00:00:08 Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You can't predict anything. The first thing to bring up this nice just flag this as interesting, is that this is trivia. This is trivia for listeners. Uh, what do you call Let let's say you're reading a hardcover book, okay, and you peel off the dust jacket. What do you call the cover of the book that is under the dust jacket. As much as I've dealt in books for a good portion of my life, I did not know that that is called the case. So whatever is un to there, which is usually nothing, is the case design. Not to be confused case sing for sausages. When someone said the design for the bookcase, I thought they meant when you buy a box of books, the book that came in the box that came in. That's not true. Secondly, I just learned Jimmy Doran told me last night that and correct me if I'm wrong. Jimmy Dorn baseball players are infinitely smarter than football players and much better paid. Guy. They have guaranteed money and smarter. I didn't say that they were smarter. That's not a quote. I think he might be embellishing just a tad. Well, you laid out that they did a much better job, that they don't bang their heads as much and stay sustain significantly less injuries bang their heads as much, and that they just sort of have over the years negotiated like baseball players collectively have negotiated better. Yes, the Baseball Players Union has done a uh well, in my opinion, a better job than the NFL Players Association making sure that they get paid. H you have you have been on the show enough to kind of know the sort of mug or the sort of lady who listens to the show. What percentage of those mugs and ladies do you feel have seen the video you showed me of the guy hitting the morning dove with the baseball with a fastball? How many women do you think have seen the picture or the video of Randy Johnson hitting a dove with a fastball. I would say it's pretty low if you haven't seen this video. If you type in if you type in the word Randy, it auto fiels the fourth the word Randy alone. When I entered Randy into my phone, the fourth down auto phil is what's his name again? Randy Johnson is Randy Johnson hits bird with baseball or something like that. Dove is I've never seen anthing like Yeah, it was very unfortunate event for the dove. But yeah, I mean yeah, I mean yeah, I like mourned. That's a pawn. Do you get the PUNTI mourned for the dove. I didn't get it. So never seen anthing like. Never I mean a puff of feathers exploding and done. Uh so Jimmy Doran's here then, uh Janice Poodles. Uh. We also learned some Washington state driver's license trivia. Yeah. I didn't catch all that though, but yeah, fill people in oh Tony like really got the You were right there for that, were you? She was really checked out at that moment. What's the name of the hotel? It was Westport, the Chateau Westport. The woman working the counter is really checked out on driver driver's license trivia. She's got two masters. Well one, Now, your driver's license isn't horridor. Your driver's license is printed vertically if you're under twenty one, which I wasn't aware of. You didn't know that, No, I you know how you can drink in Canada? When you're eighteen. I drank a Canada or they changed it didn't used to be eighteen, whatever it was, I drank. They're out of fake. I D long ago. I feel like all of us going up in Michigan did that go to Canada right across the board. But no, I didn't know they changed the way his friend did you guys? Is there any other significant tidbits from that little lecture she gave us on design layout of driver's licenses. What I likes something about the numbers right and the Yeah, that's how they tell if it's a fake. I D and I don't know. I don't know the formula of the numbers and the letters. But something adds up to I think it's your birthdate, like like the two two two and my driver's license number adds up to you know, I don't know what, something like that you're you were born plus the two numbers after the letters there you go on your driver's license number. Total hunt that's it. I think that's it. Yeah, Yeah, that's two to two right, So if you try to there was some other like doctor a license I don't remember, or doctor your own license. I learned that like when I was sixteen or something. I took a paper I d the day I got it. Remember, my mom drove me home from the driver's license office and I went up to my room and was immediately there with the eraser and a pencil. I was born in v so I turned that eight into a three. And then that day I went to a beer store about forty for all my boys solid work, you know, rock girl. There's always someone always had some darrel looked uncle. I feel like someone is always like, oh, so, you know Billy's uncle, right, and that would be the guy that would go buy people go by beer people's I was something like darrel. Like the uncle lived out, you know, lived in some storage shed behind their parents house. You know, football player, he was great in high school. They're there. Like about the lady that checked us in at the Chateau Westport is that she asked Johanna's his name and I Joanna said Joannae, and I said it's Janice. And she looks at him and goes, okay, Jannie. She wasn't buying it. She thought she thought he was lying. She had already read it, you know, as that was burned, The j was burned into her mind. She couldn't. Don't tell me what your name is. I know this young man. Next you'll tell me what you and then Tony COLAGROSSI has never been on the program before first Timer. We know each other mostly probably Mark Boordman, Cody Courdy, Louhan. Yeah, Mark, Cody, Brian actually introduced us, but Mark and Cody. I was still living. I was living in I was like struggling with Trick and ols is living in temporary housing when we met. Was that right right after that? Right when you moved here? Yeah, introduced you to Razor Clamming. I don't because the where we're sitting at right now is um would you say, like the Southern Olympic Peninsula. It's not even the peninsula southern Washington coast. You guys don't compass the peninsula. Really, what do you come be in the peninsula once you get up past like a huge township canal? Right, like this is mainland, so you gotta get up past people? Oh really see, Okay, from the I've been getting that wrong for long, So say I would say that like the from the from north, Yeah, like from the anglers and hunters like to use the terms the rivers that drain off of the Olympics from that point northward would be those are the limp those are that's the olympos so you have been making would be the south one. This would be known as like Gray's Harbor, South Coast. Yeah, yeah, Grey's Harbor County. So I've been making like a total fool of myself for the three years that I lived in Seattle. Which are which which are coming to a close? I've been saying, like out on the peninsula, but I'm not on the peninsula. Everybody's been laughing at me. If you're saying you're going out razor climbing on the peninsula, they think I'm breaking laws even up by clay Lock or mo CROs or something like that, And that would be kind of clay Locks been open for a few years. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's been closed for a long time. Yeah. So yeah, the first time, so you're in the Gray area in Grays Harbor, Grays Harbor, The first time I ever came out here was you know what, that's not true, man, because when I lived in Western Montana, we used to come out on a Friday. We used to drive out on a Friday, just to go drinking in town. Wake up Saturday morning, go out to dig steamers and shock oysters and maybe catch some flatfish from the beach. And then on Sunday, wake up and drive back to western Montana and like Canal though, and I was back in the area when we just drive places for really no reason, which is kind of like wanderlust man just insane. Yeah, Olympic Peninsula. Yes, you go back home with like six oysters in a sack on ice. Dat him. We'd eat him on the camp on the beach to eat the oysters. The western side of Hood Canal. Yeah, and in that area Hood Canal was that the rules. I don't know if they've changed. You you had to shock them on the beach because the oysters, you know, there's ten more stuck to his shell. It's like picking mushrooms. You'd leave the spore. Basically, Yes, we'd go dig Manila's or you know steamers. We'd go dig steamers, and then we would go out and shock oysters off the beach. And then now and then we'd flick out catch some little sand d abs or you know, some sort of flatfish. Oh, and then we we'd uh crab either setting pots out of a little teeny uh out of a little teeny canoe, or we would just throw them off piers and whatnot a ring get rock crabs and Dungee's crank right ring with rings which crabbing used to be epic on the canal and it's pretty much non existing. We do it right in town too, man, We do right. Yeah, so you people have anymore? Really is a Northern Hood canal across from day Bob Bay, Southern I don't know about. It was warmed up, didn't warm too hot that period. Stuff happens in that canal. That's an odd place. Oh, I gotta introduce Tommy Edson, not to be confused with Thomas Edison. That's me, Tommy Edson. We met because when you honest, the long period of time, when you honest wouldn't make me my perch flies just I don't know, like air old grievances. Um he I asked him for. I believe it was eighteen months to take three or four minutes out of his day, you know, and he wouldn't do it. And I remember, in fact, and I think she was on the subject. Uh still hasn't got your flies, you know, Broti made some and Tommy Edson made me some. That's how I met Tommy. We have usually think you were a man of such a steel trap memory, but it seems like it's been failing. Didn't busted him out during a podcast. Oh you're right. I'm sorry, Greg. I think so much emotional damage had been done. But then it was like it was like a small come up and so I'm sorry to make it, but Tommy made them for me, and we want to have a mutual acquaintances in the fishing world. Yeah, the guys from the Old Northwest Wild Country Show Joel bill Um and we have fished surf perch, cropp ease, yellow perch, picked up a couple from and bullfrogs together. Oh, but to return here. So the first time I came out here as a as a responsible grown up was to come out for razor claiming. And that makes you Razor claiming makes you like proud to be an American man because the huge variety of individuals. The only thing that all those people that dig clams on a clam tied have in common is that they like there are like it's so many people from so many walks of life and out so like such a like vast disparities of outdoor experience, and they're bound by wanting to dig clams in the coast out here. When you go out to the coast here, it's like you look left and it's just the same thing, and you look right and it's the same thing. To infinity on either side, speckled with the same concentration of individuals, and the and the beach is so gradual that you can't there's no pitch to it, you know, one of the tides out up but up at like you know, more crocks at the flattest beach in the world. And it's just got the scattering of people of about Like if you imagine the hotel room, a hotel room probably have what six seven people in it, right at tideline to an infinity in one direction and to an infinity in direction, just people happily digging, digging. Razor claims, just eyes down looking for the dimples, the dimple, Like, how would you even explain the dimple? Like I don't even know how I explained it to you took a photograph, what what would you be seeing? And talking about what you'd see if you took a photograph and what you see in real time if you took a photograph, you would see that if I took it, I mean, he's golf because I know you love it a golf ball. I'm following and dropped it from what jimmy a foot off foot into this end and then but it's ephemeral. Yeah, so it's yeah. So so you see this little tiny dimple there, but very in real mud or covered with mud, and in real time that dimple would be thousand one moving slightly, it would be filling in slightly, I guess you say, gets suctioning down the dimple last such a short amount of time that you can't really you're never really sure you saw it exactly like it's it's there, and then it's gone with the with the water. Yeah, so it would be like like a normal dimple lifespan with the Yeah, with the water, I'll be like. But I think that's the difference of being having a sharp eye for clams or just me in your average razor clamber, because there's some that are clearly like there's a clam there, and then there's some that they don't show nearly as much, but there's a clam there. So that's where the experience comes into. Every time he moves, you're tracking out, so it's sucking. So if you sit there long enough with a dimple reform and the same clam like, and then the minute later he moves again and the dimple comes back, you know, and then you get to surf washing over in the sand. And those things are fast. I mean, I don't know how they move once they go down, but I think they don't move, just like in a vertical colum. They don't they go, and which is why you crush and you why you want to go in at an angle. Well, we gotta explain more. So