The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 127: Grays Harbor

Episode Date: July 30, 2018

Grays Harbor, WA- Steven Rinella talks with the pizza magnate Jimmy Doran, Tony Colagrossi, and Tommy Eidson, along with Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew. Subjects Discussed: Randy Johnson's most famous pitch; insane drives and intense wanderlust; Razor clam tailgating, squid-jigging, and Surfperch fishing; a Grays Harbor baptism; the thinkin' man's clam strip; the Backcountry Clam Diggers Association; the founding fish and Daniel Boone; Jani the Surfperch master; smoother than a baby's bottom; the repugnancy of the term "slot-tickler"; and more. This episode of the MeatEater Podcast is sponsored in part by the Port of Seattle and Discover Grays Harbor. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We call it the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We are the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. First thing to bring up is, Yanis just flagged this as interesting, is that this is trivia.

This is trivia for listeners uh what do you call it let's say you're reading a hardcover book okay and you peel off the dust jacket what do you call the cover of the book that is under the dust jacket as much as i've dealt in books for a good portion of my life i did not know that that is under the dust jacket. As much as I've dealt in books for a good portion of my life, I did not know that that is called the case. So whatever's under there, which is usually nothing, is the case design. Not to be confused with casing for sausages.

When someone said the design for the bookcase, I thought they meant when you buy a box of books, the book that came in. The box that came in. That's not true. The second thing I just learned, Jimmy Dorn told me last night that, and correct me if I'm wrong, Jimmy Dorn. I will. Baseball players are infinitely smarter than football players and much better paid. I didn't say that.

They have guaranteed money. And you said they're smarter. I didn't say that. They have guaranteed money. And you said they're smarter. I didn't say that they were smarter. That's not a quote. I think you might be embellishing just a tad. Well, you laid out that they did a much better job, that they don't bang their heads as much. That's true.

They sustain significantly less head injuries. They don't bang their heads as much, and that they just sort of have, over the years, negotiated. Like baseball players, collectively, have negotiated better. Yes, the Baseball Players Union has done, in my opinion, a better job than the NFL Players Association. Making sure that they get paid. You have been on the show enough to kind of know the sort of mug or the sort of lady who listens to this show what percentage of those mugs and ladies do you feel

have seen the video you showed me of the guy hitting the morning dove with a baseball with a fastball how many women do you think have seen the picture or the video of randy johnson hitting a dove with a fastball i would say it's pretty low if you haven't seen this video if you type in if you type in the word randy it auto fills the fourth the the word randy alone when i entered randy into my phone the fourth down auto fill is what's his name again? Randy Johnson. Is Randy Johnson hits bird with baseball or something like that. Explodes dove. It is. I've never seen anything like it.

Yeah. It was a very unfortunate event for the dove. But, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah. I, like, mourned. That's a pun. Do you get the pun?

I did. I mourned for the dove. I did. I get it. So, never seen anything like it. Never. I mean, a puff of feathers. Exploding and done.

So, Jimmy Doran's here, then Janice Poodles. We also learned some Washington State driver's license trivia. Yeah, I didn't catch all that, though. But, yeah, fill people in. Oh, Tony really got the... You were right there for that, weren't you? She was really checked out. You know who was it that was getting their card at that moment?

What's the name of this hotel? It was me. Chateau Westport. The Chateau Westport? Yeah. The woman working the counter is really checked out on driver driver's license trivia she's got two masters yeah she knows a lot of fake well one now your driver's license isn't your driver's license is is printed vertically if you're under 21 which i wasn't aware of you didn't know that? No. It's been a while.

You know how you can drink in Canada when you're 18? I drank in Canada. Oh, they changed it? Didn't you used to be 18? No, I think I was 19. 19 for a while. Whatever it was, I drank there on a fake ID. Long ago.

I feel like all of us growing up in Michigan did that. Go to Canada, yeah. Ran across the border for that. But no, I didn't know they changed the way it's written. Is there any other significant tidbits from that little lecture she gave us on design layout of driver's licenses? Something about the numbers, right?

Oh, yeah. That's how they tell if it's a fake ID. And I don't know the formula of the numbers and the letters but something adds up to i think it's your birth date like the like the 222 and my driver's license number adds up to you know i don't know what the year you were born something like that year you were born plus the two numbers after the letters on your driver's license number total 100. That's it.

I think that's it. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Mine's 78222. Yeah, mine's 7822. You're right. So if you try to.

There were some other. Doctor license. I don't remember what else. Or doctor your own license. I learned that like when i was 16 or something i took a paper id the day i got it i remember my mom drove me home from the driver's license office i went up to my room and was immediately there with the eraser and a pencil trying to do what i was born in 1978 so i turned that eight into a three and then that day i went to a

beer store and bought 40s for all my boys nice solid work that's good yeah the eight to the three is very easy you're like where i grew up where i grew up just started making a bunch of creases you know right spot weathered where i up, there was always someone always had some derelict uncle. It felt like someone was always like, oh, Billy's uncle. Right? And that would be the guy that would go buy people, go buy beer for people. I had some derelict uncle. Lived in some storage shed behind their parents' house.

Great high school football player. He was great in high school The other thing I like about the lady That checked us in at the Chateau Westport Is that She asked Giannis his name And Giannis said Giannis And I said it's Janis

And she looks at him and goes okay Janis Like she wasn't buying it She thought he was lying She had already read it The J was burned into her. She had already read it. That was burned. The J was burned into her mind. She couldn't put it. She's like, don't tell me what your name is.

I know. This young man next to you will tell me what your name is. And then Tony Kalograz has never been on the program before. First timer. We know each other mostly probably Mark Boardman.ody cody luhan yeah mark and cody i think brian actually introduced us but is that really mark and cody i was still living i was living i was like struggling with trichinosis living in temporary housing when we met was that right right after that yeah right when you moved here

yeah introduced you to razor clamming and that was i don't you took because the where we're sitting at right now is um the salt would you say like the southern olympic peninsula uh it's not even the peninsula no southern washington coast you guys don't count this as the peninsula no really what do you count being the peninsula once you get up past like puget sound canal right like this is mainland so you got to get up past puget sound we're at like the bay oh really see okay from the coast i've been getting that wrong for a long time. So, say... I would say from the... Yeah, like from the... Anglers and hunters like to use the terms, the rivers that drain off of the Olympics.

Yeah. From that point, northward would be... That's the Olympic coast. So, you have like... I've been making a... The Hot Tulips River would be the south one. This would be known as like Grays Harbor. Southern Grays Harbor.

Washington Coast. Yeah. Yeah, Grays Harbor. Southern Grays Harbor. Washington Coast. Yeah. Yeah, Grays Harbor County. It's a darn good place to come fish. So I've been making like a total fool of myself for the three years that I lived in Seattle, which are coming to a close. I've been saying like out on the peninsula, but I'm not on the peninsula. Everybody's been laughing at me.

If you're saying you're going out razor clamming on the peninsula. They think I'm breaking laws. Either that or they know what you mean. You could be up by Claylock or Mo Crocs or something like that. Claylock's been open for a few years. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's been closed for a long time. Yeah. So yeah, the first time.

So you're in the gray area. Yeah. In Grays Harbor. In Grays Harbor. Yeah. The first time I ever came out here was, you know what? That's not true man because when i lived in western montana we used to come out on a friday we used to drive out on a friday just to go drinking in town wake up saturday morning go out

to dig steamers and shuck oysters and maybe catch some flatfish from the beach. Then on Sunday, wake up and drive back to Western Montana. Like Hood Canal, though. Yep. That was back in the era when we just drive places for really no reason. Yeah, which is Peninsula. Kind of like Wanderlust, man. Just insane drives.

Yeah, that'd be Olympic Peninsula. You'd go back home with six oysters in a sack on ice. Six? It'd be Olympic Peninsula. Yeah, so you'd go back home with like six oysters in a sack on ice. Six? It's not very good. We'd camp on the beach and eat the oysters. The western side of Hood Canal, yeah.

They're everywhere. And that area of Hood Canal was that the rules, I don't know if they've changed, you had to shuck them on the beach. Because each oyster is a you know there's 10 more stuck to his shell it's like picking mushrooms you leave the spore basically yeah so we'd go dig manilas or you know steamers yeah we'd go dig steamers and then we would go out and shuck oysters off the beach and then now and then we'd flick out and catch some little sand dabs or, you know, some sort of flatfish.

Oh, and then we'd crab, either setting pots out of a little teeny canoe, or we would just throw them off piers and whatnot. A ring. Get rock crabs and dungies. Right, rings with rings. Which, crabbing used to be epic on the canal and it's pretty much non-existent now we do it right in town too man we do it right in seattle so yeah people do that anymore people do that really is a northern hood canal across from day bob bay northern yeah southern i don't know about down there

it's gone it warmed up right didn't it warm too hot it does that periodically it's just a huge kill there's a bloom too or something stuff happens in that canal that's an odd place oh i gotta introduce tommy edson not to be confused with thomas edison that's me tommy edson we met because when yannis the long period of time when Giannis wouldn't make me my perch flies. Just air old grievances. I asked him for, I believe it was 18 months, to take three or four minutes out of his day. And he wouldn't do it and in fact and and and i think around the subject uh still hasn't um got your flies you know brody made some and tommy

edson made me some that's how i met tommy we have i used to think you were a man of such a steel trap memory but it seems like it's been failing you lately. You did make me some. I did. You busted him out during a podcast. Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. Greg, we'll ask him.

I think so much emotional damage had been done by then that it was like a small come up. So I'm sorry you didn't make it. But Tommy made some for me. We wanted to have mutual acquaintances in the fishing world. Yeah. These guys from the old Northwest Wild Country show. Yep. Joel, Bill, Dwayne.

Yep, yep, yep. Yep. And we have fished surf perch, crappies. Crappies. Yellow perch. Gigged up a couple frogs. Small and bull frogs together no um but to return here so the first time i came out here as a as a responsible grown-up was to come out for razor clamming and that makes you uh razor clamming makes you like proud to be an american man because the huge variety of individuals the only thing that all those people

that dig clams on a clam tide have in common is that they like they're like it's so many people from so many walks of life and such vast disparities of outdoor experience. And they're bound by wanting to dig clams. Yeah. And the coast out here, when you go out to the coast here, it's like you look left and it's just the same thing and you look right and it's the same thing to infinity on either side speckled with the same concentration of individuals and the beach is so gradual that you can't there's no pitch to it you know one of the tides out up at up at like you know mo crocs yeah the flattest beach in the world and it's just got a scattering of people of about like if you imagine a hotel room a hotel room probably have what six seven

people in it right at tideline to an infinity in one direction and to an infinity in the other direction just people happily digging digging clams. Just eyes down. Looking for the dimples. The dimple. How would you even explain the dimple? Like, I don't even know how I explained it to you. Imagine if you took a photograph. What would you be seeing?

Talk about what you'd see if you took a photograph and what you see in real time. If you took a photograph, you would see that if I took it, I'm going to use golf because I know you love it, a golf ball. I'm following. And dropped it from, what, Jimmy, a foot off a foot into the sand. But it's ephemeral. Yeah. to the sand and then but it's ephemeral yeah so it's yeah so so you see this little tiny dimple there but in very wet in real mud or covered wet mud and in real time that dimple would be 1001,001? Moving slightly. It would be filling in slightly, I guess you'd say.

Like it's suctioning down. The dimple lasts such a short amount of time that you can't really... You're never really sure you saw it. Exactly. Like it's there and then it's gone with the water. Yeah, so it'd be like a normal dimple lifespan with the water. But I think that's the difference of having a really sharp eye for clams or just being your average razor clammer.

Because there's some that are clearly like there's a clam there. And then there's some that don't show nearly as much, but there's a clam there. And then there's some that don't show nearly as much but there's a clam there. So that's where the experience level comes into. Does he create that dimple every time he moves? He's retracting.

