00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, this is Tyler Jones and you're listening to the Element podcast. What's happening on my which people? Today? We have part two of the sixty destination podcast here that we did. It was a marathon podcast with our buddy Sean Polk from Tail Waters Fly Fishing Company and your favorite co host, Casey Smith. What's happening to dude? Just sitting here hoping everybody's gone back and listen to part one of this because it was pretty awesome and part two is going to be even better, maybe better, Just as good Sean saved his best ones here, they say the best ones for the end. So I kind of boughtched that one, but I was just trying to follow you all all around the map. Yeah, I know I used up some of my good ones at first two. But that's okay. My last one, I mean to me, at least, it's pretty sweet. Oh yeah, for sure. So if you're interested in hearing that and you have listened to the first one, then let's go ahead and get with this. We've got Oh don't forget Instagram story. All week we've been posting pictures and we will continue doing that from these destinations that we mentioned in this podcast to kind of give you some visual to what we're talking about here and uh, just to kind of reminisce on our own part. So anyway, so let's get back into part two this podcast with Sean Polk from Tailwaters Fly Fishing Company. Okay, well let's head uh head out west a little bit. And UM, let's see before I really got uh, I guess really in the high school, uh, football season kind of overran this thing, but we did a dove hunt every year on opening day with um, both my mom's side and my dad's side, a lot of the men and that in those both of our families and uh, and then once I got to high school that kind of I wasn't able to go and thinks the trip kind of fell apart. But we've kind of picked it back up last last few years. Uh, and it's not really a whole lot of our family anymore, but it's friends and stuff like that. And um, you mentioned this Sean earlier. You guys did a little uh kind of West Texas dove hunt this year. It just doesn't get any better in my opinion. The opening day like rush and just like it's but it's not like a rush like you're stressed to do anything. Like I mean, in the end, you're just eating good food, hanging out with buddies and yelling across the field, you know, on your left when they're really on your right, and like, you know, it's just, man, it's just you get to shoot. If you don't want to hide that much and work for them, you're still gonna end up with a half a limit probably if you're hunting a good field. And you know what they is, like the rental the rental rates for the fields are pretty cheap overall. You know, you can find like good day hunts, you know for dove and just you're sitting on a sunflower or wheat field or whatever, and man, it's just it's a blass, don't agree. September one is probably like the one of the few days of the year. I get really excited because it's like, all right, hunting seasons here, this is this is Christmas, Christmas Eve, and New Year's all rolled into one. Tomorrow I get to go and kill some stuff. I have my dog with me, my buddies. Uh yeah, it's opening day at Dove Season. And I have to say, like, Dove season is probably my favorite season. Of the year. I mean, it's just I can't sleep, But then that before alright, I'm talking, I will lay in bed for way longer than I should. Just I mean, I like duck hunting, but duck huntings work. Bow hunting is fun, but let's face it, there's a lot of time and you're just gonna be sitting there waiting for something to happen. The Dove season. Damn your buddies. You're talking at social Yeah, exactly, That's what I love. It's great, the whole the whole thing is wonderful. Yeah, and you can, I mean guys like can There's a lot of times guys will like literally sit on their tailgate and shoot them. And it's not and I'm not trying to say that Dove is dumb, but on opening day and like the day after, they're dumb, but uneducated, uneducated they get educated though. I mean you can see it happen even after the opening day. Um, and then you know by October, like you're you're having a hard time sometimes, but that opening weekend, it's just it's easy. It's fun and really, honestly maybe my favorite thing to eat of wild game period. I mean, and plus it means my dog gets to go hunting with me, And well, that's just icing on the cake right there. I think he gets more excited about dove hunting than I do. That's good man, it's awesome. That's so going through them. I haven't even had my saltwater stuff yet. Let's hear it. U, Well, yeah, we can hit the saltwater show man. I'm gonna go uh Florida Panhandle for tarpan. So um So. We talked about tarpan earlier kind of offline, but tarpan fishing is really one of the coolest things you can do. If you've ever like wanted to hook a dinosaur that jumps like a bass and pulls like a freight train, Tarpan's tarpans where it's at. It really is. Man. So in Florida Panhandle is absolutely phenomenal. So you're a lot of guys go down the Keys and keys. They've got some great tarpan fishing. But what happens is you got these fish up migrate for the Bahamas up through the Keys. When they hit the keys, some of them head to the east to go up to Atlantic, but there's a big majority to go west and go up to Florida on the Gulf side of Florida. What happens is they all eventually make the turn there at the Panhandle and then they run along the beach, and so from Appalachicola through Mexico Beach all the way or to Dustin, you've got this awesome tarping migration, and you're fishing right off the beach use that second cut and the way that the cuts are, You've got twelve ft of water below you, and you've got a sand bars of left and sand by the right, which are like in three ft of water. So these tarp and start running down these channels and they basically t bone the skiff that you're sitting in. And it's not unusual to see strings of like five six fifteen fish like big fish too. That's the cool thing that up in the Painhandle, there are no baby tarping. These are all migratory fish because what's happening is they're running up towards the mouth the Mississippi River to spawn. So there's another group of tarpan that come up from Mexico that actually running from like Campeachee up through Texas and then somewhere in the mouth of Mississippi, you get the Mexico fish, Bahamas fish, they spawn and then they go back to prospective homes. But the Florida Panhandle is where you get to see all those Florida fish Bahamas fish running right past your boat. It could be difficult because there's so many fish and they see a lot of flies. But if you want to see fifty pound fish like ten ft off the bow, that's where you do it. At I didn't want to see it. The first tarp and I ever saw in the wild was was off of Mexico Beach. It was about forty ft off the front of the bow. Make my cast, do one strip? I come tight. It's like somebody try to yank the rod out of my hand. I go to set the hook. This thing goes airborne six ft in front of us. I'm not sorry. There's a ninety pound fish about sixty ft in front of us, goes airborne. And I was like, holy crap, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. It really did. I was like, I'm hooked. This is all I want to do at this point. Yeah spoiled. Yeah it was. That's awesome, dude. So yeah, so I'm gonna I'm gonna put down you gotta go, do you Florida Panhandle Purpon put it on your list. That's cool. I'll put it there for sure. Al Right, So I guess I'm really done with saltwater stuff. So I'm gonna go to I got a whole list. Good. You're talking about giant fish. I'm gonna go eaty beaty fish. Okay. This is something that probably nobody's really a fish because nobody really cares to because it's small. But No One Creek, Belton, Texas. No One Creek is uh. I guess it would be a trip of which river I don't one of those, one of those like Central Texas rivers. But it runs right down through downtown Belton, and if you go upstream aways you can access it. Uh next to I think it's called The town is called good Luck, Texas or something like that. It's like a little community. But anyways, you can drive down the really sketch, you know, get off the highway and drive down the river thing and hop in there. And in the springtime, I've never been a lot of places. I've never seen as many long eared sunfish. Pumpkin seed sunfish is what I've seen in Nolan Creek absolutely amazing crystal clear water and you've got fish that are baby blue and fire orange going absolutely nuts. So over anything you can put in the water. And I'm not kidding Mr. Halfway. It is your dream. Come try. It is the coolest thing ever. And LOLd Creek is big enough to float, so I didn't do it, but you can float the thing. And it's like, I don't know, like five river miles, six river miles from that highway down to Belton and get out downtown and go eat Mexican food after you're done. That sounds like that sounds like a trip. It's a great place, man, Alright, let's do it. Let's do it. I'm down for that for sure. Um all right, well head on south uh