let me just say this. A razor clam is a big gass razor clam is not as big as the bill on a baseball hat. Way smaller, not way smaller. A big razor clam is if you took a regular bottle of beer and busted off the neck. Average size about that about yea big. And it's the kind of clam that when he closes his shell, it doesn't contain him, and in fact, he's sort of moving beyond his shell because he's just got a very fragile shell. And when he closes it up. It's like a thick sandwich, and the shells are sort of like the bread, right, and when you look at the one side and the other side, he's just in there like he can't even fit in his shell. He's got a big neck sticking out. The diggers always out and the digger's eyes out. Yeah, and the neck kind of like the neck doesn't fit in there very well either, those diggers, is it, Yeah, you're always out they like uh, they like they don't like uh. They're not in gravel. They're in like just fine fine sand. You know you call it sand sand. It's like like a yeah, like a tropical beach sand, like what you would want to walk on in that stuff. And they hang out around in in the littoral zone. You gotta know that word. I do not. It's where this like the sea meats of land, like the where the wave action plays out, the littoral zone. They hang out in there and you sort of follow the tide out and you got a clam gun or a clam shovel, and you study the ground for these ephemeral little dimples at form and vanish stick a clam gun, and a clamgun is like a what do you think what's the diameter on a clam gun? Are they like five inches? So five six diameter two with a hand with a t handle on it, and you jam that thumbits down the mud right on top of where the dimple. You center the dimple on the gun and then tip it. And I've heard both. I've heard tip it towards short and i've heard tip it towards the ocean. But I think you tipped towards I think tipping towards shore to not cut the clam in half with the clam gun, yeah, which happens at all too often, but you're not supposing. But you gotta keep your busters. Yeah. So then there's like this little air there's this little air escape hole and that clamgun. Because then you shove the gun down, it compresses the air and so or you know, shoves the air out and you sink it down until it's buried in the mud. Then you plug the air home pull out and that pulls the whole slug of mud out. What your cylinders about what foot and a half two ft eight you're shoving down. The air needs to escape the tube, but to make suction you just then plug it's like a little trigger hole. You plug that little trigger hole and you pull the whole kitten caboodle up. You're pulling a course sample out of the ground, taking sample time half the time. You dump it out and the clam is not there. And then you jump in and sink your arm into the up to the armpit in the hole, or you double punch, like pull up some inches there, cramped back down in there, and then you get it good. Then pull them up and you catch them. Or you jump down and sink your arm up to the armpit and area is down in there. Cut your hand on them, cut your hand, pull them up, and there he is, and you're allowed fifteen And it's the first fifteen that come out of the ground. They don't want your high grading them, and they don't want your discarding them, but people do anyway, and so pretty soon it's seagulls all over eating busted up razor clams and it's a hoot man, and they kind of open it just sporadically, like a weekend here, a day there, and it's usually the PM, the PM low tide. Yeah, the PM low tide. Have you done it in the evening with lantern because I take my kids. I've done it in the evening. It's real fun. I feel like you'd lose children at night. You have them hold the lantern. That's a good chore. Tony. We were out with kids and you had your youngest in one of those backpack carriers but not strafed in and you bent over to work or clam and the kid come out the carrier. She kept trying to reach down out of the carrier tograph the clam. So I don't come over like this, and she would. She would come out of the backpack trying to reach out to and she came out of the carrier right in the surf. Just just there's like you go out there on the rough day and as his kids washing back and forth, it's hard to get any clams because trying to pull your kids out of the surf. You gotta watch him. But then the last clam and we did the last razor clam we did, we went out and it was just like zero wind and so you weren't plagued by all the waves coming in and wiping all the shows away. You know, it was just out and then we were just limited no time. But what's funny is my kid. I tell him we'll go count him. So he goes up the beach and dumps them all out, and then all of a sudden, I see him running around screaming and pannikin because all the clams just immediately started going back into the crowd and I couldn't tell what He's jumping up and down, waving his heart and yelled at the box. I realized that all our clams are making a break, which totally shocked it. Man, he had no idea what to makeup. Did you lose anybody? Not that bad? I don't know that is. I don't think we Actually we just had to let go gram back up there trying to get away. We just kind of scooped We scoop them all back out. But that day it was so good there was no risk of running out of them. Then. Uh. The other activity that I got it out here was hold on, what's your normal preparation for those man clam strips? Like classic going to a restaurant and get clamped, but kind of like a thinking man's clam strip, not like uh where you know you picture going into restaurant order and clam strips and you get down eating them and then there's just like the bottom of the baskets full of a bunch of breading clumps, but aren't like that. I gently dust them. I take all the diggers and fry those. And then I take the remaining portion of the clam, which I don't I don't know what it's called, and I dice it and I make chowder out of that. Dude, the things you pull out of those things stomachs is insane. I've never paid too much attention to it. Well, there's there's seaworms in there, baby crabs in there. Definitely seen baby crabs. Never seen that. It's been a long time up Like they siphen up some some crazy stuff. Man, it's not like a normal little steamer. It's just like filter feeding. I mean, they're filt like they are, but they're sucking up stuff. Lots of chunks of seaworm and lots of little teeny crabs that that razor clam is sucking up, and there's a ton of meat on one. They're so good, like the little beech crabs or the sand crabs. It's just you know, it's it's a crab the size of your pinky nail. They're good hung up in cold smoke too. Yeah, they're good like that. I have a Yeah, I have a friend that does that. I've never done it, but I've eaten his and they're delicious. So what I've done with them is do like a thinking man's clam strip, which by that I mean not like that crazy Doughey. You in general don't like a batter heavy breading. Don't like batter. I like gentle breading. My buddy Henry turned me out. He using bisquick work like a change. Yeah, we're great, but not like you're not doing an egg wash, just actually quick bisquick. And then it was just yeah, and it was fantastic. You know what, we'll put that out to Henry Miller Fill put that in the show notes. Uh, Tony just sent me a nice picture of us out clam with a bunch of kids who are will in five minutes be soaked. Yeah, the crime to the dumping right before the clamity. Yeah. Um, would it work to just drag around a big inner tube with a kid stuck in it? Like, No, it's just too much surf. That would never work. That would never work. So yeah, I do that. I guess there's like three main things I do. I'll come on and clean them all, and you gotta get rid of the gut on him, because the guts the only part you don't eat on him. Really. Then I will put him in a vacuum bag. The ones I'm gonna keep. Just put a bunch of them in a vacuum bag and it makes the nicest little flat little pack of the clams. And I'll freeze them like that, and I have some of my freezer now and then um in vaccine them in there, and then I do them in pasta, so like you're like classic Linguini kind of right buttery clam sauce thing. And then my wife likes clam chowder, so I will make Manhattan chowder, which is red, New England showder which is white, or a combo that's kind of a little bit of both. But I prefer to on a clam I caught. I prefer to make the Manhattan showder because it doesn't like hide your clam in a white pasty glue. Yeah, I mean, because like you want through all the trouble to dig the things up right. You want to like you want to look intore and be like, well, there's the clams. Yeah. So that's why I like like the Red Manhattan showder I enjoy razor clams so much just eating him, like you said, fried in really anyway. But I felt like it was almost a waste to make chowder out of him. Yeah, well my wife like chowder. Yeah, no, I do too, but it's like there's other claims and then take the chew and make the cher I never thought of that. That's a good idea. How do you cold smoke it? What do you mean? You know he doesn't. I'm assuming he brindes them up, but I remember him bringing him out on fishing trips and whatnot, and they were just these big, beautiful, smoked up razor clams, you know, that were just intact, you know, not cut up into strips or anything. And they were nice, man. No, not as strong as an oyster, you know, more like they still they retain their flavor, you know, but there they were good. They were really good. Yeah. All the razor clams that have Doug have all been on the same couple of beaches out here. What I used to think with the Peninsula and that man hanging out in the Harvard this whole time, Yeah, kind of I'm gonna go around to my neighbors who I bring clams to coast. I'm gonna go and say, hey, man, you know what. You know how I told you where I got those, It's not where I got them. They've probably been driving up and down the Olympic Peninsula looking for a beach and all I can find is the oysters. I've only been to the one. Is it. I always call it mo Rocks, but I'm sounding Clips Clips. The town is mo Clips, the beach and beach. So when you're checking the clam tides, and yeah, you go in the rocks. If you type in like like razor clam, you're going to You're going to Google and type razor clam season or whatever. It just takes you to that page or tells you what's coming up, and it'll be like the breakdowns are simple. All the different beaches, the days are open. And we went out there one time, me and my wife and our three kids came out to hit a clam tide and stayed in that Ocean Shores hotel. And it's a big place, and I'm telling you what, like about two hours for lower tide, every hotel door opens up and people walk out of their hotel rooms and hit Boots to be a cleaning person at that hotel would be hell. Yeah, that wouldn't be a party because the amount of mud and sand. And then everyone goes down and it's like this giant tailgate party. That's the kind of tailgate. And I could get involved in people sitting around on the tailgates drinking beer is getting ready to or having just dug up clas Like I said, man, it makes you like really happy to be American to go clam digging, especially if it's like it is now and in Washington beaches you can drive on the beach, so it's nice like Oregon tons, but you can't got to pack in. But that's the thing to make it. That's kind of a that's a good point because like it seems like a low tide that waters out there a mile and then you got a park in a parking lot or a little roundabout somewheres across the dune, and then you got another mile to go with kids, you know, and the kids love it driving up down the beach. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And your part, Yeah, it's like a Walmart parking lot that never ends. If everyone from the ten Walmart's all had to park in the line down the beach. It's the only time I'm glad to see other people out doing what I'm doing normally, like someone else got here first. Yeah, but there it's like, oh yeah, man, I wonder why that is. You're right, I feel that way too. Well, there's plenty to go around. Yeah, it's just so much room. So Jimmy, you go a fair bit. I've been a few times, but I've only been to the one beach that I've been mispronouncing now for several years. We don't feel too I called it mow Rocks, but it's not mow Rocks. It's so anyways. They're on the Fishing Game website. It'll it's really pretty clear and easy to navigate and get through, and they tell you when it's going to be open. Well, it's the only rag. It's the only rag in the world. It's easy. Yeah, it seemed pretty simple and it's it's very user friendly that part of the red. Yeah. If you don't like to dig raised claims, you can suck it. Man. It's like it's just like just like the funnest thing in the world. Second qualifying questions, Yeah, no, I hate it. It's a lot anything not gonna be your friends. And he used to go to the beach. Yeah. Then the second thing I got into was surf perch. And then you're Tommy Edson. You're the first guy met that was like really self identified as a surf perch like fish surf perch man. I always have like these guys. For the guys that work with like your honest, I would just say my surf perch mentor oh, and they would know who I was talking about. It was just always something to do when you were at the coast, either digging clams or you know, we'd run out to the coast, like me and Tony discussed yesterday, we'd run out the coast fishing salmon or steelhead and all the rivers are punishable. What are we gonna do. We're gonna go catch a boat. We're gonna go catch cooler full of the surf perch firs go fish surf perch or that. That's kind of what we do. And then I discovered the combo because surf perch open years season fifteen surf perch to day and it's they're always there. Yeah, Like I've never had a day where I yesterday was. Yesterday was pretty sucky when I thought it, but I thought it was below par. It was below part. It was below of what I expected, but it wasn't poor by any means. We came out, We came out and surf perched on Christmas Eve something like that, No, and I thought that would be no December December, and I thought we'd come out and it would just be like llaciously nasty, which I did too. It was cold, I remember that. But walked out there, that cold, windy and you walk out and it's like the most like unforgiving atmosphere where it's just like pounding surf, salt spray cold, and you're like why and what self respecting fish would possibly be and that churning froth and you go down there and hook out um gulp saying what gulp sand worm? Or I was I threw some. I threw some razor clam next that morning, I was saying, I think razor clams were good with bait like that, as you end up getting crabs too, and the crabs will just pick at your stuff because you do pull you do crabs. The gulfs work really will. But to flick out into that churning, god forsaken froth and fish. Yep, yeah, that's how the knocking on the door. Yeah, yep. The big ones are just like a little miniature takedown in your hand. They just kind of hit it and don't you know, they grab it, turn its went away. I got um the bait. I've only ever used one thing for bait because it stays on you. And I've experienced with all kinds of stuff. What's the bag? Say, what do you mean on a gold sand word? What's the bag? Fishes, everything else that wishes, live baits, fishes, all other baits Bayeah, yeah, they're good and they're durable fishes, all other bait. Well, clearly this is the bait for me. You can, you can seriously go spend a very minimal amount of money on bait and tackle and have enough to get through the entire day of surf perch fishing. It's not snaggy. You're not gonna donate a bunch of gears. No, But I'll tell you what I'll tell you. What does happen is you know, when you're uh squid jigging, I'll lock my line off because like, oh, on your reel yeah, we'll check this out. So you squid jacken and you lock your line off, and uh so that way, when you open your bail, your squid jake drops too, like inches above the bottom when you're off appier because the minute it hits the botmyb're gonna snag. Would I imagine to be a carpet of other squid jigs that are I think there's one rock and then adventure that rock grows into a carpet of squidg It's just a coral reef of squid, and so you can't touch the bottom. So I lock all my reels off, especially with my kids. So you just open the bail and when the line stops, the line stops where it's supposed to stop, and it's safe to start your stroke there. Well, it was squid jigging season, and so I rig everybody up. Um, I rig everybody up. You know, you have two ounces of lead, one ounce of lead on your surf. Perro and me my two brothers kind of spread out, you know, I walk one way, they walk their way, and one goes down below, and in no time we're all back up re rigging. Because the minute you fire that, you fired out lead and comes up against that lock off. All that stuff just keeps going. And they had to me twice yesterday. Man, I did one cast. Yeah, I did one cast where my my braid was knotted up by my spool re rigged came out into our cast. One of those ones where you accidentally were somehow it hooks onto something like close your bail up and sent my rig off into the outer space it arrived in Japan. I used to do that to a lot of giant nightcrawlers and then my granddad would fuss at me, what do you mean because it would just be out pan fishing, you know, and instead of clipping off an inch or two or whatever you need, and you know, on a small like size six hook, I put on like a eight ten yeah night color, you know, and as a kid, probably didn't weave it on there properly. And then my hook would go about eight feet and that night the nightclor lands out on my zone. Yeah. That's a big kid thing. I think too, is like time they cast, like it'll land in a while later the mouth that the worm comes touching down somewhere else with. But the ones here are red tail, surf perch tail surf purchase and it's funny, man, it's like one of those things that enough guys go and if you go look online, there's like information, but it's not satisfying to research surf perch fishing online. No. I don't know if that's the thing about guys just stayd tight lipped about it because maybe they don't want the company, or it's maybe just like lack of interest overall. I don't know, but people should be doing it because I mean, we've all seen how many miles and expanses of beach there are here. I know that's the like I look at like emails that come into us and it's just so many guys just being like dude, there's so many people and this and that and I lost my spot and then no no, but then there's like certain things to do like fishing surf perch where And I would say that it's not fair to say it's an unexploited resource, and it's not. I don't know if it's fair to say under exploited resource, but it it's just that yeah, right, yes they were served perch fishing, and you know, another guy come out and give it a take a couple of pokes. There was there was a few people out there, but it's just kind of concentrated around three or four other guys out there. I think I saw a total three dudes taking a poke somewhere in the vastness of the beach for some brief period of time. But it's not they're just not getting pounded. And that day when it was really good, and on days out there was really good, and you just stay in one spot. So you have this beach that goes for you know, miles, miles and miles and miles and miles, and you cast out and it's like there's no way there's a fish out there. And you cast out like there's another one. Do you think, like, man, there must be a lot of them. But you can't just take them. You can't just cook them like, um, they're not as forgiving as a lot of fish. They're a little delicate and they're like you just got to take a little more care. Like they don't like you can't just fry them up like you can rock fish or cod or anything like that. You can't like carelessly hurl it into a bucket of hot oil and think it's gonna be good. It's too delicate, and you talk about people like to steam them. Yeah, I did that kind of kind of a steamy poach thing. One I found the two ways I like to I made the mistake one time just sautan them and butter and then putting them on pasta with my clam so it's like a clam surf perch on pasta and they just fell apart. And then my kids didn't like it because they're all falling apart. They wanted to pick the fish out, but they couldn't pick the fish up because the fish disintegrated. Then what I started to do is I would take them and take the flames and brush them and olive oil season them, put him on a on an oil bacon sheet and put them in a four degree of and let him sitting there until the edges are starting to crip potato that's in. Take my spats them right off, and those sons of guns are good. Or what we did on Christmas Eve, no Christmas dinner last year is scaled him, gutted him, left him a hole, cut scored him like caught a caught a the fishes sitting in horizontal like the way he belongs. Cut three or four vertical gashes in them, fry tholes and peanut oil until they're until the fins are just crispy, crisp, crisp, And it made like a tide dipping sauce. That sounds that was good, and everybody liked that. I bet that was good. You end up with all those crispy edges on him, man, that's good. Then you just pick it for your kids and you get to like it. I like anything whole fried like that, especially like surf perch, yellow perch, anything like that. Whole fried. Man, if I can whole fry it, usually that's what I'll do because I just love eating them that way. It's like it's something like picking up like a turk legger a drumstick when you get them right. I mean, granted, some fish are just too big to do it, but some of the bone structures too, Dell gills and sun he's and cropp ease and you know, smaller surf perch. They all taste the same, man, you just gotta keep more of them. Yeah, that they do. But then the only problem is some of them the bones are too. Yeah, Like I remember the writer Ian Fraser was explaining to me, Uh, eating row schad, not the role, but American shad, eating whole cooked, whole baked shad. And he equated, uh to trying to fix your watch, picking the bones like that level of you know, a watch apart. It was pressure cooked and it was good, but it was like any other fish you would put in a pressure cooker, American shad. It would have been cooked for I don't know how long in a pressure cooker. A friend of mine goes down and catches lots of them, and he loves them. Dude, the eggs out of the out of a row shad are unbelievable. I think that's why I call roll right. Yeah. Well McPhee, John McPhee has that book, The Founding Fish, the story. It's the traditional way is to just take the whole sack out. So I've caught in my life three American shad. One happened to be a row chad fighting. One of the fighting is fishing out there. This is this in the Delaware River. And if anyone knows your Revolutionary war history, but this is far above where we're Washington cross the Delaware crabbab cha or phenomenal crab baby, oily great crab baby. Yeah, the book. Mcfee's book, John mcfee's book, The Founding Fish is just sort of like an American history, but about that fish, sort of the degree to which people on the American coast relied on the shad fishery. And there's things in Daniel Boone's biography even where so Daniel Boone, someone came and notified, uh knows Daniel Boone's and this came from Boone's son later told Daniel Boone's son was later interviewed and he was telling a story about his father and mother, and the story was that the shad were running in Pennsylvania when Boone's family was still in Pennsylvania. And I'm trying to trying to remember how this goes, so so I get it right. And they caught baskets full, They netted up baskets full of American shad. Had they had so many that one of the kids was dispatched. I think it was Daniel maybe was dispatched to go to a neighbor's and tell the neighbors, come get fish, we have so many fish. So he does and comes back and somehow Daniel Boone winds up being asleep by where they're fishing, and the two girls are sent over to get fish and they see Boone's sleeping and they dump a bucket of fish guts on Boone's face as a prank, and Boone gets up in cold cocks one of them and they run home to tell on them, and the mom comes over to give the what for to Boone's mom, and she says, well, you better teach those girls some manners frontier justice. Uh. But the traditional way as you take the you you basically like very gently sawte the fish's egg sack in Bacon, Greece. This how it's done is yeah, Yeah, we've been known to go down and catch a bunch of them, just have a bunch of crab bait throughout the summer. American same introduced him out here. There's tons of them in Columbia, and I remember hearing the history about how they were introduced, but I don't want to talk about it because I'll probably get it wrong. But they were. It's a it was, yeah, But there's literally millions of them in the Columbia River. And you go down an anchor up a boat and put back little dick knights and bring lots of snacks and kids and like kids really all day. It's just a small little shaver spoon. Heard of a dick night? You've never heard of a dick night? No, I thought you were. I thought you were using like a euphemism. No, they're called a dick night. It's like we did, oh, because we would use just these little little red white jigs like a little Yeah, you can use those. While you look so while you look so unhappy that we're talking about surf perch and and uh American American Chad, I look unhappy. I'm cool. Really, you're fine, Yeah, anything like that. Any questions to come up? No, I'm tracking so far. Is it just that? Is it just that because you just don't have a lot of experience with surf perch, I have none with shad a little bit of surf. Can you tell me what your impressions are of surf percha fishing yesterday? I'd like to hear, because you've never been before, and there you were there, I was standing there in your chest waiters on a lonely beach. I was thinking earlier how it doesn't seem like how driving all over the beaches messed the beach up at all. But there's probably things that happened that you don't see sut or something. But it's like, if you're gonna drive on a beach, that's the beach to do it on. Things basically made out of concrete. Yeah, although someone's uh sunk right in about