood market with that one. I feel like we're missing some context because I have no idea what he's saying, right, Like, I want to know what what point he's making when he holds up the bloody paper and he's like, I want to know if he's like, see see held right here, dude. We should We should have it overdub for our social pages. We can have bad lip reading. It would be so much fun. Oh god, it would be good. Yeah, look how fresh the blood drips down the affidavit or whatever he's holding. There was nothing. You didn't look, there's nothing on the paper it makes me think he's like he's got those fake notes that they bring out a press conferences, like you know, you shuffle the papers like I have important things to say, but there's nothing on the paper. He has no notes. He didn't he didn't want to bite the mackerel. The poor guy. He didn't want to do that. It was It's just it's just awful. So, oh well, I'm gonna I'm gonna stick with eating parts of the fish that that maybe we don't usually bite into. I don't. I don't know about you, but I don't go for the fish backs. It's like my top priority the way that that that particular person did. But I'll say, over the past a couple of years year at least, I've really been trying to figure out how to use more of the fish that I harvest instead of just like whacking off the filets and tossing the rest, because you know, depending on what kind of fish you're talking about, um, the flames might only make up a third of the entire body weight, and so that just it just feels it feels wasteful right now. Absolutely how we've always done it, but I'm trying to get better at it. And I got started on this kick when I read a book called The Whole Fish Cookbook by Josh Niland, who's an Australian chef, and he's pioneered some some really interesting recipes that utilize parts of the fish that often get discarded. And while Nylon definitely inspired me some of the stuff that he does in his restaurant, it's just it's it's not feasible for a home cook, right, Like I have a full time job in a family. I am not going to spend an afternoon making fish eye chips. That's not gonna happen, nor nor do I usually have access to enough fish eyes that like I could pull that off. But like that said, I do try to be conscientious about using more of the fish that bring home. So like with smaller species, you know, pan fish or trout, I've been cooking them whole um. I've been doing the reverse butterfly technique that I learned from Texas chef Jesse Griffiths, which you guys can find a tutorial about on the media website if you're interested, hold on one set because in case you don't go back to the fish eyes. What is a fish eye chip? Do you just fry a fish eyeball until it's like such a long complicated process. Man. It like involves extruding the eyes and then like mixing them with batter and frying them into chips. Like it's a whole thing I can see doing at a five star restaurant. But I'm not doing that at home. It's not gonna happen. Good got But like I said, I like the reverse better fly technique. And I was saying, if you guys are interested in seeing how I do that, you can find a tutorial on the on the website right now. With bigger species, I always take the cheeks and the collars and the bellies because that's really good meat that often gets wasted, and it's there's no reason to I try to make stocks or stews out of skeletons and other leftovers. Admittedly, sometimes I get lazy, and I'll always do it. I fail there too, man, I always have that intention, and it's just like you're tired at the end of the day. You got a freezer, you got it, you got a vaccineal what you already have to deal with, and it's like, God, I do I fail there miserably? I'd say I'm batting about, but I'd like to get better there, and I'm not much like in general, I'm not an innards guy, and I don't have a yard really, so like I can't just bury the fish guts for fertilizer. I do. Like next summer I'm gonna try and work on some raised beds and see if I can figure out how to use guts fish guts in that as fertilizer if I don't know how to do it, though, if anybody out there has pointers, please let me know. I've done it with American shad, like brought some shad home, cut it up, and like as my wife was putting in tomato plants, just put a chunk of it under dude. We had hell of it. It worked. It does work. I don't know if I I did it right. I just did it half fast, but it worked. The point of all this is that I'm trying to get better about maximizing the fish I keep. And and this week I found a really cool story about this organization in New Zealand who's figured out a way to utilize the discarded part of fish, feed hungry people and generate self sustaining revenue. The organization is called Kaika, which I think translates to roughly using aquatic animals or something like that. I don't my Mauori is not that great anyway. They take the discarded fish parts and they distribute