The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 366: Big Conching by the Lobster Condo

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

Steven Rinella talks with Kimi Werner, Cameron Kirkconnell, Brandon Albury, Perrin James, and Corinne Schneider.   Topics discussed: Our Fucked Up Old Taxidermy Calendar is here!; the story of Cam saving his friend's life on MeatEater's Campfire Stories: Narrow Escapes & More Close Calls; the MeatEater office fish heist mystery and Steve's desire to hook colleagues up to a polygraph test; recalling scro injuries; putting the "white tailed deer" vs. "whitetails" terminology argument to bed; the life saving award you never want; hook and jook; spearing and fishing regulations in the Bahamas; on eating turtle; how Corinne got so seasick she turned green; how to construct a lobster condo; crazy big hogfish; living in holes; battling a big black grouper; Kimi's upcoming series on The MeatEater Network; the proper way to clean a conch; support the effort to bring solar energy to Chester and 'Flo's Conch Shack'; and more.   Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater Merch See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Presented by First Light, creating proven, versatile hunting apparel from merino base layers to technical outerwear for every hunt.

First Light, go farther, stay longer. Hey, everybody right off the top, you know that here at Meat Eater we take calendars real serious. Print calendars. And our second ever calendar is available now. So our I think they call it your freshman effort. Is that what you call it? Like your first album when you're a rock

band? Yeah, sounds right. Your sophomore album is your second one. No? i think it's debut and then stop so our debut calendar was uh up old deer stands and that was so much fun this year we're doing up old taxidermy we got a lot of it kind of went different this year you can't really mail a deer stand. No. In. No, especially the big permanent ones. Yeah. But this year, how many did you dig through, Seth? I think like 1,500 or so, maybe more. So you had 1,500 submissions.

Yeah. We got a lot out of there, but then we did something that I thought we should do the whole time. Yeah, we had people. But the suits kept trying to prevent me from doing it. Well, you. I kept being like, why don't we have the ones that were, it's a great specimen of fucked up old taxidermy. The photo's not that great.

Have them mail us the item. And people are like, you can't crate up all that. You can't crate up all that. Well, you have to. We're going to start crating it it all shipping crates of right you kind of like you kind of got your way though oh yeah and no it's great took a while and i had i made a compromise i'm okay i'm like okay if the word crate is so offensive we'll but we'll have stuff that fits in what would be called a box. So we had stuff boxed. And I was like, okay, I'll never say the word crate.

I didn't introduce the word crate anyways. Someone else introduced the word crate. One minute I'm like, we should have him send that stuff in. The next minute, oh, now they're going to crate the boxed. Some of our favorites. And Seth, like we have a little, we had a great beaver yeah the beaver was who's for whatever reason missing his hands he's fucked a whole taxidermy he's missing his hands and seth took him out and set him next to a beaver chewed tree and photographed him

we have like a mink in his natural habitat but if you look and he's like there's something not right with that mink yep under a bridge a bridge. Right where you catch them. Yep. It's a great calendar. Seth did the cover photo. What else? We had a squirrel. I set up in a tree and took a picture.

Just where you find them. Yep. Mm-hmm. Not sitting in some guy's yard. It's a bad squirrel. Fucked up old taxidermy in its place in nature. Yeah, some of them would be kind of hard to do, I think. It's our sophomore calendar.

As things go, a sophomore effort doesn't do as well as the debut. Like, no matter how many people watch Godfather 2, right? Ain't as much as they watch Godfather. I think this one will perform. Oh, it'll do good.

Yeah. It'll do good. I was just setting that up as a challenge for listeners to feel like they should go buy it to prove me wrong. That might not be effective. Maybe not. Maybe well. If you, but here's the thing. It's more relatable. More people in this world own fucked up old taxidermy than own a fucked up old deer stand.

Yeah. What I learned going through all those photos is there's a lot of fucked up old taxidermy in this world. Floating around out there. And just being in bars and whatnot, working on this project made me like recognize. Appreciate it more.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a little, I wrote a little intro and there's a little essay in there about the stuff, the material. So that's available now. As they point out in the description it covers all 12 months as calendars do covers all 12 months of the year all 365 days

we didn't you know a lot of your calendars they'll get to late december and they'll peter off but this one sticks it out to the bitter end sticks iticks it out to the 31st. Just in case you have, you know, something going on. They get bored and all of a sudden it's like they fade out, you know. This one sticks with you until New Year's Eve. It's a great Christmas gift. Then you're on your own. 2023. The 2023 Meat Eater calendar.

Fucked up old taxidermy. Available now. Wonderful photography. Seth's photography dominates the calendar. Thank you. Dominates the calendar. So check it out now at themeateater.com. And I think there's going to be a lot of things.

Like last year we did stuff, you know, you bought certain, like we'd ship it with certain items and all that. One thing I liked about the calendar, the last thing I'll say about it, is last year if you looked at how many orders there were for the calendar, there were more calendars sold than orders, which means people wanted multiple calendars. Go figure. Yeah, if you're buying one, might as well buy two. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Good idea, Seth. Okay, so take a minute and buy that calendar. We'll wait for you. Okay, now that you got your calendar, I want to point out something here. We have, if you subscribe to the show, you know this. This show releases every week, right? And then every Monday, this show releases. You listen to it on Mondays.

On Wednesdays, you get to listen to the trivia show. We're going to do a whole special episode. So it's not in the normal Monday cadence. We're doing a whole special drop of the meat eater podcast. And if you want to get married, want to stay married, any of this kind of stuff, and you like to hunt and fish, you have to listen to this podcast because it will be a bunch of the people, you know, from this show in with their spouses to talk about their particular bits of advice or pain points that come from the lifestyle.

So if you wake up one day and you're wondering why you see this mysterious drop of the Meat Eater podcast on an unexpected day, that's what that is. Gather around your loved ones, especially if you're married to one, and listen in. This gives me occasion to quote my favorite quote, which I like to quote at least every two weeks on this show, and it's from my friend Pat Durkin,

who said of his area in Wisconsin, if you're not a deer hunter, you sleep with one. And for all those people getting slept with tune in. All right. Where are we at? I'm going to set the scene here. We are, we're in the Bahamas and we're departing from a small island with you know like a few permanent residents and a bunch of vacation homes and things on it but just like a small remote island we're headed out to go do some spearfishing we're in a like a pretty souped up 40-foot boats got twin outboards triple what am I saying triple outboards on it and we're headed out everything around here is

pretty shallow you know there's a lot of water ranging from you know three feet deep to 60 70 feet deep in this area with a lot of reefs sandy shallow areas you know which which out which flats fishermen will call flats a lot of those around here but we're gonna be going out into kind of that mid-depth water and we're gonna be looking for we're going to be going out into kind of that mid-depth water and we're going to be looking for we're hole hunting for grouper in the reefs we're looking for hog fish um which i've never gotten before we're going to keep our eyes open for conch so to dive for conch which is a big saltwater snail that lays on the bottom and also checking the ledges and holes and whatnot for spiny lobster so a clawless lobster and what's cool about the Bahamas is you can spear for them.

Now, you are not allowed to use a spear gun here, so we're going to be using slings, you know, nothing with a trigger mechanism. So we're going to use a thing that people who aren't from Hawaii call a Hawaiian sling, and people who are from Hawaii will generally call a three-prong or a pole spear. We're using those, but but like i said you can actually

shoot lobster with them in a lot of places you can only hand grab lobsters but you can shoot them here which makes it easier so we're keeping our eyes out for all this stuff and there's also a chance of like various pelagic fish coming through and joined by some people you should be familiar with uh kimmy werner who i do a lot of stuff with and she's been on the show immediately been on the podcast, a meat eater, been on the podcast before. And Cameron Kirkconnell, if that name rings a bell, it's because Cameron told a great story

at the end of a recent podcast episode, which was a teaser for our meat eater's campfire stories, narrow misses, and more close calls. He's the guy that saved his friend's life by shooting him. If you want to know what I mean, you got to go and listen to that story. There goes Steve. Man, that water feels good.

All right, Cam, Steve, Kimmy, and Perrin are in the water. I think they see something. They're still at the surface. Cam just shouted to Steve and said that there are two hogs. Looks like Kimmy got something sweet. What kind of fish is that? Hogfish. That's a hogfish? Kimi got a hogfish. Oh man, look at that thing. Kimi is holding. Tell me. So this is my very very first hogfish. Apparently she's a female and I actually missed my first shot but uh me and Steve both missed and then I think I'm getting the hang of it a little more now. Oh my god that's sweet. But look at how delicious and beautiful she looks. It's like, you know what I'm describing it? Oh my god. It's like this coral colored beautiful fish

with like a spangled face, such an interesting nose, crazy sharp teeth, and these streamers, these fins that are like absolute streamers. Just unlike any other fish I've ever seen. Amazing. So cool. Thank you. Congratulations.

Steve's pulling the boat in what do you come back with conch yeah we have our vessel limit of eight conch with very well-developed what do you call them player player beautiful and they were in high current and that might be one way of explaining remember how yours were very covered in yeah yeah like a little dirty yeah they're definitely these are like polished man these like get ready for the gift shop those are beautiful ready for a key west gift shop shell shop all right so we're getting in the water we're at we have uh we're being approached by warmer dirty water yeah yeah water from the flats and the dropping tide we got a dropping tide all day unfortunately and then we're on a bit of a flat and we're where it drops off so we're sandwiched between a like a tide line

and a ledge and a ledge that drops from 70 to Infinity yep and it's going to force every fish in the Bahamas into this little pocket and what are you hoping to spear out there a bunch of fish a hog well I know a hog fish because yesterday yesterday I well yeah yeah I do I blew I blew both too good to give hand me down hammies what I'm trying to say give me I blew two gimme's yesterday layups layups so the other thing about this tide line coming is on the flats is so much food shrimp crabs all that stuff so as this comes there's a lot of fish feeding on that driving time so we're going to use the float lines here with the pole spears that way with this a little bit

deeper water it goes from like 35 to about 60. We can shoot the pelagics that are coming by. You should see big yellowjacks here and max. Sweet. And also the bottom fish. Like, you can shoot those bottom fish and keep pressure on them. While still heading up to the surface. Yeah.

Because if not, I mean, it's a tough dive for anybody. You think, like, chasing a fish and even a small hogfish wraps around one little thing and you're attached to the bottom, you're like, ugh. Okay, so I'm sitting in the boat with Captain Brandon. And they're all in the water filming and he's telling me what he believes is happening. So right now Cameron's following a big black right now, I am assuming.

Just on the- What's his behavior like? He's swimming faster than everybody else, splashing on the surface, which sometimes will cause him to shoot off into a hole if they feel really threatened. But right now he's just swimming and most likely swimming back to where he can't his hole is. Now it might be in 50 feet of water or it might

be in 80 90 feet of water. He's don't really he's not really showing no signs of slowing down put it like that see what he's doing now he's trying to see he's just he just dove down right he's going down to try chase him into a hole because the closer you get to them the more threatened they feel especially after they've already started to swim away from you so they're really kind of teaming up everyone's almost got a role right yes so like stuff like that you want to keep an eye on him like if one person goes down to try run him he could go in the hole and shoot a totally different direction so it's always good to have multiple eyes in the water see like how he's coming back towards us now he's swimming them in a big circle he probably doesn't want to go in the door oh he's like

splashing about he's causing a lot of ripple and first he's going out towards the deeper water now he's coming back in he's gonna probably keep going around in a circle until they get there until he gets tired or he feels safe enough in a certain hole where he's going to go in but most of the time they will either go in the hole or they'll swim in until you're tired and you just give up that's all that's all they do so fish takes off cam swimming real fast okay yeah real cat and mouse. You gotta, you gotta keep up with them. That's the biggest thing because the big groupers like that, they could out swim you. And we're talking how big? I don't know. Could be anywhere from what to what. I mean to be on what I would

call a big, what I call big is a 60-70 pound black grouper. 50-70 pounds. That's a big one. When you get over 70, that's a monster. We did a sprint marathon. We did the fish equivalent of tracking a fish. It is. That's a lot like shooting a deer, tracking him and then he jumps up and he runs again and you gotta wait. But in this case, we have to like sprint swim

for a couple hundred yards between each time, rest up and every time he went deeper too. So it was like 45, 50, 60, back into 50 and every time we went down and had a chance like we had one little thing off or One of us spooked him or something and he'd do it again The more you follow him the more you want someone to shoot him. He gets bigger and bigger It's real personal How big is it? It was probably right in 30

And for me it was so important to have you guys sprinting because I come up from those deeper dives really wiped out and just like have the assurance I can swim slow, breathe up, recover, get ready while you guys are tracking it. Yeah, Steve and I were swimming as hard as we could chasing it and Kimmy would just like take her dime, come up, Roller the gagging. Roller the gagging. Multiple times like every one of us was like fin deep in the holes. Like I don't know how many videos we have of it but at one point you were getting somebody's fish out of a hole and I had you by the belt and pulled you out because you were so far in there. Yeah because I kept trying

to back out on my own and go up, and I wasn't out yet, and finally I just felt you pull me out. Are you talking about the hole as being like a little cave? Yeah. Okay, okay. Basically, a lot of the hunting we're doing today, we're going down, we're looking at these ledges that look like these little ledges,

but the minute you get down there, you can actually, something will lure you to creeping further and further in and you can actually get pretty deep within those like yeah some of them are you know holes the size of a tent some are like flat and deep sorry i'm holding two yellow yellow what yellow fin grouper which are i don't know over 10 pounds yeah how long is that i mean it's longer than your arm bigger than your arm yeah 10 pound fish kimmy caught a ginormous huge hog fish first one how do you feel i feel then huge hog fish i feel absolutely elated like that about the fact that

i missed them before you got them i mean that you feel like that tarnished them or made them cool because i actually i missed one first and then you missed them so you just made me feel better but it didn't make the victory that much sweeter for sure but man such cool fish they really are i mean this lobster looks like an alien it's cool to have like when you look at all these fish up close all the different details on them like stuff that you don't think about when they're far away but like all this like paint it looks like he's got painted up in the on his forehead it's like pink yellow these little blue lines a friend of mine recently pointed out an irony of sort of an irony of duck hunting or he's like you don't really get to see what

they really look like and I really appreciate their beauty till you kill one you know and then you get then you get in your hands you're like holy shit man you know that's the only way to really, really study them. You get your hands on it and you're like, well, that's what that looks like. They're like colors before they all fade away and change. I just can't even believe this cooler we're looking at. Yeah, it's a what? It's a 160.

