The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 286: Alaska's Shack of Love

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Steven Rinella talks with Andrew Radzialowski, Ryan Callaghan, Seth Morris, Kelsey Johnson, Chester Floyd, and Danielle Lopez. Topics discussed: The proper way to propose to your mate; the wolves of the Alexander Archipelago; Recovering America's Wildlife Act; Missouri's wildlife program as the envy of the nation; how conservation bills make folks in government feel good; Ryan "Ol Cal" Cal-iente Callaghan; citizen science and state-sponsored trail cams in Wisconsin; being force fed salmon as a kid; "eating fish your ass off"; breadcrumbs vs. batter; lots of firsts; tree bark sheds suffocating the sea floor; helicopter logging; taking a 99-year break; all the life in southeast Alaska; drunken men in bolo ties; lots of diving; the first son-mom trip for Cal; when you get uncomfortable not working; breaking up the band too soon; 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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First Light, go farther, stay longer. Okay, this is a special love episode. It's like the love boat. We're in Southeast Alaska at our family fish shack with a whole bunch of people. A lot of people are familiar with.

Seth has... Tell everybody, Seth's got big news. When it gets my family, Fish Shack, with a whole bunch of people. A lot of people are familiar with. And Seth has... Tell everybody, Seth's got big news. Went against my suggestion. No, I didn't. Yeah, you did. I said do it at the waterfall. No, you had a couple of suggestions, one of them being at the lake, and one of them being at the waterfall. Oh, I did? Yeah.

Tell them what happened. I proposed to Kelsey. And I said yes. Yeah, I proposed to Kelsey And I said yes He proposed to the wildlife artist Kelsey Johnson Is that fair? Wildlife artist? Artist, painter

Western artist Tell everybody your Instagram thing so they can look at your stuff K underscore Ray Artworks But Ray is spelled weird R-A-E No one would know that. If you've been, listen,

if you've been running around your whole life telling people K-Ray, they're not finding you. Yeah, there's a demographic of people out there that have been looking for me this whole time.

And they think it's R-A-Y. Yeah, right. But no, that's. Tell everybody again. K underscore Ray, R-A-E Artworks with an S. Yeah. Western wildlife painter.

Yeah, very beautiful stuff. Thank you. And you have a piece that you're donating to our, we haven't launched it yet, but our auction house of oddities. I do. Oil painting of a bighorn ram kind of portrait style. That'll be in there. You should go check out her work and buy some

but anyways you said yes yeah cried ugly cried how long you guys been dating what three years almost three years yeah what i told seth to do we kicked around a handful of things he was gonna stick the ring explain that ring again um it's a white buffalo which is like a people aren't familiar it's like a white turquoise looking stone, which is my favorite. And it's three rings. It's surrounded by a setting made by Adorn Smith & Co., Emerson Graves, which is my favorite jeweler.

It's really pretty. It's just one of a kind. Custom made. Custom made. You know, a lot of people, when you're getting married, they'll come out and they'll play like, here comes the bride. You should be playing Great White Buffalo, Nugent's Great White Buffalo. I like custom made. Custom made. You know, a lot of people, when you're getting married, they'll come out and they'll play like, here comes the bride. You should be playing Great White Buffalo, Nugent's Great White Buffalo.

I like it. Can you play my wedding? Come out with that ring, pumping that ring in there. Seth was thinking about putting that ring into a halibut stomach or a lingcod stomach and then having you there and gutting it and then being like, he's going to be like, let's do it at eight.

Yeah, the answer might have been different. What we have here well well well or i told him take you up to the waterfall and have that ring just setting in the gravel there sounds dangerous and then he'd come up and be like well look at that little shiny little nugget yeah we yeah we threw around a bunch of ideas. But you took her up to the lake. Took her up to the lake. It was pouring rain. We paddled across the cove in a canoe.

Chet and Danielle came with us. Danielle's a wedding photographer. You hid in the bushes. She hid in the bushes. The timing on this is pretty amazing because Chester, I understand that right at the moment uh you found an old boat and under that boat was a fishing rod and so you decided to take a poke there were two of them yeah and i i knew they were gonna propose he was gonna propose but you were getting bored but i found the fish

he's like all right buddy let, let's get on with it. Chester pulled a Chester move. And you took a cast right at that moment. I made a cast and it went zing. And I look over and Seth is on one knee. And I quick reeled in and ran over. Why the group deal?

Most people do it privately. No, they don't. They don't do it privately. No, they don't. They don't do it privately. They do it at baseball stadiums. Yeah, like a big splash. I saw a news story the other day about a dude who got out on the stadium. Did you see this? No.

It's horrible. Somehow he gets his girlfriend or whatever out on the pitcher's mound or something. In front of the whole damn... What do you call it at a baseball game? Stadium. Stadium. And there's all these cell phone videos of it. He gets down on one knee.

She puts her hands over her face and runs away. Oh. Brutal. See, I can't do that here because... Not because she was nervous. She didn't want to marry that guy. Yeah, see, I trapped her. She had nowhere to go.

If she said no, she's in an awkward spot. Right. She wants to leave. She better call the float plane. Got to paddle back. I asked Seth what he was going to do if you said no, and then here you two are stuck up here. Yeah.

He said he's just going to fish. Yeah. Which is what he did anyway. Right. So it's kind of the same plan. Same turnout. Without being the exact same plan. Yeah. Which is what he did anyway. Right. So it's like kind of the same plan. Same turnout. While being the exact same plan.

Yeah. No, I asked him about a hundred times if he was serious. That was my reaction. Why do you want to be married to Seth so bad? I love him.

Yeah. Aw. You're a lovable guy. I love him. Oh, why? More stuff about love, though. I don't know if I can talk about this. I'll just talk about it. gets mad at me she gets mad at me do you remember taylor thorn right she taught me and yanni how to do the were you there cal and we did the three gun oh yeah no you were out of

town or something like that i i didn't do it at the last minute didn't do ammo ammo shortage yeah uh taylor thorn taught us to do the three gun video. We made a video. A bazillion people watched the video of us doing the three gun thing, including some fireman who took a shine to her, and they just eloped. Really?

She said that in some way she has to give us credit. Huh. Well, that's great. She said she does stuff fast. Shoots fast, gets married fast. I was going to say, that huh well that's great she said she does stuff fast shoots fast gets married fast i was gonna say it wasn't that wasn't that long ago when you guys did that right now they eloped by credit she means dowry so that fireman owes us uh chunk just a little little chuck of his pension chunk of fire hose chunk of pension something oh the other thing so yeah the cabin the shack of love uh i don't know if you want to get the details there andy

nope probably not joy you what you haven't been on the show in forever andrew chef andrew radulowski he comes up every year and cooks at the Fish Shack. VIP of the weekend. He may or may not have gotten lucky at the Shack once. Many, many years ago. Decades ago. My brother Danny got married here. My brother Matt realized he had to break up with one of his girlfriends up here.

I know. She says offsets the love vibe. I was telling Matt my plan for up here, and he went on to tell me all about the times he broke up with women and had bad things with women happen to him up here. Yeah. His current wife doesn't come up here. Is that why? His only wife.

Not his current wife. The only one he's ever been married to. Is that why? Because it's been disastrous? No, she's busy in the summer. I don't know. And right there, like 20 feet away from here, we decided the year my brother Danny

got married, me and my wife, standing right there next to the boat, decided to try having a baby. Right next to the boat? Right there. No, like came to the decision. Right on the rocks next to the boat.

