The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 302: You Had Me at Bass

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

Steven Rinella talks with Brandon Palaniuk, Carl Jocumsen, Hayden Sammak, Seth Morris, Phil Taylor, Corinne Schneider, and Janis Putelis. Topics discussed: the first Aussie to grace the podcast studio and the first Aussy to ever make it to the top 100 bass anglers in the world in America; Chester's family's Old Fashioned kit; three Janises out of ten Latvians; the cancellation of Spring Bear season in WA and just how outrageous it is; native bull trout vs. invasive lake trout; when college kids win $1 million in a fishing tournament; insane entry fees; when 2nd place is so far from 1st; Brandon's DQ, $1k per foot, and owning your own mistake even though the rule is questionable; Fantasy Fishing; under the camera's eye; polygraphs for fishing stories; Steve getting Brandon and Carl to fish his mom's lake; the litigation-worthy bucket thing; Rinella Sr. supposedly pulling a 5 pound largemouth out of the lake where Steve was born; Angler of the Year; the A to Z of the tournament process; physically and mentally not being able to live without it; pursuing what makes you happy; Steve's dream to be a professional trapper; clinch or improved clinch?; 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. Alright everybody. Holy cow. There's no way we're going to cover this all. Too much to cover. There's a lot to cover. Because listen man, if you think about how we got to cover like how there's bass, how there's a professional bass fisherman from Australia. That's like two hours. Since they don't even have bass. And he. Yep. That's like two hours.

Since they don't even have bass in Australia. And he's here. He's the first Australian to ever come in here. How do you pronounce your last name? Jocumson. She still can't do it. That's kind of how I would guess, looking at it. Jocumson.

Not many people get it right. It's like Jocumson or... And you're the first big-time winning Australia bass? In the US of ones. And you're the first big time winning Australia bass? In the US, yeah. So you're the first? Give me the superlative. The first what? I'll be the first Australian to ever make it to the top 100 guys in the world in

America. First and only. You know like in baseball, right? You're like probably American. If you're not American, I think you're Dominican in professional baseball. Isn't that like a big – that country has a huge footprint in American baseball? In Puerto Rico?

So lay it out for me in bass. It's like Americans. Yeah. Japanese would be second. No. Japanese would be the Dominican, yeah. I think I knew that because the hooks. Well, just everything.

Attention to detail. Yeah. And they have similar circuits, same bass. They have the setup, and it's as big in the tackle industry and the fishing as well. Yeah, I'm just thinking all the hook manufacturers that are Japanese. There are largemouth bass over on that island. In Japan? Yeah, it's awesome.

I went to Lake Biwa in 2018. Actually, the world record is from Georgia and Lake Biwa in Japan. It's tied. It's technically a sad day for America. When we get beat by the Japanese on our own fish. They do. And right now there's a bunch from Japan that are just, they kill it over here. They're coming over and they, they beat everyone.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. It's big. But for me, it was because the reason it was different is because we don't have large mouth or small mouth or anything like that in Australia. So I chased up like a whole different species of fish my whole life. So you don't have large mouth bass.

No. It'd be like if someone. What the hell are you fishing for over there? It'd be like if someone trout fished Montana their entire life and then they're like, I'm going to go start tournament fishing

and then made it to the top level in like four or five years. In another country. I just assumed... I mean, think about that. I just assumed you guys had dumped a bunch

of largemouth bass in your lakes. No, they're pretty strict. What are you fishing for? We had... The reason I made it is because we have like a more diverse fishery.

We don't really have a fish that's like Australia wide, like in these little regions, we have a fish that's called an Australian bass and it's probably the closest thing to like a hybrid striper kind of cross. But then we have like Murray cod, which are in a certain region where I live. We have barramundi, which live in the Northern regions. And I kind of got good at like catching all of them. And then if you rolled all of them into a ball- You were a good generalist angler. General, yeah. I just fished everywhere. Like Australians, because we don't have that one fish, like a largemouth that is countrywide, we would have boats or fish out of kayaks or whatever

for this species. And then we would drive a few hours or 10 hours to fish for a barramundi up north. But you realize that's like normal fishing here. Yeah, kind of. But then if you- You guys are the exception. Like most people that fish, fish all kinds of shit. Yeah. And the thing that we get mistaken for as tournament anglers,

and like you said, you spoke to a guy that had just fished for bass or whatever, but generally most bass professional anglers, that's how we all started. Like if you talk to most of them, they fish for a little bit of everything and just got a passion for it. But there's something about a large mouth bass and that's what it did to me. Like if you rolled all the species in Australia that I competed with into a ball, it would make a large mouth bass. And so when I came. So was it how their fillets kind of smell like seaweed? Yeah, it had nothing to do with taste. It's like their attitude and the way they fish.

Like when I first got the opportunity to come to America and I fish for them, I just got lit up. I was like, this is the coolest fish I've ever seen in my life because it adapts so well. It does everything. If there's a piece of water, it lives in there. It adapts to that bait, the way the setup is. Whatever it is, it's just going to live, survive,

and be the perfect predator in that environment. And there's not a ton of fish that do that. They need all the perfect things to be able to survive. A largemouth is like, put me here and I'll adapt and do whatever's going on. All day thinking about talking to you. I was thinking that they must have like some, you must've grown up by some big ass reservoir full of large mouth bass in Australia. I'd never caught one until 2010. And then in 2014, I made it to the top hundred guys in the world in the U S. So what was that opportunity that got you to the state?

I, so, um, in two, in the year 2000, a guy in Australia started at tournaments up similar to America. And so I was like 14 years old and I went to it cause I was getting into bass fishing and my local lakes where I'd ride my bike to there to catch them was bass. So I was kind of, that was my sort of species. And then they had this tournament. So I went and watched it at like 14 years old and they imported American bass boats. They had like these bass boats and I was like, wow. And they came in and weighed them in and I'm like, this is cool.

And so I started fishing as a co-angler and just kind of got addicted to it. I, my mom drove me three hours to a lake. I fished it. I came forth and won $500 and like, they gave me the check and I was kind of like, I'm doing this for the rest of my life. This is it. And that's what I kind of did. And then, um, those tournaments turned into pretty big tournaments where the, like we have the Bassmaster Classic that's in America, that's,

you know, worth half a million dollars and all of that. We had a grand final and the prize was expenses paid trip to the US to see if they could get someone from Australia to compete in the US. But you'd never caught a bass? No, I never caught a US. So it was kind of weird. Well, what it was, it's like, we're watching ESPN and Fox Sports, watching Bassmaster, learning the techniques, reading the magazines, and applying them in Australia. So I'm just- So there was like an exchange.

There was like an exchange of ideas going on. Yeah, you're just like America was always ahead of the game in everything, so you're just trying to get fed the information. And so you're watching then guys win $100,000, making a living the trucks the boats then you're seeing the weigh-ins with 50 000 people in a stadium screaming and the guys driving in with bass boats so you're like as a kid and growing up you're like wow this is like this is where i want to be and so yeah it's like being a rock star. And what it is, is like in Australia,

you can be the best golfer, the best motocross rider, the best anything. And you you'll have to work full time in your tackle store or your golf shop, unless you move to America. You'll still be sucking high and tinny to America. And then if you come to America, you can be a superstar and make a living out of it. So I basically fished and competed from when I was 16 years old to when I was 25. And then in, in, when I was 25, I won that grand final and that got me the expenses paid trip to the U S they I'd never been out of Australia before in my life. I'd never been on an airplane.

We flew, flew into the U S and, you know, in Australia, fishing and hunting and all of that, my whole life, it was kind of like, it's a very niche looked down on kind of thing. You never just spoke openly about being a angler or a hunter because it was very, it's very, I don't know how to put it, but you had to be careful about who you said it to because they might be like, look down on you or say something about it. And when I came to America, I was like hunters and fishermen and bass, just seeing the stores, I was like, this is where I'm supposed to live. Like this is where I'm supposed to be.

So when you, we'll come back around. So I got one more question for now and then we're going to take care of some things. But when you finally caught your first largemouth bass after watching people your whole life and reading about were you like oh so that's one of those yeah what'd that feel like to finally catch one yeah it was it was it was incredible like we went to lake fork in texas and they they took us out there and we started catching them on techniques that we used in australia and just grabbing one and looking at it and the way in this at the same lake we caught them up shallow in two feet.

And then the next day we caught them in 30 feet on different techniques. And we fished, I went and fished Lake Mead. And so it was just like, it was 30, you could see the bottom in 30 feet of water. And I did really well in that tournament, which is what gave me opportunity to, basically I came second as a co-angler. I won some money. I met Fred Rombanis, who was an elite series angler. I got to talk to him.

I saw the anglers and at that time I said, okay, I'm going to go home and like sell everything I own and, and try and actually make this and come back. I was insane for thinking that at a time when I look back, I'm like, what were you thinking? This is, that's ridiculous because our kind, our fishing is so small and our lakes, you can, I got to learn them really well. And they're all a little bit similar where here I went from Lake Mead to the Red River or like something in Oklahoma or Lake Fork. And it was just the, every lake was so different, but that's kind of why I loved it so much. It was just so much different stuff to fish.

Also joined by, are you ready to do the writer Chuck Palunik? I think it's like if you do one of those ancestry deals, it's like a fifth cousin or something weird like that. That's cool. Brandon Palunik. Palunik. Palunik. Is that how Chuck Palunik?

I thought Chuck Palunik is Palunik. Oh, I was going by that. You're from an unusual bass fishing place yeah i'm from cordelaine idaho trout country that because that used to be like the southeast right it was like the southeast u.s dominated bass yeah well and they still do demographically because that's where most of the competitive side of it is it It's where that's their primary species, right? Because they don't have trout. They don't have salmon, things like that. What was the first fish you ever caught?

Trout, probably, mountain lakes. I used to hike into mountain lakes when I was like two years old with my mom. She'd take me. When did you catch your first largemouth bass then before becoming a pro? So I caught my first one, I would have been like five or six. Oh, so you got started young. But that was like, that wasn't, I didn't know anything about tournament fishing. Like I was just fishing to get a bite, right?

For whatever bit, that's all I cared about. Then I was introduced to it at eight years old. A family friend had a bass boat and fished local tournaments and regional stuff. And then he took me out because my mom knew that I loved fishing. I didn't know that you could actually target a specific species at that time. And he took me out. And from that day forward, it was like, that's what every single decision in my life is geared towards is that. So at eight, you thought you wanted to be a professional bass fisherman?

Yeah. Try telling that to your teachers in North Idaho. Yeah. I'd be like, no, no, listen, man. Yeah. Here's why I don't need to know any of this. Yeah. Check this out.

But now I look back and I'm like, man, I really wish I would have paid a little bit more attention in that class. But it, I mean, that was the thing is like it it wasn't a thing like you know really anywhere in the northwest to fish and it's been cool to see it grow like the tournament scene grow bigger and bigger around north idaho and washington and oregon and stuff to be able to see that but i mean it like that's all i wanted to do and so i just every time like i came to a crossroads it was like okay you know you know, I'd have, like, a longtime girlfriend.

She'd be like, ah, you know, you're fishing too much. I'd be like, all right, see ya. Yeah. Yeah, because she didn't know, man. It was all part of the plan. That was the only plan. Like, I grew up wrestling all the way into college, and, like, I knew way early on that i was not gonna wrestle like i was gonna

fish and like as i got older i would wrestle less and less like i started out wrestling probably 10 months out of the year huh and then i would just show up to less and less tournaments and i'd show up to more and more bass tournaments quit going to high school you got like a general competitive streak yeah and i think that's what that was part of the reason that like of what fueled me towards quit going to high school. She got like a general competitive streak. Yeah. And I think that's what, that was part of the reason of what fueled me towards bass fishing is because there was a competitive nature there. There's winners and losers, man.

Yeah. How old were you? I wish Uncle Chesty was here. What happened to Chester now? We lost the internet connection. So we just lost. Chester's dead now. He's dead.

He's in the deer stand already yeah uh reason i bring it up is chester um was a wrassler uh so you share that in common and chester and seth are aspiring competitive walleye anglers i love walleye fishing they're gonna go we're hitting the they're going pro this year. We're hitting the trail, the Montana trail. You're going to do it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can just decide to go pro.

There's no process to become a pro. No, but this company, you know how usually bass fishermen are with Tide or whoever, or Pennzoil or something? Who sponsors you? What's on your guys' shirts? You're making a NASCAR. Yeah, what's on your guys' shirts? I'm still looking for a title deal.

I'm just my own sponsor right now. You don't have a title sponsor? No, no title sponsor, but like Skeeter, Yamaha, and then like a bunch of industry sponsors, stuff like that. We're sponsoring Seth and Chester. Solid. Our company's sponsoring Seth and Chester. They're doing the four.

Describe how it is. So, yeah, it's four derbies across Montana. There's Tiber, Fresno, Fort Peck, and Canyon Ferry. Yeah, we're just going to hit them all and try and win some money. I love trophy walleye fishing. You like Fort Peck.

Yeah, I have no desire to go troll a worm harness or anything. I despise trolling. But to go throw like seven, eight, nine inch swim baits for walleye. Yeah. That's my style. Yeah.

It's fun. You're more of a vertical jigging man though. Blade baits. Yeah. I, I, I mean, there's so many different things you can catch walleye on, but I, unless there's certain bites where you kind of have to troll if you want to catch them.

Yeah. If you want to be a winner. Yeah. Especially, especially when be a winner. Yeah. Especially, especially when you're fishing competitively, like there's just some bites where they're, you got to troll for them. Yeah. Um, but preferably I like catching them up shallow with, uh, jigs. Corinne came up with a.

Jigging soft plastic. You guys know BFF, right? Best Friends Forever. Yep. Corinne came up with BFFF, B-F-F-F, which is Best Fishing Friends Forever. I like it.

That's you and Chester. And you guys are BFF, but you guys are BFFF. It might be a team name. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. BFFF. Chester, you ever seen the video

Tom Petty, Don't Come Around Here No More? And it's kind of like about Alice in Wonderland, and there's that part where Tom Petty and Alice in Wonderland are at the really part where Tom Petty and Alice in Wonderland are at the really long table and Tom Petty looks real small way down there.

That's what you look like right now. I don't think I've ever seen that one. Oh, you should watch. It's a great video. Okay, I'll check it out. Chester, can you tell us, can you break down, everyone knows that Chester grew up in the pickled mushroom business. Chester's very first nickname. If we march backward where Chester, the divestor,

uncle Chesty, I'm going in order. Chester, the divestor, uncle Chesty, Chester, the investor, Chester,

the molester. Oh, sorry. Well, that, that one, it goes like, but it will have aired by the time. Oh, sorry. All set. Well, that, that one has it goes in, but it will have aired by all set.

No. Okay. And to go back in time from present to past all set chat. Chester, the divestor. Uncle Chesty. Chester, the investor. Chester, the molester. Chester, the tester.

If we go back to when he was Chester the tester, he was testing his family's pickled mushroom recipes. That's right. At his family's business. And now two great companies have come together. Yes, Meat Eater and Forest Floor Foods. Pitch of Chester. I'm sitting at the Forest forest floor foods world headquarters wow right now he's deer hunting at the world headquarters of forest floor foods right now yeah drinking an old-fashioned you guys think you're cool for

being a professional bass fisherman imagine that forest floor foods world headquarters second anyways i'll quick explain the wisconsin old-fashioned which is on the website there's like a traditional old-fashioned which is like a sugar cube an orange like peel muddled like mashed up and a cherry with some bitters and then usually whiskey. That's for sissies. That's a sissy old-fashioned. That's like your traditional old-fashioned, but in Wisconsin here, you can order them multiple different ways. It's like a brandy old-fashioned sweet or a whiskey old-fashioned sour,

whiskey old-fashioned sour whiskey old-fashioned sweet and what that means is obviously brandy or whiskey and then a sweet or sour soda mixed with like your old-fashioned mix this one here is how i like to do it and it's uh whiskey with sweet soda which is like a sprite and then bitters and then your then your old-fashioned mix. Chester, you left out the interesting part. The pickled. Filling it full of all kinds of pickled stuff. Yeah. But that was just like how to make the drink.

Oh, okay. We'll talk about the box with all the- The garnishes. Chester, come on. Okay. Going to sales mode, dude. You're supposed to be out here selling something. Yeah, I want to know which one I can make with the box.

