The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 234: Deep Drop Boyz

Episode Date: August 17, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with Miles Nolte, Joe Cermele, Rick Smith, Corinne Schneider, and Janis Putelis.Topics discussed: Jani's school report on Hobo the linx; how Joe moved across the river for the tax break; the name origin of MeatEater’s new fishing podcast, Bent; Covid hair like Kenny Loggins; the Ghostbusters theme song sound effects; how the super zoom fluke lure has vastly improved Jani's fishing abilities; how the production of strawberries inspire deep passions; a perfect degree of lustiness; Rick’s as an absolutely terrible angler; the logo Steve wants to commission for Rick; primordial muck; glow in the dark this and that; deep dropping with a bespoke reel; disagreements about what the pinnacle of fishing is; sea cucumbers as the gateway to sea diving: and more. 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.

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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. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Presented by OnX Hunt, creators of the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters.

Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with Onyx. While Giannis' attendance record has been exceptionally poor of late, he's here with us in the studio, but he's unable to speak

up right now because he's reading about he's preparing a little school report on a character named Hobo. up right now because he's reading about he's preparing a little school report on a character named hobo on a kid he's preparing a little school he's going to deliver to us the equivalent of when your seventh grader does a lynx report and yanni's for yeah he's gonna he's come on it might be like 11th. He's gearing up to prepare us a little report on links that did, what's his name? Hobo. Hobo the links.

Did an extraordinary little thing. So that's why he's being quiet right now. And Yanni, when you're ready to deliver your report to the audience, speak up. Now, another piece of housekeeping. We have with us Miles Nolte and Joel Cermelli, and they have like an announcement. We do. But you have a decision to make. Joel's not with us.

He's over in Jersey. Eastern PA, but close enough. Oh, Jersey. Hold on a minute. You're not at your house? No, I'm at my house no i'm at my house i'm a jersey guy but i moved across the river for the tax break so so you're you can look over at it yeah pretty much i i moved one step closer to america as i like to say so uh um pennsylvania is better on uh the the

tax man there is not as vicious. Oh, yeah. It's like half. Get more house for your money and pay half the taxes by jumping the river. Huh. Does it kind of hurt your soul, though, to have to claim PA? Because for as much as you love that Jersey identity, is there a loss there? Yeah.

I mean, I still just go with I'm from Jersey. I mean, but if you live here man you live that close you're kind of crazy to to not save the money and hop the river uh the river you you could fish that river i remember when i used to fish the delaware at the pennsylvania new york line i always thought that it was interesting that they allowed you to fish the river with either state's license and they went above and beyond that and made this sort of simplified rules so that you didn't have that confusion of like you could keep on this bank of the river you're allowed to keep like four uh largemouth bass or whatever the hell right but on this side of the river it's not or the season's open over here but it's not open here when we used to live on the saint mary's river

that which is between michigan and ontario holy shit the rules were vastly like everything was different really oh yeah and it was like this very arbitrary seeming line where. Like what side of the river you were on? Everything changed. Really? Like real major differences in regs. It seems just like opening the door for people to take advantage of whatever regs they want to abide. Yeah, there was a situation where some, I wish I remembered. I feel like we reported on this. Joe might remember.

You might remember you might remember miles it was a a tournament bass angler fishing somewhere on the mississippi had inadvertently crossed and into like waters where you weren't allowed to high grade fish or something like that yeah it was brandon palinick that it happened to and he was he was like totally killing everybody and uh it was a technicality he didn't realize he was doing something wrong and i mean he manned up about it he owned up to it but he would have stomped that tournament didn't have something with retaining he like strayed into a state's waters where you couldn't retain yeah you weren't supposed to call you weren't supposed to have fish in your live well.

I forget exactly. So it was a lot of years ago. I forget exactly what it was. He's on the wrong side of some island somewhere. Yep. So anyways, I always thought it was cool that New York and Pennsylvania were like, hey, you got your rules. We got our rules.

But on this shared water, let's just make it that everybody's one license either side. Anywhere in the river, you can have one license. And then we agree that the river has its regs and the river's regs, and we don't bring geopolitics into it in such a confusing fashion. Well, it's funny, though, because up north, that's completely accurate. And I think all the regs are shared, i live actually on the title section so down here like your license you can access the river from either side launch from either side fish either bank but like with the migratory fish stripers in particular jersey guys can't keep anything pennsylvania guys can actually keep one out of the river but it all depends on which side you

launch on so you can't be sneaky about it But with the migratory fish on the southern end, the regs are not exactly the same. Yeah. Anyhow, you live over there. You're not in Jersey, but you're joining us from Pennsylvania. Now, the decision you guys got to make, you and Joe have to decide if you want to do your thing now, your announcement, right? We talk about it now. Yeah. You go about your business, do what you need to do, or you sit here, participate where it makes sense, and then do your announcement.

I mean, I'm going to say let's jump this at the front. Always be at the front of the line, right't don't wait because shit could go south when there's an earthquake something that should be done no time like the present is what i'm at so because you might wait and all of a sudden like rick dies i don't know that that would change the whole thing that would that would that would change the tenor such a downer It was such a downer after Rick died. And Rick died like, oh, by the way. I think it's more likely. We have good news. You'll go on a two-hour tangent.

That's probably. Well, that could happen. That could happen. Depends, though, because as we were talking about earlier, it depends on what kind of people our listeners are, because if it's the last thing they hear, they might then take that direct action after that since it's fresh in their mind.

No, because they can't take the direct action yet. No. It's a seed plant. Oh. It's a seed plant. Sizzle just a little. Oh, we're wrong? What are you saying?

Tell us more, Corinne. Oh, yeah. Corinne's also going to dig a hole even deeper in GMOs. Corinne's emerging as, I was telling her earlier, Corinne's our not-quite-there-yet resident GMO expert. Everyone's along for the ride as Corinne becomes a subject matter expert on GMO strawberries. And where they end

and arctic char begin. Tell me more. Yeah, let's hit that later. But no, for folks listening now... Ooh. I can, I can. Just go back to whatever you're doing, Joe and Miles. I'm going to delete that.

Oh, you know what? Just. No, I'll pick up where I left off. No, I think we should do this. Have Phil. People now, we're still talking about this. Have Phil... People now... We're still talking about it. People can hear us talking about it.

But have Phil put a beep. Yeah, have him bleep it. Right? And then we'd still be talking about it now, but it'd be been beeped. And create a lot of enthusiasm for the announcement. Yeah, totally. Totally.

Like at this point, people are like, what is it? By the time that. Is Joe pregnant? Again. By the time that folks are hearing us speak, the thing will already be known. Oh. Oh.

Okay. I think we got to bookend it then. How do you do that? Well, we give the big announcement, big reveal, and then a little reminder on the back end. A reminder, yeah. Like, hey, by the way, remember that thing we said? Yeah. You can do something about that.

I'll put it in terms that you would be able to understand, Miles. It would be that there's a stinger hook. Yep. You got your main hook right in the body of the bait. And you realize that he also had the stinger. Yeah. Throw the stinger in there. I like that.

The stinger will come at the end though. Yep. Yep. So, you know, if you've been paying attention, you already know that Meat Eater has been doing a bunch of fishing stuff for the past year, year and a half now. We got DOS Boat season one out.

We have DOS Boat season two coming very, very soon. We have another little ice fishing project in the works that won't be gone too long. So a bunch of video stuff, all the great stuff we do on the website. And now we got a new podcast. Yes, we do. You guys get to starting.

For free. For free. Well, yeah, no, it's not a paid podcast. Do they have those? No, I'm just throwing that in. I don't know. Sweet. Sweet the deal.

You don't even have to pay for it. You do have to watch me do pitches about my underwear on Instagram to get that free podcast. That's how this deal works. Well, good. Yeah, I think that's a price I can pay. Free media. Free media. We're advertising a free thing.

More free media for MeatEater. For those of you who are even like mildly fishing curious or hardcore fishing, we got a new podcast coming for you. And no offense to the whole like MeatEater podcast thing you guys have been doing here. It's great. But it's not just going to be. Like a super long just wandering bullshit session. It is not going to be this. It is just going to be. Like a super long, just wandering bullshit session. It is not going to be this. It is not going to be this at all.

Tell me more. I'm like really interested. Instead of, you know, just throwing a few people in a room and letting them shoot the shit for hours on end. It's going to be much tighter than that. It's going to be mostly composed of short segments that joe and i have been working on for god joe how long have we been working on this now oh months man since like the early pandemic days yeah you remember the pandemic was just a new thing that's when we started well this is going to be this will pass soon and then we can launch that podcast

yeah so we've been we have been digging into this for months, and it is going to be kind of the opposite of the standard outdoor media podcast format in that we're going to ramble some, but mostly we're going to try and keep it tight. We're going to try and keep you entertained. You might learn something. Who knows? You might laugh. You might cry. You might come away feeling like you didn't waste your time. I don't know.

That's what I'm hoping for. It's a fast-paced variety show. We're going for left and right hooks coming at you constantly here. We keep bringing the variety show thing in, but all I can think of is Garrison Keillor. And I just don't think we're doing Garrison Keillor. That's all I can think about when I hear variety show. You guys aren't going to bring on a yodeler? I'm not promising that'll

never happen but it's not in in any of the ones we have i think garrison made a pretty fine product he did he but he's not the template for this podcast i can tell you that yanni is a real um yanni has a lot of nostalgia yanni likes those old NPR shows He likes Those shows that like You're up in whatever Driving through Duluth On a Sunday morning Just did that

And you hit the search On your The scroll on a rental car And lo and behold Here's Prairie You know like The best of Prairie Home Companion Or Car Talk

Or Car Talk yeah That stuff speaks to Yanni Let's have a little vote Heirie Home Companion or Car Talk. Or Car Talk, yeah. That stuff speaks to Yanni. Let's have a little vote. He's nostalgic. Who here likes Car Talk? I can deal with Car Talk. I cannot deal. Just deal with Car Talk.

I like it. Miles? Okay, I like it. Yeah, I like it. I'd fall in with Rick. Have I listened to it before? Yes. No, I like it.

