December 24, 2021 • 48 mins
This week, we celebrate Christmas Eve by telling you the best knock-off spinner to jam in your stocking, where to find bass that are all lips and hips, why Santa is qualified to represent the LBC, and why he’s not qualified to be a successful flats fisherman.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You know here it Bent. We love the children. I
just really hope none we're listening to that because I
brought it. You you could have a goddamn monthly stick
on the shower. You make point first, Apple went in,
bought all the flies, bought a fly box to put
him in, went out to the river. Immediately lost the
fly box and it was one of the cool ones
(00:27):
with like it was like the aluminum and glass with
like the windows and ship. Just find someone to get
out on the mistletoe. Oh my, lady, make it happen.
Good morning to januarate anglers, and welcome to Bent the
Fishing Podcast that Jess wants to say. She falls in
a well as go cross, she gets kicked by the
mule and go back to normal. I don't know. I'm
(00:52):
Joe Surmelli and I'm hating Samac and I have no
idea what that was. Okay, you have to at least
know what it's from. I saw the title of it,
Like I know it's from that, But like I've adding
to the pantheon of movies that Hayden has not seen.
That is, uh, you've never seen The Christmas Vacation. To
(01:14):
have seen the Oh my God, I've never seen any
of like, I've never I know, there's like family vacation
and I've never I've never seen him. All right, all right,
you might hear something about that anyway, What that was
I opted out of Clark gris On saying folks, folks,
marry Christmas at the last second while putting this together.
And I opted into that because I felt like it,
(01:35):
because it's a better line, that's all. Is it the
anals or the animals? I think it's either way. It's
like tomato tomato. I'm sure. I'm sure listeners are gonna
let me know. Um, I mean, like you know, and
that's even if they're listening today anyway, because it's Christmas Eve.
So I guess it kind of gives us a license
(01:56):
to sort of say whatever we want without a bunch
of constants. Yeah, I think we can be a little
weirder than normal. Um. And you know what, since Ben started,
I swear to God, every major holiday has fallen on
a Friday, like without fail, Like join us next week
for the Yeah, join us next week for the New
Year's Eve show, like give me a break, you know. Uh,
(02:17):
But you know, despite that, we always have a good
time with holidays. I mean, if nothing else, it makes
coming up with a theme incredibly easy. So that's always
kind of nice. It is kind of nice. Like the
obvious thing for me to do right now is to
ask you, uh, these hotday scripts do right themselves? What
what would be leaving on your tree this year? Joe
(02:41):
I asked for a new set of drift boat oars,
which Santa set. He said, that's no problem, but the
LVC has working at cataract Ores, like I guess we'll
say embedded at cataract Ores. They're a little backed up,
So strong chance my oars won't end up under the
tree tomorrow morning. Like more like Santa might have to
swing by with other just before springs shadd season kicks in.
(03:02):
But how about you, what are you getting this year? Um?
I asked Santa Claus for a used truck topper. Um, well,
you know, I'm not gonna make like Santa source materials
and like the Times of COVID because like that's not cool.
It's like it's it's a little greedy. Um. And I'll
(03:24):
tell you what, Santa, I'm formerly offering to go have
these with you if you could find a used one
in like the two grand range. Um, I'll tell you
what one better. I'll go look on craigslist and save
the always the trouble and uh yeah, very low, very
(03:46):
low lift gift this year. That is so nice, man,
what a guy helping sand out like that? You know,
thinking about it, I I bet out there somewhere is
a Jerry the canoe salesman for truck toppers. I'll bet
you he exists. Yeah, probably, but instead of like a
cup of tea, you know, like pound natty ice and
a shot of yeager and uh and hang out with
(04:09):
them around like the burn barrel. You know, that could
be more interesting than the real Jerry. But dude, at
least doing that it would add an element of excitement
to receiving you know that gift. Um, I always felt
kind of sad, you know, like as you get older,
it's it's a little bit said. Yes, it's a little said,
because you know what you're getting, right, Like, you get
what you need, you get less junk, and you get
(04:31):
what you need. But the magic of sort of losing
sleep over whether or not something you ask for will
or will not be under the tree is gone. Um, Like,
oh man, so many specific presents come to mind for me.