Yeah, talk about the box. You can make all of them with the box. There's even maple syrup in the box. A substitute for like a sugar cube, you can use that Wisconsin maple syrup, which my family also has a little sugar bush so they tap the trees and make their own maple syrup but come coming with the boxes your old-fashioned mix some queen olives some pickled mushrooms some sweet um pickled little pearl onions and some cherries so after you make your old fashion you throw throw those goodies in there and it's one heck of a drink yeah available at the meat eater.com

and i pressed chester on this multiple times and i think he's telling the truth he's not double dipping chester says he's not double dipping getting Getting a commission from the folks. Yeah, he's on salary with us. And he says he's not, he didn't go pull commission to have orchestrated this deal. Nope. I don't know if that's true or not. I'm doing all of it. There's probably a college account set up for his kids that he doesn't have yet. It's got to be some sort of ownership.

He's playing the long game. I don't think he's double dipping. I mean, they're your parents You've got to help them out. Do you ship to Australia? I'm sure we do, man. Not meat eater, but I bet you I don't know.

Don't quote me on that, but I bet you we can figure it out. All right, good job, Chester. Thank you. Oh, you've heard about not having a couple cocktails and climbing up into a tree stand, right? No. Good answer. Okay, starting December 6th, which we all know is the day before Pearl Harbor. So starting December 6,

running through December 13. Am I getting this right? Yeah. We're running a holiday gift program where we're giving back to select conservation organizations that each member of our crew here has selected.

So, me, Yanni, Clay, Cal, others, pick out items in the meat eater store that we'd be most excited to give as gifts. In addition, each of us has selected a conservation organization we're personally passionate about. So in my case, I chose TRCP, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, where I'm a board member and great supporter. And that's my pick. So here's where you come in. You go to the Meat Eater store, right? You check out my gift picks. You know, I might make one of my gift picks the damn Chester Box.

Do it. Yeah, I'm going to do that. If the official name isn't damn Chester box. Do it. I'm going to do that. If the official name isn't the Chester box, it should be. It's Chester in a box. I'm going to pick the Chester box. Okay, so here's how this works. When you go to that page and use the code Steve at checkout, you get free shipping on your order and you order over 50 bucks and 10% of your purchase goes to

my selected conservation organization. Does this all make sense? Yeah. So if they choose one of my items, do they put the code Giannis and then they, and then it goes to my conservation organization? I got a strong feeling that's how it'll go all right who you gonna pick for your group wild sheep so you're still riding you're like a

big sheep man I'm riding the wild sheep high yeah I got a question what if I want both of your picks what if I want I would do two orders just do you buy half your stuff log out log back in by their half your stuff so both conservation get the benefits in, buy the other half your stuff. So both conservation get the benefits. That's great. What if that brings your purchase less than $50? And will you recognize it and ship it in the same box? That, there's no way. So that's the deal.

Go on. So you go on, check out our gift list. So I'll have my 10 favorite things that I'd like to give as gifts or get my 10 favorite things. When you buy those, if you go over 50 bucks on your order, it ships you for free. And 10% of the purchase price goes to TRCP or in Yanni's case, Wild Sheep Foundation. It's a big win-win. It's around for a week. So head over to, get this, www. win-win. It's around for a week.

So head over to get this www.themeater.com slash give. Check that out. Okay, Hayden's going to do a book report. Hayden, you haven't said diddly yet. Not yet. I'm not. I want you to start preparing mentally for the book report.

All right. We're going to talk about a couple quick things uh i was gonna talk about my fun little deer hunting trip yesterday which if i go hunting two one of two things is happening i'm yelling at my kids the whole time so i brought them or we're like filming so i'll see the yell at my kids or yell at the cameraman but i just went hunting yesterday or we're like filming. So I'll see the yell at my kids or yell at the cameraman. But I just went hunting yesterday with my neighbor. Oh, did we have a good time with that?

Yeah. We had the greatest time a person could possibly have because we went to a place that we knew was stupid, but it's had a scratch niche and it wound up being a sweet spot I was like listen man We're just kind of looking We're taking a hike

I just got a scratch and itch And get up in there and now it's my new favorite place We had a good time And we got a little bar I said what are your standards He said not a forky And the second buck we found Fit the bill I said, what are your standards? He said, not a Forky. And the second buck we found fit the bill.

Perfect. It fit the bill. No, we had such, it was so much fun, man. Yanni, can you explain how you won all that money off the Latvians? Mm-hmm. I was deer hunting this weekend in Wisconsin, not far from where Chester is now. I went for the opener.

Right now? Yeah. I didn't know that's the same neck of the woods there. Well, I mean, you know, what is it? Same state. Two hours? Yeah, probably around two hours. Oh, okay, okay. I didn't know if it was like, if you meant like right there.

No, no, no, not the same county. I got you. Anywho, I got in late Friday. Opener was Saturday. And we were getting ready to chip in for the buck pool. How many Latvians were there? They were all Latvians. And I think we had a total of 10 people, 10 hunters.

How many Giannis's? Three. So it was light. It was actually light on yannis's i don't know i don't know what the ratio normally is the percentage i think it's six out of ten latvians are yannis so it's a little light males it was all all males uh anywho uh so we're chipping in and um it had been $10 all these years. I've been hunting there since 90, I believe was my first year that I went in the first two years. I think I just went and observed.

And it was 10 bucks and 90. I believe so. So no inflation adjustments. It probably back then. It probably stung. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how much a nice, well, I'll get to that.

I want to look up. You're going to figure out what 10 bucks was. 10 bucks definitely went further back then, yeah. Let me put my spectacles on. Keep going. I'm just adding them up. So I decided, I asked if anybody, everybody wanted to make it a little more interesting and bump it up to 20 apiece this year.

Everybody obliged and dropped in 20 into the basket. And so we went hunting, and I got lucky. I'm really, a little side story i'm really stoked about my hunt this weekend and my hunt two weeks ago there on the same property because i feel like i figured it out like i hunted there for 30 years or 28 years and really just you know kind of knew it but didn't really know what the deer were doing there. Had ideas. Yep. And go ahead, Steve. $10 in 1990. You need to adjust it to $22.50. You were close.

Yeah. $22.50. That's the bump. If you want to keep ahead of the trend, go a little more. Yeah, maybe we'll round it up to $25, and then that'll roll for another $10. There you go. Okay, sorry. But anyways, I had two really successful uh pretty quick hunts really

because i was there two weeks ago for the rut with my bow and i sat in the stand approximately seven hours and killed the same like basic spot like same property yeah same property probably i mean as the crow flies from one stand to the other five or 600 yards, um, but kind of down this complicated ridge system, you know? And, uh, so I felt like I picked a good spot, killed a buck with my bow. And then when I came back, I thought, man, I could go and sit that same Oak flat. I know it's going to be good. There's been pictures of bucks, you know, rolling through, but I'm like, you know what? Don't like rest your laurels. Go and figure something else out. Go and learn something. Expand your horizons. I had plan B and C already set up that

I eventually would check out. I thought this is it. I went to B, got in there, and sure enough, opening morning, it's a pretty sweet little hunt. I get in there, plenty of time. I'm hunting out of the saddle, so it takes longer to get into the tree. It takes me an hour to get in. I get in there plenty of time to, you know, I'm hunting out of the saddle. So it takes longer to get into the tree, right? It takes me an hour to get in. I get all set up. It's maybe half an hour before shooting light. I'm still messing around, just like filling with like the last little kind of fine tuning stuff, making sure I got my gloves and my hand warmers in the right spots and whatever. And I saw a cup of coffee up in that tree? It's in a thermos just in my backpack.

I'm always posting pictures of my coffee because I put cream in my coffee. And by golly, I guess you're just a real little bitch if you put cream in your coffee, according to Instagram. I'm creamed up right now, man. No, buddy. As far as I'm concerned, that just draws in the big bucks. Clay Newcomb says that if he had to choose between the coffee or the cream, he'd go with the cream. He puts coffee into his cream, not vice versa.

Interesting. Is he a sugar guy too? No. We, after that, ever spend that week with Evan Hafer up in Alaska I'm like almost weaned off of cream good because he cream shamed people he did but I enjoyed drinking notice that she's like after he started shit talking cream people cream cream consumption in our camp ended like ended my wife and I'm like I'm like I didn't know you were doing the same thing. I'd sneak over and put a little cream in when no one was looking. I wasn't sneaking in either.

Me neither. He says with good coffee, you don't need cream. And so I was like, all right, well, let's give it a shot. My wife puts coffee in her cream as well. It's a real roadblock in our relationship. It's a problem. It's good, though. Go on, Yanni.

So there you are. There I am. Drinking coffee. And still have my headlamp on, and I hear coming around the corner. Still with your headlamp on. Yeah. So it was like 6, I think it was roughly 6.15, 6.10 maybe, you know?

And so I click it off real quick, and I mean, it's like on top of me. So I get my little binoculars out, and I'm pretty much trying to like look in the night, you know, for, for, for this deer. And sure enough, I find it and I can just in the darkness, see the white antlers. I'm like, holy shit, you know, nice buck. But I'm like, well, hell, this thing's not going to be here in 20 minutes. You know, like, like that's pretty much gone by.

Like just forget about it. But I watch him for a second as he walks by. So I continue on with my stuff now without my headlamp on and I'm messing around. Five minutes goes by and just up the ridge I hear, no. I'm like, huh. So I glass up there and I find him again and he's only gone like 60, 70 yards. So I'm watching him a little bit and I can tell he's feeding. You know, the acorns were thick.

I talked to some of the neighbors that have actual food plots, like at the bottoms of the ridges. And they're like, the deer have not been in the corn, in the beans, nothing. They're on the ridgetops eating acorns. And it's been like that all summer. So that's what this deer is doing. So he's up there grunting and eating. Well, so as I'm glassing...

That might be a good name for the episode, grunting and eating. As I'm glassing some more, I see there's another deer behind him. I can't tell what it is, but I'm guessing maybe doe, and he's tending her, right? Yeah. So now I'm like, what time was shooting light? Somebody was talking about it last night, but I wasn't really paying attention.

You didn't know it would come down to the wire. Exactly. Now I'm in a position where it really matters when exactly shooting light is. So I'm like trying to pull out my phone and shield it. Set your alarm. Yeah, shield it so that it's not casting a big light. And I go to like three different apps. And I'm like, okay, one says 634, one says 633.

I'm like, I'm going 633 you know because because this morning i will be the first shot that rings out i want just a quick point just to be like a guy the state lists their own yes they don't go by all the different apps i know and i could have probably pulled up the regs on a PDF and then done the little chart thing where you add 12 minutes for every X miles. I'm just helping people stay legal. Appreciate it. And so I decide I'm going with 633. That seems like a good number. So I'm watching it, and he's still there.

He's still there. 633 comes. I'm like, okay, next opportunity. Well, I start looking through the scope, and it's still just way too dark. Even though he's only at like 70, maybe 80 yards, there's some brush. I hadn't really cut this place out really good. Yeah. And I can see

a body and his antlers, but I'm like, I can't be sure. So I'm like, just be patient. Hopefully it'll happen. He's kind of looked like he's now going left, which he's going to move into a more open zone on this ridge top. Well, as I'm watching him, I look over to my left again. Squirrel.

Same path he came. Nope. Another buck. So I look over at him, and I'm watching him for a second. He's a little bit smaller, I think, than the one that went by me. I'm watching him. I look back up to where the other buck was, and I just see a tail going out down the ridge through the woods.

You know, white tail. The rear end. I'm like, dang it. You know, what happened? I know my wind's solid, but maybe that buck spooked that buck or whatever. And, you know,

stuff's happening fast now because it's, you know, I'm ready to kill this buck if I get the opportunity. Well, I look back up again and now here's a doe coming back down the ridge towards me. And the little buck that's next to me now sort of goes to try to cut her off, right? And they're going to meet just off the edge of the ridge.

Well, the little buck makes it halfway to the doe. And all of a sudden, I look up again, and here comes the bigger buck, just ears pinned back. Like not running, but marching. You know when they kind of pick up their front legs a little bit more and they're really stomping it, just run them off. I don't know. I don't know if it was a different doe. You know, it's just hard to say.

It was early light. But he came back, like won that little buck out of it. He came back in, cut the little buck off. The little buck cowered immediately, kind of turned, and then the bigger buck put his antlers down and kind of ran him and just happened to run him like literally under my tree stand and so i kind of you know without shooting my toe off i shot him and uh yeah i mean it was like you know the earliest by far i think i've ever shot an animal i mean it was did that little buck come back all triumphant

oh he was i looked over my Oh, he was. I looked over my shoulder and he was just standing there watching his buddy go down the hill crashing away and the doe's behind him too and he's just like eh. He's like, that's right! Mess with the bull, get the horns, man! That's the fire, you get burnt.

So, yeah, my hunt ended pretty quick. I actually stayed in the tree for a while just to enjoy the morning And shot a doe like 20 minutes later So you're like Of all the Latvians who hunt the Latvian place You gotta have more bucks You gotta have bigger bucks than any of those Latvians have ever gotten

Cause that place Wasn't known as a big buck producer No I mean I think I've said it before I mean there was maybe over the years A handful of, you know, 140s killed. But my two bucks this year aren't that big. I mean, there's been bigger bucks killed, but I had a good year. Anyways, that wins me the big buck pool.

200 bucks. Yeah. Should have been four something. For what? Why would it be four? If they had adjusted for inflation. $225, right? Oh, yeah. Maybe I'll do my math. Yeah, it only would have added $2,250.

No, no, no. How much did you win? I won $200. Okay, so double $200. Let's go through the exercise. No, no, no. We already did it, remember? They put $20 in this year.

Because it used to be $10. I adjusted for inflation by going $20 each. Oh, you did adjust? Yeah. So these guys were kind of pissed at me because they thought I had it rigged. Oh, no, that's right. I forgot about that part of the story. Yeah.

Yanni, that's right. You pushed for a higher fee. Uh-huh. And then won, and it looked suspicious. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, but. Take all that out.

Make it look like I was paying better attention. I always do. Okay. Finish to wrap it all up. When you're the winner of the big buck pool, you don't really get all the money of the big buck pool because there's a tradition there where they like to take a nice bottle, usually scotch, because the guys there that like to drink like to drink scotch. As they do.

I personally might switch it up, but I didn't this year because I was given sort of like a congratulatory present for having a successful sheep hunt by another one of the hunters. And as sort of a, I don't know, like congratulations, he gave me a nice scotch bottle. And so I didn't have to go into town and come back. I just, I just use that. Everybody signs it. You re-gifted the sc come back. I just, I just use that. Everybody signs it. You re-gifted the scotch bottle. I did.

I ran it by everybody. I said, Hey, the guy that gave it to me is not going to be pissed for doing this. Right. Nobody's going to give a shit. So, but everybody signs it and you, you know, you can make a little note, you know, where you shot the big buck or whatever. And that way next year. Oh, and the funny thing is too, we're at like this Latvian church camp.

Right. next year oh and the funny thing is too we're at like this latvian church camp right and it's in the wall this bottle just lives in this wall behind like a 12 by 12 inch piece of plywood and that piece of plywood has been there for since the building was built i don't know what duct because it's a circular hole the square piece of wood over it those those summer camp kids never find it and get drunk. Not yet. Not yet. Or they just respect it. Maybe it's been told to them that it's hands off. So, anyway, yeah. So, I went in there this year and pulled

out the bottle from last year and then put in the new bottle and hopefully I'll be back next year. Yanni's petitioning to... Traditionally, it's been a man only. Was it, like, stated or that's just how it's been? You know, I dug into been a man only. Was it like stated or that's just how it's been? You know, I dug into

it a little bit. So funny how people's ideas and perceptions change because my dad specifically, I remember one year a woman had been invited and showed up and he was very kind of mad about it,

right? But it was most, there was some other things going on, but that was part of it. But now he's got a granddaughter. Now he's got granddaughters. Yeah. But there's also, there's a,

there's a deceased hunter that was there. And I guess he was really of the mind frame of like, this is a man's camp where men get to get away and do men type stuff. And it's just not, you know, women can do their own personal little whatever trips they want to do. Not sitting around drinking rosé or drinking scotch. Whatever it is. Yeah. But he's not around anymore.

And hopefully he won't, you know, I don't think he'll turn over in his grave if my girls show up. So they might, you might be, you might usher in, you might usher in some women into the camp. Yeah, but I was thinking about it. I hope those girls come and win all that money. At 8 and 10, man, we were just talking about it with Brandon too,

sitting around in a tree stand when you're not used to it. My girls are used to Western hunting. We just go on big, long hikes until we see some game. Finding stuff laying on the ground. Yeah, you don't just go to one spot and then someone tells you, now just enjoy the owls and the you know that fly around and the squirrels are going to be jumping yeah we just gotta pick you gotta pick a spot where they can where you can slip out have them be like

listen the first hour is a lot of fun at the end of the first hour slip them out let them go about their business and then you come back up and do the. Keep hunting. Midday hunt. Or. It's a good idea. Do the two hour evening hunt. Anybody's good for a couple hours.