them through a Maori community hall in South Auckland. And now Polynesian cultures like Maudi, they know how to prepare fish heads and skeletons, right, like maximizing the use of whole fish is just part of their cultural heritage. And that's true for a lot of Polynesians. I remember that there's this Hawaiian dude I used to fish with growing up, and he would always just straight eat the eyeballs out of the fish we caught, like no cooking, just pop them and and and he loved them. And he would tell me and I think he was just like messing with the white kid, but he would mess he'd tell me like even the fish I has helped me, see, Mike like the fish and I catch more fish. And maybe he was just messing with me. But the dude was legit and he always caught more fish than me, and maybe that was the reason why. I don't know. But getting back to New Zealand, the folks getting these heads and skeletons. They're not viewing them as refuse right, Like fish heads were often reserved for people of like super high status and Polynesian cultures. They're they're a delicacy. So the fish are going to people who genuinely want them and who know what to do with them. Also, we're talking about families who could use some help right now. We're talking about families who are struggling to to make ends meet and and to feed themselves and feed their kids. So Kayika this organization started in two thousand and sixteen when a boating club in Auckland wanted to figure out a solution to a problem. Their members would come in from fishing, they'd clean their fish and then dump pounds and pounds of fish craps that would pretty quickly start to rot and stink, and not only was it messy, but there are sold club members. He thought it was it was wasteful, and they wanted to come up with a better system. So they reached out to the manager of this Mauori community center who said that they would yeah, they'd love to have those fish scraps and that we're currently being wasted. So they got together and they opened a fish cleaning station at the boating club where they charged two dollars to cut up the fish. Right, so the anglers would bring a fish, they give them two bucks, they give them the fish, they get the flat's back, and then everything else got brought to these families and need huh. But then the coronavirus lockdown hit and when that happened, at the time that the lockdown happened, this this fish station was distributing five dred and fifty pounds of fish two people who needed it every week. But then the lockdown completely put a hall to recreational fishing and it cut off access to food. You know, particularly time when when these vulnerable communities were they were like they were experiencing even more need sure less. So Kaika, I gotta give these guys credit. They quickly pivoted and they started working with commercial fishing companies in the area. And then after they started doing that, they're bringing a nearly two thousand pounds of fish per week. But without the cleaning station, they didn't have any income to support the program, so so they were relying on donations and things. So fast forward to now right and new Zealand, unlike here, has COVID under control. So they're heading into their summer and their fishing season like full bore, and they've reopened this fish cleaning station, so they're getting all the fish from that, plus their partnerships with the commercial fishermen, which means they're bringing a ton of food. And they're also hoping that the revenue from that fish cleaning station will will be enough to make this program self sustaining and even employee several community members full time. I don't actually have a way to like adopt this model elsewhere, Like I haven't figured that out because I think it's kind of uniquely suited in New Zealand. But I have to say that I find this to be such an elegant solution to multiple problems right there. Their maximum using the yield of fish, they're feeding hungry people there, rejuvenating cultural traditions, they're creating a self sustaining nonprofit that does not rely on grants or donations, and they're even managing to employ a few people who need jobs. I just love everything about what's going on here. I think it's fantastic. It is, but it'd be a very hard thing to replicate here, because where do you do it? Like, where where is there a fishery plus enough people that could utilize that and need that, you know, without shipping. You know, though, I will say what comes to mind, and it's a much lesser scale, um, you know, by a long shot, but it deserves a nod. Throughout the early part of the pandemic, I had had several buddies um in Key West, including my old buddy Captain Mike Weinhoferre down there, that they publicly on social media they'd go out and fish their charters or even just go fish for fun, burn their own gas, you know, catch king Max whatever whatever they were catching, and just publicly put on