Would I seek it out? Prairie Home Companion. I think that he Is nostalgic for it Is it Is it a sense of nostalgia Or does it Do you actually feel satisfied Like when you listen to it

I definitely listened to it Growing up I like it If you could put a bug In Yanni's brain When he hears car talk You know what I think The sound would be

That comes out of his brain It would be Aww Aww Aww Joe did you ever listen to it Was that the sound Of baby babies It would be, aww Awww Awww Joe, did you ever listen to it? Is that the sound of baby evil legs? I am not familiar

You've never heard car talk? No Never heard it Those guys are from your neck of the woods Not a public radio man over there Like too much death metal Yeah Not a public radio guy yeah yanni's oh

i think this is the first media reference that you haven't gotten that i've i've been a part of joe like no matter what any media i've referenced you've been like oh yeah i know that one like you i can roll movies and music but other podcasts no the other day i uh chester the fishing guy chester floyd if you're in southwest Montana, book a trip with Chester Floyd. He had his COVID hair going. What's the COVID hair? Long. Like when you don't cut your hair.

Yeah, okay. And I told him he looked like Kenny Loggins. And he had to go look it up. And he didn't know what I was talking about. And when he looked it up. He's pretty young. When he looked it up, he got a haircut very quickly after. The next time I saw him, he had a haircut.

Too young to know Kenny Loggins. Yeah, I mean, he's not old. Kenny Loggins is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Kenny Loggins is a dude who was in the right place at the right time on a couple big movies, man. That's what I was going to say. Like, Danger Zone from Top Gun. Yeah. And then Footloose from Footloose. Didn't he do the Caddyshack? Wasn't that him, too? from Top Gun. Yeah. And then Footloose from Footloose.

Didn't he do the Caddyshack? Wasn't that him, too? Oh, I think so. I'm pretty sure he was the Caddyshack guy. I'm pretty sure you're right. Oh, yeah. How do you become the dude they call when you got a big budget movie and need to tune for it? I mean...

I heard that Huey... This is way off this damn podcast, but real quick. Good thing we got that announcement in. You want to talk about the problem with this podcast? The problem with this podcast... That you're trying to fix with your podcast is what I'm going to say right now. Please. This is the problem.

Please demonstrate our point. Okay. Let me show you what. To solidify the importance of this new fishing podcast, I will tell you a thing you would never have someone tell you how their understanding is that Huey Lewis was supposed to do Ghostbusters. He was supposed to do a song for Ghostbusters. And something fell through. And then who did Ghostbusters? The song?

I only know who did Ghostbusters 2. I don't know. No, who are you going to call? Yeah, 2. I don't know who did the original. No, who are you going to call? Yeah, yeah. I don't know who did that one. Well, that tune wound up being, I could be wrong here. You know what? This actually would fit on your podcast because Huey Lewis is an avid angler.

He's an avid angler. Yeah. So this would fit on your show. I've got a Huey Lewis story, by the way. Yeah. So it would be a great piece for you guys for your show. So just a little heads up here. My understanding is the song that came out was a little too similar to Huey Lewis' version,

and it caused some legal ruckus. Huh. Interesting. Anyhow, you got a new podcast coming out. Ray Parker Jr. I mean, we might have to talk about Huey Lewis. If we did do this form of a podcast, which we don't, I want to be clear, but we might have to bring Huey Lewis on to defend himself because Montana anglers do not like that guy.

I hear that. He fought really hard to privatize this little stretch of water that had been public for a very long time and was instrumental in that. So he's not very well liked among the angling community out here. That surprises me because he kind of had that sort of happy-go-lucky everyman. He did. That was his deal. Groove.

And then he's like, but I don't want all these dirt bags traipsing up and down my creek. Don't be floating on my water. Yeah. This other one, I cannot confirm. This is a rumor I heard through the guide mill from my guide days. But a buddy of mine claims he guided him. And he was all excited about it. He's like, oh, I got Hugh Lewis in my boat.

This is gonna be great. He said that guy got on his boat and sang from the moment they shoved off the dock to the moment he put the boat back on the trailer. And at first he was like, oh, this is cool. I'm getting like my own private Hugh Lewis concert. And about two hours in, he was like, Jesus Christ.

Just sang a lot. Just sang constantly. He was like, wish I brought earplugs saying constantly he's like wish i brought your plugs hip to b square which again at first it sounds cool but like four hours in maybe it's not so cool anymore yeah all right i'm pretty sure the conflicting ghostbusters song was i want a new drug that's what sounded too similar to the ghostbusters Oh, thanks for the clarification. Because as I was saying it, I felt like I was wrong. No. Yeah.

I want a new drug. It's a pop culture nugget right there. Yeah. Okay. So what's the name of this year's podcast? Bent. Bent. Short and sweet and simple.

Yep. Not get bent. Not get bent. Not get bent. Bent. Bent. Which speaks to and simple. Yep. Not get bent. Not get bent. Not get bent. Just bent. Which speaks to a lot of levels. I feel like it's a layered concept. Yeah.

Your rod is bent. I mean, on the most basic level, yeah. Your hook is bent. You got to bend in the hook. People get bent. Your hook might get bent out. Your hook fighting a real big fish. People get all bent out of shape.

Yeah. Yeah. We might piss a couple people off. That's possible. All bent out of shape. Yeah. Yeah. We might piss a couple people off. That's possible. All bent out of shape about their stream access. That definitely happened. And it's just a little bit, because what we're trying to do is a little bit different from, as we've been talking about other podcasts in this genre and in this network. It's, it's, uh, it's a little irreverent.

It's a little different. We don't do things the way that you might expect us to. And we may not say the things that you're expecting to hear in a fishing podcast. So it's a little bit of a hook. It's got a hook to it. It's funny. I sure as hell hope so. It's short and tight.

That's what we're going for. We will not be rambling on about whatever we feel like talking about for very long. We have short, discreet segments where we cover off on topics and then move on to the next thing. I feel like fishing in general leaves more room just for overall goofiness and not taking itself seriously, so we're totally vibing on that. Because nothing has eyelashes. As soon as you start talking about bringing harm to eyelashed things, there's a somberness settles in.

Like a dill-eyed little deer. Where'd you pick that up? Because a buddy of mine always used to say eyebrows. No, I heard recently. Eyelashes? Someone's like, you know what it is, man? Eyelashes. That's why people will do what it is, man? Eyelashes. That's why people will do stuff to fish that they

would never do to a chipmunk. But it's not eyelids. Like the eyelids don't matter. It's got, they gotta be lashed. Yeah. I don't think people care about it. Cause snakes. Yeah.

Or other, I don't know. They got something going on. Anyways. Sharks. No, it's little hairy liners on them. Yeah. I think that the idea is that we will avoid those, those exactly those little, little left turns because we're also want to do them in this format of podcast. Like, oh, I got a thought, but Joe and I are trying to rein ourselves in.

And, and the problem with so much fishing media is exactly what you said, Joe, it takes itself too damn seriously. So we're not going to do that. We're not going to do that. We don't promise that this fishing podcast will help you catch more fish necessarily, but we do hope it'll help you enjoy fishing a little bit more. It's already helped me catch more fish. Did it? Yeah, because you guys let me listen to a couple little pieces and give some notes and some feedback. And I heard all about Joe pitched the, I'm going to get the name of the lure wrong now.

Was it the Super Zoom Fluke? Fluke, yeah. That is a fantastic lure. Oh, yeah. And I ordered up some of those, and I've caught trout on the Yellowstone on them since then. What? Yes, sir. Trout.

It proved you're fishing. Did you hear about the giant trout I caught yesterday on the Yellowstone? I saw a picture. It didn't look too giant. Wow. You might have been holding it wrong or something. I don't know, man. Well, that's the big part to making giant trout look giant.

Yeah. But I heard about it. Was it a tussle? Good tussle? Yeah. Heated dry? No. Dropper. Dropper nymph. Good tussle? Good tussle? Yeah. Eat it dry? No. Drop her.

Drop her nymph. My God, it would catch some nice whitefish. Yeah. Did you keep those for the smoker? No, because I had to come home with all the halibut from the fish shack and all the shrimp and salmon and everything. I just didn't feel like coming home. All I'd been doing is cleaning fish.

I didn't feel like cleaning any fish. We let them all go. I hear you. It's not very often I touch a fish that lives to tell about it. Those fish feel so special. They're like, you know, let them all go. I hear you. It's not very often I touch a fish that lives to tell about it. Those fish feel so special. You know, just let me go. It was amazing. When I come up and I saw him stand there, I thought it was done.

The old man eater. I was like, no, not that dude. So maybe it will help. It helped Yanni catch more fish. It might help you catch more fish, but we're not going to guarantee it at all. There are no fish catching guarantees. The only guarantee we can give you is that we'll keep it tight. We'll keep it entertaining and it'll be worth your time.

How do people find Bent? Anywhere else you get your podcasts. Like you can come to Spotify. You can come to Spotify. You can go to Apple. You can come to the MeatEater website, themeateater.com. Click down on that podcast drop down you'll see bent right there you just get it it's easy best fishing podcast ever to exist definitely

ever i think i think it's worth mentioning too that yeah i mean janice you have a segment you're you're in bent oh well you know i was gonna ask about that but i wasn't um i didn't know if that was confirmed yet i know i i felt like i had auditioned a little, but I didn't know if that was confirmed yet. I know I auditioned a little bit, but I didn't know that it had made it in. You did a wonderful job. You made the cut. All right. Your little report. He's going to do another report right now for us.

Yanni has a report. I am. I like this. Whenever you guys do anything. Yanni is a bent correspondent. He's a bent correspondent, and he filed a report about a new record fish and did such a wonderful job because he brought in like like a personal angle but didn't overdo it didn't try to make it like it was all about him but it was informed had a funny husband and like a funny husband and wife bit is it like where the humor was

radio theater there's like some no but he knew where the humor was. He knew where the pathos was. He knew where the little marital tension fell. What does that word mean? Just like the humanity. Appealing to emotion. Making an appeal to the emotional experience. And that's when the guy says the word and his wife doesn't want him to say it.

Great story. You're going to have to go and get the podcast to get Yanni's story. I can't wait to listen to this. Yanni's going to file another report right now. Are you ready to report, Yanni? I am. Okay, what happened?

