00:00:01 Speaker 1: They wear an electric filet knife on their belt daily in case impromptu cleaning of a hundred soccer lot pops up. Hashtag get psyched, hashtag you can do this hashtag Maybe I once saw a hippo chase a thirty foot double decker cruise boat and and the boat blinked first. And my personal favorite, the bomat fish whisper floating fish building. Good morning, degenerate anglers, Welcome to band, your trusted source for all the latest greatest sense attractings, fish oils, holy waters, and chum to dress your favorite mayfly parachutes. I'm Joe Surmelim Miles Nulty, and I never fish, at least I never fished dry flies anyway without first dunking them in a vial of holy water. It's the only way I can expire confidence in my technical trout fishing game. Listen, man, my my mom. Never without holy water my top. Yeah, do my entire life. There's been a vial or two in the linen closet, like in case someone's new car needs to be blessed. I'm okay, I'm not for protection. Yeah yeah, And like she's not overly religious either, but there's always and like I'm not kidding, Like she'll come out and it's like, sprinkle it on the tires, Like you got a new truck, sprinkles on holy water on the tires. That's an We don't have any of that kind of ritual. You don't know what to say. You're like, yeah, that's that's great. I think that's fast. Like I genuinely wish we had something like that where we believed enough and something we'd be like, yes, I was making a joke about holy water and dry plis. You're like, no, No, that's a thing, dude. Next time you have a sore throat, I'll have her ship goes away, got covid holy water? Slug it. Anyway, Look, we all have we all have rituals, right. Um. It's another one of those things that seems to unite all anglers. And we may not all have the same superstitions, but we anglers all seem to cling to some form of personal faith or another. And I have to ask, like, do you have a particular you have a thing you do or don't do when you go fishing? Uh? You know I did, Like when I was younger, I definitely did, Like I had a lot of those things, and and I think primarily from what I remember, I was all about the lucky apparel, you know, like I had my lucky hat, I had lucky socks, I had a lucky shirt. Uh, and you know, I would change the combinations depending on what I felt like I needed that day. I don't remember pants, underwear, shoes having any special mysticism, and I don't know why, but like all other articles of clothing, we're fair game. And they were they were important, and they were specific, and they had like certain things that I did for them. I actually had a lucky pin that I would wear and don't have since given to my son. But anyway, these days, it's not so much what I wear. It's like it's it's interior, like I gotta get my head right. Yeah, no, it is. It is like that sounds stupid, but it's no, Like I really feel like like I need to find a sense of confidence and certainty that like I'm gonna catch a fish and and on those days that are long and slow and I'm just like not feeling it or I'm struggling, and and if if I get the sense that that that confidence is wavering, I will stop fishing and I'll like take a couple of minutes and get myself together and try and find that sense of confidence. And I think that's these days. I think that's as close as I get to having having a ritual or superstition, is that I gotta have my head right. Yeah, No, I identify with that. I do that all the time. You just have to stop and pause and like collect yourself and figure out why you're fishing. Like ship Um, it happens too often, a matter of fact. But I used to have I used to have a lucky Adida's hat. Yeah, I wore it for years, right, and then I lost it in a Ruba. But I still kept catching a bunch of fish on that trip after I lost it, So then I never bothered with another lucky fishing hat. I was like, f the lucky fishing hat apparently wasn't that lucky. So I don't know, I'm gonna cut you off. I'm sorry, but I like, you just reminded me of something because my last lucky fishing hat and this is super geeky and we'll say something about me, But it was like my my Little League All Stars hat that I held on too until it and it finally disintegrated. I found in my mom's house a few years ago, and had it had come apart, it was done. Oh, this Adida's hat was like it needed to be burned or thrown out regard. I mean it was literally it was disgusting. I mean it was like brown from years of sweat. But I thought it was lucky. And now I don't. I don't do lucky clothes anymore. I don't do good luck charms. However, I do firmly believe. How do I say that getting lucky the night before a fishing trip makes you luckier the next day? I have not expected I like this idea, I might have to adopt. Plus I like it, okay, But if you like that, here's the other here's the other part of it, and don't ask me where this all comes from. I also believe that pleasuring yourself the night before a trip is the kiss of death. Really, and now that that's been said, many people, including you, might hate me because you're gonna adhere to it, and you're thinking, well, I don't buy that. But just in case he's right, What if he's right, what if I'm so sorry, I'm gonna have to think about that you brought up superstitions, so that's just that's that's anyway. A lot of us we adhere to very specific superstitions. Of course, we'll get off the pleasure of yourself and go to the banana thing. We all know about that. Well it's kind of the same. But the banana thing, um, you know that's it's bad luck to bring bananas on the boat. That's probably the biggest overarching one. Yeah, no, I mean that that. I'd say that. I think that's the most common fishing superstition, right, like it's bad luck to bring bananas on a boat. That bad luck to bring banana's fishing, And people get super super heated about that. Yeah. Like I know guides and chartered like a lot of guys and chartered captains who will lose their minds when someone brings a banana on their boat. Yeah, so do I to the point where I almost find it obnoxious, Like not the belief per se. If you believe that, that's fine. But I know a handful of guys like their their their boats and trucks are like slathered with those no banana stickers with with a slash through them. And I'm like, come, on that's not that's like a salt life sticker, Like you really need that on your boat, you know. But um, there are some captains that will go so far as to demand their clients throw anything even banana related overboard. I've seen it. I've seen dudes throw banana boats, sunscreen off the boat. They don't like Banana Republic shirts. Um. Then I have my personal favorite. Is there there's a whole legend about slicing the tags off Fruit of the Loom underwear. Never mind the fact that Fruit of the Loom does not now, nor has it ever, had a banana on any of its tags. Okay, And I got so deep into that I actually wrote about it. There's a whole story about it. You can check out. It's a bar room banner piece on the metator dot com. It's called Fishing Superstition, Change your underpants Forever. That is seriously, go read that one. It's a deep dive and a head. It's a really deep dive. And I thought I knew all there was to know about this whole bananas and fishing and boats thing, and then you wrote that article and I was like, Oh, there's a lot I don't know. But what you don't cover in that one, and understandably so, because it's been covered. Is the real backstory and why bananas on boats are ad luck? Right and and and the truth of that is that that nobody really knows, Like there's no definitive answer. There are a few different ones, right like so, so most people think it has something to do with the banana boats of the seventeen hundreds that used to that that were that they were carrying the fruit from the Caribbean islands up to the mainland of North America and even Europe. And some people say that boats carrying various like varied fruit cargo would spoil if they had bananas on board, And so sailors began to assume that bananas were bad luck, because this is before people understood, you know, the whole ethylene gas thing that bananas give off, which actually does make fruit spoil. They're like, it's the bananas are bad luck. No, it's science. But there's another story that sailors would actually slip on the banana peels and hurt themselves like a freaking cartoon, which I don't buy. There's like this whole host of theories out