The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 238: The Star of the Redneck Riviera

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

Steven Rinella talks with Oliver Ngy, Miles Nolte, Joe Cermele, Kevin Harlander, Corinne Schneider, and Ryan Callaghan.Topics discussed: engineering ideas for glass bottom drift boats; hitting a hornet's nest with a fish and then getting attacked by that hornet; night panther popsicles; how Cal protects sausage from his hand hairs with latex gloves; Jon Gary and the star Starcraft of Das Boat, Season 2: Dos Boat; how Steve learned a lot about surf casting from Joe Cermele's book; explaining what a passive feeder is; how harness rigging a chipmunk as bait just does not fly today; how musky should be rebranded back to muskellunge; the beauty of trying something new and FOMO holding you back from experimenting; cast counting; Oliver Ngy's uber polished cast and figure 8s; what social media and the internet have done to fishing; conservation as conservation vs. when economics and recreation impact conservation management; when fish fall from the sky and hit your car; the time when Kevin blanked on a hole; Miles educating about big mouth buffalo; 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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Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with OnX. All right, Cal, tell me again what you're reading about. Oh, I got doing all my deep dive research for the week. I came across this Kansas City Star article about a guy who was like many Americans right now exploring our national parks. He'd been to several of them and it appears he was picking up natural mementos from each park.

Sure. No, I got no problem yet. He was driving through Yellowstone and a park ranger flagged him down because he had strapped to the top of the vehicle some like nice branches that still had pine cones on them you know like people steal this stuff to make uh like wreaths and centerpieces and things like that um but it's illegal to take out of national parks and

the guy volunteered the information he's like oh well you know i'm just on my way home i've been traveling national parks for three weeks and the ranger was like really well could i look inside your vehicle uh for any other natural objects and the guy is like yes but uh just so you know you're gonna find some stuff and it was definitely not from other national parks and so he had like these i'd like to clear one thing up before you look and so like she pops the hatch on this uh tahoe chevy tahoe and you know there's like the giant uh pine cones yeah uh from like redwood yeah the sequoia national park right she's like well obviously these came from and then uh had you know petrified wood

and uh 10 large pine cones five pine cones seeds, 5 large pieces of petrified tree, 63 rocks, a black and blue feather, a live plant with roots still attached, 7 pounds of marijuana, a large bag of psilocybin mushrooms, $5,000 in cash, 2 handguns. Stu's ready for a cross-country trip man and i was just laughing thinking uh this is a good story for everybody to keep in mind the next time they get stuck behind some vehicle that's like blocking both lanes of traffic mysteriously taking pictures of like a prairie dog or something they're like like, what could be so interesting? We had a guy, a guy wrote in with a good weed story where this like, he says, big fan of the show, big fan of the podcast, big fan of the show.

And he wanted to send a story about his mountain lion sighting. So he's in, he's close to the Ohio, Michigan line. And he points out that lately they're building a quarry and doing a lot of dynamiting in a quarry. And so he feels that this dynamiting in this quarry is displacing wildlife. And he explains that him and his brother were up on the roof shooting pop cans out towards the woods, which they like doing a lot. And his brother had been smoking a lot of weed

in the sunset. And his brother's so high that he thinks that his eyes are playing tricks on him, but his brother says he notices a naked man run on all fours across the backyard up by the tree line. They both get freaked out and they want to go investigate so he grabs his henry 22 and his brother grabs a wood splitting mall and they go out to the tree

line and sure enough here's a mountain lion they get stricken with absolute fear he fires his 22 in the direction of the mountain lion and um doesn think he hit it, and then he ran off. And he asks, you guys heard about any large predators in the area? So there's a mountain lion sighting. That would be an interesting T-shirt design, right? Where it's like, if you think you see this, it could be this. Naked man on all fours, mountain lion. It's probably a cougar.

So Oliver Nye is here. First time on the show. Absolutely. I'm glad to finally meet you. You came in from California. Yes, sir. Didn't expect to be here. Tell people what your groove is real quick.

I got another news item I want to share with or a story that you'll appreciate. My groove. I don't even know how to answer that. You like to go fishing a whole bunch? I fish a ton. Yeah. A lot.

And just try to find a new adventure no matter where I am. So whether that's back home in California and trying and doing things that are out of my comfort zone or floating the Yellowstone River for the first time and trying to throw a big plastic fish. Oh, so you were trying to fish. You were taking your California largemouth bass tactics. Yep.

Did you catch giants? I got bit and the line broke. You sure it wasn't a rock or something? Probably was. I mean, who knows though so i'm so you didn't you didn't uh you didn't take a fly pole and try it at all there was a fly rod in the boat but apparently it was set up for disaster because there was like some kind of like backlash that was like wound over it or something so corinne was like struggling with it at first and then sam

was fishing with you? Yeah. Yeah. Corinne, you're like a river rat now. So no, I didn't get a chance to actually pick up the fly rod, which I was excited to try because I've only done it a couple of times. Yeah. But I did also want to see what was potentially swimming in that river with a really big lure that I'm sure they've never seen before. A good way to do that, and I just recently discovered this, is you get a snorkel and mask.

Oh. And just go down the damn river. Right. You find out everything. Right. You find out all the secrets. Absolutely. All the secrets.

Yeah, I fished with a. People know where there's holes that have fish, but the dude that goes through the snorkel and mask knows where in the hole, like with alarming specificity. Right. Like what is going on in there? Yeah, I got that perspective fishing on the Sacramento River for big striped bass this past winter, and one of the guys spearfishes them. Yeah.

So same deal. He knows exactly where they sit. Where they go. He's like, you know that one rock? Well, to the left of that one rock and about six inches back, they like to hold there. Right. Yeah, you know what is up. So why didn't we bring a snorkel?

Oh, that's how, like we were talking earlier about how I figured out some years ago where those big ones hold in the rapids. Oh, right. That's exactly how that happened. Really? Was snorkeling through and being like, holy shit, that's a huge fish sitting right at the bottom of that rapid. If I was a boat builder, I would build a, oh man, it'd be so hard to not get it scratched up. I would build a glass bottom drift boat. That would be, that would be a sketchy proposition right there.

A glass bottom drift boat, and then I'd be very, very careful about where I rode it. And I would know all secrets. I mean, I think, I don't know if I'd go full see-through bottom. I'd like have a little replaceable window because you're going to scratch it up. There's no way you're going to not scratch it up. You could have a recessed fish eye like dealy smack on there. Yes. That had a ceramic. I like this. Yeah. I like this idea. You'd find out what is going on there. Yes. That had a ceramic.

I like this. Yeah. I like this idea. You can find out what is going on everywhere you went. Oliver, you'll appreciate this story. A guy, so this is a guy, writes in, he lives on a pond and the pond is managed for trout, but some derelict introduced largemouth bass into the pond.

Everybody in the pond's all mad. So he likes to eat them. The largemouth. He likes to eat the big largemouth because if the pond. Everybody in the pond's all mad. He likes to eat them. The largemouth. He likes to eat the big largemouth because if you catch one, you're supposed to kill it because it's supposed to be trout. They used to have brookies and browns in there and the bass killed them all. Then they put in

rainbows and now they're trying to kill all the bass. Anyhow, if it's big, he eats it. If it's small, he fires it. If it's small, he fires it up in the bushes for raccoons or whatnot to eat it. And he says he catches one the other day and

goes to fling it to the bank, but it slips out of his hand mid-stroke, hits a hornet's nest, falls into the water, and then the hornet comes down and attacks him. Was his name Bill Dance? No. He doesn't say what his name is.

But that's like some weird karma shit right there. Yes, it is. Hit a hornet's nest with a bass, and then the bass got away anyway. I think we talked about this earlier. I've got to touch back on this. Some dudes found elk. Did you hear about this?

Some dudes found an elk skull. If I was you, I would be reporting on this in Cal's Week in Review. This is not the Michigan. Some dudes in Michigan found an elk skull. Okay, yeah, yeah. And it was like, I was like, oh, some guy threw it in there, modern time. I don't know. Perfect skull, like a perfect in there. Modern time. I don't know. Perfect skull.

Like a perfect elk skull. It is. It is a six by six bull. 220 years old. And they're saying it's an Eastern elk. Yeah. Native Michigan elk. Which is an extinct species.

Native elk from Southern Michigan 220 years ago. Big ass bull. Yeah. I was debating the other day. Just yesterday I was debating someone who was pointing out like, how could we delist wolves when they're not recovered, when they're only recovered across such a small bit of their range? Mm-hmm. And I pointed out that we've only recovered elk on about 14% of their range. Yeah. Bighorn sheep is like six.

Yeah. And no one says we shouldn't be chasing after elk. Yeah. Southern Michigan, big ass bull, mature bull. Yeah. No, that was, that was quite, quite the find. That, that really, uh, solidifies that saying of like, well, I like fishing here cause you never

know what you're going to get. So was it in a riverbed? Was it that kind of deal? In a lake. Yeah. I like how they already got a theory of what happened to it. Got stuck in the mud. Got stuck in the mud.

Oh, man. Yeah. I was reading. Not that it died on the ice. Yeah. I mean, there's so many ways that could have gone. Yeah. So anyways, I don't know.

Got stuck in the mud. Oh, the guy got hit by a car. Or a guy's driving his car in Tennessee, gets hit with a white bass. The state of Tennessee is like, well, we don't see a lot of these types of wildlife collisions. What do they think happened? Someone threw it at him? Well, here's the best part, right? They're like, well, our theory is that an eagle fought an osprey over your car and the osprey had to release its fish to get away. And then it fell and hit your car.

That's valid. I'm like, of course there has to be a, it can't just be a fish fell out of the talons of a, which happens all the time. Yeah. But it's like. They just drop them. There is a air to air combat scenario over your vehicle. To be fair though, I used to see that all the time guiding. Osprey would grab a fish out of the river and the eagle is just waiting because Osprey is such a better predator in the river. Yes.

And the eagle is just hanging back and be like, I'll wait for you to do the work and then I'm going to steal it from you. Yes. So that does happen. Happens a lot. A lot. I've seen it in LA. Oh, yeah. In LA.

Yeah. A little more on this elk real quick. What the hell is a lake? Dude was moving an anchor for a swim float. Got hung up on the anchor. Sullivan Lake near Fenton, Michigan. Came hooked on the anchor of a swim platform. Drug up the anchor and here it is.

Yeah. Dad is. Now, in the same little piece I'm reading. They did donate it to some kind of local museum. I'd have hung it at my house. Oh house oh i know i would have had a hard hard time i would have a very difficult time i'd have a very difficult time doing the right thing now buddy mine he i want to let me touch on this real quick in the same piece so they also recently, in a riverbed there, uncovered two vertebrae from a baleen whale. What?

And the only thing they can think is that they were brought in, like the Hopewell culture, they were brought in as a thing that was cool. Right. When I was, I think I mentioned this before, but when I was doing research on historic range of Buffalo in the U.S., you want to talk about something that's barely, dudes ran into Buffalo in Washington, D.C. New Orleans had them. New Orleans.

Yeah. The Texas coast. Now that's something I can see getting stuck in the mud you know people had counted a thousand of them in what is now nashville i can see that they don't have esa protection that's true now these bailing anyways when i was working on looking at trying to map out that range people used to include new y York as historic range, New York State. And that inclusion, I think it dates back to the discovery of two skulls in New York. Both had cultural markings on them.

People now think that someone just brought them home. Yeah. Someone thought they were cool. Yeah. So these baleen whale vertebrae were like some kind of, you know, the best explanation being to some kind of trade item. I mean, so many artifacts from animals and critters wound up doing that, right? Like, I think, I think a good example that when I was digging in on freshwater drum and they were finding those, the, the otolith bones. Yeah.

Like all the way on the other side of the country where they're not even close to Havet. They've never lived over there. There's no evidence they've ever lived over there. But in archeological dig sites, they often find those otolith bones from freshwater

drum mixed in. Abalone shells in the interior. Yep. Assuming that it was some form of currency or a talisman or something. Now, what was I getting at about these vertebrae? Was there some other thing I was going to talk about? I mean, from what I read, I think, I think that's it.

You know, it could have been, uh, just a cool trade item could have been used as like, uh, some sort of a vessel. Um, but I don't think that's the only whale. Uh, I don't think that's the only whale. Uh, I don't think that that's the only like whale evidence that there is in that part of the country too. That's the other interesting part.

For people dragging stuff home. Yes. But, and then there was something, go ahead. Something about whales making it up rivers to a certain degree too. Not there, man.

No, not there. No, no, no, not there. But like, if you look in, there. No, no, no, not there. But like if you look in, in. Oh, like getting stranded and dying way up rivers.

Yeah. Like Maine has a couple of circumstances of like orcas going way up river. California has some whales that have gone way up river into, into desalinated water. Gotcha. Yeah. What I was gonna mention about keeping

hoarding stuff for yourself or giving it to museums, a buddy of mine thought he was on public land okay and lo and behold he looks in the riverbed and here's the mammoth molar then he looks in about 30 inches away here's another mammoth molar both facing up and he's like what are the chances of that and then he's like oh my gosh it's like the whole you know it's the whole damn skull oh wow but what's sticking out of the two molars he said it was about like he just i can't remember how he described something like the tip of his one cam on his bow to the other cam on his bow apart then he gets to really scrutinize and on x and in fact, he's not on public

land. So he's in a little bit of a conundrum and eventually goes and the landowner was saying, you know, I was kind of accidentally on your property and couldn't help but notice. And it wound up in the museum. Like that guy was cool about it. Like donated it. I'd have hoarded that. This friend of yours that you speak of though is like the mother Teresa of people who find cool shit and leave it where it's supposed to be.

