00:00:01 Speaker 1: God love him. Missoulians. They do two things really really well. They're they're so good at soaking their dreads and peculi oil and throwing shaded Boseman. I hate to say it, but he's the quintessential Southern California guy. He doesn't want to listen to anything I have to say. He's doing his own thing. They're just hatchery rainbows that are bred to basically be hunter orange and practically glow in the dark. It was as if a red lobster buffet had risen up to exact its revenge. Good morning, degenerate anglers, Welcome to Bent the Fishing podcast that five out of six doctors agree is less painful than a discount tattoo remove. We'll get rid of that Chinese symbol you found out years later actually means hedgehog, not lying. I'm Joe SURMELI I'm Miles Nulty. We really should have paid off that six doctor. Today we are going We're going everywhere, man, from from the sea amounts of Hawaii to the jungles of Malaysia, grander billfish on hundred and thirty pound tests to palm size a ramni on inchworms. We got decks drenched in blood and snakeheads savagely biting their own young in half. Do I sense are you going full on horror movie because we kind of already did that that. Nope, nope, nope, I don't. I don't think we can. I don't think we can top build Dance in the Poltergeist. How are you this morning? Mh doing okay? Where do you grow more purple and brown? Kind of a purple boat? Keep that baite in one spot? What do you look for in a good baite caption rod when you're on a fixed income. I'm actually I'm trying to shoehorn us here. I'm trying to move us toward the topic that that you and I haven't discussed off the air, but not so much on the air, which is, you know, just general cultural attitudes about the value of fish and fish lives. It's so I'll tell you, I never liked that song. For the record, It's not my favorite Nirvana track. I'm also like, if I'm gonna be honest, but I'm not, I'm not like a huge fan of this topic, but I will. I will go on this ride with you. I'm along, I'm along for this journey. We'll do it. I didn't think this was gonna be your favorite one. I didn't. I didn't. I wasn't like, oh, Joe is gonna want to talk about this, but I do. I really do appreciate your tolerance. As for the song, I think it's fine, you know, but that particular line, they're always kind of bug me, and and it it led me to this thing where I blamed Cobain for fish torture in an article I wrote a couple of years ago for the Meat Eator dot com. Yeah, yeah, it was called it was called ethical fish killing. What about the fish? Because because hunters think and talk all the time about how an animal is harvested and its level of suffering, but no one seems to give a shit about fish. Yeah, I know that's accurate, but like, and so we understand it. It's not that I don't think this is a valid topic because because it is right. I just always felt, because I've dealt with this before, I always felt like, if you analyze that too much on the fishing side, it can easily lead to a conclusion that essentially we just shouldn't go fishing ever, unless the mission is only to catch exactly what we need for the table. And I mean it's like it's not very immediator of me to say, but food isn't the main motivator for me, you know, Like I like to eat fish, but it's not what makes me go. And I think most people listening to this podcast would feel the same way. But it's a nice I'm with you, and I like to eat fish, and certain don't don't get me wrong, but no, it's not the reason I fish. And I agree with your point. Yeah, and I do understand what you're saying, because just if we're just talking about treatment, I see that ship all the time. Man, like to give you a thousand scenarios, like the one that pops into my mind is the guys striper fishing on the beach. Right, you catch a blue fish and like, dudes, i've will literally kick the blue fish hard, not like a general nudge like with the ballerina toe, like full boot to the head, kick a blue fish back into the water. But then like when they catch a striper, they'll gently cradle it for the release. And I'm like, dude, that's that's hypocritical. You see it, like, yeah, you see it there, you see it all And I see it in a number of different places, to be honest. And the idea for the article came to me because I was ice fishing with some buddies one time and they're just like tossing their fish up on the ice and just letting them flop slowly die and it, I mean whatever, call me soft, but it bothered me. It just didn't seem necessary. And I'm not talking about the killing I'm probably killing fish, but the slow torturous death parts. So like I pulled out my blade and I started, you know, dispatching all the fish. I killed everybody's fish, and my buddies thought I was being all dramatic, and so they got me thinking about this, this idea of attitude sword fish, because tho dudes would if it was if they were talking about game, like, they wouldn't have just been letting deer kind of like hobble around in the back of the truck like naturally, that's not that, that's not a thing. And I've heard I've heard Stephen Ranella explain this by saying that people don't care about anything that doesn't have eyelashes, which I don't know might be spot on um because we just it's weird man, Like if you'd start digging into this topic, did you know, for example, animal cruelty laws don't apply to fish, and just about every state, like we have animal cruelty laws, but they don't cover fish. They don't care. I know, I didn't know that, although I'm not really surprised because fish are not cute, right, and the eyelashes thing makes total sense, but I mean, it's it's it's not a hard fast rule. There are exceptions, Like you think about it. Sea turtles are cute, you know, dolphins are cute. No, that's a good point. A family on vacation, like you had the whole fam walking on the beach and they find a dead dolphin like tears or ship, you know what I mean. Dolphins stuffed animals are later purchased and hugged to make the children feel better. But if the same family walks up on a washed up tarpenter group or it's just gross, don't dusting. Yeah, it's gross, right because fish can't be anthropomorphized the same way A little bit here and there, like Nema dory. But that's like, that's not enough to change the overall perception. No, it didn't work that neither. Neither did the the Sea Kittens campaign. For those of you who follow Peter's brilliance and like, yeah, on the on the on the fine Nemo thing, they made two of those. The Dory sequel didn't work either. I've seen them all a million times a million in one constantly. But for all this, like, you hear about this, like I said, Peter does their whole campaign. You hear about this in some places, but but the fishing media, like fishing folks kind of avoid this because, like, as you're saying, it's kind of uncomfortable. This conversation is happening though, and I feel like we as anglers, we need to be up on it. We need to like have our answers ready. So, for example, last year, I stumbled this weird story, but it's true. I stumbled on this academic pissing match between camps of scientists who disagree about whether fish do or do not experience pain. There's there's a whole book titled Do Fish Feel Pain from and spoiler alert, Oh yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. It's it's not a it's not a popular book. It's an academic it's like a fish physiology book. But yeah, it is and and you know, I know you're gonna run out and buy that tomorrow. But spoiler alert, the author thinks that they do. Right. But then, like right after that came out, this other researcher published a paper titled why fish Don't Feel Pain, which was a total shot at that book and basically like the academic way of being like, yeah, you're stupid, you're wrong, And I got sucked into this whole deep dark hole and ended up ended up reading a lot of animal physiology journals. Dude, it went on and on on, as you might imagine, Uh yeah, yeah, because and nothing about you going on some science journal vision quest to figure out if fish field pain surprises me? Right, but like cut to the like what's the takeaway? Cut to the chase. There is no take away there, there there is done. I'm sorry, but like, I didn't mean to set you up to think like I have the answer, because no one knows the answer, right. What this comes down to is that the pain and suffering are completely subjective experiences, right, So they're they're they're almost impossible to study effectively. But I will I will leave you with one thing that I found useful, and this is this is the thing that I think is most compelling and short if you wind up in these conversations. Right, So, pain researchers, and that is a thing. They can separate unconscious responses to pain from the pain experience. Right. So, for to give you a concrete example, if you if you accidentally put your hand down on a hot stover a hot pan, right, you'll you notice that you will jerk your hand away before you actually feel the pain. Right, So, those are two different things happening in your brain. There's the response to get your hand away, which is unconscious, and then like how that hurt, which is conscious. So it's it's possible and possibly probable depending on whose researcher read that. Phish brains have the capacity for the unconscious response. It's like they can jerk away from bad things, but they can't. Actually, they're not sophisticate enough to have a pain experience. So that that's what I tell myself, Like that's my justification for like I'm okay with this. Yeah, yeah, I tell myself, what if it's like