00:00:02 Speaker 1: He's also not wearing socks inside those work boots because he used his socks to wipe his ASTs. She literally looked like she was gonna have a heart attack because this was her prize little poodle. If I had used my tenants ager, you're Vexilla would be gone. I live in Washington State and we have hogs for steel head. I catched them all the time and avoid game officers while I take a picture of them and put them back. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that cooked up a story and dropped the six of you in a meat grinder, leaving you wondering what happened to it because it used to be a podcast you could trust when asking for detailed directions to phishing spots. I'm Joe Surmelie Miles, I'm Miles multi was was that a Was that a predator reference? Yes? It was, it was. It was, yeah, a predator, and it was an obscure one because really it's just my my roundabout way say. It's my roundabout way of saying. The theme for this week's show is Carl Weathers. So the theme I'll all right, all right, you're through me? But the theme sounds it sounds a little questionable, and as was the Yeah, it's sort of I mean, no more questionable than the reference you started with. But you know what, dude, I'll play good. Come down. I'm just thinking about this now. I would say though, that for the record, uh, I probably would have skipped a Saturday Night Live clip that you that you started with. I think I would have used this one instead. His name is Carl Weathers, and he's my new acting teacher and Lindsey, he's teaching me all these valuable life lessons. Okay, touche touche. I love I love I love the arrested development angle you took their Uh so does this? Does this mean you're in this? I mean, we're gonna do a Carl Weathers show because I just want to. I want to clarify something to our listeners, Like we don't think about this ship weeks in advance. Often the theme like it's like sometimes hours before we record it. So this is not some it was. I was putting this together and I was like, Carl Weathers, that's the theme, dude, Like I said, I mean, if if nothing else, I'm like, I'm very very invested in seeing exactly how how you're gonna go about trying to pull this one together. So yeah, I mean I take that as a compliment from you, man, I feel we can both appreciate the challenge of loosely based on a fishing podcast episode on like a rated out eighties movie star, what could possibly go wrong? Maybe this was such a good afternoon. You know, I respect a writing challenge and a feat such as this, And I wish you nothing but luck. But before even let you really get started, I'm gonna sidetrack you because that's what we do to each other. And uh, and I'm gonna tell you that a story. I once had a neighbor, like when I was in my twenties, and and this neighbor had a Golden Retriever named Action Jackson. Oh no ship cool? Yeah, true story and so Action Jackson of course being the cult classic. Carl Weather's film from that is so over the top. It's like it's almost a parody of the genre of the action movie. It's it's so bad it's good. Um, I don't know it's good, but it is what it is. Like you, that was when action movies peaked and then went over the top. And that's the clip that we just played also came from that movie, for the record, And uh, I personally have always thought that Action Jackson might have been the best dog name. It's good. It's up there. Particularly was like this huge golden retriever that was always standing in the backyard barking at people. And I was like, you have the perfect name. And and I'm just gonna point out that I might be foreshadowing some things. You're gonna bring it later. I say, what you did there, that is good. Um, but look, I don't need luck. I'm going to Caral Weathers episode here today. It's done. It might not be good, but it's done. We're committed anyway, I will. It's happen. It's happened. It's happening. Um. If if I had to peg a real theme, maybe a sub theme, like a Subcarl Weathers theme this week's show, I guess it could be perseverance, which that hearkens us back to that old weekly word of yours perseverate. Yeah, that was I liked that one. Though you were not such a fan when I first I remember I first recorded. I was like, what do you think You're like so sure? So I'm glad. I'm glad to hear that you came around on that one. Final you admit that I was right. I have, I have, but probably because it just suits my own needs this week. So you know, um, this week you're gonna have to persevere through a few more caral weathers references, whether you like them or not. The smell of rank coolers, that's something else. What else? We got? A lure that might cause permanent ligament damage in your shoulders, and the stereotypical inshore cabella shopper are all things. Yep, we got we got things coming. Uh. Before we get there, though, you will have to persevere for through one of the thing we're leading off with a I don't know, dude, I never don't to describe a most unhumble that's good yet phenomenal angler, particularly when it comes to walleye or anything in the great legs. Uh. You know, I would go so far as to call to call Ross arrogant. I think I think that's fair. He's an arrogant man, which you know, could that's a quality you might want a fishing guide. I'll say that too. I think I think it's good. I want to like if if I'm hiring the guy, I want the guy who's like overconfident that we're gonna catch fish, not the guy who's like, I don't know, maybe true. That's a good Yeah, you're right, you're right. So anyway, Ross Ross Roberts is back this week for the Smooth Moves segment. Uh our our favorite time to let guides and captains tell humorous stories or just bitch about things. Clients do whatever they feel like telling us, and Ross is gonna tell us about his favorite cocktail recipe that Mary's Whiskey before sun up with lap dogs and atrial fibrillation. Why joining us today on Smooth Moves one of my all time favorite people. It's a bold statement. I know, I know I'm seeing him on a screen right now in the look of shock, Captain Ross robertson bid water fishing. How are you my friend? Friend? One of I mean right now, I'm just overwhelmed. I feel like I feel overwhelmed because you showed up wearing a hat that says smooth Moves. Yeah, that is like, did you do was there was that thought through or just a complete accident? I mean, you know, I'm just a human train wreck. So probably not, but I mean smooth new suspension seats. I mean, seriously, you know what, I like it so much I'll let you plug the sponsor because I'm like, man, he sat down with this. This reminds me of the time I four show to where I had that says get over yourself. You remember that that was good too anyway, Um, so I'm just saying that's brand in more ways than one. But yeah, yeah, I have no problem with it. People. You know, it's just funny like people think me and you hate each other. It's funny. It is true when I mean just like, yeah, I just I can tolerate you. Is the thing you said, my semi tolerable friend, because I remember things too. I've referred to you as that many times, my semi tolerable friend, Ross Robertson, semi tolerable friend, Ross Robertson. Do remind the listeners how many years you've got in now guiding for the Wally's there on LA. You know, I don't know exactly, but it's either twenty one or twenty two. So I'm very excited to finally get a smooth move story from you, because I know there's many I've I've heard many, um, but you got one shot, so hit us with the best man. What do you got? I got a lot of them. Of some of them we probably couldn't talk on here because you guys are not PC. But let's just be honest. Some of these things ain't meant for nowhere or even a kid record by. But when people are drinking in the boat, it's a no go for me. You know, I'll drink one or a dozen with you, but I'm late down. You know, that's just a no go. So I'm out there fishing and I get a guy that I realized from somehow from time we took off till the time we basically set up. This dude is hitting a flask and he is snookered. So I basically canceled the day. Said kind of make a little bit of an excuse up just to you know, so you cut, you cut your day. He was bad enough, like, because I mean, this dude is he almost knocks me out of the boat. Soon as we're getting ready to set up a batch. It's a game over, like this is this is a bad deal. I'm sure my insurance guys cringing right now. So anyhow, I've burned them back in and it was middle of the week, and so there's like nobody really around where tie tie up at the dock. It's on a river. Kind of useful innovation for a second. So I literally run to get my truck. I turned around and look, and this guy's like, I can heat because it's not that far away. He is untying the ropes and he's like, oh clear. And the boat is now like banging and spiking down this