Yeah, so it's sucking. So if you sit there long enough, will the dimple reform? The same clam? Like a minute later he moves again and the dimple comes back? No. No. and you get the surf washing over in the sand and those things are fast i mean i think i don't know how they move once they go down but i i think they don't move just like in a vertical column no they don't they go down and they head towards the beach and then they head

towards the water which is why you crush so many towards the water and you why you want to go in at an angle well we got to explain more so let me just say this a razor clam is a big ass razor clam is not as big as the bill on a baseball hat way smaller not way smaller a big razor clam is if you took a regular bottle of beer and bust it off the neck yeah i would say average size that's an average size razor okay they're about that about yay big yep and it's the kind of clam that when he closes shell it doesn't contain him and in fact he's sort of moving beyond his shell because he's just got a very fragile shell. And when he closes it up, it's like a thick sandwich. And the shells are sort of like the bread, right?

And when you look at the one side and the other side, he's just in there. Like he can't even fit in his shell. He's got a big neck sticking out. Yeah. The digger's always out. Yeah. And the digger's always out. and the digger's always out yeah and the neck kind of like the neck doesn't fit in there very well either those diggers his foot yeah yeah you're right so digger goes in his neck's always out they like

uh they like they don't like uh they're not in gravel they're in like just fine fine sand you wouldn't call it sand sand i would you would it's like a like a yeah saying like a tropical beach sand like what you would want to walk on in that stuff and they hang out around in in the littoral zone. You guys know that word? I do not. It's where the sea meets the land, where the wave action plays out. The littoral zone. They hang out in there, and you sort of follow the tide out. And you got a clam gun or a clam shovel,

and you study the ground for these ephemeral little dimples that form and vanish stick your clam gun and a clam gun is like a what do you think what's the diameter on a clam gun aren't they like five inches six inches five six inches so five six diameter two with a hand with a t-handle on it and you jam that son of bitch down in the mud right on top of where the dimple, you center the dimple on the gun and then tip it. And I've heard both. I've heard tip it towards shore and I've heard tip it toward the ocean.

But I think you tip toward, I think tipping towards shore to not cut the clam in half with the clam gun. Yeah, which happens all too often. You bust a lot. Yeah, I bust a lot. But you got to keep your busters. Yeah.

So then there's this little air escape hole in that clam gun because as you shove the gun down, it compresses the air. Or shoves the air out, and you sink it down until it's buried in the mud. Then you plug the air hole and pull out, and it pulls the whole slug of mud out. Which your cylinder is about a foot and a half, two feet? Yeah, I'd say it's 18 inches. 18 inches. Yeah, it's probably 18 inches.

18 inches. Yeah. You plug a hole with your finger? Plug a hole with your finger and you pull out. Yeah, because when you're shoving down, the air needs to escape the tube. Yeah. But to make suction, you just then plug. It's like a little trigger hole.

You plug that little trigger hole, and you pull the whole kit and caboodle up. You're pulling a core sample out of the ground. Yeah, sort of. Take a core sample. It's a really good way to explain it. Most of the time, half the time, you dump it out, and the clam's not there. Then you jump in and sink your arm up to the armpit in the hole, or you double punch.

Like pull up some of the bitches in there there cramp back down in there and then you get it good then pull them up and you catch them or you jump down and sink your arm up to the armpit and there he is down in there cut your hand on him cut your hand cut your hand yeah pull him up and there he is you're allowed 15 and it's the first 15 that come out of the ground. They don't want you high grading them. Right. And they don't want you discarding them. But people do anyway.

And so pretty soon it's seagulls all over eating busted up razor clams. And it's a hoot, man. And they kind of open it just sporadically. Like a weekend here, a day there. And it's usually the PM low tide. Yeah, the pm low tide yeah the pm low tide have you done it in the evening with lantern i've never done that no because i take my kids i have i've done it in the evening it's fun it's real fun i feel like you'd lose children at night you have them hold the lantern that's a good chore tony we were out kids, and you had your youngest in one of those backpack carriers,

but not strapped in. That's right. And you bent over to work a clam, and the kid come out the carrier. She kept trying to reach down out of the carrier to grab the clam. So I'd come over like this, and she would come out of the backpack trying to reach out too, and she came out of the carrier right in the surf. Oops. You go out there on a rough day, and there's just kids washing back and forth it's hard to get any clams because

you're trying to pull your kids out of the surf you gotta watch them but then the last clam and we did the last razor clam we did we out, and it was just like zero wind. And so you weren't plagued by all the waves coming in and wiping all the shows away. It was just out. And then we were just limited in no time. But what's funny is my kid, I tell him, well, go count them. So he goes off the beach and dumps them all out. Then all of a sudden I see him running around screaming and panicking because all the clams just

immediately start going back into the ground. And I couldn't tell what he's jumping up and down, waving his arms and yelling about until I realized that all of our clams are making a break for him back in the boat, which totally shocked him, man. He had no idea what to make out of that.

Did you lose any or Were they not that fast? I don't know. That is awesome. I don't think we actually, we just had to like go grab them back up. They were trying to get away. We just kind of scooped them all back out. But that day was so good, there was no risk of running out of them. Then the other activity that I got in and out here was.

Oh, hold on. What's your normal preparation for those? Man, clam strips, like classic going to a restaurant and get clam. But kind of like a thinking man's clam strip. Not like where you... Picture going into a restaurant and ordering clam strips. And you get done eating them, and then there's just like the bottom of the basket's full of a bunch of breading clumps. Mine aren't like that.

I gently dust them. I take all the diggers and fry those, and then I take the remaining portion of the clam, which I don't know what it's called. There's a shitload of meat on a razor clam. And I dice it, and I make chowder out of that. Dude, the things you pull out of those things' stomachs is insane. I've never paid too much attention to it. Well, there's sea worms in there.

Really? Baby crabs are in there. Definitely seen baby crabs. I've never seen that. Yep. It's been a long time since I've done it. They siphon up some crazy stuff, man. It's not like a normal little steamer that's just like filter feeding.

I mean, they are, but they're sucking up stuff. Lots of chunks of sea worm and lots of little teeny crabs that that razor clam is sucking up. And there's a ton of meat on one. They're so good. Oh, my goodness. Like the little beach crabs or the sand crabs? The little teeny guys. The ones with the pinchers?

It's a crab the size of your pinky nail. Huh. They're good hung up in cold smoke, too. Really? Yeah, they're good like that. Smoked clams? Yeah, I have a friend that does that. I've never done it, but I've eaten his, and they're delicious.

So what I've done with them is do like a thinking man's clam strip, which by that I mean not like that crazy doughy, right? You in general don't like a batter. Heavy breading. Don't like batter. I like gentle breading. My buddy Henry turned me on to using Bisquick. It worked like a chain. Really? It worked great, but you're not doing an egg wash.

You just actually quick Bisquick and then hot oil. Just breading it with Bisquick. Just, yeah, not... And it was fantastic. Shout out to Henry Miller for that one. Yeah, not. And it was fantastic. Oh, you know what? Shout out to Henry Miller for that one. We'll put that in the show notes. Tony just sent me a nice picture of us out clamming with a bunch of kids

who were willing five minutes to be soaked. That's the day your kid fell out of the backpack. That's right before the clam. Yeah, just prior to the dumping. Right before the calamity, yeah. Would it work to just drag around a big inner tube with a kid stuck in it? No. It's just too much surf.

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So, yeah, I do that. I guess there's like three main things i do i'll come home and clean them all and you got to get rid of the gut on them because the guts the only part you don't need on them really then i will put them in a vacuum bag the ones i'm going to keep just put a bunch of them in a vacuum bag and it makes it the nicest little flat little pack of the clams and i'll freeze them like that i have some in my freezer now and then um and back seal them in there and then i do them in pasta so like your like classic linguine kind of right buttery clam sauce thing and then my wife likes clam chowder so i will make manhattan chowder which is red new england chowder which is white or a combo that's kind of a little bit of both but i prefer to on a clam i caught i, I prefer to make the Manhattan chowder.

Because it doesn't hide your clam in a white, pasty glue. You know what I mean? Because you went through all the trouble to dig things up, right? You want to look in there and be like, well, there's the clams. Yeah. So that's why I like the red Manhattan chowder. I enjoy razor clams so much just eating them like you said fried and really anyway but i felt like it was almost a waste to make chowder out of them yeah

well my wife likes chowder yeah no i do too but it's like there's other claims yeah that's why you take the bigger blues or tender part fry it and then take the chewier part and make the chowder i never thought of that that's a good idea how do you cold smoke it what do you mean you brine it no he does't know. He does it. I'm assuming he brines them up, but I remember him bringing them out on fishing trips and whatnot, and they were just these big, beautiful, smoked up razor clams, you know, that were just intact, you know, not cut up into strips or anything,

and they were nice, man. That is a great idea, man. Tastes like an oyster. Smoked oyster. No, not as strong as an oyster you know more like a club they still they retain their flavor you know but they were good they were really good yeah all the razor clams i've dug have all been on the same couple beaches out here what i used to think was the peninsula yeah i've been like making a fool you've been hanging out in the harbor this whole time yeah was the peninsula. Later to realize it's Graves Harbor.

You've been hanging out in the harbor this whole time? Yeah. I'm going to go around to my neighbors who I bring clams to. I'm going to go and say, hey man, you know what? You know how I told you where I got those? It's not where I got them. They've probably been driving up and down the Olympic Peninsula looking for a beach. They've been hooking out

saying, oh, I can find us oysters. I've only been to the one. I always call it Mo Rocks, but I'm sounding like Mo Crocs. Mo Crocs. Or Mo Clips. Mo Clips. It's Mo Clips. The town is Mo Clips.

The beach is Mo Crocs. So when you check in the clam ties, you'll see like, yeah, you go in the regs. If you type in like razor clam, you go into Google and type razor clam season or whatever. It just takes you to that page or tells you what's coming up. It'll be like. The breakdowns are simple. All the different beaches, the days are open. Yep.

And we went out there one time. Me and my wife and our three kids came out to hit a clam tide and stayed in that Ocean Shores Hotel. And it's a big place.. I'm telling you what, about two hours before low tide, every hotel door opens up and people walk out of their hotel rooms in hip boots. To be a cleaning person at that hotel would be hell.

That wouldn't be a party. The amount of mud and sand and then everyone goes down and it's like this giant tailgate party. That's the kind of tailgate I could get involved in. People sitting around on the tailgates, drinking beers, getting ready to or having just dug up razor clams. Like I said, man, it makes you really happy to be American, to go clam digging. Especially if it's like it is now.

Sunny. And in Washington beaches, you can drive on the beach, so it's nice. Like Oregon, tons of razor clam areas washington beaches you can drive on the beach so it's nice like oregon tons of razor clam areas yeah but you can't drive on the beach you gotta pack in you gotta pack it in clam diggers association there it is boom that's the thing too make it real easy up here that's kind of a that's a good point because like it seems like at low tide that water's out there a mile. And then you got to park in a parking lot or a little roundabout somewhere across the dune. And then you got another mile to go.

Yeah. With three kids. Oh, here's the water, man. Yeah, the kids love it driving up and down the beach. Yeah. I love it. I love it. And you park. Yeah, it's like a Walmart parking lot that never ends, man.

If everyone from 10 walmart's all had to park in a line down the beach it's the only time i'm glad to see other people out doing what i'm doing normally like ah someone else got here first yeah but there it's like oh yeah man i wonder why that is you're right i feel that way too well there's plenty to go around yeah there's just so much room yeah so you jim, you go a fair bit. I've been a few times, but I've only been to the one beach that I've been mispronouncing now for several years. What do you call it? I called it Mo-rocks, but it's not Mo-rocks.

