00:00:01 Speaker 1: So there you go. If Elon Musk ever gets to build his creepy Martian utopia, we will have fish to thank for it. I actually at one point wondered if he was like real or not, like you may have been like a robot. Every time somebody says lake Minnetonka, I have to say to myself, why don't you purify yourself in the waters Lake Minatonka. I missed the days when you can marry people and not get it into trouble. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Band the fishing podcast that refused to include any kids that couldn't skate in its roller hockey game. I'm Joe Surmellie A Miles Nulty, and I was one of those kids. I was not in the game, but you know what I I didn't care because I was at the skate park on a skateboard where we wouldn't let any of you barney as Blazers anywhere near the ramps or anything else for that matter. You weren't allowed. That's yeah, Look, that's fair. Skateboarder. You were always cooler, right, And I'm not talking extreme rollerblading. I'm talking about in a hockey context here, Okay, I I will say that I find it fascinating that skateboard has remained cool, but rollerblades have disappeared. And I know it makes perfect Now let's listen. Let's listen. Listen. I see the fat dropping out in terms of extreme rollerblading, like like the skate park that the kids that bothered you. But nobody rollerblades anymore, period, not for fitness, not for anything. Like I don't even know if kids play street hockey anymore. I don't even know if that's a thing. Like like kids, my kids age, what do they roll with on their feet? You don't you don't have roller skates, you don't have, you know, roller blades. I don't understand how that just disappeared. But other than fishing, it was the only sport I was ever into. I played street hockey weekly on blades that looked like ice hockey skates. I had the CCM official roller hockey skates, and even if I was playing goal, I kept the skates on. Most kids are like playing goal and putting my sneakers, and now you keep the skates on. I mean, I'm not sure if you're actually asking me what happened to rollerblades, because if that's the case, you were asking the wrong guy, because clearly I don't know, and I don't want to know because I don't care. We could we could call up my cousin. I guess he was. He was on the state roller hawking championship team, I think, but he was really he was my younger cousin. He was a badass. Oh, I'd like to know more. I'd like to know more about that. Could he not ice skate? Is that why it was Hawaii? So ice skating not so much. Gotta gotta gotta think about what was appropriate, got it and got it. And just to like close the loop on this, man, I think I know what replaced rollerblades for the kids, and and they're called razor scooters, and they're equally terrible. And I put rollerblades and razor scooters together with Tankara rods. Alright, Yes, that's where I put both of them into that category. Like they're the kind of thing, any of those things, the kind of thing you might you might have one hidden like way in the back of your garage under a bunch of stuff, and like you might even use it occasionally when you were a hundred percent positive that no one that you respect is gonna see you. But if one of your buddies were to like, hey, what's what do you got back here, and like see that in your garage, you're gonna lie and you're gonna say it belongs to your kid. Oh god, the letters were gonna get about that one. We're gonna get letters about Razor scooters, rollerblades all together. I said it, oh man, but you know we like letters, thank god. So that's okay. Speaking of places that you you won't find ten carra stuff in Plaine View, let's head over to that was a really good you like that. It was really well the Upper Delaware on the Upper Delaware River. And I am very tight with the White Tail Fly shop crew. So we've got kind of a different smooth Move segment for you this week. I actually recorded this in the shop months ago during prime season with shop manager Pat Cook. And let's just say we're all familiar with the kind of nonsense guides on the water have to deal with, but we've yet to venture into the life of the shop guy, which is different. So here's a little taste. Why oh my little change of pace for smooth moves. Here this week. I am actually recording from inside White Tail Country Fly Shop and Starlight p A, one of my favorite shops on the planet and one of my favorite destinations. And you know, uh, smooth Moves thus far has been tailored to captains and guides telling stories of ridiculous ship that their clients have done. But we want to be all inclusive with the fishing industry, so we're gonna change it up a little bit today. And we've got Pat Cook here. How you doing, Pat? Doing pretty good? Good? Good? Now the shop guys, the unsung hero Pat, don't you feel unsung? Feel just kept in the corner like baby? So I want to I want to give I want to give voice to the unsung here. So um I figured um similarly to uh some some lunacy that that guides and captaincy. Um, this can be like groundhog Day, right, just the same questions over and over. Yeah, i'd say ten times, at least ten times a day. You get the same question normally what fly works, which is an easy one because I just say none of them, okay, But you've you've got to you've got to particularly stand out, um customer interaction that you're gonna give us on smooth moves today. So so lay it on me, man, how this what? What? What? What he got? Well? Uh, so I had a guy, let me think. I had a guy come in. He's a nice guy. You know, he was a nice guy, genuinely nice guy. Didn't know that any of this was happening, meaning meaning you were gonna be talking about him later. No, well, no didn't. I don't think he realized the things that he was saying. It was just one of those that's great. I actually at one point wondered if he was like real or not, like he may have been like a robot. So so it comes in, you know, he's Peter, and I don't Hey, how you doing? And he's he's like, oh great, you know, just passing through, you know. And I'm like, okay, you guys fishing. He's like, well, no, I only fish freshwater. I don't fish the rivers. I was like okay. And and also I thought maybe he missed, maybe he miss spoke, you know, give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he miss spoke. So then I'm like, okay, where are you guys from? And he's like, oh, I live over by Lake kum As, I said, I do only freshwater fishing. This is a real conversational conversation. He said, okay, well, you know, if you ever think about getting out on the rivers, we're here and he's like, yeah, I like the freshwater. This legitimately happens. So then he gets over, you know, he's looking around for a while, and he gets over by the hats and he wants to buy something. I can see that he wants support supports small business souvenir if you will, wants to get something. So he's looking at the hats and uh, He's like, well, why is this hat twenty dollars more expensive than this hat? And I said, well, one's waterproof. He says oh. He says, well, what happens to the hat if it gets wet? And I said, the waterproof one or the other one? He said the other one. He said, well, generally has to get wet. They collect dirt and they maybe lose a little of their form. And he says