there like if you need fish, like you come to the dock, like I'll cut this up, like if anybody's having a hard time getting food or wants fresh fish like And there was a little piece of that sort of rally behind that. But this is an amazing idea. It's just where where do you do it? Yeah? The other wrinkle there is like for for the folks that are getting this, it's it's not like they're getting trash right there there. For them, it's it's genuinely like, oh sweet, this is the part of the fish. We like. If we were to try to do that in American culture, it would be insulting because we'd be giving people ship that they didn't want. And that's not that's not a solution. Um. So I don't have like a way of bringing this here. I don't think I don't think the model necessarily is replicable. But things like this where you can solve multiple problems at once and create something that is not reliant on philanthropy, right, where it's self sustaining and generates revenue, like these are the things that I love. Yes, dude, it's an awesome idea, but you're absolutely right. It's like the first step would be getting people to appreciate a giant fish head. And we just we just we just don't hear. We just don't here. This is a weird transition, but you know, so here here's something that that works in another country that does not work here, similar to how football works here but not in other countries. So that's that's that's my transition for this story. Um, and again this is um much less touchy feely. Are you a football fan? You are a football fan to some degree, right, I like football. Yeah yeah, I'm not anti at all. I have at different points in my life followed football. Yeah yeah, I'm not. Like I kind of was when I was a kid. But now, to be honest, man, like, I give not two ships about any professional sports. And if I just lost friends over that or something, I'm sorry. Like I do enjoy a good Super Bowl party, but if I'm not invited to one, I probably won't even watch the Super Bowl, you know. And I was happy, happy when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, but then quickly I had to throw of the family in the basement because like it was armageddon outside. The windows rattled from the explosives for hours. Anyway, why does this matter, Well, because this little ditty from Mississippi's Clareon Ledger is about Dion Sanders and I used to collect his sports cards back in the day. But this is about Dion getting arrested while fishing, and he he talked about this recently in an interview on the Pro Football Show. So there's a video of this out there, and it happened years ago, but he's just telling the story now. And as it goes, after Dion went pro, he says he did what what all pro sports people do, I guess, and build himself a million dollar home in a beautiful gated community in Florida. And this house was close to the airport, he says, though I'm not sure which airport, but regardless, one day he noticed the lake near the airport that he says could not have been seen from the road, which makes me wonder if he saw it from the air. And I get that because, let me tell you, there's some incredibly juicy water, like at the Orlando Airport and the Philly airport. And every time I flat a Philly I'm like that swampy ship right there's got to be loaded with snakeheads and both fins. Whenever I'm on the monorail in Orlando, I'm like, there are ten pound hall Larry's out you. We've both been there. Dude, you're on the You're like looking at that like nobody's casted anything in there ever, even though that's probably not true. But anyway, I'd never have the guts to fish any of these places because I don't want to end up like Dion Sanders. So Dion just just drove on over to this lake right just down some dirt road with with a small boat in the back of his pickup, dropped it in and set off a fishing and in the interview, he says he was so pumped because there was no one else there. Well, duh, like I know why there was no one else there, and he starts hammering large mouth left and right when the police rolled in and they wave him over, and I could read you Dion's reaction, but let's have filter it up and let Dion explain how he reacted to the authorities. Police come up, what's up? You need to come in? But what no trespass Ain't nobody cares? Hey, nobody cares. What are you talking about? So when the police insisted that they would in fact be taking him to jail for trespassing. After that exchange, Dion decided and I quote, I may as well enjoy myself, and he stayed out for another hour and caught a bunch of bass before coming in and going to jail. Now, the funny twists on this story is that Dion was in his hometown at the time of the arrest, and he was there to play a charity basketball game with his celebrity friends against the local media and police department, and also, and this is my favorite part. Right, once word of his arrest got out for this matter, Dion