Yeah. Like he has, he's one of the, he's not that old. Oh, you know who I'm talking about. Yeah, but he's got, like, a photo album of, like, oh, do you like dinosaur teeth? Oh, do you like, and you're just like. He's a magnet. He's a magnet for crazy shit, man.

Oh, oh. That dude finds more crazy shit. I don't know, he's's like some people got an eye for it you know yeah he's got like a fine-tuned crazy shit detector in his brain oh man it it just you spend a couple minutes looking at that book and you're like i'm just gonna live in a trailer here in eastern montana and wander the earth uh quick couple updates on the ass movement this is the anti-surface shitting movement. Some people wrote in as we were talking about it.

This is a guy who crusades. He's made it his life mission to crusade against taking a growler out on the surface of the earth. And then doing nothing to masquerade it. Nothing to tuck it in i'll say that in areas where there's no fire damage i feel the epitome of courtesy is to dig a cat hole defecate in the cat hole then burn the teepee but you gotta be careful about fire danger. The only thing that I've been meaning to say on this is there are certain places on earth, basically in most of your Western states where the microbial layer, the ability for things to be broken down in an efficient manner can be very, very close to the surface of the earth. Yeah. Just ask that elk skull.

Yes. Yeah. Land on the surface of the earth. Yeah, just ask that elk skull. Yes, yes. Land on the bottom of that lake. Digging a cat hole, sometimes beyond four inches, is going to preserve, you're going to end up being the author of a preserved specimen that somebody can go look at 100,000 years from now. Yeah, yeah, sure. so that's just something that, that doesn't mean you can't flip a rock.

And burning the TP is something I believe in. In certain environments, even flipping a rock, you're probably going to make a coprolite. Yes. Coprolite is the word I was looking for. I am more concerned with the aesthetics. Absolutely. I don't think there's anything inherently icky about a buried human feces,

but I think that there's something icky about a surface human feces. I'll tell you what. This is coming from a man who has had collections of animal feces, but I don't like the human ones. I don't like ones from dogs. I don't like ones from dogs. I don't like ones from people. Running this dog around right now where, you know, you got a curious puppy.

Phil's had this experience. Like you, some of the trailheads, river access sites around here, it's like you got to sprint that puppy through, you know, the shit zone where people feel comfortable like sneaking into the woods yeah and like get down to the river really fast because that puppy's gonna find it's gonna find it and eat it and lick your face exactly or corinne's face

uh anyways a dude wrote in a couple pieces of feedback about anti-surface pooping anti-surface shit as the guy wrote in instead of calling a feedback about anti-surface pooping, anti-surface shitting. As the guy wrote in, instead of calling it a cat hole, he's like, you should call it an asshole. Anti-surface shitting hole. Huh? That's pretty good. I like that. That's a good joke.

Now, another guy said, I had mentioned who, like, for every anti, there's a pro. Oh, come on. Well, I was just saying, like, is there actually a pro surface shitting movement? There absolutely has to be. There is. There is. Like an organized movement. No, they're not organized.

But he says Georgia and Alabama, he knows, he says he tries to get distance from these people, but he knows them. He knows of them. Turkey hunters in Georgia and Alabama who use taking a growler in strategic locations as a way to discourage competition. Oh. Ah. discourage competition. Oh. So they might go to like a little park and trailhead area and duke it up real good. Thinking that it just sends

people elsewhere. Oh, that's terrible. That's primal. That's terrible. Yeah. That is like marking territory. It's horrible. So you remember we got some beta on a black tail spot and, uh, there were no real black tails there when we were hunting Alaska the last time. And you're like, yeah, but I'm pretty sure. the spot where we were kind of anchoring the boat and canoeing in, there's,

um, there was some like very much like, yes, somebody has been successful here. It was like bailing twine and a pelvis or something. Oh, right. Like,

yes, this means. Yeah. It's going to be one thing. Yes. Yeah. Nowadays it's kind of a shame, but nowadays it's those goddamn latex gloves, man. Ugh.

Yeah. People gut something. They put those gloves on because they're like, ew, it's icky. And then they leave the gloves laying. I like the latex glove thing as far as a tool because I'm terrible at washing my hands. Way better these days with COVID. Sure. But then I go the opposite way and I'm washing my latex gloves for like,

for a long time. It's, yeah, I keep them around. And then I have cooking latex gloves too for like mixing burger and doing stuff like that in the kitchen. And I always wonder if those two gloves ever met. The last bit of follow-up on the ass movement. Guy from Utah, he works in the therapeutic wilderness industry.

And they call them surfies. Surfies. In his industry, there's a lot of surfies. Because you wind up with kids that are too lazy, scared, uncomfortable to use the group latrine they get spooked off the group latrine and i could tell you that my five-year-old doesn't like the outhouse at our fish shack and when he he doesn't he'd rather go out and dig a cat hole if you force him to use the like the the our thing it's like a classic outhouse with

no door so you're just looking out into the rainforest which is nice and then we got a barrel that we cut in half set the barrel down on the hole so you got the plywood with the hole cut right then you got a half a barrel cut plastic barrel that half the barrel cut and laid on there a hole cut in the barrel and on that is screwed a toilet seat nice one um he'll make you sit there with a stick and wrap that barrel till the everlasting last fly comes out of there like he does he is deathly afraid of sitting on that thing with flies in there. So you'll come up and just beat that barrel to get all the flies out and then he'll sit on it.

So I know what he's talking about. Like some kids don't want to, they don't like group latrines. So he'll say, they'll go out, they'll sneak off and go lay a surfy. Then you got to go out and find them all and round them up and he says that night they call when someone does that night they're called a night panther he says he says when it's real cold and you just get up out of your bag or whatever sleeping bag and you go out and you do lay a night panther he'll actually put a stick into it. Oh, like a little flag. No, a handle.

Because it freezes overnight. Like a popsicle stick. Yes, you put a stick into it. Not only does it mark its location, it freezes that night. You go over and just grab the stick and then you can haul it over and get yourself a good place to put it.

That's pretty smart. Poop pops. It's called poop pops. He signs off by saying, don't let the night panthers bite. No. Enough of that. What now about latex gloves? I didn't mean to be down on them.

I wear them. I had some on the other day because we were butchering caribou and the gnats are so unjust. Like you can't even. Like backs of your hands. They like the backs of your hands. You can't even, like, you could be like, oh, you know, there's no thing you could say to describe the gnats. There's no, like, clouds. Like, there's no, just, it's just horrible.

No. And I put latex gloves on because they like your knuckles so bad. Yeah. So just for terminology's sake, are we talking about the little biting flies like the White Sox? No. Talking about the no-see-ums? No. These are no-see-ums, but you can see them.

These are no-see-ums the size of Skeeters. Ooh. I don't know. You know, there's so many like regional names for black flies, white socks. Nah, definitely like a slash and lap dip Tara. Okay. In this, when you can see it, when you can skylight them, you see them all around your damn head. They skylight.

They, they, they, They look like a mosquito. That big. But they bite like a no-see-um. But they're a slash-and-lap, fly family. I don't know. Caribou all around their eyes. I don't even know how they can see. All right.

I got you. That sounds miserable. Duh. And then you're in the tussocks. Do you know what a tussock is? Yeah, oh, yeah. So the tussocks here got a relief of like 24 inches from the moss to the top of the tussock. And you shoot a caribou and they land down in the – so they're like – you're actually working on them subsurface.

Right. There's no way to get them out of there. If you're standing on a tussock, you're like bending over down to try to get to where it lands. That sounds truly miserable. And it's just wet and hot. It turns like otherwise a pleasurable experience into just the worst. It's always such spongy ground when you're in those tussocks. You can't get any good purchase. Everything's like, oh my God, the bugs.

I got an interesting caribou related fact for you. I mean, it'd be, it's from that Farley Moab book that old Dirt gave me. Oh, you mean his like classic Never Cry Wolf? No, not that. The Deer People. Yeah. That guy wrote like 24 books. I've read a hand.

It's so funny. They just like fall in your lap every 10 years or so. That's the way it's been for me anyway. Um, but, uh, he's talking about how the Eskimo group that he's living with up, uh, in the barren lands, the food that they consume is awful. Some gut and, uh and the front shoulders. Ophal. Ophal.

I like awful. I know, but I didn't know. I wanted people to. O-F-F-A-L. Yeah. I was just saying it that way so people would track what you're saying. Yeah. You know, probably won't surprise you, but I do get beat up over the way I talk and pronounce certain things.

I'm sure, yeah. Yeah. But you cover, you. i try to get the definition but you headed off at the pass by saying like i probably yeah mess it up uh so they take the shoulders for their own personal consumption like and then the hindquarters, like the big hams are what the dogs get to eat. Hmm. And, um, and it goes as far as to say that like the hams aren't going to sustain a person in the barrens.

Is that right? Yeah. But then, uh. Then not enough connective tissue and collagen or whatever. Yeah. And they don't like it cause it's not chewy. Yeah? Yeah. But then. Not enough connective tissue and collagen or whatever. Yeah. And they don't like it because it's not chewy. Yeah. Yeah.

And I mean, neck meat, shoulder meat, slow, slow cooked stuff is awesome. But, you know, obviously flat iron steaks are fantastic too when they're cooked right. We had a guy, Yanni and I had a chupac eskimo i think i taught i talked about this before tell us that his favorite part you know the giant tendon that hooks to the like the the thoracic yeah process what is it called yeah like on a vertebra the big ass thing that shoots upward yeah big fin but it's not a fin What is it called? Yeah. Like on a vertebra, the big ass thing that shoots upward. Yeah, the big fin. But it's not a fin.

Right. Is it a process? Or is it a, I knew this at one point in time. There's a name for that. I don't, it's not. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, on a vertebra, there's like that. It's big.

You know, they're like 11, 12 inches long on a bison. Moose have huge ones. Anyways, the tendon that holds the head up. So when you're skinning something, you find that big yellow. He's like, that's good. That's nice and chewy. He's like, I'll say. I bet it is.

I can't say I've ever got down on that one. Yeah, not talking about things being tender That's good Chewy is good Alright good That's enough for news wrap I want to follow up We almost went down the latex gloves thing

I genuinely have this question Because Cal was talking about using them in the kitchen And I have used them for butchering animals I've used them in that context I get why they fit there But you're talking about mixing them in the kitchen and I have used them for butchering animals. I've used them in that context. I get why they fit there, but you're talking about mixing burger, mixing sausage, and I've always just washed my hands really well before I did, before and after doing that.

So what's the thinking? I think that is the extent of it, burgers and sausage for me. I mean, washing your hands well is going to do it as long as folks cook their food pretty much for any circumstance. But my hands are always beat up fairly dirty and then when i'm really in there mixing sausage especially if

you're using like fine ingredients um like i toasted up a bunch of coriander for that sausage i gave you and then and turn that into a powder before i mixed it in there and you gotta like mix like hell in order to distribute that stuff especially because I add fat into the sausage too so it's real tacky and I can just feel like if I didn't wear gloves I could just feel the hairs on my hands getting sucked off into that sausage and like whatever scabs and shit I have on So you're doing it to protect the sausage, not your hands. Not yourself. Correct. Got it. And as we've talked about many, many times, that's the number one thing I give away is sausage.

Yeah. Like, even though it is very expensive, a giant pain in the ass to make. But you know people are going to use it, though. It's self-explanatory. And they know what to do with it. Yeah. And you don't want your little hairs and fingernails in there. Exactly.

I'll tell you a hot tip. Those same Chupac dudes, they, because you know, it's like 20 below, 30 below hunting muskox out there in March. They bring wool liners and oversized latex gloves to butcher. That shit, man, is nice. Oh is nice oh yeah all right so good on gloves yeah i don't like i'm not i don't like there's something unappetizing to me you know nowadays every food service person even when you're watching like barbecue uh shows like if you're in a place like in the gym and they got the tv on and there's no volume so you never know what's going on but you can kind of track the tv show um and they're doing making barbecue even they wear those

giant plastic food service ones not the ones that fit right but the giant clown hand ones it's just not appetizing to me no i'd rather have your damn hand in there well plus like the uh the uh environment that's going on between your skin and the glove is never an appetizing thing. And you always know what that's like. Yeah. It's just like, it just looks so, uh, medical. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, when you describe it as an environment. Yeah. That really like, that calls up that wet soupy image. Yeah. And something can grow out of there. That's why it's an environment.

Here's the other thing too, is the whole glove thing. Everybody wearing, all the food service people wearing gloves now makes it that when I have someone over for dinner and I go to like dress the salad, I like to give it a good hand toss. Oh yeah. Right? So now they're sitting there, you know, and maybe it's someone like a work person. I don't know that well. I'm hosting an out of town guest and they're sitting there and I want to do my salad. And I'm like, listen, man, I'm not going to tong this son of a bitch just because you're here.

I'm going to hand blend it. Are they like, you know what I mean? I feel like that's a litmus test. Are they so used to the whole glove deal that then they're like, why are his hands in there? Like that. Who cares? I don't believe that you care. Well, it occurs to me.

I wouldn't be talking about it. Fair. So it's just like. I feel like the salad's special because it's got some of Steve's skin flakes in it. My hairs and skin flakes. All right. We got to move on to what we're supposed to be talking about. Das Boat Season 2. Yeah.

We're going to talk about it. We really did it, guys. We really did it. Miles, do for me a recap of Das Boat season one. Season one? Like tell what it was. What is it? What is it?