there. If you really want to get into this. But the one that I like best, the one that I've always told people, uh, is that banana bunches. Back then, the big into bananas would carry venomous spiders that were hidden in the nooks and crannies, and like at night, those spiders would would crawl out and bite the crew in their sleep and kill them. Also, so other ships would come upon these banana boats just drifting at sea with the whole crew dead. That's always been my favorite explanation to And it's a creepy image, isn't It's very hard. It's very creepy. Yeah, I like that one. So there you go, Uh, do with that info what you will. But just remember that some people take the banana thing dead serious and it I mean, it really could be worse as far as universal fishing beliefs go. Um, that one's it's pretty innocuous, really. I mean, we could all believe in in you know, blood sacrifices to improve your fishing luck. We're not quite there, So I'm just all I could picture right now is Major League and getting Joe Boo with chicken. Uh. And that would be much messier, you know, that would be if like if if captains were like, we're not catching anything. Something's gotta die. That would be I think that would give fishing a really bad name. Speaking of blood sacrifices, Joe is going to open you up to the history of a term for a piece of fishing gear that's not as common as it once was. Webster's Dictionary defines fish as this week's word is priest. And I'm not talking about Father Guido Sarducci here, nor Father Caress and Father Marin, though you could say the priests were talking about exercise the spirits out of fish, and very rapidly and humanely at that, minus all the pea soup and cuss words. A priest is a small bat, usually shorter than a night stick, though they come in many different sizes, and they're crafted specifically for dispatching a fish with a sharp blow to the head. It's called a priest to play on the notion that it's giving a catch its last rites. Now, if this sounds like some backwoods tool whittled in an Appalachian holler, you could not be more wrong. The priest's origins date back many centuries to Europe, where were as common and necessary a piece of on the water kit, as your fish brain app and line cutters ring are today. Furthermore, priests were handed down through generations, held in the same regard you might hold a knife made in a local forge by an expert bladesmith. In many upper class angling circles in Britain and Scotland and France, fine handmade priests were presented as gifts. But even if you were poor, if you fished, you probably made yourself a trustee priest. So how do I know all this? Well, believe it or not, I own a book called A Collection of Fishing Priests by British author Dave Watson. It's not a very fat book, in fact, it's more like a magazine. And when I received an unsolicited complimentary copy years ago, I said to myself, who the hell writes a book about fishing priests? Now here we are today, and you're thanking me for being such a hoarder. In fact, I spent forty seven minutes digging around in my frigid attic to find this book. That's how much I love you, guys and way. Traditional priests were made from a wide variety of woods, including walnut, rosewood, boxwood, and maple. But one of the most popular woods was Lignum vita. Lignum vita, also known as guayacon, is actually the national tree of the Bahamas. It only grows in the Caribbean and was exported like crazy to Europe starting in the early sixteenth century. Lignum vita makes a superb priest because it's incredibly strong, hard, and dense. In fact, Europeans used Lignum vita for so much that these days it's actually classified as an endangered flora now similar to knife making, old school priests featured all kinds of unique embellishments and personal touches, such as brass heads and pewter bands. Some of the most extravagant priests in Watson's book, which date back well before the eighteen hundreds, are made of scrimshawled elephant and narwhal ivory and barren initials and royal crests. Now, if you're wondering when this whole priest thing died off over there and they got with the catch and release program, they kind of haven't. In fact, Hardy still manufactures trout priests today, except they have chrome plated brass thumping heads and e v a foam grip and an analyzed aluminum handle. Those barbarians right wrong. The fact of the matter is the priest stems from what many would call a smarter and perhaps even classier angling ethic than we have in the US. Even today. There are many European trout and salmon fisheries, including within Germany's Black Forest, where our beloved brown trout came from, where catch and release angling is strictly forbidden in the mind of the Brits and many other European countries. You do more to protect the fish by making it mandatory to kill your first one or two and stop fishing, instead of fighting and releasing say twenty fish in a day. It was, and in many cases still is the norm to simply catch you a salmin or two, give him a quick bonk with your priest, and walk away back to the cottage to enjoy your fresh catch and not molest anymore fish that day. But that's just not how things are done here, which is why we don't carry priests on trout streams. Now you can buy them here, they're just not called priests. We have uber American versions, such as the offshore angler aluminum fish bat the West Coast Thumpers, fish Bonker, and my personal favorite, the Bomack Fish Whisper floating fish Billy. Most of these can be purchased through bass pro shops or Cabella's. None of them are what i'd call heirloom quality. I love that one, man, that was That was I'm glad you pick that one. Yeah, that was a good choice. You know, when when I was when I was a salmon guide, I actually made my own priest out of a chunk of caribou antler that I found in the tundra. And like there was a there was a bench grinder at the shop at the camp, and I cut it down to this perfect fish beating size and I would tuck it in my waiter belt and carry around. And I was I was a confident that it made me look like a badass. M hm, that's neat. I'm sure you did. Cool. Cool story. Uh. And since we're on the subject of people thinking they look badass, let's let's take a look at an awkward moment in angling, but a picture. This week's awkward moment angling comes to us from Alex read and and and quick warning, Uh, we're about to make fun of a small child and and there was one thing when we were making fun of childhood, fishing photos of each other. But I don't actually know this dude, Like, do you know is this someone you know? Because sometimes we've done pictures. No, you don't know. No, No, I if it's a buddy of mine, I'll shout it out. Alex, I do not know you. So this is just some random kid. And so I I struggle. I'm struggling with this one. I'm like, I'm searching my conscience. Well, like, why am I the kind of person who's gonna insult a young boy? It looks like he's like seven or eight years old. Man, Oh god, I gotta know. I'm gonna I gotta, I gotta interrupt your melodrama here because we can just get on with it. First of all, yes, we are the kind of people who will tease small children, who amuse ourselves and others. But the point we have to make here is, um, the child is Alex, who is now a grown ass man, who sent us what he referred to as a This is like a family classic, right, This is like the one that the family goes back to. He sent this to us and asked us to make fun of it. So it's okay, it's all right. I mean, we're okay, we're good. Fine, Yes, I was. I was just I was working through it. I was trying to like figure out if it was okay with me. I appreciate you. You're taking a really long time. Nobody cares, nobody cares about what, No, nobody cares. Okay, we're doing it. So let's get to this photo. Okay, the year is and I know this because this photo comes with that. It's from that era when the date in the picture was just automatic, clear like digitally stamped, the orange digitized in the in the bottom left corner of the photo. Yeah, like it looked like like a like a digital clock. Yeah, it's that same kind of kind of tight. There are some young people who are probably because I remember you could you could turn that off in some cameras, but like my mom could never figure out how. So all of our photos, like in all the albums from that certain era there with the bright orange date stamp. Anyway, in this shot, young Alex stands proudly in his