acupuncture, what if it feels good? Nobody can say that's inaccurate because nobody knows if they feel pain or not. So I'm just like, what if that was like a like a pleasurable a little jab in the mouth, and now like maybe he feels better his whole body anyway, just a release. It's really all sounds like a whole lot of like naval gazing, because, as you said, all these really smart people have have conducted all these experiments and written all these papers and books, and the fact is, we still don't know right what fish experience when they get caught. But you know what, we do know exactly exactly the level of discomfort that people experience when they're trying to catch fish. We can speak to that. I know that well, yes, And on that note, we're gonna transition here to our Smooth Move segment, where we bring on guides and outfitters and charter captains and get them to tell us stories about crazy shit they've seen clients doing. Today we're traveling to miles original Homeland. How fun is that to hear an offshore captain tell a story of a sport who experienced suffering humiliation that you do not need a PhD to understand? Why? Why? In our virtual studio today we have we have one of my old friends who I have not seen in ages at least ten years. I don't know how long it's been. Mike Tappero, Man, what's up. It's for the nice to see you. Yeah, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, dude, we always get Joe's friends on but now now I feel like it's my turn. We won't judge you on that, so yeah, I just don't have that many friends, to be honest, and for context for everybody out there, Mike and I met when we were both guiding for trout and salmon at the same lodge in Alaska and uh and and we were neighbors up in what we called the guide ghetto because the clients all slept in actual buildings down by the river, but the guides all lived in weatherport tents up on the top of the hill. So we didn't frighten orfend the paying customers, I assume, and uh Man as much of a pain in the asses as some things were about that place. I really missed that river, and I really miss our crew. Like we just said, good folks. Now, it always seems to be like that. By the end of the season, you can't wait to get out of there. But it's kind of like the Stockholm syndrome going on. It's like once you go home, you're like, where's where's Miles, Where's where's my buddies. When we were guiding up there, it was it was it was flying conventional in Alaska. But then then you went off on a completely different direction and you went straight offshore. And I don't I don't exactly remember how that happened, Like, how did you wind up going from what we were doing off to chartering offshore boats. Well, I've kind of been into all of it from the beginning. I grew up in New England fishing inshore, strip mass and that sort of stuff, so then and small creeks for broke trout and stuff like that. So and then expanding to Alaska where I met you. I did that for a bunch of years, and from there went to Key West, where I dipped my toes into the off shore, but it was lighter tackle, sailfish, moll, he's that sort of thing. And then wanted to expand some more, so on a whim, just came out to Hawaii with one phone number as a contact, and here it's all heavy tackle, hundred and thirty pound tackle, just dragging lures for the biggest fish you could ever imagine. I was gonna say, man, you went, you went right to the All Star Game, like from like that's minor League and Key West compared to what you're doing. I'm excited that I have a blue water guy on. I don't get to talk to blue water guys ever. Is the first time on here? The first Yeah, we want your favorite offshore smooth move. What do you got for us? So this particular day, I went to pick up my charter in the morning and it was a split charter, so it's not one group that rents the boat. It was a couple of people are their part and a couple of people get matched up with them that are strange us until that morning. So I go to pick up my charter and it's a young honeymoon couple from Illinois and then a single guy from southern California, so about as different as you could get. It's all good. Everybody meets new people, always have fun. So we get on the boat and I'm running through my safety spiel and the fishing spiel, letting them know what they're in for. And I hate to say it, but he's the quintessential southern California guy. He doesn't want to listen to anything I have to say. He's doing his own thing. You guys know the deal. He's caught this, he's caught that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go, let's go. Oh I know him, yeah yeah yeah. So we get out there and we're fishing, we're trolling. So we get you know, eight ten miles offshore, and we set up and we're trolling and doing this offshore. As a charter captain, you learn to pick up on the clues of when people are starting to feel not quite right, and one of the main ones is they disappear for a long time. And I always tell people one of the main things, if you're not feeling good, you do not want to go down into the head. You'll get chastrophobic, no fresh air. So I noticed that this gentleman from southern California has disappeared for twenty minutes. So that's a red flag there. So I called my dead hand up onto the bridge and I asked him where this guy is. He said, oh, he's been in the head for a while. I said, you better go check on him. It's been a while. So he goes down in there, and he promptly comes right back up to the bridge and says, yeah, he's in the head. He won't come out. I said, that's not good. You need to get him out, open the door and drag him out into the fresh air on the cock that he can't stay down there, so he goes down. Within a couple of minutes, I'm looking down from the bridge and I see him basically dragging leading this gentleman out into the cockpit into the fresh air, and he is covered with vomit and feces from shoulder to ankles. Oh, and you'd think that would be the worst part, but this guy figured in his seasickness stupor that probably the best thing to do on a shared charter with strangers would be to take off all of his clothes. Also. Yes, so this this guy is completely naked, stumbling around, covered in vomit and my decand sits him down in the corner and promptly gets the deck hose and starts spraying him off to clean them, which probably made him feel better. The fresh water probably made him feel better. But the look on the faces of that young honeymoon couple the shock and awe in their eyes is something that I'll never forget. So here we are, on one corner of the cockpit is this young couple trying to enjoy their honeymoon in Hawaii. And then the other side of the cockpit is this naked, overweight Harry Man curled up in the fetal position. It's it's not something that I like to advertise or say that this is what you'll enjoy on our trips, but unfortunately reality it's part of the deal. One of those one of those days that you look back on and you don't want to repeat, but you'll never forget. Did that sour or or or or trigger like the happy couples trip in any other direction? Because I mean, you got a dude covered in ship and puke like that could easily make you get sick if you were like almost there, So luckily it didn't. There was a huge division. So we're in a forty two foot sport fisher and it sounds like a big boat. But when you have something like that going on and you're on one side he is on the other side, it's not a very big boat. You can't get very far away. The Luckily, on a short trip, we caught a couple of fish. They caught a couple of my may's and they stayed on their corner and we had the guy carvered in a towel taking care of him, kind of out of sight, out of mind. So they had a good time. They caught a couple of fish. They were smiles when they got off the boat, and it all works all right for them. I would have insisted on, like mugging with a mahi with him in the frame somehow, like dude, can you get him in the frame lane on the deck like I would have had. It would have been funny. But is that really a picture that you want to have in perpetuity to look at and now see? That was great because that was that was a smooth moves and a tackle hack all wrapped in one. Whether people realize that or not. Right, we got to laugh at at poor SOCl sucker. Okay uh. And for those of you who are not well versed in offshore fishing, here's the valuable lesson. You never go below deck if you're feeling queasy, if you like are even getting a sense that you might be getting sick, you ride it out on deck. You stay in the fresh air. And I I used to have a much smaller boat than Mike, with a much smaller cabin. I'm not rolling around in Hawaii style boats, but for all those years I had it. If someone was like, man, I don't feel good. I want to go downstairs, I'm like, no, you are not. I would. I would literally put the lock on the cabin door. You do not go down there rule number one. That is very good advice because you think you want to do that, but you don't the what what you gotta do. Take deep breaths, find a point on the horizon to focus on, and just hope you don't go full on fetal because there's really no coming back after after you go there. Um and one one other thing that you never ever, ever ever want to do on a boat if you have a tendency to get the queez is read. I am a huge proponent of reading. But you don't bring books on off shore trips. It's just a bad idea. I'm laughing at myself. That's no joke. So I don't really get seasick on a boat anymore unless it's like crazy, crazy rough, it's got to be bad. But if I try and read anything like a menu, a book, something