says he got millions of offers to fish private water all over the country, in every state. And this that's the part of this. While it's a funny story, they grinds my gears because I'm betting that quite a few people listening to this, and perhaps maybe even the guy's hosting it, I don't know, at some point may have trespassed a bit to fish younger days we're talking about here. But what drives me nuts is like now that we're like quote fishing industry professionals, if you or I got nailed for trespassing the fish, like, we'd be done. We'd may be ruined. Nobody's gonna call us and say, hey, sorry that happened. Come fish my private strategy, this Atlantic salmon stream in Quebec. Like, that's not the way that's gonna go down. But Dion Sanders gets pinched at the airports and he's the man, and that's so unfair. I think it is. And and I actually so this resonates with me in a lot of ways. And you know, except for the fact that I'm not deon Sanders, nor do I have anything like his life. But there are some really good bone fish flats not far from the airport on the island where I grew up. What is it with airports, dude? There's like a good fishing around the airport there always is, right, and most of them are totally legit. It's no problem. But there's this one flat that borders on one of the runways and it is not legal to fish that flat. But first, it's not that all the other ones get all this pressure and that one doesn't. So we call that flat helen Keller flat because like it's not appropriate, but the you get the joke there, and uh, I have been chased off of that by the airport police boat more than once because like it's just so juicy and you're getting your teeth kicked in by these fish, and you're like, all I gotta do is go fifty yards over there. I know I can catch one, And then you end up going there, and you end up doing it. Most of the time it's fine, but then ten percent of the time the cops get called and they come chasing in their police boat. You gotta yeah, it's it's this is dude, This is a huge thing here. I mean one of the biggest places where that this is a constant infraction um Jamaica Bay in Long Island. I mean, Jamaica Bay is an incredib able striper fishery. It's not that big and for a million different reasons, giant schools of blue fish and stripers every year pile into Jamaica Bay. And literally the end of the runway at JFK is like right there, and there's buoy's all over the place saying you can't get any closer than this, And every f and time on there there's like the blitz of the century going off right on the other side of the buoys, and and dudes, dudes risk it all the time, the kayakers at night. It's a big thing here. But true story, man, Like if it's near runway, it's good. Yeah, inevitably, inevitably true. And like we're telling these stories about flats fishing and Florida fishing and all this warm stuff. And I'm gonna close out news with the opposite kind of fishing, right because we're moving into ice season, at least for for those of us who live in places that have ice fishing seasons, and and we're right in the middle of the fur Head Ice Tour, which is the Mediator ice fishing series that we produced earlier this year. And and if you haven't already, should definitely check that out. Yeah, you need to be watching that. It's it's worth it. So I felt like it would be appropriate to bring an ice fishing story to kick off ice season. And they're there are quite a few folks for good reason, who feel like, I don't know, they feel like there's an impact of technology on ice fishing is a sport that that that they don't really like. Like that's some one of the digs I hear about ice fishing, Right, Some people think, Yeah, I mean you got the new flashers and the cameras and the battery powered augers and the track side by sides and like super pimped out ice palaces with couches and big screen trevs and full kitchens, right, And and some people think that ice fishing has lost some of its soul. I gotta say, that's an argument that I hope we get to have on this show at some point, But that's not where I'm going with this. This is a story where technology played a very different role for a particular ice angler. Last January, Jordan's tun Tarski was fishing the Black River near Watertown, New York. Is it Watertown or Waterton? Watertown? Watertown? Okay, So he's fishing the Black over near Watertown when he caught just this absolute pig of a sunfish and uh, and he brought it up and he figured, man, this thing is the biggest one I've ever caught. He figured you should probably enter it into the New York State Winter Classic Fishing Tournament, see if he could see if he gets some money. You know, are you are you familiar with this tournament. I'm not familiar with the tournament, but I have heard whispers of this, of this story. So I'm glad that I'm glad that we're doing this one. Yeah, I mean, it just seems like a fun kind of community