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The MeatEater Podcast
Ep. 302: You Had Me at Bass
Play Episode
2h45m
Steven Rinella talks with Brandon Palaniuk, Carl Jocumsen, Hayden Sammak, Seth Morris, Phil Taylor, Corinne Schneider, and Janis Putelis.
Topics discussed: the first Aussie to grace the podcast studio and the first Aussy to ever make it to the top 100 bass anglers in the world in America; Chester's family's Old Fashioned kit; three Janises out of ten Latvians; the cancellation of Spring Bear season in WA and just how outrageous it is; native bull trout vs. invasive lake trout; when college kids win $1 million in a fishing tournament; insane entry fees; when 2nd place is so far from 1st; Brandon's DQ, $1k per foot, and owning your own mistake even though the rule is questionable; Fantasy Fishing; under the camera's eye; polygraphs for fishing stories; Steve getting Brandon and Carl to fish his mom's lake; the litigation-worthy bucket thing; Rinella Sr. supposedly pulling a 5 pound largemouth out of the lake where Steve was born; Angler of the Year; the A to Z of the tournament process; physically and mentally not being able to live without it; pursuing what makes you happy; Steve's dream to be a professional trapper; clinch or improved clinch?; and more.
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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 presented by first, like creating proven versatile hunting apparel from Marino bass layers to technical outerwear for every hunt first like go farther, stay longer. All right, everybody, Holy God, there's no way we're gonna covered this all too much to cover because listen, man, if you think about how we gotta cover, like how there's bass How there's a professional bass fisherment from Australia. Yep, that's like that's like two hours since they don't even have basket and he's here. He's the first Australian to ever come in here. How do you promise your last names? Still kind of that's kind of hard looking at it. Not many people get it right. It's like Yacolmson and you're the first like big time winning Australia bass in the US. Yeah, so you're the first. Give me to give me the superlative the first. What um, I'll be the first Australian to ever make it to the top one hundred guys in the world in America? If who you know like in baseball, right, you're like probably American. If you're not American, I think you're Dominican in professional baseball. Isn't that like a big that that country has a huge footprint in American baseball in Puerto Rico. So lay it out for me. In bass, it's like Americans Japanese would be second. No, Japanese be the Dominican. Yeah, I think I knew that because the hooks, well, just everything attention to detail, and they have the same like similar suckit, same bass they have like to have the set up in it's as big in the tackle industry and the fishing as well. I'm seeing all the manufacturers that are Japanese the large mouth bass over on that island in Japan. Yeah, it's awesome. I went to Lake Biwa in two thousand and eighteen. Actually the world record is from Georgia and Lake Biwa in Japan. It's tied because you're trafically sad day for America we get beat by the Japanese on our own fish. But I do that and that that right now, there's a bunch of from Japan that that that just they kill it over here. They're coming over and they beat everyone. Yeah, yeah, it's big, But for me it was because the reason it was different because we don't have large mouth or smallmouth or anything like that in Australia. So I chased like a whole different species of fish my whole life. So you don't have large mouth bass. It would be like if someone will tell you fishing for over there. It'd be like if someone trout fished Montana their entire life and then they're like, I'm gonna go start tournament fishing and then made it to the top level in like four or five years and the country. I mean, think about that. I just assume you guys have dumped a bunch of large mouth bass in your late we had. What the reason I made it is because we have like a more diverse fish. We we we don't really have a fish that's like Australia wide, like in these little regions. We have a fish that's called an Australian bass, and it's probably the closest thing to like a hybrid striper kind of cross. But then we have like murray cod, which are in a certain region where I live. We have barramundy which live in the northern regions, and I kind of got good at like catching all of them, and then if you rolled all of them into general Yeah, I just fished everywhere like Australians because we don't have that one fish, like a large mouth that is countrywide. We would have boats or fish out of kayaks whatever for this species and then we would drive a few hours or ten hours fish with a barramundy up north and so that's like normal fishing here, yeah kind of. But then if you guys are the exception, like most people fish fish all kinds of ship. Yeah, and we the thing that we get mistaken for a tournament anglers. You and like you said, you spoke to a guy that had just fish for bass or whatever, but generally we most bass professional anglers. That's how we all started. Like if you talk to most of them, they fish for a little bit of everything and just got a passionate and then but there's something about a large mouth bass and that's what it did to me. Like if you rolled all the species in Australia that I competed with into a ball, it would make a large mouth bass. So when I wasn't. Yeah, it's like their attitude and the way they fish, Like when I first got the opportunity to come to America and I and I fish for him. My I just got lit up. I was like, this is the coolest fish I've ever seen in my life because it adapts so well. It does everything. If there's a piece of water, it lives in there, it adapts to that bait. That the way the setup is, whatever it is, it's just to live, survive and be the perfect predator in that environment. And there's not a ton of fish that do that. They need all the perfect things to be able to survive at large masses, Like put me here and I'll adapt and do whatever's going on. Thinking about talking to you, they must have like some You must have grown up by some big gas reservoir full of large mouth bass in Australia and never caught one until two thousand and ten. And then in two thousand and fourteen I made it to the top hunt of guys in the world in the US. What was that that opportunity that got you to the stage? So um in two In the year two thousand, a guy in Australia started tournaments up similar to America. And so I was like fourteen years old, and I went to it because I was getting into bass fishing in my local lakes where I'd ride my bike to there to catch and was bass, so I was kind of that was my sort of species. And then they had this tournament, so I went and watched it at like fourteen years old, and they hoarded American bass boats. They had like these bass boats and I was like wow, and they came in and weighed them in and I'm like, this is cool. And so I started fishing as a co angler and just kind of got addicted to it. My mom drove me three hours to a lake, I fished it. I came fourth and won five dollars, and like they gave me the check, and I was kind of like, I'm doing this for the rest of my life. This is it. And that's what I kind of did. And then um, those tournaments turned into pretty big tournaments where the like we have the bass Master Classic that's in America, that's worth a half million dollars and all that. We had a grand Final and the prize was expenses paid trip to the US to see if they could get someone from Australia to compete in the US. But you never caught about No, I never called to us it was kind of weird. Well, what it was is like we're watching ESPN and Fox Sports, watching bass Master, learning the techniques, reading the magazines and applying them in Australia. So I'm just it was like an exchange. You're just like America was always ahead of the game and everything, so you're just trying to get fed the information. And so you're watching then guys win a hundred grand making a living, the trucks, the boats. Then you're seeing the weigh ins with fifty people in a stadium screaming and the guys driving in with bass boats. So you're like as a kid, then growing up you're like, wow, this is like this is where I want to be and so and what it is is like in Australia, you can be the best goal for the best motocross, right, are the best anything, and you you'll have to work full time in your tackle store or your golf shop unless you move to America. And then if you come to America you can be a superstar and make a living out of it. So I basically fished and competed from when I was sixteen years old to when I was twenty five, and then when I was one, that Grand Final, and that got me the expenses paid trip to the US. They'd never been out of Australia before in my life. I've never been on an aeroplane. We flew flew into the US, and you know, in Australia fishing and hunting and all of that my whole life. It was kind of like, it's a very niche looked down on kind of thing. You were never just spoke openly about being a angler or a hunter because it was very it's very I don't know how to put it. But you had to be careful about who you said it to because they might be like, look down on y'all say something about it. And when I came to America, I was like hunters and fishermen and bus just seeing the stores, I was like, this is where I'm supposed to live, Like, this is where I'm supposed to be. We'll come background. So I got one more question for now and then we're gonna take care of some things. But when you finally caught your first large mouth bass after watching people your whole life and rena but you're like, oh, so that's one of those yeah, yeah, it was. It was. It was incredible. Like, we went to Lake Fork in Texas and they took us out there and we started catching them on techniques that we used in Australia and just grabbing one and looking at it and the way in. At the same lake, we caught him up shallow in two feet, and then the next day we caught him in thirty feet on different techniques and we fished. I went and fished Lake Mead and so it was just like it was thirty You could see the bottom in thirty feet of water. And I did really well in that tournament, which is what gave me opportunity to basically I came second as a coenglow. Once some money, I met fred Ron Bannus, who was an Elite Series angler. I got to talk to him. I saw the anglers and at that time I said, Okay, I'm going to go home and like sell everything I own and try and actually make this. And yeah, I was insane for thinking at the time. When I look back, I'm like, what were you think? And this is that's ridiculous because our our fishing is so small in our lakes. You can I got to learn them really well, and they're all a little bit similar where here. I went from Lake May to the Red River or like southern in Oklahoma or Lake Fork, and it was just that every lake was so different. But that's kind of why I loved it. So it was just so much different stuff to fish. Also joined by are you know are you ready to the writer Chuck Polunic. I think it's like if you do the you know, one of those ancestry deals, it's like a fifth cousin or something weird like that. Brandon Politic Polinic. That's that's how Chuck politics. I thought Chuck Polinic is polluted. I was going by that. You're from an unusual bass fishing place. Yeah, I'm quarter million idohol trout country because it used to be like the southeast right, it was like the Southeast US dominated bass. Yeah, well they still do demographically because that's where most of the competitive side of it is. That's where that's their primary species, right, because they don't have trout, they don't have salmon things like that. Well, it's the first you ever calling who trout? Probably Mountain Lakes. I used to hike into Mountain Lakes and I was like two years old with my mom did take me? When? When did you catch, because when did you cut your first large mouth pass? And before we becoming a pro, so I caught my first one, it would have been like five or six. That was like, that wasn't I didn't know anything about tournament fishing, Like, I was just fishing to get a bite, right for whatever bit. That's all I cared about. Then I was introduced to it at eight years old. A family friend had a bass boat and fished local tournaments and regional stuff. And then he took me out. Because my mom knew that I loved fishing, I didn't know that you could actually target a specific species at that time, and he took me out, and from that day forward, is like, that's what every single decision in my life is geared towards. Is that? So at eight you thought you wanted to be a professional bass fisherman. Yeah, I try to tell him that to your teachers in the North Idaho. Yeah, here's why I don't need to know a you this. Yeah. But now I look back and I'm like, man, I really wish I would have paid a little bit more attention in that class. But it, I mean, that was the thing is like it It wasn't a thing like you know, really anywhere in the Northwest to fish. And it's been cool to see it grow, like the tournament, seeing grow bigger and bigger around North Idaho and Washington and Oregon and stuff to be able to see that. But I mean it, that's all I wanted to do. And so I just every time, like I came to a crossroads, it was like, hey, you know, I'd have like a long time girlfriends, like you know, you're fishing too much, and like all right, see you. It was all part of the plane, you know. That was the only plan. Like in like I grew up wrestling all the way into college, and like I knew way early on that I was not going to wrestle like I was gonna fish. And as I got older, I would wrestle less and less, Like started out wrestling probably ten months out of the year, and then I would just show up to less and less tournaments, and I show to more and more bass tournaments, quit going to high school, like a general competitive streak. Yeah, And I think that's what that was part of the reason that like of what fueled me towards bass fishing is because there was a competitive nature there. There's winners and losers man. Yeah, how old were you wish Uncle Chasti was here? Uh, well what happened to Chester? Now lost connection? So we just lost Chester's dead. He's in the deer stand already. Yeah. The reason I bring it up is Chester Um was a rassler, so you shared that in common. And Chester and Seth are aspiring competitive walleye anglers. I love walleye fishing. They're gonna go We're hitting the they're going pro this year. We're hitting the trail, the Montana Trail. Yeah, you can just decide to go pro, there's no no. But then this company, you know, like usually bass fishermen are like with tight or whoever like or like pens oil or something, who sponsors what's on yours? I'm still looking for a title deal. I'm just my own sponsor. You don't have a title sponsor, No, no title sponsor, but like Skeeter yamaha, I mean I gotta and then like a bunch of industry sponsors stuff like that. We're sponsoring Seth and Chester. Solid our company sponsoring Seth and Chester. To describe how it is, um so yeah, it's for Derby's across Montana. There's Tiber fres No, Fort Peck and Kanyan Ferry and yeah, we're just gonna hit them all on try and win some money. I love trophy walleye fishing. I have no Yeah, I have no desire to go like troll a worm, harness or an. I despise trolling, but to go throw like seven eight nine inch swim bays for walleye, that's my style. It's fun. You're more of a vertical jig man though, yeah. I mean there's so many different things you can catch walleye on. But I unless there's certain bites where you kind of have to troll if you want to catch them, if you want a winner. Yeah, especially especially when you're fishing competitively, Like there's just some bites where they're you gotta troll for him. Um, but preferably I like catching them up Shallow with jigs came up. You guys know BF, right, Best Friends Forever. Crane came up with b triple f BFF, which is best Fishing Friends Forever. I like it. That's you and Chester and you guys are BF. But you guys are be tripping be triple Jester. You ever seen the video Tom Petty, don't come around here no more. And it's kind of like about Alice in Wonderland. And there's that part where Tom Petty and and Alice Wonderland are at the really long table and Tom Petty looks real small way down there. That's what you look like right now. I don't think I've ever seen that one. You should watch a great video. Chester, Can you tell it? Can you break down? Everyone knows that Chester grew up um in the pickled mushroom business. Chester's very first nickname. If we march backward, where Chester the Divester, Uncle Chesty, I'm going in order Chesse's divester, Uncle Chaste, Chester the Investor, Chester the Molester. Oh sorry, I'll say, well that one, but it will have aired Chat okay, And to go back in time from present to pass all set Chat Chester's divester, Uncle Chesty, Chester the Investor, Chester the Molester, Chester the Tester. If we go back to when he was Chester the Tester, he was testing his family's pickled mushroom recipes. That's right at his family's business. And now two great companies have come together, Yes, Meat Eater and Forest Floor Foods. I'm sitting at the Forest Floor Foods World headquarters right now. He's deer hunting at the world headquarters of Forest Floor Foods right now. Yeah, drinking an old fashion. You guys think you're being professional bass fishing. Imagine that Floor Foods World headquarters. Second. Anyways, I'll quick explain the Wisconsin old fashion, which is on the website. There's like a traditional old fashion which is like a sugar cube, an orange like peel muddled like mashed up, and a cherry with some bidders and then usually whiskey. That's kind of that's that's that's sissy old fashioned. That's like your traditional old fashion, but in Wisconsin here you can order them multiple different ways. It's like a a brandy old fashioned sweet or whiskey old fashioned sour whiskey old fashioned sweet. And what that means is obviously brandy or whiskey and then a sweet or sour soda mixed with you like your old fashioned mix. This one here's how I like to do it. And it's uh, whiskey with sweet soda which is like a sprite, and then bidders and then you're you know, old fashioned mix. So chest you left out the interesting part the pickle. All kinds of pickled stuff. Yeah, but that was just like the how to make the drink. Okay, we'll talk about the box with all the okay to sales. You're supposed to be on here selling something. Yeah, I don't want to know which one I can make with the box. Yeah, talk about the box. You can. You can make all of them with the box. Um. There's even maple syrup in the box. Um instead a substitute for like a sugar cube. You can use that Wisconsin maple syrup, which my family also has a little sugar bush, so they tapped the trees and make their own maple