The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 537: BONUS DROP - Bass to Bluewater with the MeatEater Crew

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Rene Cross of Cypress Cove, Janis Putelis, and Seth Morris.  Topics discussed: Reserve your spot now with Steve, Jani, Clay, Cal and the rest crew at our very first ME Experiences offering this year--fishing in Louisiana and waterfowl hunting in Kansas; First Lite's new Walnut and Cerca color patterns are available now; enter TRCP's Spring Sweepstakes for a chance to win a turkey hunt with Steve and Janis; the sun doesn't set on Tabasco sauce; cooking wild duck for the first time; the return of the "Deep Drop Boyz" show idea with Steve and Seth; what fish makes a good poke bowl; how the biggest bluefin was caught in Cypress Cove; how sheepshead is fun to catch; power pluckers; known for crawfish; and more.  Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee 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. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-t-l-i-t-e.com okay joined right now by renee cross who played bass with zz top not really you did i did he did. I had no idea you were Not as a member of the band. No, he

played bass. Yeah, it's still noteworthy. He played bass with the guys. You played bass at ZZ Top. You don't need to give all the extra details. No more details needed. Rene Cross has actually run Cypress Cove Marina.

I'm going to start out by telling. I got a couple good stories about when I met people. I met my buddy Jimmy Dorn, just to give you a background. I moved to Seattle. I lived in Seattle for a few years. There's this dude, Jimmy Dorn. He's a pizza magnate. Buddy of mine.

He sold his pizza joint. I thought he opened up another one. Different menu. Oh. He's in a lower margin business now. Misses pizzas. Loves his place, but just lower margins. Anyhow, he heard that I moved to Seattle, and he sends a couple emails to just like

the company email address saying, hey, I saw Steve move to Seattle. If he ever wants to come by and get a pizza have him call my restaurant i never get these emails i never see this one day i take my kids to get a haircut and like it takes forever to get them all their hair all three of them their haircuts and we're living like in a temporary place my wife just taking a job and uh and i'm walking back with them i'm like man it's just too late i'm never gonna get back make dinner get everybody to bed it's not gonna happen and i'm like i guess we're walking past a pizza joint belltown pizza and i just like walk in i think i'll get him a slice of pizza and there's this bald-headed dude standing there i can't believe you came

i'm like uh do i know you what do you mean like you don't get customers i met renee cross here from cypress cove marino you probably don't even remember this at your fish cleaning station. I had my book. I wanted you to sign it. Yeah. We were down. I've fished out of Cypress Cove a couple times now, and oddly in different circumstances.

But my buddy Greg Fonts, who I talk about all the time, has been on the show. My spearfishing mentor. He's got friends and connections down in Southern Louisiana. And so we were, we, I think I've gone three times, three years in a row down to spearfish down out of, out of Venice, Louisiana and have based out of Cypress Cove.

So one day we're sitting there cleaning fish. I don't know if you were there at this. So one day we're sitting there cleaning fish. I don't know if you were there at this time or not. We're sitting there cleaning fish. I think I was. And some guy pulls up in a truck. Oh, yeah. I remember. Yeah.

I remember you pulling up in a truck. Some guy pulls up in a truck. And he wants me to sign his book. And we get to talking. And it winds up that he owns the whole damn deal. Yeah. I remember that. Cypress Cove Marina.

Well, it's like I've told you before, Steve, I just like the format of your show and especially the cooking part. I love to cook. I mean, I built my house almost 30 years ago now. And the first thing that I put in, it was a commotion Vulcan stove because I like to cook that much. I mean, people walk in there at that time, you didn't have those big stoves. Nowadays, it's kind of a norm. You know, anybody that builds a high-end house, they're going to put in a commercial stove. It might be Viking.

It might be a Wolf or anything else. But the reality is that my kids had given me your cookbook. And when I found out that you were actually coming, I said, get that cookbook. I want him to sign it. It meant something to me. I was like a kid. It's like a rock star. I mean, to me, you were. I like your show.

I like the format of it. I like everything about it. I mean, to me, you were. I like your show. I like the format of it. I like everything about it. Oh, that's great, man. It's a great thing, and I'm glad that we finally get to put something together like what we're trying to do in October of this year. Yeah, I'm going to cut to the chase real quick. Then we're going to come back around to a couple things. Getting to know Rene at Cypress Cove, we eventually hit on this idea of doing a thing we've

been wanting to do for a long time. Just looking for the great place to do it. Where we're going to do a thing called Meat Eater Experiences. And when we started getting this going, Rene was the first guy called because he's got this awesome place. And I want you to describe the fishery there because it's like one of the richest, like you say, one of the richest marine environments on earth.

It's like you're where the Mississippi dumps into the Gulf of Mexico, but you're only 20 miles from offshore. We like to say we've got everything from bass to blue marlin. And that's a fact. Bass to blue marlin. Bass to blue marlin. Bass to blue marlin, and you can be back at night. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

So we're doing a deal. We're doing a big fishing party where we're going to come in and take over. Not take over because Renee isn't going to be there. We're going to come in and do a big fishing party at cypress cove marina where folks can come we're gonna have a bunch of our guys from meat eater down there folks can come and we're gonna fish we got tons of guides lined up we stay at cypress cove marina so you're just staying right where you're fishing we got all these guys lined up every day people that come. You get to do something different every day, inshore, do offshore, clean fish, package fish, talk about fish. We'll do stuff at night for fun.

It's going to be a blast. And you get to experience some of the best food in the world because we're going to put on the dog for this show, and it's not going to be anything trashy. One of the things that we like to specialize in and we do it out of our restaurant and we would like to do it for the people that are coming and taking on this chore as well. If you catch a bunch of fish that you feel like eating, you've come in from one end of the country to come down to the bottom of the boot to Venice, Louisiana and hey, I caught some redfish.

I sure would like to eat it tonight. It's fresh. Absolutely. We'll cook it for you. That night, when you have it nice and fresh and included with everything else that we're doing with this package, we want to make sure that you not only have the experience of catching these fish, but eating them fresh out of the Gulf of Mexico. Learn how to cook them right.

Clean them right. Exactly. It's good that I met you at a fish cleaning station. No, look, I mean, we've had people bring them into the restaurant and they've not taken blood lines out and everything else. I said, you don't understand. This is for your experience. You want it right?

Get that blood line out of there. That doesn't taste very well. It's very oily, very strong. So we're going to make sure that the guides clean the fish properly and the people that want to go ahead and cook it for their dinner that night, they can have it. Excellent. Also joining today, Janis Patel

is here. Hi, Steve. Why are you looking at Phil? I wasn't. I was just kind of making a joke as though there might be someone else sitting next to me. Corinne's sitting behind me. And Seth's here. What are you guys wearing there? It's a new fancy color.

Everybody's been wearing that shirt on the podcast. We've never addressed that shirt because it was kind of a thing in the future. And it still is a thing in the future. But if you've seen us all wearing that shirt, which is the, one of the best shirts ever made on the planet, not a summertime shirt. It's a winter shirt. Nope.

Uh, one of the best wool shirts ever made on the planet, but that color is called Walnut. And First Light has two new colors, all Walnut. And they have the new Western camo circuit, which you probably seen on our social media and people wearing it around the room here.