It's Mo-crocks. Mo-crocks. So, anyways, on the Fish and Game website, it's really pretty clear and easy to navigate and get through, and they tell you when it's going to be open. Well, it's the only reg. It's the only reg in the world that's easy. It seemed pretty simple. It's very user-friendly, that part of the reg.

If you don't like to dig razor clams, you can suck it, man. It's just like the funnest thing in the world. It's like a qualifying question. You like digging razor clams? No, I hate it. It's a lot of stuff. It's a prerequisite for anything.

Not going to be your friend. Any excuse to go to the beach. Yeah. Then the second thing I got into was surf perching. Yeah, surf perching. And then you're, Tommy, Edson, you're the first guy I met that was like really self-identified as a surf percher. I liked to fish surf perch, man. I always have.

These guys, the guys I work with, like yannis i would just say my surf perch mentor oh and they would know who i was talking about right yeah it was just always something to do when you were at the coast either digging clams or you know we'd run out to the coast like me and tony discussed yesterday we'd run out the coast fishing salmon or steelhead and all the rivers are punched. Well, what are we going to do? We're going to go catch a boat. We're going to go catch a cooler full of surf perch.

You're going to go razor clamming? Go fish surf perch. Surf perch. That's kind of what you do. Then I discovered the combo. Yeah. Because surf perch open year, no close season, 15 surf perch a day, and they're always there yeah you like i've never had

a day where i've never yesterday was yesterday was pretty sucky when i thought it would be i thought it was below par it was below par it was below what i expected but it wasn't poor by any means we came away with a we came out and surf perched on christmas eve something like that yeah you did no and i thought that would be no 23rd of december 23rd of december and i thought we'd come out and it would just be like hellaciously nasty which i did too it was cold i remember that day but walked out there yeah you fished that day too yeah we feel cold day windy and you walk out and it's like the most like unforgiving atmosphere yeah where it's just like pounding surf salt spray dope cold and you're like why and what self-respect and fish would

possibly be yeah and that churning froth yeah and you go down there and huck out a um a gulp sandworm g A gulp sandworm. I threw some razor clam next that morning. I was saying squid or razor clam would work great. Razor clams work good. The problem with bait like that is you end up getting crabs too, and the crabs will just pick at your stuff. Yeah, because you do snag and hook crabs on it and pull them in. The gulps work really well.

But to flick out into that churning, godforsaken froth and whap, fish. Yeah, that's how they hit you. Knocking on the door, man. If they hit, it was music. The big ones are just like a little miniature takedown in your hand. They just kind of hit it and don't. They grab it, turn turn, and swim away. The bait, I've only ever used one thing for bait.

Really? Because it stays on your hook all day long. Man, I've experienced with all kinds of stuff. What's the bag say? What do you mean? On a gold sandworm. What's the bag say? Outfish is everything else.

Outfish is live bait all fish is all other baits i was like wow that's right i'll take a bag of those yeah yeah they were good and they're durable outfish is all other bait well clearly this is a bait for me you can look no further yeah you can seriously go spend a very minimal amount of money on bait and tackle and have enough to get through the entire day of surf perch fishing it's not snaggy you're not going to donate a bunch of gear no but i'll tell you what i'll tell you what does happen is you know when you're uh squid jigging i'll lock my line off because like oh on your reel yeah well we'll check this out so you're squid jigging and you

lock your line off. So that way when you open your bail, your squid jig drops to like inches above the bottom when you're off a pier. Because the minute it hits the bottom, you're going to snag what I imagine to be a carpet of other squid jigs that are snagged. I think there's one rock and then eventually that rock grows into a carpet of squid jigs. It's just a coral reef of squid jigs. Yeah, and so you can't touch the bottom. So I lock all my reels off, especially with my kids. So you just open the bail, and when the line stops,

the line stops where it's supposed to stop, and it's safe to start your stroke there. Well, it was squid jigging season, and so I rig everybody up. I rig everybody up. You got two ounces of lead one ounce of lead on your surf perch ride and me and my two brothers kind of spread out you know i walk one way they walk their way and one goes down below and in no time we're all back up re-rigging because the minute you fire that uh you fire that lead out it goes it goes 30 feet and comes up against that lock off

all that stuff just keeps going yeah and that happened to me twice yesterday man i did one cast yeah i did one cast where my my braid was knotted up on my spool re-rigged came out and did an arc cast one of those ones where you accidentally where you somehow yeah it hooks onto something close your bail up yeah and set my rig off into the outer space sure it arrived in japan i used to do that to a lot of giant night crawlers and then my granddad would fuss at me what do you mean because we would just be out pan fishing you know and instead of clipping off an inch or two or whatever you needed you know on a on a small, like, size 6 hook, I'd put on, like, an 8, 10-inch night. Playing for capes.

Yeah, night collar, you know, and as a kid, probably didn't weave it on there properly, and then, whew, my hook would go about 8 feet in that night collar. The night collar lands out in the zone. Yeah, that's a big kid thing, I think, too. It's like every time they cast they cast like it'll land in a while later the moth the worm comes yeah yeah touching down somewhere else the whip but the ones here are uh red tail surf perch tail surf perch yeah and it's funny man it's like one of

those things that enough guys go that if you go look online there's like information but it's not satisfying to research surf perch fishing online. No, no. I don't know if that's a thing about guys just staying tight-lipped about it because maybe they don't want the company. Or it's maybe just like lack of interest overall. I don't know, but people should be doing it because we've all seen how many miles and expanses of beach there are here. I know. I look at emails that come into us into us it's just so many guys just

being like dude there's so many people and this and that i lost my spot and then but then there's like certain things to do like fish and surf perch yeah where and i would say that it's not fair to say it's an unexploited resource and it's not i don't know if it's fair to say under exploit a resource but it's just that yeah right yes they were surf perch fishing yeah and you know i saw another guy come out and give it a cut take a couple pokes yeah oh there was there was a few people out there but it just was generally i saw one other guy in our party kind of concentrated around each three or four other guys out there i think i a total of three dudes taking a poke somewhere in the vastness of the beach

for some brief period of time. But it's not, they're just not getting pounded. No. And that day when it was really good, on days you're out there when it's really good, and you just stand in one spot, so you have this beach that goes for, you know. Miles.

Miles and miles and miles and miles. And you cast out, and you're like, there's no way there's a fish out there. And you cast out and you're like there's no way there's a fish out there and you cast out like there's another one you think like man there must be a ton every a lot of them yeah but you can't just take them you can't just cook them like um they're not as forgiving as a lot of fish no they're a little delicate and they're like you just got they take a little more care like they don't make a like you can't just fry them up like willy-nilly like you can rockfish or cod or anything like that you can't like carelessly hurl it into a bucket of hot oil and think it's gonna be good it's too

delicate and you talk about people like to steam them yeah i did that kind of kind of a steamy poach thing on some people like to barbecue like that i've found the two ways i like to i made the mistake one time just sauteing them in butter and then putting them on pasta with my clams so it's like a clam surf perch on pasta yeah and they just fell apart really and then my kids didn't like it because they were all falling apart they wanted to pick the fish out but they couldn't pick the fish out because the fish disintegrated then what i started to do is I would take them and take the fillets and brush them in olive oil, season them,

put them on an oiled bacon sheet, and put them in a 400 degree oven, and let them sit in there until the edges start to crisp like a potato chip. That's a good idea. Then take my spatula right off, and no sons of guns are good. Are they?

Or what we did on Christmas Eve, no, Christmas dinner last year, is scaled them, gutted them, left them whole, cut, scored them. Yeah. Like cut a, the fish is sitting horizontally the way he belongs. Cut three or four vertical gashes in them. Fry those in peanut oil until the fins are just crispy. Crisp, crisp. And then made like a Thai dipping sauce.

That sounds good. And that was good. And everybody liked that. I bet that was good. You end up with all those crispy edges on them, man. That's good. Then you just pick it for your kids and your kids like it yeah i like anything whole fried like that especially like surf perch yellow perch anything like that whole fried man if i can whole fry it usually that's what i'll do because i just love

eating them that way it's like it's something like picking up like a turkey leg or a drumstick when you get them right i mean granted some fish are just too big to do it but or some of the bone structures too delicate gills and sunnies and crappies and you know smaller surf purge they all taste the same man you just gotta keep more of them yeah they do yeah but then the only problem is some of them the bones are too right yeah like i remember the the writer Ian Frazier was explaining to me eating roe shad. Not the roe, but American shad. Mm-hmm.

Eating whole cooked, whole baked shad. And he equated it to trying to fix your watch. Really? Picking the bones. Like that level of, you know, where it's just like trying to take a watch apart. It was pressure cooked and it was good, but it was like any other fish you would put in a pressure cooker.

American shad. It would have been cooked for, I don't know how long, in a pressure cooker. A friend of mine goes down and catches lots of them and he loves them. Dude, the eggs out of a roe shad are unbelievable. I mean, that's why they call them roe shad, right? Yeah. Well, McPhee, John McPhee hasfee has that book the founding fish how do you prepare eggs it's the traditional way is to just take the whole sack out so i've caught in my life three american shad one happened to be a roe shad fighting one of the fightingest

fish out there oh yeah they're this is in the delaware this is in the delaware river yeah if anyone knows your revolutionary war history but this is far above where where washington crossed excellent crab bait shad are phenomenal crab bait man oily great crab yeah the book mcphee's book john mcphee's book the founding fish is just sort of like an american history but about that fish sort of the degree to which people on the american coast relied on the shad fishery and there's things in daniel boone's biography even where so daniel boone someone came and notified uh knows daniel boone's family this came from boone's son later told uh daniel boone's family, this came from Boone's son, later told,

Daniel Boone's son was later interviewed, and he was telling a story about his father and mother. And the story was that the Shad were running in Pennsylvania when Boone's family was still in Pennsylvania. And I'm trying

to remember how this goes so I get it Pennsylvania. And I'm trying to remember how this goes so I get it right. And they caught baskets full. They netted up baskets full of American shad. They had so many

that one of the kids was dispatched, I think it was Daniel maybe, was dispatched to go to a neighbor's and tell the neighbors, come get fish. We have so many fish. So he does and comes back and somehow Daniel Boone

winds up being asleep by where they were fishing. And the two girls are sent over to get fish and they see Boone sleeping and they dump a bucket of fish guts on boone's face as a prank and boone gets up and cold cocks one of them and they run home to tell on them and the mom comes over to give the what for to boone's mom and she says well you better teach those girls

some manners yeah frontier justice wow uh but the traditional way is you take the you you you basically like very gently saute the fish's egg sack in bacon grease oh okay that's how it's done yeah yeah we've been known to go down and catch a bunch of them just to have a bunch of crab bait throughout the summer american shit yeah and the col a bunch of them and just have a bunch of crab bait throughout the summer. American shad. You don't have to worry about it. Yeah, in the Columbia. Because they introduced them out here. Yeah, there's tons of them in the Columbia.

I remember hearing the history about how they were introduced, but I don't want to talk about it because I'll probably get it wrong. But there's literally millions of them in the Columbia River. And you go down and anchor up a boat and put back little dick knights and bring lots of snacks and kids and let kids reel in American Shad all day. It's just a small little shaver spoon about that long. Dick Night is what it's called. Manufacturer.

You ever heard of a Dick Night? You never heard of a Dick Night? No, I thought you were using like a euphemism. No, they're called a Dick Night. It's like a... Wee Dick Night. Like a Shad Dart. Wee Dick Night.

N-I-T-E. Oh, because we would use just these little... Little red and white jigs. Yeah, shad darts. You can use those too. Why do you look so unhappy that we're talking about surf perch and American shad?

Do I look unhappy? Yeah, you do. I'm cool. Really? You fine? Yeah. Any questions that come up? No, I'm tracking so far. Is it just that you just don't have a lot of experience with surf perch?

I have none with shad. I have a little bit with surf perch. Can you tell me what your impressions are of surf perch fishing yesterday? I'd like to hear it because you've never been before. And there you were. There I was. Standing there in your chest, waiters. Yeah, on a lonely beach.