But a big one was the micro machines race in
a case. The micro machine man here with the perfect crue.
Micro man want to come in first place? Got the
electric micro machines racing a case. Open the case to
(04:52):
start the race, clucking into play. It set up that way.
He great, your micro machines road great and stick the
track of both the world race past the barking like
Superstar Jerry at the point you're talking to carry away
the fun. Check out the carazing example, screw cars on
the micro machines around micro Machines racing the case and
bower Row competition race sts. He sold separately with two
road race and vehicles, power packs and controllers from Galube.
And I got it, but it kind of sucked, like
(05:15):
the cars didn't really stay on the track. It was
not that easy to pack back up into the case.
But I was still thrilled to have it, you know,
it was like it was a big one. Yeah. See,
Like I don't remember specific toys like that. It was
more whatever like I was obsessed with at the time,
like fishing or you know, hunting or where have you. Um,
(05:35):
But I was like when I was a kid, kid
I was really into Pokemon cards. Like um you were.
You may have been as enthralled by the micro machine commercials,
is I was about these kinds of commercials to be
the old man Pokemon master draggy. I think I am
(05:58):
the Bookemon game. You'll do awesome activities, wipes and meet
new friends. A speak in your journey could become a
Pokemon methods right there. See wow, Mancie, I had no idea, like,
have you and Phil bonded over this? Because I don't
(06:18):
think he could ever fire you. Isn't that some kind
of Pokemon warrior code? I I this is all news
to me. I think, other than working in Meteor, this
might be the only thing that Phil and I have
ever had in common. Um, although you know, and my
my Pokemon days are a little bit behind me. But
I remember being a kid and they were like ten
(06:41):
packs of Pokemon cards in my stocking one year, and
I went just like ape shit because it was never
like that. I wasn't from Like, it wasn't like when
I wanted something as a kid, I just got it
in spades, you know, if I if I begged enough
for it, like he got one pack of Pokemon cards. Yeah, yeah,
but you know, and every now and again it was
(07:01):
a special thing. Um, but he on Pokemon cards. Here's
something that's gonna dry Phil just in nuts when I
when Phil, this is for you man. When I was
in first grade, so I traded a holographic first edition
Chancey for two just regular as Pika Choose because the
(07:23):
show had led me to believe that Pikachu was the
best thing that there could possibly be. So you know
what that means. And I'm sure you're greating your teeth
right now. Um, he's gonna call you into his office
like with a little like buzz, like, Hayden can kind
of my office? Please? Thanks? He was like, what the um?
But thinking back on like a president, that really blew
(07:46):
my mind was I got a Crossman pellet gun. There
was a full on campaign involved. Did I snuck bb
gun onto my list every year? And I never actually
got one from Santa But my my grandfather used to
snap up everyone he saw at flea market, so I
had a whole arsenal at his place. Anyway, we certainly
(08:08):
hope you find what you want under the tree tomorrow.
Perhaps there will even be a few goodies from our sponsors.
Thirteen fishing. Um, if you were really good, like really
really good, maybe you'll even find the Black Betty Freefall
Carbon tenth Anniversary Trick Shop Edition ice reel. Have you
seen that one? I know you have, Dude, I ache
for one of those, Man, I ache for one of those.
(08:29):
It's like this, like brilliant gold. It shines like a
thousand sons. It's like the Excalibur of the ice fishing world.
That exactly. It kicks so much, ass man. Yeah, it's yeah,
it's very bold. It's either excalibur like the real O
d B would use. Um, but despite it being a
bold statement piece, it's also highly functional. I probably should
(08:51):
have asked Santa for one. You know, it's never too late,
man Um. You might get a chance in a very
special edition of our Upid Fire Q and a segment
covering water. I'm going in. I can hold it all right.