Oh, Seth's got a walnut jacket on. Yep. That's out. This one's out. Yeah. On that rain wear, but the two new colors,

which a lot of people have commented on walnut and the new first light Western camo pattern circa. You can now any old Tom, Dick and Harry can go and find all your wool base layers. So merino base layers, the wick, the kiln, the furnace, all those merino base layers are now available in both Walnut, which these attractive young men are wearing, and the new Western Camo pattern, Circa, which again people have seen on social media and asked about,

but no one was really saying much about it because we just don't talk about stuff that's forthcoming. But those base layers are out now. So check out this fine color these boys have on and then get over to firstlight.com and check out the new base layers. What else we got to go? Oh, you know another thing we got to talk about, Yanni, real quick is the every year Yanni and I do, how many years we've been doing this? Oh boy. about yanni real quick is the every year yanni and i do how many years we've been doing this oh boy i think we've done at least three turkeys and i think we did one elk hunt prior to that right this is year five i believe so every year yannis and i do a trcp giveaway trcp sweepstakes giveaway where um we take it's kind of changed over the years, but it's settled in on me and Yanni take two winners, um, on a turkey hunt and we have a phenomenal success rate

with our hunters. The hunters have, uh, are batting 100%. I think you went home turkey list one year. Yeah. Cause I i put my i don't i put i put all those ahead of myself all the money goes to trcp so theater roosevelt conservation partnership it's a fundraiser we do uh we just we volunteer our time all the money goes to trcp um and it's a raffle so you buy like it's like 25 bucks gives you 10 entries. That's right. 50 bucks gives you 25 entries. And then legally they have to-

100 bucks gets you 100 entries. Oh, is that how it works? Yeah. And legally you got to do something where people can also enter because it's a sweepstakes and it's very complicated sweepstakes law. You do this thing where people got to be able to enter for free. Right. So if you're that kind of feller

and you really dig deep, you'll figure out how to not do anything and win. We never had a do nothing guy win, I don't think. But I don't know. They probably wouldn't admit it. They probably would not.

I was going to mention this. There must not be too many people that try to go that route, you know, and try to come in under the radar and not buy some, buy some of these raffle tickets because it's been extremely successful thanks to everybody that in years past has, has bought tickets. And it's, it's, um, I mean, I think TRCV says it's one of their best fundraisers of

the year and, uh, it does a lot of good. So thank you. I don't like talking about how much it raises because then people are going to start doing the math and they're going to think that they don't have a high chance of winning. Yeah. I just want to say thanks because people... A very high chance of winning.

I actually posted a video today of talking about asking people to enter when i was hanging out with last year's uh winner with minutes after he had killed his gobbler we're walking out of the woods oh yeah and uh it's cool like real people win and they come and hunt with us yeah and trcp's uh you know their motto is guaranteeing americans quality places to hunt and fish. All the money goes to TRCP. When you win, when you win, you will. I'm going to violate sweepstakes law.

If you win, airfare, tags, food, accommodations, we even give people gear. You don't pay for nothing. You got to get yourself to your airport yeah and we take care of everything you you the two people you hunt i mean we're wake up before dark we hunt together clean birds together cook together we don't go to bed together we have meals together we go we go to our own rooms together. Maybe have a cocktail if you're into having a drink. Lots of laughs, lots of stories. I basically just make Steve sit around and tell stories, and we all laugh.

It's fun. And that's happening right now. We do it every year. This is fifth year running. So go to trcp. What's the best place to go?.org. You'll find it there. Yeah, it's right on the front page right now, TRCP.org.

And I think if you wanted to go right to it, you could probably go forward slash sweepstakes, but it's unnecessary. I checked it today. It went right there. Our dudes get birds. Do you know where you're going next year? No, on Monday.

Right now, we're taking last year's winners to Mississippi. Yeah, I've heard about that. I'm jealous. We're scouting. We're kicking around where we're going to take this year's winners. But don't worry. We're going to take you to a primo spot. We're not going to go to a non-primo spot.

Because we get birds. Because we get birds. And also, we're not going to take you to a non-primo spot. Because we get birds. Because we get birds, and also we're not going to take you to a non-primo spot. There's no way. Because everybody wants to pitch in. People want to pitch in. You know? My buddy Matt pitched in, our guy this year. Yeah.

I don't know if we can... Can we mention his name? Say his first name. Yeah, Taylor is taking it very seriously, and I believe if we were to not come back, he would be extremely upset and he's doing everything possible to make sure that

we're in Mississippi for at least a couple more years. I joined you guys one year just to go along and take some pictures and whatnot and everyone got a turkey that year. Dang tootin'. even you no not me all the winners all the winners yeah yeah i shot jake that year remember yeah you and me were together what part of mississippi is it it's about an hour hour south of jackson our south

we're right where jerry clower grew up i i know exactly where you are, but my place is about an hour north of Jackson. You got turkeys? Oh, Lord, yes. Next year, we're going to Ray Cross. We'd love to do that. Oh, there you go. Okay, you listeners, now you know where you're going to be hunting. Now you know the backup spot.

Yep. Just think about how good the main spot is. That's the backup spot. Yep. Just think about how good the main spot. That's the backup spot. Rene, tell real quick, do you identify as a Cajun? Do you call yourself, do you run around saying, I'm a Cajun? In reality, yes, I do. And I'm actually born and raised in New Iberia, Louisiana. Okay. And New Iberia is just not very far from Avery Island.

And to kind of give you an idea of that area, Avery Island is where Tabasco sauce is made. The sun doesn't set on Tabasco sauce. And so the McElhenney family, they used to put that they were actually from New Iberia, but they were from Avery Island. And then when being in the middle of nowhere was kind of the neat thing to do, they decided to put that they were from Avery Island on their bottles now. But that's where I'm from.

And to consider yourself a Cajun, Cajun is from the original French-speaking people that came from Nova Scotia down in South Louisiana. They referred to them as Cajun. And when I was coming up, it was an idea of ours to learn how to speak French simply because we could crack the code because my mother talked to everybody in French. And if we didn't learn French, we wouldn't know what she was saying. I never was able to crack the code. I took two years of French.

Well, how does your mom know it? She grew up actually speaking French as a younger person. She was from a French nationality. She was a villary from New Orleans. And my triple great-grandfather was actually a governor of the state of Louisiana, and he lived on a plantation just outside of New Orleans. But she grew up speaking French. My grandmother spoke French, and she actually taught French for a little while.

And she was a teacher for a good while. And then it died with you. I can get myself out of a bar and put it that way. Do you use all the fish names and duck names in French still? No, not really. But the hardest thing I had to learn in French, my first Labrador retriever was trained by a Cajun just outside of New Iberia, and he trained a dog in French.

And I had to learn the commands in French. It's God's truth. Give me a couple. Give me a, come here. Come here is, I'm going to see. Or any of them. God damn, now you put me on the spot. You're talking about something that happened 40 years ago, 50 years ago.

So this dog's dead anyway. Never mind that dog. Vaincy has come here in French. Vaincy. But the heritage of, we love to cook. I grew up learning how to cook. I probably started cooking when I was about six or seven years old. And we had this, I would call a part of our family,

this woman that used to cook for my family for anything. We had cooked dinners every night, but she taught me when I know how to cook. And the first thing that I ever cooked was wild duck. Oh, really? And it was because I loved the way she did it. And when I was 10 years old or 9 years old, whenever I first started, that was the first dish that I cooked. And I pride myself on cooking duck today. I'm not much of a duck hunter as much as I used to be.