I was thinking earlier how it doesn't seem like how driving all over the beach has messed the beach up at all but there's probably things that happen that you don't see sure there's something but it's like if you're gonna drive on a beach that's the beach to do it on yeah things basically made out of concrete yeah although someone's uh sunk right in about five minutes after we got there. We saw a minivan drive in. I saw that. But that beach has a different, that beach is a little teeny different than Mo Crocs. Yeah.

Yeah, it's, when you enter the beach out here, it's pretty soft. Yeah. I don't think you should be driving your Astro van out there. No. They were not. They didn't know. I was telling you that, too. And if you do, you better come in hot and get to the hard sand. Yeah.

What other things do you have to add, Janice? There you are. You're in your chest, waiters. Proud of being American. Well, you know, it's always nice to be in a position doing something you've never done before. You know, a little challenge coming at you, something you've got to learn. It wasn't a very good day of fishing, no that day it was it was tough but you know it ended up being fine i you know worked out for me because i just started looking around going all right what what am i going

to do differently than we're doing and try to catch fish and i ended up finding a little rip current and just thinking oh you know i'll fish because every gleaning from what everybody else is saying like oh a little drop is good current break is good and just sort of looking for something different i found this little rip and ended up catching six fish out of it so did you get six yeah worked out pretty good yeah i think i let two go and kept four wow surf perch master only kept one or two all day yesterday couldn't catch any big ones you know surf perches and razor clams too i was thinking earlier why i like it surf perch and and razor clamming shad fishing all those things it's it's different from most other things I do such as steelhead fishing or hunting because

you can walk out on the beach and you'll talk to the guy that you see like you said you don't mind seeing people you're like how you doing yeah he'll say I caught three and you actually believe him yeah yeah or you razor clam and you're like man, I'm loading up here. I got two limits. You believe them. You're like, this is a good spot. I'm going to stay here. You go shad fishing. People are like, they're willing to share the information about these fisheries, right,

such as you were willing to share the information with Steve about surf perching. You go to a boat launch up on the Peninsula Rivers. Everybody's hush-hush. You ask somebody about how many steelhead they caught that day ah it's been a slow day slow day yeah i mean you don't know what happened honest answer out of anybody from no hoquium to forks yeah why do you think that is i don't know i think it's a lot of it's like they want to preserve something that they feel is more special to them than anyone else or i don't know and they don't want more we already got enough people yep you know we don't need any more people

don't talk about it and it makes me upset to be honest with you because guys just want to fish exactly guys just want to get out and catch some stuff man you know and besides when you talk about a fishery whether it be surf perch whether it be steelhead on the peninsula, if you're going to name a place, it's kind of a good thing because then it's bringing money to it and attention. You know, and those are management dollars. It keeps those towns alive. Yeah. Some of them.

Yeah. You know, and there's no ownership for those guys that are fishing those rivers. You know, a lot of people get ticked off when even people come from the west side you know i guess they call it the east side to the west side to fish these rivers out here and so on um it's kind of like this territorial thing yeah and it's unfortunate because i think you know it's obviously a resource we all have to share and it's everybody has the same right to it yeah so people want to keep hush hush to try to keep people away from it like it's like it's theirs you know it's like a honey hole you know it's just protecting their you know they don't want you to think it's good because you'll come back tomorrow you're gonna bring more out you're gonna bring more people

and to like to that point though too like you go out to the peninsula in the winter time when steelhead season's in full swing and look at license plates, man. You'd be surprised how many dudes are from Montana. Really tons of guys are out there fishing and want to catch a steelhead on a two-handed fly rod. Well, that's a recent development too, which is the guiding operations. These guys, they guide all the trout rivers all year long, and then they come over here in the winter and guide. But that's kind of what you kind of grew up doing that, though,

fishing these rivers out here for salmon and steelhead. Oh, for sure. Both years. Yeah, for sure. That's another thing that kind of got me another notch in the surf perch belt is it's like it wasn't what it was it or it isn't what it once was you know what i mean with the hey look at me i got this great big fish is what it's become and like those were like such fond memories of just as a kid going to those yeah

famous steelhead rivers yeah man and then it almost hurts to see what they've come to yeah it does so i think in a sense you can kind of love it to death and it's like i love it so much that i'll just step away from it because i don't want to see it hurting anymore and i'll go stand on the beach man i'm right i'll go fish crappies i love fishing crappies you know that i'm right there with you yeah i mean i i used to pound these rivers up here that's what i just love going to them. Me too. I don't even talk about it. How much time have we spent talking?

Me, talked about me spending time fishing steelhead or salmon because I just don't much anymore. That's when I meet people. When I meet people that know Tony, they always want to tell me about your reputation as a salmon and steelhead guy. Spent a lot of time out here, but not recently. And it's like him. It's like I'd almost just rather step away and just not be one of the crowds

and just kind of like, hey, you guys enjoy it, whatever. And I don't know if that's – I remember it in the day, Dan. I'd rather remember that. You've caught a lot of fish. You've kind of done it. Right, been there, done that. I don't want to say I've been there, done that.

Yeah, I don't want to say that either because it sounds arrogant. It does. But it's like I've caught my sheriff's sealhead. I've got some really beautiful fish. I'm happy floating that river. I'm happy floating the queets and through the rainforest and not catching a single fish. I'm happy with the clam.

I will take far fewer fish, far fewer fish over, I will take far fewer fish, maybe not even one for a season, and beautiful scenery over crowds and limits every day of the week. I really will. I'll hike into the upper.

You're arguing? Yeah, people argue all the time on rivers. Fist fights, dude. Yelling. Fist fights. Full-blown knockdown drag out fights. It gets kind of ridiculous. People just yelling at you.

Went right through the water, whatever. It's like, man, there's a stump over here. There's a log jam over here. I got nowhere else to go. You know? It's where I got to go. It's crowds and it's where i gotta go you know it's just it's just it's crowds and it's it's uh you know people being territorial and thinking you should be off their river or whatever it is i don't know

it's just kind of gotten to a point where it's got it's a little ridiculous now so it must be something that like it must be something that's like a steelhead thing because it is i went through years of being maybe people feel so lusty for steelhead that it brings out the worst in them because i went through a few years of being really really into fishing steelhead in the great lakes like into it into it to the point like making hash marks on the roof of my van to mark like how many you got you know i mean like golf clicker mentality about oh my god i landed 42 you know in april may or whatever um like that kind of into it because i had kind of like quit mostly quit fur trapping and hadn't found something that because when you trap you like you trap every day so i when i quit doing that there was a couple years there yeah i quit doing that i was doing that, there was a couple years there.

Yeah, I quit doing that when I was 22, and then there was a couple years there before I moved out west. And you needed something to fill that everydayness. So I got way into fishing steelhead. And the only fights I've been in, I got in one fight on a river in Montana, which I'll tell you about. But all the fights were always like fighting with steelhead guys.

I remember it was so combative. I remember a guy one time saying, asked me what my name was. I said, Steve. He goes, well, Steve, I think I hooked your waders. Fishing that tight where a guy hooked my wader on his drift. Yeah. Just elbowing people out of the way getting in there because if you're if you're in a spot and you're hooking a couple steelhead other dudes just are like it just it makes them feel sick they want in there so yeah bad

especially if you come in there after them yeah i've seen like people people act that way for pinks which is which is sound which is like i don't know maybe i'm sure a lot of it's just people that don't catch a lot of fish yeah so they don't understand like they probably just don't have any appreciation for like quality of it of their fish or their query or whatever it may be but they i mean i've seen scenarios where you'll be lined up on a river and then people are hooking waders you'll be weighted out in the water knee deep and say you're 20 feet from let's say you're 12 feet from the from the rocks from the gravel from the gravel bar and somebody's standing on the gravel bar casting

over the top of you oh is that right yes i've seen that that's another that's just another reason why man i just don't just see yeah yeah there's always going to be those those uh and it's just locations where you know it's an easy access point and you know what you're in for you know you're in for battle fishing yeah it's an easy access point it's a place for people to uh go have a good chance of catching a steelhead if they don't have a boat not everybody has a boat um you know in recent years there's just been more and more boats it's gone from seeing three trailers out of takeout to seeing you know 20 trailers and just leapfrogging down rivers and all that so you know you're always going to have your combat fishing and i just

think everybody needs to be you know understanding that hey every person on that river has the exact same right to the catching a steelhead yeah as they do no matter where the heck you're from there's you could be from montana idaho washington wherever it is you're all buying there's no entitlement to it there is and but there but there is yeah right yeah so the dispute i got into yeah i want to hear the montana story yeah so i was waiting i was coming up i was with my old i think i was fishing with my old roommate jay nichols who wanted to become an uh he went like having a whole career in fly fishing magazines and fly fishing publications we're fishing the one of the upper forks of the bitter root and i'm wade fishing picking my way up river and i come to a spot where a where a guide who's

doing who's doing a day float has this little like this this cute little lunch set up on the beach for his sport for his client right down to a checkered tablecloth oh i've seen that yeah shore lunch nice shore lunch for the client yeah but it's almost like it's a little too it's a little too much it's like it just you can't look down like really really really that's what this is what this come to yeah in this world you can't just sit on a rock and eat something. Have a sandwich. Ice the bus out, chair, tablecloth, table every single time. Yeah, I got buddies that run guys who usually do the same thing.

Every single time. Yeah. They'll get the barbecue out and make you a burger. That I would have been like, yeah, that's cool. He's making him a burger. It was just like a little cutesy little setup. Sounds like it was a little too cutesy for your liking. It's like, are you there to fish or not?

Right, right. I get that. I can see it. Sit on a rock, stand around, kick rocks, I don't know, eat something. Whatever. That's fine. I can accept that. But anyhow, that was just an observation I had that I thought was a little much.

It was a little much. A tablecloth. No. Checkered tablecloth. Yeah. Yanni, so you used to do that? I can see why I would. I cancloth. No. Checkered tablecloth. Yanni, so you used to do that. I can see why I would. I can see why I would. Why did you do that?

Did you like it? I guess because you're just trying to impress a little bit. You know, you're out there working, and I don't know. I guess in the case if it was a slow day, right? You're like, well, at least the lunch will be nice. You want good rapport with your clients. What was the tablecloth you used? Was it checkered?

Yeah. Wow. It was green and white. I think I still have it somewhere tucked away. I ran it for years. Same tablecloth. What was the spread you made? Sometimes I'd wash that thing every day.

In a washing machine? Yeah. At a laundromat? No, just along with my clothes at my house. But yeah. Nothing worse than busting out a tablecloth that already had ketchup mustard stains on it. So when you're guiding,

you're guiding for an outfit, but it's up to you to do all that stuff. Yeah, I think they had like a base level that they wanted you to follow. You had to have a table and two chairs for sure at the very minimum. I think they asked that we had a tablecloth. So you'd pull over.

You knew your lunch spots. A little roll-top table, I'm assuming. Hopefully under a shade tree. And you'd put a tablecloth down, and he'd set what out for him. Dependent on the year and who was doing the lunch catering, but it was most of the time some sort of sandwich and some sides, cookies and soda pop, water. Pretty simple.

Nice macaroni salad maybe in there with your sandwich. It didn't matter how cute they were. Sounds kind of good. Man, woman, didn't matter. Didn't matter. Just going to do it. As I got, I guess, more experience and I had the clients that I took year after year, if they weren't into it and they wanted an extra 30 minutes of fishing because that would buy them, we would just pull over underneath the shade tree and sit in the boat and wolf it down. I'd be that guy.

So you would have clients who would say, like, that's a little much, Yanni. Yeah, let's skip that. It's a little much. I'd be that guy. Let's just keep fishing. Really? The client's like, that's a little much, Yanni. Yeah, let's skip that. It's a little much. I'd be that guy. Let's skip that. Let's just keep fishing. Really? The client's like, really? Really?