Yeah. It means I got some work to do though. I mean, that's a lot of double stands I need to set. Ground blind. When I. Yeah, that too, that'll work. When I was little man

my dad would hang i'm not kidding he had his tree stand and at a time he had three other stands above his and we'd go up and sit in those stands above the same tree yeah like freaking raccoons up in a tree yeah i mean but again you know one wants, like, I thought that just an evening hunt was like a decade. Felt like a decade being in that tree. Here's like some kind of distressing news, bad news. This is going to be like a bad news sandwich. It's like good stuff, then like bad news, and then we'll have more good stuff. But so Washington State this year year the spring bear season got canceled

one might be like well how the hell could that happen it's like this this is the way this is well we're going to couple it with another thing i will now lay out for you why the two-party system as we know it in this country inevitably uh screws hunters and anglers give you let me lay a little groundwork first okay you look so okay under the trump administration he did all kinds of good stuff for access issues he like overturned alaska you know like the obama administration had taken away alaska's ability to use certain for access issues. He overturned Alaska. The Obama administration had taken away Alaska's ability to use certain management tools, certain predator management tools

on refuges. So under Obama, Alaska lost on 13% of their landscape. They had the feds come in and say, you can't do certain things that we think are naughty if it's on a refuge. And Trump went back and fixed that. So that was great.

Trump did a bunch of great access stuff. He took even stuff like fish hatcheries that had been closed to fishing, or fish hatchery landscapes, they opened them up to hunting. They made wildlife refuges kind of like simplify and expand hunting opportunities and a lot of great stuff for like the protection of hunting culture but he also had a lot of great stuff for industry and at times

industry is at odds with hunting and fishing habitat so you're looking like in tongas national forest i have a cabin up there so i have a particular bias toward that area tongas national forest uh coastal rainforest old growth rainforest there was a rule in place that was protecting like everything that doesn't have a road there was a rule in place that protected the status quo meaning they weren't going to build any more roads in tongas so not close old roads if there's road, we're not going to make a road. Trump opened it up that they removed that protection. It opened up the possibility of building more roads into old-growth coastal rainforest.

The reason you'd build more roads in the old-growth coastal rainforest is to cut down the old-growth coastal rainforest. The road building and the cut and go hand in hand um so it was like here's this guy that really protects hunters protects access protects hunters rights protects gun rights but then you know kind of like hits you where it counts a little bit on habitat issues so that that's kind of the give and take. Here you have in Washington, the governor appoints

game commissioners. The state's supposed to have nine game commissioners. And the way it works is it's kind of spread around. You get basically three from the west side of the state. Follow along, Corinne,

for when I screw this up. Three from the west side of the state. So those are probably going to be, those are just probably going to be like liberal urbanites. They have to appoint three commissioners from the east side of the state, which are probably going to lean

more conservative and be more pro-hunting. Okay? And then there's three sort of at-larges that you can get anywhere. And it's like the Supreme Court, there's nine in order to have tiebreaker. But the governor hasn't promoted, he hasn't appointed a new commissioner. So they only have eight. The commissioner he hasn't appointed is a commissioner from the east side of the state where people are going to be more kind of grow up around wildlife and understand hunting better and not view it like a thing that's only to be looked out a window at.

So the Fish and Game Agency comes out with some studies about bears, and they have a thriving, expanding, healthy population of bears. You're like, we can have a spring hunt, no problem. Continue business as usual and have a spring hunt. People are saying, well, what if they shoot a female with cubs in the spring? Well, let's take a look. Last year, sorry, this year, the past spring we just had, 2021 spring season, they issued 668 black bear permits.

Of those 668 permits they issued, they had 145 successful bear hunters. So 145 bears get killed in Washington. Let me throw one at you, Seth. How many of those bears, 145, big number. How many were lactating females, Seth? Take a guess. Well, I can see right here with the answer. Okay, let's do this, Seth.

Let's do this. Let's say you hadn't seen that. Yeah. When I was reading that sentence, and my mind was going to be 10. A quarter. Maybe 25. If I had to, like, I would have been like, 10 wouldn't shock me. Yeah.

Nor would it dissuade me from supporting spring bear season. I probably would have went less than 10 just because it's the same in Montana. You can't, in the spring, you can't kill a sow that has cubs. Yeah. And oftentimes you sit there and watch a bear for a while to make sure it has, it doesn't have cubs. But some people don't do that. And also they hide.

I've watched, I've watched sows feeding out an avalanche slide and I've watched them hide their cubs in the willows on the side of the avalanche slide and go out and feed in the avalanche side for five minutes. And I know because I watched her and I know she's got cubs in the willows on the side of the avalanche slide. But you could have sat there and been like, watched her for five minutes. So it happens.

But it's like a lot of stuff happens. I mean, bears practice infanticide. Like boars kill cubs. You don't want to abolish boars. One. Seth already gave it away. Kind of ruined my... I didn't give it away.

I just told you I knew the answer. Oh, you didn't say what the answer was? No. Oh, it's one. Yeah. 668 permits, 145 bears get killed, and in 2021, they killed one. All they determined is a lactating female.

Quite possible. The cubs are already dead. She would have been a lactating female no matter what. Her cubs could have died a month ago. Yeah, that hunter could have sat there and stared at that sow for two hours.

He might not have violated the law. She might not have been accompanied by cubs because a boar might have already eaten her cubs. So if you watch the youtube video that came out they got the you can go watch the whole commissioner meeting in the meeting they clarify it's not biology they clarify it's social pressure we've been alert like we've been corinne had this long exchange with someone we've been alerted that like like a commissioner from washington or a fishing game official from washington saying like what's going on in washington is very bad for hunters and anglers where they're appointing commission they're appointing game commissioners who are antagonistic to hunting. Like a fox guard in the hen house.

Not good. And you know, this is the thing, this is where the two-party system sucks. Because, like, I'm sorry, Republicans don't take away your bear season. Nope. They just take away the habitat. Yeah, and this person I spoke to.

I hate it. Double-edged sword. I hate it. I was talking about the difference between conservation and concepts of preservation. And the commission's obviously not saying that they're anti-hunting, but that seems to be a little bit of the trend. So you're kind of picking off the low hanging fruit so folks who may be bear hunters there's a smaller population among them uh among the general hunting population and so maybe fewer people would turn out to say a thing about this and so it's like you're just starting to pick off what's kind of the obvious it's dude it's the whole slippery slope thing and the

slippery slope there's a slope and it's slippery like i'm a big slippery slope guy it's the whole slippery slope thing. And the slippery slope, there's a slope and it's slippery. Like, I'm a big slippery slope guy. It's a slippery slope. It's pitched at a steep angle and it's covered in snot. It's just, it's so distressing, man. It's so distressing.

Like, there needs to be a new... Well well when me and yanni ran for president that's what it was i'm only talking about i'm only talking about single issue voters of which i'm mostly a single issue voter i'm a single issue voter where i'm like i'm like interested in what's good for hunting and fishing so i want habitat protections and and like protect habitat protect hunting rights protect firearm rights um and clean air clean water real clean environment that's all is that asking too much nope you wouldn't think so apparently but yeah apparently it is if you live in washington what you need to do is get this ninth...

You need to get this ninth... Because you're never going to have... In Washington, the big urban areas, you're never going to catch up to them. I remember Colorado lost trapping. I remember going to this little seminar at a National Trappers Association convention. The guy was getting into Colorado demographics. It was funny. The second... like not the second,

the minute Denver and Fort Collins had a population greater than Colorado outside of those places at large, bam, lost trapping. So if you live in Washington, culturally, you're always going to get whooped because you have those huge population centers that are going to be like, you shouldn't be able to always going to get whooped because you have those huge population centers that are going to be like, you shouldn't be able to do that

to bears. That's mean. I love my dog. You know, it's like, you're never going to beat them. Well, here's the other thing. Remember, uh, what's the gentleman's name we had on when we talked about trapping? Yeah. Yeah.

Um, Mr. Matney. Yeah. Mr. Matney? Yes, Mr. Matney. Rick Matney, what was his dad? Mike Matney? Mike Matney, yeah. I remember him kind of drawing this analogy around like people having that idea like, oh, you can't do this to the poor bear,

the poor beaver. You shouldn't do this to the poor mink. But for example, with furs, being a material that is completely renewable and all the people who are talking about saving the environment are buying fleece made of plastic polluting the ocean. So it's like the hypocrisy of,

and like the limits of your own kind of self-reflection about what you're championing, but actually acting in opposition to that. Yeah, they like renewables, but they don't like renewable bears. Yeah. Or beavers. So you're like, what do you do about this? Well, you guys got to get – everybody's got to have a big shit fit. That's for starters. For starters, you got to get a ninth commissioner appointed who is a supporter of hunter conservationists.

There's a guy who's a state representative in District 8, Matt. How do you think he pronounces his name? Bonke? Bonke. B-O-E-H-N-K-E. State representative. He's filing a joint resolution in December, this month. He's filing a joint resolution for an amendment to the state constitution that'll add to the right to hunt and fish.

So, most states have a right to hunt and fish, but it doesn't have teeth. It's not clear. Matter of fact, I remember one state was doing the right to hunt and fish, but it doesn't have teeth. It's not clear. Matter of fact, I remember one state was doing the right to hunt and fish. One of the recent ones that passed its right to hunt and fish resolution didn't put trapping in the resolution because they wanted to have better messaging.

So when you do a state right to hunt and fish, you need to be like, it has to have teeth. It'd be like biologically sustainable populations and spell out like what exactly it means, because this would be a great case. If you had a right to hunt and fish that had teeth to it, this would be a great case for a lawsuit where you're saying we have a sustainable population of black bears that we've historically been allowed to hunt. There's no biological evidence that it's, that it's not sustainable, but yet we're losing the right to hunt there's no biological evidence that it's that it's not

sustainable but yet we're losing the right to hunt and fish it so we're going to file we're going to sue under our thing as a violation of the state constitution because you're taking away a historic hunting right with no biological basis for it but if you have the right to hunt and fish in the constitution would there be like very very specific and particular details outlining how the right is to be practiced? That's the problem with the state right to hunt and fish stuff. Yeah, you'd have to because people would be shooting shit in the summer. You'd be like, well, it's my right. I know.

That's what I'm saying. Remember years ago we went to – where were we? In Ohio? Where the hell were we? We went to visit the Sportsman's Alliance, guys. Yeah, and talked about these things. And it's like, it's a great gesture and it sort of measures, because those things usually pass with like overwhelming

majorities. It's a great gesture. But if it doesn't like clearly articulate certain parameters, it's hard to sue against. But I think that they were, I think that some people used it in this state around wolves, I think. Anyways, you need to have like a robust, well-worded, clearly articulated what it means so that it can then be used to challenge infractions to your rights.

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onxmaps.com slash meet onxmaps.com slash meet welcome to the to the onx club y'all all right hayden this is the the the fishing report book report all right the uh so this one's kind of like close to home and uh i i like to check chat, I'm going to kind of double dip because I use this for the Bent podcast. That's fine. No, double dipping in content is fine. Double dipping on finances. Of which he is the new co-host, everybody. Oh, yeah. Introdu I co-host a podcast with Joe Cermelli. It's the Bent Fishing Podcast, and we talk about all things kind of irreverent and fun in fishing, and it's informative as it is entertaining. Sounds great. So y'all ought to give it a listen. This is a double dip.

This is a double dip. We're going to talk about something that's going on right here in Montana, and that is a little problem that we have with some lake trout in Flathead Lake. Flathead Lake, for those of you who don't know, is a giant lake. Is it the biggest lake in the state? It's like 200 square miles. It's a natural lake. Yeah, it's a natural lake. Yeah, biggest natural lake. Yeah.

I think it's the biggest natural lake in the something or another. Look that up, Phil. You're not doing anything over there. Oh, damn it. I'll look it up. It's the biggest something. It's a real big lake. Big ass lake.

Yeah. So, and this big ass lake straddles an important boundary, and that's the boundary between state land and res land, specifically the Flathead Reservation, which is home to the Confederated Salish and the Salish Salish Largest freshwater Lake west of the Mississippi in the lower 48 states Told you there you go. It's a big one. So the Confederated Salish and the Kootenai tribes Salish Kootenai Kootenai

I'm gonna have to go back and tribes. Salish Kootenai. Kootenai, yeah. Oh, dude. I'm going to have to go back and fix all of this. Dude, this book report is going to be a bad grade. You can go do a third podcast. No, that's how you know I actually read it because I didn't hear it said. Oh, that is good evidence that you didn't just hear about this at the bar. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, it straddles this line between the res and state land, and that's important.

We'll get to that later on. So basically forever, Flathead Lake has been a stronghold for a native species called the bull trout. Now, the bull trout is a char. It's this real big, aggressive-looking fish. It kind of looks like a lake trout almost. And back in – we got to talk about some dates so back in 1905 uh the montana uh you know fish and wildlife i guess of the time decided that they were going to drop a whole bunch of non-native species to like diversify like the fishing opportunities

because why not because why not one of these was the lake trout and of those fish that you know they dropped in these are the only ones that kind of like took hold this was not a big well i take exception with that yeah the lake whitefish the lake whitefish is not native and is very prolific in that lake but it's not predatory okay so the lake whitefish and lake trout took hold uh now this wasn't a problem until like 1981 when in order to like bolst the kokanee salmon stock another non--native fish, they decided that they would introduce mysis shrimp in order to like give them something to feed on. Now, the problem with that is like the kokanee salmon didn't really like the mysis shrimp and the mysis shrimp fed primarily on

zooplankton, which is what the kokanee do like to eat. They fed on them to the extent that they out-competed the kokanee. And by 1990, there weren't any more kokanee do like to eat. They fed on them to the extent that they out-competed the kokanee, and by 1990, there weren't any more kokanee in there. This is like bad aquarium management. Horrible. And the fact that there aren't kokanee in there is not important,

except that now there were just a whole bunch of mysis shrimp in here with no predator, except for the lake trout. lake trout the fry ate a shit ton of the mices shrimp and because of that their population exploded the problem with that is mices shrimp can only sustain a lake trout to such a size and then the lake trout has to go eat something else so the lake trout started preying on native fish particularly the bull trout it became such a problem that in the mid 90s

there were only like a thousand uh bull trout left so this got identified as a major problem and i think in like 1999 is when like all the bull trout protections really started they became like a threatened species like esa protection right yeah yeah um so these tribes recognize this as a problem and the state recognized it as a problem and they got together and they were like okay we need to like solve this somehow. The state pushed really, really hard for like an angler based intervention in this whole situation. And they tried that for a while. The tribes instilled or installed what they call Mack days. Mackinaw is another word for a lake trout.

And it was basically like a lake trout fishing derby and in the first like year that they did this i think the annual take was something like 900 lake trout um recently you're never gonna catch them with rod and reel man well recently it's come to like not never gonna catch them you're never gonna like get them all you're never gonna den it with rod well you know right in order to get all of them you literally have to like poison the body of water and start over yeah you know it's like not possible so montana uh fish and wildlife kind of my understanding of is they pushed back on this for a while they were like no we really want this to be angler base we really want this to be angler base the tribe saw the writing on the wall and eventually the state and the tribe kind of got together on this.

And they said, okay, let's do something else. And now what you got going on is they've turned it into kind of a commercial fishery. They basically do a bunch of trawling and just netting and all sorts of stuff. And they're processing these lake trout and getting them out to restaurants and private buyers and all sorts of stuff. And they're processing these lake trout and getting them out to restaurants and private buyers and all sorts of stuff. And it's actually made, starting to make a measurable difference in the population. Now, again, we've like talked about how, or I guess I've kind of talked at you about how like you can't get all the lake trout out without poisoning them. Their goal is not to do that. Their goal is to get the population down to about 75% or down 75% to 25% of what it is.

And if they can accomplish that through this commercial fishery they've developed, then they projected the bull trout will recover by 90%, which is a way better situation. And you'd wind up with another bull trout stronghold. And that is my book report. I'm looking at this note that says in 2012, they estimated that there are 1.5 million lake trout older than one year old. I know that, but they still have regulations on them, right? Like Brody was up fishing Lakers.

Don't they have like slot limits on them and stuff? I feel like calling Brody. I don't know. We ought to call Brody. Yeah. I'm not, I'm, I'm honestly not too sure about that. He was up catching Lakers. Was he?