syrup. But come coming with the boxes, your old fashioned mix some queen olives, some pickled mushrooms, some sweet um pickle, little pearl onions, and um, some cherries. So after you make your old fashioned you throw throw those goodies in there. And it's one heck of a drink. Yeah, available at the meat eater dot com. And I pressed Chester on us multiple times, and I think he's telling the truth. He's not double dipping. Chester says he's not double dipping getting a commission from the folks, and he's on Yeah, he's on salary with us, and he says he's not. He didn't go poll commission to have orchestrated this. No, I don't know if that's true or not doing all that. There's probably a college account though, set up for his kids that he doesn't have yet, got some sort of ownership. I don't think he's double different, you get I mean, they're your parents. You gotta help him out. Do your ship to Australia. I'm sure we do. Man not Meat Eater, but um I bet you I don't know. Don't quote me figured out? All right, good job Chester, thank you. Oh you you've heard about not having a couple of cocktails and climbing up into a tree. Stand right, no, good answer? Okay. Starting December six, which we all know is the day before Pearl Harbor. Uh So starting December six, running through December my gudness. Right, Yeah, we're running a holiday gift program where we're giving back to select conservation organizations that each member of our crew here has selected, so uh me Yannie, Clay, cal other's pick out items in the Meat Eater store that uh we'd be most excited to give us gifts. In addition, each of us has selected a conservation organization we're personally passionate about. So in my case, I chose TRCP Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership where um, I'm I'm a board member and great supporter. Um and and that's my pick. So here's where you come in. You go to the meat eater store, right, you check out my gift picks. You know, I might make one of my gift picks to damn Chester Box, do it? Yeah, I'm gonna do that. If the official name isn't the Chester Box, it's Chester in a box, I'm gonna pick the Chester Box. Okay. So here here's how this works. When you shot. When you go to that page and use the code Steve at checkout, you get free shipping on your order any order over fifty bucks, and ten percent of your purchase goes to my selected conservation organization. Does all make it sense? Yeah? If they choose one of my items, do they put the code? Be honest? And then they and then it goes to my content. I got a strong feeling that's how it will go. Who are you gonna pick for your group? Cheap? So you're like a big sheep man, I'm riding the wild cheap high. Yeah, I got a question, what if I want both of your picks? Would orders just half your stuff? Log out, log back in by the half your stuff to both conservation, get the benefits. What if what if that brings your purchase less than fifty dollars? And will you recognize it and ship it in the same box that There's no way. So that's the deal. Go on, So you go on check out our our gift list, so like I'll have my ten favorite things I'd like to give his gifts or get my fIF ten favorite things when you buy those. Um, if you go over fifty bucks on your order, it ships to you for free and ten percent of the purchase price goes to t RCP or in Yanni's case, Wild Cheap Foundation. It's a big win win. Um. It's around for a week, So head over to you get this www dot the me eater dot com slash give check that out. Um, Okay, Hayden's gonna do a book report. Hayden, you haven't said did it yet? Not yet? You're I'm not just I want you to start preparing mentally for the book report. All right, um, and we're back up. We got to talk about a couple of quick things. I was gonna talk about my fun little deer hunting trip yesterday, which if I go hunting to one or two things is happening. I'm yelling at my kids the whole time, so I brought them, or we're like filming, so I see yell at my kids or yell at the cameraman. But I went hunting yesday with my neighbor. Do we have a good time with that? We had the greatest time a person could possibly have because we went to a place that we knew was stupid, but I had to scratch an itch and it wanted to be in a sweet spot. I was like, listen, man, we're just kind of looking. We're taking a hike. I just gotta scratch an itch and get up in there, and now it's my new favorite place. A good time. And we got a little bar mm hmm. I said, what are your standards? He said, not a forky And the second buck found fit the bill, perfect fit the bill. Uh No, we had so it was so much fun. Man, Yanni, can you explain how you want all that money off the Latvians? Mm hmmm. I was deer hunting this weekend in Wisconsin, not far from Worchester is now. I went for the open right now, Yeah, these I didn't know that that's the same neck of the woods there. Well, I mean, you know, what is it two hours? Uh yeah, probably around too. I don't know if it was like if you meant like right there right, no, no, no, not in the same county any who. Um, I got in late Friday. Opener was Saturday, and uh we were getting ready to chip in for the buckpool. How many Latvians were there? They're all at vans and I think we had a total of ten three. It was light. It was actually light on honest. I don't know. I don't know what the ratio normally is the percentage. I guess six out of ten labs, so it's a little like males. It was. It was all all males. Any who. Uh so we're chipping in and it had been ten dollars all these years. I've been hunting there since ninety I believe it was my first year that I went. In the first two years, I think I just went and observed I believe so so no inflation adjustments and probably back then it probably stung. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I don't know how much a nice Well, let me look up. Then spectacle side decided, I asked if anybody everybody want to make a little more interesting and bump it up to twenty pieces year. Everybody uh obliged and dropped in twenty into the basket, and uh so we went hunting and I got lucky. I'm really a little side story. I'm really stoked about my hunt this weekend and my hunt two weeks ago there on the same property, because I feel like I figured it out, like I hunted there for thirty years or twenty eight years, and really just you know, I kind of knew it, but didn't really know what the deer were doing there. Had ideas and go ahead, Steve, ten dollars. That's that's the bump. I keep ahead of the trend. Go a little more and maybe we'll round it up at twenty five and then that'll roll for another ten There you go. Sorry, um, but anyways, I had to really successful, uh pretty quick hunts really because I was there two weeks ago for the rut with my bow and I sat in the stand approximately seven hours and killed the same like basics like same property, yeah, same property probably, I mean as the crow flies from one stand to the other five or six hundred yards, um, but kind of down this complicated ridge system, you know. And uh so I felt like I picked a good spot, killed a buck with my bow, and then when I came back, I thought, man, I could go and sit that same oak flat. I know it's gonna be good. There's been pictures of box, you know, rolling through. But I'm like, you know what, don't like rest on your laurels, like go and figure something else out, go and learn something like expand your horizons. And I had like planned B and C already sort of set up that I eventually would check out. So I thought, this is it. So I went to be got in there, and sure enough, opening morning, it's pretty sweet little hunt. I get in there, plenty of time to get you know, I'm hunting out of the saddle, so it takes longer to get into the tree, right. It takes me an hour to get in I get all set up, it's maybe half an hour before shooting light. I'm still messing around, just like filling with like the last little kind of fine tune and stuff, making sure I got my gloves in my hand warmers in the right spots. Or whatever and get a cup of coffee up in that tree. Um it's in a thermis, just in my backpack. Um, I'm always posting pictures of my coffee because I put cream in my coffee. And by golly, I guess you're just a real little bit according to Instagram right now as far as I've been starting that just draws in the big box play. Newcomb says that if he had to choose between the coffee or the cream, he'd go with the cream. He puts coffee into his cream, not vice versa. Interesting is a sugar guy too. We after that, ever, spend that week with Evan Hey for up in Alaska. I'm like almost weaned off of cream because he cream shamed people. He did, but I enjoyed. Samantha notice that she's like after he started ship talking cream people, cream cream consumption in our camp ended like ended, and I like, I like, I didn't know you were doing the same thing. I'd sneak over and put a little cream in when I was started. Uh, he says, with with coffee, you don't need cream, and so I was like, all right, well let's give a shot. And yeah, my my wife coffee in hair cream as well. It's a real road block in that relationship. It's probably it's good. There we are there, I am, and uh, I still have my head lamp on, and I hear coming around the corner, still with your head lamp. Yeah. So it's like six I think it was roughly six fifteen, six ten maybe, you know. And so I click it off real quick, and I mean it's like on top of me. So I get my little binoculars out and I'm pretty much trying to like look in the night, you know, for for for this deer, and sure enough I can find it, and I can just in the darkness see the white antlers. I'm like, only sh it, you know, nice buck. But I'm like, well, hell, this thing's not gonna be here in twenty minutes, you know, like like that's pretty much going by, like just forget about it. But I watched him for a second as he walks by. So I continue on with my stuff now without my head lamp on, and I'm messing around. Five minutes goes by, and just at the ridge I hear no. I'm like, huh so a glass up there, And I find him again and he's only gone like sixty seventy yards. So I'm watching him a little bit and i can tell he's feeding. You know, they're the acorns were thick. I talked to some of the neighbors that have actual food plots, like the like the bottoms of the ridges, and they're like, the deer have not been in the corn and the beans nothing. They're on the ridge tops eating acorns and it's been like that all summer. Uh, So that's what this deer. So he's up there grunting and eating. Well, so as I'm glass would for the episode, I see there's another deer behind him. I can't tell what it is, but I'm guessing maybe dough and he's tending her. Right. So now I'm like, what time was shooting white? You know, you got somebody was talking about it last night, but I wasn't really painted exactly. Now I'm in a position where it really matters when exactly. So I'm like trying to pull out my phone and shah shielded something. It's not casting a big light, and I go to like three different apps and I'm like, okay, once at six four, one, six three, I'm like I'm going six thirty three, you know, because because this morning, I will be the first shot that rings out, just quick, just to be like a guy. The state list their own. Yes, they don't go by all the different as I know, And I could have probably pulled up the rags on a PDF and then done the little chart thing where you had twelve minutes appreciate it. And uh so I decided I'm going with six thirty three. That seems like a good number. So I'm watching it and he's still there. He's still there. Six thirty three comes. I'm like, okay, you know, next opportunity. Well, I start looking through the scope and it's still just way too dark, even though he's only at like seventy maybe eighty yards. There's some brush like I hadn't really cut this place out really good, and I can see a body and his auntlers. But I'm like, I can't be sure, so I'm like, just be patient, hopefully it will happen. He's kind of looked like he's now going left, which he's gonna move into a more open zone on this ridge top. Well, as I'm watching him, I look over to my left against the same path he came. Nope, another buck, so I look I look over at him and I'm watching him for a seconds, a little bit smaller I think than the one that went by me, and watching him, I was not look back up to where the other buck was, and I just see a tail going out down the ridge through the woods, white, you know, whitetail his the rear end. I'm like, dang it, you know what happened. I know my winds solid, but maybe that buck spooked that buck or whatever. And you know, stuff's happening fast now because it's you know, I'm like, I'm ready to kill this buck if I get the opportunity. Well, I look back up again, and now here's a doge coming back down the ridge towards me, and the little buck that's next to me now sort of goes to start trying to cut her off. Right, are gonna meet, like just off the edge of the ridge. Well, that guy made the little buck makes it halfway to the dough, and all of sudden I look up again and here comes the bigger buck, just ears pinned back, like not running but marching. You know, they kind of pick up their front legs a little bit more than really stopping it. Just run him off. I don't know, I don't know, if it was a different dough. You know, it's just it's hard to say. It was early light. But he came back, he came back, He came back in cut the little buck off. The little buck coward immediately kind of turned, and then the bigger buck put his antlers down and kind of ran him and just happened to run him like literally under my tree stand and so I kind of, you know, without shooting my toe off, I shot him. And uh yeah, I mean it was like, you know, the earliest by far I think I've ever shot an animal. I mean it was that little buck come back, I'll triumphant. Oh he was shoulder and he was just standing there watching his body go down the hill and crashing away, and the and the does behind him too, and he's just like yeah, he's like, that's right, messing the bull get the horn, that's the fire, you get burnt. So yeah, my hunt ended pretty quick. I actually stayed in the tree for a while just to enjoy the morning, and shot a dough like twenty minutes later. So you like to like, of all the Latvians who hunt the Lavian place, you gotta have more bucks, you gotta have bigger bucks. And needles Latvians have ever gotten because that that place wasn't known as a big buck producer. No, I mean, I think I've said it before. I mean there was maybe over the years, you know, a handful of you know, one forties killed. But my two bucks is here, aren't that big? I mean there's been a bigger bucks killed. But I had a good year anyways, that wins me. The big buck pool should have been for something for what why would it be if they had adjusted for inflation? Bucks? Right? Oh yeah, you gonna do my math? Yeah, it would only would add fifty ill No, no, how much did you win? I went so double two? Oh, let's go through the exercise. No, no, we already did it. Remember we I adjusted for inflation by going twenty. You did adjust. So these guys were kind of pissed at me because they forgot about that part of the story. Yeah that's right. You pushed for a higher fee and then one and it looks suspicious. Yeah yeah, but all that out they make it look like I was paying better attention. To wrap it all up, When you're the winner of the big buck Pool, you don't really get all the money of the big buck Pool. Because there's a tradition there where they like to take a nice bottle, usually Scotch, because the guys there that like to drink I like to drink Scotch. I personally might switch it up, but I didn't this year because I was given sort of like a press, a congratulatory present for having successful sheep hunt by another one of the hunters, and as sort of a I don't know, like congratulations, he gave me a nice scotsh bottle, and so I didn't have to go into town and come back. I just I just used that. Everybody signs it, regifted the scots bottle I did. I ran it by everybody. I said, Hey, the guy that gave to me, he's not gonna be pissed for doing this, right, nobody's seen to give a shit. So but everybody signs it, and you know, you can make a little note, you know, where you shot the big buck or whatever, and that way next year. Oh and the funny thing is too, We're at like this Latinan church camp, right, and it's in the wall. This bottle just lives in this wall behind like a twelve by twelve inch piece of plywood, and that piece of plywood has been there for since the building was built. I don't know what ducked because it's a circular hole, the square piece of what over it. Those summer camp kids never find it and get drunk, not yet, not yet, or they just respect it. Maybe it's been told to them that it's hands off so anywhere. Yeah. So I I went in there this year without the bottle from last year, and then put in the new bottle and hopefully I'll be back next year. Jani's petitioning to UM. Traditionally it's been a man only, was it like stated or that's just how it's been, you know, I dug into it a little bit. So funny how people's you know, ideas and perceptions change because my dad specifically, I remember one year, you know, a woman had been invited and showed up and he was very like, kind of mad about it, right, but it was most There was some other things going on, but that was part of it. Now he's got granddaughters. Yeah, but there's also there's a there's a deceased hunter that was there, and I guess he was really of the mind frame of like, this is a man's camp where men get to get away and do men type stuff and it's just not you know, like women can do their own personal little whatever rose whatever is. Yeah, but he's not around anymore, and hopefully he won't. You know, I don't think he'll turn over in his grave with my girls show up, so they might look, you might be you might usher in, you might usher in some women into the camp. Yeah, but you know, I was thinking about how those girls come and win all that money eight and ten. Man, you know, we're just talking about with Brandon to like sitting around in a tree stand when you're not used to it, like my girls are used to Western hunting. We just go on big, long hikes until we see some games, final stuff laying on the ground and yeah, you don't just go to one spot and then someone tells you, now, just enjoy the owls and the you know that fly around and the squirrels. They're gonna be jumping around. You gotta pick a spot where they can where you can slip out, have them be like what's the first hours? A lot of fun. At the end of the first hour, slip them out, let them go about their business, and then you come back up and do the keep hunting. Midday hunt, or a good idea, do the two hour evening hunt. Anybody's good for a couple of hours. I think I got some work to do though. Me that's a lot of double stands I need to set. When I when I was little man, my dad would hang, I'm not kidding. He had his