Lynx happened. Lynx have been forever probably one of the most elusive animals to see. All of us. Lynx and probably wolverines. Have you seen a lynx? One? One. Have I ever told you my lynx story?

No. I can't remember it right now. I've never seen one. We, you know, the hall road, the pipeline road, which never ends. So we're driving back from the pipeline road and while we were parked along the hall the alaska pipeline a truck had thrown up a rock and shattered out the window so that's a long drive with no side window oh i completely busted it gone while you gotta drive like 18 hours or whatever yeah well as we come back and look the window's gone so i remember the drive because it's just like the worst drive

in the world anyway and when it's dark but anyhow driving along windows busted out and all of a sudden there's a link standing in the road and we pull up to it and he looked his he looked at us like utter incomprehension. Like I would venture to guess like zero interaction with a human. Not like. Or a vehicle. Not like I don't see you. Not like I know I got to get away. Just like utter incomprehension to what was there in front of it.

Did he just hang out? Yeah. Wow. We got out. And then he's like, eh, I should probably go. But just no, he was just like, what in Sam Hill is this? Anybody else seen one? Yeah.

You guys both have. Oh yeah, but Rick's always doing all kind of. Fake animals. Where'd you see it? Oh, that's alright. Denali's kind of like actual animals. I mean, they're all actual animals.

Maybe that links was totally habituated. It was like, I know what you guys are. Do you have any snacks? So you saw one? Yep. Tell me the story real quick. It was off the side of the road. We were filming thermal footage, nighttime stuff.

So you saw in the dark. Yeah. Picked it up on the thermal camera. I'll share a quick story with you about that thermal stuff. Do you want to hear it? Yep, yep. Do I have a choice?

Well, this is interesting. So I was talking to these dudes years ago. One of the highlights of my life is I got to go down and talk to the third special forces group at Fort Bragg. And I got to shoot shit with some of those kids afterward. So he's a Green Berets and we got to shoot the shit. And he was telling me a story. One of these kids is telling me a story that they were in some pass in Afghanistan.

And they hit these Taliban guys coming over this pass. And one of them had some kind of anti-aircraft gun or some kind of big, I can't remember what he told me what the gun was. He was carrying it. And they hit the dude. And he drops the thing. And then everybody drags him off. So they just sit there with a thermal scope. Knowing that eventually someone's going to want to come out and grab this gun.

And they're just set up waiting to get whoever comes out to get the gun. And he tells me that as he's watching with his thermal scope in the middle of the night, he says a snow leopard came out and sniffed around that spot. Isn't that wild? Pretty cool. Go on, Miles. All my, for the most part, animal setting stories are the same. It's when I was guiding in Alaska in the middle of nowhere, and I'm like focused on whatever I'm doing.

Now, the corner of my eye, I see a movement. I'm like, oh, that's what that is. It's not, they're none of them are good stories. Like, there is no arc to the story. They never bite you. No. Like, nothing cool happens. I'm just like, oh, I saw a wolverine one time, but nothing happened.

And there was a lynx. One of them, yeah. I saw a lyn, oh, I saw Wolverine one time, but nothing happened. And there was a Lynx. One of them, yeah, I saw a Lynx once, I saw Wolverine. What was he doing? He was basically slinking along the edge of the timber. I think he popped out to see what was going on, like what we were up to, and then saw us and was like, I'm out of here. I'm gone. Didn't want anything to do with it.

Well, most of the time, if you were going to ask a group of six people, if anybody had seen a link, everyone would say no. Even in places like Colorado, in the lower 48 where you have some, even in Alaska where you have a bunch. Except that four out of six people in this room

apparently. I agree that yeah, well, if I hadn't, that one, all of us had one lucky moment. It's easy to picture having not seen one. Well, no, here it's only 50% of our group. I haven't seen one. Three out of five. That's not 50.

I'm counting Joe. Joe counts. Oh, you ever seen one over there in Jersey, Pennsylvania? Nope. No links. Corinne? Nope. Oh, oh okay you're right uh so they uh along just like they've been studying a whole bunch of other animals with uh gps collars they're starting to do that with links now too and they're finding out some wild stuff um like they're taking these crazy long migrations this is where hobo comes in with

the longest known lynx migration he comes in just shy of 2400 miles in a single migration in about 13 months he did this from where to where he started off i can't remember the name of the park in alaska but um like southern southern half of Alaska and then cut over into I guess it would be northwest territories and then headed south. A male looking for a mate? They don't know. They haven't interviewed him yet. They don't know yet.

I know, but predators tend not to go crazy. I can answer all these questions you have after reading my short little article. Because they certainly think that and they used to think that they had like 22 square mile ranges, but then one time this one trapper in one year on a 77 mile long trap line caught like over 100 lynxes. And they're like, well, how could that be? Because there's only one male that moves around every 22 miles, and you you do the math and he should have only caught whatever it was, 10.

So they started wondering. And so they started doing more research on it and whatever. So they don't really know. They do know that part of it's probably related to the fecundity and then that's related to super high numbers in snowshoe hares. Because that is the classic snowshoe hare, the cyclical. The seven-year cycle. Yeah. I think the article said like eight to 11 when the snowshoe hares go up.

So right now they're super high and they're seeing litters sometimes of close to 10 kittens. No. Yes. Really? There's some pictures in that article. That's a lot of little lynx babies. That's a lot of little lynx babies. That's a lot of little lynx babies. Yeah.

I was reading one time that when lynx, when snowshoe hares are down, they'll have a recruitment rate of 0% lynx. It's that hard on them when their food source collapses. They'll have a year where they, like years in areas where they think that there was zero recruitment. You would think they'd diversify those food sources at some point. They'd find something else to eat on. That's not a good strategy.

Talk to the raccoons, man. Yeah, exactly. Why are you guys doing this? Specialized. What I do. The researchers were saying that it very much explains why there isn't like genetic diversity. That's pretty much like, it doesn't matter if you're in the Brooks range

or if you are in, you know, the farthest Eastern range of the Lynxes range in Canada somewhere, a Lynx is a Lynx is a Lynx. And they figured that's because they make these crazy movements all around. They don't get population segments. Exactly. I read another get population segments. Exactly.

I read another interesting piece of links research. I can't remember if we covered it on this show or not a while ago, but they used to think that some of the major rivers were genetic barriers and they had some links where I'm tracking things. And they realized not only are the rivers not a barrier, but they had links that would cross. Some of these rivers they thought were barriers would cross them multiple times in a day. Interesting. Yeah.

Yukon River. It's like, zoop. Don't even think about it. Just swim across that thing. Yeah. Shoot across. No problem. Well, they probably also cross a lot in winter.

Oh, when it's frozen. No, no. They were pointing out that they thought also cross a lot in winter. Oh, when it's frozen. No, they were pointing out that they thought it could only happen when frozen. Oh. But they were pointing out they were squirting across these rivers in open water. That'd be cool to see. Yeah. So yeah, that's my little report on

what crazy links are up to. I give him an A+. Thanks. Because he was able to answer, he was able to show his work, answer questions. A+. What do you give him, Rick? Yeah, A, solid A.

Solid A, good thanks. He didn't refer to other sources outside that one article. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going B. I'm going B. It was a single source

and he didn't have an original argument It was just regurgitation But I mean that's the point of a 7th grade That's what I was asked to do That was the Task for the audience I had been meaning to read the article to which I had links Not links, I had a link

And I had been meaning to open that link And read it because I saw the headline about links Going real far away And so just before we started the show I emailed the link to Y that link and read it because I saw the headline about links going real far away. And so just before we started the show, I emailed the link to Yanni and asked him if he could prepare a report. So for what he had to deal with and the time he had to deal with it, I thought that he took ownership of the material, delivered it as though it was something that was in his mind. On time.

Counts for a lot. Very timely. I'm sticking by the A plus i don't think he needs extra credit you do want to give him extra credit no i said i don't think he needs extra credit you always need extra credit yeah like maybe on like some kind of poster board you can paste some pictures extra gold drawing oh yeah no he should a printout from a magazine or something. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we

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is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. 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.

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if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. So Corinne, are you going to dig your hole even deeper on GMOs? Or have you done the GMO subject? I will dig it even deeper. Okay. Okay.

Can you first give a recap of what the problem is? Yes. And then how the problem got worse? Yep. Yep. So Steve has oftentimes referred to the superior tasting small strawberries that he's grown in his garden. And that if you go into the grocery store and you pick up a pint of really beautiful looking strawberries, they often taste like crap or nothing. The bigger the worse.

The bigger the worse. the worst so a couple of episodes ago i pulled out an old thing that i had remembered and not fully understood from a while back and i was like oh that is because you know strawberries strawberries have been developed in a lab with genes from Arctic fish to make them more frost resistant and I guess robust and hardy, you know, refrigerated and to last longer. So we got a lot of mail, emails. Hate mails. Hate mails. Some folks were really riled up. Yeah.

Strawberries, I didn't know this, but inspire deep passions. Yes, deep passions. The production of strawberries inspires deep passions. Absolutely. There are some helpful, informative, even-keeled messages. Other folks were up in arms. We got one man-child right in, if I may say. Anyway, so in a previous episode, I will absolutely own that what I had mentioned was wrong. But the

reason why it was wrong is that there is a certain list of genetically modified crops that are on the market in the United States and strawberries are not one of those, right? Share with me the list again. So according to the FDA, we've got corn, soybean, cotton, oh yeah, potato, papaya, summer squash, canola, alfalfa, tomatoes. How did papaya make the list? That's what I'm wondering. I've got a thing about papaya.

Hold your horses. So you can buy a GMO papaya. Yeah. But not a GMO apple. Papayas are GMO, but I'll address that in a bit. Where did I leave off? Alfalfa, apple, sugar beets. Oh, okay.

No tomatoes. No. No tomatoes. Isn't there a flavor saver tomato or something like that? So. So. Or maybe it didn't make it to the market. I was wrong.

Exactly. I was wrong because I said GMO strawberries. But GMO, we don't have GMO strawberries in the United States. I just want to know about the fish genes. Right. So, and folks, if you know more about this, please write in. Well, what I'm going to propose, I still want you to carry on. But what I'm going to propose is that why don't you go and get us a great GMO expert?