mismatched camo T shirt and hat, miniature work boots and jeans, like he's just finished a day of a legal child labor sweeping floors at the local steel mill or something like that. Oh man, we're digging a new load. And and uh, I'm gonna keep going after after that day of under the table less than minimum age work, it appears Alex blew off some steam at a local pond. So one of the things that catches my eye about this photo is the Roddy's holding right. It's it's It does have that closed faced zeb Coo style reel, you know, the one that's that comes standard on your your Spiderman Walmart fishing outfit that all kids get. And and you know, you know that rod you use it to like it doesn't do anything but catch little dinker pan fish or stalker trout. That's what that rod is for. But this rod that Alex holding is not that rod. This road has serious backbone like that. I know you're looking at That thing could handle like a big bass or a respectable catfish. It's got it's got some serious stubt to it. Yeah, I noticed the same thing, and it People who might not realize this, You like associate clothes, you know, push button roos with little kid rods, but they actually make giant ones like zeb coo, like there are people out there who prefer that for their cat fishing, like grown people. I think that's this That's what this rod looks like to me, like a grown person's push button catfish set up. Yeah, and see, I don't think this was not Alex's first fishing rod. And in fact, the rod itself it's a good two ft taller than little Alex shot. And he would have had to have been like a pretty skilled kid to cast that thing, and also like a serious danger to anyone standing within his six foot radius right for at for a little a little kid plinging that thing around, and I'd I'd be scared. And Alex's mom or dad or whoever took him fishing was either very brave, very quick, or just not that smart. But whatever that fishing mentor may have lacked in self preservation, they definitely made up for in fishing knowledge. Because dangling from the end of that line is just an absolute slab, total slab, total slab. It's it's the things eight inches minimum, maybe over ten. And Alex hadn't yet learned the art of extending his arms out away from his body to make it like look even more impressive. But even though he didn't know how to do that. It still looks big freaking huge bluegull. It does. And I got one thing I cannot figure out is where this picture was taken. Okay, so Alex is standing on on paving stones in front of some some wood lattice, and it looks like he's in front of a house, not on a dock or at the edge of the water. But the fish is still hooked. So either this house borders a body of water, or they went fishing, they came home, and then they reattached the fish to the hook to stage the photo. Yeah, I see, I don't think. I don't think this is stage because at Alex's feet right you could you could see a pile of maybe ten other fish, most of which are also stud bluegills, but a couple look like pretty decent bass, large amounts. Right. So, if you were a kid and you can either pose with a tenant's blueboat or a two pound bass, come on, come on, you're picking. You're picking the bass every day, or you're gonna put all the fish on a stringer and hold them all up together like you think they were. They were going to pose it. They would do the full stringer shot as well, Yeah, yeah, exactly, why not? All right, that's a good point, But I'm still I'm still not convinced because it seems to me like like those fish, the ones you're talking about, it looks like they just got dumped out of a bucket right there, just kind of laying in this in this, in this pile, and there's this puddle that's spreading across the paving stones. So I'm I think a bucket drop happened right there. That could be the case, or or maybe that puddle has another source, because if you focus just slightly north of that impressive spread of fish and look closely at Alex's jeanes, you will notice that he quite recently or perhaps it's still in the process of pissing his pants. And that's that's the clincher. Oh, it's true. It's true, dude. Like when you first sent me this picture, I didn't see it. It's like one of those when you see it, I mean, when you see it's like, what do you do it? Why would we make fun of this kid holding all these sweet fish? And then uh, and then I realized he had um treated himself. I got I got it from the big Lebowski. I gotta say, though, the best part for me is the look on his face, because I don't think that kid's feeling any shame, noever. I think he's just like none zero. He's He's staring straight into that camera with a self satisfied grand like almost in defiance, Like I pissed my pants. I also roped a pile hog fish today and that's that's dedication. Damn it. Oh. I'm kind of sad we used the Billy Madison pants being clipped last week because I could have doubled up complain. I'm also realizing we've run two pants being stories two weeks in a row. Uh, and that says something about our level of maturity. But this one was too good. We had to We had to do this one. It does It does say something about our level maturity, but it definitely says something about Alex's general sense of self confidence. First that he posed for this photo and second that he proudly sent it to us to be publicly called out. So thank you, Alex. Glad we got to share this family classic here. If you want to see this glorious photo for yourself, go check out me or Miles Instagram accounts. That's at water Miles and at Joe dot Surmelie one three eight. Thank you Alex for proffering yourself at the bent Alter ridicule. If you have an awkward fishing photo that you'd like to offer up for consideration, please send it to bent at the meat eater dot com. Your sacrifices benefit the good of us all indeed they do, and we're gonna continue benefiting the greater good right now because it's time for fish news. Fish news that escalated quickly, all right this week. Before we kickoff news, I've got to give a shout out to listener Eric Rude today because this has got to be one of the most whacked out things I have I have ever heard. All Right, now, do you remember you remember a while back we did that news story on odd bits, Remember that, and then we asked our fine listeners to please let us know the weirdest thing maybe they've ever used his bait, righte and we we've gotten some, but there haven't been any that I was like, oh, I never thought of that one. I mean, it's been stuff like cigarette butts and and things like y yeah, yeah, yeah, forget all those because this is the this is the this is the ender right here. Okay, So Eric got hit me up on Instagram, right and he wrote, when I was eleven, I had my tonsils taken out and asked the doc if I could have them. No, he looked at my mother and she said he's his father's child, but go ahead. I later took said tonsils out and caught a couple channel cats on them in a local creek. Now I had the same look on my face you do right now when I read this, And of course I was like, dude, is this real? Are you serious? This really happened? And He's like, full scouts on her man. I caught channel cats on my top consols and then Eric and then Eric also pointed out that if any of you recall the photo that ran on the Meat Eat or insta page of a guy that shot himself in the army, he was shot in the arm with a crossbow. That was him, crossbow bolt and arm guy was also Eric Rude, who used his tonsils for catfish. Eric, you have led an interest in life. So I was like, I I have to I I mean, I believe him. He said he wishes the catfish he caught were bigger there's no photos, but apparently the tonsils did not yield very big bait pieces. I guess in eleven year olds tonsils are like not our kind of still those are not big chunks of meat. Those are I can see that the creativity, man I do. I'm just thinking it through. I'm like, what else is? What else could be done with that? I'm gonna leave it alone, though, Well, I think I think one of the funniest aspects if that was me and I had my tonsils out and ask keep my mom would be like you out of your mind? Absolutely not. It's ridiculous, Like my mom wouldn't have let me, let me keep my tonsils? Um, I don't. I don't know what my mom would have done that. I'm trying to think it through. I think she would have looked at me with the look that I've got on my face right now, like what why? What do you part? Was in a glad bag? Do you wrap them in