tree stand and at a time he had three other stands above his, and we'd go up and sitting those stands above. Yeah, like freaking raccoons up in the tree. I mean. But again, you know, anyone wants to like I thought that just an evening hunt was like a decade, for like a decade being in that tree. Here's here's like some kind of distressing news, bad news. This is gonna be like a bad news sandwich. It's like good stuff and then like bad news, and then we'll have more good stuff. But so Washington State, this year the spring bear season got canceled. One might be like, well, how the hell could that happen? It's like this, this is the way this is. Well, we're gonna couple it with another thing. I will now lay out for you why the two party system as we know it in this country inevitably uh screws hunters. And anglers give you little groundwork first. Okay, you look so okay. Under the Trump administration, he did all kinds of good stuff for access issues. He like overturned Alaska, you know, like the Obama administration had taken away Alaska's ability to use certain management tools, um, certain predator management tools like the on refuges. So under Obama, like like Alaska lost ont of their landscape. They had the FEDS come in and say, like, you can't do certain things that we think are naughty if it's on a on a refuge. And Trump went back and fixed that. So that was great. Trump did a bunch of great access stuff. Okay, he took um you know, even stuff stuff like like fish hatcheries that had been closed to fishing or fish hatchery landscapes they opened about the hunting, they made wildlife refugees kind of like simplify and expand hunting opportunities. And a lot of great stuff for like the protection of hunting culture. But he also had a lot of great stuff for industry, and at times industry is at odds with hunting and fishing habitat. So you're looking like in Tongas National Forest, I have a cabinet there, So I have a particular bias towards that area. Tongas National Forest, Coastal Rainforest, Old Girls Rainforest. There was a rule in place that was protecting like everything that doesn't have a road. There was a rule in place that protected the status quo. I mean, they were gonna build any more roads in Targas, so not closed old roads. If there's no road, we're not gonna make a road. Trump opened it up that they like remove that protection. It opened up the possibility of building more roads into old growth coastal rainforest. The reason you build more roads and the old growth coastal rainforest is to cut down the old growth coastal rainforest. Like the road building and the cut and go hand in hand. Um. So it was like, here's this guy that really protects hunters, protects access, protects hunters rights, protects gun rights. But then you know kind of like hits you where it counts a little bit on habitat issues. So that's that's like kind of the give and take here you have at Washington. The governor appoints uh game commissioners. Okay, the state is supposed to have nine game commissioners, and the way it works is it's kind of spread around. You get basically three from the west side of the state can follow along print for when I screw this up. Three from the west side of the state, those are probably gonna be Those are just probably gonna be like liberal urban nights. They have to point three commissioners from the east side of the state, which are probably gonna lean more conservative and be more pro hunting, okay, And then there's three sort of at large. Is that you can get anywhere, and it's like like the Supreme Court, there's nine in order to have a tiebreaker. But the governor hasn't promoted, he hasn't appointed a new commissioner, so they only have eight. The commissioner he hasn't appointed as a commissioner from the east side of the state, where people are going to be more kind of grow up around wildlife and understand hunting better and not view it like a thing that's only to be looked out a window. At So the Fish and Game Agency comes out with some studies about bears and they have a thriving, expanding, healthy population of bears. You're like, we can have a spring hunt, no problem continued. Businesses usually have a spring hunt. People are saying, well, what if they you to female with cubs in the spring? Well, let's take a look last year, sorry, this year, the past spring, we just had spring season. They issued six D black bear permits. Okay, of those six hundred sixty permits they issued, they had one forty five successful bear hunters. So on bears get killed in Washington. Let me throw one at your seth. How many of those bears? D big number? How many were lactating female? Seth? Take a guess. Well, I can see you right here with Okay, let's do this. Let's do this. Let's say you hadn't seen that when I was reading that sentence and my mind was gonna be quarter. Maybe if I had, like, I would have been like, ten wouldn't shock me, nor would it dissuade me from supporting spring bears season. I probably would have went less than ten, just because it's the same in Montana. You can't in the spring. You can't kill a saladass cubs. And oftentimes you sit there and watch a bear for a while to make sure it has it doesn't have cubs. But some people don't do that, and also they I've watched I've watched sows feeding out an avalanche slide, and I've watched them hide their cubs in the willows on the side of the avalanche slide and go out and feed the avalanche side for five minutes. And I noticed. I watched her, and I know she's got cubs in the willows on the side of the avalanche slide. But you could sat there and been like, watched her for five minutes. So it happens. But it's like a lot of stuff happens. I mean, bears practice and fantaside, like boars kill cubs. You don't want to abolish boars. Yep. One Sethord, he gave it away. Kind of ruined my I didn't give it away. I just told you I knew the answer. Oh you didn't say what the answer was. It's one, yeah, smits hunt bears get killed and one they killed one all they determined it was a lactating female. Quite possible they were the cubs already dead. Should have been a lactating female no matter what. Her cubs could have died a month ago. Yeah, that hunter could have sat there and stared that Salford two hours might not violate. He might not have violated a law. She might not have been a company by cubs because the boar might have already eaten her cups. So if you watch the YouTube video that came out that they got there, you can go watch the whole commissioner meeting. In the meeting, they clarify it's not biology. They clarify its social pressure. We've been alert like we've been Krian had this long exchange of someone. We've been alerted that like like a commissioner from Washington or Fish and Game official from Washington saying like, what's going on in Washington is very bad for hunters and anglers. Where they're appointing commission they're appointing game commissioners who are antagonistic to hunting, like a fox garden henhouse. Not good. Yeah, And you know this is the thing, this is where this is where the two party system sucks, because like I'm sorry, Republicans don't take away your bear season, Nope, they just take away the habitat. Yeah. And this person I spoke to was talking about the difference between you know, conservation and concepts of preservation and the Commission's you know, obviously not saying that they're anti hunting. But that seems to be a little bit of the trends. So you're kind of picking off the low hanging fruit. So folks who maybe bear hunters, there's a smaller population among them among the general hunting population, and so may be fewer people would turn out to say a thing about this, And so it's like you're just starting to pick off what's kind of the obvious. It's, dude, it's the whole slippery slope thing, and the slippery slope. There's a slope and it's slippery, Like I'm a big slippery slope guy. It's a slippery slope, it's pitched at a steep angle, and it's covered in snot. It's just it's it's so distressing, man, it's so distressing. Like there needs to be a new well with me and Yanni ran for president. That's what it was. I'm only talking about I'm only talking about single issue voters, of which I'm mostly a single issue voter. I'm a single issue voter where I'm like, I'm like, interesting, what's good for hunting fishing? So I want habitat protections and and like protect habitat, protect hunting rights, protect firearm rights um and clean air, clean water, real clean environment, that's all. Is that asking too much? Nope, who wouldn't think so? Apparently, but yeah, apparently it is. If you live in Washington, what you need to do is get this ninth. You need to get this ninth because you're never gonna have like the in Washington, the big urban areas. You're never gonna catch up to him. Like I remember Colorado lost trapping. I remember going to this this little seminar at a National Trappers Association convention. The guy was getting into Colorado demographics. It was funny the second, like not the second, the minute, Uh, Denver and Fort Collins had a population greater than Colorado. Outside of those places at large, Bam lost trapping. So if you live in Washington, you're culturally you're always gonna get whooped because you have those huge population centers. They're gonna be like, you shouldn't be able to do that to bears. That's mean. I love my dog, you know, it's like you're never going to beat them. Well, here's the other thing. Remember what's the gentleman's name we had on when we talked about trapping. Yeah, yeah, um, Mr Mattneie yes, Mr Mattenie, Dad, Mike Mane, Mike Mattenie, Yeah, I remember him kind of drawing this analogy around, like people having that idea like, oh, you can't do this to the poor bear, the poor beaver. You shouldn't do this to the poor mink um. But for example, with furs being being a material that is completely renewable, and all the people who are talking about saving the environment are buying fleece made of plastic polluting the ocean. So it's like the hypocrisy of and and like the limits of your own kind of self reflection about what you're champion but actually acting in opposition to that renewables. But they don't like renewable bears or beavers. Uh. So you're like, what do you do about this? While you guys gotta get everybody's gotta have a big ship fit. That's for starters. You gotta get a ninth commissioner appointed. Who's who is a supporter of uh hunter conservationists. There's a guy, there's a state representative in District eight, Matt, how do you think he pronounced? This is the name Bonky bank b o e h n k e state representative. He's uh he's filing a joint resolution in December. This month, he's filing a joint resolution for an amendment to the state constitution that will add to the right to hunting and fish. So most states have a right to hunting fish, but it's not it doesn't have teeth. It's not clear. A matter of fact, we remember one state was doing like the right to hunting fish. One of the recent ones that passed it's right to hunting fish RESI Lution didn't put trapping in the resolution because they wanted to have better messaging. So when you do a state right to hunt fish, you need to be like you need to they need to have it has to have teeth that would be like biologically sustainable populations and spell out like what exactly it means, because this would be a great case if you had a right to hunt fish that had teeth to it. This would be a great case for a lawsuit where you're saying, we have a sustainable population of black bears that we've historically been allowed to hunt. There's no biological evidence that it's that it's not sustainable, but yet we're losing the right to hunting fishes. So we're gonna file. We're gonna sue under our thing as a violation to the state constitution because you're taking away a historic hunting right with no biological basis for it. But if you have the right to hunt and fish in the constitution, would there be like very very specific in particular details outlining how the right is to be. That's problem with the state right to hunt, because people will be like shoot and ship in the summer. You'd be like, well, it's my right, that's what I'm saying. Well, we did remember when we remember years ago we went to uh where were we in Ohio? Where the hell were we? We went to visit the Sportsman's Alliance. Yeah, and talked about these things, and it's like it's a great gesture and it sort of measures because those things usually pass with like overwhelming majorities. It's a great gesture. But if you if it, if it doesn't like clearly articulate certain parameters, it's hard to sue against. But I think that they were I think that some people use it in this state around wolves. I think anyways, you need to have like a robust, well worded, clearly articulated what it means so that it can then be used to challenge in fractions to your rights. All right, hey, and this with the Fishing report Book report all right, the so the some one's kind of like close to home and uh, I guess like, uh to check chet, I'm going to kind of double dip because I used this for the Bent podcast. No double dipping in contents, fine, double dipping in finances, of which he is the new co host. Everybody, Oh yeah, I introduced that, Hayden. Oh yeah. So I co host a podcast with Joe Sormelli. It's the Bent Fishing Podcast. And we talked about all things kind of irreverend and fun and uh and fishing and it's informative as it is entertaining and great. So y'all ought to give it a listen. And this is a double dip. This is a double dip. We're going to talk about something that's going on right here in Montana and that is a little problem that we have with some lake trout in Flathead Lake. Uh. Flathead Lake, for those that you don't know, is a giantly Is it the biggest lake in the state. It's like two biggest naturally. Yeah, I think it's the biggest natural lake in the in the something another it's it's it's the look that up, Phil, you're not doing anything over there. Oh, I'll lick it up. It's the biggest something. It's a real big lake anything like. Yeah. The so in this big gass lake straddles an important boundary, and that's the boundary between state land and res land, specifically the Flathead Reservation, which is home to the Confederated Salish and the Sailors Sails largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi in the lower forty eight states. Told you there you go. It's a big one. So the Confederated Sailish and the Koote and I tribes, Sailors Kotey. I'm gonna have to go back and you can go and do a third podcast. You know. That's how you know. That's how you know I actually read it because I didn't hear it. So that is good evidence that you didn't just hear about this at the bar. Yeah. So anyway, it's straddles this uh, this line between in the resident state land, and that's important. We'll get to that later on. Um. So, basically forever, Flathead Lake has been a stronghold for a native species called the bull trout. Now, the bull trout is a char and it's this real big, aggressive looking fish. It kind of looks like a lake trout almost. Um. And back in uh, we got to talk about some dates. So back in nineteen o five, uh, the Montana you know, fish and wildlife I guess of the time, decided that they were going to drop a whole bunch of non native species to like diversify like the fishing opportunity, because why not, because why not? One of these was the lake trout. Now, of those fish that you know they dropped in, these are the only ones that kind of like took hold. This was not a big well I take exception with that the lake whitefish. The lake whitefish is not native and is very prolific in that lake. What's not predatory? M okay, So the lake whitefish in the lake trout took hold. Uh. Now, this wasn't a problem until like when, in order to like bolst the cocony salmon stock another non native fish, they decided that they would introduce mices shrimp in order to like give them something to feed on. Now, the problem with that is, like the cocony salmon didn't really like the mices shrimp, and the Mices shrimp fed primarily on zooplankton, which is what the cocony do like to eat. They fed on them to the extent that they out competed the cocony and weren't any more cocony. And this is like bad aquarium management, horrible, And the fact that there aren't cocony in there is not important except that, uh now there were just a whole bunch of Mice's shrimp in here with no predator except for the lake trout. The lake trout the fry ate a ship ton of the mices shrimp, and because of that, their population exploded. The problem with that is mices shrimp can only sustain a lake trout to such a size, and then the lake trout has to go eat something else. So the lake trout started praying on native fish, particularly the bull trout. It became such a problem that in the mid nineties there were only like a thousand uh bull trout left. So this got identified as a major problem. And I think in when like all the bull trout protections really started, it became a threatened species like yes, a protection right yea. Um, So these tribes recognized this as a problem, and the state recognized it as a problem, and they got together and they were like, Okay, we need to like solve this somehow. The state it pushed really really hard for um like an angler based intervention in this whole situation, and they tried that for a while. The tribes instilled or installed what they call mac Day's mcinaw is another word for a lake trout um, and it was basically like a lake trout fishing derby. And in the first like year that they did this, I think the annual take was something like nine lake trout um. Recently, you're never going to catch him with rod and real Man, Well recently it's come to that that never gonna catch him. You're never gonna like get them all. You're never gonna dn it with Robb. In order to get all of them, you literally have to like poison the body of water and start over. You know, it's like not possible. So Montana Fish and Wildlife kind of my understanding of as they pushed back on this for a while and they were like, no, we really want this to be angler base. We really want this to be angler base. The tribe saw the writing on the wall and eventually the state and the tribe kind of got together on this and they said, Okay, let's do something else. And now what you got going on is they've turned it into kind of a commercial fishery. Uh. They basically do a bunch of trawling and just netting and all sorts of stuff, and they're processing these lake trout and getting them out to restaurants and private buyers and all sorts of stuff. And it's actually made starting to make a measurable difference in the population. Now again, we've like talked about how I guess I've kind of talked at you about how like you can't get all the lake trout out without poisoning them. Um. Their goal is not to do that. Their goal is to get the population down to about seventy or down seventy of what it is. And