All right. For those of you who don't know, we wanted to make a fishing show that didn't feel like every other fishing show. And we all have this love for old boats, particularly old aluminum boats. Like most of the folks I know, I certainly did. I think most people in this room got their starts fishing in old, relatively crappy aluminum boats. Like most of the folks I know, I certainly did. I think most people in this room got their

starts fishing in old, relatively crappy aluminum boats, but that represented. Once upon a time was called a boat. A boat. Exactly. It was just a boat. But that little boat. Dave says a boat.

You'd be like, oh, I can imagine. I'm calling him Dave. Because I don't have a boat. I can imagine what it looks like. Yeah. But we didn't care if they were nice. Like that, that boat was your passage off the shore as a young kid angler.

Like that was a huge jump forward. So we decided to make a fishing show that featured an old relatively crappy aluminum boat. And we went and legitimately, this was, there was no artifice to this. We bought one of the worst aluminum boats we'd find sight unseen off of Craigslist from a very

interesting dude named Tony in central Texas. And, uh, and then we took that boat and we sent it around the Southeast with different anglers to different fisheries. And we gave them each a day to try and do some kind of modification on that boat to make it better for the fishing they wanted to do. And then they had to try and figure it out.

Fixed it up like the Dickens. Yeah. I mean, some better than others. They weren't all entirely successful. Cause I mean, we really, you had, you had a day. Yeah, but it went from, uh, went from having like, kind of like a, a barely running motor. Oh.

That was effectively inoperable. It's night and day. That boat is sweet now. Yeah. I mean, from all the things we did from, from reinforcing the transom, putting on a new motor, building out the casting deck, which, which Cal did a fantastic job on.

We, we put a polling platform on there. We, uh, we got some electronics on there. Oliver put a very nice trolling motor On that thing Honda four stroke Yeah got a Honda four stroke on there that ran Beautifully I knew that was a successful repower when I could look down at the hole

And watch it waving like a water bed On plane I was like okay We're boogieing Yep And by the end We actually had that thing tricked out Okay. We're boogieing. Yep. And by the end, we actually had that thing tricked out with a center console, and it's a sweet boat now. And then we auctioned it off to raise money for Cal's special project.

Well, I helped select the special project, but it is our special project. Well, you brought it to our attention. Yes. A special land access project, Shiloh Pond in Maine, that Cal identified as needing a boost to get across the finish line. Basically purchasing a piece of land that has historically been open to access, but it was never, um, never made official longterm. Yeah. It was a private chunk that provided access to whoever wanted to go out there. And there was a group that wanted to purchase

it outright, make it forever public. Yeah. Hunting and fishing location. So we sold the damn boat. Yes. And what was the final? I think it was 14 grand.

I felt like that's like a break even amount for the boat. Oh, yeah. It's got to steal. Yeah. I now know nothing against the guy that bought it. I now know that he's a real nice guy. Should have raffled it. Yeah.

But the problem with the raffle, like we looked at that, the legal issues of trying to hold a raffle across all the different states were, were daunting. Yep. But I now have reason to believe. I now have fact-based info that suggests for something like that, you will do 4X. Oh, I believe it. On a raffle. I believe it. Because me and Cal are involved in one right now.

Cal, do you know where that's sitting right now? I don't think we should give away how the sausage is made. I'm going to show you with my fingers. No. Yes, that's where that sits right now. Man, should auction that boat. No, raffle. Raffle, we did auction.

Raffle. No, man, I wish we could have done. And I would have liked the fact that it would have given everybody an equal chance and not just the highest bidder got it. Nothing against who got it, and I'm very happy about where the vote's going. I'll give him a back rub. But I like the egalitarian nature of the raffle. Good old raffle.

Yeah. So, season two, that was all based. How do you define where season one was based? I mean, we're calling it the Southeast, but that's not entirely right. It was, it was Texas, Florida, and Georgia. Yeah. South-ish. Yeah.

Southeast-ish. Yeah. And, and, and, and picking our spots based on, you know, interesting people, interesting fisheries and interesting stories. We really wanted to focus on not just, you know, the same old spots everybody's been. We had some of those and some of the species that you're expecting, but we also wanted to like get something that had some more, some

more layers of interest to it other than like, Hey, we went and caught a fish. Yeah. Because you can find that on any fishing show. Season two takes place in upper Midwest Great Lakes. Yes, it does. You could say.

Yeah. The boat. So the boats are very, very, it's personal to me because I kind of explained the story in the show, but I'll talk about this boat a little bit. My old man was born in the south side of Chicago, Little Italy. And he got older and got into hunting and fishing and stuff by mostly by going off to fight in the war and then always dreamed of going up and like getting a place in the wilderness which happened to be like you know four hours north of michigan right like it's all relative and at the time it was you know it was a kind of a wild east sort of place

and so before i was born my mom and my old man go up to um look at this house that i was born in my mom still lives there today and the way my old man tells it he he goes to look at the house but there's no one there so he looks around at the house and there's a happens no one's living in the house there's a summer cottage and there's a boat out front and he takes the boat out in the lake and as he tells it as he tells it he caught a five pound largemouth which is a monster for that well here's that's the thing we used to always tell the story but now i'm like how could it be that the only five pound bass ever after thousands of days thousands of days of fishing that lake spring summer fall winter

everybody we knew okay my mom's been in that house the 46 years i've been alive how come that was the biggest bass that ever got caught like why would it be that that that you know what happened to him peaked early so i don't know i think it was a nice bass i think he got like a 20 inch bass and it sir seemed like a five pounder a 20 incher could go five pounds theoretically. If he said four, I'd be like, wow. But anyways, anyways, I don't know.

We caught a big, like Oliver, what, you know those little length charts which I know are off? Right. Because we do them on,

we like do the length weight thing on halibut and then we actually just weigh the halibut. Totally. And it's, and I've done with other fish too,

but what's a five pound bass supposed to be? How many inches? 24? It really depends on their build. Yeah, I know, but just give me a general. And time of year, I think the large mouth bass are probably the worst fish to try to plug in any of those formulas. Oh, really? Because there's so many variables. Because their fitness varies. Absolutely.

Like what they're eating varies and density of weight, like a fish from Clear Lake, California is probably like twice as heavy from the mercury content in the water alone. But like they really like you'll pick up a fish and be like, oh man, that's a nice three pounder and put on a scale and it's almost five. You're like, what the, like that doesn't compute. So when I see all these tapes and measuring devices with a formula,

like, oh, a 20 inchercher is a five-pounder. Maybe. Gotcha. Right. Maybe. Yeah. And chasing big bass across the country now, a 25-inch, really well-built largemouth in California is going to go 9, 10 pounds.

No, really? Yeah. Because it's all girth. Like, they got the fat deposits on the top of their head. They got shoulders. Their tails are thick. Like they're literally maxed out. And then I go to Texas and hammer these giant fish

with these monster heads, but their bodies are like windsocks. So I've got like a 27 inch like huge bass, like looking at it side profile wise, and you hang it on a scale and it's like seven and a half pounds what the

I feel robbed cause all you bass guys go wait now I'm starting to want to go back and start weighing all these damn bass you kind of have to

that's the unfortunate thing either way I don't think he caught a five pound bass 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 get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love and on x 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. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast.

Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services hand-picked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, 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. Well, working on our walleye spot spot trying to figure that stuff out that big one that

i caught in the spring yeah i taped that very accurately yeah weighed it with you know with my scale that i weigh everything with so that's kind of my baseline i'm sure you could poke holes in whether or not that's accurate and then i caught one that was three and a half inches shorter here a week ago. And there's only just shy of a pound difference between that 27 and a half inch fish and a 24 inch fish. Gotcha. And I thought, well, that kind of seems not quite right. Has to do with how fat he is, how built out. So the old man catches his bass and then in the tell, you know,

every story becomes like an epiphany story over time. He has an epiphany and buys the house that I was born in. Down the beach is another World War IIi veteran kind of named john gary and i say kind of only because he got stationed in canada during world war ii and all he did was shoot deer it sounds like it's like he spent world war ii shooting deer um in canada and uh he had this boat that was built he had a star Starcraft Bassmaster, olive green, built in 1973, so the year before I was born. And John Gary was like all the kids around the lake that fished.

John Gary was like the fishing mentor. He had a net to catch beach minnows, sand minnows. He had a beach sand that he hung up. You could go down there and get minnows with John. He'd rig your rod up. He'd untangle your shit. He kept lists of all the books he read. He read a lot of John Grisham-y type stuff.

He'd keep a list of, he got two lists, a list of all the books he read and then all the days he fished. He would log on a minimum 170, but usually over 200 days a year. A lot of people like to say they do that, but not many people actually do that. He usually over 200 days a year. A lot of people like to say they do that, but not many people actually do that. He'd fish 200 days a year. That's a lot of time on water.

He would fish so reliably that when I was trapping snapping turtles, I could go by his house at 11 and get fish heads. It was like, he just knew that he fished and he knew that he had fish heads. And he would, he just, he lived with his wife and then she passed away and he would fish more than he could eat like he'd cook large mouths like he'd he'd flay large mouths and cook them scales down on a grill he'd soak them in milk and cook them scales down on the grill kind of like redfish style yeah they'd go out and fish perch and bluegill him and these old guys and he hung out a lot of old drink he was a big drinker too um and they'd sell the flays because there was a fish market in our county and they would

illegally sell any fish that the fish market owner could plausibly legally have and since there was like perch fisheries in canada and aquaculture facilities that they blew a gill he could be like he could have cover for that so they would a lot of times sell their fish to the fish guy and man they just fished their asses off uh and he always had this boat and he had on a haul out and we used to actually go he had a you know those crank or things you lift your boat out of the water and he had his own boat ramp the only private boat ramp on the lake he had the, you know, those crank or things, you lift your boat out of the water and he had his own boat ramp. The only private boat ramp on the lake. He had the first mink I ever caught. I caught,

it was muskrats had built a den under the boat ramp. And I caught my first mink out of that. And anyhow, just a very like influential figure growing up. And that's whose boat it was. He died and he got sick he's almost dead anyhow we bought his boat and it went to live in my mom's pole barn and sat my mom's pole barn for i don't know 13 14 years she started to get a little nervous because she had been registering

it the whole time because she didn't think she thought it was bad to have an unregistered boat in your barn and she eventually wanted that boat out of there and it was right to have an unregistered boat in your barn. And she eventually wanted that boat out of there. And it was right at the time. I was like, aha, we'll use it for season two. So that's the boat. How old were you when you started fishing out of that? Oh, you know, I was always around.

Like we used to catch more than we fished in it. We would catch bullheads out of the bricks that the boat haul out sat on. But the boat was always there. You'd go out with John in the boat. He'd show you how to catch crappies. It was just around. It was always around. Right.

And that's the boat. That's such a great story. Yeah. I love this boat, by the way. It's fun. Huge upgrade. Oh, you think so? Absolutely. Can I tell you one last tidbit about John Gary?

He would cut up oranges and freeze them, the wedges. So then when he came home from fishing and poured a glass of vodka, he would then fill it full of frozen orange wedges. Hot tip. That's a life hack right there. Those guys drank a lot, man. Okay. He called his, he had his fish shack and stuff on the beach and he called it the Redneck

Riviera. Because they'd sit out there and finish getting drunk. Oh, that's so good. Finish getting drunk after fishing. Redneck Riviera. That's beautiful. That boat was, I mean, you guys will all see it when you watch the show, but that boat was a whole lot of fun to work on and to fish out of and just see it. And here's what I think compared to the one before.

It's smaller, which there was a little tighter quarters. Real small. It's a real small boat. Like it's narrow and short. It's real tight quarters, but I feel like that. Is it 14? 14 feet. Yeah.

14 feet. And also like tight quarters, but I feel like that. Is it 14? 14 feet. Yeah. 14 feet. And also like, again, extra narrow. I didn't measure the like gunnel to gunnel. The beam. But there's not much there. And, but I feel like that forced people to be a little bit more efficient in how they set it up when they fished out of it. Like the other one, there was enough space that you can just kind of blow up and there was just shit everywhere. This year, it seemed like everyone was like, wait a minute, we don't have any space.

So they had to be more thoughtful and they had to plan it out better. And it just seemed to work out. Like the interactions with the boat were good. Absolutely great season one, but I feel like they were better season two. Like everybody who left, I was mad. I love this boat. I'd want to fish out of this boat. I think a great takeaway from being on both seasons and seeing the differences in those two platforms

is I had the perspective of a lesser craft that made me appreciate just a little bit of an upgrade as far as that new platform represented. It's like, oh, I can, it was hard enough last season. This, my job just became a little bit easier. And I think that's the opportunity with this whole like DOS boat, like theme and concept is to show that there's learning opportunities from fishing in a piece of shit. Because when you get into something that's not, then you don't have any excuses anymore. It's like, oh, dude, I made do with crap. Like my first boat was a $250 purchase off Craigslist,

up in Big Bear, covered in pine needles. I don't know how I got that trailer home down to the LA area, but like that feeling of getting off the bank was a real thing. Now that whole new world has opened up to me. And I learned how to fish out of a piece of crap with just a trolling motor getting blown all over these lakes when the wind picks up this down a third so when I'm in a bass boat even if it's like a small 18 19 footer old like a 1982 ranger or something I know what it's

like to fish out of a legit piece of crap so it doesn't phase me anymore yeah yeah I got you and it's just like, you're complaining about the wind. Like, dude, this thing is like an aircraft carrier. So I think people that jump straight into nice platforms and vessels and boats, like straight out of high school or whatever, like good on them. But I feel like they're getting cheated because they don't know what it's like to embrace this stuff. It's hard to get intimate with it. Yeah. Right. It's hard to appreciate what you end up having.