river. Thankfully, there's tied you from the dog of the ram on a river. Now it's not good any place, but it's really bad and river, and it's also middle of the week. There's nobody around, Like I try to use launches where there's nobody around, right, So fortunately there's a courtesy doctor's I'm gonna say a hundred and some feet long. I literally run. I mean it was like a movie deal. I run like fest jump on the boat, literally almost breaking rods in the front deck. I get in the thing, get it under power, and tie it back up. As you can imagine, mega mega kissed at this point and about really done with life. So the other guy who is not snuckered, who's one of my regular guys and still fishes with me. He's like, already know, you know, he's just he's just he knows I'm about ready to go eight mode on this deal. So so now I get it, and I tell him, hey, listen, meet me on top of parking lot. We're gonna get your stuff out of the boat. I'm going home. Game over here. They're trying to take me to breakfast, lunch or whatever. I'm like done, pay me world, I'm because I don't want to go to jail. I'm gonna go home instead. So on the top of the deal here, I'm waiting. I can't find I don't see him. I don't see him, and now where he had to park with down a hundred yards away or something like that, and I'm looking, I don't see him, and I won't see him coming. So I'm like, screw it. I'm gonna drive my boat and truck in the car parking which is you know, there's barely there's not really a room turn around to do any of that. But I'm just like done over with this. So I drive down there and there's a little car in front of me, which I almost go ape shut on, and then I realized it's like some eight year old husband and wife. And I realized then that the wife is out and she's standing in front of a car. So I get out now, and I'm in a place it's like a semi in a you know, in a school parking lot, Like, I mean, this is logistically, this doesn't all work. And I look out and this woman it looks like she's having a heart attack. She has just like got her hand over. What's going on? Well, I look down and here's my dude laying flat on the ground in front of their car. And I'm like, did he get smoked? Did by the car? I mean, what's going on? And then I realized, like he's got this thing and he sits up and he's petting this dog. But all you can see is of rufus. Here is just this little tiny it looks like a lollipop in him because he's his arms are so big, he's like landing in it. From from my absolutely, he has this dog in a death grip but doesn't even realize it because he's that snickered, right, And this woman is like, oh my god. And I've got to basically go up there and be like, dude, let you let go of that dog, for I kick you and your dome and because this guy could kick the ship out all of us. I mean he's he's a big Yeah. Well hold on, hold on, I gotta I gotta check. Was the dog okay? Yeah? Well, I mean Evan a rufus apparently. I mean, I didn't do a vet check or anything out. But he went home. He got in the car with a nice little old lady. She did not have a heart attack. I think that was probably the biggest thing in this whole deal, because she literally looked like she was gonna have a heart attack because this was her prize little poodle. I gotta say, man, for all the ways that this story could have gone, it really ended as well as it could. You You you did the track star sprint and and leap dit your boat back, didn't take anybody out in the parking lot, the lady old lady didn't die, and the dog was okay. And best of all, you didn't get into fisticuffs with your client. I really couldn't have seen this ending any other way that that was positive. So I'd say that's what I like. Positive stuff. I mean, there are a few that might do you ensued positivity. Huh, yeah, there there's a few, but my my lawyer and my insurance agent suggested we not talk about it. So, I mean, I feel like that this is good. So just in case that one shook you to the core, in case you were on the edge of your seat worrying about the well being Rufous the poodle. Just in case I was a messed up story. Maybe it was. It was, so let's heal. Here's Carl Weathers to sing you back to a happy place. What about a rain Have you ever noted you're feeling aside when a rainbows sky. I do not feel healed. I do not feel put back together. I do not feel suit like of dude, of all the Carl Weather's clips, like you could have gone Rocky, you could have gone Predator, you could have gone Happy Gilmore, Hurricane Smith, and and you went with that. That was where you went. You know why? Because I stumbled onto it accidentally. And just first of all, we don't give enough credit to nineties SNL monologues, and just just based on watching Carl's nineties SML monologue, I'm sure that was a horrible episode of the show, Like it was a terrible monologue. I feel like they might have been hard up for people at the time, but I love the obscurity of it. That's why I chosen and and that's where I have to I do have to give you credit, because I'm giving you full points for not being obvious. That was not where I would have gone at all. And credit there, And you know what, I'm I'm gonna thank you because you kind of teach me up. Because the book that I'm gonna drop in this week's installment of Freaking Philistines is also not the obvious choice, though it is one of the best essay collections I've read in a long time. What's a fast team. It's a guy who doesn't care about books or interesting films and things and unfast team. I love a good essay collection. It's kind of like the tinder of literature. Reading a single essay doesn't require much commitment. You can grab a cup of coffee, share a few minutes of conversation, and then get on with your day. Or maybe you're having a good time coffee turns into lunch and you set the book aside after several hours, already looking forward to the next date or coffee rolls into lunch, after which you lose track of time completely. Take the book to bed with you and devour the whole thing. I appreciate options good chance. I'll review many essay collections, but I'm starting out with one that's kind of underground Fish Like You Mean It by David Zobe. I'll be the first to admit that the title leaves something to be desired, and the copy could have used a more stringent editor. But if you can set those two criticisms aside, you'll get to experience one of the best fishing books you've never heard of. The book spans most of Zobie's life, a series of vignettes, held together by two strands, fishing and the attendant strange characters he attracts, from his Lebanese family on the Virginia Coast to his contemporary itinerant ramblings in Homer, Alaska. Zobi collects a cast of people too eclectic to be entirely fictional, and fishing tales too humble to be made up. That humility is really my favorite aspect of Zobie's writing. Too many authors, especially those of us, who write about conquest pursuits like fishing and hunting, use the space between covers to argue their dominance or show off superior skill. You'll find none of that here. Mostly you'll find a person trying to make sense of his own major tragedies and minor successes through fishing. His family's immigrant shame, the decay of his hometown after the closing of shipyards, the sting of giving away fishing secrets to sell tackle, a disappointing career, a doomed relationship, a series of canine companions that just never lasts long enough. It sounds depressing, I know, but it's not. Zobe gets his readers through all that heaviness the same way he gets through it exceptional fishing stories featuring fascinating supporting characters, though to be fair, he throws in some great duck hunting stories too. Every time the narrative starts to feel like really sad, you're transported to a wyoming river or an Alaskan beach with a rod in your hands and a dog at your heels, waiting to chase salmon or trout or seals or sticks. Anyone who has ever felt fishing become escapism and perhaps wondered at what point it tips from being a healthy outdoor pursuit to a self destructive avoidance tactic will relate to this book, but it's not all deep water naval gazing. Zobe also turns his razored critiques outward from time to time, as in this section of an essay titled at the Cabella's. The story of Cabella's is one of the true rags to riches tails woven into the fabric of Americana. In Dick Cabella was working at his parents furniture store in Nebraska when he accompanied his father in Chicago with a purpose to buy more inventory in a water damage warehouse. He stumbled upon some cheap hand tiede flies from Japan. He knew they were too cheap to pass up, so he bought several thousand. His first ad ran in the Casper Tribune. Only one person answered. His next ad ran in Field and Stream. It read five hand tied fishing flies free postage. In handling