Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks - The Attacks That Inspired Jaws - The 1916 Shark Attacks Part 2: Blood in Matawan Creek

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

Wes continues the story of the shark attacks that inspired the movie Jaws, and how the mounting terror reached its peak over a two day stretch in the summer of 1916 on the Matawan River. ~~ To advertise on the show, contact us! ~~ Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts. For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:  Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast Twitter: @ToothandClawPod Wes: @GrizKid Jeff: @jefe_larson Mike: @mikey3ds   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome to Tooth and Claw podcast. We got our wildlife. This is part two. So you guys, if you're starting here, go back and listen to Part 1. Stop right now. Go back an episode. Unless you like skipping to the middle of a story. Smart wildlife biologist, Wes Larson.

Okay. Our ladies man producer, Mike Smith, and Wes's brother, Jeff Larson. All right. We got your new thing is Ladies Man, huh? Ladies. We got Mike to go to the rodeo. Yeah. Oh, speaking of a ladies man, too.

He was wearing the weirdest hat I think I've ever seen in my life. Oh, man, that hat's so cool. Like what you buy your little kid for like his train set. Yeah, a little kid that's really into trains. And my favorite was I kind of made fun of you right when you showed up. And then you were like, what if I turn it backwards? And when you turn it backwards, it looked like you were wearing like a hat. a hat from the 1920s.

Yeah, well, I'm just railing against this new trend of people wearing, quote, unquote, dad hats that look like they've been sitting in the corner of a warehouse and been rolled over by a few tires in their day. And people are like, oh, yeah, that's what I want to put on my head. I love a mooted. A dusty little floppy dad hat. I love a dad hat. So, you know, no judgments.

Yeah, that's fine. Sounds like I'm judging you. No. I'm not. Well, he just judged you. So you got the green light. I think, you know, I think for me, like, in college and everything, the big, like, flat brim hats were, like, the really big thing.

Oh. And I just never, and then trucker hats for a while. In high school, you bent your bill so far that it was like a full circle hat bill. Exactly. And it was always like these hat trends that I felt like I had to do, but I never thought looked good when I, like, actually put the hat on my head. Right. And dad hats are the first hat trend where I was like, I really like how this looks.

Like, this is the hat trend I like. That's good. So don't ruin this for me, Mike. If you're happy, I'm happy. I love a hat. What were some of the jokes the clown was saying? He's funny. That dude hates his mother-in-law.

He hates his mother-in-law. His wife weighs three times as much as some of those heifers out there. And then they made fun of, it was really in bad taste. The whole night was in poor taste, in my opinion. But yeah, it's just generally making fun of people that... The worst part for me was like, there was a girl who ran out in between events on her horse, and they were just doing like a quick speed run. And her horse tripped and she fell.

And the horse fell too. It was like kind of a shocking moment actually. And they got up. And as they were writing out, he was like, now that little lady's ego might be bruised, but you guys should cheer on anyways or something. Her ears are working fine. Yeah, exactly. Give her a round of applause.

And so, but then like anytime any of the cowboys did something wrong, they were like, oh, well, he's a cowboy and a hero. So he's, you know, it wasn't ever like his ego's bruised, that poor little guy, you know. It was very. So it was just a night full of like bad, unfunny, insensitive jokes interrupted briefly by moments of like cattle abuse. What in my mind is cattle abuse.

It really is just not a fun experience for me. The jokes were so bad that they were kind of funny though. Like there was points where I just like. I think with the jokes was like I hadn't been to a rodeo in a while. Uh-huh. And I was like, oh, this like hasn't changed at all. Yeah. And then it's like a little nostalgic.

Yeah, which is a bummer. I heard as we were there, they're saying they're redoing the entire rodeo arena, which kind of sucks because it's been the same arena since we were little kids. This was in Missoula. We're all in Missoula right now. We decided we wanted part two so bad. We just drove down here to... They showed up on my doorstop and they were like,

we are not leaving until you give us part two. Right. And I was like, all right. And I just started working on it. The other thing I've been working on is my deck. And I feel like I kind of ruined it last night. You had a perfect thing, perfect bowling. I had a two.

Perfect score going into the 10th frame and then you threw two gutter balls. Yeah. We had this beautiful redwood deck and we had decided on this stain that we both liked. And I'm kind of anti-stained to begin with, but I had heard that it's going to be good for the deck and everything. So we decided on this kind of darker stain. We tested it. We both liked it, me and Jesse. But then when I like put a full roller.

on the deck, I was like, oh, I hate this. You're telling me you don't like that song. It's been a while. Is that stained? No, that's stained. I forget what music they put out. Not a big fan of him. Aaron Lewis.

Is that his name? How do you know his name? Yeah. Wow. Because he sucks. You and him are like very aligned politically. We are not at all. Anyway, we don't want to get into politics on the show.

Our bad. Well, anyway, so I ruined my deck last night and I didn't ruin it. Sorry, that's way too strong. It's fine. like it as much now. I hope Jesse likes it. She's out of town. So we'll see. Yeah. Toad doesn't. He's my guest on the podcast a little bit. Yeah, Toad's here in our fourth chair. He's taking a little nap. Toad's my cat. But you might hear him, sure. We won't edit him out. His voice is important, right? Important? Yeah. Probably not. Yeah, third or fourth most important, I would say. Yeah.

All right. Well, do you guys got anything else before we get started? No, we can just get into it, I think. Okay, we'll get into it. I know you all are chomping at the bit, champing at the bit. It's acceptable. Either way, it's fine. To get into part two of this story. Chomping at the swimming body to get into this story.

Oh, nice. Yeah. All right, so as you guys know, we are on part two of the New Jersey 1916 shark attacks. Last week, we talked about Charles Van Sant and Charles Brooder. Both were tragically killed by a shark while swimming. off the Jersey shore, one in Beach Haven and one in Spring Lake. What happened again? They were bitten by a shark.

Can you tell me like the whole story? No. You'll have to go back to part one to listen to that. But in this part, we're going to talk about some more attacks. I'm using the same sources as last time, mostly relying on 12 days of terror, a book by Richard G. Furnacola. And then as well, I'm also relying on the book, Close to Shore, the Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916.

by Michael Capuzo. And to be totally honest with you, this week I did rely on close to shore quite a bit more. I found that book a bit more kind of intriguing to read because it grabs you a little bit more. And then I will say, like, as I went back, then in fact checked with 12 days of terror, I noticed the stories do diverge a number of times.

I think there's a fair amount of telephone that's happened with this story where people have told their stories and it's just changed over time. So there are some things that may be different, from, if you know this story well, there's some things I might report that may be a little bit different from what you've heard. I just, we don't have time to like cover all the viewpoints. So mostly this time I'm relying on close to shore. When did it happen again?

1916. Oh yeah. So you're clear just to say whatever you want. Yeah, we can say whatever you want here. It doesn't matter. They're all dead. Okay. So if you remember from last week, Charles Brooder had just died. A shark attack was launched almost, sorry. Charles Brooder. A shark attack was launched? Sorry, a shark hunt. I knew it. It's a big government that had done this. No, a shark hunt was launched almost immediately.

So there's a lot of fishermen, old timers in these towns. Again, these beach towns have kind of just become these bustling beach towns. So there's still this old way of life that existed, which was mostly just fishing. And a lot of these fishermen and old timers still live there. And they still think that it's unlikely this was a shark. After two. After two. Yeah.

There's still, though, there's people. Turtle. Yeah, Turtle, Marlin. We'll get to that, actually. But there are people that are now remembering that there was a big shark that had been caught in 1913 in Spring Lake. And when they caught it, they cut it open and they found a woman's shoe in its stomach. And at the time, they were just like, oh, it probably just like ate this while it was floating in the ocean or scavenged it or something. But now they're all kind of like pulling on their shirt color.

It's like, ooh. Yeah. You know? They did collect a bunch of money for Bruder's mom who lived in Switzerland. If you remember, she was relying on Charles to send her money. So they did collect a lot of money for her, which was nice. So she's happy about it. Yeah, she's like, oh, yeah, this was worth it.

She's like, hopefully the other one dies on the war so I can get some money from him too. John Treadwell Nichols came to town with a few of his associates. Treadwell? Yeah, Treadwell Nichols. Everyone asking for the Treadwell story. You're in it, finally. The John Treadwell Nichols story. You guys have been waiting?

I'm delivering. He was a really accomplished and well-known the theologist, and he had come to inspect the corpse. He wanted to do some interviews, and he also wanted to verify that it actually had been a shark that was responsible. This is, again, very reminiscent of Jaws, like Hooper in the Jaws movie, I'm Richard Dreyfis. He comes to town, and he's, like, trying to figure out what kind of, what does he call him, squala? He calls him, like, by there, yeah. Is that the part where the guy was like, what, a what? They did cut the shark open in jaws, though, and they found a bunch of stuff.

Yeah. And he says it's a tiger shark. In this, in real life, after inspecting the body and learning that brooder had been pulled underwater several times, Nichols decides that it's most likely an orca, not a shark. A what? Orcas are known to pull their prey underwater several times before finally killing them. And Nichols thought that these ragged cuts on brooder's legs or on his stumps looked like they had been made by big conical. teeth like an orca.

I mean, they would be like more intimidating. Totally. Without like the context we have now. Right. And they back then they actually had an inkling that orcas didn't attack people because they didn't, they hadn't like recorded it. But they saw them as just as ferocious as sharks. You know, they.

Well, they had an inkling that sharks didn't attack people. Exactly. Yeah. And they're wrong about that. So on July 7th, this is a day after Charles Brooder died. The summer beaches of Spring Lake. are completely empty for the first time in recent memory. The only activity in the water is from boats that are carrying fishermen and shark hunters,

and they're determined to kill the shark and protect any swimmers. They're dragging freshly butchered lamb carcasses through the water, and then they're ready with like high-powered firearms, dynamite, spears, all sorts of stuff to kill the shark. Sounds fun. And it's not only the shark hunters that are now taking the situation much more seriously, the newspapers are starting to pay attention to. So that day, the front page headline of the New York Times was shark kills bay there off New Jersey Beach.

