00:00:02 Speaker 1: Suffice to say, questionable choices ensued. And I've been a little wary of drinking in the Mile High State ever since. You look at this boat, and you'll think this boat has nothing to do with mastering bass. How much of the deal's list you need smoke to get through a day like that? And these are big, juicy, nasty, segmented black Allien centipede looking suckers. And I'll be honest, they scare the ship out of me. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bent the Fishing Podcast. Not afraid to tell you that nobody takes you seriously when you show up to fish wearing a T shirt or hat and blazoned with the species of fish you're trying to catch. On it. I'm Joe SURMELI I'm Miles Nulty, and I want to take a minute and let you know what I'm currently drinking. No, not that it's a steaming mug of Freedom roast from Black Rifle Coffee Company. Correct sir, The Bent podcast is entirely fueled by Black Rifle Coffee. Not only would Miles and I be utterly incapable of forming a coherent thought or complete sentence without their solidly caffeinated bruise. But this show would actually not exist without their support. So if you dig what we're doing here at Bent and you'd like to start your day with an excellent cup of coffee, please go to Black Rifle Coffee dot com backslash meat Eater and pick up a bag or eight. You can enter the promo code meat Eater at checkout and get your first order. Sprinkle someone your sinkos man, it'll get them all woke. Get get them and go on. Joe, I don't know how things are out your way, but I'm sitting here sipping on my mug, gazing out the window, and things just do not look right, you know, with all these fires just raging across this half of the country. Man, It's seriously, it feels like I'm living in more door. It's like dark all the time, and ominous, dude, that smoke, that smoke made it all the way to me. We got smoked out here in Pennsylvania. I mean, it's that bad. It's terrible, man. And usually usually by mid September things are looking up, like usually by this time, you're the the fires are out, the tourists are gone, all the bow hunters are up in the mountains chasing Olk and I've like kind of got the rivers to myself. But it's still warm enough that I don't have to wear waiters or freaking love September most of the time, but this year not so much. I kind of feel like I kind of feel like September has turned her back on me. September is my least favorite month out here, if I'm being honest, because it's like purgatory, Like September is neither here nor there. You know, it's not cold enough for solid salty stripers yet, but all the freshwater patterns from summer start to change, so you have to like think more, you know, put more effort in here. Ship think about it. I'm sure it's still good, but the windows get fewer, gets all windy and hurricaney. You know, False Abbey's might start, or they might wait till October. Who knows. It's like a month that just needs to be gotten through. It's like you're inching closer to steel Head season, but it's still eighty five degrees out right now, you know, hold hold of up. Just to clarify, by steel Head you actually mean Lake Run Rainbows, right, because according to the metal heads out here in the West, if it doesn't touch salt water, it's not a real steel head. Oh, I know. And hearing that for years, you guys are just bitter because you're steel head fisheries are dying, but the Great Lakes are still pumping out lots of fish, like literally on demand sort of, especially on the famed Salmon River in New York. It's like you're all ready for stammon and steel open end valves boys call them in is y'all? Is y'all common a turn of phrase that you guys us an upstate New York? Is that is that part of the terminology. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I use it personally a lot of I've heard some y'alls up there for it, some yalls in Western p A, you know. But I think it is when we're we're doing a damn release steelhead cattle drive, it just seems to fit. And I don't really give a ship what you call them, right, But when I go to the trips, I actually catch steel head instead of standing around like an asshole casting for days with some misguided sense of self importance. You know, I fished that the shoots one time. My life wasn't impressed. Sorry, sorry it wasn't. I spent more time trying to stay on my feet on that greasy ass flat rock they got out there than like paying attention to my swing. No, that's legit, man, That that that is some sketchy, sketchy lad rock on the the shoots. But to be brutal, it's clear I don't actually have a dog in this whole. Like steelhead, great legs, steelhead fight. I just like how piste off people get about fish semantics like that's just fun. I want to poke that bear. And for those of you out here have no idea what we're talking about, steelhead or migratory rainbow trout that people lose their minds over because I mean, well really, because they're just a lot of fun to catch. Their native to the West Coast but stocked in the Great Lakes. Unfortunately, the western populations have been declining big time for a while now, but the cult of anglers who live for them, they're a rare breed. As you're about to learn in this week's Regional Fishing Report. We got this coming to you from a legend of that scene and a pioneer of both the slap Tworld lean cast and the quarter turn class skate three technique. Those are some fancy two handed fly cast that we just made up. For those of you who are looking confused, settle up, steelheaders, it's time for the Western steelhead Report from your buddy Skadget Johnson. Well, it's late summer, so we're in the depths of the Jones and man, if you don't have the shakes and the sweats and you're not a real steelheater, those of us who get it or zombie to our computer screens all night staring at the seven day rolling fish count, try and interpret the data, hitt and refresh every fifteen minutes, and praying that those fish counts start to rise. Zee. For those of you don't know, fisheries biologists are interns. They're called fish texts. Now. Those dudes they count every single fish that migrates passed the dams on the Columbia River and they upload those fish numbers to the Federal Fish Passage website in real time, man real time. For the past ten years, those numbers have been lower than the sperm count. Never since I got that shooting head wrapped around the sack while we'd nippled deep during the high flows on the d shoots. But for as bad as us real steelheads have it, I feel like we've got a kindred connection with those poor bastards who sit in the bowels of the damns, hitting that clicker each time a steel head Coho or chinook swims up the ladder. What a job, man, click click, clickity click, hours on end. How much of the devil's letust you need to smoke to get through a day like that? I don't know. Yeah, wait, I think what was I saying? All right, right, we're all in this together, man, those sad sack fish counters and those of us sitting on the other end of that WiFi signal praying the numbers will be higher than the text doing the counting. I'm even considering to go fund me to pay the fish counters to skew the data. At least we could get some hope. And that's really what this is all about, man, hope. This is the hopeful time, the time before we find out the truth