I want a GMO apologist, not an anti-GMO person. Yeah, yeah. Because I can already picture what the anti-person is going to say. Sure, sure. I want to find a guest. You should track down for us a guest who's not a GMO apologist, but a GMO realist. Yeah yeah someone who could say like oh yeah man i could see all these negatives and there's something to them but i can also see some

positives and there's something to those so there's cursory research on this wikipedia Which is whatever. I get a D minus for that source. But there is, I believe it is from Arctic char, like bacteria on the skin, where that, there is something made from that that is applied and sprayed on strawberries to help protect the berry in transport. Is that right? But then it's washed off. Got it. Everyone, if I've said anything wrong, hold me to account. So they're taking some fish slime, something that's in fish slime, squirting it on berries, and then getting it back off again. To the best of my understanding. And there is also something called bioprospecting, which is the search for plant and animal species from which medicinal drugs and other commercially valuable compounds can be obtained. And that's the relationship that I've found from Wikipedia.

I have yet to delve into all the scientific journal articles about that. I'd rather have Arctic char slime on my strawberries than a lot of other nasty things I can imagine being sprayed on. Just for the record, like give me the fish slime. I'm good with that. Yeah, no, it's not off-putting to me. No. pudding to me no um when i was in school i took this class the literature of natural history in one of the book by by uh hank i can't remember what the hell his last name was died a tragic death him and his wife drowned canoeing the professor in flathead lake biggest natural lake

west of the mississippi um he had a cabin on wild horse island which is where the biggest bighorn sheep ever came from but point being about him we read this this book as part of his class he had to read this book it was about like bioengineering and it was looking at natural structures like how they how you look at cobweb elasticity and arrangement honey and ways in which natural structures inform engineering which is pretty interesting that's really interesting i would like to get someone like that bioengineering person on the show joe does this conversation feel familiar to you you you beat me to it we uh we're just talking about how there's something similar here with the study of carp scales

And how it will translate to building better body armor For humans But if you want all the details you're going to have to listen to Bent Oh Bent covers it Yeah but just saying Is it succinctly or is it like long winded It is much more succinct than this Very short

Basically I just said exactly the whole thing Wait I've got one more thing about strawberries. No, go on. Okay. I know this has been weighing on you. So I spoke to a farmer in Georgia, and he has a couple of things to note in response to your why do homegrown strawberries taste better. And he says that the reason why, or one potential reason why homegrown strawberries may be sweeter and more flavorful is because they're under more stress than commercial strawberries, which I found very interesting. So when you are farming strawberries

for market, everything's perfect, the irrigation, the nutrients, everything is just kind of like a well-oiled machine to get as much yield as possible. But perhaps in your garden, you know, I'm not sure how you're treating them. You're maybe watering them regularly. There's something maybe missing. Just I'll hack my way through it. Yeah, there you go. I hack my way through it. You're hacking your way through it. Yeah, there you go. I'll hack my way through it.

You're hacking your way through it. And I'm taking a bunch of different types of things and giving them all a general treatment and not necessarily fine-tuning all of their treatment. Sure. You're sort of like, yeah, like your classic vegetable garden. You got like eight things and you kind of treat it all the same way. Right, absolutely. They all get the same amount of water.

They all get the same amount of sun. They all get the same amount of sun. They all get the same amount of whatever. And maybe there's something missing that the strawberry needs, you know, more than the green beans. But one example, this gentleman mentioned was that, for example, like carrots, let's say that they freeze. If the plant is under stress, they may release flavonoids and the flavor may develop more. So let's say with carrots that are in the process of being about to freeze,

the plant may produce sugars to help protect the cells, lower the freezing point. So when we're eating it, more of the flavor is actually more sugar content. It's derived from stress. That we're tasting. So he said he doesn't know the scientific explanation for all of that but i felt like that was pretty interesting yeah so when you find a wild strawberry which just has these like teensy teensy little leaves and it throws off this compact but extremely flavorful little berry yeah and he's really up he's really up against it and i was talking about this with my brother who he's he works for the usda and uh does a lot of stuff with crops and plants

and we were out one day commenting on um this wild raspberry patch and i was like i wonder why these wild raspberries like this spot so much and he has this interesting concept he explained to me where it's like it's probably not that they like that spot it's just that's the spot that they can be that they're not out competed and overstressed so what you're seeing is you're seeing them where they can grow not where they want to grow meaning if you took that same plant home and tilled a patch of ground and pulled all the weeds and gave it its own piece of turf, it might be like, no, bro, this is where I want to be. I'm stuck on that rocky ass hillside on the mountain because all the things that kill me don't get me there. It'd be like if you find some holdout person living in a cave in the mountains. Be like, people like to be in these caves

way up in the mountains. He might be like, no, man, this is where I gotta go. Right, but he's hardier. To get away from this shit that's trying to kill me. It's like, this is where I gotta be. The takeaway from this is that the shittier a gardener you are, the better your fruits and vegetables.

I like this. You might be cranking out like really good produce. This bodes really well for my gardens. Not to complicate this whole discussion, but I've eaten strawberries out of a big commercial, you know, growing area. Just like riding my bike through south of Santa Cruz, they grow a lot of strawberries. And just picking those strawberries, they taste amazing and they're big. Yeah, but we had other people, because we've been on this strawberry thing for a while. We had other people explain that.

I'm just coming into it late. No, no. You're right. But we had people explain that. We had a strawberry producer write in and explain that people shop with their eyes. And when they're commercially producing strawberries strawberries it's like a thing that they know is of value is that it that it can turn red and stay not rotten for a long time yeah so it's got good shelf capabilities and it has i it has eye-popping appeal yeah because people aren't

biting it and then buying it they're like oh, oh my gosh. Look how big and red that thing is. How could that? That looks like an amazing strawberry. And they just don't really care. You could have some weird blemished. Yeah. The ones on top are all moldy. But be like, these are the best strawberries you'll ever taste.

Be like, I'm not buying that crazy looking warty. Half green. Yeah. Strawberry. I want the yeah big sons of guns okay moving on

alright we're gonna come back are we good on bent for now cause we'll come back and remind everybody about it I mean we're gonna find opportunities wherever possible

to work it back in like as you noticed but I think for the moment yeah for the moment the next thing I wanna discuss Rick why do you feel that you're so bad at fishing? Well, I was just going to say that there's no amount of podcasts that I could listen to to fix what I got going on.

You should listen to more Ben. See what happens. I mean, I say that. But, you know, mostly all the hunting and fishing is like, I understand in theory. Because you get to observe it and film it. I observe it. Just for background, we're talking to Rick Smith. He's one of our prized, most cherished cameramen.

Does a lot of work with us. And now and then, opportunity strikes and there's a down minute and Rick gets to fish for a second. Yeah. And just, it's such bad fishing. It's amazing. Like really bad angling. And I consider myself like having an ability to watch somebody do something and like pick things up, whether it be like athletic activities or whatnot. Like I'm not an uncoordinated person, but the fishing thing, it's amazing how bad I am. I'll tell you why I think you're bad at fishing.

I think that a big part of being a good angler is you just know it's going to turn around. Confidence. I feel like I'm an optimist, but I don't understand the whole... Because you fish as though you can't picture getting one. Because I've never really caught a fish before. What does that look like, though? A kind of passivity. Yeah.

A sort of passivity. A sort of like... What's it called when not ambivalence no but since I can't imagine like a fatal a certain fatalism sets in very quickly

like a spirit of like self-defeat before it even no self-defeat fatalism I feel like this happens it'll never work

happens to every angler you show up at a spot and until a person catches a fish that spot is like unproven so but as until a person catches a fish, that spot is like unproven. So, but as soon as somebody catches a fish, everybody is like, oh, there's fish here. And then there's like-

You fish different. You fish different. Like an increased like, oh, I'm not catching fish because I'm doing something wrong versus there's no fish here. I kind of have the perspective always there are no fish here. And they caught one and that means now they're especially gone. That's right. You're like, oh, so there was like one here and now someone else caught it.

What's the point? Yeah. How could there be another one? It comes from, I mean, to be an adult and never have spent any time fishing is, I don't know, I'm probably in the minority. Like even people that don't hunt fish have fished i i detected you too when you're fishing a lack of lustiness uh yeah yeah my brother blames um like a lack of want, he blames blowing shots on elk and deer with his bow to a lustiness. Like he wants it so badly that the desire actually prevents him from getting it. If he could just somehow not want it as bad, he would probably have better luck getting it.

Yeah, since I've never really caught a big fish. I mean, I caught a rockfish, I think, was my only take from Alaska. But since I didn't really catch anything, I don't even know what it's all, it's imaginary. Catching a big fish is like something other people do. I need to internalize it more, that it's possible for me to catch a big fish. What do you think is his problem, Jan? Does he have one? Yeah, it's just lack of experience.

This hasn't done it enough. You know, there's a lack of lustiness. Like setting a hook is such a thing that you guys obviously just understand that you have to explain like, oh, if you're fishing with sea hooks, what are those? Circle. Circle hooks.

Yeah, exactly. Circle hooks. Point proven. But that you want to not do what's. Yank it out of his mouth. Yeah. Which that assumes that that should be the first thing that I do is, is set the hook.

And I don't even, I mean, like I see you guys doing it, but I don't really, it's not a reaction of mine. Like fish bites. I'm like, oh, fish. Yeah. The fish is speaking to me on the other end. Are you saying you don't set the hook with a circle hook or you do set the hook? No, I can explain.

I can explain what it is. Yeah, he'll explain. Let me walk you through it. Okay. Yeah. I find that when people, so listeners know there's a thing called a circle hook. And a circle hook, think of a J hook as looking like a candy cane, right? Yeah.