five minutes after we got there. But that that beaches a different. That beach is a little teeny different than Morox. Yeah. Yeah, it's when you enter the beach out here, it's pretty soft. I don't think you should be driving your astro van out there. They were they were too And if you do, you better come in hot and get to the hard stand. Yeah, what what other? What was your what? What other things you have to add? There? You are? You in your chest laiters probably be an American. Well, you know, it's always nice to be in a position doing something you've never done before. You know, well, challenge coming out, Yeah, something you to learn and uh, it wasn't a very good day of fishing though that day it was. It was tough, but you know ended up being fine. You know, worked out for me because I just started looking around and going all right, what what am I going to do differently than we're doing? And try to catch fish and end up finding a little rip current and just thinking, oh, you know, I'll fish because everyone gleaning from what everybody else is saying, like a little drop is good, current break is good, and just sort of looking for something different. I found this little rip and ended up catching six fish out of it. So did you get six? Yeah? Worked out pretty good. Yeah, I think I let to go and kept four. Surf perch master all he kept one or two all day yesterday. You know, surf perchas and razor clams too. I'm thinking earlier. While I like surf perching and raisor clambing, shad fishing, all those things, it's different from most other things I do, such a steel head fishing or hunting, because you can walk out on the beach and you'll talk to the guy that you see, Like you said, you don't mind seeing people. You're like, how you doing. He'll say I caught three and you actually believe them. Yeah, Or you raise your clan and you're like, oh man, i'm loading up here. I got two limits. You believe them. You're like, this is a good spot, I'm gonna stay here. You go. Shad fishing people are like there willing to share the information about these fisheries, right, like such as you were willing to share the information with Steve about the star perching. You go to a boat launch it up on the Peninsula rivers. You asked somebody about steelhead they caught that day. It's been a slow day day. I mean, you don't know what happened, honest answer out of anybody from Hoquium to Fork. Yeah, why do you think that is? I don't know. I think it's a lot of it. It's like they want to preserve something that they feel it's more special to them than anyone else or I don't know, and they don't want more. We already got enough people. Yeah, you know, we don't need any more. People don't talk about it, and it makes me upset and be honest with you, because guys just want to fish, you know. Guys just want to get out and catch some stuff, man, you know. And besides, when you talk about a fishery, whether it be surf perch, whether it be steelhead on the peninsula, if you're going to name a place, it's kind of a good thing because then it's bringing money to it, attention, you know, and those are management keeps you know, and and it's there's no ownership for those guys that are fishing those rivers. You know, a lot of people get ticked off when even people come from the west Side, you know, I guess they called the east side to the west side to fish these rivers out here and so on. Uh, it's kind of like this territorial thing. And it's unfortunate because I think, you know, it's obviously a resource we all have to share, and it's everybody has the same right to it. So people want to keep hush hush to try to keep people away from it. Like it's like it's theirs, like a honey hole, you know. So it's just protecting there. You know. They don't want you to think it's good because you'll come back tomorrow. You're gonna bring more, bring more people. And to like to that point though too, Like you go out to the peninsula in the wintertime when steel head seasons in full swing and look at license plates. Man, you'd be surprised how many dudes are from Montana. The guys are out there fishing and want to want to catch a steel a on a two hand and flower Well, that's a recent development to which is the guiding operations. You know, these guys they go they guide all the trout rivers, uh, all all year long, and then they come over here in the winter and guide. But that's kind of what you doing that though, fishing these rivers out here for Sam and both of you. Yeah, for sure. That's another thing that like kind of got me with like another notch in the surf perch belt is like it wasn't what it was, or it isn't what it once was, you know what I mean with a hey, look at me, I got this great big fish. Is what it's become. Like those were like such fond memories. It just as a kid going to those almost sad rivers. Yeah, man, it almost hurts to see what they've come to. In a sense, you can kind of love it to death. And it's like I love it so much that I'll just step away from it because I don't want to see it hurt anymore, and I'll go stand on the beach, I'll go fish cropp ease. I love fishing croppies. You know that. I'm right there with you. I mean, I used to pound these rivers up here, and when I just love going to them. When I'm talking to do how much time have we spent talking to me? Talked about me spending time to fish and steelhead or salmon, because I just don't much anymore. That's when I meet people, when I when I meet people that know Tony, they always want to tell me about your reputation as the same. And steelhead guy spend a lot of time out here, but not recently. And it's like him, It's like I don almost just rather step away and just not be one of the crowds and just kind of like, hey, you guys, enjoy it whatever. And I don't know if that's remember maybe fish you've kind of done it. I don't want to say I've been there, done that like it does, but it's it's like I've caught my I've caught my shirt of steel and I've got some really beautiful fish. Um, I'm happy floating that river. I'm happy floating the wheats and through the rainforest and not catching a single fish. And I will take far fewer fish, far fewer fish over beauty. I will take far fewer fish, maybe even not even one for a season, and beautiful scenery over crowds and limits. And I really will I'll hike into arguing people are. It gets kind of ridiculous. People just yelling at yeah, you know, right through a water whatever. It's like, Man, there's a stump over here, there's a long jam over here. I got nowhere else to go, you know where I gotta go. You know, it's just it's just it's crowds and it's it's uh, you know, people being territorial and thinking you should be off the river. Whatever it is, I don't know, it's just kind of gotten to a point where it's got it's a little ridiculous. Now. It must be something that like, it must be something that's like a steelhead thing, because it is I went through years of being maybe people feel so lusty for steel him that it brings out the worst of them, because I went through a few years of being really really into fishing steel head in the Great Lakes, like into it, into it to the point like making hash marks on the roof of my van too mark like comedy got you know what I mean, Like golf clicker mentality about oh my god, I landed forty two you know in April May or whatever, um like that kind of into it because I had kind of like quit mostly quipped fur trapping and hadn't found something that because when you trapped, you like your trap every day. So when I quit doing that, there's a couple of years there. Yeah, I quit doing that. I was twenty two and there was a couple of years there before I moved out west, and uh, you needed something to fill that, like every danis. So I got way into fishing steelhead and I would the only fights I've been in. I got in one fight on a river Montana, which I'll tell you about, but all the fights were always like fighting steel with steelhead guys. I remember, like it was so like so combative. I remember a guy one time saying, asked me what my name was. I said, Steve. He goes, well, Steve, I think I hooked your waiters fishing that tight where a guy hooked my waiter on his drift. Yeah, just elabowing people out of the way getting there, because if you're if you're in a spot and you're hooking a couple of steelhead, other dudes just are like it just it makes them feel sick. They want in their soul bad. I mean, especially if you come in there after them. Yeah, I've seen like people people act that way for pinks, which is which is like, I don't know, maybe, and I'm sure a lot of it's just people that don't catch a lot of fish, so they don't understand, like they probably just don't have any appreciation for like quality of it of their fish or their querry or whatever it may be. But they I mean, I've seen scenarios where you'll be lined up on a river and then people are hooking waiters. You'll be waited out in the water knee deep and say your twenty ft from let's say you're twelve feet from the from the rocks, from the gravel, from the gravel bar, and somebody standing on the gravel bar casting over the top of you. Yes, I've seen that. That's another That's just another reason why, man, I just don't just see. Yeah, there's always gonna be those those Uh, it's just locations where you know it's an easy access point and you know what you're in for. You know you're in for battle fishing. It's an easy access point. It's a place for people to go have a good chance at catching the steelhead if they drawn have a boat. Not everybody has a boat. Um, you know, in recent years there's just been more and more boats. It's gone from seeing three trailers out of take out to seeing you know, twenty trailers and just leap frogging down rivers and all that. So you know, you're always gonna have a combat fishing, and I just think everybody needs to be yeah, understanding that, Hey, every person on that river has the exact same right to the catching a steelhead as they do, no matter where the heck you're from. From Montana, I know, Washington, wherever it is, there there is and but there, but there is the dispute I got into. Yeah, I want to hear the Montana story. Yeah, I was coming up. I was with my old I think I was fishing with my old roommate, j Nichols, who wanted becoming a he want like having a whole career in fly fishing magazines and fly fishing publications. We're fishing one of the upper forks of the Bitter Roote and um wade fishing. Picking my way up river, and I come to a spot where a where a guide who's doing who's doing a dave float has this little like this, this cute little lunch set up on the beach for his sport, for his client, right down to a checkered tablecloth. I've seen that. Yeah, shore launch, nice shore lunch for the client. Yeah, but it's almost like it's a little too it's a little too much. It's like it's just like really, really really, that's what this is, what has come to in this world. You can't just sit on a rock and eat something sandwich, so chair, tablecloth, table every Yeah, I got buddies that runching every single time. Yeah, there there gets a barbecue out and make you a burger. That he did that, I would have been like a cool he's making it on a burger. But it's just like a little cute, see little set up. It sounds like it was a little too cute for you. It's like, are you there to fish or not? Right? Right? I get that. I can see you sit on a rock, stand around, kick rocks, I don't know, eat whatever. That's fine. I can accept that. But anyhow, it didn't that. That was just an observation I had that I thought was a little much. It was a little much. A tablecloth, checkered tablecloth. Yeah, I can see why Why did you do that? Did you like it? I guess because you're just you're just trying to impress a little bit. You know, you're out there working and I don't know, I guess in the case, it was a slow day, right, at least the lunch will be nice. Report was the table used? Was it checkered? Yeah? It was green and white. I think I still have it somewhere tucked away for years. And tablecloth? What was the spread? Sometimes I'd washed that thing every day in the washing machine, and a lot of along with my No, it's a lot of my clothes at my house. But uh yeah, nothing worse than about our tablecloth that already had catchup mustard. So when you're guiding, your guiding for an outfit, but it's up to you to do all that stuff. Yeah, I think they had like a base level that they wanted you to follow. You had to have a table in two chairs, for sure. It's a very minimum. I think they asked that we had a table cloth. You'd pull over a little roll top table, hopefully under a shade tree, and you put a tablecloth down and he set one out for him, depending on the on the year and who was doing the lunch catering. But it was most of the time. Some sort of sandwich and you know, some hides, cookies and soda, pop water, pretty simple, nice macaroni salad maybe in there for you with your sandwich. Didn't matter how cute they were, sounds kind of good man woman, didn't matter. It didn't matter. Just just gonna do it as I got. As I got um, I guess more experienced. And I had the clients that I took year after year. If they weren't into it and they wanted an actually thirty minutes of fishing, because