this ad did the trick, Dick and Mary Cabella spent their free time filling out orders on their kitchen table. They collected the names and addresses of their first customers on recipe cards and sent them future offers. Regrettably, these were the first catalogs, the birth of a revolution. The flies in the postage to send them back to customers only cost the Cabella's fourteen cents, so they made a profit of eleven cents on each order they filled. There really were no free flies. There never were. This was the humble beginning of America's biggest outdoor gear company, the world's foremost outfitter we know today. While wandering around in search of the canine department, I found an Alaskan moose. He was a full body mountain. His paddles were the color of maple syrup. The hide seemed large enough to project a movie on his flanks. He was standing in a tumbling stream beside faue bowls, and to my amazement, there were actual rainbow trout in the stream, weaving in and out of the moose's spindly legs. I peered over what passed is a beaver dam and looked down at the fish. They were large for rainbows, some of them pushing twenty inches or so, the kind of fish you catch on the North plattin March if you can stand the wind and the cold, the tannic smell of the creek, the raw exposed. Scent of rot and fish struck me as original. A large man grazing on peanut brittle he had just purchased, leaned over beside me and looked down too. Those are some niceens, he said. A bit of brittle fell from his mouth, and the trout scrambled for it. The spell was broken, just like that. But that is the danger of semilacra. The experience itself. Just walking into the store has become the outing the goal. Going to the Cabella's replaces the need to climb mountain er find a grossbeak in your binoculars. A trip to Cabella's, any Cabella's, does not ask that you risk squitoes or a night on the uncomfortable ground. It only asked that you shop drowsy lee impulsively. It asks that you sign up for the instore newsletter, a Cabella's credit card. It asks that you fill your cards in your arms with products, that you haul them away happily and contented, as if the adventure is within these vaultage showrooms, not some other place without. You won't find this book at your local bookstore, unfortunately, so you'll have to turn to the Cabella's of the book world, good old Amazon to get a copy. Once you get past that unpleasantness, though, I think you'll only be disappointed when you find yourself staring at the back cover wishing there was another essay to read. I gotta admit, no, Lie, that book sounds incredible, and you you did pick the perfect passage because I can relate to that so much, and it's so terrible that he's right, you know what I'm saying. Like, when the Cabella's first opened up out here in Pennsylvania, people set up campers in the parking lot, like they came for the weekend to the Cabella's instead of filling the camper into the wild. Absolutely yeah. And every time I'd go out there, there'd be another restaurant built up or another shopping center. It's just like all these things sprouted around that, and you just come spend the weekend at the Capella's. That's what she did. I could never figure it out. Um kind of related. My wife visited that Capella's with me exactly one time, and her takeaway was that she had probably never walked through as many fart clouds in a single day before. That was what she took away from from Capella's well, Peanut Bridle and hot dogs are not good for That's what I'll say. Um, and man like Dave nailed it on that one. And and a full disclosure. Uh, he's someone who I call an acquaintance. I think he's a really good guy in addition to being a good writer. But that is both a depressing and completely accurate passage and I feel like one that that all of us sort of as an outdoor community need to need to marry it on for a minute. And all of you out there should buy and read that book for sure. Um, it's just good. And Zobe, I think is a sorely underrated writer. Um. I used to edit his stuff when I've worked at Gray Sporting Journal, and it was like one of those ones when I saw his name in my email, I would I would know something good was coming and I wasn't gonna want to beat my head against the wall, and I always look forward to it. Yeah, I can see why, man, and you I gotta give you credit. You are the king of finding like this, this sort of underground dudes that write really really great stuff. And this is a great example. Uh. Sadly though, I'm probably never gonna read Fish like you mean it because I I don't do well with dogs dying. Well, there's not like I should clarify. It's not like a dramatic dog death is a part of the book. It's just that, like you see a series of dogs, like once he's fishing with one dog, and then the next story it's a different dog, and you know, like, okay, so it doesn't tall he doesn't detail that the dying of of dogs. No, this is not like situation. I may read it now that I know that, Okay, because I can't do dogs. Look, I can watch Carl Well his arm get torn off and feel nothing. But dogs dying is my kryptonite. So hopefully you've not conjured any kryptonite that will block me from emerging victorious in this week's current Events battle. Let's do some fish News. Fish New escalated quickly. All right, I just have one very tiny baby shout out this week. I just I have to do this. Remember last week we did the awkward moments in angling with Alex Reid as a young boy, and he was he was I can't forget he was posing with the blue girl after just having pissed his pants. He wrote in after last week's show. To just let me know that that same exact day, he also took his first dump in the woods. So in that photo that we ran, he's also not wearing sock inside those work boots, those little work boots, because he used his socks to wipe his ass. So that's like a little to the pea pants awkward photo. That's all I got. I'm like, I have to, I have to that that need the world needs to hear that. So that Alex. Alex had no idea what he was getting into when he allowed us into his personal history. Um, but he loved it. He's like, thanks for the five minutes of fame. Also, I ship in the woods and white white my ass with my socks. So he just he fed that. He didn't have to, he didn't have to offer that up, but he did appreciate it. Nope, the dude is a mass kist. I'm not gonna Yeah, I can't have any housekeeping after that. It's we've we've we've soiled the whole segment. Oh but I'm bump. We are going to do news just a little differently this week. We're not We're not like totally stepping out. It's gonna feel familiar, but we're gonna we're gonna switch it up a little bit. So Joe and I were each gonna do just one single story and then after that we're gonna bring in a special guest who's who's going to cover a more in depth piece of news for us. And and and that's a that's that's a piece of news that neither Joe nor I wanted to have any personal involvement with whatsoever, for reasons that will become clear when you hear it. Just so you know, it's a little change up, but we we consider doing this more. It's not bad to have have somebody on every once in a while, So we're trying something here to try to people who know more than we um so. But despite all that, despite the changes, this is still a competition, and neither Joe nor I know what the other ones bringing to the table. And at the end, our illustrious audio engineer Phil will pick a winner. Just this week, he'll have three options instead of and uh, and Joe, you got the lead off this week, but you only have one shot at it, one shot, so you better you better be bringing the goods man. Yeah, well, I I hope you know it's one of the way like is not amazing, but the talking points after the debate it brings up I think is good um and something everybody can get behind. So this is from for the wind dot com that's part of USA Today headline angler breaks fifty year old catfish record, catch stirs controversy. So what happened here? Back in September, North Carolina angler John Stone caught himself a twenty three pound, five ounce channel cat which that's a big that's a that is a large channel catfish. I mean, I don't I don't care who you are. Twenty three pounds five ounces is a really good fish. And he filled out all the proper paperwork and submitted it for state record. Now here's the thing. The previous record was twenty three pounds four ounces and it has stood since nineteen seventy alright, so fifty years. But late this January, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission certified Stones catch. And here's the fun part. Not only has it beaten the fifty year record by a mere ounce, it was caught in a private pond and as you might have, meat and people are going ballistic over this, especially since that previous fifty year record came from a