When it's in something, I'm not telling you this, but I'm just telling, it's like a candy cane hook. So when it's in something, there needs to be constant pressure to have it stay where it is. I mean, there's a barb and all that, but generally speaking, you need to keep attention on it. Or else it just falls out, right? Imagine the old skit where someone's on a theater stage and you take them off with the hook. Like, if you just drop the hook uh the the thing falls away and the guy stays on the stage so a circle hook is bent in such a way and gets hooked in the fish's mouth in such a way that it's not likely to fall away it takes a lot more to get it in there and it kind of has to generally has to be that the fish sort of turns

and the hook nestles into the corner of its mouth and gets in there but once it's in there gravity um is much has a much more difficult time freeing that hook up is it like a c like a lowercase aerial font c you gotta jam yeah it's not and you gotta jam that that thing's got to get jammed in there but when it gets jammed in there just right it's likely to stay where you could cut the line and he's still gonna have that circle hook stuck in his mouth for some time and so jam's almost the wrong word though because jam is sort of uh you're applying like a hook setting almost yeah it gets wedged wedged yeah lodged maybe lodged yeah that's a good way to put it it gets lodged in his mouth

and so static types of fishing like long lining trot lining all these kind of static fishing where there's no person there to like yeah yank the hook and reel you use a circle hook i found when introducing people to circle hook fishing who've been fishing their whole lives they're so it's so ingrained in them to set the hook because recreational fishing is predominantly jayhooks it's so ingrained in them to set the hook that you can't get them to use circle hooks properly because they get it hit and they just every atom of their body wants like yanked rod and you gotta yell like brody's wife i had to yell at her so bad it almost like destroyed my relationship with brody because she wouldn't stop doing that

um rick on the other hand doesn't even have that instinct that's right there is a lack of which is where i'm confused on the like setting the hook not setting the hook thing okay here's what he'll do let's say say Rick bounces back. You give him a J-hook. He does that for a minute, but then he loses hope, and then he wants to try a circle hook. And he does that for a minute, and he loses hope, and he's back to J-hook. Or you're trying to help me solve, you know, give me a fish.

If Rick's working a J-hook, and he's jigging a jig, and a halibut hits it, now a lot of people would be like very invigorated by this. And they would know that they're gonna for a couple seconds at least they'll especially jig they're gonna do all manner of things to get because like a hell of often you don't get until his third hit they just they're i don't know what they're doing on there but they're not getting it and so you'll see people do all these antics like

he'll hit you'll miss them they'll bang bottom, they'll jiggle in his face, they'll do something. Rick just, this sort of strange passivity settles over Rick to where all of a sudden he all but leaves the rod and walks away. At the moment when anybody else on the planet would be doing everything in their power. Mostly I'm trying to figure out, did I do something wrong that made the hook hit the bottom?

And then I'm like, maybe that's what it was. It wasn't the fish, it was the bottom. I could be in a different boat. I could be in a different boat doing ten things. Yeah. And I'll be like, Rick, you just had a hit. Maybe he's too much in his head.

Are you thinking through it too much as opposed to feeling it? No, Steve assumes, and everybody else that is generally out there, have spent so much time doing this that it's just natural. For me, it's like a foreign, completely foreign. There's no hook setting response. There's zero. That's what's funny about the circle hooks.

And I think, Miles, you were driving at this. Usually, the less experienced of an angler you are, the easier time you have with a circle hook. Totally. Absolutely. If you chain them up where they can't get at the rod. No, but this is the thing. You tie them down. In the end, how many halberd did we catch on a circle hook?

That week, we caught one on a circle. This is what I'm saying. Yeah, but we were running a lot of jigs. I know. But still, we also. But when nobody was fishing them. Steve did a little bit. You did a little bit.

That's like my brother's annoyance. We went days doing that. Then I switched to chartreuse and it got good. But it also got later in the day. Yeah. It got dusky. We moved to a new spot. Yeah.

Too many variables. Too many variables. It's part of my five-year plan. Get better at fishing. No, I don't want. Here's the thing is I feel oftentimes we have a lot of laughs at Rick's expense. And I don't want it to be the case. So what we're actually trying to do is work up a logo for Rick.

We're trying to make up an acronym. So it's like R is like ready to go. I is international. International because you've been in more countries than anybody I hang out with. I don't know. C is like by seer land.

And then coastal. Sure. Because you're ready to go first guy in the water colder the water the quicker he's into it k is like kick ass kicking ass we're gonna make a sweet logo with flames and stuff because i want to find a way to better celebrate rick and not just point out fishing is that part of it not just point out his inadequacies. I am glad that the other camera guys, I mean, Seth is a, you know, he's a trained

harvester of... Angler. Yeah, angler. Background in angling. Yeah, he did good. Chris. Horrible fisherman. But he caught some fish. At least he's funny to watch. I know. It's funny to watch him fish. It's funny to watch you fish.

What's funny about him? He's just animated. He's trying to do everything. He just does it all wrong. A lot of big movement. To watch the Rick and the fatalism and everything, there's no big movement. What's the sound effect for that? What's the sound effect for watching?

Oh, when you give Rick a rod, what is the sound that people hear? No, no, no. What's your sound? Da-dum. Yeah. It's just straight Eeyore. There's no fish. No, I feel like I'm an optimist, but I just have a hard time imagining actually catching a fish because I've never really done it. The one time I did it, it wasn't, it was so easy that it, it, I went fishing for, uh,

silvers, uh, in Alaska. Was that with us? No, no. It was like just, uh, with my dad and brother. And, um, it was, we limited it out in like an hour. You ripped lips is what you're trying to say. Yeah. The guy got us, the guy got us on like

the spot and it wasn't a you know maybe you gotta like envision envision the success and envision i think you know and then like manifest manifest that shit i know i'll get you a call with my dad yeah if you talk to yanni's dad yanni's dad will tell you how to conjure success you need to visualize Yanni's dad. Yeah. I was not doing that enough. When he hunts or whatever, he imagines so strongly the creature coming that it actually ends up coming from where he imagined it coming from.

He conjures it. All right. He makes a mind movie so compelling to reality that reality conforms to that mind movie. We need to switch out the C for coastal with conjuring. And we wanted to have it be like day or night. This is like his cameraman logo. So we're going to be like K-N-I-G-H-T, like night, but then we'll have a parenthesis that

says like, but like without a K. I can't wait for this logo. We got a good logo guy we've been working with. I'm going to have him start working. Do you want flames on it or lightning bolts? Lightning bolts. Okay, good. We're on it.

Scales and lightning bolts. Yanni, you want to take a stab at deep drop fishing? Yeah. Wait, let's set this up. Why were you guys in Alaska filming? We were in Alaska filming an episode of Meat Eater, which will go on, which will premiere on Netflix. And we were up there exploring halibut fishing,

exploring deep drop fishing, exploring shrimping and crabbing. Is it the first only fishing, fishing only episode? No. It's not? No. We did like a giant catfish extravaganza. But we hunted squirrels. Oh, really?

Uh-huh. Yeah, but we dove for... Oh, you're talking about the one with Kevin. Yeah. But I thought we did something else on that trip too. No, it was all catfish all the time. We jug fished. We did everything but hold a rod. In that episode, we jug fished.

Maybe I would be better at that. Oh, multiple ones because then we did a whole episode about we did a whole episode about flatheads yeah with that one we squirrel hunted with parker there have but yeah we did one about jug fishing jugging limb lining Trot lines And trot lining And in this we also dove For sea cucumbers Dove for scallops Snorkel Shot a greenling

Snorkeled Snorkeled for those things Dove like kinda Like you had to kinda go underwater You did more diving Rick and I snorkeled But yeah we were up filming a show And so we were talking about some of those adventures You did more diving. Yeah. Rick and I snorkeled. But yeah, we were up filming a show.

And so we're talking about some of those adventures. And during this, now and then in fishing, there's a lot of waiting. And a camera guy can just sit there and wait and wait and wait. Or if you hand him a rod, he can try to do a little angling, which is Rick was killing his downtime trying to angle. And that's why we're getting so much fun out of. Mostly provide entertainment. Dogging on Rick. Mm-hmm. But I do want to discuss Deep Drop, which we have never covered.

Nope. We went to roughly 1,500 feet of water, and it's kind of like a basin, right? What did you call it? A basin on the bottom of the ocean. Yeah. Of water. And it's kind of like a basin, right? What'd you call it? A basin on the bottom of the ocean. Yeah. And these fish that we were after, black cod, also known as sablefish, also known as butterfish, which I don't think we talked about that when we were up there, but when I was doing some recipe research.

Alaskan butterfish or whatever, yeah. Yeah, they call them butterfish. Have you eaten some of your fillets yet oh just one i shared it with some of my closest friends that knew would appreciate it and they appreciated it yeah i even had to preface it with i hope you effers understand that i'm not serving this to like gloat i'm serving this because I appreciate you guys. I'm really sharing it. I figured that you will appreciate it. It's not like, ha-ha, look what I have,

but it's like, taste this. Yeah, that's an interesting distinction. You did tell them that. Yeah. You sat them down. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, I did a, you know, since we're on the subject, I did a, basically like a soy ginger poach.

Yeah. That's how you doze it. Yeah. And it was, I mean, it's butterfish, man. It's amazing how it maintains its firmness even onto the fork. But then when it gets into your mouth something happens and it melts like butter tony calagrassi who who uh turned me on to the prospect of catching my own black cod because he sends me black cod fillets that he catches with his friends um he's remarked

too that that um it's hard You can't overcook it. Not that you can't, but it's not, you don't need to worry about overcooking it as much. The window of goodness is a long window. I was surprised. Cause I mean, it was a low temp poach, you know, you only, you simmer it on low for five minutes and then, uh, no, it might've been 10 total, but even then I thought, man, cause this filet wasn't a pound. It might have been a half pound.

I had two kind of pieces to fit into a small pan. And 10 minutes with a lid and simmering, that's a lot of cooking for a piece of fish. It's going to be thoroughly cooked, but it wasn't overcooked a bit. Oh, it still looks good. It is very good. So we were in 1,500 feet of water. Steve's 18- foot aluminum skiff very nice weather

that day calm seas almost could like water ski out there that day so we could zip out I think we actually

talked about water skiing that day for sure I think when you're out there and it's that glassy you can't not mention it

but to get down there you have to use an electric reel now you don you have to use an electric reel. Now, you don't have to, but it would be quite the task to reel up 1,444 feet of line, plus the scope

that you have, so it's probably even more out there. But yeah, three pounds of weight, two hooks above it was just circles. Cut bait. Pretty stout rod This guy had to hold up three pounds of weight And you drop her down there

It probably takes what Ten minutes? Close to it I wanted to time it I never got around to timing it It takes maybe eight, nine, ten minutes to hit the bottom Long enough where you put it in the rod holder Because you get sick of waiting for it to hit the bottom. Yeah.

