00:00:01 Speaker 1: I too can picture myself standing there and blowing forty shots at permit a storm. They say, this town that's about to be lit up. You go to Walmart parking lot, you kind of put your blinders on, you walk through it, You pretend like you don't see anything. You get whatever you need done. Sleeper Marcilla pods Son in case of epic fishy ship happens in my dreams. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that the cast of clerks would have been listening to at the quick Stop had podcasts existed in I'm Joe Surmelli, A Miles Nulty and uh and just hearing a reference to clerks makes me well, I guess it makes me want to cover myself in flannel and go to a Tower Records. All Tower Records on South Street in Philly, r I p. I spent so much time and money I didn't have there anyway. Besides podcasts, do you know what else they didn't have at the quick Stop? In what's that Delicious Black Rifle Coffee? Friendly reminder here that Bent is presented by our buds of Black Rifle Coffee and we are genuinely thankful for that, because it means we get to fuel our recording sessions with high quality caffeine instead of you know that quick stop sludge crap exactly. And you can fuel your fishing and daily grind with the good stuff as well by heading to Black Rifle Coffee dot com backslash meat Eater and when you do, enter the promo code meat Eater and score yourself off your entire order. So, Joe, are you aware that this is our first official podcast of the fall season. I am you are correct. September twenty two was the first day of fall. Um. Yeah, man, dude, I'm already feeling it out here on the East Coast. The nights are noticeably cooler the real thing, though, I recently helped my neighbor coveries pool, which is kind of the final finder. Um that. Yeah, while great fall fishing looms, I guess so does that long covid winter. Uh yeah, pools are really not a thing out here. I don't know a single person with him because because five days a year you can use it. Yeah, our our fall started last month. You know, that's when when things got cool, which I I don't mind. I look forward to it. I like the fall. But I know what's coming right and and right about this time. With that knowledge sitting in my head, I'd like to be planning a trip someplace warm, you know, like someplace warm and salty with boat drinks and and big fish, and like that's that's what I want to be thinking. It's not like it's not like I take those trips every year. It's not like I jet off to the Southern Hemisphere every year. But I do like to imagine myself there, right And we don't get to do that because no one's going anywhere right now. But thanks to all of you out there who keeps sending us these copious emails nomin your favorite fishy watering holes from across the globe, I can still kind of take a little mental vacation. I get to live vicariously through you. Would appreciate and we'll tell you what we can get, so I appreciate it too. Yeah. Yeah, both Joe and I read all of these and and sometimes we actually get to, you know, sail away with you, like we do with this week's that's my bar best God damn bar tender from tim buck To to Portland, Maine. The Portland argument for that Matter. This week's That's My Bar nomination comes to us from listener Spencer Foster. Spencer wrote, I'm an archaeologist who works in Belize during the summer. Every time I finish a dig season, I take a few days to vacation and fish on a small island called kay Coker. In nine, a hurricane split this island in two, creating a channel known to the locals as the Split. This channel is a popular hangout for locals and tours to like for swimming, diving, and fishing. Towards the center of the channel, fishermen can hook into multiple species, including barracuda, snapper, parrot, fish, jack, and even the odd kobea. Directly next to the Split is the Lazy Lizard Bar and Grill, a beautiful little beach side awaysist that serves cold Belican, a local Belize and beer, and hot fried conk. As I'm throwing out cut sardines and squid, I can listen to the reggae tunes drifting out of the bar. If I get drained by the Caribbean sun, I can wander over and fuel up on calamari and a coke while watching young locals free dive for lionfish using homemade spears. My visits coincide with the off season, so I get to enjoy this without swarms of tourists. The global pandemic prevented me from visiting The Lazy Lizard this summer, but I'm already looking forward to next year. Now. This nomination just has so much going for it. There's a little bit of history, like a personal anecdote, but most important that vivid description. Yeah man, this did just That's sold it for me. It takes me back to my honeymoon and the kunk Shack and turks and caicos which we we ate at on day one and then every other day they're after because it was it was just that mellow. They were like bone fish cruising around and like conquer a million different ways, which is a food that I love. So um. Yeah, it's it's I think we're all feeling that little bit of of bummed out about not getting to hit some of these joints this year because of COVID. It'll be waiting for you, man, And I appreciate the the the comment about hitting it in the off season because you've probably been to a lot like I've gotten to visit so many cool bars in my travels. And because we're there fishing in the cold season or you know, a different time of year, it's not like peak tourism time. I know what he's saying, Like, it's a different vibe when you're not there when it is jam packed with people, or if it's jam packed it's only with the locals. It's a totally different experience. And I don't know about you, Joe, but personally I've never been to these and now I haven't either. That is one of those places that I've read and heard so much about, like the culture and the people in the ecosystem, and you know, obviously how good the fishing is. That I've always wanted to go. And you know, dude, I didn't have any plans to travel there in but the fact that I can't, that I'm actually barred from doing so, just makes me want to go so much more. And then we get this email and I'm reading it and I'm like momentarily transported out of my lockdown life and I'm I'm just for a minute, I'm not sitting in my home office, which is really just a plastic folding table in my bedroom, staring at this little screen. I'll stand in hip deep in the Blue Caribbean with a rod in my hand, and like some crusty salt on my shirt and like a sunburn just starting to blossom on my arms. And I could almost taste that Bellikan and conk, even though I've never had a Bellican, but I could imagine it, and I was. I was there for a minute. So Spencer, thank you for that like momentary vacation that I just got. Yes, it was just in my mind. It was an incredible description. And I too can picture myself standing there and blowing forty shots at Permit the entire time. I just got it. Just gotta throw a live crab at him. It's amazing. Um. Alright, Spencer, we hope you get back to kay Cooker soon. Uh just remember when you do and it's overrun with degenerate ben fans. The next time you go, you'll have only yourself to blame. And for the rest of you who want to blow up one of your favorite bars and and have all of us crawling all over it, please send us an email to Bent at the meat Eater dot com so we can continue building up this amazing segment of great bar recommendations. So while we all feel the pain of not being able to jet off to Belize right now to visit the Lazy Lizard, I can tell you you're free and clear to visit Diane's Pop Top in Pembine, Wisconsin. At least you could have such a great bar name. At least you could as of my us visit there in late June, so you know, back it up. Hold on, you got to drink in like a real live bar last summer. You went to a bar to drink. We're not talking about your back deck with like a home painted sign lit up with string lights and neon beer lights, right, real