and all our dreams are crushed again. Fish might come back. Maybe it'll be like two thousand nine, That was a good year. I was looking over my fishing spread eats the other night, trying to remember exactly which head length and grain weight works best. From my burke came across my ratio. It's a fish caught to hours fished. In two thousand nine it was one to eight. Can you imagine catching a fish every eight hours? God, that would be amazing. The truth is, man, the runs are probably gonna suck this year, just like they did last year and the year before that. Embrace the suck man. It's another season weeding out the trustafarians. Chaff will sink in the cream. It will rise, it will rise. Wait, I think it might a mix my old time he metaphor? Is there but any any anyway? Man? The point is us bona fides will be out there fishing still despite the terrible returns. And that's I find my ray of sunshine in the dark moss covered rainforest cabin. That is my life. Man. I can always rely on my own sense of superiority. My teletherapist says I should be more positive, so I'm trying that out. That's that's it for this week's Western steelhead Report. I'll check back in the fall. Man. By then, we should know if any fish at all are getting past the Bonneville, damn, they're all getting trapped in gillnets and eating by sea lions. God, I hate goddamn sea lions. You know, man, Great Lakes steelheaders are definitely a little less chill than your your buddy Johnson over there chill. He's pretty laid back, but they're an interesting crew into themselves. And look, stay tuned, east Side people for a steelhead report from over this way very soon. It'll be more uplifting, I promise. But as much as I as I enjoy the back and forth between east Side west Side steel I am genuinely bummed because I have never called a true salter like I feel like, if you're in the steelhead, you should at least catch one of those at some point in your steel heading career. But then I listen to reports like this, and my my mellow is fully harshed, as Johnson would say. And I decided to use those frequent flyer miles to fish in places that actually still have fish to catch. You know, I know, and I can't I can't actually blame you. The truth is I haven't fished for steel in in years, partially because I gotta go a long way to catch him from here, and partially because it's tough for me to justify messing with the few they're still around. Like I do feel some level of guilt. That's not a judgment on the people who want to do it. Those fish need advocates, but for me, it just kind of feels like, oh, I should probably let those ones. Yeah I get that, well, Yeah, that he that that sucker worked all, you know, for so long to get up through all those damns, Like, just let him do his thing now, Like I kind of get that, particularly you in top of those Idaho fish man, they've come a long way, and that's that's the to me, you know. But anyway, we will. We will keep all of you up to date on the state of steelhead here at bent as Uh as new ship comes to late Man. The truth, Joe is that I've actually never caught a Great Lake steel head. We could fix that. Well, we probably should, you know. Not that long ago both of us were actually over in the Midwest working on a little project for for mediator fishing, and even though we missed the steelhead season, we did we did catch some other species. Yeah, hopefully some of you out there have heard of doss Boat, where we take a beat up old boat, make interesting people accustomed too much nicer boats, take it out in questionable circumstances, film the whole thing and call it a fishing show. And one of those interesting people as a guy, you might be familiar with our boss, Steven Ranella. Steve's here today to talk a little bit about the history of doss Boat too, also known as dose Boat. In our first installment of who was on the boat? Never get out of the boat? Absolutely goddamn right. Okay, when you're watching doss Boat season two, dose Boat, you're gonna see old green vent three StarCraft bass master. Now, first off, you look at this boat and you'll think this boat has nothing to do with mastering bass. It's not like a contemporary bass boat. The boat. Here's the story of the boat. When I grew up, my mom still lives in the house I grew up in. But as I was growing up, if I looked out my bedroom window towards the lake that I grew up fishing on, lookers right, A couple of houses down is the house this old dude named John Gary. And John Gary was our fishing mentor when we were kids, meaning if my dad was gone. Pust John here is a lot nicer than our dad. So maybe if our dad was home and your fishing rod got tangled up, or you needed a bomber or you had a you know, hooking your finger or whatever, you could run down the beach to John Garry's and you'd be able to find him anywhere. From like ten in the morning on. He'd be fishing, and then he'd be home cleaning fish, drinking vodka whatever. He's just always there and he had all kinds of tackle, and he'd always get your stuff fixed up and squared away. And he always had this boat. I was born in seventy four and he bought his boat in seventy three. The boat still has all the registration stickers on it going back to the beginning, just s lined up in his long line and four year increments. And John Gary he also he kept his boat on one of those haulouts, and his driveway was a boat launch and he just fished his ass off for everything on the planet. Sixteen foot boat. He's a troll for salmon out in the Great Lakes with down riggers. He did everything. He's mostly a panfish specialist. When he died, this boat came to live outside of my mom pull barn and a lean to my mom's pull barn and sat there full of garbage, you know, for a lot of years now. So the story of this season is refurbishing, getting his boat back on the water, and getting to back out fishing around a lot of John Gary's old haunts in the Midwest. So it was pretty touching for me because I loved John so much and have so many fond memories of him and how fussy he was about his boat, and growing up thinking how great his boat was, and Everybody's like, John Gary's got such a nice boat, and everybody wanted to fish on John's boat. And then now you look at John's boat and it's like just looks like this little teeny old luminum boat. But my God, could catch a lot of fish out of a boat like that. So that's what you're gonna see when you tune in. You'll be uh elbow deep, armpit deep, neck deep, and nostalgia as we track around the Midwest and John Gary's boat. Check out Steve, Janice, cal Joe, Me, and a whole cast of other miscreants on the New season of Doss Boat available at the Meat Eater dot com. And while you're there, catch up on season one. It's good, it's worth your time. All right, that's probably enough self promotion for one episode. Let's talk about a business we have absolutely no stake in whatsoever. It's time for that's my bar, where we read a plug from one of you degenerates about your favorite fishing bar. You guys have been really we've been impressed. You've been sending us tons of good stuff, so it's good. Please keep your bar nominations coming. And this week's shout out comes from our very good friend and regular guest angler, not only on doss Boat, but also here on bann Aretti Frank Smithhurst, best god damn bar tender from tim buck to