public lake. So when, uh, when n CWR posted a photo and announced the certification on its Facebook page, all hell broke loose in the comments. And while I mean some were supportive, you know, some were supportive, but most of the men are calling it out as as straight up cheating, claiming, you know, Stone grew the fish, calling it a farm catfish, and so on and so forth. Now it's a little a little more here to add another layer of drama. Another story on a different site about this catch notes that Stone is an at large wildlife commissioner, so people are even more piste off that he'd even try and have this certified because of that position. And um, I I looked at all the stories related to this that that popped up in the news feed, and I can't seem to find one where Stone is quoted or defending himself or anything like that. But frankly, if you really stop, he doesn't need to write because regardless of how you feel, North Carolina certifies fish from private water. You know, you might not like it, but there's there's no shadiness or wrongdoing on on their end as far as they're concerned. They don't care what kind of water it came out of. Um, you know, And in my opinion, I certainly understand the frustration here. Uh, but I also think it's fair to say there are so many details that we don't know, so it's it's hard to make a legit judgment call. I mean, just as an example, right, if in fact Stone has been hand feeding this cat for years in a private pond, essentially growing it, Yeah, that's totally lame and stupid. But nobody has made an official claim of that yet. Now on the flip side, a lot of people have private water, lots of them, right, So if I bought property with a pond on it and it coughed up, say a state record bass, why would that not count. I haven't manipul layd those fish or fed them. It was just there. Maybe it was an old farm pond that's been there since that was farmland. And now I bought my McMansion in North Carolina, there's a huge bass in there. But what people are saying is that it's not right to claim a record from water that not everyone can access. And that's certainly a very gray area, and there's no battle here. It's basically just people spouting off. But it's it's a gray area at least in terms of legality, ethically, different story based on the case, right, and just to to put a personal touch on it. For years, I belong to a private trout club in North Jersey and the fish there, I mean, dude, we fed them with automatic deer feeders, just spit out the food right to keep them in the stret private, privately stocked, and it was what it was. I used to call it the land of make believe, and it was like somewhere to get your jollys in the middle of winter. And I'm fairly confident I broke the new Jersey state brook trout record at least twice many years ago. Right now, technically, technically I could have weighed that fish in and claim that record, and honestly, in a way, it would have been more legit maybe than a private pond fish, because theoretically that fish was free to leave our private section and stream and go wherever it wanted. The food kept it there. But that fish could have went wherever it wanted, and it could have easily ended up caught in a public stretch of that same stream. But I've had I would have literally beaten my own ass if I ever even thought about doing that. It wasn't no, it wasn't on a little you weren't you weren't part of that club, I hope. No, No, this is Jared Little Jay's Pennsylvania. But sorry I heard no, No, this is North Jersey. No, this is not the Little Jay tobaccle. But to me, I was like, I was holding this fish, going got what a lame loser move that would be. But it would have counted. The state wouldn't have said you can't do that. And the irony in that um is if that fish did leave that stretch, our stretch and get caught by some eight year old kid five miles down river, I have been like, good for him, get that record, you know what I mean. So it's it's, uh, there's so much debate there. I get the frustration, but it's hard to say. You know, it's the thing of the reason that that it's that we're both kind of I think, responding to this the same way as that we just don't care that much about the record thing like that's not that's not and I'm not trying to put this out of the judgment on the people who do, because I get that a lot of people they augment their enjoyment of fishing by putting particular goals on themselves and and working through those with constraints, which is what all records are all about. Right, Like this size fish on this line, that's what makes it fun for me. Cool you do that, That's not how I approach joy of fishing. Right, So this becomes like a pretty academic and kind of well not told, entirely subjective debate. It was legal, he can do it right? Right? Should he have done it? Now? Now there's there's where you can go around and round, But can he do it? Absolutely? He did it. He can so yeah, get over it if that makes bad And you're right, if you really like peel the like the layers away of why there's debate here for you and I, you're correct. I don't give a damn about record fish, like the only way I don't really care about a state record fish. I'll even take a step further, and I'm gonna annoy some people that are listening to this right now. But you know, a lot of fish just have citations too, like citation catches. I don't know if that's the thing out west, but out here it's like it's like in New Jersey as an example, it's like they'll say, if you want a pickerel citation for the year, the fish has to be over twenty three inches, like they designate all these different fish, all these different lengths, and if you catch one and send him a photo, like you get a citation to put on your wall. There are people who have like hundreds of citations, like damn, dude, you need that that bad, Like they post on facebooks like, huh another citation, white perch, Huh another side got for citation. Picke people still have all their like ribbons and trophies from high cool sports. That's so like, dude, the citation, I'm sorry, that's like the bottom of the barrel. For me to care about a record, it would have to be something so mind blowing, like I would have to catch the next world record stripe bass or something like really covet something something storied. Yeah, mine class records. I'm sorry, I don't care. No, I mean, look, we talked about that whole we dug into that culture when we reviewed Monty Burk's new book, and and so this also makes me probably made me. Think of a previous book of money Burks, which was Sowbelly, which was all about there's a whole chapter in there about the guy who's trying to grow the world record large mouth bass, like intentionally and with a lot of chemistry and science, like what do you have your private pond for? I'm trying to grow the record large mouth. Watch it grow and then catch it and break the record? Yep. Also legal, is it anything I want anything to do with? No? Has the guy ever succeeded? No? But now that's the that's sort of the extreme extent that these things can and go to. And unless we change the rules somewhere and say like private ponds don't count, it only works on public water, then this debate continues to be just kind of mood. You're not going to do that, right, you know you're not gonna do that. So we don't really know the full story here, but um, either way, like, when it comes down to it, he didn't do anything wrong, you know, so deal with it. You know, I think it's lame, but deal with it. My my story actually ties into that because it's also about a large fish that will annoy the crap out of quite a few people listening, uh so from from my news story this week, we're checking in with Lakeville, Minnesota, and I just gotta say, really quick, that's gotta be the most literal down name, uh in the entire state. It's It's kind of like how they named my adopted home state Montana, which means mountains in Spanish. Or there's a down in Idaho called Titonia that sits right in the shadow of the Grand Teton. Anyway, so this story comes to us from Northland Outdoors and it comes by way of listener k lib prator or prator. I don't know, I'm butchering it, but either way, thank you Caleb, thanks for for sending along. Before I get into this, zo Joe, I feel like I have to give you personally a trigger warning because the following story may cause you extreme frustration, anger, envy, a general sense that the world is a deeply, deeply unfair place. So if you need to prepare yourself in some way to receive the information I'm about to impart, do so now, or just take off your headphones or whatever I do for the next couple of minutes. Is it about like clack Craft giving away a hundred boats for free to people or something like. It's not it might be worse than that for you. So I mean, if you're gonna stick