bar. I have that too in my backyard. But no, this was This was a real bar, and it was the only real bar I drank in all of last summer. And I won't lie, man, and I felt weird about it. However, the only people in the bar were the bartender and the guys I was with, right, I mean, you know, Diane's popa Top wasn't exactly raging like Studio fifty four, um, But there was a sign behind the bar, you know those black signs that are like litt And then you used like the neon pasteli markers over them to write the specials of the day existing bars, that's the only place that they're They're like, whoever came up with that only cells to bars? Yeah, I know exactly what're talking about. So there was one of those in in in this bar and it said, due to COVID nineteen, we will be staying open because I'd rather be drunk when the world ends. So I had no idea what the specials were, but I got that message loud and clear, and I was like, you know what, Okay, give me a peber, give me a PBR. But I made a new friend while I was up there, and you're about to learn all about him in our segment dedicated to letting professional guides and captain's vent about stupid things their clients do. This, my friends, is Smooth Moves. Why joining us today on Smooth Moves? My good buddy Tim land where, owner of Tight Lines Fly Fishing company in northern Wisconsin. What's going on? Brother? Not much? How are you doing? Man? I am good man, I miss you and having spent a few days sharing stories with Tim um, I know this is gonna be a good smooth move. Remind us how long You've been a professional guide since I was probably eighteen years old, so and guiding part time from eighteen until now when I'm forty seven, So it's been a couple of years now. It's so yeah, yeah, right. A lot of sun, man, a lot of sun. So you do a lot of small mouth fishing, a lot of muskie fishing. Uh, and you've seen some goofiness. So so hit us man, give us the w t F moment that comes to mind that just stopped you in your tracks. I know it's probably a hard decision. There's a lot of those moments, Joe. But I'd have to say, as a guide, you know, you have certain pieces of water that you go down that may have some dangers and things on it. And we have one specific little back channel that we fish all the time, and over the course of about four years, a paper hornets wasp nest is built on it and it is massive. It's like the three ft long draping from the tree hornets on it. But every time I sneak through this, you have to tell your customers, like ladies and gentle man, grab a seat, I'm going to sneak through this. You point out the hornet's nest. You point this out, I mean like like a lot, Like that's a paper hornet's nest. And you know, when people are excited about fishing, they see greasy water, they start to see through the guy's eyes, they start to see a spot that they have to fish. And this particular day, the guy just, I mean he just kept casting, kept casting when we see this greasy slick of water, and the dude stands up and I can see him stand up and line up, and before the words get out of my mouth, he sends a rope through that hornet's nest. I mean that like the double hall, like the full oh dude, And immediately I watched it wrap around the entire nest, like it wasn't going to disturbed the nest. And at this moment, it's like the Holy ship moment of like, ha, I wonder what we're gonna do now, because we are just a hair maybe ten feet downstream from this hornet's nest. So I had to tell the guy. I'm like, okay, very calmly, sit down own it. Pull my EpiPen out from the side hatch of my boat. So so we get downstream and I have the guy rip off all of his fly line without and I can see the hornet's nest wobbling up there with the current pulling the line. He pulls all of the fly line out and we just get downstream, and now we've got about another fifty yards of backing on top of the fly line, and I'm like, okay, you're gonna have to pull it tight now. And he pulls it tight, and he cuts the hornet's nest directly in half. Fellas there had to be I don't know, between a million bees, and and it was just crazy because you could see them all freaking out, the bees freaking out because I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I had no words for him on the I'm sorry. We get downstream and I could see like the massive bees coming closer to figure out where. Like the disturbance wasn't like I'm giving everybody like the critigue, like, okay, we all get out of the boat. We're gonna have to get out of the boat. So I'm just gonna jump in because like we're somebody's gonna go into anaphylactic shock if we don't. But fortunately the vs were disoriented and they dispersed but that was one of the most holy ship moments I've had because I had dodged that nest for years. Well, I was gonna say, did you are did you also ruin a landmark? Because that's one of those things with guides, like when you talk like, yeah, we were just just downstream of Hornet's nest. It was it was. It was one of those things because if somebody fished that back channel, like you were going past Hornet's nest. And and then I came back and told the fellows the story about it, and they're like, oh, man, that was a cool Hornet's nest. I just gotta jump in here to him and give you credit on the like, okay, strip off the line very very quickly, Like that could have gone really without without quick thinking, that could have gone much much, much worse than it did. And and getting it getting enough scope out there that you could, you know, give it a yank without them finding you was a stroke of brilliance in a very tense moment. So like, kudos to you. Man, that's a good guy, because most people I know would have just yanked down in one shot and it would have been just yeah, yeah, I mean, and and the fact that you got to him before he started his front cast. I mean it was little little little quick applause, thank you, thank he knew it. And and the thing is, I will say, myles though, like looking back on it, like I had played out that scenario in my head every time I went past that hornet's nest, like somebody's gonna catch it, you know. You know, man, people think good guiding is like all about just finding the fish, knowing where the fish are and what they're eating, but it's it's not. I think a good guy is the guy who like has a positive mental attitude all day because rest as short, Like I'll be piste off about something and he's the guy that's like assuring me that my skills will come together and there's fish right around the bend. But that's just what I look for. Yeah, it's the cheerleader aspect, right, like is a cheerleader aspect. There's the psychologist as by the counselor aspect, like a good guy. I can't remember said a good guy is like a bartender and a counselor who can't prescribe meds. I don't know some some I butchered that quote, but it's something like that just finding the fish. Though for guid's that's truly bare minimum. That's like C minus level guiding. If all you know is where the fish are, really good guys do so much more. And I think Tim's instincts in that situation are the perfect example, right, because like he's got that guy feeding out the line instead of letting the client just yank his way into anaphylactic shock, you know, And and all the while he's still rowing the boat and piloting it and and thinking about four different things ahead. Like that's a good guide. That's that's managing to to do several different things at once. Like I give him a lot of props there, and and he's got solid instincts for sure. Just like I mean, I think I think it's safe to say all good anglers trust their instincts. You agree with that, yeah, oh absolutely, yeah, even like if they're mostly wrong, but they will just insist that their instincts are spot on all the time. I'm not I'm not saying our instincts are right, but like, if you don't have confidence in what you believe and yourself as an angler, you're