Right on the rocks. Came to the decision. Was the tide going out or coming in yeah i can't remember i could probably look back at the photography and look at the rocks and stuff and try to tell if they look like it was coming or going i i think uh that andrew chef andrew radulowski's cooking prowess is something to note but it goes far beyond just coming up here to the shack and cook. Guys out there marking halibut spots. He's got a jigging stroke that can strike fear

at any halibut out there. Squares off to his fishing pole. Noses crabbing, nose is shrinking. Gotta stick them. Any more you want to say about yourself? Current situation or anything? Things new since you've been on Andy? Well, yeah,

it's been a little bit, um, no, still plugging away. Glad to be here. You know? Well, I mean,

on the love note, let's at least say like the only person I have ever met that has taken a Pulaski and carved a trail between, between, uh, his lady friend's house and his own. He's so in love that they moved into houses next to each other. Correct.

Keeps it fresh, you know? That way you don't got to worry about when you see something laying on the floor, you just know it's yours. Yeah. You don't even think it's their thing. Oh, where we're sitting right now. So we're on Prince of Wales Island, and this is interesting because this is a long-burning debate. We're on Prince of Wales Island, and this is interesting because this is a long-burning debate.

We're on Prince of Wales Island right now. So if you're from the town of Ketchikan and went due west out of Ketchikan, Ketchikan's on Revilla Island, and you went due west of there, you'd wind up out at Prince of Wales Island. If you went east of Ketchikan, you'd wind up kind of in the panhandle, sorry, not the panhandle, you'd wind up kind of in the panhandle, sorry, not the panhandle, you'd wind up in British Columbia. So we're down in that neck of the woods,

southeast Alaska. The islands out here have, there's a wolf, wolves live out here. Some people just say they're regular old wolves. Some people say they're a special wolf called the Alexander Archipelago Wolf. And they are edging closer to Endangered Species Act protection. And it's been a contentious thing because you have wolves,

a very healthy population of wolves that aren't on this island 20 miles from here. Do they get to be separate? Do they get to be regarded as their own thing because they're archipelago wolves? Right. Are there defining features? They eat a lot of salmon. Yeah, defining features and then defining habits

that would separate them from mainland wolves, to put it simply. Yep. My brother, Danny, who's a biologist in alaska not referring to this but he said of taxonomy he said you have your lumbers and you have your splitters and they know who they are um splitting like this in this case splitting so in this case saying like hey these are different are different wolf. Splitting is often used as an environmental tool

in the old toolbox for environmental battles, right? Where if you can point to anything and say that and make an argument that it's endemic or separate, you can usually get protections for landscapes. and you'll find the industry is usually trying to be like there's nothing different about that wolf same

old wolf there's a bunch of them over here who cares about those ones it's like an ongoing yes there might be cases where industry wants to separate but generally industry and commercial interests like to lump and they want to be like as long as there's a bunch of wolves somewhere who cares and i imagine out here this archipelago region the issue would be uh habitat destruction like timber yeah timber harvest i would imagine would be the number one thing uh i i cannot imagine uh anybody saying like all the wolves come in here and eat all the salmon. And there's no real dense, like livestock type of agriculture for conflict, which is kind of like the main deal. The main conflict is, the main human conflict is competition for deer. Yeah. conflict is competition for deer yeah so they did uh you know they have around here they have

various seasons and they they loosen the wolf hunting season and uh people got a lot of wolves recently it kind of shocked people how quickly they got so many wolves which made people think there's more wolves than typical but anyways this has been a long simmering thing but yeah if you have an island and the island's 10 miles away from another island and that island's 10 miles away from the mainland or whatever the hell is it fair to say that the things that live there are their own species have these wolves always been on this island forever yeah swam out here however the hell they got here yeah you know uh interesting deal you know people used to there used to be a theory about human migrations that humans crossed, the first humans, the first Americans crossed the Bering land bridge and then approached what's now the lower 48 through the mid-continent. They used to have this idea that it was an ice-free corridor and that humans must have emerged

down to the Great Plains, like south of Edmonton, Alberta. And that was like the hot idea for a long time. The currently fashionable idea is that people crossed the Bering Land Bridge and then island hopped in boats down.

Because people, now that we know how long ago people arrived in the New World, the ice-free corridor thing doesn't make sense. They were there. They were down in Chile earlier than there would have been an ice-free route.

They must have come down the coast. There's a lot of interest in these islands around here, meaning that you might find it's plausible that the oldest New World human occupation sites are on these islands. Really? Even though the shoreline that they were inhabiting is underwater by a lot.

It's a couple hundred feet underwater. What would have been mountaintops then are mountaintops now. There could be somewhere around here very, very old sites from the real first people.

It'd be hard to find though. Everything is just covered in moss. Tie it back to the wolves right where humans who leave things behind that you can find other than just bones you know stone points yeah uh maybe some artwork maybe some structures uh here and there and we still don't know how the hell they exactly ended up where they ended up. And then you have wolves that don't leave around the extra stuff. It would just be bones.

It's kind of like we learn so much new every year, it seems, about how things get around. It's like, is this archipelago wolf really different just because we don't know for sure how it got from point a to point b is kind of the argument that that pops up to me i mean we know like how far alaskan brown bears swim from they'll swim to islands that they you cannot see um geez and you know it's off of like a scent more than likely but it blew people's minds when radio uh callers came out and they're like oh we had a bear swim from this island to this island didn't think that was possible yeah oh back to that wolf thing so this is primarily being brought by petition from the center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife.

Who don't self-identify as anti-hunting organizations, but my God, you'd get the impression. They're tied into a lot of stuff that I think conservation-minded hunters would enjoy. And a lot of things that conservation-minded hunters would enjoy and a lot of things that conservation-minded hunters would not like. You know how this is like the shack of love? Mm-hmm. Man, did I get in a big fight out here one time with one of our co-owners, Dan Bogan.

Me and him got in a huge fight when I said that when I was describing Centers for Biological Diversity as an anti-hunting organization, he got pissed. Is that controversial? Because he can rattle off some good stuff. Yeah, I got pissed. All riled up.

Good guy. Okay, Cal, explain the... Senator Heinrich emailed me about this. They were getting closer. Explain Recovering America's Wildlife Act, which is getting close. Okay, so Recovering America's Wildlife Act, or RAWA,

is a big package. This kicked off at least four or five years ago. Big chunk of work done under the trump administration and basically it is a bunch of federal funding for state wildlife and uh given state wildlife managers the tools they need uh and tribal wildlife managers, the tools they need to protect sensitive species. Every state, the tribes were asked to come up with species of concern, and that could be plants, pollinators, to mammals. In total, 12,000 species in the United States,

12,000 species. And there was a lot of back and forth on like, what should make the list? But basically states were asked to like, give me your top 10, like, give me the most important. Um,

and all of a sudden, we have the opportunity to try to get this thing passed. Uh, it's seen a lot of bipartisan support. We need everyone to contact their duly elected representatives and tell them to get on board. Ideally, co-sign on Recovering America's Wildlife Act. Because if we act fast, prior to the end of August here, which is our current session,

this could get incorporated and voted on as part of the big infrastructure package. Oh, yeah. Which would be lightning fast and fantastic. One super encouraging thing is Senator Blunt out of Missouri. Missouri, if folks don't know, is like, they have a wildlife program in that state that's like the envy of every single state.