And the article went on to describe brooder's injuries in great detail and assert that the shark was still at large. But everyone wasn't convinced. The New York Times had published a letter to the editor the next day from a reader that once again had an alternate theory. And I'm going to read that letter to the editor. Having read with much interest, the account of the fatality off Spring Lake New Jersey,

Jersey, I should like to offer a suggestion somewhat at variance with the shark theory. In my opinion, it is most unlikely that a shark was responsible, and I believe it much more likely that the attack was made by a sea turtle. I've spent much time at sea in a long shore, and have several times seen turtles large enough to inflict just such wounds. These creatures are a vicious disposition, and when annoyed, they're extremely dangerous to approach. It's my idea that brooder may have disturbed one while it was asleep, or close to the

surface. Just such wounds, huh? His both legs were off? Yeah, well, they just, they always just say, like, the turtle's large enough that it could do that. Yeah, this dude lost both of his legs. Yeah. Are the sharks, like, not as big as these turtles, he thinks?

I don't know. No, they thought sharks were, like, 30 to 40 feet long. I know. But they just thought they, like, were gumming things. Like, they had, like, no power in their jaws. Nothing is adding up here. It's funny. And it's like, okay, you don't think sharks attack people, but, like,

Why do you think turtles do? Yeah. Imagine your Charles Brooder's, like, ghost floating around, and you'd just been killed by this massive Great White, and people are like, it's probably a turtle. Just like, damn it. All right. The hunters actually got a shot at a large shark that day near the beach.

They saw the fin and everything. They shot at it, but it disappeared seemingly uninjured. And then people at that point were, like, unwilling to get into the water at Spring Lake, and everyone was crowding the pool. So they actually had to install a bigger. pipe just to keep the pool full because no one's going in the water at this point. Oh, wow. There were a few other close calls with a large shark in the general area.

There was a guy in his boat in Asbury Park, and he was out, and a shark actually charged his boat, and he, like, hit the water with his oars and hit the shark. Oh, yeah. So that one shark told it all of his buds. It could be. Or it could be the same shark. We don't know. So Nichols, the ethologist, he was the understudy of Frederick Lucas.

and Frederick Lucas was essentially like a naturalist slash biologist. He curated a museum and he was just kind of seen to be the guy when it came to sharks for the time, at least in North America. And he was also much on the record as saying sharks do not attack people in temperate waters. So he was like very much in that thought that sharks are just not dangerous in these waters. And he said, Great Whites definitely have the potential to kill a man. In fact, they called it the man-eating shark sometimes, but that they were shy and couldn't have inflicted the type of injuries that Bruder had.

Like, they thought that if they were to kill a person, it would just kind of eat the blubber off of them and the flesh off of them, but that it wouldn't be able to, like, separate legs from the body. It was just too shy to eat any more than the blubber. Yeah, exactly. Well, again, I think the thing is like... Just thinking of whales. A lot of their main observations of these sharks at this point are on whale carcasses.

Because they're not really going underwater. They're not, like, seeing stuff underwater. They're only seeing these sharks on the surface. And the only time you'd really ever see a great white is if one was dead or if it was feeding on a whale carcass. Right. So they just really hadn't seen them much. So the previous year, that Ulrich's guy, the millionaire, he was trying to get proof of shark attacks. And while that was happening, the New York Times was also trying to collect stories of shark attacks from places around the world.

So even though the common theory in North America is that they, They don't attack people. The New York Times was getting these stories from around the world. And people in other parts of the world were like, oh, yeah, they attack people. This is not a harmless animal. So this is a really interesting one from New South Wales, Australia. So that's where Sydney's located. They said, anyone who doubts that sharks in temperate waters do attack human beings will visit

Sydney, New South Wales, and his doubts will be speedily resolved. The letter reported the case of a boy dangling his legs off the wharf at Ride on the Parramatta River. which feeds the harbor, when a shark came up, seized a foot, and disappeared with the boy whose body was never seen again. And then the next day, this other guy, Herbert McKenzie, another native of Sydney, Australia, he also sent a letter in that confirmed the details of this first letter. And he said, as a native of that beautiful city, I can with authority corroborate the statements, and know of others where lives and limbs have been lost as a result of these sea monsters in the beautiful waters of the harbor. And he said, I distinctly remember,

remember a young man losing first an arm, then just his rescue was at hand, the entire body disappeared, leaving only a blood path in the water. This happened in Rush Cutters Bay. So even though these letters were getting sent to the New York Times saying like, in Australia these sharks definitely eat and attack people, this guy Lucas, Frederick Lucas, the main shark expert in the area, he remained convinced just like Nichols that a shark wasn't the perpetrator and that both the newspapers and the eyewitnesses. had it wrong. Oh man. What if you're wrong about bears? Could be. Yeah, I don't think I am though. I think we're pretty good these days at having a lot of

information. Polar bears don't need ice. You're just wrong. No, we're not. That's definitely not the case. But I do think, like, if you're a good scientist, you do need to realize that no matter what, you could always get proved wrong. I do think, like, there needs to be that, that, like, tiny window. So, you never know. Yeah, because why did it snow so much? And you do. Utah last year. That's not. We're not getting into this. All right. So the main point here is that the second attack wasn't being ignored and both the news and the general public now had sharks on the brain. More and more beaches started installing these wire nets around the swimming areas. So they're like putting in essentially barriers for sharks to try and protect bathers. But a lot of bathers were still

preferring just to stay completely out of the ocean. And it now seemed like to them the ocean was just full of man-eating sharks. But there still were places on the coast where it seemed very safe to swim. And one of those places was Madawan, New Jersey. All right. The second part of this story, again, it's like a hard story kind of. I think it really plays on people's fear of sharks. And I think the way these books were written really plays on it.

The way my notes are written kind of plays on it because I took it from these books. it's really scary. Like this is a scary story, and I think it matches kind of what our worst fears are when it comes to sharks. Before we go into it, I just want to like note, these are extremely rare stories.

This isn't something that happens very often. These ones especially are just so outside of the normal behavior of sharks. And on our next episode, we're really going to go into like, what species this might be? You know, we've been saying it's a great white, but it's possible it's something else.

we're going to go into like the conditions that led to these attacks we're going to talk about attacks in general and how rare they are i do think it's like probably the scariest animal to be attacked by you know i'm doing the quotation marks because you just have no control over the situation we've talked about that a lot too but um just remember guys like this is an animal this is an animal that's doing what comes naturally to it it doesn't have like a bad motivation it's not an evil animal. It's not an animal that's trying to hurt people or do anything wrong. It's just an animal. And this one's acting outside of what we normally see with them. So it's scary, but you got to remember that because I don't want people to hate sharks after hearing this story. Yeah. Okay.

Well, and like maybe you'll talk about this later, but I was wondering too if they've been like naturally selected a little bit more since these. Just because like at this time it sounds like people are really starting to swim in the ocean. So sharks like maybe got curious and started eating people. Yeah, and then maybe they learned. But then like, we retaliate so hard that maybe now they've kind of learned, like, don't attack people as much. It's possible.

It hasn't been that long since then. So it wouldn't be like an evolution thing, but it could be like a learned behavior like, oh, we avoid humans now. But when you actually look at the rate of shark attacks, they've gone up a lot in recent years. And that's just because so many more people are going in the water. Yeah. And there's so many more people on the planet.

And people are a lot braver. People don't cheer for you to just swim. Exactly. Plus more sophisticated avenues of reporting these kinds of stories, I'm sure, exist too. Yeah, totally. But I would say, like, if you have an intense fear of sharks and, you know, that's something that you're having a hard time getting over, look into those statistics, look into, like, everything, do whatever you can to help, like, listen to our other episodes

about sharks. But then if it's still there, just don't go in the ocean, you know? because I do think if once you go in the ocean, just like if you go in the woods, just like if you go, you know, to the Arctic, you are surrendering a little bit of your safety. You are deciding I'm going to take this tiny little risk because the reward is worth it to me. And to me, it totally is worth it. I love the ocean. I've seen sharks in the ocean. I've seen great whites in the ocean. To me, it's still worth it to go in the ocean. If you look at, sorry, I'm rambling a little bit here. But if you look right now like at Malibu, there are tons of Great Whites there. And there are thousands of videos that people have taken from drones

of Great White swimming right under surfers or right under swimmers. And there is yet to be... They better leave our celebrities alone. I hope they get some of the celebrities actually. Yeah, I love those guys. But they're leaving these people alone. And I think for every single one of these times that someone's attacked, there's thousands and thousands of encounters that go unreported

because there's no attack. and the person doesn't even know that the shark is there. So just remember that. And remember to bring your bear spray if you go in the ocean. No. Shark-proof shark spray. Yeah, wear your full suit of armor. Yeah.

All right. Don't watch Shark NATO either if you're afraid. Because then you'll be afraid on land even. I was thinking maybe watch Shark Nato every single day until you just become numb to Shark Dax. That's kind of what I did. With Jaws? Just everything.

What's that method of therapy called it? Like exposure? Exposures there. Yeah. Yeah. Just toss them in a tank, like a tank full of sharks until they get over it. I think that's the best method of. I will say, I think as we've done the podcast, like, everything we've talked about,

it's given me more confidence to go out and, like, be in places where those animals exist. I will say with sharks, it is the one that the story is really stick in my head. And sometimes when I'm in the ocean, they start popping in. Especially, like, where I'd swim at, like, late evening pretty far out in Hawaii. I'm not doing that. doing that. No, but it's given me a bigger respect for them. It's not like I hate them now.

I'm just like, I know what they can do. And I, and like that makes me a little bit more cautious than the ocean. So, anyway. Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard, but not the pipeline? That's bullspend. And marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions. My boss asked for results. So I opened my dashboard

for the only positive sounding metric I had. Impressions. spend. See revenue, not just reach. LinkedIn delivers the highest return on ad spend of major ad networks. Advertise on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign, turns the conditions apply. Okay. So, Madawan is roughly 11 miles inland of Asbury Park. So this is like a town that isn't right on the coast. And it's about five miles north of Spring Lake. The town is built on the shores of Madawan Creek. And Matawan Creek is actually a tidal inlet that joins the ocean in Raritan Bay, about a mile and a half away. So at its closest to like the actual open ocean, which is Raritan Bay,

Madawan is about a mile and a half away. And there's this big tidal inlet that turns into like a creek as it gets to Madoin. Like it's like 30 feet across. It's not big. But even though this is called a creek, the water's brackish. It's pretty saline. And that's especially true when it's high tide and a lot of water from the ocean floods into this creek. So Madawan's like a lot of other towns in the area in 1916. It's really quaint. There's this beautiful main street. It houses a lot of different shops and merchants, and the town used to mostly rely on fishermen and fishing, but now it's starting to change as like industry and whatnot comes to the area. Good thing Montana's never changing that. That is not true. Montana has changed quite a bit. Just so you guys know,

Montana's full of scary bears, it's cold, it's smoky all the time, bugs. Don't move here. It's awful. So there's all this industry coming into Madoan. Big part of that is the railways, factories, cars, all these different things are making it so industry can be in a lot more places. And a lot of these people in Madoan are taking advantage of it. And one of the people taking advantage is Stanley Fisher. So Stanley's from Madoan originally.