I used to be mad at them. But then when we first started the marina, we actually did guiding services and I had five airboats taking out people. We advertised on Ducks Unlimited to come down and fish the Mississippi Flyway. And Venice had a fantastic duck population. Also, you were running, you used to be, I didn't know you were a duck guide. Not by choice, okay? It's a, I'm going to give you a true story on that. We were, I was duck hunting, and the last year that I did it, I couldn't get enough guides to work for me to do it.

And I was running my construction company and a marina at the same time. So did I have time to be a duck guide? No. And I wasn't the best call in the world either. But it was by necessity. We didn't have enough people to go around, so I ended up doing it. And I hunted 29 days straight, morning and evening. And I came in one night.

We had just finished cleaning all the ducks. Everything was finished up and prepared. And you guys were picking ducks. Yeah. We had duck pluckers, though. I did buy a duck plucker. That worked extremely well. What kind did you have?

I don't remember. What's the kind I want to get, Yanni, that you? Yeah, my brother-in-law got the foul plucker. Yeah, I've never seen one, but Yanni sent me a video of one. And the minute I saw it, I was like, I'm going to get one of those. This is a commercial one. And I guarantee you can clean the duck in about a minute. I mean, it's done.

But the only nasty work that you have there is to gut it. Did you run into a problem if the duck was wet? Yeah. The biggest problem is the early season ducks, you can still have the pin feathers. Sure. But that's a pain anywhere. There's nothing you can do with those, but just go ahead and singe them.

That would be it. Well, early season, like the youth season, we started just skinning our ducks. You pluck them and there's no skin anyway. It's all full of pin feathers. It's just a bummer, but there's nothing you can do about it. If I'm the one that's going to cook the ducks, I don't want them skinned. I want that skin on it. That's the way the flavor is.

All right. But we had been hunting that many days, and I had a friend of mine that was staying on my houseboat and he had cooked supper for us and he and I grew up duck hunting together. And I came in walking that night and I was tired. I was wet and I looked like hell. And he looked at me, he says, my buddy, he said, it's a hell of a thing to have to hunt. I said, you got that right. And that was it. I was done. I was done.

I finished that year out and realized in all of that operation, I'd killed myself for two and a half months while duck season was going on. And we made about $4,000 or $5,000. And I said, look, we can't deal with it. Airboats were always breaking down. And I had guys that were running airboats that shouldn't be running airboats. And, I mean, that's a tricky situation. And you put somebody that don't know what they're doing, and I had two airboats that you could put 12 people in

and four people at the same time and get up and run. But the conditions there, you couldn't run the mudboats because we got a sandy salt at the mouth of the river. So it's just the conventional mud boats that were in existence at that time could not go through that sand. They just couldn't. Now, you got boats that'll do it now. The surface drives can get around pretty good. But it's a whole other ballgame.

And I guess that's what burnt me out on duck hunting. And I just, I go. I at least make a couple hunts a year. But it's pure to go out there and I tell whoever I'm going with, have whoever's hunting the day before, make sure they got plenty of ducks because I want to go out to cook them. I'll go hunting and eat them. And I said, that's it.

I'll be ready to come and go home. But we got great duck hunting down there. But it's not as good as it used to be. You know what you gave me when we met? Mm-hmm. What? What? You gave you gave me not dark you gave me swordfish i gave you swordfish that's correct and i just showed yanni a picture just a little while ago a couple of giants of one of the boats that's going to be on this fishing trip with us um He has Paradise Outfitters. And I introduced the owner of Paradise Outfitters to Giannis when he was down there. And he just got a brand new 47-foot bluefin.

It's an all-aluminum catamaran. And just this morning, two huge swordfish. And he posted it immediately out there, and I already had it on Facebook. Electric reels? Yeah, electric reels. When you're going down that deep, you want the electric reels to help you,

but a lot of times they'll take it out. How deep are you talking? You're running anywhere from 900 to shallow, deepest around 1,500, 1,600 feet. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law

makes it that they can't join. Whew! Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season.

The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right, we're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you, you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement.

You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. This I don't.

I've gone out and did. Yanni was there, but he wasn't paying attention because he's seasick. But me and him went out with a guy. We went out with a guy. She keep it, Yanni. We went out with a guy deep dropping for swordfish and caught two. And it was so funny because we were out. I talk about this all the time.

We go out 20 miles, whatever the hell. It wasn't far because we were off of Floridaida so you got to that deep water pretty quick 1300 feet of water and he's lowering that bait down and i'm like dude there is not a way on earth you're gonna present that bait and this big as this ocean is yeah and 13 feet of water, 100 feet of water. Like, how do you know it's down there? Sonar. Sonar. Dude, now you know Sonar got that bait settled in down there and he had a hit. I'm like, what?

That's crazy. Oh, it just seems so, and he's not fishing the bottom. But the problem is not getting it down to the bottom to the fish. It's not seeing the fish. It's making sure you have enough weight to get it down there where that fish is. Yeah. And so it's, it's, it's placement is everything. Do you, do you like the deep drop? I do.

I do. I'm not very good at it, but I do. How much weight does it take? Well, it depends on the, on the current, on the particular area that you're in. You know, it varies. What's the most weight you ever used? Eight pounds. Okay. That's an most weight you ever used? Eight pounds. Okay, that's an eight-pound sinker.

Jeez. When we were out there. The old-time window sash is what was best. Sure, yeah. I mean, you could use one of Joe Rogan's kettle balls for one of those. Yeah, that's right. Yanni didn't know this because he was seasick, but when all that depth and all that weight,

and there's a good size, not big, but like, you know, I don't know, 70 pound swordfish they caught, the first one. They're debating whether they're getting a hit or not. Like, you imagine a 70 pound, they're like, is that one? It looked like a bluegill tap.

It looked like a bluegill tap in a six foot Zebco. Well, yeah, because that rod's like a broomstick. Oh a six-foot Zebco. Well, yeah, because that rod's like a broomstick. Oh, yeah, dude. It's going like tick, tick, tick. I'm like, these guys are insane. And he throws that switch. 30 minutes later, it's like, holy cow, there's a swordfish sitting there.

Well, you know, originally, people in Louisiana were fishing for them. There's three or four charter operations that really started it down there and made it popular. But what are they dropping down to? Like, what are you looking for down there? You're looking for drop-offs, ledges. Like, you're going to be in, you can talk about going far. Um, Konyak is a platform off the coast of South Pass and it is 1180 feet of water and it's only 11 miles off the coast. I mean, it drops off pretty fast there. That area is, it's right on the edge of the continental, the shelf right there.

And you, once you get further out, it'll stay flat for a while and then then then it goes down and you got deep caverns and ravines different canyons the photo Canyon you've got Mississippi Sound but all of these areas you want in a fish right on the edge of you know I'm not a professional swordfisher I pride myself on fishing blue marlin but you learn from talking to the charter boat people and the guides that we have working out of there what works. And, you know, they've given me numbers and given me spots and tell me what to look for. You know, we've been successful with it, but not like they are because they do it almost every day. You know, but you have certain charter operations that do nothing but swordfish. Deep drop and swordfish.

Deep drop and swordfish. Me and Seth, we're going to try to do a TV show called Deep Drop Boys. And we go around to the deepest places in the world and lower a bait down, see if anything happens. That's the thing we should do. Good idea. Get you a good LP reel that's got plenty of line on it. Just see it on every episode.

You just watch to see if we get a hit. It's going to be fascinating. Yep. There might be some things down there that you not necessarily want to bring up. You might want to just leave them there. Tell me, how did you wind up buying a marina? I didn't buy it. I built it.