around, just deep breathing, that's all I gotta say. So this story is about John, and I'm gonna there will be a lot of butchered last names here. Everybody, just deal with it, uh, The stories about John Kuznia and his buddy Ben. Sorry on. John and Ben went out ice fishing a couple of weeks ago on Lake Charlie, where John keeps a permanent ice house in the winter. John owns a cabin on nearby Lake Ida, where he spends most weekends. These names are gonna be important later, so so make notes. But he prefers to fish on the smaller Lake Charlie. Okay, So John and Ben and Ben's dad Carl, got up nice and early and got out of the ice house and and they're they're fishing over about sixteen ft of water, and by seven am they were into a solid sunfish bite, just just having a good time yard the mint and and they're you know, they're small sunfish, but they're having fun. And after a while they noticed some pike were staging around the panfish school, and they started seeing pike take swipes at the hook bluegills as they were bringing them up, you know, And you know, dude, like I know, you've been in this situation. Anybody else has been in this situation knows. It's a pretty fun game. Oh yeah, it's a little it's like a video game. Yeah, it's definitely a little statistic, like you hook you a little fish and then you're like, oh, I got one, I'm gonna let him swim around a little and see if the big pike wax out of It's fun. It's fun, right, totally little dirty maybe, but fun so. And every once in a while, when you're doing that with pike or other big big fish, a pike will grab onto one and it won't let go. Or sometimes I've even seen them like fully inhale the smaller fish head first and then the spines get stuck in their throat and then and now you're fighting this big pike on really light tackle. Yeah, it's just a good time. It's just it's a good time. So that's what John and Ben were up to on this particular day, and at some point John even managed landa a twenty seven pike, which I'm sure was super fun. So that's the scene that's going on. This is this is what's happening in the ice house. And yet no, they're just they're just they're just having a nice morning ice fish and playing god with the food chain, you know what's going on. Then all of a sudden, there flasher starts sliding across the floor of the ice house and luckily it gets wedged in the hole. It's Ben's flasher. Ben grabs grabs ahold of his flasher and he pulls it back a little. And then he and John see a huge fish hanging onto the transducer itself, just below the surface, and thinking quickly, Ben lifted up slowly on the transducer cable. The fish's head came up into the hole. John grabbed it behind the gilt plate and pulled out a fifty plus inch muskie on the transducer. M hm. After they pulled it up, the fish continued to bite down on that transducer. Because the ad told told Northland Outdoors it was honestly a minute and a half before that thing let go. I kind of tickled its mouth hoping it would open, and it didn't. So what I mean, it's a crazy story, but it's just it's so unfair to all the people who have spent years of their lives work their butts off trying to catch a fifty musky. It's so unfair. Now, I understand why you think this would this would anger me so much, but frankly, it doesn't anger me at all, because this is this is how this ship happens with muskies. Like, I'm convinced that if I'm ever going to catch a fifty plus inch muski, if if that's ever gonna happen for me, chances are it's gonna be a miracle because it's gonna bite some hot and tot or something that I'm throwing for small mouth. Well this so that's crazy enough as it is, but there's there's one more wrinkle that makes this even more hard to believe true, but hard to believe so and possibly even more unfair, depending on how you want to look at it. Because Lake Charlie, the little lake where they're fishing, it's not supposed to have muskies in it. The DNR has never stocked muskies there. It does, however, connect to larger Lake Ida, and you'll remember that's where John has a cabin a small channel, but the d n R has never stocked muskies in Lake Ida either. They have stocked muskies in Lake Miltona, which connects to the opposite side of Ida from Charlie. So I looked this up on Google Maps, and that fish, that fish made just a ridiculous journey because these are not like tiny, little short channels where they connect right next to each other. We're talking like fifty to a thousand foot long, super small, little skinny water channels, each of which cuts through a culvert under a county road. So this fish went on like a serious walk about to get there, only to be caught by biting and hanging onto a flasher transducer. And if that story doesn't prove how cruel and callous the fates of fishing are, I do not know what will. So. Okay, so a couple of things here, right. First of all, I hear you on the on the walk about, but I don't really know what I'm talking about here. But I'm pretty sure musky grow fair slowly. So fish that big it ain't young, right, So that part doesn't doesn't freak me out, because if it's that big, it's had a whole lot of time to get to where it ended up. Right. But here's the other thing. If this happened to me, say say I was the guy and it bit the transducer and I pulled up this musky. While I would be like, holy sh it, I can't believe that just happened. It would not count as my trophy musky. And I'm not I'm not saying that to take away anything from these guys, but more in the sense of, like, well, yeah, every once in a while, this goofy stuff happens, And here's this impossible fish to catch chewing on a transducer, But like, that's still not even catching one by accident on smallmouth tackle or something. It'd be awesome. I would love it, but I like, I want to catch my big muskie fishing for a big musk. And you know, I don't think these guys are claiming like a big musky. They're telling it because it's just crazy as story. And there's even one there's one final thing. I gotta say that I just love how many things had to come together to make this happen. So uh. In the past, John has used a ten inch auger to drill holes in the ice. But he just recently bought a brand new Auger with a nine inch blade and uh and he was quoted as saying, if I had used my ten inch auger, you're Vex Loomer would be gone. Well, you know, one one last point of note, right, I think I think the part we're missing here. It's one thing that he's chewing on the transducer cable. But also, man, I know a lot of captains, especially salty guys, that if they're at a certain shallow depth, like say twenty ft of water or less bottom fishing or whatever it is, they'll kill the sonar because a lot of people believe that that ping, that that signal actually screws with the fishing, you know, in certain situations. So it's like another level to me because here's this thing down there, like transmitting. You have to wonder if there was something that tweaked that fish, and like would it have hit it if it wasn't on, you know, or was like something about that signal put an electromagnetic field in the water or something like that. I don't know. It's just another one of those things that that adds to how mysterious and complex A puzzle it is with what fish will eat and when and why. We can never figure it out, which is why we keep doing it. Well, I'll have to put some electromagnets on my musky flies or something. For the first time, but hopefully not the last time. Here on fish News, we're gonna shut up and kind of kind of at least past the mic to our buddy and meat eaters fishing editors, Sam Longer. Now, Um, it's kind of like how real news organs kick it to the guy in the field to to bring some more light to a very big story than Miles or I could bring it on our own. Sam, what's going on? Man? Thanks for thanks for i don't know, stopping doing real work and coming to talk to us a little bit. It's nice to have somebody here besides me and Miles for a change in the news space. Well, thanks for pulling me away from my real work to talk about some interesting stuff. I mean, you know, this is technically we do have you here to talk about your real work because because this is one of those stories that uh, we weren't able to cover and uh and shouldn't be covering because it's super regionally focused and we need I mean, fact is everybody we needed to bring in the big guns and someone who was a local on this story. Otherwise we would have looked like a bunch of jerks really talking about by somebody where this hits close to home. You know, it would be like Miles telling striper stories. That just doesn't work. Yeah. Yeah, well Myles can always be our our Hawaii correspondent, this is true. Yeah, we have a lot to cover their really what like two stories so far? Every um Anyway, with that, Sam's got a really interesting piece