00:00:02 Speaker 1: You won't be able to find a bottle of cocoa butter from the Olympic Peninsula of Portland after this. Dude, I'm not messing with power lines, like, not even for a horse leather swim bait. I'm not doing that. Yeah, obviously it didn't pay too much attention because it hasn't worked out too wealthy now with the thrift shop equipment right, it appears they're like a shipload of casual fish dabblers in Vegas apparently, and the vast majority of them cannot cast Good Morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Ben the Fishing podcast that cannot eat at Cheat Cheese without pretending it's someone's birthday so we can get another sombrero. I'm Joe Surmelli a Miles Nulty, and I have never once in my life eaten the cheat cheese, but I did just I saw you put this in and I was like, I never did that, but I did. I did. Just now do a Google search so I could know what the hell we're talking about. And cheat cheese has not existed in this country for fifteen years now. I don't know if you know that, so it looks like I never will get to eat it one. I also have no idea where it is you're going with this cheechee thing. Wait, they're all gone, Like they've been gone around where I live for a long time. But they're all gone. There's no cheechee left in the in the United States, bankrupt gone in two thousand four, though apparently you can still find them in Austria, the United Arab Emirates, and Quait if you're really needing to fix I can't believe it was two thousand four. Was the last time I hated a cheechee? Man? That's depressing that. You also just kind of messed up my whole plan, like throwing this this bummer news about chee cheese. Um, like the very loose theme I was going forward. This episode is frivolous celebration, you know, like like some of us used to do that a crappy Mexican restaurant chains. Um. Because it's not spring, so we're clear, but it is now at least officially March. And that's at least a step in the right direction for me. The end of February is worth celebrating eating uh in my opinion. And this episode it's like, um, the lame office party you get like right before you get married, you know what I mean. Like it's kind of awkward and everyone encircles you in the common area and you toast with a plastic cup of champagne and really really bad. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. It's it's strange, but it gets you away from from reality for a minute. But you do still have like TPS reports to finish before you dip for two weeks and have the real party. So like that's where we are in terms of the show today, as well as like spring, like it's March, like it's not spring. We're getting there, um and look for the record, right listen. We love ice fishing. Ice fishing is awesome. In fact, late march ice is some of the best ice. We know this. But I'm just tired of talking about it. And i want my open water. That's what I want. Yep, yep, no, that's fair. I'm I'm also sick, like I do have some open water, but I'm sick of of when I go find it, having to dodge arrant chunks of shelf ice that always drift just below the surface and you can't really see them, and they're always threatening to take you out at the knees, or at least that's that's my experience. So uh, in honor of of the impending reality that we hope will be spring, Yes, that's right, yes, right, ghost of Rick James, and we are ringing in the almost kind of soon to be spring, we all hope by giving one of you some really cool ship to throw. That's right. You need to listen up, you need to pay attention right now, do not fast forward. Uh you know how we've been monitoring those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on the Graham right, So for exactly one week, there's gonna be more up for grabs than stickers for using those. Okay, our buddy Brent Hashimoto of Hashimoto Concepts has graciously donated four packs of his amazing handboard soft plastic swim baits plus one of his h C four hard swim baits, to be given to the hashtagger of our choosing. So sweet, you guys are also lucky, That's what I'm gonna say. And and that alone is cool, but even better, the winner gets to have the paint job on the hard bait done to speck. So if you want a blue gill, that looks like it just snooted a cloud cheeto dust. You got it. You can have that, or maybe you can I don't know. Maybe you prefer a swim bait somehow themed around the four classic movie Break into Electric Boogaloo. What that actually was my favorite movie when I was five years older and uh yeah, yeah, I competed in the first grade talent show as a breakdanswer. But whatever your fetish happens to be, whatever you're into, Brent will turn it into a lure just for you. Oh man, I want you to win. We can do a Boogaloo laure. Um. You've got between right now on March five and when the next episode of Bent drops on Friday, March twelve. To qualify, though, the shot with the tag or tags has to be posted in that time frame, and we'll be monitoring the Degenerate Angler and Bent podcast tags and we'll post a winner on our Instagram accounts the morning of Saturday. So impress us with a fish, make us laugh, make us gasp, show us something ridiculous in your garage. Anything goes kind of almost almost almost if you if you, if you regularly listen to the show, you know what We don't want to see, but do surprise us. That's always good. And I just want to say huge thanks again to Brent for offering his talents. Uh. If you want to scope out his work, and I really do recommend that you do that, check him out at at Hashimoto Concepts. This stuff is super fishy, but also it's just it's just pretty well made. It's just nice to look at. You know, it's gorgeous. And and perhaps you're one of those people who doesn't really fish lures. That's cool, that's fine. Maybe maybe don't take anything this week. If that's you, I disagree, I disagree with me. You can still appreciate one of those beautiful lures even if you are one of those live bait disciples. And and you just have every intention of rolling right on through hard water into open water with your bucket of minnows. No judgment here. We have you covered two in this week's installment of Finn Clips, where we tell you everything about a fish you never knew you cared about. Joe is going to shine some light on the fat head minnow. And sure we've all probably stabbed, decapitated, jig trolled, and suffocated dozens, if not hundreds of them, But what do you really know about him? Have you really taken the time to appreciate this ubiquitous bait fish. How much thought do you give to the bait in your bucket? Probably not much, right, I mean, you can't wait to throw a shot of that football yellow perch on Instagram dropping yet another comment about the Gorgeah city of the vibrant golds and oranges. You change your profile picture to you holding a slab croppy, but never is there social media thanks and praise given to the live bait that may have caught it. So today I'm shining the spotlight on the fat head minnows swimming in your flow troll. And even though you won't treat the next dozen you buy any differently, you're gonna look at them differently while you're impelling them on a hook. Fat Head minnows are members of the Suprnidae family. Sound familiar, of course not, you don't know Latin, but you are familiar with other members of this family, like the common carp and perhaps the barball. This family also includes true minnows and seeing many people just refer to any tiny bait fish as a minnow, but that's not accurate. Mud minnows, as an example, aren't minnows at all. They're killie fish. Glass minnows aren't minnows either, that's just to catch all term for anchovies and silver sides. But fat heads are the real deal. Directly related to the monstrous Colorado pike minnow, the largest true minnow that swims in US water. The fat heads natural range is pretty massive, stretching from Chihuahua, Mexico, as far north as Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. It also extends all the way east to the U. S Coast and Canadian Maritimes. Of course, these days, fat headed minnows are everywhere, including Pacific Coast bodies of water and drainages from transportation. Thanks to their popularity as a bait fish, but also because they are some extremely tough little bastards. Fat headed minnows can pretty much handle any