that would buy them, I would just pull over underneath the shade tree on and sit in the boat and you know, wolf it down. Like so you would have clients who would say yeah, you would say like that's a little much. Yeah, a little much. I'd be that guy. Let's just keep fishing. Really, but it's like really really, I've said this before that I had a lot of clients who used me a lot because their wives like fishing me. And there were guys that were like, well, I get to fish more since my wife is into this. I'm gonna use this guy because he's like his trucks tight, you know, lunch is tight, attractive, he's got it like I doesn't have a potty mouth out there. You know, my wife's not always going like jeez, can't believe Mill's talking about that again. So I could picture you being like the guy that a dude would get because you're gonna be nice to his wife, and then you roll that little tablecloth out. Yeah yeah, all right. So what happened was so there I was picking my way up river. Oh you guys having a little dip up. I'll get back. I'll get back to my real quick, which I might have talked about the past, But can we talk about this a little bit? Uh, Tony, You've been trying to quit chewing tobacco, but then here you are, you running to Tommy. He's died in the woold man. I'm a dipper man. Yeah, I love it. I really like And you started dipping down from exposure to him. No, no, I can't blame it on him. I thank you for not blaming you have told me I just quit, I'd be like, no, you may not have a cheer since February twelve. And on the way out here, I knew it was gonna be a long drive, and I know it's going fishing, and that's one of those things you just other dippers, do you guys case dippers a spoofy kind of joke. May not? I mean, I just it's you associated with certain things, right. But I was like, I'm gonna be in ther time. What do you guys refer yourself? What is one who likes to like a smoke or everybody knows that. Yeah, I'd be like your self identify as a chew I self identifies trying to tell me about yourself, you'd be like mature. I know, not the first thing I throw out there, but yeah, so go ahead, Tony. So here you are. You know you're on a long drive and it's gonna be chewers pick up. Yeah, And I go to the gas I shouldn't fill up And I walked inside to grab some snacks and was big and it was called my name. Yeah, a lapse self control. And I purchased my first candid shoo since February twelve. Our man Dirt myth uh. We were down in South America and he was trying to quit and he gets home and I asked him how it went, and he said the same thing. You fill up your gas tank. You can't buy a gas there it is, and you walk into the gas station, I would suggest he just pays with a debit card and buys his groceries elsewhere, because the minute he says, I can't go into a gas station because when I go up to the counter there, I am faced with it and it talks to strong definitely, because like he said, who goes inside to pay for gas anymore? Well, inside of a gas station? Yeah, okay, So if he did, I'm saying from people, you're probably in there public gas and you're like, I know, what's about feet away from through one door one door through? It's not Yeah, like the fact that dippers need to go in there to buy snacks. It's like you know, yeah, all you're buying is a container to drink real fast. You can spit. Yeah, that's right, because that's right. That's why I bought that green that green thing I bought it. I'm like, uh, that's wide mouth, how this thing about? Yeah? This crazy? I mean not that I'm gonna if I did counter and there it was saying saying, um, that's good point, because it's like guys, cheers, they're trying to quit going to the gas stations with single people say I'm going to the bar, you know, like you're going to the bar. Yes, but that's not where you're really looking to get out of this this other thing you're hacing. But you you, you, you know, so when you're going to get a snack at the gas station. So there I am walking up this fork of the bitter Root, and I stolen across this guide. He's got this very romantic little setting going on, and I make the mistake in his eyes of fishing the hole that he's camp that he's having his lunch at lunch hole, but he's not fishing it. The dude comes undone, undone, the guy or the client, the guy, the guide in front of the client that he's trying to woo with this little setup with a tablecloth. And I come back and take a couple of pokes through there, just fishing trout. It's not he's like making a living out here selling this meat or something. So fishing trout, and come through, take a couple of pokes. The guy comes undone. We later had a reckoning in Charlie's Barn, Missoula, Montana. Not not at the takeout, you weren't. We had a fight and then and and then it was funny because later we wound up kind of drinking the same place I would see him. I've been there, you know, And we later had a reckoning and he had and uh, if I remember correctly, I feel that he admitted his wrongness, and I might have admitted a little bit of my wrongness for responding in such a strong way to his criticism. But I feel I still today feel like if you're if you're eating lunch and not fishing, that you do not have a legitimate claim on the whole. How do you feel about that? You honest? What's the guide's perspective? It's kind of dependent on probably on how much pressures on the river, you know. I mean, if it's like a river where you've been waiting for two hours you hadn't seen a person, and then you got just you know, unlimited water past their boat, that's kind of that's kind of like this. It's like that sounds like the spot. You might as well just skip it and kind of move on as much for your own personal experiences. That's a lot like this. That's a lot like the spot. Actually, I agree with Yeah, I wasn't the wrong. I think I'll always think some I was saying, if it was it was like a busy river, then one around around. Yeah, I'll probably skip that one, Steve. I think if you're in a boat and you're floating down, you're like, okay, you're here, we're gonna have lunch, and then we're gonna fish this whole. And if it's trout stream, you know, you're kind of just letting it rest. Maybe a boat went through, you're letting it rest. If you're gonna have lunch there, like you're kind of claiming that run for a period of time. I think I think at minimum it would have been worth it. Hey do you mind if I fish this round? That's the thing you just gotta Hey can I It's like when you get when you walk up to where you want to fish and there's a guy in there? Do you mind if I step in? Then you're gonna do you think about that? Jeez? I don't know you ever been a guide? Never? You guys have all guid I'm definitely not. You never guide a time, No, sir, I probably would have just asked or there's lots of holes I would want them. I wouldn't want an audience. I just keep moving. But that's just me. But it didn't contest him causing a scene at the same time, if he wasn't really making me reconsidered, because it's like obviously scarred me because I bring it up all the time. It sounds like this is something from way ago ended up my wife. Yet that's how long ago this was. I mean, there's so there there's a couple of you. If this was also a place where that you were walking in and then there's a boat, that's true. Is that true? I was walking in and they had a boat. They were in a boat. So here I'm a lowly walker. That's different too because they have the ability to fish this whole stretch river And you're like, man, I just hiked a mile and a half of my leg, Like this is where I was planning to, you know, And if that's a well known is where people do hike into, I would never stop there to have much fault as a guy. So it could be yeah, so it could be completely very circumstantial. You're cooling all this table class, You got anything to add on surf perch because we still need to talk about today, which was lights out, the one of the top days of the fishing I've ever experienced my entire life like the most gorgeous day I've ever had on the Washington coast. It is concluding thought on surf perch around. I would do it again. You know, I had so much fun anytime I go back out there right now the other time and go make take a few pokes. Let me tell you why it's better than the winter in my opinion, this this is why it's This is why I clam digging is nice because it's a winter spring thing. Is when you're out there in the winter, this it's like you're out there and you're so happy that there's something going on because it's the time of year when nothing's going on, Like February. If you're a hunting, fishing kind of fella, February can be you know, the dog days. There's nothing else. It's like you might not be like kicking tons of as season. And so then you go out there and it's like, wow, like a productive fishery in the winter. But to be there in the summer, it's still fun. But you're you're sort of like, oh, well, I could be, I could be. We could also go. It's got a different kind of joy in the wintertime too, because like you said, it's this desolate, hostile place and here's you get this like bright spot of this fresh fish that you're like, oh man, yes, it's like it's it's a it's it's a little bit of a buzz. If you like having the place all yourself, that's a good thing. That's the best time to you out there. Your people look at funny and the fishing can be great in the winter. Dude, should be doing it. You know, it's bigger one tuch a little bit. All right, now, you're cool on that because I want to get into the world's greatest day of fishing. It was pretty amazing. Lights out go along with that something I never do now, yeah, I shouldn't say that I rarely do, but almost want to do more of because of how much you learn, which is go out with a go out on a charter, go out with a guide. And I'm kind of down on it because it's never like not down on it, but it's never as much fun as because you're not solving the problems yourself. And so a lot of what I like about hunting and fishing is solving is the problem solving and thinking that goes into it and like the teamwork right, and when you're out with the guy just's kind of like you're not catching the fish. If anything, you're just like hindering the operation. Like that they would get you know that everything you're doing, they would do better, and they're the brain behind it. And you just stand there, you know, with your ye know, your hand, uh, while this person is plotting and figuring and they've gotten the bait together, they put the plan together, they know what to do, and you're like staying, oh, do what you do, what you do and all those things like all right, dropped down, Yeah, and you've done nothing nothing, Yeah, you haven't even tied your own stuff on. So when people are kind of like, oh, I caught a blankety blank, you know, I caught an ex pound blankety blank with a guy, and I'm like, the guy had caught it, like he'd let you reel it in and everything, but it wasn't like your fish. Yeah. In the world of salmon, a steel head and the oarsmen in a in a drift about the oarsman's usually takes, in my opinion, takes credit for most of fish. And he's a guy that's putting you on the fish. All he's telling you to do is cast over there. The oarsman is a guy exerting the skill. You know. I mean that your thing though, with with hiring a guide, what it does, do the positives of it if you don't have like if it's not readily accessible, it's great for shortening a learning curve. Yeah. And then this case, uh, what's what's the name of that? Operations and saltwater ch charters, All rivers and saltwater charters. The dudes were solid the skipper, and they made it a good day. We only got into what we did, yet they only made it a good day. Is that those guys wound up being like dudes out fish with anyway, and treated us like dudes, like they were good enough actors or gine. He felt this way, where like the interaction was was like everyone on equal footage. Yeah, you know, they're like, we clearly like to fit catch fish. They clearly still like to catch fish. I say still because imagine some day it goes away when you die too long, I asked he, And on the way back in, I was like, what do you do in your spare time? Because I know when you guide a lot, a lot of times you don't fish that much in your spare time. And he's like, I go fishing. So he job. They like to fish. They like to talk about fish, catch fish. Um, we showed up dressed through the parts too. We didn't look like, you know, we just got off the plane. Yeah, so they're probably like, Okay, we're not gonna be like getting hooks out of people's hands all day long. And man, was that fun. My arms tired. You need a vessel because we went out. We're fishing twenty miles out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it was so smooth. If you snapped your fingers and could freeze it solid, you could ice skated on it. It was much smooth, so much smoother than the baby's bottom. So my kid, uh, my youngest kid. You've got a parallels swim shorts that have the built in underwear. Yeah, and somehow like it most not like it must irritate them a little bit or something when he's like wet with that mesh on him, because now he runs around making everyone he pulls his pants. That makes everyone. It just