screwed. You're not catching shit. But like, when do you know, like how do you know when to trust your instincts? Or when do you admit that your instincts are totally full of ship? Like how do you know how to figure that out? I don't. I just generally assume that six of my instincts are full of shit every time. But this question, I see, I see where you're going here, and this question of self trust verse self doubt, I think, uh, it's an important one to us fisher folks. So Miles here is going to delve deeper into it. In this week's weekly word, Webster's Dictionary defines fish as The word for this week is perseverate. I first learned this word from an old girlfriend in the middle of the conversation and where she was becoming an ex girlfriend and was listing the personality traits she most hated about me. The common definition is to repeat something insistently or redundantly, but the word comes from psychology, and yeah, that X was a psych major. The words clinical definition is the repetition of a particular response, regardless of the absence or cessation of a stimulus. In other words, it's when we keep doing something long after that thing has stopped working. All right, So some of you are probably wondering what the hell ex girlfriends and clinical psychology terms have to do with fishing, And that's a valid question. But I think this word and a similar one with a slightly different meaning, get at one of the central questions we all faces, anglers. The Latin roots of perseverate are per meaning through, and severus, meaning strict or earnest. These are also the roots of another word that might be more familiar, persevere, which means to persist steadfastly in pursuit of an undertaking task, journey, or goal, even if hindered by difficulty, distraction, obstacles, or discouragement. Perseverating is bad, persevering is good. But how do we identify the line that separates the two. Anybody who spent any significant time fishing knows this dilemma. You you have an idea of what should work, like, say, a cold front just pushed through, and you know, you just know the fish are going to be sluggish, so you work finesse tactics, slow and deep, but it ain't happening. What do you do? Do you switch it up, go with something you have less confidence in, or just keep pushing what you think should work and have confidence that if a fish is gonna bite anything at all, it's what you're doing. All good anglers persevere. We keep casting, keep working patterns and systems that we think should catch fish. But at what point does persevering turn into perseverating? When are we being patient? And when are we just repeating the same action and hoping for a different result. You know that whole definition of insanity thing. Really, this etymological distinction is the timeless and central question of fishing. Should change spots, change bates, change retrieves, or keep grinding it out, trust my first instinct and wait for the bite to turn on. I can't answer that question for you, but I do think that knowing the difference between perseverating and persevering separates the good anglers from the great ones. And on that note, you have officially persevered through the first half of our show, which brings us to the part where we pump you full of info on recent fish related happenings so you sound more hip to the scene at the bay check. Let's roll out some fish news. Fish news that escalated quickly our top story this week, though not actually part of fish News Proper Meat Eaters Season nine, Part one is now streaming on Netflix. Yes, yes it is. If you can't get out and fish this weekend, which sorry for you, but you got an option. You can binge your way through some fresh media episodes. And for all of you out there who completely lacks self control, we are exercising it for you this season. Part two of season nine will come out early next year. So just consider this like our civic duty. It's it's like portion control for media. You can't have the big gulp, you just get like the mini can. Well I'm not I'm not entirely sure I'll be fishing this weekend. I'm gonna be too busy sulking and rehashing in my head how I lost news last week. I mean, you're still up, man, I don't know. I don't know why you'd be sulking over still being ahead all time. I have appealed this to the High Court of Meti Eater just so you know. But yeah, I know. It's it's gonna get ugly. It's gonna cost me a lot of money, but apparently not enough Radio Shack gift cards to fill. But that's okay, because I'm feeling pretty good this week. As a reminder, Miles and I have no idea which news stories related to fish and fishing the other guy has found. This is a competition and it is judged at the end by our podcast engineer Phil Taylor. Okay, Soil Phil, All hail Phil. Phil is the man. Uh And this is a risky move for me because I get to lead off and I'm going first. I gotta come in a little somber though, So we're gonna kick this off with a tragic tail that makes my blood positively boiled. This comes to us from USA Today headline fans rally behind pro Best angler after robbery. A Pro Best angler from Kentucky was robbed of more than fifteen thousand dollars worth of gear after arriving in Texas for a weekend tournament, but Matt Robertson still competed after receiving an overwhelming show of support. Now, other sources on this story say that the value of the goods was closer to twenty thousand dollars. Okay, Robertson arrived in Jasper, Texas last week in advance of the Bassmister Central Open on Sam Rayburn reservoir. His truck was picked clean. However, during his wife's visit to a nearby Walmart, No, according to Robertson, there was eleven years worth of accumulated gear in that truck, and he told Bassmaster, I had everything in big totes, including all my tools, jack tire, iron, anything I might need in case of an emergency. They unloaded everything and they left my spare tire. That's that's my nightmare, honestly, Like I I do have nightmares about that because if if someone got ahold of, you know, your stash of fishing gear, someone you can you can place the stuff that you can buy, but some of that's irreplaceable, man, like, you can't get it back. So I'm gonna get to my fix for that in a little bit, okay, but agreed totally. That is also my biggest nightmare. And the story goes on to say that Robertson was flooded with offers of money, but he says, you know, hey, I know people work hard for their money. So the dude refused to take it, which I kind of respect that. But it goes on to say that, however, Robertson reluctantly accepted a tackle store gift card from a fellow pro who was not scheduled to fish the Open, and he used that to buy just enough gear to fish the three day tournament. Now, so so many things. Right, First, the person who did this scum of the earth. You go straight to hell. That's number one. But two, I don't feel like this could have been random. Right. There was a photo in the article showing some of the tackle he lost, and it was a lot. Man. I mean, this wasn't hit like an orchestrated hit. I there there's no way that whoever did this didn't know exactly what was in that truck, because this isn't like a break the window and steal the iPod deal, you know what I'm saying. And I assumed that maybe this was a late night run to Walmart, butN this was broad daylight and there were plenty of other people in the parking lot, and like nobody thought something was weird there. That unload had to take time, right, Yeah, I mean, weird stuff happens to the Walmart parking lot all the time. Let's be asked. You know, you go to Walmart parking lot, you kind of put your blinders on. You walk through it. You pretend like you don't see anything, You get whatever you need. There's whole websites devoted to the weird things that happened to Walmart. Because I was out of Walmart. I saw a dude jump out of his truck and cracky youngling on his way in, Like you're opening a beer to go