The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Surviving America 018: What is Fishing
Episode Date: January 30, 2025The EDC https://limatangosurvival.com/product/the-edc-one-man-every-day-carry-emergency-kit/Home Security Superstore https://bit.ly/3QmRV72LIMA TANGO Grey Man Kit https://bit.ly/40iHcAfPackFresh US...A Giveaway https://bit.ly/3VJ2QvUPBN Merch Store https://cartunedune.creator-spring.com/
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Society in every state is a blessing.
The government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.
The future has already arrived.
Oh, the trout do not rise in the cemetery
So you better do your fishing while you're still able
Sparse gray hackle
Sparse gray hackle is the the author of that quote the trout did not rise in the cemetery
So you better do your fishing while you are still able?
Man that's a big one. That is a big one, folks.
I'm back. Sorry. It's a little finicky, this plug-in here. Let me see what's going on.
We're gonna do a show today. You're gonna see me today for sure, but we're gonna do a show about fishing.
I had like a heavy topic set for you and I was thinking, you know, let's do...
I don't know, it's just been a lot of heavy stuff going on and I was thinking about a number of things, not the least of which, you know, being what's happening at the southern border and so on.
You know, being what's happening at the southern border and so on. But what I decided to do instead was discuss, you know, what is made up a massive chunk
of my life.
And I don't know, it's just one of these, it's like a life hack almost.
You know, what fishing has been to me throughout my days is a lot like a like a life hack
and I learned it from my father who was also using it as a life hack and
I want to go into it all and the reason I titled the show what is fishing is
Because it's one of these
It's one of the rare
One of the rare activities particularly particularly in the outdoors, that is so varied.
It's hard to think of another thing.
I don't know if there is another thing that is as varied in terms of an
outdoor sport or an outdoor activity.
Do you know what I mean?
Like you might not know what I mean.
So I have to elaborate on it.
But if you go rock climbing, you're climbing rocks.
Now you could be bouldering, right?
Or you could be climbing, you know, real high and you know, that kind of thing.
Morning, Jay Ferg, you go hunting, you're in a blind, you're in a tree
stand or, or maybe you're stalking.
But when you say the word hunting, what's up Kumiyori Farm, welcome in.
When you say hunting, you get a pretty clear vision.
I think most people get a pretty clear vision, right?
Hunting, bird watching, camping, you know what I mean?
These kind of things.
Hiking, right?
When I say fishing, what took, it just took me a really long time to figure out You know what I mean? These kind of things Hiking right
When I say fishing what took it this took me a really long time to figure out That's why I want to open the show with it when I say fishing in the microphone
I had no idea and I should have known but I had no idea sort of the
array of
things that pop into people's mind in
other words, you're sitting on the bank in a chair with a cooler.
Fishing, right?
Garden girl, how's it going?
Sitting on the bank in a folding chair with a cooler, fishing.
That's fishing, right?
You're on a boat in the middle of the ocean, deep sea fishing.
You're on a sheet of ice that you used an auger to drill into
And drop a little you know, you got your little mini ice fishing rod. I never go on ice fishing
I really would like to do that
But anyway, you're fishing
right
You're in a bass boat cruising around a lake or a river
You know fishing you're on a dock, fishing.
When you say, when you say fishing, there are just all kinds of things that conjure
up in the mind. You could be in the highest peaks, maybe not the highest peaks,
but you can be in the Appalachian Mountains in water up to your big toe and waders fishing.
It's one of those weird things that when you say the word, it conjures up a thing.
It's always a beautiful thing, hopefully.
Nine times out of ten is a beautiful thing.
It's a beautiful memory, right?
Fishing out, fishing with dad, fishing with the family, fishing with the kids, whatever
it is. I
Think for the times
We really cracked the code on
Fishing and when I say we I mean my father and I
and we cracked the code on it because we took
fishing and turned it into just a thing that it just checked all the
boxes of the stresses of life for us.
I've done nearly every kind of fishing.
I've never really done deep sea fishing.
Oh, no, that's not true.
Well, not like deep sea fish.
I've never really done like deep sea fishing
but I've fished in boats in the salt water and you know
Trolled in the salt water and you know all kinds of stuff pier fishing or whatever
When I say fishing what is fishing to me what is fishing to me like when I want to go fishing what do I want to do?
One of the most important things to me when fishing is movement.
I want to be moving.
You know what I mean?
Stationary fishing to me is rough.
How I learned to fish was with a pocketbook on like a bag with a flap that goes over your they call them messenger bags now or
whatever but back in the day my dad didn't even know where he used to get these things.
I actually got one of them from a store chain called Fashion Bug.
Right?
I don't know if you remember the old Fashion Bug stores but there was a certain kind of
canvas bag with compartments and a flap and a buckle.
Right?
And that was the fishing bag.
This bag is essential to go fishing.
There is no substitute the way that I go fishing.
There is no substitute to the bag.
You can do a sling bag on the back.
It's not really as good as the little mini messenger bag,
though, because of the access.
You know what I mean?
It's here, it's in there
Shelter nine world war three prep FM. What is up, man?
Yeah, green canvas bag. Did you use one too? That's very surprising. I actually had one just like it
But uh, I think it was made by the Mudbrand. You know what I mean?
