00:00:06 Speaker 1: Can I just sad? You know what's worse than muskie fishing all day and not catching any muskies? Uh? Must fishing all night catching which I've done a bunch of folks, you know, sitting in like some taco bellboard room being like, we're gonna get in on this sea boot salad market. Is this an X files or a real story? I've heard this before. I think it was squids though, or like jelly like blobs people say to me all the time. Lands. Your content cheers me up faster than the prozac guy swipe from my aunt Rudi's Linnen closet. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bent the Fishing podcast that has a question for you today. How do you feel about making a change? We fear change now I too fear change, but it is part of life. And it's with a sad heart that I have to inform you that this will be ailes Nulty's last show. Boo boo this man, Yes, this man, I deserve it. Sadly, Joe speaks the truth. While I can't think of anything more appropriate to start my send off episode than a Wayne's World clip. In fact, the same, the fact that this will be my last episode as co host of this strange and layered show leaves me. I mean, I'll be honest, I feel sad. I'm feeling sad. I know I'm the depressing guy on this show. Like that's kind of my beat. But this one is, this is this is gonna be hard for me. Yeah, well me too. And look, we know this is abrupt right to to you the listen to you all, but but this is also it's also kind of life, right, Like that's just how shit happens. It's where you get six months of bailout notice from anybody in any gig. Um. But while the thought of you leaving like gives me the bubble guts, you're leaving meat eater for a cool gig and I am, I am truly happy for you. Um. And as I recall, you're taking over is what the creative director of Salt life. And while I guiding on the side, you're close, You're actually really close. I'm I'm gonna spearhead a new spinoff that we're calling Soggy Sock Life. I think it's gonna be big, real big. It's huge. It's good no for all the for all the time that you have invested in the show and listening to me drown on about fish kills and conservation efforts, you all deserve to know why one of the hosts is abandoning his post. The fact is that both Joe and I married women who are smarter and more successful than we are. Absolutely, it's one of the many things we have in common. And why as pissed as he is, and I know you were pissed, I also know that you can relate to my decision. Joe. My wife. My wife was recently awarded a fellowship based in New Zealand, and as supportive as she has been of my I mean, I guess you could call it a career. This is a huge This is a huge opportunity for her and for her career, and it means that our family gets to move there eventually, assuming anyone's ever allowed to travel to New Zealand. Again. Yeah, well, I know you got that hurdle will get over. But like New Zealand, dude, isn't that they're a huge trout that you catch once a month. Isn't that how it works there? They're like really hard that I've heard that. Yeah, anyway, it is. It is true. I am pissed at you, but I also know that your wife is smarter than you. We can at least agree on those two points. But the real question remains, right, what happens to Bent? And the answer is nothing. Ben isn't going away. Bent presses on. But because I'm a believer in honesty and transparency with our valued listeners, I want to tell you straight up, ship might get a little jankie around here for a while. Okay, just be just gonna like, where where have we been for the past year? We work really hard to come across this jankie. Actually a lot goes in and we do, so much goes into the jak oh. I have put Joe in a very unenviable position. Um, sorry, man, you're you're You're gonna scramble a bit. It's happened before. But if anyone can pull it off and keep the show going, it's you. As you know, I feel I feel conflict, I feel some shame, I feel guilt, I feel sadness. But you know New Zealand man, Yeah, I mean, look, I take New Zealand over myself any day of the week, right, So I ain't mad at Jeremy. You know that but the fact of the matter is this is kind of a two man gig and we love it and we've been having just an absolute blast putting this together. But to do what we do takes discipline, right. You have to be each other's wingman to crank out these segments and stay on top of your ship. So you know, like when when Goose objects into the canopy, like Maverick might need a minute to get her flying straight and true again. Just you know, he's got to compose himself. He's gonna tell Meg Ryan, he's got to make peace with ice man decide if Cougar is good enough to have more than two lines a month. It's a freaking process anyway, you hate it, is what I've done. How in the hell did Anthony Edwards get Meg Ryan? That doesn't make any sense. Like whoever cast that was out of their frigging mind. And Meg Ryan, if you're listening, how you tortured my young self? Thank you for everything? Who I see, who am I going to have to talk Meg Ryan with? Because she was super good looking and Joe verst about you know what I mean? And like she was so witty and smart in in when Harry met Sally like she was. She was all the things, all the things. Um. Anyway, man, I'm sorry for bailing. I don't know who you're gonna find a talk Meg Ryan with you, but I'm sure you'll find somebody. I don't envy you, but you're you're to be okay, Man. I believe in the show. I believe in the concept most of all, I believe in you, and I know you have a plan. Yeah, sort of, sort of. We're We're lucky that we have so many regular contributors to lean on, right, people, you guys have come to know and enjoy on the show. Um, so some guest hosts might be in order for a while. I'm still working out the bugs of this whole mess you've created. Um, But what I can tell you guys is that while I can't promise some things won't be a little different, at least for a bit, I'm gonna do my best to maintain the core values and ethos of the Bent Podcast. And no joke, I could actually use your input, right, You guys have never been shy about telling us what you like and don't like on this on this show, so this is sort of a semi blank canvas right, I'd like to have a full time co host. I think that's the long term goal. But your shoes are big shoes to fill, no joke, like, that's that's the truth. Uh, This show, like I said, takes work, dedication requires the right person. But hey, at the same time, you guys all tell me, like Bob the garbage man should just be the co host or maybe someone else filling in a temporary slot just really resonates, shout it out like you might kind of sort of have some sway, is what I'm saying here. You've always kind of had some sway. You've always sort of kind of had some sway, and that continues even with the big change. The other thing is Joe and I don't we don't know every We do a lot of people. We don't know everybody, and we definitely don't listen to every fishing podcast out there. Right, we have talked about some folks, we have discussed this. Uh, we we've kicked around ideas for who might be able to hang full time. But they're very well could be someone else that you listeners I think might be perfect. And if so, email their name, address, and social Security number to the Bent Email let Joe know, so he can run a background check and make sure they have the minimum number of misdemeanors on their record. Yes, yes, you know, though, I am gonna have to ask you to please turn in all your thirteen Fishing deans and turos though, because I'm not I'm not even sure donkey saw us is legal in New Zealand. But regardless, I kind of need those because thirteen Fishing is still kind of our sponsor, and now I kind of can't lean on you to tell us how many gold eyes you're whacking on their coconut crab, which sounds tropical but it's actually a super sweet, little soft plastic design for ice fish. It's a good one, and you I'm keeping the coconut crabs. Okay, We'll work something out. You can have the big squirms every other weekend or something. We'll we'll work a deal, but you're not taking my coconut crabs anyway. Enough sad sack ship. Let's get back to doing what we do best. One last time. You probably have questions. I know Joe has been questioning himself while losing sleep at night. I know I have been questioning every single life choice I've ever made while not even trying to pretend to sleep at night. But the show must go on, and here we go. Recently we both sat down to fire some questions at our buddy and culinary rock star brad Leyone. Let's do trivia. You gotta be highly skilled for these shows. You understand that you well versed? Day are you very smart? Man? All right back with us today, chef extraordinary Buddy brad Leone to play trivia. How are you my friend? Good? Thank you boys, thanks for having me once again. Yeah, man, right on, right on. So we're gonna do We're gonna do a tribute today. You've been on before for covering Water, which is our rapid fire peppering of questions, um segment. This is more. We're gonna do bar room style today, like this is multiple choice, um, you know, barroom trivial pursuits style where we get really thoughtful. Yeah. And the beauty of our trivia there's there's there's