00:00:02 Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that the lump sucker of we've all caught one of those, which gave you a ninety seven percent chance of just snagging one in the asshole region. Those stock bodies moved like they've been pumped full of bo tongs. Throws him on his ass, ruined his phone. The girlfriends Peter, Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome back to Bent, the fishing podcast equivalent of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, minus the drugs and hip cool interesting people as the main characters. I'm Jose Surmellie Miles, and thankfully I've I've never found myself in the depths of neither binge. My my own depravity usually just involves torturing water creatures for my own amusement. Anyway, we're gonna do what we do best and send all kinds of oddities related to fishing whizzing past your ear holes. It's your job, okay, to snatch a nugget of knowledge or fun factor weirdness before it gets away and is thereby consumed by the SMA harder, more aggressive predator downstream. Oh that image, uh, you know, you got me thinking about aggressive predators and that kind of fits because today's regional Fisher comes to us from Captain Zach hammer Miller down in South Florida, and uh, if you're familiar with the segment, you should be excited for a Florida edition. That's all I'm gonna say. The hammer is is uh an old buddy of mine, dear friend. And yeah, basically, um Za just recaps what's going on in his real life right. His sports are based around his recent experiences as they pertain to chartering part time, paying the bills by working in the residential irrigation industry, and generally hating South Florida and all the people that live there that aren't him. So, as Zach likes to say, buckle up, what's up, everybody, it's your boy, Captain Zack the hammer Miller from Throat Down Fishing Charters here in St. Lucy, Florida, coming at you with this week South Florida Fishing Report. Oh and yesterday we had a hoot and anny of a trip with a young eighteen year old couple that was down here staying on vacation at the Club med for their honeymoon from ch Oklahoma. And he called me up and he's like, man, He's like, I want to catch a goliath group or I'm like, mother, we're gonna get catch as many as you're in Midwest asking handle. So we go out there. I hook him up with the rope, the gloves and a circle hook. I'm like, here you go, buddy, have at it. He's like, what do you mean, where's the rod. I'm like, this is the rod. I'm like, this is it. Surprised I'm gonna get ready. He's like, man, I don't know if I could take it. I'm my dude. I'm like, you gotta be about your ship. You gotta be in it to win it. Brother. So we dropped down a fifteen pound beneit of this dude catches in. As soon as that thing hits the bottom thump, and he's like, how do I know when it gets eight I'm like, oh, let me tell you something. That thing's gonna give dump truck with the mother get ready. You better eat your wheaties because it's coming here hard and fast. Boom thump. He is getting yoked. Dude, I come in for reinforcements. On the back side of that rope. It almost spools us. You know how hard it is. To get spooled on a hundred feet of rope. So this grouper, once it's done thrashing around, throws him on his ass, ruined his phone. The girlfriend's puking and he's like, God damn. He's like nobody in Oklahoma was gonna believe me, and I'm like, hey, you know, probably not anyway. Another bite that I heard was really good this week was the sail fish offshore in about a hundred twenty ft. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend that bite because I was busy in a hundred twenty degree heat index, crawling on my stomach under a ladies trailer and a retirement home in six inches of water, trying to find a main sprinkler break. But you know, as I sat down there, reflecting on hearing how people were putting nine sales to the boat in the morning, I was just sitting under her trailer praying that it collapsed on me so I wouldn't have to live out this hellish nightmare anymore and keep missing bites. Now for this week's South Florida Freshwater Fishing Report, brought to you by the wonderful people at the Okachobe Water Management District, after we got twenty seven inches a biblic hole, Moses asked rain they were kind enough to dump all that lovely freshwater out into our saltwater Indian River here, making it an absolute toxic wasteland. The water is so fresh right now. We're out at the front of the mouth of the inlet the other day and outgoing tide, and we were site fishing long nosegar coming out the inlet with some to lapia rolling around, absolutely electric freshwater fishing twenty miles from the nearest body of freshwater. But hey, we can't knitpick on where we're getting our reports from here. Let's just be real people, freshwater. That's it. That's the end of the story. Unless you want to site fish gar with me and what's supposed to be saltwater. That is your freshwater fishing report for this week. Alright. So truthfully, I don't I don't actually know Zach. I've I've never I've never met the dude, But I know I know you do, and I know you fish with him a lot, and I just I have to ask, is he is he actually fun to hang out with her? Is he just kind of a dick all the time? That's a fair question. But he's a blast. He's he really is, and he's one of those people. His grumpiness is endearing, you know what I mean, Like the hammer wouldn't be the hammer if he wasn't bitching about something. So yeah, I love fishing with him. And true story, we met years ago while shooting a land based shark fishing deal because he used to be heavily involved into that scene. Um, and I owe my biggest fish ever to Zach ten foot hammerhead. We estimated in the five pound range off the beach, like I reel that some bitch in with my feet on the sand. You know. So he knows his ship and you can find him at throw down Fishing dot com. You'll catch fish, You'll leave feeling more patriotic and better equipped to insult people. I'm sold. I'm sold on all counts there. Seriously that that's uh, that's worth the president mission. I will I will holler at Zack the next time I feel like getting the hell out of town and being a tourist in someone else's part of the world. Uh. And you know where I live up here in Montana, we we depend on the tourists, right like we depend on all those people come to our state and spend their hard earned or I mean more likely easily inherited money on restaurants and hotels and fishing gear and ski passes and you know, of course fishing guides. But that doesn't mean that we're like nice to them. It doesn't mean that when we see California