That's right. Or even know, like learn how to, I feel like the learn, all the learning I did about how to get one of those old boats to be an effective fishing tool is super useful now, even in a nicer boat. Cause I can think about like, all right, how do I, how can I set this up to be more efficient? How, what changes can I make? What can I easily do?

Even though it's already great compared to what I'm used to, you've had to figure all that out in the past. And I think, I think most people who fish seriously have come through that. And it's like, yeah, all right. I know how to kit out this boat. I know the things I need to do.

And that's part of the satisfaction and the fun. Yeah. Especially to rig it out for many, many different fisheries. Yeah. Not just your main home stretch. I'm going to be buying some raffle tickets for a dose boat. Oh, really?

Yeah, man. There's something about that thing because you can. I don't know. That might be too sad. It might be too like heartbreaking for me to see it go. For a grown adult, like running the tiller back there, if you throw your weight around, like you can turn, you can help turn the boat. Just by leaning.

Yes. Yeah. Well, that boat flies. And so there's something about that where I was like, God, maybe this is the design to put a jet on this thing. Oh. And it could be,

maybe like a Fort Peck, get some big water on it and then also run up the river too. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. That boat goes 30 miles an hour. It had never in its life gone 30 miles an hour.

Oh, it feels like you're going so fast, man. I love that thing. It's so fun. So Joe Cermelli's here. He's here, but not here. He's virtually here. Yeah, I was going to say, man, as a DOS boat rookie, because I was not around for season one,

having watched the first one, I was very nervous going into our mission with the new boat, but I gotta say, uh, me and Tim Landwehr, who we fished in and fished with in my episode, both walked away from that going, this boat is fricking awesome.

You like, I personally would like to have that boat. And I saw one here about a month ago. I'd never seen that boat in my life that that exact same boat starcraft bass master and there's a river in north jersey kind of in like a shady part of of the area here we pike fishing and there's these old shacks and these weird houses back there it's kind of like the hills have eyes and people just pile old pontoon boats and jet skis back there and we're coming around the corner sure enough man same exact boat only with a center console at the wheel wheel in the

center oh really huh yep tell people about the the fishery you went and checked out for for season two yeah the old spot burn and i'll tell you this i want you to know now i fished for smallmouth in that river including right below the secret dam okay so when i go turn it up there don't act like that i stole it from some stupid show this is a classic fishing conversation i've been there for years let me establish my credentials here i know where you're at i've been up there forever yeah yeah so we uh we fished the uh monomony river in northern wisconsin on the border with the uh with michigan's upper peninsula and um i feel like we got off really lucky because on fabrication day it's like well we have to float this thing down a very shallow rocky river so fabricating meant just get

everything the hell off of it just strip it down to absolute bare bones and um miles you were talking about how it gets narrow in the front like it's got a weird beam and that weird sort of choke point in the front of this boat yeah we didn't even have to bolt the yeti down man just just shoved that thing right in there it locked in the place and that was our our rower's seat um but we we went into it into it thinking, like, there's no way this is going to work. And within a couple miles, it was cumbersome to row that thing. It didn't respond at all. You couldn't, like, you know, crab crawl it and crab walk it.

But, like, no trouble. And for just two guys, it was awesome to fish out of. We had, like, all the room in the world. It was killer. And you guys caught some big ones. We did. And it was, it was slow by the standards of the dudes we were fishing with. Um, but I mean, they were some of the biggest smallmouth I've ever caught on the fly and it's in this super shallow, clear water. And, uh, they call them passive feeders. So you think of these smallmouth as being aggressive all the time.

And they throw basically big dry flies, foam Chernobyl ant type things they call wigglers. And they're like, now you just keep putting it out there and it'll get over top of one. And it's just such an easy meal. The dragonfly, whatever he thinks it is that these, these big fish on the bottom will just say, oh, I can't pass that up. And they just come up and just nip it. So you're watching these 20 inch plus inch fish coming up and just sipping these tiny flies it was it was some of the most badass smallmouth fishing i've ever done a lot of fun why what makes it a what's that term passive feeder i mean how passive are you went up and ate something off the surface well in other words like they're just kind

of not in kill mode they're not chasing bait around They're not particularly in an ambush spot. And they're just kind of laying there lazy. But there's so many dragonflies and damsels and stuff out there that – It's like you're laying in bed and someone comes by with an appetizer tray. Yeah, like you just grab one because it's – I don't know, sure. It's exactly the way I'd put it. I'll take a triangle piece of bread, triangle-shaped piece of toast with some meat on it. Yeah, same deal.

And it's been cool because I learned a lot, and I've since done that with fish here, caught fish that way out here. So, Joe, real quick, were you imparting any motion to those flies, or were you just straight drifting them? No, you move them but but barely and uh you know it kind of translates over to poppers too because a lot of guys throw foam and wood poppers uh like the biggest thing when you slap down one of these foam um wigglers or a popper those guys are like the slap is pop number one so people like to lay that stuff out and just

pop pop pop and make it move right away it's like like, no, the slap is pop one. So with these wiggly bugs, you'd slap it down and let it go. And they would just say, just move it barely. So they have these long rubber legs coming off the sides and you would just twitch the line. I mean, move the rod tip an inch, two inches, just to make it move forward and just let those legs flex. And that's all you would do till your drift ran out, pick it up and put it down again, down all these soft banks. Now, when you guys were out there fishing,

um, you mentioned how you kind of credit them with, these are dudes that all went out, you know, grew up in the Midwest, went out West to be trout guides and shit. And they learned about drift boats and throwing flies and whatnot. And then they came back to their homeland and took that technology to start catching big-ass bass out of

the lake or out of the river do you buy that do you think that they really like invented that fishery or that method um i wouldn't say they invented it uh and I don't know if they would say they necessarily invented it either. But I think, you know, so many people are used to fishing small mouth and really big rivers or deep lakes that it's a fairly unique situation. Having these giant fish in a fairly small river that reads a lot more like a trout stream. So I think because of that situation, they probably perfected it. They were just in the perfect place where they had that sort of experimental grounds to play with big dry flies, whereas guys in Pennsylvania or Michigan or whatever, maybe they were just working hair bugs and poppers like they have been forever.

So I think just the whole scenario let those dudes really perfect that. And in fairness, it's not to say they're the only ones that do that. There are some very good guys in Michigan, uh, small mouth guides. They, they do the same thing, but they've honed this sort of very finessey, much more trout like presentation than, than the aggressive stuff. Most people think you'd need for small mouth. Do you know that there's an East coast dude? He's got a book like fishing river, small mouth and fishing need for smallmouth. Do you know that there's an East Coast dude, he's got a book like Fishing River Smallmouth

and Fishing Stream Smallmouth. I got his books. I probably have it here too. I'm telling you, man, I have never in my life learned something from a fishing book, but he's got those maps. Listen. You have my book, so thanks for that.

No, I learned stuff from your fishing book. No, I don't mean like that. No, I have Joe's. Okay, that was the wrong thing to say. I have Joe's surf fishing book. I don't mean that. I've learned a lot about like rigs. Okay, but hear me out.

Hear me out. What I mean is, you know when people draw a map and it's like, here's a river. And it shows like, fish here, fish here, fish here. Right? Now, I, to greater detail, I would usually be like somewhat skeptical of that illustration. Okay? Like, I just wouldn't, I wouldn't be like, oh, okay. And then go to a river and be like

hey this is just like in the book and then cast there you know i mean yeah but he was like because i used to fish the delaware over your way for smallmouth big nice smallmouth and i looking at his book and where he put his x's all the time i was like i'm canoeing past shit loads of according to this guy i'm canoeing past shit loads of according to this guy i'm canoeing past shit loads of small mouth and i started casting to where he would put his exes behind rocks and catching bass that i would have never known when they were there because i would be like oh you go to the big deep bends yeah you know and that's of course you know any idiot would know and then you'd pat then you'd go down two more miles of river and not do anything because you're waiting for, like, the next thing.

And meanwhile, every one of those rocks, not every one of them, but, like, smallmouth out of crazy spots, man. Well, smallmouth and child. I love your book. Actually, it's okay because, like, looking back, I feel like i wrote that when i was 12 it was so long but i bought that book not knowing you i bought the book not knowing you or who you were yeah it was served up to me when i was trying to figure out surf casting yeah well that's cool no that's but to get back to what you're saying about the the x's on the map um i mean i think people get pigeonholed into

that with a lot of stuff smallmouth and trout and what we were doing in wisconsin plays right into that yeah your average your average dude he's gonna go for the deep bend the slower bends the deep hole the honey hole when um if you really know what you're doing and learn from guys like i fished with in wisconsin it doesn't make sense for a 20-inch smallmouth to be where we were catching them. But you're dealing with guys who understand why, and that's why it was so eye-opening. They probably snorkeled it. Yeah, they may have been. I see that a lot too with trout, like nighttime mouse fishing for trout.

They are not, where you catch them at night is typically not where you catch them during the day. They move. And, you know, everybody goes for the community hole and don't realize how much fish move around on a daily basis. All right, Kevin and Oliver, you guys went, help explain this to me, man. Kevin, you grew up in muskie country, but you never fished muskie. No, never did, because it seems like everybody always fished them in the fall when I was hunting.

You called a big bull in the air tonight, didn't you? Sure did. Anyhow. Sure. You grew up. We'll get to that maybe later. Never fished muskie. Did you guys have tiger muskies?

Tiger muskies? Yeah, I think. Those hybrids? You know what I'm talking about? Oh, yeah. But so does like Midwestern lakes and especially near the Twin Cities too. muskies yeah i think those hybrids you know what i'm talking about oh yeah but so it's like midwestern lakes and especially in the like near the twin cities too like there's all these fisheries that everybody was fishing i just never got into it when i was a little kid

yeah it was cool it was cool to go see that happen you know with all this like a new thing it's like a new thing where everybody's all fired up about like in my grandpa's day they fished musky by did i tell you this they used to uh harness rig chipmunks no that's fantastic that's awesome they would they would harness rig a chipmunk and row it out into the middle of the lake and put it on a little uh piece of wood and it wouldn't jump it wouldn't want to jump off of course not i'm just telling you, man. I didn't do this. And it wouldn't want to jump off. You then go to the beach and wait a while and then pull the chipmunk off the board.

And that's how they would fish muskie. One of the ways they would fish muskie. And just watch it kind of surface swim its way and wait for something to blow up on it. And wait for something to grab it. Then would you rotate that out with the fresh one if you made it back to shore? I don't know, but I know that he. Give him a little breather. You've earned your freedom. My grandpa would also, they would do a lot of things that even the unnerved, even me,

which is they would talk about that when you find a big largemouth on its bed, what you do is you go dig around under logs until you find a salamander. Because everybody knows if you hook a salamander and drop it onto the bed, it'll eat the salamander. And they would take little frogs and hook them and have those be swimming around. A lot of just stuff that wouldn't fly.

That wouldn't fly today. Well, you're talking about musky fishing becoming popular and cool now. And I think, you know, something we didn't really have time to cover on in that episode as much as I would have wanted to is how much that has to do with the fact that musky populations have made a significant rebound in our lifetime. Well, because they're dumping them in all the lakes. Well, they're dumping them in all the lakes. I think it's hard to point to one factor. No, it's because they're dumping them into all the lakes. It's hard to point to one factor. No, it's because they're dumping them into all the lakes, man.

I would say that that is part of it. And they've got strains like, oh, this lake's got the Ballyhoo strain or whatever, you know, and it's like everybody's excited about it. Yes. The Leech Lake strain's a big one. Yeah, the Great Lake strain. And then the one from that river right up

in that same area, I'm blanking on the name of that river strain that is a big one. Yeah, the Great Lake strain. And then the one from that river right up in that same area. I'm blanking on the name of that river strain that's a big one that grows faster but doesn't get as big. But anyway, you're right. Where are the polka dot ones from, Miles? Aren't there polka dot muskies out there too? Those are those Great Lake strains, I believe. Those are the, okay. So like those ones you see from St. Clair have a lot of those like heavy polka dot patterns on them.

And the states are buying them and dumping them into the lakes. Hopefully. Yeah. And Oliver, those are giants, right? Oh, they get big. And you got all into this, Oliver. I did. And I come at it with a completely different perspective

because I was pretty much from LA my whole life. And we don't have any muskies or Essox species anywhere near us. So as a young anchor. No norfies? Nothing. No, there's one lake, I think it's called Lake Davis in Northern California that somehow Northern Pike got into. And like, it was like a big deal.

They pretty much poisoned the lake to try to start over. They're still there. But there's just like this weird thing about them. But we don't have any exposure to them except through the content, like TV shows, magazines, watching an in-fisherman TV show as a young kid on a Saturday morning. Did you grow up like, did you grow up sitting around LA watching fishing shows? Yeah, man. Really?