nothing. You can't win anything. We don't have any prizes. I never win any anything, guys, so don't worry about that. You know a lot of people have come on and been like, I'm terrible of this, and they they a sar. So I always try and do my best when I'm in charge of tribute to like really tailor these questions to the people that we have on. So I'm definitely going more more culinary, but sticking to fish here. So, um, we'll fire him up, man, We'll see, We'll see how you do. We'll see how how I did and how we So if you're ready, here's question number one. Okay, So we've talked on this very show before about fugu, which some of our listeners will recall, is the puffer fish which contains a shipload of poisonous tetrodotoxin which can seriously mess you up, if not kill you, which is why only master chefs in Japan are allowed to clean and prepare this delicacy. Okay, So, however, after a five year battle with the Food and Drug Administration, Renown New York City chef Nobyashu Karaka was granted permission to import fugu to serve at his restaurant. Since then, how many other restaurants in the United States have been granted permission by the f d A to serve FuGO. Is it a zero, B, sixteen C or D four? That's a good, great question, Joe, thank you, thank you, good job. Oh my god, I'm blushing. You got Sometimes my questions are terrible. Think my gut answer wants to be zero, but I feel like maybe it's too obvious, but it's very U s d A. Uh. It's either zero or like sixteen or something like you said, let's go let's go zero. Man, you were better off with the sixteen the answer at last count, including his restaurant their seventeen restaurants United States that can serve fugu and interestingly twelve of the seventeen or New York City. Alright, blew it? You know what I mean? It was either like shut it down or like listen, we like making money to you know, and like I should have went with the money. I assume. I assume obviously you've probably never prepared it. But have you eaten it? No? I have neither. Would you like is that interest you or is that like a tasting it or preparing it? Tasting it? Yeah? I would taste it. You just have to really trust dude who's given it to you. Yeah. I would have to go somewhere where it was like you know, I was whoever brought me there was like yeah, listen, like this is like chef blah blah blah, and like this is like this is legit like and then he was like hey, like it was like Indonedian there, and like you know, it was like everyone was on board with that, his credentials, his official food cutting Garden Circle. Okay, fu yeah, your Betty's Backyard d I y food. You're like, yeah, no, it's good man, I got it. What's the YouTube video? I totally got It's funny you bring up seven eleven fougu though, because it'll lead right into my next question, which the product of this one could also make you very sick. And I know when I had you one before. I know you're not a big fast food guy. But think of this more as a pop culture question and a fast food guy because people love to talk about discontinued fast food, like the Wapparrito and the Wendy's Superbar. Like what you don't, guys remember the Wapparrito? Who made it? The burger King Burrito, the burger King Brito? When did this happen? Look this ship up online. There was McDonald's, p Pizza, Wendy's Super there was all. There's all kinds of fast foods that have come and gone. Spaghetti they did spaghetti for This is a real thing. This is a real thing, but so so because no, that's the I wasn't born for the spaghetti. I never had an opperrito. I passed on the Burger King yumbo. But anyway, we have to keep this semi fishy. So here's the question. Tell me which of the following is not is not a legitimate discontinued fast food item? So one of these is fake? Is it a Taco bells seafood salad? Be the McDonald's mc Lobster, c KFC's fish Snacker or d Sonics Cajun crab Tots. Dude, it's got to be the fish shall come on? Do you think do you think that's the fake one? Sad? If that's not fake? And I about like I've done with them, like, so that's your answer talking about product that is totally legit though, that's a real one. To let me get sad salad in what country? The United States of America? I actually have backstory. But before we get to the backstory, miles any on the fake one, what's the fake one? Tell me it's the Sonic crab Tots. That's the fake one. That's the one that's pretty good though. I thought that was good. That was good. That's their best that they're that's probably the best idea of all. Like, hey, bro, you can have it, like if you want to, you have the power to go to Sonic and be like I want to do brad Leyonis Cajun Crab Tots signature series. Now I just want to find these. So here's a little So here's uh that I don't know. It was a very short right up, But here's a quick backstory. H The Taco Bell seafood salad went out very fast because a whole shipload of people got food poisoning from that. Okay, Uh. The McDonald's mclobster that was available in Canada and it claimed to be fresh caught main lobster, but it was so dirt cheap that it made people skeptical. It's like, how can you possibly be serving me fresh lobster on a bun for like four dollars? So that didn't last in My favorite, the KFC Fishnacker, was created a boost sales for Catholics during Lent and when it was released in the early two thousand's. The CEO famously asked the Pope to bless the sandwich, and the request was denied. The Pope was like, I'm not blessing the KFC fish. Snecker sprised, what what what part? What are the what are those things? So many of those things could have surprised you. Which of those layers did you fund? Surprising the Pope? I would have I would have thought he would have been like, yeah, I support this ship. I want more people to be Catholic, so yeah, whatever it takes KFC. He wouldn't even accept the sandwich. He wouldn't even like try the sandwich, not a little blessed. But I did. So this was this was a fun trivia. This was good. And my challenge to you, Brad would be you need you need to research that and like figure out what it was and then make a good version of that for us. Like I just can't get over the seafood salad from Taco Bell, Like a lot of people couldn't get over it. That's why they threw it back up and ship it back out after they ate it. And that went away. Man, I mean two things Taco Bell is known to do well seafood and salads. Right, Oh my goodness, man, I'm just blown away like a bunch of folks, you know, probably men, probably white guys, sitting in like some Taco Bell board room, being like, we're going to get in on this seafood salad market, you know, like it's just that's that's that's wild, that's wild. I should have known. I'm terrible. I told you I don't want anything. Not so long ago I mentioned I have not eaten Taco Bell and fifteen years. Remember this. Yeah, the regular like on menu food does not really appeal to me in any way. So Taco Bells seafood salad that that's actually nauseating to me, the thought of it. I know it is, but it's about to get a lot worse. Like you think you're nauseous. Now just wait, because I might have tipped off a certain contributor about your upcoming departure, and while I didn't ask him to record anything for the occasion, he kind of insisted. And at this point I can't afford to lose any more contributors, so I need to keep this person happy, That's what I'm saying. Of course you are, of course you are, and I I don't believe for a second, because I know who this is. I'm sure I do. I don't believe for a second that you didn't know you insisted on him recording something for this. Yes you did, Yes you did. You're getting back at me, and and it's my last day and you know aren't. Last day is supposed to be kind of like a cruise easy day. Is that we're supposed to do. No, No, I will not make this easy on you. We remain friends always, but I'm not gonna make this like a fun cherry sendoff. I'm happy for you and all, but also, like Hugh Man, just you know that's fair, That's that's fair, and I get it. But come, you couldn't just like just have Bob break me for a while and you can come in and yellow yell at Niles. You have to make me suffer through the worst part of the show. The worst thing we've ever done is like, this is like asking the custodian to toilet duck the men's room one last time on the way out. Can't we just awkwardly stand around the break room with cupcakes and lukewarm beers for twenty minutes and have Steve tell everyone to get back to work and call it good like everybody else. Consider this the awkward break room farewell address delivered by none other than Mr Lance V. To the boats, to the like, to the sea, getting up the net. Job all lad, what's up as clowns. It's me, the Internet's most significant celebrity Angler Lance Fee. I know you've been dying for my next segment because you just can't absorb enough of my truth nuggets into that dollar store kitchen sponge you call a brain. But this time it's not about me. I'm here to give a proper send off to my biggest fan of supporter, Miles Nulty, since he's walking away from this hot garbage from what I assume will be just another pile of trash. But don't worry, because there's still a lesson to be learned from my top three