for my next one, and you will end up somewhere down there in the heart of the brush country. And I used to uh go for a few years when I first was getting into deer hunting with my dad and um, his buddy and his son, and we hunted in ins and now Texas, which is very close to the Mexican border, and it's just solid mesquite trees and prickly pear cactus and the rut happens in December, so not a whole lot of ruts happening around the country at that time. Um, there's a great deer density there, and um, you can kill three bucks. You're gonna have a hard time finding places not high fence or not privately owned. But um but man, if you do have that contact, if you know somebody out there that has a place down there or whatever it's it's I mean, or you have the money to do it. Um man it is. It's a who. We had a hundred hundred acres of low flance there um at the time, and I'm sure it's been bought uh since, But man, it's pretty awesome. And you get to go down there and you have like for real Mexican food, you know, I mean, there's real authentic stuff happening down there in your mouth. Fantastic alright, making me hungry now, dude, I'm hungry, alright. So we can start my saltwater gin venture, so North Carolina Harker's Island Atlantic Beach for the false Albacorps run. So if you want to get into like awesome like fifteen and twenty five pound fish that pool and run like little rockets. The album cores where it's at and so it usually happens in October. Did this trip for quite a few years. Um. I had some buddies out there. We've got there and fish with them. And yeah, so the the false alba core their tuna, but they're like pound tuna. You take a nine tin weight rod and they school when you look for the birds. Like, have you ever been on Texa and we're looking for birds. It's the same deal. You've got birds diving pushing up these bait fish from the blow or the tuna. You catch your flying there. You don't have to set the hook. They hit running forty and then it's like into your backing every single time. Um, good little five minute fight onto the next one. So yeah, do they eat like tuna? They don't eat. They don't. Uh, people don't eat them that much. So false albacore, Yeah, you don't eat these you they have no food value whatsoever. You let them go. Um. I heard about one Japanese dude keeping one. That's the only time I heard about somebody keeping on. And the guy was Fisher was like, yeah, I have a client from Japan. I wanted to keep on see what it's like. He's like, but that's the only person's ever kept calling one. So man, that sounds fun. Yeah, that's cool. So, uh, back on the freshwater stuff. This last summer, Tyler and I went to Black Canyon National Park and fished the guns and and it was absolutely epic. We hit the stone fly hatch about as good as you can. It was awesome, killer, It was the coolest thing. And you know, it's just you can't have words sometimes, you know, you just don't understand. You'll never I'll never be able to explain the magnitude of the trip, how hard it was to get where we went, and then how good the payoff was. But luckily we did get some sick footage of it, and we have a pretty cool film. It's gonna be, uh you know, featuring that whole trip. It's gonna be debuting here in Dallas, Texas. Sinco to Mayo, Sinco to Mayo. So if you're interested in seeing that show up here on Sinco to Mayo tailwaters fly fishing. But on the tim nice little segue to a little promotion there, guys. That's the way to think that one. Yeah, So on that trip, I think I caught my personal best six times, like a hundred times. I don't know, that's awesome. It was sick man. And to top it off, I got like the coolest autumn colored brown in June that I've ever I don't understand how it works, but this brown was just straight lit up on a streamers like what probably ninety or you know, a good fish, amongst like quite a few twenty plus rainbows. They were all taking flies that were literally the size of my pinky finger. We didn't stay down in the canyon that long, but I feel like if you did, it would be like summer break from school and then trying to go back in August. Like when you come out of the canyon, you would just be like, I hate real laugh. Yeah, it changes who you are. Did y'all hike in there? Yeah? It hardcore? It was. It was two thousand vertical feet from the rim to the floor or with and we brought every camera that Tyler and I own, so it was like all the food and shelter that we needed plus all of that. I think we had uh stupid short amount of times. Yeah basically yeah, well yeah, well so yeah, two knights, so we Yeah, it was basically a day and a half. Unfortunately, we I wish we could have stayed one more, but uh, but more than that, like I think it would have been because there's not like you can't just go exploring down in there. I mean you kind of pick your hole and you've you're gonna be there for a few days. Like, uh, you just kind of you kind of cliff out, you know what I'm saying, when you're going down the side of the river and it's deep holes so you're not waging any of it, you know. Um, it is unreal. I mean, it was just all it is to be here May fifth. It's exactly, Yeah, be here May That's awesome. I'd like that's the one tripling. Yeah, I'm jealous you guys. There it was. And Um, the next thing I would probably talk about here is we don't have We just have done a few turkey episodes recently that we've talked about, like we don't have turkeys here where we you know, out where we live one of the few parts of the country. But if you travel to western Texas or southern or the whole country, I mean Texas has some birds. Um, and my personal experience has been like I don't know. Breckon Ridge, Graham area out west all the way out to we hunted a place called Blackwell. Uh, it's like a ghost town out in West Texas one time. And we've had some great, great turkey hunts on like daily type things like fifty bucks a day, you know a guy or whatever. And the first time, I believe it was in Blackwell. It was the first bird that I ever killed. And uh, Cody Beaver and myself who was a past guest on the podcast, we did the one to three thing on a bunch of Jake's that came flying in and it was unbelievable. And I mean it didn't matter how on the beard or to the spurs where it was, it was awesome. They came fine, and we did one to three twenty yards to Jake's done. It was awesome. And uh we did see the largest jack rabbit I've ever or ever will see. Okay, So you know how like shack or yell ming is like a freak of a human, you know, this was what this jack rabbit was. I thought it was a deer running past our four wheeler. I'm not a kidding, Like forty pounds, I'm not kidding O. No, I was younger at the time, but like, man, sure that wasn't a jackal lope. It might have been a jack could have been those little baby deers that lived down there. Yeah. This jackal lips have been been known to be a Texas animal of residency. Okay, So I'm gonna go with Lake Kalkashu, Louisiana. So we've talked about Port O'Connor and we talked about Padre So Lake Kalkashu, you're like around Lake Charles, so basically about thirty miles east of the Sabine River outside of Texas. The cool thing is that you can get into tailor redfish five hours from Dallas. You don't have to go all the way down to Port O'Connor to find red fish. UM. Kayak friendly, especially on the east side. UM buddy and I buddy mind that his in laws lived there in Lake Charles, who went and stayed with them. It's been a couple of days fishing down there out of kayaks. Some really cool like new motor zones set up for kayaks on the west side. Um. So we went there and found some red fish, found suspects, and then I met up with a cousin of his and we went down on the side canals catfishing at night doing juglines. Oh cool man, Yeah, so yeah, really cool trip. And for the guys looking to do redfish, I said, I'd say it's Rockport Port O'Connor quantity and quality, but it two hours less drive. That's cool, especially through up here in Dallas and stuff. So I might have to do that. Cool. Well, I'm gonna worth checking out. I'm gonna stay in the boot, but go way down to the tip Venice, Louisiana. And this probably don't knowing where you think it is, but I'm gonna say this is a don't go Okay. Now, Venice is a great place and it's a great fishery, but it's one of those situations where I was young and dumb and run around with some adults who are family members of mine, and we decided we're gonna drop all night to Venice because we needed to work that Friday and then make it down the next man. You know it. So he drove all night long on the way, got lost in Nolins and ended up in the neighborhood we did not need to be in at three am, French quarter. I don't know where it was due, but there was a very scared looking woman walking down the road and I was like eleven, I was freaked out. And this cop pulls up and says, what are y'all doing down here? Not like hey, can I help y'all? He was like concerned about our safety, and he's like, follow me. So he gets back on the highway headed South's been over there outa years or ninth ward. I don't know where we