I decided that it was something that we wanted to do. I built my competitive marina that is owned by two very good friends of mine that own it now. But originally it was owned by a guy by the name of Dave Ballet. And I was friends with him. And I was in the construction business. And I built this facility. I was in the construction business. We specialize in pile driving and docks.

You built it for hire. You built it for a client. For a client. Okay. Venice Marina, not Cypress Cove. And I had designed it. I like Cypress Cove Marina a lot better. I know.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. It's got more soul, man. Yeah. I don't want to hack on Venice Marina, but you go down there, it feels a little bit like it's busy. No, this is the thing. We both have our places. We do.

We have different clientele sometimes, but we both have our places. It's a good place to go. I'm not asking you to hack on it. I'm just saying. No. It's just like a, I don't know, man. I went down there to buy some boxes. It's different.

It's a lot going on. It's different, and the owners will tell you that they're different. But we don't try to be. We got our own niche that we're trying to get into. Not hacking. It's just different. Didn't we eat there at Venice Marina? Yeah, we did, I think.

Yeah, we did. Whatever. But what happened- You built that marina. I built it, and we were keeping our boat there. I designed and financed some boathouses there where people were building like condos in the backside of it. You could put your boat undercover. And unit one and two, when I built it, I said, these are going to be for me. And then as we sold them, I didn't get paid until we sold them all.

But we sold them all before they were ever finished. So it went very well. And we built 24 of them down there. And so I had unit one and two. And then the owners of Louisiana Fruit Company, which is a big land company down there, they own about eight or 9,000 acres down there. They came to me and asked me if I would be interested in owning and building a marina on their property. And I had seen plans at their company office because my property where my construction company was based was on Louisiana Fruits Land. So he had showed me a couple times this dream of his to build a marina.

And the basin for the marina was an old borough pit. The dirt that came out of that basin originally went to build mainline Mississippi River levee. So he said, we want to use this basin. We don't think that we'll have a problem getting a permit for it because it's a hole in the ground now, but it's got ridges and cypress trees and willow trees all through it. It's a mess, but it'd be a good starting point. And so they said, you know, we want you to do it. And I said, you know how i'm vested into venice

marina because i mean it was a friend of mine and and i said but at the same token he said don't you think that we need another facility i said yeah because venice marina was filling up i mean it's just it was there and the fishing had got out that venice was some of the best fishing in the world and i pride myself and i believe that that it is one of the best fishing spots in the United States for sure. Oh, dude, listen. The variety is unreal. I've fished. I've been fortunate to do a bit of angling.

Dude, there's nothing like it. You're right. I mean, Alaska. I love Alaska. If I had to pick I mean, Alaska, I love Alaska. If I had to pick between Louisiana and Alaska, I'd go Alaska. It's got to have a lot of sentimental value there. But, dude, fishing ain't, I mean, it ain't the same thing. And the thing is that there's variety.

Oh. I mean, that's a true statement. You can catch bass behind a dock in the marina and then go out and catch 1,000-pound blue marlin. I mean, the— When you're cleaning fish, the— When you're cleaning fish and throwing fish heads in, it's like catfish and mullet, too, but catfish. Like, the only way you could picture anything on Tombaugh

is if you imagine if you went and kicked over a half dozen beehives what you'd expect to see that's catfish eat like catfish eating the the guts you throw on the it's unbelievable and a lot of those catfish are blue or a blue catch yeah and i, they're big ones. And that's what we're going to do if we have a weather delay. Absolutely. Go jogging. I do, I do for my Cajun Canyons tournament,

which is a blue water tournament. But we did a catfish tournament that you could not leave the marina. You could not go on a boat but if it's something to give people to do because we had a weather day and we had to push it back one day and I turned those captains and owners loose and went up to all of the cap the owners I said give me $300 give me three what do you want to do I said we do a catfish turn when it take off okay yeah the owner's out there too. I mean, it wasn't just a crew.

It was like ants going all over the marina facility. And the winning catfish was caught on a jug line. He let it loose right up behind a dock, which was right at the beginning of the first piers. And he had it on a jug line. He threw it out there. What did he have for bait? Fish head or something? I have no idea what he had for bait. I think it was squid. I thought what he had available.

And the next thing I know, I see him sprinting down the main dock. This catfish ate that bait, and he's taken off, and he's headed for the pass to go out of the marina. And I told him, no boats. So he's heading before the pass to go out of the marina and he and I told no boats so he's got to get it so d-doc is the last doc and as he's going out of d-doc he reaches over and just barely grabs it and catches the fish and he wins the contest grabbing the jug grabbing a jug when he was going underneath the dock it went under three docks before it went to that one he and i mean he's hauling butt going down that main pier to try to stop that jug to get it out

of there but he got it he was proud as hell of it that the other thing that trips me out about that area is uh so for one we like we would work pretty hard to catch catfish now and then you know and the fact that they're just like like swar you know, you wouldn't want to get in that water, man. Like they eat you. And then all of a sudden that night, boom. Oh, the frogs, yeah. Oh, bullfrogs, dude. That alone.

The catfish and the bullfrogs alone would get me excited. We had two of the captains that had a weather day and they were were for Paradise Outfitters, too, the ones that caught the swordfish today. And they didn't have anything to do, so they came over. And I saw them in a little flat boat. I didn't pay any attention to it. They went around and went right there in front of the fish clean station with that flat boat, anchored out. They're back in about 20 minutes laughing and cutting up and drinking beer and raising hell.

They had a 62-pound blue cap that they had caught. Jeez. I said, do not put this on Facebook. I'm going to sell any fuel if y'all going around the corner in a flatboat. You ain't going 200 feet, man. That's funny because I was talking to Renee one day as we were trying to plan out our mediator experiences uh and he was complaining it's funny because you're you're half joking but not really he's complaining when the fish are too close oh yeah when the pelagics are too

close because you can't make no money selling fuel. We're selling fuel. He was hoping they'd move out more, man, all the plagiics. I'm glad when they were really biting good in Green Canyon. That's 120 miles out. That's a good place to go. But, you know, the reality of Venice, Louisiana, and it's been proven many times. Mullen Magazine, I don't know, it was about seven or eight years ago, they showed

Venice, Louisiana as the number two fishing spots in the United States. What was number one? I think Costa Rica. I think we, I mean, not Costa Rica. I don't know where it was, but we were number two. And then we were number three.

We were number three in the world. I don't know who it was at one point, number two. And then we were number three. Who was number one? We were number three in the world. I don't know who it was at one. But it wasn't us. Who in the world? It wouldn't be Puerto Rico, would it? No. No. Hawaii?

One was in the United States. The other was in the world. Yeah. But to be in the top ten. I want to know where it's better in the U.S. Yeah. I don't know. Not for the variety.

And I don't know what they're taking into consideration. Oh, marlin magazine yeah not bullfrogger man oh okay oh no okay i got no idea if it's marlin magazine and marlin magazine and marlin magazine sam white who is the editor of marlin is a good friend of. And I took him down to do a fishing trip. And this was in, we ended up going October the 28th or 29th. And we had set the trip up earlier and we had two hurricanes that canceled trips and we pushed it back, pushed it back. And we finally were able to make the trip. And I called him at dawn and said, look, come on down. We're going to make the trip. He said, Renee, it's too late. He said, you don't think those marlin are gone? I said, you don't understand something, Sam. We're in South Louisiana. People are not worried about

the fish being out there. Soon as October hits, we all, me included, our necks start swelling. We going in the woods somewhere. We ain't worried about going fishing. It's too cold on that water. I said, but those marlin don't leave. We went out that weekend. We went out for a day and a half because he wasn't able to spend a lot of time. We left at like eight, nine o'clock in the morning, went out, caught two blue marlin that first day, tagged them, let them go. We were out in 6,000 feet of water. We were fishing, and one of the mates came up to me and said, Mr. Rene, you think we can put out some lines for swordfish? You think we can catch them here? I said, I can tell you one thing. We're not going to catch them unless you have a line out, but go ahead and do that. And I said, put them out.