Yeah, when you register your car, like car, like driver, your license plate, right? It's like every chunk chunk of it's like a point eight eight it's like an eighth of a cent for goes directly to wildlife of all like state associated sales tax uh oh it's off sales tax yeah he wants to be a huge amount of money and it'll i mean it allows that agency to do all the things that all States want to do. Like all the educational outreach, the Missouri,

uh, conservation magazine goes out to like everybody. And every couple of years, some greedy, uh, state politician wants to reach into that bucket and take money out of it for some other program. And the the the public

the citizens of missouri always smack it down it's really cool to see um but it you know it's kind of like a pitman robertson type deal where it's like if you brought it up today we probably had no way it would pass but since it got put in place people are really proud of it and uh the um uh wildlife agency in missouri uh does does a great great job over there so anyway funny the things that we're so proud of that would we would never pass that are overwhelmingly popular today that would not have a prayer to pass today oh wilderness act which had like not a 99 to 1 vote in the senate you couldn't get that thing passed now but everybody's so like oh good good gracious we did the wilderness act yeah i forget it because it's it's not about the act itself it's about what people can okay well if i vote for this act that everybody knows is a good idea, then I get something, right. And it gets bogged down in that, in the, in the BS. But, um, so yeah,

almost a billion dollars for tribes. Um, every state has input and it really is supposed to be giving the tools to the states that they need to manage the wildlife um has a lot of bipartisan support but we need need a lot more folks so 1.3 billion in dedicated annual funding for proactive on the ground efforts across the country 97.5 million annually to tribal nations. This version introduced by Roy Blunt from Missouri, Senators Roy Blunt from Missouri and Martin Heiner from New Mexico. Martin comes on the show often to explain various things.

Passionate guy. Yeah. So yeah, really, really good deal. We got a lot of good stuff passed under the Trump administration by folks writing in and playing the game, contacting your duly elected, and we need to make sure it gets done

under the Biden administration as well. And a lot of this stuff got built during the Trump years. If you remember, we had whit fosberg the president ceo of theodore roosevelt conservation partnership on and he was saying that uh paradoxically you like that use of that word i like how your lips are kind of swollen up from uh the chap dude from jellyfish bites uh paradoxically when there is a lot of discord and discontent and fractious arguing in dc is a good time to come in and get conservation work

done because they're they can't get anything done all the contentious shit they can't get taken care of and everybody and so they're looking to be like how that we're doing something yes exactly and when there's a good conservation bill that has a lot of bipartisan support the environs like it hunters and anglers like it it lets them sign stuff and do stuff do feel good stuff because if not everybody's sitting back being like what the what are you people doing that's that's the. It's like, you know, they are your representatives, so you can always call in and be like, yeah, I see you're not getting anything passed. Like, we voted you in there for a reason. What's going on?

Yeah, so when they're all like fighting over the culture wars and who plays what sports and whatnot, and they're all fighting about that, then they say some conservation work yep yep so this this is a this is a good one this is a good one i've already been doing some writing in and some some phone calling and you covered us on cal's week in review blow by blow i have yeah i started and then uh working on an article um forMeteor.com. It's probably already out. Oh, you know, did you come up with that? I noticed on your fillet knife, it says Cal,

and someone made it say Caliente. Is that your idea? That was my idea, yeah. Dude, that's solid, man. You know what that means, Seth? It's Espanol. Yeah, I know, but. Hot. Hot. but... Hot.

Hot. Okay. Hot. That's a Casey Hawks original from First Light. Casey Hawks. Yeah, Caliente. I love that.

Oh, you know, another interesting news item. We covered this. Arizona, which is the most trail cam in the state on the face of the planet, recently banned trail cams for the purpose of taking or aiding in the taking of wildlife or locating wildlife for the purpose of taking or

aiding i sometimes feel like someone could do a quick editorial pass on some of this not our stuff law stuff outlawing them outlawing them, quote, for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife or locating wildlife for the purpose of taking or aiding in the take of wildlife. How do you like that? Isn't that the same thing? Yeah.

I think what that boils down is you can't use them for hunting. Right. Meanwhile, Wisconsin is stepping up on the trail cam game. Wisconsin's starting a thing called Snapshot. They're DNR, so they're a fishing wildlife agency, encouraging people to get their trail cams out. And then you make them online, and it has to do with monitoring wildlife

and creating a resulting database for management decisions so citizen monitoring citizen monitoring wildlife project it's citizen science there are all sorts of awesome um you know bird plant bug down to you know constellation uh apps that you can get on your phone and folks have discovered species thought to be extinct by you know downloading these apps and being like oh what is this i wrote about a guy in i think columbia who was going in to use the toilet and a weasel came out of his toilet and stood on it. Yep. I remember that. And took a picture of it.

And it was like an, it was a weasel they thought had gone extinct. Yes. Yeah. So you rediscovered a, a species that they thought had been extinct, which is super cool. Um,

always have your phone with you when you're going to the John. And then, uh, remember, remember me and the guy that got in the big fight about center for biological diversity. Yeah. Well, I had a trail cam set up on the trail up here. And then... Remember me and the guy that got in the big fight about Center for Biological Diversity? Yeah. Well, I had a trail cam set up on the trail up here.

And his wife went to pee. And he pulled my card. Never got that card back. Anyway, yeah. These cameras are fantastic tools. They they're very inexpensive a lot of people have them for a lot of reasons now uh and and they definitely can add add to this you can also like go and and we saw like a lot of this come up during covid where people doing let's say like uh shark research yeah but don't have the funds to go out and do an actual

you know a self-assessment of fish stocks shark stocks in this case they actually like combed through they got like grad students combed through twitter instead and like using hashtags like pull up recent pictures and say like well through these 10 000 photos taking the last x amount of time from these you know geo tagged areas yeah like this is what we have you know so um it is it is valuable corinne thinks everyone from ari Arizona who's bummed should move to Wisconsin or she's not here right now but I'm looking at what she wrote or if you're in Arizona and you're bummed about this whole thing

go and explain to your people about this stuff and say like look at man look what we're missing out on I want to know Chef Radulowski's take on moving

a bunch of Arizona folks up to Wisconsin and what that would do to the palate up there. Yeah, that'd be a little. No spice. Well, Chet would be a good one to talk to.

He's the Wisconsin native, but. Two brats on a hard roll. Yeah. Sheboygan hard roll. No, they don't like spice in Wisconsin. Some people do, but it's pretty cheese and sausage. Remember how we were covering off on that,

whether that dude should be allowed to name his kid. His last name's Fisher, and he wants to name it Hunter Fisher. Yep. Someone sent us in a newspaper clipping about a guy named Hunter, last name Hunter, marrying a woman whose last name was Fisher. No. Tyler Fisher, Audra Hunter. Dude named Fisher marrying a woman, last name Hunter.

And they made a little koozie to commemorate the wedding. Yep. It says, party your bass bass off or get the buck out fisher hunter fisher hunter that's cute that's more stuff on love this yeah it's a podcast of love that just seems like you're setting yourself up for something that you got to explain every single time somebody sees it down the road. Like if you want that little memento from your wedding. What?

Oh, you know, the Hunter Fisher. And then people loved it at the time, I swear. So I want to follow up and find out if she took his name or not. If I were her, I would just combine it. Hyphenate it, dude. Yeah. And have kids. Right.

Name them Joe. Joe Fisher Hunter. No, Joe Hunter Fisher. Joe Hunter Fisher. I wish my name was that. buying it hyphenated dude yeah and have kids right name them joe joe fisher hunter no joe hunter fisher i wish my name was that dude like angler or yeah forager yeah forager hunter fisher yeah start a little instagram page yeah that's what people your age that's all you guys think about all right speaking of love. Chester, we've had Chester on many times. Danielle. Yes, you have. Tell people about how

little fish you've eaten in your life. Well, let's see. It's pretty shit up creek to none. And who's the uncle? I can't give his name. I'm kidding. It's my Uncle my uncle dale uncle dale and to be fair yeah does he listen to this show does he know about it i don't know but the first time i ate

fish was with him and i was actually five and he caught a salmon caught a salmon cooked it up and but to give to give him a little salmon but this is when you were five years old? Yeah, how do you remember? I have a good memory. I can't remember anything at five. I have a good memory. Never forgets. Never forgets a taste. Yeah, that's good. Anyway, it was not a good taste.