fishing tournament. Folks come together and sponsored it. It seems like the kind of thing that I would enjoy. Anyway, Jordan took the fish to a local hardware store where they had an official scale, and it weighed in at one pound nine ounces, which is the biggest sunfish ever recorded in the Winter Classic tournament, which is great for Jordan's it's a pumpkin. Let let me finish the story. Sorry, but that's where this gets interesting, because the fish had the physical characteristics of both pumpkin seed and a bluegill. Ah. Now, if it were to be classified as a bluegill, it would be a hell of a fish. But that's all. If it were classified as a pumpkin seed, it would tie the New York state record, So I can't tell which one it is. Jordan then brought the fish to the regional office of the Department of Environmental Conservation to give it to some biologists, figured they'd be able to tell. Nope. The biologist they take a look like, I don't know. Maybe it's a blue girl. Maybe it's pump because he might be a hybrid. We can't tell. And I think this is where I'd be like, all right, I don't care enough cool, I'll enter it in the tournament. I'll get some money. I'm done. But not Jordan's no, no, no. He was not going to be deterred from from like getting to some game his name in the record books. He was not going to be stopped. So he then drove to Albany to get Albany excuse me, then drove to Albany to the New York State Museum where they would help him do like get get hooked up with a DNA analysis of the fish. Nine months later, just last week, the results came in. The fish turned out to be pure pumpkin seed. Jordan officially tied the state record that was set back in Good for him sticking to his guns on that one. Just wouldn't let it go just just I have to agree. I have to agree. Good on him. But you know, like I can't think of very like other than I don't know, striped bass. Maybe, like it was just such an important record that so many people cared about. I don't know if I would have gone through all that either, Nope, no, that's not that's this is I'm not throwing shade Jordan's I love this story. I'm glad you did it, but I definitely would have stopped. Like I probably would have gone to the like to check it with a biology be like, hey man, do you know what this is? And they'd be like, I don't know. I'm like all right, cool, I'm gonna go eat it. Then that would have been the end of it for me. I'm gonna get I'm gonna get a big golf thanks. Well, there you go, New York. You've got uh well, I mean you don't really have a new record to beat. You have an old record to beat because this one just tied it. It's like that's a little that's a little disappointing, like after all that like dude couldn't get it by an extra little stag and tide like the world record large mouth. Oh man, after all that time. Anyway, Okay, so Phil, you've got a lot to work with, some some real interesting science based news stories here from from Miles and just my total bullshit. So um, have fun picking. Okay, don't make it awkward. We're gonna make it awkward when Phil is done though with awkward moments and angling presenting our first fan photo like Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield stands Joe Surmellie calling his own mediocrity. Miles Nulta, you're the winner this week, Joe. I think you'll be all right. Just to make yourself a boiler maker, channel your inner Smeegel and take a bite out of a big COVID free raw fish, just just right out of the middle. So juicy sweet, what did you take a picture A life back? Well, the time has finally come. Many of you have sent in awful, awkward and just generally hilarious fishing photos and uh, you know, I'm just gonna say, Joe that this segment idea is already a success if you ask me, because I have been thoroughly entertained. I it is just kind of I've I've actually shirked more important work because I get lost looking at these photos and just a few things I just want to throw out there, like zoo Baz. Okay, got a lot of zoo Baz, but I currently own the zoo Baz scene, right like I like, I'm not ready to give up the zoo Baz crown yet. Um so we might bank those for later. But we do appreciate all the zoo bas, but we've also gotten some great ones that we just don't seem to know how to spin outside like a personal attack. Like we love to you guys, and we're not trying to be mean, you know what I'm saying. But but when all we've got is like you know, your hair cutting and look of hopeless depression, Like where do we go with that? So we're being very picky and shoes. He trying to find the right ones. But God, are we having a good time looking at all of them? Yes? Yes, just please keep flooding them in because it is the highlight of my day a lot of time. And and now we're gonna share some of this joy and weirdness with all of you, our first fans. Submission for awkward Moments and fishing comes from Zach