And it's full to the top. Yeah, welcome to the fish market. All right, everybody. So joined today by me, of course, mean-ass old Kimmy Werner. What? That's not a good introduction. Well, listen, man. Oh, my God. You've got to give a little bit of the backstory.

I've still been out of shape. Yeah, he's real sensitive about that. Super sensitive. My wife wrote me a mean email. I did see the email she wrote you. Wrote me a mean email. She sent you that email? It was brutal.

No, she's down on me. But I appreciate it. Holy shit. But it's just basically because you asked Kimmy for her opinion and she gave it. Yeah, and then my wife wrote me a mean email. And she said that she thought you were demeaning. You know what? I'm still mad at my wife

about how she wouldn't change her name to my name, but Kimmy was saying when she met Katie just randomly, and Katie introduced herself as Katie Rinella. Yep. Probably because she knew that we knew each other. Probably because she knew it would ring a bell. Yep. Yeah.

That's cute. Brandon Albrey, first time on the show yep go ahead and say go and tell people where you're from so I'm from the Bahamas for the islands called Abaco and it's got a small keys off of it called green turtle key that's where I'm originally from that's where you're brought up that's where I was brought up. Long line of commercial, long line of commercial fishermen. Yes. Got it.

My father, my grandfather did it. And Corinne, and then Perrin James. Perrin James. Yes, sir. Pranto. Here I am. Damn it.

So when I was going through names cameron kirkconnell might ring a bell to y'all because he it's kind of a long story i became acquainted with cameron because cameron was a part of our Campfire Stories audiobook number two, which was Narrow Misses and More Close Calls. And in keeping with tradition, when we came out with that audio series, we teased y'all, titillated y'all by playing one of our favorite joints off it. You get that reference? They call a song, a track on contemporary albums. He called it a joint.

One of the joints off that album was Cameron Kirk Connell talking about the time he saved his buddy. And many of you have heard this story now. The time he saved his buddy Spear Fishing by shooting have heard this story now time he saved his body spearfishing by shooting him in the fin shooting him in the flipper what we used to call them we're kids uh so we're gonna hear a little more because that like there's a couple more i want to get a couple more questions into about the backstory and and this is also in keeping with tradition kren because with number one one of our favorite stories, they're all great. One of the favorite stories was Sam Lowry's

story about the sociopathic elk poacher. And then he later came on the show and gave us a little extra backstory. So we're in keeping with tradition here. So we're going to hear a little more from Cameron on that. And a little bit about his career, which is a very interesting

niche he's carved out for himself in this global and a little bit about his career, which is a very interesting niche he's carved out for himself in this global life that he lives. But a couple things we've got to hit off right off the bat. Wait, hold on. Where are we? Oh, we're in the Bahamas. Did we?

No. Go ahead. Cameron, explain where we are. We're in the Bahamas. There you go. You happy, Chris? That's more exact than saying the Atlantic or Caribbean. Surrounded by a lot of shallow water, which is in proximity to some extremely deep water,

which makes it a very verdant environment around here, like a life-rich environment. Yep. around here like a like a life-rich environment yep that that having that shallow water in the proximity to deep water but a large area of connecting shallow water creates a a nursery you know an ecosystem that you know can constantly you know resupply itself you know we had talked about it kind of on the way over here initially you know as a kid i thought i need to go to the most remote islands that are out there by themselves because that's got to be the best spot but it's such a finite area of like divable and fishable bottom before it drops off to infinity yep that's a pretty small group of fish that's going to live there so come to find

out that a lot of these areas that are just connected for 100 miles by 5 or 10 or 20 feet of water, those are by far the best because they just have that gigantic area to grow more fish. And you just, you know, it's pretty wild to see, you know, a spot like this that you'd think,

holy cow, there's so many people coming here. Like how can it hold up yeah it just holds up yeah you happy now yeah because i just need to keep in tradition and set the scene you're all about the scene setting people need to know what you know where we are can i get into our needs now go ahead so this is a sensitive issue speaking of my wife she told me just to drop it but i can't drop it yeah we had a fish heist in our office in our office we had a fish heist we came home with a bunch of fish one of the coolers of fish it was a styrofoam cooler we had like we brought some soft-sided coolers filled our soft-sided coolers up in louisiana had extra fish a dude and dude next door gave us one of them thick styrofoam

coolers chester i know this for a fact chester loaded all that fish into the styrofoam cooler, taped it up, got back to the office and went into the freezer by my office and placed that cooler in the freezer. Had Cobia, had a thing that seems to me would be

of low interest, which is my Barracuda Flays, and a bunch of Snapper Flays. Later I go to get it. I'm with my neighbor, Pottery Pat, and we go down. I'm like, I got to stop in here and grab my fish. How much later?

A couple weeks. Okay, so time goes by. A couple weeks go by. I go in there. It's like a Sunday. We go down there. It's not in there. I go check the other freezer. It's not in there. It's like a Sunday. We go down there. It's not in there. I go check the other freezer.

It's not in there. I go check the freezer in the lunchroom area. It's not in there. We put out an all company. Where's the fish? All company email, guys. On a stupid, I'm not on it, but Slack, I don't use it. So put out an all company all company I offered $20 reward without another all company my wife's like enough already with the stupid fish

but if it was missing electronics right it was missing electronics we wouldn't just it wouldn't just sweep it under the rug right and it's like if someone took it by accident someone took it by accident they'd be like bro I took it

by accident yeah or like there's all this free stuff around wasn't thinking and gave it to them

they'd be like dude you gave me that fish but it's not true no one will come forward so Steve wants

I want to bring in but there's still another part of the story because then after you put out the all company emails and the cooler right we found we found the cooler with the dang towel in it yep one of our one of our equipment guys who manages equipment um and many other things says oh i found that cooler with a towel in it an empty cooler with a towel in it in like the cardboard box area no one will come forward so what we're trying to find is we're trying to find a polygraph examiner who can come into the studio but in montana polygraphs are not admissible we've done a little bit of research actually so it's not like we don't have a shitload of polygraph examiners running around

because polygraph evidence isn't admissible in court in Montana, but they use it on sex offenders. So we need someone that's got the damn polygraph machine, knows how to run it. They're going to come into the studio and we're going to start with Chester and work out from there and polygraph exam them as part of a podcast episode. I'll just say this as a disclaimer. It probably is illegal to force our colleagues to take and polygraph exam them as part of a podcast episode. I'll just say this as a disclaimer.

It probably is illegal to force our colleagues to take a polygraph test, so we're going to ask them to step forward voluntarily. Oh, and if they won't do it, then I'll be like, oh, so where's the fish?

No, if someone's like, I'm not doing that, I'll be like, then give me the fish back. Because if you won't do it, that's the best way. It's like coming and do a polygraph.

I'm not doing a polygraph. Then you know they're guilty. It's like, what are they doing with the barracuda flies? The other way I'm going to catch them is I'm going to start talking about, man, I've never tried barracuda. And someone's going to be like, oh, no, it's not bad. I'll be like, how would you know? And then I'll know they stole the fish.

So, guys, stay tuned. Part two of the saga. Yeah, you and your machine will just come to the office crin will fly you out with your machine i don't know what they look like and we're gonna hook some people up i'm hooking seth up i'm hooking chester up and i'm just gonna start hooking random people up from the office kylie who sent out all that she's my lead suspect because she's the one because she's the one that's so hot to find the person it's like uh it's like skunk smelled her first you know what i mean she's truly the last person ever so uh here's the other big need and

this is more complicated and spencer's being a pain in my ass right now about it. We bought that punt gun. We bought a punt gun at auction for not a small amount of money. To the point where it's like a little bit controversial in the office is the punt gun. What we're really having a hard time finding is we're having a hard time finding shells for it. Someone that can make the shells for it. So I think when we estimated it out, it's a Holland & Holland.

It's an H&H punt gun from the late 1800s. I think we estimated it. They don't go by gauges, but it's like a two gauge. Huge. Jeez. We have like one or two casings. we have one or two casings for it there's all this stuff too like you can't use so we need someone that can load the shells for us

we've been checking around with some shell makers but people it seems that people don't really want to go near it the guy we bought it from said quote I'm a little hesitant to just forward the info because it basically amounts to pack a whole bunch of black powder and lead shot into a really big cartridge based on info from a guy in another country that you've never met relayed to you through two other guys you've never met. So he goes on, so please check into this all this all that he says but i know you guys are professionals so you'll figure it out two ounces 20 drams of coarse black powder 10 ounces a shot mini cannon yeah two ounces of coarse black And there's something like you got to use like an old timey black powder because of the integrity of the barrel. And it's 10 ounces of shot.

Or 1.5 ounces of 15 drams or 1.5 ounces or 15 drams of coarse black powder. And eight ounces of shot. Fill case with powder. Measure out shot. Fill space between powder and shot making sure no air gap overshot card wad to keep shot in place using scotch tape to secure primer it'll be either a 38 or 32 pistol blank or you figure out a way to rig a standard shotgun primer in it we've got to find a way to get them made

someone out there has to have a whole pile of old punt gun casings or know someone who does and we'll have our safety glasses on please write us at mediator at the mediator.com i'm going to put a safety glasses and maybe like a cotton torch thing on. Clear, you know, you know what I'm talking about. Mm-hmm. That was one of the funniest

things about the pandemic is, you know, the face shields that look like a welder. Yes. That they all said face shield on them. It's like,

not many products say what the, you know what I mean? So few products say what the product is. In case you really don't know what this is. Yeah, they all said

huge letters face shield. It, they all send huge letters. Facial. It's like, oh, okay. All right. Those are the two primary needs. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement.

You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all.

I want to follow up on one quick thing before we get back into what we're talking about. At one point, we were discussing scrotum injuries. And I don't know where it is. How did you refine this from so long i didn't refine this the guy emailed me like a couple days ago and just followed we hadn't heard from him since january of 2021 that's when we talked about it on the podcast it got on his mind and he yeah um he just he just emailed me back out of the blue okay so so i'm gonna revisit what

happened because it's so damn long yeah it was one of the better scroll them stories that came in he was riding horses down his family lives in west texas um but they were down in the chihuahuan desert of old mexico he came across what he now believes is a rattlesnake, and the horse freaked out. He fell off the horse and thought he was okay, but then looked and was surprised to see that one of his testicles was actually out of the scroll, hanging on by its cord.

It's like, you want to talk about free-balling. Okay? Hanging out of his jeans and out of the scroll. They had the wherewithal to pack it in ice. Still hooked to the cord. Kind of looked like that conk you were cleaning yesterday. Packed it in ice and headed

for the border. Got stopped by Federales. One of the kids had a airsoft pistol, spray painted black so it looked like a real gun. The Federales see this. He says there's lots of shouting and waving of guns. Someone notices the testicle.

Starts yelling, Vomitals, Vomitals. And waves him through. He gets 16 stitches in his leg and 12 stitches. They tuck the nut back in and 12 stitches to the scroll to put it back in there. Doctor said ice was the best thing that could have done. Now he writes back in, just got to thinking about it. Yeah, do we talk about it in tree or something? He wrote me.

And he wanted to add some details. He wanted us to know that the cord is called the epididymis, unsevered, that the medical professional said it was a good move that he packed it in ice, especially because it's so hot and dry down there. The main follow-up is this. His uncle worked in a prison for years. His uncle said that this is one of the most common self-inflicted wounds that inmates use to get themselves sent to the hospital.