okay. So then he's trying to bolth on and then he says, well, why does this hat fit differently than this hat does? And he said, well, I'm not sure. It could be the crown in the hat. I didn't know what to say at that point. Um he ended up not buying the waterproof hat. He ended up buying the powder blue hat that I thought it might be for his daughter. But he said, this is gonna look great on me. Was it at least a white tail country flash? Now it was something else, big brand, not a small not a small shot. Okay, this is why I'm in favor of us expanding the smooth move concepts this way. I like this because even though even though that story doesn't have like an oh damn punchline at the end of it, you know, like where someone takes a dump in the livewell or falls out of the boat, it's it's more layered, and it realistically portrays what it's like to work in the fishing service industry, because that's what it is. Guys like guys like Pat deal with with this lunacy multiple times a day most of the days that they go to work. Yep, And it's it's it's more subtle, but in some ways it's almost funnier because all right, I guided for a lot of different shops over the course of my guiding career, and I never worked the counter, but I would see these poor kids show up every morning when I was waiting to meet my clients and they were opening the shop, and they just they had this look of resignation in their faces, like like yeah, kind of like Dante and Clerks when when they're opening the shop, you know, exactly. And just to mix, I'm gonna mix nineties comedy references here a bit, but like if past smooth moves or the equivalent of like Jim Carrey or Sinbad stand up, this one was squarely Stephen Wright. I get up the other day and everything in my apartment had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica or maybe Mitch Hedberg, Right, that's a cynical dude, And that's why I like them. And even if it wasn't in a fly shop, if you ever work in retail ever, you understand why this is comical, especially because you, like, you're so forced to stick to that customer is always right thing, even if you're just dying to be a total dick and you can't. And uh, anyway, look, I would love to get a few more shop owners in the mix. We know plenty of them, so that very well could happen. Yeah, we do. We know a lot of them, and hopefully they'll be here soon. In the meantime, let's let's keep up some of that that hot sales action. We're gonna move from buying ugly fishing hats that are not water to selling gently used fishing waiters that hopefully our waterproof in this week's sale, Ben, why did you put the hand to pave? You don't know what I'm getting? Man? What you didn't have to be so hurtful with me so angry? Today we've got a listing I found on offer up and this is from Philadelphia, p A. And everything about this listing is so Philly I can hardly stand it. This is a straight up Philly John right here for the people in the area that know what that term means. Up for grabs today we've got some used neoprene boot foot waiters. But here's the title of the listing. Phishing waiters spelled w A I T e r s, as in waiter in a restaurant, which must be like the you know, the pool waitress National Lampoon's vacation Um. Anyway, fishing waiters, nothing wrong with them, just got too fat. I'm still laughing quick. I gotta I gotta jump back for a second, though, I think you need to maybe do a weekly word on John, because I and many others out there have no idea what you're talking about. J A W N. But it's not a fishing term. Alright, well, Phillip, people still get it. Yeah, I got nothing on that one. But when you did send me this, I I I laughed a lot and I'm still kind of laughing because of all the things that you just heard right like they're they're the misspellings. There's there's everything going on, and and just got too fat, like straight to the point. I actually I enjoyed it so much. I actually texted back L O L and I did. I hate text shorthand and I never used it, but I did. I did that. I did it. I know, I know you wrote to be I mean, let me see, I hate L O L, but I actually am doing that right now. So this listing forced you to briefly embrace text acronyms. Um Anyhow, the description mirrors mirrors the listing title. It reads, fishing waiters spelled the same way nine and a half. I just got too fat. But you know what, I feel like it's at least possible that that there's a shred of honesty here, Like he's doing this, I think it's totally to be honest. Yeah, yeah, no it Uh. This one reminds me of the guy. It's a little less tragic, but it reminds me of the guys selling a surf gear because he hates his dad. You know. It's like my dad's selling because my dad's a Jersey Yeah that guy. Yeah, it makes me. I love this level of honesty in a in a in a sale post because it it reassures you. It's like saying there's nothing wrong with this gear, Like there's nothing wrong with these waiters. They're not leak in and and and getting you all cold. They just don't fit because I got fat. And I I believe that because he's willing to be that honest in his text, I think I think it's kind of a brilliant strategy. Really. Uh. And I also I sympathize with with his dilemma because lord knows, I've been there, Like I have friends be like, dude, you're giving me a practically brand new SIMS foul weather suit, are you sure? And I'm like, yeah, you know, I don't really, I don't really, I don't wear gray anymore, you know, Like, didn't you just get this a few months ago? Yeah? Yeah, I did, you know. So I I feel you, brother, I feel like, oh man, I'm not gonna touch I'm not gonna touch that one, Joe. I'm gonna leave that alone. Um. But I feel like we have to dive into the waiters a little bit because as much as I appreciate his presentation, I have a little issue with with this product and pricing. He's asking fifty bucks. But these are Fish America Pro gear waiters. These are not your sims G four z s people. These are these are like that stock brand that you find at Walmart or Kmart or whatever you got. And I'm not dogging on that kind of waiters. I've worn plenty of them, but I doubt they cost more than fifty bucks retail off the shelf. Yeah, I agree, because these are the caliber waiters I bought for years, like you know, school in college, and you just buy them, and I would always just expect to buy a new pair the following year. You know, they were what they were. But I was I was thinking the same thing because let's just say they were eighty bucks, right, So thirty bucks off isn't bad, but it's it's too risky of an item, right. Waiters are one of those ones like used waiters, You're you're taking a risk there because you will be very uncomfortable. So I mean, I assume that that the guy, you know, he's saying I got too fat, and he's being honest, right, But at the same time, it's still a risk. Like if I need to back up waiters and saw these at a yard sale or something, I'm still taking your word no matter how nice you come off, that they don't leak. So for you know, twenty bucks, I might, I might take that shot, but fifty I don't know. Yeah, I dropped twenty on it, but I don't think I'd go as high as fifty. But hopefully, hopefully someone does buy these from from this particular individual, because I, as I've already said, I applaud their honesty