But anyway, thanks for joining us.
It starts with that.
And the reason it starts with that is because we would spend the day in water.
You know what I mean?
We would spend the day in the water.
It wasn't on the banks.
It wasn't on a boat. Oh, very cool. Very cool.
Grew up fishing under river bridges and pooling cod. That's some good eating. You
must been in a cold place. Where were you? Where were you? What bridges were
you under? Because that sounds like it could be chilly. Cod are only in
the cold water, right? I don't know everything there
is to know about a lot of saltwater species and their behavior. But anyway, for us, fishing
started with that bag. It started with wading in water. You know what I mean? And the wading
aspect of fishing allowed us to, well, it allowed us to stay mobile and it allowed us also to, well, there you go. Nova Scotia.
Very cool.
It allowed us to, um, get into the wild places.
You know, it, it allowed, what it really allowed us to do is to drive 10, 15
minutes from my home in, uh, Marcus Oak, Pennsylvania, which was,
you know, people everywhere, people on top of people right outside of Philadelphia,
and disappear off into little creeks like the Brandywine River, like the
Chester Creek, like Ridley Creek, allow us to disappear into these waters because
you couldn't go down them in a boat.
You really couldn't even go down them in a kayak really.
But we could walk them and we could disappear into these stretches of woods and have an
adventure that didn't, it almost doesn't make sense even to this day.
And just off the road, just off the beaten
path of civilization, man, is so there's so much wildlife. You'll see so many
things. My dad saw the first, he saw like the return of the bald eagles. Like I see
bald eagles way more now at the James River. But he saw the first of the bald
eagles returning and it was, we were all looking at him like he was crazy, you know,
But it was about waiting it was about stalking fish almost like hunting
It is this is still what fishing is about for me
It's about ultra light tackle and one of the things that dad always said I asked him about hunting
I wasn't necessarily interested in hunting but the two worlds always overlapped
And I would ask dad like why don't we hunt too? And he always told me it's too expensive and
You know, we were we weren't poor or anything, but we were tight, you know, it was tight
We didn't really want for much as kids
We you know what I'm saying, but we
it was tight so he always would say it's too expensive and
What I found over the years is that
You can fish for nothing I
Never stopped fishing for pennies. You know, I have all of my years, it's one of the things like
in a lot of aspects of my life, I have upgraded things. You know what I mean? I am pretty,
maybe not, maybe not actually. I am pretty, I am pretty cheap in terms of most things
But in fishing it's a dirt cheap it's a dirt cheap exercise still to this day the most expensive
Thing I probably ever bought outside of a fly fishing rod because you have to spend money on a fly fishing rod
Was the pole the bait casting pole? I bought my son
When he wanted to get into bait casting and all that kind of stuff last year and we tried it out and I mean it may happen I don't know we use open face reels we always have they're much easier to
deal with they're much easier to deal with tangles in my opinion you know that could be because I
used them my whole life but it just it was a quick in and out of that world and back to what dad's doing
You know what I mean? Because I'm catching fish and he's tangle and line up and that whole thing and I I mean I I didn't I
Didn't say you should use what I use I said figure it out. It's gonna take time
You know what I mean for you to figure this out. This is new. It's gonna take some time to figure it out
I don't know what it is. I never really used them You know, I've never used them
I use something similar when I used to go cat fishing with my father-in-law on the James River in a boat
But you know always open face
and
That rod and that reel was expensive. It was super expensive and it's the with the least amount of fun
We've ever had with fishing gear
now I go to
99% of my fishing rods
Maybe 80 now actually because I have started buying cast king products. I do like some of their fishing reel right reels and rods
But anyhow a D duly portion, right? Large portion. Walmart. Walmart. Matter
of fact, one of my favorite rods I ever had was a $20 fishing rod, yellow rod from Bass
Pro Shops. It was one of the best I ever owned. Really. One of the best. And my dad, he is
a guy who spends a little money on fishing, right? He'll buy the St. Croix rods, fly fishing rods, expensive ultralight spinning rods.
It's nice.
I never spend money on fishing.
When I say that, I spend money on fishing every year,
but I never spend big money on fishing.
Never.
If I had to put a dollar figure, you know, I buy a certain kind of outdoor license every year, that's the biggest investment I make every year.
Because here in Virginia, you can wrap up your hunting tags, your, uh, your hunting
license, your fishing license, sort of all in one.
So I do that every year, but outside of the licensing, it
depends on who needs a rod and reel.
I know I spend less than $200, $250 a year to fish all year.
Baits, you know, all of it.
Maybe you might be able to say when I go to the outer banks that I spend maybe more because that's
a different adventure and sometimes I got to refill things.
Shelter9 World War III Prep FM says, LOL $8 wrap of the polarized glasses.
My dad was always on the polarized.
I don't even use sunglasses when I go fishing. I'm telling you, it's just stuff to mess it up.
For me, what fishing is, is pull up to the river anytime, by the way.
Another thing that we created in our fishing escapades, I don't know that we created it but we perfected it
to some degree. It was the wading fishing loadout. You know what I mean?