if they can accomplish that through this like commercial fishery they've developed, then they projected the bull trout will um recovery, which is a way better situation, and you wind up with another bull trout stronghold. And that's my book report. I'm looking at this note that says, uh, in two thousand twelve, they estimated that there are one point five million lake trout older than one year old. I know that, but they still have regulations on them, right, Like Brody was up fishing lakers, but they have like slot limits on them and stuff. We ought to call Brodie. Yeah, I'm not I'm I'm I'm honestly not too sure about that. He was up catching lakers right up there. But it's like you'd have to have a balance. Take all the big ones, leave the small ones, so they eat the micea shrimp, so that the misa stram don't eat all the zooplankton, so that the cocony have sounding to feed on. The cocon have already been like totally extirpated from there, and being a non native, I think it's kind of like a beside the point sort of thing. I don't think we're trying to I don't think like the management of the cocony fisheries really anything like that they're kind of going for in this. I think this is very much bull trout exclusive. Brody, you know when you were up on Flathead Lake fishing lakers. Yeah, was this some kind of like a size limit or slot limit or something like that. Yeah, you're not allowed to keep them between thirty and thirty six. I think it's what it is, dude, I don't know, man, You think they'd want to pick breeders out of there if they're trying to reduce the population. But I don't know, because you're allowed to keep a baunch of them. You know that. I don't know what the daily is, but a daily limit? All right? Talk later straight from Brody slot limit. I wish they would explain the why behind some of their regulations. That'd be a great book. You could get the second book you get the reg book, yeah, and the other that says why, because I always wonder, like you look at that kind of stuff and they promote this and say this, but then the regulation doesn't make sense. We had a we had a question about the why in a regulation one time, and it even said that I can't remember. I don't even I don't remember the rag. I don't remember the state. But they had said that like, as a rule, they don't know it wasn't whylming, it's something whylming. As a rule, they don't archive the reasoning. Meaning when there's a proposed regulation change and people testify like for instance, this bear, like this this bear thing in Washington. I don't know if it's true in Washington, but this guy was saying in their state, you're gonna be like, do we have a spring bear hunter or not? The outcome is memorialized in the law, but they don't do anything to record there, Like well, why, yeah, I don't you know what it was. I remember executing now. It was why a nonresident, if he's hunting in a wilderness area has to have a guide. And you go like, why it must be to protect the guiding industry. They say, is to protect safety. And we went to a guy like, well why is it? He goes, we don't record the why. So there's an argument and there's a vote. We care about the outcome of the vote, and no one writes down what was said about it. Yeah, but that's like we need that to educate the people. Like they're like, it's like with my kids. Man, They're like, why it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, why that's Lake Trout. They get crazy though that up in the Idaho last year went to priest and it was like the I just I didn't even know how to catch him. I just got told like that were out there. We were just um like on a family trip and I drove out with my back. I had my bass boat up there with electronics and I just drove out to a spot and it was like ninety ft and there was nothing, and it dropped down into hundred and fifty feet and the fish started at ninety and they dropped all the way down to the bottom and a hunt and fifty feet and then must there was literally hundreds of thousands of light trout. Yeah, every drought everything, everyone. Yeah, we did. We called them all, took them back and lit a fire and ate him and everyone loved him, just like picked him off the folk and it was that's what we called him. We actually end up um you know, fill it in him some of them and uh freezing them and still got him at home. Then we give you a tip on being an American. Yeah, fill it that was going to Yeah, and that's not the only one. First thing was right, Yeah, I like the freedom. I've ever noticed how the meat color changes on trout depending on their size, the mica shrimp versus like so in Idaho, the small ones, like he was talking about, the small ones eat the mica shrimp. They're super pink, right, bright pink and as they get bigger, they turned white, like because they started fish. Northern Pikeman though up there, Yeah, they started eating fish and their meat turns white from pink. We talked about that recently, the rebranding of the Northern Pikeman though. Yeah, it's an interesting one. Um. Alright, so here's why why you guys. I got a couple of questions for you about this about being professional bass fishing. First, each of you like concisely layout. Well, I'm gonna give you two things. I want you each to concisely layout, like where you sit in the realm of like where you're at in your career. And then I want one of you to walk through what's the progression of like how you get there? Meaning if you I don't really know about baseball, but let's just say it would be like you play t ball, then you play like Little League. Then presumably you play like high school, college miners, majors, whatever the hell do One of those you guys can decide amongst yourself who does the the progression the first time you know where you're at, I'll take the progression. Uh So in our careers, first of all, I gotta find who's pulling my court and I am going to kill him. Yep. That's that's definitely under my foot, my bad progression, my career. Let's see, I've been doing it. Gosh, I just finished up my eleventh season, so I am. It seems like yesterday I was one of the rookies and now I'm more like one of the veterans. But I'm not old. Yeah, I'm like, you're like an old timer. I'm like an old timer doing it for eleven years, but I'm not old. That makes sense just because I started young. So um, there's probably a lot of people your age that did it for eleven years and haven't had the success and thus aren't doing it anymore. I'm guessing right, Yeah, and I would I would say majority of the guys, like your average age is older. Now you look at extreme sports, like guys are done when they're twenty five or twenty six. Majority of the guys who don't start and qualify historically until they're probably mid thirties or early forties. What's what's old for professional bass fisherman? Well, our oldest guy and I was, and he can still please. He won, he won in the last couple of years. Yeah, but he's like an exception. Right, He's one of the best we've ever had. He's been doing it professionally longer than we've both been alive when I made this, when I made the Elite Series, and I started fishing in two thousand and fifteen, so I started competing the second tournament, third time of the year, was on Toledo Bend, and like, I didn't know what I was doing, Like I made it too early, and I'm just grind and trying to compete with these best guys in the world. And Rick Klan got on stage and he was coming second after day one, giant bag, a huge bass, and he's like, yeah, I caught him off a spot I found in four which was which was when I was born. And I was like, I've got some work to do. That's some time to make. Uh. So I guess like I would be. I feel like I'm just coming into my prime. Is where I feel like I'm thirty four. Just turn thirty four. So Brandon's also done every single thing about you can possibly do in the fishing industry, Like he's at the peak, pinnacle, top one percent of bass anglers. Okay, so that's that's what I want to like, what are your like, if you had to do a bio that was really talking your ship up, what would the bio say, uh, five time Elite Series champion, Uh, two thousand seventeen Angler of the Year, two thousand ten National Championship. That was important. That's how it's That's what That's what I'm looking for. Is that kind of stuff. Yeah, Like that's like the written accolades stuff. But for me, those are just titles and trophies. You know, like that's not why I do it. No, don't no, you know, I'm just like this is I'll be frank with you all the like Seth knows about this, all this, I don't know the first thing about it. Yeah, So that I mean to win five is like is a big thing. When I won Angler of the Year, let's see called bass Fishermen of the year, there's a lot of species, well it is, but it is called the bass master Angler of the year. I mean, that's that is what the trophies bad. We don't want to beat up on the salt water guys or the walleye guys. I don't want to take a Yeah, and so that at that time I think there had been forty six or forty seven of those titles awarded, but only had been won by twenty one guys, so you know several. It's not random. It's not random. No, it's not luck. There's too many variables to make it luck when you've done it consistently over and over. But a guy can get lucky and do it once, but to do it over and over, that's not luck. Right. That speaks to something, man, you know what I mean. It wasn't like that he had like you know whatever, like it happened to be on the right end of the lake. And you know, so I think, like, but I feel like I'm just coming into my prime right, like I'm starting to understand everything. And in the fishing world, there's two sides of it. Rather, there's the fishing side and then there's the business side. Because we're all independent contractors. We don't have team contracts like you do in the NFL, you know, major League Baseball, all of that word, and we individually have to go seek our business relationships. Those don't come to us as you don't have an agent. No, I do it all on my own. Some guys have agents, but like, I don't like that disconnect, Like I want to talk to the person that's making the decision. So that also when they have to call in, they're like, hey, we're not gonna pay you anymore, they have to call me. It's it's a lot harder to call me and tell me versus I can just keep paying. We're gonna cut your guy. We've never talked to him, but we're gonna cut your guy, you know. And so I like building that relationship with those people. How many okay, so how far like if if you're let's say you could partment I'm trying to think of how to put this. Let's say you could like like, uh, you're like a top ten or top tier bass fishermen, Um, how many of them are there? Like? Like, how many guys are sort of your peers right now? And are and are and are you guys peers? Yes? So me and Carl Fish on the same circuit, which is the bass Master lead series that is the original so B A S S and bass Master that's the original tournaments circuit that's been around for and you guys both so you guys would compete against one another. Yeah, okay? And how many of how many of you are there? At that caliber. And are all those people are all those one hundred making their living fishing? Are some of them still like doing roofing and stuff? Majority or not, I would not making majority are not making their living fishing? They either have. And that's why I say a lot of guys probably start historically at an older age because they've either got a business that has been built up where they can take time away from it where they can go and try to compete or try to qualify to compete, or they've sold a business or something of that route. Now that that's changing, the average age is dropping drastically, um with the influx of like college and high school programs, So that like as big as a business as bass fishing seems to be, it is. You look, you look at all the hook and bullet sports. Um, here's one that like can compete on national television. Right, So it doesn't support a hundred full time fishermen. Crazy, huh. We have that. We have that conversation all the time, and Carl talk about that because dude, there's easily a hundred like strike. They kind of did, and they kind of tried, and they've tried everything to to make it happen, because that's it's from your from how the Payles's perspective, it looks like we're all just absolutely killing a big trucks boats. But it's just not the case like Fox for coats of money office gig. I mean, I don't know who is um. I mean, that's that's the tricky part, right, is like each angler is an individual business out for themselves that also operates as a whole driving the machine that gives us the platform to perform and promote our business. That they're also running a business, right Like, so everybody wants to be profitable. The tricky part is is that we're also competing for all of the same endemic sponsorship. But that's why you guys got to be more like the dudes who play like the more like the MLB players or NFL players. You have the league like the NFL, right, but the league has a deal with the players collectively. Steve's dropping mad education about sports. Now did we talk about that shirt? Dirt got me. DRT got me a T shirt of a dude like like slamming a basketball and it says touchdown. Yeah, I don't mean, I know, I'm sucking this whole sports analogy thing when you guys should be bailing me out. What I'm saying, how do you not like, so there's the what's the organization that there's two organizations? Right, Yes, there's really two. There's yep, b A s S. Which is the Bass Angler Sportsman Society. That one's been around the longest, and then uh, the newest one is Major League Fishing, and so like, we're not going to get into that whole debacle. But they don't live without the Anglers, so we we have to have each other. But then they got so they're creating this situation where I mean, maybe God bless them, probably nicest guys on the planet, but they're creating a situation where their organization relies on these hundred or so individuals. But these hundreds so individuals all have to compete against each other and have no like collective way to uphold the organization. I feel like it would be prime for it would be prime for you guys to get all like up in their business. It's it's what you're talking about is probably the number one thing that needs like fixing talking about in our sport. That's like we need it needs to happen a hundred percent, but it's just it's such a struggle to get the hundred anglers. Like what you're what you're getting is you're getting twenty guys that are coming in that don't have any money, don't have any support. They're just really good outdoorsman, sportsman, fishermen. They've grinded and they've made it. Now they find themselves in the top hundred guys in the world, and now they've got big entry fees, traveling all over the country, high expenses. And then you've got mid range guys that have been doing it, got through that early storm, are getting some sponsors and support, but half making it. And then you've got this top percent that are making really good money, big sponsorships and working with all this stuff. So you've got like basically three groups that one guy's going, I don't want any entry fees and make the payouts a little bit lower so I can survive. And you've got another group that like jack the entry fees up. I want to compete for way more money. So you put them all in a room and everyone just has all these different opinions and you're like, can't come up with this where we should be all coming together, So let's make it better. If you make it to top hundred guys in the world, you should be getting paid no matter what, and then lift everyone up and everyone make money. But don't no matter which way they try and do it, they just can't get it because the top tier guys are probably and not in the mood to talk about guys. Yeah, and it would take the top tier instrument to want to do something. If that top ten fifteen guys with big names, big sponsors got together and said this is what we're going to do, we could possibly make a change. But that also they tried that, but they went a different way, which is what happened with Major League Fish and it didn't work. So now you kind of got two split groups. But that's a different story. But now we're sort of back to fighting again. Okay, how we're going to make it better for everyone right now? And for me it's lost a little bit because even in my story, I want to make it better because the way I looked at it is if I make it to the top hunter guys in the world, I've made it. I'm going to It's that's it, I'd like, I would think, And so I'm like I just risked it all, sold everything, grinded, didn't see my family for years, moved to America, had to move back. I went broke, did all the rest, made it, and then halfway through my first year, I was in the worst position of my entire life. And then a year later I was broke in debt and gone out of the out of the out of the elites, and I was like just chewed up and gone, and I was like, what just happened? And that happens to dozens and dozens of guys every year, and just lucky for me, I just decided not to quit, and I fought back, made it, got back, and then I end up winning, and my career grew and I come back into it and now I'm in a better position. But I could have just went away and just been another guy. That is that is the bottom tier of guys, just like a revolving door, like sometimes because those guys they're not getting they don't like boat sponsors, they're like buying their own boats, their own entry fees. The guys first coming in they've got they've got a mission ahead of them. When they call Brandon and I a lot, and and certainly're like, I just made it through the nations, through the opens, what can I expect? And I'm like, get ready. But also guys have made it through college and two years later they're millionaires, like have one millions of dollars. So it's so hard to put a negative. I'm like, I don't want to tell negative to you because you could come in and just crush it and be the biggest name. But the reality is if you don't, this is what could happen. Does a pro always make more no matter how much you're making and winnings? Are you always making more on sponsorships? Or can to the winnings get so good that you're blowing the sponsorships away, which just the purse depends on the stage of your career as well. Right if you come in early on and you have a blowout season, for sure, your winnings are gonna outweigh your sponsorships, and the longer year around, your sponsorship dollars start to grow because it's like, you make it, but then you also but then you have to prove yourself at that level. And I think the biggest issue that we have in the fishing community from the business standpoint is identifying what it is to be a professional angler, right, we compete at the top level, but anybody can go by a jersey and put logos