and their their their sales technique, um, and I hope whoever winds up in them is very happy and stays dry and they fit great. We both got a very good laugh out of this one, and UH and all of you out there continued to send us just such good sale bin items and we love it. So if and when you find a listing that you think we should we should spend some time with, just pass along to Bent at the meat eater dot com. If you're the kind of person that would be skeptical of buying old hip boots out a garage sale, you might also be skeptical of our ability to deliver the most pertinent and accurate current events and fishing. But we're gonna try and earn your trust anyway. It's time for fish news. Fish news that escalated quickly. Alright, I have um kind of a cool shout out this week. I have to thank fifteen year old Marion Brosick because she let me borrow her net. Okay, now hear me out. Okay, this is great, Yeah, okay, Okay, you're gonna love this for multiple reasons. Marin is the are my buddy Eric bro Sick, and Eric he runs shuttle for us time to time on a particular river um p A n p A here in Northeast and a few weeks ago I'm het up with my bud Nick Rafts, who was a professional full time trout fishing guide on said river. He's been on the show. We've had nickels show right, And as as we're dumping his boat in, I'm looking around and I'm like, bro, you bring a net. And now Nick Nick claims his net must have been stolen, so I'll go with that. I'm gonna you know, I'll let him have it. Your net got stolen. But regardless, we had no net. Okay, And suffice it to say, like in this river, especially in the middle of the winter, you ain't hooking a lot of trout, but generally speaking, if you pin one, you're gonna one a net. Right. So Eric was with us, and out of the kindness of his heart, he drove Nick's rigg with the with the trailer in tow to his own house and came back with two net options, both of which were extremely short, short handled wooden waiting nets like the standard waiting on them, No there were there were no magnets, so we just went with the one with the with the bigger hoop, which turns out to be the net Eric had made for Marin for Christmas a couple of years ago, custom complete with a lovely purple lanyard, and while it was awkward to wheel on a driftboat, we put a nine and twenty three in it. So Maren apparently heard about this later and was so happy her net came through for us. Um, she told her dad she should be on fish news. So, Maren, you've been on fish news. Okay, I thank you for the net loan. Um. You you had the proper tool. A full time professional trout fishing guide did not, and I thank you for that. Props to you, Maren, well done saving the day. I've got I've got one quick thing too, and several different listeners forwarded me this, so I'm just gonna cover it real quick. Um. Have you ever noticed how it seems like whenever we get on a roll with particular kinds of stories, something along those same lines just keeps popping up everywhere, Like like the last couple of weeks, we've each talked about Wells catfish eating birds, right, And I'm not going to do another full news story on it because two weeks in rows enough. But just this last week, National Geographic published a feature about Wells catfish titled Enormous Pigeon eating catfish Wreaking havoc on Europe's ecosystems. We we can't do it because we also told people duck lawyers are stupid, So we can't keep talking about all these bird eating fish. You know, we can't, but I do want to ship like seriously, thanks to everybody said to me. It's a really good read. And uh and I'll just for those of you aren't going to read it because most of you aren't. The coolest little nugget in there is about how Wells catfish in France have adapted to intentionally like feed on and prey upon the country's significant population of pigeons. And they kind of do it the same way that that sharks will grab prey off of beaches. The catfish are just like cruising right along the edge where we're the birds congregate and and and they wait for a pigeon to to get too close, and then they throw themselves up on shore or grab a pigeon and like flop back into the water. It's it's really cool. Uh. And and if you do read the article, there's this one photo it's so good. It's like a drone shot from above of this pack of Wells catfish circling this little island that's just covered up in pigeons. Sneaky, they're sneaky like that. Yeah, that's my shout out and and and suggestion for some quick reading. As always, this is a competition. Joe and I do not know which stories the other one is bringing, and at the end of it are illustrious and might add very handsome audio engineer Phil will declare a winner. And then after that we're gonna drip the soothing baritone of River Horse right into your ear holes. Joe, you're up first, man. That was wonderful. That was way to butter up. Philth that was that was good, buttering very good. Okay, So I get to kick here, and this is such a relatable story I can't even believe it. Very excited about this when it comes to us from Michigan's m live dot com and the headline is simply police solved mystery of a band an ice fishing gear. Now, to tell this story properly, I have to change their chronology and flow around just a little bit, because it's gonna make it funnier. Okay, So here's here's how breaks down. On Saturday, January nine, police were called to Melancamp Lake because someone reported that there was ice fishing gear on the lake near a sizeable hole in the ice that looked like a spot where someone fell through. Okay, And and by the time this was noticed, the hole it actually refrozen over, the story said, with a little more than an inch of ice. So definitely scary and something worth calling the cops over. Like that's that's freaky, right, um, And enrolled the Jackson County Sheriff's Office dive team the fire department, and they went all in. They broke through the ice, they checked for a body in the water, but all they recovered from the water was more ice fishing gear. There was just more ice fishing gear down the hole, right, So the police fascinating story. I wait, you're gonna love it. You're gonna love it. Uh. The police then went door to door asking if anyone had seen anything or if if anyone was missing, but but they weren't. There were no missing person's reports in the area. So the police put the photos of the recovered gear on social media. Um, and it was quickly recognized by a dad. They don't give the dad's name, but by a dad of two local fourteen year old boys, and he said, hey, I recognize that ice fishing gear, and then he confronted his sons, who had in fact gone ice fishing on January nine. Furthermore, okay, they were very upfront about having fallen through the ice while they were ice fishing. Okay, but they managed to get out safely. Um the day it happened, however, they came home wet and empty handed, and Dad said, well, where's all the ice fishing gear? And the kids told him it all went down the hall it's gone. But it wasn't. Obviously that wasn't true, because there was gear left on the ice, which prompted the call to police. So what is the catch here, Well, well, the gear and the whole were found on Meloncamp Lake, and on January nine, the dad had given the boys explicit instructions to not fish on