plates in traffic, we don't cut them off and flip them the bird like it. And I realized that that's kind of a problem, like we should think a little bit bigger and recognize that we need them and maybe be nice to them. But we're not. And it turns out that's not unique to specifically tourist destinations as as Joe, as you will explain in this next installment of Weekly Word, Webster's Dictionary defines fish as this week's word is muppier. That's m e U p e A R. And I first heard this and while steel head fishing on Elk Creek in northwest Pennsylvania about seven years ago. And I remember the water that fall was ridiculously low, and it actually trapped all the steel head that had already run up Elk from Lake Erie into any pools that were more than a foot deep, so needless to say, it made the fishing really tough because there were so many fish jammed into each hole. They were like black with steelhead that on any given drift there was I don't know, maybe like a three percent chance that one would actually open its mouth, and eighth the fly, which gave you a nineteent chance of just snagging one in the asshole region. But it was during our struggle. We're fishing with local guide Chris Gazolin, and he lamented that man, the mupp bears are gonna be snagging the ship out of him this weekend, and my natural reaction to that was the hell's a mupp bear man? And Chris informed me that it was the local term for city folk from Pittsburgh that come up here to crash at their family cabins and trailers and fish for the weekend. Now, according to the Urban Dictionary, which by the way, I personally hold in higher regard than Merriam Webster's, it's also used by year round residents of western Pennsylvania college towns to refer to out of state students to use it in a sentence, I can't wait until the mupp ears leave for spring break. Likewise, students from Western PA that leave Pittsburgh and its suburbs to go to schools in more rural areas say things like a mup bear study and business. So the term can also be used as a general contraction of I'm up here coming from Jersey, I was. I was just like tickled by the term. I thought it was just fantastic. And there's some version of muppier almost everywhere you go right. As an example, a muppier along the North Jersey coast is called a Benny, which is an acronym for anyone that shows up on the weekend from the cities of Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, or from the entire state of New York, which gives Benny the n y at the end there right. Inevitably, someone spray paints Bye Bye Benny on at least one Garden State Parkway overpass every Labor Day weekend, and I still laugh every time I say it. Since we're on the topic of derogatory terms for outsiders, we'd love to have a few more for future weekly word segments, so please email them to us at bent at the meat Eator dot com and I'll come up there and check them out. Moving on to trivia, where we call up people we know and talk them into playing a stupid game where they can't actually win anything but stand a pretty good chance of losing their dignity. Today we're talking to phishing guide, movie star, and terrible boat driver my good friend Frank smith First, you gotta be highly skilled for these shows. You understand that. If I under are you well burst? They are? You very smart men? All right, today's contestant is my very good friend Frank smith Hurst. Frank, how are you all great? I'm just nervous. Are you excited to play the trivia game? I am excited? I'm excited? Should I have a mind like steel trap for trivia? I won the trivia contest, the trivia open until you're at one time? Oh not not to build yourself up too much. Well we'll see now I'm gonna drop the ball. I shouldn't have said that, you know, I will say this. I before we actually met, Frank, I knew you as I think a lot of people in the fishing industry know you as as a guy who went all over the world and caught all kinds of exotic cool species from Baja to come chop cut to Dubai. I mean, you've been all over the place and caught all kinds of cool fish. But when we actually started hanging out and I got to know you on a personal level, I realized very quickly that your deep, deep, deep passion actually seems to be for native fish of your home state of Georgia, despite the fact that you've been all over the world native American fish, you know, not just Georgia. George is really interesting because it's got so many species. I want to say it's three species. Will hold on before you go there, I'm gonna stop you, Frank, because your questions. Your first question, Frank, how many different species of freshwater fish are native to Georgia? Is it A six hundred eight B one hundred and thirty three see two hundred and sixty five or D seventy seven? Um, just like the S A T. S. I'm gonna have to go with ce Alex oh Ding ding Ding. He nails it well. And just so you know, that's debatable because there are so many really really amazing sociecies debatable. On the upside, there's a lot of subspecies. I can show you some stuff that isn't in the books. You know, you get down in the black Water swamps, there's some wonderful hybrid weirdo sunfish and their strands of bass down there that have yet to be discovered and named. Derek, you heard it here first. You you're on a roll, buddy, You're on a roll. Question number two, which is kind of more tagging onto your love of strange fish from all over the world. Which of the following is not is not an actual fish? Is it? A? The longtooth snapping eel b, the sarcastic fringe head, see the slippery dick or D the lump sucker. Do you want to hear those again? Oh? You know, I think I've getting a good idea about what to answer, but I definitely want to hear them again because they're so good. So you got a the longtooth snapping eel b, the sarcastic fringe head, see the slippery dick or D the lump sucker, which is not an actual fish? What was what was b again? The sarcastic star castic fringe head? Mm hmm that one. Uh. The others just seem like better fish names. VI A trifle um. I don't know this for sure, except I know the slippery dick. We can eliminate that. I'm pretty sure that the lump sucker. We've all caught one of those. Um A, what was A again? The French long the long toothed snapping eel. M m yeah, And I know it's either A or B or the right answer. That's what I's got to pick one. Which is it? I'm getting close. There's a process that plates in work here. Um, I'm just gonna say it's the a A. You are like a savant at this, Frank. Yes, the long too snapping eel does not exist, but the sarcastic fringe head is a real fish. Frank, so far I think you are the old the grand champion of our trivia