And you got to chase it with the boat. Yeah. Talk about that. Yeah, I guess you just got to figure out what the wind slash current's doing and just try to stay and just basically, I think all we were doing is trying to keep a line vertical. Yeah. Right? Drive the boat whatever direction the line's going. Yeah.

So you can stay over the top of it. Yeah. Which, you think it's moving more or the boat's moving and you're just having to correct the boat to stay on top of the weight? I think that in those depths, the wind overrides the current because the current isn't being – you know how when you get to the top of a mountain, the wind's really strong the current because the current isn't being, you know how like when you get to the top of a mountain, the wind's really strong?

Mm-hmm. It's because you're taking a mass of moving air, but restricting the amount of space that air has to pass through. Sure. So you have like this, whatever, thousands of, you know, thousands of vertical feet of air, but then all of a sudden it's, you're cramming it into a smaller gap on top. So when you're out in that huge deep stuff, the currents aren't nearly as strong.

And so where you might be in an area where you might have a breeze that's not in alignment with the current, but the current might override, there I think that even a slight breeze is going to push you in a way that the current isn't going to push you. So you let it go to the bottom. And this is what I found the most interesting. It took a while to figure out. It took us, I don't know, a couple of drops at least and maybe 20 minutes of drifting along. Because once you get down there, you feel the bottom And then it's like you felt the bottom with the weight, but then the weight keeps dragging your rod tip down. And it just didn't compute because you're wondering like, well, maybe that's because it's stuck on the bottom and then the boat's moving.

And so there's just going to be no slack. The rod tip keeps going down. But after doing this sort of slow jig up and down, what we realized is that the bottom was not firm. There was more of this like- Primordial muck, I like to call it. There you go. Primordial muck. And I would guess that it's anywhere from six to eight feet deep. The muck?

Yeah. The muck. The muck at the bottom at 1,444 feet. And it might be... Like you feel it hit, but it doesn't stop. Okay. That three-pound sinker. It might be 20 feet deep, but you never let it go down that deep.

I don't know how long the muck goes. So you kind of have to jig, slowly pull it up. You feel it free from the muck. And then when you drop it, you kind of, again, feel it, but it free from the muck and then when you drop it you kind of again feel it but it hits from where your rod tip started and then to where the lead hits the bottom again and you think your rod tip would stop it's like the whole distance of your jigging motion does that make sense like so then again it gets sucked down into the muck so you left it try to hover it yeah try to hover it on the bottom.

Did you guys get better at that when you guys went back? Yes. And we'll just let it sit there. I got better at hovering it. Yeah. Not letting it sink. No, because the sinker would drag the circle hooks and bait down into the muck if you just let it sit.

So you kind of like lift it out, it hits the muck. Take the tension out and see if you got a hit. Lift it, float it, lift it, float it, lift it out, it hits the muck. Take the tension out and see if you got a hit. Lift it, float it, lift it, float it, lift it, float it. You never rest. But then we got that thing down there and it wasn't, I couldn't believe. Yeah, five minutes? I almost, like, I would say like, I probably about shat my pants out of just being astounded after all the reading and talking

and thinking and figuring and gear rigging. Paid off. And to go out in that depth of water and tick, tick, tick, tick. Yeah. I filmed you do a lot of different things and be pretty happy about it, but I've never seen you that happy

when you brought up that fish. I extremely excited that's what i'm saying hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew. Our northern brothers

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Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. I have tactical questions

on this. I'm sorry. I'm just curious from an angling standpoint. So you're talking about like a drop shot style rig with a three pound weight on the bottom? Yeah. Well, it'd be more like a no because the you got little uh you got little leaders coming your tags coming off okay yeah so you got a main line okay and then they're quite a bit they're spaced they're spaced the the spacing is very exaggerated

so from the sinker to the bottom circle it's probably like 36 inches okay and then there's 36 inches more to the next dropper. And the droppers are maybe 8 inches long. They have a circle hook on them. And then all this, and a lot of the droppers are coated in glow-in-the-dark tubing. Okay. There's a lot of glow-in-the-dark this and that. So that

they can find it. And there's also one of those little lights that light, that water activates a little light, like a high-pressure light. One of those little lights is rigged up at the top connection. Just to have something down there going click, click, click with light. And with a three pound weight, and I'm assuming you're running mono. 80 pound braid. 80 pound, okay, braid.

So you don't have the stretch, you can feel it. With mono, this fishing would not occur. No way that would work. No way. There'd be too much stretch in it. You'd never know when you hit the bottom. And so, but you can still, with a three pound weight, you can feel the take. Yes.

Really? Absolutely. Far more than I thought you'd be able to. Yeah, there's no doubt. Tick, tick, tick. That's what it feels like. Like when we did the swordfish fishing in this, roughly the same depth, right? 1,300.

1,300. swordfish fishing in this roughly the same depth right 1300 1300 um there those guys have the rod locked off and are just watching the rod tip they're not feeling it because they're not hitting the bottom they're floating it like oh and they see a tick tick tick and i think we were using five pounds of weight weren't we so there we had five pounds yeah so whatever they see in that rod but with this, with three pounds, yeah, you could very much tell that there was a fish on. Did you guys ever get a double? No. And we tried leaving them, getting a hit, letting it sit. Mm-hmm.

No, never got a double. But we got it pretty dialed. We got it pretty dialed. We went out one day and didn't do it long and had four, and I feel like we could have, we had two anglers and got four, and I feel like me and Fitz were out there, and we could have stuck around and got eight, which we would have been allowed to get that day.

It's the funnest thing in the world. I took my wife out doing it, completely unimpressed. She's like, it just feels like cheating. I'm like, because of what? Because it just doesn't it feels like cheating i'm like because of what because because it just reels itself up but like the whole i'm like the point of fishing isn't the reeling in part and i told her this too no i told her this it's kind of like it's your exerting effort or something effort and skill listen i told her this and i'm gonna tell you it now if i took all the things that it takes to deep drop up a black cod and threw it all in a pile on the floor and gave you a boat and said go get me a black cod figure it out uh or i took all of the things it takes to catch a largemouth bass

and threw it on the floor and put you at a lake what do you think you're gonna do quicker i'll tell you you are never speak for me you are never ever ever ever gonna catch the black cod i ran into this with the the time i got introduced to deep drop fishing was when we went out sword fishing we're with these dudes and we're with this guy he's a commercial sword fisherman he lives south of the line where you can where you can do pelagic longlining. So no longlining is allowed. You can only handline swordfish. Where's the line?

Like somewhere around the Florida border? I don't exactly know where it is. Joe, do you know exactly where that line is? I don't. There's some line. It's around there, yeah. In federal waters, whatever. You can't longline.

And you can't even rod real. For commercial, it hand lining and they wait swordfish at night come up shallow so they go out and set these buoys and they got these these 100 foot lines on these buoys and there's a bait and you're out there and you got a light on the buoy and you're actually waiting for the buoy to start bobbing and you run over and hand line a swordfish in at At night, or in the daytime, they spiral straight down to canyon mouths that are 1,300 feet underwater. The same waypoints where he's catching them at night,

he fishes that same waypoint. But he's catching them 100 feet from the surface at night, and he's fishing that same waypoint, but catching fish 1,300 feet down in the daytime. Now these black cod, they don't do, I don't think that they ever experienced anything. They just stay on the bottom.

So we go out 20 miles and the ocean is three-dimensional. I don't need to explain. And he's like, I'm going to catch a swordfish. 20 miles out, 1,300 feet of water. And I'm like, you are not. And does all this, this and that and the other thing. Right? And finally gets that thing down there and tap, tap.

And he throws the switch and here comes a 70-pound swordfish. I'm thinking in my head, you will never, I don't care how long you live, you will never do that again. Yanni's puking out the other side of the boat the whole time. He don't even know what's going on. So, he's so sick. We're in a 24-foot boat, and he's so sick, we didn't know, he didn't know we had one on.

That's not true. I was trying to puke. I couldn't get it out. So, he then does his whole rigmarole over again. Bam. Second swordfish. In that moment, I was like, this is the pinnacle.

This is the pinnacle of angling. Like in terms of what I've often said about houndsmen, if you're going to take the knowledge required to do something and put it into a measurable unit, like how we measure digital information, bits of material. to train a hound and then catch a mountain lion in the absence of snow and then you're going to measure the information that had to be in that person's head, it would be vastly, like exponentially greater

than the bits of information that it takes me to sit on the edge of an alfalfa field and shoot a deer with my rifle. Not even comparable amounts of information. The information that that the bits of information that are in that guy's head to go out with that equipment and that ocean and pull up two swordfish. It's like, it's not even the same ballpark as what it takes to go into a lake and catch a bluegill off my mom's dock. It's not the same thing. So for my wife to be like, I don't really get it. It's not fair. It's like, what are you talking about?

Well, maybe Joe and Miles can do a little report on... Nice. The Ben Podcast. The last time I deep dropped swordfish, we were with a captain in Louisiana, and he felt that swordfish were such majestic creatures that it was disrespectful to pit yourself against them with an electric reel. And we fish fish those depths and handcraft artisanal artisanal deep drop it was effing miserable man but we did it okay with a

bespoke reel i here's my other thing about i like your way for the record like i like my other thing about deep dropping is this Is Okay it's not fishing And I told this to Yanni Yanni says it is fishing But I'm like okay let's say it's not fishing I don't care what it is That's why I try to say deep dropping It's not fishing it's something else

Sure Whatever it is Is fascinating And whatever it is I can see see is there is a lot of, pun intended, there is a lot of depth. There is an enormous amount of depth to it where I could picture a world and I could picture myself becoming very, very obsessed with it. I take no argument with the level of depth of this and all the things that you just said. You don't just mean deep water. I don't.