Yeah. Tell your story. I heard it yesterday. It's great. Yeah, my story is a little different than most. And just to give you a little context of who I was, I've never met my father. So watching all this content of like this very heavily father, son, uncle, son, some type of paternal figure and young child as an entry point into fishing was not me. And I just happened to randomly stumble upon it. And we talk about it in episode four of season one as well of how I got started in fishing, but it was just kind of random. I was a 10-year-old kid on a family picnic at a regional park just outside of LA. If you guys

are fans of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures, it's Puddingstone Lake on the other side of the freeway from San Dimas High School. Spot burn. Yeah. Good luck with that one, man. That's a place that has always been challenging. And we were there on a busy weekend. It might have been an Easter weekend. It was a spring. There's frogs in the reeds and stuff. So I was being a 10-year-old catching things and came across a pile of discarded fishing line. And back then, I guess littering must have been a problem because I remember seeing signs of like, hey, don't throw fishing trash on the shoreline. Cause it was there. And I went through it and I found a couple of those like Eagle Claw

snelled hooks kind of like in that mix and untangled probably three to four feet of it. And, you know, the only exposure I had to fishing as a suburban, like LA County kid was what I saw on TV, right? Whether it was was like yogi bear like cartoon fishing or you know some kind of yeah like some kind of reference in some tv show like family manners and urkel and them going through the ice that's why i don't want to ever go by ice fishing because i was traumatized as a young kid because of that show um but i didn't know what i was doing but i had enough sense to like take that three to four feet of untangled line, wrap it around the end of a stick.

And I knew I could find earthworms under rocks. So I went to the little Creek that fed down into the Southeast shoreline. Sure enough, found some earthworms throwing my little party cup and walk my little happy 10 year old ass to the fishing pier where people were fishing. And I had my little entourage of cousins with me and pin a worm on that hook and just threw it over the end of the dock there. Drop shot.

No, actually, no weights. Fly line is what we call it on the West Coast. So it's literally just your line, a hook and your bait. And my cousins got bored after five or 10 minutes and like, oh, we're going back. I'm like, whatever. I'm just going to hang out here. And just kind of started like dozing off into, you know, to me, the wilderness. Right? I'm at this lake. And before you know it, I feel that telltale like, dum, dum, dum. And in that moment, I went to just react.

And I tried to like pull out whatever this creature was and that shitty line broke. And it was probably a bluegill or red-eared sunfish, most likely. But in that moment, especially since I didn't capture it, I was just totally like just fascinated about like what the hell just happened. Like I need to know. Like that sense of mystery really drove me to want to come back to try to successfully catch whatever that was. And I spent that whole week researching every fishing publication I could in the West Covino Public Library because my mom would take me to the library every day after school and I would just read.

Like Dewey Dec system and all like it was. And it's funny because like you guys are very entrenched in the fly fishing side of things. And a lot of that stuff that was available to me and even outside of just LA was fly fishing stuff. So like terms like match the hatch and like reading water, like even though i didn't really have ways to apply it like those are really like prominent in my like just my arc yeah as a fisherman so i went back out there flooded my grandma's garden because i knew like if you flood the dirt worms are going to come out and she was pissed but i flooded it got a whole coffee can full of worms because i saw i saw that's what people put worms in so i'm like oh we got coffee cans let's let's do this and went back

out there talked my mom into spending 14.99 at the kmart across the street from the library got me a crappy little shakespeare spin cast combo with its little tackle box and everything and i was tying overhand knots because i didn't know how to tie a knot. Like all that stuff I saw in the encyclopedia was too complicated for me to digest. So literally a couple of overhand knots, like a little dropper loop, similar to a drop shot, but like a little bit of a leader coming off like a three-way swivel, very crude. And spent all day on that pier and didn't have a chance.

Just slaying. No. It was like Kevin Bluegill fishing. There was just nothing going on. Digs. I'm just kidding, bud. That's what you get for squad casting. But at the end of the day, man, end of the day, sun's falling,

and maybe this is why I still love fishing afternoons and evenings more so than mornings is as that sun was falling, I felt another tick and I wind in a bullhead. That right there was like, man, validation. I'm like, damn, that was awesome. I did it. And that's led me to sitting here with you guys in Bozeman, Montana. So yeah, it's to me as a West Coast, like fishing junkie, seeing this, like giant freshwater fish with these gnarly teeth, and the tactics that these guys in some far off land, which is the Midwest, to me was like, man, that looks so dope. Like, I'll never probably get a chance to go do that. But like, this is fascinating.

The Midwest. It was like, it seemed like Marrakesh did. Dude, it couldn't be further from my world. It really couldn't. Like, you know, getting past like an hour outside of downtown LA to go fishing was an adventure and like not something that I was fortunate to really experience. So to see myself actually fishing for a muskellunge didn't really register in my head until I- It's a great name.

It's a great name. They should rebrand back to what they used to be. Yeah. Muskellunge. Muskellunge. It's a great name. It's a great name. It's a great, like, animal. They're amazing.

And the fact that, like, Kevin grew up, like, totally, like, in one of the meccas of it and didn't partake in it, it was fascinating to me because, like, I love all styles of fishing and I'll always be a heavy bass fisherman. But, like, I want to catch the apex. And in those systems, they're the apex. Like they're, they're the top dog and seeing a four to six foot fish

engaging with your hunk of artificial chipmunk at boat side is an exhilarating experience. So you just started driving out there to go? Yeah. Well, I started driving around the country chasing big bass and I started chasing big smallmouth the last four years and got into that. And then I would kind of just randomly encounter muskies while bass fishing. And last year made it really concerted effort to dedicate like two to three months of just chasing a proper muskie and like trying to apply different lure styles and techniques and just trying things that this established muskie fishing culture may not have tried because i i saw something in that that culture that reminded

me of a lot of the different fisheries in the different regions I've got to engage with and penetrate. It's like they kind of pigeonhole themselves, like Joe was talking about, in so many ways. Everybody's so afraid of missing out. That FOMO keeps them from experimenting and stepping outside of the norm. Because they don't want to waste a day. Right, because they know X lure works and Y lure works.

So if I try Z, I might have wasted that day. For that cast. Right. And when you're dealing with a fish of 10,000 casts, that's a high opportunity cost. Have you ever counted up how many casts it takes to catch a muskie?

Well, that's skewed too because I also caught one on the first cast of the day once it's on the youtube channel so then you're like dude now i gotta cast 10 000 more times right so like does that reset right and i've also caught them back to back casts so but like on average i would say like like 10 000 casts would be optimistic how no this is what i was curious about how many casts well how many casts have you ever like counted up i have no idea like how many casts does the person do have you ever like calculated it out yeah actually someone like at a trade show in italy gave me like this little like

cast counting like device thing yeah they have smart rods now that will count that for you yeah i tried when you're musky fish? Because I watched you musky fishing. You have a very polished cast. Thank you. It looks like you've done it a lot. I'm not saying you've done it 10,000 times, but you've done it a lot of times. Well, I saw parallels in the musky fishing, especially on the gear side, to things I've been doing my whole life, whether that's inshore saltwater fishing in Southern California or throwing a big lure for giant largemouth. The only thing I really had to account for on the gear side and the technical

side is those teeth. So experimenting with leader configurations, materials, connection options, that was my biggest hurdle because I needed to be able to still fish those lures and articulate them in a way to trigger a bite, but not be hindered from like oversized leaders or big barrel swivels to connect my line. Like little nuances that were affecting how I can like really maximize that hopeful potential opportunity I get once a day. On return to cast numbers though. Man, it's a lot. How many, how many can you really huck out in an hour? And it depends on the fishing style. Cause there are times when I'm like burning a bait back.

So I'm that, that cast takes a lot less time than if I'm like really taking my time and fishing an area methodically. Like some of my casts can take like five to 10 minutes. If I know a fish lives on a piece of cover, like I will soak a big soft plastic realistic bait down there. And eventually that fish may like engage with it versus if I'm on a new body of water, like Das boat, like I need to cover ground looking for an aggressive fish. Why did you guys go to a lake you'd never fished before? I think that's part of the beauty of fishing

is diving into the unknown. But if I was making a thing, I'd want to catch a bunch of fish. Right. Yeah, there's a balance, right? You can blame that on me, Oliver. It's okay. Okay, cool.

Miles made me fish there. It's pretty much why we fish those lakes. I probably would have chose different places, but I didn't know, so that mystery was alluring to me. Yeah, but then you caught one, too. I did catch one, so it worked out. I don't really have a gripe with musky,

but I just want to tell you what I fear about muskies. I fear that it's... Not the fish. I don't blame the fish for anything i fear that the human the emerging perception of muskies is playing in to the golfification of fishing and that the people who think that it's naughty to eat a fish will become so numerous that that'll become the norm. And in the dystopian future, it'll be that there's just, it's just more like that natural resources as stuff that you eat will become more fringe. And it'll be that like, well, if, yeah, I see why you'd want to go fishing,

but how, why would you want to hurt a fish? And so that's like the, in the long game, I fear the golfification of fishing. I can see that. That it'll lose its connection to being a food acquisition tool. Right. Now I will make this observation about the muskie community and they remind me so much of like the trophy largemouth community like those fish are so revered and so valuable and those experiences that they provide us as anglers is that there's like an over protecting like vibe those guys will hammer you on fish handling and care and this that and a third but it's okay to for me stick a 7-0 treble hook in its face?

Yeah. Like, where do we draw the line? If you really didn't want to hurt it, you'd stay home. That's it. Yeah. But yeah, I think Oliver, too, that's what... Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, that's what was in the Midwest growing up.

That was like the old-timers' thought process. It was like, oh, I'm not going to go fish those. I can't eat them. When I was a young dude, I just remember him talking about muskies as like these ferocious predators that they were killing their bluegills right so we always fish for food growing up but then my younger brother ian started fishing for muskies when i was up when i was gone already out west um and that that transition from like oh we can fish for these and we can still go catch bluegills and eat sort of is the norm now i would say that's kind of what we we showed you know a little bit there steve i understand what you're saying about the the muskies and the

attitude about them but i mean you don't think that's been going on long enough now that it's not a concern i mean they're not the only one rightarpon, a lot of guys like to fish for them, but they don't eat them. Bonefish, same thing. It hasn't stopped people from doing tarpon one day and mangrove staffers the next, so they had something to take to the restaurant and the keys to eat. Yeah, here's why I fear it, Joe, if you want to know.

Because even things like, it's even emerging with catfish, where it's becoming like a fish that has always been regarded as a blue-collar food fish. Okay? There's even people now where it's like if you catch a big catfish, it's kind of naughty that you ate it. Right? Yeah. And rivers that there's a 15 a day, like like might be a bag limit of 15 channels a day

and then you got like the local catfishers association lobbying to have it be one a day right so there's a there's a drift and when it starts going after things like that um yeah just like you know any little piece of it, I'm not worried about. But the general sense of the minute you get people who golfify a fish, even when there's no real, like, there's no sort of like biology behind it. Like this river, you're talking about the Menominee River, like, oh, you know, you can't keep fish out of the Menominee, you know, because you'll destroy the fishery. Fish and Game apparently doesn't know that yeah no you're right because you can still keep one so if that was the truth I guess what you're saying is they would just make the whole thing no kill which they haven't yeah like I like who and so when people start to take where

you have like a team of biologists out there whose job and you have a mandate uh from the state to manage fisheries in perpetuity right they can't run fisheries into the ground not supposed to it happens but you're not supposed to that these people can look and be like yes um we feel that you can catch whatever the hell channels channel cats a day out of some river. But then you wind up having other outside forces come in. They're like, never mind what you found. We like catching them and letting them go. And our life will get better if the hellbillies that come out here to eat catfish weren't able to do that. I would have more fun golfing with these fish.

See, I think that probably stems... It's just like, I don't like it, man. I don't like it. I think it probably stems more from what social media and the internet have done to fishing. I think, like, I look at that with flatheads. Like, there's a ton of flatheads in the Schuylkill River in Philly. Huge culture and internet forums and groups on flatheading there.

And yeah, nobody ever talks about killing one and eating one there because I think that they would rather have them for an Instagram post than quietly take them home and cook them. Even though, like, personally, I'd probably I'd make an Instagram post out of cooking them. Right. Well, you've built an entire business around that.

That's it. That's why we're all here. But there is, like, like to say so yes this this should make you uh upset no not upset leery leery and leery is fine too but there's parts of bodies of water and there's certain times throughout history that that attitude is very appropriate and there's times where it's very inappropriate and some of this is based around well you got to return those big ones because those are the effective breeding fish now certain circumstances we need all the effective breeding fish doing what they can because that fishery is in trouble and we need those numbers and there's

there's all these other fascinating factors that i'm learning more and more about every day sometimes we just need numbers in order to keep other fish out of the system and you're going to have to deal with eight inch trout instead of 18 inch trout because we just need that mass taken up in the river but there's this other time where it's like boy the reason we have a bunch of eight inch trout in here is because nobody's keeping them and this damn catch and release ethos and folks hooked on dry flies and no bait is what is keeping this river where it's at. And unfortunately, like the really conservation, because it isn't truly about what is best for the fish in this instance, right? It also takes into account recreation and economics, the social media, uh, what people want and like, um, you know, what people think about their fishery and what needs to happen.

Like it takes, there's a big lag between the biological data and what people think and when those two meet, you know what I mean? It's like, you mean like when you do surveys, everybody says they would like to catch more bigger fish. Yes. Right. And then it's like that deal down on the snake, right,

where Idaho Fish and Game is like, great, what we need to do is kill a lot of rainbows. And everybody's like, eh, we don't really want to do that.

Yeah. It's like, well, you want more cutthroat and bigger fish? We need to kill a lot of rainbows. No, you're still not doing it?

Okay, we're going to pay you to do it, and you can keep as many as you want. Oh, you're still not doing it? Okay, well, we're going to pay you to do it. You can keep as many as you want, and then you can give them to us, and we'll give them to a food bank. Oh, you're still not doing it.

Okay, well, geez. Well, that's when you got to go to the move that happens now and then is it's illegal to let them go alive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there are fisheries like that.