It was the loadout of things to wade and fish with ultra light tackle and catch
fish next to no water. Very small creeks, very shallow creeks, very spooky fish. And we'll talk about
the tackle a little bit too, but to me, if there are things that get in the way of me
parking the car and being in the water, see that's, this is the worst part of fishing
for me, this stretch of park the car, get into the water, get into fishing, right? This is why I don't boat. This is why
I don't own a boat. Because when you have a boat, you take that stretch and you turn
it into a nightmare. Do we got to get gas? We got to back it in. We got to go park. We
got to, and now we got to drive too much time out of fishing for me, just too much time.
So what I always found is the quickest way to get into the water from the vehicle.
Do you know what I mean? Grab the bag. I always keep the poles in the car. Now that I drive
a truck, I keep them in a PVC pipe actually. Sort of like a survival cache. It's like a
big survival cache for rods that break into another thing that's essential, right? You want a rod that breaks into two parts.
That way, if you are driving a sedan, it can go in the trunk and you're always ready.
You're perpetually prepared to fish at a moment's notice.
Now, that's not as essential as it is, as it once was for me.
When I was in high school and just out of high school, it was a much bigger
deal, you know, because weird things would happen, you know, I would get out
of school early or maybe I didn't have work on a day I thought I had work or
maybe I had extra time.
You've had like two hours between school and work and it was off to the creek.
You know, it was off to the creek.
I used to have a job that started at noon and for me that's like, I'm up, you know,
at five o'clock in the morning.
I'd take the dog out to the Brandywine River, fish in the morning, come home, drop him off.
He's dead tired now and head off
to work. That sort of go-bag for fishing, that whole setup, all that stuff was essential.
When I start adding special hats and sunglasses and nets, never carried a net in that nets all that kind of stuff like it's just
slowing me down it's too many things you know it's about efficiency into the game
garden girl says I think sometimes my dad would take me places and didn't even
have fish just so we could hang out and talk yeah well you know I didn't know it at the time, but this was my dad and I's relationship for sure.
What fishing with dad made me realize was there's a lot of fun in fighting against that weakness in the morning to wake up.
It's not necessarily a bad thing for your kids to... What is it?
What did I feel?
There were days I was very excited to go fishing with dad and there were days that I just wanted to sleep in
but I didn't want to let him down and
So I just got up and went anyway and we had a good time always
But I always felt through much of my life I always felt like I suffered from
Nice guy syndrome, you know what I mean? And I used to look back
on that and say, that's what I was doing with dad too. You know, like I did it with so many
people. That's what I was doing with dad. Dad wanted to go fishing. He wanted me to come.
And that's what this man wanted. What I wanted was maybe to sleep in and hang out with somebody, do something different.
But that sort of syndrome in my head was like, let's not disappoint him.
And he was never a problem.
He would come into my room, be dark.
He'd wake me up, you coming?
Yes or no.
And he'd leave.
Either way.
If I said, yes, I'm coming, then he'd leave, I'd get up,
and we'd go downstairs and eat, sometimes not eat,
we'd eat on the way there,
and then talk and roll out, you know what I mean?
And even when I said, no, I'm not coming,
which was pretty rare, he would leave.
It wasn't a big deal, he'd never bring it up.
He'd come home and he'd tell me about what happened,
he'd go, oh, I caught the did this did that but he never it was never like I
Don't think he ever once said you should have came. Do you know what? I mean, it was never like that
It was really weird
Because it's like non-characteristic of
How people work, you know what? I mean? It's so that was such a weird thing
But yeah, the the hours spent driving with dad and the hours spent fishing with dad
We would not have the relationship that we have if we didn't do that be totally different
totally different relationship
because we invest invested hours into hanging out
every weekend.
The same thing happens when you take your kid.
You know what I mean?
The same thing happens when you're out fishing nowadays.
It's even more than it was back then.
As valuable as it is, or as it was to me, because it kept me out of trouble, it taught
me waking up early and the value of that, it taught me all kinds of stuff.
The value of patience, what a difference a skill set can make when you really hone it.
Fishing is probably one of the things I'm best at
Like out of everything and I'm good at a lot of stuff, but it's probably the thing I'm best at
and just the value of
It it taught me the nuance of what being really good at something is
You know what I mean? Like the nuance of it
How you see things other people
don't. When you're good at something exceptional, right? When you're good at something like
that, you see things people don't see, you feel things people don't feel, you hear things
people don't hear because you've been just honing that skill for ever. You know, six,
probably about six, between six and eight years old is when I started consistently going fishing
Almost every weekend with that when it was nice out
what you know was basically March to November March to early November and
You know by the time I think I was 1112
I was fly fishing with dad and that was a whole nother can of worms, but it was the same mentality though understand that like
the Wade fishing the fly fishing vest that kept us mobile and gave us the ability to you know
Walk the creek stalk the trout catch the trout it was
We were lucky because we had stocked trout streams that also held smallmouth bass. So we always had a quarry.
You know what I mean?
We always had a prey that we were after.
And it allowed us to tweak things
and play with things in different baits.
What it presents to people now is the antithesis of this.
The antithesis, my phone's not around me,. The antithesis of the phone in the digital world.
It really is.
It's the complete opposite.
And you feel it.
You can feel it.
You can feel that the world out there is a very different one compared to the world in
the screens. After a day, a half
day, whatever it is out there, it's just you're you're just firing off different
parts of you and it's invaluable. It's like a reset button. You know what I mean?