to Portland, Maine. The Portland argument. For that matter, Colorado is a great fishing state. Lots of people say so because I live in Montana. I'd be kind of an idiot to make a full day's drive to fish for Rocky Mountain trout when I can do that in my backyard. But I realized the state. John Denver serenaded about his trout famous for a reason. Though I haven't fished there much actually have done a pretty good bit of drinking during my limited time in Colorado. On a trip through Boulder when I was like twenty one, a friend introduced me to the red bomb. For those of you who are fortunate enough to have no idea what I'm talking about, a red bomb is a shot of yeager nestled into a four ounce pour of red bull. Nothing, and I mean nothing encourages mature and responsible behavior like a group of barely legal drinkers combining hard alcohol with lots of sugar and caffeine. Suffice to say, questionable choices ensued, and I've been a little wary of drinking in the Mile High State ever since. My good friend Frank smith Hurst has been trying to convince me to reconsider his home states fishing and drinking opportunity for years. To that end, he recently wrote this recommendation for his favorite color Atto fishing bar. Though it has been renamed the Riverside Bar and Grill, everybody calls the place the Rainbow. Back in the seventies, The Rainbow was founded in Basalt, Colorado. It's right next to the fly Shop also known as Taylor Creek, and its outdoor deck hangs over the frying pan river. You can even feed the fish and they like fries The places wall to wall, anglers, guides, clients, and colorful folks fresh off a trip to the pan, likely warming back up with the toddy and fish tacos even on the snowiest day of winter. Thank you Frank for your submission. We will add The Rainbow to our list of top tier fishing bars. My only question is have you tried feeding fish tacos to the pet trout? Because I know I would. Thanks to all of you who have written to tell us about your favorite drinking establishments with a fishing problem. We have many, many, many more to come. But if you have a bar that you think we should shout out, let us know, absolutely send an email to bent at the Meat Eat your dot com and try to give us like a compelling paragraph that really sells the place. Now if you were you know, if it's been like I like, I like Mike's like, Okay, it sounds cool. Haven't gotten a few of those like you go to bills bills is good. You gotta you gotta kind of tell us why it's so good, you know, just just a little bit we don't, you know, I don't need to write a novel, um, you know, and we're not really sure what we're gonna do with all these Maybe we'll make like an interactive heat map like they do for the RNA outbreaks, you know what I mean, Like how much rona is in your county, how many cool fishing bars are in your county? Swipe right, um. But we'll keep you up to date on all happenings in the fishing bar scene here at bet Yes we will. That is one of our favorite scenes to uh stay abreast up and you know, considering that part of our job is keeping you up to date, it's time for fish news. Fish news. That escalated quick quick reminder. It's a competition, Miles and I have no idea which news stories the other dude is bringing to the table. That's kind of how this game goes. And if you've been following along, we now have our masterful engineer Phil at the end of every news segment to weigh in on who one news this week? And I have been doing well and that is because I send Phil Radio Shack gift cards. I was wondering what it was. I knew there was some kind of deal you guys had going to the back end. He's a podcast engineer. I figured he must spend a lot of time in radio shack, so those will come in handy. I've gotta I've got to I gotta figure out my bribery game. Man. My bribery game apparently sucks. But but this could be your week to shine. Uh. You get to lead off, and that's always, that's always. I got to lead off. Spot in case we both found the same thing, maybe I can leave you high and dry. We'll see. Bring it on, man, All right, there we go. For those of you out there who have been paying attention to fish News, not just you know, sleeping through it like like you do class, you'll know that we love shark stories because I mean sharks. Remember the shark stories were also partial to phish science and evolution and any chance that we can find to make fun of shark week. Well, I have a story that combines all three of those topics. I'm definitely pandering here because last week research was published about the largest shark ever to swim on this planet, at least as far as we know, the Megalodon or meg as the kids seem to be calling it and or as that movie that nobody went to see was called. Oh don't worry, we'll get to that movie. We're gonna throw some meg in there. Oh yes, be patient, alright, alright. Megalodon has been the subject of significant attention and debate, both in paleontology and pop culture. Researchers are pre de confident that Megalodon lived from about twenty million years ago until about three and a half million years ago, and that it was the biggest, baddest marine predator around. Megalodon evolved alongside whales, which were probably its primary food source. So picture a whale, like a humpback whale, and now think about now, think about a shark that would hunt whales and potentially be capable of biting one in half. And that's megalodon. All right, that's a that's a great image. Oh I've I've personally visited that famous Magleodon jaw set hanging in the Smithsonian. I believe it is it is. As a child, I saw lots of pictures. Yeah, And even though researchers have been able to figure out that much, they have not been able to agree on how big Megalodon actually was because the problem is that sharks, unlike dinosaurs or other large extinct land animals, have cartilaginous skeletons. I mean, they're not made of solid bones. They don't fossilize very well. The only evidence of Megalodon found intact have been a few scattered vertebrae and more importantly, their teeth, which are more than seven inches long. So scientists have been comparing those teeth with other living sharks and trying to extrapolate from there, but it's it's been kind of a problem. Size estimates have ranged from twenty five to eight ft and you know, that's a pretty big difference. Like they're they're they're they're not even close. Yeah exactly. But just this last week, new research from the University of Bristol claims to have figured this problem out, and they came up with an estimated length of about fifty feet, which would make Megalodon more than double the size of a great white shark with a dorsal fin more than five ft high. That's a big gass shark. Kay, that's frightening. And there's you know, there's people on this planet right now that still believe there are some out there. Oh yeah, just just just hang with me here, Okay, I'll stop talking. No, I appreciate it. Your your your mind works the same way mind does, and I appreciate that. So so these are these were some big sharks, and that is like, that's some interesting research. But really, like, we wouldn't care about this if we were talking about a giant seal or a giant sloth or really any other extinct creature. This is only a story because we have this cultural obsession with sharks, and particularly