The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 688: MeatEater Radio Live! Our Biggest Catches, Endangered Orcas, and Fishing for Treasure

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Janis Putelis, and Brody Henderson talk with Stephanie Raymond of Orca Network about the state of the Southern Resident pods, fish for a minute with Dan Johnson of Trout Unlimited, recount their top 3 biggest fish caught, and cast a magnet into the middle of NYC with James Kane of Let's Get Magnetic. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. Connect with The MeatEater Podcast Network MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia. Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's 1 p.m. for our friends in Lincolnton, Georgia on Thursday, April 10th and we're live from MeatEater HQ in Bozeman. I'm your host Spencer Newarth joined today by Janis Boutellis and Brody Henderson. On today's show we'll interview Stephanie Raymond from the Orca Network about one of the world's most endangered whales.

After that we'll do one minute fishing with our friends at Trout Unlimited, followed by the top three biggest fish we've ever landed, and finally we'll talk to James Kane about the day he caught $100,000 while magnet fishing. Lincolnton, Georgia is a place I visited last year while attending the Masters. It's Masters week right now. I had one of the most unique dining experiences of my life there. It was so southern that I couldn't believe that it was real. It was called Papa's Old South. You went into a little trailer house and you ate from their buffet of all sorts of southern fried foods. It was so satisfying. If you live in Georgia, if you're ever

attending the Masters, make the drive to Lincoln to visit Papa's Old South. But I got one Master's story to tell you because masters teed off today hold on before you tell us that tell me what you ate there yeah everything they they had well give us your top every every protein uh was fried so uh like fried chicken that was delicious um their cornbread that was great and then catfish oh of course they had catfish yeah they they had mountain did you eatfish. Yeah, they had mountains. Did you eat it? Yeah, they they would shame you if you didn't take enough on your plate It was it was that kind of place and maybe maybe that sort of experience is more common than I'm aware of and I'm just ignorant

to like how southern folks treat you and and how just dang nice they are and How excited they are about their food. But go to Papa's Old South. I loved it. I can't believe it exists in 2025. And then the other best thing was the dessert. It was a cherry pie, I believe. We were in there with all the good church going folks while we were heading to the masters. How much was this buffet? I don't know, probably like 20 bucks or something. The price didn't feel very southern that that made sense to me. I was like, oh that's that's relatable. The rest of it was very different though. One Masters story to tell you. You know our friend Brian Harmon who's been on

trivia, he's been on the regular meat eater podcast. We were there on a practice day which is when things are like less serious than the actual tournament. So you can just like a little more leeway for the patrons. They call them patrons. You're not a fan when you're there because you're not fanatical. You're just like very respectful and you're a patron. Anyway.

They have all kinds of vocabulary things they have to say at the Masters. Very different. It's not the rough, it's a second cut. Can't say rough. It's very different. Can't say fans. I'm glad it exists in that one place. If the entire golf world was like that. I'd be like this is so pretentious

It's disgusting but having it exist in that one sort of place once a year. I enjoy that Anyway, Brian Harmon. He was on the first practice day. I was with a few buddies and I was like Do you think he'd like look over if I made a little turkey call? There are no turkeys that live on Augusta, but he was probably 75 yards away and there are hundreds of people around at this point. You're hearing birds all day long. So I'm like, you know, let's watch this. And so I'm like,

hup, hup, hup, hup, hup, hup, hup, hup. Did that and sure enough, his head turned on a swivel over to my direction. No one else though, in this crowd of hundreds of people acknowledged it. That was just very satisfying. That's why I'll always cheer for Brian Harman. So there is a lot of birds They don't pipe in the bird noises. You know what? You don't see a lot of birds you hear a lot of birds and a conspiracy theorist would tell you that yeah

There are speakers around that you can't see I I would bet there are speakers piping in some of those. Other tournaments have been busted for doing exactly that. But that place is so manicured. Like you stand under a tree and you look up and you see that all of the branches off of the main trunk are like tied with some wire to each other. Because every little blade of grass, every leaf is so impeccably placed and thoughtful that nothing escapes them as far as what this place should look like, smell like, sound like. So if they were piping in bird noises,

that would not surprise me, Brody. The epitome of cleaning up the woods. It's wild. That's what it is. The natural environment. Well, no, I'm saying it's not. But you know, my elders, the generation of my dad's parents, and so they were like my great uncles and whatever, they were big into that.

Like when they had little- Cleaning up the woods. When they had little cabins, cottages, what not, like that was the thing they did. I mean, they were just working people, they loved to work. So they would go up to their cabin, instead of just like laying around, what not, like that was the thing they did. I mean they were just working people, they loved to work. So they would go up to their cabin, instead of just like laying around drinking beer and getting sun, they would work and they would do things

like clean up, clean out all the seaweed, not seaweed but whatever plant was growing in the pond. Or go into the woods and literally rake the woods clean. And it was just like, in their mind, they're beautifying, right? And I mean, a lot of people do that. Now, I mean, let me look at lawns. I mean, that's... People love to manicure.

Oh, man, like I... Humans love that look. Nature really doesn't. I worked on a golf course, ground crew, all through high school and college. And this time of year in the North, they're like way past this, down where the Masters is going on but like when when it was first time to go to work in the spring that's all we did was pick up sticks off the

ground like hours and hours of picking up stick what other work did you do for the golf course we like spreading fertilizer yeah grounds through everything and did you ever swing a golf club in those days? Once in a while we'd dick around, but like, I just like, you know. What about your peers working there? Were they not like deeply in love with golf? No, like I was, like we had a little like crew of friends that worked out on the course and it was a job.

But it was a cool job because you'd start at five or six in the morning, be done. Like the latest we'd work was two, you'd have the rest of the day to do what you want Was that quite covered in deer and turkeys? Yes that course what we used to hunt on that golf course because we were like buddies with Dude the brothers that owned that course so we'd know and then hunt on that golf course that that'd be a dream Permission to get is on a golf course. Yeah, not Augusta though. No turkeys there But for Brian Harmon he thought for two seconds that there was so cheer for him this week I think you actually like hunting a golf course Would I yeah? Absolutely, if you out if you're out there and you got permission or you own a golf course

You're a manager at a golf course and that place is covered up in deer. You let me know. I'll come hunt that thing for you Why wouldn't you like it? That's no different than hunting a cornfield. No, it is a lot different. Okay. I don't think so. I'm kind of leading with, if you're going to compare it to a cornfield, it ain't that much different. Yeah.

Them deer being deer when they're out on a golf course. Okay. I also like the idea of hunting them in a unique spot. I've never gotten to do an urban hunt. I've lived in places that have had urban hunts and I've like haven't drawn the tag. That would be a unique experience that I would also embrace if you were, you know,

40 yards off someone's back patio. Boy, that'd be fun. I don't want to spend the rest of my life hunting golf courses. Yeah, I guess for an experience. I would do it It just would seem that for me aesthetically it wouldn't be as pleasing as hunting in the woods We're not disagreeing there if you got a golf course that you can let me hunt you some golf courses have a lot of woods That one that I worked on

Johnny is your lion season over with no I've got Yeah, Johnny is your lion season over with no I've got Like there's like four days left in the season season ends on the 14th, which is next Monday But does it feel like it's over with when there's four days left or is it like still good hunting conditions? It's it's tougher hunting conditions. I don't mind them. I think it's good for the dog I'm gonna definitely go out at least one more day this weekend and you know there's probably a lot of people that have given up by now. A lot of folks you know what's the- Because of snow? Why? Yeah or just you know it's like anything it's like turkey season if it's a six week long turkey season you know

there's sure eight ninety percent of the people are out there in the first week and then the numbers just atrophy you know from there on out I imagine the same thing happen I mean I know it from there on out. I imagine the same thing happened. I mean, I know it happens with elk season. I mean, our season is, I don't know, five months long. So, yeah, but it's, you know, obviously the animals are still out there and you can still catch them.

And you don't necessarily need to have fresh snow. Fresh snow makes it easier to find the original track. But yeah, we had a tough hunt the other day where Mingus just ran a lot of trash, which I don't really like that term, but that basically means when he's running anything besides what he's supposed to be running. Give me an example, a fox.

Sure, fox, coyote, deer. And he was in with another pack of dogs, and I'm not blaming that other pack but okay Similar to humans you get into a group and the mentality changes about what? individuals can do and what the group can do and Yeah, he gets caught up in that and does what they call a lot of booger barking, which I was thinking about where that comes from. And I was thinking maybe it's like a term for being like, oh yeah, they're just, they're literally instead of smelling the scent on the ground of a lion, he's literally smelling

his own boogers and barking at them. I don't know where that came from. When I hear that, I think of like a turkey hunt getting boogered, just like things went wrong. Sure. Where that came when I hear that I think of like a turkey hunt getting boogered just like things went wrong sure So I would definitely like to go out and finish on a little bit better No, because right now when I came upstairs this morning I saw Mingus crawling out of his bed looking at me. I was like you're a piece of shit dog. Oh wow Okay, well, he's got four days to redeem himself

Yeah, after that Yanni you give us a full recap of the live season here on Media to Radio. Okay, I'll come back and tell you. I had a successful hunt a couple of weeks ago, but I imagine we burned up our time for me to tell you about that one. I have a fear that we have. That's alright. Alright, let's get to our first caller. Joining us on the line now is Stephanie Raymond, the program manager from the Orca Network. Stephanie is here to educate us about one of the world's most endangered animals, the Southern Resident Orcas.