It's like a reboot. What's hard is... What's hard is getting people into fishing when you're sitting still in fishing because
there's nothing more boring.
See what my dad did in getting us into this wading fishing thing where we're walking all
the way down a creek and all the way back up to the car right in the water is he
He sunk me into a world where there was just a lot to see and a lot to do even when the fish weren't biting
Do you know what I mean? Like some days we would and you could do this anytime. I've done this with my own kids
It's fun to do
You'll get into a shallow
fast running water type of area and you
can reach down and grab rocks and look under the rocks and you'll see
everything that the fish are eating. You know, you'll see things like mayflies and
caddis fly larvae, stone fly larvae, those kinds of things right emerging or what are they called?
the various stages of these bugs that are that
Trout eat and small mouth eat you might get lucky and see a a crazy little
segmented
wormy
Creature with these pinchers on its mouth
Called the Helgramite and the Helgramite is it will bite you but the Helgramite is devastating on its mouth Called the hell gromite and the hell gromite is it will bite you but the hell gromite is devastating on small mouth
absolutely devastating
But there's a world under there, you know, you might even run into some crayfish if it's you know summertime I
found
snakes under rocks
poisonous snakes under rocks in the water scared the hell out
of me actually just this past year. So it's a very different animal what we did plus we
were always moving now the scenery is always changing now the quarries always changing
now that the the puzzle that stood before us was always changing. I want to talk to you about the puzzle,
because it's another one of these unique parts of fishing,
the way that we fish.
I'm going to run the Preppers Medical Handbook
ad real quick.
Because I owe it, that's why.
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They pay me to do it
It's a really cool ad too. By the way, I don't have anything. I need to put some audio behind it
Suffice it to say though for the podcast audience out there. It's just a few
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You know if you need something to do while you wait
Go to Amazon calm and get yourself the Preppers medical handbook by William Forking, you know It's an essential.
It really is.
But we're talking about essentials.
This baby right here, man.
Good luck finding this thing.
You sign up for our newsletter and I do have a link to it.
If you sign up for the newsletter, you're going to get an ebook emailed to you
immediately amongst other things, amongst getting our great newsletter. We're focusing
on preparing the homeland this year, all year 2025. The terrorist attack, all the information
we've learned about terrorists that have made it across the border, that have been stationed in the country, that have been trained, that are training.
The other thing that we haven't talked about yet, that was one of the things I was going
to talk about today, is cartel retaliation.
If you think that we're going to start taking out mountains of cartel members
in the United States using the US military and border patrol, and there's
not going to be retaliation in this country, you're crazy, right?
That's what our newsletter is about.
You go to pbnfamily.com, sign up for the newsletter.
You'll also get a free ebook that's called the 50 must read books to survive doomsday.
And it is really an amazing library of books an amazing
collection of books
Everyone has a link and a sort of a description to what the book is and why it's important
It's broken that the ebook itself is broken up into sections. It's an awesome resource
You know and you can build little by little an incredible library of books on self-reliance and independence, homesteading, prepping, resistance forces, you know what I mean?
Responding to maybe a cartel group taking over a part of your city.
I don't know if that's something that could happen in the United States, but you know, anything's possible.
But there's a variety of things. Amazing books.
Some books written by myself and the hosts here at PBN.
You know, it's just a great one of the books though.
And this is essential reading for any fisherman.
Essential reading.
And as you can see, this book is old.
This book has been read.
This book is, there's a lot going on, man.
The inside cover's falling off when it came out.
It was eight bucks.
Eight dollars ninety five cents.
But this book, How to Find Fish and Make Them Strike by Joseph D. Bates Jr.
Yes, his name is D. Bates.
That's pretty funny.
I should get some more of his books, man.
I bet he's got great books.
I never, never have seen it.
Elementary Fishing. Reading the Water. That's the one you want. Reading the water is the one you want. That's what this book is.
This book is about reading water.
This is what sets...
I'm trying to see if I can show you this. I don't want the camera to search for my head.
See if I could show you this I don't the camera to search for my head
This is what this book has what I'm showing for the podcast audiences the various graphics in the book
That show you where the fish are. You know what I mean?
Here's the other value. This is this was my life growing up right here. This top image. Oh, I lost it
This top image right here
All right. Let's just take this ratty cover off you see what I mean this thing's ancient this thing is guided there's all kind of
covers falling apart is that the one yeah that's the one this thing right
here this image has this was my life growing up man, like literally this is my life.
I go to a body of water and like I said I look at it probably very differently than you unless you've been fishing like I fished your whole life. That book will show you how to read a body of
water. It'll tell you where the fish are at. Oh I could send it to you Jay Ferg if you need it. I
didn't know you needed a copy. Yeah I'll send it to you. Umg if you need it. I didn't know you needed a copy. Yeah, I'll send it to you
But it's it's one of those things man, you know, it's one of those things that like a
Book like that will make you look at a body of water differently and will instantly improve how you fish
How you how often you catch?
right
What that did for me
Because of the type of fishing that we did and because of the things that I learned is it turned every fishing hole
into a puzzle and
this
This made fishing incredible
You know it really did it made fishing incredible because you would look at an eddy in an eddy pool in the back of a running stream
And you would say to yourself, how do I approach this? How do I approach these fish? How do I?