on it which devalues what we do, and then that they can do that, but they don't get the fish in the tournament exactly. But there's so many other avenues now to create exposure and create yeah, and there's not there's not like a set standard of like this is what a professional angler is, this is what they should make. I've always thought that if we take the top hunter guys in the Elite series, take the bottom guy and make him, you know, worth a hundred thousand dollars in sponsorship every year, everybody above that will just make more money, right, because everybody's not gonna make the same amount of money and sponsorships. We don't want that because that would defeat the purpose of hard work and trying to evolve. And so the biggest thing is, like, make that bottom guy worth a hundred grand and sponsorship, and then everyone's just going to be a percentage of value more of able above that guy, depending on how much extra you do on the business side, what's the what's a big like, what's a big win in dollars. Like, what's a big tournament win hunter grand that's what an Elite series event? Pace? Okay, what's the Classic? And it has been five hundred and then two days ago to college kids won a million dollars. That's at fishing bass fishing at the US Open. Yeah, they won two tundras. That college kids two tundras, two boats and a million dollars. Yeah. Everything. When I sold my first book, I'm like, wow, that's enough money left for next month for us where you see that? What that what's happening there? And you're like, we've we've made it to the top guys of the sport and then that's going on there. So it's kind of like they win to win that. So it's a Bass Pro Shops US Open in so that's the top of the top. And this is the first year they've ever had that. They just ran at one random tournament. This is it. You qualify getting and then on the last day this group of angle is going to fish for a million bucks. So they did one thing to yeah that they have regional events. Yeah, that's like, they have regional events and then if you place in so high in your regional event, then you qualify for this championship and then you fish what was it, two days? We can't compete, Like, if you've paid an entry fee over, I believe you can't compete in that event. Some of them, That's what I'm saying, Like some of the guys I fall like that fish the n w T National Walleye Tour qualified for that event. Yeah, I mean, why wouldn't you? So they're giving away more, okay, but it's just interesting. It just doesn't make us want a million bucks fishing in a terment that you can't fish because you're two pro. Yes, but when you win, your tournament is not a million bucks. Yeah, and the guy that finished, the guys that finished seventh, eighth, ninth, all made more than us when we finish in that sort of position. But yeah, we have entry fees. That's the one thing. If we could get rid of them. We have fifty grand plus of entry fees per year. So that's the killer right there. If we didn't have that. Yeah, five grand. The derby, Yeah, they the tournament the other day. I think the top ten. I think two those teams were professional wallete anglers John John Hoyer. He they took seven and it was think fifteen grand, Yeah, probably made more than he made the entire year wallet fish all, you know, we never did. I'm ready to move on the way. Other stuff we got back up. We got back up because we didn't get through the Yeah, but maybe those make sense. Like like I've had people say like, well, how is a person? How do you become a writer? Yeah, but I've never met two of them that did it the same way, so I can't really answer the question. It's it's actually super simple because there's to get to the bass Master Lead Series. There's only two ways to qualify. That's what I want to hear. So you've got the bass Master Open Series, which is three separate regions with three events per region across the United and you have to do what in those? So then you have to fish that entire series at least one region. Right, So we'll just say you fish the Northern Opens three events. You fish those three place in the top three in points each time, top three in cumulative points, of course, so it buffers you from a bad day, like you can still make up. The problem is is that one bad day probably eliminates you. So those those have three days, so you have to have nine good days over three different bodies of water at three different times a year, and if you with one of those days, you're never going to keep up. Yeah, you can't make it up. It's nearly impossible. Uh So you got to do that, yep. So that's how you can qualify through one of those um or the only other option is to win what is now called the Bass Nation. It used to be the Bass Federation, but it's now called the Bass Nation. And that's like your Weekend Warrior, guys, that's what I want in two thousand ten to qualify for the Elite Series. I think they should change the name back to Bass Federation. I liked it because everything is a nation. Though. Yeah, I like bad Bass Federation and I still say it all the time because that's what I came from. But I mean that was then approach to yeah, and now now there's high school and college programs. So you go to a high school tournament in Texas, five d plus boats, two kids on a team for boats, and then college kids. College kid can qualify for the Classic, which is our championship, but they can't qualify for the Elites. So in the future, when all these like trained dudes come up. It's going to change the playing field. Lout. Yeah, that's why the talent pool is gonna Well, that's why the average age is dropping, right, because there's youngers on the water. Ah. Well, I think we've brought it up. I want to Can we ask about the bass Master Classic real quick? Oh? Yeah, okay? Is that like you said, you're at the peak, but you haven't won that yet? So is that like the shining Star that you that's he hasn't won. That's it, that's it? And I finished second? D Yeah, I've got top tens. I finished second. Like did they pay it for finishing second? Yeah? So that was two thirteen. First place at that time was five grand. I got forty five grand? Holy how's that food dollar difference? We'd have to know what We'd have to know this some one do you guys can figure this out? What is the relationship of gold to silver in actual value? And we'll see if that makes sense the Olympics, if they gave you an ounce of gold, Let's say your thing is an ounce in the Olympics, they just gave you four hundred bucks, but ounces of silver is not ship Yeah, so it would actually be worse than what I did, it might be better than the Olympics. Silver is currently twenty four dollars an ounce and gold is eighteen hundred dollars an ounce, way better than the Olympics. Better. I haven't done the math. Do the math all the way, Phil, So you want to explore the relationship between how much is silver Prounce so undred? And then would you win what the other guy win? Okay? When I was like when I was in eighth grade, I could have done that. Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's too much ad some division here. I think we didn't have like a bubble over Field's head or all, like the computations are going through. Just be like making a long shot. Start adding in all the wind dies, MAgric pressures. I'm shooting from three thousand to six thousands, you know, just start. Yeah, you gotta like he's got to be running that similar kind of business over there. I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. You know. Yeah, I was gonna say, not far from my dad's house at all, like the sporting good Shot where I shopped at his parents shop exactly. His brother runs DNR Sports. Give our Michigan tags. When Yeah, I think I think this math is right. If the ratio we're the same, If you're forty five thousand dollars, let's call that the baseline, then his winnings should have been three point three million of silver verse gold. Yeah, so he's so what they're doing is more fair exactly. Yeah, that's good. Did you like to know what questions are come up? I'm gonna ask the next question, but I can tell you what the next question is. I'll just tell you the next question. When you guys were kids, was it just that you were always better than everybody at fishing? Like from day one? That was that was me that no matter what, like you just go out because good at all sports, could do everything. But like if we fished, I just like destroyed everyone. They were like, what is no matter what? But yeah, if no matter what. But it was because I lived out there, Like I would bring my mates and they had been doing whatever a week, and I'd been like fishing three days a week, so I knew exactly what was going on or whatever. But we basically between it's most of everyone has the same story, but we just spent more time in the water than everyone else. Like I never went to school, maybe four times a week and fish Friday, Saturday, Sunday, riding my bike, taking Mom take me somewhere wherever I could go. I just needed to be fishing. But you you feel that it was like you're attributing it to I am spent out. Yeah, but like there has been sort of like a native talent aspect. Yeah, I think you're just no matter how much time. Yeah, there's definitely a thing We've spoken about it where no matter how much time you spending the water, some people just have it in your and it's with hunting and whatever. You're just like that guy just has it and he spent a bunch of time in the water. Some people spend a ton of time in the water and can never quite never get there. Like a lot of making the connection. Americans asked me all the time, how do you make it? I'm it's come from Australia, and I'm like, you lived in the country old time fish for bass. Since you're a kid and have done it with your dad's and your grandfather's that's what I'm competing against. These guys that have learned from their dads and their grandfathers, say, hard to beat because they've got so much good knowledge but sometimes if you just don't quite have that aspect, the tournament thing just brings a whole another thing with money and making fast decision, having a time limit on it, and being able to read the water instantly make fast decisions. That's what makes you kind of a good tournament angler. But most people just had that knack and they had that thing where they couldn't do anything else but fish, and they just understand what how those bass and fish work, just from purely having that bit of talent, but also just ridiculous. A manito or gal is like an adjective that you guys use. He's yeah, it's the natural he's er that I worked for. We just call guys fishy. But you know that guy's pretty fishy. Yeah, but that's a new thing. How long ago was that? That was I don't know, mental, right, Because you take all the guys out there, they have access to all the same technology. Mechanically, guys are pretty even across the board. So then it only leaves one thing, and that's mental that separates the guys that do it at the highest level versus the guys that don't make it. But when you're Brandon just I mean, same question to you when you were little? Was it just it you just caught fish. I feel like I always caught him and but it was weird, is like I feel like I was just that's what I was born to do. Like I was I started out fishing. There's pictures of me where like I've got cheerios on my little uh gosh, I can't even think what it's called. You sit a baby in something and there little high chair there we go, so like the high chair with the little tray and I got cheerios all over it, and I'm holding a fishing rod like little bleached blonde toe head and I'm holding a fishing rod like I couldn't even walk at that time. And so it was almost like there was just always something that made me tick when it came to fishing. And uh as far as like was I better than kids? When I was younger, I didn't really fish with anyone my age, Like there wasn't It wasn't a thing then like it is now. A lot of yeah, brand Nie story are very similar, even on the other side of the country. But we always had like an older guy or a father figure that took you and like instead of hanging out with your mates. As much of your age, you sort of separated a bit from that, and we're more like inclined to go with the old guy. I was going to show you and teach yourself because you're like, you knew he knew more than you, and you wanted to learn what he knew. And so you're always always always sitting in the back of someone's truck if they're going fishing. Is there a seat, now, I'll climb in there, and I'm in there, like I wanted to learn what they knew, and then just progressed from there. Yeah, we grew up around our lakes where we lived. We definitely grew up fishing with friends, but mostly I like fished with old men. Yeah, because my dad was an old man. He had me when he was old hung out with old guys, and these guys I like grew up around old guys that were retired, so all they did was and that was kind of my main sort of exposure to it because people were fished a lot. You sort of progress, like you progress too, from bait fishing off the bank. You meet the older guy that fishes from the bank with bait, and you do that, and then that's great, and then you meet another guy that like showed you your first lure and how to cast it, or you'd go with him and they would troll and like and yeah, that's what that's generally what that's how the bass fishing starts is because you get them to eat live bait and everything's cool. And then when a fish follows that, you trick a fish not eat the live bait. You trick them to eat that face. It's something different. That's when most kids brains are like, it's switches. And then all you want to do is like, look at the different Luis colors. That's why they're doing that, And that's kind of the addiction a lot of us get. I think that's what that attraction is, to cast and retrieve and little fish, and it's a much more it's a different connection, I think. Uh here's my next question, Brandon. We covered you on the show before I've heard it, I've heard my name come up. Okay, tell the story. Do you are you comfortable talking about the story Mississippi ra Yeah, oh yeah, we got that rule change. If I remember right. We covered it from a sympathetic lens. Yeah, did we cover sympathetically you guys did a good job on it. Yeah yeah, meaning like totally could picture or something like that happening. So this was my third year on tour. I had one one Elite Series event in two thousand twelve. Two thousand thirteen came around and I was having a super tough year. I was way down in the points, wasn't going to qualify for the bass Master Classic Championship. And at that time they had a rule where it was winning your end, so if you want an Elite Series event, you got a birth into the Classic. And I was so far down in the points it was late in the year. My only opportunity to make the Championship was to win an event like an outright wind, like have to win first, no grand second place doesn't cut it. And I just I had a week where I had well, let me take a step back. The year before, we fish on the same body water. I had figured out a pattern. Mother nature brought a bunch of rain flooded the Mississippi River. That pattern went away. I didn't adjust in time two roles, but not now. Now I'm contentilated by that. Walking me through that a bunch of floods that what does that mean? So that's the biggest difference I think in like what we do and being able to do well consistently is adapting to mother nature. Right, So, like every other sport goes and plays on some sort of field that's like manucured or you know, it's like you're in this controlled environment. We're like bowlers. Yeah, we're fishing. We're fishing in a We're fishing against another living creature that lives their life based on a different set of rules than what we live ours on. Right, Like we're very judged by a calendar and a time clock in a twenty four hour day, when they're really just based on sunrise, sunset and whatever mother nature throws at them. You can't. It's like a football if the football was alive, it's the it's a golf course that the whole changes off. You've hit the bowl, yeah, and and so like that changes, right. So you get a bunch of rain the Mississippi River it's narrow up on those upper pools, it's not like it is down toward New Orleans, and so a bunch of rain rises that water. And I was catching these fish out in the main river, which is where all that current pushes well, when you are. So bass are very oftentimes ambush feeders, so they want to set up in a place and ambush the prey as it comes by, right, So they're opportunistic, so they'll sit in current seams and behind these current breaks and things like that. Well, when you it's similar to a water hose. So people would think that you actually get more current when you get more influx of water, But it's like if you stick your thumb on the hose, you can spray it further. Even though there's less amount of water coming through the end of the hose. R it's creating more pressure. And so at a certain level in the river, those fish have to set up in places. But when it comes up high, it blows over all those wing dams, blows out over those breaks, and then those fish can just roam. They can set up anywhere, and so it's a lot harder to find target. Yeah, they can just go and roam around. And so the water comes up, they roam around. You lose your target. And you know, we only have eight hours in a day, so you have to be very efficient. Two rolls around, I'm at the bottom of the pack, have to win one. This pattern starts to play out that I had found the year before. The weather holds out and day one, my whole game plan was I was gonna go catch three or four small mouth. They were going to be bigger than the large mouth. They were gonna be, you know, three to four pounders. And then I was a plan. Yep, this is the plan, and then I'm gonna go large mouth fishing. But the rule at that time was that in Minnesota, because you have to have some of each, no, no, just large mouth or much more common in that part of the Mississippi River, when I go catch five big smallmouth, because it was nearly, it was harder, like it was hard to catch five small mouth, and so like in practice it was a very short window that small mouth would feed very early. I would catch them early, but I didn't feel like I could catch five obviously if you wouldn't fill out the bay. Obviously, if you catch five at some point you gotta bail and go fill up. Yeah, but I'm doing the numbers in my head, like, Okay, I'm if I catch fourteen fifteen pounds a day, I've got a real legitimate shot to win. If I catch three, Why target the small mouth at all? Because they're bigger than the large mouth. You have the opportunity at more four to five pounds small mouth than you do large mouth. You can catch more two pound large mouth, but that's not going to get you paid because you're never gonna hit fifteen pounds exactly. But it's implausible that