with big sharks, and it kind of pisces me off. It kind of annoys me. How pop culture has just glommed onto the magalodon. Right because after after the Jaws franchise ran out of steam and Shark Nado turned the whole genre into a punchline, shark horror filmmakers had to get pretty creative. So that led to, just as you were thinking, the movie the Megen And for those of you who are not up on your terrible be movies, here's a quick rundown. Jason Street them is a rescue diver who threw an overcomplicated plot releases a few megaloton that were somehow trapped in the Mariana Trench for the past couple of million years. I don't really know, but one of them then goes on a killing spirit of crowded Beach in China before Stratham saved the day. There you go, I just saved you a few hours. You're welcome and that is that movie was. And then Dwight Shrewt is his side Yes, Dwight shoot is the sidekick. Yeah. So I just will go on record and say when the previews dropped, just for the hell of it, because I'm such a Jaws fan. I had every intention of seeing it in Imax, just because like I have to, because I'm a shark movie guy. And then I never got around to it. I have still never seen the meg From what I can do, I haven't either, but I had to research it for this, and I think you're glad you didn't, and I just gave you the whole plot, so you're done. It's fine. And as bad as that movie sounds like it was, and according to the reviews, it was really bad. That plot it actually mirrors and this is getting to your your belief like the fact that some people still believe there around that plot mirrors. A fake documentary that aired several years ago on Shark Week. And notice I did not say mockumentary. This isn't like an intentional we're making a joke. Fake. I said fake documentary, as in a totally bogus film that tried to pass itself off as legitimate. So they got Yeah, they kind of got in trouble and not trying to say trouble, but they caught a lot of flak because there's a there's a famous image from that documentary. It's like a coastguard extraction. Like there's a dude hanging off a ladder, off a chopper and like under the water you see this shadow and this was Uh. They did this after they did the same thing with the Killer Mermaids documentary, remember that one, And then they did I also found this out. It wasn't in what I wrote up, But they did one another fake documentary of what might have happened if the Mermaids and the Megalodon fought. Yes, that's the one, if you're gonna pick one. But in the one that I'm we're referencing, just for everybody ever knows, it's called Megalodon Monster Shark Lives and the ever creative Shark Week brain Trust claimed they had evidence that Megalodon might not be extinct. After all, we just hadn't noticed a giant shark ever. And they paraded through a series of quote unquote scientists, but all the scientists in that film Joe actors reading a script totally, and none of it was true. It's the same thing, you know with the Mermaids. And you know, people have loved to cling to the sela canth like they're always like, well, there's an example of a fish that we thought was extinct and it wasn't. Fine, I get that, but I mean, for how many generations was the or fish a sea monster of mythology? The giant squid? Does that really exist? Well, we've found all that stuff since. And even though they say the ocean is we we know more about outer space than the ocean. Dude, if there was a mega or several out there, one would have washed up in Fiji or wherever this ship washes up by. Now, I don't I don't believe it's out there. It's definitely not. It's I mean, let's just it's not. It's not a thing. Okay. Agree. People like to point to the mega mouth shark too, But one of the major differences here is that those fish actually or shark excuse me, did live in very very very deep water where we can't go. All the evidence of Megalodon is that it was actually a shallow water predator. So we would have found it. Uh, we would have found it. And and fun little fact that I hadn't put in there, the the state fossil of North Carolina is the Megalodon tooth. Okay, two things. They're the mega mouth shark was always included in my shark coloring books as a young kid, and I never colored it because I'm like, that's a lame shark. It looks it looks like a bluga whale, it has no teeth. So I was never into the mega mouth. But it's funny you say that about North Carolina state fossil being the Megleton tooth. That is a dream of mine. And I I know a handful of people that live some in Florida, some in the Carolina is specifically, if you know where to look, it's not that uncommon find megletus. That's what they do. Yeah. And in fact, one of the old editors at one of the old magazines I worked for when he was younger, he was a mate on a party boat. I think it was in Georgia and there was a spot out there that was known for him, and like people would snag a bunch of seaweed on the party boat and bring it up and there'd be a freaking full meg tooth like glued to the seaweed that he had one. I'm like, God, I want that, and that's like that's my dream. Yeah. No, I like I said, I know folks who do it, and we're getting way off off script here, but I I have also wanted to do a but the guy who I know who's serious about it, like his mentor who taught him how to do it, died diving for those teeth, So it's it comes with some risk. I'll just say that. It's not like, oh, you just dive down and grab some some giant shark teeth. Here we go. But to get back to my initial point, like I'm annoyed about the fake documentary and people just kind of like trying to play up this this megalodon thing because we're just selling people on the fear of a creature that a has not existed in millions of years, and be it ain't whales, not people, not you, this is not a thing that's like hunting. You it ate whales. You were not even a cheeto. Yeah, I was gonna say, you're not even like a poppy seed in the damn things teeth. But having said that, if if you are one of those folks who just loves the shark horror genre, you know, maybe you Joe, I got good news. The rumor, the rumor mill has it that Meg two the trench is in development. So there's another coming. I'll have to get caught up. That's yeah, I'll get caught up. All right. I'm trying to think of a good segue here. We'll go from the from sharks that don't exist to getting in trouble on Instagram. There's a ship. Say if it still is factoring segues? And I just lost today because that was total brain for anyway. Look, here's a classic tale about how the inability of many fishermen to simply keep their mouth shut and photos to themselves can swing around and bite you in the ass. And this comes from the Miami Herald headline. He caught a big fish near Key West, but he went to jail after bragging about it. And this is the story, and this is the story of Joshua David and Zesky, eighteen years old, and says he was jailed after State Fish and Wildlife officers said he removed a goliath grouper from the water so he could pose for a to with it. He was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of possession of a goliath grouper, booked into the Stock Island Attention Center, and released the same day after posting a seventy five hundred dollar bond. Now, to catch you guys up in case you are not familiar, goliath grouper have been