reasons this shitty show will be less shitty with Miles gone. Hashtag I've been waiting for this hashtag Who's the loser now? Nw merrow one oh insta hate. The fact is your Instagram account is your resume these days. This has been proven by scientists like Elon Musk and every person then hosts a show on the Vice Network. But unfortunately for Miles, is education stopped at MySpace Community College. He hates social media, but now the joke's on him because his weak ass social resume isn't going to impress anyone beyond the night manager at Chili's hashtag Hi, my name is Miles? Can I start you guys off with a blooming onion number? Does deep sigh? No one likes people with deep voices. People with deep voices only conjure bad memories of my mom's boyfriend when I was in the third grade and guidance counselors that say ship like why don't you come back when you decide that you care? Do you think it's a coincidence that the Google squad kicks members out when they hit puber day, It's not. I could be nice and tell Miles which vocal coats me and John be used to keep our voices at the same octave as Justin Bieber's, But I won't. Hashtag you should have been nicer to me, asshole Numero trace a reno death blows. People say to me all the time. Lance your content cheers me up faster than the prozac guy swiped from my aunt Trudy's linen closet. Of course it does. People want to see me grinning in my hashtag goocchiese while hogs are getting roped, toads are getting jacked, and donkeys are getting punched. But you can't jack a dead toad, now, can you. Miles interest During pretty much every stupid news segment, while Myles was drabbing on about hashtag red tied and hashtags saved the whatever, the entreaties of the world were wondering why there's old off bottles suddenly felt lighter, So that's it. Hashtag by Felicia in case and of you are wondering, Yes, I'm in talks with Beat Meters to become the new full time co host, but only if they're willing to change the name to ben over by lands Fade. But really, they'd have to sell a lot more lemon pepper and telescopes to ever afford me. Hashtags by say, I'm not going to miss him. Now that the power is unilaterally in your hands, I one last time implore you to finally, once and for all, fire that mother. It's not your call, though, Nulty, you gave up those rights and privileges the day you put in your notice. Um, I might just make him co host out of spite. Um. And you know what else, I'm going to throw down with you one last time in that weekly dead fish laden segment we call fish News fish News. That escalated quickly. So this is it. It is it, It is it, This is it. This is the right here right now, both cheeks, both lips, the final you versus me monoa mono fish news battle. And you know what, I haven't prepared any better than I normally would have. No, No, that's not true. That's not true. No, that's what I'm saying. I think I think we need to go into this with a different attitude. Here's what I'm picturing. It's you and me and we're like face to face in the center of the dirt circle of a Roman. I will see him right the winner. We'll walk away bloodied but victorious, and the loser feeds the lions. That's what I want you to picture right now. Okay, the stakes are high, is what I'm saying. This really matters this. I think Phil is actually gonna listen to it for once. He may listen to it this time. Um. Yeah, so clearly this is still a competition. Obviously to the bitter end, we do not know which news stories the other person has has brought to the table. So um man, it's your last one and it's also your lead is done here still the chocolate to our cheese to reference a ween, Altu will pass judgment on both of us together one last time, take it away, and the loser will shed a tear for Eddie. Alright, So I I am going to shamelessly pander this time because the stakes are so I'm a pander to the masses and hope that Phil takes mercy on me. Right. Record stories are two phishing podcasts as a Grip and Grins are to Instagram. Right, And because I have not done a record round up in many months, I will begin there. I have three recently certified fish records to tell you about, two of which involve estock specimens in Minnesota that were released. We try to we try to balance harvest and and and release. On the show I Fish, You Eat Fish. We both kill fish, but we're thoughtful about it. We're thoughtful about what we kill and what we release. Generally speaking, releasing large mature fish benefits the broader population and that's especially true for slow growing apex predators like pike and muskie. This summer, Minnesota broke or met the state catch and release records for both of these species, and though totally anecdotal, I think this suggests that management efforts and catch and release ethics for these fish is working. Well. Sure, that's that's the general trend, and we're seeing a bear out. So if you like big toothy fish and live in the Gopher State, you're living the good old days. Enjoy them. Brecon Koballecki is definitely living his good old days. But since he's only fifteen years old, he probably doesn't know that yet. He doesn't know what a good day is yet. He's yet not yet. On June, Brecon caught a forty six and a quarter inch northern pike. Now just take a second and let that sink in. A fifteen year old caught a northern pike over forty six inches in the lower forty eight states this year. I was gonna say that I've done forty six but I had to go to the Tippity Top of Saskatchewan to do it. So that's impressive exactly. And as I peer out my window through wildfire smokes so thick that I can't see the nearby mountains, causing air quality so bad that my kid isn't supposed to play outside. I'm smiling. It may look like it may look and feel like the dust cloud kicked up by the four horsemen is growing thick enough to obscure the sun itself. But all cannot be lost if pike like that still swim in our waters. When I was a kid, a thirty inch pike in that latitude was a cause for celebration. Brecon's fish could eat a thirty inch pike, and best of all, she's still swimming alright. So Brecon and his dad were on vacation in Elie, Minnesota, and they had hired a guide for the day to take them fishing. Their day was nearly over, and with just ten minutes left before heading back to the dock, they hooked up on the pike while trolling. The fish bests the previous record by exactly one inch. While there are some aspects of the story that feel reminiscent of your your recent reporting on Michigan's new record Chinook, namely that it was caught by a teenager while trolling. The kid who caught. This fish does not seem like a disinterested gen Z meat puppet with no appreciation for what just happened to him. You are bringing it, Breckon told local reporters, quote, the whole experience went by in a flash. But it was the experience of a lifetime. I'll never forget. And even though he was just speaking in platitudes because he was talking to reporters, I don't care. Congratulations Breckon, Yeah, man, that's a that's an insane fish for the lower fore and and and don't expect that to ever happen again. Just down the road from Elis Lake for a million, which has a very well earned reputation for growing huge muskies, which is why Todd Kirby went fishing there with a few friends, just ahead of an incoming front and had one of those nights that make other musky anglers seethed with jealousy. He told local reporters quote, that Friday night, we were up against the weather. There was a huge storm front moving through, creating extremely unstable conditions. The humidity was high and storm clouds were building. It was one of those nights that the fish seemed to be super active. Our boat had multiple chases, one resulting in a forty eight inch fish in the net at that time, my personal best. At ten thirty, his lure got hit again and he broke his personal best for the second time in just a couple of hours. In spectacular fashion. The fish taped out at fifty seven and a quarter inches, tying the standing catch and release muskie record for Minnesota, which was also set on Lake for a Million in two thousand nineteen. We are all very happy for Todd. Actually that's not true. We all kind of hate Todd, but we are happy to know that trophy pike and muskie are alive and well in Minnesota. Can I just can I just sad? You know what's worse than musky fishing all day and not catching any muskies? Uh, musky fishing all night and not catching which I've done. I've done. I've gone out there specifically to be like, oh, nighttime, musty fishing. I love night fishing. That was awful. That was awful because like everything else goes to bed, like so you're not there's no bycatcher, and it's like this is terrible. I am cold and we've eaten all the jerky hours ago. But good for him. That to hell of a fish, so someone's got to do it kind of you, And yeah, good for him. And we also have to appreciate that Todd's fish was caught casting, not trolling. Let's give him that to dude. There you go. Yep. But probably my favorite part of this story was Todd's description of the fight to the media. He said, quote, I compare it to really get a large moving log. After a few dark splashes, she was in the net. Now. I don't know this. This might