Yeah. Yes. You can't let it go alive. Right. Flaming gorge right now. Right. With, with the burbot. If you catch a burbot, you got to keep it.

Yeah. Illegal to let it you got to keep it. Yeah. Illegal to let it go. Yeah. But I want to ask this question with specifically back to the muskies, right? Yeah. And we talk about a lot. We talk about how the dollars that are spent

on tags and license sales go toward things that we believe in and management practices that are important, right? And so if you want to talk about fishery, let's just, let's take Green Bay as an example. There are in the last 10 years, really five, but let's go back 10 years.

That has become known as a deep, one of the places to go for trophy muskies. Like if you want to catch a 50 incher, that's the place you go. In Green Bay. Yes. Okay. And that has led to a significant influx of

people coming there, buying those licenses because they want to catch those fish. Guilty. And that is bringing in revenue dollars that are going toward management and conservation. If those big fish weren't there, if people didn't want to get their picture taken with that 50-inch fish, I think there's a clear argument you can make there would be a loss of revenue toward conservation management of those fisheries sure i think there's value there i get the i'm not arguing with the golf we're tribal people man yeah um and i uh associate with and empathize with and uh feel inclined to look out for the interests of a group of people. And there are layers to it.

And at the tightest core is like the person whose interests I want to advocate on behalf of would be the person who views wildlife management as being a combination of maximizing suitable habitat, maximizing wildlife populations in order to allow sustainable use, sustainable extraction. And they're still going to get that picture. It's just the fish is going to be kind of covered in mud and have a dent in its forehead. It's a little bit of blood on it.

And so, just like raising kids. You have a child now. Yes. Okay. Any little thing, right? They look at you, kind of roll their eyes, right? You're like, is that in and of itself the end of the world? No.

But I noticed it. I noticed it. I didn't like it. and then they kind of do this and you're like is that in and of itself mean that my kids are derelict no did i like it no and so when i look like all these little pieces of this like the musky thing i went out musky we went out so um and when we used to catch tiger muskies we'd be bummed out when they weren't legal size yeah so uh in and of itself is this little thing gonna like ruin uh the wild foods world no but do i like it yeah i'm a little suspicious of it i think i think

the suspicion is fair i'm not i'm not arguing that point. I'm really not. And I've, I mean, you talk about the Snake River. I used to cover these stories all the time when I was writing for fly fishing magazines because it was fun to piss off people and talk about that. Like the beaver head, I did a whole thing on the beaver head and how stunted those fish are and how the biologists are begging people. You know, they were trying to talk about making a 75 fish a day limit. And I know seriously, and I, they give a dude a ticket. If he had 76, but I was like, they dig down to the bottom of the cooler. Damn it. It was an interesting conversation with his biologist. Cause like 75 fish, man, like you can't get people to keep

three. What makes you think that going to 75, they're going to, they're going to do gonna do it he's like because i'm trying to bring in a different group of anglers i'm not gonna convince these guys to go who won't take one to get 75 but if i advertise like hey you can keep 75 fish a day here i'm gonna get a different group of anglers that's coming in and they're gonna fill coolers yeah you're gonna have some bloody knuckle dude take notice and he'd be like there must be something going on there that I need to find out about. The big hole right next to the beaver head, right? Uh-huh. I was reading in the Montana Fish and Game magazine.

Hold on, I should clarify, they didn't change it to 75. That never happened, just so everybody, like, that didn't go through, but that was what they wanted to do. Big hole regulations were 10 pounds of fish plus one per person per day. Plus one. Plus one. Not one pound, but plus one fish. Do you have any idea what that was meant to do? I don't even know who I could talk to.

I'll figure that out, though, because that has obviously stuck with me. Some guy called his representative and said, well, I caught 10 pounds. Then I caught a real giant. And was it, well, I'm supposed to let it go? And he's like, what we'll do is we'll adjust the regulations to say 10 pounds plus one. Right. And he's like, great, thanks. Put your food aside at the beginning of the day, and then you can.

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So, uh, but you caught a muskie. For the show, yeah. Yeah. The stars aligned. Saw a little window in that morning,, yeah. Yeah. The stars aligned. Saw a little window in that morning, and we got one. You know what's hard? One of the hardest things for a cameraman to do? Capture the moment.

They always catch you reeling, but they don't catch the hookups. Because what are the odds? 10,000 casts? What are the odds that they're low? They're low. I asked for four days minimum for this shoot initially when we first started. How many did they give you? We got three. Yeah.

But like. I have to, I just have to jump in and add, just give props because on our shoot, they had a camera guy, this crew, he swore he was on my fly on every single drift the entire time we were there. He's like, if that gets eaten, I will not miss it. Did he hold up to the? I think he got all the eats. I really do.

Yeah. Big shout out to Bryson and Paul. Brian Gregson is who you were going for there. Dang it. Sorry. I was going for Paul Bork on that if he's listening because he was on that fly the entire day. Kevin Harlander, I got a question for you, Kevin Harlander. Why is it that

when I was reviewing the cut, the edit, are they messing with you or they make it be that you never even catch a bluegill? Probably. I definitely

boated some fish, that's for sure. I was just there for the jokes, I think. They make it seem, like when you guys switch to bluegill fishing, which is my style of fishing, they make it seem like Oliver is just blowing them up.

Yeah, I was trying to make a point with the whole leech slip bobber setup and didn't really work out so hard. He's trying to rep the Midwest to the fullest. He stuck with it. Did you not catch a bluegill? I said, I put in my

notes, I put like, did he really not catch a bluegill? I caught some bluegills. Good. I think he's talking about one scene. You guys remember that one scene where we first switched to bluegill and Oliver put on the drop shot?

Did the drop shot rig a worm. And it was that first time, Kevin, where in that one hole, you really did blank. But I think it wasn't like from there on out, you never got another. You got into him, but in that one hole, yeah, it didn't look good for you. Yeah, Paul said he wasn't going to make me look bad, but I might have to give that guy a call.

How happy were you to catch, like, did it, did it strike you as, uh, you know, to catch a muskie out there? Were you like about time or were you thinking, man, we got lucky? Um, I've spent a lot of time fishing them in the last 18 months now. And I knew that catching one on film with all the pressures that come with it uh was not going to be easy but i felt good about our odds like i've i put in that time and i gained some confidence in that that fishing style and i wasn't surprised by it i felt like we should have had another chance at a truly big fish and that didn't come can you tell people about the um the figure eight deal yeah which is like what do you want to know about it's it's well just explain to people the strategy of the figure

eight like do you only throw a figure eight when you see it you don't do it every time so this is going back to kind of like that lore and like that mysticism that was musky fishing to a california kid right like oh the figure eight like what is this and it's this boat side mechanic that accounts for the behavior of these muskies where they'll track your bait all the way to the boat and if you can maintain that fish's focus on your lure even boat side you stand a pretty high chance of getting it to still bite your lure even though he's like basically staring at you. Staring at you.

I mean, even like your whole rod is in the water. Like it's crazy because like that just seems so foreign to so many different fishing cultures. And it's very prominent in muskie fishing to where like some fisheries like Lake of the Woods, they say like two thirds of your bites bites actually come boatside like you'll suck those fish up from a long cast and you can expect it to actually make its like kill attempt at some point on the at at the boat and for me that that was the first time i actually caught one doing it

after tens of thousands of repetitions and failed repetitions and i think part of that was because of where i was doing most of my muskie fishing was really high visibility clear water those fish would see us and the boat and spook like by the time i went into the first turn versus like lake of the woods is much like dirtier water so they i just don't think they are as skittish. And I got my first one after watching this 45-inch muskie follow my freaking white poodle-looking lure like around and around and around. And we're all like, dude, it's still there. And on the fourth turn, it actually got in. Like your rods in the water just like cutting circles with your rod. Right.

And I'm going like high high like away from the boat and I'm changing elevations and like trying to pump it on the turns like just trying to get it to trigger and watching this fish just engage with my thing as I'm walking it in like this big circle four times around and when it actually made the

commitment we were all kind of like oh shit it's got it like this is a real thing. And it's, it's a fascinating fishing technique. And one that I've actually previously applied with largemouth bass fishing. And it's not as like aggressive of like a figure eight. And most of the time I'm actually doing like ovals. Yeah.

Because those bigger fish apparently have a harder time like turning on a dime. And have got big predatory like skittish like wary like educated or conditioned fish to make a mistake with inches of line off my rod tip. I did it yesterday on the Yellowstone. Got a brown trout to eat my jerk bait because I was trying to burn it in to make a cast at a snag. And this like 19 inch brown trout just beelines it like fast as hell. And boat side, like I didn't, I was about to go into a figure eight turn because I've just built that into my mechanics. It didn't even give me a chance.

It just snuffed it. We're like right at the end of my rod too. I'm like sick, but I've actually started incorporating it, like right at the end of my rod too i'm like dude that was sick but i've actually started incorporating it like on some other fishing like escapades like murray cod fishing in australia barramundi like it's a it's a underutilized fishing style for all fish yeah but like the musky guys like you have to make that boat side mechanic at least one revolution especially in like low light or low visibility situations, whether the water's dirty or nighttime fishing,

because you don't know if there's one on it or not. And sometimes like you'll suck one in and it'll camp out under the boat. And then like on the six cast later or something, it could just shoot. Oh, and he's just hiding under the boat? He's been there the whole time, potentially. Yeah, yeah. They do that. That's pretty wild. so you're supposed to do it every time and it it's kind of like that murphy's law thing every time someone that's super green to musky fishing

comes on my boat and i'm trying to like tell them figure eight every time at least one revolution because that'll give you time to kind of like watch and see if there is one in the area and everybody gets lazy man it's a mental focus thing like and the one time they don't do it guess what happens it's big old musky big old musky was on it and maybe if you had actually gone into a turn it could have ate it but you never gave it that shot and you just blew your shot for the day you know potentially so it's it's a exercise of like this mental focus and hyper-focus.

And that's what drew me into it as a fishing like culture, because that's like right up my alley with like the low engagement I'm expecting and living trophy bass fishing. Like I'm trying to catch a fish that most people on average will never see all the time. So I have to maintain this level of hyper-focus. And for me, like the muskie fishing, I was like, oh, like you're just a dumb bass guy from California.

You don't, you're not going to do any good. Like you're going to throw that thing? No, here, man, throw this, throw these two things that every other muskie fisherman I've ever talked to told me to throw. It's like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. You're going to go rogue. Yeah, I went rogue. I stuck some good fish and had a lot of fun learning the process and failing on my own and trying to pick and choose

from these hardcore muskie guys who I respect so much as a culture, as a type of angler but like at the same time how do you know that there isn't a better way to catch a muskie or a different because you went and talked to everybody at the fly shop Oliver they told you what's up absolutely what's to use yeah man you can you can skip all that stuff Yeah. I enjoy the process of learning and unfortunately experience and failure is the best way to learn. Yeah. It really is.

Until you actually like live it and can have that opportunity to make that adjustment on your next opportunity. Yeah. I think hearing stuff is great, but then making it your own is particularly helpful, man. Totally. Because I think when you're doing something with confidence, you do it differently and do it better. Right.

Slightly differently and better for sure. Failing with confidence, right, is a huge part of it. And nobody, like the amount of people that have the stomach for failure over and over again is just not a lot of folks like that. They're like, I need some success, though. We were talking to the baseball player, Pete Alonzo. He was talking about the psychology of baseball players and being a batter. He says baseball is a game of failure.

It's just all failures. He says if you can succeed 10% of the time, you might be regarded as phenomenal. 90% failure. Yeah. So it's like you get really used to... It's not like every time you get out to the plate, like, bam, homer, bam, homer, right? You can have a good career.

We're calling success a homer as well because I'm doing the math. If you're batting 100, you're not doing that great. You're better than me but i can't remember what the hell number he said but he said like three out of ten three three hundred is like a hall of fame batting no yeah yeah 30 maybe he said you're amazing point being he's like it's more typical to fail at bat absolutely than it is to succeed at bat I think that applies for anything that's hard to do right

anything that is like revered shouldn't be easy because no one would care you know it'd be like bluegill fishing

on DOS boat dude don't be hacking on bluegill you're gonna hurt me and Kevin hey man I love bluegill fishing love it now why was it you guys were incapable of catching the big mouth buffalo I mean You're going to hurt me and Kevin's feelings Hey man I love bluegill fishing Love it

Now why was it you guys were incapable of catching the big mouth buffalo I mean you can't put the you guys It was me I thought you and Cal were fishing Yeah Cal was smarter than me He's like that looks stupid I'm not going to do that You go ahead But what were you trying

Most of them I mean people do catch them Yes They shoot a lot of them with bows In the river There's Most of them, I mean, people do catch them. Yes. Yeah. Most of the time, they shoot a lot with bows. They shoot a lot with bows. In the river, like, there's, and certainly, like, in more of the moving water, as opposed to, like, the stagnant stuff. I'm not putting anybody down here, but, like, that is very doable. Very, very well within the realm of what people would consider success. Like not that much of a trick.

But going out on the big water with the big old fish, very doable as well. But that is going to take a lot, a lot of failure to figure out. What were you trying to do? All right. So I feel like I should give a little context on what this fish is because not that people know what it is. Everybody sees them, they think they're looking at a carp. Right. And just so everybody knows, bigmouth buffalo are not carp.

They're not even related to carp. They're the world's largest sucker, and they are native fish in North America, and they're incredibly cool. Used to support a commercial fishery. They did. Yeah. I've not eaten one. I've heard they're very delicious. We have grilled ribs on them.