protected in the US since which means harvest and possession of these species. It's it's completely outlawed um. And this also explains I'm sure you guys have seen this. When you see somebody posing with a goliath grouper, the fish is usually boat side, right, it's still in the water. Or the even cooler thing to do now is jump in the water with your goliath grouper c as it catches his breath yep, and then you get splashed as it kicks away, and then you get a ton of uh comments when you post that video on your Instagram account and all of that is perfectly okay, right, Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says it's okay to snap some picks with your goliath as long as it doesn't get in the way of a fast, healthy release. But young Mr Anzeski just made so many wrong terms. He just he strayed so far, and I kind of don't feel bad for him. So if you're out there thinking like, come on, man, you know, give the kid a break. He was proud of his fish, all right, listen and I read on. Anazeski said he caught the twenty pound juvenile in the lagoon on the campus of the College of the Florida Keys on Stock Island. According to the rest the arrest report by f w C, the lagoon where the goliath came from is the college's dive training lagoon, and there are signs posted there that indicate fishing is prohibited. The lagoon is a classroom space where we teach diving in marine science classes, said Amber Ernst Leonard, the colleges spokeswoman. It is filled with wildlife that we value and respect. So I read that as kind of like aquarium, which means lame move bro. That's like, that's strike two. All right, that's yeah, that's lame, okay, um. And the story goes on to say Anisky said he caught the fish, took it out of the water, and was quote messing around with it. F w C said, you know, and that's like such a teenager thing, like, you know, you get picked. We're just messing around, man. He removed the hook from its mouth before taking the photo, and the police said it's a problem that Annazeski took the fish from the water and traveled at least a hundred feet from where he car take the photo. I don't know. I saw the picture online that it's just like a dorm room building behind It's it's a totally okay you know what. I was like, Bro, I gotta show my roommate this. Yes, you don't believe what I just called. Out of the aquarium out front, he can't really tell what's behind him, but it's like it's like the building that would be at a community pool or something like the locker room building. Um, you know. But now here's the funny thing. Right. You might assume he got pinched because he posted his catch on social Nope, he was smart enough, I guess to not do that. But he did send the shot in a group text to a bunch of buddies to brag about it, and one of them, clearly it was a person Josh piste Off because they snitched. One person on that group text sent that shot to F. W. C Um. And you know, a few thoughts on this first, what's jail like on stock Island? And the keys? You know, the keys are like such a happy, carefree, relaxing environment. Are there poorly done fish murals in the cells like on every other building down there? Leaping ma he he's and smiling sea turtles? I mean, it's probably not that different from Duvall Street after bar closed time, Like I would assume it's the same cast of characters. They're just a little bit more penned in, shall we say? Yeah, it's probably pretty rowdy. You're right, I've seen some rowdy stuff down there. I just always wonder, it's like, what's jail like in Paradise? Maybe? I bet it's hot, That's what I'm gonna bet. I bet it's really hot and sticky. Probably probably, so, you know, I will say, bad move, okay. Even before he caught the group er just fishing in the training lagoon, However, I have to admit I did something similar one time, but completely unknowingly, and this was a truly innocent mistake. But I went to a Ruba for spring break one year, which is a terrible island. So if you're an angler considering a Ruba for a fishing destination, stop considering it. And anyway, this resort were at had this private island with these little boats that would run guests out to the island to lay on the beach, and they had their tennis courts and all that junk out there, but they left one end of the island wild and scenic so you could do nature walks and junk. So one morning I catched the first boat out six am. Super there's like super hot Danish girls on the boat or whoever whatever country owns a Ruba and like me, the dork with like the rods and the flats booties, and I'm making my way to the end of the island. I spot this monster barracuda in a little lagoon and I cast at him. He bites, he cuts me off, so I'm like, I'll fix your ass, dude, And I put wire on and metal and uh, I'm just about to cast and around the corner comes the first nature tour group of the morning, which I did not know they had, and the tour guide is like, over here you'll see Charlie, our resident. And there I am standing there with a rod on a little bridge, and thank god I didn't cast because Charlie was angry that morning. Dude, forty five seconds later, I would have had Charlie shaken on a bow cari if they would have got a real good look at Charlie. But I just ran away and didn't bother fishing anymore than the rest of the time. You got lucky. They're very smart. I mean, there are so many different stories that we could go through of people getting pinched, particularly in our media space, for just not being able to keep themselves from casting at that fish. But they know they shouldn't. It happens all the time. So hopefully lesson learned their kid, you know, take your lumps. But like you know, you don't have to fish in the dive pool. You know, there's a million bridges down there. Like fishing at the bridge, dude, any any other place, any other place, and I'm gonna I'm gonna move us away from illicit fish toward fish that we should really embrace, fish that we should should should celebrate really for for reasons that have nothing to do with their sport. And on this one, I've really just I've got great news for you. I picked the story because I care about you, Joe, That's really Yeah. I'm listening a little harder now, I'm just a little I'm hoping. I'm hoping that, like, when I do this, you'll feel just a little bit better about your own life choices. All right, Wow, so you're I know you have a you eat fish like me, we're fish eaters, and and your regular fish consumption habit might just be helping to counteract the fact that where you live is killing your brain. That's right, Yeah, consuming fish flesh may help prevent the brain shrinkage that can come from living on the edge of a city and huffing air pollution. It means, dude, you could you can stay in Philly. Dude, you can move to Trenton if you want. And as long as you eat fish or shellfish at least three times a week, all that airborne toxicity might not dissolve your white matter and hippocampus. I practically live almost equidistant between Trenton and Philly, and I actually lived directly under the power lines that connect them both. See they run right over the home. So this is good information, This is good news for you. I did, I really did pick this for you. A study from the American Academy of Neurology, which seems very legit, collected information on fish consumption habits of