for us. And uh, yeah, I don't know everything you got, Sam, I know the basics and I'm looking forward to seeing what you bring. And just to just to be clear, this ran on the meat eater dot com. That's where this this all precipitates from. Kah Sam. Yeah. So back in December, the Washington Department of Fishing Wildlife announced that they aren't going to allow anglers to fish for steel head out of boats on most of the coastal rivers this season, as well as banning bait and barbed hooks. But but that's nothing new. So as a lot of people are probably aware, native steel head runs have been in the shipter for the last four years that I mean going back a lot further than that, but like especially bad, and like even and predicted to be even shittier this year. Um and some folks are even speculating that these populations are on the brink of extinction. But wdf W believes that they'll be able to reduce the recreational catch rate by about fifty with these new regulations. But obviously a lot of people are super pissed about this, especially guides. They had a protest parade through Forks a few weeks ago. A change dot org petition to change these rules has gathered five thousand signatures. And boats are basically how guided steelhead trips work. The guide rows a driftboater raft right next to or right on top of the prime holding lies, and clients run through with plugs or drift gear, bobbers and worms, bobber dog rigs, jigs, indicator, nim friggs, you name it. But it's really effective. Uh. You know, one study show that guided anglers on the Soul Duck caught some eight percent of the steelhead caught in that river that year. UM. So, as you mentioned, I wrote an article about this for the Mediator website a few weeks ago, and that got people a bit stirred up. But like my message was this, you're in hiding right now, aren't you. You're location you don't know, ab somewhere, safehouse, Yeah, witness protection program. But I'm standing by my message, guys. And my message was I think you don't like Washington's new rigs, just you wait until the federal government gets involved. So to take a step back, I caught my first winter run steel head while skipping class during my senior year of high school up in the Skadget River. Just two months later. Two months later, the entire Puget Sound Distinct population segment of steelhead were listed under the Endangered Species Act. The Skatget didn't reopen for its world famous late winter fishery for a decade and and still hit or miss whether or not they'll have a season, and they're probably not going to have one this year. And this guy Comish that's still a Guamish. The snow Qualmy and a shipload of other rivers that start with the letters still haven't been reopened. The Washington Coast in Olympic Peninsula is one of only four steel head meta populations in the lower forty eight that haven't yet come under the umbrella of the Feds. Pretty much everything else is listed under the Endangered Species Act already, So they're a lot of different factors at play with why steel head of runs have fallen to fractions of a percent of their historical abundance. Yeah, we've covered a ton of them on here, like that's the frequent news item. Yeah, absolutely, And people people love to speculate wildly about what it is. And and one thing is for certain, it's never it's never anyone's it's never that person's fault, right right, right, right right. I don't know what's wrong, but it's not me. Yeah, yeah, it's not it's not me. It couldn't be me. Having read your story though, like the crux of what what you're saying and what you know is that as harsh as this is and as upsetting as it is to people, it's it's it's better than having the federal government come in and say nothing, no fishing, no, just shut it down completely exactly. And I mean the Endangered Species Act is designed to function it kind of as the iron fist of the federal government slamming down to prevent extinction. It's famously severe. I mean, like look at the controversy that's been going around spotted outs for thirty years. But it's also arguably effective if you look at species like wolves that have been recently delisted. But that same severity also makes it an effective deterrent. Like if you look back at eleven states and groups as far apart as environmentalists and oil developers and ranchers and hunters came together to design plans to save the Greater Sage grouse throughout the Inner Mountain West and then and then later that year, when the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service reviewed the grouse for listing, they ruled them to be quote warranted but precluded, which is basically an admission. That's a big problem. But the states are on top of it, so they can put their resources elsewhere. So that's exactly what Washington is trying to do with his boat fishing band. And you know, after publishing this article, my my name is is kind of being trashed, like you know, from the hump tulips to the hoe and back again. But like I'm just trying to pute this out to people, like I don't love this rule either. You know, I would ton of funds who are guides and I want to see them continue making a living. But like, and this rule messed up my own plans too. But I'm just really worried that if an es A listing comes down, this fishery is going to evaporate. And that's like not a boogeyman thing, like there are some of the litigious wild fish groups have already said that they're going to petition the US Fish and Wildlife Service under a more amenable Biden administration to list the coastal steel headstock and you know what, like they're probably gonna get it. Yeah, Well, so I just have I just have one question because see this is not my world. Admittedly, right, I am not as fluent on the West coast steel seen as you guys are. But before we get into because we're gonna be, I want I want you to read some of the things people have saying, uh I've been saying about you specifically. I believe you've you've queued up some comments that we'll get into. But this is just a question. We're out of ignorance. I mean, this system has been in place elsewhere out there for a long time, like the shoots. You cannot fish from a boat on the shoots most of the Scheina system too. Yeah, yeah, you're right right about the t shoots and like and like Steelhead Valhalla in around Terrace, British Columbia, nobody fishes from boats for steel head and haven't for a long time. And and to clarify, it's not that you can't put a boat on these rivers, you just can't fish out of it. So like I experienced on two shoots, you can use your boat to go from point A to point B, but then you have to get out and fish right correct correct, And and that's how a lot of people already do it. And and and there's also a valid argument to be made here that like, you know, the the Boga Shield is not the the shoots. You know, they're steep banks that are covered in rocks and moss, and it's it's it's very dangerous. A lot of the a lot of the Steelhead seasons, the rivers will like barely ever come into shape, like not be too muddy to fish. And and so like a lot of people are arguinging like what about elderly people, what about young people? What about disabled anglers? And like I get that man, and and and originally there weren't concessions for those people. But I have heard that w df w IS is changing their tune there, and so that's that's good to hear, because like I've got buddies out there who are still fishing and rowing people down the rivers and their seventies and and and young folks and people who can't walk well like that, I feel like, I feel like it's very fair that the rules are a little bit different there, but like the fact of the matter is, like w DFD, but you had to do something, like the status quo here has failed, and restricting recreational anglers is the only tool they have available. They can't stop the Japanese High Seas trawlers, they can't stop the tribes, they can't stop warm water in the North Pacific, and and then and these rules have been getting more and more restrictive for decades. So like, if you didn't see this coming or something like this coming, you just haven't been paying attention. And the last thing I want to say is kind of where we're coming from here, where I'm from coming from here, I suppose it's like it's a big part of our ethos at meat Eater to have respect for and deference to biologists and wildlife managers. They have a tough job, and too many hunters and anglers have shipped talked to them for too long. Like, I'm not happy about this decision, but I understand why it was made, and I hesitate to second guess a game agency that's trying to save a game species from extinction. And there have been public forums and public comment periods throughout all of this process, but very few people were willing to tune in until something happened