butt really, so he'll laugh, my laugh, he'll laugh, my laugh. It's got like it's just butt cheeks and he kind of just like gets all dreamy looking at bints of fall asleep. Really, it's like scratching love this butt cheeks scratch with his own fingers because he likes to luxuriate. Man, he wants to get a nice spot where you can lay down with his butt in your face, you know, and you start like scratching his butt cheeks a little bit, looks like you're scratching a dog on the and he just likes to like passes out. Yeah, then you quit and you kind of like jolts away so much smoother than the baby's bottom. And I'm saying that with where with where I have knowledge of what that feels like. Um, and in a lot of places like lin Cod. So if if you go to people in the know on Pacific saltwater fish, Lincot have your reputation as being one of the one of the greats upper echelon bottom fish for sure, like one of the table table table fair man. They're like top few. Yeah, they're great, They're delicious. Yeah. People that know are like sure, you know a lot of people like Halib because halibit is very approachable, you know, it's like reliable, It's white, dense, flaky, mild, you can do anything with it. But like link, COD is kind of a better version. Yeah, definitely, kind of a better version COD, but more royal. Yeah, it's like, yeah, they're delicious. They're whether you want to put them on a grill, whether you want to beer, batter them up and fry them, anything you want. The answers, yes, they're delicious. They don't hold together on a grill. It does. I don't think they're still they're still. They're definitely worthy, but they're yeah, yeah, they're great, They're good. I love them. They rag them out like the REGs very so much so. In Southeast Alaska, you know, there's you know, people have bottom and limits like everything, right, it's gonna be like over x inches. In some places they have a slot, like out in the San Juan Island where my buddy Pooter lives. The slot is to thirty six inches. So those are the ones you can keep, you're allowed to keep. It has to be a minimum, but it has been under you know, if there's a different term when it's opposite. Because in North Carolina, for red fish, you can keep them up to seventeen and then over seven. Man, I'm sure there's a term for it, but I don't know what it's like a reverse. I'd like to kind of like the REGs on like if if a guy wanted to keep a large mouth bass in a lick. I think it's still referred to as a slot limit. No slot is only when there's a when there's a bottom and top cap, like you gotta fall in the slot. So we're out. I caught uh. Last year I went out and caught one, because you're hat one a day up there, you lot to a day here, no slot limit up there. North of here, you're not one day. So last year I went out, caught one, it hit the slot. This year ago caught one hit the slot, and I dubbed myself the slot tickler. So my wife thought was a repugnant term, but I just thought was like, I like, can tickle them right in the slot on the slot size on that right, just speaking just link. But here you're allowed, Yeah, you're allowed to per person in this zone too, per person, no size limit. And we motor out and first stop, I think something like what the seventeen miles out? I think he said twelve to catch, twelve to fish bait, and we got little rigs with a like eight ounds lead ball. And there's a couple look like oversized croppy jigs with a little bit of squid squid tentacle, And dropped down and caught bait, and we caught twenty flounder. That we're not twenty flounder the size of the size of your hand. And there's a handful of species down there. Little flat fish. Yeah, I was, I had. That's when the good time started. Man, I was having fun doing that. Oh man, my kid has stayed there all day, fished up for bait. So fished up a bunch of bait and what what put twenty in alive? Well, and then motored out a ways more. And like normally when you're fishing link Hod, you're fishing, they're like the tops of stuff, So like the tops of very sharp ridge lines, the tops of underwater spires, the tops of underwater peaks, like the tops of stuff, and rock fish tend to like the sides of stuff. But out here, he said, there's so little structure that any little feature will hold fish. And we were on uh. He was saying, just like any discrepancy in the bottom, or it could just simply be that like we were fishing on the feature. There was only a couple of feet higher than the surrounding stuff, but it was like like it was like an area that was a harder bottom. There was a little bit of a rise up like maybe some old rock down there, but still pretty smooth. He said, any feature will gang them up, that's what he said. It totally blows me away that you can have this like so uniform bottom and there's one little hummock or hill in it and that's all it takes. And they must have been piled. It must have been because we made what how many passes? Do we make? Three? Three? Three passes over getting at one or two? So we had six dudes, five grown ups, my older boy, and so we're allowed to put twelve lincod in the boat. And yeah, there's maybe a few passes, four passes, and you bring that flounder like you put a hook through his lip, run the other hook around back by his tail, put it in there, drop it down and boom. That's kind of what it sounds like. If you could hear it. No, if you could hear it, I think it would sound like it would sound like um right, all right, all right, nah right, what exactly that I think they because other places just right, the only word I could think for it, I don't want to say the word I could think for how Lincoln normally hits. I was gonna say, be slap it, like they be slap that bag right here, they mouth it, kind of pick it up, they mouth it. Then all of a sudden, he's just going I'd like to see it. Toads, big toads, dragons, dragons, Like you could take both the fists. You can take both your fists together. How big was the biggest one we had, say sixteen pounds, I would just less than eight ninety at the top. You can take both your fists knuckle knuckle and stick in his mouth without touching the teeth and fully flared out like that. We should talk about teeth. I think that's why people call him dragons is because the mouth he could you could like you do when you fold your socks right, how you could like take your mom your sock and like jam it, reverse it. It's almos Like you open that mouth up. It's like you could put the fish back through the mouth. Yeah, yeah, you could. Like you can cut him off at the gills and then turn around and in his his corpse, his carcass back through his mouth problem. Remember the sculpting family. Just an amazing fish in a pectoral fin that doesn't quit. A pectoral fin the size of your hands spread out, Yeah, the size of a grown man's hand, completely spread out. Snaky. It's one of those fishing people. I was like, Oh, he's ugly, and I'm like, yeah, but in a beautiful sort of way. In a beautiful kind of way. Yeah. And they get like the females get that big old belly on them, you know, that big old link cod apple bottom kind of just back there by their vent. They just get this big swollen belly and they're just pretty when they come out of the water. They're cool looking with their blotchy uniforms kind of colors on them, and they're really really cool. I think they're super cool. Yeah. I think there's those predatory ambush Predator fish are really cool. I mean they fishing them off the jetties and stuff back in the Sound. I mean they just they hide in the rocks and you just work a swim shad down over the rocks and and they just hang there. Man, they wait for bait to just come and they're just that's that's so surprising of you guys talk about it. Where I was associated with hunter plus feet of water, I didn't know they'll come up shell. I've I've got him in Lesson ten. I've caught him right out here, not far from here, in Lesson ten on the opener on the sound. We just fished the jetties. It's like just you you hit the rocks and just work it down the rocks. Jetty. Yeah, I'll be standing on the jetty fishing like the foot of the jetty. Basic. It's a formidable looking fish man freaking fangs in there. There's too Now, there's some footage that you can find online where there's a there's a couple of spires in southeast Alaska where they've closed it as a study area. It's called like Spires Marine Park at sun or another just a very small area. But he's he's like these sea mounts. They call him Sea Mounts. They were just like a small seamounts. They've closed the fishing just for research purposes. And there's some submersible footage that came from a submersible that went down to one of these spires to film what's going on down there. And there's link cod down there, giants laying touching side by side, so like laying on the rock where they're actually making body contact with another with each other, just like spooning. And there's link cod that are laying stacked sideways on them, on each other, criss crossing each other. You mean, like no, just everywhere, laying all over land that's like stacked into the good little spots. It's just like it's just not what you picture when you picture what's going on down there in the bottom of the ocean. Everybody, what's the best fishing spot? Yeah, there's Yeah, they crowded in like steelhead fishermen into the zone. Man, it's like whatever the current brings stuff behind it doesn't want to be in the spot. Yeah, And so pretty quickly we had bam bam, bam, bam bam. We had twelve. Yeah, those fish are like ten years old, pretty fast. I don't know grow I don't know much about that. Rock fish grow really super slow. Yeah, they have those slow, super slow growers, I know that. And the way they regulate here too. So like I said, it's like north you here, you go out and fish Lanecount you're a loud one a day. It's a six week season, you're allowed one a day, and he's got to be between twenty six and thirty six inches. Here, you're allowed to a day. But what they do is they open certain depths, so like early season will open you gotta be a you can't fish any deeper than what one twenty something like that. And then you get to a certain date and they'll stagger it out and let you go down and fish to like I don't know what, I don't know what it is right now, but they'll let you go to the next depth out and fish to like an unlimited depth or like another another chunk of depth in order to spread out people's pressure angler pressure as you go out. But man, just like judging by like the very anecdotal stuff of what happened today, it does not seem like it seems like a pretty well managed fishery. It would be like that, because then the minute we get done going after link cod, we go to get rockfish, and that was unbelievable. Some of the best I've ever seen. And rock fish, I think it's like in the Pacific, I think there's thirty two different species of rockfish running around upper twenties, just even in Alaska waters, and they regulate them up there where you have like pelagic and non plagic rockfish, So some rockfish or bottom dwellers that associate with a certain feature and don't move around the whole ton. And then you have your plagic rockfish which roam around in these big schools. And we're getting onto plagic rockfish where we're in two feet of water, but the school is suspended fifty below the boat from fifty seventy below, and holy ship, that's especially compared to the ones that we're catching up at your place. Usually the yellow eyes are big, but the average quill back and whatever else we catch maybe, but like a big dusky, yeah, you know you're right, quill backs not nowhere in your tube your average pound. Yeah, But then a yellow eye will beat some bruisers. You know, fourteen would be big, I mean not big, but like a normal day out, if you got one those thirteen fourteen pounds, that's a big one. You hear of them, and I think there used to be a lot more of them. It would be you know, thirty pounds, thirty five pounds. You hear that, But like typically if you get a fourteen or it's like, wow, that's a bit right. These today we're what on average the rock fish yeah, ohee five gray and yellowtail ye black black rock fish and yellowtail rock fish and beauties beauties. Though some of those yellowtail rock fish had shoulders on them. Man, they were nice. Yeah you want a picture, man, there's shaped like a um you imagine like the body shape is like a souped up beefy lineback or small mouth yeah yeah, small mouth bass yeah, not as like uh like wide, let's say, as a large mouth, like wide. If you're looking down at them from at the top of their back, they're not as wide as a large mouth. But they're built, you know, profile wise a lot like that. But yeah, man, and they're cool too many drop Yeah, you drop it down through the school, and you got two hooks on and you drop it down through the school, and as soon as you put the brakes on it, then most of the time you're pulling up doubles. We had more double the day. I was shocked how many devils we had. I mean quick, like, you drop it down through that school, you get a bite and it's wham. I think you get that first one, and as you're reeling it up, that little flies dangling or whatever it is, buddies going nuts now flies up there dancing