Put one at 100 feet and put the other at 250 feet. All right. We put them on a balloon. We got the lights on them, and we're fishing with squid, with rigged squid, and we set in a bait at that depth and just let them drift back behind us. Just two nights, at night. All right. So they'll come up at night. i've never fished them a lot

in the daytime maybe once or twice okay we always caught them at night we didn't realize until they started doing it in florida that you could catch them in the daytime but you have to de-drop to get them to that and the date and nighttime they'll come to the surface so we were out and i asked sam i said you ever caught a swordfish? I said, you edit the Marlin Magazine. You've been all over the world. Now, I said, you want to catch one? He said, yeah.

So we had barbecued steaks on the back deck. I said, Sam, I'm going to take a shower. All of a sudden, we on. And the mate sitting there said, Mr. Rene, we on. We got a fish on. I said, that don't look like a shark, and I don't think it's a tuna. And so I told my captain, who was on

the crew with us, I said, go in, and I said, tell Sam to come out and catch this swordfish. So he's going out there, and he comes back, he said, you told him? Where is he? No Sam. So the mate said, Mr. R, what do you want to do?

You want to take us? I don't want to catch you. I just took a bath. You know, I'm full. And so he goes back, and I said, you catch him. You set the hook. You catch him. So he was on that fish.

Finally, about 15, 20 minutes later, Sam comes walking out, looks at me. He said, y'all really had a swordfish? I said, I sent Peaky in there to tell you we had a swordfish, Sam. He said, but, Rene, I've heard a lot of stories about you bullshitting with people. He said, I figured you were playing a joke. I wasn't about to come off that job. I said, well, there it is. And he was about 150, 135 pounds short.

When he did the article, he had to picture that sword laying in back of the deal. We had six pages of fish, and we caught another one that morning. We had to go in about noon. So three for three on Blue Marlin and one swordfish that night. And a couple tuna fish. We had a great trip. At the end of October, two weeks later, a boat out of Orange Beach that is based in Venice, Louisiana, or based in Louisiana. The owner actually lives in Lake Charles, and that's where the boat is documented from.

They went out, and they went 12 for 14 on Blue Marlin and three swords. Two weeks later, in November, they don't leave. They're there full time. And last year, in October, we broke the golf record on Blue Marlin. The original record was caught out of Venice by a member of the New Orleans Big Game Fishing Club, which we're going to have all the festivities at for the trip down there. It was caught by a woman by the name of Linda Kerner, and the fish was 1,018 pounds. And that was the Gulf record for years. And this year it was broken, and a new record was caught in October,

late in October, 1,145.6 pounds. Blue ball. That fish dead or alive now? He is dead. He came up dead. I mean, you can't weigh them without killing them. They're a little frisky to hold on a weight scale if they're not. But the fish actually drowned.

It got tail wrapped. And so when they come in backwards like that, they will drown. And it mauled on the pelagics as well. That's a lot of smoked marlin. That's right. I had some marlin when I was just in Hawaii. I had some marlin or pelagics as well. And they're not going to. That's a lot of smoked marlin. That's right. I had some marlin when I was just in Hawaii. I had some marlin poke. How did you like it?

Yeah, I didn't like it as much as ahi. I find it strong. I find it strong. You know, honestly, in poke, I thought it was just a little bland. White marlin is good to eat, and I think striped marlin is excellent to eat. Striped marlin used to be on the menu in the United States all over the place. And then when Billfish Foundation started trying to protect them a lot more, they just eliminated them off the menu. Nobody puts, you won't find it in the United States anywhere.

In Hawaii, right in the grocery store. I don't know what the hell Marlin is, but right in the grocery store, you can get like a little to-go can of Marlin Pokey. Hmm. I'd be damned. Yeah. Kimmy Werner's walking, or no, Danny Bolton walking around the tub of it at the beach. Looked funny to see on the label.

Yeah. We take all of the Marlin for any of our tournaments that we have. We bring them and we've got a deal working with the outfit called Feed the Homeless out of New Orleans. And they literally come in and get it and we'll stake it out for them. Oh, got it.

And then they cook it. And it beats a pint of cheap wine in a paper bag on the side of the street. But it is fixable. I'm a firm believer you can make a pie not taste good if you put enough seasoning on it. Sure, cook it long enough. It's all relative. if you put enough seasoning on it. Sure, man. Cook it long enough. It's all relative. Either cooking it too long or not long enough, man.

It's just a case of— Pine knots. Or take something out on a nice pine board and put it in the oven for 365 degrees and do all the seasoning on it and throw the fish away and eat the pine board. Same narrative. But when we were trying to get this whole thing planned out, Yanni went down to check everything out at Cypress Cove Marina, make sure I wasn't high. Did you take Yanni, do anything fun, or was he just in and out?

The weather was horrible. We were supposed to go fishing. That was the plan. But even with that, we couldn't go out because the weather was so tough. But even with all that, I was still able to catch a redfish. Yes, you did.

That's right. Where? Because we were at Rene's houseboat, which is in the marina, and he had crab pots down. And I was just kind of pulling up crab pots just to see what was in them. And sure enough, there was a redfish in one of them.

And a bass in the other one. I caught him and released him. That's how good the fishing is. So you have crab pots hanging off your houseboat? That's right. Why not? You can crab right there. Absolutely.

Tell people what, when we do our experiences event in October, tell people where all they get to sleep. What all kinds of things are for sale for sleeping? For sale for sleeping for sale for sleeping no no we're like what accommodation not for sale what accommodations well we're gonna be staying you got a bunch of different things like i've stayed in your townhouse we do but we're gonna have everybody for here we're gonna have everybody will be in uh in your hotel in a hotel and the different uh theories of rooms and stuff that we have there we have a top of the line is

the kitchen suites is all brand new well i say brand new it's two years old now uh that's what i stayed in one of those you sure did yeah uh stainless steel kitchen big living room and then it's attached to one bedroom with two queen beds in it and uh then we have a regular room with the two queen beds and then microfridge in it as well. And then just a plain Jane room. The only thing that's different with it is the same two-bed system, but it does not have the microfridge in it. And we're looking at connecting rooms to where you actually can possibly have two bedrooms associated with the kitchen suites. That's something I'm looking at to do this summer is add that. And then when you were pulling together the guides for our trip, how did you – who do you know and how did you do all that? Well, understand this.

We've got right now for based on 40 people per trip, per group, I wanted to bring the quantity of people per boat for inshore to only three. They can take up to four, but only put three on the boat to give them more opportunity to fish. And the same thing goes with offshore. Offshore, you can take up to six. I want it to leave it to four. I want the people to go out and experience as much as they can possibly do and catch as much as they possibly can catch. On the offshore fishing part of it, you're going to find that some of these people

that maybe have never done it before but wanted to do it might be a bucket list item. And the fact of being able to do it in conjunction with you guys being down there, it's intriguing. You know, it's exciting. They might be just like me. They might want to get their books signed too.