Stephanie, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. First thing, Stephanie, tell us about what makes Southern Resident Orcas different from the other 50,000 killer whales that live in our oceans. Well, so yeah, Orcas are one of the most widely distributed mammals on the planet. So on the face of it, it might seem like there are plenty of them out there. But the different populations of orcas around the world have very different characteristics.

And we used to call these different ecotypes, but now we're starting to regard them as separate species. And just last fall, the southern Resident orcas were designated as their own specific species. Oh, interesting. Relative to the wider population. Also the Bigs orcas. So there's two different orcas in the Salish Sea that share that ecosystem, but they do not interact in any way. And both of them have been designated their own specific species now. Spencer and I are arguing about this earlier and like I'm a

lumper and obviously he's a splitter. Like, like, how, like who's deciding their different species and how is that decided? And like, you know, a lot of people look at them as one species. There is some formal body and I don't know their precise title You know a lot of people look at them. Yeah as one species There is some formal body and I don't know their precise title who gets to decide this stuff But the reason it was the decision was made is that you know for about 20 years now there has been research about the genetic differences between these groups and the behavioral differences between these groups and the behavioral differences, the vocalization

differences. So these different populations of orcas around the world have really different characteristics. Each group has unique vocals and culture. They have behavior that's learned from their mothers. Each has a specialized diet depending on what's available to them in that environment. And they're very like humans in this, except that where human groups of different cultures and languages and dietary preferences tend to intermingle, the orcas don't do that. So the southern residents are a unique genetically distinct population of about 74 animals who range from Vancouver Island in British Columbia to Monterey Bay, California They are coastal animals. They don't tend to go far offshore

they are made up of three large extended family groups that we call J pod K pod and L pod and Within this population the young whales never leave their mothers. They are always there. So it's a big group around, you know, some common female ancestor who may not, no longer be living, but these groups have all formed in that way. They are primarily salmon eaters. Over 80% of their diet is Chinook or king salmon in particular.

They also will eat coho and they've been known to eat ling cod and halibut on occasion. They have good taste in fish. So they are fish eaters. And that is one of the things that distinguishes them from the other orca population that shares their territory because that other population feeds exclusively on marine mammals. Okay.

So 74 of them left in the wild. What's caused that decline? Boy, a lot of things. So these whales, primarily their primary threat right now is lack of food. As salmon fisheries have declined throughout the Pacific Northwest, you know, that's been a big challenge for them. It takes a lot of food to sustain a an 18 month gestation and have a healthy calf and then feed that healthy calf. So being able to reproduce without enough food to supply

that has been a challenge. They also, these animals have a high toxic body burden. They're carrying a lot of chemicals in their bodies, persistent chemicals like PCBs and PBDEs, flame retardant chemicals, because they're eating high on the food chain and the salmon that they're eating in pretty much every case are passing through estuaries that where there is this historic contamination in the sediment that gets into these young salmon and then stays with them. The reason that the salmon are a preferred food is that they have a high fat content and that fat is where these persistent chemicals store. So the animals themselves

are accumulating that that toxin in their fat, the orcas themselves. And then if they don't have enough food to eat, they start to metabolize that fat, the blubber that they're, you know, would normally be there to keep them warm, they start to metabolize that and that releases those chemicals into their different organ systems and we see both reproductive effects, neurological effects and immunological effects as a result of that toxicity. So that's another challenge. And then we have evidence that shows us that first of all, big freighter traffic in particular when we have the big Containerships coming in and out of these ports on the west coast

the sound of the Bubbles that are generated by their propellers as that as those bubbles collapse It's called cavitation and the cavitation sound is happening exactly at the same Frequency that these whales use to communicate and to echolocate to find their food. Finally, if a vessel is within 400 yards of a female southern resident, we see that she stops foraging. So vessel disturbance is another issue that these whales are faced with. What are... Stephanie, they're down to 74. What was their historic high? Like how far have they dropped? And then like what amount of time?

Yeah. So we don't know exactly how many were present prior to the era when they were being captured from Marine parks because nobody had done a census. And there was just sort of this assumption that there were whales coming in from the ocean into Puget Sound and you know they would just keep doing that. It wasn't until the 1970s that the initial census was taken and at that point the population was pretty close to where it is now. The estimates are that maybe between 150 and 200 would be like the normal carrying capacity for the population and we did see some recovery following the end of the capture era.

The population rebounded to close to a hundred animals. But then in the late 1980s, we saw salmon fisheries crash. And along with that came the corresponding decline in the Southern resident population. And there has been a lot of effort made to restore salmon habitat and, you know, legislate different regulations around how vessels should behave around these animals. But we're not seeing yet the recovery that we really would like to see.

Talk about that capture era, Stephanie, and how differently these whales were treated in the 1950s and 1960s. Yeah, these animals used to be feared very much. People just assumed that if you fell in the water near one, that was it. You know, it was kind of the great white shark of its time that they were just aggressive, vicious animals, killer whales, right? You call them killer whales and people make assumptions. Also, fishers didn't want the competition for salmon. My own grandfather was a commercial fisher and, you know, when I was a was a commercial Fisher. And, uh, you know, when I was a little kid in the seventies and was, you know,

starting to get really turned on about these whales, he would tell me about how he had a permit to shoot him if they got too close to his nets. So, you know, they were not animals that were really, um, well loved in the way that they are now. Uh, there was a whale that was, uh whale that was nicknamed Moby Doll. She was one of the, or he was one of the first captive orcas.

He was shot multiple times because somebody wanted a model for a sculpture to put at the Vancouver Aquarium when it was first opened. And the whale survived the shooting and survived for a while in captivity. And this was when we started to realize that they weren't aggressive toward humans, despite how the humans had been treating them. And then we had Namu, who famously was caught in a fisherman's net and sold to Ted Griffith

in Seattle and was on display at the Seattle waterfront for a while. Again, Ted really bonded with that whale and was able to ride on his back. And people, at that time he would go in the water with the whale and people would be like, oh my gosh, it's an accident and what's gonna happen. And then it turned out that was all part of the act that Namu was not a vicious creature.

So in captivity, the intelligence of these animals became apparent and there were very few incidences of aggression against humans. We know since then there have been some notable exceptions, but that also aligned with the observation that there's never been a documented incidence of aggression against a human from killer whales in the wild. So people began to see them as friendly,

which, you know, that's a human value that may or may not be true. But the population census and the way the whales behaved around researchers in the wild began to point to something really special about these animals and how they seem to have a natural curiosity about us, but also an uncanny ability to know our intentions. You mentioned in the questions you sent me, the Seymour Narrows in British Columbia, they

were going to place a gun there to target practice, do target practice on these whales when they pass through. And they chose that location because that was a spot the whales were known to frequent. Well, after they set the gun up, the whales never went there. As though somehow they knew, and we can't explain that, but you know, there are many, many stories of situations like that where somehow the whales seem to understand what the humans were up to in a way that we don't understand what they're up to. So it's, they're very, that by themselves is such a compelling thing. I think a lot of researchers and a lot of the

general public are really drawn to this population in particular because we know them intimately, we know them as individuals. They all have nicknames that the public may know them by, and we know their stories. So it really has been a 180-degree shift in attitudes in just a little bit more than 50 years. Yeah. I've seen a lot of headlines in the last six months about the southern resident orcas. So I want to talk to you about some of that news. First thing, tell us about the salmon hats and why people cared about that last fall. So this was a really interesting human phenomenon, as much as an orca phenomenon.

In the 1980s, late 1980s, there was one summer when it seemed to be the thing to do for the southern resident orcas to carry salmon around on their heads. And if the image we have of orcas is a whale in a tank, that's a very sterile environment. They don't have a lot of things to interact with but in the wild these whales are very Tactile very interactive creatures. They like to manipulate things in their environment. They are curious about them

They're you know, they want to play or or do other things and they do have these social trends that happen Whether it's a behavioral trend or in this case, maybe a fashion trend that happen, whether it's a behavioral trend or in this case maybe a fashion trend. So we've also seen years where, you know, everybody's got a piece of kelp draped over their dorsal fin or some eelgrass or something like that. And what happened last fall, we had a just incredible salmon run here in the Salish Sea, just record-breaking across the board. And one of our volunteers snapped a picture that had a salmon sitting on the head of an orca. Well, somebody grabbed that from one of our reports that we put out and it went viral and everybody's like, oh, they're reviving the trend. But the reality is that that was part of a series of pictures in which the picture before and

the picture after did not show a salmon on the orca's head. And so we don't know exactly how that fish wound up on that whale's head for just a second, but it did not appear to be actually carrying it. There was one other researcher who witnessed a salmon on the head of an orca for a second as well, but didn't get a picture of it. And that was it. There was one other researcher who witnessed a salmon on the head of an orca for a second as well, but didn't get a picture of it. And that was it. And the reality is that when these whales come down into Puget Sound, which is what they do in the fall, because that's when the salmon are running into the sound, there are hundreds of people on the shorelines with cameras documenting their presence, getting their pictures. And if there had been a widespread revival

of that salmon hat trend, we definitely would have seen a lot more evidence of that than we actually did. It was just really interesting how compelling it was to humans. Again, here's this interesting behavior. Look what they're doing. They're doing something like us.