on my phone and just a moving car, I'll vomit. Oh yeah, and it speaks to it's really what it is. It's anything close focused on your boat is bad. Yep. That's why you want that horizon focus. That's why you want to look look in the distance exactly. I don't know how many people have taken out who are totally fine until they have to, like tie I own a lure, like hold lore in their face and tie it on into rock and see and it's just over. It's over right there anyway. So save the books when you get back to the hotel room. And as you're you're laying there on your crappy mattress feeling like you're still rising and falling with the swells, try not to fall over in the shower, but perhaps enjoy the book Miles is recommending in this week's Freaking Philistines, What's fast it's a guy who doesn't care about books are interesting, films and things and unstam The book recommendation for this week is Jungle Blues by Stu Tripney. Studs like the dos a key sky of fishing. I guarantee his life story is more interested than yours and mine even though I don't actually know all that many details about him, which just kind of adds to the allure. He's a Scotsman who started winning fishing competitions at the age of nine, got into punk rock and his teens, and spent a good bit of his youth driving tour vans across the UK and doing God is what. He ran safari tours in Africa, traveled the world catching the strangest and most challenging fish he could find. He somehow settled in a small town in New Zealand, opened that country's first fly shop and became the first certified master castor in a nation that's synonymous with technical trout fishing. Stew has been a name for himself as one of the most talented casting instructors and fly designers on the planet. But see nothing about Stu squares with most people's assumptions of a fly fishing expert. He's still a punk at heart, sporting tattoos and piercings. His shop, which no longer exists, was called Stews or Gasmic world Famous fly fishing Shop, and had a massive side out front that simply read fishing is fun. The point is Stews are kind of guy. He loves the fish, and he's a serious angler who doesn't take anything too seriously. That attitude is on full display in his book. When he drops off in the second sentence, you know you're in for a departure from the standard fishing tone. Reading Jungle Blues is kind of like closing the bar with an interesting and knowledgeable dude who knows how to tell a story best order another picture. Jungle Blues recounts a travel fishing trip, but Stu doesn't go to a famous fishery, stay in a posh lodge and get guided. That's not his style. Instead, Stu flies to Penang, a city in northwest Malaysia, because well, he decided his house might be conspiring to kill him after he burned his bare ass cheeks on the new fireplace. The South Island Winner felt a bit too long and dreary, and his most recent attempts at small town tender proved disappointing, so he heads to Malaysia to meet up with an old friend and fishing buddy who's in the process of starting up a sport fishing business in the heart of the country. From the start, nothing goes to plan. Stew's buddy Paul gets sidetracked, stranding Stew and Penang for a few days. With unexpected time on his hands, Stew decides to buy himself a little discount corrective eye surgery. The results are just about exactly what you expect. He also manages some severe food poisoning before finally getting out of the city with a twisted gut and a busted bleary and leaky eye. After meeting with Paul, Stu gets onto the ostensible purpose of the trip, fishing for giant snakehead on Lake Temengore. This book is not great literature. Don't expect polished phrasings, potent metaphors, or soaring pros. This is just a damn good story told by a compelling person. I don't want to give too much away, but Stu spends many weeks exploring the lake, living out of an aluminum boat in a sweltering jungle with just a few tarps hammock, some basic supplies and a few fishing rods. Stu runs that derelict boat around a completely unfamiliar reservoir where a minefield of sunken stumps high just under the surface and threatened to rip off the lower unit Since this lake isn't yet an established sport fishery, Stu spends much of his time looking for fish and works through many fishless days. Nothing about the trip sounds comfortable or glamorous. He spends every night in a hammock or on bare ground, eats nothing but canned food, and absorbs severe sunburn and constellations of insect bites in addition to his busted eye. But for all the discomfort, Stew's trip is rich and fascinating. He learns how to find and target giant snakehead by searching for the schools of juveniles that swim near the surface and are accompanied by their full grown parents. He also discovers that, while protective, those parents can't resist their predatory nature if one of their young winds up struggling on the end of a fishing line. He learns the habits of monkeys and watches Asian elephants relic more than anything. Though Stu offers an understated primer on how to embark on a phishing adventure instead of a phishing trip. The cliche about valuing the journey over the outcome usually strikes me as a justification when someone falls short of their actual goal not the case here. Stuke catches the big snakeheades after, but that's not the climax of the story. The climax, if there is one, is the slow build of relative comfort and familiarity that Stull achieves with an unfamiliar and somewhat uninviting place. Perhaps the best part about this book is that Stu doesn't need to make himself the hero or the expert. He's comfortable just being who he is. Here's the taste, imagine it in a Scottish accent. In random remote areas around the island. Paul would find enough signal, though never a particularly strong one, to do his emails and stories. He was tethered to the Internet, and this became a common theme during our trip. He'd stay where he could find signal and I'd go off in a different direction on my own. This was fine, as we're both lone wolf fishermen. Anyway, we'd catch up once or twice during the week to talk it around the campfire and share a few beers. For me, it was the perfect set up for discovery, adventure and fishing. We had two boats loaded up to last four to seven days at a stretch Paul's boat was well set up for its size, and mine was a similar four meter aluminum boat, though not as well set up. Both vessels had been spray painted and Paul's version of camouflage chic as he was convinced this looked cooler and was less likely to scare away fish than reflective aluminum. Paul gave me a quick rundown of what was and wasn't on the boat and how the engine worked. He was very relaxed about it all. You'll figure it out, he kept saying. I hope, so, I thought to myself, though I was also glad that he wasn't trying to babysit me. I was excited to get on and do things for myself. We stopped on a small island with steep banks and long grass. Paul eased his boat between the tree stumps and onto the shoreline. I cruised in behind him, more slowly and warily, and eased my boat alongside his. I jumped out with my rope, but as I did so, the boat shot forward and the nose dipped downward, hitting Paul's electric trolley motor and snapping the propeller in half. I was mortified here I was on our first boat journey using equipment that Paul had kindly loaned me, and within the hour his electric outboard. It was not a good start. I did my best to console Paul. I applied him with beer and let him know that I would pay to get fixed right away. He was pretty calm as he knew it was an accident and here in the jungle, Well, what can you do. At least the main outboard still worked. You have to just learn to deal with it, he said. It is what it is was, and at least nobody died. How are you going to take the snake head book? All? Come on, I'm the snakehead guy. We got a travel book about snakehead fishing, and you didn't pass it on to me. Weren't you support You were supposed to send me a copy of this book. So that's like double insult, Like I got this great book and you love it for and then you don't send the book and then you do a segment on the book. Yeah, and I was supposed to do that. That's true. Uh, your copy sitting right here in my office. I can see it, and I do feel a little bad, but only a little, because yeah, Okay, you got the line on snakeheads. You're the snakehead guy. But I actually got drunk with Stu, the guy who wrote that book, one time in Florida, So I'm I have as much right to claim that book as you do. Yeah, you're the you'll end up doing like a striper book next. Maybe I will. Maybe I will, but I won't if you get off your ass and beat me to it. You could do Philistines anytime you want. Man, I'm not stopping you. Yeah, but in this case, you did stop me. You failed to send me the book, which is stopping me right now. Never mind never mind that I can't actually really find any time to read anymore like I used to. Also, never mind that the trout magnets. I promise you arrived at your restume you got that. I knew you were going to do that, all right, whatever, You're a better person, fair enough, that's fine. Uh. Getting off of this topic is I'm clearly losing this and back onto the topic that we were talking about, with cultural attitudes about fishing and books. Do you know the classic children's book The Tawny Scrawny Lion. No, I cannot say I've ever heard it all right, all right, quick overview, because you gotta kind of know it. It's about a lion who eats all the animals in the jungle every day, but no matter how much he eats, he's never satisfied. This