Kantos. I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Zack. And in this photo we see young Zach sitting in a boat anchored in the middle of a placid river. Behind him, the fall colors are just starting to paint the tips of the deciduous backdrop in yellow orange, a bit of umber perhaps, And in the center of this picture has seen Zack is holding his very first king salmon. Well he's he's attempting to hold it anyway. All we can really see is the salmon's bell as it's in the middle of a valiant attempt to escape his grasp and return to the river so that it can complete its mission of egg fertilization before it's biological shot clock expires. And judging by the putrid green to Alabama mud black of this fish's body color. There's not much time left and the thing is for for his part, Zack doesn't look like a man who's in the process of dropping a half rotted mud shark, as I call him, onto the deck of a john boat. Uh. In fact, like if one word of photos shop out the fish and replace it with like a red telecaster. He looked like a guy in a dive bar, you know, like like covering the stones, like living his Keith Richard's pipe dream like. And it looks like Zach's trying to whale out the solo from Sympathy for the Devil on that fish and not hold it up for a hero shot. And you know, an observation. Even even his fingers are splayed as they would be on a fretboard, as if you were trying to hit a really hard chord. It's it's it's so perfect. But the look on his face fits the image too, right, So picture your your favorite guitarists, perhaps Vay Malmstein. I know there's a bunch of Invay fans listening right now, like hitting the peak of their most iconic riff on stage completely in the moment, borderline like just sheer bliss, possibly edging towards orgasmic and and that seems appropriate when when you consider the stream of white liquid spewing from the King's vent onto Zack's like really expensive, high dollar hunting vest, and it seems just both of them were in the midst of an o face. Man. Uh, it's so true. And the photo the photo would be good enough on its own, but by actually, my favorite part about this one, uh, was the messages that Zack and I exchange listening because this is gonna make it. This is what's gonna make it. So. So here's the here's the message exchange between Zach and me. Zack. Here's an embarrassing photo for the news segment. This fish smacked me before we got a good picture. Me. Thanks, Zack. Looks like that fish did more than smack you. I hope you whed that vest, Zack. It took my hat clean off and I left the Lake Ontario slim on it for a few extra days to savor the experience. Me. I was actually referring to the stream of milt at spewing into your lap, Zack. The real embarrassment is that I've never noticed that in two years so glad we could educate you about your own awkward photo. Like the best part of that was that he had no idea that that was in the photo when he sent it in, Like we we found that gem for him. So zach I, I hope you enjoyed those extra few days of savoring the experience, as you say, and uh man, thanks so much for sending in your awkward fishing photo and letting us have some fun with it. We got a little gift coming your way in the near future. We do, and you deserve it because now everybody can see your lap full of salmon's blooge. Uh. Don't forget we post these on our Instagram accounts. That's Joe dot Sormelli won three eight and water miles on the Graham. If you have an awkward fishing photo you'd like us to heckle on this podcast, send it to Bent at the meat Eator dot com. We appreciate all the submissions we've gotten so far. Keep them coming. So this week, seeing that it is in fact Black Friday, the day we all know is set aside to remember the thirteen people that perish during the Tikomiamo trampling at the Bentonville, Arkansas Walmart hashtag never forget. We've decided it's only appropriate to push our end of the line segment off this week in favor of the sale bin. Yes, yes, it's it's it's the respectful thing to do. And you know what, you're probably not fishing this weekend anyway. You're shopping at least on your computer because you don't have the proper PPU to visit target. You don't know what's going on in there. You have been to a Target in the last six months. I don't recommend it. But long before Target, there was Kmart and this sale beIN harkens back to the days of the blue Light special. Why did you put the hand to pay? You don't know what I'm getting, man, You didn't have to be so hurtful with me, so angry. So this week we've got a real gem from the Facebook group p A fly Fishing Classified And this was sent to me by Chris Raz. Chris, you demand and I appreciate it. Okay, up for grabs? Was note I said was a hand Tide streamer assortment nine streamers total in the original packaging with the original Kmart price tag four dollars and cents. And I will date this item from the mid nineties. Ish maybe I don't