Meloncamp Lake the day of the incident. The boys lied and said they were on Little Wolf Lake, which was a dad approved ice fishing venue. Okay, Now, as a parent, there's certainly the very scary, unfunny aspect of this. But if you can't appreciate the humor, because in our teenage years, we've we've all like figuratively been right here and created an inadvertent ship storm for ourselves. That just spirals. Okay, and I figure after the scare. After they got out of the water. You know, these two were like, okay, dude, we cannot tell Dad. We were on Melancamp Lake. And I bet one of them was probably even like, but we left a rod in a chair out there, and they just just leave it. We'll just tell Dad we lost it. We lost everything because fourteen year olds like there, your mind is so obsessed with lying your way out of your immediate problem that I guarantee they did not have the foresight to say, yeah, but if somebody sees a rod in a giant hole and a chair out there or whatever, they might call the cops. I was, I was here. I remember, like you know, we had a family boat with a big cabin, and like my dad left me and a buddy down there overnight. He headed home, and me and my my buddy, we were like seventeen, stayed down there. And he's like, I don't care what you do tomorrow, just don't run a boat from the bait shop. Like, what's the first thing you do the next day? You go run a boat from the bait shop. You don't want to fish on the dock. So I get it, um, But to bring closer to this, right, the dad went to the police station. When he went to reclaim his gear, he brought the kids with him, and the officer quoted in the story, he says, if you could have seen the looks on these kids faces when the dad brought them in, they were scared to death, and the kids got it talking to about the importance of being truthful and listen to your parents. But the cops said, he really thinks the dad was hoping that that he'd be a lot harder on them, but he just couldn't do it. He was just happy they were okay. He just couldn't do it. But I understand that, right I would have hoped that to have been, like, here's a hundo, you can cut him and throw him in a sell or, so I'll come back and get them. You know, I don't I don't want to have to deal with this ever again. Can you can you help me? All? That's what I appreciate. It's like a goofy little thing, but I appreciate, like it's like that one detail that a fourteen year old you overlooked, that just took that like now there are police involved and knocking on doors and calls to action and dive teams just because you couldn't just run back out and pick up the chair and the rod. I mean, this is one of those most where I wish I could. I wish I could talk to these kids, but I also wish I could talk to fourteen year old me and say, you know, if you start the lies, they're just gonna stack up on top of each other and eventually they're gonna be too many lies for you to keep track of and you're gonna be screwed. So just don't. Just don't do it. Just don't start what happened here, kids, just you know ice safety. Listen to your dad, says me. The dad, now who didn't listen to my dad, just forget everything. I just said, yeah, I know my kids are gonna like fourteen year old We wouldn't listen to four year old me would be like whatever, old man, I don't care. I'll tack on. Good on you for going ice fishing for a couple of fourteen years, going out on their own. Not that doesn't happen enough anybody. I had no problem with that at all, And good on the dad for allowing that to happen, even though it's a dangerous activity. Yes, yes, I can support that. Uh and then we haven't really gotten to it yet, but we will at some point in this show have a substantive discussion about the massive advances in technology and ice fishing. There's been a lot of coverage about that kicking around lately, there has, and I haven't picked any of it up. But because there's not not been in the thing that I'm like, I gotta bring it to to fish News. But I will say that that I can't wait for us to find the right avenue for that conversation because I think it's one that people want to want to hear from us about. And though the story on butt Cella has nothing to do with ice fishing ice fishing gear, it does have to do with fish and technology and uh and and I'm gonna I'm gonna go with a story about robot fish and and and not the robotic fish lures that that you brought in and we discussed a few weeks back. Still think those are lame hooks off it's a robot fish, and just saying these particular robot fish I think are far more interesting than than those things. So that's that's that's my my intro there um Roboticists at Harvard University have come up with what they call blue bots, which are four in robot fish loosely designed to mimic Indo Pacific reefish called blue tangs. These blue bots they have they have tails that flap just like like a fish, and that's how they they propel themselves with the water, and they have dorsal fins that can move to control their direction. They also have three and sixty degree camera eyes and then blue led lights on their backs, and these fish can be programmed to visually locate one another and mimic some of the complex schooling behaviors of real fish. For example, the blue bots they can arrange themselves into that that swirling tornado that bait fish do when they're trying to avoid predators. They spiral around and not run into each other and keep that tight tex. They can go out and locate objects in their environment and then alert the others in the school to where the location is, so they all they all go there together. And that might not sound particularly impressive, but but the the ultimate goal of this technology, which is developed based on observations of actual schooling fish in the wild, it could have some pretty badass implications. For example, they think it might help in aiding open water rescue missions, UH, seeking out and destroying harmful invasive species like lionfish, monitoring deep water infrastructure, helping us better understand how and why fish school improving self driving cars, or even finally allowing us to colonize Mars. All right, that's a that's a big one there. Yeah, yeah, that's where that's that's the one you didn't secum up. The key is the developing robots that utilize collective intelligence to dictate their actions, just like schooling fish to Instead of individual intelligence, it's a collective intelligence. And and here's a kind of a long quote that I think sums it up pretty well from Wired magazine. This is the power of the crowd. A team of blue bots in constant communication and an exceedingly simple form of communication at that can work together to accomplish a mission. This is more fantasy than reality for now, but think about going to Mars. If Elon Musk and all the other rich guys want to pull that off. Before humans can inhabit the planet, they'll need shelters, so you would have to send robot teams beforehand. And on Mars there's no way to control the robots because there's too much latency for a signal to go from here to Mars, so they really need a high degree of autonomy without humans around to fix the mistakes. They'll have to cooperate perfectly to pull off complex construction tasks, all while navigating the rough Martian to rain