book is god awfully inaccurate and deeply messed up for a lot of reasons. First, lions don't live in jungles. Second, there's a whole thing about the lion eating kangaroos and wrong continent, but factual errors aside the whole message of this book. Maybe it was taken place during the time of panjaa oh God, but the over the mess age right. The message from this kid's book is about how the lion shouldn't be eating animals and and in fact, the lion only finds happiness and satisfaction when he stops eating all the animals and switches over to a diet of pure carrots stew, which he gets which he gets from his new friend, the rabbit. The rabbit teaches him a different way of being the centers around eating only carrot stew and being friends with all the animals that he used to eat. All the animals except for the fish, which the rabbit catches and puts in the magical carrot stew. And again, there's so much wrong with this story in terms of what we're teaching kids about, like natural systems and predator prey relationships and what rabbits and lions actually do and don't eat. But I have to bet like the thing that's stuck out with me was its attitude towards the fish, right, the whole the whole thing in this book that's telling kids is eating animals is bad, but eating fish totally cool, totally fine, all right, But then when we talk about Nemo, then you have those Nemo sharks with that whole fish or friends not food deal. Remember, just left me wondering, then what do they eat us? I know, do they only eat humans and scuba divers and rip people off boats and eat birds and ship because then that'd be it would be kind of painting sharks in a bad light to the children. Anyway, Why why are you asking me about this book? Where is this coming from? Uh? My my mom was reading it to my son over the computer the other day and it really bugged me, and I haven't bill stop thinking about it. So well, we should have her on and ask her what it means to her like reading Rainbow, Like what did she? What is? What is the message she gets out of this? Anyway? Maybe maybe preoccupation This will play into my favorite this week because maybe you've just been too distracted to follow up on the headlines and bring your a game in this week's fish news. Fish news that escalated quickly, Okay, so very quickly. I'm sure we all remember the finger lures that we covered in sale Bin not long ago. I know you haven't forgotten the ones, you know, the ones you insisted are fake that I insist are real, and we need to do an investigation and subsequent Netflix docuseries. Uh so this is so. We we posted the photo of those finger lures on our Instagram accounts, and man, did some people weigh in. Furthermore, a bunch of you have have seemingly done some sleuthing because we've gotten several links to other fake silicone fingers for sale on online classified sites. Apparently they're used for people learning to do nail work. I didn't know that that somebody needs anyway, fair enough, but here's the bad stuff. But here's the thing, regardless, right as far as I've been scaring, ain't none of them look as real or as good as the ones in the fingerlure post like, none of them struck me as that realistic. And I feel the need to just relay this comment from Vince Stone, who has Vince has been following me for years, and Vince is a mortician by trade, and this is what what what he wrote to me says as your favorite mortician, which he is, Um, I can confirm that those are the realist replication of severed fingers I have ever seen. There are details on those fingers. You just won't know unless you've seen them in real life. Bang plot thickens from a real life mortician. Thank you, Vince. That's all I've got on that. But I'm just I'm just saying I'm backing myself up. Yeah fair, I'll say Vince's Vince is really gonna like one of my my stories this week. I'm a little foreshadow in there. But Vince, listen up, because I think we're gonna dig it. I'm not gonna call anybody out by name, but a lot of you have responded to the big mouth buffalo Finclips did and I appreciate all that. And and looks like some people have figured out some ways to catch him. But but nobody seems to have fully cracked the code. So I'm sticking by that being like the next big super fun sport fish to figure out. Anyway, let's jump into let's jump into the news. As always, this is a competition. Joe and I have no idea what exactly the other one is going to bring to the table. We just know that we want to vanquish one another into oblivion. And the man who holds the key to that deciding factor, the decider himself, our engineer Phil. All Right, man, it's your it's your week. Yeah, I do. I get to I get to lead off here. Man, you've already like you've already hinted that you're excited about one of your stories. So I'm nervous here. But anyway, we'll we'll start here. And while this is kind of a foreign notion to you, and that's a good thing. Out here on the East Coast, we are creeping in on trout season and opening days of trout season in many states. In fact, I've seened both of my news stories around stock or trout, so I've been hitting the trout season, by the way. That's yeah, I know but we're just like allowed to. It's not because there weren't any their last Tuesday until they came with the truck. It's just a different thing. Uh. In some states have already opened out here, I believe. And um, while people that live in serious wild trout territory, like you don't maybe fully get this rush to get out and beat on these tank raged trout for better or words, right, this is a big cultural thing here, you know what I mean, Like my entire life, Opening day was the jam. I actually had an easier time falling asleep on Christmas Eve than the night before opening day trout when I was little. And uh, I mean I retired from opening days many years ago, but I'm thinking this might be the season I dust off the change stringer because my kids are like right about at the right age. So you know, anyone planning to fish and well lake on opening Day in Jersey, I'll be there dominating and I apologize for that. But anyway, within these completely manufactured fisheries right there are are three goals. One is to limit out and that's the easiest goal. Two is to catch the breeder, like you want to be the guy in the parking lot with the queen pellet head on your Chaine stringer jangling, right, Um. And then three is to stick a golden trout otherwise known as a palomina. That's not golden trout, that's a palomino trout. There's there's a difference. I'm you're right. Scientifically speaking, you're you are correct, but they both terms are acceptable here. Um. And if anybody doesn't know, like the ones I'm talking about it, they're just hatchery rainbows that are bred to basically be hunter orange and practically glow in the dark. Right, So catching a palomino it's somewhat of a rite of passage. So needless to say. When the state of West Virginia canceled its annual gold rush last spring due to COVID, people were extremely upset. Right, And according to the story I found on West Virginia metro news dot com, the annual gold rush is such a draw in West Virginia. The state fear that the crowding it's known to cause on lakes and streams could be them like super spreader events. That's how many people are down on the gold rush. So they mixed it. And and so you understand many state stock palominos, but they're just kind of like you know, they're just like scattered in the mix, which is why in Pennsylvania, as an example, they're often prized because there might be one in an entire, you know, long stretch of stock stream and everybody will be crowded around the whole it's in because you can see the damn thing, right, so it's like, who's going to get that one out of the whole. But West Virginia raised fifty thousand golden rainbows this year for the much anticipated gold rush, and they'll be planted in sixty two bodies of water, both lakes and streams. For comparison, Pennsylvania will be stocking a mirror thirteen thousand golden statewide this year. So West Virginia, I've I've learned from this maybe like the most golden trout slash palomino obsessed state, um because what they do is they dump all these fish in the same week. So unlike other states where the palam and those are mixed in with the regular stock dates, this is a a a gold a gold blitz. It's a gold dump, it's a gold dump. It's a gold blitz, if you will. So here's a quote from the story. We start getting calls around October asking if we have made plans for next year's gold rush. There are people all over the country who make vacation plans around the gold Rush, said Jim Hedrick, hatchery systems manager for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. So in the past, I guess there have been some prizes involved for tag fish and such, but this year the state is going bigger and better than ever. Per the story, the agency has also created some additional suspense around the fish this year. Catch a tag trout and you could win a three night Cavin stay at Blackwater Falls State Park, one night Cavin stay at the state park or forest, a West Virginia State Parks gift card, or exclusive gold Rush merchandise. Right, And so here's here's my opinion. Anything that gets people excited to get out and fish cool, I'm all about it. I personally have never really understood the appeal of these fish, Like I never I never got it. And I mean if you ask me, like what they're good for is letting you know where other trout are. I mean it's like, oh, there's a palomino, so there must be ten more trout around it, but it's the term indicator species to a totally