support your theory that fish don't fight as well at night. Uh, But either way, I love the fact that Todd was honest, right, he didn't try to invent some heroic Hemingway esque battle to play up his trophy. When the media asked him, he was like, yep, it just came in like a long that's what happened. Well, dude, And you know what, I of him a lot of credit for saying that, because and this is not taken away anything from musky dudes, because I appreciate what you all do. But you don't catch a muskie for the drag ripping fight, right you, Like most guys, it's heavy gear. You want that fish in the bag right away. It's the eat, right It's like the figure eight and the boatside eat and the swipe and all that. But he's like, I've never caught a musky at night, as I've just told you. But that is truly no bullshit. Like I love mouson for browns. You know, um, they don't they I don't know if they're just like super confused and don't know what's going on because it's dark when they get stuck. But they do not fight nearly as well at night. I don't fight nearly as well night either. Well you got you got a good point. But good on him for not making that out to be some epic battle because they get it. And all. This brings me to the final record in this week's record roundup, which was caught by Dr Bob Timpson off the coast of North Carolina and also didn't put up much of a fight. Dr Timpson and some friends were grouper fishing with local guide Captain Hiroke Tilma in two hundred fift of water, and while all his buddies were catching grouper, Dr Timpson was getting hosed over the course of the morning. He had only brought in a greater soap fish and a spotted scorpion fish. Now, I for one would have been pretty pumped about the scorpion fish, but he was not, and I get it. They were after grouper. Apparently Dr Timpson was getting frustrated about his inability to catch the target species and decided to change tactics. One of the grouper, caught by another angler on the boat, coughed up a relatively intact crab after coming over the rail, and Timpson snatched the crab off the deck, put it on his hook and dropped it down, figuring the crab had already been munched by a grouper and might improve his chances, and he was right kind of. The crab got eaten soon after hitting bottom and Timpson had a fish on the line, but once again it wasn't a grouper. The bright orange, topical looking specimen came to the service pretty quickly and no one in the boat, including the captain, had any idea what it was. They initially guessed it to be a parrot fish, which is technically possible in north I looked it up. They have been seen as far north as Maryland, but highly unlikely. Carl there's not a whole ton of car all up there exactly. So they kept it, and when they got back into service, they did a quick Google search and identified it as a Spanish hog fish, at which point they also realized that the fish they had on board was far larger than any of the examples they saw on the internet. Happy happy accident. Ye. In fact, they discovered the world record for Spanish hog fish weighed just one pound eight ounces. When they finally got to a certified scale, the fish that Dr Timpson had only recently bemoaned as unwanted bycatch that fought like a discarded prophylactic shattered the world record for Spanish hog fish by more than a pound. Wow, good for him, Good for him. As great as that is, it's also like, if not for the Internet, they never it never would have been no be like, I don't know, and they just have eaten it and gone on with their lives. Well okay, well that was a terrific round up. Good for him. Um, that's something. I have to google the fish because I can't even picture what it looks like. I don't even know it does. I mean, it looks like, you know, how the hog fish have those big lips and like the yish, it looks like a hog fish, but but more brightly colored and smaller. I wonder if it's as tasty, because hog fish is freaking assumes so Like, that's the problem with hog fish is that when I order it in Florida, I just always assume it's not actually hog fish because I don't trust anybody. But man, when I've gotten it, like in person, in the flesh, did hog fish so fantastic? Anyway? You know what else is delicious? Snakeheads? As I've said a billion d in one time. Um, but the person in this story uh is not going to uh ever learn that. Okay, So I was not going to do the Massachusetts snakehead story, even though a bunch of you guys forwarded along. And here's why. Right, the first story I read was in the Miami Herald, and it literally could have been cut and pasted from every single story of a snakehead showing up in a new place. Right. The summary of that is basically so and so caught one here. Now here's paragraph after paragraph of the same outdated and overhyped facts that have been written for twenty years, and its rounded out nicely Yeah, it rounded out nicely with you know, vague quotes from studies and surveys that also happened twenty years ago. So I didn't really think there was that much for me to say. But the story on Boston dot Com took a much deeper dive into the angler and his personal experience with this fish, and I started reading that and chuckling, and I was like, Okay, here we go. I can run with this. So that angler is Michael Powell, and the snakehead was called in August in Reservoir Pond in Canton, Massachusetts, which is a Boston suburb and also noteworthy because the snakehead like rarely, if ever, for all I I know, just kind of shows up like in in in the pond next to the cornfield in Iowa, you know what I mean. It's always always around an urban center. UM authorities believed this one was a pet that was released after getting too big for its tank, which is one of the most common ways that these fish end up everywhere that they are now. Powell was fishing for bass that day and throwing a hollow body mouse, so that all checks out definitely something a a snack would chew. UM so here's what he had to say about the hookup. I fished my whole life, so I kind of knew what to do, and I knew it wasn't a fish that was part of this area. As soon as I got it on the boat, I said, holy shit, this is a snakehead fish. Now moving on to the specs the snakehead. This is from the story. The snakehead was five pounds and thirty inches long. Negative, it was neither of those things. And that is a classic case of a reporter. I feel like asking an angler how big it was after the fact, you know what I mean, and it's like, oh, you know, like five pounds probably thirty inches, right, So this one might weigh three pounds at best, it might measure twenty two inches. And remember I've caught I've caught a lot of them, so I have a pretty decent eye for them. I caught to fish over thirty inches this summer, and like that length is dream status if you're into snakeheads. Those fish were nine and a half and eleven pounds. So the measurements are are are just inaccurate. Okay, It's it's a pretty it's pretty small snakehead. Mike um now, and in the story, Powell says he's been quote to the to the bottom of YouTube and back when it comes to fishing videos, so he was familiar with the type of fish and new to call the authorities immediately. But then, the story says Powell believed he'd caught a brown snakehead fish, which has not yet been identified in the US. Do you know why, because there's no such thing, no such thing as a brown snakehead fish. I googled it though, just to make sure I didn't miss something, you know what I mean, Just make sure I didn't look stupid. But when you google brown snakehead fish, you only get one return, and that would be this story about Michael Powell's. It's just it's just a great northern snakehead. It's in a darker phase. It's that's fine. Um fun facts. This is not the first snake had caught in Massachusetts. This makes number five since two thousand two. But it seems like in all cases they were dealing with a loner adult fish, and there's been no evidence of reproduction in the wild up there, right. So Powell reported this to the proper authorities, and they asked him to keep the fish alive for them, but they couldn't get there to collect it until the next day. So Powell says, I don't really have an aquarium I can stick in't. So what I did is I dragged one of my buddies boats on land and filled it with water and we put him in there. I put some plywood over it, and then cinder blocks over the plywood, made sure it didn't get out, because they're known for getting out of aquariums and crawling around. So this all this all ties back to just like the overhead yeah right, um. And then the final quote, which sounds like it was given to a TV reporter, Powell says, did you see the teeth on that thing? Try catching it. I didn't know what the hell to do with it, and I fished my whole life. We had it out of the water for two hours while I was trying to figure out what to put it in. And as soon as you put it in the water, it let out a giant gulp of air and started breathing through its skills. Again, I said, that's it. I don't want to see it anymore. It's doing stuff that fish aren't supposed to do. Come on, man, like is it gonna haunt your dreams? You know what I mean? Like if it were me, I'd be out there all the time wondering