were, man, but he was like he knew we weren't supposed to be there, So it was it was a rough deal. We drive to Venice, show up at Venice about five. We're gonna leave us six. We've booked with this guy who had no no business being a guide, just you know, rich kid with the boat took us out bet just to death and and rough seas, going way too fast, and we caught like three yellow fins that were like twenty pounders. So maybe it was cool we kissed the fish, but there was, you know, so much more we could have done in Venice, Louisiana, besides to go fifty miles off shore in search of tuna. You know, like, first of all, there's tuna like what ten or twelve miles off shore there sometimes of the year, and then you're in like red Fish Mecca, right, So like what are we doing driving there to go do that? But anyways, go but be informed. Yeah, I'm gonna head a song to the east a bit. Um. And we did we did a trip and when I was in college on a spring break when I was actually in college, and uh, I won't talk about how the trip ended until a little bit later maybe, but um, I'm gonna mix these couple of trips together. Um. We did a couple of summers ago. We did another trip that was out this way. And so Atlanta is where I'm talking about, UM and North Georgia. This is the trip that we did most recent, UM where my dad and I went up and he's not a fly fisherman, but I took him fly fishing. And to the I think it's pronounced Kansawaga River and it is a trout uh destination. But there are red eye bass there and they are beautiful, like dark colored with like neon blue bellies. Awesome, awesome fish. And I thought they were sane bass until you know, that's what apparently the Georgia Wildlife Um web page says that they're red Eyebassum, but they're really awesome. Um. I think you would definitely want to go kind of early in the year rather than later in the summer because the water levels can get kind of low on you. But while you're we drove through Atlanta, and while you're in Atlanta, you have to go to the Atlanta World Aquarium. There amazing. They flew rocks, like reef rocks in from Fiji by helicopter into this place. There there's a tank that you cannot see across it that at the time I believe had six well sharks in it. Like they have a forty ft whale shark in there in the tank. They got and sea turtles in there swimming around with them, and rays and sharks and it's unbelievable, I'm telling you. And they got you know, all the touching tanks. You I touched a hammer head shark. I mean, just it's unreal. Man. You have to go, if you're ever in Atlanta to the aquarium. All right, Well, I'm going to counteract with Casey said, and you need to go to Louisiana and you need to go Red fishing. Yeah, so yeah. I've been down Louisiana several times for red fish trips and I love Texas. I'm a Texan and I've got a red fish tattoo on myself that's got the Texas flag on it on your butt. Okay, good, but bar none. The best red fish are in Louisiana. Size and numbers, um. To go there and see a twenty pound redfish, it's not unusual. They're going to winter and catch a thirty pound red fish not unheard of. Crazy. My best two days you're red fishing, or in November and the Louisiana actually fishing just north of Venice, where I caught twenty fish over twenty pounds, three fish over thirty pounds um. And people are like, oh, you gotta be a good cast. No, dude. I literally threw a fly out of fish off the side of the boat, eight twenty pound red fish. I just threw my flight at it and it ate the fly. So I'm gonna give You've gotta go Louisiana. You gotta do red fish, even if you don't go in the wintertime when the big bulls were there. The rest of the year, there's ten fifteen pounds red fish like thirty fish days. Is not that I gotta go to that? You gotta go down there? Yeah, okay, So I'm gonna go to the pretty much opposite shoreline of where you're talking about, the north Shore Minnesota, way up there near the Canadian border Boundary Waters area. I actually haven't been in the boundary waters, but is that Lake Minnetonka. Now I haven't been there either. I fished all the little stuff. I just want to go fish that one because of Prince. Yeah, people they love Prince Purple rain Man, they're all about it. My mom's from Minnesota, so that's kind of where I get this love from. But just taking that North Shore Highway up you know, Duluthing on up around all the way up to Eally. My granddad was from Elie All. I mean, it's literally the land two thousand lakes and there's probably double that. I mean, it's just ridiculous how much fishable water there is in Minnesota. And some of them are gonna hold some giant fish. I mean, I never got any of the giant you know, lakers or anything like that, but dude, I got some big, big yellow perch and they are delicious and it's pretty stinking. We want to talk about perch. I've never been able to catch perch because I want to. I want to say us how good they are. Perch is like the best fisher ever eat. Yeah, they're good stuff. Man, It's it's worth going for that. But everybody's gonna tell you to go you know, kitch Wally or you know Lake Trout or whatever it is. And that's the cool thing, man, is that those cold water fisheries up there hold so many species of ish, you know, And it's so strange that like, uh, and we're going off on tangent here, but like the fact that pike and muskie exist exist in the same place. They're so similar in a completely different species. It's weird that they could both develop, you know there. But anyways, but so, uh, I'm gonna stay in that area. And when when I was younger, we did a vacation up to Lake Michigan and we stayed in a beach house and like there was just sand dunes, man, no a c which is hideous to think about if you're in Texas, you know, but it was you know, obviously comfortable enough to to do that thing. We had can't fire on the beach. It's awesome. And yeah, I think you could do this camping out, you know, I don't. I mean I'm sure you could. We didn't at the time. Um, but uh we took a charter out for Kings and it was bad to the bone man. And I mean I don't know how big they were, but they were some of the biggest fish, if not the biggest I had ever called on run real and they just pull lack a freight train and we were in the constantly. You know, we had four people on the boat and it wasn't there was never a double moment. I mean, you were like next man up in no time, you know. So it is really cool. All right, Well, I'm gonna bring it back to Texas South Padre Island. But unlike Casey said, the north side on the National Seashore, I'm gonna talk about Port Mansfield all the way down to Royal City. So if you're looking for like white sands on the flats, tailing redfish and that whole classic tailing red fish, no, we always talk about this is the place you did. So it's a lot like fishing for bone fish down in Mexico. I mean, well, Mexico is ten miles south of there, so it's not that far fetched. But to find that classic tailing fish on the White Sands is absolutely beautiful, white sands, crystal clear water, ankle deep red fish everywhere. I mean, you can't go, you know, two minutes, I'll find a red fish somewhere. So um. But the other cool thing is you've got huge trout. Me and the state record trout seventeen pounds caught on the fly was from there on Laguna Madre. And if you time it right in the summertime, you've got tarpin that are in there. And then snook as well, so Texas snook if you want to catch one, which I've been lucky enough to catch a few of them down there, so I've got the Texas snook crossed off my lips. Cool. So yeah, Laguna Madre down there, Royal City, Port Mansfield, and even hell, even going all the way up to King Rance Shoreline. It's holy worth put on your list for all right. So I'm gonna bring it home and what I grew up doing, and it is worth the destination, all right. And there's other places to do this as well. But find you in East Texas River Bottom, get you four or five buddies getting a line with shotguns and act like you're pheasant hunting, but instead you got three and a half inch double buck shots and you're chasing hogs. And I'm telling you, it is the time of your life. It is literally one of the greatest experience that you that you can have. Whenever you've got guys lined up and you're driving them and you're chasing them and it's it's wild, man, It is super cool. And whenever you've got an animal that's such a worthy uh I guess worthy beast to hunt, it's it's just pretty pretty sweet getting after the hogs in the bottom. I'll never forget the first couple of times that I hunted with Casey and when jump pigs and he like was the first time this is that I've ever been with somebody that that did this. But he took off after them like running, and everybody always knew was like, O'll snap at you know, be scared of him. I'm like, this dude, this is running in like he's like a like a dog running into the middle and just bust him everywhere, you know, trying to break them off, but well on flat ground, h able body human can outrun a pig, but they can cut a white fashion years so you can catch up with him if you're