(09:17):
So now, Joe, a couple of weeks ago, I set
up kind of a cool interview about the issues on
the Madison River and we both thought it went like
we both thought it went really well. Death I mean
kind of cool. I'm just kidding. It was great. It
was great. Okay, Well for this installment of covering water.
I've kind of set up something a little extra special,
(09:38):
and I'm oh, I'm really excited. Today we're joined by
a very remote guest all the way from the North Pole.
That's right, boys and girls, we're here with the one
and only Santa Claus. What's you're okay? Man? I'm fine.
Merry Christmas? Oh right? Um? Like I said, we're here
(10:01):
with Santa and Joe. You said a certain someone might
want to say hi. Yeah, I was gonna. I was
gonna ask can my three year old say hi? Real quick?
Is that? Okay? That perfect? His name is? I know
what his name is? Right? Okay? Great? Hey, but come
(10:21):
me here for one second. If somebody I want you
to meet. Look who it is, Jamie? Who's that? Santa
rights so sleepy, he's real tired for making all the toys.
But kids know Santa's got a buzz on erge, what
a buzz? Actually? But what can you go downstairs? Why
(10:42):
don't you go downstairs for a little while? Okay, thanks buddy?
Come on, man, really, you guys just want to take
it from the top real quick. Yeah. I don't know
if you guys noticed, but it's Christmas Eve. Let's just
do the interview. Okay, so Hayden brought you in because
it turns out you're you're quite the avid angler. Now.
I know you're normally the one who asks this, but Santa,
(11:04):
what do you want for Christmas? Man? Well, Nick wants
is a trip to St. Bart's and some time off.
As a matter of fact, as soon as I get
done dropping off all this ship tonight, old Sandy Claus
is going to take a well deserved trip for some
billfits just me and Brandy. I mean, this is Claus.
You're gonna chase some bone fish while you're down there,
(11:26):
you know, I I hear it right there. I tried
the whole fly fishing for bone fish thing. That one
of those snot nosed twenty year old Instagram influencers womby
guys completely turned me off to that ship. Yeah well yeah,
that can that could be tough, um, but I guess
it's a good reminder for our listeners. Always make sure
(11:48):
you're booking it a really reputable guy, you know what
I mean? You know, their kids had the audacity to
tell me that if I had a Helios three like him,
maybe I'd be able to get out ten more feet
of line and actually make a shot. Mother. The only
reason you have a human three is because I brought
it to you. You couldn't afford a gut damn monthly
stick on the shower you make pulling tourists around the apicle. Yeah,
(12:09):
I can see how that that might be. Um. And
you know what else, all of you stop asking for
fancy ass setups for Christmas? Do you know how many
cease of assist orders I get from Saint Croix? Do
you know how many elves I've lost a graphite dustin
resent fumes? Do you know how many times I had
to take comfinitely time slay ride to avoid osha a lot? Okay,
(12:32):
stop it, Um, Maybe maybe we should just move on here. Okay,
let's just let's just all take a breath while I
explain exactly how covering water works. So this is our
rapid fire Q and a segment of ben. Okay, And
what Hayden and I are gonna do is gonna put
two minutes on the clock and we are just gonna
pepper you with questions. And the whole idea here is
(12:53):
that you don't really have any time to answer. You
can't think too hard. You just have to kind of
answer as quickly as you can. And what we'll do
at the end of this we promise um is to
give you one minute to expand or explain more about
whatever you think was the most damning answer. And and
based on how this has gone so far, I I
would I would expect that there's going to be some
(13:15):
damning answers. So does that all sound good? Sannah? I'm okay, perfectly.
We put two minutes on the clock here, Heyden, you're
gonna ask first, right, all right, let's see how this
goes and begin milk or cookies? What species of fish
is on your bucket list? How is that? How's that possible? Look?
(13:39):
I live in a magic group where all things are possible,
you idiot. But the permit is in all your years
of doing this, which lure has ended up in stockings
more than any other? I mean, it was a dirty
devil spoon for almost eighty years until some beside make
(14:00):
a crank bait that looks like a Budweiser kid. All right, uh,
favorite reindeer. I don't know yet. What what do you
mean you don't know yet? CWD man. We got a
new crew this year. They all got in c W.