show. Thank you so much for playing. What did I win? Salutely? Nothing? Yeah, that's that's about the story, if that's okay. The funny thing about this is that I was recently in the process of putting together a hosted trip for sarcastic fringe heads and I can only get two people to sign on. Yet. Last year, my hosted slippery Dick trip sold out in two days at ten thousand. No. I'm sorry, Joe, but I'm not touching that slipper, you're not taking a bait on that I'm not touching the slippery dick. Let's chug along to fish News first and foremost to educate you on recent fishy happenings, but also to see who's better they're finding good fish news stories Me or Joe. Fish news that escalated quickly. So this is fish News. And as a reminder, this is also the fish News Competition official because Miles and I have no idea what news stories the other is bringing to the table. This episode three, we have an overlap yet, so good for us, right, It's it's inevitable at some point one of us is gonna be really pissed. It's gonna happen. And every time we talk before we do this, it's like this is gonna be the week, and like you're gonna have this one, so we'll see. That's why it's always beneficial to be the leadoff man, which is me this week. And I gotta tell you how I missed this one. I do not know, but it's probably because I don't spend nearly as much time looking through my general Facebook feed as most people. Uh. It's either that or most of my friends are legit anglers. So maybe we all missed this one, okay, but it's fantastic, all right. This article comes from USA Today and is titled ready fact check, No, blue gills aren't as dangerous as piranhas. Nope, I did not. I think we're good again. Okay, So here's what happened, right. Apparently apparently there's been a meme circulating on Facebook, and it's a picture of a bluegill replica amount and on top it reads did you know? And below the photo it reads the blue gill fish is one of the most dangerous fish in North America. The bluegill is related to the deadly piranha, which is responsible for twenty thousand deaths per year. When the yeah, when the bluegill are feeding into school, they can completely dismantle a human body in less than fifteen minutes. Bluegills are responsible for over five deaths in the United States every summer. This is some real ship that was circulating on Facebook. And the funny thing is, when I believe it was really circulating, I don't believe this is real, but anyway, go ahead, I don't want to jump in here. No, no, no, it was really circulating, right, So when I clicked on the link to to actually look at the post and Facebook, sure enough, like there's the official um false information sticker on it from Facebook, like the false information firewall that I had to click and say, like, do you still want to see this even though we've proven its false information? And I swear, dude, I've never seen this pop up and if people are listening or like, yeah, everybody's seen that, like apologies, but this one was news to me, all right. And according to the story, Facebook user Crystal Bast shared the image to a fishing group recently and it was reshared over nine thousand times, and um, you know, here's the weird thing. Though USA Today says the meme has actually been around for two years and this woman just reposted it, and they say, um. A PolitiFact check article from last year pointed out that Ohio Fish News, where the information supposedly came from, isn't a real publication, and Crystal Bast herself said she reshared it because she thought it would be a fun joke that would lead to funny comments. And some of those comments because I looked, include, wow, somebody has been breathing in too much car exhaust and my favorite one almost pulled my nipple off yesterday. But here's here's where it really hits home for me. Okay, because the dispelling of this fake news was left to poor journalist Katie Landeck at USA Today, And I got the biggest kick out of the fact check sources at the bottom of the article, which includes SeaWorld and Cornell University. So like poor Katie Landeck had to actually dig into a bunch of legit sources, which is which is the professional way to do things right. I'm not not gonna but I sympathize because it hearkens me back to early days at the magazines, like when you're like young and all you wanna do is write about the cool ship that you're catching and badass fish and somebody's like, yeah, I'm gonna need you to call the guy that just called world record short nose, pig face grunt and get the scoop on that. Oh that is like, you know, she's the low person on the total pole there and might be came across that came across someone's desk and said, yeah, we need to refute this, and she looked like you gotta be kidding. Clearly this is the world and make a difference with journalism not journalism. Oh my god, I will. I will admit though, like I have been bitten by many a blue deal before, but it really just kind of tickles. Yeah, you know, like it kind of feels good. You can you can dangle your feet in off the dock and the little blue del come up and it's kind of fun. Used to be able to do that in Spas, right, that was like a whole thing Mamber of years ago. They had like, you know, foot treatment. They would eat the dead skin off your nasty ass feet. The spines. I've been hurt worse by the spines and the teeth. I don't even know if they're out teeth. But yeah, again, apologies if that's the thing. Like, everybody is aware of this meme, but I certainly wasn't. I this is the first I've ever heard of it. News to me, man, news to me. Um. I'm gonna stick with our theme of of of of fish attacks, all right. I I first came across this story through a particularly um I think we just called a sensationalist headline that's from the Daily Mail. So here here's here's the headline that's like weekly World News, isn't it exactly exactly? Get this? One YouTuber conducts gruesome experiment by pumping human blood and fish blood into the ocean to see which meal sharks prefer to feast on. Right now, there's so much to talk about just in that headline right there. I mean, first of all, like a headline probably shouldn't go on for two lines. But I'm not gonna get all journalists on this because the Daily Mail. But you know, I don't know about you, Joe, but YouTube isn't my go to source for valid science, and I'm gonna tell everybody out there that it really shouldn't be yours there. It's like not or Facebook for that matter. It depends on the science. Like if like it is my go to for putting together I kea furniture, you know what I mean? But that's not really signed not science, not science directions. Sure, how