It's called a degloved testicle, and they do it with a sharpened pencil. What do you guys think of that? For what that's worth. That doesn't sound too well to me. It makes mine tighten up. Oh, one other thing we got to get into. This is going to be put to bed after this. The fish heist is just getting started,'m gonna this is gonna be put to bed after this the the the fish heist is just getting started but this is gonna be put to bed uh

white-tailed so so as everybody knows the proper way to say it like the scientifically accepted way to say the white-tailed deer the deer we all know and love america's deer if you're ever writing a letter to someone you're supposed to say you're supposed to write white dash tailed deer not white tails i was saying how heffelfinger is stupid for believing this and i also in that same conversation regular guest heffelfinger also who's set to come on pretty soon i also said that he's nipple deep in jaguar stuff. He wrote in to say, I'm also nipple deep in deer stuff. He's saying, despite anything I've said, white-tailed deer isn't an old version.

It isn't something from Pat's world. It is the official and correct name of that species. It is common to use the colloquial form white tail or white tails. I use that constantly to mix it up and not sound so stiff and formal as one does using the correct full name all the time. Then he goes on to say, it is uncommon among knowledgeable people to use whitetail deer or whitetails.

Pat goes on. This is a group email, everybody. Calls me a thing that I can't repeat on air. I can't. He says, you ignorant. It's a word that is not even in my vocabulary. Oh, come on. I clearly said that white-tailed deer is wrong and white-tailed deer is right.

Changing it now on one man's personal preference, long after the proper name is established in science and literature, as shown in the deer books I referenced earlier, is akin to Fox News calling the Democratic Party, its official name, the Democrat Party. Okay, back to cleaning bluegills. Pat called... That's from Pat. I'm done.

Okay, go ahead, but then we're done. Okay. Pat used a Saturday Night Live reference and called Steve an ignorant slut. Okay, there, I said it. That's a Saturday Night Live reference? Yeah, called him an ignorant slut. Okay, there I said it. That's a Saturday Night Live reference? Yeah, called him an ignorant slut. I didn't catch that.

Because, man, when I came back from New Zealand, I had a very bad word that got into my vocabulary. And speaking of my wife, again, I used it one time. I did not go over well. I was like, I don't know why you're being such a... All right, so first off, Cameron, I want a little more like a little more detail around the story you told about uh saving the your friend first off explain your

professional occupation like in the story you say like you were in i were out of camera where you were somewhere in florida we're on the west coast of florida and you were doing you were doing tarp and guiding so i worked at the time i got out of school and started working on ships that's what i went to college for him to the merchant marine academy yeah you're qualified for anything that floats yeah and if it's not floating we decided i don't want anything to do with it but like you can pilot any ship yes or drive any whatever the hell you call it what do you call it ships yeah so i have an unlimited tonnage captain's license basically like trans-oceanic stuff you were involved in so as you've noticed this week i have major fomo you know for like whatever the best thing is going on at the time

so i would work for four months at a time and travel around the world um you know working on the ships and during that time i had unlimited resources for charts so i would look at charts like all day long. And as the places I would go, I'd be like, this looks like it would work because it, you know, they're blah, blah, blah. So I would just plan the places I was going to be for my four months off for surfing, fishing, spearfishing. And I just traveled around the world and just immersed myself in each of these places. So like a place like the West coast of florida um i had a buddy that was a

tarpon guide there he's like you know we knew the spearfishing was great there he's like you know on our days off we can go you know spearfish i was like all right i'll come mate for you make 200 bucks a day you know cash and get to go fish for tarpon every day so that's why you guys are taking you guys are like taking chartering clients to fish tarpon correct yep and then on a day off i remember like trying to smooth that out and we were editing the the project is uh you're like you very quickly said i was helping people you were helping people catch tarpon yeah yeah so i was working as a mate like on a charter boat there i'd do like two months at a time with him but at that same time you were merchant marine and doing the ship work right so that was in my you're done with that now done with that so that was during my like four month you know vacations because usually you work

for four months and then you had four months off so i knew that you know indonesia was good that time of year so i'd go to indonesia for two or three months and like you know just basically go as far as i could and listen to story after story that was going to link me to the next spot to check out you know and see a picture of a fish in one place and figure out where that was and go to the next one and just just kind of grew my you know knowledge base you know by travel traveling and like really being there, you know, not going for two or three days, but going for months and then coming back again for months. And that's how I like, you know, really obviously got good at what I do now, but yeah, fell in love with, with being at the edge of the earth all the time.

And hit real quick. I know you're, you got your, like you do handful of things but talk about your like the sort of like guiding end of your business so my core thing was about um i guess 10 or 12 years ago somebody asked me hey will you take me spearfishing i was like sure okay um and they said what are you going to charge i was like i don't know because there's no real spearfishing guides at the time. Long story short, halfway through the first day, he's like, you're really good at this. This is what you need to do for work. There's a niche for this. I was like, okay. He's like, well, I'll rebook you.

I want you to find me a boat in the Bahamas, take my son and his buddies, and do a trip with them. I'm like, okay. By the time I got home from that trip, he had told two of his buddies, you know do a trip with them i'm like okay by the time i got home from that trip he had told two of his buddies and they called me and from there it man it just blew up and you know i'd always you can get the boat operate the boat yeah so we take care of all the paperwork mostly what i do is i am hired to go and basically captain other people's boats, you know, around the world and mate and guide. So my core knowledge base is where and when to go. And the way my mind has always worked, if I'm going to spend my own money to be on the edge of the earth, I want to be at the best place

at the right time and the right moon, tide, everything to have a chance at a world record. And that's been one of the hardest things for me to shift to is expectations for people might not be there. You know, like, you know, to go and just get enough fish for dinner is what we're doing 99.9% of the days. You know, the, the record thing is such a small part of it, but coming to terms with that myself has been tough because my drive is so hard, like to go and get records. And personally, I think I've had 15 or 18 records. I've had a bunch, but I've guided clients, even if it's their first week ever spearfishing to a total of like, I think 20 or 25.

It's been a bunch. So Kimmy and I were talking about this. What I take the most pride in now and enjoy the most is being able to convey that knowledge to other people to get them to enjoy what we're doing and enjoy it. So now where that's taken my business is I have myself and a couple other guys that work with me and people hire us to take them all over the world to you know hunt different fish how do you get their boats there usually I have connections for boats in different countries and a lot of guys have have the means with these really big badass boats that we can take all over the world so I've got some groups that we've got

stuff planned two years out like we know that we're going to go to this island group in tahiti this part of the year and then the boat's going to shift to fiji then it's going to go to tonga and go here here and here so we plan like there are itineraries as well like all over the world and they fly in and out yep okay so now let's get on with the the the guy the guy you pulled up out of the bottom. Or he wasn't even near the bottom, but deep. Thank God he wasn't near the bottom. We were like 180 foot.

Yeah. So that's. So what happens to him? I mean, his eardrums got to be cooked, right? Oh, man. So when he came up, like Steve's got a kind of blue colored shirt on with a, it's a meat eater shirt with some musky

or something eating another fish, eating another fish. That color blue on, that color blue on your shirt is what he was.

Like his whole face and everything. Like when Corinne was seasick the other day, she was pretty green. Oh, we're going to get into that. Corinne literally

turned green. She, he was, he was even more past that. I was like, I didn't know people literally turned green. He was even more past that. I was like, I didn't know people actually turned green. He was blue. Like for all intents and purposes, I thought he was dead. And then he had blood coming out of everything.

You think how hard it is to go to the bottom of your pool without equalizing your ears, that pressure you feel in your ears. Imagine going like, when I pulled the trigger on him him i think i was in 70 feet or 80 foot by the time i got to the surface by the time they started pulling him up god knows how deep he was oh because he would have kept sinking that kept sinking because you figure from the depth i was at it would have taken another 20 seconds so he's talking about a guy that passed out in the water and just started to sink and you have like this is the i think you get into this too. There's like a reflex.

I didn't know, I don't really know about this. You wonder like if you pass out in the water, why don't you just instantly drown? Right. There's like a reflex probably that dates back to when you were in your mother's womb. Yep. That you don't breathe, that it shuts off.

Like you just don't breathe. Your body is doing everything in its power to survive for you doing some dumb shit move that kept it from getting oxygen, basically. It's so weird that your body just doesn't be like, right? Take a big old suck in a big old gulp of water. So your vocal cords close and lock down your throat.

So you're not taking any water in. And basically, you're passed out. Unless you have your snorkel in your mouth. Exactly. So that's one of the reasons we take our snorkel out of your mouth. Oh, is that right? If you have your snorkel in your mouth and you pass out, it'll actually funnel water straight down your throat.

And you'll drown faster. You'll actually drown. Instead of it locking up, it'll just like a straw. That's why we spit our snorkels out. I had to learn later you're supposed to take that thing out. When we were kids, man, we always kept it right in yeah there's a good reason you take the smoke out of your mouth and you die now you think about it it's like you know that that pressure yeah because you know and then you put there could be like an air pocket in there which you you'd think

you're like gonna sip air right so the your body shuts down you're you know totally you know out basically and you've got these sensors on your face so when you when you come up to the surface that's what your body's waiting for is to feel air because you're the sensors on your face can feel that you're in the water and your body's saying hey we need to go in total survival mode we're going to slow down the heart we're going to stop breathing we're going we're going to close our trachea like we're i'm sorry close our uh our vocal cords like we're just gonna survive as long as we can until we feel air again so if you don't feel air eventually your body's gonna be like hey man we're about to run out of all fuel all together we got to do a last ditch effort and that's called terminal gasp and if

that does eventually happen eventually happen so when you pull someone a drowning victim up who like a who blacked out underwater now who drowned at the surface so you got to you got to really differentiate drowning and blackout yep they're totally two because you're at you're at the surface gulping water when you're drowning correct yeah so a blackout victim is way easier to deal with than than a drown but that blackout victim will eventually inhale water. Correct. And you hear about like little Timmy that fell through the ice and survived for 30 minutes or whatever.

Age, temperature of the water, like all the conditions, everything. Determine how long. Before the terminal gas. Exactly. So like Timmy falls through the ice or whatever. It's basically putting him in the refrigerator and slowing him down that's a good name for the episode the terminal gasp yeah that's what about big what about big conkin though we need to get this we got a bunch of bunch of good

so like timmy might survive 30 minutes you know and they pull them out. That's such a common story. Timmy from Minnesota goes through the ice. But in warm water like that, realistically, you've got four, five, six minutes maybe and then you're going to do that terminal gasp. And when you do that, then you're in deep shit.

Because then you're going to sink. Because then you've taken a huge mouthful of water and you're really in deep shit. Then you're going to sink. Cause then you've taken a huge mouthful of water and you're, you're, you're really in deep shit. So our goal is obviously get your, get ahold of them as fast as you can close their airway, get them safe to the surface, lay them on their back, get their mask off,

blow, tap and talk. So you blow across their cheeks, you tap on their face and you tell them, breathe, breathe, breathe. And in the,

I mean, 10 people that I've saved and parents been there four of them no shit almost every one of them has come back with that first breath that first breath across her face they go and take a breath because your body is just like waiting for that air as soon as they it, it's ready to roll again. Yeah, and then they're normally like, get off me, I'm fine. Yeah, so you have short-term amnesia when you black out. Or they're crying hysterically

or they're laughing hysterically. Oh yeah, a lot of times. You never know what someone's going to do when they wake up in your arms. My first time I saved someone, he was like, I was salsa dancing. I was like, who are you? Salsa dancing?

Yep. So this, he came up, and how was he, like, we didn't really get into this. Like, what was his sort of litany of health problems after the fact? So he went into, he went in an intensive care unit for like three days. Okay. Because they were worried about, he had so much fluid in his lungs because the alveoli in your lungs or whatever, they just burst.

And like, you've have all, that's what all that orange foam is that you had, like he was spitting out and all that. So he had so much fluid in his lungs. They were worried about pneumonia, you know, secondary drowning,

all that kind of stuff. So. And how do they treat the ear problem? I don't even know. Well, he's bleeding out his ears. Yeah. Ears. I mean, I want to say, I remember him bleeding out of his eyes.

I mean, there was blood everywhere. Like if you, if you had a picture of him right when he came up, you'd be like, that guy, there's no way. Like he's got to have so much stuff going on. And he got back in the water. After that, yeah. He actually had a samba about a year later when we were together and i grabbed him when he was sambaing you know that's when he like close to blacking out i was like steve his name steve i was like steve don't fuck with me on this it's like don't do this ever again you know and he's an avid diver yeah yep i told you he's my insurance guy yeah right

what are the chances of that yeah i'd be like something happened you'll understand so you guys you guys do a little business together yeah yeah mostly i uh he does business for me i guess now did he come out of that super cautious? I think so. I think it was an eye-opener. And honestly, I've gotten so many messages over the years from the next morning after that happened, I just wrote the story down.

No filter, just exactly how it happened. And it was mostly cathartic for me just to kind of get it off my chest because it was so traumatic for me. But I can't tell you how many, you know, but it's like a machismo thing that like people don't talk about in diving because they're usually embarrassed, you know, because like people aren't going to think that I'm that good of a diver or whatever. But like, you got to be aware, like that's more dangerous than any shark, you know, is blacking out your own drive to not survive basically.