like, you know, spry going through the woods. Sometimes you fall real hard, but otherwise sometimes your bow gets caught on a limb or something. Yeah, that's what we've seen that happen. Uh cool, I'll stay at home. Then I feel like I'm just kind of falling you all around and you don't care about that. But um, I'm not that creepy. I don't feel like um. The uh, the hybrids, they're hybrid stripers, so they're mixed between a sand bass or white bass for those who don't know what the sand bass is, and a striped bass strapper. Um out on lake to walk and eat during the summertime. They like school by the acre and it is so much fun. My senior year in high school, we really got after them. Uh we're pretty mad at him, and we we would basically go down by the damn there and out in that open water. You just kind of look for the birds and you go and you got We just were throwing those storm swim baits. You know, they're like four inches and they're just hammering chat out there, and you just basically get the I mean you can get the big motor going and pull pretty close up to them trolling in as their school and every time you see them come up and start chunking baits out there, and I mean it's just a matter of seconds before they slam it in their three to seven pounds, and they're shaped like a dinner plate and they know how to use that shape, and it's like, it's just you can't. I mean, I'm talking my ribs would just be hurt. It's like forty five of them in afternoon. You know, it has so much fun. Well, I'm gonna follow up with your hybrids, but bringing home a well, we're gonna just go a little bit wester there Creek, Sheeter Creek nighttime dock fishing for hybrids. Really yes, So one of the coolest things I've done, like within around the whole Dallas area. Buddy of mine's like, hey man, let's go dock fishing Cedar Creek at night. Cool. So I beat him down there, and uh yeah, we were fishing eight weights big cloudser sixteen pound tests. We had fish breaking sixteen pound tests on the take. Man, and it was you just get on the troll and motor, you go around, you find dock lights cast around the edge of light, start stripping that fly and they would just come there and whack your fly out of nowhere. Um. I mean we were catching like, you know, ten fifteen pound hybrids O my goodness, and uh yeah, just all around the dock lights time. Oh man. I'd say this was probably summertime. I don't think it was because it wasn't that cold. I mean it might have been like late summer maybe going into fall. But yeah, I mean it was just like dock fishing the lights and it's like I only done at one time, and it was really one of the most fun things I've done. And I said, it's it's on my list, Like I gotta go back and do that. Yeah, absolutely, blast, it's cool. Yeah. So, um, what I'm gonna talk about is one of those bad experiences. Okay, uh, my first saltwater trip ever. My dad and granddad wanted to show me what it's all about. We go to Porto Ranis and get his three tickets on I think the scat cat you know I'm talking about. I laughed because one of the guys. That works for me was a deck can on the skatt Yeah, and he talks about scat cat and they called the shitty Kiddy that and the wharf cat. I think it was another one or something. But what it is is it's a party boat. And it's not like go out there and party. It just means that you have a bunch of people, I think seventy five and they all have pin centertor four alls, and you all put a ribbon fish on with three hooks and you drop it down and everybody gets tangled up together and somebody pulls up a kingfish. You don't know who. It is terrible. I caught one sandbar shark that they kept, and I'm pretty sure now was not long enough to keep so the deck ends didn't fall along the thing. But um, yeah, he's got some stories. Yeah. And when you get sety five people on the boat, they're all tangled up, they speak three different languages, and half of them are throwing up. It is a terrible, terrible experience. So don't do that, guys. Okay, well, I'll give us something good to think about here, and I think you can't go wrong. I know this is general, but Midwest white tail hunting is just one of the coolest things ever. If you're an ad country out in the Midwest, you're gonna probably be seeing lots of deer. There's lots of public spots to be going in the Midwest overall, because I mean, the great thing about the white tail is it's a big game animal that doesn't need a whole lot of cover to hide, you know what I'm saying. So you find you a hundred sixty acres, you're you're liable, you know, to find a decent deer on it, and if nothing else, you're gonna be seeing him and learning. It's gonna be action packed and you always have a great chance of a big corn fed buck showing up. You know. It's just it's a anyway anywhere in the Midwestern States, I think is pretty awesome for deer hunting. Alright, during the ret go to in the red just do it. I mean, there will be more people there, but you'll see a lot of deer. All right, Well, I'm gonna throw on one of my hunting spots. This is place called Buck Snag Hunting Club down in Garwood, Texas. So Garwood is down there on that Katie Prairie rice country and uh Buck Snag is one of this historic hunt clubs. It's been around for decades. They've got an old hotel. They're in downtown Garwood. You go and stay at food is phenomenal. They get a big open bar. But then the duck hunting is freaking out of this world. So um, but looking enough for going hunt down there a couple of times. So uh, I had some really good duck hunts on these rice fields. I had a pretty decent hunt for snows um. But then the only time I ever got to shoot a big old sandhill crane was down there, So I got to do that about two years ago. Go my first handhill crane, and I would say, Bucksnager is awesome. But if you ever get the opportunity to go to crane hunting, go do it. I mean talk about like dinosaurs of this guy flying over looking like B twenty four bombers trying to blitz Berlin. It's like a person falling out of this It really is that you hear them because we were sitting there and the guys like, there's a rouster. It's about four yards out. We're gonna get in the latrine, which was just that's what they called a big old ditch. We've got in this ditch and we're sitting there and you hear this, it gets hit louder and just crendos louder and louder and louder. You're like, these things gotta be on top of us. You kind of peek out, like, no, dud, they're only like halfway here. They're they're the loudest, and then they finally get over you. And then guys like take them and you look up and like, oh, my goodness, which dinosaur do I want to shoot? And then you shoot one and it comes like helicopter and out of the sky. You're like, don't land on me, Please, don't land on me. So, yeah, it's awesome. One of the coolest things. I'm about to hunt. Yeah, I'm gonna stick with the hunting theme for a little bit, and I'm gonna say, hunt the Texas Hill Country in the rud for white tails, all right, And it's kind of like what you just talked about in the Midwest, except in the Texas Hill Country the deer one third the size, but there's three times as many the same biomass probably, but there's literally hundreds. I mean sitting in a tropod stand having corn in the general area, in a feed or somewhere you can kind of hunter deer in afternoon. It is crazy. And a lot of them will be two and three year old eight points. They're plenty to keep you busy. If you rattle rattle horns, they're gonna come in like you know, wild Indians. You're running in there. It's so cool, man, It's just like the true takes his experience of whitetail hunting, you know, well, like I guess there's many ways to say that, I guess, but is one of the coolest things man. Just to get to go down there and see that many deer in a day, it's just so much fun. It's great. Yeah, we talked about that earlier. I did some hill country hunting. It's been a while, but it's fine. You're gonna see something, man, every time you go out, so it's exciting. Um kind of back to the east here, back to the to the Gulf coast. UM. I've done a few different hunts um similar to what Sean said, UM for waterfowl, and like the main quarry is geese UM in the el Campo area, which is uh, I mean, but I think, like you're my main thing is here is the is the on a Gulf coast rice field water vall hunting. So it could be we've done we've hunted down in gate On, Louisiana, UM, and so some in elk El Campo there and um man, you know, like I think we've had probably a hunter too, just because we've hunted more that we're better than in Texas than we did in Louisiana. UM. But the cool thing about going to Louisiana is you get to see that culture, like you talked about at the beginning of the podcast. You get to meet the people and the guides like they have such a it's like a such a small culture that has a just very um original way of talking. And like you you'll never hear anybody else outside of that small part of the US talk like that, you know. And uh, you know our guy down there, it was mouth calling geese, you know, loud as could be you