I've said this before that I had a lot of clients who used me a lot because their wives liked fishing with me. And they were guys that were like, well, I get to fish more since my wife is into this. I'm going to use this guide because he's like, his truck's tight. You know, lunch is tight. Attractive young man. He's strapping laughing. He doesn't have a potty mouth out there. My wife's not always going like,

I can't believe Bill's talking about that again. I can picture you being the guy that a dude would get because you're going to be nice to his wife. Then you'd roll that little tablecloth out. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So what happened was, so there I was, picking my way up river. Oh, you guys having a little dip? Oh. No, I quit. I was hoping to grab it without you looking. I'll get back to my dispute real quick, which I might have talked about in the past. But can we talk about this a little bit?

Tony, you've been trying to quit chewing tobacco. But then here you are. You run into Tommy, who's died in the wool dip, man. I'm a dipper, man. I love it. Yeah, I quit. You love it. I really like to chew tobacco.

And you started dipping now from exposure to him. No, no. I can't blame it on him. Thank you for not blaming it on me. Because had you told me, ah, just quit, I'd be like, no, you may not have a chew, Tony. I had quit since February 12th. And on the way out here, I knew it was going to be a long drive, and I knew I was going fishing. And that's one of those things you just. With other dippers.

Do you guys call yourselves dippers? No. That's a spoofy kind of joke maybe i mean particularly i just it's you associate it with certain things right i was like i'm gonna be in the car a long time what do you guys refer yourself what is one who likes to like a smoker is a smoker everybody knows that sure yeah i'd be like so you self-identify as a chewer. I self-identify as a chewer. I don't even know if I self-identify. So if someone says, tell me about yourself, you'd be like, well, I'm a chewer. I know. Might not be the first thing I throw out there, but yeah.

So go ahead, Tony. So here you are. You know you're on a long drive, and there's going to be chewers around. So I pick up Yanni, and I go to the gas station to fill up. And I walked inside to grab some snacks. There's a big wall. There's a big wall there, man. I've heard about that wall.

And it called my name. Yeah, I've heard about that too. I had a lapse in self-control and I purchased my first can of Chew since February 12th. Our man, Dirt Myth, we were down in South America, and he was trying to quit, and he gets home, and I asked him how it went, and he said the same thing. You fill up your gas tank.

You can't buy gas. There it is. And you walk into the gas station. I would suggest he just pays with a debit card and buys his groceries elsewhere because the minute he says, I can't go into a gas station because when I go up to the

counter there i am faced with it and it talks to me see the pole is stronger than that because like you said who goes inside to pay for gas anymore well i was getting a snack i haven't been inside of a gas station yeah okay so if you do i'm saying for most people you're probably in there pumping gas and you're like i know what's about 20 feet away from that big wall just through one door one door yeah it's not yeah like the fact that dippers need to go in there to buy snacks it's like you know yeah yeah if i go and then it's like actually all you're buying is a container to drink real fast you can spit yeah that's right because that's very correct you're 100 right because that used to be a matter too that's why i bought that that green that green thing i bought it i'm like uh that's wide mouth

yeah pound this thing in about four seconds fellow was gonna have some chew yeah this creates better i mean not that i'm, but if I did have some chews, I got on the counter and there it was. And it's saying, Tony. That's a good point because it's like, guys, chewers that are trying to quit going to the gas station, the way that single people say, I'm going to the bar. You're not actually like, you're going to the bar, yes, but that's not what you're really looking to get out of this.

There's this other thing you're chasing. But you, you, you you you you know so when you go in to get a snack at the gas station so there i am walking up this uh fork of the bitterroot yeah and i stumbled across this guy he's got this very romantic little setting going on and i make the mistake in eyes, of fishing the hole that he's having his lunch at. The lunch hole. But he's not fishing it. The dude comes undone.

Undone. The guide or the client? The guide. The guide. In front of the client that he's trying to woo with this little setup. With a tablecloth. Yeah. And I come through and take a couple pokes

through there. We're just fishing trout. It's not like anybody's making a living out here selling this meat or something. So, fish and trout, and come through, take a couple pokes, the guy comes undone. We later had a reckoning in Charlie's Bar in Missoula, Montana.

Not at the takeout? Oh, you weren't floating? No, we had a and then and then it was funny because later we wound up kind of drinking the same place and i would see him i'd be like there's a you know and we later had a reckoning and he and he had been in uh if i remember correctly i feel that he admitted his wrongness and i might have admitted a little bit of my wrongness for responding in such a strong way to his criticism but i feel i still today feel like if you're if you're eating lunch and not fishing that you do not have a legitimate claim on the whole how do you feel about that what's the guide's perspective it's gonna depend a lot probably on how much pressure is on the river.

I mean, if it's like a river where you've been waiting for two hours, you hadn't seen a person, and then you got just unlimited water past their boat. That's kind of like this spot. It sounds like this spot. You might as well just skip it and kind of move on. As much for your own personal experience. That's a lot like this spot, actually. I agree with Giannis on this one.

Really? Yeah, I do. I was in the wrong? I think you were, too. I'll always at least ask. You think I was in the wrong? It was that kind of spot. But I'm saying if it was like a busy river, then whatever.

No one around. No one around. Yeah, I'd probably skip that one, Steve. I think if you're in a boat and you're floating down, you're like, okay. Communication is key, though. We're going to pull over here. We're going to have lunch, and then we're going to fish this hole. Yeah.

And if it's a trout stream, you're kind of just letting it rest. Maybe a boat went through. You're letting it rest. If you're going to have lunch there, you're kind of claiming that run for a period of time i i think i think at minimum it would have been worth it hey you mind if i fish this run that's the thing you just gotta hey can i it's like when you get when you walk up to where you want to fish and there's a guy in there do you mind if i step in really then you're good occasion man problem solved what do you think about that jimmy oh geez jeez. I don't know.

You ever been a guide? Never. You guys have all guided? No, definitely not. You never guided, Tommy? No, sir. I probably would have just asked. Or if there's lots of holes, I wouldn't want an audience.

I'd just keep moving. But that's just me. But it didn't contest him causing a scene at the same time. It really made me reconsider because it obviously scarred me because I bring it up all the time. Yeah, sounds like it. This is something from way ago. I haven't even met my wife yet. That's how long ago this was.

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Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. I mean, there's a couple too if if this was also a place where like you were walking in and then there's a boat that's true is that true i was walking in and they had a boat they were in a boat so here i'm a lowly walker so that's different too because they have the ability to fish this whole stretch river and you're like man i just hiked a mile and a half from my rig like this is where i was planning that's definitely a factor like you know and if that's a well-known place where people do hike into i would never stop there to have lunch so it's his fault as a guide so it could be yeah

so you're not completely very circumstantial. You cool on all this? I'm ready to move on. Table cloths. You got anything to add on surf perch? We still need to talk about today, which lights out one of the top days of fishing I've ever experienced in my entire life. Yeah, me too.

The most gorgeous day I've ever had on the Washington coast. Concluding thought on surf perch, I would do it again. In the winter. I had so much fun. Anytime. I'd go back out there right now if we had the time and go take a few pokes. Let me tell you why it's better in the winter, in my opinion.

This is why clam digging is nice because it's a winter-spring thing. When you're out there in the winter, you're out there and you're so happy that there's something going on because it's a time of year when nothing's going on. That's exactly right. Like February, if you're a hunting and fishing kind of fella, February can be... The dog days. There's nothing much going on. Yeah, it's like you might not be like kicking tons of ass in February. Fly tying season. And so then you go out there and it's like, wow, like a productive fishery in the winter.

But to be there in the summer, it's still fun. But you're sort of like, oh, well, I could be. I could be. We could also go. Yeah, sure. It's got a different kind of joy in the winter time too because like you said it's this desolate hostile place

you get this bright spot of this fresh fish that you're like oh man yes it's a little bit of a buzz if you like having the place all to yourself that's the best time to do it

you're out there in the winter people look at you funny and the fishing can be great in the winter dudes should be doing it and those bigger ones tug a little bit they do alright now you cool on that

because I want to get into the world's greatest day of fishing it was pretty amazing lights out something I never do I shouldn't say that Because I want to get into the world's greatest day of fishing. Yeah. It was pretty amazing. Lights out. Go along with that. Lambdom. Something I never do. I shouldn't say that. I rarely do, but almost want to do more of because of how much you learn, which is go out on a charter.

Go out with a guide. And I'm kind of down on it because it's never like not down on it but it's never as much fun as because you're not solving the problems yourself right and so a lot of what i like about hunting and fishing is solving is the problem solving and thinking that goes into it yeah and like the teamwork right and when you're out with a guide it's kind of like you're not catching the fish if anything you're just like hindering the operation like no that they would catch you know that everything you're doing they would do better operation like no that they would get you know that everything you're doing they would do better and they're the brain behind it and you just stand there

you know with your you know in your hand uh while this person's plotting and figuring and they've gotten the bait together they put the plan together they know what to do and you're like standing oh do-do-do-do and all those And all of a sudden, he's like, all right, drop him down. Right. Tell me when. Yeah. And you've done nothing. Nothing.

Yeah, you haven't even tied your own stuff on. So when people are kind of like, oh, I caught a blankety-blank, you know, I caught an X-pound blankety-blank with a guide, I'm like, the guide caught it. Right. I mean, like, he'd let you reel it in and everything, but it wasn't like your fish. Yeah. In the world of salmon, a steelhead and the oarsman, in a drift boat, the oarsman usually takes, in my opinion, takes credit for most of the fish. He's the only caught fish.

He's the guy that's putting you on the fish. All he's telling you to do is cast over there. The oarsman is a guy exerting the skill. You know, I mean, to your thing, though, with hiring a guide, what it does do, the positives of it, is if you don't have, like, if it's not readily accessible, it's great for shortening a learning curve. Oh, that's what I do. It's killer for that. Yeah, and in this case, what's the name of that operation?

All Rivers and Saltwater Charters. All Rivers and Saltwater Charters. All rivers and saltwater charters. The dudes were solid. They were dialed in. Nick and Ian. Ian was a skipper. That's the only thing that made it a good day. We haven't even gotten to what we did yet.

The only thing that made it a good day is that those guys wound up being like dudes I would fish with anyway. Yeah. And treated us like dudes. They were good enough actors. Or they were just genuine. He felt this way. The interaction was like everyone on equal footing. Equals, yeah. They're like, we clearly like to catch fish.

They clearly still like to catch fish. I say still because I imagine someday it goes away when you guide too long. I asked Ian on the way back in. in i was like what do you do in your spare time because i know when you guide a lot a lot of times you don't fish that much in your spare time and he's like i go fishing so he's passionate he's passionate it's way beyond your job like they like to fish they like to talk about fish like the catch fish um we showed up dressed for the part too we didn't look like you know we just got off the plane yeah so they're probably like okay we're

not gonna be like getting hooks out of people's hands all day long right and man was that fun oh it was so my arms tired and so fun you need a vessel because we went out we were fishing 20 miles out yeah yeah yeah But it was so smooth. If you snapped your fingers and could freeze it solid, you could have ice skated on it. It was much smoother. It was so smooth. Much smoother than a baby's bottom. Oh.

It was so, yeah. My kid, my youngest kid, we got him a pair of little swim shorts that had the built-in underwear. Oh, yeah. And somehow, like, it must not, like, it must irritate him a little bit or something when he's wet with that mesh on him because now he runs around making everyone he pulls his pants down and makes everyone itch his butt really?

so he'll lay on my lap he'll lay on my lap and it's got like itch his butt cheeks and he kind of just gets all dreamy looking and wants to fall asleep. Really? It's like scratching a cat's belly? Like a dog.