different level spot on. But I I find them like kind of gross and often dumb, and like people post pictures of them on a grill and it's just like it's like the koi, you know what I mean, Like there's still bright art and after you've sprinkled them with Mrs Dash and put them on the weber. You know. However, that said, I I will admit that while I don't ever seek them out, if I stumble on the one by accident and there's nobody around, like you just can't help it, because it's like a freaking magnet, Like it's a magnet. And like what I refused to do, like I said, is stand around a hold with ten other dudes and like bombard one but mutual buddy of ours, Tim Romano and I we were floating to local creekt in my house a few years ago, late season, like for small Mouth, and all of a sudden we spot this big golden in a run far away from a stock point and we sat there for like an hour trying to catch it, like you just can't help it. And it happened to me this past summer, same thing, late day, super slow. Nothing happened except for this one giant freaking golden trout, and um we sat there for an hour, change in flies and like you see everything that happened. So it's like you moved, oh man, turned off of it, you know what I mean, and you just like you get glued to it so little. That's like a no no, So I I find here's a Palomino tip for all you Palomino hungry people. It's like you gotta crack him right away because he'll chase for a while. But usually like they're aggressive if you like, as soon as you throw a spinner or stick bait or whatever or even drift a worm. But like they get wise quick there. They are kind of aware. I mean, every hawk and heron in the planet. It's just like therey there he is. So you know, I don't know, man, I kind of feel like I want to go to the gold Rush, like it's a thing like even though I don't care about Palomino's I'm interested in the West Virginia gold Rush, all right. I have a couple of things. Number One, I don't feel like that was a great use of UM agency money. Because it sounds like the gold rush is already such a thing, Like why are you incentivizing that even for it seems to be like if you're gonna spend that money spending on getting people excited about like the catfish that nobody wants or or the new River small mouth, I mean, I don't I don't think that's the best use of resources, because I don't think you're gonna need to incentivize people to go after them from what you're describing. But more more to the point, I just sort of feel bad for these fish, man, Like, first of all, they're they're they're raised in this hatchery laboratory setting to be this creepy, weird color, and and so they live most of the life in a race way or a hatchery pond, which can't be that great. And then they get dropped somewhere and they just have to live in fear because they're either being bombarded by by anglers or attacked by predators. It seems like a terrible life, is what I'm saying. You know it is, it is probably a terrible life. But it's like out here, man, like you will take our golden trout out of our our cold dead hands. Like what I'm saying, I'm just I'm just I'm really saying that because that sets me up to talk about my next story, which is what I'm gonna do, which has to do with with, you know, potentially feeling feeling bad for fish. Uh So, just so you know that that whole thing was all about me and getting to talk about what I want to talk about, and it also need it also fits with the theme of the show right that we've been talking about, which is, you know, feeling bad for fish, fish welfare, all that stuff. So I recently read a Vox article titled the Next Frontier for Animal Welfare colon Fish, and in reading the article, I found out about a relatively new nonprofit called the Fish Welfare Initiative. Now, considering the source article where I found this group and their name, I was like, Oh, no, here we go with the sea kittens again. God damn it. But hold on, Actually, you know what, wait before I keep going, I think that's the second time we've referenced sea kittens on this show, and I feel like we gotta explain that. So for those who have no clue what we're talking about. Some years ago, PETA people for the Ethical Treatment Animals put out this whole anti phishing media campaign that tried to get everyone to stop calling fish fish and start calling them sea kittens. Was that the same campaign with the comic book called your Dad's an Asshole or whatever it was. I don't Your Dad is a murdering comic book by Peter I should have kept it. I had it, and I tossed it. I mean it was like like they really thought that just this like simple rebranding exercise, would you know, convince the world to completely change global commerce and food supply and destroy the recreational fishing industry just because they made a comic. And as we've also said it, it's worked in the opposite way for Chilean sea bass say they changed their name and they're all dead, So careful what you wish for. And and shockingly, the sea kittens campaign it never really took hold. It's kind of it. Also, have you seen their more recent one, their most recent PR campaign to two and this is a quote remove species is um from our daily conversations by UH and the way they're doing this by replacing idioms like kill two birds with one stone with feed to birds with one scone or bigger fish to fry becomes bigger fish to free. Man. I try, I try to at least be respectful when I see people working towards goals they genuinely believe that are right, even if I totally disagree with them. But dude, Peter just it's they're just such an easy target. I can't help myself, I know, and I don't want to get off. Remember when they made those photo frames for social media, like Peter put out those, like you'd frame a picture of an animal you loved to put this auto pe to frame on it, and everybody thought it was funny to just put their dead deer and bears and stuff in that frame. In my opinion, I'm like, don't do that, because I know you're trying to be funny, but you're just still like terrible move. It's true anyway, you know. Back back to the back to the this is not a Pea story, back to the Fish Welfare Initiative, which is also known as f w I. And like I said, I thought they were gonna be going the Peter out When I first read about that, I was like, oh God, But their mission is much more practical, which makes them harder for me to dismiss as opposed to PETA, whose arguments are just like purely anthropomorphic and are purely just just appealing to emotion. There's no logic there. F w I focused on sound research and rational perspectives. Their stated mission also has absolutely nothing to do with fishing, so f w I wants to change fish farming. Fish are the most farmed vertebrates in the world. Up to a hundred and eighty billion fish are being raised at any given time, and that numbers growing. But fish farms have lots of issues that we've we've we've talked about on this program before. Like we we are not huge fans. They pollute ecosystems, harm populations of wild fish, and a bunch of different ways allow non native species to get into places they're not supposed to be. Feeding farmed fish requires harvesting huge amounts of wild fish and pulling them out and and and way back. A few months ago, I did a story on loser fish, which is the actually industry term for the twenty five percent of farm fish to give up on life and stop eating and never make it to harvestble size point being. Current fish farming practices are are problematic. I totally agree there. Now, the Fish Welfare Initiative realizes that aquaculture is the fastest growing food sector worldwide, and their goal is to help fish farmers shift their practices in ways that will make fish farms more efficient and less harmful. So far, I'm totally on board. They're currently partnering with fish farms in India, and they're looking to expand at China and the Philippines to make these farms more productive, more profitable, and less detrimental to ecosystems and wild fish. Again, totally with that, right. But while they lead their conversations talking about increased profits, fish quality, and sustainability, the core of their mission is all about improving living conditions for farm fish. As I read through their materials, I find myself simultaneously like nodding along and being like yeah, totally with you, and then stepping back and wonder like, wait, am I am I just opening up my mental gates to to a trojan horse. I'm not opposed to fish welfare. Like I said at the top of the show, I'm that guy that puts other people's fish out of their misery when they're flopping on the ice or in the deck of a boat. One of the many reasons I hunt is to avoid supporting factory farms too much. I got no issue with eating animals, but I don't like eating animals that never really lived. Of I think industrial chicken farming is nasty and industrial fish farming isn't much different. It's very very similar. That's that's accurate. So I'm totally in favor of changing the way that those practices are done. So why does this group make me nervous? Like? Why do I find myself struggling to trust this initiative and fully get on board? Because even though they don't mention fishing anywhere on their website or the articles and reports I read, I can't help but think that an organization called the Fish Welfare Initiative isn't so hot on fishing for fun and sport. Their stated mission is quote to improve the welfare of fish as much as possible. They also stayed on their website that quote fish are sentient beings capable of feeling pain as much as terrestrially farmed animals. On that point, I