Right up there. One second. But it's like, you'd have to have a balance, right? You need to like take all the big ones leave the small ones so they eat the mysus shrimp so that the mysus shrimp don't need all the zooplankton so that the kokanee have something to feed on the kokanee have already been like totally extirpated from there and being a non-native i think it's kind of like a beside the point sort of thing i don't think we're trying to i don't think like the management of the kokanee fisheries really anything like that they're kind of going. I don't think we're trying to... I don't think the management of the kokanee fishery is really anything

that they're kind of going for. I think this is very much bull trout exclusive. Gotcha. Brody. You know when you were up on Flathead Lake fishing lakers? Was there some kind of

size limit or slot limit or some shit like that? Yeah, you're not allowed to keep them between 30 and 36 i think is what it is because why i dude i don't know man you'd think they'd want the big breeders out of there if they're trying to reduce the population but i don't know because you're allowed to keep a bunch of them you know that i don't know what the daily is but or if there even is a daily limit. All right.

Talk to you later. Talk to you later. Straight from Brody. Yo. Slot limit. I wish they would explain the why behind some of their regulations. Oh, that'd be a great book. You could get the second book.

You get the reg book. Yeah. And then the other book that says why. Because I always wonder, like, you look at that kind of stuff and they promote this and say this, but then the regulation doesn't make sense. We had a question about the why in a regulation one time. And it even said that, I can't remember. I don't remember the reg. I don't remember the state.

But they had said that, like, as a rule, they don't. No, it was in Wyomingoming it was something in wyoming as a rule they don't archive the reasoning meaning when there's a proposed regulation change and people testify like for instance this bear like this bit this bear thing in washington i don't know if it's true in washington but this guy was sent in their state you're gonna have like do we have a spring bear hunt or not the outcome is memorialized in the law but they don't do anything to record they're like well why yeah i know you know what it was i remember exactly now it was why a non-resident if he's hunting in a wilderness area has to have a guide oh yeah, yeah. And you go like, why? It must be to protect the guiding industry. They say it's to protect safety.

And we went to a guy like, well, why is it? He goes, we don't record the why. Yeah. So there's an argument and there's a vote. We care about the outcome of the vote and no one writes down what was said about it. Yeah, but that's like, we need that to educate the people. Yeah. Like, I think a lot of times they're embarrassed about it.

They're like, it's like with my kids, man. They're like, why? Like, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter why. Those lake trout, they get crazy though. The up in Idaho last year went to priest and it was like the, I just, I didn't even know how to catch them. I just got told like they were out there. We were just like on a family trip and I drove out with my, I had my bass boat up there with

electronics and I just drove out to a spot and it was like 90 feet and there was nothing and it dropped down into 150 feet and the fish started at 90 and they dropped all the way down to the bottom and 150 feet. And there must, there was literally hundreds of thousands of lake trout. Were you catching them? Yeah. Every drop. Every, every.

Did you ever smoke one of those? Yeah, we did. We, we caught them all, took them back and lit a fire and ate them and everyone loved them. Just like picked them off of the fork. And it was, that's what we caught them. We actually end up, um, you know, filleting and some of them and, and, uh, freezing them and still got them at home.

Let me give you a tip on being an American. Yeah. Fillet? I'd start with that. I knew that was going to come. That's not the only one. First thing is filet, right? Second thing is freedom. 2F. Hot tip.

I like the freedom one. Have you ever noticed how the meat color changes on Lake Trout depending on their size? Yeah, that's what I don't know. The Misa shrimp versus like in Idaho, the small ones, like he was talking about the small ones eat the Misa shrimp. They're super pink. Really?

Bright, bright pink. I didn't know that. And as they get bigger, they turn white. Once they start eating fish. Northern pike minnow are up there. Yeah, they start eating fish and their meat turns white from pink. We talked about that recently, the rebranding of the northern pike minnow yeah yeah it's an interesting one um all right so here's what i want you guys i got a couple questions for you about this

about being professional bass fishing first each of you like concisely lay out well i'm going to give you two things I want you each to concisely lay out where you sit in the realm of where you're at in your career. And then I want one of you to walk through what's the progression of how you get there. Meaning, I don't really know about baseball, but let's just say it'd be like you play T-ball, then you play Little League, then presumably you play like high school, college, minors, majors, whatever the hell.

Do one of those. You guys can decide amongst yourself who does the progression. But first, I need to know where you're at. I'll take the progression. So in our careers. First off, I got to find who's pulling my cord, and I am going to kill them. Yep, that's definitely under my foot.

Oh, never mind. Clear. We're good now. Never mind. I'd never do that to a guest. My bad. Progression in my career. Let's see.

I've been doing it. Gosh, I just finished up my 11th season. It seems like yesterday I was one of the rookies and now i'm more like one of the veterans but i'm not old really yeah i'm like you're like an old timer yeah i'm like an old timer doing it for 11 years but i'm not old that makes sense just because i started young so um there's probably a lot of people your age that did it for 11 years and haven't had the success and thus aren't doing it anymore, I'm guessing, right? Yeah, and I would say majority of the guys, like your average age is older.

You look at extreme sports, like guys are done when they're 25 or 26. Majority of the guys don't start and qualify historically until they're probably mid-30s or early 40s. What's old for a professional bass fisherman? Well, our oldest guy right now is, what, 74? Rick Clunn, 74. And he can still place? He won twice in the last couple of years.

Yeah. But he's like an exception, right? He's one of the best we've ever had. 74? I even know that name. He's been doing it professionally longer than we've both been alive. That's crazy. When I made the Elite Series and I started fishing in 2015,

so I started competing. The second tournament, third tournament of the year was on Toledo Bend, and I didn't know what I was doing. I made it too early, and I'm just grinding, trying to compete with these best guys in the world. And Rick Clunn got on stage and he was coming second after day one, giant bag, a huge bass. And he's like, yeah, I caught him off a spot I found in 1984,

which was when I was born. And I was like, oh, I've got some work to do still. Got some time to make it. So I guess like I would be, I feel like I'm just coming into my prime is where I feel like. How old are you? I'm 34, just turned 34. Brandon's also done every single thing about you can possibly do in the fishing industry. Like he's at the peak pinnacle, top 1% of bass anglers. Okay.

So that's what I want to get at. He's not cool. What are your, like, if you had to do a bio that was really talking your shit up, what would the bio say? Five-time Elite Series champion, 2017 Angler of the Year, 2010 National Championship. That one's important. That's how I qualified. That's what I'm looking for is that kind of stuff.

Yeah. Like, that's, like, the written accolade stuff. But for me, those are just titles and trophies. You know, like, that's not why I do it. No, no, no. You know, I'm just, like, this is, I'll be frank with you. Yeah. All the, like, Seth knows about this, all this.

I don't know the first thing about it. Yeah. be frank with you yeah the all that like seth knows about this all this i don't know the first thing about it yeah so that i mean to win five is like is a big thing when i won angler of the year let's see i feel like they should call bass fisherman of the year let's be frank b-a-s-s let's be frank there's a lot of species right well it is it is some sailfish dude is like but it is called bass master Angler of the Year. Oh, okay. There you go. That is what the trophy says.

Because I don't want the sailfish guys to feel bad. We don't want to beat up on the saltwater guys or the walleye guys. I don't want to take Seth's title. So Bassmaster Angler. Yeah. And so at that time, I think there had been 46 or 47 of those titles awarded, but only had been won by 21 guys. Oh. So, you know, several guys had won.

So it really is like it's not random. It's not random. No, it's not luck. There's too many variables to make it luck when you've done it consistently over and over. Yeah. A guy can get lucky and do it once, but do it over and over that's not luck right no that speaks to something man yeah you know i mean this wasn't like that he had like a you know whatever like happened to be on the right end of the lake and you know yeah so i think like but i

feel like i'm just coming into my prime right like i'm starting to understand everything and in the fishing world there's two sides of it, right? There's the fishing side and then there's the business side because we're all independent contractors. We don't have team contracts like you do in the NFL, you know, Major League Baseball, all of that. We individually have to go seek our business relationships. Those don't come to us. You don't have an agent? No, I do it all on my own.

Some guys have agents, but I don't like that disconnect. I want to talk to the person that's making the decision so that also when they have to call and they're like, hey, we're not going to pay you anymore, they have to call me.

It's a lot harder to call me and tell me versus like, hey, we're going to cut your guy and tell me versus like hey just keep paying we're gonna cut your guy we've never talked to him but we're gonna cut your guy you know and so uh i i like building that relationship with those people how many okay so how far like if you're let's say you could pardon me i'm trying to think how to put this let's say you could like like uh you're like a top 10 or top tier bass fisherman um how many of them are there like like how many guys are sort of your peers right now and are and are and are you guys peers yes so me and carl fish on the same circuit which is the bass master elite series okay that is the original. So BASS and Bassmaster, that's the original tournament circuit.

Okay. That's been around for- And you guys both, so you guys would compete against one another? Yeah. Okay. And how many of you are there at that caliber? 100. And are all those people, are all those 100 making their living fishing or are some of

them still like doing roofing and stuff? Majority are not. I would say. Not making their living. Yeah. Majority are not making their living fishing or are some of them still like doing roofing and stuff? Majority or not. Not making the roofing. Yeah, majority are not making their living fishing. And that's why I say a lot of guys probably start historically at an older age because they've either got a business that has been built up where they can take time away from it, where they can go and try to compete or try to qualify to compete, or they've sold a business or something of that realm. Now, that's changing. The average age is dropping drastically with the influx of college and high school programs.

So as big as a business as bass fishing seems to be, and is, You look at all the hook and bullet sports, okay? Here's one that can compete on national television. Yeah. Right? So it doesn't support 100 full-time fishermen. Crazy, huh? Yeah. We have that conversation all the time.

Me and Carl talk about that. Because, dude, there's easily 100. I think you guys need to go on strike. Are you guys unionized? They kind of did and they kind of tried and they've tried everything to make it happen

because that's, it's, from other people's perspective, it looks like we're all just absolutely killing it, big trucks, boats, but it's just not the case. Yeah, I thought you guys

being here were like Fox fur coats on and stuff. Big gold shoes and stuff. Big glasses and stuff. Because somebody is making a lot of money off this gig. I mean, I don't know who is. I mean, that's the tricky part, right, is like each angler is an individual business out for themselves that also operates as a whole driving the machine

that gives us the platform to perform and promote our business that they're also running a business, right? Like, so everybody wants to be profitable. The tricky part is, is that we're also competing for all of the same endemic sponsorships. But that's why you guys got to be more like the dudes who play like the more like the MLB players or NFL players. You have the league, like the NFL, right? But the league has to deal with the players collectively. Steve's dropping mad education about sports now. Oh.

Did we talk about that shirt Dirk got me? When did you learn about this, Steve? Dirk got me a t-shirt of a dude slamming a basketball, and it says touchdown. Yeah, I know I'm stuck in this whole sports analogy thing. One of you guys should be bailing me out. But what I'm saying is, how do you not? How do you not? So there's, what's the organization?

There's two organizations, right? Yes, there's really two. There's BASS, which is Yes, there's really two. There's- BASS. Yep, B-A-S-S, which is the Bass Angler Sportsman Society. That one's been around the longest. And then the newest one is Major League Fishing.

And so like, we're not going to get into that whole debacle. But they don't live without the anglers. No. So we have to have each other. Right? And so they got, so they're creating this situation where, I mean,

God bless them, probably nicest guys on the planet, but they're creating this situation where their organization relies on these hundred or so individuals, but these hundred or so individuals all have to compete against each other and have no, like, collective way to uphold the organization. I feel like it'd be prime for you guys to get all

up in their business. What you're talking about is probably the number one thing that needs fixing, talking about in our sport. It needs to happen 100%, but it's such a struggle to get the hundred anglers. Like what you're, what you're getting is you're getting 20 guys that are coming in that don't have any money, don't have any support. They're just really good outdoorsmen, sportsmen, fishermen, they've grinded and they've made it.

Now they find themselves in the top hundred guys in the world. And now they got big entry fees, traveling all over the country, high expenses. And then you got mid-range guys that have been doing it got through that early storm are getting some sponsors and support but half making it and then you've got this top percent that are making really good money big sponsorships and working with all this stuff so you got like basically three groups that one guy's going i I don't want any entry fees and make the payouts a little bit lower so I can survive.

And you got another group that like Jack, the entry fees up. I want to compete for way more money. So you put them all in a room and everyone just has all these different opinions and you're like, can't come up with this where we should be all coming together, say let's make it better. If you make it to top hundred guys in the world, you should be getting paid no matter what, and then lift everyone up and everyone make money. But no matter which way they try and do it, they just can't get it.

Because the top tier guys are probably not in the mood to talk about how to help the lowest guys out. And it would take the top tier fishermen to want to do something. If, if that top 10, 15 guys with big names, big sponsors got together and said, this is what we're going to do. We could possibly make a change, but that also, they tried that, but they went a different way, which is what happened with major league fishing. It didn't work. So now you kind of got two split groups, but that's a different story. But now we're sort of back to fighting again.

Okay. How are we going to make it better for everyone right now? And for me, it's lost a little bit because in, even in my story, I want to make it better because the way I looked at it is if I make it to the top hundred guys in the world, I've made it, I'm going to, it's that's it. I've made it. I've made it. I would think.

And so I'm like, I just risked it all, sold everything, grinded, didn't see my family for years, moved to America, had to move back. I went broke, did all the rest, made it. And then halfway through my first year, I was in the worst position of my entire life. And then a year later, I was broke, in debt and gone out of the elites. And I was like, just chewed up and gone. And I was like, what just happened? And that happens to dozens and dozens of guys every year. And just lucky for me, I just decided not to quit. And I fought back, made it, got back. And then I ended up winning and my career grew and I come back into it. And now I'm in a better position,

but I could have just went away and just been another guy that got pissed off. Is the bottom tier of guys just like a revolving door? Sometimes. Because those guys, they don't have boat sponsors. They're like buying their own boats, their own entry fees. Yeah, the guys that are first coming in, they've got a mission ahead of them. They call Brandon and I a lot and they're like, I just made it through the nations, through the opens. What can I expect?

And I'm like, get ready. But also, guys have made it through college and two years later, they're millionaires, like have won millions of dollars. So it's so hard to put a negative. I'm like, I don't want to take negative to you because you could come in and just crush it and be the biggest name but the reality is if you don't this is what could happen yeah does a pro always make more no matter how much you're making in winnings are you always making more on sponsorships or can the winnings get so good that

you're blowing the sponsorships away with just the purse? Depends on the stage of your career as well, right? If you come in early on and you have a blowout season, for sure, your winnings are going to outweigh your sponsorships. And the longer you're around, your sponsorship dollars start to grow because it's like you make it, but then you also, but then you have to prove yourself at that level. And I think the biggest issue that we have in the fishing community from a business standpoint is identifying what it is to be a professional angler, right? We compete at the top level, but anybody can go buy a jersey and put logos on it, which devalues what we do. And then. Yeah, but they can do that, but they don't get to fish in the tournament.

Exactly. But there's so many other avenues now to create exposure and create awareness for a brand. You're doing what we're doing, but you're not. Yeah. And there's not like a set standard of like, this is what a professional angler is, this is what they should make. I've always thought that if we take the top 100 guys in the Elite Series, take the bottom guy and make him worth $100,000 in sponsorship every year,

everybody above that will just make more money. Yeah. Right, because everybody's not going to make the same amount of money in sponsorships. We don't want that because that would defeat the purpose of hard work and trying to evolve. And so the biggest thing is like, make that bottom guy worth a hundred grand in sponsorship. And then everyone's just going to be a percentage of value, more valuable above above that guy depending on how much extra you do on the business side. What's a big win in dollars? What's a big tournament win?

$100,000. That's what an Elite Series event pays. Okay. What's the classic? $300,000. And it has been $500,000. And then two days ago, two college kids won a million dollars. Oh, yeah.

I saw that. At what though? That's cool. At fishing, bass fishing at the US Open. Bass Pro Shots Open, yeah. Yeah. They won two tundras. They're college kids.