He had moved to Minnesota for a bit where he apprenticed as a tailor. And then on moving back, he opened a shop in town where he was able to sell. and produce really high quality suits for men in town. He's only 24 years old. He's 6 foot 2. He's over 200 pounds. And he's considered the town's best athlete. He's famous in town.

This is like, if you're in a small town, this is like the guy that everyone looks up to. Like everyone thinks Stanley Fisher's like the coolest guy. He's like the West Larson. That's not true. What's the town called? Maddawan. He's the West Larson of Maddala.

He's built. like the Jeff Larson though. Nice. He's handsome. He's a towhead blonde. He's just really liked by everyone. And the younger boys especially really look up to him, not because he's only like the strongest guy in town, but he's also super nice to them.

And he's not above like playing with them and just being really friendly in general. So if this story is going where I think it's going, it seems like these sharks are targeting only dudes in life with like real good prospects, like hot tall. So far that's the case. But this may zag a little bit. Okay. So Stanley's having a hard time finding business, and his suits that he's selling are really nice, and they'd probably sell really well in, like, Chicago or in New York,

or one of these other coastal seaside towns. But in Matawan, they're not exactly flying out the door. And he's starting to then take out ads in the local paper. He's doing whatever he can to sell him. But he starts to find himself trading goods for his suits. And one trade that he makes is he trades a suit to someone in town for a 10,000, dollar life insurance policy and at the time for like a 24 year old everyone's like why you know you're like full of life you're vivacious all of his friends are like why would you want life insurance

but he gets this life insurance policy i hope that doesn't come into play um can you imagine just trading a suit to get insurance yeah life insurance is pretty cheap though right i think it is i mean there's a million types yeah that's yeah especially when you're young like if you're like 80 year olds old with cancer. It's not too cheap. That's true. All right. It would probably be super expensive for your mom. Jesus.

Yeah. It'd be really hard to collect on that, I think. Okay. So on the afternoon of July 11th, 14-year-old Rennie Carton Jr. meets up with his 13-year-old cousin, Johnson, and the two of them decide to head to the swimming hole on Madawan Creek. Can't laugh at the name Johnson. His name is just Johnson?

Johnson. Johnson. Johnson. Yeah. That's cool. Speaking of that, do you guys remember Big Johnson? shirts. Did we talk about that already? When I was in like, yeah, when I was probably in middle school, there's these shirts called Big

Johnson shirts. And there's just this like dorky, nerdy guy on the shirt and just surrounded by like really voluptuous women. It was like cartoons. Yeah. And they were just like highly sexualized. And the whole idea was this nerdy guy has like a big Johnson. Yeah, that's funny. And they like really took off in my middle school and they had to outlaw a big Johnson shirt. Because they were just, well, they were like pornographic. They were pretty crazy for middle schoolers to have. Look them up. Look up Big Johnson shirts.

They're wild. Novelty shirts. It just humor doesn't get much better than that. In my opinion. Big Johnson? Jeff. I'm typing in Big Johnson right now. So Rennie Carton, Jr., he's 14.

He's with his cousin Johnson, who's 13. They decide to head to the swimming hole in Madawan Creek. They're cutting through the high marsh grasses, the oak trees. It's this really scenic, nostalgic thing that happens in little towns all across the United States. Like kids heading to a swimming hole. You know, it's just like there's nothing more summary than that. And they get to the abandoned Limeworks warehouse, which shelters a perfect little dock and a perfect little cove on Madawan Creek. And it had been a town favorite for generations.

And it was a really just great midsummer escape for these boys. A couple of their friends were already there. They're already skinny dipping. That was kind of what you would do. You would just skinny dip. And so Reni and Johnson quickly get out of their clothes and they jump in this water. That guy should have switched to making swimming suits instead of suits. Yeah, that's a good point.

You know Johnson was packing too. You know. All the other boys were like, wow. The shark's in a new environment. It had followed both familiar and unfamiliar sense into the brackish brown colored water. The high tides of the month had helped it make the journey. The creek, which would usually be a bit too shallow and uncertain for a 10-foot shark, was now essentially indistinguishable from an entrance to the ocean bay,

and whether or not the shark entered the creek on accident or on purpose will never know, but it did. There's fish darting all over to the banks of the side of the creek, but they're too small and quick moving to be at much use to the shark, and with both fish and marine mammals being scarce over the last week, it was starting to get pretty desperate. It was a really highly opportunistic shark and less risk averse than others that preferred deep swells and shoals of fish offshore.

The shark was looking for something more substantial, and as it swam under the bridge in Matawan, it once again picked up ascent. Its fin sliced through the water as it continued to head upstream and into the tighter bends of the creek. So something with this shark, you know, I've kind of been fun to bounce back and forth between the perspective of the shark, and I'm doing that because in Jaws that kind of happens to, in a couple of these books, they did that as well. But something that we should think about really quick with this is, in a lot of the stuff I've read, there is a theory that as the shark made its way up this creek, that it maybe had gotten lost.

I was going to say, if you think about it from a shark's perspective, it's not used to being in such a tight corridor. So it's probably just like, I'm not going to turn around until like there's water to turn around it. And that's exactly. So it just kind of keeps going until it opens up. Yeah. And this creek stayed like essentially the same depth throughout.

So there wasn't like a cue that it was getting like shallower and it needed to turn around. So exactly what Mike just said, like it probably was like, oh, this is weird. There's not a way to either side of me, so I'm just going to keep going forward. Yeah, to have to do like a five-point turn. The Austin powers on the Zamboni. And, you know, I think that's probably the theory that I agree with, that this is a shark that essentially moved into the creek and then was like,

oh, I don't know where I'm going. But it could be that it was a different type of shark that it was actually quite comfortable in this creek. So we're going to talk about that more. I think it could have just gone in reverse. Someone standing there and they just hear beep, beep, beep coming from the water. So Reni Carton had just jumped into the creek when something large and rough scraped across his narrow chest. So suddenly the water around him turns warm and he realizes in horror. He realizes in horror that he's bleeding.

Oh, wow. And he starts to scream completely unaware of what had happened. You're surprised it wasn't pee? Well, I'm just surprised that like it was so immediate. He jumped in. And it was like already. Yeah, so we'll get to this. So he's unaware of what.

He got to wait for a little bit to pee, you know. He's unaware of what had torn into him, and then suddenly he sees it. And in an absolute panic, he scrambles onto the dock, and he points to the area where he had seen this massive fish. The other boys climb out of the water, and they look at his chest, which was bleeding and torn, and it looked like he had scraped it on something rough and abrasive, like sandpaper. So the shark hadn't bit him. he had just brushed up against the shark's skin. And if you guys are remembered from other episodes, we talked about shark skin.

They have, it's called denticles, which are these kind of like hook-shaped, backwards-pointing little parts of their skin that are essentially like sandpaper. If you rub your hand on a shark, it feels very rough. That's what whale sharks have, right? Yeah. Like, yeah, I've been like skin rubbed off by a whale shark tail. Yeah, and it hurts. It hurts.

I'm surprised this guy's like bleeding, though. Yeah, I mean, like, I think he essentially jumped on to. top of the shark. I was going to say it like the unluckiest cannon ball. Maybe the dorsal fin went through him. Yeah. Yeah. You think about that? I think so. Yeah. Sliced him. So he's just bleeding from like this abrasion. So he's not really that hurt. It's just a lot of blood. Huh. And Remy tells the boys, or Rennie tells the boys that he had seen something huge in the creek. He said that he thought it was responsible for this wound. But all the other boys have a hard time believing him because, you know, word has traveled to this point. People are

talking about sharks and these other boys think he's just being paranoid and he'd probably hit a log or something submerged under the water. Well, you don't feel like you're in the ocean. No, you're in a creek that you've swam in your whole life. Yeah. So the open ocean's like a mile and a half away and they've fished in this creek, they've swam in this creek, they just don't think that it's a shark. They decide to continue swimming, but Reni is like, like right after this. Yeah, Reni's like, I'm not going in the water. Luckily for these boys, the shark had left. It's impossible to know, again, like if it felt trapped or whatever, but it left. But if this shark was trapped, it's likely really hungry and really agitated because it feels trapped and then it's also not able to get food.

So that's a really bad combo for a shark, especially one that's capable of killing a person. And three people are going to learn that the hard way the very next day on July 12th. So in the morning of July 12th, retired sea captain Thomas Cottrell is, walking across this new trolley bridge at the mouth of Madawan Creek when he sees something that stops him in his tracks. He looks out in the water and he sees a large, dark gray shape moving up the creek and what he says with a three-foot triangular fin sticking up above the water. It's pretty high.

That's like, that's like, it's tall. That's a big fin. Ketrel had heard through the grapevine that Rennie Carton had claimed to have a run-in with a shark the previous day. Like everyone in town, he didn't believe it. But suddenly, like, he believes it. He sees the shark. So he's 58 years old, and he sprints for town.

And 58 back then was much older than 58 is now. Like, the book makes it seem like this dude is, like, gone his last legs. But he sprints for town. He arrives in town. He's like panting. He's like red in the face. And he's an old sea captain, so he's famous for, like, stories that people kind of saw his tall tales. But he bursts into this barbershop, and he says, I saw a shark in the creek.

and everyone in the barbershop pretty much is like this guy, you know, and they start laughing. And he's like, no, I swear I saw a shark in the creek. And no one will believe him. So he runs out on the main street and he just starts going into shops and telling people that he saw a shark. No one's believing it. Like he's running up and down the street and no one will listen to him.

Wow. And he had seen the shark swimming up river. So he knew that people would swim and fish and do all the stuff. And so he finally gives up on trying to get someone to believe him. And he jumps into his boat and starts like paddling up. the creek. Oh, well. He's determined to warn anyone in the water that there's a shark coming.

Meanwhile, 11-year-old Lester Stillwell is ready for a break. He'd been working in a basket factory all day long. He's hammering and shaping peach baskets. He's working alongside his dad and his 16-year-old brother. And the sweat and grime of working in this factory all day is like starting to build up on him. He'd already earn 75 cents that whole day. So he's ready to just like be done. Yeah.