just absolutely disagree or whatever I choose to disagree, because I've read the research. I even interviewed one of the leading experts on fish pain experience, and I'm just not convinced that fish pain is the same as sentient being pain. I'm not convinced, or I choose not to be convinced, whatever, however you want to look at it. That said, I still think fish farming is is problematic. And I don't like the idea of fish living their entire lives and overcrowded confinements stewing in each other's waist. Also, I understand that aquaculture is going to be more and more important for feeding and growing global population, especially if we want to take some of the pressure off wild fish stocks, and and I would like to see that farming done in ways that are more efficient, more more profitable, produce higher quality meat, create less waste, don't scroup ecosystems. And yeah, sure, if that's less terrible for the fish, I'm on board with that too. Like I, they can't check all the boxes. But I wonder, like, can we ever really be friends? Like now can an organization like the Fish Welfare Initiative ever see anglers as partners? Almost all of our stated goals are the same. I want them to succeed but not if it means that we have to agree that fish are sentient beings and that fishing is there for barbaric and cruel. It's this weird thing where like I'm with them all the way up to a point, and yet I think when push comes to show, we're going to fight. You can't call fish sentient beings and then be okay with recreational angling. So let's just assume that we would not be friends. I don't I don't see that. It's you know, it's a tough thing man, And I might sound like a little jerky here, but you know, if you look at it from all sides, it's like you and I aren't really huge on fish farming in the sense of like we don't really buy farm fish. I don't eat farmery salmon and all that stuff. But can you have it both ways? Like, fish farms are existing because there's a demand for more fish, and I mean that is hypothetically taking strain off wild fisheries in certain places. But now this group is like, but yeah, but those fish aren't happy, right, I mean, that's ba sally what they're saying. It's like the fish like, so if you go down their bullet point list, Like that's the bottom of the list. It's all like profit, sustainability, efficiency, workers rights, like they hit all these other things. I'm like, yeah, I agree, I agree, I agree, And you get to the bottom, like and the fish are said, and I'm like, well, yeah, I care about that too, but not as much as those other things. Yeah. Man, I'm sort of got a loss for what to say on that one. I mean, I'm all about you know, efficiency, right, I don't. I don't like waste in in any farming. You don't. You don't. You don't really want to know or talk about, like how much chicken or fish or whatever it might be is wasted. Is it awful to say, like I don't feel sad for farm. I don't feel sad for fish. I am very respectful of fish that I catch. I don't want to harm fish, right unless I'm taking them to eat them. If I am, I'm going to dispatch them humanely. But like, I can't, I can't look at them like the sad turkeys in the Purdue video. I just can't. It's a fish, and and and and with with the pain thing look for better or worse. That's a huge debate I am. I am pretty much on your side. But like you can't hear a fish, you know, like a dog, you know, you step on the dog's tail, dog lets, you know, like you can't, so they don't vocalize, So you know what's it's like, there's just there's just no winning with these people. Sometime we want to save wild salmon. That's good. So we have salmon farms. Okay, they have their issues, but they are serving a purpose and a demand. But those fish are sad, Like holy ship, I'm sorry, I'm going nowhere here. I'm just like stream of consciousness spouting off set you up to have a lot to say that. I just I found that to be first, it fit the theme of the show, and to like, this is a new initiative that's coming in. I think it's something that we as anglers are going to contend with, and it found I was interested because I agreed with so many of their points until that last one. I'm like, I don't think we're actually friends. I just get it and and and we're not and we're not going to be friends. And at some point these people will will come up again, I'm sure if they're upset about the well being of fish. I don't know who worries about the well being of bugs because they're going to take issue with my last story. Who are the bug people? All right, I'm just letting you know right now. Okay, I don't need to hear it. I don't need your bug comic book. Uh, you know, anti butterfly nets or whatever. And this is not really news anyway, but I flagged it because when I read it, I was struck with the notion that you can, in fact teach old dogs new tricks. And it also fits, like I said, with my stocker trout theme. Plus I learned something I never knew. And I'm curious after after everybody hears this to see if anyone writes it and goes, yeah, dude, this is legit. And I've been doing this for years. Okay, Um, anyway, there's always just a bunch of sort of spring related nature stuff in the news this time of year, right, you know, like the focuses are blooming in Central Park, or get out and look at the grass Chicago, you know, like all that junk. Right, So well, so this is this is similar vein this little story comes from the citizen's voice, which appears to cover northeast Pennsylvania, and it's all about golden rod, and more specifically the golden rod goal fly. Okay, so golden rod extremely common, grows coast to coast, and wherever it grows, um it gets these these goal flies. And the main photo of the article is a stalk of golden rod with an almost perfectly round, like ping pong ball size not right in the middle of the stalk. And when you see this photo, many of you, like me, you'll probably be like, oh, yeah, Like, I recognize that I've seen those knots a million times walking around out in the woods and along the streams, and of course I never gave them much thought. And but the knot or goal which is what it's really called and how the fly gets its name. It's the same color as the stalk, and it looks like just a seed pot or something you just assume it was part of the plant. But inside each one of these galls, these knots, is a single plump, fat, juicy little grub. Right, so these golflies hatch in the spring, but right now, at least in the northeast, they should still be in grub form. And because the golden rod isn't in bloom and all the undergrowth hasn't come in. These knots uh or galls are much easier to spot right now. And according to the author Craig, where you're going with this? I really hope you're going where I think you are. I don't know. I now I'm nervous that I'm not going there and you'll be disappointed. According any according to the author Craig Morgan, those golfly grubs are like exceptional trout bait and handfish bait like premium, premium, high quality ship here man, and this bait supply is free and easy, easier to collect even than than digging worms are looking for grubs like an old wooden stuff. And he says, you know, you go clip off a couple dozen of these galls, just put the whole gall in the largest pocket of your fishing vest, and then you just use your pocket knife to slice them open is needed, and like inside each one is just like a perfect delicious, juicy trout bait. Yeah, I am going to go do this, okay, right before I head to the gold rush, all right, but he says, he does know, be careful because these goals can be kind of hard so I cut them open carefully, you don't like, you know, let your knife slip um. And not only did I find this pertinent, like I said, with trout season about to open, but for me it was like who knew? I have seen it? There's so much golden rod around here, especially along a lot of the streams I fish in North Jersey and p A And like, you just look at this and it just looks like a like a nasty weed pod seed thing, and you're like, holy sh it. So all these years of trudging along these streams, like there was an endless supply of of awesome trout bait there I never knew existed. Um. And then you know the competitive world of opening days. Uh, you know you want the leg up and you'll be the only one in the hole on opening morning with something better than your special blended power bait. So I am very curious. This is one of those things that somebody listening has to have been doing this, and it's either like ship, I can't wait to try it. I can't wait to try it. So it's just this little nature thing. It certainly wasn't focused on fishing by any means, but like, look at this little nugget which I have now shared. That's great, you have you have gold. I'm going to be yeah. I mean we're later our seasons later in here, so it's not up yet. Be on the lookout for that for sure. Um. The only segue transition I can think of is that I'm going to talk about something that I really hope nobody wants to use for bait. I really hope. So my next story comes from National Geographic and uh, like you' alluded to earlier, after the response we got from the severed fingers lure segment, I just had to run with this. It is. It is kind of stretched for fish news, but I think I think I found a way to justified at the end. We'll see if you agree. In the Pacific Northwest, between Vancouver Island and the mainland is this body of are called the Sailors Sea, and down at the southern end of it is where you find Puget Sound. Since two thousand seven, at least twenty human feet have been found washed up on beaches and rocks