Really? Well, there's a guys in Wisconsin take the ribs, clean the fish, and then they take the ribs, leave it on the bone, brush it with barbecue sauce and grill it. And then you suck the ribs clean. Like you're eating pork ribs. Nice. Yeah. It's good. Still a commercial fish in Tennessee.

Oh, it is. Yeah. And eating pork ribs. Nice. Yeah. It's good. Still a commercial fish in Tennessee. Oh, it is. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I believe Louisiana as well. Yeah. The last I could find, which wasn't super contemporary, but the last commercial fishing

report I found from Louisiana, they were a small percentage of the commercial fish, but they were, they still were representative there. But anyhow, uh, we learned about these fish. I think, I think you actually turned me on to that Cal, you turned me on to that Cal. You turned me on to that, uh, that study that came out in 2019. Oh, and because I can't remember what it was, but memory was old fish,

uh, oldest known fish in the, in the U S freshwater fish. Yeah. There was this assumption that they lived like the same length as other soccer species, so 20, 30 years, but no one had ever tested that. They're, they're a rough fish. They don't get much attention. No one had really studied them much at all. And then this guy named, uh, Alec Lackman decided he was going to do a study.

He was going to pull out the otolith bones from some of these fish and age them, uh, from, from in his home turf in Detroit Lakes and discovered, first of all, the oldest fish he found was 112, and second of all, couldn't really find any fish under 80 years old in that system. And it was because the system had gone to shit, right? And so there was no successful reproduction anymore, just all fish that were born prior to it going to shit? Wasn't that something like that? Well, they don't know. Like it had been.

Yeah, there's, you know, with all wasn't it something like that well they don't know like it had been yeah there's there's you know with all things it's like okay well here we we found this we can make a lot of speculative ideas right like well that fish landed on your car because two birds were having a fight um you know well this elk got stuck in the mud that's how it ended up on your boat anchor or your dog anchor, right? And so that's where they're at with this. And, you know, so they do have some funding. They're going to release another paper coming up. But, yeah, the idea is something has happened that has limited recruitment. So there is, they think some, some successful spawning, but there is no successful recruitment.

Meaning that, um, eggs are being produced and laid, but they are not, uh, uh, you know, rearing a new age class of fish. Yeah. Um, and that that's happening in very, very limited doses as compared to other populations that are successfully spawning and having successful recruitment outside of this system. Um, they know that the sucker fish, um, can have some pretty amazing, uh, migrations for spawning. Okay. And they know that they, that can't happen in this system that they're looking at right now. Uh, due to, you know, due to some manmade factors. Gotcha. So they're like, ah, this could be something.

And if they look at the fact that they have 80 to 112 year old fish, it lines up very well with, uh, how some of these waterways have been manipulated. Yeah. There are a couple of things that look at one is, is changing the hydrology, putting in dams and things like that. But the other thing is right around that time

was when common carp showed up and common carp fill a similar niche in the ecosystem as these fish, they don't just look alike. They feed similarly. They spawn similarly, even though they're not at all related, they're in the same place as doing some similar things. So it could be that it's because of the changes to this waterway.

It could be the introduction to this, of this invasive species. It could be considering they know that these fish can be over a hundred years old and still be capable of spawning, still be pretty fit in good shape. They may be fish that don't successfully recruit every year or even every

10 years, but they just don't know. Yeah. So it's still a, I mean, people just figured this out last year. Yeah. So this research is brand new and we got to go hang out with the dude who's doing this research and, and get to, get to meet some of these fish.

To say he's interested in what he's doing would be a gross understatement. What does he, what does this individual feel about the fact that people go out and fill these fish to say he's interested in what he's doing would be a gross understatement what is he what does this individual feel about the fact that people go out and fill garbage cans and dumpsters full of carp and probably are mixing in all kind of big mouth buffalo in there you know i would say he doesn't like it but there's part of him uh alec has a, uh, uh, an interesting brain for sure. There's part of him that knows that these

people value that fish, even if it's just to shoot and that could in turn be valuable to keeping this fish around. When I was out bow fishing with Jared Fink in Wisconsin, they, you could definitely tell because if you knew what you're looking at, you would know a big mouth buffalo when you saw it and they would

like it. Yes. Yeah. They still shoot it. Yeah. Yes. But they would prefer to get it. And that would be like an eaten one.

Yeah. And that's one of the amazing things that really came to light because we talked with a, you know, a guy who, you know, like anybody who really gets turned on to some kind of fishing or hunting, like started bow fishing about 15 years ago. And then he kind of figured out how to be the best bow fisherman and got really, really invested into it. And he holds the big mouth Buffalo in very high regard to the point where it used to be that that is the fish he would target to where it wasn't sporting for him to go after carp. And so, but he still likes to shoot them.

But he has seen firsthand that the population is going down. Got you. Um, but there's some challenges associated with this, you know, big old fish that are much more desirable from like a sporting aspect, which again could be, you know, something that you could harness for the preservation of this species. And so what were you guys trying to do? We were, well, we were trying to do two things.

One, we wanted to go meet this dude and learn about these fish because we got turned on to the story, we think it's fascinating. And in this Detroit lakes area where we were focusing part of our story, you know, that's the area where they can't find fish or hardly any fish under 80 years old. And I think it was 10 years ago, it became legal to bow fish at night with no limit.

And so guys are pulling out thousands of pounds of fish. You know, we were talking to bowfishers that, yeah, I'd get 500 pounds a night. Used to be on a regular basis. And now they're not seeing them. Of big mouth buffalo. Of big mouth buffalo.

Not carp. Not carp. They shoot carp. Shooting 500 pounds of them a night. This is what, this is what we were told. Not anymore. Now he's like, man, I remember 10 years ago, you go out, you go out for a few hours, you

literally fill your boat. Now you go out, you might see a couple. And, and so they're, they're seeing a dramatic change because these fish aren't reproducing. Man. And the bow fishers really want to shoot them because they think it's really fun. It's a great sport.

So they would call it, instead of saying they're going carp shooting, they would go buffalo shooting. Well, they'll shoot, they'll shoot carp or dogfish or sheep, et cetera, or other things as well. But buffalo were like the prime target. They were apparently the most challenging fish and they fought the hardest. So those are the ones that they wanted to get. But were they, were they garbage in the mall?

Yeah. Yep. So they're still throwing them in a dumpster. Yeah. By and large. Putting them out in the field, whatever to help them do with. Yep. Exactly.

Yeah. The exception, I mean, really, if if you especially if you look at the gross poundage the exception to the rule would be eating them yeah i went to a bow fishing tournament one time kind of covering a bow fishing tournament and just everything a new dumpster man and it was a lot of carp but it was also a lot of native fish yeah Yeah. Tons of long-nosed gar. Gar. Yeah. Buffalo fish, dogfish into a dumpster. I went to a shark tournament one time and they fill a dumpster.

They filled two dumpsters. Really? Blue sharks. No. Two dumpsters. The Tennessee regulations allow you to dump those things back into the waterway that you got them in, which to me seems more appropriate than throwing them in a landfill somewhere. At least you got nutrients going back into the system somehow, some way. But it is just, it's hard not to see it all as very

wasteful. If you can put, if you can go into a fishery and put slot limits in place, you can ask hunters not to shoot female bears, right? You can request that hunters don't shoot nannies on mountain goat hunts. Shit that takes like a trained eye to figure out. You can put antler restrictions in place, being like it's got to have three points on one side, whatever. You can ask people to have a discerning eye.

Why not just have it be that like, yeah, you can shoot carp. Shoot carp. That's precisely what they're talking about here. And we got to have a really, I felt like it was an interesting and productive conversation with a couple of hardcore bow fishers who loved to shoot Buffalo and Alec Lackman, this, this biologist and, and have a dialogue in

place that was really more about, Hey, we need to talk to, we need to talk about finding a way to manage these fish. Cause this is not sustainable. No one's pointing anybody out as like, you're the bad guy, you're the good guy, whatever. In fact, shooting carp out of there might really help these fish.

So by all means, don't stop bow fishing, but let's think about how we manage these fish because this is not sustainable. But because this research is so new, you know how long that stuff takes to filter into actual regulation. It hasn't gotten there yet. And so my hope is that by maybe making this episode, having this conversation, we're getting more people to talk about it.

The thing that this can't be is it can't be a situation where we're pointing the finger at bowfishers and saying, you guys are screwing this up because that's not the case. Bowfishers aren't the ones that are preventing these fish from recruiting. They're just doing what they love to do. And if we can get them on board. It's just like additive stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But if we can get that community on board

with like, hey, yeah, we do want to manage these fish because I want my kids to be able to shoot them. That's just a broader coalition of folks trying to figure this problem out instead of factionalizing it and breaking it up. And you're looking at like, you know, the, the leave the big ones alone type of addage, the old big ones are the successful spawners.

Well, that's literally all that's left. And these big females, these a hundred year old females, like you're talking millions of eggs on the spawn. Um, you know, laying off them and figuring out what is going to lead to successful recruitment could be a relatively fast turnaround too. So it's not like a next generation type of thing. Uh, I grew up bow fishing. We used to like to bow fish. I still bow fish now and now and then. I do think that the thing that kind of like justifies bowfishing when you're just bowfishing to shoot fish and throw, any serious fisheries manager in the country and said, if you could wave a magic wand and make the common carp vanish from these waters, they would all wave it. Yes. Right.

Everyone would wave it. not going to go find a fisheries manager, a serious fisheries manager and say like, if you could wave a magic cart wand and make big mouth buffalo vanish from their native range, no one's going to wave the damn wand. So I just don't like the same way that when you're bow fishing, you're not allowed to shoot large mouths. You're not allowed to shoot yellow perch. You're not allowed to shoot walleye.

YPs. YPs. YPs and Ws. I don't know, man. I don't think it's like blaming them. It's not like blaming them, but it's just like a real management oversight. It's like if you're shooting stuff because you want to throw it into a dumpster, shoot something we don't want.

Yeah. But I think there's an education problem here because a lot of people do think they are carp because people call them Buffalo carp and, and those same boat fishers we were talking to said like, we thought we were doing the lakes a favor. We thought we were removing a problem species until this guy Alec came along and told us we were wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's not, it is funny too, because you're like, oh yeah, I can see how, you know, it's hard to, you're really going to give a kid a ticket for mistaking this fish for a carp. but then it's like all the other things that we do right uh you can only shoot one hand mallard and they're flying at 25 miles an hour so are you really going to give a ticket a kid a ticket for shooting too yes yeah but there's dad but then

there's all these other things in wildlife management, right? Like I've talked to people who are pro mountain goat, as pro mountain goat as it could possibly be. And they're like, well, yeah, the tag's got to be either sex. Because you don't want some kid not, you know, misidentifying a nanny for a billy. I'm like, well, yeah, but it's pretty freaking easy to identify a billy if you put yourself in the right situation. Just ask Pete Munich, who made the world's greatest video about how to tell a nanny from a billy. Great video. Yeah.

And that's always just been a stumper for me. I'm like, is it that much of a stretch to ask? I mean, their, their testicle sack is about the size of a cantaloupe and they seem to be real proud of it. On the goat thing. There are interesting ways they deal with it where there's units in Alaska. They give out an either sex tag. It's mandatory reporting. So you have to report your animal.

You have to bring it in for reporting if you shoot a nanny you don't uh you're not eligible for the draw for five years or seven years or something if you shoot a billy you're up to bat next year that is fantastic so they haven't made it like they haven't made it wrong but but they've definitely... And I'll tell you what, when I hunted that unit, that put it over the edge for me. There are consequences. I was like, man, they really, really don't want you to shoot a nanny. And then we didn't. And it was that little thing. I'm like, the fact that that little shame they put into it, it's like a little shame with some teeth makes a difference.

Yeah. Now, the recreational aspect of Buffalo, Miles and I talked about this quite a bit. Yeah. Because I was kind of laughing, you know, and I'm like this system and I'd really exploited all there is to exploit, I could see how I could get really into trying to trick these things consistently, but I'm just, I'm not there yet, you know, but it is really

fricking funny to sit there and do the color commentary while Miles is fishing his ass off for him. Are you trying to sight fish him? Oh yeah. All sight fishing. And, and we should clarify should clarify in the lake, these fish, again, they're older than my grandparents.

Like there's not anything they haven't seen. They've been shot at with bows. Like there's nothing that I'm going to do that they're not going to notice, right? And these fish, you'll move in, you'll find them circling in these shallow bays. I'm like, okay, I've got one. I see one couch right over there.

I, they can't hear me, but I just start whispering anyway. And I try and make a cast and lead them and drop that they own their filter feeders. So you got to throw small, small stuff at them. Right. I wasn't fishing a fly rod cause I wanted to be cool with the fly rod.

That was the only way I could get a bait small enough to, to trick them. So they're not, they're not going to pick up a leaf worm. No. Not according, I mean, well, I won't say no. The stomach analysis is really, there's lots of like micro crustaceans.

And then there's these oddball things that Alec can kind of theorize on of like, you know, his cousin has caught two in the same bay on crankbaits. Oh yeah. Okay. So every once in a while they will attack something, but, but primarily when you're seeing these fish, you can watch them cause

it's clear water. They're just cruising through and just like a whale or a whale shark, they're opening their big wide mouths and they're just sucking in whatever's in front of them and just keep going. So they're not going to move to take something. You can't, you can put a leafworm out there, but they're not going to like turn and eat it. You have to get something that looks appropriate. You're trying to land something in front of his face so he can suck it in on accident. Correct. But it's not, not necessarily on accident, right? You want it to look like

a little sub aquatic insect, the things that they're eating, but that fish is not going to move. It would be more work to avoid it than to just inhale it. Yeah. Type of thing. Then what would happen? Then I would set the hook and it would be game on. But you didn't.