people who live in areas with air pollution, then scanned their brains and found that regular fish eaters have an advantage over those who skip the watery meats. And we've known for a long time that that Omega three, the acids, and fish are good for brain health and they fight inflammation that we've we've known that that's not new, But this study specifically looked at one of the known impacts of air pollution, which I didn't know. This is an actual shrinking of certain parts of the brain associated with memory and neural response. So while eating fish won't actually make you smarter, it might keep you from getting dumber. And that's something we could all use. Really. I mean, I feeled my own shrinkage coming on, and I would like to fight it in any way I can. But before we get too excited. I gotta say the study has a few limitations. All the participants were older, white women, so it may or may not translate to you and me, Joe. Also, since this research only looked at exposure later in life, we can't say for sure that feeding your kids fish will protect them from air pollution. But my main gripe with this study, and this is just a personal thing, The main thing that kind of pisces me off is that they completely discounted fried fish. Of fried fish did not count. Oh so if you yeah, that means because you drop it in the deep, yeah, would you count it? May or may not be protecting my brain. We don't know, because they like eliminated that as a variable from the study. And I'm saying, go back, redo this study, but keep the fried fish in because I want to know if the fried fish helps or not. What was it all steamed? Like what do you gotta do? It was all it was baked, broiled or yeah, or or boiled. I assume, so no pickles, no onions, no fun and fried like I think it was only deep fried, like pan fried, cool, deep fried, You're out the way I pan fry fish. The amount of butter that would would be cool. Well that's kind of that's kind of a bummer. It's like there's people who are like, well, potatoes are a great source of iron or whatever. Yeah, the skin, but like the middle will just make you fatter. Just sugar, so just so just deep potato skins then yeah, if they're not fried and covered in cheese, sure, but who eats potato skins aren't fried and covered in cheese. Yeah, And I hate to admit it, but I don't think I'm in the minority here. Like literally, just just last week, I came home with huge bags of mahi mahi filets, so we're gonna eat some fresh the night after the trip. And it's like I spend all day like coming up with like what interesting new things can I do with this? And then like the kids get crazy and like dinner's gotta get made, and I'm like, just fry the ship because that's really what I want. Anyway, It's gonna be the I want lemon and old bay and deep fried and maybe a dash of tartar sauce. So that's actually what I want. American Academy Neurology, please redo this study. Maybe expand your sample size and look at the fried fish just for us, like, just just let us know how that goes. So all right, this is great. This is a good segue. Speaking of fried fish, I'm gonna help you guys get more of those yourself in the digital realm. So follow with me here because this next story, gosh, darna, I still can't decide how I feel about it. It's either the worst idea or it has the potential to be the next big thing. I don't know. But this comes from CBC Canada and the headline of the story is video game developer from Norway hopes to lower players with fishing simulation set in Nova Scotia. Okay, now here we go. So when a Norwegian company needed help testing its new video simulation game, Fishing North Atlantic, one of the people that turned to was sixteen year old honor student from a tiny fishing port in eastern Nova Scotia. Because Dakota Keith knows video games, but he also spent two months on the back of a lobster boat this season fishing with his father and grandfather out of Little Dover, near Canso on the province's eastern shore. Keith helped identify bugs in the game while it was in development earlier this year. Now he's one of the first to play the latest version, weeks ahead of official release, and Keith says, you could play the game and you could learn a lot about all the different ports and how we fish here, he said from the gaming desk in his bedroom. Now I'm gonna skip ahead. Just what everybody wants out of a fishing games are wait, wait, wait wait. So just a quick note here that it took Keith six hours to download the latest version of this game in the rural town in which he lives, and I looked up Canco to confirm that yes, in fact, there is nothing there. So it does not surprise me, uh that when Dakota isn't lobstering, he's gaming because pro Google maps. Other options include walking the Chapel Gully trail, driving down Marine Drive, or visiting one of three lighthouses. Could not find the David Busters on the map in Canco, all right, so I'll continue on here. In the game, players start with a small boat harpooning swordfish in three kilometers of water off of southern Nova, Scotia. As they land and sell their catch at any one of five area ports. They work their way up to progressively larger vessels, including lobster boats and finally a factory freezer trawler for Nova Scotia audiences. It features realistic waterfronts and familiar landmarks in Lunenburg, Lockport, Yarmouth and Digby, and to a lesser degree, Dennis Point in Lower Publico, although the warp side Dennis Point Cafe is identifiable. Dakota says, since I was a kid playing games, I always wanted something that we do. It's the only thing that has anything to do with fishing on a commercial scale anyway. It's great to be recognized as the province in a game doing what we do here. And I guess I sympathize with that. Growing up in so I I had imagined Tony Hawk's pro skater doesn't really speak to you, write paper Boy, they probably don't have one of those. Even to that end, like the Rapple of Fishing game on PlayStation. I mean, this kid didn't grow up with Shaw Griggsby and a used bass tracker. You know, he had a dory, a south Western Hattan corn cob pipe. You know, I I hear you, But like, did you grow up in some like creepy world full of magic mushrooms and giant green ogre's named Kopa's Like no, the part of the fun of gaming is that you get out of the real experience and into a world actually existed. This would be like I was playing a video game called editing Fishing Stories. There's a reason why people commercial fish for work, not for fun, Like I. I know a lot of commercial fishermen and and a none of them are like, man, you know what I wish I could be doing when I'm not out on the boat hauling in thousand pound nets playing a game out on the boat hauling in thousand pound nets and never sleeping. But wait, here's the clincher, right. The maker of this game, Hamma Crew, totally sees this going worldwide and plans to expand fishing locations within the game to the US and Japan. And the way I look at it, Japan has to be like the last level, right, because there's just nothing left. So like, once you've sold the final tuning, you need to catch in the US to the Japanese. The digital Japanese buyer gives you the code to get to Japan, where you have to catch exactly one fish of any size to be crowned. Let's be honest, you could you under spend. You're just