I mean more in the metaphorical sense. Yeah. Like, and your, your analogy of dropping all the gear and saying like, catch this or catch that. Like it makes your point clearly, but the argument that it is, it represents the pinnacle of angling assumes that the pinnacle of angling is based on what is the most technically difficult way of doing it yeah and that's a little bit flawed that to me is not how i personally define the pinnacle of angling fair i was totally fair i think that there's more of an aesthetic like felt experience to it and and i don't think that anyone can define the pinnacle of angling for anybody else for the record but that's a great point man i just don't that's not how i would say like man that's the

thing i aspire to be as an angler is the guy who like has the technical details down to the most fine minutiae to catch the fish i i get i get that it's hard it's just not not how i would go about it when we were talking with i was with my brother danny when i was with my brother danny and my wife and we were deep dropping and doing well and my wife was um saying that it just seemed like somehow like not fishing like and i'll point out that we only have one deep drop rig and me and danny were kind of monopolizing the deep drop so so surprised so she really wasn't she was eager to go do all the other stuff that you do where you get to like do it so uh in this conversation we were talking about like well what does it mean and i was saying part of the fun for me is trying to visualize what these things

are doing it's just oh it's another planet man yeah at that depth it's another planet it's dark right it's like i can't even picture what's going on down there when they come up they're like an ice cube how cold they are it's so damn cold down there that fish feels like an ice cube so anyways i was getting off on that and danny was saying okay well let's take let's extend this logic to its extreme he's like for me to see a fish cruising through shallow water and to pick the fish, and I can see its world, I can see its moods, I can watch it respond to my cast. Like, that's something. So, getting off on how you don't know what they're doing is great, but it's also nice to get off on knowing what they're doing, which is fair. Yeah. And when I say the aesthetic experience, like that to me personally is that pinnacle when

you, you have to see the visual cues of what a fish is doing, read its behavior, read all the different things around you, make your decisions based on that in the moment for how you were going to plot your attempt to fool that fish and land it. Those are the pinnacle moments for me. It's definitely sight fishing. Yeah. For sure. I used to ice fish with a painter named Ben.

And I took him, he was a fly fisherman, like a fish trout, but I introduced him to ice fishing. And he was saying how he couldn't ice fish without imagining the hole in the ice as a birth canal because he was like i'm so removed from the fish by like a physical impenetrable barrier that when we catch one i feel as though it's passing through some sort of birth canal from one world into another and that's how i felt about these black cod coming up it was like they were being delivered it was like they were being like like imagine a hand from the past sort of like penetrating the presence and dropping something it was like they're being like birthed from one

reality to another like one uh dimension that there's this orifice through which things pass from one dimension to another. One being the abyss and the other being my hand. Total darkness into sunlight. Yeah, that fish, when he's on his way up, he's got to be like, this cannot be good. Joe, for you, what's the pinnacle of fishing i'm i side more with miles on this and i'll say though like deep dropping it's one of those methods sort of like wireline trolling i have the utmost respect for the guys who are very good at it a lot of people think that that's kind of easy stuff like go out there drop down this heavy weight

catch your fish go pull your wire line you catch your stripers there's a lot of art to both of those and i appreciate them very much but i would rather throw poppers at 30 pound blackfin tuna in louisiana than deep drop swordfish just because same thing it It's just, it's the visuals for me. It's the interaction. Like that, that interaction is part of what's so cool about fishing and hunting, but fishing is what we're talking about. Like, what is that fish doing? What am I doing?

And how, where do those two things meet at the end of the line? Like my actions and their actions. I might like watching Rick fish more than deep dropping. All I'm happy to keep doing it for you. Yeah. I might like watching Rick Fish more than Deep Droppin'. All I'm happy to do is keep doing it for you. Yeah, I need to... What's your take on it, though, after having done it?

You were like a Deep Drop enthusiast the last I talked to you. I was? Yeah. Yeah. It was tough just having the one rig, like you were saying. There's a lot of sharing. Yeah, a lot of sharing going on.

You definitely need to invest in another rod and reel. You can get after most of them. But yeah, no, it's like anything. I like figuring it out. And I told you I was talking with his brother, but Jennifer's got cousins there in North Carolina, and one of them deep drops for swordfish. And I was talking to his brother

and I was explaining to him about the muck and all that. And he was saying, oh, the muck is the same when we deep drop for swordfish. He says you should call Rob and talk to him. He'll give you some good tips on how to work the top of the mud

and be right where you need to be. What I'm visualizing is I might patent a sinker that has like some, that steals some attributes from the Mars rover. It's a streamlined three pound sinker that passes through the water. But when it gets near the bottom, it deploys a little. Surface area. Platform. Increase that surface area.

Yeah. And then it lands like a Martian rover. It's got like a back burner. I got a feeling that's the rig I'm on. I got a feeling that with those circle hooks you can probably just leave it in the rod holder once you've got

your depth and wait 5-10 minutes. It'll be in the primordial muck. Well no, not if you set it to not let it go into the muck. Unless you think the depth is changing. I have it on good authority that you have to be dragging bottom by people who would know. No, I know.

So you would make it so that the weight is in the muck, dragging it, and you have your hooks just above it but that you're not so worried about feeling the fish because i think that those fish will just get on hook themselves and then probably stay on that's my kind of fishing i think we should take this offline i get what you're saying but i think that there's i'm trying to be mindful of the limits of the audience i get what you're saying but I feel like we should discuss it later. Just you and I. No, well, for sure.

For sure. Well, I need to talk to my wife's cousin, too. Get some thoughts on that. I used to think of halibut fishing as being very impersonal. But now, I feel like I'm in direct communication with those. They're only 300 feet down. It's like they're like neighbors. I had a halibut experience

i'd like to share my story no definitely need to share this story i thought we were going to kick it off on this one i wish that was on camera well i'll tell you something so uh we fishing halibut in little boats. There's like certain, it's hard to bring a good size halibut into a little teeny boat because everything's, there's too much junk in there anyways. What's like the average size or what's a good size? At what point does a halibut become annoying in a boat? Yeah, sure. An 18 foot boat. We're just talking like a I call rowboats.

We use Lund skiffs. Very seaworthy, rock solid, but just no frills. Bench seats, open bow, aluminum rowboat. And that's what we fish out of. Because we need to be able to drag them up on the beach when we leave. So it's got to be big enough for a couple of guys can like carry it. That's as big as a boat we can have. And when you bring it like to bring a 50 pound halibut into that boat is if he's frisky, it's just a lot.

People on big halibut, like people legitimately break their legs, break their arms, break rods. They go bonkers. People on big halibut, like people legitimately break their legs, break their arms, break rods. They go bonkers. So a thing we do to prevent them from going bonkers is at smaller ones, you gaff them and just drag them in. A little bit bigger, you want to buy some time. And so we have these harpoon shafts, and they have a detachable head on it that's hooked to a cable leader, that's hooked to a rope leader that's hooked to a rope that's hooked to a buoy and when the fish comes up you just jab it through the head and this detachable head comes off it's like a toggle and then throw the buoy over the side of the boat and then the fish is on the line oftentimes this process the fish comes unhooked from a jayhook but all of a sudden now your fish is harpooned on a buoy.

And that buys you all the time in the world. You can then do whatever you need to do. And this buoy is probably the size of a volleyball, you say? Not a basketball. The buoy to blame, the buoy that I'm telling a story about is about the size, it's probably a little smaller than a basketball. Easily,

easily fits into a five-gallon bucket. You probably fit two of them in a five-gallon bucket. You probably fit two of them in a five-gallon bucket. Inflatable buoy. And the inflatable that's only like 2 PSI or something. I mean, it's like no real air pressure in them. And then what you do is you can grab the rope and the buoy's on it and you can pull the fish up. You can bleed it.

You can just hang it there, wait until it stops thrashing, it's bled. If it's like the next stage up, you can kind of put a rope around its tail. You can even tie its tail so he's bent into a C and tie him up like that and then bring him up in the boat

so he's not going bonkers. Anyhow, we're out fishing and we're fishing the spot. The weather's too bad to go to the good spots, so we had to, we're out fishing. And we're fishing this spot. The weather's too bad to go to the good spots, so we had to go to the shitty spots. And we're fishing this shitty spot, and it's shitty. And I'm like, let's go to another shitty spot. And then we go to the other shitty spot,

and I drop down, bam, giant. Like, a big halibut. And I eventually get out of the boat, and we have the conversation we always have, which is like, you're not supposed to kill the big, huge halibut because they're females. Like once they get to a certain size, you just know they're an egg bearing female. They're like a reproductively viable female. And we know that this, we have this conversation like, yeah, but there's commercial long liners that work these same waters.

Like people are hauling out metric tons of right and all the people in the world and everyone wants to bring some halibut home and okay let's kill it this is every time the conversation goes the same way every time we have this verbal acknowledgement that there's an argument to be made for not doing it. And then we justify it with, well, why would we do something about global warming? China's not, right? We have that conversation. So we decide to kill the fish. So it comes up and it's just head.

I mean, like never ending head. It's just all head. Like as deep down as you can see, it's still all head like as deep down as you can see it's still its head jeez and fits takes the harpoon and sticks it in the head and it sounds and the hook pops out the fish sounds the buoy goes overboard like i've never seen a buoy like if you got a hit in the head by this buoy, you'd have been dead. The way this buoy goes overboard as the rope runs out. And the buoy, zoop, gone from the water's surface. And I just got a real sinking feeling. And we're like, well, it'll pop up.

It'll have to pop up. Because I've seen they vanish now, and then they come up like 10 seconds later. Three days later, it hadn't popped up gone he's you know they say hook line and sinker harpoon head rope and buoy he sucked it down or she right that's hard she you know what my buddy fits was even making a point to say she and her, just to rub it in. She sucked it down, and we sat there for an hour waiting, went to get binoculars, because we weren't that far from our shack, went to get binoculars, come back out, spent a couple more hours. Then we start doing concentric circles. The next morning, we're right back out there.

Never to be seen again. How much do you think that fish weighed? Maybe. A lot. How big can halibut get? The state record is like 540 or 490. It wasn't that bad. I know they get over 500 pounds.

I don't know what the state record is. I think the state record's 540. Nothing like that. And how old is a halibut to weigh that much? You'd have to look that up. Yeah, I don't know their growth rates. The females get big. You really shouldn't be doing this to halibut.

But we did it. Did you talk to Ron Layton about the whole experience? No. No, but I did call a couple people. But the best theory is Danny's theory. One guy called who's a hell of a captain. He said, it'll pop up. Like?