know, uh, but here's the description Kmart Fish America Foundation members box rare collector's item. Uh. And he originally started out with these for two hundred dollars and then slash that price down to fifty dollars. What a steal. If there were comments on the post, we can say, just I feel like this is one of those cases where the original packaging is not helping you, particularly that kmart price the xticker of four dollars and cents. Just I don't think that keeping it the original intact is actually helping to boost your argument for why this is valuable. Just just my my take the rare where that just you just shouldn't have gone there. But there were comments on this post, right, the first of which read, you are kidding, right, And another guy says, another guy says, I'll give you one dollar and fifteen cents, and then another dude jumps in and goes, would you take four dred so stupid prices aside? Right, this is not a bass bug tied by Lefty Kranek Kmart flies. But I just got to kick out of it because these these were like my first flies, man, These little starter packs from Kmart. You know, you got the Mickey Finn and the Garay Ghost and the halfass Wooly Bugger and the head wraps would started raveling within fifteen minutes of fishing them. But I got my first fly outfit for Christmas when I was ten or so, and these were the flies that came with it. And we grew up in different places. So maybe like your first flies were not the bubble pack honestly, man, Like my first flies, I actually think were the the fifty cent foam spiders that you used to catch bluegill with, and not that we catching bluegill in Hawaii, but I did use them to catch talapia in Hawaii because they did anything. But um, yeah, that's what I started out with. But I'm pretty sure I had one of these at one point. But I think my terrible casting because I didn't everybody to teach me, just broke them all immediately. I think they just came unraveled while I was trying to learn to cast. Well. There there were multiple sets, right, so you had the streamer set and then you had like like you were talking about, you had the hand fish popper set every kid had, even before you had a fly rod, you wanted a little panfish pod. Yeah, I don't know why, but they also had a dry fly assortment and there would always be one fly that just looked like a moth. Do you remember that? Just a big white mothy butterfly looking job or I don't know what you were supposed to do with that? I do, did anybody how big you talk? How big are we talking first? Before I answer my question? Like big enough that if it flew in through the screen door, and now you'd be like, oh, ship, it's a big gass moth, pure white, No, dude, just a big white wing like round wing feather moth. And I don't know anybody who used it. Did anyone ever catch anything with that? I don't know, but I remember having those as a kid, and there was always the moth in the set. But anyway, the set is now sold, though I have no idea how much uh it was was paid for the set. I want to know what this went for, So there is a lucky angler out there, either buying a shadow box for it right now, that's that's one possibility, or just swinging a poorly tied Mickey Finn over at the rock bass Hole, but it was there for the taking and we lost out on the rare Collectors kmart set in the America Foundation Members box. I don't even know what that means, but it sure sounds good. It's not even a real fly box, and they're like the little the only the only thing I can think of that has a similar boxes like you put baseball cards in there, like a small stack of baseball cards and the clear thing. But Chris, Chris, thank you for that one. We love that one. You guys have been sending a ton of Saleman items, keep those coming to bent at the meat eat or dot com and uh you just might hear yours red here. So that's all the time we have this week. If you're making lists of what to buy Joe and me for Christmas, we like clothes free of salmon, seamen, hand tied mufflies, and smart people willing to answer lots of stupid questions in very short time periods. Very well said, Listen, next week we're gonna throw down. That's a little Easter egg for some of you with the smooth moves. That's a bloody good time. And get back to our drinking days with a fresh installment of That's My Bar. Until then, keep all those sale bean fines, awkward photos, bar nominations, and general love hate and love hate mail coming to Bent at the mediator dot com. We love hearing from you, and you know what, take a few leftover turkey sandwiches out on the water with you. They're filling, they stick to your ribs. I personally like mine with mayo and cranberry sauce together. I will skip the cranberry sauce. But listen, no matter what you do, don't put the mayo and the jelly on the sandwiches the night before dumbassides. They'll be soggy as ship the next day.

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