curveball Mother Nature throws at them. They can survive in water with extremely low oxygen levels. They can thrive in extremely dirty or turbid water. They can withstand high levels of acidity, and all this toughness, of course makes them a great bait fish, because if your bubbler dies while you're enjoying the moon's over Miami at Denny's, or you're looking for action in that sewage filled pond behind that Denny's. These little swimmers are gonna go strong and perform well. But that toughness actually has greater value than just helping you secure fish fry fodder. The fat head minnow is used by biologists as an indicator species. Think of it as an aquatic canary in the coal mine. Essentially, fat heads can handle so much more chemical exposure than other species that if the fat head population is getting distressed in a particular waterway known to have any sort of toxicity issues, it's a signed to biologists that things are getting really bad. In fact, the e p A Guidelines outline the use of fat heads for the evaluation of acute and chronic toxicity of samples or chemical species invertebrate animals. And speaking of chemicals, how about this. Fat heads also have something called epidermal club cells that secrete an alarm substance. Anytime those shallow lying cells are damaged, such as when a predator species bites or eats a fat head, that alarm juice flows, signaling all the other fat heads in the immediate area to swim away or hide. Furthermore, let's say there's a I don't know pickerel that just muched a bunch of fat heads. That pickerel is now coated with that alarm substance too, So now the fat heads will recognize that particular fish as a threat, hopefully before it gets the chance to eat any more of them. Most good bait shops sell fat head minnows these days. But what if you don't have a good bait shop close to home. Well, perhaps you have a pet smart You know those little pinkish orange fish they call rosie reds that they sell his feeders super cheap. Those are fat head minnows genetically identical to the bait shop variety. Now, while that coloration trait can occur naturally, it was actually an Arkansas bait fish farm that figured out how to make it dominant, sending billions of bright orange fat heads off to death by aquarium cyclid across the country. Now, it's worth noting that before using Rosie's, check your local bait regulations. While unlike goldfish, Rosie's are fair game in most places, some states are even specific counties outlaw them same time. I've also been in many bait shops that sell bright rosie's right alongside the natural color fat heads. And I've even known a few croppy and stocker trout fellers that swore them orange ones out fish them natural ones tend to one. It's also worth noting that pet shop rosies aren't usually as hardy as bait shop fat heads, mainly because good bait shops actually care about their bait and keep their minnows and chilled water, whereas pet store rosies tend to swim in room temperature or even heated water. Now, both those water temperatures hot and cold are perfectly acceptable to the fat heads. But don't be shocked if you take pet store roses out to the pond in winter, only for them to be shocked to death when you send them down thereby not dancing around on that hook long enough for you to achieve instant glory or to produce anything to dredge through that house. Ultry seafood breader burning a hole in the pantry back at the ranch. Who knew that the tiny little little fat heads that you see in every in every aerated bait shop were so environmentally significant I'd say that I didn't know, and dude, that that alarm response. That's fascinating. It's fascinating. It's also if you think about it too much, they'll If you overthink about it, it's kind of depressing because, like, imagine two fat heads rigged up and dangling close together, and and one one just catches a whiff of the other one's alarm juice is like, oh no, I should, I should really get the hell out of here. But I got this. I got this hook stuck in my face, So I guess. I guess I'm just gonna get eaten too. I'm done. That's morbid, and that would suck. I will admit that I got I got kind of lost research in that one. And we we don't give enough thought to our live baits, like it's good to take a deep dive and what's in your bait bucket? You're that You're right, that is true in general, but in this particular episode, right now, this week, that is not true, because you're bringing in the bait fish by the bucket for this one. If I'm not mistaken. You recently attended the the annual Bunker Symposium and Chili cook Off in Atlantic City. Did you not? Didn't that happen? I didn't think I did. Yes, and we'll go from tiny sweetwater bait fish to foot long salty bait fish. In fact, in other good news, uh, striper season just open in Jersey March one, so this is good timing anyway. Yeah. Every year, the greatest serf chunkers in Jersey meet at the Atlantic City Marriott, or to be more specific, the loading dock behind the Atlantic City Mariott to discuss the state of man Haden, or what we call bunker around here. And it's a it's a really great event and usually runs until ten ten thirty or whenever security kicks everyone off the property. Um. Anyway, it would take me forever to go through all the meeting minutes, but I did get a chance to sit down in person with frequent Bent contributor and surfcasting legend Bob the Garbage Man Britana on a newski. I want the minutes please. I think whatever the hell those were would be highly entertaining. But you know, since you're not gonna give us those, I can only imagine that that. I'm sure Bob waxed eloquently on on. I don't know, Bunker Biomass concert Asian efforts or something. Didn't he No, no, not at all. He refused to discuss anything related to that on record, but I did get him to commit to recording a trivia segment with me. You gotta be highly skilled for these shows. You understand that. If I under are you well versed? They are? You very smart man. All right, Today on Trivia, we have an incredibly special guest. I am actually sitting face to face special. You broke out all this Mickey Mouse equipment from the thrift shop for me. You don't like the equipment, This is garbage. I've seen better ship of karaoke night. Okay, As I was saying, I am sitting face to face in Atlantic City, New Jersey with legendary striper chunk and expert Bob Brittana Ananuski, who is better known up and down the entire striper coast as Bob the garbage Man. And it is such an honor to have you here. I feel very much like I'm sitting in the presence of pure greatness. Well, yeah, but I wish I could tell you the same. You don't look like you fished a day in your life. A Okay, that's that's not accurate. But for for what it is worth, having grown up surfishing in New Jersey, I still, despite that comment, Bob would say that you were one of my childhood idols. Yeah. Obviously it didn't pay too much attention because it hasn't worked out too wealthy and now with your thrift shop equipment right right, anyway, for better or worse, you have been catching trophy stripers up and down the entire coast, and you have shared the beaches with many legendary surfcasters over the years. That correct, Yeah, yeah, if you want to call them that, But most of those guys, you know it was complete bums. Okay, regardless, I've got a question for you today that sort of ties into that vast network of notable anglers that you fish with. Hold on a second, just to reiterate whether I get your question right or wrong. You're still giving me a ride over to the bus depot like you promised, right, Yeah, that's the deal. That the bus is leaving in forty minutes. I will honor that deal, and I understand your time is in then let's get on with it. Yeah, okay, that's what I'm saying. Here's your question. In September Night two, al McReynolds, Jesus Christ, Yeah, go ahead. Al McReynolds caught us seventy eight point eight pounds striped bass off the Jetty Vermont Avenue right here in Atlantic City, New Jersey. That stood as the all tackle world record for almost thirty years. Please tell me. The question is do I think he really called it? That is not the question when I was actually gonna because he didn't. What I was actually gonna ask is who held the record before McReynolds. And I've got some multiple choice for