They have a fashion trend. And it just really, we were getting media requests from as far away as Germany and New Zealand, or people asking about this particular situation. Okay, and Stephanie is skeptical that the salmon hats are back and fashionable. Yeah, we haven't seen it since. Now, last year, the largest dam removal project in US history took place when four dams were destroyed on the Klamath River.

Talk about what that means for these southern resident orcas. So what that means is that there's now more habitat for these Chinook salmon to spawn. And we know that the further the Chinook have to travel upriver, the bigger those fish have to be. It also really has a big influence on the spring Chinook run. These were salmon that would enter the rivers in the spring, but they didn't spawn until fall because it took them that long to get all the way up to the upper watersheds. So when we open up this upper watershed habitat, we are really improving the salmon supply for the southern residents to eat. And that's true all up and down the coast, of course, because as I said before,

they go down as far as Monterey Bay, all of the salmon bearing streams on the Pacific Northwest coast potentially can supply them with additional salmon to eat. What we've seen as the fisheries have declined is that there are not only fewer fish, but they tend to be smaller because they have less range to spawn in. And that means that the whales are working harder.

They're spending more energy to find smaller fish. So they have to spend even more energy to get enough food to eat. So bigger fish are great. More spawning habitat for those fish is great. And, um, you know, both the Klamath and the Elwha dam removal projects are potentially going to boost that supply of salmon and hopefully that's going to make a big difference for these animals.

Yeah. Let's, let's end this interview on some more good news. It's news that's only a few days old. Tell us about the newest member of the Southern Resident J-Pod. Yeah, this is really exciting. We just had a baby J63, so it won't be given a nickname for at least another six months or so. There's not a lot to say at this point. She appears to be the first calf of a whale known as J40 Subtles. And Subtles has a long history of being kind of an auntie or babysitter to other new calves, but has never been seen with a calf of her own. So, so far, baby looks we're cautiously optimistic but of course we'll need to have a few more sightings to confirm that Subtle's really his mom and that things are continuing

to go well. And the other piece of good news is that baby J62 who was born in December also appears to be thriving. That little one seems to be doing really, really well in recent observations. And last thing, if people want to help southern resident orcas and support their conservation that little one seems to be doing really, really well in recent observations. And last thing, if people wanna help Southern resident orcas and support their conservation efforts, what can they do?

So it really goes back to, you know, a lot of the stuff that we're told is good for the environment is gonna be helpful for these whales ultimately because we're all connected in that way. If you're in the Pacific Northwest, being aware of your watershed and what you're contributing to it is really important. Avoiding toxic products for lawn, garden, or farm care, maintaining your vehicles so

you're not leaking oil and making sure your tires are properly inflated. It turns out the dust that erodes off of tires is actually really toxic for some types of salmon. So that's another piece that we're, you know, as we're uncovering the different ways that we can restore salmon habitat, that's one of the things that's being looked at. Um, conserving electricity is huge because again, you know, we're here in the Northwest, we're so used to abundant, uh, inexpensive hydropower,

but we know now what a devastating effect that has on the salmon population. And, um, wherever you live, you know, because we, our power grid spreads all over the place. That's helpful. Advocating against proposed dams or removing existing dams that we don't necessarily need anymore. Advocating for good conservation policies for salmon and for orcas. All of those things are things that people can do to support this population. Okay, everyone listening is going to do their part. Thanks for joining us, Stephanie, and congrats on the exciting J63 news. Thank you and thanks so much for having me. You boys feel differently about orcas now? You all excited?

I mean, they're super cool animals. I'm glad to hear they're potentially going to be doing better. I was surprised to hear... I was expecting to hear that there had been some precipitous decline in their population, but the fact that their numbers have remained steady for 50 years makes me think that maybe things aren't as bad as, the picture isn't as bad as people might be painting. I don't think we fully got the scope of it, talking to Stephanie, but one piece of news I'd seen

is that like 60 or 70% of the calves die in the first year. And I think that's the thing they're really fighting right now is how can we make sure that when a calf is born, which is already a lot to ask for, that the thing survives to adulthood. So I think that's, that's what I mean. They have the unfortunate fate of living in basically an urban Marine and by which, you know, makes things tough. You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed.

You swept the city, driving closer to the truth, while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Phelps has a new thing this spring. They're coming out with what they call the PrimeCuts turkey diaphragm calls. And one of them is called the Clay Neukom PrimeCut, and I'm not just gonna talk about it,

I'm gonna blow on it here I'm a simple turkey hunter who likes a simple system I usually carry one maybe two diaphragm calls and a single pot call every year, don't even carry a box call. I wanted a versatile diaphragm call that was the best of two worlds. I wanted loud and raspy, a call that I could cut on,

but also one that was soft and subtle that I could purr and kiki run on. I love to make those raspy cuts and the soft subtle purrs on the same call. And I find many of them, I can't do both. And this call that I worked with Jason Phelps to build simplifies my turkey kit. These prime cuts come in a three pack.

There's the Clay Newcomb call, but also Steve Rinella and Jason Phelps favorite turkey diaphragm cuts You can check all these out along with all the other meat eater and Phelps turkey calls at store dot the meat eater dot com All right moving on our next segment is one minute fishing Well, do you punk? Go ahead, make my cast.

One Minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish and if they're successful we'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group. And for the whole month of April our friends at Trout Unlimited are joining us for one minute fishing. This week, our angler is Dan Johnson, the Desert Terminal Lakes Basin Project coordinator at TU. Today, he's on Hot Creek in California and fishing for a donation to Trout Unlimited. Dan, welcome to the show.

Hey, thank you all so much for having us and for highlighting TU this month and highlighting this beautiful stream by me. It is a beautiful place, also a windy place. Now first thing, we asked Trout Unlimited to highlight some important watersheds across the country for this segment. Tell us about Hot Creek and its greatest threats. It is a very unique stream.

It starts as Mammoth Creek up in the eastern Sierras there. It flows down, it's really small, very narrow as it hits the valley. But about a couple hundred yards upstream of where I am, it has a number of geothermal inputs. This hot water that comes out, it's actually perfectly in that 60 to 67 degree range that is optimum for trout growth and longevity and reproduction. But we've been involved in Hot Creek for a number of years because just over the hill, I can see it from here, there is a project to start exploratory gold mining right on just a ways over the banks there. In 2021, the company Core Mining, they were awarded permits to drill after a huge amount

of community backlash and litigation from other NGOs in the area, those permits were revoked for the time being. But gold is near all-time highs. And we are actually working on a protective designation for Hot Creek, an outstanding national resource water, which we feel would neutralize that mining threat once and for all. And I mean, at Trout Unlimited, we're realists, right? I drove a truck here today, and it's built out of things that were pulled out of the

ground at one point. We need mining, we need to work these landscapes, but also we need places like Hot Creek. It's a part of our American tradition. I actually wrote my father-in-law in, he's my cameraman today, and I come out here with my daughter, and yeah, Trout Unlimited, we're just working to protect the places we love to fish.

Well, we're grateful that TU is involved with a spot like that. Can I ask you a question? Yeah, what do you got, Brody? Hey, Dan, what kind of land are you, is Hot Creek like a public, primarily a public river are you standing on? Like what land entity manages the land you're standing on right now?

Yeah, so Hot Creek, you know, it's actually interesting. We're in the very valley stage of, or portion of Hot Creek, and it ends up going in some pretty dramatic canyons. It's a mixture of US Forest Service mostly to the across the stream from me, BLM down below there's also some private property and some tribal trust land as well. So a fair number of, yeah. The gold mining would occur on,

is the proposal for the gold mining to occur on public land? That's correct, on forest service land. Gotcha, gotcha. All right, Dan, let's talk about the fishing. What are you targeting today? How are you doing it and what fly are you throwing? Yeah, so we are Hot Creek has, and of course I just got stuck on my, it's hot creek has

wild populations of brown trout is kind of the main quarry. There's also some rainbows. At this time of the year, none of the really big stuff is hatching. So I am throwing a size 18 blue wing olive if you can see that and then a size 20 zebra midge down below so the real small stuff but we did have a hatch going off a bit earlier we've been watching fish rise here I've been you know whispering words reassurance to my tiny flies the last 10 minutes and I'm feeling good about it. Okay, have you made a cast yet today, Dan? I fished a little bit downstream, but we've been trying to do our best

to leave this hole intact and not, you know, not mess with them at all. I don't think they know that we're here. So this is the one we've been reserving. Great, well, your one minute of fishing starts when you make that first cast. Let's do it. Better get in there before someone high holds you. All right.