to videos, yes, science, No, uh, just don't don't confuse those people like YouTubers are known for a lot of reasons, right, but they're scientific. The rigor in scientific methodology just is not one of them. Correct. Also, let's just keep going with this. Let's let's assume this headline has even a kernel of truth to it. Where did human blood come from? Yes? I mean fresh human blood is not something you can just go by at the store unless you're Keith Richards like you don't get human blood. No one can go get that or Walterski. So I I dug into it a little. Uh. The YouTube video itself is titled Shark Attack test human blood versus Fish Blood and Shocker. It was part of this year's Shark Week on Discovery Channel. Yeah that's right, hang on, hang on, hang on. It was. It was made by a guy named Mark rober He he seems like he actually does understand science because he used to be an engineer at NASA, and I'm gonna say that qualifies him as far more of a scientist than I am, or or than you are, Joe, Like, he's a legitimate NASA engineer who turned YouTuber. I want to know some of the backstory on that, but I don't. I don't have it. Anyway. I watched the video, which was predictably YouTube cheesy but interesting and well put together. And for the experiment itself, they put three surfboards out in sharky waters in the Bahamas. One had a jug of fish blood, one had a jug of quote human blood, and one had a jug of seawater as a control. Each had a little pump that scored at a shot of liquid at regular intervals. They monitored the area with a drone and counted the sharks that came to each board. And here's where it kind of fell ap art for me. The human blood was actually cows blood, all right, because they couldn't get human blood. And yeah, I get cows blood. Yeah, cow blood and human blood are similar to a shark. Like, I get all that, but don't call the video human blood versus shark blood. That's just misleading, right, Like that's that's I know. I'm in all the titles, all the coverage like human blood. No, there's no human blood involved. No humans gave up any blood. It's just cows blood. But the takeaway, which I do think is valid, is that sharks are much more interested in fish blood than in mammal blood. Uh and you know humans are mammals. So I think there's some validity to the experiment. It's just the way it's covered that kind of pisces me off. And uh so, like the full on the numbers are that eight sharks went after the cow blood and a hundred and thirty four went after the fish blood, So that that does say a lot. And all those people are out there like I'm scared of sharks. I don't want to go swimming. I'm scared of sharks. There's so much science out there. The sharks just don't want to eat you. They might bite you by accident, but they don't want to eat you. So like, let's just stop with the everyone being afraid of sharks thing, and can we cancel Shark Week while rabbit please, you know, man, you're gonna make me divulge stuff. You're gonna make me go to a dark place here. But I can relate to this study um too much because don't call it a study. It's a YouTube show. It's not a study. There's no peer review here. I can relate to the YouTube video on a personal level level because in my much younger we'll say, late teens, early twenty days, I may or may not have experimented with goats blood in the shark fishing arena. And that's from growing up watching Jaws and just assuming that if you put mammal blood out, it's like shark magnet right, um, And I got this, man, I don't want to get off here, but like I got this from a halal meat market and processor in Trenton, New Jersey. And I called the guy and I was like, hey, uh, you know, I'm I'm I'm looking for a five gallon bucket of goats blood. And he was like, you want blood coming in, man, blood, you bring your own bucket. And I was like all right. So I roll into this place and it's like there's like legit goats and ship out back that they're slaughtering at this halal meat market. And the guy, he didn't even charge me. He took my bucket and brought out five gallons of warm hair filled fresh blood. Like the goat was screaming as he was filling my bucket. And then I took it home and froze it and put an eye hook in it so I could tie it off, and we took it out of my buddies boat and we were like, get ready, boys, because this is just gonna be like it's it's like you don't even know what's going to happen. They're gonna come a jump in here, they come. You know what really loves mammal blood, blue fish, not one shark in that slick, And I was like, that's just it must have been a south wind and upwelling and the temperature is wrong. So I went back like two weeks later and bought another bucket of goats blood and uh still know. So the long and short of that is, I've spent a fair amount of time sharking, and just the regular old bunker or mackerel chum that catches some sharks. Man, the goats blood is just not worth the effort. Yeah, they don't want to eat mammals. They don't want to eat you. So you didn't have to watch that video. You could have just come to me and been like, does warm mammal blood catch more sharks? I would have said, now, it just it just stinks up your ninety three GMC jimmy. You should you should have fed that headline to the Daily Mail just I know I should have. I should have, but um, yeah, it is true though, you know the movies and everything that made it so like, oh man, if you're out there swimming around and bleeding like it's it's a magnet, I don't. I don't think so. And I think it's because obviously, like like all fish sharks, they're used to what they know, and they know fish blood, So I mean, how often are they smelling beef blood? It's probably not as attractive as we'd all like it to be. But um, we'll move on from my nine GMC Jimmy too much more expensive things here, And I'm gonna tell you what, dude, I'm hesitant to actually call this news per se, but this is the way I look at this game we play here. If the article in question legitimately pops up in a Google news search, not just a general search, then it qualifies as news. So right, all right, I mean that's what. Yeah, if it pops up in a knee search, then then then okay. And I did in fact find this in a news search, granted on page eighty seven of the search. Um, but this comes from upscale Living mag dot com, which, as the name suggests, is for people that have more money than they know what to do with, just like us, right, Joe, Yeah, you subscribe, don't you? And the story is called why you Should invest on the Best Fishing High End Rods by author Danner Alleys, who's grammar and ability to write headlines isn't as upscale as it probably should