that's so heavy and scary. So there you go. If Elon Musk ever gets to build his creepy Martian utopia, we will have fish to thank for it. Yeah, and then we'll get there and be like, oh, thanks for building all this welcome, and they'll kill us because now they live there, right, don't having these people seen? Terminator man like this is this is exactly how this ship begins. I'm not I'm not actually all that that excited about the colonizing Mars thing. But the other ways that they're thinking about using this technology I think is really cool, like like track it down line fish, like sending these things out of seeking destroy robots to kill lion fish, super cool, monitoring infrastructure, super cool, keeping an eye on on ecosystems without having to send people out, all very useful. My only concern is, like if we send out deployed too many of these. It feels like we're sending a lot of potential trash out of the oceans. But I see how the benefits could out with the risks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and on one hand, there's the part of me that's like, this is too much, this has gone too far. I don't I don't, I don't want this. But if all the things you rattled off, these could do like little lion fish sniper butts, That's cool, that's really cool. Like that's I want in on that, like like that program, just like reef and they just like seeking. I mean, that's that's badass. Um. Also, I have to imagine that the animated Lord people are knocking on the door, because this right here is the next iteration of the a rig just a whole school of um I have one animated Lord. When you have a whole and time you could you can just make your own baseball. They've all got a hook in them. They all speak to each other. See what you've done. See the ideas we're giving people? Now, Yeah, we're gonna ruin fishing. Okay, good transition here, though, because because my next story sort of ties that future uristic technology and where it's going with like is that good or bad? And there's kind of some good things. I don't know anyway, This is local to me, but the the overriding subject cannon is affecting a lot more people in a lot more places. Okay. So this is from the app dot com headline you can fish our turbines. Okay. So there's a there's a big proposal. It seems to be moving to the next phases to build a giant wind farm off the Jersey coast. Okay, and now the whole field of those massive turbines that have ey sword millions of acres and ruining what we're stunning views in some places in my opinion anyway, this would be a new thing for Jersey. But these turbines already exist off many other coasts, including Rhode Island. Apparently there's a farm of them off Rhode Island. The proposal for Jerors put the turbines ten to twenty miles off shore, a little southeast of Barnegat Inlet Um. So this is from the story. There are many details to be worked out regarding the Atlantic Shores offshore winds lease site. The wind energy developer has a message to fishermen, they are welcome to try their luck there. And today I say, thanks Atlantic Shore off Shore Wind. But let me say something, we planned on it already, Like we were kind of already going to do that no matter what you said, okay, and the developers said it will it will not exclude anglers from the roughly eighty three thousand acre wind farm. They just asked that we please not tie off our boats to them. And I mean, that's a fine rule. Best of luck with that too. Suffice it to say, in New Jersey, Transit has a hard enough time policing anglers that trespass on the railroad tracks to catch stripers at the bridges on land. Um. And I mean there's even a real guy sitting in a little railroad house there, and that's a problem. So don't be shocked people if some folks tie off to your turbines. Just a heads up. Anyway, the turbines off Rhode Island are already a fishing hotspot. Per the story, I don't know that much about them, that's just from the story. And then it says and I find this caveat interesting. Um, jes how well turbines attract fish is still under much study. It says that Noah actually conducted a study on this and found that black sea bass, which are a really important species here commercially and recreationally, are sensitive to the sound created by wind turbines, so they don't like them. Um. In fact, many anglers, both on the commercial and recreational side, have raised a concern that the electromagnetic field that that these turbines and the whole field of them will create will actually scare fish away. Um. And the developers say that because the cables will be they're gonna be buried at least six ft below the ocean floor, this won't be a problem. So here's what I say, man, Like, I'm all for other sources of energy, but I god, I hate looking at those things that I'm sure I've been to so many places where it's just miles of them in every direction. So at least they're they're not an eesre offshore like at least they're their way out there, so they're not you know. Um. But that said, I'm excited, and I don't I don't give a damn about black sea bass really, but I mean, there's gonna be Mahi and Kobea and to me, it creates sort of one of those who knows kinds of areas where where all kinds of odd ball shit will show up, you know, like we live. We live in that area where sort of the southern species and fisheries kind of cross over here in the summer, like kingfish king Max as an example, they're called off Jersey all summer long. But it's pretty random, like you just catch one out there in the great wide open while you're targeting something else. Right now, you put a bunch of of of turbines out there, you're providing exactly the kind of structure that they cling to down south where there's oil rigs. So I, I mean, I find it from a fishing standpoint very exciting. We've never had anything like this here and rig fishing in the Gulf has always been one of my favorite things. So it's gonna be a few years out before this is established, I think, and we can go fish them. But I don't know, man, it's something different. I don't know. I don't know where you are on the wind farms, Probably a lot I could say about wind Yeah, I do have a lot of I can say about wind farms. I'm not opposed. Let me, let me start there, and and I'm I'm in favor of finding alternative sources of energy that that we can make work and that are viable and actually productive. I think though that technology has potential, it also has potential drawbacks. What I'm what I you you teat up the oil rig thing, which is exactly that's where I went to, right, because those are such important spots for for for anglers in the Gulf, and you just go target so many fish every yeah, and then so much stuff, and there's there's sort of like I don't I don't mean to be crass or cynical, but there's already sort of this like cultural cage match between petroleum and UH and alternative energies. And I feel like we can just extend this out into fishing and be like, all right, who's got the best fish habitat oil rigs and wind farms and like, you know, find another way for us to fight over what kind of energy sources we put up. Not that that's a good thing, but I am curious to see how it goes. Yeah, I would say riggs are gonna win because looking at sounds like this offshore turbines, you know, it's not like