You think he's contributing any of that to his four or one kid? No, he's just giving it to his death. Yes, 11. But relief's in sight. On hot summer days, the boys in the factory allowed to take a break and go for a swim, the younger boys. So the shift boss signals that the times arrived and Lester looks over at his dad for approval. His dad's working in the same factory. He looks at his son.

He nods. He says that he can go. But he pulls him in and he says, be really careful. And the reason he says this is Lester is really frail and he's prone to epilepsy. So he's had fits before where he starts shaking. And like his dad's always worried about him whenever he goes in the water. And so he tells him to be careful, but he knows that he can't baby him and he sends him off. And that's the death flag.

You can't ever show your family affection before they leave. Yeah, this one's hard. Like anyway, we'll go into a more. Don't look at them. Just let them go. But the other side of that is when people are like, I wish I would have said. said like yeah i love you i'm taking the chance i'm never going to tell my kids i love him i don't want to take that chance i will say like this it's weird for me this happened more than a hundred years

ago but again this one like really affected me yeah and i think it's because i was like a little smaller than my friends but i still just like really wanted to like prove that i could do everything they could and this little kid just seems anyway we'll get into it more you just you needed to get out of the peach basket factory. Exactly. I'm so tired of working the peach basket factory. So even though Lester's younger and smaller than the other boys that he works and plays with, his coworkers, the swimming hole at Wycoff dock was like this great equalizer. Because when you get there, you're there with boys from other financial situations, other boys that are like stronger or weaker, older or younger. Everyone's there. Everyone's just having a good time.

But they're skinny dipping, so it's not. It's not totally an equalizer. But I don't think they're comparing dinguses. You know they are. Half day. Yeah, they might be. So when he gets there, he immediately strips off his clothes. He jumps in. Some of the older boys are already out in the middle of the creek and they're showing off how good they are at swimming. The shark is becoming more and more desperate. This close call with a potential meal the day before was a learning opportunity, so it's not going to be as cautious if it gets another chance. It moves up the creek, it's starting to feel more and more claustrophobic, and it hears the tail-tale splashing and commotion of something wounded and struggling in the

the water. Where it had previously been conserving energy in this less than perfect environment, it's now moving rapidly through the water toward the vibrations. What it had thought was a struggle was actually play, but it made no difference to the shark. It could see them now, and where some of them had gotten out of the water in time, one was laying on the surface, unmoving and small. Caution wouldn't be necessary for the shark, and it launched forward. Like all boys' age, Lester's just wanting to fit in and impress everyone, so some of the other boys are climbing out of the water, he's floating on his back. And he calls to them and he says, boys, watch me float. Watch me float, fellas. He turns on his back and he's floating. And for like

a skinny kid that's mostly bones, that was actually pretty hard for him. He's struggling to float. But he's smiling and looking up toward the sky. And it would be the last happy, perfect thought of his life. When suddenly and violently, he's pulled underwater and blood from his tiny body stains everything red. Oh, crazy. Yeah. The other boys are watching in stun horror. as this black shark appears out of the murky water, speeds across the surface towards Lester. They didn't even have time to scream before it strikes the small boy, turns in the water, shows them its white belly, and then disappears.

Then briefly they can see Lester in the shark's mouth just above the surface of the water, and it starts shaking its head back and forth, and the water around him turns red, and they both go underwater head first. So, like, his legs kick up in the air. Jeez. They're flailing, and then they all disappear.

The shark swooshes its large tail through the water and actually hits one of the other boys and like pins him against the dock for a second. And then it's gone. So they're screaming and they're like too shocked to even know what had just happened to them. Yeah. And they're staring at this quiet water and suddenly Lester pops back up. And his eyes are just like wide and he's just screaming bloody murder and flailing his arms around. And then he's ripped underwater again. Oh, man.

So now the boys like their shock breaks and they're all like crying and they're all like crying and they just. run screaming for town. Yeah. So Main Street, Madawan's having a very normal day up to that point. It's just like a quiet Wednesday afternoon when suddenly like half a dozen naked mud-covered boys start running through the street and they're just screaming that their friend had died and that a shark could kill them. And they're quickly surrounded by a crowd.

The town constables there. There's other adults. They're all asking them what had happened. They say Lester had been killed by shark in the water. And immediately everyone who knows, they all know Lester. They're like, oh, he's epileptic. Like, he probably had a fit of epilepsy and drown. Or something happened that made these boys think, you know, a shark had attacked him.

So they're like desperate to get to the water, but they're not necessarily thinking shark. The boys were really upset that no one's believing him. So they head to someone that they knew would believe them. And they enter Royal Tailors and Stanley Fisher sitting there quietly sewing a suit. The boys surround him and they tell him what had happened. And unlike the other people in town, he kind of. believes the boys. So he knows that if Lester's still alive, he's the best person to rescue him. He knows he's the best swimmer in town. He knows he's the strongest. So he puts on his bathing costume

and runs out. Wow. Yeah. I like this guy. Yeah. Along the way he runs into, oh, and I should say in one of the accounts, it was like he just heard the boys yelling in the street and he went to go help. And the other account, the boys actually talked to him. Just see. Yeah. Along the way, Stanley Fisher runs into his friend George Berlew, who often went by the name Red. as well. George is a commercial fisherman and he also doesn't necessarily believe the boys, but he wants to make sure. So he joins Stanley in the group of boys and they head for his rowboat. And when they get there to the spot where Lester had vanished, there's already a bunch of people there. Lester's parents are there. His siblings are there. Like when his parents found out that he was

missing, his mom like collapsed in grief. And they just like, they know that their son is probably dead, but they don't necessarily believe that a shark had taken him. They're all looking for where he may have drowned or gone missing. And when Stanley gets there, everyone gets a little bit of hope because they're like, Stanley's here. He's our town hero. He's this like perfect boy. He's going to like organize us at least.

And he does. He takes this leadership role. And one of the first things they do is they take some weighted chicken wire and they put it downstream. And the whole idea there is that if the boy's body gets washed down, it would get caught by the chicken wire. So it won't be gone. Unfortunately, this may have actually. actually trapped the shark in with them though too. So they start getting in boats and they're pulling the water.

They're taking long poles and like pushing through the water trying to feel maybe a carcass underneath. And they do this for about an hour and they're not getting anything. In some places, it's too deep for the poles to hit the bottom. So Stanley and George get kind of frustrated with this and joined by this other guy, Arthur Smith, they just dive into the water and they decide they're just going to find his body by diving. and people are yelling at them, they're saying, hey, there's a shark in here, you know, or at least the boys say there's a shark. And the boys are like, there's a shark in there.

And these guys don't really care. They're diving. They're convinced that Lester probably just drowned and that the shark is just, you know, paranoia. So they're swimming to the deepest part of the center of the creek and making these long dives. And they're struggling it to the bottom and they're gasping for breath and they can hardly see anything. And they do this for about 30 minutes and they're ready to give up. So George is swimming back to the dock and Fisher's still out, Stanley Fisher's still out in the water and he's like, I'm going to do one more dive. He dives down and he comes back up and he thought he had seen something on that dive.

So George is now back at the dock and Fisher's like, I'm doing one more. And he goes down again and this time he comes up holding Lester's body. And he says, I got it. And it's just like a chunk at this point. You know, it's not like the whole kid, but he says, I've got it. And the crowd cheers and he starts swimming towards his friend and George starts swimming toward him. And as George is swimming toward him, he feels the shark pass under him. No, really.

And he stops swimming. And then he looks out and he sees something that's going to give him nightmares the rest of his life. So Stanley Fisher, this kind, seemingly invincible hero of the town is screaming. The shark has him by the thigh and it's shaking him around like he's just nothing. And he's punching it and he's doing everything he can to stop it. from biting him and he's screaming and just nothing is working and it's spinning them around in the water and just leaving a trail of blood all over man at this point there's like dozens of people watching they're all seeing this happen so george at swam for sure when he saw this happen like he

in later like in an interview he's like i turned around and swam like he wanted just to get away from the shark which you know at that time especially like this is just a sea monster to them they don't you know i don't blame him but somehow he turns around them and looks, and he sees Stanley. Once he gets to the dock, he turns around and sees Stanley out in the water, and he's still fighting the shark, and somehow he's still holding on to Lester Stillwell's remains, as he's fighting the shark. Other men are rowing out to try and help him.

They're slapping the water with their oars, and Stanley's just about to the bank of the creek, when suddenly he screams again, and Lester's body is pulled out of his arms, and then he's pulled underwater, too. then he surfaces again he comes back up for air and he's struggling for shore Lester's body is gone but he finally reaches the bank and these people haul him out onto shore and only then did they realize how much trouble he was in most of the flesh between the hip and the knee of his right leg had been removed by the shark half of his thigh was gone women were fainting people were vomiting like this was like the worst thing any of them had ever seen

or will ever see in their lives. Unless they went to the war, I guess, the next year. Some of those will probably see worse. Until one year later. Yeah, exactly. Later, when a doctor shows up, he would guess that about 10 pounds of flesh had been removed from his legs. Wow.

For me, that's like my entire thigh. A tourniquet supplied, blood continues to gush out, and the townspeople rush to find this doctor. The doctor arrives, he sees that he's lost a lot of blood, the femoral arteries completely severed, and he does his best to treat these wounds. A crazy thing is they thought shark bites were, they thought sharks had venom at the time.

Oh, yeah. Well. So a lot of these doctors were afraid in the stories. They were afraid to actually, like, touch the bites because they thought there might be venom there and they would die if they got in contact with them. Which is just wild. Yeah.

I wonder how that started. Yeah. Anyways, this doctor then makes what I think is a pretty bad decision. Stanley's in such bad shape that they're worried that like a bumpy car ride would be bad for him So he says that he should take the train to the nearest hospital and the nearest hospital is only 10 miles away But the train would take like two and a half hours Yeah, that's too long Yeah, so they go and like wait for a train and he's bleeding out and

Anyway, that's that's what's happening That's insane. Okay, so while he's headed toward this other hospital a lot of the townspeople are starting to think about the shark. They're starting to get in boats. They're loaded up again with guns, spears, dynamite. And then Cottrell, that captain that no one had believed when he thought he saw the shark, he gets into his boat and he's going down creek to make sure no one else is in the water. Because at this point, two people have already been attacked by the shark that day. He didn't want anyone else to get attacked. He's a little bit late. You said this place was steps from the water.

We just haven't found the steps yet. How much did we save? Enough. Enough to get lost. Or you could book a stay with Hilton. Welcome to your oceanfront room. Just steps from the water. The Hilton sale is on now. Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises.

It matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay. So Joseph Dunn is visiting Cliffwood for the summer with his brother Michael. Their father worked in New York City for the summer, and they would stay with their mother in the really small quaint village over the summer. This is about a quarter mile downstream from Matawan, and he's 12 years old, his brother's 14. They're also just like tired of the heat. They decide to go to a little dock behind the New Jersey Brick Company for a swim, and they have their friend Jerry with them.

They hadn't heard anything about Lester, anything about Stanley. The only thing on their minds at this point is cooling off in the creek. It's about 4 p.m. they're playing in the water when suddenly a man appears on the side of the dock and he's like, hey, there's a shark in the water. You know, like, you guys got to get out of the water. There's a killer shark in there.

And I was just thinking, like, imagine if you're just playing in some water that's like salty. So there's potential there's a shark. And someone shows up and they're like, a shark just killed two people. Like, you got to get out of the water. I'd be so scared if I was that. Like, I think I would just be a flash of like trying to get out of the water.

Yeah, but at the same time, I just, I don't blame anyone for being like, no, no, there's not a shark in this room. Yeah, that's crazy. People probably made up a lot of stuff. Yeah, like, there's a hydra in there. Yeah, and it's famous. Yeah. Well, luckily, these boys believed him. So Jerry and Michael, the older boys, they're really close to the dock.

They swim as fast as they can to get out, and they're out of the water pretty quickly. Joseph was a little bit further out, but he reaches the dock pretty quick as well. he's just about to get out like his foot is on the rung when the shark grabs him by the left leg and pulls him out into the water. No way. So like they interviewed his friend Jerry and he said they knew he was right behind him

and they turned around and they saw him like 10 feet out in the water and then they saw him get pulled under. So he starts screaming. He pops back up. He's screaming his brother, his friend, this stunned man that had come to help them are all just watching him get attacked by the shark. But right as this was.

happening. Cottrell, the captain, that no one believed, and another guy in a boat had just rounded the corner, and they saw the kid like splashing in the water and the shark's fin and stuff. And the other guy in the boat was this guy, Jacob Lefferts. He's 34 years old. He's a prominent businessman in Madawan, and he immediately jumps in the water and starts swimming toward the shark. And at the same time, his brother, Michael, the 14-year-old, also jumps in the water and start swimming toward the shark. And they get to Joseph around the same time. They pull him by the arms.

They're pulling him to the dock. Right as they're about to get him out of the water, the shark bites into Joseph one more time on his left leg. And he says it felt like a pair of scissors was trying to cut his leg off. They managed, like the shark readjusted its bite. And as it does, they manage to pull him away and they throw them up on shore. That last bite, though, unfortunately, was the most devastating. It pulled a lot of the flesh away from the area

around his knee. But as they pull him onto the dock, they look at his leg, they see that he's bleeding pretty bad. They're not going to be able to stop his bleeding on their own. So they put him in Cottrell's boat, and he speeds away toward this group of people that had just tried to help Stanley Fisher.

So they're, like, ready to help another shark tactic. Sure. That's amazing. He gets to them, and he's like, hey, we got another one, essentially. Yeah. And the doctor starts to look at Joseph's wounds. And again, he thinks that this is actually a new doctor

that's on scene now. And again, he thinks that sharks are venomous. So he's really worried to touch the wounds. But he does his best to like put on a tourniquet, bandage him up. And this time, they feel like he would be able to survive a car ride, luckily for him. So they put him in a car and send him to the hospital. And he actually does make a full recovery, but he is fully conscious when he's about to go to the hospital and a press guy shows up. And the guy from the press is like, what happened, you know? And I want to read an excerpt from the book. because this kid seems pretty cool. Like, he's wide awake and, like, his legs been ripped apart by the shark.

But this guy from the newspaper shows up and he says, will you tell me your full name? And he's just sitting on the ground. And he says, I should say not, replied the usually polite youngster. You would tell my mother. The astounded reporter asked, where do you live? In New York City, but I won't tell you which street. Pretty much like he was just worried that his parents were going to find out.

He was getting in trouble. That's amazing. So he wouldn't tell this guy. Anyway, he ends up making a full recovery, but he does have to stay in the hospital for like months before he makes a recovery. So like he kept both his legs. He's fine to like get up and walk and all that. That was another thing that was like reported differently.

Some people report that his leg was amputated, but I'm pretty sure he kept it. Good. But I do think it probably affected his gait the rest of his life. All right. So Stanley Fisher had been conscious when he reached the hospital. around 6.30 that night, it was nearly a two-hour journey for him to get from the shore to the hospital. He told the surgeons on the operating table that he had seen the shark when he dove down for Lester's body.

It was rolling on top of Lester's body. And first he thought it was just a big log that was rolling over him, but then he realized it was the shark ripping off chunks of flesh. And he wrestled Lester's body away from the shark. And ultimately that was probably what cost him his life. Sure. Because he pulled the food away from the shark. Yeah.

He died five minutes later from blood loss. Man. So when Stanley Fisher's death reached the town not much later, they all mourn their local hero, but also the death of one of their children. It's the darkest day in the town's history, an event that would become part of their future history forever, pretty much. Like this is still, there's murals of sharks in Madoan. It's part of what they're known for in Madoan.

It didn't take long for grief to turn to anger. The men and the women of the town really wanted to see this shark dead. A hunt would be launched and even the president of the United States would be involved in the coming weeks. That's going to be next time on part three. Cliffhanger again. Mike. Oh, So this, honestly, this one was like exhausting for me in a lot of ways.

Sure. I think like the story's really long to begin with, but it's just rough. A lot of people who had a lot to live for. Yeah. Like there wasn't a single like feeble old man that was attacked by the shark that was like, oh, finally a romantic death. You know, like these are young men that lost a lot. And Joseph Dunn, the crazy thing for me, in these shark attacks that lasted 12 days in total, there was four deaths and one injury, you know, one person that survived in four deaths. And that's very unlike what you would expect from shark attacks. Like most people don't die from shark attacks. I think, Great Whites, which are definitely the most devastating of all the sharks when they attack a person, I think it's somewhere around a third of those attacks end up in fatalities. So to have five attacks and four of them die is pretty crazy. And a big part of that, again, is because of the times.

I think if this happened, if these three happened today, Joseph Dunn again is surviving. He survived back then. But I think Stanley Fisher is surviving too. Yeah. Almost for sure he's surviving, actually. Yeah. Lester Stillwell is dying still. That's someone that just, that shark wanted to eat him.

And it's kind of like when we did our first Great White episode, we did the little mini story about the woman in Australia that went swimming and a predatory Great White attacked her. And she was just killed in front of her family. If it's a predatory shark, your chances go way down. I wonder how you feel if you're that one guy. I forget his name, but he literally just jumped onto a shark in the river and got out of it. Oh, the little kid, you know?

Yeah. The 14-year-old kid. Renny, Yeah, Renny, Cartland. Yeah, I wonder if there's any kind of,

like, I don't know, Survivor's guilt's like a weird burden to place on anyone. Yeah. We, I guess we'll never know,

but, like, I can't imagine how that would affect you for the rest of your life. Yeah, knowing how close. Nightmares the rest of his life. Well,

you know what I thought was crazy was with Lester, how he, like, told everyone to look at him. He's like, watch me, guys.

And, like, got everyone's attention and then was like, floating on this, doing a pretty dumb trick. And they're like, all right, like whatever. And then it's like, wait. Like, it's just crazy that like he called for everyone's attention right before it happened.

Totally. Yeah. Honestly, like that part was legitimately heartbreaking for me. Just thinking of, I just feel like an 11-year-old boy is just like one of the most kind of like innocent things, you know. And it's just like this little kid who's smaller than all of his friends and he just wants to impress him. and he's working in like a peach factory, beach basket factory his whole life. And he just lives for these little dips in the river. And he's just like having this perfect little summer experience when a shark kills him.

It reminds me a bit when I was about that age. We were at some cousin's house in La Cognada. And they had like a hill behind their wall that like, I don't know, the wall in their backyard was like five feet high. But to the hill in the backyard is like two feet high. So I was like back behind the wall. And I had in my mind that I was going to like run, take a step on the wall, jump into the yard and somersault. Yeah.

So I like got all my cousin's attention. And I was like, hey guys, watch this. I sprint up at the wall and like slip, hit my shin on the bricks and then fall like head first into a like rose bush like thorns. Yeah. And everyone's like like, yeah, that was something to watch. What were you trying to do? But like, thanks for telling us to watch that. It's really funny.

The thing that's just like when you tell someone to watch this and then like, Yeah, it goes badly. It's not what you were planning. This was probably much more impressive than anything he was planning. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's, again, like, I think this story, especially these parts where like people are just about to get out of the water and the shark comes back and grabs them again.

this is so unlike any other shark attack story that I've read. It does sometimes I feel like, oh, should I be challenging this more? You know, is this actually what happened? But unfortunately, like the only accounts we have are from these books, which are from people that lived a long time ago and wrote stuff down maybe in a way that it didn't actually happen. Who knows? Like, who's to say?

If it did happen this way, it is really scary. And I don't blame people for, like, getting pretty worked up about all these attacks. Like this would seem like you were being just ravaged by a sea monster. Yeah, it still doesn't make sense to me that like someone would just be openly bleeding that much from just like landing on a shark. Yeah, I think it like when he landed on it, it swam past him and like rubbed up against him. Yeah. So it just like, I mean, it's a lot of, yeah, but I know what you're saying. Apparently he got bandaged up though, according to all the reports.

Yeah, just rubbed his nipples off probably. No more nipples. Yeah, that's tough. Yeah, they called him old Rennie no nipples for the rest of his life. Wasn't, who was the guy? Kyle X Y didn't have nipples? Yeah, belly button. That's right.

I never saw that. Anyway, I do think in the next episode, I hope you guys will all join us for the third episode because I really want to go into the science of shark attacks, the hunt for the shark afterward, a lot of things, whether or not this was a gray white, we're going to talk a lot about kind of the fallout from this, how it changed her perception of sharks. But just know, you know, never mind. Just know what? Just know that this isn't an animal that has any kind of bad motivations toward us.

This isn't like, it's not like this shark was like, I'm going to kill some people. You know, I was just taking advantage of opportunities that came its way. Yeah. Right. I just don't want anyone to not like sharks because of these stories. That's all I'm giving at. No, it's important to say. Yeah.