Here we go to the edge of the creek. Yanni, describe what you're seeing there. Oh, just a beautiful creek. I'd have to just stand there and enjoy the view for a while before I even wet a line. That's right. All right. He's making his first cast. Snowcapped mountains. Dropping into some like, deserty up high country sage. Uh-huh. Looks like a place you'd find some muleys or blacktails and some antelope.

I like that he's kind of being a purist here because if I was going for the one minute deal, I'd probably have a San Juan worm and an egg on there. Oh, did we have a hook set there, Dan? He thinks he had a strike. We did, we missed him though. You're 30 seconds in. He got, he bit the tiny little zebra midge.

Oh, all right. Feeling optimistic. Burning a lot of time on that false cast, Dan. Get it back in the water. I know. 20 seconds to go. These tiny flies, I gotta dry them out. 20 seconds to go.

10 seconds left, Dan. Eat it! Not gonna happen today. Dan, tell us what happened on that, uh, that one fish that made an offering at your fly. Yeah. So I could see him. It's actually really clear water here. So I saw him move for the zebra midge and, uh, I mean, I hope you all don't mind if I keep fishing while we talk.

I know it doesn't count, but, um, yeah yeah, he went for he went for the zebra midge and I he just didn't commit to the bite and Yeah, we'll see we're gonna hang out here the rest of the day too. So maybe I'll maybe I'll text y'all the picture too Okay, good work day for you, Dan. That's the line. I That's the line my clients used to always use like, oh, he missed it. Like they never miss the fish. The fish miss the fly. That's right.

And if I may real quick, if you're looking to get involved with TU's work on public lands, just go to tu.org and we have a little bar at the top that says, take action. We're likely working in your neck of the woods right now. Okay. Good message, Dan. Thank you for joining us. Good luck with fishing the rest of the day and thanks to trout unlimited for doing what they do Thanks, Dan Alright, we're halfway through the show. Let's take a break for some listener feedback Phil. What do you got? Yeah, we've got a question from our producer Corey Calkins. He asks who's the better golfer Spencer Yanis or Brody? Ain't me. I imagine it's me just because I play the most but I am NOT a good golfer at all if Yanni

Wanted to go golfing five times this year. He might be better than me after those five times I'm I'm I just enjoy the camaraderie of it. Maybe we don't we don't need to spend any more time on this Yeah, Cory asked that question because he's the best golfer in the office or top Two so so good for you who rivals him man. I used to like Cory and then I found out he's a golfer Well, he's you'll like him even more when I tell you this though. He's a phenomenal golfer who doesn't golf He'll go like once a year and and that's good enough for him But if I had that's better if I had Cory skills, I'd be out there even more But it'd be Cory and Colin is the best golfers

What else you got Phil question for Yanis from? Dermond what are you feeding a top-level hunting hound like Mingus? Piece dog crap hunting hound you described him as earlier. I just feed him dog food, buddy Remember your old dog mud didn't you used to feed her meat? Oh Yeah, I mean we feed Mingus some meat too, some scraps, you know I'll save my trimmins and feed it to him. But yeah for the most part we just I vary it up I don't feed him the same stuff all the time. We're actually gonna switch over to whatever Costco is selling That's what I'm buying next for Mingus. Do you know who makes it for Costco? I imagine that's I don't but I had a couple people tell me that they

thought it was good and it was cheap so that works for us. Okay. Yeah, I'm not buying into the whole thing that my dog needs to eat the same diet that I eat. Rashad asks, and this is for Janice as well, I'm assuming you know the answer to this, when's the next meat eater roast coming out? I love the first one. Oh well I'm glad you like the first one Rashad. The next one is coming out early May. I don't think there is an actual drop date yet, but look for it in early May. It's a good one. We got Corinne Schneider, Meteor podcast producer, and Maggie Hudlow, director of website content, squaring off with each other.

I heard they put on an exceptional show. Oh buddy, they made some delicious food. Coming out in early May. From Peter, question for Brody and Yanni, what cartridge are you going to use for your kids when they go from hunting deer and antelope to elk? Man, I started my older son on a 243 and he hunted with that for three, no four seasons. Three

was last year. Last year was four. This year he's going to a 6.5 Creedmoor and I would be completely comfortable having him shooting elk with that cartridge and he killed an elk with a.30-06 last fall. So yeah we've been shooting the 6.5 Creed war and I imagine we'll stay shooting the 6.5 Creed war and just not shoot it too far Let's do one more Phil. Oh man, okay From Eric, how do you guys balance family vacations and hunting trips if you have limited time off? You take family vacations that are hunting trips.

You two boys are pretty good at that. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I'd say there's very few hunting trips that if they're not work that are, that are hunting trips or hunting trips without my family. So the only one I can think of off the top of my head is, like I'm gonna go to Wisconsin and hunt with my dad for a few days for turkeys.

But otherwise, if it's not a work trip, I'm hunting with my family, and otherwise I'm hunting with a camera. Yeah, I mean, I definitely do some solo hunting, but most of our family vacations involve hunting or a lot of fishing too. So you're kinda asking the wrong guys because we get to hunt for work sometimes

so we don't actually have to balance family vacations and hunting trips because yeah, we get to hunt for work sometimes but yeah hope that helps Eric. Sorry to make you jealous. Probably doesn't. All right moving on our next segment is top threes. I will part in a day or two. I'm having trouble over here. Such a beautiful voice. It is.

Sure. So beautiful. Phil, does the computer have to help you hit that high note or is that all raw? Oh, no. That was natural natural wonderful natural good Wow now this week We are ranking the three biggest fish we've ever caught and to be clear. It's not literally the biggest It's the biggest relative to other fish of that species So, you know for today's show it would be more relevant if you caught a two and a half pound bluegill than if you caught a 30 pound tarpon. So these are the three biggest fish we've caught relative to other fish of that species.

Brody, you go first. What's the third biggest fish you've ever caught? We need the picture because I can't remember what order I put them in. Okay. Oh, big old trout that That's a big old whopper. That's the third biggest fish Spencer wants me to say that's the third biggest fish I've ever caught uh-huh then I can talk about it. That's right. Yeah, talk about it. Tell us about it Well, it's a big ass rainbow trout. Look how young you were how old were you man? That was probably like

Look how young you were. How old were you? Man, that was probably like 20 ish. Now, well, maybe maybe like 17 years ago, let's say. OK, so how old? I don't know. So you still like later or mid mid 30s. I didn't know you were ever in your mid 30s. Yeah, man, I wasn't born 53 years old. Now, is that a pellet head or is that not a pellet head? Well I mean not on the river. I don't think it was on the river that it was caught on. How big was

that fish for people who aren't watching this? Again Spencer and I were talking about this earlier. I don't generally don't carry a tape measure around with me or a scale but that fish was over 30 like I'm guessing 32 ish mmm and it was caught this time of year in the spring so it's a female full egg so I'm guessing 12 she's got a big old belly on 12 pound ish yeah what were you doing when you caught that fish what do you mean what was like what fly were you throwing when you caught that fish? What do you mean, what was I doing? What fly were you throwing? Oh, I caught it on an egg. Big old egg pattern.

Okay. Was that a good day for you fishing? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Can you tell us the river or is that? Sure. That was the Roaring Fort. Oh, yeah.

It kind of tailed off at the end there. I felt like you were regretting telling us. That's not a secret, man. There's probably 20 boats on the Roaring Fort today. Oh, yeah. You ever going to top that trout or is that a once in a lifetime fish? I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball. For trout, that may be it because I just don't do that kind of fishing nearly as much as

I used to. But who knows? Anything could happen. All right, Yanni, you're next. Well, the third biggest fish I ever caught was... Say it. Is... You want me to say this fish?

Yeah, just... Whatever fish is on the screen that you're talking about. See, I labeled them wrong. I was going to finish with this one. No, see, I think you labeled it number three probably meaning that you wanted it to be shown third. I can't believe how hard this segment is. Alright, so the third... We told you you had problems before we started This is a sailfish that I caught recently down in Guatemala with my tape measure out for that one No, no, no, I pulled one out of the water of sailfish

I showed you guys a picture of that on an earlier episode and A couple folks remind me that you shouldn't take those fish out of the water, it really increases mortality. So yeah, it was, I've only caught a few sailfish, they were all roughly the same size to me and... You caught that one on a fly pole though, didn't you? Well, I don't know if it was exactly that one that I caught on the fly rod, but Yeah, it was a great trip We had three anglers. We all caught quite a few of those sailfish and Beautiful place beautiful water rough seas though rough seas. Did you yeah you

Were you getting a little I was wearing the patch so I was good, but those guys You can see there the guy on the left is Zan and my brother-in-law They decided on day three that they were all good with the patch and they didn't wear one On day three and it caught him. How'd they take that picture? GoPro on a stick good-looking photo good-looking fish. Oh, yeah, they know what they're doing. We're fishing with the selfish lodge of Oh yeah, they know what they're doing. We were fishing with the Selfish Lodge of Guatemala. I don't know, DM me on Instagram if you wanna know more about them.