It's so true. It really, it is something that when it happens everyone just kind of keeps quiet you know and um you don't want to embarrass somebody but when when that article because what you wrote got published in hawaii skin diver magazine and when that came out and i read it like it i was grateful for it like it definitely made me that much more careful to always like watch the person like even after they come up because sometimes you're so eager to die that you see them take a breath and then you go down right but it's like you gotta actually wait you know because sometimes people can come up breathe even talk and then pass out what you were recognized by

the coast guard yeah so what was? So the Coast Guard met us. As soon as we got him up, I was like the Tasmanian devil running around the boat when we got in. Cut the anchor line, get on the radio, call the Coast Guard, blah, blah, blah. So we start running in. We were like 60 miles offshore. The Coast Guard met us about 40 miles out, put him in the basket in the helicopter and took him in. So about six months later, I got a call from the coast guard and you're like, Hey, this is, you know, officer so-and-so,

um, you know, we're doing an investigation into, you know, this thing that happened with Steve offshore, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, shit, man. And I literally told him, I was like, Hey, man, look, I've been through a lot with this. Like I didn't do anything wrong. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. Like it's actually a good thing the Coast Guard wants to recognize you for possibly getting an award like okay so they did this investigation into it a long story short the Coast Guard gives out two life-saving awards silver and a gold and the they awarded me the silver life-aving Award, which is the basic premise behind it is someone that basically completely forgets about their own safety, puts themselves in total peril to save someone else. And when they gave me the award, the Admiral, the head of the Coast Guard was there.

And I think all the senators, congressmen's and all the military people it was a big deal um he told the story and i mean i'm it's hard for me to tell a story like having it on the audiobook is the best thing ever for me because i never have to tell it again that's what you're saying now you can just people like you can refer people to the link because it's tough to tell yeah um but you know everybody like started standing up in there and everything it was it was pretty cool but he said in my you know 40 years of being in the coast guard i've only given this award two other times and it was posthumously huh like the people died saving somebody else i was like so it was the the the award that i would least want to have for the reason i would least want to have

it if that makes sense yeah you know because it's something you never want to have for the reason I would least want to have it. If that makes sense. Yeah. You know, because it's something you never want to do and you could never plan, you know, but in all the years of spearfishing with people around the world and being in remote places, we had always said, you know, if you can't get me or you're thinking you can't get me, shoot me. Because at least you'll be rigidly attached. Because if I'm already going to die, shoot me in the leg. You know, don't shoot me in the chest or whatever, you know, shoot me in at least you'll be rigidly attached because if i'm already going to die shoot me in the leg you know don't shoot me in the chest or whatever you know shoot me in the leg but that was uh that had been my original goal was to shoot him in the calf but he turned i i met a guy just recently who was recovering a victim and he was on tanks and he dove down to the base

of an oil rig found the victim couldn't get him up and decided to drag him over and tie him to the foot of the rig so that he wouldn't have to worry about trying to find him again later and in tying the guy's body to the foot of the rig

he got so messed up he wound up in a... He lost track of time. And he wound up in one of those decompression chambers. Jeez. Because he had to bomb up to the surface. Yeah. The diving thing...

Honestly, I personally think free diving with having been trained for it is way safer than scuba than tank dive because you can take any person off the street street give them a scuba tank at you know wherever and they can go down as deep as they want because all they got to do is breathe yeah you know whereas free diving your body is telling you hey you need to go up you know like you if if you have that self-preservation gene, which everybody in this room has

just from spending time with you, we all want to come home. We know we're going to be able to get fish, but we all want to come home. There's people that just don't have that synapse in their brain. They're going to push it as hard as they can every time.

And Perrin and I call the the race car driver you know thing like if they're on a motorcycle they're gonna pin it every time they're gonna go as fast as they can if in the class they could do 120 foot free dive every dive that's how deep they think they can go yeah and you think about even when we're diving in 20 foot you know for the lobsters it's not every time you can even you know spend more than 10 seconds down there sometimes you didn't get a good breath or whatever imagine trying to do that super deep here's to asking for trouble yo okay back to the bahamas i want to i want to get into a little bit about like the sort of regulatory structure in the bahamas and the

reason i bring that up is the only place I've ever been where size limits on fish is expressed in pounds. Have you ever heard of that anywhere? I think in the Mediterranean they do that. And the boat limit is in pounds as well. The other thing to note is for a Bahamian registered boat with Bahamians on board, the regulations are different than for us because we're a foreign flagged vessel.

Oh. There's none at all. Yeah, for them, there's nothing. None at all? No. No size limit for lobsters? You still got your size limit for lobsters, your group and stuff like that,

but we could get as much as we want. Got it. So hit me with a couple of these size things. It's weird because a lobster for a foreign vessel, a lobster tail, it's not the lobster. It's how long his tail is. And that's expressed in regular old inches. Right.

So five and a half inches, right? Five and a half. So it's five and a half inches, which for the area that we are and for the number that we're allowed to get, which is 10, you're never even going to come worry about that. Because most of the ones we got were like five pounds. I mean, they were big.

Well, I'll point out that in my very juvenile efforts in the Bahamas a few years ago, we couldn't find one with a five and a half inch tail. We're like right out, kind of like out in front of where we lived, right? Long, long Island. Couldn't, you know, you'd think it looked huge and you'd bring it up. In different areas of the Bahamas have general different sizes. I don't know what it is about here and a couple other spots in the Bahamas, but the access to deep water or the temperature or whatever, these big giant ones come off the wall and come up in shallow but other places you go you'll you'll just never find one in all your time

you know looking um they're all going to be those little ones that are just barely legal so you can take them by hand by a hook which i think we probably have some video of brandon hooking them yep what is it called hook hook and hook and jerk hook and jerk so oh what's the word hook and jerk jerk with like a j j okay so tell them so like the bottom where you kill them that's the jerking part jerking you hook and jerk do you use the word jerk for other things or does it just mean like is it like specific to lobster does it mean stab stab okay yeah so you can shoot them with a pole spear or sling which the regulations for underwater hunting here is just something triggerless you can't have a way of resting you know or a how do they say it so basically loaded power that you don't have to

you know touch or whatever yeah like let go and then in shorthand you can't use a spear gun correct you have to use the thing where you like yeah your hand is holding it and it's triggered not triggered you release your hand and let it go there's no way to store the energy right so for the rest of the world what they call a the energy right so for the rest of the world what they call a hawaiian sling the rest of the world does is a hand spear what we call pole spear in which hawaiians call not a hawaiian sling what do hawaiians call it just three prong or well there is a hawaiian sling it's just it's a little different i think that normally has like a free flying shaft so that's so what we use on this

trip we just call it pole spears but then if it has a three prong on it then we just don't even call it a pole spear you just call it a three prong right and the the local go-to is a true hawaiian sling which is basically a piece of cylinder wood with a hole through the middle of it and a piece of band tied to it and they'll put like a notch in the back of a spear gun looking spear with no um you know rests on it or whatever and they shoot it like a bow and arrow and it just goes free so for most that's used here yeah that's the traditional way to do it that's why like in those holes where we found the grouper there was multiple shafts in there.

You shoot a fish and they haul butt with it. We would never have gotten a yellowjack if we'd been using those. They just take off with it. That's what the shafts were. That's all making sense now. A little more on regulatory. Who is the governing regulatory

body in the Bahamas for fisheries? The defense force. Defense force. Yes. That sounds real hardcore. And how often is it that, and I'm not trying to say this as a way to promote any kind of derelict behavior, but- How often do they patrol?

Yeah. Well, the main place is in Nassau that's where the base is but they also send boats to different islands to station there for short period of time and they'll patrol these areas but in abaco i barely see them okay another regulatory thing like we're talking about the weight thing so certain grouper need to be three pounds right it's not an inch thing correct so i think that's the only the reason that's so tricky is like take take something that you know what it weighs like let's say you had like a certified three pound weight and then go grab a whole bunch of scales right and weigh it a bunch of times you're gonna get two pounds 15 ounces you're gonna get three pounds two ounces it's

like with a by measuring a fish it's like it takes out some level of debate it's like that fish is blank long yep it just seems like a i'm into it it just seems like a strange thing to enforce yeah it's a shot in the dark and it's weird because that's the only isn't that the only fish there's actually but they're actually in um talking about slot sizes now and probably fish it would probably be a good thing the other thing is like so that's brandon making that noise but the other problem is you gotta have somebody to enforce it agreed Agreed. 100% agreed. And from a foreigner coming here and seeing all the derelict people that do bad stuff here, sadly, it's mostly people visiting that don't follow the regulations. And it's unfortunate because there's such an unbelievable resource here.

And you want to protect this. You want this to be able to keep going you want this to be able to you know keep going for our kids to be able to do it obviously but the um the the different regulations they have are wild so they've got it's 10 lobsters per boat for a foreign vessel it's eight conch eight conch with a developed lip lip which we've got in the bucket here and we'll we'll clean those in a bit oh yeah people get frustrated when we're doing stuff on the show. We had a guy making Clovis points, and people were really annoyed because they couldn't see it. This is going to be one of those things that really annoys people.

We'll video it. To listen to someone clean a comp. It's a lot of noise at first. Yeah, it's a noisy process, though, right? Except I'll film it, and we'll put it on Instagram. There we go. Even for pelagics it's different as well so it's 18 15 is it 15 now read gosh what i sent you you read it so i think

during covid they've updated some regulations because they had some time got it um but it used to be you're allowed 18 pelagic fish it can be a combination of dolphin, wahoo, tuna. And I think that's their main ones they're worried about. There's no billfish landing in the Bahamas unless it's for a tournament. So for a tournament, they'll say, hey, if you get a fish over 500 pounds or whatever the size limit is for that specific tournament, they can kill it, which is a very strange. That's real weird. Real weird so uh you

asked about swordfish here well that's kind of like a money talk sort of thing all right like you're bringing like a massive amount of economic activity down and but the thing is not many get killed during tournaments surprisingly yeah which is now 15 20 years ago that's a different story yeah there's a lot more bigger marlins. And sharks are totally off limits in the Bahamas, is that true? Now, yes. So it's totally closed? Yep.

They're not allowed to kill them. You can catch them, you just gotta release it. And what about turtles? You're not allowed to kill them neither, unfortunately. In your lifetime, were turtles ever open? Yeah. They had a season just like they used to open and close at the same time as crawfish season.

Oh, how long ago? Like when you were a kid. Six years ago. Really? Seven years ago. No kidding. So did you grow up doing that? Maybe 10 at the most.

Yeah. For commercial market or for personal use? Personal. And what ones were you after? Green turtles. And how ones were you after? Green turtles. And how would that go down? It's kind of violent, but I mean, we used to use a 15-foot pole. Uh-huh.

And I had a pair of greens on the entire rope in a gallon bottle. And just strike them with that, and they'll take it and run with it and just pull them back up. Strike them with that and they'll take it and run with it and just pull them back up strike them with what pair greens what it is it's uh you weld like two barbs like they're probably about that wide so like an inch wide bar they go in and it can't come out and you drive it with what a pole yeah got it and just straight through the shell well typically we like to do it down towards the back end, that little stripper just shell. Yeah. So you don't damage the insides, the guts and all that.

But me starting, when I first started doing it, I got cursed out many a times with my father. I used to end up shoving it straight through the top and bottom. Yeah. And your father wouldn't like that. No. Because you mess up all the insides and he used to eat the bottom part as well, the top and bottom. Yeah. And your father wouldn't like that. No. Because you mess up all the insides. And he used to eat the bottom part as well, the callipe.

The callipe, yeah. That's traditionally in the Cayman Islands too. I can't stand it. I don't like it either. What is that? It's like a hard gelatin. Yeah. Interesting.

What's the yield on a turtle? So a lot of people actually just, when they kill turtles, they just take the two front flippers. That's the yield on a turtle? So a lot of people actually just, when they kill turtles, they just take the two front flippers. That's the biggest. But when you get turtles, the best size to eat is anywhere from 50 to 80 pounds. Anything above that starts to get a little tougher. Like I've gotten some 150, 160 pounds,

and you will taste the difference the taste of the turtle and the texture of it the main meat is in the front flippers that's where the most is that's where the most that's the biggest muscle mass i noticed that checking them out when they're just when they decide to kick it in high gear their back feet don't do shit yeah they tuck and go man i had no idea they could go that fast. Oh, then things. Sometimes, like when we chase them, if they don't just stay there on the bottom, we'll have to get on plan and chase them around

until they come up for air, then you stick them. Wow. Man, that's got to be like a good time. It is. Very good. I enjoyed it. They have a lot of guts, huh? Yes.

I heard that cleaning them can be pretty stinky. No. I mean, to me, I'm kind of used to it, but yes. Another interesting thing with them, we're used to fish blood, where when you shoot a fish in a hole, you see the blood coming out. It just kind of disperses or whatever.