How do I cast right how do I present my lure so that it looks normal?
Because again, we're fishing in these small creeks and other people fish them and what that means is now you're in a position where now you're in a
position I'm trying to find an example for you while talking now you're in a
position where you're you're fishing for fish that know when people are around
they've seen baits they know what the deal is. And this is pretty good.
And if you do things that are too unnatural,
they're not going to bite.
It's that simple.
Man, this is a good book.
I'm trying to find a picture of one that looks something like,
this is pretty good, but it's got the bank.
This is the one that we would face pretty often. This is a pretty regular one that we would face. If you could see, so the fish are lined up on the bank,
this fast moving water. We are approaching, when you're approaching the fish from downstream, or right up, downstream,
which means the water is flowing,
and you're walking downstream
the direction that the water is flowing,
the fish are looking up at you.
Fish are always looking upstream
because the food's coming down.
You know what I mean?
So they see you.
The other thing about fishing the way that we fish, right?
The way fishing in the water is I didn't realize the level of respect that I gained for fish.
And I would talk to people about it and they would look at me like I'm crazy.
Like some of you who are listening and watching probably are looking at me right now.
You're probably saying the fish are too stupid.
They don't know you're there saying the fish are too stupid they don't know
you're there you know what I mean I've seen it with my own eyes I mean it's it's
an irrefutable fact it's irrefutable you watch fish behave the way that we watch
fish behave growing up you you understand the camouflage works fishing
in fishing the same way that camouflage works in hunting.
I've seen my father in bushes. We always dressed in green. Now, we did go out on Sunday,
so we often had eagles clothes on and we were just lucky that in that generation it was a midnight
green. You could throw on an eagle's hoodie and you'd blend in pretty well, but we always were green. We always we
treated fishing like hunting and
It was because we had to to have success
I think you know because fit like I said these fish were finicky they were in small streams
They were easy to scare and once they got scared they weren't gonna bite
So we learned how to approach a hole
Right how to approach it in a way that you're not immediately scaring the fish and then how to present the bait that way
And when you get into fly fishing in waters like that, it's ten times hard
Because now you're flopping a big giant line on the water, right?
And that's gonna make waves and do all that kind of stuff
It might land on top of the fish because your bait's over to the right,
and you want to swing that bait in front of the fish.
You've got to be careful where the line lands, right?
That scared the hell out of anything.
If it weren't as hard, I don't know that I would have been as into it.
But we did always have success, too.
That was the difference.
So there was that element of difficulty,
and then there was that element of success
under pressure and difficulty.
And I don't know, man.
It was the recipe.
It was the recipe.
Physically demanding, right?
So now it's not just fishing, but it's also this physically demanding thing that strengthened
me as a young man and kept my father young as a guy who had kids late.
When I'm 10 years old with him, he's 46.
You know what I mean?
He's approaching 50.
Of course, he was in phenomenal shape, right?
Hey, what's up, Bourne de Brat?
We, uh, except for like one day a year fundamentally.
Except for about one day a year,
we caught and release. Unless we caught something that was
monumental, you know. There was some times we brought some fish home because they were just enormous.
And I don't know, it was one of those things. But 99% of the time we were catching and releasing
fish all day. We lived by the adage that you catch a big fish or you catch catch a fish in general you put them back because
They're gonna make more fish, you know, you pull all the fish out. There's no more fun
And like I said why this was such a big deal to dad
Was because it was free. It was gas. It was gas money. It was it was scrapple and egg sandwich money and maybe lunch money
so we could have these great adventures together and gas money, it was it was scrapple and egg sandwich money and maybe lunch money. So we
could have these great adventures together and it was for nothing. It was for very little.
And that's what he had, you know what I mean, to give. It wasn't like he could go out on
the weekends with me and spend 200 bucks on something. You know what I mean? And it's
the same for you, right? It's the same for you. You have to understand
the value of that. Once you establish, and we can talk about this, but I think it would
be better to get you a list. Once you establish that fishing tackle, and like I said, you
can get fishing tackle for dirt cheap, you know, and I'm not talking about like go thrift shopping and go finding it
No, I'm just talking about going to Walmart knowing what to buy
You know one of the most important things that you can have and most people don't use it
Most people don't have it because they think they're gonna catch
The biggest fish of their lifetime, which is part of fishing
I mean, I've been driven to the waters for years and years and years on the hopes
of catching the biggest fish I've ever caught. But people assume that you need 20-pound test fishing
line to go large mouth bass fishing. And I've gone fishing now in my latter years, take a lot of
people fishing. When I was working, I did it a lot more than now because I don't run into as many people, you know what I mean, who want to go fishing.
But almost everybody who finds out I'm fishing wants to go fishing. But I'm also taking my kids more now. Back in those days, I had babies, you know what I mean, and they weren't quite they were good for a few trips a year Particularly in the spring when this when the bluegills were really biting and spawning
So now it's more time with them, but when I take guys fishing adults
They would bring their fishing tackle. They'd always have at least 10 pound test on 10 12 20 18 whatever like
Unbelievable line like fishing line that look like look like I don't even have pools on these
You know something like this hanging off the rock
There was an HDMI cable for the podcast audience no, but really just line that's just tremendous you can't even believe it and
Again, it goes back to that respect for the fish
Fish have eyes they they get eaten by each other. Like it's
brutal to be a fish. They see your big ass line. They see your weird bait come by and
it doesn't look exactly right. And then they see your big line and they go, okay, especially
if it's a big fish who's been around a long time, he's seen it. He's seen it all. He's seen it. He's seen it all. He's like, I know what that is. It's not food.