gauze? Like? How do you get this home? Were they in the freezer for a time? With them? There were piece they had to have been anyway, Eric, that was that was trippy man um alright, So I think, uh, that concludes shoutouts this week unless you have anything. I'm gonna reserve my time for for my news stories because I got I got to to run a little long this week, so time okay, all right, then we can we can move on here to the real and actual, at least sort of news. And remember this is a competition, Miles and I do not know which news stories the other guy found. At the end of this the Magnificent Phil with his sidekick PS five, will weigh in and declare a winner. And as soon as he's done, we're gonna hear from all y'all's favorite. Mr Lance V. You have the floor. You are up big in excellent light, and I'm gon kick off with you kind of. You kind of set me up with that idea of pseudo news because the story that I'm gonna talk about has gotten some decent coverage already in other news sources, but really as pseudo news, and I'm gonna try and try and shoehorned into something valid. I'm gonna and focus on fish and fisheries. So you may have heard about the invasive hippos in Colombia? Right? Did you catch this one? You know? I I remember a jingling of that that, well, I'm very not well versed in the invasive hippo, so to get to give to give some basic context here for those who aren't really paying attention yet. Hippo's native to Africa, not South America, right and and and they got there thanks to the infamous drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. So Escobar created his own kind of like Noah's Ark at his estate with exotic animals from all over the world, and then after his death in the columb In government took over the place and the vast majority of all those animals got relocated as zoos, but the four hippopotamuses were allowed to remain, mostly because capturing and transporting them would have been like really difficult and expensive and dangerous. They're just like, leave the hippos. They're they're fine, it's cool. So over the past few decades, those hippos have thrived, and now from the original four, they're an estimated eighty to a hundred of them, and they're no longer confined to the ponds former property Escobar's drive through a safari they got out. At least half the population has relocated to the Magdalena, Columbia's largest and most productive river. The Magdalena runs the length of the western side of the country, and and that's that's the populated side, Like that's where all the major cities and towns and people it's it's basically it's like the Mississippi Columbia's it's their primary river, and it hosts a a pretty broad diversity of native fauna. Fish wise, we're talking like over two hundred different species, including a bunch of different cichlids and like really cool as catfish like you find all across South America. And there's this this weird looking miniature pike thing that's like really tiny, but it's like it's like a pike, only shrunk. It's I don't know if you'd fish for it, but it's cool. And the marquis to us anyway, Golden Dorado. But in a familiar story, the fish in that river they're not doing so well. Researchers estimate that fish populations have dropped as much as since for all the reasons you're you're probably thinking pollution, siltagan dam is illegal, or fishing, you know the deal. So many news outlets seem to be covering this hippo story just because they want to use the headline cocaine hippos, and I get that like that is a that is a frightening prospect. Hippos are are scary on their own, just like in a natural state. The idea of hippos running around on like a coked up rampa age, as if their finance bros blown off steam Atlantic City, that's legitimately frightening to me. But let's be clear, the hippos have nothing to do with cocaine, except for the fact that drug money brought them there in the first place. These are not coked up hippos. Don't believe all that. I'm less interested in the catchy headline and how the hippos got there in the first place that I am about how these invasive species are affecting the fishery and that ecosystem, and on that one, conclusions are mixed. So some researchers are understandably concerned that introducing non native large animals could further stress a river system that's already struggling. Hippos are very very good at moving nutrients from land to water. The herbivores that that wander around on the land at night, grazing on plants and grasses, but they spend the daylight hours sleeping, lounging, and pooping in the water. That poop carries nutrients, and as we've discussed lots of times before, too many nutrients and water can cause problems like algae blooms, cilento bacteria, as well as lowering oxygen levels and, according to at least one study, making fish more vulnerable. Two predators. Hippos are also known as as ecosystem engineers. By moving their massive bodies through muddy river channels and floodplains, they can change how water flows, creating or reshaping channels. Another concern is that they might displace or compete with native species like manatees and otters, but other researchers are not convinced that having the hippos around is necessarily bad for the Magdalena River right. Keep in mind, this river is pretty screwed up by human intervention, so some some scientists hypothesized that hippos might be refilling a niche. South America used to have a variety of of large herbivores like this one. It's it's weird. The toxodon, which I had never heard of before, and it actually looks like a hippo, even though it wasn't this. The might have been a semi aquatic large mammal and it was wiped out about eleven thousand years ago, probably by overhunting. But again that years ago, what were we talking about. More contemporary examples would include top hears, which are a pig like herbivores that also are found around the water. They love water and they're they're native to that area and they're currently endangered. So hippo's might and I stress, might be performing functions that these other animals used to do, dispersing seeds, moving nutrients around, and grazing and controlling stream side vegetation. But there's one thing that hippos are definitely doing to help out fish in the part of the Magdalena that they're currently occupying. They are scaring the crap out of poachers. Oh that's it. Twit Okay, I was waiting for the punchline, but okah, here it is. Here it is. But before the hippos started proliferating, illegal dynamite fishing was a pretty common occurrence around there, Like poachers would just show up and dynamite whole section of the river and take out all the fish. And now they're not doing that because hippos are straight up terrifying, Like can you imagine that? Yeah, I mean they have those cheesy nature shows that are like top ten most deadly animals, and like people always think it's gonna be the lion or the liger or something. Now, dude, it's the hippo, like kill more people than oh yeah ship, yeah, oh yeah, why far? It's kind of like, you know, you know, like moose kill more people in Alaska than bears. Everybody got worry if the moose, you gotta worry about. Hippos kill far more people than all those scary predators in Africa. They may not eat people, but they sure do like the chomp crush and drowned them with those huge tusks. And hippos are not afraid of anything. And I can speak to this from personal experience. My first job out of college was a teaching gig ahead in Botswana. And even though I like I lived down south in the capital city, teaching gig in Botswana, Yeah yeah, when I was twenty one. It was my first job out of college. Go ahead, what have you done? I've said this before, like every time we do a new podcast. You were like I was zip line instructor and not like I'm like Jesus, I did, I didn't do that. But so anyway, when I when I was when I was teaching down there, like I lived in the capital city, which is in the south, but I would head up to the north to the Delta area whenever I got some time off to go fishing, obviously, and I very quickly learned to be afraid of hippos, Like I once saw a hippo chase a thirty foot double decker cruise boat and and the boat blinked first, like the boat was the one that bailed out of that situation. So I am far more wary of hippos than any other creature I've ever encountered when I was outside, Like bears, sharks, no hippos, dude. So far in Colombia, no one has