around, and the other one's like, oh, what's that? Yeah, don't mind if I do. We voted forty plus rock fishing under that many minutes. Probably yeah, it was definitely, yeah, I would say, oh for sure. And then there you haven't where you got a hundred plus pounds of you got yeah, hundred plus pounds of rock fist laying there. Seven rock fish per person a good limit to linco Man, Yeah that was probably what was that a hundred quart uh cooler? Yeah? Right? Did he had back there? Yeah? What's bigger than that? It's a little bigger than not, I think when Oh, maybe I'm wrong. Yeah, so we got twelve and a hold on ice. And then we had that giant cooler completely full of rock fish. You ever see Cheaching Chong's the next movie, Yeah, where it's all about how they got that big duffel bag of weed, the roaming around the army duffel bag full of weed, and someone asked, somebody's gonna do with it all? And he says he's gonna smoke something sell something, parties, party with some it's like that much fish man. Yeah, smoke some Yeah, I'm not gonna sell smoke something. Some smokes them, eat something, party with something. I'm gonna give some out to my neighbors. Got a couple of neighbors. Yeah, I don't give them like crazy stuff that's hard to deal with. But like if I go to my neighbors and uh bring them like a like a link cod fil a, but not the whole thing, like enough for their family to have a feed off of, that scores big. I get it all ready. That's that's a big thing. My old man. It was like, you know, giving away fish and game. He do be really care to give it away? We have to bring it to neighbors around when I was growing up, you know, and to give it away in like table ready form, ready to cook. Yeah, you don't like go over and like dump a meat game bag full of hair. You gim a fish some hair in a bloody meat bag. You know, you get all nice, man and like it's like to go to your neighbor with a hunk of fish or a deer steak or whatever, be like this is ready to prepare. Yeah, and what you want to do is do this and this. That's the way to get neighbors on your side. I've actually seen seasoned a filet of fish before for a neighbor that just, you know, it's not accustomed to cooking fish. Throw this on the grill for this many minutes or whatever. It's just easy for him. I get some elder than neighbors, neighbors that are working on some hunting permissions with them. Shelled some shrimp last time during shrimping season. They'll definitely beginning shell shrimp, shell shrimp heads off shelled. But these in the pants tam they'll be getting some link maybe seasoned it. Yeah, it slow rolling it. It was. It was almost surreal. It's nice to give stuff away, man. I was like called like it like venison diplomacy man, because you can just picture like my neighbors don't hunt or you know, barely fish. He pictures someone like brings up like, yeah, I'm damn hunters. Right, They're probably gonna be like, I don't know, I live one next next one. He's all right, brings me all kinds of Yeah. It's like the dudes at work, they're like, oh, Tommy Hudson, Yeah, he's the one that's always bringing in that pepperoni. Yeah, he's got some good pepperoni, makes good pepperoni. Yeah, it's good like that. I know a guy like yeah, huts bring pepperoni, pepperoni sticks work. You know, it's like, I don't know image block. I used to live on Never. I love this time of year because I had a boat, and I would every time I go out, I dropped four crab pots, go out and I'd fish for coho and chinook and come back with salmon filets. And then you know, you can only eat so many as good as Dungeoness crab a is, you can only eat so much of it. I'd shell it form, bring them a little baggy and dungeoness all they got. Oh man, crack it up, cars. I gotta do it for my family anyway, crack it up. Giving my in laws just sit there and just go to work. Man, are you one of those dudes? I gotta ask you something. Are you one of those dudes that shells your crab up and then you eat it as we can maintain our friendship. But my my, my in laws, they paid like the thirty nine dollars a pound for shell crab. So when I get a bunch of it to a store, they go down to Pike Place mark it and buy the shell dungeoness crab for forty bucks a pound or whatever it is. It's ridiculous. So when I get a bunch of crab, I cooked, holding cooked crack out of the you know meat. Yeah, they do do They do a good job of picking it or you still get little chunks? What do you mean when you buy picked crab meat? Still it's pretty clean, but you still there's some frag and there you get some f every once in a while, you do get some frag. Yeah. My kids when they're eating crab cakes and they find chunks of shell, they always like to point it out to me. You'll get it. Yeah, yeah, it's like getting it. It's like getting a egg shelling and omelet. You don't get any frag. Never heard about it. You pick a clean but you gotta hear about it every time. I uh, I like to. I don't mind picking a little bit of it and freezing little vacuum sealed bags of vacuum sealed bags and pit crab. What I did last year, what someone turned me on too, was and I did an experiment. They said to pick your crab, put in a jar and pour milk over. I don't know, Lord knows why poor milk over and freeze it, so freeze it in a mason jar in milk. So I froze some of that stuff for a year just to see, and recently, uh thought it out drained. It made some crab cakes. It was almost as good as if you would yeah, very well, very well. I have heard visiting visiting out of town relatives. I've heard the same thing about guys freezing spot prom tails. It's hard. I don't like freeze the freeze them. They freeze them in milk, like you're saying, Yeah, I'd like to try it, because the key to freeze in those things is to wash them very thoroughly. Because any of that little rust colored gut liquid that when you pull his tail off, that's stuff. I don't think they freeze that well. But I would be interested in trying another strategy. When I get a bunch of those in the freezer, I go through them quick. Yeah they're deliciou us go through them quick now, this fish. What I'll do is I'll I used to like I used to be down on vac seals. I used to be down in vacuum bags. And I don't know if it's from using a lot of like low quality vacuum bags, but I'll be down on vacuum bags because I found it so often. I would vacceal something and then a month later, look and it wasn't vack sealed anymore. And I used to think that the bags were bad, that the seals gave out. And what I now realized is that I was treating them too rough, digging around on the freezer in a braiding the bags. Or I would be up in my fish shack and we would vac seal fish. And then I just throw it on into a cooler right and let it jostle around and check it out an airplane and bring it home. And I'd be like, oh, the vacuum bag, they've lost their seal because what you're doing is like banging it around and it makes holes and stuff. And once I realized that, um, once I realized that you can eliminate that with careful handling, or to put when you're packing them in a fish box of cooler, put a layer down, Put a layer of newsprint or something down. Put more in there. I never had problems with it anymore. Now when I have accial something, I don't know, something like a better quality bag or what. But when I have actual something out, that thing stays back seal. Yeah, there's definitely in different levels. We've used some knockoff brands and the Western ones that we're using now, I was seemed to be a lot, and I used to mess around where I had, you know, like I don't know, man, like little rinky dink rinky dink bad Steelers that didn't pull a seal. I've definitely had that happen. Yeah, like you end up with the old whatever brand that's been sitting in somebody's cupboard that you borrow. Isn't happened to me for a while. And I tried to get through a deer one year by doing it because it was just in. It just didn't work out. Yeah, I love the one. The one I got now, it's like I keep it on a high shelf, so it's like a they called the Yeah, well it's no. I got a chamber ceil. I got like a Western chambers here, which I love at my fish shack. But I just have like the model which is heavy right like I keep it on a high shelf and it's like you're getting it down. What's this big heavy thing? But I'm telling you what, man, that thing it cranks. I love him now. So what I'm getting at now is I'm gonna take these fish home and I'll pad them dry, like I'll rinse it, give it a light rents. I'll actually pat that thing dry and get those things already and uh put them in those serving sized things. Zapp him in the seiler lamb in the freezer, and it just looks beautiful when you get them all lined up. And I don't freeze fish and water. I used to freeze fishing water. I don't freeze the water. Now. You gotta dry him though, Pad him dry, gotta dry, you know, pad him dry and freeze them. And I find that you can get away with freeze them longer. Uh freeze fish long with the skin off. Why do you think that? Because I've just discovered over time, I think there's a lot of slime in that skin. And so when I I oftentimes freeze fish skin on. And I found it when you pull if you let a fish go too long in your freezer and you pull it off and you're like like I'm always thinking, like will my wife flag this as skanky? Right, like the way salmon doesn't last that long in a freezer. If if if you pull it out and it's a little skanky, like do a Pepsi challenge and take a skin, a skin salmon, flay, skinned, wall I flay, skin link cod flay whatever it is. And one one with skin off, one with skin on, vaccine and both put him in your freezer for five months, pull them out and with them and I'm telling you, man, that skin one there's there's a layer of fat, and there's some slime and maybe there's like it better, So you're gonna pull it out, and that one with the skin is gonna be skankier than the one without skin. I can see that. I dry the heck out of my skin though, like I yeah, I mean I go through rolls of paper towels. If I'm vacuum seeing on a bunch of fish with skin, and then I put meat to meat, so you have skin out, skin out. Yeah, you don't want skin on your flesh. The reason we'll do that you have that and see that a long time I keep I'm still eating co hole from last June. That's good. The reason will do sometimes we'll freeze salmon like that meat to meat skin out is because if you don't have time to pull the pinbones, the pinbone can braid the vacuum bags that you pull a good suck on it. Pinbones, Well, you can poke a hole in your back bag and then you think you gotta sweet looking salmon your freezer, and then a week later it's not because the pinbone ruptured the thing. Yeah, any bone, you can do it careful. But I have a pair of nine dollar Japanese bone pickers. Like the world's greatest book I ever made. I can't tell you what it's called. I can't read Japanese. My broody brought me a Japanese fish cleaning book from Japan. There's not a fish on the plant that's not in this book. I'm surprised to's not how to clean a whale shark in this book. Like everything is in this book, man from everything is in this book breakdown on how to do it. And I noticed this guy is always using these like special bone picking players. So I bought these these souped up Japanese bone pickers for nine bucks. I love those things where but I found him on Amazon. They just got They're just like a needle nose with just flatten. It's like a fingernail clipper but not but strong. And it's why you can pluck two three out of time when you're pulling po Yeah, and I keep that in a special corner of a special drawer. How does jes needle know this? But that sounds like it's no, you need that Japanese bone pickers? Anything else? Good stuff? Now? Great day, you got any dad? You didn't say any about our fishing trip. You didn't have any fun? Oh my goodness, gracious. Trying to take care of my arms from all that cranking, all that cranking, that's my that's my one great because I only like to use light tackle because it because because the sports like it. Sure, but I wouldn't have I would have liked to have my own jack and rod where I like, where there's a better It was a little bit thicker, right, just a little heavier, a little bit heavier, maybe just a touch. Big freaking dragons, mane. You know you're out them out you're two of water. And that's that reel is kind of twisting. Yeah, I kind of want something I can really get some purchase on with my with my hand up front, I feel like I'm sneaking my hand up the up the blank itself, off the grip on the front, try to get some torque on that thing, and like change up my grip, like I just need I need some purchase up my main jigg and rod. The widow Maker has front. The front grip on the widow Maker is like holding the beer bottle. And man, you can horse up some fish with that thing, man, because it's it's got a soft foamy thing. And then you got a big handle like a dial. Hand. I got this like a like a dial with level wine that you can grab onto that and you can grab that grip and when it's time to get it done and get a fish up off, you know, sucking them up off two water. It's just very comfortable. How long is it? Wong? Yeah, Like I feel like I'd like to mention the name of the charter guys again because