Great outfit. All right, the third biggest fish I ever caught is this perch. Now that, I got a tape measure under it. Like Brody was saying, I did have a tape measure with me. I was 14 and a quarter inches. It was two pounds exactly. I was South, it was in South Dakota. It was 2012. I was fishing by myself that day. I

was pulling plugs for walleye. Did not expect to find that fish in that place. There's not a lot of perch in that lake where I caught that. Oh, that gets me excited, Spencer. That's my favorite fish. And he hit a number five Rapala shad rap. And when perch get to that size Everything just looks wrong like they develop shoulders that they don't normally have that hump on their back Yeah, they're their fins look too small you start to they like they look so lethargic They're like how is that thing staying well fed enough to grow to that size? But then you're reminded when you're pulling plugs for walleye and it smashes a shad wrap that you'd expect, you know, only larger fish to be keeping up

with. And then I got another picture. Did you eat him? No, I threw that one back. Two years later, I caught another 14 incher. That one also weighed two pounds through that fish back as well. It was, it was almost the same place, same time of year, same Lake doing the same thing, pulling plugs for walleyes, hooked into a big old perch. You can see pictures of these fish on our Meat Eater YouTube channel. Don't let those things go, Spencer.

That's okay. You know what, I've, like, since I've gotten older, if I were to catch that fish today, it's probably more likely I would keep it, but then I felt like I was really doing the Lord's work, letting a 14 14 inch perch go But now I realized like that thing probably had a year life left on it There was no harm in me keeping that big old perch in the middle of the good fish sandwich right there. Mm-hmm

All right, Brody. You're up next Okay, I don't remember. Oh the second biggest fish I've ever caught. Now, this is a ling cod. Oh, we're supposed to wait for that. No, this is a mess. This whole segment is a mess. Do whatever you like. That's a nice ling cod. Well, ling cod get can get quite a bit bigger than this.

The reason I put this one in here is because at the time I caught that up around Steve Shaq, that was as big of a ling cod as you could keep legally. So that's why it's there. And how big is it? The slot that year was 30 to 45 inches. So it was like 43, 44. It's hard to get an exact measurement

in the bottom one of those skiffs. You can hang them and measure them, but it was just under the slot. So that's a good one. And now, that slot has gotten progressively smaller every year, so you wouldn't be able to keep that thing anymore. So how much bigger are the bigger ones

that you've caught than this one? There's actually a second slot in that part of Alaska and it's 55 and over. You don't see nobody's ever seen one of those. I mean, they're gotta be down there somewhere, but they can get, they can get five feet long, 50 pounds, but that's a pretty good one. Beautiful fish there. Yanni, you're next. Well, Spencer, the second biggest fish I've ever caught is that big old redfish. It is a big redfish. Also known as a bull drum. That was caught

off the coast of North Carolina with my wife's cousin Captain Rob Orr. Also had my brother-in-law and his son with him. It was a great evening. We went out for like the night bites. I didn't start fishing until it pretty much got dark. And we were fishing a shoal with just some cut bait, pretty simple. And we basically made three casts and we each got to catch a redfish roughly that size.

And it was quite the tussle. The head on that thing. Oh, it's amazing. Yeah, the head and shoulders. And you know, that's what I love these days. Being a freshwater angler for so many years, and then doing more saltwater in the latter part of my life. These fish just, they fight you.

You know, they actually pull back, which is what I enjoy so much where, you know, the trout, you know, it's more of a finesse game to get them to the net But like that Joker you just don't know if you're gonna actually win the win the battle there But that one we did release. Yeah, are you been allowed to keep them that big in, North Carolina? You know that fish is probably that fish is definitely out of the slot. So no, yeah Beautiful fish. Thank you. Again like the proportions when fish get this big for their species, the head, it's just unbelievable.

Yeah, you can imagine that thing doesn't run away from much. It's things, most things are running away from it and that giant mouth. All right, the second biggest fish I ever caught is this Northern Pike that Phil is showing us a photo of. Now that was in 2014, I was a senior in college. At that point that was the biggest pike I had ever caught. I was by myself pulling plugs for walleye. He was just under 40 inches and then three years later in 2017 I

caught a bigger one that then became my biggest one. I thought this was the three biggest fish, not the six biggest fish. Well, so I'm just giving you some context. This pike then was 42 inches. He weighed just over 20 pounds. He ate a number 7 Rapala Bleeding Olive Minnow Wrap, which is a plug they don't even make anymore. They have minnow body crankbaits, but they don't make that specific one anymore and and I was again pulling plugs by myself this was 2017 I was in the same like

doing the same thing when I when I caught that other pike let both of those fish go that that was got a big old gouge and it's back from another pike or something yeah yeah it was um that was fun. That, you know, we were just talking about actually getting to fight a fish, getting to fight a 20 pound pike. That doesn't even compare to it. Like, you know, the walleye that I was actually targeting that day. So that was my second biggest fish ever. 42 inch pike, just over 20 pounds. All right, we're at our biggest fish Brody. The biggest one ever. Now, when do I wait for this noise to come in, Phil?

Here's what you do. What kind of fish is that? Tell me. Well, that's the biggest fish I've ever caught, and it's a kokanee salmon. So here's what you do. You say, the biggest fish I ever caught is this kokanee salmon.

And then Phil plays the buoy. Gotcha. Yep, okay. Great job. Now tell us about it. That's a kokanee salmon, which is a landlocked version of a sockeye salmon, or they call them red salmon in Alaska. In most places where there's kokanee fisheries, freshwater kokanee lake fisheries, mostly in the western United States. Those things are like 12 inches long. People love fish and form because they're good to eat. That thing's like a monster for a kokanee. And it's like maybe pushing five pounds or so. I didn't measure it, but you know, it's like, I'm guessing.

Did you keep it? Yeah, I kept it. I think it was somewhere 22 to 24 inches. I didn't measure it, but you know, it's like, I'm guessing. Yeah, kept it. OK. I think it was somewhere 22 to 24 inches. I don't know exactly. But that's like for the species, that's an extremely large kokanee. What were you doing when you caught that fish? Perch fishing, buddy. Oh, was that the only kokanee you caught that day? Only one we caught that day. Wow.

Just happened to get. I never caught a kokanee. You ever caught a kokanee you caught that day? Only one we caught that day. Wow. Just happened to get one. I never caught a kokanee. You ever caught a kokanee? No, never. Although I don't know how many times I've even been in a lake that had kokanee. It's been pretty rare in my fishing days. That's a special fish.

Yeah, it was like, it was good eating too. It's very good eating. All right, Yanni, you're up. All right, the biggest fish I've ever caught, which was supposed to be my third biggest fish, but it doesn't matter. And I actually didn't even personally catch this fish. Oh, there she is. My girl, Lindsay.

Yeah. Do you remember Lindsay's last name? Meyer. Meyer, yeah. Lindsay, and what was your husband's name? Yanni's tried to steal one of my clients from me for a little while. Oh, did successfully did or not? I don't know. They fished with me for a while. I don't remember I Left town so Brody got him back. I guess but Lindsey and Jim they were the classic example of Still don't think we've said the kind of fish. Oh, it's a rainbow trout

very similar Brody's third biggest fish and Classic example these two She always was in the back and was like, oh, I'm really not that into fishing I'm just here for the views and the good time and Jim would be fairly serious about it But really but she wasn't serious and she got real serious with me after a while. You must have been a better guide. I put her on a bunch of fish like this. She got serious.

But she would listen to what the guide was saying. Jim would, well, not that Jim wouldn't, but she did a much better job of listening. And so she would always outfish Jim from the back of the boat. But what's interesting about this particular deal is this on the Colorado river and it was early season. Water was still on the high side and, uh, we'd had a particularly big runoff year.

And fish like that weren't normal, on this section of the Colorado River. And all of a sudden, I think I was with another boat actually, and I want to say we floated through this pretty slow deep hole and both boats hook up with these giant fish, you know? And as a guide, you're like, oh my gosh, you know, what is that thing coming up underneath the boat? It's a leviathan.

So you kind of do anything and everything you can to land a fish like that, get lots of pictures. And those fish hung out in that hole and in that area for quite some time. And whoever I was with, I remember being like, dude, we cannot tell anybody else because everybody's gonna wanna float through this section just to hit this one hole.

Best we could figure is that there was a tributary near there, best we could figure that there was probably a stock pond upstream on that tributary. And it probably got blown out and then these fishes swam down the tributary and got dumped into the river. So this was a short lived experience catching these pigs. Oh yeah, yeah. So how big was that?