you're gonna go catch five five pounds small It's possible, it's just not probable. And you might have to at some point haul ass over really quickly catch the ones you know you'll catch finga. So my game catch you just you might want to bring me on that wat. I can do this kind of calculation for you mans on the back of the boat, right and stuff down to calculating switch to carps. You need to troll at one point three not one point two. And uh. The unique thing about the Mississippi River was it's a bordering water between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Minnesota law at that time was they took the most restrictive law of whichever state it was, and so they would so say laid out So Wisconsin said, you're not allowed to coal once you put a fish in the live weel. Because we keep all of our fish alive. We weigh him in alive, we release them alive back in the body of water. You get penalized for it. And you're not allowed to call a dead one. So if one dies, if you don't take care of them in your live, well you're stuck with him. You kill a one pounder and you catch a four pounder, you can't you can't throw out the one pounder, and so what if you eat them, Well, that's not allowed, not at the tournament. And so then so with Wisconsin saying this is where it gets really confusing. I didn't even understand this part of it. Yeah, so Wisconsin, No, Wisconsin said you're not allowed to coal a bass once it goes in your live, Well, you're done in Wisconsin waters. Yes, And that was a rule that was not intended to impact bass fishermen. It came from snagging salmon in the rivers and when the salmon would go up to spawn, guys with snag them, and it was a deal to protect that fishery. But it was one of those things where you know, it was just kind of a blanket statement, like you were talking about earlier, with you know, putting it into the constitution of the right to hunting fish like you really need to lay it out, and that wasn't so we had to play by that rules. That would be in Minnesota you could cole but because it was bordering waters, they take the Wisconsin law. Here's where it gets really confusing. We got permits from the state of Wisconsin to allow our tournament to coal, but because it was a state law, then you couldn't col in Minnesota to That's what happened. Yes, so see I was I thought I was being sympathetic when I just thought it was that you were like you crossed like a sort of hard to interpret state line the year it's coming. But I delayed the ground rules so everyone understood like like why Minnesota Wisconsin? Yeah. Yeah, that's confusing enough in itself. So part of my game plan. One of my best areas is in what I know is Minnesota. Right, it's on the Minnesota side of the river. I'm fishing the main river channel. One of my other best areas is in what I think is Wisconsin. The reason I think that is because pretty much every river I've ever been on in the entire Lower forty eight, the main river channel is what dictates a bound or a between you know, a county line or a state line or whatever that may be. That holds true with the Mississippi River. For probably of it, there happened to be this one section where it comes out of uh pool seven and it runs down the main river channel for about say a mile mile and a half, and then it cuts across this island, runs down a back channel for another mile and then back out to the main river channel for hundreds of miles because of some like arcane dispute about something. Yeah, it's across an island that who knows they lost back in some war between Minnesota Wisconsin. I don't know, but like it just it goes back, goes behind the back channel. So the what had happened is the second day, um so day one, I catch them. I'm leading great, right right in position where I need to be to make the championship. And you do the whole small mouth large mouth? I go, I catch four small mouth bengo, awesome, I go catch another large mouth. I've got eighteen and a half pounds. How okay, but how much time? Like when did you bail on the small mouth plant eleven o'clock and you had how how long did the fish? I think that day I had till three o'clock, so then I went just catching our big small mouth because they would They're feeding window is super early, so during it was just I got you. I figured out that this was happening with you. So Day two rolls around, giant storm rolls in. There's only really one thing that will delay our events, and that's a thunderstorm tornado type activity. That's what we end up with. Day two delays it. So in my mind, I'm freaking out right. I'm leading the event that I need to make our championship. My bite is in the morning, and now I'm missing my window of opportunity. What saved me is that right when they delay, they just like they postponed the start. But it all roll as long as long as it'll be the same finish at the end of the day. So yeah, we still end at the same time. So you're just losing part of your eight always fishing daylight hours. Yeah yeah, And so I'm, you know, obviously worried about this. Good news is best don't live on a time clock, right, they just go on Mother Nature cloud cover keeps the light lower, which then helped those small mouth feed longer throughout the day. So by the time I got to my spot, they're biting good. I started what I think is Wisconsin. I lose a bunch, shake it off, moved to Minnesota, like coming on, button, do you I moved in Minnesota and I catch four and I'm like, or, no, I caught five. I had five in Minnesota, Like, well, it doesn't do me any good fish here any longer. I'll go back to Wisconsin. Catch one more and I'll have a really good bag because I had caught some big small mouth. And I go back to Wisconsin or what I thought was Wisconsin, catch one coal one more time, and then I go large mouth fishing, and I don't call the rest of the day. And so I caught six fish that day where I had cold That fish where I thought was Wisconsin was a hundred feet south of where that bordering line cuts into the back channel hunter feet. Hunter feet cost me a hunter grain and the Classic ended up winning the next You can do that math quick, And then it got like reported everywhere. Yeah, so what I don't know who or what turned me in. But I got a call that night at about ten o'clock at night asking if I had fish to this area, and I'm like, yeah I did, and like, did you call here? I'm like, just after they already handed you the check. No, this is day two, so four days. So I'm two days in. I've got a six pound lead. And not very often is it easy, But that was one of those weeks where just everything seemed like it was on that river it's huge, like you pretty much got it, and I felt like all I had to do was just get to my spot cast and reil ement. Very rarely is it that easy. But it was just one of those weeks. Everything lined up and they call me and you know, asking, hey, did you fish here? Yep? Did you call here? Yep? Like you got Google maps and like yep, Like pull it up. I see that red line. Who's there the organization? So tournament director, we have have a tournament director, and I'm talking to them, and instantly my heart sinks because I know when I look at that line exactly what it is. And so it was really was my own fault, right, It was my fault of not looking specifically at where that bordering water was. I took the assumption that the main river channel was the boundary, and if I was on the Wisconsin side, of the main river channel. I was legal, but I didn't know or realized there was that cut through was their attitude. Um, the they that called you was their attitude. Man, I know this is harsh, but if we don't have rules, the whole world falls apart. I knew, like obviously from my standpoint, I was what was I at that time, like a year old kid. That's how old you were? Yeah, yeah, And so I had to it would have been twenty five or twenty six, and so I had to make a decision of how I was going to approach it right. And at the end of the day, it was my own fault, Like obviously I didn't agree with it right. Because here's here's what bothered me the most. If I would have forgot to call right, if I would have forgot to release my smallest one that was alive, put the bigger one in and came to Waynes with six fish, I would have only gotten a two pound penalty, because that's what our penalty is in our rules if you bring six fish to the live to the way in. But instead, because I thought I was doing the right thing and throwing one back, I got that day's weight disqualified all the way just yeah that day, which dropped me down to seventy third because I was only had one day's wait and didn't make it. I did off one day's wait. Yeah, one day wait, did beat a couple of guys two days and uh yeah, and so I just jokingly said, I guess I'll just have to go win the next one, and then I actually did. So you you thought you had, Like, Okay, I could do two things here. I could start like breaking stuff and having a having a fit and kind of like do what feels natural, and I slight a few moments of that, or I could or I could just play the long game and pursue a career, which actually ended up being probably one of the best decisions in my career. But I mean I learned from it, right, Like you guarantee if we're going into bordering waters now, I am staring at every boundary. I can't remember we talked about this when we were talking about that, but ice a fish a stretch of the Delaware River which flowed between New York and Pennsylvania, and they did a really convenient thing there where they came together and made a rag for the river. Yeah, Like it's like a joint regulation. Yeah, so it's like you didn't need to kind of like I don't know my like halfway or not halfway, or if you catch a fish in the middle of the river, you don't gotta like wonder what to do about it, right, Yeah, is they're not going to use their fins or their tail to swim back across the river, like if you why you're fighting and he kind of goals over to you know, Pennsylvania for a minute and the rule makes no sense. But and I mean gladly, I mean for everyone it worked out better that it happened to me because the rule ended up getting changed because it got so much publicity around it that it actually is now no longer rule. So do you feel like that was you know, like just life career wise was really Yeah, yeah, life and career wise, it was a win because you handled it with honor. Yeah, it could have I definitely could have just sunk my own ship breaking rods. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it took a lot to not go down that route, but I knew that there was that was not the right option or the other way that's not good is to really talk about what I've seen people do too is to really start talking about like how stupid the rule is, how stupid the person is. And I mean, you have to own your own mistakes, right, and when it came down to it and you pull everything away, it was my own mistake. You can be like, you know, it was my own mistake. Yeah, however the rule, yeah, the rule nobody agreed with. But I mean old yeah, twenty five or twenty six due, I was totally irrational when I was when I qualified. Huh yeah. How many more Derbys did you have left in that season? Too? So you're like there's still a chance. Yeah, yeah, there's there's still a chance. And you made it, made it happen. Yeah, I managed to win the next one running almost a thousand miles in four days? Are you serious? And you're like, yeah, almost almost nine miles in four days. I burned a thousand dollars and fuel in four days. About the how are you going? I ran all the way from Waddington, New York, all the way out into Lake Ontario, past the mouth, like a long ways between spots, like all conditions being good, let's a glass, calm, no wind, You're gonna average like around seventy miles because I mean time, right, You've got eight hours. The more casts you make, the more opportunities you have. So wasting time while you're running is you know, costing you more casts. But like walk through the calculation in your head, right, like like what's too much? Right? Uh? It depends on limits, So it's only a certain spade you can get with that. But some guys can run like eighty miles now and the difference between seventy and eighty is massive. But I mean it's a huge gamble. If you say I'm gonna blow, you have eight hours, so you're like, I'm gonna defihing, I'm gonna lose two hours of fishing time. Yeah, just like you got. So when you're modern, you're probably like in your head like you idiot, you idiot. Turn around. It comes down to your practice. In that event, I had two phenomenal days of practice out in the lake and figured I could catch twenty pounds plus in forty five minutes. And so if I had at least forty five minutes out of an eight hour day, I would make the run if the weather permitted. And out of thirty two hours, I fished for ten. So you get real granular about pounds per whatever. Yeah, and I mean I did. I bought this St. Lawrence Seaway book that I don't know how many hundreds of pages it is, but I scrolled through that finding every gas stop, every route that I could run, calculating minutes because I knew that every minute was going to count in that event. And I figured out like which gas docks you had to pay cash, which gas dog you could pay with a card because it was gonna be quicker if I could pay with a card. And I mean all of that, just like calculations by minute, because one cost can change your whole life in this set, and it has done. Like you can see, Yeah you hear about the Walleye guys doing that. Um, they'll run like a hundred and twenty miles, stop and get gas fish for an hour, get like some you know, a couple of big bites, run back and win just because they ran all the way. They're caught a couple of thirty inches or whatever. It's professional gambling pretty much. Man. Honestly, I have like visions of the dude, uh like who just goes out on the end of the dock and yeah, catches a bunch of fatties, but he's just not gonna do that. Every day, different people bet on you as are also like fantasy. They started it um with Fox Sports, so we were live on Fox Sports and they started like messing around with some of the betting, like Fox Sports betting, and I don't I don't think they've gotten it to the point where they're betting on specific anglers. We have fantasy fishing where you like creative fishing team of your guys, but they're betting on like the weight and like of a single fish or like the biggest bag or winning Wait, things like that. We've got to the like betting on an individual. Yet you want to be in like Pete rose Man like start like what about a Calcutta? Is that legal? And does that happen? We don't have it in our events, I mean, but do you guys do it on the sly like little background side boats? No, I mean you'll have beds. I went to a Sharp tournament one time, as I went there as a reporter. I went to a Sharp tournament and the tournament had its money, but it was nowhere near the money the Calcutta. No one gave a sh about the actual tournament they were there for the side that those guys operate at a different like the dollar they're putting out entry phase in fuel in today body they have and that's probably underestimating it. For the for the Perch derby up at Kanan Ferry that we're doing this, we're doing that and when is it chet January January? Yeah, Yeah, there's a Calcutta for that, there is. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird that you wouldn't have invited me along. Well, we're gonna try. We're trying. What's fine about something that you know we're gonna get Uh, we're gonna try to get a bunch of teams to go up and do it this year. Oh bunch of teams hadn't mentioned it to me? Well, you're gonna be You heard about this Hayden chat and I just talked about the other night. Can I've got a question. I've got a question for these guys that you got. Are you pretty drunking we can see you? Yeah? Um, So it's like five days before Seth and I head out on on this Walleye tournament next summer. Yeah, what is the biggest advice that you could give to us? You know, just for for tournament fishing. Even though it's a walleye tournament, it's still hours. We're chasing fish, we're looking for fish. Let me tell you, I probably leeches. You can probably do Yeah, you can do that. In walleye tournaments. The open mind is a big one. And not listening to the doc talk, right, not listening to what all the other guys are saying, like this is what you should be doing. I love that. You know. The way I explain to people is you try to ignore doc talk because here's the thing. Nobody knows what's happening that week. If say, when's your tournament January? What well this is? Or will the walleye tournaments be me a bay? It's the first one, okay, so we say May. The thing that I can guarantee is that nobody in this world has ever fished for walleye Mayo, So nobody knows what is going to happen on that body of water, whatever your date is in May. So you have to fish the conditions. You have to have an open mind and not listening to that doc talk of like, oh, this is what you have to do on this body of water, because once again, they don't live by a calendar and a time clock. We had a guy. We had a guy that does this very very hard big horn sheep hunt um and he was saying similar things. Says, you can't hunt last year's like in this area, you can't hunt last year's sheet. If you find a ram somewhere, don't He's like, that's the one place I won't go. Look. Yeah, it's like like we're talking seth like with the bison migration, really like you have this set time frame that you can hunt. If the weather permits, they move out and they migrate, and if they don't, then you don't have the opportunity that just spain at a get to l hunt the last couple of years UM with brand and up here. It's like elk hunting is identical to fish. And once I figured out with the mapping and stuff, I was like, this is like fishing. And so that's why some anglers are good like looking at the maps, the contours where they would see it trying you're trying to figure out a pattern, and that's what we're doing. We're like, what are the fish doing, what's the bait doing? Because it's all about food and temperature and that's what the elk are doing, like whether it's too much snow, not enough, whether they can stay there enough food, what concentrates them, like the currents, and say looking at the contours, you're like, there's a good bench and that's what bass like, that would be a good spot, and then you would come in on at this angle. It's identical. It's like fun because it's it's almost like you can figure it out the same both ways, very similar. But what if the dark talk winds up being reflecting your own thinking? Then do then you change course because that's what everybody's going to do and you better figure out something different. You don't. You just try and block it out. That's the bed you block other boats. Yeah, you try it as much as you can. You know. We never an example of some doc talk from