In theory. So in the, in the lake, I will admit. I don't mean like what would happen in theory. I mean, what would happen? Oh, what would happen is that these fish would see us and they'd go from like happily feeding about a foot under the surface then as soon as they see the boat they drop down like to six feet and then they get not an arrow range yeah because you have been flinging arrows at them

are they too far out horizontal distance you could you could have lacked a few for sure yeah for sure so they're up at the surface doing that. Or like near the surface. Mid-column. Mid-column, yeah. Not sucking mud up. No. They don't have a downturn mouth. Sorry, Cal.

I was going to say, their mouth, unlike a lot of those fish, actually faces forward. It's not a downturn mouth. Not like a red horse sucker or a lot of those other sucker species that are really pouty. It's a forward facing mouth. Yeah. If you, if you people out there want to go way back in time, we did a meat eater episode many, many, many years ago, turkey hunting,

but we did go out at night and shoot some big mouth Buffalo long ago. But in the Wisconsin, what we did do though, was we then chased them around on the Mississippi river where they are spawning more successfully. And there are more of them. And we, we hooked up with this, this other dude who consistently catches them. And we did hook a few there.

And, uh, yeah, I still got my ass kicked. I broke one off. They came unbuttoned on you? I broke one off. I straightened the hook out on another one. Another one just, just, it didn't stick. It was, it was maddening, but it was also like, I got to go back. I'm so.

How big were they? Those fish were more like the, so the ones in the, in the lakes were like 15 to 40 pounds. Wow. The ones in the river were like five to 12. So they were smaller fish. 15 to 40. Yeah.

Huge fish. But you'd see that fly drop down in front of them because it's pretty darn clear, you know? And you'd watch that buffalo would like either just like sink below it or just like go to the side of it or whatever. And we were laughing. I'm like, yeah, that fish is thinking, ah,

umpqua hooks. I remember when those came out. I had, there's a possibility that I might've had one eat on that lake or I might've just flossed it. Either way, the hook didn't stick. I can't, I can't prove it one way or the other, but I had one moment of like hope. And by a moment, I mean like a split second. Were you using a, uh, well,

you were using a trolling motor on Das boat to, to come up on them. Oh yeah. Yeah. Sneaking up on them. But they know that noise. Yeah. A trolling motor at like one power.

Yeah. Because trolling motors came out in 1934. Exactly. Some of those fish are like, God, I remember that. Funny things. Those,

those, those old fish just put me, man, Cal was smarter. He was standing in the back throwing a little jig head and catching everything else while I just made a fool out of myself. The goat minnow, Sir Mellie. That, wow, first time I've ever known a goat minnow. And that thing catches a wide variety of fish very consistently. What, tell me a couple of things you did catch.

Caught some, you know, different panfish species, caught some crappie. Oh, you did? Bass. Any walley dogs? W's? Yeah, W's. No.

WD's? We didn't get any walley. No. I don't think so. We got a W's. No. WD's? We didn't get any wild. No. I don't think so. We got a couple pike. Yeah. But it was, yeah, it was funny like catching those crappie. And so the one thing I didn't know, but makes complete sense, is those sunfish hybridize.

And somebody caught a hybrid bluegill, red-eared, red-eared, no, it's a turtle. So that was a real weird one. That was a real weird one. But anyway, it was a big, big sunfish. Cool looking. So, all right. Episodes we haven't discussed, but I'm just going to skim through them. Yeah.

We've got to talk about your episode. Yeah, I'll talk a little bit about it. Lake Trout. Mm-hmm um right near my home so you know we used to catch lake you know everybody's like go troll quote the big lake uh lake michigan growing up and we went out with um a friend of mine who's a charter captain who normally fishes a boat where they put out what was he telling me seven they can fish like 20 rods yeah he says more normal is 17 to the point where they have lines with with using uh um i mean the so you're fishing down riggers planning boards dipsy

divers they're usually fishing lines 60 yards out each side of the boat. So they're covering 120 yards of water. What? Yeah. Oh, man. Because they have an array of, like I said, downriggers straight down. Then the next step out, they're running dipsy divers. And they sometimes put so much line out that the dipsy diver is banging the bottom.

Really? At 120 feet of water, the Dipsy Diver is banging the bottom. Really? At 120 feet of water, the Dipsy Diver dredging all the sand is like in waves out there. And that Dipsy Diver is hitting the top of all those sand waves. And then beyond that, you got planer boards, one, two, and three. So yeah, they got, they're running 15 hooks, 15 lines in 120 yard wide swath and you can imagine they locate a couple fish i mean the thing that i think about that is like the other boats like don't go within 120 yards of any other boat yeah they're real like cautious about other boats but uh so here he is we were running how many were were we running? Five.

Covered maybe about a 30 yard swath of water. So he was very frustrated, but still he's a lake trout catching machine. We still caught a lot of fish. Yeah. Looked like you guys did pretty well. We had a great time. And that, that little boat was fun, man. Cause it's like, you know, like when I was a kid, you know, we had a troll, we had a like a big lake boat, which had to be a starcraft um and two to four foot waves you'd almost kind of think about not

going four to six you're like there's no way two to four would suck zero to two was cool uh on the the day we went out glass like never never happened. Never happens. I mean, never happens when you plan in a trip six months, you know, it's like it happens, but it doesn't happen when you're like, we will fish on June seven, you know?

Yeah. And then like you show up on June seven. It's like, you're like, certainly it'll be like the worst day of the year, but no glass, glass. Yeah.

That was amazing. I lost five out of my seven planned days on Green Bay muskie fishing last fall. Because of the weather. Yeah, and I was in a 20-foot bass boat. Yeah, we say Gordon Lightfoot's Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, he offers a synopsis of all the Great Lakes. And he says, Lake Michigan steams like a young man's dreams. Its islands and bays are for sportsmen.

Not a bad day. He was correct. We had a great fish. And then our very own Danielle Pruitt goes out with... Frank Smethurst. Smethurst. And they fish... Love Smethurst.

I wish Smethurst was here. They catch a variety of fish. They're targeting another fish of ill repute. The freshwater drum. The freshwater drum. The sheep's head. Yeah. Another much maligned native fish that was a fun

one that was a really fun episode and then we talked about yanni oh and yanni did in my home state in his home state yanni did the um the fishing trip that elicits eye rolls for many people, which is when a thing happens in Michigan where you get the hex hatch. And they'll cover your garage door. If you have an overhead light above your garage, you'll wake up in the morning and mayflies are covering your garage door. There's local legend of the roads getting so slick with mayfly, smashed mayflies that cars careen off the road and crash. It's a real thing. Bringing out the snow plows to clear them. Yeah.

Big ass, you know, big ass mayflies. And every year you'd see them and every year you'd talk about how sometimes, you know, yeah, you got to snow plow the roads to get the mayflies, which I never saw happen. But it's like a thing. I've heard about it. I always thought that had to be BS. And when you go up to fish the hex hatch, which we did, you go up and you stay in the dark and get mauled by mosquitoes, and you listen to a fish now and then go in the dark. And you're like, I don't know, cast over that way.

It sounded like it was that way. It sounded like it was out in the river. Yeah. And Yanni goes and does that fish. Yanni drew the short straw. But he went with a dude who actually has success. It's not the kind of thing, growing up there, it didn't strike me as the kind of thing that you just went up and did on a whim. It seemed like the kind of thing you've got to kind of like study it.

Yeah. There's a lot to it. it well i think trying to to target any hatch there there's so many factors as to when those those insects hatch and when the fish choose to eat them that you got to be really dialed in to even give yourself a chance and even then it's a crapshoot yeah like but climbing down off some bridge wading through the mosquitoes and staying in the dark down there listening it's hard to you're like you're like yeah we'll stay till one or two have you tried oh yeah you're like yeah we'll stay till one or two i don't know maybe daybreak and then about 11 you're like yeah i'm cold this sucks yeah let's go i think i heard one yeah yeah we definitely gave yanni the the the short straw on that one boy he winds up with a tanker i don't

want to ruin the story and that's the the story. And that's the episodes. Yeah. We got six episodes. I think we got them all. Talk about how people can go watch them. These are going to start. The first one is going to be available starting September 13th.

They are on the Meat Eater YouTube channel, or you can get there through the website, themeateater.com. And we're going to keep releasing them every week, a new episode every week until we run out every Sunday at I think 11 a.com. And we're going to keep releasing them every week, a new episode every week till we run out every Sunday at, uh, I think 11 AM Montana time.

So check them out. Whether you like the first season, definitely check them out. If you didn't see the first season, go back, catch up and watch the second season. Das boat season two.

Dos boat. Couldn't call it dos boat because then people wouldn't be able to find it. Yeah. We weren't allowed. We worked it in though. You worked it. I got to say you worked it in.at because then people wouldn't be able to find it. Yeah, we weren't allowed. We worked it in, though. You worked it. I got to say, you worked it in.

Dos Boat. I didn't come up with it. You didn't? No, I didn't come up with that. I don't know who came up with that. I think Josh Pristine came up with it. Was that Josh? He comes up with all kinds of funny little sentences.

Yeah, that would make sense. I always tell him he works best sub-sentence. He works best shorter than a sentence. The phrase. He's very good at when it comes to putting one or two words together, he excels. Not that there's anything wrong with his sentences, but he does partial sentences is where

his sweet spot sits. It's all that marketing background. Yeah. Brevity. Quick. Two words. One word. Two words. That was a good one. That was a good one. Oliver, thanks for coming by. Thanks for having me.

It's great to have you here. Yeah. You participate in a bunch of our stuff now. Yeah, it's rad. Appreciate that. You guys are doing awesome things over here. And real quick, tell people how to go find out about you if they want to see your stuff. Oh, gosh.

Pick your poison. HopefullyMeteor.com, right? Yep. Das Boat. Seasons one and two. There's aor.com, right? Yep. DOS Boat, seasons one and two. There's a lot of me on YouTube, Instagram. What's your handle on social? So you can find me on my personal handles.

It's just Oliver Nye, spelled N-G-Y. And then you can look at a bunch of the big bass stream stuff we've done as well. When people mess up your last name, what do they go with? Oh, gosh. It's a crapshoot. Just give me one. Nagy. Nagy.

Nagy. Nguyen. I don't know where they get that from. Because it's spelled N-G-Y. It's N-G-Y. I think you're underselling it, though, man. Like, it's not just you got big bass dreams. There's big cod dreams.

Like, if you're interested in seeing Oliver and his friends catch giant fish, you can see them do it all over the world. Big pike, big Murray cod, big barramundi. It is all kinds of stuff. Do you have a YouTube channel where you guys put fish and stuff? Yeah, absolutely. So the Big Bass Dreams channel has the most of it. And then I launched my own personal channel this year as well.

So there's even big YP Dreams on there, big Blue Yule Dreams. I mean, if it's catchable we want the biggest one i mean that's that's the point right i got you so yeah it's it's pretty wild you know i find real annoying about uh travel fishing pages on instagram no tell me people don't tell you what the freaking species is it's's like, hey, my PB, my record best, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, I follow Rob Allen Spearfishing. Yeah, Spearfishing are the worst.

It's in South Africa. It's like a lot of South African company. I'm like, if you would just start out but tell me what I am looking at. Yes, it drives me crazy. I would be appreciative. But I'm just going through Oliver's page here, and he does, I was like, oh, I wonder what that fish is.

And he actually says it's spotted bay bass. Oh, so he's good about it. Yeah. It's a total SoCal fish there. So there's a whole little subculture of that. That's cool. That only lives in Southern California. That's a pretty fish.

Yeah. Super rad. Ounce for ounce, probably the hardest fighting and tenacious fish I've encountered. Cool. And one of the things I've appreciated, like when you were down in Australia and you were catching all those cool fish, you didn't just say what they were, but you dive into some of

like the basic biology of those fish and why they were interesting. And like, I, I mean, don't get me wrong. I like big fish, but having that extra context of why they're cool. Right. Just to me augments the experience of seeing it. Yeah.

I'm looking at you right here. Is that a giant snake head? No. What is that thing? Bow fin maybe? No, giant snakehead? No. What is that thing? A bowfin maybe? No, no, no. What is that? No.

I was looking at the skin of something. It's a big smallmouth. Oh, gotcha. I was looking at a corner of the skin. That thing's so fat, it's not a real good looking fish. Nothing makes for a better podcast. Here you guys are holding a whole ton of fish up

don't bat shame the fish sweet yeah I'm checking you out online right now man and you're sitting right here it's like metaphysical alright guys Joe I know you're way over there and wherever the hell got anything you want to add? no that just

it was really fun to be a part of the new DOS boat. Awesome trip, and I'm really excited for this to come out. Kevin Harlander? Yeah, same. You're so distracted by wanting to go hunting. Yeah, I know. I'm getting itchy over here. Thanks for letting me be a part.

That was a fun trip. Oliver, it was great to fish with you and see that intensity, man. It was awesome. Looking forward to seeing what comes of it if it's not too late i'm gonna have if it's not too late i'm gonna get in there and try to have a beat you catch a couple blue yeah yeah get that edit in there i'm gonna have them scour i'm gonna have to scour the footage and i'll tack on that oliver you and i need to fish together man we need to make that happen absolutely let's talk about it later today. We shall.

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