you. Was it a Tony Stets Jeff the Janita, But before him it was actually stand the Bookkeeper, and before that Hobby of the Russian and gas station Billy broke it twice each in the same night. All right, that's not not according to my research. And I'll also add two nights after Alan Reynolds didn't catch that bass, my friend Audi Meldoff caught a seventy nine in the exact same place. Huh. I mean, I'm I'm kind of basing. I was kind of based in my choices off the official I g F record, And that's fine. But the bus is leaving in forty minutes. Are we done here? And just like that, strayper fishing history has been rewritten. Did you uh? Did you get him to the bus station on time? At least? No? He changed his mind. He decided he'd rather me give him a ride to a board it up nail salon in a completely abandoned shopping center. It just left him there and didn't ask any questions. You know, that's just that's just generally wise. You probably don't want to know the answers. But uh, you know what we're gonna We're gonna move on from that and hopefully we managed to cobble together some answers that you do want to hear. Two questions you hadn't thought about, because it's time for fish news. Fish news. That escalated quickly, all right. I positively have to give a shout out at the top here to listener Ryan Motley. Now you may recall, uh that I said not long ago it was my belief that getting lucky the night before a fishing trip in the bedroom was good luck. You're pleasuring yourself the night before a fishing trip was bad luck. Yeah, that was your contribution to our fishing Superstitions episode do you have Well, I might have some good news for you guys. Okay, to see, Ryan has been trying to catch himself his first wild Oregon steelhead, and when he heard my theory, he decided to put it to the test. And according to him, he even got his fiance on board with this, like he would give her notice in the days ahead of a steelhead pursuit, and she was game, like, she was down, like let's see if the works right. But yeah, but he just he just kept scratching like it was not it was not working despite his and her efforts. So then his fiancee goes out of town he wants to fish. So, as he put it, he had a date with his right hand in the name of science, and next day, bang, wild steelhead. That's his first one. So it turns out you're wrong. Basically, this is a correction that you're not giving us right here. It is not because to me, it's very obvious what's happening here. Okay, all Ryan has really proven is that my my theory is reversed on the west coast. It's like a flip. So my way works on the east side, his way works on the west and I mean considering we're talking wild steel here, which we all know isn't easy to catch anymore. Every Walgreens and Oregan is selling out a cocoa butter today. You know it. You won't be able to find a bottle of cocoa butter from the Olympic Peninsula in Portland after this. And I also have Ryan, I mean thanks. However, I also have to say kind of like shame on you, because dude, if your fiance was willing to get busy every time you wanted to go fishing, why why would you ruin that? Like? Why why would you why would you make that? Why would you say all this and ruin that? I think I think he's making a questionable choice there. I agree with because to make it worse, he even wrote in the email, and I'm quoting here, now that I've discovered my new found luck, I'm questioning whether the wedding even needs to happen. Dude, No, no, no, no, I appreciate no, No, that's it best. The one thing we agree on is disagreeing with that. So best to luck to you, Ryan. But but thanks for that, Thanks for doing that in the name of science. We all we all appreciate it. I think more science, more, more research is needed on this particular topic. I don't I don't buy Joe's conclusion that it's a left coast right coast polarity thing. I think that's just Joe's unwillingness to admit when he's wrong. But I, on the other hand, and am totally capable of admitting my faults. And when I'm wrong, I smell a correction. Yeah, the one's dumb too. I uh So last week I talked about the the coal mining situation over there up there in Canada, and uh, I think I got most of the information, Like the hard stuff I got right, but the easy stuff I screwed up. So I completely mispronounced the name of the town around which all of this is circling. It's it's more. I know it's called left Bridge, but I called it Lethridge for some reason that I don't know. And and some of are very pit some of are very polite. Neighbors from the north wrote in very nicely correcting me. I mean if I had if I had done that work like something in Jersey, I would have got hate mail. But but no, they're like, thanks so much. It was really great. You know, it's actually so thank you for that. And I apologized for screwing up the basics, but hopefully I didn't mess up any of the big stuff. With that out of the way, the housekeeping done, we are now going to move on to fish news. And you will remember that this is a competition. Neither Joe or myself know what the other one is bringing the table, and we were trying to compete for the heart and the mind and uh and and really the love filled the engineer. We're trying to make him, make him love us with our stories. So with that, it's it's your week to lead off? Man, what do you what? Do you got something good? I think I have some good things here. Um one is, one is poignant, and one is completely stupid. So we'll start with poigning perfect and we're gonna head over to Maine for a little lake trout kerfuffle. That's causing quite a stir And oh no, have we we've done it again? Oh man, we had a good run. We did have a good run. We did ship. We've crossed swords. I'm actually disappointed it wasn't your leadoff, because then I would have been like, well, at least I don't have to do two stories this week. Alright, alright, alright, well, okay, at least we can both talk about it. It's it's bound to happen time to time. Bring it on. I was worried. I was worried about this, and so um we fat first found this story a little over a week ago, and since the original drop, there have been follow ups and all of this, at least from my sources, are coming from the Bangor Daily News. UH. And a few weekends ago, the annual Sebago Lake Fishing Derby took place, and this is an event that draws a lot of anglers onto the ice. And a few days after the tournament, local resident Kirk Christensen went out on the ice and discovered piles of dead lake trout UH, frozen on the ice around where where holes had obviously been drilled during the tourney. And according to the story, he found more than a hundred fish left behind on the ice and naturally this infuriated him and he viewed at his wanton waste and he speculates that during the tournament, this angler or a group of anglers was just looking for big fish to weigh in and discarding everything else. Okay. Now, just hearing all that, you're kind of like, oh, what a bunch of s clowns. But there is a little bit more to this, Okay, So this is this is from the story. Technically, lake out are an invasive species. Their non native to Tobago. The States stocked them there in the nineteen seventies and now they compete with native landlocked salmon for food, especially smell. Earlier this month, the Fisheries and Wildlife Department encouraged anglers to keep as many lake trout as they want. Um. And here's a quote I find interesting from Mark Laddie, a spokesman for Maine's Wildlife Department, says, while a catch and release message was important, several decades ago, we saw more fishing pressure and higher harvest rates by anglers. Present day fisheries rely on harvest by anglers to maintain healthy fish populations and to achieve size quality management goals. The derby is part of the effort to remove trout from Tobago. Lotty said, so we can have healthy salmon populations. Now, if you missed it, what what he basically just said, they're in a nutshell? Was that back in the day people fish for food, and today they don't do that nearly enough, and sort of the adoptive hardcore catch and release mentality, at least at this Kular lake has has ended up hurting the native salmon population because the lakers are so much more aggressive. And what what Lotti also said in the original story is that while he understands, you