Two tundras, two boats, and a million dollars. Yeah. Dude, those guys are going to blow through that money. Yeah. Every time I sold my first book, I'm like, wow, that's enough money to last me my whole life. Or next month. Yeah. month yeah depending on 500 grand for us where you see that what that what's happening there and you're like we've we've made it to the top guys of the sport and then that's going on there so it's kind of like but also what term did they win to win that so it's a bass pro shops u.s open so that's the top is the top and this is the first year

they've ever had that they just ran at one random tournament this is it you qualify get in and then on the last day this group of anglers gonna fish for a million bucks so they did one thing to qualify yeah how do you qualify for that so they have regional yeah. They have regional events, and then if you place in so high in your regional event, then you qualify for this championship, and then you fish, what was it, two days? Three days. We can't compete. If you've paid an entry fee over, I believe, $2,500, you can't compete in that event. Some of the—

But they're still handing out that kind of money. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's what I'm saying. Oh, we want to get in there. Some of the guys I follow that fished the NWT, National Walleye Tour, qualified for that event. I mean, why wouldn't you?

So they're giving away more... This is not on Joss. It's just interesting. It just doesn't make common sense. These dudes won a million bucks fishing in a tournament that you can't fish because you're too pro? Yes. But when you win your tournament, it's not a million bucks? Yeah.

And the guys that finish 7th, 8th, 9th all made more than us when we finish in that sort of position. But we have entry fees. That's the one thing. If we could get rid of them, we have 45, 50 grand plus of entry fees per year so that's the killer right there if we didn't have that we would be yeah five grand a derby yeah they the tournament the other day i think the top 10 i think two of those teams were professional walleye anglers like seth was saying yeah john john hoyer he they took seventh. Oh, John did? And it was, I think, 15 grand. Yeah. Probably made more than he made the entire

year walleye fishing. Yeah. Alright, you know what we never did? What's that? I'm ready to move on to way other stuff, but we gotta back up. We gotta back up because we didn't get through the... Yeah, but maybe it doesn't make sense. I've had people say, like, well, how does

a person... How do you become a writer? I never met two of them that did it the same way, so I can't really answer the question. It's actually super simple. Because to get to the Bassmaster Elite Series, there's only two ways to qualify. That's what I want to hear. So you've got the Bassmaster Open Series, which is three separate regions with three events per region across the united and you have to do what in those so then you have to fish uh that entire series at least one region right so we'll just say you fish the northern opens three events you fish those three place in the top three in points

each time uh top three in cumulative points. Oh, I got you. So it buffers you from a bad day, like you can still make up. The problem is that one bad day there pretty much eliminates you. So those have 200 plus. You've got to have three good days. Three good events. So you have to have nine good days over three different bodies of water

at three different times a year. And if you whiff one of those days, you're never going to keep up. Yeah, you can't make it up. I see. Nearly impossible. So you got to do that. Yep. So that's how you can qualify through one of those.

Or the only other option is to win what is now called the Bass Nation. It used to be the Bass Federation, but it's now called the Bass Nation. And that's like your weekend warrior guys. That's what I won in 2010 to qualify for the Elite Series. I think they should change the name back to Bass Federation. I liked it.

Because everything's a nation now. Yeah. I like Bass Federation. And I still say it all the time because that's what I came from. Yeah. But, I mean, that was my only choice. So that's the two avenues of approach. Two, yeah.

And now there's high school and college programs so you go to a high school tournament in texas 500 plus boats two kids on a team per boats and then college kids college kid can qualify for the classic which is our championship uh but they can't qualify for the elites. So in the future, when all these trained dudes come up, it's going to change the playing field a lot. Yeah, that's why the average age is dropping. Right, because there's younger guys. Because they're getting days on the water.

Yep. Well, I think we've brought it up. Can we ask about the Bassmaster Classic real quick? Oh, yeah. I don't care. Is that like you said you're at the peak, but you haven't won that yet. So is that like the shining star that you're?

That's literally the one thing. That's the only thing he hasn't won. That's it. Everything else. And that is the pinnacle. And I finished second. Woo. You did.

Yeah, I've got top tens. I finished second. Did they pay you for finishing second? Yeah. Good. That was 2013. First place at that time was 500 grand. I got 45 grand.

Holy shit. That's a heck of a difference. How's that? That's a hell of a difference. That's a $455,000 difference. Well, we'd have to know this. One of you guys can figure this out. What is the relationship of gold to silver in actual value?

And we'll see if that makes sense. Oh, I get what you're saying. In the Olympics, if they gave you an ounce of gold, let's say your thing is an ounce in the Olympics, they just gave you $1,400. But an ounce of silver is not shit. So it'd actually be worse than what i did we'll find out it might be better than the olympics silver uh is currently 24 an ounce and gold is 1800

an ounce way better than the olympics better i haven't done the math do the math all the way phil oh boy so you want to explore the relationship between, how much is silver per ounce? $24. So $24 to $1,400. And then what'd you win? $45,000. And what'd the other guy win? $500.

Okay. Give me a second. Man, I bet you when I was in like eighth grade, I could have done that. Yeah, exactly. That's too much. That's too much. Got to do some division here, I think. We need to have like a bubble over Phil's head where all the computations are going through.

Just be making a long shot. Start adding in all the windages. Oh, for sure. And parametric pressures. I'm shooting from 3,000 to 6,000. Just start doing it. He's got to be running that similar kind of business over there. Let's know when you turn up, Phil.

I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I'm a Kevin Van Dam. Yeah, I in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You know, I was going to say, not far from my dad's house at all. The sporting goods shop where I shopped is his parents' shop. Exactly. His brother runs DNR Sports. That's where we get our Michigan tags. Out on M43.

I think this math is right. If the ratio were the same, if your $45,000 let's call that the baseline, then his winnings should have been $3.3 million. Of silver versus gold? Yeah. So what they're doing is more fair than what the Olympics does. Yes, exactly.

That's good. Okay. Way to make me feel better. Here's my note. Do you like to know what questions are coming up? No. I'm going to ask the next question question but i could tell you what the next question is but i'll just tell you the next question when you guys were kids was it just that you were always better than everybody at fishing

like from day one that was that was me that was really no matter like what like you just go down i was good at all sports could do everything but like if we fished i just like destroyed That was me. Really? No matter what? You just go down to the water and you're going to catch fish? I was good at all sports, could do everything. But if we fished, I just destroyed everyone. They were like, what is happening? No matter what? Off the dock? Yeah, no matter what.

But it was because I lived out there. I would bring my mates and they'd been doing whatever all week. And I'd been fishing three days a week. So I knew exactly what was going on or whatever. Basically between us, everyone has the same story, but we just spent more time in the water than everyone else. Like I never, I went to school maybe four times a week and fish Friday, Saturday, Sunday, riding my bike, taking, mum take me somewhere,

wherever I could go, I just needed to be fishing. But you feel that it was like you're attributing it to time spent out. Yeah. And do you do, but like there has to be sort of like a, a native talent aspect. Yeah. I think you just,

no matter how much time you, yeah, there's definitely a thing we've spoken about it where no matter how much time you spend on the water, some people just have it in your, and it's with hunting and whatever. You're just like, that guy just has it.

And he spent a bunch of time in the water. Some people spend a ton of time in the water and can never, never get there. Like a lot of. They're just not making the connections in their head. Americans ask me all the time, how'd you make it? I'm like, cause I come from Australia and I'm like, you lived in the country all time, fish for bass since you were a kid and have done it with your dads and your grandfathers. That's what I'm competing against is guys that have learned from their dads and their grandfathers. So hard to beat because they've

got so much good knowledge. But sometimes if you just don't quite have that aspect, the tournament thing just brings a whole nother thing with money and making fast decision, having a time limit on it and being able to read the water instantly, make fast decisions. That's what makes you kind of a good tournament angler. But most people just had that knack and they had that thing where they couldn't do anything else but fish and they just understand what, how those bass and fish work just from purely having that bit of talent, but also just ridiculous amount of time in the water. What do you call a guy like that or gal?

Is there like an adjective that you guys use or throw around? In hunting, it's natural. He's a real killer. Yeah. It's the natural. He's a stone cold killer. The outfitter that I worked for

would just call guys fishy. He'd be like, you know, that guy's pretty fishy. Yeah, but that's a new thing. How long ago was that that you were there? That was, I don't know, 15 years ago. I mean, it's mental right because you take all the guys out there they have access to all the same technology mechanically guys are pretty even across the board so then it only leaves one thing and that's mental

that separates the guys that do it at the highest level versus the guys that don't make it. But when you were, Brandon, just, I mean, same question to you. When you were little, was it just that you just caught fish? I feel like I always caught them. Yeah. But it was weird. It was like I feel like I was just, that's what I was born to do. Like I was, i started out fishing there's pictures of me where like i've got

cheerios on my little uh gosh i can't even think what it's called we used to sit a baby in something and they're who's true high chair there we go so like the high chair with the little tray and i got cheerios all over it and i'm holding a fishing rod, like little bleach blonde toe head. And I'm holding a fishing rod. Like I couldn't even walk at that time. And so it was almost like there was just always something that made me tick when it came to fishing. And, uh, as far as like, was I better than kids when I was younger, I didn't really fish with anyone my age. Like there wasn't, it wasn't a thing then like it is now. A lot of, uh, yeah, Brandon and I's story are, uh, uh, very similar, even on the other side of the country, but we always had like an older guy or a father figure that took

you and like, instead of hanging out with your mates as much of your age, you sort of separate a bit from that and were more like inclined to go with the old guy i was going to show you and teach yourself because you're like you knew he knew more than you and you wanted to learn what he knew yeah and so you're always i was always sitting in the back of someone's truck if they were going fishing is there a seat no i'll climb in there and i'm in there like i wanted to learn what they knew and then just progress from there yeah we grew up uh around our lakes where we lived we definitely definitely grew up fishing with friends, but mostly I like fish with old men. Yeah. Cause my dad was an old man.

Yeah. He had me when he was old, hung out with old guys. Yep. And these guys, I like grew up around old guys that were retired. Yeah. So all they did was fish. And that was kind of my main sort of exposure to it. Yeah.

And it was people who fished a lot. You know. You sort of progress, like you progress to from bait fishing off the bank, you meet the older guy that fishes from the bank with bait and you do that. And then that's great. And then you meet another guy that like showed you your first lure and how to cast it, or you'd go with him and they would troll and like,

that was really cool. And yeah, that's what, that's generally what we meant. I'm still going off the bait guy. That's how the bass And yeah, that's what- You're a straight bait. That's generally what we meant. I'm still going off the bait guy. That's how the bass fishing starts is because you get them to eat live bait and everything's cool. And then when a fish follows that, you trick a fish to not eat the live bait.

You trick them to eat that bait. It's something different. And that's when most kids' brains are like, it switches. And then all you want to do is like, look at the different lures, colors, depths, why are they doing that? And that's kind of the addiction a lot of us get, I think. That's what that attraction is to cast and retrieve and lure fishing. It's a much more, it's a different connection, I think. Here's my next question.

Brandon, we covered you on the show before. I've heard it. I've heard my name come up Tell the story Are you comfortable talking about the story? Mississippi River Oh yeah We got that rule changed

If I remember right we covered it from a sympathetic lens Did we cover it sympathetically? You guys did a good job on it Sympathetically meaning Totally could picture something like that happening. 100%. Yeah, tell that story. 100%.

So this was my third year on tour. I had won one Elite Series event in 2012. 2013 came around, and I was having a super tough year. I was way down in the points, wasn't going to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic, which is our championship. And at that time, they had a rule where it was win and you're in. So if you won an Elite Series event, you got a berth into the Classic.

And I was so far down in the points, it was late in the year, my only opportunity to make the championship was to win an event. Like an outright win. Like have to win first, 100 grand, second place, doesn't cut it. And I just, I had a week where I had, well, let me take a step back. The year before we fished on the same body of water, I had figured out a pattern. Mother nature brought a bunch of rain, flooded the Mississippi River.

That pattern went away. I didn't adjust in pattern. Mother Nature brought a bunch of rain, flooded the Mississippi River. That pattern went away. I didn't adjust in time. 2013 rolls in. But now I'm kind of titillated by that. Walk me through that. A bunch of floods. What does that mean?

So that's the biggest difference, I think, in what we do and being able to do well consistently is adapting to mother nature. Right. So like every other sport goes and plays on some sort of field that's like manicured or, you know, it's like you're in this controlled environment. Yeah. Like bowlers. Yeah.

We're fishing. Nothing changes. We're fishing in a, we're fishing against another living creature that lives their life based on a different set of rules than what we live ours on. Yeah. Right. Like we're very judged by a calendar and a time clock and a 24 hour day when they're really just based on sunrise, sunset, and whatever mother nature throws at them. You can't say. It's like a football if the football was alive. Exactly.

It's a golf course that the hole changes after you've hit the ball. You hit it. That's how I explain it. Yeah. And so, like, that changes, right? So you get a bunch of rain. The Mississippi River, it's narrow up on those upper pools. It's not like it is down toward new Orleans. And so a bunch of rain rises that water. Okay. And I was catching these fish

out in the main river, which is where all that current pushes. Well, when you are, so bass are very oftentimes ambush feeders. So they want to set up in a place and ambush the prey as it comes by, right? So they're opportunistic. So they'll sit in current seams and behind these current breaks and things like that. Well, when you, it's similar to a water hose. So people would think that you actually get more current when you get more influx of water. But it's like, if you stick your thumb on the hose, you can spray it further, even though there's less amount of water coming through the end of the hose, right?

It's creating more pressure. And so at a certain level in the river, those fish have to set up in places, but when it comes up high, it blows over all those wing dams, blows out over those breaks, and then those fish can just roam. They can set up anywhere. That's a good point, man.

And so it's a lot harder to find that target. Yeah. They can just go and roam around. And so the water comes up, they roam around, you lose your target. And, you know, we only have eight hours in a day, so you have to be very efficient. 2013 rolls around.

I'm at the bottom of the pack, have to win one. This pattern starts to play out that I had found the year before. The weather holds out. And day one, my whole game plan was I was going to go catch three or four smallmouth. They were going to be bigger than the largemouth. They were going to be, you know, three to four pounders. And then I would go- Yep. This is the plan. And then I'm going to go largemouth fishing, three to four pounders. And then I would go. Yep. This is the plan. And then I'm going to go largemouth fishing.

But the rule at that time was that in Minnesota. Because you have to have some of each? No. No, just largemouth are much more common in that part of the Mississippi River. Why not go catch five big smallmouth? Because it was nearly, it was harder. Hard to do. Like it was hard to catch five smallmouth because it was nearly it was harder like it was hard to catch five smallmouth and so

like in practice it was a very short window the smallmouth would feed very early i would catch them early but i didn't feel like i could catch five obviously if you wouldn't fill out the bag obviously if you catch five great at some point you got to bail and go fill up yeah but i'm doing the numbers in my head like okay i'm if I catch 14, 15 pounds a day, I've got a real legitimate shot to win. If I catch three or four smallmouth... But I still don't understand why target the smallmouth at all. Because they're bigger than the largemouth. I see.

You have the opportunity at more four to five pound smallmouth than you do largemouth. You can catch more two pound largemouth, but that's not going to get you paid. Because you're never going to hit 15 pounds. Exactly. Gotcha. But it's implausible that's not going to get you paid. Because you're never going to hit 15 pounds. Exactly. Gotcha.

But it's implausible that you're going to go catch five, five pound smallmouth. It's possible. It's just not probable. And you might have to, at some point, haul ass over, really quickly catch the ones you know you'll catch. Bingo. So my game plan was catch them early. You, Chester, might want to bring me on that wall at tournament just so I can do this kind

of calculation for you, man. Let's be on the back of the boat, right, and stuff down the Calgary Lane for you. I think you should switch to carp, Seth. Yeah. You need a troll at 1.3, not 1.2. And the unique thing about the Mississippi River was it's a bordering water between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Yeah. was it's a bordering water between wisconsin and minnesota you know minnesota law at that time was they took the most restrictive law of whichever state it was and so they would so say oh i'll

just lay it out so wisconsin said you're not allowed to coal once you put a fish in the live well because we keep all of our fish alive. We weigh them in alive, we release them alive back in the body of water. If it's dead, it doesn't do good. You get penalized for it. Okay, you do. And you're not allowed to cull a dead one. So if one dies, if you don't take care of them in your live well, you're stuck with him.

You kill a one pounder and you catch a four pounder, you can't throw out the one pounder. What if you eat them well that's not allowed not at the tournament and so then so with wisconsin saying this is where it gets really confusing i didn't even understand this part of it yeah so what you're getting into now i didn't know wisconsin said you're not allowed to cola bass once it. Yeah. So what you're getting into now, I didn't know. Wisconsin said you're not allowed to cull a bass.

Once it goes in your live well, you're done. In Wisconsin waters. Yes. And that was a rule that was not intended to impact bass fishermen. It came from snagging salmon in the rivers. And when the salmon would go up to spawn, guys would snag them. And it was a deal to protect that fishery. But it was one of those things where, you know, it was just kind of a blanket statement.