D and died. No, it turns out was just blitz
(14:20):
and I had to test them all though. Whatever freezer
spul Holy shit, everyone is so consumed with clean energy,
yet you still rely heavily on cole Can you tell
us why you're kidding? Right? Really, that's your ethics question,
not the hundreds of years of forced the elephant labor. Look,
I got an endless supply of call up there. Okay,
(14:41):
you switch and putting hyper allergenic crystals or some ship
in the stockings of the kids that were asking Paul,
you're the cost of goods grows up? All right? Uh,
where's the one place you've always wanted to visit? Are
you fighting with me? I am literally going everywhere tonight.
What what your favorite fish eat? That's easy. I'm also
(15:03):
a big fan of Mah Dolphin like Flipper Dolphin. Yes,
Santa hates dolphins. Everybody, My man, who's the naughtiest angler
on your list this year? Ginger kids? You pay all
around with Ross robertson. What's your favorite lure of all time? Cricket?
(15:25):
Oh my god, we're running out of time here, best
gift you've ever got? Well, there's one of your Jack
Frost and the heat and miser got together and got
me this huge cake. Right they lift in the middle
of the workshop. Now I'm about to cut into it
and boom, Candy pops out. And I'm not talking about
Jolly Ranchers. I'm talking about Candy, one of the North
(15:48):
Pole dancers. Off alright, everyone, Uh, Santa Claus, Joe, you
want to wrap this up? And yeah, Santa, I, I I
know you're busy and I think you have to get going.
But fair is fair. You are supposed to have one
minute to expand on on any one of your answers.
Maybe you want to tell us a little bit more. Well,
(16:09):
let me just tell you a little bit more about Candy.
You know here it bent. We love the children. I
just really hope none we're listening to that, because you'll, dude,
you'll have three hundred kids at the mall next Christmas
(16:29):
asking Santa for Budweiser, crank baits and Michigan crickets. You
know what I mean. We might have We might have
done a disservice to the youth there. Yeah, in case. Uh.
You know, some listeners are extraordinarily ethical folks and have
never surrounded themselves with this type of company. A Michigan
cricket is a gigantic like weighted treble hook. It's like
(16:51):
an egg sink refused onto a treble hook, and it's
used to uh to snag fish. Now you can do
that like legally for like paddlefish, but most us of
the time you hear it talked about. It's in the
Great Lake salmon scene. Yeah, that's right, no offense Michigan.
But I did once I did want to see a
Pennsylvania conservation officer pull about fifteen of those out of
(17:13):
his glove box and he'd collected them along Elk and
Walnut Creek in just a couple of days, you know
what I mean. Like, I was like, I can't believe
it's that many. Pretty crazy, um, But you know what,
Speaking of snagging, let's see who snagged the better fishing
related story in this week's fish News. Fish News that
(17:35):
escalated quickly. Alright, so real quick question for you, have
you ever gotten allure or some flies for Christmas? Right?
And then you stare at them all winter because you
know it's winter so you can't run out to use
the new hula popper. And then the first time you
ever get them out of the water, you lose them, Well,
let me tell you a story. Man. I know you
(17:56):
love my long winded stories. Uh. I do something more uh.
Kind of analogous to that is the Edison Show. You
know you can go there and you get a whole
bunch of flies for like show. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. Man.
Well I just got sick of being burned on not
having super small flies. So I went there one time
with like two bucks in my pocket. I was like, look,
I'm gonna get all the midges. I'm gonna get all
(18:18):
like the little tiny baits. I'm gonna get all that
ship just taking care of right now. Went in, but
all the flies. Bought a fly box to put him in,
went out to the river, immediately lost the fly box.
Oh my god, you lost the entire bod, entire thing.