So when you're five, Uncle Dale went on a fishing trip. You don't know where he went? Nope, don't know nothing. Mooching? Working the river mouths? What was he doing? I don't know. All I know is he had a fish and

i had to clear my plate that was for like growing up you had to clear your plate before you were sure man yep so he made me eat that whole thing and i was like clean your plate clean plate club i was cleaning the plate clean clean plate club uncle dale's salmon dish and then took 20 years off yep well so yeah i ended up not eating salmon again after that but i was i was also young when you're like a kid you're so picky kids are so picky with what they eat so i could have just been like you know i didn't like the taste i don't know what it was but i just from then on i was like i'm not trying that again until i came up here and had some of andy's salmon it was delicious yeah but that that also ruined you on all fish. Yeah, it did. I think I had

this persona of everything is going to taste fishy. That's the taste I didn't like was the fishy taste. But I've had fish sticks and I've tried like walleye. You never go to Long John Silver's or anything like that. We covered off in this last night. Can't say that I've done that. Nope. Do you know there's a place called Long John Silver's or anything like that? We covered off in this last night. Can't say that I've done that.

Nope. Do you know there's a place called Long John Silver's? Did not know that. And explain how you cook the salmon in order to win. Oh, another quick question. Why do they call you Don? You know, I got the nickname from a guy. Do we hang out with a lot? I don't know how.

It's just more fun to say. It's D-A-H-N. Don. Don. You can really. Don. Don. Depends on, you know, the mood of the situation.

If you're Don or Don. Back to the fish thing though. Danielle's my wife and she doesn't give things a good shot sometimes when it comes to game or fish. But I feel like coming up here, I'm super proud of you. So giving it a shot. She's been eating fish her ass off. Is that a sentence?

I like it. I like it though. No, I knew that was actually coming up here when Chester, you know, told me about this opportunity. I was A,

really excited for like just to see everything out here and be out of my comfort zone because at home I didn't grow up in the woods doing stuff. All I did was

sports growing up and my mom worked a lot so I didn't go camping every weekend with my mom. And you started working when you were nine years old. Yeah, pretty much. My dad was never really in the picture, so I kind of just worked and played sports, and that was my favorite thing to do.

I learned the meaning of money at a young age, and if I wanted something, I had to work for it. So if I wanted a hundred pair of dollar jeans in high school, I had to pay for it. Which, why did I do that? Nobody knows. But I mean, I guess I never grew up eating this stuff. And Chester, as everyone knows, he's allergic to it. We haven't covered off on that.

Oh, okay. Well, he's my, my husband's a old fishing guy who could not eat fish and he's allergic to it. So we don't cook it at home. He's been going gangbusters on the shellfish. He's been going nuts. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy

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and titty there OnX is now in Canada the great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting Great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. 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 handpicked 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. So, Andy, explain your salmon cooking. So, Andy lives on San Juan Island, south of here. But you guys eat all kinds of fish. Yeah. Yeah.

It's rich in seafood over there. But that salmon the other night actually had quite a bit of a journey to get to the dinner table. Well, we got on the silvers up at Frank's and flayed them up, came back, and fired up the grill outside. Had all intentions to get a nice little crispy skin on that on the grill. And as we threw it on, we had a little propane malfunction. Grill kind of went down to a little whimper of a flame. So quick, brought it inside, threw it in a hot pan, and then went to finish it in the oven,

and the pilot light was out in the oven. So we had to start back over. But all said and done, by the time we got there, put a little honey mustard glaze on it. It was actually pretty dang good. So good. It was absolutely. Yeah, we overcame the.

You like to do a skin side down salmon. Well, actually, if the grill. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Not skin side. Flesh side down. Flesh side down. If you have a ripping hot grill or what I prefer.

Yeah, give salmon cooking 101. Well, I have a couple grills at my house, but my favorite way to do is I've got a flat top grill, so a big cast iron, you know, flat top, and get that thing smoking hot. A little bit of oil and flesh side, season, you know, generously, and then flesh side down

until that thing just tells you when it's ready and just starts to curl. And that cast iron, if it's seasoned right, you just get up under there and flip the whole flay over, and it's just got that perfect little crust on there. And then finish it with skin down. You get a little bit of crisp on that skin, and it's money. And you can do that on just a regular barbecue grill too, right? Sure, sure.

If you're confident in your grill not sticking. It's all about the heat if you can get that heat high enough and you have a good season season grill uh surface it shouldn't be a problem but in the same note you can do that kind of stuff in a cast iron pan inside you know what i was explaining about the the flat top grill the only downfall of that is if you don't have a good hood system your house is stinking like fish for a couple days yeah that you know if you're really searing fish where it's like white hot with just that oil starting to smoke that's where you want it to put that flesh side down but then yeah your house is going to stink a little bit my wife used to get mad at me when the bath towels smelled like fish yeah yeah, you know three days later. You know you've been cooking fish.

Tell us something I asked you about cooking. Oh, talk about how you fry fish. Well, there's a lot of different... That's good-ass fried fish. That was so good. I prefer breading opposed to a batter dip. I mean, batter dip's good for some applications, but I just find it gets... Some people get a little too heavy with the batter.

I don't like batter. So you've got a half inch of batter. Do you call that batter or breading? When you get traditional fish and chips, that's usually a beer batter. Yeah, I like that. But a lot of restaurants or home cooks do it where there's just like a half inch thick breading

before you get to the fish. And it's not cooked properly, and by the time it gets into the center, you kind of have that soggy breading before you get to the fish and by it's not cooked probably and by the time it gets into the center you kind of have that soggy breading in there and it just kind of mushes the fish out oh yeah you give that to your kids and it winds up being they eat all that and then the middle is like some little chunk of fish yeah because they picked all that garbage off the outside of it so i prefer do more of a a breading on there where I would take usually dry breadcrumbs mixed with a little bit of flour and some seasoning. Sometimes I even throw a little bit of cornstarch in there to cause, or like a rice flour, something that's going to give it that real nice crispness.

And I usually do the three into the flour, into the egg wash, and then press it hard into the breadcrumbs. And the key to that is hot oil. If your oil temperature is too low, 375 or below, 350 or below, you're going to get soggy fish. Do you aim? I typically aim for 350. Yeah, because the temperature is going to plunge once you put all that cold fish in there. So you aim for 375. Yeah, I always go a little hot, and then it comes down.

And then another trick is if you're doing rounds, let the oil recoup and let it get back up to temp. Because a lot of times you're rushing and you throw it right back in there, but that oil's plummeted so far down that everything's going to get soggy in there. For big groups like this, though, do you have, like, what's your trick when you're doing rounds, like multiple rounds of fried fish? And this would be applicable at your house too steve uh getting your first batch and your second batch to like match up yeah by the time it it hits the table in one round yeah it's tricky we were running two fryers the other night which is nice we had actual uh electric fryer that kind of you know maintains that temperature pretty well and then we had uh and flirts with like burning this whole place down let me step fryer that kind of maintains that temperature pretty well.

And then we had a- And flirts with burning this whole place down. Let me step in here and say something. Everything kind of flirts with that. But I get a Dutch oven lined up with paper towels. Yeah. Take a load off, dump it in there, and don't put the lid on all the way. Because I want steam to get away.

Yep. That keeps them warm. And then you're just keeping that outside. You're not throwing it back in the way because I want steam to get away. Yep. That keeps them warm. And then you're just keeping that outside. You're not throwing it back in the oven. Keep right next to that. I think the other trick to good fried fish is, well, there's a couple things, is the thickness that you cut it. And I've been working on this for the last couple years,

just really trying to dial it in. Too thin, and that fish is overdone by the time your breading's going to get that nice color on it. Oh. Too thick, and you're not going to achieve, you're going to still have a little raw fish before that breading starts to get too dark. So it's, you got to hit right in that sweet spot. You know, I can see hits out the back of my head when someone's got a hit on their rod yeah even on other boats um it's true dude it's like a curse man i see every hit did you see our hit i could even i could probably feel it you can probably hear mine oh yeah anyways um

frying fish i somehow just like the sound like the, like I just can tell when it's done. Oh, you need all your senses to know when it's done. You really do. It smells like it's done. There's something like a bubbling. Do you know what I'm saying? That's the other trick is to pull it. You almost have to lead it, right?