Dude, he loves it. He's having his butt cheeks scratched, man. What's wrong with his own fingers? Because he likes to luxuriate, man. He wants you to get in a nice spot where you can lay down with his butt in your face, you know, and you start, like, scratching his butt cheeks a little bit. It's like you're scratching a dog on the yeah and he just like did like passes out he's yeah and you quit and you kind of like joel's awake

so much smoother than the baby's bottom and i'm saying that with where with where i have knowledge of what that feels like um and in a lot of places like lingcod so if if you go to people in the know on pacific saltwater fish lingcod have your reputation as being one of the one of the greats oh sure upper echelon bottom fish for sure like one of the oh for sure yeah sure table quality table fair man they're like top few yeah they're great they're delicious yeah people that know are like sure you know a lot of people like halibut because halibut is very approachable yeah you know it's like reliable it's white dense flaky mild you can do anything with it But like lean cod is kind of a better version.

Yeah, definitely. Kind of a better version. Think like true cod, but more oil. Boiler, yeah. It's like, yeah, they're delicious. Whether you want to put them on a grill, whether you want to beer batter them up and fry them, make tacos, anything you want, the answer is yes.

They're delicious. They don't hold together on a grill as well as Alavet does, I don't think. Yeah, probably not. But they're definitely worthy of a grill. But they're, yeah. Yeah. They're great. They're good.

I love them. They reg them out. Like, the regs vary so much. So, in Southeast Alaska, you know, there's, you know, people have bottom end limits, like, everything, right? It's got to be like over X inches in some places they have a slot like out in the San Juan Islands where my buddy Pooter lives

the slot is 26 to 36 inches those are the ones you can keep you're allowed to keep it has to be a minimum of 26 but it has to be under 36. You know if there's a different term when it's the opposite?

Because in North Carolina, for redfish, you can keep them up to 17 and then over 27. Man, I'm sure there's a term for it, but I don't know it. It's like a reverse slot. I'd like to know it, though. It's kind of like the regs on if a guy wanted to keep a largemouth bass in a lake. I think it's still referred to as a slot limit. No, a slot is only when there's a bottom

and top cap. Okay. You've got to fall on the slot. When we were out, last year I went out and caught one because you're allowed one a day. Up there, you're allowed two a day. Here, no slot limit. Up there, north of here because you're allowed one a day. Up there, you're allowed two a day here. No slot limit. But up there, north of here, you're allowed one a day.

So last year I went out, caught one. It hit the slot. This year I go out, caught one. It hit the slot. And I dubbed myself the slot tickler. So my wife thought it was a repugnant term. No. But I just thought I can tickle them

right in the slot. On the slot size. On that, right? Just speaking, just link odd. But here, you're allowed two per person

in this zone. Two per person. No size limit. And we motor out and first stop. Like what? 17 miles out. I think he said 12 to catch. 12 for the flounder.

To get some bait. To fish bait. Or sand dabs. We got little rigs with an eight-ounce lead ball. And there's a couple look like oversized crappie jigs. Yeah. With a little bit of squid tentacle. And dropped down and caught bait.

And we caught 20 flounder that were not, 20 flounder the size of your hand. Sure. And there was a handful of species down there. Yeah. Little flatfish. Yeah. I was, I had, that's when the good time started, man. I was having fun doing that.

Oh, man. My kid could stay there all day fishing for bait. So, fished up a bunch of bait and put 20 of them in a live well. Yep. And then motored out a ways more. And normally when you're fishing link cod, you're fishing, they like the tops of stuff. So the tops of very sharp ridge lines, the tops of underwater spires, the tops of underwater spires the tops of underwater peaks like the tops of stuff and rockfish tend to like the sides of stuff but out here he said there's so little

structure that any little feature will hold fish and we were on uh he was saying just like any discrepancy in the bottom or it could just simply be that like we were on, he was saying just like any discrepancy in the bottom, or it could just simply be that, like we were fishing on a feature that was only a couple feet higher than the surrounding stuff. Yeah. It was like a, like, it was like an area that was a harder bottom. It was a little bit of a rise up, like maybe some old rock down there, but still pretty smooth. He said any feature will gang them up. Yeah. That's what he said it totally blows me away that you can have this like

so uniform bottom and there's one little hummock or hill in it and that's all it takes and they must have been piled up it must have been because we made what how many passes did we make three three three passes over we never made a pass without getting a fish at least one or two so we had six dudes five grown-ups my older boy and so we're allowed to put 12 lean cod in the boat and yeah there's maybe a few passes yeah four passes and you rig that flounder like you put a hook through his lip you know run the other hook around back by his tail, put it in there, drop it down, and boom. That's kind of what it sounds like.

If you could hear it, no, if you could hear it, I think it would sound like, it would sound like, rah, rah, rah, nah! Right? What exactly is making that sound? in other places ling cod just right the only word i could think for it i don't want to say the word i could think for how ling cod normally hits i was gonna say b slap it like they b slap that baby yeah right here they mouth it kind of pick I was going to say B-slap it. Like they B-slapped that bait. Right?

But here they mouth it. Kind of pick it up. They mouth it. Then all of a sudden, he's just going. I'd like to see it all. And toads. Yeah. Big toads. Big toads.

Dragons. Dragons. Small good dragon. Like you could take both your fists. You could take both your fists together. How big was the biggest one we had? 15, 16 pounds? More than that.

I would say just less than 20. 18, 19, 20 at the top. You could take both your fists, knuckle to knuckle. They're nice, though. And stick it in his mouth without touching the teeth. Yeah. And my God, when he's fully flared out like that we should talk about teeth i think that's why people call them dragons yeah it's because the mouth he could you

could like you know when you fold your socks right how you could like take your mouth your sock and like jam it reverse it yeah it's almost like you open that mouth up it's like you could put the fish back through the mouth yeah yeah yeah yeah you could you could like they're a while you could cut them off at the gills and then turn around and send his car his corpse his carcass back through his mouth no problem member of the sculpin family just an amazing fish in a in a pectoral fin that doesn't quit no a pectoral fin the size of your hand spread out yeah size of a grown man's hand completely spread out snaky it's one of those fish people i was like oh he's ugly and i'm like yeah but in a beautiful sort of way in a beautiful kind of way yeah and they get like the females get

that big old belly on them you know that big old lingcod apple bottom kind of just back there by their uh vent they just get this big swollen belly and they're just pretty when they come out of the water they're cool looking with their blotchy uniforms kind of colors on them and they're really they're really cool i think they're super cool yeah i think those predatory predator ambush predator fish are really cool. I think they're super cool. Yeah, I think those predatory ambush predator fish are really cool. I mean, fishing them off the jetties and stuff back into sound. Yeah. I mean, they hide in the rocks.

Yeah. And you just work a swim shad down over the rocks, and they just hang there, man. They wait for bait to just come and they're just yeah that's that's what surprised me you guys talking about it where i always associate them with 100 plus feet of water yeah i didn't know they'll come up shallow yeah i've caught them in less than 10 i've caught them right out here not far from here in less than 10 yeah on the opener in the sound we just fished the jetties yeah it's like 20 feet just you you hit the rocks and just work it down the rocks and you're laying in the jetty yeah i'll be standing on the jetty fishing like the foot of

the jetty basically it's a formidable looking fish man yeah freaking fangs in there there's two now there's some footage you can find online where there's a there's a couple spires in southeast alaska where they've closed it as a study area it's called like spires in southeast Alaska where they've closed it as a study area. It's called Spires Marine Park. It's something or another. Just a very small area, but these seamounts. They call them seamounts. There's a couple small seamounts.

They've closed the fishing just for research purposes. There's some submersible footage that came from a submersible that went down to one of these spires to film what's going on down there. And there's lingcod down there, giants laying, touching side by side. So like laying on the rock where they're actually making body contact with

each other, just like spooning. And there's lingcod that are laying stacked sideways. On them? On each other, just like spooning. And there's lingcod that are laying stacked sideways. On them? On each other. They're spawning? Kind of crisscrossing each other, you mean? No, just everywhere, laying all over.

Wow. It's like stacked into the good little spots. Wow. It's just like us. It's just not what you picture when you picture what's going on down there in the bottom of the ocean. Everybody wants the best fishing spot. Yeah there's yeah they're crowded in like steelhead fishermen yeah into the zone man it's like whatever the current brings stuff by and they just want to be in the spot yeah and so pretty quickly we had bam bam bam bam bam we had 12

yeah those fish are like 10 years old pretty fast some of them i don't know i don't know how fast they grow i don't know much about that rockfish grow really super slow yeah they are those super slow growers i know that and the way they regulate here too so like i said it's like north of here you go out and you fish lane con you're allowed one a day it's a six week season you're allowed one a day and he's got to be between 26 and 36 inches. Here you're allowed two a day, but what they do is they open certain depths. So early seasonal open, you can't fish any deeper than, what, 120? Something like that.

And then you get to a certain date, and they'll stagger it out and let you go down and fish to, like, I don't know what it is right now, but they'll let you go to the next depth out and fish to like an unlimited depth or like another another chunk of depth in order to spread out people's pressure angler pressure as you go out but man just like judging by like the very anecdotal stuff of what happened the day it does not seem like it seems like a pretty well-managed fishery yeah it could be like that because then the minute we get done going after lingcod we go to get rockfish and that was unbelievable yeah that stuff's like that some of the best i've ever seen that's crazy and rockfish i think there's like in the pacific i think there's 32 different species of rockfish running around. Upper 20s, just even in Alaska waters.

And they regulate them up there where you have like pelagic and non-pelagic rockfish. So some rockfish are bottom dwellers that associate with a certain feature and don't move around a whole ton. And then you have your pelagic rockfish, which roam around in these big schools. And we were getting on the pelagic rockfish, where we're in 200 feet of water, but the school is suspended 50 feet below the boat. From 50 to 70 feet below. And holy shit.

Never seen anything like that. No, that was insane. It was a hootenanny. Two at a time. Especially compared to the ones that we, that was insane. Well, especially compared to the ones that we're catching up at your place usually. The yellow eyes are big, but the average quillback and

whatever else we catch, yeah, maybe. Yeah. Like a big dusky. Yeah. No, you're right. A quillback's not nowhere near two. Your average quillback. Half a pound. Yeah. But then a yellow eye will be some bruisers. Yeah.

14 would be big. I mean, not big, but a normal day out, if you got one of those 13, 14 pounds, that's a big one. Yeah. You'll hear of them, and I think there used to be a lot more of them. It would be 30 pounds, 35 pounds. You hear that. But typically, if you get a 14 or it's like wow look at that son of a bitch right these today were what on average the rockfish yeah oh

boy three to five i would say three to five's fair yeah gray and yellowtail yeah black black rockfish and yellowtail rockfish and beauties beauties though some of those yellowtail rockfish had shoulders on them man they were nice yeah they're you want to picture it man they're shaped like a um you imagine like the body shape is like a souped up beefy linebacker smallmouth yeah yeah smallmouth Yeah, yeah. Small mouth bass. Yeah. Not as like wide as, say, as a large mouth. Like wide if you're looking down at them at the top of their back. They're not as wide as a large mouth. But they're built profile-wise a lot like that. Built for fighting.

Yeah, man. They're cool too, man. They're beautiful too. Yeah, you drop it down through the school and you got two hooks on. And you drop it down through the school and as soon as you put the brakes on it, then most of the time you're pulling up doubles. Yep. We had more doubles today.

I was shocked how many doubles we had. I mean, quick. You drop it down through that school, you get a bite and it's wham. I think you get that first one and as you're reeling it up that little fly is dangling or whatever it is and everybody's going nuts now flies up there dancing around and the other one's like oh what's that yeah like don't mind if i do i mean we boated 40 plus rock fishing under that many minutes probably yeah it was definitely yeah i would say yeah oh for sure and then there you have it where you got 100 plus pounds of you got yeah 100 plus pounds of rockfish laying there yeah

seven rockfish per person it's a good limit two ling cod man yeah that was probably it's like what was that a hundred quart uh cooler yeah? That he had back there? It was bigger than that. It was bigger than that, wasn't it? It was a little bigger than that, I think, wasn't it? Oh, maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, so we had 12 lingcod and a hold on ice, and then we had that giant cooler completely full of rockfish. You ever see Cheech and Chong's the next movie?