that they didn't like. So, Like, the last thing I want to say to anybody who who who hates me over this is like, if you don't like this rule, I get involved in the process and be part of the solution. Yelling at me is not going to accomplish anything. And I just really don't feel like steel has steel Head owe us anything like, but we owe the steel Head like all we can do to keep them around, and we like definitely owe it to the generations to follow. Like my best friend, one of my best friends who have been fishing steel Head with for fifteen years, had a son this year and he is convinced that his son won't be able to fish native steel head with us on the Olympic Peninsula, and that breaks my heart, man. And I just I just feel like, I feel like, you know, at least at least they're trying, at least at least some measure of attempt is being made to save these fish. Yeah. And I think I think a couple of things that we got thrown here before we before we close out. One, if you if you don't know anything about this particular subculture of of anglers in this particular area, they might be the most divided and angry group of fishermen that I've ever come across, too, And that's that's important for those of you who don't know about this. The other thing is is in your article that I read, you know, on on some of those systems, all these fish are getting caught at least once, and some of them are getting caught multiple times, right according to the statistics. And I think that's an important point throw out. It's like the escapement is getting past the nets, but they're all getting caught and released by anglers and that has an impact. And and before we let you go, because we want you to tell us some of the awful hate mail that you've gotten, because we find that entertaining. But I should point out that three different friends of mine after reading your article reached out to me and and like said straight up, like, hey, man, is Sam okay? Is someone is anyone gonna are people who had heard him? So, like I think before we close out saying, why don't you, why don't you give us an example of the kind of crazy feedback you're getting from people and how upset they are because you were trying to tell this what I consider to be a journalistic story about the state of things. Yeah, and you know, and before I do that, Miles and I am okay, and thanks for asking, Um, but right now, because nobody knows where you are right yeah, the safe house. Um. But you know, I I heard from one of the top guides out there the other day and I was totally expect DM to thrash me. And we had a really great conversation about this and found a lot of middle ground. And so I do believe that a lot of rational people are kind of seeing what's happening here in its totality, not just kind of what's in front of their face, and I have gotten more positive comments than negative. Just read the negative. Just read the negative. We were happy to hear that, but we want to hear the train wrecord. So this fella said, you ever research South American king salmon and how they got there? I mean really researched it. See, you are spewing propaganda and a rhetoric dot dot. The simple problem is there aren't brought steel head. The simple solution all caps more steel head. Furthermore, w DFW is funded yearly by Federal Endangered Species moneies. Therefore they would go bankrupt if wildfish ever came back. Also researched the quinnult misspelled. It is amazing how they get off sime returns on all these warm weather years and with all the bad nets. Quinlt is the best steel head fishery in the entire Pacific Northwest. And he closes by saying something distasteful about my friend and employer, Stephen Ronnello that I would rather not repeat. I think we shouldn't. We got time for one more. You got one more, just short, really cutting good one, whether the spellings right or not. I also got this one bullshit. I live in Washington State and we have hogs for steel Head. I catch them all the time and avoid game officers while I take a picture of them and put them back. Well, I can't argue with that kind of science. We can. We could spend so much more time reading those shorties, because I'm sure there's some good ones. But um, dude, it's it's a great article. It was an important article, and we're happy that you came on to talk to us about it here. I'm also gonna say Phil that Sam is eligible for a win this week. I think I think any any one of us could win based on the work we've done here, and um, you know, and it wouldn't be me or you Joe, but Phil, you make your choice. Agreed. We'll see what Phil has to say, and then we're gonna move into trivia with our good buddy Robert Hawkins. For obvious reasons, Sam Londren, you're the winner of fish News. But Miles, don't sell your story short I mean it had everything, suspense, mystery, action, put that all together, and you've got to stow go on. You've gotta be highly skilled for these shows. You understand that you're well versed there. You're very smart men, all right, joining us today to play a little trivia. My good buddy, Mr Robert Hawkins, owner of Bob Mitchell's Fly Shop in St. Paul, Minnesota, Bobby nachos As you're knowing, How are you doing, my friend? We are we are doing well. We're gonna have a little fun today. UM. So just just to fill everybody in, UH, the month was November, the year when you, sir, caught a fifty seven in muskie on mill Axe Lake on the fly, claiming the current world record fly caught muskie. And you and I over the years have talked about this ad nauseum, and you've talked to so many other people about it. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you were tired of talking about it. Fair to say, we're not going to talk about it now either. This is just the jumping off point for your first trivia question today. I hope that you are ready to play. UH. At just north of one hundred and thirty two thousand acres, mill As is the second largest lake in Minnesota, and I'd say it has a pretty solid reputation as a top fishing destination, not just in your home state, but also around the country. Would you agree with that. Okay, So the question is how many current Minnesota state record fish do you think we're plucked from the mighty waters of Malax? Is it a eleven, B, four C, zero or D one. I'm gonna say four four, So you're going you're going low number there. Um. If that's your final answer, that is incorrect, then the answer is zero. Wow. Presently there are no state record fish uh in Minnesota from from Malax, which I found very interesting because it's one of the most heavily fished bodies of wa are there and I hear all kinds of good things. But a quick follow up to that, I happen to notice while doing research that Minnesota's current state record muskie measured fifty six inches and wide fifty four pounds and has stood since ninety seven from winn of Gosh. And I'm sure you know all about that, but I mean, dude, technically you beat that on the fly. And I understand you had no intention in keeping that fish, but had you, you would hold the state record spot right now? Would you not? Potentially? The thing with Minnesota as they do it by weight and not by length and the girth on that on the wind of a gotious fish may have outdone my fish by maybe a pound or two. So mine may have been a pound or two short of what that fish wade, uh if that makes sense. Okay, So we'll never know, but the potential definitely exists. Yeah, I mean it was for Minnesota's state record fish to be fly caught. Okay, that's impressive. That's that. Okay, all right, so we'll get off the record fish. We'll go to another video that you were in, because there's there's awesome video of that fish being caught. But there's another clip out there. In fact, we used it in the promo video to announce the launch of Bent, in which you were being filmed in the final throws and cleaning a yetti cooler in which beef jerky sandwich is another sort of edibles had been marinating with the lid clothes for what was it, two months, two weeks something like that, at least, well at least a couple of three weeks. But my garage gets My garage is like a hundred and twenty degrees in the summer, so maybe two weeks a hundred, two weeks and a hundred and and it's jerky sandwich is anything was there, anything else was in there? I want to I want to know what those contents were that created such a putrid, epic dry heaves. You know, there's always loose potato chips with water slashing around. Um, there's you know, half spilled beers usually in there. Um, probably some grapes that which thought we were going to eat to be healthy, but didn't. You know, I've never heard somebody wretch quite like that. We might have to repost that on our on our social mind. I think we do. I think we do. And it sounds to me like a primordial soup, like you might have actually spawned