what if there's one, there might be more, you know what I mean? Like clearly, like I don't know. Dude's not not embracing this. So um mass DNR will study it, which, like I said, means no fish tacos for pal, which is probably smart so he doesn't worry. It'll like multiply in his stomach and he'll have snakeheads bursting from every orifice. What is it about these fish, dude? What is it? I honestly, I don't know, because there there's so many invasive species around, and we talk about invasive species a lot, and we know they're a problem. I'm not saying that these fish aren't a problem, But there's something about these fish that captures the imagination of the media and people like nothing else except maybe sharks. I am convinced, um and I don't want to give too much away, but like, wait wait till the new b Side season drops later this year, Like you want to see some snakeheads ship. Like I'm gonna say you have some snakehead ship, But I am. I am thoroughly convinced that it is purely media fear driven. Oh it is. But why did the media pick this one because it's called a snakehead, because it's called a snakehead as it's mean looking, because it has teeth, and we it's like we're beating a dead horse. Right. The whole walking on land thing is not inaccurate, but it is a survival mechanism. But it was sold to people so hard in those early years that these would just destroy everything. So it actually is inaccurate though, because I did a deep dive in this in preparing for the new season of Dos Boat. Right, northern snakehead can't crawl across land or live out of water for three days. There is another subspecies of snakehead they can do it, but not the northern snakead not the ones that are here. Mm hmm, well three days no way. But dude, I've I've walked up on snakeheads crawling across wet grass, right, So my point it's not that they can't. The northern snakeheads can come out of water. They need to be hydrated, like it needs to be murdered. Wet grass. They can't crawl down Route one past is like, that's not gonna happen. Um. But I just think that there was so much like driven into people's heads, like media latched on. It is so hard early on that it is just stuck with too many people. And there are so many worse things in our waterways all over this country than these, I mean they. The truth is there were two separate horror films released with snakeheads as the primary fear based bad guy horror films. Look at that, there are two snakehead horror films out there. That's how obsessed we are with these fish. It doesn't make any sense. But I mean, dude, this dude doesn't seem stoked at all. Like be stoked, dude. You've caught a million bass and you've got it all afraid of it on a mouse. That's great, that's rad. That is rad. So there you go, Massachusetts snakeheads apparently they're just they're not gonna they're not gonna latch on up there in Boston. Snakeheads. They may be able to crawl for short distances on damp land, but you know what they can't do, Joe, What's that? They can't fly? No, they can't know. But my second story is about fish that can fly sort of. So for for this story, I'm going back to Lake for a Million in Minnesota, because in recent weeks an odd phenomenon has been troubling the locals. They've been finding fish in places where fish don't belong. Strange it sounds fish do on occasion fall from the sky. In fact, according to the book It's Raining, fish and spiders creatures fall from the sky about forty times a year. This occurs when tornadoes or water spouts form over large bodies of water and suck fish and water up from the surface into the storm. The storm then moves over land and drops the fish, giving the impression of fish rain. But there have been no tornadoes or water spouts anywhere near Lake for a Million recently. According to local newspaper The Timber Jay, numerous residents have reported finding fish on decks, law driveways, streets, and in the woods, sometimes nowhere near the shore of the lake itself. The vast majority of these fish are tulibies, also known as Cisco's. The one resident reported finding an eighteen inch walle in his yard. To make things even well, at least slightly stranger. Many of the fish are headless and mutilated. Oh, the obvious question is why in the name of God or fish falling from the sky. I mean, I know, I was just saying that all those record fish catches make me feel like we're not living through the initial wave of the apocalypse, But mangled fish raining down upon small Midwestern towns might force me to rethink that assessment. Thankfully. Is this an X files or a real story? I've heard this before. I think it was squids though, are like jelly like blobs looking up the timber j They did some damn good reporting, and from the timber j we know according to local gossip and science, this is an splainable event. It's not a harbinger of the end times. First we'll hit the gossip. Residents told the paper that they believe the Pissine precipitation is actually the result of raptors. When water temperatures rise on lake for million, tulabies die off in large numbers, and the eagles and osprey take advantage of the free meals. Locals think that the birds have so much food they're just scattering it around Willie Nelly all over the place. Biologists agree that eagles and osprey are the mechanism for fish transport, but the rest of that theory doesn't hold up. Matt Hennan, the d n r's local large Lake specialist, recently tested oxygen levels in lake for milion and found them fully oxygen aated down to thirty seven feet. He also said that the d n R has seen no evidence of a fish kill in recent weeks. Those fish are, however, moving into the shallows this time a year to feed on abundant zoe plankton and prepare to spawn. He also said that eagle populations around the lake are at an all time high, so his hypothesis is that the eagles, in preparation for their own upcoming seasonal change, are competing with each other for available food. They're scooping up the tulibes as they move into shallow water, but in route to a nest or tree to eat the fish, they're running into other eagles who want to steal their meal and then getting into these aerial dog fights. And then fish fall from the sky, sometimes decapitated. Once has anybody like seen one fall from the sky, like if they physically watched it? Far are you getting there? I don't know the answer that question. Actually, like what people fish on the ground, I know, yes, you're really shifting on the Timber j somebody works there and I got the story from them. They did great work. They talked to locals, they talked to the biologist. There's some good quotes in that story. Everyone subscribed to the Timber J If you live around like Familion, I don't think anybody has seen one fall from the sky. But they're in places that they had to have fallen. And there were some photos and it's clear like this thing fell down. It wasn't act all right, all right? And as interesting as I find the story, and I do you know what this makes me think of? You know what I'm stuck with. What I'm thinking about the poor person who will go to clean out their gutters in a couple of months, oh yeah, and find a fully rotten tool to be jammed in a downspout. Just the nastiest thing you could ever imagine that thinking about this is such a dad like not cool thing to say. Gutter guards best investment in my life. I can't say enough good things about my gutter guards. We could talk about him for hours. Who needs weed guards? I got gutter guards right on. Yeah, that's it. That's all I got from the guy. Ending ended on the rotten tool be jammed into a down spout. That's the image I want to leave all of you with your welcome Yeah. Okay that yeah, that that that that would not be good to take that out of there. I don't really know what kind of good follow up I have to that. I mean, it feels it seems like mystery solved. But what came into my head, It's like, I'm not gonna lie. I ended on that because I was like, how could he ever transition from a rotten tool to be jammed in a gutter to anything fish news worthy? Oh but I but I am. But I'm about to but I want to just say a little bit. It's a loose connection, but it's a little bit. It's actually nothing to do with the gutter. It's going to be more about eagles. But now I'm getting ahead of myself. But as soon as you started telling the story, I'm like, this is the kind of stuff you see on those like um Paranormal of history on science Shannow. You know, it was a cold day and wherever Kentucky when started? Yeah? Seven exactly. So, Um, here's what I'll say. If the eagles run out of toolabes, they might want to head on over to the Illinois River, where things have gotten much safer to eat lately. How about that? So I alright, fair, fair four point five. You know, just keep on theme with that with Ben Anyway, pc bees, I think most of you know what they are, and in case you do not, they are poly chlorinated by phenals. PCBs were widely used as an insulator in electrical equipment and in other industrial equipment. Now PCBs are one of the leading contributors to do not eat or consumption warnings being placed on certain waterways, and as Jersey guy, I am highly familiar with these warnings. I have been eaten PCB