Sharks are just, they're so cool. They're amazing. All right. So we're going to do our ouchies. We have three We kind of have four Different ouchies We'll start with Rennie Cartland

Who was the kid that had the sandpaper Ouchie Yeah I'm giving them a one Because I don't believe Okay Yeah how do is one the lowest Or can we go to zero

I'm getting a low one I'm gonna give them a two I've also like brushed up Against a whale shark And it hurt quite a bit For a while afterward That really stings Because you get all the salt water

Jeff he's getting salt water in it True There's no same Sand up in that river, though, I would imagine, right? I think there probably was, but I don't think he got sand in it. So he's not getting very high ouchies from us. Yep. The next would be Lester Stillwell, the kid that got eaten by the shark.

Man. I wouldn't just give him a six. Because it was so quick. I guess he came up once. He came up screaming and flailing. So it did take, it wasn't instant, but it was pretty fast. I'm giving it a nine. I just like, the horror of being a little boy attacked by a shark,

Even though it was so quick, I just can't imagine what that would have been like. And then to get like ripped apart. I'm giving them a nine. Yeah, I'm having a hard one separating pain from tragedy in this one. Because like the tragedy of the situation is like off the charts, you know. Right. But the actual experience itself probably. You probably didn't feel any pain.

It was quick. And that's like it seems almost heartless to say, like to put it that way. But it could have been worse, I feel. Yeah. So I'm going to go. So, eight. Okay. I feel it was worse on the next one.

Right. Yeah. So Stanley Fisher, the rescuer for Lester Stillwell, he had to survive a few hours before he bled out. Yeah. Again, though, he didn't report any real pain when he came up on shore even. Oh, really? But he did ask the doctor, like, how much did I lose my leg? Because I think he was really worried about just the rest of his life.

He is tough. He is tough. I'm actually, I'm going to do less than Lester Stillwell for him, even though that may not make sense. to you guys. I just think the psychological horror wasn't the same for him as it was for Lester. Sure. So I'm going to say, I'm going to give him an eight. I'll give him a nine.

Okay. For having to wait so long and ride the train. Yeah. Can you imagine? Yeah. Cueing up in line for a train ticket. Well, I guess the train operators were like, we'll make sure the train doesn't stop on the way.

But still, you would just think like, as you're waiting for the train to arrive and you're just bleeding out, looking out the window. and a tree is just like slowly passing by your window. Can we like, they just waited though. I know. The shark venom is just pumping through your veins. I imagine, because he was with other people that were like escorting him to the hospital, as they just waited for an hour for this train to show up,

I wonder what they were talking about, like what they were doing, you know. Again, I'm going to bring in some maybe unrelated criteria into this one. But the fact that he kind of instigated the attack by like wrestling with the shark, It almost makes me want to be like, I'm going eight with a, it's terrible, awful tragedy, but like, it's kind of a weird move to have made, you know. He obviously didn't understand what they're capable. I think he just viewed it as a big fish, you know, so it's like, this fish can't. I'm staying.

Right. Stan the man. Yeah. All right. And then our last Joseph Dunn, the 12-year-old boy who almost lost his leg. He's got the biggest mental one for me. I would agree with that. Although he seems like he's really tough, like even right.

after it wasn't really mentally affecting him that much. Yeah. It reminded me of the Simpson. What's the guy who was like the, the mafia guy who just didn't want to give up any information? Something Tommy. He's like, I'm not telling you nothing. Yeah. Tight lips Tommy.

Yeah. He's like, I do live in New York, but that's all you get from me. I think that's his name. Yeah, he's cool. I'm going to give him a six. I think I'll go six as well. Yeah, let's go six, six, six. Okay.

I'm going to go seven. Oh, sorry. I ruined it. I think having your calf, like, turned to ribbons like they described it. That sucks. He spent two months in the hospital recovering, too. I'm giving them an eight. I forgot about the two months.

I'll go seven so we can do that joke. What's the joke? Why did seven eat nine? No, that's not the joke. All right. Okay. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items.

Then review your list and carefully choose each one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes. So you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way with Ralph's delivery and pickup. Get free delivery during online deal days plus $30 off your first online order. Ralph's, fresh for everyone. All right. So again, next week we'll be going over a lot of different stuff, but this is the 12 days of terror.

These are the five attacks that made up the 12 Days of Terror in 1916 when either a shark or multiple sharks really changed the way that we view sharks in the United States. And we're going to talk about that next week. All right. Great. Let's get to our categories. Let's do it. So first category, in my mind, there's this whole genre of movies that I like to call Kids with Flashlights movies. I heard that somewhere, so I didn't make that up.

But it's essentially a movie where there's a bunch of kids or a TV. show. There's a bunch of kids like trying to solve a mystery or going on some journey where they're like bonded together and they have flashlights. So what's your favorite kids with flashlights movie or TV show? The one I've seen most recently, for the first time at least, it's a great, I like this genre category. I'm going to go with summer of 84 though. Oh, I like that movie. Yeah, it's a few years old at this point and it's about some neighborhood kids who start suspecting that one of their neighbors is a serial killer. Yeah.

And like no one will believe them because it's just like a bunch of like ragamuffins, you know, out on the streets with their bikes. But it was really affecting. I thought the ending of that movie was so good. So yeah, affecting. I don't want to spoil anything. You know, I saw that it Sundance. Oh, did you?

We loved it. We had no idea what we're getting into. That's fun. That's great. I'll go next. I'm going to say Stranger Things season four. Yeah. I just like, it was my favorite season of that show.

I felt like it's like the one where they finally like, nailed the mythology and you feel like this like big bad has a motivation and like a purpose and it just made sense to me up until that point I was kind of like I really liked the show but I didn't really understand like why like why are there these things attacking them and why are they scary and season four it really started to make sense and I really liked it so I actually rewatch that season even I liked it so much wow so I'm going to say stranger things stranger things strangest strangers strangers is coming next those strangest thing because the last one.

Yeah. Right. That was going to be mine. So I'll audible. Let's go E.T. Oh, that's a good one. That's probably one of the originals. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, good. Drew Barrymore. Yeah, one of our first performances. There's this tweet I always think of. This guy was like, I'll tell you one thing. If me and my friends had found E.T. We'd have beaten him with hammers.

That's for sure. Yeah. Or baseball bats. I can't remember we said. Anyway, I do think some other, like, Movies that fit this category are like It, The Goonies, Super 8. I like the book It a lot more. I like the first movie a lot.

Have you read It? Yeah. The end? Oh, where they all have an orgy, these kids. I can't believe if they didn't put that in the eyes. Or just the Space Turtle. Yeah, the Space Turtle. I forgot about that. That's the weirdest book I've ever read.

We'll move on to our next category. A Thing That Scarred You Most as a Kid. We got some scarred kids here. some kids that have to deal with watching their friend die in front of them what's something that scarred you guys for your lives one for me was like scream one was on tv and like you and cyrus were old enough to watch it i guess so like you guys were all watching it and mom dad told me to go to bed and i went and hid around the corner and watched for like another half hour and i was getting so scared and then And they caught me and sent me to bed.

So then I never got any resolution from it. And I was like sprinting from my bathroom to my bedroom every night because I was so afraid of scream to be in there. Ghost face. I was trying to hard to come up with something that wasn't a movie. And the one that came to mind was seeing my brother Nate fall off our friend's porch and break his arm. It was like the second story porch. And it was like the first time I was like physical injury manifest. itself in my life in that kind of a way yeah but as far as movies go I always

wanted my dad to rent the movie the old Davy Crockett movie and at the end of it spoiler alert for the Alamo he died he loses they like the good quote-unquote the good guys die at the end and that was the for again the first time I was like good guys can lose yeah that is frustrating when you're a kid and that happens yeah but like I love that movie all the way up till then so when the very end scene it doesn't even like show him die like pants up to like the Texas flag waving or something. But I would leave.

I had left the room every time. I never would guess that was going to be your answer a million years. It's weird. It's funny. Your brother found off the porch one. Once when I was really young, I was like watching Dragon Balls E and I was like obsessed and they'd been building up one stupid fight for like four episodes, how they do

it, you know? And this kid at the park had like fallen off a swing set or something and he came over. His mom, like, rushed him to our house. I was the only one home for some reason. And he had, like, a completely dislocated arm with, like, his elbow and I was, like, pointed the wrong way. Yeah. And she was like, hey, we need help. Where's your parents?

I was like, they're not here. And she's like, kind of use your phone. I was like, yeah. And I just, like, let them in and sat back down on the couch and kept watching TV. Dragon Balli, yeah. Didn't phase me at all that this kid's arm was, like, completely sideways. And you were, like, my babysitter. Oh, okay.

And you got home and there's just like five fire trucks in front of the house. You were just like, wait. Yeah. You couldn't make it half an hour with that movie? Yeah. Do you ever watch that old MTV show Scard or whatever it was or it's just like people dislocating body parts? I can't believe people could watch that. It was hosted by the guy from Papa Roach.

Popper Roach. That's his name. I forget. Jacoby Shaddix. That's it. Man, you're so good with those names. Anyway. Yeah, go for years.

So, yeah, I'm like two for two on terrible front man. New metal bands. Okay. So mine was actually like at the park as well. There's this older kid. He's probably like late teens. And I was like maybe, I don't know, 11 or 12. And he's playing on the basketball court over there.

And the basketball hoops had metal nets. Make the best sound. Yeah. Made a great sound. But they were chain nets. And this kid, they weren't like regulation size either. I think they were a little low. And this kid was able to dump.

dunk and he was dunking and as he dunked his hand caught on one of these chains and it ripped his hand completely open as he came down. Oh my God. And I remember like seeing the inside of his hand and all his tendons and bones and shit and just being like, whoa, this is unlike anything I've ever seen or imagined in my life. And it really messed with me. Also Gremlins too. Just the trailers for Gremlins too on TV. Were they scary? Yeah. And like it's the goofiest stupid. movie and mom and dad should have just let me watch it. It's so good. Yeah.

Because I wouldn't have been scared had I watched it, but the trailer scared the shit out of me. All right. So now our next category is your all-time favorite swimming hole. I'll go first. I live currently right by mine. It's this little swimming hole at Lolo Creek. I think it's my all-time favorite swimming hole. I just love it.