Right?
Low vis green, four pound test line, and you'll catch more fish
than you've ever caught in your life.
It's really that simple.
You make the switch from your 20 pound test line to a four pound test,
tri-lean, viz green green colored
line what colors the water you fish in it's green right low viz green four
pound test line I guarantee you you're gonna get hung up on the bottom and and
you're gonna struggle to break four pound test if you get hung up on like a
tree or something you're gonna struggle to break that line. I've caught all kinds of fish larger than four pounds on four pound test line.
It just works and you'll catch more fish. You know what I mean? You'll catch more fish.
I don't know that you'll catch the biggest fish. I mean, I've caught
six pound bass on four pound test line. It works. I've caught 15 pound catfish on
four pound test line. You know what I mean? It'll work. Particularly if you know how to
fight a fish. If you hook a fish, if you set the hook on a big fish and just drag it in
with all your might, then yeah, your four-pound test line will break.
When you fish with lightweight tackle, you learn all kinds of things.
You know what I mean?
One of the things that you learn is you've got to give line to these fish.
You got to tire a big fish out.
And you also learn that from fly fishing, because fly fishing, it's always a lightweight
tippet. And the tippet is like the last part of your fishing line that you tie your fly to. fly fishing because fly fishing is it's always a lightweight tip it within the
tip it is like the last part of your fishing line that you tie your fly to so
you it's always sorry the camera thinks I'm want to close up it always think it
always thinks that you know you're always thinking rather my tip it's gonna
break I need to play this fish I need to wear this fish out and that's what it
takes it takes it
takes giving a little and taking and giving and taking and you get to the
point where the fish is tired and then you reel it in but I tell you you will
have a way if you change just one thing go to the four pound test low vis green
line this is for freshwater fishing if you're out there catching tuna I don't
know what the hell you need you know what I mean but if you're out there catching tuna, I don't know what the hell you need You know what I mean, but if you're catching crappy and bass and sunfish and doing all that kind of stuff
Use smaller line and make it green make it a green colored line because it disappears in the water and it just it's better
I've fished side by side with people who could fish couldn't fish and so on and just they look at me and they get
Frustrated because I'm catching fish all the time, you know what I mean?
We use the same bait, all that kind of stuff. I've tested it all together with
other people. Yeah, it's just one of those things, man.
It's one of those things that little tweaks like that make a world of
difference and we learn these things. We learn these things from great fishing writers. My father would pour over fishing books constantly. You pass
these things on. These things are generational because they're cheap, because they work,
because it's fun, because fishing is timeless. Fishing is timeless and it works for everybody. That's the
crazy thing about it. You know, you tell certain people you're a hunter and you know what I mean,
I couldn't do it. I couldn't. Anybody can hook a fish and take it off the hook and let it go.
You know what I mean? It's not, there's no moral quandary there. If there is,
you know, calm down. But there's not a lot of moral quandary there, right?
It's sort of like it's just one of these pastimes. It's one of these pastimes that we're forgetting
You know just like hunting there's less people buying fishing and hunting licenses and fishing and hunting than ever before
Because you can do it on your iPhone because you can do it in VR
What I'm telling you it is the antithesis of that it really is so it's a very different thing man because you can do it on your iPhone, because you can do it in VR.
What I'm telling you, it is the antithesis of that. It really is.
So it's a very different thing, man.
It's a very different thing.
Where do we wanna go?
Where do we wanna go?
Do we wanna do a little,
do we wanna do a little dog ears?
I got on this topic because we were doing the Henry David Thoreau last week we talked the row all week and a and it
pulled this I was talking to my father about I was talking to my father about
it in general you know like fishing in general all you need to be a fisherman is patience and a worm. Herbert Shriver. I'm
telling you that this book, I showed you guys this book. If you are a fisherman, you should
own it. If you fish consistently, it's a book you should have, The Fisherman's Guide
to Life, because it's one of these things you eat. My dad gave it to me because it was
so good, right? Here's Sparse Greyhackle. Again, I opened the show with Sparse Greyhackle.
This one's one of my favorites. If fishing interferes with your business, give up your
business. Here's an old fisherman saying, which is, this was me and my dad for sure.
The two best times to go fishing are when it's raining and when it's not.
Yeah.
Dad always used to say this too, he's still here.
I talk about him on these shows like he's gone, he's still here.
A bad day fishing still beats a good day working.
That was almost at the end of every one, right?
At the end of every trip there was something like that if we didn't catch well.
Angling is somewhat like poetry.
Fish come and go, but it is the memory of afternoons on the stream that endure. E. Donald Thomas.
Yeah, like I said, it's just one of those things. You'll remember it forever. Your kids will remember it forever. It's just what it is.
No fisherman. This is a good one.
Jeffrey Norman. Jeffrey Norman says, no fisherman ever fishes as much as he wants to.