It was one of the cool ones with like it
was like the aluminum and glass with like the windows
and ship the little flip the switch English switch stream
(18:41):
style stuff jacket ye switchblade and stream same thing. I
don't have a specific lore or fly story, but it
happened to me um in another in another capacity with
a remote control boat, like I got one of those
for Christmas. Neither of these are actually related to the question. No,
I started with the question They're not really it at all.
But I was told by my dad not to touch
(19:02):
it until spring, and he would take me out and
show me how to use it. Did I listen? No?
And I sunk it. No. It was a really sweet
like chriscraft sport fisher and it went around you hit
an iceberg. No, it literally, I ship you not. It
just went around in one circle. The bow dipped and
it literally just drove itself underwater. And then I watched
(19:24):
it underwater, still driving, spiraled down. It was a bad
deal anyway. Here's why I started. What is why I
brought up lost lures because if you happen to need
a break from your family over the holidays, just quick
note that the final episode of the Canadian Angle with
j Siemens drops today on meat Eater's YouTube channel. And
here's what he does. He don's full Scooba gear, He
(19:44):
goes diving on Lake of the Woods for lost lures,
refurbishes them, and then uses your misfortune to score himself
an epic muskie to close it, like you you gotta
see it right, And I thought the whole premise was
extremely clever the way he did that. Yeah, man, that
that's a that's badass, man. I grew up fishing lake
wall in paw Pack a bunch. And let's say it's
(20:07):
a hydroelectric dam. Is like, you know the reason for
this lake being here, so the water level changes like constantly.
And where I lived, there was this shoal that went
straight out along this weed bed, and every summer around,
like you know, August is when they would drop the
lake the lowest you could go out on that shoal.
In addition to picking up like pretty fresh props, I
(20:29):
mean some of them were dinged up. Occasionally you can
find like a nice clean prop. You would find all
sorts of lures and cool crank baits and ship just
going all the way. People that's their hobby, man, Like
that's just what they barely fish to just pick up lures.
But anyway, I thought that was really neat. You should
watch that. Let's get on with the news here. We're
(20:49):
gonna try and keep it light and perhaps Festivus. I
don't know I've gone Festivus, but I don't know where
you've gone. Because this is a competition and we don't
know which story the other dude grabbed and at the end,
jolly old sat Philip of the audious Engineericus Mountains will
declare a winner and it is your lead this week,
my man, So have at it. Oh right, man. So
(21:14):
you know it's not super festive. It's not festive. It's
not festivus, is it? No? No, unless you can consider,
like you know, the destruction of one of the most
important fisheries in the world a festive occasion. That what
fishery are we talking about? All right? So, so recently
(21:34):
it was recommended that there be a four fifth reduction
on the cod catch in one of the two primary
New England cod fisheries. Can you can blame the Italians
seven fishes back a lot, man, it's pretty much all
the Italian's fault. Yeah, man, so uh, darn Italians. I'm
very Italian. Please don't at me. On on December tenth,
(21:58):
the New England Fishery Management Council decided on a quota
of five hundred and forty thousand pounds um. And this
is of you know, Atlantic cod, down from a previous
quota of two point four million pounds. So again, yeah, yeah,
four fifth reduction. The reduction would be for the George's Bank,
(22:21):
Um the other primary Atlantic cod fishery that way, the
Gulf of Maine will see the quota, Uh, stay you
know stable from last year. I believe it's five hundred
and ninety thousand pounds. Now. Look, reductions like this in
the economic short term suck. But this kind of management
(22:42):
really is essential for long term conservation goals. Uh. And
to contextualize that, we can look back on a little
history of New England's cod fishery to understand why. And Joe,
I'm gonna pass this to you in a second. It's
quite a history. Like yeah, it's yeah, so everybody likes cod.
You know, it's a white, firm, flaky fish. It's good
(23:04):
to eat, it's not fishing. Everybody likes it, man, the
same reason everybody likes Yeah, the same reason everybody likes
you know. But which is like always been kind of
like a funny thing to me. It's like upper echelon
of edible fishes. They're defining like characteristic people be like,
it's not fishy at all. Man, you're right. But see,
(23:25):
I can't I can't rip on that too much because
we've said, I've said a bunch of times on the show.