yet been mauled, but it's kind of only a matter of time now. To sum this all up. In the past, I have talked about how I'm opposed to introducing new species to try and fix problems humans have created in systems. Balance Like, generally, I think that's a bad idea, So I'm probably gonna take some heat here, but I'm kind of on board with these hippos colonizing and protecting this river. Like alright, like I said, the river is in pretty bad shape already, and and biologists think it's unlikely that the hippo population will get completely out of control because they're they're geographically restricted in this one river valley, and you've got the Andes Mountains on the east that are a solid, impassable barrier, so there's no danger of them getting into the Amazon, which would be a legitimate So I just personal benion on this one. I've I've read a fair amount I think. I I think the approaches like the scientists should keep monitoring the situation which they're doing, and see how it plays out. And like if things get worse, if if the manatees start dying off, or the river chemistry gets all out of whack, or the fish start disappearing even faster, kill the hippos. It's not like they're hard to find. But in the meantime, I kind of say, like keeping eye on things and see how this one plays out. I kind of like the hippo's guarding against the illegal fishing. I'm all for this, dude, throw a few below the Connor window. Damn in Maryland. You want to have striper poaching problems there anymore? All these guys with trout clubs in North Jersey, get you a club, hippo not a problem, you know what I'm saying. I like it. I do too. I didn't go there. There's a whole other story about how hippo's almost became brought over to America's as a food source back in the day. Yeah, it almost happened, but thankfully someone thought better. They almost got brought over to Florida. Here's a strange segue, um that I had nothing until you just said that. Uh, if you were if they ever were to come here to Florida or wherever, and you had to filet a hippo for the table, you might want an electric file at knife. I would, and they're supposedly delicious. I'm gonna throw that out there, and I would definitely want an electric fila. Listen, I knew a person who shall definitely go nameless that once swore that not in this country, but in another country whereas where it was heptable. He once enjoyed semanity, and he was like it's delicious, it's out of control. Good, I believe it. It's okay. So we're not fleeing any hippos that I'm aware of, but listen up for everyone who who loves a good fish fry, and in this case, I'm particularly talking to my southern friends. Right now, Rapila is recalling one and twenty eight thousand battery operated filet knives because then some bitches are catching fire. Yes, so this this comes to us, uh from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Um and it says a Twin Cities company is recalling one thousand battery operated fishing knives after a dozen or so caught on fire. So it's not like they're all catching on fire, but but enough to to make this a thing. Um. And of course Rapila USA is based in Minnetonka, which now, for a second week in a row, gives me license to say, why don't you purify yourselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. Well, this is a much less in depth poignant story than yours, but I'm going to continue on. Uh. They issued the recall last week of these rechargeable filet knives after it learned of batteries overheating when plugged into a charger not produced by Rappel, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. Now, the knife in question here is the Rapple Ion, which which runs on rechargeable lithium batteries, and I don't own one. I've never used one, but I looked it up and naturally, when you buy this knife, it comes with a charger. So the statement they made is a little unclear because I'm not sure if Rapple is saying this sometimes happened with the charger they provide but did not produce. In other words, it's not like a wrapper a brand charger that comes with it. They buy chargers and give you one of the knife. Or are they saying this issue is occurring when a charger that is not the charger they provided is being used to charge the knife, which is also possible because I'm only speaking for myself here. I have a ridiculous habit of losing charging chords, particularly those like when when they for ship that I don't use. Often know what I'm saying, Like I I have at least three rechargeable spotlights in the garage. I can't find the damn cord for any of those. You know, like my, my, my pork, it's been enjoying the power wheels a TV for a year. It's like it's like inching along the living room. I don't know what I do with the court, right, so I can I can totally see some fish dudes like getting all excited about the knife, charging it, using it for a while, losing the cord and just like Jerry rigging it to a lawnmower battery. You know, I mean, I have I have good friends in Louisiana, right, Like they wear an electric filet knife on their belt daily in case impromptu cleaning of a hundred suck a lot pops up. But if something needs charging, uh and and you have no cord, that boys will also figure out how to charge it for you. So I'm not really it's it's it's very unclear, But I find it mildly funny because these aren't cheap, right, they cost a hundred bucks that they're good knof, So you could see somebody getting this, you know, some meat fisherman for Christmas and like you know, walking out back within glue one fifty full of speckled trout all excited, and that suckers just melting on the cutting board. Um. Luckily though, none of these fires have caused any injury or major damage. And Rappila is good people, And here's what they say. Anyone with one of these knives should stop using it. Immediately remove the battery and look for a white E t L Safety certification label on the battery and if it's If you have one of these and it's not there, contact Rappila and they will send you a free replacement battery so your knife does not burn up. They will hook it up. And if anyone in my area had this issue and just feels naked without their electric blade, holler at me, because I have about six of them that I never use. So the generosity at the end of that statement not just from from from what do you do you use electric file at knives I have? I don't, So I don't want to go too deep into this because it could eat up some time. I really I love something about using just a classic filet knife. And and there's a the purest part of me that doesn't really like electric file And I was having said all that if you got cut up a ton of fish, they're super efficient, they're super fish. I don't I don't have a problem with them. I don't like denigrate other people for using them. No, I just personally like a nice filet knife in standard form, and we're on the exact same page. I like, I get it if you're a charter captain down south or and like you like every day you have to do a mess of trout and reds, totally get it. I don't catch enough fish for that. Like I am just not that good, you know. I can't remember the last time I brought home enough fish and I was like, oh, ship, this is so daunting. I need power tools. And then if I have something like really special like a tuna, I don't want to rips all through that. So like you, it's like delicate brain surgery, Like I want to feel the knife tip touch every rib, you know what I mean. So there you go, watch out. Don't let your file at knife burn up. Where are you gonna go with that? Mile? Oh gosh, that is that is a hard one. I will say it before we leave it completely. I do still use the classic Rappola file at knife that sent straight up a knife absolutely that are that are a dexter baby. Those are the ones I have always used them, and I've always had good luck with them they make, so I'm glad to hear that they're standing by it, even if they may have made a little bit of a mess up there. I'm gonna hearken back a couple of weeks to a story that you were telling about the lower Susquehanna, I think, and the flatheads, right, and like you were talking about how there were all these rumors of huge fish in that river, right, not just flatheads, but all kinds of different fish, and a bunch of the lower rivers around you. Yeah, say not that one in particular, but all these eastern rivers with that sort of lower damned in it's always like that's where the big ones