The ancient proverb,
a good fisherman can secure many regenerative hours in winter polishing up the rods and reels.
See, we tie flies this time of year as fly fishermen.
See, we tie flies this time of year as fly fishermen.
Not too much from me.
Now, this is from Jimmy Carter.
No matter how you feel about him, the quote lines up.
One of the turning points of my life was when I got my first bait casting outfit.
It's the truth, man.
Let's see Oliver Wendell Holmes. You can catch your next fish with a piece of your last.
That's interesting. That can apply to multitudes of things.
So folks, it's February almost. We're days away from February, you know springtime will be here crappy fishing will be here
Maybe trout fishing in your area will be here
Maybe all of that sounds foreign to you. You know what? I mean, maybe it does maybe all that sounds foreign to you
I'm telling you right now. No matter what financial bracket you're in
You know if if you're looking for that thing
You know if if you're looking for that thing
That thing to get your family together to do that thing to get your teenager out of the house to do
You know all that kind of stuff
Take up your old fishing rod or take up the fishing rod and
Build the importance of it into your life and into your family's life by putting the stuff around
Have the things around watch videos
Your kids wake up they come down in the morning on the weekend They see what you're watching every weekend
My dad had fishing shows on every weekend every Saturday morning fishing shows bill dance
Falling off the dock being him Jimmy Houston. Every morning we watched it. In Fisherman,
every Saturday we were watching. He would make breakfast, we'd sit there, we'd eat,
we'd watch fishing shows. We'd go, let's try that tomorrow, because we would enjoy Saturday
and fish Sunday. Come home, watch the Eagles. But it was very clear when you were in our house that dad was a fisherman.
Piled books, piled up fishing books piled up on the coffee table next to his, you know, seat.
It was very clear. Dad was a fisherman. Fishing hats on, you know, that whole thing.
What I think where parents struggle when they when they seek to do new things with their kids is the kids
don't understand the value.
They look at, they're like, why does dad want to do this?
What's important about, look, you see this table over here?
This is what's happening in my life because of Warhammer, of all things.
My kids know there's a perceived value in our household now
They're not at all interested in painting. They're not interested in playing. They're really not interested in it whatsoever
But there's a perceived value in it for dad. There's it's not like what are you talking about dad?
I didn't even know you like that
I think a lot of parents get in trouble when they when they spring this weird stuff
on their kids this new stuff and the kids are used to their routine and then all of a sudden they're like
We're gonna go hike a mountain on Monday. You know what I mean? And they're like why for what?
You know, we play yahtzee. What are you talking about?
so
If you're gonna get into fishing you get back into fishing You're gonna and you want to bring the family along for the journey
Like you have got to be the one to show them the passion
You've got to be the one that's in the fishing books and watching the fishing videos and maybe tying flies or painting your own bait
You know one of the crazy things you can do with a little machine like that over there is you can 3d print your own fishing
lords That's fun. You know, I mean things you can do with a little machine like that over there is you can 3d print your own fishing lures
that's fun you know what i mean um all that stuff is an option and and it
it there has to be perceived value in it you know the other thing you've got to catch so you've got to find the places that where you can catch fish there's a ton of There's a ton of apps on phones now. I don't know
because I find fishing holes the old fashioned way. I go look for fish. You know what I mean?
I go look for rivers on maps and go look at them. I look and I stare in the water and
I look upstream. I look downstream. I look at the vegetation. I can tell you if there's
going to be fish in it or not. One One big tell you can look for the herons
You know what?
I mean if you look for the if you look for what eats fish and they're sitting there eating fish or looking for fish
And you know, they're here
but uh
Yeah, you have to add that value. You may have to go out for a few times by yourself. Dad's going out. Where's dad?
He's out fishing. Where's dad? He's out fishing
Guys got to come out fish. Let's go fish next. You know, I mean to make it fun. Don't be crazy. Don't you know?
I'll go into parenting if we if we go down that too far
So what is fishing man it's different for all kinds of people but
It's one of the craziest outdoor adventures because of that because it is so different, you know, it's different for all kinds of people, but it's one of the craziest outdoor
adventures because of that, because it is so different.
Everybody's fishing memories are very different.
What I would like you to do is to dig into the sort of fishing that I did growing up,
which is a lot of movement, movement into the woods, maybe even wading in the waters, right?
And wading in water is tough, you know, it's one of those things you gotta have balance, you'll fall in.
And that's okay, and water's dangerous, so all that stuff you have to take into account.
But you also teach your kids that. Your kids will learn, oh, water's dangerous.
Oh, if I fall in the water, it sucks. Oh, I've gotta have balance.
I've gotta have steady footing, clambering over rocks in rushing water, right?
Is it I could go on and on man like the things that you learn doing that are
Unfathomable and it's most importantly. It's not taking on a hobby
That's gonna break you, you know, and and maybe what I'll do in all my spare time
you, you know, and maybe what I'll do in all my spare time, what I what I need to do is put together a dirt cheap fishing loadout for Wade fishing in the spring because I mean
it with all sincerity, it's it's cheap. It's just it's one of the few things you can do
cheap you can set it up cheap, and you can have a great time for years decades generations
That's what it is folks, you know to me that's what fishing is to me it's a generational pursuit that
My life and who I am would be completely different without it completely different we didn't even get into the stress management
You know what? I mean and and and how fishing just would be completely different without it. Completely different. We didn't even get into the stress management.