in this small area. Oh, I love it. I love this. They're never found in pairs, always individually, though sometimes a matching foot will wash up later on a different beach, and the feet are always found en cased in shoes, generally sneakers. In two eight, five different disembodied feet were discovered local media. We're all over the mysterious feet beat, as you might imagine, and uh, people started freaking out right, like rumors of a serial killer started circulating in Wisconsin. He doesn't need to feet. The police tip lines were just lightening up with all these assertions like about to range murderers and sunken shipping containers full of migrants. Uh, some warnings of an impending alien invasion. And of course, of course the well meaning psychics that we're constantly calling it up in their services right and as always happens. Ultimately, though, it wasn't law enforcement who eventually did figure this mystery out, but forensic pathologists and oceanographic researchers see when bodies end up in the water, they usually sink. They might float at first, but they usually sink, and in cold water like off the course of the Pacific Northwest, they don't decay or bloat, They just kind of sit down there and and certain circumstances, bodies can last for centuries if undisturbed in cold, low oxygen water, but that doesn't happen in the sailors sea. Instead, any organic tissue, dead humans included is quickly set upon by a mob of scavengers like shrimp, lobsters and crabs. And this is where I just I've got to quote the article like this is the best line from National Geographic. I have to quote it directly, so here it is. It was as if a red lobster buffet had risen up to exact its revenge. And props to Erica Angele helped for some solid words smithing there, because that was that was very well done. Anyway, the sea creatures feast on the remains and they start with the soft bits. Ankles happened to be very soft connective tissues, so feet will quickly become disarticulated from the rest of the body. And modern sneakers such as the ones we've been using for about the past twenty years, are very buoyant, right, and in all but one of the washed up feet that was the case. They were in modern buoyant sneakers. So it makes sense that bodies lost at sea would lose their feet if they were wearing sneakers, and that those feet would drift away, but that doesn't explain why they keep showing up in this one localized area. That mystery was solved by a researcher who created a computer simulation and the point of it are initially was to predict what would happen in the event of an oil spill near Seattle, and his model shows that just about anything set adrift in that area will flow straight into the sailor seat. Ye. And you add into that the fact that the Pacific Northwest has lots of people wearing sneakers and hiking around the rocks, and you get this logical answer for why the area attracts all these disembodied sneaker clad feet. Creepy. None of these feet, none of the feet found has ever been connected to foul play. It's all natural causes. But they keep going to that same place. But they find the real people. They've like, they have connected, like they they figure out whose feet they are. Not all they haven't they have identified all of them, but they've identified a lot of them. The majority of them have been identified. It took a long time. Some of them are decades old, but yeah, they found him. And it's possible that some people out there, maybe even you, Joe, are currently wondering why this this counts is fish news, and I have answers. First, several of the feet belonged to anglers who were thought to have slipped off the rocks and drowned. So this is a cautionary tale, right, if you're shortcasting, be careful, bad things can happen. I'm not saying don't go do it, just be smart. Second, a lot of the feet were found by fishermen, which again not surprising. Right, who's down on the rocks getting to the places where things wash up that aren't always seen, gonna gonna be gonna be anglers. But the final reason, and my personal favorite one is is like, I'm talking to all the shell fish lovers out there, myself included, and I just want us to recognize that, given the chance, those shrimp, crabs and lobsters would gladly eat you and your whole family all right, And whether that makes you feel better or worse about dumping them live into a pot of steaming waters totally up to you, but know that they would have no qualms about it. I love this. I don't care why it's connected to fishing. I was like I don't care how he connects this. I just absolutely love this and it brings up a few things. For one, Okay, as a Northeast surf fishing guy, anybody fishing rocks anywhere, even if it's in like August and like it's super warm, dude, I was always blown away when I first started wearing jetty cleats on rocks, Like how effective that is. So even if you get like the stupid little strappy crampons, like tiny little studs, makes the world of difference, you will not slip off the rocks. But Okay, what this brought to mind because I knew right away, I was like, there's something about the current that's putting the feet there. Later, and I fish a lot on the Niagara River out of Lewis to New York, and that's about I want to say, seven miles six miles from Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls is upstream of there, and almost every jumper that jumps off of Niagarahy also commit suicide. They pop up at the boat ramp in Lewistown, and it's just because of the way that they sink and the currents work that like of the time, if somebody jumps and they're they're going to be recovered. It's because they pop up there in Lewiston. And that's what this made me think of. And every time I'm up there, I'm like, please, don't let that happen. I really don't like I really I don't want to see that. But I find that, I find that fact. I love that little stuff. It was a good I very much enjoyed researching that one. We'll see what Fill has to say subsequently. That just put me in the mood for cheddar Bay biscuits. That story, and uh, if we hear from Phil, maybe they have that or a version of it at the bar we're gonna go drinking at. I am nothing if not basic, and therefore a little light body horror gets me going. So Miles, you're the winner this week. Joe. You beat me to the punch with that cheddar Bay biscuit. Its reference. So I had to make some tweaks to this next joke, and I hope it works out just as well. Okay, here we go. You don't have to tell me that a shrimp would gladly eat my eyeballs out of their sockets to get me to go hard on some scampy and Mountain Dew Margarita's at my local Red Lobster. Okay, not great, but I'll workshop it best. God damn bartender from tim buck To to Portland's Maine, the port and Argam for that matter. This week we're bringing the pub praise back to Montana. You might remember that our first ever that's my Bar segments shouted out the Sip and Dip in great falls and also paid homage to the joints legendary master of ceremonies Piano Pat was that our first man That feels like forever ago. It was a while ago, and I don't I don't remember if it was the first, but it was. It was among the first, I know that for sure. And we haven't had another Montana bar since then. We have not. We have not, And this is why I'm so excited be because, you know, to be totally honest, the Sipp and Dip is like kind of an expected play. It's probably in Montana's most famous bar, like he's been written up across the country blah blah blah blah blah. But that's not the case for this week's watering hole. This week, we've got Toby's Tavern which might be the state's best kept secret. Yeah, it's it's a good email. Have you have you been at this place? Well, that's what I'm saying, Like, that's why I say it that way, because I haven't. I have to admit that I've I've never been there, and not only that, like I've never even heard of it. I had no idea existed until listener Ryan Knapp sent a very very persuasive email, and it convinced me, Like I'm I'm a hundred percent convinced that I need to get my ass over to northeast Montana for a drinking trip with a little fishing thrown in very very soon. Now here's the point. Even though Ryan never said so in his email, I'm pretty damn sure that the dudes from Missoula because he made sure to work in a dig on Bozeman when he was right in there. And and the thing is, God love the Missoulan's. They do two things really really well. They're they're so good at soaking their dreads and patuli oil and throwing shade opposeman. But I personally, I don't. I don't debase myself. I don't get into that whole petty rivalry thing. It's it's nothing. No, clearly, clearly you are well above such pettiness. Um. Yeah, enjoy that. Missoulan's back to this bar. Though it's Ryan's moment, not yours. Um here's here's what he writes. He says, located in Knox in Montana, up near the Idaho Panhandle on the Clark Fork River, you'll find Toby's tavern. Toby is no longer with us, however, his daughter Gail keeps this eclectic establishment going with an infectious passion for this cultural landmark. To hear her tell it, she was married in the bar and has been there ever since, working six days a week, and she can easily fill an afternoon with very interesting stories. And Ryan says, ask me how I know that? But I want to because I do too. Yeah. The thing I this is a great email, But I really wish that Ryan had provided at least one example from Gale's repertoire of storytelling, because you know they're good, right, and you know, good on him. It's probably the better call because now I know I have to actually