know, seeing these fishes not he says it's not ideal, but in a year with good ice, anglers can catch upwards of ten thousand lake trout at Tobago in a single year, So a hundred fish on the ice doesn't amount too much. It's just a fraction, he says. Uh. And to be clear, and I'm sure we agree on this. I don't condone leaving a hundred dead lakers on the ice, but I see parallels here with other things, namely snakeheads in Asian carp and when the message you're sending is kill them all because you're helping, uh, certain people are going to cling to that very very tightly. Um. And I mean, I can't tell you how many times I found dead snakeheads that have been whacked in the head or stabbed and just thrown up onto the bank. Down here, so you catch them, you don't want to eat them, but the state is telling you to kill them all. So as far as you're concerned, you're you're doing a service and kill as many as you can. But the sad thing here is the organization you're going to get there? Okay? Good? Oh yeah, yeah, right there, I'm okay, I don't worry. Do you do you want to split this one up? Do you want to take over from here? Can? I can? So? There? There are a couple of elements there there. There's also I also want to bring in. Right. You mentioned that this was initially reported on in the Banker Daily News, Right, and then there was a follow up op ed that was written, yes, right, and uh and and I feel like I feel like I want to I want to drop a quote in from that op ed because I think it's it's important to think about this. So so John Holioke wrote in an op ed, and I'm just going to quote him, and this is in reference to leaving those those piles of fish on the ice. He said, when anglers act like this and show such disregard for the species they're targeting, and they cast a cloud over all of us who enjoy spending a day on the water. Many of us love ice fishing, but there are plenty of others who would rather see us all go away. Why. Fisheries conservationists will tell you that ice anglers have the reputation of being game hogs and killing way too many fish. Lake dwellers who live on the shores year round will tell you that many ice anglers are slops, leaving beer cans, trash, and human waste on the ice when their day of fishing is done. Now, I don't totally agree with everything that Holo growth there, but I think his central point is really important to this story, right, And so you know, to what you said, they were being asked to remove lots of lake trout from this system, but leaving piles of dead fish on the ice just feeds negative stereotypes about all anglers and and particularly about ice anglers. So there's an optics thing here at play. It is, And I'm actually, I know we crossed swords here, but I'm enjoying this because I was going to get there too, and I read his story and I mean, you know, he was even talking about how it's common to here guys say, well, the eagles got to eat, Like we just leave them out here for the eagles. There's there's a lot of excuses flying around as to why you would do that. But the problem is, according to to the story, there is no wanting waste law for fish in Maine. So it's kind of like, from the state's perspective, it's like, this doesn't look good, But I also can't get you for anything because I told you to kill all these and there's so, yeah, they didn't do anything wrong. They didn't do anything wrong legally speaking. Yeah, it is pure optics. Now, I'm sure we would have both gotten here. But if there's one sort of sad thing about this before you, before you get into that, I'm setting you I promise, I'm setting you up for it. I'm not going to steal your thunder on it because we totally agree. But here here, like I feel like we have to put ourselves in the position of those anglers. Right, So you're out there, you're being told by the management agency kill all the lake trout you can under twenty six inches, help us out, help us manage this population. You hear that, and you have a banner daid, you get a hundred fish whatever a hundred plus fish. I can kind of understand maybe you don't want to clean a hundred fish, a hundred small lakers. I can understand that. I don't know if I condone wasting them. I don't know if I personally could bring myself to do that. I'd have to be in the situation to really know. I could not have. I don't think I could, but like so, but I understand that tension of being like, man, I want to be fishing and I'm catching these fish, and they're asking me to pull them out. But I don't know if I want to clean all these but at the very least take them home, like, just dispose of them quietly, don't don't feed into this perception of anglers as as a problem. Right, And so, up until that moment I was, I was kind of like understand, I wouldn't have definitelyly wouldn't have done what these folks did, but I could kind of understand it. But there's one more wrinkle of this story. One hundred percent convinced is me that whomever did this are just complete and total assets, no doubt in my mind. Yes, yes that, and I'm glad I waited the sad thing that I was just set up for is that the organization running the tournament was fully aware that the state was promoting the taking of as many lakers as you wanted. So they were set up to take donations of all unwanted lake trout, and they had worked out a deal with a local process and plant to clean them and freeze them, and all of that lake trout was being donated to local food pantries. So now like, at minimum, say what you want about these guys, that's extremely lazy and selfish, Like you want to kill three wheelbarrows full have at it, But like, holy shit, the tournament is giving you the out for your extra fish. All you had to do was get them over there. All you can't even be bothered to drag the fish across the ice, Are you serious? Yeah? Like to one just do the right thing and for another donate fish that are going to be used to feed people who need food. Like what's wrong with you? Yeah? Yeah, So if you just took that one element out, you could you could sort of formulate some weak argument. But with that, they're like, there's no excuse for that, And I don't know, I don't know if you dug in any of the social commentary on this, but a little bit. It's surprisingly mixed. I mean, you have a lot of people who are just straight out appalled, but there's there's also some who are like, uh, yeah, deal with it. That's what the state wants. They want them all dead. So it's it's a lot of them mixed. It's a lot more mixed then you think. You know that that guy who initially you know, broke the story, Christiansen, he is the one who put it up on Facebook, and you would I would have thought that the people would come to them like yeah, man, that's that's that's rough. But a lot of yeah, like you're you're, you're, you're you're talking to deaf ears here. That's what they want, that's what they encourage. So I mean, we don't certainly have an answer here, but it's like this weird conundrum and sort of just speaks to mixed messaging. And like I said, I've seen that with snakeheads. When you tell somebody, and in some cases with those it was by law, like if you catch that, you kill that. It's very hard to convert everyone to eating them. I know how delicious they are, most people don't if they catch one. It's dead on the bank. I see it all the time. But that's kind of what you asked for, so it's weird. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, hey, we we had to cross over again eventually, and it was good. That story was too good. I was actually glad to tag team that one with you, because yeah, I think that that turned out pretty well. My transition is that is that I'm going to kind of keep us on the topic of of dead freshwater fish cats. That's that's my My transition here at least is the transition too much here we're like dead fish fish about that? What do you got on dead fish this week? And you know what that to your point, this isn't the best, Like, hey, it's Fredda and we're trying to have a good time story. But h yeah, it's still worth talking about. I'm I'm I'm not apologizing for it, but it's it's not the it's not the biggest I have one of those. Don't worry. At least we're ending on a sad note. Um So, a consortium of sixteen different conservation groups publish a report last week titled World's Forgotten Fishes and this one's uh, it's a bummer, man, it's a bummer. It also got me thinking differently about fish. Usually, when when we hear about fish stocks, like on a planetary scale, it's it's oceanic species that dominate the conversation. But this report focuses on the global status of freshwater fishes, and it's both truly fascinating and its compilation of information about various freshwater fish around the globe and their importance, as well as deeply, deeply depressing. So we'll we'll go with the bad news first. I'm prepared to be deeply depressed. There you go. You're I you were war. Freshwater fish are in far worse shape as a whole than I and probably most of us realize. Eight species of freshwater fish have already been declared extinct. And for the record, this isn't like an over there, somewhere else problems. One quarter of the extinct freshwater species used to live right here in the US. And it's also not like a back in the day problem, like, well, we did terrible things before, but now we fixed them. No, No, No, sixteen fish when extinct. Last year, thirty percent of all freshwater species on the planet are currently facing risk of extinction. Think about that for just one second. That's nearly one third of all the things that swim in fresh water at risk extinction. Populations of migratory freshwater fish have fallen seventy six percent since nineteen seventy and big fish, the ones that grow over seventy sounds and are sometimes referred to as megafish, are at six percent of their historic populations. So apologies to fill here because I'm about to make some extra work for him, but I just gotta state this plainly. That's stub Yeah, I'm kind of like my jaws hanging. Yeah, this is not good, this is this is terrible. I warned you. I'm also formulating questions, but you have more to get through. The primary takeaways from this report are obviously pretty damn concerning, but I also learned a bunch of really interesting information about freshwater fishes that I just never knew before. For example, despite the fact that fresh water makes up just one percent of the world's aquatic habitat, more than half of global fish species live in fresh water. Yeah, of the water on Earth of saltwater, but the majority of the bile diversity is found in that other one percent. I did not know that really damn Yeah. There are more than eighteen thousand different kinds of fish that live in fresh water for at least part of their lives. Mean that fresh water fish make up almost a quarter of the world's vertebrate species. And and that's just the ones we know about. We're still finding all kinds of new freshwater fishes. Good news for you, Joe. Last year, a new snakehead was identified, the dragon snakehead. Bad news. They live in underground caves in southern India, so I don't think it would be casting frogs at the many times I saw those I saw don't get here. Eventually give it a couple of years. All right. Over the past decade, an average of two new species of freshwater fish have been identified every week. To fish a week, okay, but isn't that sort of canceling out. It's like one a week goes extinct, but we find two new ones. I don't think that's actually I think we're okay. Actually we're better. We're better than good with that information. That's how I absorbed news pieces, which is why you're so much better at this than me. Good news is we find too, I'm finding more. They're not being created. They're not like making two new ones a week. We're just finding them other fun facts. Maybe you new this, I didn't. There are five types of freshwater sharks, one in Australia, one in New Guinea, one in me and mar one in Borneo, and one in India. Nope, I only knew they were freshwater sharks. I was not clued into the amount five different kinds, and and and researchers actually know hardly anything about them except you know that they're critically endangered. That's about all we know, right, so, and and and the other piece that I took away from this is again, most time when we think about fisheries on the global scale, and we think about commercial fish harvest or the importance of fish in feeding people, we talked about the ocean. Yeah, but without freshwater fish is a food source, hundreds of millions of people would go hungry. This isn't just like a there there's an element to this that is truly impacting communities. So I'm just providing you with the highlights of this this conservation report. And you probably know this. Conservation reports are are just strange documents. And I know that because I've helped write a couple They have to do this this very tenuous balancing act where they describe the situation in hands as dire enough that it needs to be addressed immediately, but not so dire that everyone reading it will just give up and figure the whole things lost cause, So why bother doing in the first place. Yeah, these reports need to provide solutions that seem realistic and grounded in research, but not so complicated or detailed that the average smoke can't understand what they're talking about through like a handful of simple bullet points. They've got a this is a series is balancing act. I like a good bullet point exactly. I'm not judging there's nothing wrong with that that. Yes, reading the actual New York Times, I don't have time. And when you dig intose bullet point solutions on these conservation reports, that's where you usually find the bias of the sponsoring organizations. That's where that's that that starts to creep in, right, And that's one of the most interesting parts about this particular report. The primary organization responsible putting this together was the World Wildlife Fund. W WF is not back Country Hunters and Anglers or the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership or American Sport Fishing Association or any of the conservation groups the champion anglers as parts of the solution, but in this report they did m hmm. The report spends an entire section giving props to anglers. It explains how recreational fishing generates a hundred billion dollars every year and how much of that money goes in the local economies who are the stewards of our freshwater resources. It tells little stories, right, because again it's all about storytelling getting people engaged. So it tells a story about the hump backed mass here which has been drawing tourist anglers and their money to India for the past fifty years, and how the income generated from those traveling anglers has transformed former poachers into fishing guides, the same people who were once decimating this fish population order to survive or now incentivized to protect them in order to make a living. And the report explains how similar cases are playing out in sensitive freshwater ecosystems all over the world. Right. The fact that anglers are important stewards of fisheries, or that angling is a net positive to fish populations is not news to anyone listening to this podcast, but for us to be explicitly recognized in this particular report marks a change in how the more mainstream conservation groups are talking about anglers. They really used to look at us as the enemies, right, we were the sadists who are out to torture innocent creatures for fun. And but I don't know, man, it seems like they've finally come around. Like I'm not I'm not gonna hold my breath for a sponsorship call from Peter, but I'm I'm really happy to see that we're getting our due from WWF at least, like it feels like a turning point to me. I think that's great, man, and I agree with what you're saying, like to have that recognizing that that what we do is is more beneficial than harmful is terrific. But the thing that that has stuck with me from the early part of this report, you said, sixteen fish freshwater fish went extinct in our country last year. No no, no, no, no no no, sorry, of the eight fish that have been declared extinct, right, sixteen went extinct last year. That's what I said. Sure, that's what she said, because I thought you said they were they were they were in America. No, I said a quarter of them were in America. And maybe I misspoke of the E D fish almost twenty Yeah, No, I said it right. A quarter of the extinct freshwater species used to live in the US sixteen one extinct last year. You're you're conflating two different things. Okays, it