again, yeah, yeah, I know they were dialed. I like those guys quite a bit, man. Yeah, They're just good. It's great boat and great places. It seemed like it might be a little underutilized. I don't know, all rivers and saltwater saltwater charters, all rivers and saltwater charters. And it was Ian and Nick. Yeah, And I don't know, like if those dudes couldn't go, I don't know that I would uh say, like, don't only go because like you have to you kind of think that that you like the hope that the company in general Foster's that kind of absolutely like I don't know, maybe it was a fluke that those guys are so cool to hang out with, but you like to think that the company in general Foster's that kind of relationship because it was like fishing with dudes that you would normally fish with exactly. It wasn't something blow hard, you know, screaming at because you had some sunscreen on your hand and touch his rod or something that we had the other boat pull up next to us and you know, talking on the radio with and and uh yeah, they weren't catching nearly the amount of fish that we were catching, but they were trying to do something different. But they were having a great time. They were had a good time, but they were trying to salmon snea. Yeah, they were rock. Yeah, they were doing a combo trip, salmon, rock fish. But they seem like they totally looked like they were having a good time though. Yeah, So I think regardless is just a good operation. Yeah. If I was gonna tell someone in this zone, like if I was gonna tell someone within a day's drive or whatever, if they want to do like a meat run, yeah, very good meat run. Yeah, I would be like I would go out and say, like I would go out, hope for the right weather and go out and do the line cod, rockfish. Yeah. Yeah. Far as far as having like you know, years worth of fish tacos, we got that covered. Like you can catch salmon and steelhead and all that stuff and rivers. If if you want closer to home, man, you're gonna run to the coast man, take a rock fish, my little boy, he's like nowhere. Once you realized you can't like see the beach. Yeah, And we saw an ocean we forgot. We saw an oceanic sunfish that was and a seal that was having some issues, a dying seal, baby seal blind fishing trip of his life eight years. I take a little bit offense to that. Uh, he's had some good days on the water. He really liked it. Um, I liked it. Seeing the oceanic sunfish is cool. So it's like a big weird fish. They're like round with a fin on top of the bottom. They kind of lay on their side or lay up right and cruise the world's ocean feeding on jellyfish at the surface. I did not I always wondered what they're on the top. They were like and that Like, yeah, that fish could turn up in Hawaii. Yeah, that's amazing. They just roam around. Man, they gotta get hit by boats all the time. So that was cool. Saw a seal that has some seri his problems, like an emaciated baby seal not quite totally close to death, but maybe leaning in that direction eventually he's he was weird. I've never seen a seal with barnacles on it. Like. He wasn't doing too good. Yeah, he was just kind of rolling around. Anything else any other highlights, No, just good company, always good traveling. Lots of fish, but none was knighte. So the dude had to clean all that fish. Yeah, he was a rock fish and he was pretty handy. But I mean I felt bad. I just like stay. I don't like I get uncomfortable staying around watching someone work. Yeah, I do too. That's an awkward situation. So here he is cleaning. He was handy with that. Those situations. They'd rather have you out of their way than trying to help. So yeah, and he'd rather, I think, do the work and make the extra extra cash. Yeah, then you're trying to pay him thirty eight. Bam, you cleaned four? Yea four? Yeah? Probably why brings one flame. Yeah, there's anyway. Yeah, I noticed they had to sign up to that said if you lost your ride, you gotta pay for it, which could have hit me and Jimmy darn here. I guess you paid for that one though. We were out trolling salmon on uh Jimmy Darren's boat on July three. He keeps the boat moored in Seattle, and he had bought his wife, his girlfriend. You gotta marry her more than likely. Sure, I think you should. I've met both. I've met both of you, alright, I met both of you. And she's very tallerant. Let's just put it down. So he for Christmas, he buys her fishing rod, which she doesn't want anyways. No, it's barely if there's any weather at all, she's just sick. So he's like, you know, I really thought about us and thought about you, and I've been thinking a lot about what you need, you know, what I can bring to this. And I botched his fish pole and we're fighting to fish and look my kids there. It's a little bit chaotic for a second. And he's working on a rod and lays the rod on the roof of the boat that moved it out of the way, and I just laid it on the on They just trying to net this. He's trying to net a king that we had and all of a sudden, net rod into the drink. Done. So he's like gonna jump in and like, no digitility lost it? Or do you just so, how's my fishing rod? And she's not gonna ask. Oh, it's fine, it's right there because I gotta go up to John's and everybody Jimmy high and I've been looking high for the fishing rod you purchased me for Christmas and me and my girlfriends are going to go on a trip next week. Yeah, but it's a sucky feeling to watch a few hundred bucks sink to the bottle and here, you know that thing had never even been on a down rigger. It had never been fished. I had rigged it for the very first time that day because I was having additional people on the boat, and it was just irony. And it's the calm of it all, because let's be straight, I was, you know, it's Christmas, and I was a little jammed up. And we've been together long enough to buying presence has become fairly problematic because we've already bought everything. And and I saw the fishing around him, like she's not gonna give a shit about the thing, but like, but it's just more wrapped up crap under the tree, and I'm trying to keep it even because she just goes so overboard every year with Christmas. Oh you're trying to stack it to make it look like you bott It's like when I thought, well, maybe she might use it. I mean, at some point, you want, if we get a day like we had today on the water where it's just nothing, sure she'd you know, she'll go fishing with me if it's if we have conditions like we had today. But you know the reality was like, hey, you know, pressure have backup brought on that bone. You know, a yoga mat. That is the perfect perfect now that italy on the head, So yeah, I'm definitely not gonna let her listen to this one. Yeah it was. It was a good day. We cough fish awesome. Yeah it's it's one of the greatest things about where we live is you know, in Seattle, it's I could be on my couch and I like, I keep my boat more than sheeld shoal, and I could literally be on the couch some many calls where I get a wild hair, and I could have down riggers in the water and thirty forty minutes. Yeah, when I was trying to I was trying to talk you into moving back to Montana with me. You said that they don't troll salmon. You don't know. My boat won't do a whole lot there. I told you can go there and troll big old nasty brown's up out a reservoir. Yea, yeah, it's a big old nasty muddy taste and brown pretty good lately, I'll tell you that much. You got any final thoughts, I didn't make correction before someone emails in about my reverse slot. I think I'm just tired and I was thinking backwards because We had a day last year where we were catching on both sides of the slot and having to throw them back because you weren't slot. Yeah, it was a slot. So it's just eighteen and twenty seven. You gotta be within the slab. No sea sickness today for you. Yeah, I took jama mean, but you know it looked like you took something. Yeah, but you can't. Today is not a day to test that. I can't say it worked because it was so slick. It was like being out on a lake in Michigan. You know, I lost, like we talked, was four but fishing with you out when you've had sea sickness, I find myself like usually just have nothing but love for you. And every time I look at you, I'm like, oh yeah, but that day watching you all like disinterested and sick and everything I looked at smn like kick you off the boat. I just like I was like one of those people that relies on uh, I like need your strength, and seeing you at that and then seeing you at less than that, it wasn't like love came up. That was like, yeah, I can only I realized that my love for him is very shallow, very shallow, and it relies on him being like eager, eager, attentive, anticipating what's gonna happen next. But to see him just like weak end and all sick and not paying attention. He was had a fish on and he wasn't even aware of it at one point, I think, and I was like, oh man, yeah, get out. It's like you make me sick. Your sickness makes me sick, Tony any final thoughts, I don't really feel that way about Yah. I mean I did for a minute, but then I caught myself. Yeah, I got it. That was a great day. I mean, we couldn't have hit a better day on the water. So fantastic. I know we're telling people, we're telling all these blugs to go out, like telling people you should go do this trip. Watch like just like yeah, everybody's still Yeah, you gotta put it stuck to your hand. It does not get any better than it got. Today's too rough. Yeah, it's too rough to piss, so you gotta go on your pants. Yeah. Yeah it's great. Yeah, it's excellent. Great place. You're looking to dig into that grizzly I am. I guess my concluder is to this so nice. It's like, maybe it's not so nice for the people live here in Westport, but it's mill of July summer and it's quiet here. Yeah. Great. It feels like like used to have more activity than it does now. It did when I was, like, we spent a lot of time camping here as a kid man. Like even just driving down the main drag of this place is like a like a trip past year old high school, like camping with my folks and donate and tackle on all the local jettys and running my old man out of five dollar bills for extra tackle. It's just like it's crazy, and like I remember mornings. I've said this a couple of times on this little trip, but like I remember mornings where you go down to that little main drag where all the charter boats were and it was shoulders shoulder, guys, it was just just hustle and bustle, like it was afternoon. And now it's like, you know, you guys saw it this morning. There's a few people. It's sleepy, you describe. Yeah, you know, we we all. Yeah, it's just not what it once was. And it's like why do too? Part of its kind of sad, Yeah, part of me sad, you know, and in a selfish way, I like it, I agree, But part of me sad because I knew what it once was, and like how many different even charter boat companies there were for the big boats, and it's like now they're down to two. I think I think there was at least five or six. Now they're down to two companies. You know, probably I don't know handful of boats commercial, but it's right, yeah, it's it's and I don't know what it's co credited too, but it's like I don't know, Like get your bus to Westport. Yeah, take your asses, fishing man, it's worth it. Remember, like move and out in this area, you know. And my wife, you know, because you know, you'd like to fantasize. Oh maybe we'll buy a cabin wherever. I remember her being like, oh we should get a cabin out in the sand. Muans I'll be like, screw that, man, go out to the coast and get a place. Coast coast, Yeah, the coast coast coast, the real one. Yeah, anything else, anyone, do you have anything else? I can't wait to get home and eat some fish. Man. I'm gonna make some killer fish tops tomorrow when you're sitting back in Montana, far from the ocean, half your house, half your house, missing work on your big where you work on your big addition, eating some fish, cooking on the camp taste of the ocean. I've been camping out, you know, So I've been making a lot of meals that make a very camping in his house, you know, small footprint, right, Like somehow I got talked into making pancakes the other day and then I just freaking battery everywhere. I'm like, who was thinking about this? Not thinking about doing the dishes, but so I was like frying ship was off off the table, but not anymore. I'll pay for the extra dishes. You gotta grill outside. It's the prep like breading and you know, you know, dealing with the oil afterwards. Remember are you still doing that? By the way, And do you feel like it's paying off filtering your oil? Yeah, I've been filter mile and it's it's paying a huge difference, huge difference because I run peanut oil and you start feeling like a moron filling that friar up with peano and when you gotta yeah, man, I get it warm. Five seven bucks of gallons. I bring it up warm enough to where I like to break down the viscosity a little bit. I don't know why. How do to do? Get it warm? Run it through that Uh, that synthetic filter comes out looking like I don't know, light honey, lighter and light honey looks like urine hydrated. You know, I don't started putting that cookbooks. I get some piss colored oil, all right, thanks for joining