a straight telephone pole going into the ocean. There is a base and and legs, but there's just not as much metal and hidy holes and things down there as an oil ring. Um. But I I don't know, man, I think over time it would actually have the potential to create, you know, consistent fisheries here that are not consistent Cheep's head, King Max, stuff like that. That kind of pitter patter around here beaunifar between. But man, you put some some metal out there like that, I'm I'm excited. Here's what I'll say. I think. I think if there are any offshore wind farm developers listening to the show, fat chance. But if you are, here's your opportunity to get a large chunk of people on board with you. If you want to get local support. Tell them you're gonna redesign the basis of those things to have more structure and hidy holes and intentionally create fish gathering habitat, and I bet you get a whole lot more fishermen on board. Put a bent logo on every single blade. What does that say? It's moving really fast? I can't see it. Uh. Look, I think if that happens, it will create a potentially great fishery for a very localized group of folks. And as we do sometimes we focus on very localized stories and this, this next one I've got is one of those super localized stories. But I think it's pretty interesting. Um. The final story of the day comes to us from the local Minneapolis ABC affiliate with the headline Lake Minnetonka anglers rush to save thousands of game fish and like, if you go check this out, it's a totally standard local evening news segment. Like it's just it's a lot of really bad b roll of like scenery and dead fish and this frozen creek cut together with just one interview of an older gentleman who's hanging out around the creek. I think after the story it already kind of ended. And I'm not I'm actually not ragging. I want to be clear, I'm not ragging on local news reporters, because those folks get like five buck one camera in twenty minutes to go and shoot and edit a ten minute piece and it sucks for them. But I'm just I'm just trying to set the scene here. But here's this is the crux of the story. Minni haaha, Creek runs through Minneapolis and and it's it's the centerpiece for a series of urban parks around the city. The creek connects Lake Minnetonka, which is the like the aquatic playground of the Twin Cities, to to the Mississippi River. A few days ago, residents and anglers around Minniehaha Creek started noticing these huge numbers of fish congregating in the pool just below Gray's Bay Dam, and a significant proportion of those fish were dead or dying. Gray's Bay damn separates Lake Minnetonka from Minnehaha Creek, and it was built in nine to control seasonal flooding. From May through October, the Watershed District opens the head gates and monitors the flow to roughly mimic natural seasonal patterns while holding back any catastrophic floodwaters. But from December through April, those gates get completely shut. And when that happens, the creek loses most of its influence and it doesn't run dry, but it loses most of that flow out of the out of the lake it and it ices over and then oxygen levels start to drop, and when that happens, all the fish that are they're hanging out in that creek, start looking for a more suitable habitat, but they're kind of screwed. Downstream passage gets blocked by minni haha falls, and then if they try and go upstream back in the lake, they run in the dam. So the result is exactly what you see captured in this local news story. It's it's it's this big creek, like a big pool right at the head of the creek, and it's just full of fish and they're all slowly running out of oxygen. They got nowhere to go. Not surprisingly, a group of locals, many of whom seem to be anklers, decided they were going to step in and try and save the fish, or or at least the specific fish that they hope they could catch in the future. Right. They're they're definitely selectively being like, oh, there's a nice bath. There's exactly and all these all these folks have been like showing up there and gearing up with waiters and nets and like someone just have treble hooks and snagging lines and they're just gathering fish, piling them into wheelbarrows and then ferrying them over the dam and and drilling holes in the lake and dropping the fish through the holes in the ice back into the lake. Okay, so Ken Martinson, the angler who was interviewed for the local news story, estimated that they had saved about two thousand fish, specifically looking at bass, northerns, and big muskies. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources told the local news station that the annual fish skills are quote a natural process every year, and that some fish will die as oxygen levels go down with the ice cover. The DNR added that winter fish rescues are not generally done as nature takes its course. So I am all for allowing nature to take its course, and sometimes that does mean winter kill, whether we're talking about terrestrial or wildlife. Animals die in winner. That happens, and and we can't and we shouldn't try and save them all. But calling this particular situation a natural process just it doesn't. It doesn't work for me because it's it's a direct result of closing the damn and that's not natural, right, Like, I want to be clear, I'm not saying Minnesota dn R is wrong. It's there, it's their logic, it's it's the justification that they used. There. The new natural the natural as we've made it kind of I'm if so if they were if they had said, if they had just said, you know, something like that watershed has healthy game fish numbers and the winter killing minnie haha, creek doesn't pose enough of a threat to the overall populations to justify the resources it would take for a fish rescue. I would be totally fine with that. I'd be like, cool, that's a bummer, but I get it so so like I wish that. I get that that may have not sounded as good in a in a press release statement, but I feel like that's the more honest answer, and I wish that that's what they'd gone with. And despite all that, if I were one of those local anglers and I walked up on all that, I'm pretty sure I'd be wadering up and grabbing my nep net and being like, oh, there's there's a good one. I'm getting that. I'd do the same thing that these folks are doing. I think I would, like even if even if I knew that the outcome didn't really matter in the grand scheme of the health of fisher, Like, even if I knew that saving that one muskie was completely symbolic. Because the chances of me ever catching that musky in the future are zero, I think I'd still do it. I do it. I mean, yeah, I it'd be hard to see big muskies and northerns just just flopping there but just dying sadly. If you and I walked up on this and it was like a bunch of suckers or something, I I probably wouldn't And that's that's that's kind of my point, right that it's totally a symbolic act that makes those those folks feel good. And I'm not dogging on either the d n R or those people because I get where both of them are coming from. I wish the DNR being a little more honest about it. But I also think if I were one of those anglers, even if I knew it was a pointless thing to do, I'd probably be down there scooping with them. And one one final point I have to add here