Yeah. Where it's all about how they got that big duffel bag of weed the roam around it's the army duffel bag full of weed and someone asked him what he's gonna do with it all and he says he's gonna smoke some sell some and party party with some it's like that much fish man yeah yeah smoke some yeah i'm not gonna sell smoke some eat some smoke some eat something party with some yeah i'm not gonna sell it i'm not gonna sell it smoke some eat some smoke some eat something party with something i'm gonna give some out to my neighbors yeah i got a couple neighbors that i hook up yeah i don't give them like crazy stuff that's hard to deal with but

like i if i go to my neighbors and uh bring them like a like a ling cod filet probably not the whole thing like enough for their family to have a feed off of, that score is big. Sure. I get it all ready. Yeah. That's the big thing with my old man

was giving away fish in game. He'd always be really careful to give it away. We'd have to bring it to neighbors around when I was growing up. And to give it away in table-ready form.

Yeah. Ready to cook. Yeah. You don't go over and dump a meat game bag full of hairy bones. Gil them a fish. Some hairy boned-out mess in a bloody meat bag. You get it all nice, man. It's like to go to your neighbor with a hunk of fish or a deer steak or whatever

and be like, this is ready to prepare. And what you want to do is do this and this that's a way to get neighbors on your side i've actually seasoned a fillet of fish before and then for a neighbor that just you know is not accustomed to cooking fish so throw this on the grill for this many minutes or whatever it's just easy for them i got some elderly neighbors neighbors that are uh and working on some hunting permissions with them oh and i shelled some shrimp last time during shrimp and season they'll definitely be getting some shelled shrimp shelled shrimp heads off shelled put these in the pan so i'll pay them they'll be getting some lingcod maybe seasoned i love it yeah do it i do

slow rolling it it was just nuts it was almost surreal it's nice to give stuff away man i was like call it like i love it like venison diplomacy man it's exactly because you can just picture like my neighbors don't hunt or you know yeah barely fish if you picture someone like brings up like yeah i'm damn hunters right they probably gonna be like yeah i don't know i live on that next one he's all right brings me all kinds of yeah it's like the dudes at work they're like oh tommy edson yeah he's the one that's always bringing in that pepperoni he made yeah he's got some good pepperoni makes good pepperoni yeah yeah it's good my. I like that.

I know a guy that hunts. Yeah, he hunts that stuff. Always bringing me pepperoni sticks. Always handing out pepperoni sticks at work. It's like, I don't know. It's a good image. I'm not mad at it. The block I used to live on, neighbors loved this time of year because I had a boat. Every time I'd go out, i'd drop four crab pots i'd go out and

i'd fish for coho and chinook and come back with salmon fillets and then you know you can only eat so many as good as dungeness crab is you can only eat so much of it i'd shell it for them bring them a little baggie of dungeness all they gotta do is whip up that sauce extra mile holy potatoes oh man crack it up curious i gotta do. Oh, man, crack it up. Curious. I got to do it for my family anyway. Crack it up, give it to my in-laws. Just sit there and just go to work, man.

Are you one of those dudes? I got to ask you something. Are you one of those dudes that shells your crab up and then eats it? No, no, no. Or do you eat it as you shell it? I eat it as I shell it. No, we pick crab.

We can maintain our friendship. But my in-laws, they pay like the $39 a pound for shelled crab. So when I get a bunch of it. What do you mean? They go to a store? They go down to Pike Place Market and buy the shelled Dungeness crab for $40 a pound or whatever it is. It's ridiculous. So when I get a bunch of crab.

Cooked whole Dungeness crab, you say, is. It's ridiculous. So when I get a bunch of crab, I sit there. Cooked whole Dutch Ness crab, you say, is what you're saying. Cooked whole, cracked out of the meat. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do they do a good job of picking it, or do you still get little chunks? What do you mean? When you buy picked crab meat, is it clean? It's pretty clean, but you still get some frag.

Every once in a while, you do get some frag. Yeah. My kids, when they're eating crab cakes and they find chunks of shell, they always like to point it out to me. You'll get it, yeah. Yeah, it's like getting an eggshell in an omelet. You don't get any frag in a bag. No chef never heard about it.

You pick a clean little frag. They got to hear about it every time. I don't mind picking a little bit of it and freezing little vacuum-sealed bags of pit crab. What I did last year, what someone turned me on to was, and I did an experiment. They said to pick your crab, put it in a jar, and pour milk over it. I don't know. The Lord knows why. Pour milk over it and freeze it.

So freeze it in a mason jar in milk. So I froze some of that stuff for a year just to see okay and recently uh thawed it out drained it made some crab cakes it was almost as good as if you had yeah really worked very well we're good very well i mean i've heard visiting visiting out of town relatives i've heard the same thing about guys freezing spot prong tails it's hard i don't like freezing they freeze them they freeze them in milk like you're saying yeah i'd like to try it because the key to freezing those things is to wash them very thoroughly because any of that little rust colored gut

liquid yeah that when you pull his tail off that stuff i don't think they freeze that well but i would be interested in trying another strategy when i get a bunch of those in the freezer i go through them quick yeah they're delicious go through them quick yeah no this fish what i'll do is i'll i used to like i used to be down on vac seals i used to be down on vacuum bags and i don't know if it's from using a lot of like low quality vacuum bags but be down on vacuum bags because i found that so often i would vac seal something and And then a month later, look, and it wasn't vac sealed anymore. And I used to think that the bags were bad, that the seals gave out. And what I now realize is that I was treating them too rough,

digging around in the freezer and abrading the bags. Or I would be up in my fish shack and we would vac seal fish. And then I'd just throw it all into a cooler, right? And let it jostle around and check it on an airplane and bring it home. And I'd be like, oh, the vacuum bag, they lost their seal. Because what you're doing is like banging it around and it makes holes and stuff. And once I realized that you can eliminate that with careful handling or to put when you're packing them in a fish box or cooler put a layer down put a layer of newsprint or something down put more in there i'd never have problems with it anymore now when i vac seal

something i don't know something like a better quality bag or what, but when I vac seal something out, that thing stays vac sealed. Yeah. There's definitely different levels. We've used some knockoff brands, and the Western ones that we're using now seem to be a lot thicker. Yeah. And I used to mess around where I had, you know, like, i don't know man like little rinky dink

rinky dink bad sealers that didn't pull a seal i've definitely had that happen yeah like you end up with an old whatever brand that's been sitting in somebody's cupboard that you borrow it happened to me for a while and i tried to get through a deer one year by doing it because it was just and it just didn't work out man yeah i love the one the one i got now it's like i keep it on a high shelf it's a it's like a they call it the chamber yeah well no i got a chamber see i got like a weston chamber seater which i love at my fish shack but i just have like the the 2300 model which is heavy right like i keep it on a high shelf and it's like you're getting it down but it's this big heavy thing but i'm telling you what man you pull seal on that thing it cranks i love them now so what i'm getting at now is i'm

gonna take these fish home and i'll pat them dry like'll rinse it, give it a light rinse. I'll actually pat that thing dry and get those things all ready and put them in those serving size things, zap them in the sealer, lay them in the freezer, and it just looks beautiful when you get them all lined up. Oh, yeah. It's like love it. I don't freeze fish in water. I used to freeze fish in water.

I don't freeze them in water now. You got to dry them though. Pat water now. You got to dry them, though. Pat them dry. You got to dry them. You know, pat them dry and freeze them. And I find that you can get away with freezing them longer, freeze fish longer with the skin off. Why do you think that is?

Why is that? Because I've just discovered over time, I think there's a lot of slime in that skin. Oh, that's good. And so I oftentimes freeze fish skin on. And I you pull if you let a fish go too long in your freezer and you pull it off and you're like eh like i'm always thinking like will my wife flag this as skanky right i think like the way salmon doesn't last that long in a freezer no if if if you pull it out and it's a little skanky like Do a Pepsi challenge and take a skinned salmon filet, skinned walleye filet, skinned lingcod filet, whatever it is.

One with skin off, one with skin on. Vax seal them both. Put them in your freezer for five months. Pull them out and whiff them. I'm telling you, man, that skin one, there's a layer of fat and there's some slime yeah and maybe there's like bacteria holds on it better so you're gonna pull it out and that one with the skin is gonna be skankier than the one without skin i can see that i dry the heck out of my skin though like i with salmon yeah i mean i go through rolls of paper towels if I'm vacuum sealing a bunch of fish with skin.

And then I put meat to meat. So you have skin out. Gotcha. Yeah, you don't want skin on your flesh. The reason we'll do that with salmon is because I keep... I'm still eating coho from last June. Really? That's good.

My freezer. The reason we'll do, sometimes we'll freeze salmon like that, meat to meat, skin out, is because if you don't have time to pull the pin bones, the pin bones can abrade the vacuum bags if you pull a good suck on it. For sure. That's a good tip. The pin bones can poke a hole in your vac bag, and then you think you got a sweet looking salmon in your freezer, and then a week later it's not

because the pin bone ruptured the thing. For that matter, any bone can do it. You've got to be real careful. I have a pair of $9 Japanese bone pickers. The world's greatest book ever made. I can't tell you what it's called because I can't read Japanese.

My buddy brought me a Japanese fish cleaning book from Japan. There's not a fish on the plant that's not in this book i'm surprised it's not how to clean a whale shark in this book like everything is in this book man from everything is in this book breakdown of how to do it and i noticed this guy's always using these like special bone picking pliers so i bought these these souped up japanese bone pickers for nine bucks love those things really where but i found them on amazon they just got they're just like a needle nose with just flat no it's like a fingernail clipper but not but strong and it's wide so you can pluck two three at a time when you're pulling pinballs oh wow yeah and i keep

that in a special corner of a special drawer. I just use needle nose, but that sounds like it's... No. You need these Japanese bone pickers. Yeah, I do. Anything else? Good stuff. Now a great day.

Jimmy, you got anything to add? You didn't say anything about our fishing trip. You didn't have any fun? Oh, my goodness gracious. I'm trying to take care of my arm. It's sore. From all that cranking? All that cranking.

That was awfully fun. That's my one gripe. I know they like to use light tackle because the sports like it. But I would have liked to have my own jigging rod. Right. Where there's a better, where it's a little bit thicker. Right. Just a little heavier.

Heavier rods. Maybe just a little bit thicker. Right. Just a little heavier. Maybe just a little bit heavier. Maybe just a touch bigger. That's something with big freaking dragons, man. You're out in significant amounts. You're out in 200 feet of water and that reel is kind of twisting. I kind of want something I can really get some purchase on with my hand up front. I feel like I'm sneaking my hand

up the blank itself off the grip on the front just to try to get some torque on that thing and change up my grip. I just need some purchase up there. My main jigging rod, the Widowmaker, has the front grip on the Widowmaker is like holding a beer bottle. And, man, you could horse up some fish with that thing, man. That's what I wish.

Because it's got a soft foamy thing and then you got a big handle like a dial i got this like a like a dial with level one yeah that you can grab out of that and you can grab that grip and when it's time to get it done and get a fish up off you know sucking them up off 250 feet of water it just is very comfortable how long is it long yeah i'd like i feel like i'd like to mention the name of the charter guys again were you sleeping earlier oh again yeah yeah no they were dialed i like those guys quite a bit yeah they're just good it's great boat great places that seem like it might be a little underutilized i don't know all. All Rivers and Saltwater Charters. Saltwater Charters?