It's like such a nice little dip. I say we go after we're done recording, take a little dip. Should we just pause and go in? Yeah, we can just pause and go in? Yeah, we can just pause, come back. Yeah. That's my all-time favorite swimming hole, Lolo Creek. Mine is in Gypsum, Colorado, and it's this little, I don't even, it's the river that

runs through Glenwood Canyon, whatever that river is. But it's a really calm spot just outside of town to the west. It's just such like a nice place to go, just leave school a little earlier, something some days, and like all the cool kids would smoke and stuff. It's like one of those places, you know. But, yeah, I just have really, really, really. fond memories of that place. Cool.

Mine's probably John's route. Yeah, it's got a Missoula. The Blackfoot River. Yeah. It's got like some cliffs to jump off. It's got like a beach, which is super rare in Montana. Yeah. And then the cliffs are like nice because you got different sizes for different ages,

even though I feel like I went off the highest when I was like six. That's part of having older brothers. I forced you to do it. Yeah. Would do what you guys did way too early. Uh-huh. Oh, Mike, you remember we went off them and you were like, you want to just do a gainer? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I was like, yeah, that was like. Yeah, I can do that. And we just, oh, yeah. And it's just like a 30-foot cliff for my first ever gainer. That was dumb. I didn't know that that was your first time. Yeah, it was great. Solid.

All right. Next category, something overrated about being a kid. I'm going to go very specific for my childhood. That's fine. I thought you said 12 years old. That's fine. I did and then I changed it to just being a quick kid, but 12 counts. Yeah.

Dodge Neons. Okay. That's a good thing. Yeah. I thought they like my list of favorite cars were like number three a Corvette, number two, a Dodge Viper, number one, a Dodge Neon. Oh, yeah. Number four for you was a Saturn.

Strong. I like Saturn. But like you remember like on road trips, I'd just be like, whenever we saw Dodge neon, I'd be like, wait. me up I want to see it and I'd be so excited about it donate Torreto I still have no idea why I like like I think they were colorful I can't remember neon is a cool word yes 12 you know yeah that was my favorite car as a 12 year old that's a good pay overrated yeah for me as a 12 year old sure mine is so all the movie theaters and places around when I turned from 12 to 13

the adult age was 13 and we all thought it was like such a cool ride of passage to turn 13 and then start having to pay more for things. That was cool to us for some reason. In retrospect, not cool. It sucks that we started to, you know, double our rates to just go see a movie and stuff. Also, I said the cool kids smoked at that waterhole. Smoking is overrated for all you youngans listen out there. Don't do it.

The loser is smoking. It's not overrated just for kids. Yeah. But when you're an adult, it makes you look cool. All right. Five at a time. The thing I picked is kind of on trend with what you said. I just think the main like the biggest thing for me that was overrated when you're a kid is growing up like you think that it's going to be the best and I think there is a period where it is and then like once you have real responsibilities and you know you have to be an adult I think there's some great freedoms to come with it but the time that I've probably felt the most carefree in my life was as a kid for sure you know I you know what I watched the other day I watched um dazed and confused and

And like the part where they get out of school, it just made me think, man, there is no truer joy than when school let out for the last time in the like in May or June when you're a kid and you just know you have three months of summer ahead of you. Yeah. I don't think any of us ever will feel that happy again in our entire lives. Anyway, I guess maybe if you have a kid or something, who knows. Yeah. All right. We're going to do the Anaconda scale. It's been a while.

Yeah. We're going to do it for Stanley Fisher. the rescuer would be rescuer yeah it's got to be Owen Wilson See that's what I thought too But I'm not sure

Brave and stupid Yeah but I put like Toehead blonde What he knew when he knew it Again like you were saying earlier Jeff Like we didn't know exactly Or maybe it was West One of you guys

Kind of put me in line But it's like 80% brave 20% stupid in my mind Like even if you don't know What that huge fish is capable of Like maybe don't. And as we have learned, like, usually a rescuer is enough to stop a shark from an attack. So, yeah, he didn't technically do something wrong.

For me, it's just how long they spent trying to do it, whereas, like, this kid's obviously dead at this point. There's no. Well, and, like, I haven't seen Anaconda in forever. So, like, the characters are maybe different in my mind than actuality. But I feel like Owen Wilson didn't really know what those snakes. Like, some of the people knew those snakes were super dangerous. Yeah. And I don't think O and D.

Yeah, but he did kind of take a turn toward the bad side right before he dies. He joins John Voight and, like, helps kidnap his girlfriend and stuff. Who did we decide as the heroic figure? Is it J-Lo now? For this one, yeah. J-Lo and I'm going to go J-Lo with Owen Wilson's hair. Okay. You know who I'm picking?

It's kind of a left-field pick. The guy that Eric Stoltz plays his character, the, like, scientist. because he goes into the water to free the propellers, and then he gets that catfish in his lungs or whatever. You know, and they cut a hole in his lungs or in his throat. What's that called a tracheotomy? Yeah, Trichyotomy. Yeah, Trichaelic.

John Voight just, like, goes for it. Yeah, but he, like, always had good motivations. He was kind of the golden boy. John Voight knew that he was, like, his main competitions, so he had to eliminate him. So for me, he's kind of the best. That's a good one. Yeah, Stanley Fisher.

Okay. So we're also going to do what would Mike and Jeff do? Let's say you get to the creek. Everyone's looking for Lester Stillwell's body. What are you guys doing at that point? Well, like, if I'm Stanley and I see a shark eating his body, I'm swimming away. You're kidding out of there? Yeah.

All right. He's dead. Like, I know. So you're not doing CTR. To find remains for the family. I'll wait for that a little bit later. Yeah, let the chicken wire do its work. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd like to think I would be the old sea captain that hops in his boat, like relatively a safe place to be and goes up and down trying to warn people. You don't think that guy should have cannonballed a shark when he saw it swimming under the bridge for the first time. Rennie was the opposite of what I would do. Yeah. All right. Well, maybe the sea captain was big enough to like, I don't know.

What about if I'm the kid whose ankle got bit? What are you doing if you're the brother? I'm so important. You're jumping in? Oh, yeah. Nice. of doubt. They did the right thing. I was pretty annoying at that age. I'm helping you though.

Okay. I do the thing Sanji does at Arlong Park when he blows into the shark's gills. It's a good move. I think that would work. They can't breathe underwater if you breathe there into their gills too much. All right. So just for what you actually should do, obviously if you're in a place where

a shark may have attacked someone, if it's really murky water like it was here and the sharks potentially still in the water, if you can't see that person, if they're not, if they're like, You can't obviously help them. Don't get in the water. If you're ever around a shark that may be feeding and it's murky water, stay out of the water.

That's like one of the number one things with shark attacks again is avoidance. And one of the things you should always look for are whether or not there's a feeding opportunity for sharks. So if there's like sea lions, marine mammals, a dead whale, anything around, lots of fish, even dolphins we've learned can be a sign that there's sharks in the area. And also you want to look for murky water. And in this case, both of those things were there, plus people were saying a shark could just attack someone. Yeah. So the main thing here is just not getting in that water. So you say that's one of the number one things we should do.

One of the first things. What are the other number one? I know. It's been a long time. No, that's good. All right. So, Jeff, do you have a random animal fact for us? Yeah.

I might even want to do a full subscription episode on these guys because this fact's so crazy. Okay. Dung beetles use the Milky Way as a compass. to help them roll out dung balls in organized routes. They take snapshots of the stars to create mental map while dancing on top of the dung balls. How would they ever prove that? That's from NPR.

Huh. I'm curious for us to look into that more for your subscription episode because I'm really curious how they would test that. And just so everyone knows, these are just Reddit headlines that I clip. So it's from NPR. I haven't verified it. Take this with a grain of salt.

That's amazing. Probably true. Yeah, but they can take it with great. It's NPR. That's like pretty good. It's pretty good source. Yeah. I've seen that be wrong about stuff about bears though, too.

So you just never know. Right. Yeah. Should we go to listener questions? Yeah, let's do some listener questions. All right. We got some subscriber questions we want to do. The first one's from Megan.

And they ask, My ex used to play a game with his coworkers while they were all on headsets working in a theater. Stage crew. The game was, what would you rather have in your butt? So, Jeff, you're, you've lived a life in proper. for this. So my question for y'all is, what would you rather have in your butt?

A baby bird or a small handful of bees. Assuming none of the animals would actually die, but could sting peck, etc. Definitely the bird. Yeah. Like it's pretty, yeah. Easily the bird. Without a doubt.

Maybe if it's like an adult bird, I would have to think about it. I just feel like you just have to like clench your butt enough to kill that one bird. Yeah. Instead of like a handful of bees. Handful of bees. Cagels?

13 bees Yeah, sure I don't know what it's Whose hand? Yeah A baby's hand Two bees Yeah, what about those bees

That don't sting Like bumblebees might Yeah Kind of nice I'll take the bees But I just kind of like The pain of it You just want

Yeah Stinging your bottle It would be like Like I'm thinking Which will I enjoy more True With the bees They're kind of like

Basing and vibrating Around in there I'm not saying I'll take the bees I'm just saying I can understand why someone would. All right.

I'm taking the bird. I'm taking the bees. I've talked myself into it. Okay, next question. This one's from Katie. You three are out for a walk. Not sure how you might got Mike outside, but it's a patron question.

Indulge us. You realize you're in the perfect mood for ice cream just as the toasty, carmally scent of freshly pressed waffle cones wafts your way, heralding the presence of a gourmet ice cream shop. I like the way this is written. Yeah.

The proprietor recognizes you as the famous hosts of tooth claw, wow, that'd be a shock. And offers you anything you like on the house. Unlimited flavors, toppings, etc. What is your perfect ice cream sundae? Oh, wow. I think mine, I really like a buttery, carmely, like a pecan or something ice cream.

So I'm doing one scoop that that has like some like crunchy toffee bits in it too. And then my second scoop is going to be something chocolate based because I also like a chocolate ice cream. And then I'm doing, I'm a real simple. simple guy when it comes to a Sunday. I just want like some hot fudge, maybe a little caramel too. That's it. Yeah, I do like, I'm a green with West on the bottom, like a caramel-y vanilla thing. The waffle cone's huge because that's what drew me in there in the first place. Yeah, I do want a little. Like a good smell and waffle cone. Yeah. Like once you get that smell, you got to have a

cone. This reminds me that I owe you guys ice cream. Oh, yeah. And then on top, I think I'd want chocolate with peanut butter, but I don't want, I want the peanut butter, like, fresh, like warm, not frozen peanut butter. Right. You love chocolate and peanut butter. Oh, yeah, babe. I actually like my Sundays to have just a base vanilla ice cream. I like giving, you know, who knows when you're going to run into, like, the Pablo Picasso

of ice cream sundaes. You just want to give them a blank canvas to start on working their magic. But it's going to have a ton of caramel on it. It's going to have some crumbled up walnuts. I love walnuts. And I really do like incorporating some kind of fruit. And I know banana is the obvious choice. So it's like a banana split.