Like you were talking about earlier with, you know, putting it into the constitution of the right to hunt and fish. Like you really need to lay it out. And that wasn't. So we had to play by that rules. That would be in Minnesota. You could, Cole call but because it was bordering waters they take the wisconsin law here's where it gets really confusing we got permits from the state of wisconsin to allow our tournament to call but because it was a state law

then you couldn't call in Minnesota. That's what happened? Yes. So. See, I was, I thought, I was being sympathetic when I just thought it was that you were like,

you crossed like a sort of hard to interpret state line. I haven't even got there yet. That part's coming. But I had to lay the ground rules

so everyone understood like, like why Minnesota couldn't call Wisconsin. Yeah. We call this making gravy. That's confusing enough. The story started to make gravy. Yeah. ground rules so everyone understood like like why minnesota no i'm going to go wisconsin yeah we call this making gravy that's that's confusing enough right yeah that's confusing enough in itself so part of my game plan one of my best areas is in what i know is minnesota right it's on the minnesota side of the river I'm fishing the main river channel. One of my other best areas is in what I think is Wisconsin.

The reason I think that is because pretty much every river I've ever been on in the entire lower 48, the main river channel is what dictates a boundary between, you know, a County line or a state line or whatever that may be. That holds true with the Mississippi river for probably 95% of it. There happened to be this one section where it comes out of, uh, pool seven and it runs down the main river channel for about say say, a mile, mile and a half. And then it cuts across this island, runs down a back channel for another mile, and then back out to the main river channel for hundreds of miles. Because of some, like, arcane dispute about something 150 years ago or whatever?

It's crossed an island that who knows they lost back in some war between Minnesota, Wisconsin. I don't know. But, like, it just goes back, goes behind a back channel. We lost so many during the war. Islands, that is. What had happened is the second day. So day one, I catch them. I'm leading.

Great, right? Right in position where I need to be to make the championship and you do the whole small mouth large mouth yep i go i catch four small mouth bingo awesome i go catch another large mouth i've got 18 and a half pounds i'm how how okay but how much time like when did you bail on the small mouth plant 11 11 o'clock. And you had how long to fish? I think that day I had till 2.30, 3 o'clock. So then I went. Why didn't you just catch another big small mouth?

Because they would, their feeding window was super early. So during our practice time, I figured out that this was happening. I'm with you now. I'm with you. So day two rolls around. Giant storm rolls in. There's only really one thing that will delay our events, and that's a thunderstorm tornado type activity.

That's what we end up with day two. Delays it. So in my mind, I'm freaking out, right? I'm leading the event that I need to make our championship. My bite is in the morning. You're missing your window. And now I'm missing my window of opportunity. Yeah.

What saved me is that, right, fast. When they delay, they just, like, they postpone the start. Yes. But it'll roll as long. Yeah, as long as the. No, it'll be the same finish at the end of the day. So you just lose time. So you lose time.

Oh, you lose. Okay, I got you. Yeah, we still end at the same time. So you're just losing part of your eight hours. You're always fishing daylight hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And so I'm,

you know, obviously worried about this. Good news is bass don't live on a time clock, right? They just go on mother nature. Cloud cover keeps the light lower, which then helped those small mouth feed longer throughout the day. So by the time I got to my spot,

they're biting good. I start in what I think is Wisconsin. I lose a bunch, shake it off, move to Minnesota. Like coming on button down. Yep. Yeah. I moved to Minnesota and I catch four and I'm like, or no, I caught five. I had five in Minnesota. Like, well, it doesn't do me any good to fish here any longer i'll go back to wisconsin catch one more and i'll have a really good bag because i'd caught some big smallmouth and i go back to wisconsin or what i thought was wisconsin catch one call one more time and then i go largemouth fishing and i don't call the rest of the day. And so I caught six fish that day where I had cold that fish where I thought was Wisconsin

was a hundred feet south of where that bordering line cuts into the back channel. A hundred feet. A hundred feet. A hundred feet cost me a hundred grand. And the classic. That's some math I can do, Phil.

I ended up winning the next one. That's $1,000 per foot. You can do that math quick. 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

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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. And then it got reported everywhere. Yeah. So I don't know who or what turned me in, but I got a call that night at about 10 o'clock at night

asking if I had fished this area. And I'm like yeah I did and like did you call here I'm like is this after they already handed you the check no this is day two so four days sorry okay so I'm two days in I've got a six pound lead and not very often is it easy but that was one of those weeks where just everything seemed like it was like a six pound lead yeah it's huge yeah on that river it's huge. Like you pretty much got it. And I felt like all I had to do was just get to my spot, cast, and reel them in. Very rarely is it that easy.

Uh-huh. But it was just one of those weeks, everything lined up. And they call me and, you know, ask, hey, did you fish here? Yep. Did you coal here? Yep. Like you got Google Maps? I'm like, yep.

Like pull it up. Like see that red line? Who's there? The organization. So tournament director, we have a tournament director and I'm talking to them and instantly my heart sinks. Cause I know when I look at that line, exactly what it is. And so it was really, it was my own fault, right? It was my fault of not looking specifically at where that bordering water was. I took the assumption that the main river channel was the boundary. And if I was on the Wisconsin side of the main river channel, I was legal, but I didn't know or realize there was that cut through. Was their attitude,

um, the, they, they called you, was their attitude the they that called you? Was their attitude, man, I know this is harsh, but if we don't have rules, the whole world falls apart? 100%. That was their attitude? Yeah. I knew, like, obviously from my standpoint, I was, what was I at that time? Like a 25-year-old kid.

That's how old you were? Yeah. Yeah. And so I had to, it would have been 25 or 26. And so I had to make a decision of how I was going to approach it. Right. And at the end of the day, it was my own fault. Like, obviously I didn't agree with it.

Right. Because here's what bothered me the most if i would have forgot to call right if i would have forgot to release my smallest one that was alive put the bigger one in and came to weigh-ins with six fish i would have only gotten a two pound penalty because that's what our penalty is and our rules if you bring six fish to the live to the weigh-in but instead because i thought i was doing the right thing and throwing one back i got that day's weight disqualified all the way just yeah that day which dropped me down to 73rd because i was only had one day's weight and didn't make the next day. Were you still beating some guys? I did off one day's weight, yeah. My one day weight did beat a couple guys two days.

And so I just jokingly said, oh, I guess I'll just have to go win the next one. And then I actually did. So you thought in your head like, okay, I could do two things here. I could start like breaking stuff and having a fit and kind of like do what feels natural.

Yep. And a slight few moments of that. Or I could just play the long game and pursue a career. Yeah. Which actually ended up being probably one of the best decisions in my career. Yeah. But, I mean, I learned from it, right? I bet you did.

You guarantee if we go into bordering waters now, I am staring at every boundary. I can't remember if we talked about this when we were talking about that, but I used to fish a stretch of the Delaware River, which flowed between New York and Pennsylvania. And they did a really convenient thing there where they came together and made a reg for the river. Yeah. Like a joint regulation. Yep. A lot of places are like that. Yeah. Like a joint regulation. Yep. A lot of places are like that. Yeah.

So it's like, you didn't need to kind of like, I don't know, am I like halfway or not halfway or what? If you catch a fish in the middle of the river, you don't got to like wonder what to do about it, right? Yeah, because they're not going to use their fins or their tail to swim back across the river. Yeah, like if you like, while you're fighting him, he kind of goes over to, you know, Pennsylvania for a minute. Then what do you do? The rule makes no sense. And I mean, gladly, I mean, for everyone, it worked out better that it happened to me because the rule ended up getting changed because it got so much publicity around it that it actually is now no longer rule.

So do you feel like that was, you know, like just life career wise? It was a win. Was it really? Yeah. Yeah. Life and career wise, win was it really yeah yeah life and career wise it was a win huh just because you handled it with honor yeah i could have i definitely could have just sunk my own ship dude i could definitely see like breaking rods oh yeah yeah and it took a lot to not go down that route but i knew that there was that was not the right option or the other way that's not good is to really talk about uh what i've seen people do too is to really start talking about like how stupid the rule is how stupid the person is yeah and i mean you have

to own your own mistakes yeah right and when it came down to it and you pull everything away, it was my own mistake. And then later you can be like, you know, it was my own mistake. Yeah. However. Yeah. Yeah. The rule. Yeah.

The rule nobody agreed with. Yeah. But, I mean. You were 25 years old. Yeah. 25 or 26. Dude, I was totally irrational when I was 25. I was 23 when I qualified.

Huh. Yeah. qualified. Huh. Yeah. Dang. Huh. How many more derbies did you have left in that season? Two. So you're like, there's still a chance. Yeah.

Yeah, there's still a chance. And you made it happen. Yeah, I managed to win the next one. Running almost 1,000 miles in four days. Are you serious? and you're i ran like yeah almost almost 900 miles in four days i burned a thousand dollars in fuel in four days in my boat jeez the hell were you going i ran all the way from waddington new york all the way out into lake ontario past the mouth like 20 miles 20 plus miles a long ways i've how fast you guys run between

spots uh like all conditions being good like say glass calm no wind you're gonna average like around 70 miles an hour jeez because i mean time right you've got eight hours the more casts you make the more opportunities you have so wasting time while you're running is you know costing you more casts but like walk through the calculation in your head right like like what's too much right uh it depends on 250 horsepower limit so there's only a certain speed you can get with that but some guys can run like 80 miles an hour and the difference between 70 and 80 is massive like nine but i mean it's a huge gamble if you say i'm gonna blow you have eight hours yep so you're like i'm gonna the fishing's so good that it warrants i'm gonna lose two hours

of fishing time yeah just like you got so when you're motoring you're probably like in your head like you idiot you idiot yeah turn around it comes down to your practice. In that event, I had two phenomenal days of practice out in the lake and figured I could catch 20 pounds plus in 45 minutes. And so if I had at least 45 minutes out of an eight-hour day, I would make the run if the weather permitted. And out of 32 hours, I fished for 10. So you get real granular about pounds per whatever. Yeah. And I, I mean, I did, I bought this St. Lawrence Seaway book that I don't know how many hundreds of pages it is,

but I scrolled through that finding every gas stop, every route that I could run calculating minutes because I knew that every minute was going to count in that event. I figured out which gas stocks you had to pay cash, which gas stock you could pay with a card because it was going to be quicker if I could pay with a card. I mean, all of that was calculations by minutes. Because one cast can change your whole life in this sport, and it has done. See?

Yeah, you hear about the walleye guys doing that. They'll run like 120 miles for sure stop and get gas fish for an hour get like some you know a couple big bites run back and win just because they ran all the way there caught a couple 30 inchesinchers or whatever. It's professional gambling, pretty much. Man. Honestly, I have visions of a dude who just goes out on the end of a dock and catches a bunch of fatties, but he's just not going to do that every day.

Slightly different. Do people bet on you? Is there also fantasy? They started it. It's actually pretty big. So we signed a deal with Fox Sports. So we were live on Fox Sports. Yeah.

And they started, like, messing around with some of the betting, like Fox Sports betting. And I don't think they've gotten it to the point where they're betting on specific anglers. What are they betting? We have fantasy fishing where you, like, create a fishing team of your guys, but they're betting on, like weight and like of a single fish or like the biggest bag or winning weight, things like that.

We haven't got to the like betting on an individual yet. Yeah, you want to be like Pete Rose, man. What about a Calcutta? Is that legal and does that happen? We don't have it in our events. But do you guys just do it on a sly? Like little back rooms? beds no i uh i mean you'll have like you have like 20 you have like 20 beds yeah i went to a shark tournament one time as i went there as a reporter i went to shark tournament and the the tournament had its money but it was nowhere near the money yeah the

calcutta the calcutta was those guys no one gave a shit about the actual tournament they were there for the side yet those guys operate at a different level like the blue water like blue water their boats and the dollar they're putting our entry fees in fuel into their boat they have a that's probably underestimating it yeah you're right for the perch derby up at Canyon Ferry that we're doing this, we're doing that in, when is it, Chad? January? January, yep.

Yeah, there's a Calcutta for that. There is. Yep. Is that ice? Yeah, ice fish. It's weird that you wouldn't have invited me along. Well, we're going to try, we're going to try,

what's fun about something that, you know, we're going to get a, we're going to try to get a bunch of teams to go up and do it this year. Oh, a bunch of teams hadn't mentioned it to me, huh? Well, you're going to be, yeah. You heard about this, Hayden? Ken this year. Oh, a bunch of teams hadn't mentioned it to me, huh? Well, you're going to be. You heard about this, Hayden? Nope.

Chet and I just talked about it the other night. I've got a question. I've got a question for these guys. What you got? Are you pretty drunk now, Chester? I can't even see you. Chester's so drunk you can't see. We can see you.

Yeah. So it's like five days before Seth and I head out on this walleye tournament next summer. Yeah. What is the biggest advice that you could give to us, you know, just for tournament fishing? Even though it's a walleye tournament, it's still, you know, ours. We're chasing fish. We're looking for fish. Well, Chester,

let me tell you, I'd probably start. Get a big bucket of leeches. You'll probably win. Yeah, you'd be really solid. You can do that in walleye tournaments. Yep.

The, uh, open mind is the big one and not listening to the doc talk, right? Not listening to what all the other guys are saying. Doc talk. Like, oh, this is what you should be doing.

I love that. The way I explain it to people is- You try to ignore doc talk. 100%. Got it. Because here's the thing. Nobody knows what's happening that week. Say, when's your tournament?

January what? Well, this is- Or the walleye tournament, right? Give me a date. May is the first one. May. Okay. So we say May 2022.

The thing that I can guarantee is that nobody in this world has ever fished for walleye May 2022. So nobody knows what is going to happen on that body of water, whatever your date is in May of 2022. So you have to fish the conditions. You have to have an open mind and not listen to that doc talk of like, oh, this is what you have to do on this body of water. Because once again, they don't live by a calendar and a time clock. We had a guy that does this very, very hard bighorn sheep hunt. Yeah. And he was saying a similar thing. he says you can't hunt last year's

like in this area you can't hunt last year's sheep yep if you find a ram somewhere don't he's like that's the one place i won't go look yeah it's like like we were talking seth like with the bison migration yeah like you have this set timeframe that you can hunt. If the weather permits, they move out and they migrate. And if they don't, then you don't have the opportunity. Yeah. Just being able to get to elk hunt the last

couple of years with Brandon and up here, it's like elk hunting is identical to fishing. Once I figured out with the mapping and stuff, I was like, this is like fishing. And so that's why some anglers are good. Like looking at the maps, the contours, where they would see it, trying, you're trying to figure out a pattern and that's what we're doing. We're like, what are the fish doing?

What's the bait doing? Cause it's all about food and temperature. And that's what the elk are doing. Like whether it's too much snow, not enough, whether they can stay there, enough food, what concentrates them, like the currents. And so looking at the um contours you're like there's a good bench and that's what bass like that would be a good spot and then you would come in on at this angle it's identical it's like fun because it's almost like you can

figure it out the same both ways very similar but what if the doc talk winds up being reflecting your own thinking all right then do then you change course because that's what everybody's going to do and you better figure out something different? You don't. You just try and block it out. That's the biggest thing. So do you block out other boats? Yeah, you try to as much as you can.

We have a good example of some dock talk from this fall. In early September, we went out to Fort Peck to do some walleye fishing. And Chet called the guy at the marina and was like Peck for, do some walleye fishing and, uh, Chet called the guy at the marina and was like, hey, what's the, what's the walleye report? The guy's like, walleye fishing's done for the year. It's just done.

They all died. They'll be back next year. They went to Florida. Yeah, it's like, well, that's kind of weird. Done for the year. Guess we ain't fishing after all, Chester. Yeah, so, uh, we get out there and we're watching all the big walleye boats like make big runs to the west. Yeah. And the one day we made it, we weren't catching

them. The one day we were like, screw it. We'll just, we didn't want to run real far because, you know, like it gets expensive. Yeah. We're not, you know, tournament anglers and making money and shit. So it's like, we're, we're, you know, paying for our gas and stuff.

And one day we're like, screw it. So we just ran like 13 miles and caught like a couple of dinkers. But the big bass or the big walleye boats are still like blowing past us going way further. Well, the last day of the trip, we found an oil leak on chet's motor so we're like oh shit we can't like make a big run because we don't want to blow the motor up we didn't really know what was going on um so we end up fishing in the bay where the marine is and found the 30 inchers and we're like catching giant fish like yeah within eyesight of where we put in, where the guy said the walleye fishing is done for the year.