be. Um. Anyway, the art for this story features an ugly stick rod, so just yes, it does. Oh it does. It's a tight shot. But Irony Joey knows an ugly stick Okay, so just keep that in mind as we press on you. I'm not gonna read this whole thing because it's long, but it's a great example of an article pretending to say a lot without really saying anything at all if you actually know the subject matter, and it just like talks in broad strokes about how quality rods are made of better components and are more sensitive than cheap rods, and like that's not wrong, it's just it's saying it's so quickly that it's not really giving you anything. But then you have lines like this, Okay, so ask yourself a few questions. What types of lures do you want to use with the rod? How likely is it that you'll know a fish has struck with the technique you're using. If you are not sure what to look for and find yourself in the sea of information, click here for a useful guide. It's also worth mentioning that the probability is high that you just wouldn't be able to go this deep into specifics if you are using a cheaper rod, right, But then I click on the link and it goes to a story on us angler dot com titled best drop shot Rods for the money our favorites reviewed. Just so it's like, I hope, I hope that's what you're looking for. You know, some poor rich dude bought fifty drop shot sticks to outfit his new contender. Because it is misleading information. But my favorite section, which is also the shortest in the entire piece, is titled or slugged rather, what else do you gain from buying a high end rod? And it reads great rods are going to allow you to get beyond the mechanics and into the fishing. False. Nothing, no um, and they last a lifetime, as every quality rod is trimmed out with the very US Guide's thread, high grade cork as well as and I don't know what these are trouble free real seats also false. I break a high end rod every third time I go in the garage to throw something in. The recycle can just break almost just as easy to in fact, and sometimes they break easier than the cheap one. I can't hardly break an ugly stick just you know some of the other ones that I won't mention. You can taking the lawnmow rounds like snapped another loom as ship you know um and that closes out with Also, while not the most essential thing in the world, they feel better in your hands and add a whole new sense of luxury when displayed or showcase. Now wait a second, because sense of luxury is also a hyperlink that takes you to a story on Psychology Today called the Emotions of Luxury. You went deep, man, like all the way down the rabbit hole. I applaud your your journalistic diligence here. You know who this is for, man, And I wish I wish I was one of these people. I think we all do. It's like this week, I just decided because I read something or bought a Guy Harvey shirt or whatever it may be, Like, I'm into fishing, so I'm gonna dump ten grand on every single thing I could possibly need for this hobby. And then next week I'll read something about mountain biking and then we'll dump ten grand on mountain biking things. That's who this is for. Yeah, No, I mean I've guided this guy, and I think a lot of people have this. I'm gonna get into the fishing this summer, and walks into the shop and drops just thousands of dollars. On the same day he gets his first guy to trip to learn how to do it, and the shop owners love. Of course this particular person, this is your guy. This is how they survive. So I'm not gonna dog on on these people because they keep the industry going. But I mean, I think this is an opportunity for us to talk about how wrong and misleading this information is for people who can't afford to spend ten grand to go fishing, and how this might be the kind of thing to keep people from getting into something because they think they got to spend a ton of money to do it, and that's just not true. You're exactly right, and you know it's it's like I can't imagine you won't agree. It's like for me, you know, when you start out fishing junk, and I still fish a lot of junk, but like you can't go right into the thousand dollar rod because that's a treat for later if you can afford it, that you'll appreciate more later after you've put in your time with the junk. Absolutely, yeah, I mean I I don't think I ever I don't think I ever fished a thousand dollar rod until I was working in the industry and someone handed me one like hey, this is a thousand dollar rod, and like, oh no, I'm gonna break it, but I want. One thing I have learned in getting the opportunity to fish lots of different gear and try out all the different levels of gear is that you don't come to actually need those those kind of fine tuned elements until you're a pretty good angler, until you're a pretty high level angler. So the person who doesn't have background, doesn't have an experience, isn't going to appreciate what they get for that money. Sure, And then on the flip side of that coin, right, if you are really good at what you do and you do really value high end gear, you've also probably guided the guy who like would refuse to now use anything but that stuff. And it's like, dude, if if you can, if you can, you know, use a Winston and send a line seventy feet if you know what you're doing, and like, this lodge only has ugly stick fly rods for the tarp and like, shut up, you should be able to do it with that too, you know what I mean? And and dirty little secret, sorry to the top company in the gear companies. Uh, expensive gear won't make you a better angler, straight up. Like, it's not gonna do it. It's not gonna make you cast better. It's not gonna make you catch more fish. It might be a little more fun to fish with. You might enjoy it a little bit more, but it's not going to be the difference between whether you're good or you suck. If the article says it will not get you past the mechanics any faster if you don't know any of the mechanics, it does not. It does not. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna transitions here. I'm gonna stick with the theme of junk but but but but change it up. And I'm also gonna stick with something that I a seed I planted last week in fish News. Alright, you remember last week I reported on scientists mapping carp scales to make super battle armor. Oh yeah, I've been making one allah Silence of the Lambs in the garage ever since. It's on the form out there. Yeah, you're keeping the carpet in a in a tub in your basement and making them hose themselves off to Alright, I'm gonna stop. Uh, that's not the only way we're using fish scales to create a dystopian future. Have you ever heard of temporary flexible electronic displays? Is that just like the technical term for the button panel on the toaster of it? Your toaster open has button panels? You do subscribe to that magazine, don't you are? I read the high end toaster of an article. I just have a lever that I push, you know. That's uh, that's the not what they are. But I hadn't heard of these either, but apparently we all will very very soon. The idea is that sometimes in the near future, will all be sticking clear plastic patches on ourselves. But instead of delivering a slow dose of sweet, sweet nicotine, those patches will be like little computer screens that you wear on your skin. So think of it like temporary tattoos meet apple watches. All right, okay, alright, so wait, so wait the screen doesn't there's no like micro chip in the screen. It's just like whatever your device is will project onto your skin like it'll get like you will watch it on your arm. Yeah, I don't. I don't have an engineering degrease. I don't know. I don't know how it works. But from what I could tell from reading the article, yes, these are these are little screens that are disposable. They're temporary that somehow communicate with your device and and project or or receive information from your device that you can see on your skin. That's that's my under my my very limit it understanding of it. And uh and some smart researchers in China are thinking ahead to the environmental implications of this technology, right, So these are gonna be single use items theoretically made of plastic that people wear and and display stuff and then pull them off and throw them away, So they'll they'll end up being like the disposable straws of the future. And I'm already feeling sorry for the turtles. And I don't know where they're going to get stuck on them, but um. According to a study published by the American Chemical Society, nanotechnologists are working on ways to use actual fish scales to make these temporary electronic displays. They're deriving gelatin from the collagen and fish scales and molding it into a thin film that's flexible, transparent, and biodegradable. And then they're using that film to build an alternating current electro luminescent device that continues to glow even after being bent and real axed over a thousand times. All Right, So I will admit, even though I'm terrified at the prospect of everyone around me covering their bodies and screens, I mean, at least they'll just be destroying the fabric of society and not the not the planet itself. Well, this is what pops into my head right away. Um, the people who make glow sticks for the rave scene must be scared shitless about this. I mean, they're They're done, dude. I mean take the rave scene to a whole new level. Really, I mean, you can just like, instead of needing those big screens up over it, people can be the screens like you can. You can project whatever is going on inside out right under your chest. And because no one's wearing any shirts and a rave from what I've seen, and it's gonna get ugly. Casino in Vegas has already pre ordered, but hopefully they're getting the fish scales ones and not the plastic ones. That's what I say. And then the other thing that comes to mind is I would have to assume that that the tilapia processors and Gorton's Fisherman's of the world are gonna benefit here because that's probably where they get the scale supply. Right, That's right, that's right. Those scales are going to be put to good use. They're not just gonna be ground up in the meal anymore. All Right. That brings us to the end of fish News, But before we move on, we have an update for you. That's a it's kind of a bummer. Yeah, we're we're we're we're rolling into That's My Bar here, which we know you guys love. You've been sending a lot of great feedback. And this little closing note on news sort of ties back to our very first installment of That's My Bar. You might remember that I shouted out the sip and dip in Great Falls, which is one of my favorite bars of all time, and I mentioned piano Pat, the woman who's been playing music there for half a century now, and listener Matt Bradley wrote to tell us recently, piano Pat had kind of a nasty fall broke a hip, got a little bit of a brain bleed. Uh, kind of a scary situation. Sounds like she's making a recovery and she is doing well, but she could use a little help with their medical bills. So they set up a go fund Me account, and both Joe and I have contributed to that. Yes, I had to help because I've never actually been to this bar or met piano Pat, and I that that can't be that way, Like I have to eventually get out there with you and listen to piano Pat play so speedy recovery Pat, when they we're gonna get back to doing what you love. And on that note, let's go drink somewhere else this week. Best God damn bar tender from tim buck to to Portland, Maine. The Portland argument for that matter, I've only been to q West once and that was from my cousin's wedding. At first, I was kind of pissed at him for getting hitched all the way down in Florida until I realized that the wedding was going down in May and lined up perfectly with the front end of tarpin season. At that point, all was forgiven. Once we got through the nuptials, the reception, and the after after party at a drag show on Duvall Street, the family all drifted back to their respective corners of the count Tree. I stuck around for a few days to fish, sleep in a hotel room that costs more than a half days guide wages and still smelled like Neptunes jockstrap. But I did catch a couple of tarpin and landed my first permit, so it was definitely worth it, according to my good friend Toosh Brown. However, I missed out on one of Key West's absolute best features. Tasha's nomination for that's my bar goes like this the Green Parrot and Key West just as many bikers and trashy hose as any other bar on Duval, but it's not on Duval, so there's a cool factor that applies better. Yet not many cruise ship passengers go there because it's a long hot walk from the dock and that tends to melt gelatinous orbs wearing black socks and hybiscus tunics. Plus they claim it's the oldest bar in the Keys, so that's worth something. After hearing this glowing recommendation and doing a little research. I feel like I kind of blew it not hitting this bar up. The Green Parrots motto is a sunny place for shady people, which I love, and it kind of seems like that could apply to all of Key West, so maybe the bars emblematic of that whole place. It's been around since eighteen fifty when it was a little speakeasy in the back room of a Cuban grocery. Since then, it's catered to sailor's hippies, commercial