I think you have to like you and I are
not fans of overly fishy fish. No man, no man.
There's a reason that when I get like sushi and
it's like a sushi like chef's assortment or like you know,
dinner where it's like, you know, ten pieces or whatever,
I'm always like, hey, can you substitute the mackerel for like, yeah,
I need to say anything else, please assort the mackerel
(23:47):
off of the sushi platter than yah. Yeah. Um so.
But this was a resource that was hugely important. I mean,
it's been important in the context of history. In fact,
the dude who wrote the book Salt has that book cod.
I mean, like, there's a lot of meat on that bone. Um.
But it was. It was a hugely valuable resource for
not only in the indigenous folks of America, but for
(24:09):
early settlers as well. Now fast forward to the twenty
century and super efficient commercial processing, you know, on boats,
coupled with more efficient fishing techniques, the fishery became over fished.
And I mean, you know a lot more about that
particular history than I do. Yeah, I mean I've I've
(24:30):
done some cod fishing out of Montauk back in the day. Um,
and Barber just caught a surprise cod. Well, I was
gonna say, so, yeah, Eric, what would you say? His
last name was Garber, Curber, leave it in, leave it
in Curber. I'm gonna go, is this erring after we
go fishing with him? I don't know, Maybe so bad?
(24:51):
It's okay? Uh yeah, man, Eric Cerber, my boy Eric,
he recently it was it was a very big cod
for Jersey and it was very close in shore. Because
he was talking, he wasn't like way off shore. But
I've done some of this out of mom talk. Um.
There was a time when the Jersey boats were advertising
cod trips again, but it was kind of bullshit. Like
(25:12):
basically what that meant was, we'll take you out to
the lying grounds and probably two or three codd will
end up on somebody's line, you know, but to say
we're going out to target them and we could spend
hours on this. But the bottom line is, like cod
was such an important fish throughout the Northeast recreationally for
so many years. I mean, the party boats made their money,
the recreational captains. I remember reading articles in the archives
(25:33):
the field and stream like in the dead of winter
when the stripers were all gone. Dudes on cape cod
to go out there and surf fish for pound cod
like in the waves on cape cod. Um. And I've
had some good cod fishing. But the consensus that you
talked to any old heads, it's like this is nothing
crap like this. You know. It's like if you want
(25:53):
to if your dream was to catch a forty pound cod,
that is extremely hard to do anymore, you know, right right.
So so back in the day, like in ninth We're
gonna go to nineteen seventy six real quick. In nineteen
seventies six, the Magnuson Act, And this is what contributed
to a lot of like the pressure and a lot
of like the commercial over fishing. In nineteen seventy six,
the Magnuson Act. UH. It prohibited foreign operations from fishing
(26:17):
within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States. UH
the easy right, and the easy includes all fisheries within
two hundred miles of the U. S. Coast. Now you
would think that that would do you know, that would
alleviate the pressure. Well, yes, and no, I mean sure
from like foreign commercial fleets eliminated all that pressure unilaterally. UM.
(26:39):
But because folks got so excited about like the lack
of you know, international competition, the U S Fleet expanded
in the pressure on the resource within that two hundred
mile like buffer zone intensified. Yeah, it's it's a it's
a very like you're it's so back in the day.
I mean, there's a thing called the cod or has
(27:00):
been raging forever. But yeah, back in the day, like
you'd have Russian boats on Georgia's bank, like from you know,
it was insane, but you're right, that's exactly what happened.