It looks green. Even on the surface, the blood kind of comes out. Man, when you clean a turtle, a hole you see the blood coming out just kind of disperses or whatever looks green even on the surface that blood kind of comes out man when you clean a turtle that's like it's like human blood it floats because it's got so much oxygen in it oh like i hit one with the boat accidentally many years ago and i looked behind me i was like what the hell did i hit like a red tarp and went back and it was a turtle and i mean it had an area the size of this room full of blood and i was like jeez you know i was in the u.s like i like felt so horrible but like you know what are you gonna do like they come up and and the the such a big animal man they're one of the most surprising things i've encountered eating turtles is i was in south amer America and they were preparing turtle eggs. And you know when you take a regular chicken egg, right, and cook it,

the yolk solidifies, obviously. It's like the white part. Or sorry, not the yolk. The white. The white solidifies. Like the yolk does its thing and the white does its thing. When you cook turtle eggs, the the yolk like the orange part turns into what you'd imagine it would like a very intense it's like a egg it's like a chicken egg times 10 intense flavored yolkiness

but the white doesn't solidify it's jelly so you'd sip it out of there it was a hard thing to get into yeah the the most sought-after like a lot of people does that so the most sought-after like when I was a kid you know for getting softshell turtles and then you know our family down at the Cayman Islands for the turtles was the the undeveloped eggs still inside a turtle like when you ever trot oh sure yeah those ones that are still yellow and half. They're all,

they're like a pink membrane around them. Those were the best ones because then you just cook that whole thing whole. Oh shit, really? Cooking in a pan. Like next time you catch

like a soft shell or But it still doesn't solidify? I can't remember to be honest. Like we only did it when I was a little kid. No, I can't do all that. Hey, folks.

Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps,

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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. Speaking of almost dying dying Corinne I didn't uh I didn't know that you're so susceptible dude yeah to the seasickness you're like Janice really he's that bad oh he's bad Janice is so bad we were one time I don't not we're on it like a 22-foot boat Jannis was so seasick he didn't realize we were fighting a swordfish

and there's no like cabin it's like a boat with a steering wheel in the middle and Giannis came under the realization that we were fighting a swordfish is how seasick he was so maybe I could have been a little bit better prepared

it had been a long time since i'd gotten seasick but growing up i was one of those kids on the big yellow school bus who always was carrying like a brown paper bag in case i bombed so um you were green you were actually green yesterday god i'd never seen someone picture of me i would have wanted to see that um but yeah no just day one minus drama mean i didn't take anything for it i thought it'd be great and i was fine for for a number of hours um and you guys were all in the water and i was hanging out with brandon on the boat and at some point it just hit me i think i was maybe mid-sentence with you and i just just was like, excuse me, gotta go. And nothing came out, but I went to the...

You had a dry heave. Yeah, a little bit of a dry heave, and went to the pit of the boat and just kind of rolled into a little ball and was like that for a while. And then I thankfully was able to... I got some Dramamine in me. I slept, but then i was still sick i probably

took the dramamine too late it was terrible i mean it's it's insane for anyone who's ever been seasick before it's almost like there's nothing worse you're just totally you're disoriented everything hurts you're i don't it's just bad i was surprised. I'll ask Brandon about this too, because whenever I'm with someone who's getting seasick, we tell them not to go down out of sight, but to stay up and concentrate on something that's not moving. Try to look off at the horizon. Didn't work for me. But you suggested that she go down below Dax where it's...

Because of the AC. Oh, because there's air conditioning. The cool breeze will keep key view there was a see it was in the center of the boat down below and I was moving less so was that somewhat therapy so it was somewhat therapeutic and I also hadn't like slept that much the past couple of days but that I was the fact that i was able to get like just that tiny bit more comfortable and then you got some drugs in me and then i was able to pass out and then i woke up hours later i'm like i have to record them coming up with this fish and he's like that that already

happened like four times over you missed half the day sweetheart and then you got dessert you got so then i thought i felt better when you guys came back on the boat i was a little bit better Half the day, sweetheart. And then you got stranded on a deserted island. So then I thought I felt better when you guys came back on the boat. I was a little bit better, and then it happened all over again. I guess that's when I turned green again. And they brought me to a deserted island and left me there, like Castaway. A beautiful island, though. It was beautiful.

She had a little volleyball. What was that little volleyball on Castaway volleyball on cast Wilson or whatever that was did that pack of dogs ever come there that I was telling you no pack of dogs didn't come they just they left me to the dogs guys um but no as soon as I was ashore I mean that was the whole point right like Steve you were like you're gonna feel better in just like five minutes and it's probably minutes. And I felt totally normal again. You guys took off. And I'm like, screw this. I'm not the type of person who just like lies down in the sand and sunbays.

I was like, I'm going to go hunt. So then I went and got conk for the first time. So that was my first getting conk out of the water. That was real fun. You were fine. I was totally fine. You found the proper, I mean, the next couple of days you found the proper uh little cocktail of meds yeah totally yeah non-drowsy dramamine is my friend and that work you were comfortable it was great yet rest

of the trip i had absolutely no problem whatsoever okay really yeah zero zero issue zero issue day two day three etc yeah you're gonna have a lot of people writing you, um, folk remedies. My neighbor in Alaska, Ron Layton. Here's what he told me. I mean, he was like a professional long liner, right? Like he's like a man of the sea.

And he said, there's one way to cure seasickness. He told me that they made him do it. And he was a kid. Every time you start getting seasick, you drink, they make you drink a big mug of salt water and so you puke and he said that's how you cure it i mean that's more like there's no way that's true but he half the stuff that guy tells me it's like

everything he tells me 90 of what he tells me i'm like there's no way that's true 90% of things he tells me my initial thing is that can't be true 50% of the time it is so now you can't ignore i can't ignore anything he tells me because i'm like there's a half like there's a half a percent half the time he tells me something i'm like it is true i mean i can see that as kind of like a miserable lead up to a lot of relief. Because if you throw up, you'll feel better. But I don't, I mean, would that really like cure your, then I feel like you'd be on round two. Nope, 40 claims. That cures, that's what he had to do.

And that's, if you're, if that's, if you want to get serious about solving your seasickness problem, you gotta drink big things of salt water. It seems so miserable, dude. When you're like seasick, we're just gonna be like, I don't know, dude. I'm gonna drink a things of salt water it seems so miserable dude when you're like seasick first to be like i don't know i'll do i'm gonna drink a pitcher of salt water that'll feel great i'm somehow not convinced but okay um what is the story with uh what's the story with a lot like what what y'all call a lobster condo lobster trap in the states they call it a condo which is they're illegal now they've they've outlawed being able to put out artificial structures okay for lobsters there was a big hubbub about it uh shoot it's probably 15 years ago now in florida um and they just did away with it completely um but in the bahamas the commercial lobster guys

you want to talk about dedicated people to working year-round to making their living it's pretty unbelievable but i'll let brandon tell kind of how it's done so for like lobster and it's a lot of money involved in it just to make it. So you buy, it's basically roof and tin, but it's treated with a, I think it's galvanized tin. It lasts longer. So what you'll do, you get a stack of tin that comes with 100 sheets in it. Then you'll get some twox6s, cement blocks. Then you need the Cuban rope, the block we call a trap rope.

So you tie your blocks down. To that tin? Yes, you tie the blocks to the tin, nail it off. Then after that, it's further setting them. Describe the structure, like how you make a structure. Like where the positioning or the wood and all that stuff. Okay, so the wood would be lengthwise of the tent. So it would be, I think that's six by three

would be the measurement of the drop when you're finished. So you're making an artificial ledge for lobsters basically a hole that's the perfect height six inches off the bottom and six feet deep three feet wide yep and you put it out where there is no other real structure um it can be in proximity rocks or whatever but the majority of them they put up in the grass so it's not even near where people are normally going to go look but the lobsters are out there feeding in the grass so like you know feeding and they're like oh wow here's a great place to live and they stay there and each lobster boat will have thousands thousands of these oh they'll set thousands of those thousands of big commercial boats they set thousands yeah so it's

tens of thousands oh wait a minute let's imagine like just so people can understand imagine that you took a sheet of plywood and i'm just gonna make as as understandable as possible we actually took a sheet of plywood and bolted or nailed a couple four by fours to it and set the four by fours on the bottom of the sea so that the sheet of plywood is sitting how many inches off the bottom six inches and then all manners shit can crawl under that sheet of plywood and fit between the bottom and the sheet of plywood and they they just get over there so what the crawfish does as well if you ever notice the traps that they're more than six inches deep so what the crawfish should do when they go in they'll dig it out and if you ever notice in front of the traps you see them shells they eat them yeah they dig it out the bottom and eat

it and they come and go as they please so what are called spiny lobsters you guys call crawfish yes yeah it's a clawless just for folks on what's a clawless lobster which has an enormous range I mean they're everywhere but it's like Americans see when Americans visualize a lobster, I was thinking of the main lobster, the clawed lobster. And when you set one of those out, when you were doing this professionally, you set one of those out,

like what kind of volume of lobsters would turn up under one of those? So the most we've ever, I would say, ever gotten from one is about 60 pounds of tails. So that's probably... Tails. Holy. Under one of those. I've seen it sometimes when crawfish move after the heavy cold front come.

I've seen crawfish. There's so many, they can't fit under it. They're just stacked all on the outside. Wow. When you get there, you can see the big dark spot on the bottom. It's so much around it and on top it's like opening like a condo cabinet in new york city shining a flashlight and the cockroaches just scatter out that's true so when you i noticed one time when you were going down to check one you went down and kind of knocked on it what were you doing so what happens

like that's just me personally doing it but if if you knock on it, it'll come to the edge and stick the antennas out. Oh, so you can see. I never heard that. Interesting. Take it and just knock it. Get that technique. Bang it, and you can see them come out,

stick the antennas out a little bit. And you can kind of get an assessment of what's going on in there. Yeah. I thought you were going to say it's because of the mores, because the mores will come back. I don't even check for all that stuff. Good on you.

So then you went down and you got a hook. Basically got, I don't know, a three and a half foot dowel. So what it is, it's actually a Hawaiian sling shaft. I cut it in half. It's a six foot shaft, so it's three feet long. Okay. You take a paintbrush roller, the handle off of that. Use that brass fitting for, it's the male adapter for your dry gas tanks. You put that on the end of the spear and you sharpen it to a point.

Then how it's got the thread, you could screw it into the handle of the spear and you sharpen it to a point then the how it's got the thread you could screw it into the handle got a paintbrush roller drill a hole through it put a little pin in it then you fill the handle up with fiberglass resin to give it more weight weight and also to hold it longer the top piece is just uh i think it's a 10-0 fishing hook. You just shave the little bed off so they can't get stuck on it. The barb. The barb. And you screw it on, put a little screw through it, tighten it down. Then over it, you slide a big crimp.

You take it to a hydraulic press, and they press it. And that's your hook. $20 made hook compared to what they sell for $100 and then you go down and it surprised me I don't know if you just like reaching under their hook in the mouth you go out down and just flip the whole damn thing over well I go all over the place that wasn't intentional oh you weren't trying to do that I don't I don't flip it over for that same reason they just I like to lift it up maybe you were showing me what was going on or i couldn't tell what you were doing so that's not normally normally when when we do it we have a short piece of pvc pipe okay we prop one side up on it oh nice when you're

doing like industrial grade yes when i'm doing when i was doing a commercial and just rake out or you could hook for made under it but i like to rake out a certain amount look through it see what's big enough what's not big enough hook whatever's there is big enough let the resco go back rake out some of the next side opposite side what you just did because all the dust and mud and everything so you can see on this side just go from side to side and you always do you when you're doing this commercially you're doing it tankless right with a compressor or you do do okay so you're down there just working away commercially if you want to do it on a commercial scale free diving isn't the way to go i see it's too much too much up and down okay so you just go down and set up shop. Yeah. And you hook it, and you take the hook, and you're basically hooking it under his...

Right where his tail meets his head. Oh, what do you call it? Carapace. Carapace. So it's interesting to note, like, it's even hard to get a video of this most of the time, but when they're hooking him, they're hooking him there, and you hook, and then your other hand is here.

Oh, my other hand's like just sitting to the side and i bring it to me hold it like this same time i grab it i push up it's all one motion what i'm trying to say is like when you hook them you're hooking them and they're normal they're like feet are on the bottom or whatever but you hook them and their tail flips they flip upside down and he's catching their tail now facing towards him and then in one motion he's jooking it killing it right in the center of the the carapace underneath tossing that to the side and doing it again oh cool that's kind of like if you're holding a fry pan and you're flipping it i'm just trying to give the audience a visual like you're just kind of like flipping it toward you pretty much and it's the efficiency with which they do it

is unbelievable like on a i don't know how to gauge like how many can be done in a certain period of time but say in a in a in a free dive in a one minute free dive a free dive like where we was the other day if it was just me I probably could hook six or seven at a time. On one dive? And you just kind of scat him around on the bottom? I just throw him out from under the trap. After you kill him? Yeah.