are, got them. Yeah, And if you remember, my response was like, well don't say sample remember, like like a total snooty and no, that's not a thing here. So right, Yeah, no, I'm not about pretty wrong, not at all. But that got me thinking right and it helped me, like, it gave me a little context to get out of my my western river focus that because because like most of the major rivers out here are very aggressively monitor and it managed and I just I got stuck in my own experience, and I forgot that's not the case in most places, Like that's not the case most of the country. Uh, And it is here because the fish populations are just so valuable to local economies, right they they management agencies are told, like, keep an eye on this because it's shorworth a lot of money, right, that's what they have to do. So in order to do that, management agencies rely on on a technology that's been around since the sixties called electro fishing. And I know you're familiar with this, but but other people might not be, and to vastly oversimplify it, Like it involves using these machines that create a low level electric field in a small area of water, and the fish that are around are simultaneously stunned and drawn to the source of the current. So you stick these wands, these two ones into the into the water and like it's crazy, man, the pool just these fish come to the service that I've done it. I've done it. It's it's nuts. Yeah, it's insane. And then you know, the biole just turned the and the text turned these things on. All the fish come up, they they net them. It's just like this crazy net game, trying to get them before they flow out of the pool and throw them into buckets so they can they can measure them, they can count them, and then off of that they make estimates about the population of the river and how well the fish are doing. And right now, that's not only the gold standard for measuring fish stocks, it's just about the only way we know how to do it that makes any sense, right, Like, that's about all we got. But it's really expensive, it's really labor intensive, and it does have some mortality, Like some fish do die from the shocking and the handling. White fish especially, Man, I've seen I've seen whitefish hit that current and their gills explode, like it's the weirdest thing. It's just like blood ships up and they're done. I've only ever done it for trout. And while most of them are okay, like you gets some tiny fingerling, like there's casualties of war. Not many, but they're they're right. And I'm not dogging on electrophishing. Like you said, it's a gold standard and it's really important, but that those are just the realities. It's it's it's super expensive, it's super labor intensive, and there there are some some casualties. So while electro fishing is it's gonna remain the most comprehensive tool for monitoring fish stocks, another option might be coming up soon. In the past couple of weeks, I found two studies that were published about using environmental DNA known as e d NA to detect fish and bodies of water. Right. So, so fish, just like any other living creature, they shed their DNA into the environment around them, and this technology allows researchers to just take a water sample and then test that sample for the presence of particular fish. So one study which was out of Oregon State University, this one's focused on native fish like desirable fish, and they found that they could use e d N a testing to track the presence of native cutthroat and headwater streams, which is a particularly hard thing to test for. Right, because they do make those electro phishing backpacks, like you can carry them on your back, But carrying those things, those shocking packs with a crew of fisheries text like way deep into the mountains. Yeah, yeah, it's it's rough. And so if this like the the idea behind this is is that instead of having to do all that, you could just send one person up there to collect water samples all the way up and and figure out where the fish are and where they aren't. And and I want to I want to stress that the researchers are very clear on this that e d N A testing will not replace shocking surveys, but it offers a cheaper, easier compliment, right, Like, there's no with with with this. With this method, with e DNA, you can't tell the size of the condition of the fish. You just know that they're there, so you won't replace it. But it's an interesting compliment. And I see, I don't want to jump ahead because I don't know where you're going, but I I have a lot of questions which I'm sure there are no answers to, like dilution, Like how how far up in that system do you need to be to get the water if I get it, if there's if there's cutties in the headwaters, how far down can I sample and still get an accurate read before all that DNA is diluted. I think it's pretty localized. Otherwise it wouldn't tell him much, right like, they know, Hey, just in this stretch right here, we know they're here. Um and and so that part useful interesting. But I also found another study out of Cornell same week that shows another way that fisheries managers might use E d n A. In that study, the authors were focusing on invasive species. Specifically, they were testing on a round gobies, which are small fish that are originally native to Eurasia. And then and they got into the Great Lakes in the nineties through a ship ballast and they just took over. And we're not gonna we're not gonna get into the Gobi debate right now. We've we've touched on that before. I'm sure that again, but that's not the point of the story. The point is that just by testing water samples and lakes, they were able to determine the presence of gobies, not only that, the density of the Gobi population and even their origin and levels of genetic diversity, So like where these particular gobies came from and and and how genetically the verse they were if they just came from single source origins, and this could be really useful and cost effective for monitoring and stopping the spread of invasives. Right just by taking a water sample and looking at it, scientists might be able to determine if non natives are starting to get a foothold somewhere, and if they are, how fast they're reproducing and with what level of success. Right, So, so, like one of the major issues that we see with with specificy with things like gobies and zebra muscles is that they're they're super small, and they're they're pretty well camouflaged, right, so by the time anyone actually sees them, they're probably everywhere, or agencies have to be like crazy diligent and spend tons of money to monitor whether or not they show up, right, And this this technology could allow those resource managers to get out ahead of invasive aquatic species and make targeted and effective mitigation plans. So that's where I see as being really cool. Yeah, I mean that's very fascinating. Again that there's so many questions though, I mean it sounds like with the with the Gobi study, they can do so much with so little. But then I I immediately jumped like two snakeheads. So if if you have a lake or or whatever impoundment connected to a known waterway where they are, like, how many snakeheads have to get in there before just a water test? Let you even know they're there. You know what I mean. It's it's it's I'm being rhetorical right now. I just find that part fascinating, Like if two snake heads get in there and it's a three acre body of water, or will they read How they seem to have refined that so quickly to gobies is pretty awesome like that, And I'll tell you I'm all for it just for for safety reasons, because I've shocked fish twice in my life, and the first time I had to watch from the sidelines because I was the idiot that showed up with studded boots studded metal studs in his waiting boots and they were like, ha, you were the boots with the studs. You're gonna have to stand over there on the bank, so um yeah. And then and then the second time I got to talk like if you fee your heart fluttering at all, please let somebody know. I'm like, you know what, I just I just want to look at the trout in the bucket. You do the shocking. It's it's I've only done it with the backpack ones in high mountain streams, which again I can attest their heavy and they're real pain in the has to carry up long trails. Um, I've never got to do the boat surveys. I've always wanted to. Yeah, no, me, they're me there. It looks super cool. But this