since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Um. Matter of fact, there there's been one on the Hudson River in Raretan Bay where we filmed episode one of dost Boats season three, for a very long time. Um. The thing is, though, I think like people get nuts so about these warnings. Sometimes like just nuts. And in most cases warnings tell you to eat fish from a contaminated area in moderation. They don't often say never if you have a catfish from the Striper Hudson once or twice the season, you're fine. Pregnant women, young girls, nursing mothers, they need to be extra cautious. But generally speaking, unless you're eating fish or shell fish from that water daily or weekly, this is not that big a deal, but people love to cling to it. So um. Spoiler alert. Episode four of dost Boats season three was filmed on the Potomac in d C with chef Kevin Gillespie and they caught blue cats and oh my god. People went nuts when they posted photos like you can't eat a fish from there, ever, it's a death sentence, and blah blah, it's not okay. They feel like these are the same people that like, you know, you'll sit behind a bus at a traffic light breeding in the exhaust and like you don't worry about that, but you're gonna worry about one catfish um. And people I think down the tenth cigarette they've been like catfish um. But people I think also forget um that a lot of the fish you purchase in the fish market probably has some level of contaminants in it too, right, So it's just anyway PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in nineteen seventy nine, but they were used so heavily for so long um that they've been contaminating to raise ever since. They don't just go away easily. So here we are forty two years after the band, and there may be some hope that in certain places those PCBs might finally be diluting or sort of burning out and going away. The Illinois Department of Public Health recently took the last remaining fish off the do not eat list for the Illinois River, and that would be the Channel catfish. So PCBs collecting the mud in the silton sludge and the soft bottom. Therefore, species like catfish that do most of their eating on the bottom always have higher levels of of PCBs than fish that tend to feed further up in the water column move around more. So to take them off the list of a river with an incredibly long industrial background is to me pretty significant, So from the story on Advantage news dot com, the DPH regularly monitors Illinois River for contaminants. Fish from each stretch of the two and seventy mile along Illinois River are sampled every five years, year by year as contamination levels have improved, specific types of fish have been removed from the do not Eat list. Only channel catfish from two stretches of the Illinois River in northern industrial areas remained on the list this year, and then in August, using the most current data, the DPH was finally able to clear the channel catfish from the list. So there have been some strategic cleanup efforts on the Illinois over the years. But as I understand it, we're also just seeing again that natural burnout. After forty years, these PCBs are just starting to break down. So this could be a a good sign for similar rivers and bodies of water with similar problems. And I found that a little bit uplifting. Yeah, I mean, are they burning out? Is that that they have a half life or are they half like atomic particles. I think it's a combination of both, just flushing over time and turnover in these rivers, And I mean they will they do have a half life. They will just sort of break down eventually. It just takes a really long time. So I mean we're talking about breakdown that that I mean the process started in nine nine, so it's taken a really long time. But it's a little glimmer of if you're thinking about different pollutants and the things we worry about, particularly like nuclear waste. Forty years is nothing, right, I mean, like you have like millions of years of half life on some of this stuff. So this is like kind of good news. It goes away. I mean, it's it's a long time in a single person's life span. It's not that long in terms of like the longevity of pollutants really right, Like they're not going to break ground on the on the hard rock chernobyl to at least five or something like that, you know what I mean. So, no, that's great, man. I appreciate the upliving. It's it's uplifting in a number of diferent ways. One always like to hear about rivers getting cleaned up, but also catfish anglers on the Illinois River. Yeah, every day, every day, kill them off. There's not enough hassautry seafood breader in the world, there you. So we've ended, we've ended news on an uplifting note. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna get phills. Last judgment of me and Miles here together, and then we're just gonna bring somebody straight down and do one final Awkward Moments in angling. Wow, Miles, I can't believe it's your last show. Um. I normally play a kind of a stupid character when I do these Fish New segments, but I just want to get a little sincere here and say that editing Bent is honestly the highlight of my week and I'm really gonna miss you being a part of that. Um. Just good luck with your your next journey. That being said, Joe Sirmellie, you are the winner of fish News this week. No, no, it's not. It's Miles. I'm not that big of an asshole. Miles. I just want to say one more thing. You take my breath away and remember the next time you're on the highway to the danger zone. I know that I've always got that love and feeling, but it's a back of pixture, a live black So I think it's fair to say that Awkward Moments has been one of our personal favorite segments. Like we've we've really had a great time with it, and I promise that no matter what Bent looks like going forward, awkward Moments will not go away. Right it is. It's just it's just too much fun. And I need you guys keep sending and tagging your embarrassing shots, because if you don't, I'll have no one but myself to make fun of all the time. And while I'd never run out of things to make fun of about myself, it's just a nice break to trash someone else from time to time. So awkward rides on, you know, and as it has to, because from the very beginning we knew that we wanted to make fun of the genre of the hero shot. It's just it's so right for ridicule, and yet we all do it. We just can't help ourselves. And and this week Joe found us a gem, which is maybe, I think, maybe the perfect closer for us to do together, because while it's definitely awkward, it also kind of captures everything Bent is about in one frame. It could be it could be a Bent poster. We've said so many times that we strive to be the place where all anglers are welcome, where we're not siloed into being all fly or all salt or all bass like so many other podcasts. I know, damn well, you are going to maintain that going forward. But if you need some short term help. You might want to call Jeremy Creed, the subject of this photo. I I might want to call him, or at least if I ever need a bodyguard while fishing, I'll know who to call. Um. Look, the fact is we can spare in an entire episode dissecting this shot. But per lance V, your shift at Chili's starts in an hour or so, so we just don't have that kind of time. Okay, So this is a This is a vertical photo of a shirtless Jeremy who's wearing a backpack, and he's standing in the stream, and he's holding up a decent smallmouth bass two pounds maybe decent fish, good smally right, So, working from the top down, as as sometimes we do, we'll start with Jeremy's glasses. They are wrap around frameless glasses, possibly Oakley or knockoff flea market Oakley. And they're exactly what I've described in past awkward moments as ken Griffy Jr. Sunglasses. Now in his in his mouth is a fly rod. My money is on flea market knockoffs looks like those those are not. But I I understand why Jeremy's doing the rod biting pose here. But I still don't like it. His hands are occupied. One is busy lipping that smally vertically, and the other is holding a very nice wooden landing net with a ghost bag. I applaud this, okay, He Jeremy is worried, doesn't want the fish to wiggle out of his hand and hurt itself. That's great. But while I do applaud the fish handling, I have just never cared for the rod in mouth pose. Can I interrupt for one second ask does that shot of you exist anywhere? Because I can't give him as hard of a time because there are shots of me doing that. But have you ever done that? I have done that. I'm not. I'm not saying I've never done it, but I have. It's been at least ten years since I've done so I feel like I can say I have learned from my past mistakes and I'm not trying to avoid it. But they exist of me? Is what I'm sure someone will find one of me and and make fun of it. And what I have to say to Jeremy in this photo, and and also to myself from my twenties, we get it. The Smalley the fish was fly caught good for you. But news flash, you also kind of look like a tool with that graphite in your teeth. Again, this is just my opinion, and the rod bite maneuver is is actually pretty standard in fly angler gripping grins. So that's about as far as I can go