you're just hunting whales at that point, Like that's that's that's the the final level of that game is like you're hunting whales and you're trying to dodge the c shepherd that's coming to kill you. Okay, all right, that's that's play. Yeah, right, And in the beginning I said I might be wrong, right, because I don't know, dude. Maybe like it's like battle Ship or Strtigo. Maybe commercial fishing works. People still play mind Sweeper. Remember Rolling Coaster Tycoon was the bomb the sims and these are games and a lot of people like me, you know, scoff tapp but people got sucked into. So maybe it works somehow more as a game of strategy, because obviously it can't be riveting gameplay. It kind of like how people like flight simulators. But I will say to the game developer log when you when you come up with the US level, look basing it off. Wicked Tuna might work, but the Swordfish, Life on the Line, Pacific Crabbers, and that main Lobsterman show all tanked. All those shows bombed we didn't like those, So you gotta go deadly as catch, and I imagine it. I imagine like a twisted Grand theft auto. Like you make it a game of choice, you know, it's like the winches jam. Will you climb out and free it or swing it into the boat for repair and lose the next pot? You know, you pick one? Oh, you suffered a skull fracture? You know what I mean? Did you used to play Blue Marlin on Nintendo? By any chance? Bass was my jam on Nintendo. I'd ever got to. I still have a working Nintendo, and I have Blue Marlin and Black Bass. But the Blue Island it was always like the fish is taking a hard run. Will you wet the reel or put the boat in reverse and wetting the reel? Never worked? So yeah, kids, this Christmas, I hope you're ready for fishing North Atlantic. Oh man, that's a yeah. I I honestly don't know where to go with that other than as I hope it's better than it sounds. Something that I know is going to be very, very enjoyable. However, is coming right at you. We have one of our favorite people coming up in one of our favorite segments. It's time for smooth moves. Hold on pre ordering my copy of Fishing North Atlantic. There can't wait. Despite pandering to my hashtag gamer instincts, watch the Throne, Miles Notte is the winner this week. Miles, congrats on your first win. Shout out to the Statham hive out there, and Miles, thank you for showing such concern for your friend Joe for breathing in all that horrible toxic East Coast air. What a gentleman. Why. This is where we reach out to a guide, or a charter captain or an outfitter, basically anybody who pays their bills or part of their bills by taking other people fishing. So today we're talking with Mandy Yerick, one of my absolute favorite people to fish with, even though I've only got to do it on on the ice and not in open water, which is I know where you really do most of your guiding. Mandy, how long have you been guiding? I don't think I even know how long you got it? About fifteen years plus right on, So you know, I done it a couple of times, just a few times. And I'm sure you've seen some ridiculous ship happened on the water in fifteen years a guiding. You couldn't have said it much better. But so all right, I know you have a storyline set up for us today. What do you got give us your smooth move? Uh. I do a lot of guests guiding, like volunteer trips that will donate for nonprofits, um, you know, or celebrities. We'll just lead into that. So we're we won't name names, but we're all fishing, and we're on a bigger body of water and the bite is really good, and uh this clients like I have to use the restroom, and I'm like, hey, alright. I was like, we can pack up and and I can run you back to the landing. Not snow problem, Oh no, no, no, I'll be fine. So alright, like not a problem. Like I'm on the front deck, got my back turned or whatever. Just kind of turn the music up on the radio kind of a deal. And so we're fine. You know. It's like yells at me like hey, we're good, you know, and I'm like yeah, all right. So you know, we go back to fishing or whatever, and it's not even a few minutes later we're walleye fishing, and uh, I set the hook and it's a good one, you know, and I don't keep fishing myself personally, but you know, I'm like, hey, do you want do you want this one too? And he's like, yeah, I have no problems. I unhook the fish and I turned around to go throw it in the life. Well, and you can't make this up. The dude ship in my life well and we fish and live. Well, he just that wasn't the first one. You already had absolutely destroyed my life. Well with these fish in it, no idea what to say. I'm like having this meltdown and I literally just dropped the fish back over the side of the boat. I'm like trying to be cool about it, right, like not to embarrass him, but I'm like, what are you thinking, man, Like we've got fish in the life. Well. The worst part is so like we were close to like filling out our limit right being done for the day, and I'm like for the rest of the day. I'm like I didn't. I'm like, oh, this one's not big enough to keep kept throwing fish back. Good for you for playing that game, because I would have been like, dude, like they're all the walleyes and now I'm who's eating those? Actually, I couldn't have played that up and I, oh, man, good for you. I don't know how I would respond to that other than to hand him like a net and be like, you need to clean that out right now. There wasn't anything you can scoop but no, okay, yeah, so it wasn't solid. It means he was getting right into the meat. Fish were brooding it. I was going running through their circulatory system, just mainlining poop basically what those fish were just like it's like it's like ships right there. We get to the we get to the here it gets better. So we get to the landing and we have these invasive species people that you don't check your boats or whatever. So you gotta pull the drain plug and you gotta pull the the live bo plug right the water run out gagging. I don't have a glove or anything in there. I pull a creation. They have to pull the plug in the live bul The poor species like monitor that monitors the access is standing behind my bowl. Water is like running on his feet and I'm like, dude, back up back. I didn't have the heart to tell him, so what do you do with the water normally I do, like, you know, I clean the fish for my package him up. It depends how long they're gonna be in town. Sometimes will you know freezer freezing form or whatever. So like we get done with the inspection that like I like gets in the truck and I have to like go drop him back off at his resort. And I was like, so, uh, what do you want to do with these fish? Do you want to clean him or do you want me to clean up? And he's like, well, he's like, could you just clean him right out of the cabin. He was like, we're going to do a big fish fry tonight. So I did clean these We're a much nicer person, So put your fish in a garbage bag, take them if you want to. You you deal with your own poop fish, thank you. The worst part isn't So they have like this big dinner and they asked me to stay and I was like, they started eating the fish and I was like, I gotta go, guys like every morning tomorrow. So they ate they and he didn't he didn't tell them. I still wake up dry heaving in the middle of the night. Ever since Mandy told this story, and