seems like math, understand. Let me let me break down simply. Eighty freshwater fish already extinct, about a quarter about twenty of those used to live in the US sixteen total globally one extinct last year. Got you? Okay? Like, what are some of the species? And Here's why I asked that, right, because I'm racking my brain trying to like think of one for lack of a better way to put it, that matters to anglers, so like it leads me to believe, like, are these like you know, minnow and gobi type species? Like, what what are some of the recent ones that that we recognize? Does this does the piece give that? I'm just curious there aren't so many recent ones that anglers would care about in the U S. Right, A lot of the ones in the U. S. Are kind of the smaller ones, but um, some of the older ones to go extinct in the US. Did you ever know of a thing called the silver trout? Surely did not? Did not either. It was a native it was an East Coast trout species native only in North America. Gone none of us, Like, how long has that been, I've never heard of that before ever. Yeah, it was a long time ago. I think it was in the thirties. But the more recent one, like the big one from last year was the Chinese paddlefish going extinct. Okay, that was the big one that got news in terms of extinctions from last year. But I mean there's a whole list, right if you look at the study that lists all the A d that have gone extinct, and and a lot of them are are definitely the smaller things that the dace and the gobies and and the stuff you might not notice, but not all of them, right, And and certainly not to downplay that, I'm not saying like, oh, it's just Dason Kobe's like whatever, man, you know, long down the Oh yeah, no, no, And you know what, what can you say? It's great to not be the bad guys in this situation. But I mean it's still a pretty depressing situation, super depressing. It's super depressing. But I will say I didn't I didn't have time to cover it all. There are those the points that lay out here are the things that we can do. All is not lost if we make some changes will be okay. I mean the big ones are pretty obvious. Stop damning rivers and uh stop using them like toilets, and you know things will get better. Well that that's wadey. That gives us a lot, a lot to think about. Um, So I'll end. I said we're gonna end with some fun. I'll end with a fish that if you saw in person, you'd want to make extinct immediately, like with a shotgun. Okay, all right, instantly, Okay, And this is a this sowhere on the same page. This is a dumb story. I just can't leave it alone. But it has unlike what you've just done, it has no value. Okay, I'm just telling you that now you will not come away more enriched as an angler. But this just has to be done because several people forwarded me this story, but I have to give the shout out to listen to Matt Wagner. He sent it first, so he gets the nod, and this is making some rounds. But I'm using bro bible dot com as the source, which is obviously as credible as the Washington Post or something. All Right, so it's one of these headline deformed shark with human face looks like it came straight from your nightmares. Now I'm going to stop there for a second, because you know these headlines, this is the bullshit that's meant to grab non nature oriented people. Like remember a while back, I had a similar story. Was fish with a human face looked at me funny or whatever? The hell? It was deformed shark one at some point, yeah, yeah, And it's like I'm looking at this fish with a human face and like it's this big news weekly world news ship, and I'm like, it's a star gazer. What's the big is a star gazer? Like I, I like taking a practical approach to these, like it's not a big deal. And like the two mouth trout that I swear did not have two mouths, it's a little under thing mandible just got ripped out. But I don't gravitate to these, but this one's next level. Okay, this is this one's next level? So just for fun, here are the opening lines of this article, which I'm reading word for word, typos and all. Okay, I don't want to sound like an alarmist with everything that's been happening lately, but it certainly looked like the gates to Hell is leaking sea monsters again. And those gates can be found somewhere deep in the Indian Ocean. Okay, now here's now. You have no preconceived knowledge of this, right like, you do not know because you haven't seen the photo yet. Just hang on. So here's what happened. According to the story, a commercial fisherman near Roadie and now no idea where that is, uh, caught a shark in his troller net. Normally, the sharks are released alive, but by the time he got this one into the boat, it had died. So he kept it, not wanting to waste it. And when he went to clean this shark, he found that it was pregnant and inside there were three pups, two of which were completely normal, and then you had this mutant, deformed shark. And it's very easy to describe, Okay, So if you just picture like a normal baby shark, like something like a gray reef shark, like a common just shark shark, but instead of its eyes being on the side of its head, they're under its snout, just above its mouth. And did I swear we already covered this story like three months ago? No? No, Like it was the same setup. A guy in a trawler in Indonesia pulled up a shark, died, found pups inside, and one of them was like deformed to do a Cyclops. So the setup is is exactly the same. It's the same setup, which which tells me that both these stories could be largely bullshit. But this is not a Cyclops. I remember that now, And Cyclops had one eye. I remember, this is different. Bear with me, right, So so you think like, okay, it's got eyes under under its head and you're like, okay, that's weird. Uh. And if it were swimming naturally horizontally, I guess it would just look like a baby shark with no eyes. But the photos show this thing vertically laying on its back, which gives you the illusion that this is a land creature that walks on two legs, and it's peck fins are like little arm flippers, and it is one of the creepiest, most terrifying things I have ever seen. And I'm I'm, I'm sending you the photo right now. I want your reaction to this. Oh my god, that is not the same shark we covered before. No, but the story is so similar it's making me think that we're just getting sucked into fakes mutant shark like photoshops. Maybe I don't know if there are a lot of mutant sharks coming out in Indonesia these days. I don't. I don't know, Okay, So here's how from the story it says it's unclear if this shark came straight from our nightmares or if it looks like something that a toddler would make with Plato during Arts and Crafts time at daycare. And to me, that's accurate. Like to me, I see like a Gumby character like we never knew about because it had been like locked in a psych word for decades or something. And it's got like a hint of Casper the Friendly Ghost, and like a touch of Stay Puff marshmallow Man. But to my eye, it's pure evil. And I'll put the photo on Instagram today, Dude, it could literally be the same shark story with different photos that have been photoshot. We might have been sucked right into that. But but this is definitely like new in the news, so I believe you it's a different It's different than the cyclop shark. I just the setup is so similar that I'm like, I feel like we're getting suckered here. Maybe we are, but I don't care because when you see this photo, I implore you to imagine like you've woken up in the middle of the night and this thing is standing in the middle of your bedroom upright. It says nothing. It says nothing. It just slowly cocks its head to one side before attacking. It is terrifying, and I'm I usually explain away all these natural oddities. This one is straight up terrifying. And by the way, the guy who caught it thinks it's lucky and we'll be preserving it to keep in his bedroom. M hmm, yeah, so that's it. I definitely don't want that in my bedroom. So it's it's become he's apparently he's making money from people stopping to look at it, so I mean, good for him. It could be a better living than shark trolling over there. I don't know, no doubt, but tourism play right. Yeah, well, Phil, I guess Phil's kind of just gonna have to base this off of either are two independents, or