All Rivers and Saltwater Charters. And it was Ian and Nick, correct? Yeah, and I don't know. If those dudes couldn't go, I don't know that I would say don't only go. Right. Because you kind of think that you like to hope that the company in general fosters that kind of. Oh, absolutely. I don't know. Maybe it was a fluke that those guys are so cool to hang out with.

But you like to think that the company in general fosters that kind of relationship. Because it was like fishing with dudes that you would normally fish with. Exactly. It wasn't some blowhard screaming at you because you had some sunscreen on your hand and then touched his rod or something. We had the other boat pull up next to us. Yeah, and they seemed like they were having a great time too. Talking on the radio with him.

Yeah, they weren't catching nearly the amount of fish that we were catching. No, but they were trying to do something different. But they were having a great time. They were having a good time, but they were trying to salmon snob but they were having a great time they were having a good time but they were trying to salmon snot yeah yeah they rock yeah they were doing a combo trip sailing rockfish but they yeah seemed like a great they totally looked like they were having a good time though yeah so i think regardless it's just a good operation yeah if i was going to tell someone in this zone like if i was going to tell someone within a day's drive

or whatever if they want to do like a meat run. Yeah. Westport is treated as well. Like a very good meat run. Yeah. I would be like, I would go out and say like, I would go out, hope for the right weather, and go out and do the lingcod rockfish. Yeah. Heck yeah. Far as having like a year's worth of fish tacos.

Yeah. We got that covered. Like you can catch salmon and steelhead and all that stuff in rivers if you want closer to home, man. If you're going to run to the coast, man, take a rockfish and a week off trip, dude. My little boy, he's like, we're in the middle of nowhere. Once you realize you can't like see the beach. And we saw an oceanic sunfish. We did.

And a seal that was having some issues. A dying seal. Baby seal. Perhaps blind. A blind deaf seal. Best fishing trip of his life. Eight years. I take a little bit of offense to that.

He's had some good days on the water. He really liked it. I liked it. Seeing the oceanic sunfish is cool so it's like those big weird fish they're like round with a fin on top bottom they kind of lay on their side or lay upright and cruise the world's ocean feeding on jellyfish at the surface i did not know they ate jellyfish i wonder i always wondered what they're doing up there on the top i thought they were like and, that fish could turn up in Hawaii. Yeah.

That's amazing. They just roam around, man. They got to get hit by boats, you know. Oh, for sure. All the time. So that was cool. Saw a seal that had some serious problems, like an emaciated baby seal.

Not quite totally close to death, but maybe leaning in that direction eventually. He was weird. I've never seen a seal with barnacles on it like that. He wasn't doing too good. Yeah, he was just kind of rolling around. Anything else? Any other highlights?

No, just good company. Always good traveling. Dude, lots of fish. Lots of fish. Nice big thing caught. And none of them was probably flay knives, so the dude had to clean all that fish. Yeah.

He was pretty handy. Any day at all i felt bad that's a hell of a deal i just like stay i don't like i get uncomfortable staying around watching someone work yeah i do too too that's an awkward situation so here he is cleaning yeah he was handy with that knife those situations they'd rather have you out of their way than an actor trying to help. Yeah, and he'd rather, I think, do the work and make the extra cash. Yeah. Rather than you trying to pay him 38 bucks because he claimed you cleaned four. Yeah.

40. I got four. Yeah. That's probably why he brings one flay knife. Yeah. There's a 100% chance he does better than me anyway yeah i noticed they had a sign up too that said if you lost your ride you got to pay for it which could have hit me and jimmy doran there i guess you paid for that one i did we were out trolling salmon on uh jimmy doran's boat on july 3rd he keeps the boat moored

in seattle i do and he had bought his wife, his girlfriend. You going to marry her? More than likely. I think you should. I've met both of you. She's alright. I've met both of you and I think you should. I'm a very fortunate dude. She's very tolerant. Let's just put it that way.

For Christmas, he buys her a fishing rod, which she doesn't want anyways. I can't believe you haven't married her already. If there's any weather at all she's just sick so he's like you know I really thought about us and thought about you and I've been thinking a lot about what you need you know what I can bring to this and I bought you this fish pole and we're fighting a fish and look at my kids there like it's a little bit chaotic for a second and he he's working on a rod and lays the rod on the roof of the boat oh that moved it out of the way and i just laid it

on there on the yeah and he's trying to net this he's trying to net a king that we had on and all sudden that rod into the drink dunzo he's like gonna jump in and like no did you tell her you lost it or did you just Go buy another one I haven't actually mentioned it It hasn't come up It hasn't come up She's like so how's my fishing rod Yeah

She's not gonna ask I'm like oh it's fine It's right there Cause I gotta go up to John's And buy a new one I feel like Jimmy I've been looking high and low I've been looking high and low

For that fishing rod You purchased me for Christmas Me and my girlfriends Are gonna go on a trip next week Yeah I know But it's a sucky feeling To watch a few hundred bucks Sink to the bottom of the ocean Oh and here You know that thing Had never to go on a trip next week. Yeah, I know. But it's a sucky feeling to watch a few hundred bucks sink to the bottom of the ocean, man. Oh, and that thing had never even been on a downrigger.

It had never been fished. I had rigged it for the very first time that day because I was having additional people on the boat. And it was just irony. And it's the karma of it all because let's be straight. It was Christmas, and I was a little jammed up. And we've been together long enough that buying presents has become fairly problematic because we've already bought everything. I saw the fish in her eye and I'm like,

she's not going to give a shit about that thing. But it's just more wrapped up crap under the tree. I'm trying to keep it even because she just goes so overboard every year with Christmas. Oh, you're trying to stack it up to make it look like you bought her more stuff. Like I did. I thought, well, maybe she might use it.

I mean, at some point she won. If we get a day like we had today on the water where it's just nothing, sure, she'll go fishing with me if we have conditions like we had today. But the reality was like, hey, you know, probably should have a backup rod on that boat. Did she buy you like a yoga mat? That is the perfect, perfect analogy. That is it.

A yoga mat is my line. You hit the nail squarely on the head. So, yeah, I'm definitely not going to let her listen to this one. Yeah, it was a good day. We caught fish. Awesome. Yeah, it's one of the greatest things about where we live is you know in seattle it's i could be on my couch and i like to say keep my boat more than she'll show and i i could literally

be on the couch somebody calls or i get a wild hair and i could have down riggers in the water in 35 40 minutes yeah when i was trying to i was trying to talk you into moving back to montana with me you said that they don't troll salmon yeah we don't know my boat won't do a whole lot there i told you you can go there and troll big old nasty browns up out of reservoirs. Yeah, yeah. Well, big old nasty

muddy tasting browns Montana's looking pretty good lately. I'll tell you that much. Yeah. Yanni, you got any final thoughts? I need to make a correction

before someone emails in about my reverse slot. I think I'm just tired and I was thinking backwards. We had a day last year where we were catching them on both sides of the slot and having to throw them back. Because you weren't slot tickling. Yeah, I wasn't slot tickling.

It's just 18 to 27. Got to be within the slot. No seasickness today for you? No. I took Dramamine. You look like you took something. Yeah, but you can't. Today's not a day to test that. I can't say it worked because it, you know. You look like you took something. Yeah. But you can't. Today's not a day to test that.

I can't say it worked because it was so slick. It was like being out on a lake in Michigan, you know. Yeah. I lost, like, we talked about this before, but fishing with you out when you've had seasickness, I find myself, like, usually I just have nothing but love for you. And every time I look at you, I'm like, oh, Giannis. But that day watching you all, like, disinterested and sick and everything, I looked at you and I just wanted to, like, kick, Giannis. But that day watching you all disinterested and sick and everything,

I looked at you and I just wanted to kick you off the boat. I was like one of those people that relies on I need your strength. And seeing you at that and then seeing you at less than that, it wasn't like love came up. It was like I could only

I realized that my love for him is very shallow it's very shallow it relies on him being like eager together eager attentive yeah anticipating what's gonna happen next but to see him just like weakened and all sick and not paying attention he was vulnerable wish he had a fish on and he wasn't even aware of it at one point i think and i was like oh, man. Just go further up front. Get out of my sight. Get out of my sight.

You make me sick. Your sickness makes me sick. Tony, any final thoughts? I don't really feel that way about Giannis. I mean, I did for a minute, but then I caught myself. Yeah, I got it. It was a great day. I mean, we couldn't have hit a better day on the water.

So, fantastic. I know we're telling all these mugs to go out, like telling people, oh, you should go do this trip. Watch, like, you come out just like, yeah. Everybody's sick. Nothing hit. You got a hook stuck to your hand. It does not get any better than it got today.

It's too rough to piss, so you got to go on your pants. It's great. It's excellent. Great place. Tommy, any final concluders? You looking to dig into that grizzly? I am. I guess my concluder is, too, that it's so nice.

Maybe it's not so nice for the people that live here in westport but it's uh middle of july summer and uh it's quiet here yeah it's great this area feels like like used to have more activity than it does now it did when i like we spent a lot of time camping here as a kid man man. Even just driving down the main drag of this place is like a trip past your old high school. Camping with my folks and donating tackle on all the local jetties and running my old man out of $5 bills for extra tackle. It's just like, it's crazy. I remember mornings, I've said this a couple times on this little trip,

but I remember mornings where you'd this a couple times on this little trip but like i remember mornings where you go down to that little main drag where all the charter boats were and it was shoulder to shoulder guys it was just just hustle and bustle like it was afternoon bustling and now it's like you know you guys saw this morning. There's a few people walking around here. It's sleepy. You describe, yeah, you know, we all, yeah, it's just not what it once was. And it's like. I prefer it like this. Oh, I do too.

I mean, I prefer it like this, but that's selfish, right? Yeah, part of me is sad, you know, and in a selfish way, I like it. I agree. But part of me is sad because I knew what it once was and how many different even charter boat companies there were for the big boats. And it's like now they're down to two, I think. I think there was at least five or six. Now they're down to two companies, probably, I don't know, a handful of boats. It's just commercially true.

Yeah, it's – I don't know what it's credited to, but it's like, I don't know, like get your butts to Westport. Yeah. Take your asses fishing, man. It's worth it. Yeah, I remember like moving out in this area, you know, and my wife, you know, because, you know, you like to fantasize, oh, maybe we'll buy a cabin, wherever.

I remember her being like, oh, we should get a cabin out in the Santa Montes. I'd be like, screw that, man. Go out to the coast and get a place. Coast, coast. Yeah, coast, coast. Coast, the real one.

Yeah. Anything else? Anyone? Do you have anything else? Can't wait to get home and eat some fish. Me too, man. I'm going to make

some killer fish tacos tomorrow. When you're sitting back in Montana, far from the ocean, half your house, half your house, fish me too man i'm gonna make some killer fish tacos tomorrow when you're sitting back in montana far from the ocean half your house half your house missing while you work on your big where you work on your big addition eating some fish cooking on the camp yeah taste of the ocean i've been camping out you know so i've been making a lot of meals that make a very camping in his house you know small footprint right like somehow i got talked into making pancakes the other day and then i just freaking batter everywhere i'm like who was

thinking about this not thinking about doing the dishes but so i was like frying shit was off the off the table but not anymore i'll pay for the extra dishes well you got a grill outside i'll say maybe you could do in the backyard i was just. I know, but it's the prep. All the bowls and the breading. Dealing with the oil afterwards. Are you still doing that, by the way? Do you feel like it's paying off, filtering your oil? Yeah, I've been filtering my oil. Love it.

It's paying off. Huge difference. Because I run peanut oil. And you start feeling like a moron filling that fryer with peanut oil when you gotta yeah man i get it warm five seven bucks a gallon yep i bring it up warm enough to where like to break down the viscosity a little bit i don't know why i just do get it warm run it through that uh that. It comes out looking like I don't know, light honey.

Lighter than light honey. Looks like urine. If you're teensy dehydrated. You know. I'm going to start putting that in cookbooks. Get some piss colored oil

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