refreshing. You need to be well hydrated for that Walmart run. I get it. But all all the sources of this story feature security cam photos of a white Chevy Tahoe believed to be the purpose caught on tape um and the public is being asked to keep a lookout for it. But I don't even fully understand that because in a couple of those shots, like I can damn near read the entire license plate. So I I hope that you know the local swat team and suiting up right now, because that's what I want. You know. While all theft is obviously low, I just find the stealing of fishing gear extremely low. Like I cringe when I see those posts pop up on forums and on social media, like somebody jack my tackle bag out of my truck like that, Just that just burns me. I think every few years it seems like someone decides it's gonna be a good idea to break into all the guide rigs around here because they know where they're going to be, right, and they know that there's usually some cash for the shuttle driver in there, and there's usually some gear. But it is vigilante justice and that's what keeps it from being anything that happens often honestly, because the whole community of anglers around here finds out who it is. Because the towns aren't that big, and bad things happen to the that generally have nothing to do with the police. So and I mean they're trying to sell it, So what happens. It usually pops up for sales somewhere and that's how they nail them, right. Yeah. Well, to get back to your your fear of having your gear stole, And just a final note because you'll appreciate this. Uh, the day we had our security system installed here at the house, my wife was unavailable to weigh in on sensor placement. And it's a scam anyway, right because the the the these services advertised like cheap monthly fifty bucks a month, secure your house. Yeah, but then you find out the package only comes with four free sensors, so it's like pick the four most likely places someone will break in, or you up the bill a couple grand and arm every possible entry port. Right. So I bought a handful of extra sensors that day, and I put every single one in the garage. So we've since upgraded the home in its entirety. Right, But at the outset, they were like many weak points in the part where my family sleeps, but the garage was Fort Knox, dude, and my wife was when she came home, she was pissed. But I had a valid argument, right, and this is I'm not even kidding, thanks to something I saw on c S I which taught me nobody ever expects a locked door behind a locked door. So in other words, people will break into a garage assuming the door inside the garage from the house to the garage is unlocked. And that's stuck with me. And now mine is mine is is always locked that door. But I was like, hey, you know I was breaking into this place. I had come in through the garage, and she kind of conceded, but not really. She knew exactly what I was doing, So there you go. I mean, I like that you had that rational ready to go like, oh no, no, no, it's not about my gear, honey, it's it's science. I learned it from C. S. I hold on. I appreciate that very much. And you know, I actually this is this is true. Until I got married to my wife. I don't think I ever lived in a house where we locked the doors. It's just the Northeast way. Man. I love that Maybury idea, and I visited a lot of places where it's like that. I am, I am. It's just in grain, like I'm just a nut job, or like I don't keep anything of value in my truck. Like no, I'm not getting I think it makes sense. Like it's just so to contextualize this. This isn't like an idealistic thing for me. It was I grew up in house where you couldn't lock the doors because everything was screened in, so all you had to do was just punched through the screen and you're in. So it didn't really matter. Our house got broken and do many times when I was a kid, but we just couldn't lock it. Design problem. Welcome to the tropics. This is in Hawaii. Yeah, this is where I grew up in Hawaii, like literally the giant screened in porch. There's no way to secure that, like you just couldn't do it, and they had as a major design flaw. And then in college I lived in this this this house where I think we just lost the keys within the first week and then no one even bothered. It was just like whatever, we got broken into there too. We also we also had several of the guys on the couch, so there was usually an alarm system there because somebody was on the couch pretty much twenty four hours a day. But still we got broken into there. And then after that, I don't know, man, I just kind of got out of the habit of it. I never did it, but but I married a woman who had just come from New York and now it is like locked up all the time. This has nothing to do with fishing, and I ventured far and wide. I'm sorry about that, but uh, I also don't have a great segue to get from what I was like trying to buy some time for a segue, and I don't exactly know I having to get there. Apparently Phil counts the segways because my first one sucked last week. And then I lost so year turn. I'm just gonna say that that locking the door on a house that, even though I'm getting used to it now is is outside of my comfort zone. And for this, this first story, I also went far, far outside of my personal comfort zone into a strange, alien land that seems primarily populated by teenagers and maybe tweens. Uh. That's right. I wandered into the land of TikTok. Oh. Man, isn't that against the law? Now, you shouldn't say that publicly? I mean I did. It's true I went there. I will also admit it was not my first foray into into TikTok land. Uh. My god daughter a couple of years ago showed it to me. But at that time and I think she was like ten, and at that time, from what I could tell, she just used it to learn and practice dances. So I just didn't pay any attention. I was like, oh, cool, yeah, take your dancing whatever. I don't know what this app is. I fancy myself pretty up on like modern media. But that's one where I draw the line of the old man, like, I don't know what the hell that is. God, damn TikTok appy kids. I don't know. I don't know what. I don't get it again. All I know is it used to be for dancing, but apparently it's evolved because I hear now it's a national security threat. But also this week I learned that one can find some strange and obscure fish news in the swirling cosmos of TikTok. I'm very curious. This is interesting. You're also giving away your sources, so you know, I don't think it's going to be a regular well that I draw from. Lacey Scott, a sculptor by trade with a large TikTok, following shared a story about rehabilitating a goldfish named Monstro this summer. And you know, in case somehow you missed this, here's a little recap. In April, someone turned an unwanted ten year old goldfish into a pet store that Lacey frequents. The fish was in rough shape, barely able to swim, and developing lesions on his belly from just laying there on the gravel motionless. Pretty Much everyone in the story except Lacey, was just waiting for this old, decrepit pet fish to die. But not lazy, No. She took him home and set up a quote hospital tank where she worked on rehabilitating him. Several months later, not only was he eating, swimming, and lesion free, but he grew substantially and his color changed from jet black to this gorgeous, vibrant orange. And so Lacy posted a story to her account, and I gotta say it feels like a collaboration between the Humane Society and Children's International. We get to see Monstro's metamorphosis from a detected, dark, solitary abuse case to stunning colorful fish twirling in a big, clean tank among the company of other fish, all set to inspirational piano music. And if anybody is looking for a textbook definition of pathos, just check out this video, because you got it. Seven and a half million people watched Lacy's Monstro story. You know you know what that