maybe we both win because we worked so well together on the crossover. We'll see what Phil has to say and then not transition into the sale bin and we'll be looking up in the trees, stetted down on the water for this one. For at least attempting to bring some levity into that bummer of a fish News segment. Joe Surmelie is the winner Food waste Extinction, Nightmare Sharks. I could really go for a river horse segment right about now. There it is. Oh, we're sticking with the sail bind. Okay, okay, why did you put the hand to pay? You don't know what I'm getting? Man? What you didn't have to be so hurtful with me? So angry? All right, So we've got a slightly different spin on the sail bind this week. Normally, we use this space, as you guys know, to make fun of something Fishy posted in an online classifies for him, but thanks to a listener email, we're using it this week to basically give props to a young man's side hustle. That's what we're doing here. Oh yeah, and and deservedly so so. Listener Matt Caully emailed us to tell us about his son, Sawyer. This kid is just he is our kind of hustler. He runs totally. He runs a little lure racket on his local lakes, kind of like what you might have heard about some kids doing on golf courses, but so much cooler. Before we get into the details, though this the story has echoes of a fish News segment we did a while ago about birds getting tangled and lost fishing gear. And if you remember, we we did this whole thing where we encouraged everyone to pick up the ship you find hanging in trees when you go fishing. But I think it's safe to say that even the more conscientious and and frugal of us, we we tend to stick to the low hanging fruit when it comes to trees. Sadly, that's accurate. I mean, like, if I spy a danglar in easy reach, I'll absolutely grab it and do my part. Um. But I I mean, I feel like a schmuck for saying this, But if getting something out of a tree requires like climbing or physics equations or tools, or it's gonna take more than three minutes away from my fishing. I probably float on by, like I'm just I'm not built for for tree climbing, so it would have to be like, are really rare or spending lore Again, this is terrible too, but I'm just being honest. I'm not I'm not really like hard up for lures or flies. So even if there's a perfectly good rapple up there, I'm not risking like a fight with with Mr Gravity, who usually wins over like one more original rapple floater. It's just honest. I hear that I don't mind a little tree climbing. When I see stuff, I try and grab it, but I know I miss a bunch of stuff. The ones that get me are the power lines strung across the river. Oh yeah, and because those always have like the mother load cornucopia of shiny hanging things and mono spider webs. But dude, I'm not messing with power lines like, not even for a not even for a horse leather swim bait. I'm not doing that away fish under them though, right that buzzing every every power line hole in every river's fishing is it's really you're catching something under there, like a brain tumor. But anyway, go ahead, back to the top of your hand, back on track here. Matt sent us an email titled tree fishing and explained that his son Sawyer is really into retrieving lost lures from the trees around their local lakes, which sounds cute, right, Like it sounds just kind of adorable. But Matt also attached a photo of one of his kid's recent halls, and it's not cute, it's jaw dropping, like it's amazing. He claims in the email that this pile we saw a photo of represents just a couple of days effort, and no joke. There are dozens of quality baits. We're talking like hundreds of dollars worth of gear easily. And this is not a rusted out pile of gas station snell riggs. These are quality, brand name goods that look fresh out the package, like maybe thrown one time right right into a tree. Yeah, I mean they're pristine, right, And my question was this, how is he getting all these dates? Right? Like? These are not lures that people just walk away from, you know, if they're even remotely accessible. And then the original email, Matt mentioned Sawyer only does this in the winter and doesn't get in the water. So I assume I just naturally assumed. Okay, he's walking the tree line once these ponds and lakes freeze, right, He's he's using the ice. Yeah, I mean, I've seen people do that. Turns out that is completely incorrect because we did a little follow up and wouldn't you know what, Matt and Sawyer live in Las Vegas, so there's no ice in Vegas. But fun fact, which I didn't know it, but I also don't really think about it, the leaves do still fall off the trees in the winter in Las Vegas. I know. But I honestly I thought all the trees they were plastic, you know what I'm saying, Like, I didn't even know that they were real. Everything else there is plastic um. Yeah, So okay, so the real leaves in Vegas do fall off, and it makes the picking better and easier. So Matt writes, Sawyer amazes me with his creative ways of getting lures out. He used to use a thirty ft collapsible painters poll that he rigged with a few magnets and razors. The razor cuts the line and the hook would then stick to the magnet, but that got two on wheeldy. So now he just uses a cut piece of bamboo. This kid is mcgever. He's like, he's like mgeiver and inspector gadget that goes fishing. I'm just super impressed. And Dr Claw throw him in there. And we're not the only ones who recognize uh Sawyer's intellect because these are these are well trafficked places, right, these are They sound like urban ponds, so you know, obviously people see him doing this. You see a kid walking around with a thirty foot painters poll ridd with razors and magnets, and you're like, yeah, so so so people follow him around and then asked to buy the lures he's pulling out, and and according to again, according to Matt, so keeps most of the lures for himself because you know, he never he never knows what he's gonna need stock up. But he has sold a few back to the people who lost him. He calls it a finder's fee, which is at a boy perfect yes, yes, perfect, pure pure vegas hustle man totally yeah. Yeah, And even though I mean, Vegas isn't exactly what you'd call a superfichy town, right, but it does have a pretty big population. And uh, Matt says, Sawyer is operating at public ponds that have bass and get a winner trout stocking, which was telling because that that explains the mash up of tiny inline spinners all the way up. There's like striper's size jerk baits in a file, just an in an insane array. Um, but it appears they're like a shipload of casual fish dabblers in Vegas, apparently pounding the piss out of this water, and the vast majority of them cannot cast at all. Sawyers getting from what we can derive from that, Uh, it doesn't change my opinion that I have. I have no love for Vegas whatsoever. Yeah, me, They're sorry, Matt and Sawyer. It's just not my place. It's not no have friends there. I love you all, death, just not my place. But if I'm ever forced to go back, as I have in the past, I can tell you I will be skipping the casinos and I will be hollering at Matt to see if his kid will take me Tree fishing Sawyer, we did. We appreciate your moxie and your entrepreneurial spirit. We should mention I feel like we should also mention that Sawyer offered to send us some of his recent haul. You did specify note no swim baits or whopper ploppers, which is just sound those standards personal status. But I I want to respond to that here and say, no, man, you we're good. You have earned those You should keep them and be on the lookout for some sweetass stickers to boot. Well, Miles is speaking for himself. I would take the whopper ploppers if he were willing. I mean, and are pass up a whopper ploper? Uh? Yeah? Good stuff though, man, And remember, if you find something ridiculous fish or fishing related uh for sale online, be it on Facebook, offer up, Kijiji, or the dark web, shoot a link to Bent at the metator dot com. If we use your submission on the show, we'll set you up with a little Bent swag. So in that giant selection of recovered lures where pretty much all styles of bait were represented, did you happen to notice which one was missing? I did? I did. I had wanted in particular that I think was missing. So if you guys want to know what it is, you're