there. But beyond that, ship kind of gets weird in this photo. Yeah, so far, there's nothing out of the ordinary here, right, But then protruding straight up from the center of Jeremy's lower abdomen like a bad case of morning would is a spinning roun. Okay, he's got the handle jammed into the waistband of his quick Dry fishing pants and just the way that like it's got to be tapping his naughty bits. Okay, but that's not all right. Jammed into that waistband in the same central location, same place as the rod is his cell phone and a nine millimeter pistol. Yeah, that's that's a lot of weight. I'm not I am not sure how those nylon quick dry pants are staying up frankly, but that's also not the main concern here because there's a lot going on. You put this whole package together and it's it's like pseudo tactical. Jeremy's trying to be prepared for every possibility. May fly start hatching, Bam, He's got the fly rod deep, whip out the spinner, get him down. Should he encounter a selfie crisis, which he seems of the age that that might be a problem, he's covered. And if a bear or wolf, for yetty or homicidal maniac just happens to jump out of the bushes, the pistol is at the ready. But I said pseudo tactical, because if Jeremy was actually deep in the tactical world, he'd have like special holsters for all these things that would keep them on his waist band, on the outside or elsewhere, not jammed into his pants. Right, he wouldn't have a rod, butt, camera, phone, and pistol all pointed straight at his junk and only held up by the power of wasteband and beer gut. Now, well, it's easy to crack jokes about this shot. This is this is what ties it all together. The truth is this was and kind of still is me and this shot is bent right like I was the kid in love with fly fishing, but not in love with the idea that that I might miss opportunities because I only brought a fly rod. So most of the time when I had weighed a smallmouth river or a trout stream, there was either a fly rod broken down of my backpack or a spinning rod sticking out of my backpack or waiter belt. And if there's one resounding message here on Ben, it's that, God damn it, that's okay, you can do that. Yes, and and you're right, that is That is the message. And I may, I may, I may have been a little too hard on young Jeremy. I really do applaud his preparedness in versatility. It's the firearms safety thing that's getting You can talk about that for a set. I just I hope he's getting a little more careful with how he carries a firearm. It's I'm glad he's got it. I want him to be prepared and safe. That's all great, but poor poor firearms handling is not bent. Just the fishing stuff, the fishing stuff there, and and awkwardly sticking your cell phone somewhere, No doubt that's me. And God knows I spent years awkwardly lugging every kind of fishing implement I owned. Strapped in whatever way I could to whatever second hand backpack I could afford. I did that for years. Yeah, you threw it all, and you threw it all in your jam sport and off you tell me, tell me like nine times out of ten you would regret it too, Like you'd want to go into it that way, but she'd be like trying to crawl through ship and the spinning rods caught in the trees, or like it falls out of your waiter belt and a deep hole. Like it was always it was always a disaster. But I always did that. I just wanted to leave no fish on the table because of my inability to decide on method of chasing them anyway. Do you remember, like what makes you think of an image? Do you remember the one man band? Yeah? I always kind of felt like the one man band guy who sort of had every instrument strap to be somewhere playing. It's so inefficient, it's so inefficient, but it's so great And Jeremy, we really appreciate the shot again man, such a fitting closer for Miles. Not a tag team. So please keep sending your awkward photos to Bent at the mediator dot com, or you can d m them to me directly on the instagrams. That's where this one came from. I will close with a warning, however, UM, who the hell knows who will be joining me for future roastings. Okay, And if you've been with us from the beginning, you know our cast of regulars, and some of them probably won't be as nice and eloquent about your fury as Miles. So again, we do not condone, do not condone wet waiting with a loaded nine millimeter pointed at your junk. But we did enjoy that photo very much. I feel like we've always aimed to keep you on the straight path down range with your fishing, UM, which is why we close so many shows with our end of the line segment. And I'm gonna have to come up with a lot more luras and flies and baits. I suppose now that you're leaving, UM, but I think it's only fitting that you hit one more end of the line before you dip. I appreciate that, I think I should, and I want I want to close one of the best bent and the line topics. I can come up with one that's equally literate, degenerate, functional, and fishing all inclusive. It's gonna be a little unconventional, but I hope you enjoy it. Well, that's not loud enough. Technically speaking, this is an end of the line segment. But because I want to hurl one last appeal to put down your phones pick up a book at all of you, it's also a freaking philistine segment. This is my last show. I do what I want. The fly I'm featuring this week is in many ways an anti fly. It's not delicate or fussy. It's not even actually tied. The bugger duck, as it's called, requires three materials and no threat at all. It's cheaper than a gas station jighead with a twister tail and just as easy to rig. No matter how much whiskey is curdling in your consciousness, you probably have all the necessary components to make this fly in your truck. Which is actually how the fly came to be. Here's a snippet of its origin story, taken from an essay written by its inventor. I was fishing wooly boogers on the Gallatin when it came up with a full blown bugger duck. The fish were hidden like crazy. Two had broken my tip. It and in my frenzy, I had snapped off four flies in the trees behind me, so I went back to my pickup to find more, but there were none. I did have some lead wrap in my vest and a dozen number six long shank hooks and a roll of duct tape in my glove box. With a vague idea of the invention that necessity was mothering forth, I went under the bridge to take a leak and stumbled upon the moldering carcass of a coyote nod duck. I picked some of the sodden down from it, returned to the tailgated by pickup, sat down, and proceeded to tape up a true bugger duck. I tore off a little strip at duct tape, wrapped the shank of the hook in it, wrapped the duct taped shank, and lead wrapped that in more duct tape, taped on some of the soggy down for a tail, and taped on more down for the body, creating a head that looked like a silver bullet in the process. Gazing at the morbid proletarian monstrosity I had created without thread, bob and or vice, I thought not bad, and quickly taped up four more. Then I lumbered back down to the river. The bugger duck and that passage. We're both the brainchild of writer, poet, teacher, and musician Greg Keeler, and the fly is a perfect distillation of Gregg's approach to fishing, writing, and life. Bugger ducks catch fish. They are an honest to god effective pattern. But that's not why I picked this fly. I love this fly for what it represents and who it reminds me of. See. You may not know the name Greg Keiler, but if you're even vaguely familiar with the countercultural outdoor writing scene in southwest Montana during the seventies and eighties, you know the crew that Greg ran with. We're talking about Russell Chatham, Doug Peacock, Tom mcgwayne, Jim Harrison, Gary Schneider, the people who defined the genre of outdoor writing as we know it today. Richard Brodigan was one of Greg's close friends. Greg wrote a book, Waltzing with the Captain that recounts some of their adventures, but Greg never found national notoriety in the same way as his contemporary. He wrote plenty of books, some very good ones, but maintained a family in addition to his day job as a tenure track professor at Montana State University. I read Gregg's memoir trash Fish when it was published in the early two thousands and found in it exactly the tone that I felt so much fishing literature lacked. Trash Fish is the opposite of most outdoor writing, unpretentious, self deprecating, and honest. Greg is no hero, trumpeting his genius and celebrating his triumph for fish and fellow anglers. He's a confused baby boomer with an inexplicable angling obsession, stumbling through the messiness of trying to live a satisfying life. Along the way, he up often hurts the people he loves most, indulges in years of self destruction, and goes fishing a lot. The book reminds us that just about everything we do, when viewed from an appropriate angle of distance, his absurd, and yet despite the clown futility of modern life, our actions have consequences. Individual suffering matters, even if not at the macro scale of a population now pushing eight billion. I reached out to Greg before my own memoir came out in two thousand nine to ask for advice on generating an audience and being a successful writer based in Bozeman. Though at