means, right, She's gonna be the next pit Bulls and Paroles. She'll have it. She'll have an Animal Planet show the gold Rehabilitator don And I mean, look, I get it. We all need a little good media right now, right Like, I mean, hell, that's that's part of the DNA of this show. But a goldfish, I mean, really, what's the t So okay, all right, all right, And let me let me be clear here though, I'm not throwing shade at anybody in the story, especially not Lacy or the pet store or even the original owner. In fact, they all get props from me because they didn't do what millions of other goldfish owners do when they're tired of the fish that their kids want at the fair. You know, the one they assumed be dead in a week, but somehow it ended up surviving for over a decade. And now the kids growing up and gone, and what the hell are they gonna do with the stupid goldfish. They don't want to kill their kids pet, but they don't want to take care of it either, so you know, they just set it free in a local pond. Let me go back to nature or whatever. Those are the people that I would like to publicly shame right now. You people, you're the problem because goldfish are barely natural. In fact, here's something we should all know. Invasive goldfish are a major problem worldwide, spreading bacteria and disease and competing with native wild fish. So listen up. If you can't be bothered to care for your pet fish, take responsibility for your actions and kill it. Quickly setting the fish free in your local pond, or even flushing it down the toilet will result in one of two outcomes. Either that fish will die as slow, painful death, or it will find a home in a local ecosystem and mess things up. Goldfish are carp and as you've probably heard, carp are wreaking havoc across North American fisheries. Goldfish are no different from their hated cousins, just because they've been selectively bred for the past two thousand years to be pretty Getting rid of goldfish once they've gained a foothold in a waterway is nearly impossible. They are impervious to electro shocking, so the only way to get them out is to poison every fish in the system and start over. Washington, Texas, Minnesota, California, Alaska, Nevada, and Colorado, among other states, are dealing with major goldfish outbreaks. And this isn't just an American problem. Canada, the UK, Australia, they're all fighting the goldfish hordes. So monstro might make for a touching TikTok story, but don't be fooled. He is an ecological time bomb just waiting to be unleashed. So I love the goldfish game at the old the old carnivals there back in the day. I won to one year. My mom kind of adopted them and named them Jack and Diane, and they lived on a they lived. They lived yep, little diddy, big meloncamp fan, my mom, and they lived in a fishbowl in our kitchen. Jack only survived for about two years. Diane lived in a fish bowl with no filter yep, I mean forever much. They are much much tougher fish than than people realize. And I don't have anywhere around here that has a population of them. I know this happens. I know it's a problem. I know it's a thing. Um. Every once in a great while, though, I'll bump into, you know, a few dudes like I couldn't find live shiner, so they go buy a bag of goldfish and uh, no justification here, but I mean that orange pickerel chain pickerel dude, a big orange goldfish hanging under that's not it's not cool. It's not cool this. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm not endorsing it at all. I've I've seen it, but I don't have anywhere overrun with goldfish. Though, I've had aquariums my whole life, and I'll I'll never forget this. As soon as you started telling this story, took me right back here. I stopped at the big pet mart here one time years ago. I forget what I was buying. But this this mother and this son who was I don't know, ten or eleven, they literally come running in like the houses on fire, with a tupperware container with a goldfish that has flipped over, and they're like screaming for someone to help them. They're like, please, someone, please, and like, you know, it's a poor fourteen year old kid work in the aquarium section. He's like, um ma'am, I like it was dead. It was dead as ship the hattles. But dude, it was like it was like their dog just got hit by a car. It was like, they're like, please do something like I was like dollar ninety nine by another one, you know what I mean? Well, I had a goldfish that lived for a similar amount of time, but I didn't realize what I was holding onto and we didn't flush until it was dead, so I don't have to, you know, look back in shame. Yeah, okay, well, uh, this next story, we're gonna talk about a fish that not even the Mighty Lacey could revive. Okay, this this is a funky one. Okay, and this one caught my eye. This is from the U K's Guardian headline King's Trophy found preserved in centuries old Danish shipwreck. Oh man, I almost did this one. I'm so glad I didn't good on me. So this is this is kind of cool. I appreciate this the short one, but I appreciate it. Uh. A two meter long sturgeon and for US Americans that's nearly seven feet a species today near extinction, has been found preserved in the pantry of a five hundred year old Danish royal shipwreck in the Baltic Sea. As a quote here says, during archaeological excavations in two thousand nineteen, a wooden barrel submerged inside the shipwreck revealed the almost complete and well preserved remains of a sturgeon fish, Archaeologists from Lund University in Sweden wrote in a recent article in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Uh and the discovery was possible thanks to special characteristics of the Baltic, a semi closed sea with low oxygen levels. So apparently as I understand it. Um Aside from that low salinity, there's a number of factors that make the Baltic excellent at preservation, including a clay bottom. Apparently a clay bottom has a much better job of preserving. So this boat belonged to King Hans, and the story says Hans sailed to Sweden in fo on his best vessel, the Gribbs, hunting, the most imposing warship in the region, with the aim of restoring a union of the three Scandinavian countries under his crown. And uh, this says we interpret the fish not so much as a gift, but as a prestige display, said Brendan Folly of Lundon University. But the ship sank on its way. King Hans lived, but how much do you want to bet? He was like, holy shit, tell me someone got the sturgeon off the boat. You know what I'm saying. This is a part of that story that I was left lag on like the ship's sake, King Hans survived, How did he survive? What happened that part of the story, and that it's not there I looked for it now. He got off on the lifeboat. But the sturgeon went down and like someone went to the guillotine or whatever over that. And I did find this really funny because what struck me is they believe that the fish was a show of prestige, which even though it was salted in the pantry, it's really no different than taxidermy now, right, like how much you want to bet the whole voyage. The servants were like, sire, should we cook the large sturgeon tonight? And King Hans was like, no, not until King Henrick and Lord Jerk and look at that's some bitch. Ain never gonna believe that ship. It's like me as a little kid, I always had a frozen something in the freezer, or I'd have some poor bass or catfish roasting in the cooler because my dad had to see it, and then my uncle had to see it, and we had to drive it over from my Grandpa Dossey. So King Hans, I understand you, I get it. And I thought that was I thought that was pretty cool. It was a great story, and part of what I liked about it was was that it showed how they learned more about the range of the Atlantic sturgeon from finding that, and because that that species is pretty much gone at this point. We we we've done a really good job of destroying it. But it's some of the only