know, just kind of crazy, you know, and uh, you go, we went to a restaurant down there, It's called Blacks Restaurant and dude, I had to crawl fish attife that was just out of this world. Put me to sleep in the booth and uh, which isn't hard to do, you know if it's late. But man, it's so cool because you know, you got the snow geese that are just hordes of them, and you'll literally lay down at night and you will see them when you close your eyes and you will hear them in your mind like it's just because you've been hearing them all day. By the thousands, you got the chance to kill you know, uh crane when you do that kind of hunting as well. And a lot of times, like if you're doing a guided thing, they'll take you out on like a little rice patty for ducks in the afternoon. It's just And another thing is like if you're a snowbird, if you live up north or something, the weather usually is pretty good. It ever gets too cold, you know, down there in South Texas in Louisiana. So it's like a it's an enjoyable hunt. And late in the season, Well I'm gonna venture. I'm gonna go and stop my passport for the first time. So we're gonna all the way down to South America, to the country called Bolivia. So yeah, so formerly known as a cocaine capital of the World, um but now has a really awesome fishery program. So I got the opportunity to go down there to fish on the Shamane Rivers and Pluma Rivers with the local Indian traps. And we were down there hunting for the golden dorado, which is a freshwater species. The best way to describe it as a fish which is teeth like a pike, jumps like a rainbow, and fights like a tarpin. And um so it's that ultimate species. It is is an awesome fish. There is no subtle take. Dorado's don't mess around. They hit your fly and you know that that's a dorado. You don't really have to set the hook. They pretty much set themselves. Um So he else do you? Is it not clear enough most of the time to see them? It is, Yeah, you see them. So that's it. We were. We were there this unusual time that so you're at the foothills of the Andes Mountains. It rained up in the mountains. You see the Andes Mountains in the background. It rained, the water came up, then it came back down, which usually means it'll clear up. It never really got clear. It stayed muddy. Um. So we had a couple of days a really tough fishing. But you would see these big, like thirty pound golden orbs under the water and the God's like, there's one okay. They didn't refuse flies. You put your fly in front of its face, it would eat man. It literally was. It was like there's one boom, there's one boom, there's one boom. Um. And these were all like thirty pound fish that just like wrecked your stuff. So we were fishing forty pound wire on our leaders and forty pounds of wire we had to replace about every third fish. Flies would last like to fish put on new flies. Um. So the fish was one of the coolest fish ever caught. But the local Indian tribe runs you up and down the river on dugout canoes like these twenty four ft long dugout canoes with mud motors on the back from Thailand. Um that like you're afraid to, like you know, shift too far left her right because you might tip the whole thing. Um. Yeah, it was then just in crowd we saw like jaguar prints. Never saw a jaguar. One of our guys in the group solid one. Um, I saw peacocks, holler monkeys. I saw apparently it's it's unusual see ducktown there, we saw some type of duck. Um. One of the groups, their Indian guide shot at Turkey while we're down there. Because the locals can only have a twenty two shot. They can care they the local people can have a single shot twenty two. That's the only firearm. UM. So this like old Indian guy had one that like it was the barrel was smooth from freaking so many shots there. Um held together with duct tape. I don't know how he aimed the thing. There was no sights on it, but that's what he hunted with. UM. So going back to the whole experience of like experienced other cultures, seeing how other people live. Yeah, because these people have like nothing did they're like ten years ago they didn't. They didn't have white people down there now like you land in that we like take a little like forteat sessions land on dirt strips and the kids from the village who run out to beat the planes because the pilots are carrying bread just like a sack of dinner rolls and they hand out dinner rolls with the kids, and the kids think that's the coolest thing ever because they've never had bread before that. Yeah, d it's a It was just like one of the co those things, and like the camps are run by to do from Argentina, So like you're sitting there talking to Argentinians and my guide for the week. It was like a horse trainer trained elephants. Um. He lives down in Argentina. He said he lived before a year by himself out in the in the jungle. Um, and it's like it's just amazing to talk to these people and see if they've done and experienced their culture. So he didn't have any mountain house out there, did he No. Um, we did have a short lunch. So so this is the cool thing. So that local Indian tribe they have these bows, like these six ft long bows. They make their own arrows. Arrows are about five ft long. Um. They've got tips for fish, tips for birds and fish for and tips for a large game. And you guys in podcast land can't see it, but we've got a set of it up here on the wall at the shop. Um, the different tips and everything. So I brought one of them home with me. Um. But so you're sitting there like fishing, and the local tribe is sitting there spear but they're bow fishing for the sabao, which are these big like bait fish that are running up and that's what everything's feeding on. And so they fixed one of those for us. But like if it looks like they can eat it, they're trying to kill it. So like, um, every time we saw like a good sized bird, they were trying to shoot one of these birds. They were shooting fish on the side. So they fixed they did a shot launch forest with one of the fish and everything. Um, there's a there's pigs down there. So if I ever get a chance to go back, what I wanna do is tell the tribe is said, look, I don't want to fish today. I want to go hunting. Give me a bow. We're going hunting today. Show me what it's like in the jungle. So that when the that is by far like the coolest trip I've done. That's an experience. We all strive for something cool. And it's funny because my next one is like a place people go to like kind of want a wild experience, but it ends up being super tame. But they're still cool stuff. So it is a great smoking Mountain National Park and uh super heavily visited national park. Okay, a ton of people you'll see, like these dudes with chreekking poles who are like just getting after it, and then like five year olds just running up the same trail and you're like, okay, come on, what's the deal here? But I guess they're training. I don't know, but they're like people everywhere right and you're like, how on Earth can I fish here? And then you go down and you blue line these creeks right next to these trails where all these people are walking, nobody's fishing, and there are the most beautiful gyms of brook trout that are native to these streams right there. And they're the most willing and eager thing to take a fly, a lot like your golden dorados, except instead of forty pound, wie are you talking five x? And they still will ravage a fly, you know, like all you need a p a and uh, you know, side of twelve and they will smoke it and you'll have to talent or new whe never four or five because as they'll just destroy it. Not to mention also the numerous amounts of wild rainbows. They're in the Smokey Mountains and some of those rivers up there too that are the most beautifully barred rainbows of everything in my life. That you're speckled up, you just would swear it's not even the same fish. It's not even the same specy. So cool place to go, and uh, it's kind of kind of almost a force of what nature is supposed to be. Sometimes you can get back and get send some of the like some of the thick stuff don't even wrong, but like it is super easy to get to the good fishing. I mean, it's right there off the path. So I have a that segues into something one of mine. But I'm that's that would be my last positive note, So I'm gonna leave that for the for the end of this podcast and go to a couple of negative notes here, one being you know, I don't want to discourage anybody with these to go try to do better than I can, because that is a high possibility that you could do that. But Casey and I went to the LBJ National Grasslands last year and we tried to hunt some turkeys. We were two weeks or more after opening day, and I feel like if we had been an opening day we might have had a little better chance. But turkeys were pretty pretty sparse out there. It can be done. There's no doubt. We saw tracks. We had a bird roosted right on the other side of private um and probably would have come to us if there hadn't been a gigantic creek in between us and him. Um. You know, we heard some birds, we got on some hens were close