They got all them out, and everybody's like, well now,
my mid my, my mind, my mind. And it was
such an economic driver that that's exactly what happened. We
we overfished them, We got them out and overfished in ourselves,
you know. Right. So since then, or maybe not since then,
(27:20):
but you know, within the wake of that act um
in the last forty years or so, the decline UH
intake has been sort of like precipitous. To contextualize that,
in the nineteen eighties, right, annual catches typically topped a
hundred million pounds of common and then after a crashing,
you know, the nineties, not not so much. Um. Now,
(27:45):
there is a lot of these conservation stories. Man, they're
like so doom and gloom that I feel like it
gets people unenthusiastic about good changes that are being made,
even if they're difficult changes. Right. Some people like the
react and is oh, well, like I'll never go do
that because it's just so messed up. Some people throw
their hands up and say, well, if it's this messed
(28:06):
up already, why not make hay and while the sun
shines yaum. But there is good news uh per noah um.
In the Gulf of Maine fishery, a tenuere rebuilding plan
has been implemented for this stock and the stock is
targeted to rebuild by twenty four golf main, as I
(28:29):
understand it, they have the best thing going, Like, that's
the best cod fishery in the Northeast right now is
in the Gulf Main. Yeah, and this has been the
second you know, this is the second rebuilding plan for
this stock. So, I mean it's something that you know,
folks have had their eye on and they've been trying
to you know, perpetuate the resource now with continued careful management.
Back to what we're talking about, which is this you
(28:50):
know four five quota slash on George's bank. The George's
bank stock is scheduled to rebuild by So a lot
of these like management programs people have like the idea
of like, okay, we'll implement these cuts that like is
no there are no fun for anybody, and then we'll
see what happens. You know, it's important to remember that,
(29:12):
you know, similar to like, uh, you know, the other
week we covered you know, the macinaw in the Flathead Lake. YEP.
There are defined conservation goals attached to these plans, and
when these plans are successful and that goal is met,
you got something a lot better than that resource that
(29:33):
wasn't doing so well before these plans were implemented. So,
you know, take your medicine and weal come out with
a better thing. Um. You know. Another interesting like kind
of thing to note is kind of how we consume
fish in the effect that it has on fisheries. UM.
For instance, speaking of like you know, to keep it
(29:55):
on cod, a shift to the more stable and economical
polock has taken a lot of pressure off the cod fisheries. Uh.
To contextualize that McDonald's fish filet was cod now pollock.
That's interesting. Well, maybe I was not aware that McDonald's
filet of fish was ever truly caught. I thought it
(30:16):
was cod from Alaska, but that's neither here nor there. Um.
You know. The funny thing is I haven't had a
piece of cod in probably ten years, and the last
time I ate it, I caught it. Because if I
see it in a fish market, it's usually too expensive,
and if I see it on a menu, I just
don't ever believe that it's cod because I know so
(30:38):
much about the cod fishery. I'm like, really, this is
twenty bucks a pound in the fish market, but I
can have the all I can eat cod fish and chips.
I doubt it. But the truth is there's nothing wrong
with pollock. It always gets downplayed like that's not as good.
Pollock is delicious, and there's a lot more of them,
you know. Do you know what the fish filet was
(30:58):
even before cod? This is the second switch? Do you
know what the fish filet was made with? Originally? I don't,
but I'm gonna take a wild stab dog fish. No. No,
The first thing that the McDonald's fish filet was made
of was actually hell of it. Oh oh, and then
they got Yeah, that makes a lot of Well, here's
(31:21):
one final note on on cod. You know, everybody's like,
oh my god, fresh cod. There's nothing like fresh cod.
You ask anybody who's ever caught a cod. Ever, it
is extremely rare to catch one that is not riddled
with worms. Almost every cod is full of worms. Now
they're big worms, and you can there's a method to
get them out. They'll crawl right out. But still, I'll
(31:42):
never forget the first time I ever went cod fish
and put them in a brine. I actually wrap them
in a paper towel, and a lot of times they'll
just come out on their own in the fridge. Yeah,
there's there's a there's a few different ways. But I
remember I caught a pile of it off Mont Talk.
My my wife, who was just my girlfriend at the time,
was living in New York City, and I brought all
this cod to her apartment and the girl should live
with I was like, I am making you ladies fresh CODs.
(32:04):
Tonight busted out the flats and it was just like
freaking orange worms everywhere, and it was a total turn off.