But the reality is that they're going to go out there and get into the tuna pretty hot and heavy. It ain't going to be long before they're going to look at that captain. We had enough. I mean, it's not unusual for a big tuna fish to have three or four people before it finally gets on board because it wears a mom. It's tough. You're fishing in deep water and when a yellowfin comes down and he wants to go down, he's going down and he's going to find the bottom. He's looking for it for sure. And if he dives down there and he gets tail wrapped and you've got to winch him back up, it's a long, hard pull. All right. Technical fishing question. What prevents you, what's like, what's the weak part,

what's the weak link in the fishing system that doesn't allow you just to stop that fish from pulling that maneuver? They already had it in a tough. So you can't just apply enough drag? You'll snap line, drag? You're limited to drag. Okay. I mean, you can only put so much drag.

You put too much on it. Yeah. You can lock it up. He breaks it. He breaks it. And then where you you at then? Okay. I see.

Now, in the early part of the year, and a lot of people don't associate it with it, it's always associated with the East Coast, the bluefin move in. Now, you get attached to a bluefin, all bets are off. I mean, the biggest bluefin that was caught in the Gulf of Mexico was caught out of Cypress Cove. A thousand, I have a record on here what the bluefin was. And it was actually a New Orleans big game boat that caught it. It's 1,150-something pounds.

It was caught on a— That's a valuable fish, man. Not after it's caught. They caught that fish for about 12 and a half hours. Oh, jeez. Literally, the adrenaline comes into the meat, and they literally burn themselves out. Yeah. Adrenaline comes into the meat, and they literally burn themselves out. And that fish, if when you see the fish markets buying bluefin tuna, they core it, and they take it out, and they're judging how much fat quantity is in that fish. They lay that thing out, and they're looking at it.

When you see a fish that's been caught with a rod and reel that's been on a line for over 12 hours like that, it's black. And the color of the meat and the quality goes way down. It's full of adrenaline. It's strong tation. It's not anywhere near as good as the East Coast fish that are caught in 150 to 200 feet of water. Then you got yourself a whole bunch of canned tuna. What they do is they take those on the East Coast and fishing in that shallow water, they take those 130 reels, those 130 class reels, and they gear them down even more.

And so they're cranking on that fish and it can't go down. It doesn't have the 3,000 to 4,000 feet to get away from. They're going down 200 feet, they're in the mud. All right? They can't go in there. And the boat can help you. You can back down on that fish, and you can have it sitting in the boat in 10, 15 minutes. And if you want to play the fight out, you can lessen the drag, and you can go ahead

and work it out to do that. And a lot of people do it for the sport. But if they're commercially fishing in it, they want them in the boat as quick as they possibly can. Because they want to look at that core, and they want them in the boat as quick as they possibly can. Because they want to look at that core, and they want to see the fat content in it. They don't want that adrenaline to burn it up to where the meat is not as tasty as it would be if it's caught quickly. How big is your redfish, Yanni? Foot long?

He was a record for that day. Yep. 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 a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

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Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. On those redfish, one thing that blew my mind is when you're fishing in shallows like inshore fishing for redfish you see in like onesies twosies little groups diving down to on some of those offshore rigs out there like rigs that are in 35 feet sometimes you dive down to the bottom on those rigs and it's, it's hundreds of redfish. That's right.

I had no idea. Like, you know, like there's certain fish you associate with where you happen to see them, but it's not really where they are. Like when someone pointed out like bonefish, bonefish don't live on the flat. Bonefish go onto a flat. Like permit. Yeah. Permit don't live on a flat.

Yeah. They go up onto a flat like a permit yeah permit don't live on a flat yeah they go up on a flat i remember one day we saw a big permit you know on a reef and it went into a hole it went into a cave and i said to my body i'm like it's so weird he goes that's not weird what's weird is when you see him on a flat yeah like they visit the flats now and then so to go like out deeper and see like oh that's where they's carpeting redfish, man. But you can't shoot them. And the thing is that redfish, I mean, I don't know, people realize just how big they get, but the state record in Louisiana, 61 pounds.

That's a big redfish. Oh yeah, man. I've never seen anything like that. That is no child. That's a lot redfish. Oh, yeah, man. I've never seen anything like that. That is no child. That's a lot of fun right there. Absolutely. It's a blast. And the thing is that that's not your most tastiest fish anyhow.

And now the new Louisiana regulations, they don't allow you to keep the bull reds anymore. Now, that has just been agreed upon and voted on by the legislature. I don't know exactly what day it goes into effect, but it's pretty soon. But the big red fish, that's not your best seed of fish. It's not. But it is a blast to catch. People need to experience that one time in your life, those big fish. And I mean, you don't know, you think you're attached to a rocket. You don't know what you got on there because your average rod and reel that you're going to be fishing for redfish is probably carrying

20 pound test line, you know, and it's a small bait cast or spinning reel, you know, and then all of a sudden you get hooked to one of those. You wish you had one of those big 130s that they're doing with bluefin. I mean, that's how hard it's going to pull. It's not a, It's not a job. Well, I always say if that fish jumped, it would be the number one game fish in our waters,

the one I've ever, the best fish. It just doesn't show itself, which is why other fish like the tarp and others kind of get more limelight, right? But I mean, a redfish, sometimes it can be like a bonefish. You know, you get into him and you're like, oh, this is a monster. And you get him in and he's only 16 inches long, but they just pull and pull. But there's healthier redfish. You can have a smaller redfish that's going to fight more than a bull.

It just depends on the fish. Just like us, we're not equal. I for damn sure can't keep up with y'all. No, I'll kick Yanni's ass i'm sure you did all right yes let's talk about the other species let's hit offshore first we've talked about there's marlin opportunities tuna opportunities you offshore you're going to be looking what those guys are going to be targeting foremost is going to be yellowfin tuna. Okay. But with yellowfin tuna and fishing with live bait, because that's what they're going to be fishing with, and it's to what bait they're going to be using at that time, it depends on what the fish are eating. I mean, these guys know, all right?

Certain times of year, you got different things. It might be threadfin herring, all right, that they might be using. They might be using live pogey. It just varies. They may be using chum and dead bait. It might be dead pogeys. It depends on what they're hitting.

These fish come close because of a couple things, especially in October. One is the mullet run. When the mullets start running on the coast, those yellowfin come in close. All right? And so they're after the bait. And they're also after the pokey, pokey fish, which is manhaden, proper name for it. But they come in in their big schools.

Now, sometimes the taste of the meat varies because of what they're eating. You know, uh, we found that happening with cobia. All right. You catch a cobia off the coast of Florida, which is slowly dwindling. They trying to figure out what's happened to them, but you don't catch them like the youth do. And they did at all site fishing. And as those pokey were run, I mean, uh, all site fishing. And as those cobia were running along the beach, but those fish over there are not eating cobia.

As soon as they get off the coast of Louisiana, that's what they're primarily eating. The flavor of the meat changes. So what they're using to bait is what the fish is going to be eating at that time. So you're going to have the opportunity. So in October, on the offshore day, the goal is to target yellowfin tuna. Target yellowfin tuna. You'll buy cash for that. Blue marlin.