is uh man, there's so much there's so much we can do with that, so many places. If that sort of takes a hold, if we start, if they the speed at which this seems to be going, and the ways that E d n A like just taking a water sample and knowing what's there and in what density and where it came from, that could be very useful information. Absolutely so the only tie in I have is um. If you're a sushi fan, perhaps one could argue that a shocked fish would taste more delicious as it was less stressed than one that falls on the end of the line. How about that it comes up quickly? You know. I had to, you know, because I'm gonna go culinary here, a little bit a little funky, um, not so fresh. And I'm gonna assume that we do, in fact have plenty of listeners like me, and I believe you that just go gagaf for sushi. I am a sushi at I just and and even though because where I live. I do get the opportunity to make my own on occasion. If we get tuna ber neither sea bass or whatever, I'm just as happy to go to a restaurant or get the mysterious half price sushi buffet sushi, or sushi from the sushi department at shop. Right. I don't really care, right, I just love sushi. Um. Now, I'm sure, at least I'm guessing this was very different for you growing up in Hawaii. But for me, as a kid in the Northeast, sushi was was very weird and like you really had to go out of your way to get it, like to a restaurant in Philly or New York. Right, I'm sure you grew up right exactly, but like Little League Picnics. Well, there you go. Okay, so it's very different, but now it's it's everywhere here, right, And um. What people may not realize though, is that the sushi we consume now is actually like a relatively recent invention, first appearing in the early twentieth century, and what we eat is sort of like a dumb down, pretty more presentable version of traditional sushi. And I found this story on the site Atlas Obscura titled to make Japan's original sushi first age fish for several months and it's it's it's actually a really fascinating article centered around a seventy five year old sushi restaurant in the city of Wakiyama that specializes in making sushi in its ancient form. And they they call this sushi narazushi. And to make it, you pack rice into salted fish carcasses and let it age for months. And uh, the owner of the restaurant says, since you're fermenting it, the taste is more similar to cheese or yogurt than fish. Okay. And furthermore, at this restaurant, for fifty three U s dollars per taste, they will serve you thirty year aged sushi. And it says it's so dirt composed thirty year and it says it's so decomposed that it's textually more of a thick gruel than a modern day sushi roll. It says, while some chunks of fish keep their shape, time and bacteria liquefies the mixture to the point that it can only be used as a condiment, like you just put a dollop of it on some on some rice and it's said to be sour, pungent and mildly sweet. Um. But this style of sushi, this fermented sushi, was first recorded in Japan in the eighth century. And of course back then this was out of out of necessity, right it was. It was a preservation method. But now it's considered a delicacy because it takes so long to make. And fun thing I learned from this is that the word sushi is actually derived from the Japanese word for sour. Never knew that, um. And there's so much interesting stuff about sushi history in this. It's quite a rabbit hole. But it's funny because it illustrates um a full sort of coming around of sushi in that the O g sushi. You know, it was the nasty fish fermented for years. Then as refrigeration technology advanced, there was no need to ferment, and sushi, as as we know it started as a legit fast food or street food in Japan, and then it became this weird, fancy, mysterious thing to US Americans for decades and now in one you can buy it at a gas station. So like it's kind of crazy, like how the whole the whole pattern came full circle and um, you know, I mean I love one. Someone says, like I usually get the California Roll, but I got crazy and tried eel last time. Yeah, okay, try this. So for the sushi freaks out there that you know, I love a good piece of blue fin o G sushi was nasty fermented fish paste. That's what I got. I try it, though I would be if I was at that restaurant. I feel like I had to try that just to say I did. Oh yeah, I would definitely, I would try it. You lost me a gruel, that was the That was the word I didn't. I didn't interject that. That was right from the article. They said, Yeah, it has the texture of gruel, but it's fifty three bucks to taste. Fifty three dollars for like a little pat of thirty year aged sushi. I mean, I'll try I'll try anything pretty much for the most part, but especially if someone else is buying. Somebody's like, yeah, I'll treats let's see how it goes. No, I mean that that was that was fascinat Like I really appreciated that deep diving to sushi don't have a ton of follow up, but like that was I'm glad you did that. Like I didn't know a lot of those things. It's kind of an oddball thing. But like I you know, I love I love cutting my own sushi when I have the right fish for it. And we're so like sushi consumed, but really like we like it's new school stuff. We eat all these roles and fancies, sauce crap, that's all modern days. That's not what they were eating back in the day. So hopefully Phil like sushi and I impressed him with that. You also have, I wrote, I wrote it down this time. Okay, so we got coked out, hippo's we got burning knives. Phil's got sushi to deal with. Um and and I'm very gonna skip e d n A of fish as a conservation tool. Just can skip over that one. Did I forgot to jot that one? And then I was trying to think of like the keyword to use in the last second, so that Phil, you can also consider that. UM And we'll see, We'll see where we land with Phil Miles Nulty, You're the winner. Disney just announced that they were to be refreshing the Jungle Cruise ride to get rid of some outdated tableaus. And I think the solution here is simple. We just send forty or so of these Escobar hippos up to Orange County. Let the guests swim around and hope for the best. That's a thrill ride. And on another note, while pleasuring yourself before a fishing trip may bring bad luck, I can tell you that it only brings good luck to podcast editing the land, to the boats, to the lake, to the sea, being up the nets with your boy lads. What's up, pass wives, It's me, your boy Lance V here yet again to help you take your status as an Internet fishing legend up another level. I mean, you're not ever going to be a legend like me or Biggie John B, so forget that. But if this gets you four or five new followers that aren't your aunt or old summer camp counselor I've done my job and you actually get to spend a day feeling good about yourself hashtag self healing. This week's question comes from Jake B, who writes, Holy Smokes, no more segments with Lance. I am forced to skip through it. If you must keep that segment, please do it at the very end, so I can just stop the podcast when I hear him begin to talk. It is awful. However, I'm thinking about doing some Instagram live videos. Any tips, amazing question, Jake B. It's the live separates Internet fishing legends from losers. Going live means you can't do sixty three takes of your shitty fishing tip video before posting. You think you're ready to mount up with WARRINGNGY and the regulators, we'll see hashtag get psyched, hashtag you can do this hashtag maybe. Whatever you do, do not announce that you'll be going live days or hours before you actually go live. Just dream your raw show consciousness to the masses whenever the mood strikes. Promoting an upcoming live video just tells the world that your word nobody who show up, which is sures that no one will show up. If you're as brilliant as I think I am, the world will stop whatever it's doing to tune in. Hashtag trust me. Also, don't prepare anything. Spend the first forty five seconds stalling until one of your friends drops a stupid comment that will allow you to transform the entire live session into a group chat between you and your squad. Here's the secret. People don't tune into live videos to learn something. They want to feel like they're part of your inner circle, and the best way to let them in is by prattling on about inside jokes and stories that only a small amount of people watching will't understand. Anyway, that's it