shrimpers, drug smugglers, and now of course tourists. Thanks Tosh for contributing to what is sure to become one of the most valuable informational resources in the modern world. And remember, we need your help to compile our list of the best fishing bars on the planet. Email us at bent at the mediator dot com and tell us why your favorite drinking establishment deserves honorable mention. I love how you describe the hotel you stayed in is smelling like Neptunes jockstrap, because I understand exactly what you mean. I've stayed in so many shitty motels it's unreal. But there are a few in the Keys easily in my top five and the worst, right, the worst was so infested with biting insect that every night I would literally build a barricade of off insect repellent of wipes around the mattress, which subsequently I believe was filled with straw. But the baracuta fishing out back was real good. You go for the fishing in the drinking, you don't go for the accommodations. So it was was the item that we're we're just about to cover and get to in this week's sale bin hanging on the wall of that place by Jens No, uh, but it could have been. It would not have been out of place. It sounds like it. You know, hey, folks, call your bank. Hot item okay on the auction block today. You're not gonna want to miss this one. Price recently reduced. This is the sale bin. Why did you put the hand to pay? You don't know what I'm getting, man, You didn't have to be so hurtful with me, so angry. So this comes from a seller in Pasadena, Maryland, and it's possible, based on the item, that he actually might have thought he lived in Pasadena, California, where such and item might have been more appropriate. I don't know, but we have, for the low price of four hundred and nine dollars a white marlin fish mount. But wait, because there's so much goddamn more. Um a white marlin fish mount done in sunset colors. I don't know if i'd call that sunset. I mean, but it is certainly not natural color. I can tell you that. Yeah, I looked at it, and I was like sunset colors otherwise uh, otherwise known as wrong, just completely inaccurate. So the fins and the stripes, like the accent blues and aqua's are accurate. But if you could picture this, anything that would have been white or silver or lightly colored is painted like screaming neon pink and and neon orange. I mean, it blends, right. You gotta go from south to north on this thing, from from the bottom, from the belly up towards the dorsal it blends not at all seamlessly, from hot orange to bright pink into sort of an indigo purple. Well, this is really something else. This is what happened here, right how the decision was made at the time. So we assume that someone in the time space continuum caught the white marlin, was proud of the white Marlin, decided they needed a amount of the white marlin, and then got to sunset colors, which I'm sure at the time just sounded brilliant, but it's one of those pieces that for the years following you look at and question every single day, Like every time somebody comes over, you're like, did you see that? Just sun sunset? I got? I got the sunset colors. Man, it's pretty dope, right. People are just like, yeah, yeah, I mean, I get it, I get it. I was I was fifteen once and I bought myself a sunburst stratocaster, thinking that that was really really cool because I I was maybe doing a fair amount of acid at the time, and I thought that would be a great idea. My only hope is that whoever was on this charter boat was also doing a fair amount of acid. And this is how the fish looked in their memory of the trip as it leapt with back backing out, back lit and they're like, bro, I got I want that thing I've ever seen in my life. I meet painted just like that, and he followed through. So good on him, I mean he followed through. Uh it takes me back. Do you remember this has got to be going back fifteen years ago, but it was sort of on trend for certain replica houses in Florida to do like those tattoo flame schemes on fish. Do you remember that? Oh, thankfully I don't remember. Yeah, I must have missed that particular trend and I'm not sorry. Like the back half of the fish would be one solid color and the whole head was just like racing slash tattoo flames. That was a thing that they offered. So I will say this, if nothing else, at least this is not a mass produced color scheme like the flames. Like, it isn't original, right, I mean, it probably probably isn't one of a kind. So um, if you have four dollars kicking around, I would I would look this one up on Facebook Marketplace because I'm sure. I'm sure it won't last long, even though it is already lasted over two weeks. But guess what, it's reduced from eight hundred, so you're really getting the screaming deal now you could get this guy down to three ten, like guarantee. Anyway, we love the junk, we love the weird sales. So if you find some online in your area, some some weird, odd fishing things for purchase. Do please send us the links at bent at the meat eater dot com so that we can make fun of people where you live here on our show. Hey, we're coming to the end here and that means it's time for end of the line, probably the most critical segment in this entire podcast, because without it, how the hell would you know what to tie on this weekend. Miles taking the lead on this one, and I concur with his choice. It deserves to be here. You're damn right, it deserves to be here, although I wouldn't take our end of line segment is the only thing you should fish over the weekend. But there are certain lures that just seem like they get lost in the couch cushions of fishing history, right and and then exactly, just because we get distracted by the shiny new bait drop doesn't mean that those classic lures stopped working. They're still damn good. Well, that's not allowed enough. Spitter baits are great lures for kids. Cast it out, read it in, there's a pretty good chance something will take a whack at it. Plus they usually just have the one hook so they don't hang up too easily, and chances of an easily distract it or maybe uncoordinated child burying the point somewhere painful is lower than say, an inline spinner, like the maps I sunk in my father's face when I was seven. Sorry about that, Dad. But while spinner baich remained staples and any serious freshwater anglers arsenal, another type of safety pin style lures seems relegated to the kids table. I'm talking about the beetle spin. You remember those beetle spins used to take up prime real estate in my boxes before I got all sophisticated somewhere in my late teens. Legend has it that the beetle spin was invented by a guy named Chuck