That's like when you were starting to pick him up. I don't like other people picking him up because then I lose track. Then I'll sit there and look around for... Well, you'll notice. I didn't know what you were doing I thought you lost him no I always keep a count

so then I went and put him in your little pile because I didn't realize you were putting him there on purpose I thought you dropped it on accident or something I was just trying to figure it out and you're doing all that you can't hear what anybody's saying you're underwater so I'm just trying to piece it together and you guys would sometimes do 500 pounds in a day of tails tails just tails

it's working your ass off the most i've ever done with my father was almost 800 in one day that's a big like that's a big day financially right that's a huge day depending on the price too sometimes it'll average normally it'll start like 70 a pound but last year was i think it was last year last year was the highest it's been for a very long time it started at 14 wow wow and to the end of the season, I think it ended off like $22 or $24 a pound. Wow. Holy cow. Now this year, it started off as $10. Have you done

commercial conch fishing? No. Too much work involved for the price of conch. What would be the price of conch? I think it's like to the wholesale place where we're selling it to, it'd be like $3 a pound. Oh, God.

$4 a pound. Clean. Clean. Clean. No conch in it. I see why you stick with the lobsters. No shell, nothing. No skin on it.

Everything clean. It's too much work for the price. You guys will find out Why soon Yeah we're gonna Clean a conk on air On air conk cleaning See how long that takes

So I can get that From your normal podcast But the way This season's going So far in Abaco My father said He's just gonna set Fish spots

He can make more money Really Just cause the markets It's no crawfish Oh there's none really The first day He got A hundred A hundred and eleven pounds Wow just because the markets it's no crawfish oh there's none really the first day he had he got 111 pounds well compared to average of four to five hundred pounds the first day so what do you

think makes a difference from year to year as to whether there's a good season or not out of season fishing really you think so you don't think it's environmental conditions or hurricanes or current or any of that? Interesting. All summer long, my father said there's more boats down there growing fish than there would the first days be. Which goes back to the point of patrolling. I'm not going to throw any nations under the bus, but there's a lot of other nations that are historically blamed here for invading Bahamian waters.

And there is a... Which is true. Hatred. I mean, a solid hatred for good reason for them coming and stealing the resource. Because they kill everything. They kill everything. They go out there and dive on compressors in 180, 200 feet of water. Because there's just not the enforcement for it. And it's interesting because from my understanding of the Bahamian Defense Force and whatever,

they do have a fair number of boats. The problem is they don't have the funding for fuel. So we're always asking, where the hell are you guys at the dock? We don't have any money for fuel to go out and actually patrol. Because you think in one day they could go and confiscate all the boats they would ever need for patrolling you know because there's all these big old boats coming over from all over that don't have uh have not checked into the u.s or whatever because you got to check in and do customs immigration pay your your um you know entry

fees and get your licenses before you can go and do anything. You're not allowed to take anything until you've landed in the Bahamas and done that. And people do day trips. They come over here and they hammer the place and they run back. So Bimini is a famous place. Oh man, it's really unfortunate. Coming from Miami. Yeah, there's just not enforcement. They just don't have the money for fuel.

It's not allocated for it, unfortunately. And hopefully that changes here in the next 10 years as they just make it better. Let's talk about hole hunting for a minute. We've covered various aspects of spearfishing, but we haven't talked about hole hunting for big grouper. It would be. I could see how someone would look and think that it was like naughty because someone made the comment about shooting fish in a barrel.

Explain the basic, like, and why are the rules different underwater? In what way? Explain how, explain how you go hole hunting for grouper uh so grouper and most of these reef fish that we're hunting they're on the reef so somewhere is going to be their home and and they live in holes they live in a hole so you're eventually going to go in a hole so like

as kids and growing up and i mean honestly until about 15 years ago i'd never really used the light except for lobsters and you know you know you said that to me a handful of times about lights you're like if we'd have had these lights when we were kids dude it's been a whole different program huge huge i agree so like you know we you know would follow a group when we were kids and go in a hole and you look in there and just black you're like all right let's go find something else yeah the let me let me spend a couple seconds on these holes it might be that that um like when we're saying a hole it's i want you to people understand like how's like what exactly we're talking about it might be that you have a hole

i mean there's all kinds of configurations but it wouldn't be unusual to find a hole that would be big enough for you to get your head and shoulders into the mouth. I mean, it's like a hole in the rocks, like a little cave opening. You could get your head and shoulders into it or not. Or it might be that you can just look under it and you couldn't get any part of you in there. But you shine a light in there, you realize you're looking into the space that could be the size of a five-gallon bucket. It could be the size of a household refrigerator in these cavities. And then,

and then off of that is all these other little pockets and ledges and holes, like a coffee can that like a hole, the diameter of a coffee can that goes back in three feet. And you want to know how the hell did that form? Right. But like, like holes of all makes and sizes. Swiss cheese.

Swiss cheese. A good way to think of it and a good way to describe it so people can visualize it is think of your house, then think of five of your friends' houses. All of them are shaped differently. You think about being able to come through the front door, walk into the first room, then go into a hallway, then it opens up into another room.

This one has an open floor plan. Then there's a bathroom, and there's all these different spaces, and they turn and all that. Yeah, they got upstairs and downstairs. Exactly. That's how it is. Yeah, if you shrunk a house down to the size of a car, that'd be like a group role.

Yeah, and every single one is different. So there was one towards the end of the day yesterday where instead of like kind of prepping prepping you on it i was like just go go look at it and tell me what you think the approach is for it let's focus in on that fish for a minute because this fish had a this had had uncertain fate who thought you found the fish yeah so you found it out about doing his business and i chased him man as fast as i could swim for probably 250 yards yeah when you take off after one you're gone yeah i can't like a lot of times i can't find you i like kick to try to like look around and i'm like

oh shit there he is way over there yeah you like stay on top of him yeah so i haul ass after him because i know he's going to a hole and that one had the choice of heading to the right and going out off the drop-off and going into 100-foot water. But instead, he turned and went shallow. So he actually went in to about 35, 40 feet of water. So I followed him. He went in a hole. And looking at the hole, I could tell by the way it was swept out with sand and stuff,

that was his spot. So I waited for you guys to come and I knew it was like a 20 pound yellowfin grouper. And I went down and put the light on him and put a camera in there to record actually in the hole while he was in there. And you can tell when you look in there on a hole like that, he's not leaving. Like that's where he knows it's the absolute safest place within whatever proximity, like that's the he knows it's the absolute safest place within whatever proximity like that's the spot so the challenge with that hole is he had swept it out so that the entrance which was like if you make it if you make a circle with your arms right now towards your chest and kind

of bring it in a little bit it's kind of oblong shape and you had to go down a little bit and then up into it if that makes sense because he swept out the sand can't get a spear in there if you put a spear in the hole you're it's below them yeah because the lip of the ledge is basically pushing your spear down and that you couldn't excavate anything to make room for the butt end of the spear because it was all just rock coral hard coral so you tried you never even could get the angle and so you're like hey whoever wants would try it parent was giving me all kind of advice about how to do it i said then you go do it and i tried and he got in there with his with his spear and got it all lined up and i noticed he had to get his body back out and take

a blind shot trying to configure the spear at the angle of what you think it needs to be because you can't actually be up in the hole while you shoot then cameron went back down don't steal all his glory here so you pulled the trigger and you could hear i at least for me it was one of the most satisfying noises ever was to hear you hit solid rock. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to comment on that. You said that was rock. That was solid rock. Did not clear the lip.

So, of course, we give shit to Perrin as soon as he hits the surface. He's like, all right, well, you go catch him with your hands then. I was like, all right, I think I can do it. So, I went down there and blocked the whole hole with my shoulders, put my head in there, and I had him. Like, I had him in my hands multiple times in the hole he just wouldn't open his mouth the trick is to get him to bite you so that you can get your hands in his mouth and then you can get your hands in his gills yeah and it's basically noodling a noodle mouth grouper which i've i've done plenty of times

but man that was a pretty good 30 feet of water yeah yeah so i had a pretty good battle with him and during this you know all of us mucking around down there we had two sharks that had come up and one of them just as i came to the surface after noodle him and all that hell was breaking loose was like right there at the mouth of the hole and that grouper came out like you know like a guy that had almost got knocked out here's the thing is like nothing had actually happened to him but he had just had the most harrowing but he had had probably the most harrowing 45 minutes he's ever had in his whole life and the way that shark is like something is with that fish man you know what I mean yeah he had his number yeah so the grouper just came out of the hole and

you know it's like he's been in a dark room for 45 minutes he walks out of the sunlight and right there is a six foot shark like something's wrong with you i couldn't believe the way that shark recognized that he's like i don't know what it is but you're not right and man they both took off like bad out of hell and they were instantly gone if i had to bet money i think the group was not alive i think so too because here's what i think what happened to him he can't go to his main hideout and he's gonna go into like he's got to know exactly where he's going and if he goes into any place that we're at dead ends or there's another grouper he's gonna pause and that dude's on him, man. I feel bad for him. I think he survived.

Oh, you do? You'd be surprised. Them groupers are tough fish. Especially a shark on him, too. I can't believe. That was wild. He'll fit himself in a small hole, but you don't think he could fit in.

I hope he's alive. That's something interesting to say for both the the grouper and the the shark like the fish are amazingly hardy like the grouper that uh that we got with kimmy that one had an old scar in it yeah from where he had been shot and it ripped out you know and he had healed over and you actually pointed it out oh yeah i mean it's playing it like just playing his day yeah uh and a lot of those big old warriors like that they're gonna have that and then on the on the other end of the spectrum the sharks like how fast that shark went like we're always like yeah you know like

look at the shark or you know al roker said uh you know redirect the shark you know when they're coming at you or whatever seeing how fast that shark goes there is nothing you can do if they want you if they want to bite you you're getting bit there's no way to stop them they're just so fast i was really impressed by how fast that shark swam god like i normally would put money on the grouper but seeing that shark just chase that grouper and just how much he gained on him i I would put my money on the shark. What a morsel, man. That's a big meal, dude. So let's cover on a whole hunt that went right.

You saw him out minding his own business. Yeah, I'm going to take you with me every time we go for groupers because as soon as you and i jump in the water the bubbles clear and you see one we see one yeah so we jumped in that spot and um as soon as bubbles cleared like i kicked towards the reef and i saw a big one like the biggest grouper we've seen the whole trip and he started hauling butt um up the reef and i took off like a bat out of hell. Yeah, how far did he go before he went into his hole? Probably 40 yards, 50 yards. And we're talking about a 40-pound fish.

Yeah, and it's tough in that shallow stuff because you're like, your neck is so craned. Think about laying flat on the floor on your stomach and having to crane to look in front of you along the floor. That's a weird position. And in the shallows, crane to look in front of you along the floor that's a weird position and like in the shallows they're like straight in front of you it's not like looking down so they're already on the edge of visibility so i'm hauling butt after him and he went up into a section of the reef that uh zach brown and i actually found together um and in fact i call

that that spot i think uh zach Hole or Zach Black. Zach Black. Zach Black. Zach Black. Well, it had a black grouper. Yep. And he went in that same hole that Zach and I had gotten a big yellowfin grouper in. And I mean, you said it was like the most happy you've seen me in a long time. I was just like, yes.

He was giddy. Yes, because I knew the hole. And the only way to figure those holes out is to have an experience like we did yesterday. It's like you got to just spend a ton of time in there and figure out, I can get my body into this hole by twisting this way. Then I got to bring the pole spear in this way. But once they go in these dark holes where they think they're safe, for the most part, those groupers like to have an exit.

That particular hole does not have an exit, but it has enough space in there that he can go in and turn around. So their MO is to go in those holes, go way back up in the dark and just lay up against the back of it. So that anybody looking in there is just going to think it's the back of the hole because their camouflage and their coloring, they can change, you know, like a chameleleon they can change to match whatever they're doing so in there they're usually just jet black so went in there and looked with the light once kind of the you know the dust settled and then we started having to strategize like how can we get in that hole with a spear short enough to get in the hole

and then shoot him yeah because you actually said even though you knew that hole and you found that hole you guys weren't successful because it was too small for for zach's body yeah and it was a tricky hole like it was great it was a wonderful opportunity and of course having you put all those spotlights on the fish so we could see it was everything because steve and i couldn't even see it at first. But then trying to figure out, because you really had to go deep into that hole because he was way in the back.

And it's like a narrow little thing that's like just enough to fit my body. But trying to then figure out how to get a spear in there at the right angle and how to have it loaded in there, that was a lot. And for reference the the hole that we're talking about was probably just wide enough that steve or i or kimmy's shoulders could get in so we could sneak our body in there but then you had to go easy six foot just like yeah your feet are sticking out just your feet are sticking out yeah so you're and it's not like it's straight down so you're going probably down two feet and

then immediately turning and going to the left five feet six feet and the fish is back there about nine feet ten feet he's way in there so it it's wild. It's like a weird side-shaped chimney. And it's weird to squeeze yourself in this twisted tunnel that's just enough to fit your body, knowing that there's no possible way. When you're in all the way to your ankles and you know that you can't turn around, that's a weird feeling. Really really weird because going backwards is not the easiest thing to do and how and how many feet were you guys underwater i was at probably 30 35 there yeah and this is on a breath you know yeah on a single breath yeah so and this is one of the the things that i love about the whole hunting is the strategy behind it because all

of us are you know we're students of whatever sport it is you know hunting diving fishing and for each one of these situations you have to draw on every experience you had leading up to that to make it happen because like general people would have like a big long pole spear we've been using the whole time and be like this is it's not going to happen you just can't get the thing in there or you know he's around the corner blah blah we're not gonna be able to get it yeah we kicked around harpooning it yeah just pushing into him so in my mind and there's there's usually a way that you can figure it out um it's just being patient you know because once you touch him that one time he's gonna blow out of there so making that first shot count and not just taking a pot shot is really important.