range, just some hens, you know. Um. We had to work for definitely. We were two two and a half miles back at one point when we were close to those hens and um. But it was a lot of work for what would end up being a little meat and and I mean it would be more about the experience and the um like just the accomplishment to have gotten that done on public land in Texas, you know. Um. But overall, we're not going back this year. And I think that says, um, not that we won't try it again, but that kind of says, you know, may not be your best bet. And if you do go out there, maybe try it on opening weekend, which there's probably gonna be more people, but birds still wouldn't be as pressured. Probably, Well, I'm not gonna be such a downer, alright, So I'm gonna keep on my my international theme and talk about a fishing destination a lot of people tend to go to, and that is Amberger's Key Beliese also the town of sent pedro Um. So this is a destination we sent a lot of people down to and I've I've been down there a few times. So Ambergers is a really kind of a unique spot that it is one of those places you can go to. It's three hour flight from Dallas direct flight and then it's a tendental puddle jumper to get out there, so fairly easy to get to. Um, it's it's an island, or it's an island. So yeah. So Amberga's Key is the biggest island in Belize. It's about thirty miles from the mainland. Um, but it's about thirty miles long. And the only reason it's considered island because there's a creek that separates it from Mexico. So I think of it's more like a peninsula with a creek goes to the middle Penincila, so in fact becomes an island. And so um Ambergas gets a lot of tourist traffic. A lot of people go down there to San Pedro, lots of resorts and hotels and condos and stuff to rent. But there's also some fair decent fishing opportunities. UM. So there's a lot of bone fish down there, some permit, some tarpan um, and this is a place that I would say, if you're looking to kind of get your feet wet, so to speak, in the whole fishing for the big three that don't fish permit tarpa, this is a good place to go. The bonefish they're a little smaller side, but they're plentiful. So lots of people go down there, catch your first bone fish. Pretty decent permit fishing um. Traditionally permit ha been really small, but this past year there's actually some pretty good size to them. UM. But the cool thing is that unlike a lot of other places, like large type places that you go there, you take your wife, your girlfriend, they're gonna be bored out of their mind because there's nothing to do here. You can go stay at a nice hotel, stay at a lodge. There's the full amenities. They do the spa, they sit on the beach by the pool, do all that and then at night you can take a water taxi going to town, have dinner, go to bar. So it's not like you know, you're just they're on a fishing trip. That's actually you can vacation while you're there. So this is I'm gonna give the fishing. The wife is happy with you. So this is this is the good wife girlfriend type trip to pretty safe. It is so Belize. It's an English speaking country now Belize city. That wouldn't hang out San Pedro. Be careful where you go in San Pedro. The way that I look at it, if I look down the street, I see the other green, goes, we're good there. Any other Americans, they'll get on the street, and I would say that goes for just be any place in the world. Yeah, but Belize San Pedro has been relatively safe. I keep up with a local newspaper down there. In the last couple of months, it's gotten There's been some murders, but it's been Belize on Belize crime and what I've heard it's because of more and more marijuana has been legalized in the States. Less people are going down there. Um so because of that, the gangs are fighting from more territory. But it's like you stay in the the tourist areas, you're totally fine, because, in fact, the police government has been addressing that here lately because they realized, hey, that's our that's where dollars come from. We're here because of the tourists. So yeah, I would. I would still go down there, just like any other place. Like there's places in Dallas I don't go to, right, So yeah, keep your head on. Yeah. Alright, So my last negative one short and sweet. All right, I spent too much time this past year here in the eastern half of Texas sweating my tooty off and a tree stand on the opening weekend of deer season. All right. I know, we're all excited to get out into your hunt, but the head gum and there's so many more opportunities fishing and hunting wise to do in the first week of October. Then you get out there and just sweat and sweat and sweat. You know, it's like it's ridiculous, takes you crazy. It's hot, you don't see you any dear, they're all at it night. Unless you're super lucky. There's just better things to do with your time, and I'm all about time efficiency. So my last ned one no first weekend of what till on archery? I'm with you there. Um I have one more negative as well, because I just didn't want to talk about him the whole time. But don't go code hunting in northern Missouri in January when you live in Texas. It doesn't even sound remotely fun. Okay, So here's the story. Uh, it sounds cold. It was really really cold. It was like single digit cold. Um. I had a couple of buddies who um were we were. Uh, we ran around hunting some together and they had one of them had talked to an outfit or up there who, um, I don't know. I guess we thought we were going to do some video work for this guy, possibly for his outfit. Um in the first our first step of that was like coming up and do some coyote hunting and filming up there. This guy typical outfitter guy, like, there are a few outfitters out there that are legitimate, try to be honest, do the right thing, put you on the right fish. But this this guy was just we didn't see it. When we didn't see a Coyoty. We barely saw a deer up there. I mean, this is like northern Missouri, like ad country, like you know, should be good stuff. I don't know how many hunts he had going um on that place a year, but anyway, we hunted a couple of days and did not see a single cloudy, didn't call anything in. UH spent a lot of time jacking with video equipment and for no reason, and that ended up being a ten plus our trip where by the way, we took a trailer. I was dead broke dude. We returned at the time, UH didn't have any money, and they like talk me into we gotta go, man, this is like team deal, you know whatever. And we end up driving up there in a truck with like decent tires on it. You know, older Chevy doesn't have the best gas knowledge. We decided to put a trailer on it. And because we think we're gonna have too much gear, and the trailer literally when we opened it when we got there, I was like, this is what are we doing. It's got three boxes in it, little boxes. There's nothing in this trailer. And so you know, I had to split gas on the way up there with them. I knew, you know, like we're going up there to kill cotes. We got plenty of couts here anyway. It was just it was a debacle and it was something that was definitely, uh, not worth spending your money or time on. I don't think Yeah, cold weather cold was very cold. Well I'm on warm it up a little bit, please. So so we got I got two more places to go on my list. So I'm gonna start off with turn Off, a toll back in the country of Belize. So this is a cool spot. It's about thirty miles offshore. It's just a little a toll which is basically this coral head that popped up eons of year, eons ago, and it's like ten miles wide thirty miles long. But it's got these massive amounts of flats sitting out there covered in big bone fishing permit. And so there's a place out there called turn Off Flats Lodge. I've been to um it is that in the next place I'll talk about like my toss up for my two favorite places to fish. And so the cool thing about this is that you go out there and you get to walk around um and fish on foot. So if you get a partner and you're ship, you're splitting a boat, you both get to fish at the same time, which a lot of places you're taking turns on the on the bow, like waiting for that guy to catch a fish or waiting for your thirty minutes before you get jump up there. But now so you boathly get to go out there, you're both chasing bone fish. And then when the permit shops pops up, you change out your rig, take on the permit rig, go there and chase the permit on foot. And then if you time it during the summertime, you get migratory tarping um. And so there's another lodge out there. It's a little bit further so off I've been too, which is fantastic accommodations. But if you go to turn of Flats they allow you to fish in front of the lodge. So on the island you can fish. So in the mornings i'd fix a cup of coffee, you go, chase bone fish for like thirty minutes, come back, go to breakfast, then jump on the boats and go and then the afternoons you can do the same thing. Um. So absolutely incredible place. The cool thing about fishing out there on the atoll. Is that because it's all coral, there's no mud