Woods. Woods was part of a crew of progressive bass anglers who hung around Finks Tackle Shop on the Kansas side of Kansas City in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. Woods that his buddies are often credited with inventing finesse bass fishing. I mean, I suspect that plenty of other anglers in other parts of the country independently figured out the fish and slower and more delicately pays off. But It's also fair to say that Woods was an innovator in the sport word. His invention of the beetle spin alone bestows hall of fame status. In my eyes, you'd have a hard time finding a simpler lure than the Beatles spin. It can be fished to virtually any speed with any retrieve. It still produces burn it, crawl it, bumpet, troll it, jigg it, fish, bite it. That's sheer versatility, maybe the reason it's often associated with tackle box owned by people under sixteen. But there's also this inherent goofiness of the beetle span. It doesn't have the molded, skirted elegance of a grown up spinner bait or the sleek simplicity of inline spinner. It certainly isn't near as highbrow as a box of complex cranks, and it doesn't offer a fraction of the rigging options you'll find in a sack of sankos. One might argue that the beetle spin isn't even really its own bait. It's a spinner arm attached to a jighead tip the split tail grub. It's a frankenstein of spare parts, easily assembled for less than a dollar, So why would any idiot buy a Beetle span All right? First off, name brand beetlespins still sell for under two bucks, so you're not breaking the bank either way. Second, I have experimented with just about every permutation of soft plastic trailer, and I'm convinced that the original, narrow bodied split tail outperforms all the others in just about every situation. I cannot explain why those stock bodies moved like they've been pumped full of boatocs. They pretty much starfish their way back to the boat no matter what you do to them. A curly or paddle tail would impart a heck of a lot more action, but in my personal experience, they catch fee of fish. So I keep buying the real beetle spins just to get my hands on those lifeless bodies. My one and only complained about beetle spins is that Johnson quit making the magnum size sometime in the late eighties or early nineties, I'm not sure, believe it or not. I caught my first muskie on a magnet beetle spin orange with black stripes, of course, and that bait pin more pike than any other throughout my childhood. So Johnson, if you're listening, bring back the magnum. Please. For those of you out there who like me, stopped reaching for beetle spins right around the time you started getting interested in the spice channel, I suggest you revisit your roots. From bluegill to croppy to bass, to seatrout to redfished pike. The things just weren't before. We go a toast to some good news. Finally, in reference to what's generally known as the Pebble Mine, on Monday, the Army Corps of Engineers did not issue the permit Northern Dynasty Minerals requested to mind the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, then you have not been paying attention for the past decade or so. But that's all right. You can read all the details about this in Sam Longdren's excellent series of articles covering the situation at the meat Eator dot com. Bristol Bay is the reason that I'm here making this sometimes silly and sometimes serious podcast about fishing, an activity that is itself sometimes silly and sometimes serious. I got my first guiding job at a lodge up a river that feeds Bristol Bay. Fourteen years ago, the year after Northern Dynasty discovered the pebble deposit, I got to spend four months out of the year living in waiters, drinking tent warm beer, trying to keep my clients from pissing off brown bears, and standing beside those clients as they caught what were often the biggest fish of their lives, massive rainbows, dolly varden, Arctic crayling pike, and of course wild native Pacific salmon. In addition to the fish and the bears, so very many bears. I saw wolves, moose, caribou, links, even a wolverine. For a young man whose gray matter folds were sculpted on stories of wild fishing in Alaska, developing an intimate relationship with that place was one of the most significant opportunities of my life. I knew the exact gravel bars the sack I would funnel across, which slews the chums like to spawn in the big flats where the fire engine red things dug their reds, the pounded down spots on a bank where one bear's territory ended and another's began. I knew the scenes were early season trout stacked up to feed on juvenile lamp rais and migrating smolt, the water temperature at which the catifs would hatch and the rainbows would start eating mice. I was lucky enough to get to know the circulatory rhythms of one of the most incredible places in North America. Those years inspired me so much that I wrote a book about one of them, and that book jump started my career as an outdoor writer. Today I get to feel inspired again because a coalition of people, some of whom can barely agree on the color of the sky, we're able to agree that this place is too valuable to risk and stood up for it. I would like to thank everyone who dug in on this, who made noise, who worked to stop it. So many quote unquote winds in our current culture go to one side or another, but I genuinely believe that this is a win for all of us, at least all of us who care about fish and wilderness. So thank you and salute. That's it for this week, To to put it in cliffs notes form. For for those of you who just barely got through school like we did, you just learned how to piss off people in Erie, Pennsylvania, where to drink in Key West if you don't give a ship about Key Lampie, which I don't, or Marty grab beads, which I do a little, and the Joe is all about slipper dicks. I I Yeah, all true things just got said there. And you know we are an educational program. Really it's reading Rainbow for anglers. But you don't have to take my word for it. Just read our reviews, which we could use more of. So what I'm saying. What I'm saying is please leave us a review. If you like what you're hearing, or if you hate it for that matter, let us know by sending an email to Bent at the meat Eater dot com. We are civil servants of the fishing community and love feedback from you guys. Tell us what you like, what you don't, what you'd like to hear, and we'll do our best to deliver the goods. We hope you guys are hitting the water this weekend, and if so, hit us up let's know how it went. Yeah, I'm sure all those sunset shots will be breathtaking.

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