Well, you got to wait for the sand to settle. It's got to be clear enough you can see him. You know, Steve was backing you out. I think I told you, you know, like if she starts getting stuck, you know, pull her out. And I told Cammy, I was like, when you do go and shoot him, if you don't have the perfect shot, don't let it go. But when you do shoot him, just let go of everything. All you need to focus on is

getting out of that hole because there's not enough space for both of you guys to be in that hole at the same time at the entrance because it's so narrow. And then you got a spear coming back at you too. So the danger factor and the complexity of all is is what makes it very challenging very dangerous and and you know awesome as well yeah i just want

to illuminate the picture it's like i was on the top watching this all go down it's like multiple dives down from all of you sometimes one of you sometimes a couple of you guys together checking it out seeing it coming back up readjusting the plan thinking of different you know ways to get him out who was going to do what who was going to you know it was just kind of this battle plan unfolding as you'd go and lay eyes on him or at one point maybe he was like further back in the hole you couldn't see him i mean it's just like your your team coming together to try to figure out whose job who's doing what how to get this and then to see it all come together from the surface was complete i mean it was insane to see, like, Kimmy jam that spear in.

Steve was behind her, went in, and, I mean. I ejected immediately, like Cameron said. Cameron just looked me in the eye. I was like, after you spear it, do not even try to horse it out. Get out of there. Steve, get ready to pull her out. You came up with a smile on your face? I knew I got him good. She smiled. I'm nodding. I think the first thing you said when you came up with a smile on your face i knew i knew i got him

good like the first thing you said when he came up was that ought to work yeah exactly you knew you hit him solid i fist pumped camera in on the way up and then said i said i said i think that's gonna work and then when he started talking to me i just happened to put my face back in the water and steve was already going down there to retrieve it and And I'm like, oh, Steve's already in it. So tell us from your side, Steve, because I mean, I know like, at least in my mind, I think that's the first time you realized how strong fish can be. Oh yeah. I mean, the first thing that surprised me is when I put my arm there, I couldn't find the shaft and that thing's long. I was like, damn, that thing isn't there far. And I've actually reached up in there pretty good and got ahold of the shaft and that thing's long i was like damn that thing isn't there far and i've actually reached up in there pretty good and got a hold of shaft and started to pull him and i was surprised that i could actually pull him a little bit but then he come out did he come

out head first yeah tail man i was i was i had no idea that fish was that big steve was whipped and it was just nothing but like oh I just like could see is just tail no no he came out headfirst but somehow that there was so much sediment shit and I just saw like what I thought looked like a halibut tail you know I just tail this tail is pro easily two hands fan like your hands yeah your hands easily oh wait did we did we say how big the scooper was yeah he's found 40 pounds yeah like i feel like 40 pounds brandon feels like upper 30s it was a it was like a stout ass fish man you were getting dragged around in circles yeah oh he so you got me like so you got it coming out and like what was kind of your plan like i'm just going to take him to the surface i don't know i was like i don't know what i thought i had to

hurry because i thought if he just came out i kept thinking well if he comes out just swims away with the whole kit and caboodle oh yeah which is true yep he could so i thought it was like a i thought it was like an essence of like 100 yeah and that's like hurrying you know because if he like came out and just before all the service he just like swam off i figured he just swam off so i thought you had to kind of be like johnny on the spot i think he did i don't know i was gonna pull him out of the hole. I don't know. And you guys are always hanging around, making sure nothing bad happens to me.

So I figured if I got him out of the hole, someone else would do something. As soon as I looked down. I was just trying to be helpful. You pulled him out, and you're kind of facing the hole. You pulled him out, and in the video, you can see he comes out like a bat out of hell, comes to life, and spins you around 180 on those crazy dime drag you at least 25 feet oh yeah the bottom of the ocean you had

made a comment about you like the kind of fish where you got to dig your heels in try to drag them out of the hole which is hard with a fin on but i actually when he went under that next ledge i had like i break i was trying to brace myself yeah yeah like i was gonna do a deadlift that was like getting set up for a dead lift and then once he was free of the hole then kimmy was down there and then i was like holy that fish is big man that's amazing it just seems like in that i don't know why but like in that because most of the fish you're looking at aren't big you know you're looking at all kinds of fish like you know two three four pounds i mean just all the reef fish're looking at aren't big. You're looking at all kinds of fish, like two, three, four pounds. I mean, just all the reef fish.

And I just didn't know that something like that was around. It surprised me. Even when I went down and looked at it, because you're only looking at it like there's a portion of a fish. Yeah. When you put a light in there, you're like, just look where the light is. I'm like, oh, yeah, fish. I don't know. Here, what about this?

He says like 30, 40-something pounds. When you're looking at it in the cooler, what's its dimensions? It's a Yeti 165. Its lips and tail are touching. That's a good reference. And just fat and chubby in between. Those big blacks,

we can always tell they're over 35 when they get that big bottom jaw. You can see the big shoulders, but that big bottom jaw, as they get bigger it just gets bigger and bigger and like that's a real one you know at but less than that i still think it's kind of not a juvenile i mean they're good fish but that's a a stud like that was a big one you know the thing i've learned from um i think i'll learn from spear fishermen that i had put together for

like after a whole life of rod and reel and fish is that like grip like that the if you get your hand up in his throat so your thumb is under one gill plate and your four fingers go onto the other gill plate and you're basically like grabbing his trachea you're grabbing the base of his gills and pushing all of his gills together too you're closing it man you can manage a hell of a big fish like that and it's so much easier You're grabbing the base of his gills. And pushing all of his gills together too. So you're closing his gills. Man, you can manage a hell of a big fish like that. And it's so much easier to swim them and turn them by their head. You got them.

You think of it, you're choking them. They shut right down. You're not letting water go through their gills. They're like, oh, jeez. I mean, this is different. It's like it puts you in the driver's seat. In a way, the holding his tail and shit is not. It just makes them that much more.

I mean, that's how they're shaped to be hydrodynamic. So it just makes sense. Oh, yeah. I was like, I couldn't believe the first time I did it, I did it on a yellow tail. And it was like, he was just like very hard to manage, rapping all over, beating me inside of the head. And I eventually got him like that. And he's just like, okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join, our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking a high-end titty there,

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If you're curious what all this looks like all the hole hunting parent as a camera as an underwater cameraman how would you rank coverage it's one of those difficult things to shoot ever because you guys are disappearing inside of a cave and it does make it doesn't create certain complexities well it's dark and you have a flashlight and there's silt everywhere so honestly the camera rigs like we can barely get them inside the holes um having gopros and things rigged up in the cave like camera setting up is super helpful for us um because grouper and stuff they just disappear into the dark so it's not the easiest thing to shoot and one thing people forget uh is that the camera guys have to keep up with you athletes or divers and uh that's gonna be hard

sometimes but we have this great there's like great stuff oh yeah oh yeah i know parent if you were to rate like the footage that we've been getting recently i mean it's it's it's as good as it gets for the bahamas um and there's a lot of teamwork involved in that with you guys hunting but also like kimmy and Cameron, I've been diving with them for almost a decade now. So when we're all diving together is the most fun for me. Cause we don't even have conversations. We just look at each other and all of us know exactly what to do at all

times in the water. And it's like this unspoken communication when we're hunting and filming, that's just like, everything is seamless and creating with professionals and getting it all on camera it just what we've created this past week is going to be one of those badass bahama shows i've ever seen so i'm excited about it that's what i'm talking about and they'll be able to see it where kimmy on meat eater youtube i think it's gonna release in october and um yeah i'm to have my own little series on Meat Eater. What other places are on there?

So this is our travel episode. It is currently a four-part series. And so we have Maui, my origins, and we have other places in Hawaii, Big Island. And this is the travel episode, Bahamas. Awesome. Yeah. But Perrin and my husband, Justin, have been filming all the underwater stuff. And I think it's just, it's so damn cool to have like people who are not just really,

really good cameramen, but they're also, they're also holding their breath with us. I don't think a lot of people understand that. It's insane, guys. And they're also just, their knowledge and understanding of spearfishing like like they're not just okay we're gonna work our cameras and then be done like any break they get they're out there poking fish too and that's what makes it so cool is it like when we say it's teamwork i mean it is such teamwork half the times when we're diving like it's even our camera guys like grunting or getting our attention to show us like a fish that we're not seeing and um you guys are capturing it but you're you're hunting it with

us and that's what i think like makes the filming of the whole thing so fun definitely my heart the problem i have with the way they grunt at you when they see something is it first takes me five minutes to figure out where the hell they're at because it never just like automatically occurs to me they're behind me i always start looking like in front of me because you know like underwater noise there's no direction to it but every time i hear him grunt i start looking in front of me i'm like like the one place i know he's not is there but i'm still like like where is he i'm like oh that's right somewhere behind me or just what like what are you talking about they're basically

going idiot idiot hey idiot how about right there I only had to grunt at you a few times Steve keep that slip tip on

it would be so much easier if we could talk underwater I was going to give him a little chalkboard you know those little underwater chalkboards

he's like look to your right there is a large hogfish staring at you. Cute cards. No, what was so cool is that you guys put each other on so many different fish species. So you were able to experience what it was, catching hog, yellowjack, black grouper, couple of others.

Yeah, conch. And just to have that different experience with each species and i love i love seeing the learning curve because i mean i said it yesterday like kimmy is arguably one of the best female and male spearfish period in the world like she's phenomenal she just has that way in the water um but even still like nerves using different rig and you know the water the first day like you kind of worked out the kinks and same thing with steve you know by the end of the trip i mean we still made some mistakes but night and day different than you know the first day like

your guys learning curve was like this like it was pretty incredible that's the fun part okay so uh we got one couple things left one major thing left uh a conch is a large marine snail what's a big conch way it's gonna be a few pounds right i've had some where the actual meat itself weighs up to two pounds oh the meat itself then the whole damn shell is way heavier than that probably a foot long and tastes real good yes they do pain in the ass to clean oh but you don't let i want to cover another thing you don't like lobster anymore you got burned out you're like someone that gets a job at an ice cream place pretty much and they quit eating ice cream i mean i'll still eat it but i really lost the taste for it handled too many of them seeing too much smelt it eating

it too much but you still like conch yeah i love conch it's not uh cleaning conch is not um intuitive no count no you like well i'll back this up but we're gonna go we're gonna clean you're gonna clean one for us again i think i you the story, but I'm going to tell it again. The first time we tried to clean one, we were in the southern Yucatan Peninsula, and we were kind of camping in this old bombed-out house. The roof had burned off. It was sort of like just a structure,

and the windows were gone, but it had the window frames, and we had a rental car. We took the bottle jack out of the rental car, and we put the conch up of the rental car and we'd put the conch up against the top of the window frame the frame and put the bottle jack on the bottom of the window frame and put a two by four between the conch and the window frame so it's like from going from it's like the window frame a bottle jack a two by four on top of the bottle jack then the conch sandwiched between the two by four and the roof of the window frame of a house and then start working the jack there's a bottle jack didn't make that

noise but you get the noise and then we'd like pick crush it and then pick all the chunks of shell and shit out of there and try to sort out what was edible and then one day we found where someone had been cleaning some ages ago and we're like why do they all have that little hole and then it began to occur how one breaks into a con but i still hadn't really ever figured it out till now i've seen people completely destroy the shell to get it i would take a big hammer or sledgehammer and just completely explode the shell and like you say pick the pieces off yeah okay we're gonna deal with that real quick we gotta step outside though right because it's

a messy business all right blocked it so we got you got the conch in your hand what's your weight two three pounds three pounds yes i'd say two two pounds snail in your hand and he cut and he's helical and he comes to a point. And those are his growth rings. Yes. And you're going to chisel into that snail shell where the end of his body curls all the way around. Yep. So basically...

You have a special hammer. Is that made for that? Yeah. Actually, it is. It's like a... Imagine a... It's like a two... I can't think of what the blade is called. Like a...

Hatchet? Yeah, like two hatchet blades set at 90 degree angles. So one side's got a vertical and one side's got a horizontal, depending on your stroke. Right? Different strokes for different folks. That's right. So you're going to take that and you're going to bore into that shell. Yeah.

So what you're going to do is count. I normally typically count up instead of counting down. It's practically the same. So I'll count two up. So you start from this one where it's more defined. One, two, in between the second and the third. Well how do you know where to start counting? Yeah, that's an immediate argument.

Because you go to where it gets sharp. So the first roll is well-defined. But that's someone's preference. So that you'd count, he'd be the one you'd count. You'd count that one right there. Yeah, that would be one, that would be two. Or you could go one. Okay, then.

If you thought total bullshit, where's the nuts on that wisdom that's true but we see right here right yeah count count two from there see if you can get him and that's a funny thing cuz I guarantee you will never get him out no cuz that's not technically there's no horns one two and two, then you break that, and what you get. So this goes to show that it's almost by, it's like common sense that that's gonna be where it's gonna be, you know? Like that's where you gotta crack it. Yes and no.