I mean, in my experience? I don't know again I didn't have a tape on me. I can't remember I don't think it was quite 30 inches, but you know, it's probably close But yeah, just and I mean that fish is like more than double the size of the average trial Oh, yeah, that section of river. Yeah, when you hooked into it. Was there any question as to what it could be? Like did you know this is a big old rainbow? I mean, I guess you could hook into a big mountain whitefish that would, but it wouldn't be that big.

But eventually you get a look at it, you know? But when the rods is bent over double and it's sitting down deep, yeah, you don't know what it is. And usually if you're float fishing, especially with a client that hasn't fought a lot of big trout like that, you've got to follow them around in the boat for a while. Yeah, that's the cool thing.

As the guide in rowing a boat, you're almost doing as much fighting as the angler is because you're flipping the boat around, positioning it, and then obviously fighting the current and trying to stay in that slow water because nothing works when you've got a tank like that on and then you've got to row through a riffle or a small rapid You know she can go wrong real quick. I can tell you that that you honest did a very good job of Releasing that fish in good shape because our buddy Alvin Ado had a client catch it like a week later How do you know it's the same one and picture?. Yeah. I mean it had to be. Okay.

But there was a couple of fish I think that were in that hole. Beautiful trout. All right, biggest fish I've ever caught is this paddlefish. Now this is sort of cheating because I was working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That's a picture of my boss that I took of him. This was right after I graduated college. I worked at this fish hatchery. And we raised a lot of things, but primarily pallid sturgeon and paddlefish. And we raised- Hold on, that dude is not you?

That's not me. He has a remarkable resemblance to you. He's not me. That was my old boss, Craig. So this was 2015. And we would provide all of the paddlefish that were stocked in South Dakota's reservoirs. And so to do that, we'd have to go out

and net adult paddlefish, bring them back to our hatchery, take their eggs, take their milk, raise the young, and then at the end of the summer, early fall, we would release these 12-inch paddlefish. What kind of nets were you using to get those things? Just big old drift nets, just like 100-foot long drift nets that had holes in them, where

if it was big enough for a paddlefish to swim in and get stuck. Like gill net stock? Because that would kill them, wouldn't it? Well, you're grabbing them ASAP. Pretty quick. Yeah. So this day, it was just me and Craig on the boat. He was running the boat, I was running the nets.

That paddlefish was just short of seven feet long and it weighed 129 pounds, which would have broken the state record at the time. And she gave us hundreds of thousands of eggs. We released her about a month later. None of these people in this picture are me either, but this shows us taking her eggs after we gave her a hormone shot. And that took three adult men just to handle this one fish and then another person to capture the eggs. How old is that fish? So that fish, it came from Lake France's case,

which is a reservoir. And any adults that we were catching in that time, that big, were born before the dams were put in. That dam was put in in 1952. So that fish was 65 plus years old when we caught it. I'll never see another fish of that size. And my boss and I were absolutely thrilled. I remember feeling like such a badass that day when we got back to the boat dock that

the two of us had did that. And I remember backing the boat down the boat dock and turn on the radio and Tom Petty's Won't back down his plane and I cranked that up. We were so thrilled We went into Chamberlain that night drank our faces off man. We were excited that that was a once-in-a-lifetime fish I caught it using nets. I didn't catch it on a rod and reel but I'll never forget that old girl There we go. Those are the three biggest fish we've ever caught. We're gonna figure out that segment someday six months into this show we're still uh working out some kinks. Yeah let's give it nine. Okay. You searched for your informant

who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Moving on, this is our last segment of the day. Joining us on the line last is James Kane and Barbie Augustini. They are magnet fishermen from New York City who had a life changing catch last year. James, welcome to the show.

What's going on guys? Thank you so much for having me. Barbie is actually away at the moment with a little stomach issue. Okay. She'll be back in a bit. All right. Got my bro here. How you doing? What's up, bro? All right. First thing, for those not familiar, explain what magnet fishing is. So, magnet fishing is where you take a giant magnet this size You know what I mean? You put on a string and you throw it in the water That's lit and you and you and you waiting for the fight like you guys The click okay

Now hold on I got more questions about that this part because you're gonna move on would go ahead are you Dragging it. Are you moving it? Are you changing cast locations? Like how power can like if there's a piece of metal that's five feet away from that magnet will it pull it over to it or do you need to land it right on top of it? The ferrous connection point to these giant magnets you'd think would be that big but actually it's more like especially when you're on the water I think the pull the pull this is maybe five to six inches at max so you do have to change location you have to throw like you're still high school softball so you got to throw it as far as you can that's that's the secret no one's gonna tell you let one rip let's see your throw we're getting to that at

the end he's not yet james hold on at the end of the call he's gonna show us how it's done we're gonna learn more about magnet fishing first, though. What got you into magnet fishing? So believe it or not, my family and I were very bored during Covid. And we started watching videos. I always wanted to do treasure hunting as a little kid, but never had the background education, never had the financials to go on a boat and the gear and this and that. And then I saw someone putting a magnet on the water on a string on YouTube. There are other channels

down south that actually do it quite often. And I said, you know what, let's try this. My kids were like, you're not going to do it. You don't do nothing. So I actually took the challenge and we went to our local pond and yeah, it's all goes from there. How much does the gear cost to get going in magnet fishing? so the rope is 20 bucks for like a hundred feet 20 30 bucks the the magnets With the level we're at now is a lot more powerful

So we have magnets that range from two to three hundred dollars But when you get for what you first want to start you can go on Amazon and spend 30 40 bucks Just to see what it's like so you don't have to you know drop three hundred on a freaking giant powerful man you can still get stuff with the low-powered magnets but when you become obsessed you want you want the good stuff yeah and a bigger full-throttle. What kind of areas do you typically target when you're magnet fishing? So when we first started we were just going to any bodies of water. Now I tend to look for,

so we're obviously, we're in the middle of New York City. So anybody of water that there's a lot of foot traffic and houses and roads nearby, that's when people toss and stuff right out the cars. And that's the best spot to go. Routed, sometimes dangerous neighborhoods is the best spot to do that. Love that.

Now, normally when we're talking about fishing We want to go where people are not but not not magnet fishermen Right if you use any sort of mapping apps like on X to maybe scout areas Google Maps Google Maps and then I sometimes you can find Google historical maps I like to do research locations that we're in and there's sometimes historical items you can find by using the older maps as well That's good. Now. What are some of those common? What are the most common things that you hook while magnet fishing? Bottle caps rebar rebar and nails Tons of rebar. I don't know. I guess when they're constructing or whatever they're doing the guys are told the people are done

They just lost their water. Yeah, uh- water. And do you ever get skunked or you're always catching something? We have gotten skunked a couple of times, yeah, definitely. I think you always have. In high salty areas like on, we have our Bay areas which mix into the East River over here in New York City. Something about the tides, which I don't fish,

maybe you guys can even explain that a little more, but when the tides, which I don't fish, maybe you guys can even explain that a little more, but when the tides are moving fast, the stuff is taken out into the ocean, so you don't get nothing. Like on the island of Brooklyn, off the piers, you're not gonna get nothing. Unless it's really heavy, the salt eating it up and the tides taking it out.

Now, besides the safe that we'll get to in a little bit, what are some of the most unusual catches that you've had? What I can say on here, I don't know. I usually believe or not, I tell people when they when they're watching, I used to say, oh, you never imagine what you can get. But now I tell them you can't imagine is going to be in there. OK, so guns. How many guns have you caught? In the two years, almost on two years, we found about 35. My goodness.

Yeah. Crazy. 35 guns. What are you doing with those when you find them? Are you contacting law enforcement or throwing them back in or what? You have to. Yeah. I used to think to call 911 right away.

Now we actually, I try to call pre-saints. And then the pre-saints will tell you, no, you gotta call 911. And I was like, it's not too much of an emergency. We have all the guns, we have the pump times, we find grenades. Well, you have to call, I'm a New Yorker, my brother's a New Yorker.

It's impossible, it's nearly impossible to get any kind of firearm license. Yeah, you don't wanna get called with one. Not in New York City. Yeah. Have you ever learned about the history of one of those guns? Like what crime it was used in or who owned it or anything like that? In the beginning I was, believe it or not, I was actually scared. I was nervous. I wasn't

brought up around firearms. I don't have a military background. So I was nervous at first. Like, oh, real gun? What am I going to do? And then I find out in the future that there is, like you said, there are stories with them and we have found some that are so fresh that were used only a week ago. And then you research and you find out about this person passed away. This young person passed away. And sometimes detectives will actually call us with possible subpoenas to go to court.

Yeah, I can get a little weird. I choose sort of not to follow them, but there are other magnificent that want to know, um, the history and actually who's going to jail and who's, what crime can get solved from it. But I'm sure we helped out a lot of people a lot. So other weird things that you've caught, anything really historic, anything really old?