And everyone else is running away from them. Yep. There was no one else fishing there. Because they were fishing last year. Yeah. One of the toughest things for guys is guides and locals on lakes that our tournaments come to. They either can blow it away, but it's usually pretty tough on them because if you're a guide, you just know too much.

They have too many spots, too much knowledge. And then they try and compact it into an eight hour and it goes, you know, when it, when it doesn't work out, they're like, oh, I can catch them here, here. And next minute they're running around like crazy. Yeah. And then, and then you're, and then you can fish too much and you fish those holes. You've been a guide. And then the guy that just shows up to a lake, never been there before, just finds this way different pattern than that guy that lived there his whole life. It's like, damn, I never even knew that was there. That's got to be so illuminating.

It's for a recreational dude who fishes a lake to be able to, a tournament comes to the lake. Yeah. And be able to see what do people do who are looking at this, who are like sort of trained from a more national perspective. Yeah. Like what do people do that are looking at this without all the sort of like fishing my certain spots and here's what I know works because this is what my daddy did.

Yeah. That'd be interesting to see. That's what they say to us all the time, every place that we go to. Like we get the big crowds and all the people and they all say, oh, you're coming to our lake. I can't wait to see what you guys do and figure out. That's why they're watching. And the biggest change of what Brandon was saying before is live. That's been one of the biggest changes in our whole sport

is we have, it's live now. Every bit of footage from when Blast Off starts to the end is live either on the website or on Fox Sports. And so in the past, they had to film it, edit all the footage and make this little 30-minute show and put it on one of the channels and now it's eight hours streamed live. You see every cast of all the top five to 10 anglers. And like, it's addicting.

Like even for me, as soon as you're cut from the tournament, the next morning you're watching what that guy, yeah, you're like, oh my God, I miss. And so all the locals and then people from all over the world can watch it now and they're watching techniques, but the locals love seeing like, that was my spot he found or you know seeing how different we approach the lake especially when we come to a new body of

water that they haven't seen as fish before and that doesn't turn into an issue when someone can watch you and go oh i see you know where he's at so i'll just go and just watch him from my boat 20 feet away big problem that's what that's the other thing i don't get like when you were talking about the the tournament you did where you got your little rhythm down. Yeah. Okay. I can't even remember what one, but you were just mentioning you sort of had a plan

and it was work and you were going to keep doing it. Now, why isn't the guys that had a shitty first day, why don't they go and just be like, I'm just going to go exactly where he goes and just mirror what he's doing? It happens. You can do that. There's nothing to goes and just mirror what he's doing. It happens. You can do that. There's nothing to protect you from that.

There's an unwritten rule. It's changing now. So in the past, you could go back, say you had a bad day, you would go and you would get on the website, you'd look at who was leading, and you could read the article of the pattern and you could see a couple of fishing clips. And now we can't get, as soon as the schedule's out,

so our schedule comes out, nine tournaments, you can't talk to a single other human except for who's in that tournament about any of those locations. And then, so only you can fish it. You can't fish with anyone on it. You can't talk to anyone about it. Oh, I don't understand. There's no more scouts.

Yeah, no more. You can only scout yourself. Like it's only what you can do policing that lie detector test truth detector test right yeah and then and then during shitting me they put you on a polygraph yeah and then uh and then during the tournament you can't look at the website you can't look at social media like because it's very easy like you could just in just, in the past, I would look, oh, he's frog fishing in that mat. I'm going to do, I'll try that tomorrow if he had a bad day. When now, when you don't catch him, you're like, what? I've got to figure something out tomorrow.

So you guys are like jurors in like a high profile trial, man. Like, they try to like limit you. And you guys, so then at the end of the day, you can't talk to each other. Me and Carl can. As long as it's someone in the event. Oh, in the event. In the event, you can. I see. talk to each other. Me and Carl can. As long as it's someone in the event. Oh, in the event. In the event you can, yeah.

But like you can't call a guide or local shop or you know, you can't go fishing with someone else. Who administers the polygraph?

The organization. They hire a guy that like does it. And you come into a room and he's got like very specific questions. Fully straps you up. Yeah, and it's,

you know. That's every derby. Yeah. Give me an example. Just like. Random. Like give me an example of a question or two they would ask you. Just like, did you receive information on this tournament outside of off limits?

Or did you fish, compete, did you fish with an angler on this body of water in off limits? Just a few. Pretty, pretty simple. But what they're trying to do is like, and I like it. I want to level the playing field. Like in the past, like when I, in 2015, I fished a lake like where Rick Lund had fished his whole life or whatever. But I was on there. I never had a waypoint. Just, I'm just putting my boat on the water and it's how many thousand, hundreds of thousands, 200,000 acre lake.

And some anglers have 5,000 waypoints, have talked to like the best guides, the guy that wins every local weekend tournament. Like they've just, they don't even need to practice. And here I am two and a half days on this lake, like I've got to try and figure out how to catch a bass. That frustrated me because we kept going back to the same bodies of water where I'm like, I can never get that amount of knowledge that that guy has in, even if I live for the next 10 years on this lake, I wouldn't get his amount of knowledge. So now they've cut it all down to

where trying to diversify the field, the schedule, which is good new lakes that they haven't heard about. And then, um, and then limiting all of that knowledge. So it's up to you. It's up to you if you want to go and put time on that lake and figure it out. And then what I want it to be is just two and a half days, put on it, whoever can figure it, that lake out in two and a half days, then the tournament starts. And to me, that's the number one angler that can do that. Not who can get as much information and way points and spots from someone else. That's how it sort of, and that's the way it's going. I got two things. I got two questions and these both, like I got

two things I want to do that involve you guys' time. Okay. Thing one. I want to make a video. This will be a lot of fun. We go to my mom's lake where I grew up. 66 acre lake. She still lives there. I was born there.

We go bass fish that lake. Yes or no? I'm all in. We're going to make a video. Here's my question. We're going to make a show about it. Are we allowed to do it out of our boats? Like with our technology?

Or do we have to do it out of like DOS boat? No, no, no. I don't want any of that garbage. I want to go there. I want to go there and like, I want to see, I want to be like, catch a bunch of fish out of this lake. We will find out what's in there. I'll tell you what I would do.

I go, at the end of my mind, it's dark. And I get a nightcrawler. Yeah. No, what works? Well, we go and here's how we start. You get a piece of plywood and you get a little rock and then a brick. Okay. And you put the rock down.

Then you put the piece of plywood on the rock in about four inches of water. Okay. So it's on an angle. Yeah. And then you put a brick on it so it doesn't float away. And the next day you lift the plywood up and catch a horn-nosed chub. You take that horn-nosed chub and hook them through the lips and throw him out by my ma's raft on a bobber. Deadly.

You slay. So I'll show you how I would go about it. And then we'll – That'd be awesome. Yeah. Then I want to see you guys take all that fancy shit and catch a bunch of bass. That'd be cool. Dude, we would have a riot.

You'd be addicted to live technology. Yeah. The next thing I want to do is this. Next time we do a lot – we haven't done live shows in a long time. Not live bait. There's live bait and there's live technology. Yeah. The next thing I want to do is this. Next time we do a lot, we haven't done live shows in a long time. Not live bait. There's live bait and there's live shows.

We stopped doing live shows at COVID. Yeah. I haven't even told Yanni about this, but I'm flirting with a live show very close by. An in-state live show.

Okay. At a theater. I want to have where we come and do a thing where I want to have people out in the audience have a big galvanized tub. Yep.

Okay? And start in whatever row, and someone holds the galvanized tub, and you got to land it, and it'll make a loud noise. Bang! And we'll put a microphone up against the tub. I like it.

And then they're going to pass it back a row. Bang! Okay. And see how far up the theater. Who gets to do the casting? These guys. Oh, okay. We'll have these guys just for that.

How far up the rows. Pretty soon we're in row 30. Yeah. Bang! Or you hit some guy in the head. I like it. I like you. Dude, that'd be a riot.

You're going to have to get a lot of waivers signed for that one. Well, I've been laying in bed at night thinking about this. I think we find something that casts good, but it's soft. Soft rub us in a bowl. It's going to have to have a lot of salt in it, so it's heavy. We'll figure it out.

What's the word? It's a litigious world out there. Meaning people are fixing to sue everybody. Litigious. Litigious? It, litigious? Thanks, Grant. It's that kind of world. We want to have it. So you guys got to keep your calendars open because I want to do these, fish my mom's lake.

What's the best time of year? Opening night. Start at midnight. Oh, gosh. It's one of those ones that has seasons. We start at midnight, opening night. Sometime in May, right? Can I tell you a story that I believe is true?

I believe this is true. My old man, he always tells this story. Yep. This story has one lie in it. My mom and dad bought the house I was born in. It was like 1971 or 1972. I know they bought it for $35,000. Did she actually have you at home or you were just saying that you were born at the nearby

hospital? No, I was born at the hospital. Okay. My dad was born at home, not that home. My dad always told everybody that his birth weight was 13 pounds, but my mom pointed out that he was weighed on like a kitchen scale, so no one knows what he weighed because they're never accurate. But no, I was born at the hospital brought home upon my birth to this.

A lot of my stuff is still in my bedroom. Now, uh, here's a story. That's like, uh, it's an apocryphal story. Cause no one knows if it actually happened or not.

Uh, my old man says he came out to look at the house. Considering buying the house as he tells it like he looks at it the realtor leaves and he's going to hang around a minute he claims that the neighbor had a rowboat out by the water's edge my old man claims that he got in that rowboat

and rowed over in of the what we call the orange brick house and caught a yeah write that down come on write this down it's still orange okay orange brick house it claims he caught a five pound largemouth which would be the biggest largemouth to ever come out of that lake in the history of mankind beat five largemouth and he claims that that was why he bought the house did he have fishing tackle in the car he did i believe yes i believe every part of it except i i think he weighed the bass on the same scale that he was waiting which starts at like three pounds So we need to figure out like what that ratio was that it was off. Yeah.

Like we're like, it's probably a three pound bass. He was probably a nine pound baby. Is it good bass fishing? Like bunch of two, three pounders. Yeah. Yeah.

That's cool. It's good. They're fun. I mean, good like that. Grass, rock. What kind of visibility are we talking about?

I mean, imagine a soup bowl. Okay. So it works like this. What kind of visibility are we talking about? Imagine a soup bowl. Ooh. Okay. So it works like this. You have reeds along the shoreline, except for where people who are like anti-nature poison all the weeds, and then they go buy sand and dump the sand on the beach.

Just like pea soup. So you have that, or you have the natural shoreline would be like woody debris and reeds. Okay. have that or you have the natural shoreline would be like woody debris and reeds okay then you have sand with a very thin layer of like organic matter laying on it yeah muck and that goes out to four or five feet of water then you have seaweed we used to have milfoil but they got the milfoil under control now it's the native weed and i can't remember the name of it. Adrilla probably. That runs out over the drop-off.

The drop-off is where it goes from like six feet, pretty steep pitch down to 12, 13 feet. And then the drop-off goes gradual and it's anywhere in the middle from 13 to 14 feet to get over by buckskin bend where you might get about 18, where you might get about 18 feet of water. Okay. What's the clarity? Like, is it clear? You can see it pretty good.

At, when I, uh, see, I'm going to reveal, uh, some law breaking. When I was 10, I took possession of a Hawaiian, uh, of a three prong and early season was very good for the three prong yeah for bluegills i was a little kid yeah and then later in the summer you really couldn't see good enough to three prong yeah okay more if you can stir a lot of algae and you get stirred up yeah and it's natural lakes and here and all that debris and you generally like generally do bass. You see guys like you guys show up

and you guys are all flicking off the docks, which is cool. But the locals who really know how to pound it, they're working the edge of the weed bed. Depends on the time of year. But guys like you show up who watch too much bass TV,

they're flicking docks. It's not a big lake. You can swim across the lake. It's not that big of a deal. It's not like, oh my God, Bob swam the lake. They'd be like, oh, Bob swam across the lake.

Can I squeeze in some fill-in questions? Because I think we're running out of time here. I'm done, dude. You're done? That was it. I got out of this what I wanted.

Chester, you got any? Seth? Oh, I was just going to say, Brandon and Carl, if you guys have any fishing etiquette stuff that's like, ooh, I need to share that, send it to me or Seth. Oh, Chester, why don't we just make a, can we make a note that we need a thing called cheticate at themeatier.com, and then people can just make a note that we need a thing called Chetakit at TheMeatEater.com,

and then people can just send Chetakit in? Sure. We've got to talk to Tressa and Byron. So Chetakit at TheMeatEater.com. I'd imagine you guys may have some stuff that you've been using down this year. Yeah, you don't need to email Chetakit. We can just straight to Chester. Straight to Chester.

Wait until he solders up. Tell me real quick, I know one of you guys just mentioned a second ago how many tournaments are in a year, how many you have to be in, and just kind of how that little deal works in a tight little package. Hit them with it. They like your accent way better. We try and fish as much as we can. It's like anything you get better, the more you fish, the more you compete, you just keep sort of getting on a roll.

But we have nine elite series events. So they're the 100% ones we're in. And then there's nine open events and we tend to jump in some of them. So how they fit in and usually we'll do at least three to six of those. And then there's like the US Open and there's the Bassmaster Classic. And then sometimes there's been the AOY Championship. So when you fish seven in a row. You're looking at like 12 to 15 generally.

Yeah, 15. Between February and September, it's crammed in. And you put it roughly a week into each tournament. Yeah, three days of practice, four days of the event if you do well. in September. It's crammed in. And you put it roughly a week into each tournament. Yeah. Three days of practice, four days of the event if you do well. So you're fishing a lot. Yeah. You're just going, going, going.

You're driving from Florida. Then the next event's in Tennessee. Next event's in New York. Another one, New York, Michigan, down to Texas. And we've gone out to California before. So you're almost a professional truck driver by the end of the year, you're putting sometimes 40, 50,000 miles on, you can do up to that. Yeah. And you know how I'm done asking questions? Well, I said I was done asking

questions. Can you ask them, um, are they able to get that bass boat over to my mom's house in Michigan? Yeah. I'll answer for them. They'll figure out a way. Yeah. Forget it. Can you guys quickly just break down a four-day tournament for our listeners? Like day one, how many people? Because there's like cuts and. Yep, for sure. Great question. So we start with 100, roughly 100.

And because each year it'll fluctuate a little. But 100 guys and full field first two days and it's a cumulative weight. So five fish per day, all alive day two, you know, five fish, that total weight of those 10 fish. Then those top 50 guys or half the field moves on to day three. Oh. And some guys get sent packing. Yep. Oh, yeah.

No money. So it pays. Zero. Pretty much essentially pays half the field. So you could have paid five grand and then you get nothing back if you didn't perform. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. And what you invested. Oh, that's when you're talking about, that's when you go home and start watching TV. Yeah. Watch what's going on. You miss the cut next two days. You're watching what you missed and trying to learn.

So say top 50, day three, five more fish, three day total, top 10 guys move on to day four. And then top four on Sunday. So it'll be Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So that water has gone from a hundred dudes flailing away at it to four dudes flailing away at it. Ten. Oh, ten is the lowest. The guy that comes very bad hosting today, man. And how does the

point system work? Isn't there like, you get so many points. Yeah, a hundred for first and then it just goes down one point from there. A hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven. And then those points go towards Angler of the Year. Exactly. So each tournament, you accumulate those points,

similar to NASCAR points race or something like that. So Angler of the Year is just points-based. Yep. Over the course of those nine regular season events. Got it. So it's not something like – People's choice. Or like the Heisman.

There's some level of subjectivity, right? No, it's an earned, competitive earned thing. The worst guy on the planet could win it. Not the worst fisherman. The worst individual. The worst human being. Like a horrible human being could theoretically be Angler of the Year. The person you won't drink a beer with, but he's really good at catching bass.

Could be Angler person you won't drink a beer with but he's really good at catching back among the anglers it's like angle of the year is like is definitely the most hard fought and title like guys and that's what brandon won in 2017 and so that you're basically the number one bass angle in the world at that stage and that gets you everything but the bass master classic is the sort of the pinnacle of the sport as far as it's from a spectator from a spectator's point and where the stadiums are full the crowd that's where sort of the dream and the thing comes from kids seeing that because the guys are driving in and their trucks and boats that the crowds are just massive and like this year alone what are they doing so they're watching the weigh-in yeah watching the weigh-in. But there's a big trade show before it.