there there's a literary angle for me in their story. Mini Haaha Creek is named for a fictional character in the epic Longfellow poem Song of Hiawatha. In that poem, the protagonist's great love Minnie haha, meets an untimely and tragic but unavoidable end when she dies in the midst of a severe winter. Oh man. So you know, if you if you had a poetic flare, you might say that the game fish in that creek, that that they get trapped. Every winner just kind of adhering to a fate inherent in the name of the creek where they are, you know. Ah, there's also a musical tie. And didn't didn't Prince say why don't you purify yourselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka? Was that? Or was that Chappellee Chapelle? Every time some I appreciate every time somebody says lake Minnetonka, I have to say to myself, why don't you purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka? So thank you. Yeah. So that that's That's where I'm ending on. That one was with was was longfellow? Well Phil can take over now, Phil, I'm I'm quickly trying to remember what we talked about Minni ha ha, scooping muskies and piking the wheelbarrows? What did I talk about today? Lying, dirty, lying teenagers who who scared scared their parents to death. It's a Smorg's board of opportunities of fish news here for you. Phil picked the morsel that seems most delectable. Joseph Millie, you're the winner this week. And guys, before you find all my fishing gear on the ice and unraveled this for yourselves, I have something to tell you. A few weeks ago, I made this joke about how I couldn't find a PS five in stores, and you guys very graciously wish that I found my PS five for Christmas, and I gotta come clean. I've had a PS five since November. In fact, I play so many video games that Sony invited me to a private preorder waiting room to get it directly from them. So there you have it. I'm a pasty indoor kid. And if I ever turn in this podcast late, it was probably because I spent the entire day playing demon souls like a middle schooler during summer vacation. And now this is a river Horse coming to you from the Deep South with some Sage Lee wisdom. Today we're gonna take a little trip to the country club. What's that you ask, Verhorse, Are you a member of a country club? Why? Yes, The whole earth is our country club. But as far as this particular country club goes ah nah. But there's golf there. Do I play golf? Oh that's a good one. If I did, my driver would be in eight weight and my golf ball at dear hair frog. But you know what is there that I do find quite interesting? A bunch of bass ponds along the course. So let's go check it out. Come along the country club with an initial membership vie a fifty thousand bucks and another grand a month for dues. Sits along a few ponds that, based on satellite images, are dark, greasy, weedy and sublime. I try to imagine paying fifty grand for something, but that doesn't really register even my flat skiff. I sold a guitar to get it. One of the secrets of fancy country clubs is that the greens are shut down for maintenance one day a week. Here. That day is Monday. That's why I like to stop on by. According to the groundskeeper, the bass are from a strain first stocked in the nineteen forties. They are absolute slabs. He tells me. Oh that's interesting, I replied from the truck, feigning boredom. The first couple of trips I went there. The place was empty. As with any set of gates with a guard, it's best to act like you belong there. I rolled through it a respectful but confidence twenty miles and hold a pair of fingers out the door. Hey, hey, so good to see you, and keep right on rolling to the back park a lot. I've never really understood the concept of golf, although I've always known a life without obsession is worthless, so I can relate on some level. Still, do they realize how many stellar fly rods you could buy instead of a set of clubs, an eight weight versus a five iron? Are you kidding me? Behold the shooting head with the clouser or frog attached and watch this ninety ft draft. Unfortunately for me this time, when I show up to fish golf as one, there's a tournament going on from far away, it looks like the crowd is congregated against the distance side of the course, leaving the seedy backwater ponds open. Well, it's where I want to fish anyway, Quickly line up the fly rod and go for it. There's something about casting a fly road we all unconsciously know a simple rhythm of it puts the rest of the world in the rear view mirror. It doesn't even seem real to me. I'm already lost, gliding a stout frog the size of a hard bowed egg, deep into the recesses of the cove when I realized that the petting green above me is filled with hundreds of golf fans. Some of them are looking down at me. Let I see telephoto lenses, film cameras, polo shirts with the colors up, and even the guy holding the flag. And then I see the wicked take of a seven pounder crushing the frog, and I strips it hard while the throngs of a crowd stopped the golf tournament to cock. The bass finally ms alongside the manicured grass bank of the putting green, where we can all get a good look at him broadside, just for good measure. He tells gravity to kiss his ass and tail walks with gills blared and heaving the last few feet of water. I can't breathe for a second. It's so beautiful. Thousands of the fans scream and a plod, and some dork ask gives a long cat co whistle. Then I see golf carts coming my way, A lot of them. Oh lordy, this is about to get exciting. You obviously aren't remember here. Do you know who is that up there? Bellows the course official after he removes the unlit cigar from his mouth, going for levity, as say, whoever it is, just saw me stick a sweet bass. The country club cop proves to be a tough audience in yells that's bleep in certain name of famous veteran pro golfer. Here he's trying to qualify for the U S Open. Get in the cart now. Thus begins the golf cart slow and bizarre raety of shame. I slide into the seat next to him, or what's left of it. We crawled past the onlookers with their frowns, smirks and disgusted glares. I miss the days when you could moon people and not get in trouble. These guys could have used a good rowdy pressed ham the old hogback growler. I know I'm pushing the limits pretty hard already, and I'm still not sure if there'll be a trespassing ticket. So I behave and break down the rod. One two three, I count five other golf carts following at the parking lot, I refrain from many more jokes as I show them the tail lights of the truck and reach for a beer from the cooler. I recently found yet another country club down the road from our former president lives. The membership is more than a hundred thousand bucks a year. Sweet Jesus, what do they have in there? Tarban Oh, I'll let you know next Monday. And that's our sagely wisdom for today. And what have we learned? Let the world be your country club? Now get out there and stick em. Well, that was my favorite stagey wisdom yet river Horse, mind too? You nailed it, Man, mind too, Man, you absolutely nailed it. But I mean truth is I am and river Horse knows this. I'm a sucker for anything that pokes fun of golf or golf culture. I actually worked for for a short time as a server at a country club for a few months and uh and it was so