in luck because in this week's end of the Line segment, Miles is going to tell you all about that one bait apparently not dangling in the trees at that kid's personal treasure trove in Vegas. Okay, it's a story of a different kind of hustle and the power of internet. Chatta. Well, that's not allowed enough, Burt. The chatter bait is perhaps the only lure in the past fifty years to define a whole new category of baits. The story of this lure demonstrates how the tackle industry has changed, but also proves that new lures don't need high tech injected mold plastics or robotic inserts to get bit. A chatter bait looks deceptively simple. It's a skirt of jig with a hexagonal metal blade attached to the eye. The brilliance behind this design only reveals itself when fished. That blade caused the jig to vibrate and wiggle. It also clacks against the jighead, producing sound and flash. So the chatter bait is like a swim jig, crankbait, spinner bait hybrid. Like all my favorite end the line stories, this one starts in a home workshop. Ronnie Davis spent his career as a research and development lab technician at a company the designed tire materials. After retirement in Davis turned his attention to bass fishing. I guess I'm different than fisherman in them in the way that when I go to the lake bass fishing, there's not about lure only end of my lay. No matter what really is, it's something I've created, are altered to the point if I'm wherever I'm fishing the fish and saying that before from anybody but me. For more than a decade, Davis tinkered with the concept that would eventually become the chatter bait. His inspiration came from an early nineteen sixties were called the Walker special hexagonal chunk of metal with a couple of trouble hooks attached. That lure didn't really take off, but Davis never forgot how its particular shape wobbled in the water. He figured that if he could find a way to incorporate it into a jig, he'd be able to impart that same movement in a more versatile and weedless bait. Ronnie Davis never considered selling his inventions. He just kind of like building stuff and wanted an edge in the local tournaments around his hometown of Rock Hills, South Carolina. Davis his son, On, however, saw commercial potential. For a couple of years, the two had friendly disagreements over bringing the lure to market. The younger Davis wanted to start selling the baits, while the older was never satisfied was always convinced that he could improve the design. In two thousand four, Ron Davis finally convinced his father that the lure was ready. Ron quit his job as a tennis pro and founded rad Baits. Their first year, the company sold only five thousand chatter baits, but Ron had confidence not just in the potential of his father's design, but in his own understanding of how the bass industry was shifting for generations. New baits got popular through phishing media. As I've talked about in previous episodes, lures like the Rappola, floating mental or the Devil's Horse gained much of their attraction in the market from rite ups and national magazines. More modern designs like rubber worms and spinner bates found their way into the psyche of anglers through Saturday morning fishing shows. Ron Davis was pressing enough to see that bass heads in the early two thousands were tuning into some thing different. On Saturdays tournament standings, Ron gave chatter baits two up and coming pros. In two thousand five. One of those anglers, Brian Thrift, won the co angler division of an FLW event using the chatter bait, but he didn't tell anybody about it. Afterward, Ron called him hat in hand and asked Thrift to please let people know what he was throwing the next time he did well with the bait. Thrift faced a dilemma. The chatter bait was a bit of a secret weapon, something he had confidence in that virtually no one else on the tour had, and as a young tournament angler trying to build a career, that's a significant advantage. But he liked in respect of the Davis's and wanted to see them succeeds, so he agreed that he would. Eight months later, Thrift fished and won his first fl W tournament as a pro on Lake Ogachobi. He caught fish over eight pounds every day of the tournament. And had several days where he caught multiple fish over eight pounds, all on chatter bait. He kept his promise to Ron and openly talked about a new lure he was using. In the next FLW event. Four of the top ten finishers we're using chatter baits. Words spread across the internet almost instantly. In a matter of days, Rad had received orders for a half million units, and they're projected annual sales went from a hundred thousand lures to two million. There was just one problem. They had no possible way of filling all those orders. So Ron contacted z Man Fishing Products, of South Carolina based company that at the time manufactured and distributed lure components. RAD Lures and z Man reached an agreement to co brand and distribute chatter Baits, allowing them to dramatically increase production capacity and fill all the incoming orders. And this is probably the spot where you expect the happily ever after to come in. But that isn't actually the end. Not really. Remember how it intro the chatter bait by talking about how simple it is. Well, that simplicity meant that just about anyone with basic tool and know how could make their own. Six months after chatter Bates became the darling of the bass tournament scene, there were seventy different knockoffs for sale, which was a problem for a bait and a brand that was just starting to take off. You remember the genius who invented the spinner bait, Yet neither do I, and and neither does anyone else, because though whoever that was may have been a hell of a lure inventor, they weren't all that business savvy. But see the Davis is they are. They filed several patent applications in two thousand four, including a patent on metal blades attached directly to the eyes of way to jakeheads. Though it took nearly five years and reported hundred thousand dollars that Davis's were awarded those patents, Ron spent years tracking down intellectual property infringements. Even after the Davis has sold chatter Bait to z Man in two thousand eight, Ron continued sending out seas and desist orders. Everyone in the business knows not to mess with chatter baits. In Rick Klun won a Bass Elite tournament using a homemade chatter Bait knockoff afterwards, he told the cameras, that's cloudy winding conditions. I say, which the face. I called it a trick, sure too, but it's just a chatter bait copy that I don't say z Man and saying the z Man, I like what they do. They make you, they see you, and they said, I wish all companies could do that and protect stuff in this business. Z Man went from being a midsized lure component maker to one of the big names and modern bass lures. The Davis has sold the chatter Bait for an undisclosed amount, but enough that ron will never have to go back to being tennis bro. His father, Ronnie, is still designing lures and still convinced that his bait, the lure that changed bass fishing completely, can be improved. There's got to be other ways to create the same type action without infringing on the original chatter bait Patton and what I've been waiting on for this this many years. Somebody's got to do it better. So that's all we got for you this week. As you continue counting down the spring, remember if you catch a record striper, don't bother submitting it to the I g F A Uh, you won't survive the apocalypse, but fat head minnows will. And all it takes to be a hustler is a bamboo stick or the foresight to patent something before you try to make a buck off it. Nice. Yes, uh, keep those sales and items, bar nomination, awkward photos, comments, critiques, and just about anything else you feel like sending coming to us at bent at the meat eater dot com. Yes, please do, and don't forget. Your use of the degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags over the next week could put you on the path to pre spawn glory. With those soft baits and custom hard swim bait from Hoshmoto concepts. I'm not eligible, but I'm gonna take back my break into one earlier and say that if I one, I'd have the hardbad painted like Tigra. How about you, I'd ask for a magic eye pattern. It reveals an image of Willem to folk