go there to get a taste. But the other thing I gotta I gotta say Ryan did well here is that is it was a smart move leading with Gail, right because having the right character pouring drinks and wiping glasses is really what ultimately makes or breaks a great ball. Right like that, that is the the core, that's a nucleus of great bar. Is a great bartender. And it sounds like Toby's has got it going. It sounds like Gayale is exactly what you want in a bartender. But the space itself also sounds like the kind of spot where I want to listen to Gail tell stories. Here's how here's how Ryan describes the ambiance. On stepping through the door into this dark space, one is overwhelmed by the accumulation of photos, memorabilia, shoulder mounts, and big fish adorning any surface to which they can be affixed up to and including the ceiling. Bumper stickers on the coolers and glass are an entertaining time capsule into the contentious issues of the eras when they were put up. It's obvious this bar doesn't take itself too seriously, as evident by the copulating mountain lion taxidermy set up on the jukebox. And that right there didn't even have to read the email, just clicked the photo for that was the moment I knew for for sure we were gonna shout out this bar because there's there's there's mountain lions having sex over the jukebox. Somebody did that. Somebody took two real mountain lions and skin them and then made that. Best of all, Ryan, he sent it, Like I said, he sent us a photo right, So head over to my Instagram account if you if you want to see this skin mount rendering of of lion love on top of this jukebox loaded with country classics. I'm sure you might be wondering, however, if this really counts as a fit shing bar. Well. Ryan covered that base too, he explained, while indulging in successive rounds of Just One More with my wife, we met folks passing by on a road trip, couples on Harley's enjoying the scenic Montana roads, Locals just stopping in and say hello. And a gentleman who was in town working on his hunting cabin that gave me a hot tip on a mountain lake full of cutties in the near by cabinets. Boom, beautiful fishing bar. Perfection. Nailed it, Ryan, well done, on this submission. If you take me to your secret cutty Lake, I will buy all the drinks and Toby's afterwards, I promise. And if any of you out there have a bar that deserves a shout out on this show, take a cue from Ryan, give yourself a few minutes and write a compelling call out, then send it to Bent at the Meat Eater dot com. Definitely put Toby's on your summer travel list. I think we'll all be traveling done traveling to Toby's, going straight straight over to Toby's. That place sounds a legit, just a damn fine drinking and bullshitting establishment, no gimmicks necessary, which which actually makes it the polar opposite of the lure that Joe is going to tell you about in this week's end of the line. Well that's not loud enough. Burt Roland Martin, Jimmy Houston, Bill Dance, Hank Parker. When most Americans think about bass fishing pioneers, those are the names that stand out. I mean, we've watched them on TV since we were little, grown up with them and caught more hog bass because of them. But those four fellas wouldn't complete the mount Rushmore of bass legends. Should something so breathtaking ever be chiseled because someone is missing, and that someone is Chuck Woolery. A lot of you grew up watching Chuck Woolery too, albeit as the host of The Love Connection. Now Here to tell us more about love Connection is our host, Chuck Wooler Ray And for any of our young listeners that don't know what the Love Connection is, it was Tinder in front of a live studio audience which got to decide who you hooked up with. And this is Charles. He likes women with smooth skin, long legs, and eyes. But as it turns out, while Chuck spent eleven years connecting awkward people on a hockey game show that paved the way for ship like The Bachelor and mtvs. Catfish, off camera, Chuck was connecting with bass. I learned this from Bent listener Eric Hopkins, who made me hip to what could be the greatest bass lure you've never heard of, the Chuck Woolery series Moto Lure. Eric sent a photo of the moto lure, which he says a friend purchased some years ago at a good will store. So taken aback was I that a lure bearing the signature of the guy who played the band manager in made for TV movie Hey Hey, It's the Monkeys had slipped past my radar. I had to know more. Little did I know, though, I was throwing myself into one of fishing's greatest mysteries. Usually, the end of the line focuses on a lure's history, and every lure, even the TV famous ones like the Banjo Meadow and the Flying Lure, has a story that starts with one man's garage innovation. They have roots tied to real anglers, but not the Moto lure. It seems to have just appeared out of the ether, like the monolith in two thousand one of Space Odyssey. While there are several styles of moto lore, the one that pops up most often looks like a standard popper, but the line tie I on all these lores is connected to a string that extends when you twitch it in the water, thus winding up an internal mechanism that makes the tails kick and vibrate for a few seconds while the baitas at rest. It's simply modeled after a pull string car or dinosaur of Pokemon you might buy for your kids. The Lorea's slogan continuous live action. In essence, you could say this was the precursor to today's robotic lures that are charged via USB. But Chuck Woolery and Moto Lore in it together. How why? My investigation led to a DVD released in two thousand four titled bass Fishing the Basics with Chuck Woolery. It's still available on Amazon for fifteen bucks and it has exactly five reviews, one of which reads, if you have never fished in your life, then you might get something out of this. But I was very disappointed. In a world where everything is online, clips from this DVD are suspiciously absent. In fact, all I could find was the dvd shitty musical intro. But at least I had a timeline assuming the Moto Law endorsement came in the early two thousands to coincide with the DVD. But as mysteriously as the Moto Law appeared, it seems higher powers try to erase it within just a few years, and you'll still find it on Amazon and a few other odd tackle sites, but it's it's out of stock or unavailable. The link to Chuck Woolery Bass Fishing Dead All that remains is a video posted by YouTube user Western Cowboys called Chuck Woolery Moto Law Instructional. It's six and a half minutes long, filmed in a single unbroken take, as Chuck, dressed in a new fishing vest and crisp camo hat clearly pulled right from wardrobe, rattles on about the Moto Law in a tone that says, I could give a shit about this, Just pay me. I thought it was a real gimmicky kind of thing, didn't really understand it, didn't figure out what it would do, and I was kind of forced into using it. There's the sound click after click after click after click, and they will do that for about seven to eight seconds. If you want to see the Moto Chuck in action, you can find out on YouTube too. It's just that you won't see it in action. Around the time it was released. In the handful of review videos I watched, the anglers make it known that this is something that's been sitting in their garage for years, or that they have no recollection of how they even acquired it. Notably, however, Mike Side, better known as one Rod one Reel Fishing on YouTube, use his to catch a few giant Maryland bass in a small pond, and over one million adoring fans watched him do it. To me, leaning on Chuck Woolory to sell your bass lures seems so absurd that I can't help. But wonder if it's not absurd at all. Maybe the modo lure was too powerful. Maybe Chuck Woolery was silenced by the likes of Yama Moto and striking to ensure his next level bass knowledge couldn't reach the masses. And here's what Chuck has to say about that. Frankly, they're missing the point. Take it from my philosophical guru and life coach, Iced Tea. You know the right to bear arms, it's because that's the last form of defense against tyranny. Tyranny in the upper echelon of American bass icons that's clearly at play here and stopping Chuck from taking his rightful seat at the right hand of Denny Brower. And with that forgotten nugget, we wrap up our pop culture reference and fishing info scavenger hunt. Here's hoping you got ahold of all the hidden goodies, including one book you should absolutely buy for all your snakehead obsessed friends. Another book you should absolutely not buy for your kids unless you want to deeply confuse them about food chains, the perfect lure to put on your Tinder profile, and how to spend half a week's wages completely debasing yourself and ruining someone else's honeymoon. And if you buy the Steakhead book for your friend, actually of it to them anyway, we are we are all about public service here, and if you're appreciating all that we give, or maybe frustrated about what we don't, send an email to Bent at the meat Eator dot com. Also remember we're always looking out for your bar nominations, sale bin items, and awkward fishing photos, among other things. Those those emails are the highlights of my week. No, totally thank you to all of you who send us stuff, even if it doesn't make the podcast, We appreciate it. We also appreciate seeing all the stuff you put up on the Graham with the Degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags. Yeah, and I honestly can't wait to see what you guys put up about the tawny scrawny Lion next week

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