some new creatures, new life that never before existed on this planet came out of that cooler. It's so unfortunate what Aaron missed, Like all the that was, like the he in the video, it was so much more before that, even too came across. So this is kind of a goofy little question, but we're all going to learn something from it. So based on that experience. Which of the following is not recommended for use in removing foul odor from your cooler? A charcoal, catts, be baby powder, see cat litter, d baking soda to those is not recommended for removing incredibly foul odors from For the record, I don't know the answers to these either, so I'm puzzling over this as much as you are. Well, I'm gonna say, I mean charcoal's I'm gonna say cat litter because it probably has some sort of like chemical in it that's not supposed to be in your cooler. Maybe Actually the made up one here is be baby powder. All the rest are recommended, at least on the interwebs, for removing rank odor from your cooler. However, I will say the most common one, the one I see use most any guesses. No bleach is disinfecting. We're just talking about like there's like such an embedded stink like you're just trying to get odor out, not necessarily disinfect And yes, charcoal, charcoal or cats so uh. Fun fact, if if you ever have a mishap like Mr Hawkins here, get you some of them Kingsford filled that sucker up, close the lid and let it marinate for a few days. Anyway, this has been really fun, and we thank you so much for playing today. Thank you enthusiasm. That's what we like here on Bent do I think we I think we need to bring back and re share that video of Hawkins dry heating over the cooler because it's, uh, it's just so gross and guttural, and yet it's informative. There's a lesson there. There's a lesson there, but less there. Yeah, it's a quick lesson at the end. We'll reshare the video this week, um At. Speaking of guttural right, I once fished a lore that made me make guttural noises and also made me dry heath Ala Hawkins. I learned that just this week. Something I learned from from this week's end of line segment. So Joe's Joe's gonna mimic his good friend Bobby Nacho's there, and he's gonna get all gross and guttural and informative. He's gonna give you some tips on what you should never do when getting into the chopper in the Amazon. Well, that's not loud enough, Burt, Perhaps up, you're very familiar with the wood shopper. It's also very possible you've never heard of it. I liken this lure to a great band with a devout cult following that tried to get a major label record deal for decades, only to eventually burn out, leaving a smattering of even lesser known cover bands in its wake. The wood Shopper is a top water hardbeat, and while they've been made in many sizes, the six to eight inch models were the most common. The design is rather simple. You've got a painted cigar shaped body, and at the tail, between that body and the rear treble hook is an oversized metal double blade propeller. Like many baits featured here, there is some haze and mark to the story of the wood Shopper, but my research points to it being an original creation of Ozark mountain Lures. It debuted in the nineteen fifties and was primarily marketed as a muskie bait. Ozark's design actually featured a propeller at the head and the tail, and while there's not tons of info on the inner webs about these early versions, I get the sense that, aside from catch muskies, these top orders became sleepers, if you will, for giant large mouth bass as well. The wood shopper was designed to be versatile. You could steadily real one in making those blades buzz in the body wake. You could slow roll a chopper to create a lazy bubble trail, or you could violently snap a wood chopper to make a rip saw racket on the surface. And it's that last dance move that pushes our story forward. The wood shoppers design has arguably inspired and influenced many other successful baits, perhaps most notably the Whopper Flopper. But just as my beloved misfits inspired bands like Metallica that would go on and have platinum records and make billions of dollars, the wood shopper by itself never really achieved superstardom. Still, Lard Jensen owner Phil Jensen saw potential and purchase the wood chopper design from Ozark Mountain loures In. Once Lar Jensen took over, they quickly got rid of that front propeller. In the late eighties and early nineties, peacock bass fishing in the Amazon was getting more and more attention from a American anglers, and what they learned was at the sound of a wood schopper being jerked across the surface and mock one bursts created an auditory kill queue for monster peacocks better than anything else. Now I'm guessing here, but removing the front prop created less resistance, allowing early pioneers to rip those choppers a little harder and a little faster. Shortly after Aller Jensen purchased the wood chopper and angler by the name of Doc Lawson broke the all tackle world record for peacocks with a twenty seven pounder using the lore. In short order, Allergens and wood chopper became standard kit for Amazon peacock hunters looking for big dogs. In fact, is one piece I read suggested if you showed up in the Amazon without wood choppers, you who are labeled a complete novice. Throughout the nineties and into the early two thousands, between the rise of the Internet and more lodge operations opening in South America, peacock fishing in the Amazon slowly more from a game for the rich and fortunate two pretty affordable to more people, and the wood shoppers reputation as the trophy peacock lure only strengthened, but it didn't strengthen enough. Apparently. In two thousand six, Phil Jensen sold his entire company to wrap them, and by two thousand eleven, the Lard Jensen wood schopper was out of production. Because despite the lure's prominence in the peacock scene. The small market of Amazon bound anglers simply generated too little money to justify its place in the catalog, and by then it seemed nobody was really using a wood shopper for anything but peacock bass. I finally got to the Amazon, and sure enough there wasn't Allergensen wood shopper anywhere in sight. But as it often goes with defunct plugs, a small batchmaker steps in to fill the void. The lodge I stayed at set us up with rip rollers, pretty much carbon copies of wood shoppers made by high roller Lures out of Gainesville, Florida. Now, having spent years watching videos of massive peacocks crushing shoppers, I couldn't wait to fish them. But then I did a very dumb thing. My first night at the lodge, Me and the fellas got our drank on and we failed to drink any water between the adult BEVs. So the next morning, while my excitement overrode any hangover, and I was pretty bright eyed and bushy tail, when I made my first cast with a rip roller and started chugging, things took a turn harder, sir, is all our guide said, So I ripped that lord harder, more hard, sir, he said, after my second retrieve, And that's when I realized to work a roller a shopper like you're supposed to, you're gonna burn out the arms and shoulders. Now, normally I'd say bring the pain, but within an hour the remnant booze, dehydration and degree heat at the equator caught up to me and I about collapsed with my head spinning. I slugged three waters back to back and then fought to keep those down, and then I think I just kind of laid on the deck for a good long while until I recovered lesson, learned about hard liquor in the Amazon, and side note, I fished that rip roller right proper for the rest of the trip, And while I stuck a couple, my biggest peacock, a thirteen founder, hit a big storm chug bug, which I probably could have worked effectively being like full blown Lemmy drunk. So that's all the time we have this week. If you happen to just fast forward through the entire show and just to this very spot, you missed a deep dive into Carl Weathers that any's biography could not touch with a ten foot surf right. Oh man, you sure did, but listen, um, don't miss out on your chance to be on this show. Keep those bar nominations, salebin items and awkward photos rolling into Bent at the meat Eator dot com. Remember, if we use anything you sand, you will get a sweet little care package of stickers from us. Or just say hi right in, say what's up? Or you guys suck whatever whatever you want. Uh, and don't forget we got eyes on those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags. You can get stickers if if you grab our touch in that way too. Yeah. And once you realize your minimal fishing successes aren't producing a graham worthy shot that catches our attention, and you're gonna give that shoot up, You're gonna concentrate on golf. Finally, I've been waiting for a happy Gilmore reference this entire episode

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