You want to pull it. Oh, you got to lead it. Yeah, you want to pull it when you oh you gotta lead it yeah you gotta think when you think it's still a little bit raw that's when you pull it and let it sit for two minutes and then it's boom it's right there yeah should be that nice translucent like flaky because it's not the worst in overcooked fish i mean i was uh at a gun range in Washington State one time, and I got to talking to the dude next to me at the gun range, and he learned where I was from, from Michigan,

and somehow he felt basically that I was from Wisconsin. And he was telling me about when he lived in Wisconsin, and I kept on being like, I'm actually from, yeah, you know, didn't matter. It was very much like the same region. Wisconsinites, really, if you think someone's from wisconsin there's like an immediate like bonding that you have you're like oh you're from wisconsin so i can see why that happened no he was from washington oh really met me i told him i'm from michigan and he proceeded to talk to me as though i'm from wisconsin like in his head, just no difference. Yeah.

Right. Anyhow, he was telling me how he almost, he was in the military. I can't remember what the hell he was. But anyways, he met a girl and almost got married. But then changed his mind at the last minute and moved back to Washington. And he said the defining part of the decision is he said, night i said to myself do i really feel like sitting around here eating fried fish every friday i remember thinking give me that lady's number

well we all grew up in the midwest i mean that's uh well you myself and chester but that's uh that's a staple on a Friday night. Fish fry. Love fried fish, man. And people apologize about it now, but I don't. No? Why would you? Andy, how'd you do your sauce?

Yeah, the tartar sauce was so good. Oh, yeah. That was just, what was that? I threw some pickles in there. I think a little trick to that is I always spill a little pickle juice into the mail and gives it a little zing. But that had some chopped up capers and garlic. Think it man's tartar sauce.

Yeah. Is anyone hungry yet? Good. You throw pickle juice in there. Yeah. Gives it that little lemon juice too. Yeah, it kind of thins it down and it kind of gives it that little briny goodness. Kelsey, tell me your biggest impression, Southeast Alaska impression.

Oh, my God. Or the biggest three, whatever. Your face is looking better. Thank you. Got a little puffy this morning. Yeah, you thought I was all depressed this morning because I woke up with a little congestion. I thought I was crying about my engagement but she's i thought she's steve asked if we had broken off i don't know this is gonna be awkward as hell they broke off i'm like no i've

just been here for five days and i'm puffy um this has been the best trip ever i mean it's like come on for me never been to alaska i love the scenery the wildlife the fishing like just the experience i don't know if you want to call it an experience but um but like got engaged had all my friends here my dog we had so much fun caught your first halibut caught my i mean caught my first halibut caught my first salmon caught my first greenling like kelp greenling yep lots of firsts what would you say your biggest strength and weakness biggest strengths and weaknesses as a halibut fisherman are weaknesses reeling for sure reeling that sucker sucker up, I'm like, this is a 100-pounder. Tough. Get it up.

I don't know. What was my biggest one? Like 25 pounds, which is still decent. We never weighed it, but it was 25, 30 pounder. They're tough to get in the boat. That's probably, I don't know, strength. My napping skills are pretty high up there. Yeah, that's important. You throw that reel on click,

loosen the drag, scrape the line between your toes or something. Pretty much. Yeah, there's a good picture of us all pretty much laid out in the boat, napping. I heard Nat pulled up and you guys all perked up. Oh, we couldn't let you see us slacking.

But you generally enjoyed it. Oh, I couldn't let you see us slacking. But you generally enjoyed it. Oh, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Yeah, it was a great time. And the benefits last. We have a lot of fish. And I love seafood. So,

I'm going to be remembering this one for a long time. So, this means that Seth might as well slow down on walleye fishing get right got all that fish hey that makes sense pull the reins back there we were talking uh we told you this morning we're up you know we've been here for five days and we've just been fishing our ass off and it's been amazing and uh we're going home today but chester and seth you know saying good night to everybody last night. The last thing they said was, Seth was like, hey, Chester, do you want to go fishing on Sunday?

Did they make a little date? Oh, yeah. They made a date already. That's cute. Yeah. Because you guys are becoming tournament walleye fishermen. Next year. Yeah.

We're hitting the Montana circuit. We're going to sponsor you guys are becoming tournament walleye fishermen. Next year. Yep. We're hitting the Montana circuit. We're going to sponsor you guys. Yep. We're going to try and do something super cool with our winnings, too. When we take them all. If we win. Yeah. You guys, explain what you're going to do with all your winnings.

We don't really know yet. We're going to consult uh uncle cal over there because he's good with that kind of stuff conservation um we'd like to maybe do some fishing access um stuff maybe some fish cleaning facilities yeah we gotta we to improve some access. For the lake that you if you gave the purse money to the leading issue that the lake you won the purse in has

around access enhancement facilities. Improving a boat ramp, fish cleaning stations, whatever. Porter potties. Who knows? Whatever.

We'll figure out from someone who knows what the area needs. We might not win anything. Yeah, we might not. No, that's a bad attitude. I'll tell you what. A buddy of mine is a ranger in an area, pretty affluent area, and people are always looking to make donations to get the trail heads up to what they think is the shape they should be in and things like that. But everybody wants some grand, beautiful trail or something with their name on it,

but really what they need are outhouses, and nobody wants their name on a shitter. So, man, if you guys could take off on a tear on the walleye circuit and have a shitter named after you at every boat ramp, I'd be all about it. Yeah, I would call it the go-take-a-chester. Uh-huh, that's good. Yeah, I'd be down to donate a shitter.

I'd probably use it. Exactly. He'd cut in line all the time. You could work in that quality control is part of the deal. Yeah, that's true. Seth, hit me with your biggest Southeast Alaska impressions. I mean, you've been here before, but still. I've true. Yeah. Seth, hit me with your biggest, like, Southeast Alaska impressions. I mean, you've been here before, but still. I've been here before.

Man, I was hooked on the halibut fishing this time around. Last time, it was just, like, cool to see everything. But especially because I struggled. I caught, like, one halibut the first day and then went a couple days struggling. So that just made me want to. Well, you broke your fishing reel. Yeah, I broke my fishing reel on the first day. Brand spanking new.

Brand spanking new. And which made me struggle the rest of the trip. Fishing with a broken reel. But just, man, everything, there's so much life up here. Like everything that you can do. We were out at Frank's trying to catch salmon and Chester discovered you could vertical jig spinners for flounder and sculpins.

Made you feel like you're fishing walleye. Yeah. And you can sight fish. You look down, you can 5 to 15 feet, however, until you can't see anymore. Just vertical jig. It looks like nothing's down there, but all of a sudden

you put that spinner on the bottom and jig it up and down a little bit and these little flounder just come out of nowhere. That was cool. All the shrimp, the crab, bears everywhere, deer, mink running around. I don't know. Out of all the meteor trips we've ever done, this is still my favorite. The meteor trip we did up here was my favorite one out of everything.

Oh, is that right yeah yeah i just like this area you know there's all the we're largely surrounded by tongas national forest and there's always a lot of back and forth but right they were going to do uh you hear a lot about the tongas ruled this rule um they're debate on whether to cut a bunch of more road up here to access more old growth timber. Yep. And it seems like that's going to be off again, at least until the next presidential election.