evidence have that in those waters over in that part of the Atlantic, they used to apparently be swimming around and no one seen him there for a very long time. So I thought that was a great, great choice show it was. It was a good story, my my. Only the only thing they have a picture I guess from a dive cam underwater, but like I can't really it's a very hazy picture, like you see the edge of the barrel, but I'm not clearly seeing the fish unless you found a different source than I know. I would like to really get a good look at it, you know. But again, sturgeon kind of like we we talked about I think last week, cartilaginous fish, not not so much bony. They don't preserve that well, makes sense. I'm sure it's been delicious. I all, I know that's brand for that long, you know. We I just want to point out that I think one thing we do well on this show, at least this segment, is we draw from a diversity of sources. We've got USA today, We've got the Guardian, we've got TikTok, and now we're gonna be uh, we're gonna be pulling something from a very different source. Uh. And this is, you know, once again from a scientific journal. We really, we really cover the gamut. And you know, I think there are very few things that just about everyone can agree upon. Okay, but one of those things is that fish or slimy. They just are. And all you out there do a quick Google image search for fish flop Friday and thank me later. Speaking of fish being slimy, it's pretty common knowledge among anglers anyway that fish have a layer of mucus on their skin. That mucus layer is important. So if you're planning to release the fish, try to avoid scraping it off. Don't handle the fish more than necessary, use rubber nets if you can, don't drag the fish up under grass or rocks or sand or the deck of a boat. Keeping that mucostal layer intact helps protect fish from bacteria viruses. And I know some of you out there saying, yeah, yeah, enough with the fish handling one oh one. We know all this, Like people have been telling this this for years. What's the point. Well, ever, notice that it's not just fish that are slippery. Just about everything that lives underwater has that similar slippery feel, be a planter animal. And that's not an accident, it's an evolutionary trait. That mucus layer does more than ward off infection, it also reduces friction. Do you ever try running in water? Yeah, it's it's hard. It's because they don't get chubb rub, is what you're telling me. Well, because of the mucoastal slime. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Uh, and threw them off. Totally threw me off, and you totally totally got in my head there. Uh, all right, objects moving through water create far more dragon friction than those moving through air, so it makes sense that anything living in water would have evolved some way of reducing that drag. Both seaweed and fish have little pockets in their skin, and those pockets are reservoirs for mucus. Those reservoirs maintain the outer slime layer, both helping to prevent infection and creating a more slippery surface so that fish can pass through water more easily and plants don't get whipped around is violently by waves are current? Okay, I'm with you. Yeah, as you're well aware, Joe, I am fascinated by bioengineering. That is, borrowing design principles honed through eons of natural selection and applying them to modern technology to make it more efficient. And you know natural Yeah, it says exactly what you just said in your Instagram. Bio all the time and put all about it. And so ships, right, especially those those huge long distance cardo ships, they lose a tremendous amount of energy to fluid friction. So I found an article published last week in the journal Physics of Fluid. You know, we've got the Guardians, we got ticktok, we got Physics of Fluid, and that it explains how ships hulls might be redesigned to mimic fish and seaweed skin in order to make them up to more efficient. And it also broke down the exact physics of how that works. And I'm not even gonna try to explain that because I have no idea what I read. I don't understand it. But I do like the idea of redesigning cargo ship holes to act more like fish skin. In theory, the holes would be covered in small cavities that are constantly supplied with a natural, non toxic lubricant, maintaining a slippery surface and significantly diminishing the ship's fuel consumption. So just remember, kids, what your hands before you touch the boat, because you don't want to pull off the slime layer. So I've never served, but you're from Hawaii, so I assumed you have. Yes. Is this like sex wax for your board? No? No, that's the opposite. So what you wax a board in order to make it stickier so that when you you wax the top of your board so that when you stand up you get some friction and something to grip on. You don't bottom. That's why my bookie that's why my bookie boards never went anywhere when I was a kid. Yeah, you're doing it. You're definitely doing that wrong. Whoops. And you know, we got a little extra neugget of knowledge in there for all of those folks who don't know anything about surf and surfboards. Will cover those topics in another episode of fish News. In the meantime, we're waiting with bated breath to see who Phil will choose for this week's winner. And as soon as Phil has done declaring a victor, we're going to kick over to a new segment called Sage Lee Wisdom. With River Horse, It's going to take you away from the hustle and bustle of life for a little while. You will forget about the covids and just mellow out. Man, we promise, Let's be honest. It sounded a little try hard, but Miles Nolte is the winner this week. I don't think anybody asked for his Goldfish manifesto, but he provided it anyway, So extra credit given where extra credit is due. If one was wondering what criteria I used to determine the winner every week, it's the same criteria that the judges used to determine no Vacancy the winner of the Battle of the Bands at the end of School of Rock. Hey, now this is River Horse coming to you from the deep deep South with the little Sage Lee Wisdom. Enjoy. Have you ever stopped to wonder about water? The miracle of it all, or the fact that it's even here on this earth? The average drop of water is aloft in the sky for ten days or more, making a journey around the globe. How far has it traveled in its lifetime? Perhaps it was a shimmering turquoise wreath and the Caribbean, or even a lonely glacial alpine lake before it found its way to you. Most people run inside when it rains. Not me. I love it. Here's a story about the beauty of rainstorms, and hopefully the next time you're in one, you'll stand there joyously and flat out revel in it. My brothers and sisters, this is called cloudburst. A storm, they say this town is about to be lit up. Empty roads far and wide. They've bellied up and tucked themselves away in cookie cutter neighborhood mansions. There is handwringing in front of flat screens, alongside grave concern that the least land rovers will need to go to the car wash again for a fresh wax and polish. I've run for it as well, straight for the water. I'm in the canoe on a lake. I live for rain. The first tendrils of wind lift in nimbus, ever, dark and undulating like boiling kettle water, envelop every scrap of horizon. I feel the subtle brevity of warmth in the air, swimming upward, exchanged for far more bearable cool. And then the first few untethered unmoored drops bigger than you might think, and surreal in the way they side slip at an angle from the skies, and live running straight down, same as a river, which is simply water in the act of falling to other places, same as us. Sometimes I forego pulling the hood over my hair. I am much more a fan of immersing myself than it. All Native Americans have always felt rains to be signs of change. This is true change. Your stars now mine are heavy and bleeding fruit these