Yeah, yeah, we got, um, other weird things that you've caught anything really historic anything really old? Yeah, yeah, we got um, we got a world war two grenade confirmed by the bomb the bomb squad and she said Bay Brooklyn uh that's involved yeah we have two grapeshot cannonballs in Central Park in the city before the park was made it was a there was a garrison there for the war of 1812 you know it didn't happen over uh much over there, but they would practice over there. So we got those and some really, really old horseshoes on the valley stream. We must have like a three 300 year old horseshoe. Lots of coins, a lot of coins, you know, other countries points are all magnetic. So in America, the only magnetic coin is the 43 penny. So I haven't got one yet. It's a goal. Okay, let's Hold on what happens when you latch on to something that is too big to yank out

Like, you know, it's there cuz you got the click but it ain't budging. What do you do? What I like to call it is you got to jerk it off you just got to you got to take it right off the back you got to pull really hard yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah because when it's because these things you grab really hard one safe out of the water would be key and that didn't work out too well that was a big safe actually yeah a lot of safes in New York City as well easy. All right let's talk about what happened last year on May 31st tell us where you were at and what you caught. So we were actually in a park called Flushing Queens or Corona Park.

And we were throwing over there, this is like my second time over there, and we do have, we have found safes just like this one you're watching. Clicked onto it and I was like, oh, it's just going to be another safe. And I stick my fingers in the hole and I feel something mushy, the We're gonna go for pizza. We're gonna grab something, you know, but the money is so bad. The money is so mush and slush Yeah, yeah, you can and I'm just going crazy right now my mind You can see this video of James catching this safe and going through it on our YouTube channel right now So after you reel in the safe, the police had to get involved. What was that process like? Believe it or not to this day we get ranked on like why we actually contacted the NYPD and supposedly in New York City that anything over $100 is supposed to call in and we're

trying to you know get our channel out there I'm trying to do whatever I can maybe someone lost it and if they can get their money back I would go dude here's your money let me get like a hundred bucks but the police were in as well. They didn't believe any of it They didn't believe it and a whole squad comes down if you watch towards the end of our video and they actually gave us the money and FBI got involved in the same thing as well and did their investigation for a few hours and We walked off with all the money in a ziplock bag Amazing so it determined go ahead. Yeah, I was gonna say I'm surprised It was only a couple hours and then you literally

walked away that day with that muddy muddy. Yeah. Yeah. I was in shock. I was in shock as well. We had to go to Washington DC. Yeah. So we got to keep the money. And for those who aren't watching on YouTube, those stacks of bills were covered in a black sludge from being underwater so long. So how do you go about turning those filthy bills into usable currency? So the process is done in Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington, DC. We did some research, they found out what happened.

We went right on the bus in Times Square, took a mega bus right to DC, and went to the engraving and printing, handed them the money, they explained to us the process. We didn't get to see too much of the lab and how they do that, but it's all going to be put back together piece by piece. Even the money we didn't find, didn't bring, because there was more in the safe that was just tiny obliterated pieces. They said we should have brought it because they can put it all, they can put it all back together. It's going to take about two and a half years. We have zero cents at all. We have one group of people that do it. Yeah.

It's only like seven people that do it for the entire America, but all the money. It's ridiculous. It takes a long time. And how much, how much money was it? They estimated between 50 to 80,000 only. Okay. Only. Only. Only. Now, during this process with the police and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, have you learned anything about the origins of the safe? How old it is?

Or is that still a mystery? I can only go on by, honestly, by the bills that were in there. We had some as far back as 2007 and 2009. They had the magnetic stripping So I think the oldest bill is like 2009 honestly. Oh Not that old it looked like it's been an effort the barnacles weren't that crazy Okay, so you're still like two years away from getting this cash back though give or take they said it could take up to two And a half years, so it could be any day now all right. You know what James Barbie now?

They said it could take up to two and a half years so it could be any day now. All right, you know Well, James Barbie now James is standing at the pond where he caught the sail and he's got his maybe on here now. Oh, what's up Barbie? So James is standing at the pond he's got his magnet Can you show us how it's done see if there's any treasure left in that bit of water? We're gonna take I'm gonna take a big toss with the 10 nine pound magnet here. Okay. I like to throw like I'm still in high school playing playing baseball.

Basically, you just some people can swing however they want. I like to swing like we're playing baseball. Okay. You know, have you gotten better at this James over the years? Oh, dude. Yes. Challenge me. That's what I'm saying. Oh one throws as far as I can.

I'm actually known for that. I actually won a belt. I actually won a leather championship belt for the longest toss so far. Okay, what a treat. We're going to see the world champion magnet throw. We're giving a toss here. I should have bought the belt. Do your thing James.

I can throw that far because I don't have that much room. Come on, you have to bet in. Oh yeah. The world's not at all. Yanni could throw farther than that. Oh I can throw that car because I don't have that much room Yanni could throw farther than that Okay, okay, so what do you what do you think you might grab in there maybe some nails like you talked about We're in the near air in the middle of New York City So it's probably gonna be in a weapon could be it could be a firearm could be a toenail clipper You know if you were really a good guess James you'd have planted a handgun in the water for us or something We don't do any of that okay, so you've got the magnet back to shore

Okay, see what we got Is that a car part it is looks like it's one of the New York City fire light post Got some ice breakers Well, there might be something in there uh-huh yeah, let's see what's in the ice breakers yeah Yeah, that that went so fast James. Can you give it another toss for us let's see what else we can catch okay yeah we can clear out the rest of our schedule sure yeah what do you guys got going on today okay what do you do with when it's just straight garbage that you catch we collect all the garbage in a bucket and then we dispose of in all the receptive. Hell yeah. All right, James, you can give a second toss.

I want to snap a cat. Really put your body into this one. I want to see how far you can throw that thing. Okay. He's giving himself more line. He's confident that this thing is going to touch the other shoreline. They want to see if they can get it. You guys got any other questions for James?

No, but you should go. Yeah, I want to return back to the giant safes that you left. I don't know how you could ever. Yeah, that was a big one there. The guy told you that he's hooked on a giant safes and then you just moved on. What happens with the giant safes? It was stuck there. We couldn't move it. It's still there. Still there.

That's inspired by the F-point. What? I'll take a bigger throw? Yeah, bigger throw. Go F-point. Yeah. I'll take a bigger throw. But. Yeah, bigger throw. Go ahead. Okay. Two.

Yeah, that's kind of... There you go. All right, yeah, that's a good throw. We're gonna get something really nice this time. It's 10 pounds, you know what I mean? That's 10 pounds caught. Okay. Yanni is stuck on the safe.

I'm stuck on the big safe. So you know where it is. You can't get it out out but there's a safe underwater are you not gonna cut into it? They chopped into the safe so it was empty we could see there was empty in there. We just wanted to try and get it up to the land we couldn't get into it. Yeah it had to be at least like six inches thick. That thing was huge dude that's the biggest safe probably. It had a little spin handle on it. It wasn't a safe the one we left was a vault. Vault yeah. Okay now it looked like you got snagged on something there, James.

Was that something magnetic or were you just dragging it over a log? It could be logs, it could be... Rocks? Sometimes there's stones that people throw in the water. It could be spikes that are too deep that sometimes you just can't get out too much. Okay. James is bringing the magnet to shore again. Let's see what we got this toss.

You can go see the world champion magnet tosser on our YouTube channel. Watch James do his handiwork. We got a paper clip. Oh, look at that treasure. A paper clip. Oh, nice. An actual paper clip.

That's the thing about magnet fishing. Sometimes you're gonna get a paper clip, sometimes you're gonna get $100,000, you don't know. That's right. All right, right James if people want to see more of your magnet fishing, how do they go watch it? You can literally just go on online and type in let's get magnetic. We're on all social media platforms Yeah, but mainly YouTube if you want to communicate and say what's up. Yeah, okay Tick-tock Instagram YouTube Facebook page, and you know, one of the one of the interesting thing is we get a lot of lures and I always wanted to know if these things have value or not.

I have, we have like a box of like, I'm crazy. We find them all over. You text me some photo James, we'll get to the bottom of that. Well, thank you for joining us. Thanks for teaching us about magnet fishing. Thanks for cleaning up our waterways and good luck getting that cache refurbished. Guys, thank you so much for having us on. Hope everyone has fun. Take care, everybody. Thank you. That was fun. That was great, Spencer.

Yeah, it was fun. Say the best for last. That's right. And you know, the one bummer about it is it just shows you what kind of dirt bags people are. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Not those guys.

No. The people they're cleaning up after. Lully. I mean That's what you want representing the great city of New York right there totally I mean he's like yeah, if someone else can say that it's their 100k. Just give me a hundred bucks I just want to go out for pizza. That guy's great We'll check him with the James again. Yeah there. I want to just plug to just plug their page. I've got an Instagram page too here. Um, uh, it's just, let's get magnetic.