Absolutely. The most blue marlin that were caught by the trawler boats while they were fishing for yellowfin tuna in october i mean that is when they caught the most blue marlin we had some boats catching two and three a day you know which is hundred that's not what they're targeting yeah but yet they got it what about wahoo wahoo are definitely good at that time of year as well and my mind or dolphin we refer to them as dolphin but it's not flipper all right it's a my my or Dorado all different names But those are the ones that you're gonna be they're gonna target yellow fin But in order to target yellow fin, this is gonna be what we call bycatch

You're gonna you get a good shot at a blue marlin cuz they're going after the same thing that those yellow fin are going After so the chances are getting one are pretty good. You know, if you're targeting blue marlin, you're going to have some different tactics. But most people want to go after the yellowfin and appreciate the fact that they're liable to catch a blue marlin at the same time. Oh, that's what I want to be after. And they're after the yellowfin because it's so damn good to eat. Absolutely.

That's why. I mean, it is fantastic. You can do anything with it, dude. The good thing is all those fish are good to eat. I'm coming down with a lot of soy sauce and a lot of wasabi. He's going to have a bandolier full of it. You need one more thing.

You need... Hot sauce. Salt. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sharp knife. The root. Ginger. Horserad sauce. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sharp knife. The root. Ginger. Horseradish.

No. Wasabi root. No. The root. Another root? There's horseradish root. Pink color. You get it every time you get.

Oh, you're talking ginger root. Oh, ginger. Pickled ginger root. Yeah. I couldn't think about it. Oh, man. That's my appetizer Dessert

I like ginger I like to use the ginger seasoning It just gets in the way of eating another piece of fish For me When I was just in Hawaii with my family We didn't catch them but we ate a lot of ahi A lot of yellowfin tuna there And then for inshore

You're going to target speckled trout and redfish Redfish is going to be number one. Okay. And, you know, Venice is the redfish capital of the world. And tuna is right up there with it. But redfish, speckled trout, that's this time of year the speckled trout are running in the river. Because what happens, your river is at its lowest point in October, and it turns green. I mean, you're going to catch deepwater saltwater fish in the river.

So redfish have been known during the month of October and November to go as far as New Orleans in the river. I mean, it's not unusual. And it's been so bad, it's good for fishing, it's horrible for our water systems because all of our water intakes come out of the Mississippi River. And so we got desalination machines on our water plant in Venice to be able to take care of the salt.

The regular water plant, now when the river's running and you got primarily fresh water, but what happens, that salt water rides on top. The fresh water is heavier, that salt water rides on top. The fresh water is heavier. So it gets up on top. But when that salt water moves in like that, the speckled trout move in. And I mean, we'll catch speckled trout fantastically right there where the jump goes into the river. That's where Tiger Pass meets the Mississippi River.

I mean, you'll see boats all lined up in there. Right around that curve where that water's going into it, those speckled trout are there. And this year has been one of the best year ever because we had an extremely large amount of salt water, so much to the point that the city of New Orleans was very concerned about their water systems. And they will lay in water lines

from north of the city bringing water out of the river to their system to be able to convert it to to clean drinking water from five ten miles north of the city got it had pipelines running down the side just to bring mississippi water it wasn't fresh water. Like Irish spring. They just had to go further up to be able to get clean water. But so in that, you're going to catch black drum, which there is no limit on that. Speckled trout is that we've just reduced it to 15 per person. Flounder does not have a limit, but the season is closed from October 15th to sometime in late November.

Got it. All right. And that's just been implemented in the last few years. Also, sheephead, which are very good to eat. Oh, we shoot them when we're fishing. They are very good to eat. And they're a fun fish to catch. Yes, they are. Yes, they shoot them when we're fishing. They are very good to eat. And they're a fun fish to catch. Yes, they are.

Yes, they are. It's not easy. The flavor, what sheephead is used for more than anything, anybody that's trying to, we call it mock crab meat. They'll take it and fillet it, and then they'll ball it and crab ball just like you would ball in crabs. And they'll take it and mix it in with crab meat if you're trying to stretch it. Some of the restaurants may not say they're doing that, but some of them are.

But you can't tell the difference, to be honest with you. But fried or baked or grilled, it's extremely good meat. It's pretty white meat. It's a good-eating fish. Yeah, and lay out the dates and whatnot lay out the details this is getting me excited talking about it i'm really looking forward to it you and i are going to be there almost for the entire uh duration not good of the uh you didn't know that yet no i knew i was gonna be down there

we're gonna be doing a lot of fish we're gonna be doing a lot of fish. We're going to be doing a lot of fish catching. I think we're going to be doing a lot of fish cleaning, helping. Dates, dates, dates, dates. We can't forget to mention our other- No, we'll mention that. Meter experience as well. The dates for this are going to be October 4th through 8th. This is in 2024.

This year. This year. This year. October 4th to 8th. October 8th to 12th. And then October 12th to 16th. So you'll get in like the day before afternoon, evening. We'll have a big

feed. Meet everybody. And figure out who's going to be going on what boats, get that all lined out, and then we'll have three days in a row of fishing. Right. You do two in-shore, one offshore. Let me rephrase that. In Louisiana, it's catching, it's not fishing.

Okay. We're going to do three days of catching, and then the next day you'll be out of there. So the pricing details, we're not going over that today, right? No, people follow it. That's all to come. You can get it on. You can go see right now, actually, a teaser, a little video we have on the website.

Now, when you go to the main Meteor webpage, right up top with all the other tabs on the far right side, there's a tab that says Experiences. And from there, you can go and find all the details about these two trips that we're doing. And if you want to get a sense for the area, we filmed a spearfishing episode down there, fishing out of Cypress Cove. So you can check that out. It's different because that was spearfishing. This is rod and reel, so you can check that out it's not you know it's different because that was spearfishing this is rod and reel but you can check it out and then we're

going to follow up with our collab project with the guys at foul plains so foul plains immediate um foul plains lodge is in great bend kansas and they run you know they're i mean during duck season they're running and gunning hardcore but we got a bunch of their slots to collab with them. And their guy, they're very proud of Chef Dave. So there we're doing three runs. November 21 to 24, this is for duck and geese, with Foul Plains Lodge, Great Bend, Kansas. We're going to do a run November 21 to 24, this is for duck and geese with Foul Plains Lodge, Great Bend, Kansas. We're going to do a run November 21 to 24. We're going to do a run December 30 to Jan 2.

That's the one I'm going to be on. Yanni's doing that. With Brent Reeves and I are going to host that one. And we're doing a run Jan 20 to Jan 23. So that's three days of duck hunting duck goose hunting three nights the reason you do three days is that's what you can travel with you can travel with a three-day possession limit of ducks i never put that together it's common to book a three-day duck hunt for that reason yeah because if you if you So they're pretty confident you're going to be limiting out. Well,

maybe, but, or in case. Yeah. But yeah, I never understood that. But guys come, you want to bring your ducks home, you can, because it's a federally regulated migratory waterfowl, you can hunt three days, you can feasibly get three bag limits, and then bring all your ducks back home with you, and you're not over

the possession. You're not over your possession limit. And this is where I'm going to buy a power plucker and I'm going to have it sent. You're going to have to buy two because you're probably going to have to leave that one there because they're going to like it so much. You need one for your garage.

I'm going to buy two power pluckers. I'm going to buy a power plucker and I'm bringing that son of a bitch down because I'm not plucking all those ducks. Maybe they have one. I'm power plucking. Unless Calucker and I'm bringing that son of a bitch down because I'm not plucking all those ducks. Maybe they have one. I'm power plucking. I don't think they have a power plucker. Unless Cal and his thumb want to show up. Oh, yeah.