days, more so, holding hopes a lot that I can keep this ship ever studied the helm and savor it. All of us have seen tumult and train wrecks along the way. So if and when days are sweeter than sweet, appreciate them and holds your breath. It's on the loose now. The whole sky is red lighting buckets upon buckets, poor down, and it feels so good to stand in our casts out. So many exploding droplets are blooming to and fro that it appears as if every damn fish in the world is rising. What else in simple nature feels this sensual and alluring, so unquestionably all encompassing and soulful. Who is the fool that invented the roof, and why is the rest of the world under them instead of being out here on with the head lamp. I'm going to fish on through the night and ride the hips of this storm until she leaves, and afterward, from a bedroll in the back of the truck looking up at the stars, I'll be watching the weather, wanting with desire for endless lifetimes of rain. All right, So, do you know what river Horse is. I'm a little afraid to ask, but tell me. Tell me. He's the Ena of fishing. He's the entire collection of time life, pure mood CDs for anglers. My house could be on a fire burning, and if I had river Horse talking in my ear, I'd be like, this is fine, Yeah, this is all it's all good, it's all right, because we lean on the funny and the humor at Bent so much. But his segment just reminds me of one of those stress apps, which are very popular right now, because there's commercials on TV all the time to tell you to just stop what you're doing and listen to the sound of a waterfall for thirty seconds. So I look, this was our first one from river Horse. I appreciated it. I hope you guys did and appreciated that reset. And um, I really hope we hear from him more often, man, man, so do. I I freaking love that dude. And it's it's not just his voice, but that guy Craft's words as well as anybody that's writing about fishing. In my opinion, Oh, he's brilliant. I I I don't. I will never be able to write like River no one, no one that I know of Ken, So I hope he's on a bunch more too, because I cannot think of a better person to have speaking calmly to my ear holes as we navigate the global dumpster fire of anyway and uh and switching from soothing dulcet tones to what I consider to be nails on a chalkboard. We're about to check in with our barely tolerable correspondent Lance v Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, Lances back, ladies and gentlemen, to bring us his own version of wisdom safe totally saying brom telling you how to win an Internet fishing And I'm sure this will inspire a whole new delusive of hate mail in the bent inbox that we have to read. Bring it to the land, to the boats, to the lake, to the sea, being up the n on net. But the boy lads, yo, your boy lance v here again dropping all the knowledge on how to be a true Internet angler, not just some poser with a stiff rod in a five connection. This week, I'm gonna teach you how to get the best fish photos to post online. Okay, so you caught a nice fish. Good for you. It's probably half the size of my smallest fish ever. But hey, we all start somewhere now. Don't just take a couple of pictures and let it go. Let it go, let it go, hat tag frozen. This may be the best fish you ever fondle. Don't waste the opportunity by getting all sappy and looking like a tool. Think about the future, think about the gram. Here are the top six tips to help you get the most out of that fish numero. You know, portable studio. I shouldn't even have to say this, but if you've got a Gorilla pod to hold your cell phone right, I sleep for mar Carilla pods son in case some epic fishy ship happens in my dreams. It's as critical as your fishing rod. Selfie mode burst ten second timer. Don't even come at me with a three second timer. Bullshit. You cannot craft the perfect post in three seconds unless you're remember of the Google squad hashtag skills for days. So now let's assume you actually caught something Numero does. Switch it up. Show for that fish around the lake like you're an uber driver on a meth bench. At each new spot, put on a fresh outfit and grab a round of picks. Run through your tackle box, pull out all your most expensive baits from your favorite brand partners, and then play a game I like to call pin the lower on the hog face. With the right planning execution, you can turn one hog into twenty and spread your greatness out for years to come. Oh and by the way, you need twenty pairs of sunglasses because nobody wears the same pair longer than half a season. Numero trace spray and for sam Prey, spend at least fifteen minutes taking pictures of the fish out of water. Don't listen to all that environmental bullshit about keeping them wet. Fish breathe oxen just like you, me and John B. There's plenty of oxygen in the air. Hashtag science Numero quatrall act like you've been there. Only idiots a softball dad smile for the camera. Even if that fish is a p B. I'm gonna wear a look on my face like here's what a decent one looks like for your reference suckers. Numero O five brim up shades on mask off. I'm not losing the sick lids or Gucci shades obviously. If I'm wearing them and you can clearly see the logos, I'm sponsored by them or we're in heavy negotiations regarding sponsorship. Meetings and calls and ship are happening. But if you can't see my face because there's a dope ass and sand clown posse buff covering my grill, how is everyone going to know that I'm the one holding the hog? First, I tilt my flat brim up just enough, but make sure the logo is still showing. Ivy shades are for your protection because without them I could see right through you. Also shave because beards are hippies. Hashtag modeling tips Numero six Kama suit for that beast. Sure we all know the basic group and impost and it's a classic for a reason. Wide angle, long arms big fish, but don't be afraid to mix it up. Hold it over your head like Simba created in the front of your junk, lay it down on the deck and spoon it. Get creative and you might just turn into a legend like the dude who invented the fish bra. Props to you, Homie for real hashtag genius. Worry about how and when to use photoshop later, most because I haven't gotten the pirty copy of the program. My boy at Call of Doogie said he's securing, but first you gotta get the wrong material, and that all starts with a dope photo. Don't waste a big fish on your case any fish by not getting the right picks. If you're not gonna get good shots, why even bother going fishing. That's it for me, Lance V. Sorry, you had to listen to the rest of this dumbass show just to get my moment of shine. If you can't listen to the ship anymore, you need to go peep the Google squad on YouTube. Get with their program now before I joined the team and take it over. Just mass and googs, mad love, don't you ever answer any emails? Man to be young and have the luxury of taking four frames of one fish to nail that perfect shot. Isn't what the kids are doing these days. What the lances of the world. Keep them, keep them everyone. I vividly remember taking film to the drug store and most of the role on the disposable Kodak point and shoot camera was empty. But I couldn't wait the three months or whatever it would take to fill the role, and I had to have those first five gripping grins on the roll back immediately, and I would always just take them on half empty camera, only to two days later get back blurry and cut off fish. I mean you have to. You had to, because if you kept that one around like that disposable camera was going to get a drop of water at some point and then the whole roll shot. Do please, You're gonna make me have to go back to therapy. Because the biggest weak fish I ever caught I had on a disposable point and shoot camera. I mean massive. I should have mounted it. I should it was it was, It was massive, and like two days later I went trout fishing and it