for me, Your boy Lance Vye, hope that helped you. Must do the courage of snoop line, Jake B. Maybe I'll catch you next week live from your mom's house, or if things go my way, live from the Admirals Club at the Goon Squad's private airport. This will come as a shark to absolutely no one, but I have neither posted nor watched an Instagram live video ever in my life. Not surprising, Uh, It's actually extremely rare that I tune into anything live, and if I do, it's always my pure happenstance, Like I happen to be on Instagram when I get the alert that some friend of mine is now live, so I'll just jump over at a dumb comment and right about the time when they read it and go, hey, Josie is watching, I'm xing out. I'm gone because I find's heads Then I like, I'm there. I'm I'm there to be a jerk. Yeah, because I find most live social videos awkward to watch anyway, So I click over because I'm like, I want to see how awkward he's looking and feeling right now doing this, and I find him pent awkward to produce. I've done it a few times Facebook. I hate it. I hate it, I hate it. The whole thing seems super awkward to me, unless you've got an insane following. In my opinion, it's the fastest way to figure out how many people are not tuning into your ship. Like, if you need something to make you feel better about yourself, do not go live on social media, don't listen to Lance. Yes, those are words to live by for everybody. And uh and that actually leads me nicely into our final segment of the episode, where we give you the history of lures, baits and flies that we live by. It's time for end of the line. That's not loud enough. The rattle Trap wasn't the first commercially produced lipless crank bait. That honor goes to the Cordell hotspot, but no one casually refers to lipless crank baits as hotspots. No, they're called traps, despite the fact that several other baits of a similar design preceded them. The Swimming Minnow by You, Boogie, Pico Perch, and water Gator all came out around the same time as the hotspot, and all featured the small profile, tight wobble, rapid sync, and high hook up ratio. But the rattle trap was the one that made lipless crank baits the dominant lures they are today. The rail trup was the brainchild of World War Two veteran Bill Lewis. Lewis piloted B twenty four bombers, which were called flying coffins by the airman who flew them. Louis survived thirty combat missions, some of which included supporting ground troops during the D Day invasion at Normandy. He also flew voluntary support missions to resupply troops after the invasion. His heroism earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross Medal. Lewis then came home to pursue his education, first at the University of Alabama and then at the Chicago Academy of Art, from which he launched his career as a commercial artist. But Louis was never really satisfied working for someone else. He had that hustle, also known as entrepreneurial spirit depending on where you grew up. By day he was drawing logos and headers, but by night he was making bass lures in his garage in Alexandria, Louisiana. Weekends would find him selling those lures out of the trunk of his beat up car popular boat ramps. Much of the time, Lewis would end up partying with his spinner rates, plastic worms, and other lures below cost, just so he could get enough gas money to make it back home. This went on for decades, but Lewis remained undeterred. Legend has it that all changed one day in the late nineteen sixties. Lewis and a friend were fishing a slow bite on Toledo Bend, cruising around the reservoir trying to find some active fish, when they saw a crowd of boats piled into the Sabine River channel. Upon investigation, they found that none of the boats were fishing except one. The rest of the flotilla had gathered to watch in ows. The two anglers pulled in fish on nearly every cast. Bill recognized one of the anglers as a buddy he'd given some lures to and naturally asked him, to which the guy replied, that silly rattling thing you gave me, you got any more of them? Not today, Lewis responded. Story goes that Louis and his fishing partner both tied on some of his rattling lure prototypes and proceeded to experience actions similar to what they witnessed in the channel, catching bass after bass despite the slow bite, some of which were in the eight pound class. That afternoon, Lewis drove home through a rainstorm and his trusty Ford station wagon with wipers that didn't work. As he crawled back to Louisiana, his right hand on the steering wheel and his left hand manually operating the windshield wiper, a name for the new lure came to him, the rattle trap. The rattle trap success proved not to be a fluke, and Lewis's business took off pretty quickly. By seventy the rattle trap was a common lure, and by the nine eighties it was rivaling the plastic worm as the dominant bait in bass tournaments. The Bill Lewis Company grew into one of the only successful fishing companies to manufacture just one product. That's how good rattle traps were and are. They might be the most versatile hard bait of all time. You can rip them fast and shallow for aggressive fish, or count them down and work them slow when the bite is sluggish. They're one of the few baits with a reputation for catching both large numbers of bass as well as truly big bass. Some pro anglers refer to it as an idiot bait, meaning that just about anyone, regardless of skill or experience, can tie on a trap and catch fish with it. Tommy Martin, a veteran pro, has been quoted as saying a lot of pros wish the rattle trap had never been invented for that very reason. In modern bass angling, traps remain legendary for their effectiveness in heavy grass during cold months where I live in Texas, Martin said, from January through March, if you're not fishing them, you're not in business. I first discovered the power of the rattle trap fishing a peacock bass pond with my dad and one of his buddies. I will never forget when that guy whose him, I can't remember, tied on a trap, cast it out, and retrieved it. The sound emanated up from the water and through the boat. It's somehow simultaneously hit high and low frequencies, the kind of sound you weren't sure if you were hearing or feeling like a grouse drumming. That sound is what defines the rattle trap, and to this day I can recall it exactly in my head. The dude then proceeded to whale on peacocks all day while my dad and I flailed with our spinner baits and standard cranks. He finally let me use one, this weird rattling thing painted to look like some kind of a bait fish with blood dripping off the sides bleeding shed. He told me, all fish love that color. I started saving up car wash money the very next weekend, and the lures I went on to buy provided countless memorable days and fish. Bill Lewis died in two thousand five, but his signature bait continues to both win tournaments and help regular anglers catch their lifetime fish, even kids like fifteen year old Tyler Getsman of Willis, Texas, who lended a thirteen pounder on a trap in January of last year. I don't personally fish them as much as I used to, but when I do, there's only one color I reach for, the bleeding chad. Well, that about wraps it up. But for those of you now feeling pious, this week's book of fishing Revelations includes the worst trespass and angler can make against the fishing Gods, the most sacred fishing tool in history, the fact that some of our listeners are as cool as Miles Davis. And the lure that first rattled the grassy crypt where big best slumber in winter, It works in summer too. I'm just saying it's not just a wintertime lure anyway. Keep those awkward photos, bar nominations, sale bin items in general, feedback flowing to bent at the meat Eater dot com, tell us when we screw up, tell us when we strike a nerve. This week, we want to know about your fishing superstitions, especially the weird of the funny ones lead on us. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, And I'm hoping you'll send us some good ones, and if you do, they might get mentioned in a future episode, in which case will send you a special limited addition Degenerate Angler's care package. Um, if you don't believe in such things, you could still get some stickers. If something you post using that Bent podcast and degenerate Angler hashtag on Instagram catches our attention, like Big Brother or the Eye of Saron, we're watching you,

Save this episode