this fall. We were early September. We went out to four Pack for do some walleye fishing, and uh check called the guy at the marina and was like, Hey, what's the what's the walleye report? The guys like walleye fishing has done for the year. They all died. They went to Florida. Yeah, it's like, well that's kind of weird. Dune for the year, Yes, Chester. Yeah. So we get out there and we were watching all the big walleye boats like make big runs to the west, and the the one day we made it, we weren't catching them. One day we're like, screw it. We'll just we didn't want to run real far because you know, like it gets expensive. We're not you know, tournament anglers and making money and ship, so it's like we're you know, paying for our gas and stuff. And one day we're like screw it. So we just ran like thirteen miles and caught like a couple of dinkers, but the big bass or the big walleyboats are still like blowing past us going away further. Well, the last day of the trip, we um found an oil leak on Chet's motor, so we're like, oh, ship, we can't like make a big run because we don't want to blow the motor up. We didn't really know what was going on. Um, so we end up fishing in the bay where the marine is and found the thirty interest and we're like catching giant fish like within eyesight of where we put in where the guy said the walleye fishing has done for the year, and everyone else is running away from it. There was no one else fishing there because they're fishing last year. One of the toughest things the guys is guides and locals on lakes that our tournaments come to. They they either can blow it away, but it's usually pretty tough on him because if you're a guide, you just know too much. They have too many spots, too much knowledge, and then they try and compact it into an eight hour and it goes, you know when it when it doesn't work out there like I can catch him here here, next minute they're running around like crazy. Yeah, and then and then you and then you can fish too much and you fish those holes you've been a guide, and then you know, the guy that just shows up to a lake never been there before, just finds this way different pattern than that guy that leaves leave there his whole watch, like damn, I never even knew that was there. That's got to be so illuminating. It's for a recreational dude who fishes a lake to be able to a tournament comes to the lake and be able to see what do people do who are looking at this, who are like sort of trained from a more national perspective, like what do people do that are looking at this without all the sort of like fishing my certain spots. And here's what I know it works because this is what my daddy did. Interesting to see, that's what they say to us all the time every place that we go to, like we get the big crowds and all the people and they all say, we can, we are you come into our lake. I can't wait to see what you guys do and figure out that's why they're watching, you know. And the biggest change of what Brandon was saying before is live. That's been one of the biggest changes in our whole sport is we have it's live. Now. Every every bit of footage from when blast Off starts to the end is live, either on the website or on Fox Sports. And so in the past they had to film it, edit all the footage and make this little thirty minutes show and put it on one of the channels. And now it's eight hours streamed live. You see every cast of all the top five to ten anglers, and like it's addicting, Like even for me. As soon as you're cut from the tournament the next morning, you're watching what that right, Yeah, you're like what I miss and say all the locals and the people from all over the world can watch it now and they're watching techniques, but the locals love seeing like that was my spoty found, or you know, seeing how different we approached the lake, especially when we come to a new body of water that they haven't seen as fish before. And that doesn't turn into an issue when someone can watching and gost just watch him from my boat problem, that's what That's the only I don't get, Like when you were talking about the term you did where you got your little rhythm down, Okay, I can't remember what one, but you just mentioned you sort of had a plan and it was work and you're gonna keep doing it now. Why isn't the guys that had like a shitty first day, why don't they go and just be like, I'm just gonna go exactly where he goes and and just a mirror what he's doing. It happens they do. You can't. There's not there's nothing to protect you from. There's unwritten rule. It's changing now. So in the past you could go back, say you had a bad day, you would go and you would look get on the website. You'd look at who was leading, and you could read like the article of the pattern, and you could see a couple of fishing clips. And now we can't get as soon as the schedules out. We say a schedule comes out nine tournaments, you can't talk to a single other human except for who's in that tournament about any of those locations. And then only you can fish it. You can't fish with anyone on it. You can't talk to anyone about it. There's no more scouts. You can only scout yourself, like it's only what you policing that lie detect to test truth detectiest and the polygraph. And then and then during the tournament, you can't look at the website. You can't look at social media, like because it's very easy, like you could just in the past that would look, oh, he's frog fishing in that mat. I'm going to I'll try that tomorrow if you had a bad day, where now when you don't catch him, you're like, I gotta figure something. Jurors and like a high profile trial man like they try to live. So then at the end of the day, you can't talk to each other as long as it's someone in the event, like you can't call a guide or local shop or you know, you can't go fishing with the organization, and they hire a guy that would you come into a room? Yeah, specific question up, Yeah, and it's you know that's every derby. Yeah, give me an example, an example of a questions just like, did you receive information on this tournament outside of off limits? Or did you fish compete? Did you fish with an angler on this body of water in off limits? Just a few pretty pretty simple. But what they're trying to do is like, and I like it. I want to level the playing field like in the past, like when I in two thousand fifteen, I fished the lake like where Recklin had fished his whole life or whatever. But I was on there. I never had a waypoint. Just I'm just putting my boat on the water. And it's how many thousand, hundreds of thousands naked, like and some anglers have five thousand way points. Have talked to every like the best guys, the guy that wins every local weekend tournament, like they've just they don't even need to practice. And here I am two and a half days on this lake, like I got to try and figure out how to catch a bass. That frustrated me because we kept going back to the same bodies of water where I'm like, I can never get that amount of knowledge that that guy has in even if I live for the next ten years on this lake, I wouldn't get his amount of knowledge. So now they've cut it all down to where trying to diversify the the schedule, which is good new lakes that they haven't heard about, and then um and then limiting all of that knowledge. So it's up to you. It's up to you how if you want to go and put time in that lake and figure it out, and then what I wanted to be is just two and a half days put on it. Whoever configure it that lake out in two and a half days, then the tournament starts. And to me, that's the number one angler that can do that, not who can get as much information and waypoints and spots from someone else. That's how sort of And that's the way I got two things. I got two questions and these both like I got two things I want to do? Did involve you guys? Time? Okay? Thing one I want to a video. This will be a lot of fun. We go to my mom's lake where I grew up, sixty six acre lake. She still lives there. I was born there. We go bass fish at lake? Yes or no? Here's my question, make a show about it. Are we allowed to do it out of our boats like with our technology? Or do we have to do it out of like doss boat? No? No, no, I don't want that garbage. I want to go there. I want to go there and like I want to see. I want to be like catch a bunch of fish out of this lake? Will I get a night crawl? Know what works? Well, we're going. Here's what. Here's how we start. You get a piece of plywood and you get a little rock and then the brick. Okay, and you put the rock down. Then you put the piece of plywood on the rock and about four inches of watery so it's on an angle, and then you put a brick on it so it doesn't float away. The next day you lift apply with up and catch a horn nose chub. You take that horn nose job and hook him through the lips and throw them out by my ma's raft on a bomber. Say so I'll show you how I would go about it. And then we'll um and then yeah, then I want to you guys take all that fancy ship and catch a bunch of bass. We would have a riot. It'll be addicted to, like live technology. The next thing, the next thing I want to do is this next time we do a lot. We haven't done live shows in a long time. Not live bait. There's live bait, and there's live shows. We stopped doing live shows at COVID. I haven't told you about this, but I'm flirting with a live, very close by in state, live show at a theater. I want to have where we come and do a thing where I want to have people out in the audience, have a big galvanized tub, okay, and start in whatever row and someone holds the galvanized tub and you gotta land and it will make a loud noise. But we'll put a microphone up against the tub. I like it. And then they're gonna pass it back a row, spin and see how far these guys. Oh, okay, we'll have these guys just far up the rows. Pretty soon we're in row thirty. Yeah, spine or you hit some guy a riot, you're gonna have to get a lot of waivers. Signed for that one. Well, I was already. I've been laying a bed at night thinking about this. I think we find something that casts good. But it's soft. Yeah, but it's gonna have to it's gonna have to have a lot of salt, and so it's heavy. We'll figure it out. Okay, it's a legitio. What's the word. It's a litigious world out there. Many people are fixing to sue everybody. Oh, litigious, that kind of world. You guys, gotta keep your calendars open because I want to do these My fish, my mom's lake. What's the best time in here? The opening night start at midnight. It's one of those songs that seasons. We started at midnight opening nights. Sometime you can tell you a story that I believe it's true. I believe this is true. My old man, he always tells the story. There's a one. This story has one lion. Uh. Nineteen, my mom and dad bought the house I was born in. It was like seventy one or seven seventy, nineteen seventy two. I know they bought it for thirty five dollars. Did she actually have you at home? Or you're just saying that you were born to nearby hospital. No, I was born at the hospital. My dad was born at home, not that home. My dad always told everybody that he was birthweight was thirteen pounds, but my mom pointed out that he was weighed on like a kitchen scale. So no one knows what wighed because they're never accurate. But now I was born at the hospital, brought home upon my birth to this. A lot of my stuff is still in my bedroom. No, uh, here's the story. It's like it's an apocryphal story because no one knows if it actually happened or not. My old man says he came out to look at the house considering buying the house. As he tells it, like he looks at it, the realtor leaves and he's gonna hang around a minute. He claims that the neighbor had a rowboat out by the water's edge. My old man claims that he got in that rowboat and rode over in front of the what we call the orange brick house and caught, as he caught, a five pound large mouth, which would be the biggest large mouth to ever come out of that lake in the history of mankind. Beat five and he claims that that was why he bought the house fishing tackle in the I believe every part of it, except that I think he weighed the bass on the same scale, which starts at like three pots. So we need to figure out, like what that ratio was that it was off. Yeah, we're like, it's probably a three pound bass. He was probably a nine pound baby. He's a good bass fishing like a bunch of two three poundas. Yeah, that's cool, I mean good, like that grass rock. What kind of visibility we talked? I imagine a soup bowl. So it works like this. You have reads along the shoreline, except for where people who are like anti nature, uh poison all the weeds and then they go buy sand and dump the sand on the beach like pup. So you have that that or you have the natural shoreline would be like woody debris and reads. Then you have sand with a very thin layer of like organic matter laying on it mark and that goes out you four or five ft of water. Then you have seaweed. We used to have milfoil, but they got the mill foil under control. Now it's the native weed and I can't remember the name of it that runs out over the drop off. The drop off is where it goes from like six ft pretty steep pitch down to twelve and then then the drop off goes gradual and the and it's anywhere in the middle from thirteen to fourteen feet to get over to uh over by buckskin bend or you might get or you might get of water. What's the clarity? Like A can see it pretty good at when I see, I'm gonna reveal some lawbreaking. When I was ten, I took possession of a Hawaiian of a three prong and early season was very good for the three prong for blue gills. I was a little kid. And then later in the summer you you really couldn't see good enough to three prong. Okay, if you're a lot of alps and you get stirred up and it's natural lakes and here and you generally like you generally do better. You see guys like you, guys show up and you guys are all flicking off the docks, which is cool, um, But the locals who really know how to pound it, they're working the edge of the weed bed. Yeah, it depends on the time of here. But guys like you show up who watched too much bass TV. They're flicking docks. It's not a big lake. You can swim across the lake like and not. It's not that big of a deal. It's not like, oh my god, Bob swaying the lake. They'd be like, Bob swam across lake. Can of squeeze in some filling questions because I think we're running out of it. I got I got out of this what I wanted. Oh, I was just gonna say, um, Brandon and Carl, if you guys have any fishing etiquette stuff that's like I need to share that, send it to me or oh, Chester, why don't we just make a can we make a note that we need a thing called chettikott at the mediator dot com and then people can just send check it in. We got to talk to trust and Byron dot com. I'd imagine you guys may have some some like stuff that you don't need an email Chett. We can just straight straight Chester. Wait, tell me real quick. I know one of you guys just mentioned a second ago, how many tournaments are any year, how many you have to be in, and just kind of how that little deal works in a tight little package hit him with it. They like your accent way better. They were trying fish as much as we can. It's like anything, you get better, the more you fish, the more you can pay. You just keep sort of getting on a role. But we have nine a Late Series events, um so they had a hundred percent ones we're in and and then they there's nine open events and we tend to jump in some of them, so how they fit in and usually will do at least three to six of those, and then there's like the US Open, and there's the bass Master Classic, and then sometimes there's been the ao Y Championships. So what what when you fish seven in a row, you're looking at between between February and September. It's crammed in and you put it roughly a week into each tournament, three days of practice, four days of the event. If you can do well, it's your fish a lot. Yeah, you're just going, going, going. You're driving from Florida, then the next events in Tennessee, next events in New York, another one New York, Michigan, down to Texas when we've gone out to California before. So you're almost a professional truck driver by the end of the year you're putting sometimes miles you can do up to that. You only know how I'm done asking questions. I was done ask since can you ask them? Are they able to get that basketball over to my mouth's house? I'll answer for they'll figure out a way. Um, can you guys quickly just break down a four day tournament for our listeners? Like day one? How many people? Because there's like cuts and yep, for sure, great question. So we start with roughly dred and because each year it will fluctuate a little, but hunter guys and full field first two days and it's accumulative weight, so five fish per day all live. Day two, you know, five fish that total weight of those ten fish. Then those top fifty guys or half the field moves on to day three. Oh, some guys get sent back no money, so it pays zero pretty much essentially pays half the field. So you could have paid five grand and then you get nothing back if you didn't perform. Yeah, yeah, and what you invested, well, that's when you're talking about. That's when you go home and start watching TV. Next two days you're watching what you missed in Toronto. So say top fifty Day three, five more fish three day total, top ten guys move on to Day four and then top four on Sunday, So be Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So that water has gone from a hundred dudes flailing the way at it to four dudes flailing at ten is the lowest that comes very like bad hosting today. Man, And how does how does the point system work? Because there's isn't there, Like you get so many points, yeah, hundred for first, and then it just goes down one point from there and then those points go towards Angler of the year exactly. So each tournament you accumulate those points, you know, similar to like NASCAR points race or something like, So Angler the years just points based over the course of those nine regular season events. So it's not something like people's choice or like you know, like the hysman, there's like some level of like when you get on that, there's some level of subjectivity right from now, it's a it's an earned like competitive like the worst guy on the planet could win it, not the worst fisherman, like the worst individual, worst human being, like a horrible human being theoretically be anger the person you won't drink a beer with, but he's really good at catching back. Among the anglers, it's like Angle of the Year is like is definitely the most hard fought and title le guys, and that's what Brandon won in two thousand seventeen, and so that you're basically the number one bass angler in the world at that stage and that gets you everything. But the bass Master Classic is the sort of the pinnacle