rolled out of my fishing vest into the water and that was the end of that. Yeah, I mean done, the fish was delicious, But I don't have a photo. Your memories probably better because, like to be to be honest, I don't have any stories like that. I don't have any of my own fish pictures that really stick out for me. But I do have entire hard drives of other people's fish photos from all my years of guiding, right because I was just taking pictures of other people's fish and sending them to them. And the weird thing, And this is true. I can look back on those photos and some of them are well over a decade old, and I can remember the exact details of those fish, like the whole where we caught them, the weather that day, what they ate. But I cannot tell you a damn thing about any of the people holding those fish. Like I could pass those people on the street and have no idea who they are. I don't know their names, I don't know where they're from, I don't know anything about them. But I remember those fish. I remember the stories of their fish. Well. Yeah, and you know, I see, I'm a people person. But I give you a pass on that because you were a guy that was work. I mean, it was just like new people every single day day after day, which I think like gives you a pass on not remembering exactly who caught what. So I mean that makes sense to me. Big fish are memorable for you people not so much. But in the case I'm about to explain, I actually do remember the fish and the angler, and four nights ago and almost forty years ago, September twenty one, Albert McReynolds called a world record striper in my home state of New Jersey. And here in my office check this out right, I have one of the original photos of al and that massive bass hanging at a local marina. And it's it's not a print that somebody made later. Okay, it's not a copy. It is one of the originals, developed from the film that was in the camera. That. Yeah, dude, it's it's it's it's awesome, and it's a it's a long twisted story about how I got that photo. Okay, that I'll save for another time. But right now, since we're almost out of time, here comes our end of the line segment, a tribute, if you will, to McReynolds, a classic lure and his legendary catch. Well that's not allowed enough. This week, in honor of the recent passing of one of surf fishing's greatest legends and most debated anglers. I am calling out a very specific lure, all right, the Rebel Minnow Salt Order version five and a half inch model black back over silver. And I'm sure many of you are familiar with the smaller sweetwater version of this classic, right. It's been a staple in the bass, pike and trout scenes for many decades. But it's the big cousin with those three shiny stainless trebles that caught Al McReynolds a seventy eight point eight pounds striped bass on the night of September twenty one, nineteen two. For twenty nine years, that fish stood as the all tackle world record striper, and so Connecticut angler Greg Meyerson took an eighty one point eight pounder to the scale in two thousand eleven and beat it right now. Meyerson's fish was caught from a boat. Mc reynolds landed his from the Vermont Avenue Jetty in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and it's a catch that has always been shrouded in mystery, and many people claim the conditions that night were far too rough for al to have even been on that jetty casting. Others claim he on the fish washed up dead. Some say a commercial fisherman gave him the striper, and it has been written about over the years ad nauseum spawning pro and anti McReynolds camps within the striper scene. But the truth is, despite all the unknowns tied to that fish, the bottom line is that it was qualified by the I g f A. And the fact alone that it was caught off the beach prompts many surfcasters to this very day to vow that Meyerson's boat fishes quote not my world record. As a young kid, I actually got to lay eyes on one of the few replicas of the McReynolds bass in existence. And I mean you could fit a basketball in its gaping mouth without it touching the sides. That's no bullshit. It was far wider and taller than me, the eight year old gawking at this unfathomable fish hanging in a museum in Bringing in New Jersey. And I remember so vividly in that cavernous bucket mouth someone had stuck a five and a half inch rebel minnow black back over silver. And even back then, at that young age. I remember staring at that Laura and thinking, there's no way, there's there's no way in hell it caught this fish to quote, no effects. It was like feeding a tic tac to a whale, like a hot dog in a hallway. Now, what I've never doubted is that a bass that size would eat that lure all right. According to the legend, a school of giant striper's had mullet pinned against the rocks that fateful night, and that lure that rebel would have matched the size and profile of those mullet. But having fought big bass in the high forty pound range, knowing their power, I could just never get my head around the idea that that little hollow plastic rebel lasted for what McReynolds claimed was an hour and twenty minute battle on twenty pound test mono to boot. So all of those relatively small trebles stayed glued in that thick, massive jaw for that long during a fight that McReynolds himself said made his back ache and caused his forearms to lock. It always just seems so damn unlikely. But see that's the fun. Without these little questions, without all these little mysteries, and there there are a lot more than just the lure tied to this catch. It makes me wonder if we would even be talking about the McReynolds bass today. The debate, the mystique, the allure of the whole thing is what has kept the story in the forefront of the surfishing and striped basque cultures. And sadly, on Sunday may tent Al mc reynolds past away, And though he had fans as well as detractors, better or worse, he will live on as a legend in the stripers scene, and that rebel minnow will forever be known as the lore that earned him that status. Right on, Well, you know what A cheers to Al, because the truly great fish are the ones that come with truly great stories, and and that man, that is a great story. That's it for this week. We hope you guys enjoyed the moment of Zen from River Horse got smacked down by the epiphany that a gorilla pod is more critical than you're on and real and finally understand that when your guide says, please don't cast right now, you shouldn't freaking cast. Listen to your guide has always if you like what you're hearing, have comments, suggestions, concerns, bar nominations, or just want to shoot the ship. We adore hearing from you, so hit us up at bent at the meat Eater dot com. Please we we read every one of them, and we appreciate everyone. We yes, leave us a glowing review Wherever you consume your podcast, those really matter. Whenever you consume coffee, it should be black rifle coffee, and man, we hope you let him up this weekend. Hey, one last note before we go. You know, Miles and I work on a lot more here at Meat Eater than just Bent, So we're asking for a little assist for a future project featuring a whole cast of meat Eater characters far more famous than us. That is true, That is true. And seriously, if you've ever had a near death experience while fishing, we'd love for you to send just like a basic gist of the story to Bent at the meat Eator dot com. Okay, now to be clear, we're not talking about your buddy Tommy getting hooked in the calf meat with your musky buck tail. Okay, We're talking about heavy hitting stories that left you thankful to be alive and we do appreciate your input. And speaking of listener emails that we love again, a listener named William, who did not provide a last name, rode in and said we should close every show with until next time, get Bent. And I don't know about every show, but just for you, just this week, William, until next time, Get Bent,