that if it hands, it doesn't muddy up. It's always clear water. So really you're just dealing with the wind. And because the flats are so big that you can actually walk around to get to where the wind is that your favor when you're chasing the schools. So cool? Yeah, that sounds great. I've actually looked at that a toll on the internet before. My wife and I have Yep, my wife and I have to. We're gonna need a little money. We all talk about Belize a lot, so may have twenty nineteen, there's a hosted trip who we got to turn off? I still got like seven spots left. Well, I would love for you to host me. I would too. Yeah, we could get the big house. Hey, I'm all about I like the big house houses. I'll take the ten on turn off man. Alright, So for me, there's uh two places that I really really like. Like I said, you had to have a two, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with this one and then another will be very similar. But Tyler, our first trip together was one that he like had to taught me into going on because I was poor and trying to buy a engagement ring at the time, and I was trying to just scrape every pinning together. But he taught me to go into the Black River in Arizona, and like, dude, why are we going to the desert to go fish? I don't understand what is happening. And then you get there and all of a sudden, there's mountains and there's cold rivers, and there's elk, and there's antelope. There's black bears and mule deer and what else do we see? Uh? And we saw whitetail too while we were there, and lo and behold, there is this little bitty native fish and I love native fish. Natives are my thing, called the Apache trout. And we hocked and scoured the land and Black River for the water in the Black River for Patrick trout, and finally found a little high corner that held them pretty tight. And Tyler and I both called a platy trout and that was just there a little bit, a little bit, and they get that's a patches though. Yeah, man, that's the fact you called a patri trout. Dude. That's awesome. Yeah, thanks that they're in a spot where not many people. You don't just like drive by on your way somewhere, you know, and so I feel like it's one of those trout not many people. I think the cool thing about those ones we called is that, like those fish are probably on tampered there's the other apache trout out there that are like, you know, restocked and this and that. But the world we were man like, those are what it's supposed to be there, So you'd call them heritage breeds. Yes, yes, a lot. So it was just a sick, just awesome experience. You know, you just literally go from desert straight up a mountain and you're in you know, just alpine cool country. And on the way we passed by a lava flows, Yes, the lava flows. How far off the beaten path did you have to go? Like when y'all park with the truck? Uh? Far really well from the world. The truck was parked probably three quarters of a mile something like that. But how far do you have to drive the truck off the beaten path? I mean we were on a logging road for probably three or four miles something like that, you know, like full drive roads. It's not terrible yeah, yeah, yeah, but like it was, it's in a place, it's remote. Like there's another thing that kind of made the trip, is it. Like there's that, and then there's this other section of the river that literally has more browns than you can catch. Of course they're all you know, small stream fish, which is one of my loves, but as many four to teenage brown trout as you could ever hope to catch all day long. And then we fished a lower section of the river, which is where we saw the big horns. Uh. And it was just amazing, like big, bigger fish, rainbows, cut bows and like thirteen to fifteen, like tons of thirteen to fifteen and they were everywhere. And there was more crayfish than you could ever imagine. So throwing a crayfish like streamer paid off pretty big. Yeah. But you saw a dessert bighorns we did close. I mean, I guess they're deserts. I don't wrong, Yeah, I would guess those are deserts. They were. They were bighorn cheap with coos dear you know, same area. Yeah, I mean that's awesome. It was skill, it was cool man, and they were right there close to the river. I got some cool pictures. Um, we did a little video of it. Casey caught um an Apache bow, yeah, a patch bow or whatever you wanna call it. It was a hybrid. You know. It was pretty sick. But it looks a lot. It has a lot of Apache and it's like fifteen sixteen inch trout. I mean, it was a good trout, um. And we got that on camera, you know, And I only caught one actual Apache that day that um we were I was trying to get him catching one on film, you know. I wanted him to set the hook on film and everything, and so I spent a lot of time filming him and he ended up catching probably four or five, right, I thin. Yeah, So I mean it's cool. It was. It was we did a quick turnaround. We were exhausted because it was like sixteen hours out there one day, fish uh, fish one day, fish next day and then turn around and leave the next morning for sixteen hours back and so it was. It was. It was pretty birtle. Yeah, pretty birtle. The trip back when we got real tired and we got destroyed by hail storm. Oh yeah, my track it which was a fairly new trip at the time to me. Yeah, yeah, It's a pretty crazy trip driven to two song. Dude, I'd like took two days. I can't imagine. We were getting its four am from Sulfur Springs and we got there with some time to fish and set up camp. We fished like thirty minutes. He did, yeah, chick nimp and man, what it fly? He did the chick nimp thing for sure. Um, okay, this is my final It was my final thought here, final destination. Um. Speaking of heritage reads of Casey talked about this couple of couple ago. Um, but the Smokey Mountains, and I had also kind of alluded to this earlier when I talked about Atlanta. But our trip when we went to the aquarium the first time in Atlanta was on this trip. And then we hoofed it up and we went to North Carolina. And so we went to the east side of Smokey Mountain National Park, which is a lot less people, a lot less tourists. The road in was awesome, big you know, national forest, winds around big roads or big mountains. Uh. And then we come into I believe it's CATTLEA hoochie is the name of the valley CATTLEA Hoochie valley on the east side of the park in North Carolina, and you come into this valley and it's a beautiful valley um grant, you know, meadows and such, and uh, all of a sudden you just kind of this like settler pioneer town just pops up. That's uh, nobody is there anymore. It's it's like a preserved historical spot and there's like a church and like a hay barn, a cemetery and like all these things from pioneers that settled that that valley back a long time ago. And then right outside of town there there's a creek that kind of goes through town. Right outside of town um dead ends and there's a creek right there and I don't remember name of the creek, but I had researched this before we went, and uh, we just walked up the creek and I think we went like a mile and a half. I mean, I could have just fished up the creek to the to where we camped. But there was you know, Brooke native brook trout there the green and they were small, they were the biggest one I caught was six inches probably, you know, but I was dry flying. I mean didn't. Like you said, it didn't matter what you put in there. You just throw a little dry flying in the pool and they're gonna slash at it, you know. And uh, it was just cool. They were really pretty. There's no fight to it, really, especially at that time. I didn't have my half flight. And you know, small fish, um saw elk, eastern elk that were had been restocked in the area, and turkeys as well in there in that valley right there. So it's a really cool little spot and we camped. We camped there for two nights I believe a mile and a half up that trail right there, and we saw one other group of people. So I'm talking about yeah, come up the trail. So that's my last one. All right, Well I have saved what's been my best for lost that is schon Bays. You say that such distinguished look, So yeah, so since in Bay this is uh. If you ever go to Cancoon and you drive south to Tulou, a little hippie town, and then you take another road about forty two kilometers due south to a little village cap Allen, which that forts is the absolute worst road in Mexico. If it's rain, that's a four hour trip. Oh my goodness, yeah, four hours ago forty that's not forty two miles for kilometers point six Yes, four hours um, or you can go an hour and a half past to loom the top of fifteen minute a boat right and get there, which is what I've done in the last two times. So there's a plus down there called the Palamta club, which palometta is Spanish for permit. And we're not talking about the permit that lets you do stuff. We're talking about the permit fish. Remember the jack family, the bane of many flat fisherman's existence. Um, So the permit fish is probably the crown jewel of fly fishing. That is the fish that everyone's like. You ask