of the sport as far as it's from a spectator. From a spectators point and where the stadiums are full the crowd, that's where sort of the dream and the thing comes from kids seeing that because the guys are driving in their trucks and boats that the crowds are just massive and like this year alone, what are they doing? So yeah, watching the way and but there's a big trade show before it. So this year a hundred and almost a hundred and fifty thousand people walk through the doors over three days, and so it was that's a lot of people. It's like big tackle show, hundred people. And then the stands are like packed and they watching the guys come in way in their fish and then you know the winner at the ends, winning three D five hundred thousand dollars, but you know that it's it's pretty cool looking from back, you know. That's that's what gave me the dream of seeing America and seeing how you can you can basically make a living out of bass fishing over here. That's what every does. That's interesting. You know my brother in laws from I think he's from Queensland to and uh. And when when you guys go to school over there, they must teach you when they spell out America, it ends in C A R America like yeah, the en you guys say it. Yeah, there's a there's a few things that we do. I forget what it is, but there's a rule why we do that. Like if there's a vow pass something. My wife's names Kayla, but if I say it in a sentence, I say Kaylor, and then if I say it another way, I say Kayla. And so it's but someone her dad actually figured out why we put ours at the end. There's a certain way we'll do this. Interesting because my sister's name is Mata and when he Joel says it, it's yeah, yeah, Like no, man, it's there. There's no R on the end. You're married, you got kids, No, we've got one on the way. You're married. I was even married since June. To get married in June. It's great. We're together nearly ten years. So nothing really changed. Yeah, alright, I got sidetracked. There's five fish day one approximately. Everybody wants to know how what's the release process? Like, because they got caught from two miles away? Well, okay, that's so, what's crazy that you bring them back home? Well, there's a bunch of studies on that. Uh, A lot of the fish will travel back. I have no idea how they do it, but they will travel. Especially I think of like an ELK migration route, right, Like they travel as migration route you haul a boat, I know, but somehow they figure out how to go back. It's like some of those mountain goats get trapped and transferred and then they make it hundreds of But the areas do you get stocked, like where the tournaments get run from a really good fishing areas for lots of people, Especially when tournaments get run year after year after year, there's a lot of fish getting put in that area. One day there's break down across I'll break it down, like, so we have live wells that are fully oxygenated, cooled everything like in our boats. So you put the fish in keep them alive. We have additives and everything that like you know, will kill different bacterias and viruses that they have and keep them healthy. Then we bring him to the way in. They go from our boat into these big tanks that are then temperature cooled and oxygenized, and we wait backstage with our fish in those go to the stage, weigh them in, and then they go to a live release boats. So they have a giant pontoon boat that's built that they hauled every tournament that has these giant tanks that are big giant live wells that then they put all the bouts in. They launched the boat, and then they go and disperse the fish out in the lake or the river. He eventually gets back. People like where you were You've been, Jimmy, I have been on a trip. He's like, there must have been people in the stage. Famous I saw the after the Classic this year was Survival, Yeah, and that was and so yeah, a lot of times we have a p that was four in Texas in June when it's you know, hundreds of degrees going back into the water and who knows what happens to the next day. Yeah, that's still bad. If you did that with trout, it wouldn't be like that. No way. That's why they're cool because they're hardy. They're like they're built for like that condent they can they can which is weird, like the way they can be held, the way they can handle the stress and all of that. But it's um, you know, I always try and think of like the I've always want to ask you, like what you think about tournament fish and like catching relate, like even just catching release because I got zero, Like there's what there's what I like. Yeah, there's like what I personally like to do. There's what other people do. Yeah, and that's one of those areas where I could care less other people do. Yeah, sorry I could not here. Let's what other people do. Yeah. Um, when it comes to like letting fish call, that's great just for me personally. Yeah, I like eating fish. Yeah, but what about like do ever is there a spacies or anything that you like to target to catch and then it's like prestigious tight fish that you would let go all catch one enough to eat and then continue to fish and catch them and let the rest go or would you be done and leave? We have a small property where we camp, so we just we recently got it and it's just like a very small little parcel. But with my family was it's easy for us to take our kids there for the weekend camping. Yeah, it happens to be in uh, like it's native cutthroat trout stream. No retention of cutthroat trout. Yeah. Uh, my kid, you're not legally not allowed to look that protected then that streaming not you can't kill your cuts. My kid like he don't have anything go. Yeah, but he developed, like when you get that from. Over the course of summer, it was fun. We like would catch fish and we had a thing where they caught the same fish who lives behind a beaver pond so much that I had to say no more catching that fish this summer. It was a very distinct. They caught that fish all the time. If they weren't catching it, they'd be over there feeding at grasshoppers. Yeah, like throwing it in it flows down to eat it. And I antually said stock catching that fish, Like, go catch a different fish. Um. It was kind of like it was fun to watch, like they very quickly got used to it, and they love to go catch the fish and like pinched barbs, dry flies only you know. Um no, like I would wake up very excited to go like explore around catching cuts. Let him go, Jeffy doesn't bother me. But um, when we sit down and eat dinner at night, Uh, I like to eat stuff we caught. I'm not gonna go catch things. Let them go, then go buy some ships someone else caught. Yeah. It just seems like goofy to me. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and I know a lot of guys that won't kill a fish. But when I've been to a restaurant with them and the sons of bitches order fish, yeah, I'm like what what like, why is that fish gotta die? But not your fish? Yeah? What's like, what's so unspecial about that fish? Yeah? I mean, but like, but like if the whole world stopped catching and keeping fish and they didn't like change my rules around, I would view it as a positive because I have more fish catch Yeah yeah, yeah, no condemnation, it's it's it's just way lucky to leave. I guess in a country, a couple of countries, way you can catch fish and then just let them go and freedom to let them go. Just like I got a real quick question. Um, there's a kid in this like four thousand person arena watch and you like hold up these bass and they see like all the trucks and all the boats and all the money, and they go, well, shoot, that's what I want to do. I want to I want to be that guy. If you were to give that kid some very realistic advice about, uh, how you might think that he might go about it, and explain to him in no one certain terms the reality of what might happen should he pursue that. What would you tell that kid? Your entire life, in the direction it goes, is made up of small decisions that you make daily. Right, every single day, we have to make decisions what time you're gonna wake up, what you're gonna order make for breakfast, Like your entire life is made up of decisions. Those decisions that you make will determine how successful you are and where you go. So if there's a little kid and he decides that that's what you want to do, those decisions that you make from that point moving forward will be the difference maker in whether or not you achieve that dream. Um, because it will never be handed to you. And so you have to be willing to sacrifice going out on a Friday night with your buddies because you have a tournament on Saturday. You know. The those are those little things add up over time, right, like not giving into that peer pressure of things, of keeping that focus on that goal no matter how long term it is. But you achieve those by the small daily decisions and habits that you do. Be like I'm gonna be a I'm gonna work for the CIA, and tonight I'm gonna drink and drive. Nope, not the name, but that's that's what you have to do. Um, would you be like encouraging of pursuing like that kind of lifestyle. So, the way I explain it, um catching a couple of Uh, The way I explained it is that you have to physically and mentally not be able to live without it because it is a losing battle. Um. So even Kevin van dam Kalamazoom Michigan, the winningest angler ever to fish, has lost more than he's ever won in events. And so if you just love to do something and you get kicked in the teeth that much, you'll learn not to love it, and so you physically and mentally have to not be able to live without it. Two go at it at that level, right, there's a difference between doing it recreationally fishing local tournaments and doing it at the highest level. Yeah, you have to literally can't live without it. Otherwise the brick walls and setbacks will just be too much. You'll just you'll once it gets too hard, you'll stop and turn around. So that's been that's been the only raising all of our us two a seat and years. We just went through the storm a little bit further than what the rest were willing to do kind of thing. But it's a balance. It's a little bit like a fighters kid though, Like you know, a fighter like fights and then he kind of doesn't want his kid to do it because he knows what it took to get through that. But I kind of that That's where the most difficult thing is is like you want to tell the realities, like what you said of what potentially could happen, but you don't want to deter a kid. And like, but also most of us got told that would be nothing. You know, I got told that I was going to be a stop going man. If I kept fishing, and my teachers and people around you and like hundreds and hundreds of people your whole life, and that was my fuel, so kind of you know, if they didn't tell me that, and they kept telling me I can just go fishing, maybe I would have just sort of got a bit soft on it. But because they were so hard on it, I was like, if I fail, they win, So I've got to go through this. Yeah, You've got to be like the intersection of like passion and compulsion would be hard. Like I don't know how to tell a kid like not to pursure it. You want to tell them like this is It's the greatest sport in the world. I love it. I wouldn't have it any other way. It's given us so many opportunities as we're sitting here with traveling the country, with fishing, fishing, and just it's the most unbelievable thing. But it's also the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life and the most upsetting and gut wrenching and sacrifice not seeing family and like that disappointment of like you know, I went, I went, you know, eight years here of not even coming close to anything, like just crawled up in a ball, like crying, like you're gonna lose everything. Like that's how bad it gets. And I've just gotten through that and out the other side of it. In two thousand nineteen, I won my first Elite Series event. My whole life turned around. It was a slight, man. I was about to give up. It's good. Yeah, So that's the one piece of career advice I've worked up. Is remarkably similar to Brandon's career advice, where and I didn't follow my own career advice, but um, I would see people when I was in school, studying year writer. I would see people that had Plan B. It's funny, you know, and the plan B was like inevitably and like invariably. The plan B was like seductive because it was so easy. Yeah, and really talented people, man, but they'd come out of the program and it's like that that B was so fre contempting and they would just do the B. Yeah, I got funny. I could like spend years not making any money and like living to my brother's basement, or I could just go to work for my family's card dealership, you know, and I wanted it was just too seductive. Yeah, my mom wanted me to go to college because she said, you know, you should probably have a plan B. And I looked at it, and I said, why do I need a plan B if I don't plan on failing at plan A? You know? And I mean but that, like I had that mentality eight. But that's what you have to have, and it doesn't have to be fishing right, be anything. I think our whole country would have been a better place if more people pursued what they were passionate about and didn't just go work a job to get a paycheck. I'm never gonna be happy that way I had until I was twenty two. I was like going to be a professional fur trapper. Failing that, I would be a writer. And then I switched to like a plan writer, no by plan, and then like morphed them together, did both of them like plan C was like I'll win at both. Another thing that helps is UM, you mentioned your mom thought you should go to college. But I always had the luxury where you didn't have wan didn't make any money. Um for years, I had the luxury where I was like very celebrated in my family by my mom and dad. I thought it was just phenomenal. Yeah, there's never any of that, like you should get a real but I thought was cool as ship, you know what I mean. Yeah, my parents are super supported, Like I wanted you to be a lawyer. Yeah, I never had to deal any of that. Yeah. The only reason I'm able to do what I do is because my mom taught he's super on, like super early on, to chase what whatever you're passionate about, right like it was. It was never like you need to have a real job. She just I think understood, and I don't falter for it. But like being a parent, say you live in North Idaho and you want to be a professional baptisher man, she understood the realities. I was living in fantasy Like I didn't understand that, So I don't falter for it at all. Like do you see an eye hopper? I mean I get it, I get it. I got a good way to get out of here. Last, but not least, with all of this on the line, are you guys clinch or improved clinch? Guys, Yeah, clinch or improved clinch or either. I know the answers neither. There's no way you guys can finish those two, not yeah, tye polymer like a time on every anything except for one technique punching San Diego jams but not the Yeah, I looked that one up, sang jam. Not. I think that's the strongest, not that you can San Diego, San Diego jam. Yeah. Sometimes that sounds like a sture, just getting ripped on that chester. What do you think about that, San Diego jam Um, I think that's great. What you want to do, I tie um just to improved clinch. But I was just fly fishing and that's just kind of what I did. But I'm a UNI man myself. Was it you guys like the Union? Not I used to Yeah, you know, to Flora, But what do you do for Brad to Flora? Now I had crazy, Alberto, because I've only got ten fingers and tent toes. Carl ties f g not hold tell me that, not for UNI to Brad, for Brady to Uni. That you look, I'm sorry for read the floor, Alberta. There's a bunch of like easy ones, but like it's the hardest not to tie because braid cuts into your leader fluoro carbon any other way that you do it. When you put braid across a fluoro carbon. It's going to weaken the fluora carbon and break no matter which way you do it, and so years ago. The reason a lot of my success is because of that, not because the night tirees. F G knot. It doesn't break in years past when you need a UNI. It broke all the time on a hook set, especially when bite, hook, bang and break. That's the weak spot. F G knot is a hundred percent. So it's like the only knot braid leader that's our actually but comes from seawater. Yeah, it's it's the slim Beauty. Yeah, Slim Beauty was always a good one that I used to tie until the f G. But the FSA it like plats the braid and the fluora carbon together and there's no knot in it. So the fluora carbon is dead straight and the braids platted over the top of it and then grips into it, goes through the guy's real. Yeah, and then it's been so you can have like a twenty ft later in cost and they'll just get three. I'm learning that right there. If we gotta get it's a not a great launch on my mom's like if it comes out, if it comes down to it and we gotta get your boat on a couple of slings and drive it down and drop it in with a piece of heavy equipment. You don't care, right, I mean, I'm willing to get in the water if if it's a normal like if there's any kind of we can depth, we can put it in with the trucks, like we can put it into some rough spots. It just depends how mighty it is, like if we'll get bugged. But here's my last question. Me and Johanni are going, uh, which we're gonna become. We're gonna try to become World Slam uh turkey holders. Yeah, well that's not true because I've got a long ways to go after I get that bird. You. Yeah, I thought you were there. No, I haven't killed the Goulds or I was gonna say, do you think me and should get matching World Slam turkey holder tattoos? But we'll ask you that the dude, I'm doing it. Man. I told my wife you don't like it one bit, But all right, thanks guys, this great man. I can't wait to go fishing and then do our thing with the buckets. We appreciate Bani. How do we find you guys online. Um, just social handles is Carl Jocolinson, Instagram, Facebook, website, YouTube, same name, man, you make it easy. My website and my YouTube are bm P fishing and then all my social handles are Brandon, Paul Nick that's p A l A and I UK Parliament. Yeah, it's really confusing. Definitely check them out in great episode. Great for me. It's good stuff on. You're not gonna like it when you see at a time, but once you get the hang of it, you'll just so. Yeah, but I like tanying goofy nuts. Yeah, you'll like it just for its own sick and your fingers. It's the way you hold it. You've got to have like the braid tight and then you gotta but once you get and I had just watch it on YouTube a couple of times. Dial, I'm gonna learn that South, I'm gonna beat your net wall I turned out alrighty buddy, let's do it alright, guys. Thanks man, it's great you guys shoul come back on again. Thanks for having us. Thanks guys. I'm gonna go eat some cheese kurds.
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