You know what I mean? And how fishing just
gives you that moment of solace and silence to just, oh,
it's a rough week, but you know what? I'm going fishing. I'm gonna go get out in the sun. I'm gonna get in the water. I'm gonna focus on something other than my problems. You know, my father used to say that the
I'm gonna focus on something other than my problems. You know, my father used to say that the water,
because we were standing in the water waiting,
you know, and he used to say that the water
washes your problems downstream.
And he was a guy with some problems, you know what I mean?
So it was, yeah, it's one of those things.
I wanna end the show by reading you something.
It's from a book that I have not yet published.
It is exclusively a fishing book.
It's called Fishing for the Answers, The Walton's Guide to Life.
And the intro to this book I wrote
before I knew I was going to write a fishing book.
It's a little lengthy, but it's how we're going to end the show.
Be sure to go down in the show description below.
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He's really interested in putting a kit together to deal with something like that, things that
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Food storage long-term food storage needs right?
I'm gonna kill the camera folks
And retail on the outro here, okay
Because since I'm gonna spend the rest of my time with my head down
So this is how my fishing book takes off.
This is how the whole idea came to be.
It's not, it's a story.
It's a little lengthy.
It's a story.
It is quite personal.
But it's important.
It's how it all came to be.
And it's, well, let's just read it.
What is it that makes a boy?
Imagine a little boy is only a full round head with thin wire for legs, a body and arms.
Imagine that round face dotted with freckles like a band under each eye and over his nose.
While little boys are born with certain inclinations, they're much more a collection of experiences
that wrap around those spindly appendages.
These experiences wrap the boy, like thread, and slowly build a child into what he will
someday become. Dark thread around his arms from catching balls,
drawing cartoons and wrestling.
Turns of thread on each leg from running and climbing,
like forming the body of a fly at a vice with thread and dubbing.
Each wrap is as important as the previous.
Sometimes red wraps of thread wind around a young boy's mind from trauma and pain.
Imagine a boy with a heart wrapped in olive green, shaped like a bobber, thumping for
the tight lines and small mouth bass.
This type of boy would enjoy seclusion and introspection, probably more than most.
Horror films and midday cooking shows would both hold value in the life of a boy like
this. He would struggle to understand his position in the world and thus create a whole
new set of worlds and rules. A boy like this would have a mother who by all standards would be the
pinnacle of what it means to be a mom. She would sit on the cusp of what a
mother and a woman once was, what could be and what should be. She was tender
when it required and tough. Most of all she would hear him. A mother and a son
like this would converse,
and not just in order to satisfy and silence the boy, but to know him.
She would not send him a cross look like a glowering face,
while giving her true attention to the cell phone.
Most important of all, a boy like this would have a mother who would push him along his own path,
allowing him to be just what and who he wanted, the rest of the world be damned.
A mother like this would not be immune to tragedy, but even though the fires and subsequent
dowsings of life, he would still see the framework of the woman that crafted him.
The boy with the olive heart would also have a sister.
A sister like this would have patience, for a boy like this would be very curious.
And she would be an older sister, and thus her privacy much more important than he could understand. The small fissures in their relationship would form as one would expect in teenage years.
However, they would share the same yoke, nearly twins born six years apart.
Maybe they would share seats at the windows watching thunderstorms or nights on the dining
room table playing board games.
Siblings like these would work for their relationship.
They would fill those small fissures with great memories and dreams and a growing family. And they would smooth the foundation with new, yet rare adventures.
Siblings like these would die happy, if for no other reason than the gift of a lifetime
together. Of course, a boy like this, an olive-hearted
boy, would have a father. His father would be a man made up of many red threads.
A father like this, in fact, would have so many red threads that he would wrap some
of his own onto others.
Thick thread that takes countless wraps to cover up.
A father like this would be born in the 50s, born at a time that seems fictitious to those
who live in the twenty-first century.
This father would have had a father of his own, naturally, who would dive into bottles
for treasures and become a violent sea monster himself.
Spools of red thread.
And the boy with the olive heart would wake to the shaking of his shoulder, his eyes would
open up, and a father like this would say, You coming?
Not in a voice that was demeaning, no pressure, the voice childlike, a best friend who might
stir you out of bed early for a day of fun.
That would be Sunday morning with a father like this.
The type of a father and son who would find themselves in a beat-up car with a mouth full
of bagel, scrapple, and eggs.
They might laugh about sports and the last adventure.
They might pull up to a creek that the rest of the world would drive by.
The type of creek that would babble behind a hardware store and under a busy road.
A creek like this would hold secrets.
These secrets would be speckled, some buttery yellow with large dark spots and others silvery
with technicolor sheen.
Secrets like these might wait, just downstream for a dry fly to sip. Nose turned up, people wouldn't believe that
trout like these would come from small creeks that hide behind hardware stores and under
large bridges. A story like this could be mine and yours, is a lot like fishing.
Well, that's a lie.
It's exactly like fishing.
Fishing in small creeks for trout, with a man trying desperately to wrap over his red
thread and his boy with the olive art.