many things, security guard, country club. I've had a lot of shitty jobs, man, and uh and but that one was like my own personal hell, right, and I have so many like we don't have time sometimes in another context, I will maybe write a book about it. But there weren't even any bass ponds on the course that I could go sneak away and fish and get fired. It's well, they see. This actually makes me realize how jealous I am of river Horse and guys like him in general. And I'll tell you why. I'm not saying that. Never in my life have I fished somewhere I wasn't supposed to be right, But on those rare rare, very very rare occasional super rare um I wasn't exactly relaxed while I was doing it, you know what I mean. The river Horse breaker. Yeah, not now. But then you have dudes like river Horse that not only do they pull it off, but they're just totally chill about it and they're not sweating the consequences. And I admire I admire that confidence. I admire that attitude of like it's all good and so what if we get caught, man, nothing bad is gonna happen. Where I'm like, oh fine, let's we'll just get in and make a couple of casts and get the hell out of here. Okay, just get in real quick, and Castle will go because I'm I don't want to go to jail. Okay, he'd river Horse would tell me like I like you let the man bring you down. It's probably say to me, no, no, no, river Horse would would never like judge like that. I don't I think I can confidently say. I think his response will be something like, that's your journey Homebray, you find your own whips sticking it to the man. Maybe he'll call in and tell me I was wrong. But but that's how I think you would respond, And I hope not alright. So so moving on, speaking of the man, we're gonna we're gonna skip end of line this week for once, not forever. It's coming back soon, but just this week. And uh. Instead, we're gonna slot in a tackle hacks because we've got a really good one from the Big bass Man himself, also known as our buddy Oliver. And I this is a This is a great tip for for people like river Horse who sneak into golf courseponds, because you gotta maximize your efficiency before the security gets you. Uh and and if you're only gonna get intent casts, this tip is gonna help you make them count. I'm getting hacks coming from inside the city, Hi the flood joining us today on tackle hacks, very good friend of the program. Bass fishermen among all other fisheries extraordinaire. Oliver and I have big bass streams. What's going on? Man? Boys, appreciate you being here, I think, uh, I think it's fair to say that that we can all learn something from you and your skills. You certainly get around and fish for all kinds of different species, even though you are most associated with bass. So I'm very curious because of your repertoire and and all the different things you fish for, what you got for us for a tackle hack today? What is the the simple trick that is stuck with you that you lean on often that can help us all perhaps achieve our own big bass dreams? Well? Uh, common flure style amongst multiple species is a jighead and a soft plastic. I've heard of this he somewhere. That's the thing. It kind of makes me cringe when I look at guys that post these keeping piles of you soft plastics. Like Man, I had an incredible day. I've got a hundred dollars worth those soft baits that I just burned through. When I grew up, Man, I was really poor, so I would literally take every soft plastic bait I was catching fish on that would rip off my Texas rig worms, off my Carolina rigs, off my little dater head and grub setups. And I would go home and I'd take a lighter and I would melt them all back together so I could keep using them and keep catching fish. And that still can be a thing. But one one tackle hack that I figure it out, especially when you're working with the jighead and a soft bait, is to secure that plastic body with half a drop of superglue. So all you wanna do is take your jighead, thread the head of your plastic up to the shank, and then apply that glue to that shank here right on that curve, and push that bait into place. And one single swoop, clean motion, and that little dab of superglue is gonna achieve a couple of things. It's gonna lock that plastic body onto that jighead, so when you're getting short strike, your bait's not getting its pants pulled down and now deemed inoperable. That's its most important component in feature for me, as it keeps you actually fishing all of the time, all right. And then of course the cheap side of me, I mean, the frugal side of me really likes the fact that I can catch you know, ten fish on a swim bait body like this, if you know, lady luck is on my side instead of one fish per bait. So I'm a huge fan of superglue in general. I use it for way too many things, you know what i mean, even in fly tying, Like sometimes I'm just lazy and like just put it, you know, drop superglue on there. But what I'm curious about because I've heard about putting superglue on the collar of say a jighead, sort of slathering on the jam and it on. But you're talking about this one drip down the the sort of the slick shank of the hook, right, So I'm curious does it hold it in place securely enough to do all those things but also make it so you don't destroy your bait if you have to say, change colors. Oh see, at that point, I'm just gonna cut the jighead off, okay and grab another bait because it just it's not worth it. Got you, okay, I understand, Okay, So you just gonna change out the whole jig head and sort of have all your colors lined up, but then those are all secure and they stay on there. Yeah. Typically, you know, you can figure out whatever color combo or jakehead weight combo is working in a particular scenario, so hopefully you'll have a narrowed narrowed down by then and you're not having to continually switch. I love it, man, and particularly people spend a lot of money on hand pores. I mean, the handboard stuff is such a big deal now and I use a lot of it, but I just I mean it is softer, generally speaking than a lot of the molded stuff. So I have that problem with hand poors a lot, and I use a lot of handpoard swim baits like for dolphin and stripers out here. So there you go, glue on the shank. So that's it for this week, and I'd say we've completely outfitted you for a mashup of sports. NG. You're now fully prepared to roll and blade over to the off course with your ten car rode while wearing questionable waiters and an overpriced powder blue hat. Please send selfies are you doing these things? Well? That was that was? That was well done? And send those please if they had those exist, send them. Also send bar nominations, sale bin items, thoughts, comments, and concerns to Bent at the meat eater dot com. We really do love hearing from you, and remember, if we use anything you send in the show, you get a killer sticker pack from us. Likewise, we always have eyes on those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on Instagram. You might get stickers by tagging us up to we are watching you. We really do hope you're all getting out on the water this weekend, whether that be liquid or solid. However you find it, go enjoy it. And if you're getting out for trespassing, don't tell the man we told you to do it. Do not implicate us in matter