So this year, almost 150,000 people walk through the doors over three days. And so that's a lot of people. It's like a big tackle show, 150,000 people, and then the stands are like packed. And they're watching the guys come in, weighing their fish. And then the winner at the end is winning $300,000, $500,000. But it's pretty cool looking from back. That's what gave me the dream of seeing America and seeing how you can basically make a living out of bass fishing over here.

There's no other. That's what everybody does. That's interesting. My brother-in-law, I think he's from Queensland too, and when you guys go to school over there, they must teach you when they spell out America, it ends in C-A-R. Oh, America. Yeah, with an R on the end. Yeah, when you guys say it.

You say it the same way. Yeah, there's a few things that we do. I forget what it is, but there's a rule why we do that. Like if there's a vowel past something, my wife's name's Kayla. But if I say it in a sentence, I say Kayla. And then if I say it another way, I say Kayla. But her dad actually figured out why we put R's at the end. There's a certain way we'll do it.

That's interesting. Because my sister's name is Mata. And when Joel says it, it's Mata. Yeah, I am. I'm like, no, man, it's Mata. There's interesting because my sister's name is Mata and when he Joel says it, it's Marer. I'm like, no, man. It's Mata. There's no R on the end. You're married. You got kids? No, we got one on the way. Are you married? Yep. How long have you been married?

Since June. We got married in June. That's great. We were together nearly 10 years, so nothing really changed. Yeah. Alright, I got sidetracked. There's 500 fish day one, approximately, right? You got sid really changed. Yeah. All right. I got sidetracked. There's 500 fish day one, approximately, right? You got sidetracked. Yeah.

Everybody wants to know, what's the release process like? Because they got caught from 200 miles away. Well, okay, that's an exaggeration. So what's crazy is... Yeah, do you bring them back home?

Well, there's a bunch of studies on that. A lot of the fish will travel back. I have no idea how they do it, but they will travel all the way back. Especially smallmouth. Think of like an elk migration route, right? But it's not his migration route.

You haul them over there in a boat. I know, but somehow they figure out how to go back. Got a home against it. It's like some of those mountain goats get trapped and transferred. And then they walk hundreds of miles. But the areas do get stocked. Like where the tournaments get run from are really good fishing areas for lots of people, especially when tournaments get run year after year after year.

There's a lot of fish getting put in that area. You got one day there's 500 bass. Yeah, it's getting loaded. So I'll like, I'll break down the process. I'll break it down. Like, so we have live wells that are fully oxygenated, cooled, everything like in our boats. So you put the fish in, keep them alive.

We have additives and everything that like, you know, will kill different bacterias and viruses that they have and keep them healthy. Then we bring them to the weigh-in. They go from our boat into these big tanks that are then temperature cooled and oxygenized. And we wait backstage with our fish in those, go to the stage, weigh them in, and then they go to a live release boat. So they have a giant pontoon boat that's built that they hauled every tournament that has these giant tanks that are big, giant live wells that then they put all the bass

in, they launch the boat, and then they go and disperse the fish out into the lake or the river. He eventually gets back. People are like, Where you been? Where you been, Jimmy? I have been on a trip. He's like, There must have been 14,000 people in the stadium.

You wouldn't believe it. I'm famous. I saw after the Classic this year was 98.4% survival. Yeah. And that was. That's great. Yeah, a lot of times we have 100%. That was 98.4% in Texas in June.

Yeah. When it's, you know, hundreds of degrees outside. Well, that's them going back into the water. And who knows what happens to them the next day. Yeah.

That's still not that bad. If you did that with trout, it wouldn't be like that. No way. You'd barely get them to the live well. That's why they're cool because they're hardy.

They're like, they're built for like that kind that they can handle it. Yeah, kind of. They kind of are, which which is weird like the way they can be held the way they can handle the stress and all of that but it's um you know i always try and think of like the i've always wanted to ask you like what you think about tournament fishing like catch and release like even just catch and release oh i got zero like there's. Oh, I got zero. Like there's what I like. Yeah.

There's like what I personally like to do. Yeah. And there's what other people do. Yeah. And that's one of those areas where I could care less what other people do. Yeah. Sorry.

Yeah. Could not care less what other people do. Yeah. When it comes to like letting fish go, that's great. Yeah. Just for me personally. Yeah. I like eating fish.

Yeah. But what about like, do you ever, is there a species or anything that you like to target to catch? And then it's like prestigious type fish that you would let go or catch one enough to eat and then continue to fish and catch them and let the rest go? Or would you be done and leave? We have a small property where we camp. Okay. So we just, we recently got it and it's just like a very small little parcel.

But we, my family, we just, it's easy for us to just like a very small little parcel but we my family we just it's easy for us to take our kids there for the weekend camping yep it happens to be in a like it's native cutthroat trout stream no retention of cutthroat trout yeah uh my kid but you're not legally not allowed to look that protected really in that stream, you can't kill cuts. My kid, like, he don't let anything go. Yeah. Weird. But he developed, like. Where'd he get that from?

He really, no, over the course of the summer, it was fun. We, like, would catch fish, and we had a thing where they caught the same fish that lives behind a beaver pond. So much that I had to say, no more catching that fish this summer. It was a very distinct, they caught that fish all the time. If they weren't catching it, they'd be over there feeding it grasshoppers.

Like throwing it in, it flows down, they eat it. And I eventually said, stop catching that fish. Go catch a different fish. It was fun to watch. They very quickly got used to it and they loved to go catch the fish. Yeah. And pinched barbs, dry flies only. Yeah.

No, I would wake up very excited to go explore around, catching cuts, let them go. Definitely doesn't bother me. Yeah. But when we sit down to eat dinner at night, I like to eat stuff we caught. Yeah. I'm not going to go catch things, let them go,

and then go buy some shit someone else caught. It just seems goofy to me. And I know a lot of guys that won't kill a fish, but when I've been to a restaurant with them, and the sons of bitches order fish. I'm like, why has that fish got to die? But not your fish. What's so unspecial about that fish?

Yeah. What's so unspecial about that fish? Yeah. Yeah. But like if the whole world stopped catching and keeping fish and they didn't like change my rules around, I would view it as a positive. Because I'd have more fish to catch. Yeah. Yeah. Neat. Yeah.

No condemnation. It's just we're lucky to live, live i guess in a country or a couple countries where you can catch fish and then just let them go freedom to let them go yeah like you don't need to eat them i i got a real quick question um there's a kid in this like 14 000 person arena watching you like hold up these bass and they see like all the trucks and all the boats and all the money and they go, well, shoot, that's what I want to do. I want to, I want to be that guy. If you were to give that kid some very realistic advice about, uh, how you might think that he might go about it and explain to him in no uncertain terms, the reality of what might happen should he pursue that,

what would you tell that kid? Your entire life and the direction it goes is made up of small decisions that you make daily. Every single day we have to make decisions. What time are you going to wake up? What are you going to make for breakfast? Your entire life is made up of decisions those decisions that you make will determine how successful you are and where you go so if there's a little kid and he decides that that's what you want to do those decisions that you make from that point moving forward will be the difference maker

in whether or not you achieve that dream because it it will never be handed to you. And so you have to be willing to sacrifice going out on a Friday night with your buddies because you have a tournament on Saturday. You know, those are those little things add up over time, right? Like not giving into that peer pressure of things of keeping that focus on that goal, no matter how long-term it is. But you achieve those by the small daily decisions and habits that you do. Yeah, be like, I'm going to be a – I'm going to work for the CIA. And tonight I'm going to drink and drive. Nope, not today.

But that's what you have to do. Would you be like encouraging of pursuing like that kind of lifestyle? So the way I explain it Because Hayden's not bad at catching a couple bass every now and then. I could be that kid.

I have a full beard, but I could be that kid. You say a kid with a full beard. The way I explain it is that you have to physically and mentally not be able to live without it. Yeah. Because it is a losing battle. So even Kevin Van Dam, Kalamazoo, Michigan, the winningest angler ever to fish has lost more than he's ever won in events. And so if you just love to do something and you get kicked in the teeth that much, you'll learn not to love it. And so you physically and mentally have to not be able to live without it to go at it at that level, right?

There's a difference between doing it recreationally, fishing local tournaments and doing it at the highest level. Yeah. You have to literally can't live without it. Otherwise the brick walls and setbacks will just be too much. You'll just, you'll, once it gets too hard, you'll stop and turn around. So that's been, that's been the only reason all of us, us two are sitting here is we just went through the storm a little bit further than what the rest were willing to do kind of thing. But it's a balance.

It's a little bit like a fighter's kid though. Like, you know, a fighter like fights and then he kind of doesn't want his kid to do it because he knows what it took to get through that. So, but I kind of, that, that's where the most difficult thing is, is like, you want to tell the realities, like what you said of what potentially could happen, but you don't want to deter a kid. And like, but also most of us got told that would be nothing. You know, I got told that I was going to be a stop go man if I kept fishing and by teachers

and people around you and like hundreds and hundreds of people your whole life. And that was my fuel. So kind of, you know, if they didn't tell me that and they kept telling me, I can just go fishing, maybe I would have just sort of gotten a bit soft on it. But because they were so hard on it, I was like, if I fail, they win. So I've got to go through this. Yeah. You've got to be at like at the intersection of passion and compulsion. It'd be hard. I don't know how to tell a kid not to. Sure, you want to tell them it's the greatest sport in the world.

I love it. I wouldn't have it any other way. It's given us so many opportunities. We're sitting here. We're traveling the country. We're fishing. Fishing my ma's lake. Fishing.

I don't know if he sees that. He can catch all his bass. It's the most unbelievable thing, but it's also the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life. And the most upsetting and gut-wrenching and sacrifice not seeing family. And like that disappointment of like, you know, I went, I went, you know, eight years here of not even coming close to anything, like just crawled up in a ball, like crying, like you're you're gonna lose everything like that's how bad it gets

and i've just gotten through that and out the other side of it in 2019 i won my first elite series event my whole life turned around it was just like man i was about to give up had a good time that night yeah it was good yeah so that and that's the one piece of career advice i've worked up is remarkably similar to brandon's career advice where and that's the one piece of career advice I've worked up is remarkably similar to Brandon's career advice where, and I didn't follow my own career advice, but, um, I would see people when I was in,

in school studying to be a writer, I would see people that had a plan B. Yeah. That's funny. You know, and the plan B was like inevitably and like invariably the plan B was like seductive. Cause it was so easy.

Yeah. Yeah. And really talented people, man. But they'd come out of the program and it's like that B was so freaking tempting and they would just do the B. Yeah. I got a funny story on that. Because you'd be like, ah, I could like spend years not making any money and like live in my brother's basement. Or I could just go to work for my family's car dealership you know and it wound up it was just too seductive

yeah my mom wanted me to go to college because she said you know you should probably have a plan b and i looked at it and i said why do i need a plan b if i don't plan on failing at plan a you know and i mean but that like i had that mentality from eight but that's what you have to have and it doesn't have to be fishing it can be anything yeah no i think it's generally i think our whole country would be in a better place if more people pursued what they were passionate about and didn't just go work a job to get a paycheck yeah because you're never gonna be happy that way i I had until I was 22, I was like going to be a professional fur trapper.

Failing that I would be a writer. And then I switched to like a plan writer, no B plan. And then like morphed them together. Did both of them. Like plan C was like, I'll win at both. Another thing that helps is, you mentioned your mom.

I thought you should go to college, but I always had the luxury where even when I didn't make any money for years, I had the luxury where I was like very celebrated in my family by my mom and dad. I thought it was just phenomenal. Yeah. There was never any of that like, you should get a real... They thought it was cool as shit. No. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, my parents were super supportive. I was like, I wanted you to be a lawyer. Yeah. I never had to deal with any of that. Yeah. The only reason I'm able to do what I do is because my mom taught me super early on to chase whatever you're passionate about. Yeah. Right?

Like, it was never like, you need to have a real job. She just, I think, understood, and I don't falter for it, but being a parent and saying, you live in North Idaho and you want to be a professional bass fisherman. She understood the realities. I was living in fantasy land. I didn't understand that. So I don't falter for it at all.

Like, do you see an IHOP around here? I mean, I get it. I get it. I got a good way to get out of here. Okay, Yanni's going to bring her home. Okay, last but not least. Bring her home, Yanni. Last but not least.

Bring her home. With all of this on the line, are you guys clinch or improved clinch, guys? Yeah, clinch or improved clinch or what? Neither. I know the answer is neither neither There's no way you guys Fucking fish those two knots As professional anglers I tie a polymer like 90% of the time

On everything except for One technique punching San Diego jam That's the knot San Diego jam knot I think that's the strongest knot i gotta look that one up san diego jam not i think that's the strongest knot that you can feel like san diego san diego jam yeah that's sometimes that sounds like a weed stream oh yeah you can picture just getting ripped on that too right chester what do you think about that san diego jam um i think that's great what's your go-to? Whatever they want to do.

What's your go-to now? I tie it to improve clinch, but I was just fly fishing, and that's just kind of what I did. I'm a uni man myself. You guys like the uni knot? I used to tie uni to uni to braid to floral. What do you do for braid to floral now? I tie a crazy Alberto because I've only got 10 fingers and 10 toes.

Carl ties a FG knot. Hold on. Tell me the knot for braid to uni that you like. I'm sorry, braid to floral. Braid to floral. I tie a crazy Alberto. There's a bunch of easy ones, but it's the hardest not to tie

because braid cuts into your leader, fluorocarbon. Any other way that you do it, when you put braid across a fluorocarbon, it's going to weaken the fluorocarbon and break, no matter which way you do it. And so years ago, the reason a lot of my success is because of that knot, because the knot I tie is FG knot, it doesn't break. In years past, when you tie uni to uni, it broke all the time on a hook set,

especially when bite, set the hook, it go bang and break break that's the weak spot fg knot is a hundred percent so it's like the only knot braid leader that's actually a hundred percent but yeah wait yeah it's a it's you know the slim beauty yeah slim beauty was always a good one that i used to tie until the fg but the fg is a flat it like plaits the braid and the fluorocarbon together and and there's no knot in it, so the fluorocarbon's dead straight, and the braid's plaited over the top of it and then grips into it. The FG. Goes through the guides real nice, too. Yeah, and then it's thin, so you can have like a 20-foot leader and cast it,

and it'll just go through your guise like nothing. I'm learning that thing now. That's nice. That's sweet. Once you get a hang on it. That might be the best reason right there. It's the deal. If we got to get, it's not a great's sweet. Once you get a hangover. That might be the best reason right there. It's the deal. If we got to get, it's not a great launch on my mom's lake.

If it comes down to it and we got to get your boat on a couple slings and drive it down and drop it in with a piece of heavy equipment, you don't care, right? I mean, I'm willing to do a lot. We'll get in the water. If it's a normal, like, if there's any kind of depth, we can put it in with our trucks. Like, we can put it in some rough spots.

Okay. It just depends how muddy it is, like, if we'll get bogged. But then you use the heavy equipment to pull it out. Here's my last question. Me and Yanni are going, we're going to become, we're going to try to become World Slam turkey holders.

Yeah. Well, that's not true because I've got a long ways to go after I get that bird. Oh, you do? Yeah. I thought you were there. No, I haven't killed a ghoul. Oh, I was going to say,

do you think me and Yanni should get matching World Slam turkey holder tattoos? But we'll ask you that next time you're on. Dude, I'm doing it, man. I told my wife, she don't like it one bit.

All right. Thanks, guys. This is great, man. I can't wait till we go fishing and then do our thing with the buckets. That'd be awesome. We appreciate being here. How do we find you guys online? Oh, yeah.

Just social handles is Carl Jocumson. Instagram, Facebook, website, YouTube, same name. Man, you make it easy. My website and my YouTube are BMP Fishing and then all my social handles

are Brandon Polonick that's P-A-L-A-N-I U-K Polonick yeah it's really confusing

definitely check him out on YouTube not a great episode great for me good stuff on YouTube what's that knot again? F-G knot you're not gonna like it

when you see it at a tie but once you get the hang of it, you'll just... Oh, yeah, but I like tying goofy knots. Yeah, you'll like it. I like it just for its own sake. You need all your toes and your fingers. It's the way you hold it. You've got to have the braid tight, and then you've got to plait it.

But once you get know how to... Just watch it on YouTube a couple of times, and you'll be good. The FG. Yeah. Dialed. I'm going to learn that knot, Seth. I'm going to beat you in that walleye tournament. All right, buddy. Let's do it. All right, guys. Thanks, going to beat you in that wall I turned on. All right, buddy.

Let's do it. All right, guys. Thanks, man. This is great. You guys should come back on again. Yeah. Thanks for having us. Thanks, guys.

I'm going to go eat some cheese curds. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and

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