He said, I mean, I never heard of one being gone more than 10 minutes, but just hang tight. Oh. I said, when it pops up, does it pop up far away? He goes, I've always been shocked at how close by it popped up. He goes, I think they go straight down, then the buoy floats them straight back up. So he said, just hang tight. I'm like, well, I've already been at how close by it popped up. He goes, I think they go straight down, then the buoy floats them straight back up. So he said, just hang tight.

And I'm like, well, I've already been sitting here an hour. And he's like, I keep looking. Danny's theory is this, and this is the one I think is correct. I think it sucked it down, and the air pressure collapsed the buoy. The water pressure collapsed the buoy. Just. So now it's just living with a buoy. No, I think it's dead with a buoy.

Dead with a buoy. The other theory is that it got hung up on something, but I don't think it got hung up on something. I think it went down, the buoy collapsed. I think it sucked it down 100 feet down or whatever. The buoy... Burst. Collapsed. Deflated.

It would be deflated. Think about when you pull a rockfish up. What's its swim bladder do? Yeah, coming out. It goes, it gets big. Going down, it just would have, he thinks it just deflated. Maybe even popped the cork on the buoy. Because it's an inflatable buoy with a threaded cork in it.

And now that fish just died a slow, painful death at the bottom of the ocean dragging around my deflated buoy. We'll continue to talk about letting those big ones live, and I might be more inclined now. I just have a question, though, about like. Really, really depressing. Yeah, that was kind of a downer. Go ahead with your question, though, about like. Really, really depressing. Yeah, that was kind of a downer. Go ahead with your question, though, Corinne. No, just, you know, back to if a lot of other people do it, whatever it is. That makes it okay.

Yeah. Because it's like, I mean, if you bring something out to its logical argument, you look at the end result of everyone doing it this way or everyone doing it doing x the the other way i just well let me tell you let me put it this way so we get a lot of questions about hunting ethics and fishing ethics and all this right and a point i've settled on and i think i I say to people often, is like a great start with ethics. A great start. And maybe it is the end of your journey. Just do what's legal.

Don't break the law. Learn the law and stick to it. Halibut is not just state regulated, it's federally regulated. Because they move. They're migratory so we like share management authority with canada we have federal and state regulations on halibut those halibut say that as a non-res or non-resident or resident recreational angler you're allowed to halibut of any size every day. Juxtapose that with this year officially, it went from one yellow eye rockfish a year to zero yellow eye rockfish a year. You can have two lingcod, one in the 30 to 45 inch bracket, one in the over 55 inch bracket, annual limit. Black cod, eight per year,

four per day. Right? They're not shy about telling you not to do shit. Got it. They're not shy about it. They're not like, ah, we really shouldn't,

but everyone will be disappointed. They're very, King salmon, they will at the drop of a hat say, sorry boys, even you people that have booked a King salmonmon trip, sorry, King Salmon season ends tonight. Tough shit. So you're allowed to held it per day, any size.

Any size, any sex. Yes. Okay. So if you look at the management authority and you say, man, these guys don't mess around. They're willing to do some insane shit like close seasons unexpectedly overnight.

Who do I go? Where do I pick up my cues from? Sure. But then you're conflicted because these large females. Always have eggs in them. Always have eggs in them, are important for the. Or so I've been told. Charter fishermen, if you're fishing with a guide, if you're a recreational fisherman fishing with a guide,

you can't keep those big ones. Because they want to maintain. They're just reducing a. It just comes. Reducing a stressor on the fish. guide, you can't keep those big ones. Because they want to maintain. They're just reducing a stress around the fish. But commercially you can't. Got it. Like long liners can. And if you talk to the captains up there, they'll tell you that exactly the same amount of big old females

are getting killed and brought in. They're just letting other groups do it. So it's a pretty sticky subject up there. And the other thing is, you can go catch small ones and then people will be pissed because you're not letting them get big. It's a real minefield.

I mean, ethics, you know, it's a whole field of study for a reason. Alright, so that happened. What else? Give me like a uh me losing this fish isn't on the show this is after we stopped filming and i was just hanging around my family but the deep dropping is on the show so stay tuned and then yanni what uh our little snorkeling adventure is going to be on the show yep that's That's a lot of fun. Oh, it's so fun. Very beautiful. Very educational.

It falls into my little bucket of doing stuff that makes me a little nervous. Like dancing at weddings. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Except we didn't do any tequila shots before we jumped into that 55 degree water, which wasn't bad. And just becoming all that, the training that we did with Greg and Alex last year in California, even though it was a whole year later, it really paid off. I was so much more comfortable just getting in there. It was cold, but you warm up in like five minutes when that layer of water warms up in your suit.

And I didn't quite feel like Darth Vader, you know, the whole time we were in the water, whatever it was, a couple hours. It's beautiful down there. And it just all came back. You know, the whole Frenzel technique of popping my ears. Like the first time I got down there and I felt it, I was like, oh, yeah, I remember to do this. And then my ears popped and, yeah, I just went about our business. I didn't find any scalps, which was a bummer, but it's one of those things.

I think I'm going to have to look for a couple hours. It's like morels. It's like it's a learned thing. I think it's one of those things i think i'm gonna have to look for a couple hours it's like morels it's like uh it's a learned thing i think it's like i remember being shot here on a hillside i remember being shocked when i saw my first rock scallop and then now i just kind of know what i'm looking for but i remember being like oh my god that's one yeah and then you wonder like how many those did i pass up right it's kind of that feeling yeah uh quick tidbit on depth and the buoy and the buoy and all that and what greg fonts the spear fisherman he was saying that he dives in that water that

temperature water with a seven mil suit because the suit compresses so by the time you're down to um when you're at depth you're in like a two mil suit or a three mil suit you see what i'm saying i do yeah but go on that's interesting uh no i just really enjoyed that um the snorkeling rick you did too yep highlight for sure picking up those sea cucumbers man that is definitely the beginners like that's the the gateway for to free diving right there are those sea cucumbers yeah it. They don't get away. They can't get away. 15 feet. You can see them from 15 feet. You don't have to hang out very long. You get like one or two, and then all of a sudden you go down,

and you're like, ah, there's 10 in a row. I was out of breath most of the time. I wasn't doing a very good job holding my breath. Rick, what were your impressions, just in general, your closing thought? Of the whole shoot? Yeah, just the trip and everything. Oh, I mean, I think the fish shack is easily one of my favorite places.

It rains all the time, which is pretty terrible for doing camera work, but I wouldn't trade it. But I'm always amazed how, I don't know, just those coastal conditions. Out on the water, it's raining, it's cold, it's 50 degrees. It's, uh, yeah, it's, it's fantastic though. Thumbs up. Thumbs up. You got a couple of drone shots while we were

up there. Oh man, some beautiful drone stuff, which makes my drone enthusiasm very, very high. We had to write, we wrote a song about Rick as a drone enthusiast. He's got that itch. His name is Rich, but it's actually Rick is how the song goes. Some pretty good lyrics there. All right, let's close out with another robust plug for Bent.

No, hold on. I got a little comment on, you know how everybody says halibut or just like pulling up a piece of plywood or a barn door? Everybody says everything. Yeah. Well, I'd like to just comment on that. And I was thinking about that, fighting a few of the halibut I caught there a couple weeks ago.

I'm like, this feels like any other fish you're pulling off the bottom. Dude, you can feel the head shakes? Yeah. If you didn't know that it was a halibut, it could be a big fat grouper, it could be a, I don't know, think of another fish that just, they don't go for screaming long runs,

at least I've never experienced that, you know. Well, it's because you've got such heavy tackle. Yeah. Oh, when you're jigging, you're already jigging, you're jigging way up over your head, and all of a sudden, BAM! BAM! And then you buckle in and that head. And all of a sudden, bam! Bam! And then you buckle in, and that head's just going poof, poof, poof. Almost like it hurt.

Like if he was hitting your head with his head, it'd knock you out. Oh, yeah. They put up a good, all that, oh, burn door, do-do-do, wet sock. So I like Halibut for that. They were really fun to catch this time. Again, I've got a little more experience. So I think I just, I lost one. So I feel like I had a good, pretty good hitting catch to hook to bite to hook ratio, which is nice. You know, didn't let many go.

But coming home and eating them, you know, I'm not like huge on the halibut usually for eating them. They're just, it's just like a vessel. You know, like everybody describes, right? They're just, it's meat. It's there. Doesn't have a lot of flavor. Everybody likes it. But I decided to blacken one with that blackening spice. Oh yeah, talk about that. Remember that stuff that we got in the pint jars? Yeah, but talk about the guy.

Yeah, Chef John. White, maybe, is his last name? I can't remember. Just like Instagram buddies We've never hung out But he asked if we wanted some I said sure So he sent us like 6 pints of his blackening spice

I'm telling you Follow his directions Don't put too much on both sides A little bit of oil Cast iron And then when you flip it After you sear the first side You put in like

Depending on how much fish you got in there, but up to half a stick of butter. And then just start basting. Turn it down like low and start basting that seared side with the butter. And after maybe five minutes when it's getting to be done, a little bit of white wine, squeeze a lemon in there, keep basting. Prime eating right there. Did you get all that Rick?

Yeah I'll give you some I thought I'd go through that pint Wicked quick But I barely have a dent in it Alright one last quick robust plug For Bent A much better show about fishing

Than what we just had That was real tangential I will say of all the projects Fishing projects I've worked on over the years, I am more excited about this one than anything else I've ever done. So I just, I just hope, I think miles would agree.

Um, people have fun with this podcast are entertained by it and, and kind of occasionally walk away going, what the hell did he just say is kind of my goal. So, and not because the sound quality is poor. No, not at all.

No, if that, if that's a problem, the sound quality is poor. No, not at all. No. If that's a problem, take that up with Phil. If it's a content problem, you can write to us. Yeah, it's going to be produced by Meat Eaters Best. Exactly. There won't be any sound issues. The one and only. Phil the engineer.

When can our audiences listen to the podcast? Every single Friday, dropping early, early in the morning. If you are up earlier than this drops, then either you have really small children or you're doing more fun things than I am. I was going to say, well, you fish more than miles a night. Yeah, exactly. All right. Thanks, folks. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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