But I think banana and vanilla ice cream is just like a match made in heaven. So I do think vanilla is a flavor, though. It's not like it's just base. That's true. Yeah. All right. But like it is, it leaves the largest. It does.

Spectrum of options. Exactly. Okay. Next question from Farrell Cat. Would West fight a 1,000 pound centipede? or 1,000 pounds of centipedes. Let's all answer it. Okay.

For me, it's a thousand pounds of centipedes. A thousand pound centipede is terrifying to me. I'm just squashing centipedes and my thousand pounds. And they can't really ever do anything to you. The thousand pounds, they're not good. Yeah, if those thousand pounds of centipedes were like working as one unit, then I'd probably rather fight the big one. So I just have to kill one.

But they're not working as one unit. They're all doing their own thing. I don't think if they're working as one unit, I still take, that. Okay. I think I'd take the big one actually, because all you have to do is, uh, get chopped the head, chop the head off. If you need his one gun.

If you killed it too. Yeah. If you killed it, you'd probably be famous. You could like take it to a museum and say, hey, look what I killed. That's my answer. Or if you tamed it, you could ride it around. That's what Stanley Fisher wanted. Ride it around like the Fremen in Dune.

Yeah. Exactly. All right. Do you have a, this, Apple? So we're trying to get some Apple subscribers questions. in here too. Just message us. Yeah.

And let us know that you're a subscriber from Apple, part of the Grizz Club. Okay. I think we've talked about this before, but it's not. It's for you, Wes. Okay. So this is from Kate, and they ask, if you have a fire at camp, would that keep bears away or draw them in? If your fire is, if there's no food that was cooked in it, it's not going to draw them in.

It's not really going to keep them away either. I think the, like, extra light and whatnot from a fire. might make it a little bit more cautious, but it's not like a fire is going to stop them from coming in. So put out your fires when you go to bed. Because forest fire. You don't want to start a forest fire. Yeah.

It's not like going to be a foolproof protection. So don't think it is. All right. So let's move to Instagram questions. Let's do it. From Ryan Brown. Brown Zone. Now we're talking.

Which members of the fellowship has the best max bench press? Jeff, this is a question for you. This is not my world. You can't say which one would bench the most from the fellowship? It's Gimley. Oh, you're right. His short stocky arms. The dwarves are famous for being crazy strong.

It's got to be Gimley. I was kind of thinking legless because everything looks so light around him. Yeah. And he's an elf, so he is really strong too. Or Erigorn because he's from Numenor. He isn't from Numenor, but he's a descendant. Yeah. Gambalf can use magic.

Yeah. I'm still saying Gimley, though. I think Gimley's the best answer. Gollum's got that. It's not going. Loin claw. Yeah. All right.

Definitely not Golm. Dude, I might just take. Can I take Sarmon? He's not part of the fellowship. All right. I think. Conner S. Or Conor Shaws.

If a whale swallows me whole perfectly, do you think I can live inside of it, like in the movies? What movies? Yeah. Like Hinoa? What's his name? The whale guy. Jonah.

Vegytales, Jonah. There's probably one piece. That's true. Pinocchio, too. Pinocchio, yeah. And that's, I fudged it. No, I think you could survive for a little bit, but not long. I think like a minute.

Yeah, like until you drown. Yeah, suffixiate. Yeah. Oh, Curry. If all three of you were stuck on an island, how would each one of you react? What decision? Like each of us are stuck together or on? Yeah, I think we're together.

Okay. I think I'd probably like naturally try and take a leadership role. I would kill you and eat you. Yeah, you'd probably go if you wanted to. We would like talk behind your back then if you're being our leader. Yeah, I think I, I think Mike would just be like, oh, whatever, same old shit, I guess. And just like lay under a tree. No, Mike would be like after like two weeks like.

this is the happiest I've ever been in my life. And we're just like starving to death. I really see myself thriving eventually in that environment. Yeah. I don't know. It's a good question. Yeah, I'd probably go look for coconuts. Yeah, I think you'd be good at finding food and problem solving.

I'd go just wander around. So you'd get some fish out of the ocean. Yeah. Walk around the whole island just to make sure there's not like a boat. Or it's full of snakes. On one of those aptitude tests I took in college, the number one job, it thought I would be best suited for was floral arranger, so I'd probably get some, like, flowers and stuff.

What do you think? Do you agree with that? Do you think you'd be a good florist? I think I would be. But I have no reason to think that other than this test that told me I should be. Try it up. Yeah, putting flowers in places. Just go to a shop and see what you can put together.

I think mine, honestly, when I was a kid, I think mine said I should be a cop. So mine was way off. Yeah. Yeah. Adventures of key chain bait. It keeps going, but it cut off. Which animal would you rather have fight Rudy Gobert? I don't mind Rudy Gobert.

So I want him to fight something that would be interesting, but neither of them are going to get that hurt. It's like a humpback whale. So you just go up and punch it a few times and then walk away, and the humpback whale wouldn't care at all. Yeah. They're both fine. Yeah.

Yeah. I'll put them against the tiger. Yeah, you want to re-compar. That's funny. I put him up against a timber wolf. See how that plays out. See if he's actually worthy. That's a good one.

Eby Larson, do you think we shouldn't feed birds as well, specifically hummingbirds? No. You know, I think it is like kind of a gray area. Like I put Sueet feeders out for my birds. I think the main thing is if you're going to feed birds, try and give them something they could naturally find. in their environment and then also don't create any attractants for non-native wildlife. So like, or wildlife that could potentially be dangerous. So if you live in a place where there's black bears or grizzly bears, don't leave bird

feeders out. Or if you're like feeding something that's thriving because of the food you're giving it that isn't supposed to be there, then you shouldn't have bird feeders out either. I wonder about mine a little bit because like, so like a year ago I found this really hot bird seed and I only bought it because I liked the sizes of seed in there and then I later realized it's pretty hot. And then I tried it and it was so hot. Yeah.

Like spicy? Like spicy. What the heck? But these birds like think it's cocaine, dude. They're like going crazy. So then like I was bought it for like four straight months and it's just like I have six slots in my bird feeder and at 24 seven there's six birds and then on it or like. probably like eight because there's some waiting for their turn.

Yeah. And then they stopped selling it and I got some and it slowed way down. But it was like kind of nice because I wasn't spending all my money on bird food. Yeah. And then I just found the hot one again and put it in. And they cleaned it out in like 10 hours. Wow. The reason.

Like is this like good for them to have like spicy? The reason they have that is because squirrels don't like it. But birds love it. Yeah. So birds will still eat it but squirrels won't. The squirrel tried to get it, but he couldn't get in there. It's good that he didn't get it because it actually can be really bad for them. They should make a movie out of the guy who invented the spicy bird seed.

Like the new movies they do. All right. Coach Travis Roberts. We got to ask this one. Okay. All right. Which Power Puff girl are you? I don't know the Power Puff girl is.

I never watched it. The green one. Green one. Yeah. Wes, you got to go red or blue. Why? You guys both pick green. You're the leader, so you'll be, what's the pink one?

Red. Yeah. Whatever. Bubbles is blue. Yeah, I'll be buff. Easily. I've never seen it. Green kind of got like a sour puss attitude,

but at the end of the day, she's always happy to be. You're glad I asked that. I'm so glad. And then one more. Peach R pitch. Sure. Most embarrassing story at the gym. Do you guys have any?

I always get, there's been a few times where I've gone where I just, like, didn't have the energy at all. I feel like I got on the treadmill and just, like, ran for, like, point one mile and just gave up and left. Like, no one really cares by. I was just embarrassed with myself. I think when I first started going, I'd wear like cut off jean shorts. And then someone one day was like, that's your gym outfit? Like I saw a friend there.

And I was like, yeah, you're right. I probably should wear something else. Yeah. I don't know. I don't really have any. There's one guy that I see at the gym every day that just walks for hours at a time. I've never seen someone walk quite as fast. him. So, like, when he's passing you on the outside on the track, it's a little emasculating.

He's like a hundred years old and he's just cruising. I mean, I went to the YMCA all the time as a little kid to play basketball and play in the pool. And, like, I probably looked at the old dudes in the locker room for way too long, just being surprised that they were completely naked. Yeah, I guess that's embarrassing. I feel like there's a better word for that. That's just, like, growing up. Yeah. Yeah. Let's Let's move on to, we're going to skip Conservation Corner. We talked about it last week. We're going to talk about it next week.

Let's just give one sentence. Sharks are in a lot of trouble. Let's protect them. They're at a much higher danger from us than we are from them, but like multitudes of thousands. Don't eat shark fins. Yeah. All right. But we will talk about it more next week.

Okay. And then I want to do our claw ratings again, but this is going to be the claw rating you would have given a great white shark when you were 12 years old. So for me, it remains the same. This was an animal I was obsessed with as a kid. Probably liked them more as a kid than I do now even. So it's a 10, 10 cloth still. Same.

Yeah. Thinking about it, they might have even been higher on my list than even my third favorite animal. But, you know, top three still. What are your top three again? Tiger, killer whale. Alligator. Great.

Alligator's four. Okay. Yeah, great white's three. Yeah, I'd probably have like nine. Now it's 15. but it's just I didn't know as many animals back then. It's not that I like it any less. Okay.

All right. Well, thanks, everyone for listening to Part 2. We'll be right back with Part 3. Even though all the attacks are over in this story, I'm going to talk about some other stuff that was going on. Don't tell them that. We want them to listen. Well, there's going to be other, trust me,

there'll still be plenty of good stuff. We're going to talk about some attacks that happened later because, you know, I think it's good just to have the context of what happened after all this. And we're going to talk about. About everything I talked about earlier. I'm not going to repeat myself. But stay tuned for part three. We love you guys.

Thanks for listening so far. Can't wait. If you need more, subscribe to our Patreon or our Apple Gris Club. Because guess what we're going to do? A Jaws review. Oh, baby. Oh, baby.

We're watching it together tonight. It's some of our favorite movies. Some of us, it's our favorite movie. Movies, I don't know. I'm tired. But we are going to talk about Jaws. So we're really excited for that. And it's going to be a good episode, everyone.

So get in there. All right. We'll see you later. Bye. Bye. Love you.