Right, because what was your personal experience with the effects of some of the logging practices, not necessarily logging in general, but the logging practices not necessarily like logging in general but the logging practices here out in in your area well historically there was effects to the land and effects of the water um they would so out here there's a lot of what's called marine-based logging where you're coming in on small islands or in areas where there's no road system and it's like you have to establish a beachhead you know they blasted one in over not far from us four or five years ago uh that was on tribal land um they still they're quitting now but the the tribal corporations up here so see alaska as a

tribal corporation here that represents coastal tribes. They own, they have very expansive land holdings and they up until very recently have been extremely aggressive around old growth, old growth logging, old growth rainforest logging. Um, and they did a monster cut, not far from us. And they're wrapping that cut up earlier than expected. I guess they weren't getting the yield off

that they thought they would. But they come in and dynamite in a landing. And then they're pulling all that timber out and they raft the timber in the water. And they float it. Yeah, they float it. They create these massive, I mean, we're talking about many you know

hundreds of acres of raft logs when it's all said and done uh the weirdest thing about that in these cuts up here is a lot of that incentive to log comes from the death of the mill towns in that industry. This logging project, when they do it here, that stuff goes from the woods into the water. It goes on barges, and it is shipped in the round directly to Asia. It never sets foot in an American town. No way. Yeah, it all goes in the round to Asia,

to be milled in Asia. it goes on ships out the out to the sea not milled here yeah they make shit with it over there and then we bring it by yeah so the land effects are obvious and they're not all negative right like the clear cuts are amazing deer if you if you like to hunt deer yeah the fresh growth that comes in there because this is true rainforest right so like when you sit in here and you look i was looking at like possibly some trees to cut and then trying to imagine what kind of headaches that would cause like you have this dark undergrowth that that is really open but if you were to cut trees out and allow a lot more direct sunlight in,

it's not like that would just remain open with more sunlight. That would then get a bunch of growth responding to that direct sunlight. Like a jungle. And all of a sudden the kids wouldn't be able to run back and forth down there. So you've got to think about that stuff. But that's what's going to happen in those cuts. That gives a job to the kids. You got to better clear that out.

Yeah, there's nothing worse than like, there's nothing worse than looking at a fresh clear cut to me. It's just ugly. It's just ugly. I'm not even like, I'm not even getting into the, I know the economic stuff and all that. It's jobs. I'm just saying like very personally very subjectively to look at a clear

cut of old growth hemlock and cedar and sick of spruce is is ugly to me but man you get that stuff a few years and it loads up with deer yeah uh and then and then it kind of enters a long like not very productive cycle. In fact, when we first started coming up here, we used to hunt a clear cut at the time was like seven or eight years old. It was spectacular. And then now it's gotten to the point where it's just nothing.

Too thick. It gets too high, too high and too thick to hunt. So there's that advantage. But one of the unforeseen things, and when we had that clear cut coming in where we're at now, this was a big debate, is when you raft those logs they shed their bark and there was a cove near here i mean very cold you could see it from here that they rafted lumber in when they did the cut i was talking about

and it turned that it's a large cove network. It is a completely sterile environment now. You used to be able to crab it. Like nothing lives there. Just covered the bottom. You could set all the crab pots in the world in that cove. Nothing lives there. And it winds up being many, many feet of bark that just suffocates the seafloor. When they put the clear cut in near here,

they had to determine an area where they, I can't remember what they, they determined an area they felt was non-sensitive. And some local people pushed back on it, but in the end, they rafted logs in the area where they felt it was a viable place to raft logs. And completely anecdotally, And completely anecdotally,

like completely anecdotally, and take for granted, I'm not here that much, right? We're in and out over a month every year. Yeah. I can't point to like, we shrimp near there and stuff. I can't point to any obvious impact from that. But I don't know that it's not there yeah but they might be more careful about the selection now but it's a strange process and

the other thing to do here is helicopter logging um which is great because then you just select cut from a from a hunting perspective the only thing that does is when they helicopter log an area man you cannot get through it it's tough navigating oh it's horrible steve dropped me off there one day and he's like oh yeah just walk up here there'll be some deer in there i think it just got logged should be easy walking yeah and it's like you are crawling underneath trees to then get up on top of trees to then go underneath trees yeah the topography's so broken you'd be like climbing on some dead log and you jump on another dead log and also you'd look down and you'd realize you're 20 feet off the

you're like 20 feet off the ground. On like a soap, slippery log, you know, that's like rotten. In your aim boots. Right, and you're like, oh, that's not good. Nobody's gonna find me in here ever. Yeah.

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. You're irritated.

Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. And 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 handpicked 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. This is my first time diving up here. Doing a little little uh snorkeling and free diving and it's absolutely mind-blowing how much life there is when you're looking look just looking at the seafloor here like it is it is a living seafloor it's not like sand and and some turtle grass and the occasional crab every it's like every square inch of the ground out here in these bays is is alive yeah that's a good point you can put your hand down anywhere and you'd be laying your hand on a living organism absolutely not not like silica not just like sand or rock or whatever you put your hand down it's like your hand is laying on living organisms with without doubt so that

it would be like another great example of steve's like lumpers and splitters thing and like how uh the esa can be used to protect areas um you know you you could very well go in like if you really wanted to do a survey of one of these bays that they're going to potentially raft a bunch of logs in i'm sure you could go through there with the right people and really cover it well and find some you know tiny sea star or something where you're like oh not a lot of these left yeah not here but here often you're dealing with in this area you're often dealing with sort of the most effective tool against environmental degradation is the subsistence community um and you it's very if you're impacting subsistence hunters and fishermen who say that you know not say who's who's food

and sustenance comes from those resources that is a that's a force to be reckoned with and and so for there it's like like you know they'll push like that's shrimp ground that's crab ground to select stuff but recently this corporation here, this tribal corporation that owns most of the coastline here, um, they're going to do a 90. They're, they're going to phase it out right now and they're going to take a 99 year break from old growth logging.

Wow. Well, I wonder what, which is a, like major decision. Oh yeah. I mean, it's,

it's an entire lifetime of work off for a lot of people, right? Yeah. A 99 year hiatus. No, I guess they'll reassess in 99 years. Yeah. Incredible.

The thinking about the subsistence living up here too. It's like the week at the fish shack is like a crash course in logistics i'm like you see this cup of sugar where'd this cup of sugar come from you know uh and he's doing the the food spreadsheets for this place and you know uh you're talking this morning about the kids grabbing random packs of oatmeal yeah Yeah. You're like, hey, that's somebody's breakfast. Yeah. You just ate Thursday's breakfast on Tuesday. Yeah.

That's actually one of my favorite parts of this coming up here is the logistics of getting everything out here and making it all work. It definitely has to be fairly fine-tuned to make it all work or else you're yeah you get yourself in a little trouble well it's so funny because we're not in the middle of nowhere like really if you zoomed out a little bit there are people everywhere there's you know commercial planes flying into uh a place not very far from here as the crow flies and it's still like you got to really have your thinking cap on if you're going to have your fuel your groceries your all your stuff dialed for a week you know yeah yeah hardware stuff big time i'm gonna skip ahead i was gonna i wanted to hit everybody's uh primary. No, no.

I'm skipping ahead to me because you just brought up one of the things I was going to mention. First, one thing I like the most is the way when a good halibut shows up in town, he never gets caught the first time. Like how bad at aiming they are. Do you know what I mean? Where it would be like, boom, had a bump. Bump, had another bump. Someone be like, boom, had a bump. Bump, had another bump.

Someone else is like, just had a bump. Like, you just imagine him down there. Oh, he's going around to everybody. Yeah. And sometimes,

five or six times before someone buttons into him. And like, when one shows up, he's generally going to get caught. Yeah. You know, when you start getting like,

and sometimes, he'll hit three times before he gets himself hooked. It makes you wonder generally going to get caught. Yeah. You know, when you start getting like a, and sometimes he'll hit three times before he gets himself hooked. It makes you wonder how they get by. I was thinking I would love to just have like a bird's eye view of what's going on down there. Like a lower ice fishing camera down there to watch how he works the baits.