But I'm saying, like for us, like you look at it, that makes total sense it's gonna be there. For me, it makes total sense it's gonna be there. You know what he said to me a handful of times? He said to me something about how he was trained or how he was taught he's got like a yeah he does an allegiance to the one two three four five six seven that's between the seventh and the eighth let's do it guys if you want to count all of them all right go sorry and how do you know where you're gonna whack it? Yep. I count the notches, so you count two notches, one, two, and it's in between the second and third.

But you're counting the first notch that has texture. Yes, the one that's really defined. A defined, horny little growth ring. Yes, and you just count up two, and between the second and third is where you're gonna crack them. And the goal is that you're gonna break a little teeny hole in there.

Yes. And then sever his mooring, because he's like curled inside there. Not just the muscles stuck to the shell itself, that's what attaches him. So he's only attached in one little spot inside there. You're not really cutting nothing off to say detach it, you're just removing it. Got it. Just lifting it. You're not really cutting nothing off to say detach it, you're just removing it.

Got it. Just lifting it. You're just prying it free. Pretty much. Loosening his grip on his shell. Yes. Got it. And that's it.

Whack! Okay, there's a little hole, third inch by an inch. Now this one he wants though. okay there's a little hole third inch by an inch snakes a bendy Dexter fillet knife in there and you're just freeing up so the flexi blades really important huh to be honest no no I prefer to use a butter knife. Got it. Then you grab his foot. Wow comes right out of there you'd never guess that's who was living in there. Crazy looking thing just slides right out. He's got a little dinosaur claw for a hook. An orange section, a black section, a brown section,

and a big old white section. So what all this is edible? of it really and truthfully if all of it is edible besides the spur the gut and the mouth you cut that off you could eat dyes and everything looks like a little alien and then you gotta get the rubbery skin off there you don't have to you don't have to knowians, normally they won't cut it off. Oh, really? We eat the skin and everything. Hmm. Why are you cutting it off for us? Because we're not Bahamians.

Well, I mean, I probably would wear a jaw out. And you all probably have a different point of view on it. Yeah. If it's got the skin on. People say it makes it tougher, but not really. So what come out of there is like a big, I mean, what you left over was, I would say, If it's got the skin on. People say it makes it tougher. But not really. So what come out of there is like a big, I mean, what you left over was, I would say, you left over like a big hamburger patty of meat.

Pretty much, yes. And so, Steve, what's your hot tip takeaway from conk cleaning? Don't use a bottle jack. Okay, so one last thing. Speaking of con conch the other day we had this is where you listeners get involved the other day we had uh conch fritters at a restaurant that is just it's it's great i can't stop thinking about the guy in the restaurant that's amazing there's a guy and his family has been on this island for out and how long 150 years something crazy he lives alone for the most part lives alone on this island for I don't know how long. 150 years or something crazy. He lives alone, for the most part, lives alone on an island.

Collects rainwater and has a brackish water well. Completely off the grid. And of all things, he runs a restaurant that he used to run with his mother, who grew up there. His siblings were like born on the island. He likes to point out that he wasn't because he was born in a hospital and taken used to run with his mother who grew up there his siblings were like born on the island he likes to point out that he wasn't he was born in a hospital and taken back to the island family dates back over a century and like this dude named chester has his restaurant and you need to call and tell him you're coming and you pull a boat up i mean he's many miles from the nearest road you pull the boat up and he makes fried fish conch fritters and during season he cooks your lobster

cameron's friends with him and it's like it's not it's hard to explain the like normally you think of a restaurant you think of someone like uh he's just like he's just trying to get by in a way that makes sense to him yeah right and provide like like a really nice service it's like it's like a restaurant but it's not it's his home no one's getting rich at this restaurant it's just like he like lives the way that makes sense to him and the way he's been there and he is a restaurant it brings about a tremendous amount of goodwill you call them you come in you park your boat you walk up and he makes cronk fritters and fried fish and sells beer it's a great place and like slamming rum punch is delicious but for him to get fuel is a real pain in the ass and camera can explain the fuel situation so he had he's always run on generator it's not like there's power out there

and i think in a 30 mile stretch there might be five other people that live like he's just right smack in the middle of no man's land so he's got a diesel generator that he had for the last 10 years or whatever that died just after this past hurricane so about 10 miles away on another island we had heard that there was another generator that had been up in the woods in the bush for like 15 years left like and the guy who owns that island said you guys can have that if you want so him and two other guys went and got that old generator it's just been overgrown or whatever put it on a boat drug it back to the island and we drug it up the hill and put it back in there and somehow a mechanic got it going after you know week so now he's got this dilapidated old generator and to get fuel for that he's got to get in his boat go 15 miles

get diesel put it in jerry cans and bring it back to that on hump it up the hill and refill that generator constantly so just before covid i i got a guy to go he then got weirdly he got shut down for nine months during covid talk about brutal like a place that would no one even know about he's like restaurants got shut down i closed yeah that's so weird like i would have been like i'm just gonna keep staying open because who's gonna know who's gonna know yeah um so he's always he's always said you know if you can get me a generator you know that'd be great so a while back i went there and looked in the generator shed man there's like five generators in there like a diesel generator is just not the way to go they're just going to keep dying yeah they die and just live there and he's gonna die moves over

and puts another one in so i was like why not why not do solar? So I started looking into getting quotes for solar, had a guy go out there and figure out the amount of power he needed and give us a quote and a game plan for doing solar. And that's where I got Steve involved. I said, if you can give back anything for this trip, it would be to help him, to get him solar. Just because he has done such a service for everyone that has ever visited that place, we'll never forget it. That's one of the

coolest spots on the planet. And just to take one aspect of us giving back to him and this worldwide community that loves that place so much and putting solar that's going to help the environment and help that island, I would love to do that. And we are rolling. Right now, we're with Chester. Can you introduce yourself and where we are right now? Hi, I'm Chester Davo. We are at Flores, Kongshak, and Little Harbor

in the Berry Islands, Bahamas. And how big is this island that we're standing on, and who inhabits it? The island is about two and a half miles long and about a quarter mile wide to the widest. Current population? Current population right now is two, but usually just one. So years ago, I was down here in the Bahamas, and we've been fishing up in the northern bear of the islands we were running back down south and we ran past this island and i was like man who lives on that island there's like two little houses and a buddy's like man that's that restaurant that's called flows he's like well how in the

heck do they get anything there but let's go check we gotta go check this out so we pull in run aground a couple times trying to get in here and finally get in here to the dock and walk up and i was like hey can we have lunch chester's like you can have lunch tomorrow and it just segued into the next 15 years of getting to know chester and just what he has to go through day to day to live on an island by himself and run a restaurant which is arguably the best kunk and fresh fish fried fish i've ever had in my life anywhere in the world it's so good so good thank you very much for that cam i mean it's got to be wild for you seeing this every day,

but, you know, every little bit is history because your family's been here for more than 100 years. Yeah, but what basically what got me started with this, when I was in school, my mom told me that this was our father's dream before he passed. So in school, I used to think about it all the time. And what I'm doing here right now is just trying to fulfill his dream because he's not here.

So I took it upon myself to make it my dream. And what's your family's history here? You're telling me about your great or great-great-grandmother. My name is Agnes Johnson. I think she was born in 1814, if I'm not mistaken. And she was the founder of this island, Little Harbor and the keys around it. And it's been in our family ever since. It's generation property.

You said she used to, what did she used to do on this island? She used to cook for the pirates. That's before she bought this island. She did it on Sistine Key, which is opposite Great Harbor. And she used to cook for the pirates. And they used to pay in gold. She was a slave. And that's where she made her fortune,

and she overheard the pirates talking about purchasing Little Harbor. So when they went out to sea, she went in there and saw and purchased it. And when they came back and they met her here, that's how she got this island. How'd that go over the pirates well they didn't have a choice in the matter she already paid for it that's pretty wild and the when you as soon as you pull up here you see generations and generation pile the biggest pile of conch shells i've ever seen

you're looking at over 100 years of conch and 100 years ago i mean it's literally gonna be close to a million conch well what you got to look at what you're looking at is only half of what used to be here because the shell it rots after a while and it turns into sun that's why you're staying so pretty. It's from all that kong. I guess so. So you run a restaurant. You live on this island. There are needs for power, electricity to keep things running.

Yes, ma'am. What's your current situation with this now? Well, right now, I'm just skating on thin ice right now. That's what's going on with me right now. And, you know, I need help. If whoever can help me, I'd appreciate it very much. What's the back story? For the major challenge here is Chester lives 15 miles from any other civilization.

So to get even fuel for the generator, he's got to go down and get in his boat, if the weather allows and then run another 15 miles up take gas cans up get them filled with diesel hop back in the boat run back here and then hump them up this hill and then back another 150 yards back into the bush to a generator that is probably 30 or 40 years old you know and it's been it's i mean you're just hanging on by a thread keeping that thing running pretty much and uh how how hot was it today about 96 degrees inside inside having even a fan is helpful here so you know having that generator is a big deal but i'd had the idea just before covid to try to get you solar he's got a perfect piece

of land here that's kind of protected from you know the hurricanes there's a good spot to put the solar kind of out of the way um it's going to save you know moving diesel and and not having to to rely on fossil fuels period um and just know, you think about the things we do day to day just to survive, you know, at home, and how many people we have helping us. He doesn't have anybody helping. It's just him. So if you're having an off day and, you know, it's the however many. How many days do you run on diesel before you got to refill uh well the tank

i have is about uh about every three three days i usually put in about 15 gallons roughly so it's a lot of work yep let's get some solar on this island so personally i couldn't fund it and i wanted to get some friends on this island. I can show you. Personally, I couldn't fund it, and I wanted to get some friends together to help do it. And everyone I talked to had offered to help. But, you know, Steve, in talking to him and, you know, our group of friends here is like, let's do this. You know, let's really help him out. We can use our reach, you know, to help a good guy in a cool place, you know, to be able to keep you doing what you're doing so more people can come and enjoy this and this is there's not enough places like this on

the planet with people like you yeah we spent we spent a number of hours over a couple of days here at chester's and this was the base camp for part of the film shoot. He fed us from the restaurant. It was a scene for, we used his kitchen and his restaurant for a cooking scene for the show. And yeah, I mean, it's something that anyone who's in this area like needs to come and experience. It is something that you really, I can't imagine finding anywhere else. So it's just kind of preservation of history and continuing that. Yes, you can say that again. Helping the environment, helping Chester.

He also makes a slamming rum punch, by the way. That's Flo's famous rum punch. Flo's conch shack, right? Flo's conch shack right flo's conch shack solar yep um that's that's what i've put together on so yeah cameron set up a go fund me to help and you might be sitting there thinking like um why would i give a shit about this place i don't i can't explain it to you yeah it's a cool place it's a really cool project. He's a great guy. Such a nice guy. And it'd just be fun to do that. I feel like a lot of listeners would kick in a few bucks.

Yeah. I'm going to kick in some money. Yeah. I mean, anything helps. And if it takes us five years to do it, you think about how many thousands and thousands of gallons of diesel burned that that'll save in one of the most pristine spots in the world. To be able to do it solar and to take that out of it, those fossil fuels out of it would

be pretty amazing. He's just such a nice, unusual guy. He's just want that place and what he's doing to exist in this world. I mean, he has, like you said, over a century of history there, he said to himself, like, I'm never leaving this island. That's what he wants to do for the rest of his life. But it's like not exactly like fitted for today's world,

you know? And so, but to me, it's like, those are the little gems, the little splashes of like awesome, unique diversity that makes the world that much more interesting. So if we all could help it out, just so it can exist, flashes of like awesome unique diversity that makes the world that much more interesting so if we all could help it out just so it can exist like what a better place the history flows conch

shack solar yeah you can have it all set up yep flows conch shack solar one thing he mentioned as it being his dad's dream i feel like it was like a couple of generations back what was it cam his great great great great grandmother flo she uh he told us a story about how uh she used to serve food on that island to the pirates and they were paying gold yeah she was she was born a slave yeah but yeah but got into feeding the pirates when they would come in and would collect gold. This is in the 1800s. Yeah, made a little fortune off of that and not to stand them on the island for a while. And had heard the pirates liked that island. So when the pirates went out to do their thing, she went to Nassau and bought the island.

So they were a little bitter about that. That's what I asked. I was like, so what did the pirates do? They must have been pissed. So let's keep that history up into the present and future. Yeah, it's a fun project. We'll talk more about it. Thank you, guys.

We also got a little video of showing the place. It'd be sweet if people could, like I said, kick in a couple bucks and pull that whole thing together. It'd be fun. Yeah, it's where Kimmy did her cooking segment, or the three of us I should say did our cooking segment yeah for her show in the series

and Chester's on it yeah Chester's on it all right not to be confused with Chester the divestor yeah it's a different Chester polygraph Chester all right yeah

lion Chester all right everybody thanks a lot 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. On-axe hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips you canadians the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts this season now the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land

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