Cal's like, this thumb right here, I'm getting it done. He's like, come on. You know, those commercial pluckers are here to stay. They're like air conditioned. Air conditioned. It's taking off. You got a feeling about it? I have.

It's here to stay. That's one of the funniest things about when I've been down at your place man is you guys take air conditioning so seriously dude i had to go out last time i was down there when i was staying at cypress co go out and buy a sweatshirt no i would go outside to drink my coffee in the morning i would go to warm up before i got before it got like blisteringly hot outside then you wanted to be inside but in the morning i would get out of my bed get my coffee and step outside for a bit to warm up oh and then like an hour later it's like 90 and you just want to die man but that daybreak coolness outside is refreshing man no when i go to visit my in-laws in north carolina i pack accordingly even if it's in the middle of summer i'll have a hoodie you

come in and put your coat on well Well, yeah, because nothing's the worst if there's a little bit of rain and you get a little wet and then you go into a grocery store. I mean, I'm liable to catch cold. They keep it so cold in there. But yeah, the same way that we're going to do fish cleaning and

other activities with the whole crew down in Venice when we're doing the Kansas duck hunting. We're going to be cleaning, processing birds, doing some cooking together, and it's going to be an extremely fun experience.

And how this works, we're partnering, we got facilities, we're partnering with guys, but how this works, no matter what, you go down to do this, and you'll be able to monitor like you like you'll know what fish you caught you get your fish processed you get your fish packaged and you're going home with like recipe ready um you know if you make a catch you're going home with a recipe ready fish and we'll talk through how we like to

do it and how the guys down there like to do it. And Rene knows the whole, been doing this his whole life. Rene, I kept telling Rene, I had the fortune. Is that the right way to say it? To eat dinner at Rene's house. And it was incredible. Now, I'm not going to say that everybody coming down on this trip is going to get fed quite like that. Rene might correct me, but it was incredible. We had oysters.

No, you didn't do the Rockefeller. You just did a recipe you called grilled oysters. We did chargrilled. Chargrilled, yeah. And then there was like a blue crab stew. It was wonderful. That was a fresh crab and shrimp stew. So knowing that he's an amazing chef, and then when he talks about cooking other food, he showed me he has these cookers that are made to do boils, is what they call them down there.

Maybe explain what that is. I'm very excited to participate in that, see how it's done, come home, replicate it. Charlotte, Renee's partner is like, well, it know, it's kind of like everyday food for us. But if you really want it, you know, we'll cook it for you. And it sounds wonderful. You're talking about Bob's room. Are you and Charlotte married or not married? We're not married.

Oh, okay. No judgment. But we've been together for a long time and we love each other dearly. We don't want to go anyplace else. We're happy. That's great. I was married three times before and it didn't quite work, and so I figured. Maybe that's the problem.

Well, I thought maybe I might be the problem. I'm not real sure yet. I'm not going to admit to it yet. But, no, we've been together a while. She understands the way I take it, that's for sure. But explain a big seafood boil. Well, the boiling systems that we have there, when we do boils, we want the capability to do a lot of seafood at one time. And we built the boilers in my barbecue pit. Built it right there with my welders that work for me 24-7.

But we have two pots. One we can do 500 pounds at a time, and I think I could probably get 600 in it, but 500 is plenty. And then I have a smaller pot that I can do 250 pounds at one time. Damn. And that's just the shrimp? Yeah. Or whatever. Whatever's in the ball.

And it could be crawfish. Taters, corn, shrimp. Yeah. It could be crawfish. Taters, corn, shrimp. Yeah, it could be crawfish. It could be shrimp. It could be whatever. The sad part about it is crawfish is not going to be really in season that time. Later into the summer, the crawfish started getting hard shelled. And so it's not usually served any past June or July.

What about oysters? Oysters are 24-7. You always got that. We're going to eat well. You're going to have different varieties of things on different days. But we will be doing char-grilled oysters there. That's going to be one of it. You're going to have fried oysters or broiled oysters as well.

We're also going to do, you're going to have a crab and shrimp stew, one of the ninth. We're going to do it. I'll do it, and I'm going to cook it and put it out there. But we're going to try to serve the foods that we're noted for, right? You're not going to have a, not that it's not a good meal, but you're not going there and getting chicken fried steak, all right, with cream gravy. That's not going to happen. That might be a very good meal, but you're not going there and getting chicken fried steak with cream gravy. That's not going to happen. That might be a very good meal, but that's not what we're going to be serving. Now, we might have prime rib one night.

We might have tenderloin on a grill. That's a definite. That's something that we do. I do for all of the tournaments. We make sure that we have everything from prime rib or tenderloin on down to the seafood and for cajun canyons when after the captain's meeting when they're walking out they're given a five gallon bucket full of bald crawfish i mean and it's these huge sports fishes are going down the channel and you see the crawfish going flying out of the back of the boat

but it's true it it's what we do. It's what we're known for. And we want to try to give that experience to all of these people that are coming down. You guys are bringing y'all experience for what you do down there and meshing it up with what we do to make a great experience. And we hope it's going to be nothing but the best to where this works for y'all. And you can say, all right, let's book the dates for next year. That's what my goal is. I don't want y'all. And you can say, all right, let's book the dates for next year. That's what my goal is. I don't want y'all ever go anyplace else.

Hit them with how to find it, Yanni. First, TRCP sweepstakes. Go to trcp.org. For sure. Get your sweepstakes ticket. Win a hunt. All funds, everything goes to TRCP. And then hit them with MeatEater experiences.

Yeah, just meateater. Yeah. Just meat eater.com, uh, forward slash meat eater experiences. But like I said, you can just go to the main page. If you just go to the meat eater.com and, uh, in the dropdown tabs up top, you'll see experiences. You can click on those and get all the details. Um, I just want to say we're going to have, uh, Chester is going to be down there. Seth's going to be down there yeah uh maggie who runs uh maggie hudlow maggie hudlow who runs our internet content uh she's going to be down there uh who else cal is going to be down there chili yep who am i missing we're bringing down a lot of folks i mean it's going to be a fun man yeah the meat eater crew be slams the mayonnaise isn't daniel isn't daniel pruitt going to be mean just it's going to be a fun man yeah the meat eater crew be slamming some

mayonnaise isn't daniel isn't danielle pruitt going to be there yeah she's going to come down no oh she's not danielle's not coming danielle yes is uh her her family's going to get bigger right about that time it's uh it's just a little too good one timing's a little tight it's gonna it's gonna get one bigger. All right, man. Rene, thanks for coming out, dude. I appreciate you coming to help us explain it all. You did a phenomenal job.

I tell you what, it's a beautiful city. There's no two ways about it. I love Bozeman. It's my first time here. I thought you were talking about your city, your town, your marina. Well, one more thing to add about... I'm talking about your town now. One more thing to add about his marina. You've been there.

Isn't it nice how... I didn't know what to expect, but when you're there, you can like park the car and don't have to get back in it for three days. Everything's just like hotel to the dock to the restaurant, back to the hotel, and that'll take you a minute. No, it's all right there. One stop shop. No, it's great.

It's going to be a cool place. Y'all going to have a blast. Everybody that comes is going to have a blast. We're going to make sure we can do our damnedest to give it to great. It's going to be a cool place. Y'all are going to have a blast. Everybody that comes is going to have a blast. We're going to make sure we can do our damnedest to give it to you. All right. Thank you. See everybody soon in Venice, Louisiana. Take care. Thank you.