It's all no, no apostrophe, all one word. Um, he's on YouTube and Instagram. So yeah, doing, uh, doing something fun and they're cleaning up our water while they're at it. Brody, you said your son had a magnet, but he gave up on that. And Debra is pretty quick. Yeah. He needs to live in a place like New York City to really appreciate magnet

Yeah, maybe it's a good thing that he never really found anything cool And he went right back to regular fishing after after like an hour doing magnet fishing All right that brings us to the end of the show Phil. Let's get some final listener feedback Yes, sure thing. Let's see here. I'll just grab this one cuz I'm it's the first one I saw it's the first one I saw it is Phil hunter fish. The answer is kind of sort of What's the biggest fish you ever caught Phil? I? Couldn't even tell you

Yeah, I mean people a lot of people know this I was not a hunter before I started working here And I still probably wouldn't consider myself a hunter, but I've gone out several times The only person who really invites me out is Cal So thanks to Cal and no thanks to anybody in this room. Oh, no. But yeah, yeah, mostly I've just, you know, I've done upland ducks, turkey, just pretty much just birds so far.

That's kind of all I'm really interested in. I'm not really chomping at the bit to get out in the woods, but I wouldn't say no. Okay. That's what I'm saying. Would you take some meat if we had meat for you? Oh, yeah, totally. We can do that. Let's see, you saying. Would you take some meat if we had meat for you? Oh yeah, totally. We can do that.

Hmm. Let's see. You can play the fifth on this one, but maybe it'll just kind of show your true colors here. Our good buddy Leland asks, if you had to join just one conservation organization, which one would it be? Hmm. Hmm.

That's a toughie. I think we've talked about this before, but if I was just joining one and my membership always ran out, I'd join a different one the next year then. So I'd spread my memberships around, but for the rest of my life, I don't know what the answer would be.

What do you boys think? I mean, yeah, it's a tough question. Maybe TR, TRCP doesn't, you don't really have a membership there. They don't have memberships. Yeah, but you can still support them. Yeah, you can still support them. I like them because they're like in D.C., like hopefully like affecting policy.

That's a good choice there. Yeah, I think any of the groups that are non-species specific that really work across the entire country and for all you know outdoors people so maybe TRCP or the Sportsman's Alliance or Howl you know that are really involved across the board. Yeah the ones that I benefit the most from probably National Deer Association and Pheasants Forever because in my home state of South Dakota they do a lot of great habitat work and that same habitat work is good for deer as well but I'd probably go with something that's oriented towards access like BHA because I didn't have places to go hunting fish would matter but man look if you got like a

Critter you like the most turkeys or mule deer or whatever like It's not like you're not making a bad choice by supporting those groups either. That's right critter you like the most turkeys or mule deer or whatever like It's not like you're not making a bad choice by supporting those groups either. That's right. What else you got Phil? Caleb asks as a beginner to turkey hunting. What would be the crews go-to call? We're a Philps family here, but if you guys have any sort of Specific Philps calls that are beginner friendly. No for me. It's answers easy It's always just a basic slate call. Pot call. Yeah, basic slate pot call.

Very easy to use. Can make all kinds of sounds, loud, quiet. That's it. Great. Colin asks, what's your favorite fish dish, whether to prepare it or eat it? Mm, beer battered fish. Can't beat it. It's my favorite. You're a beer batter guy. I can't do the beer batter man Why not? I just I like I like I've had when I eat in restaurants

I'm like this is way too much shit around the fish. Mm-hmm And then when I've tried it at home I haven't been able to like do it to the point where I'm like, this is better than breaded fried breaded fish Sure. Yeah, I'd like to see you, or I'd like to try your version and see how you pull it off. Cause yeah, I know other people that are big beer batter folks, but yeah, I'm kind of with Brody.

I'm like, eh, it's good for the first couple of pieces. And then I'm like, yeah, it's a lot of stuff. We'll have a fish fry sometime. We'll do some beer. That'd be great. But it's like, this is a tough one to pick one fish dish because there's like very different kinds of fish, right? Like there's fish like perch and walleye that are awesome fried, but then there's like salmon,

which is like awesome grilled. So that's what I go with. Fried fish, grilled fish, depending on what kind of fish it is. Yeah, honest? Yeah, it's not the dish so much, I'd say more of just the species itself. And one of the fish I was gonna possibly use for our top three fish segment was a yellow-eye rockfish

I caught years ago at Steve's Fish Shack. And that thing is like a grouper and a scallop had a baby. You know, that's what their flesh is like. Like, you literally just don't need to add anything to it, you know, besides a little bit of salt. And, and again, just cooked very plain and simple, you know. If I wasn't picking beer-banded fish, I'd do like a very Midwestern chowder.

That would be very creamy, have some corn in it. You can put about any fish in there, besides maybe a salmon. I do like a good fish chowder. We do a salmon chowder is great. Sure. It's popular in Northwest. Yeah. Put any fish in there. Phil, what else you got? Let's do a few more. OK, this is by far the question we've been getting the most.

But there's a lot of misinformation about it out there. But we should probably just say a few words about it. What does the crew think about the dire wolf? de-extinction Um, they're not dire wolves number one. The branding is all wrong. Um cover of times time magazine Look up our buddy. Jim helpful fingers post on it. He's got a good instagram post on it um He's got a good Instagram post on it. I think it's like a giant marketing campaign. I don't think it's conservation as they're proposing it is. And then, like, I'll leave it at that.

Yeah, and you can, if you want more information, straight from the horse's mouth, episode 564 of the Meteor podcast, we had Matt James of Colossal Biosciences on the show Yannis and Brody were in the room for that time So yeah, you can check that out for for more info And if we if we had the ability to actually bring things back from extinction Let's focus on the things that we cause to go extinct not some critter that died during the ice age How about the dodo or passenger pigeon? Is it the white rhino that were got like one left of the world? Let's de-extinct those but

Yeah, the or keep shit from going extent. That's right. That's right. We got a lot of efforts that we could focus on in that area Yeah, let's do one more kind of run it running out of him here But but Chris asked does the crew have an aversion to hunt the Pacific Northwest? Temperate rainforests obviously prove a serious challenge a fine game, but could definitely make for some awesome content cheers from the Olympic Peninsula I have noticed that the it's a bit light on a Pacific Northwest content Is there is there a reason for that specific? I mean South Southeast Alaska's oh Oh yeah, sure. Climate-wise is very similar.

So I don't think, I think that's probably, like Steve owns a place up there, so that's why they're going there. I don't think there's an aversion to it, is there, Yannis? No, I've been looking at, you know, maybe going hunting black-tailed deer in that neck of the woods, but for a lot of the other species,

or those states just generally aren't very friendly to non-residents it's not easy to get tags in Oregon and Washington so I know there's some out there I'd love to go hunt a Roosevelt at some point yeah I mean Phelps and those guys they hunt yeah yeah that's that's Phelps home turf over there he's he's in the in the forest deep yeah is, is it Oregon? I don't think they do preference points Or my my thinking of a different no Oregon does I think that's one reason why it's real tough to get and it's very different Climate wise but cows done several things in Eastern Oregon that you can see on on YouTube Yeah, and Washington's a tough state for non residents, too All right, is that it Phil? Oh, I like Matt's question about once in a lifetime tags. Oh, yeah. Okay last question

It's all right my blind here right above the one you had highlighted There you go. Oh Matt asks. What are the room's thoughts on quote once in a lifetime tag drawings? The PA Game Commission is pushing to change the bull elk tag to a once in a lifetime format. I mean my thought is, is a lot of those, a lot of the tags that aren't once-in-a-lifetime tags, like, that aren't done that way, like sheep or mountain goat, or in a lot of cases moose in the lower 48, they're once-in-a-lifetime tags anyway, really, right? So I don't have a problem with, like, if I draw a bighorn sheep tag and kill a bighorn sheep

in Montana, say I'd be fine if it was once in a lifetime. Yeah, I think it should be that way. I prefer it that way because, yeah, it is such a limited resource. And if I was to get so lucky to draw two, and there's hundreds of the other people that are waiting and waiting and want that experience, like yeah, I don't think I should get a second opportunity.

I think someone else should get there first. And for, I mean, we're talking specifically lower 48 here, right? Like if you drew a mountain goat tag in wherever, Colorado, and it was once in a lifetime, and you really wanted to go hunt one again You could you know go hunt them in Alaska or somewhere like that. That's right You know, that's right agree with what you boys said. All right, that brings us to the end of the show See everyone back here next week. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening Phelps has a new thing this spring.

They're coming out with what they call the Prime Cuts turkey diaphragm calls. One of them is called the Clay Neukom Prime Cut. I'm not just going gonna talk about it. I'm gonna I'm gonna blow on it here I'm a simple turkey hunter who likes a simple system. I usually carry one, maybe two diaphragm calls in a single pot call every year, don't even carry a box call. I wanted a versatile diaphragm call that was the best of two worlds.

I wanted loud and raspy, a call that I could cut on, but also one that was soft and subtle that I could purr and kicky run on. I love to make those raspy cuts and the soft, subtle purrs on the same call. And I find many of them, I can't do both. And this call that I worked with Jason Phelps to build simplifies my turkey kit.

These prime cuts come in a three pack. There's the Clay Newcomb call, but also Steve Rinella and Jason Phelps favorite turkey diaphragm cuts. You can check all these out along with all the other MeatEater and Phelps turkey calls at store.themeteater.com.