the time we'd never met, he was kind enough to write back to me with the following wisdom. He wrote, My publisher tried to get me to go out and create a groundswell for trash Fish, so I ran home and hid in my house. If there's an audience for it in this area, it's because I've lived, taught, performed my songs, and exhibited my art here for thirty five years. I've been trying to write lately, but between students meetings, magazine writing, and feeble attempts to travel. For trash Fish to transient showed at my signing and butte, I've barely had time to fart. I knew that Greg and I would become friends when I enrolled in the graduate program at Montana State University. Greg's office became my sanctuary. He kept me afloat while I was churning in the crowded wave pool of fragile egos and weaponized word play we call academia. Greg served on my thesis committee until two days before my final defense, his wife committed suicide in her car parked in a Bank parking lot beside a steel statutory of majestic elk. I stopped by his house, wearing a black shirt, black tie, and black cowboy boots, and carrying a venison sausage pie, as if its caloric density might fill some of his void. I left, hastily, stepping into the early May perfume of lilacs, and tried not to think about futility as I drove my truck to the fluorescent globe of the English Department conference room. Later that summer, Greg and I went carpet fishing, and I was reminded of why I loved his memoir in the first place. The cover features a portrait of a sucker with a drop of water creeping down from its stupid and terrified eye, making the fish look as though it's crying. Here's a sample taken from an early chapter. I sometimes found it difficult to understand why father chose to go fishing by himself half the time. After all, he liked to fish. I like to fish, and I was his son. But now looking back, it's not quite such a mystery. Fishing with me must have been something like bird watching with a cat. As soon as we'd pull up to a streamer lake. I'd be out of the car, dashing toward the lake, falling over boulders, spilling the tackle box, and falling in the water. Father would stand by the car trunk, muttering under his breath, knowing that nothing short of violence could stop me. Then eventually he'd come after me, picking up hooks and sinkers in my wake, and finally ragging up his own rod. Not that he was any great shakes himself. His equipment was always frayed and clogged from use and abuse. His casting reels sometimes looked like a porcupine, with all the loose ends poking out from where he had nodded the line together after cutting out backlashes. His rod was short and stubby from breaking and regluing the tips so many times, and his lures they were huge, old concoctions of metal, feathers and wood, resembling small rats or squashed pigeons. But probably if I learned anything specific about my father from the process of angling, it was how to swear. After all, when one lets one's tackle become a huge tangled wad, one has a bit of trouble turning it into anything but found art. One of my earliest vivid memories is of Father standing out on a point of rocks on Lake scan Tellus in upstate New York, silhouetted against the futius sunset, jumping up and down and screaming. I can't remember if it was over faulty equipment, lost fisher life in general. All I remember is the part when a reel got a backlash in it in father's hands. That ceased being a plain old reel and became a jacked off spool of horse reel. Once in Oklahoma, when he was pulling a stringer of small bass from a farm pond and a water moccasin had managed to work one of the bass into its gullet, it ceased being a water moccasin and became the bastard son of an elongated turd. And once when he was cleaning a channel cat and his hands slipped so that the dorsal spine went into his wrist, it ceased being a channel cat became a scumb sucking mucus drenched nail in the hand of Jesus Christ Almighty. There was also violence. If he broke the tip of a rod, Sometimes instead of replacing the tip, he would take what was left and break it again in several places. It isn't easy to break a fishing rod in several places. Sometimes one must find a couple of cinder blocks so that one may lay it between them and stomp it. Or sometimes one must just rear back and send it whoop whooping out in the middle of the river. For the most part, Father was a gentleman, but fishing was for him a sort of ventilation shaft through which raged the sound and fury of his Simian predecessors. My final recommendation to all of you is twofold. First, go read trash fish and then anything else that grabs your fancy from keeler. Then whip up a half dozen or more bugger ducks and go fishing. You won't need a recipe, but here's the suggestion. After the half rotten duck feather prototype, Greg refined the pattern a bit and substituted actual maraboo, which works well. But any supple feathers will do. And really you don't even need feathers. You can hack off a chunk of fur from your dog, or steal that lock of hair from your first child someone's been saving in a shoe box. Just find some kind of material that moves and lash it to the back of a weighted long shank took with duct tape. Cut the tape, or let's be honest here, tear it off with your teeth, lay the ragged edge down and boom, You're done. You just tie a fly or made a fly whatever. So that is it. In case you fast forwarded to this very part, Miles is leaving bent. I'm a bit of a nervous rack, but that uneasy feeling in my stomach might just be from the taco bell seafood salad. I just date, you really got to stop drowning your sorrows and experimental fast food. Joe, just just drink too much whiskey like a normal degenerate. You'll probably live longer. You're right, and I've been drinking a lot of whiskey lately. Me too. Bullshit aside, man, uh, creating the show with you every week for the past year has been one of the highlights of my career. When when we first came up with this concept, I really think you and I were the only ones who thought it had a prayer of working. And like two weeks and here we are, uh not everything we have tried has been successful, but the idea, the concept that the heart of the show has endured, and damn it, we've been willing to fail in order to make something unique. Uh. I respect, I respect a lot of things. Man. I respect your work, ethic, your wit. You take the job of making fishing media seriously without taking yourself too seriously. You understand the craft without being precious about it. No bullshit, this really is one of the most difficult decisions I've ever made in my professional life. I have no idea what the I'm gonna do Monday mornings when I can't call you up to just talk like I can't just call you to talk about whatever bullshit is on my mind under the guys of planning the following week's show, which is really my routine. Uh. And to all of you, and yeah, I'm talking about you degenerates out there who have tuned in for the past year, I want to give my sincere appreciation and thanks. Thanks for inviting me into your truck cabs and sedan's, your earbuds, your headphones. You only get so many hours, and I am grateful for the hours you chose to spend listen to me. Thanks also, to all of you who have reached out to talk about books or fishing or life or moral quandaries. Get a lot of moral quandaries. Yeah, keep those coming. Reading your emails has been one of the best parts of his job. And if you're not too piste off at me for leaving ben uh, please don't hesitate to reach out in the future to all our KEYWI listeners. I'm gonna need some new fishing and drinking buddies. So if you're willing to put up with a gangly yank, please holler. I won't be monitoring the bent account anymore, but Joe will pass along messages. I hope, yes, I will. I gotta say, dude, that was That was the nicest ship that anybody has ever said about me. And I think you know this, but part of the reason I signed on with meat Eater was to work with you and make a podcast with you. So this hurts. And the best I can do, though, is like keep it going for both of us, like keep the benching moving forward. Um. And it's always weird when you do like a final thing like this, It's like you're not dying. I could still talk. We're still talk on Monday like it's like so sad for the listener, Like Myles and I are still going to hang out on occasion, He's just not gonna bring the show. Yes anyway. In regards to those emails, in addition to being miles personal ad service, the Bend Email will continue performing its normal functions, So do please keep sending your salbing items, bar nominations, awkward photos, and offers of free lords and flies intended four miles to Bent at the mediator dot com. I will be intercepting those. Keep using those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on the Graham And speaking of the Graham, do me a solid and fire off some well wishes to my man because it's been an integral part of this show. We could not have gotten this far without the solid team work we've had over the last year, and I'm going to miss you dude. Likewise, brother and for those of you who have been here since day one, this is for you. Tight Lines its ever ever everla a Ast