we had to cut that interview down, because otherwise we'd all still be dry heaving into our cheerios. But what you don't necessarily get is that the dude who be found her live well as an experienced angler, right, Like, isn't like just the random random dude someone who works in the fishing industry and he should know better. There's no I mean, anyone should know better, but especially him. But the part of that story that sticks with me, it's not even the act, right because sometimes when you gotta go, you gotta go, like we've all been there, but she's well, she's your dold. Just open the bomb doors anywhere. You gotta gotta know where you're dropping your payload. That's all I'm gonna say. Don't you feel like if you did that, and even like if as you were doing it you were like, I shouldn't have done this, you'd at least be mad enough to be like, I'm really sorry. We have to throw out all those walleyes. I wouldn't have pretended nothing frigging happened. And then one of them cleaned for the family, Like can you imagine that dinner? Like you're sitting there like, first of all, is that dude eating. Is he like shoveling it down or is he like pushing them around the plate and watching his his family and friends eat the ship? Walley, Yeah, I think he was eating it. I think he was diving in with Gusto. I think he just like scrubbed it from his mind and he's like, well, you know, it's all part of the cycle. It came from me and it is going back to me. So it's it's, it's, it's, it's. It's the most vile story we've had on Smooth Moves yet, Mandy, you're winning right now for that. Yeah, So just consider this whole thing a public service announcement from us, your friends here at Bent never poop in the live. Well, all right, we're almost out of time, but I feel like we need a little, a little cleansing flush after that story. We wouldn't want to leave that particular taste in your mouth. So for this week's end of the line, Joe is going to school you up on a super secret bait that's damn near impossible to find these days. Well, it's not loud enough this week, let's talk about helgram mites. Alright. Helgram mites are Dobson flies, in their larval stage, and in that larval stage they live in water. And these are big, juicy, nasty segment a black Allien centipede looking suckers with these mean ass pinchers at their mouth. Right now, some of you are probably familiar with the Dobson fly right and I'll be honest, they scare the ship out of me. An adult Dobson fly is so big when you're on the river at night, like you think like a bat just came whizzing past your head. And by the time they reached that adulthood, those pictures are now like five times longer than they were when they were a helgram mite. I swear they will bite you in one time. This is no joke. A Dobson fly ended up in my truck, chomped on my buddy's neck while I was driving, and there was swerving and screeching breaks and and pandemonium Allah the dear scene in Tommy Boy. Anyway, I wish I had some helgra Mites to put on the end of my line. There's some reminiscing involved in this segment today. Truth be told, I haven't fished alive one since I was a teenager because back in the day, you could actually buy live helgra mites in a few bake shops around here. Now, not only are all of those bait shops gone, which I'm sure many of you can relate to the art of helgram mite collection at least where I live is sort of a thing of the past. It's a lost art and the saying of helgra mites. That's easy, right, get a piece of screen, you stretch it between two wooden owl's wedge that downstream of a rock, Lift the rock and let the contents, which hopefully includes helgram mites, flush into the screen. But the real art for the guys that used to collect for the shops wasn't the actual saying. It was knowing exactly where to go, and most importantly, when based on intimate knowledge of when they'd score the most helgram mites. You know, based on everything from the season, to temperatures to probably the moon phase who knows. But if you factor in all that went into getting enough helgram mites to sell, it made a dozen pretty pricey for a teenager. So we only bought them as kind of a special treat or in some cases as an insurance policy. If you've ever fished live helgra mites, you can attest to the fact that no matter how goddamn locked y'alled or hunker down, the small mouths are. No matter how convinced you are that you're not catching a single one of them, that day you put down the rapela and send out a live helgra mite under a float. It gets eight, pure and simple. A live helgramte can suddenly make a bronze back appear in a puddle of rainwater in the parking lot at Walgreens. And as I've been told, that's all because of smell. The aroma omitted by a live helgrimte underwater is so intoxicating, so inviting, and so deliciously pungent that, regardless of conditions, small mouths can't not eat one if they have the opportunity. And despite all the soft plastic helgro mites there are out there, I've even seen some some helgra mite hard crank bits. Um, none of them will even be a fraction as potent as the real thing until science figures out how to bottle that real deal helgram might be. Oh, you know, I've seen a few helgram mites in my day, but any success I had was was all by pure luck. Right. If I found two in five hours on a full mile of stream, I was thrilled. It's really like panning for gold. So if you do get your hands on some live Helgramtes, treat them like gold, because I promised they are. And you know, a few years ago, I was driving through the northwestern hamlet of Buttsville, New Jersey, and there's this old post office that's been converted into a home and on the porch was a cooler on a folding table next to a hand drawn sign that just read helgra Mites. And I was so curious that I had to stop in. The homeowner a guy named Paul, who kind of kind of looked like Jimmy Houston. Right. He came out in these jean shorts and this old white T shirt and he just said, ain't got any today, gone out tonight. And I asked him if I could come back up sometime to go with him, thinking maybe i'd pen a story about the last helgram might harvester in Jersey. And his response to that was simply hell now, okay, So just a quick recap here. Western steelheaders are depressive, self righteous stoners. Dose Boat has a strong fishing pedigree, and you should never eat fish out of Mandy Uruck's Live Well ever forever on clean. That about sums it up. Please drop us a line at bent at the meat eator dot com. Let us know what's going on in your local fishery. Tell us what we got right, what we screwed up, what you wish we would do more of, and what you wish we would just stop doing altogether. We can take it. And while you're at it, if you're digging the show, please do us a favor and give us some stars in those Apple podcasts. Maybe leave us a review really matters, or best of all, introduced this show to your fishing buddies. Play it on the on the ride to the the water, the river, the ocean, wherever you're going the lake, we don't care. Play it for him, even those buddies that are not allowed in your house ever again. I think I'm gonna call up a couple of those buddies and and see if they can get out on the water this weekend. Oh nice, I'll be waiting for your call, Joe and Uh. I'll talk to the rest of you next week.