Yeah, because we're up there for, you know, some of these days we're up there for eight hours and not knowing what's going on yeah down there and then one shows up and like oh right or you're and you're just quiet and you just see him over there yeah and he's got a 50 pounder on wait yeah andy i think it was your biggest one right that you were so quiet like had him on for like three or four we had no idea and then he got off and you sent it back down. Then you caught him again.

Yeah. I had him on for a minute. And then just like Steve was saying, then all of a sudden he came back around and I wasn't going to miss that second time. Yeah. But the whole time you were just cool as a cucumber. Yeah.

Can't tip your hand. In our boat, the late 20s boat, when we were reeling something up, it was just chaos. It sounded like childbirth going on look at me i yeah we had kelsey made this comment and uh we were like okay like how much longer should we be here we're like oh i'll give it 20 minutes. And I hear Kelsey go, we've been here six hours. And I was like, we have?

Yeah, but with that, who got the last minute fish? Oh, yeah. That was Andy. 19 minutes into that 20 minutes, I got a fish. Yeah. It's calculated.

The other impression I was going to mention that was based on the one you did is annoying. It's like I have my three kids up here right now. It's hard to have. I mean, it's just hard. It's like a lot of people to manage. All their clothes all wet. Stealing snacks.

They frustrate me. Like I want to strangle them. But I do like them to, I think it's valuable for them to see like what goes into utilities. Do you know what I mean? Like to get a better understanding of stuff. How stuff

functions, water, how to fix everything. Right? Oh yeah. How to be all moldy and everything. Oh that's perfect. Be all wet and moldy all the time. I'm blown away by your kids. I'm impressed. How to get like how to get your feet so they got trench foot they're tough they're tough in 2021 man those kids they're out there in the pouring rain playing with like one didn't have a raincoat on it's just it was like cold and they're just going for it like nothing phases yeah no

it's interesting. I don't know when people turn into babies, but nothing phases them. They went out there by themselves in a canoe and came back with three fish. And we were like, what? No, no, that was good. Yeah, they drive me nuts. But I do like them to be exposed and stuff. Because at our normal house, they got gravy.

Gravy. Their mom like, oh, you need the extra snack you know like just all the time man that's not what she sounds like but you get what i'm saying this is like totally made yeah and here it's like you have to ration those pretzels you're not gonna get any for the next three days like life has just served them on like a platter i don't think rosie liked our boat she went to jimmy when we switched kids and Jimmy was like, yeah, she was telling me how many rules you guys have on your boat.

Because we're all like, every time we get out there at like 8.45 and about 9.15, she's like, can I have a snack? And we're like, we have the whole day to save this food. And next thing you know, it's open and she's in there.

You had the late 20s boat but all we have experience with is dogs so we were like yep it's hard to take care of a little kid ever taught my dog how to shut up all right chester hit me with your impression southeast alaska in a nutshell oh man in a chestnut shell in a chestnut shell that's going to be difficult but first i just want to paint a picture i'm like sitting here next to my wife in a little tiny shack and it's a shack yeah we just called a cabin my wife's like it's not a cabin yep but it's there's something less than the gap there's fish posters hanging on the wall books i got coffee sitting next to me.

I'm looking through a window, and whoever painted that window didn't know how to cut very well when they were painting the frame. It's like they were drunk for a child. In a way, I like it. There's paint on the window. I'm looking into a mid-tide, not a low tide. Cal's mother was out on the beach picking. Flipping rocks.

Flipping rocks and digging around for shells. And not 30, no, probably 100 yards past that, the kids were catching salmon not too long ago. And there's boats parked out on a little floating dock that we take out every morning in to the into the ocean basically into other coves and fish for halibut and there's that cal and steve did diving like there's just dough for scallops and there's just so much life, and it's hard for me to put it in a chestnut shell, but I'm the kind of guy that likes to experience, like, I want to fish for salmon. I want to dive.

I want to do all this stuff, and I wish we had more time. It's all here. You never got to dive. Never got to dive. So, I mean, mean it's amazing place i could see myself like spending some serious time up up here and not getting bored um and yeah i just wish wish we didn't have to leave we got to go to a wedding which it'll be good in case you're listening but I wish we had more time but I mean

I appreciate you having us up here I was almost like bummed yesterday a little bit that it was winding down and I ran out of chew starting to shake you ran out of dip? it's good is that why you're smacking that

gum right now because your body's like your body wants to chew so bad not really yeah it's a second piece since we've done is that nicotine gum no oh trident all right don uh impressions all right um i've already been thinking about this first of all I will say I'm so excited to try the food like finally I came up here like I said earlier

Chester warned me like hey you have to try this food that's all we're gonna eat and I at home you know I don't really

practice the palette of different foods and so coming up here I already knew I mentally was like okay I'm gonna try some food

but not only just trying it it's like we literally caught it just this afternoon and we are packing it where you know I just love the working I like I love waking up the way we got I finally getting into rhythm packing the boats what needed to go in the what coolers and getting everyone assembled getting all the kids dressed and you know who's going what boat it finally felt like really good to have an order and go out and really fish. Now you're going to that stupid wedding. Catching my first fish was really cool.

Obviously, I think you might have heard it. I did. I'm hundreds of yards away. We thought your boat was sinking. I get really excited even catching this big of you know this big of a fish so out here i knew it was going to be a different experience so the fishing was great the halibut was incredible um i will say another one actually i really enjoyed was when you took julie kelsey and i to shrimp for the first time it was just a perfect setting it was cool that you taught us like

what to do like you didn't just like you really just told us what to do. And I felt like it was cool because sometimes people will show you physically, but you like literally just told us you need to do this and you do that. Go for it. And obviously we looked, Kelsey and I looked at each other like, oh shit, we got to pull it together. And it was really cool to watch the process. And then on our way back, seeing that killer whale, that was one thing I really wanted

to see on this trip. I was like, just the marine, the wildlife is just so different than what I've seen. Because also, I'm scared of everything. And now here, I feel like I got some acclimation. I'm not scared of bears anymore. I saw a lot of bears. Not scared of killer whales? No. I literally was so excited about them. You guys were fishing. You were profoundly influenced by Free Willy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess when I watched that a lot when I was a kid, and I just loved that whale. And I just think that they're just like a boss of the ocean. I don't know. They're just something different. I mean, you see blue.

I feel like you would see, I've seen different types of whales in California, like the humpback. I just never really seen a killer whale unless, you know, unfortunately I went to SeaWorld once. you would see i see i've seen different types of whales in california like the pump back i just never really seen a killer whale unless you know unfortunately i went to sea world once but i will say danielle approached this trip with the way that she approaches everything in her life which is like feverish enthusiasm and fun and it was really cool to watch you do that yeah i was pretty excited you guys were fishing off the boat and and I was like, there's a whale. She was freaking out. You got a little teary.

I got really close to tearing. I was like, whoa, that's really there. I don't know. I just felt like I really wanted, yeah. And then my last impression is for photography, I just visually, so I obviously photograph weddings and people a lot, and I knew I really wanted to grow my visual um artistic abilities out here and I really wanted to you know look at life in a different way and versus

just when you photograph people it's such a different it's so different than photographing stuff like this and to be able to go home and show my experience like through documenting it and like not just like oh here's a pretty picture like really documenting what like how, not just like, Oh, here's a pretty picture. Like really documenting what, like how we fish, not like the pretty picture. And anyway, it was really exciting. Uh, what, what's your range? Like, like plug your wedding photography business. Oh yeah. Um, my name is Danielle. My wedding photography business is Danielle Lopez photo, um,

on Instagram. Uh, what do you mean? What's my range? How far do you travel to photograph a wedding? I'm actually wanting to travel. That's my whole goal is to get out and travel. Because I guess because I love being a visual learner, a visual artist, I would say Bozeman's getting saturated. I'm in the same venue, same areas, and I really flourish when I'm in new places.