any fly fisherman how many permit you've caught, they know exactly how many permit they've caught. There is no like I think I've caught a twelve or I think I've caught a hundred. No, you know how many permit you caught, because there's it doesn't happen often, No exactly you know you permit count, um, which mine is four. Um. It took me three years. You get my first another three years, you get my next three which I did back in January on one day. Um, so yeah, I have I have a three permit day, which pretty much means I've topped out my saltwater career. It's pretty much the highlight reel. So but anyway, so since you bay is awesome, So the cool thing it's about a ninety square miles. You've got these like flats that just loaded with permit and it's uh, permit is strictly it's a numbers game. The more you see, the more you cast, the better chance you out of hooking one. Um. But there's also great bone fish, and there's actually a pretty difcent decent tarpan fishing. But yet the tarpan it's their baby tarpan. So they're twenty pound tarpin, which is absolutely blast Um. Having caught like ninety pound tarpin and caught twenty pound tarpin, give me twenties pound tarpin all day long. It's like bass fishing. They really are. They they fight and they jump. It's about a five minute fight. You're onto the next one you get. You getting a hundred pound range for tarpin, it's like you're not going anywhere for the next hour. Yeah, and you're gonna be really tired after that. So yeah, but yeah, but essential bay. So talking about like the whole experience that the village of Punta Allen. It's about six people and everybody there is involved either in the tourist trade, doing eco tours, the fishing trade, are guiding, um, and a lot of them do this, do all three and UM. So like the guys down there at the club or just some of the best guys you've ever met, these guys are just absolute professionals. They're on the water for eight months. They knew, they knew. I had a guy that sometimes you think guys are just given up for the day and they're just no longer fishing. They're just riding out the clock. But I've had guides that we're sitting there, we haven't seen a fish for two hours, and you're like, hey, we only have an hour ago. These guys are just righting out the clock that the guy will stop the boat, do a ninety degree turn, pull two yards to an ninety gree turn. Now they're going up wind because they saw a little bit of a fish and well there's that fish. I mean, it was it's hard to describe that and you know, without being there. But yeah, these dudes they worked their tails off trying to put you on fish. Um. But the other thing, you know, you said they talk to GUIDs. And so we were down there and I was walking back to the club with the guy. They're like, oh, man, so where do you live at this village? Because the village has like no paved roads, chickens running around. It looks like, you know, it's it's straight out the third world. He's like, I lived by the big tower big towers. Oh yeah, I do WiFi for the whole city. You do WiFi, like any computers and stuff. He's like, after the green computer engineering and you're my fishing guy. He goes, I like the guy. Yeah, I mean that's just it's it's amazing that you start, like you start talking to the people that you're with and you're like, there's there's much more to them than like this dude just knows where the fish are at. It's a computer engineer. The other guy that had, you know, he owns a freaking store up in to loom here. He sells like boat motors and stuff. And you're like, Okay, these these dudes are hustlers. Man, there. They're go getters, so it makes some great guys as well. So so I'm gonna put like one of my favorite spots in the world's fish is Ascension Bay, especially at the Palmtta Club because it's, uh, the club is pretty much like your friends have a house in Mexico on the beach. Understand, at your friend's house, there is no bar tap. It's like go fix yourself a drink, grab a beer. It's all homemade Mexican food. It's like twelve people at a time. That's it. That is like the lodge is fully booked. Twelve people. Man. That's so yeah, that's that's my crown jewel of where I love to go. That's cool, man. Well mine's gonna be similar and totally different at the same time. To wrap this up, you know what, we all kind of safe places that were kind of near and due to our heart for kind of our last ones, you know, and this is no Ascension Bay. But it's just a place that means a lot to me. And um, it's not really special when you look at a map or the fish you catch there or anything, but especial for my own reasons. And I think that's that's why it's cool to me, and it might not be to anyone else, and you may not want to go visit there. But pretty much most roads um to Colorado from where we live here take you through, like you know, southeastern Colorado, and you hit up whichever direction you want to go. Right, Um, Colorado holds holds a special place in my heart just because that's where I learned fly fish, It's where I learned to elk hunt. It's where I learned a lot of stuff. Right So, where I learned my kind of just drive to have adventure in general. And it never really hits that like I'm in the mountains or that I'm in Colorado until we get to um this little area of Colorado. I don't remember what the big valley is called, but the town's called West Cliff, Colorado. Okay, Westcliff Colorado is like just pristine mountain town that has been mostly undiscovered. It's not been ruined by Latte's and you know, fuzzy boots and that kind of thing. It's just mostly a bunch of people working and farming and raising cows. And that's where we always go and buy our hunting fishing licenses because it's kind of the first decent stuff we can come to. And then whenever you head north out of West Cliff, you follow Texas Creek, which is kind of cool because where from Texas, hey, where in Colorado fall Texas Creek all the way to where it hits the Arkansas River, and just that little area right there is always really special to me because it's just I know the smell, you know what I mean, Like the places that you remember that you've gone and love to travel to, you can remember like specific things like that, I know the smell of that area, and you stop there with me this year and we stopped on that on Texas Creek and actually caught browns like as soon as we got there, and it like kind of kicked off the trip to the Black Canyon, man, and like we caught three browns like a no time, and it just comes like a missing rain. It was just a little bit foggy, a little bit that cool mountain touch where it's just enough for a flannel, you know, and like you're you're fly fishing in Texas Creek and you're wearing a flannel and you're like, this is what it's all about, man, this is why I travel to places because I want to experience things that that I love. But most importantly, it's special to me and it's it's something that is for me, and it's a time where I can cleanse myself and kind of repurpose myself and really know what I'm about. It's not it's separate from outside influence. This is not someone telling me that I need to go to this place or that place. It's what I love to do. It's cool, man, there you know you have it. I mean, you've got sixty destinations now that you have to go to in sixty minutes. It's sixty minutes. We went a little long, but this is definitely only a record for us, but I think that we hopefully gave you some entertainment and some good stories. Um Sean, I appreciate you doing this, man, I'm glad to do It's been fun. Yeah. Yeah, you're just opening up the flash shop here tail Waters Fly fly Shop and I guess uh any plugs that we have at the end here. Uh. Make sure you check out some of the the hosted trips that Tailwaters has going on. If you're interested in doing some of this stuff, come out for a single to a mile yes, Yeah, that's gonna be good. We're all free, gonna be crawfish and free beer. Man. I mean, if there's not more of an incentive to come out, I don't know what it is. I mean, free craw fish and free beer. Yeah, it sounds like a good day to me. That does sound good. And it's on a Saturday, right, So it's on a Saturday better. Yeah. Yeah, you know you have to have the PTO going on for you. So, Um, anyway, I think it's past dinner time, so we're going to go do that thing. Um, we did talk about possibly do it. Uh, we're gonna try to set up maybe some kind of a map, so um, when this post, it will either be there or not, but we might have a map with some dots on it so that you can go check out some of these places that we've talked about. Um, and if nothing else, maybe we can do like maybe like us sixty Instagram posts of pictures from these locations or something like that. So we'll try to figure something out cool to do and we'll link it in the notes and it'll maybe be like denoted as a cool thing that way he said we would do. So anyway, be looking for that and uh, I hope you guys have a great week, great weekend. Get outside and I remember this is your element living in

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