Because I feel like I see things differently than others yeah hard to explain it but that's also why I feel like I I'm meant to do this job because I see things differently than others so being out here I was like you know constantly and so and so people if they want to see your wedding do you post your wedding photography on that yeah it's on Instagram? So it's Danielle Lopez photo on Instagram. And people can hire you to come photograph their wedding. But you kind of filled up now. Next year is getting there. This year I'm at 21 weddings. Killing it.

Next year it's not even like I'm already at like 10. And I have like 8 emails to answer. How many do you do a year? I think I'm capping it at 20. But I really wanted to trigger more of like the intimate, like smaller weddings. Because I feel like that's just where it is.

It's not about like all the glamour and like the details. I just love like capturing connections and actually like genuine photographs. Oh yeah, cut some people off the list. You don't even invite everybody. Call Don. Call Don. Call Don, I'm here. Bye. I'll bring, oh. You don't even invite everybody. Call Don. Call Don. Come down here. Die.

I'll bring... Let her capture your intimate moments. The one thing I will... Immortalize them. The one thing I'll add about this trip that I... I mean, the only downfall

is we ran out of booze. Yeah. We had no beer. We're cutting up fish. Like, hmm, how can we make a cocktail around here? Back when I drank a lot,

we used to buy cases of vodka and leave it up here. Cases of handles. Well, there's some... We drank a lot. we used to buy cases of vodka and leave it up here. Cases of handles. We drank a little crazy with the liquor, but we ran out of beer. Thank you so much for having me up here and Chester up. The invite was incredibly special.

Thank you. Great. All right, Chef Andy. Impressions. Plug your business. Are you still doing catering? Yeah. Plug away, man. Kind of slow down. What a creative little catering? Yeah. Yeah, well, everything kind of slowed down. What a creative little table full of people. So cute. Yeah, that is cool.

Well, obviously, I've been fortunate enough to come. This is my 13th straight year coming up here. Are you serious? Yeah. Yeah, 13 straight years. So I feel very, very lucky to be a part of this. And obviously, that being said, I've made a lifetime of memories over those 13 years. And that's kind of the obvious is,

is the company up here. It is just great group of people. And over the years we've, I've got to meet so many different people because like, here it is like the table full of people I've never met before. And over the years it's been, it's been that way. There's always,

you guys are always bringing in quality people here. So it's, it's been that way. You guys are always bringing in quality people here. So it's been a pleasure getting to know so many different people through the course of the last decade plus up here. And then that being said, being able to be a big part of this and put my culinary spin on things and be able to cook for people, which tends to bring some sort of joy to people, I guess, when you have good food in a setting like this. My wife is when she's planning on coming here, she's very interested in overlapping. She checks my schedule. She wants to know what Andy's schedule is going to be.

One of the biggest things for me is I catch myself a lot just kind of laughing. The pure spoils of this place. Any given night, I'll be staring down the barrel of literally hundreds and hundreds of dollars of seafood on the market. And I've got just all of it at my disposal to play with. Sometimes it's just mind-boggling. When I'm looking at all this fresh Dungeness and prawns and halibut, sometimes it's overwhelming. And the fact that it's so direct because you go to the grocery store

and you're seeing that nice little packet of cellophane salmon and you think about the the fishermen the deckhands the the processing ship then it goes to the you know to the canneries then to the truck driver to the you think about how many and then to the grocery store handler like how many people have their hands in that we're here it's like you're waking up in the morning. You're going to get that personally processing and taking great care of that product only to then turn around and like be able to share it with people. Not only right now, but then down the line,

we take the care to package it, you know, rent everything really well, get home on that snowy you know december night when you're cracking that pack of halibut open and it's like you guys are right there yeah that's one of my favorite parts of this whole place is like and then i take that and then share it i mean i could you know dozens and dozens and dozens of people have experienced this fish from this cabin through the years that I, you know, I just give the stuff away a lot.

Just like, hey, you guys need halibut for your dinner tonight? Here you go. Like, I love being able to take this experience and then pass it along. So. That's cool. This place is, yeah, this place keeps on giving. 13 years. All year round, this place keeps on giving.

Yeah. Yeah. That's great, man. I know. I'm looking forward to many more. Cal, did you hit your impressions yet? Then we're going to wrap it up because that's got to get on the old airplane and go to that stupid wedding. Sorry, Bill.

It'll be a fun wedding. Chester, did you get your speech done? No. Oh, yeah. Do you want to preview your speech for everybody, Chester? Yeah, Chester's the best man. That's like... We have. Oh, yeah. Do you want to preview your speech for everybody, Chester? Yeah, Chester's the best man. That's like... We have to go, yeah. Nah. No, I hope this guy's...

I hope his wedding's great. You're going to say some nice stuff about her. Give me an idea. Her? About her? The bride. Oh, beautiful. Your sensation's beautiful?

Ashley, you're too good for Bill. Okay. Since I'm the best man here at this wedding, I don't know why you're not marrying me okay there's one joke scrap that um you don't want to talk about it no i'm just gonna i'm gonna have some talking points that i'm gonna write down and just kind of wing it in a way but have some structure to it it'll to it you throw some jokes in yeah probably they'll be bad they'll be bad jokes but why not so you're gonna say something nice about her say something nice about him

tell a little story in there about how he was so drunk yep Yep. No. Yep. And, you know, toast. I think you should mention the chicken petition. That's a good one. Oh, yeah. They started a petition. They had a serious chicken petition that they started, so that'll be something. Oh, they're chicken crusaders to try to be allowed to have chickens in their yard?

In Belgrade. They're going hard on it. Okay. When you see Seth, when he's got his shirt unbuttoned down to his belt. Smoking a cigar. And he's got a tie tied around his head. Oh, do you see that picture? Send him home.

That's my favorite Seth look. The minute he ties a necktie around his head as a headband. No, we're ready to pardon him. I didn't do that at Chet's wedding because we wore bolo ties. That was part of it. So if he's got a bolo tie around his head like a headband. Send him home. Copy.

All right, Cal. Did you already do yours? Yeah. Lots of life. Can we give a shout out to Cal's mom? Yeah. Real quick. Oh, my gosh.

Cal's mom. Crushed it. She crushed it. Julie's awesome. Then we got to meet Callahan's mom. That was his date. Yeah. Oh, yeah. shack of love so i mean that's that's the the coolest thing you know i'm i'm 38 these days

and and that's the first trip that my mom's or my mom and i have ever done um really yeah yeah and she i mean she loves this, this stuff. And I knew she'd take off out here and she's, she, she's very comfortable working, uncomfortable not working. So she loves little jobs and stuff like that. And so, um, it was, it's nice just being, when the first float plane takes off and it's got your mom on it and steve ranella like you know that uh they're gonna get along just fine because they're gonna have plenty of things to to work on at the fish shack in your absence yeah she was a hoot um and yeah so that was a really really cool deal and i know she'll be talking about this forever she's she's in heaven out here and um oh man i i haven't been

up here i came up a lot after my first stay because we did and ended up coming back here for a show and something else so i got like a lot in the first year or two years and then i haven't been up here in like five years and and yeah it's just like it's just like another spot on that list of places that you're just like aching to come back to before you actually leave which makes it hard it's like god i hope you just want every day to be like the best day we've been putting in big days this This is a killer crew. It takes 72 hours up here for folks to settle in, get in the rhythm from what I saw this trip. Figure out how to dry their socks. Yeah, you know, all the things.

The dryer. And, yeah, we're breaking up the band too soon. Ugh. We're sad. All right, well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Special edition. Shack of love. Thanks, Steve. Coming at you ladies and gentlemen. Special edition. Shack of love. Thanks, Steve.

Coming at you. Thank you. Not live. From the fish shack. Shack of love. Let's go catch some fish. Let's go. Tune in next week. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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