It doesn't bother me, but a lot of people, if
they knew like even if you buy fancy cod, that
ship had worms in it before it got to you, guarantee.
Speaking of unexpected and surprisingly brightly colored, man, I know
(32:24):
you've seen this a bunch of I'm sort of familiar
with it, but I don't understand the nuances of it.
Every now and again you will see an electric blue
cod down to the color of the filet. Do you
know what? But you know I've seen that. I don't
know what causes it though, I don't know if it's
if it's diet or what. But I mean, I imagine
(32:45):
that pigmentation has to be somewhat similar to like how
don't ling mouths on the West Coast like during certain phases.
I don't, I don't. I'm I'm making ship up. I
don't know why that happens. But I have seen that before.
There's also bright blue lobsters. That's a real prize thing
up there, See, listeners, we don't know everything. We don't.
I thought you were gonna I thought I was gonna
tee you up and you're gonna hit it out of
(33:06):
the park, man, I was, I thought, I don't. I
don't know anything about a blue cod. Man, I don't
know that's what that ship is whacked. How about let's
you know, let's let's say I'm gonna get a little
more festive and I'm I'm gonna, I'm gonna this is
a little more uplifting, I guess, um, and just just
(33:28):
a little more festive in general. And um, I'm gonna
have to uh kick it back to Santa Claus here.
So I know, we just talked to Santa and he
had told us he wanted to go bill fishing somewhere.
But but he must not have gotten the memo yet
because it's apparently already been determined where he'll be fishing
on December. And here's how it was determined. Berkeley Fishing
(33:49):
teamed up with Santa for quite the contest, and here's
the gist in Santa's own voice, via Berkeley's website. I
love to fish. I've been fishing all around the world,
and this year I thought I'd try to find someplace
new and exciting. So I asked my friends at Berkeley
Fishing if they could help me find the location that
(34:13):
is the best fishing spot, and they said that they
would love to do that. Santa sounds different in that
it doesn't sound like he's like kindler, gentler, more cohering,
you know. Anyway, Yeah, let you let you exactly um anyway. Naturally,
I'm always intrigued when like the best fishing towns or
(34:35):
trout towns or striper towns or whatever are ranked, right,
and this style of clickbait journalism is it's like rampant.
Now you can find a list of the of the
five best cities for anything these days, like five best
cities for people who love socks, best places to later
if you hate pet stores, you know whatever. Anyways, what
Berkeley did was that they put out a call for
town submissions. That was step one, and they told me
(34:56):
they received more than forty town nominations from they whittled yeah, yeah, yes,
but still forty okay um. From those, they whittled down
the list to the following five locations where Santa could
end up. So these were the choices. Heartwell, Georgia, which
is home of Heartwell Lake and that's a pretty epic
(35:16):
bass fishery Huntsville, Alabama. That's also some killer bass fishing
and crappy fishing down there. Springfield, Illinois and which honestly,
nothing is jumping out at me regarding famed fisheries in Springfield.
But that's okay because, as we'll learn, um, these towns
weren't just chosen based on having a big time local fishery.
There were other reasons for the decision. Other choices last
(35:40):
to Long Beach, California, which is on the coast just
south of l A. And finally Panama City Beach, Florida.
So the next phase of the contest was that they
asked people to vote on one of those five location
(36:00):
on Santa Arsanta definitely would have gone to Panama City. Yeah,
I mean that's a that's a party town, right, it's
party town. Um. And and so you vote and Santa
will will roll into whichever town wins on December. Um.
And it turns out here is where Santa is actually going.
(36:22):
Long Beach, California scored the most votes, which doesn't totally
rule out bill Fish for old st Nick Like it's
it's a long run, but Swordfish qualifies, right, he can
fly can fly his slay over to Catalina with the
eight wide and dance with a broad bill. Um. Anyway, there,
there's there's more to the picture than just Santa showing
up to Fish. As I mentioned, there's um more than
(36:45):
than just the fishery involved in these locations. So Berkeley
is donating up to twenty five thousand dollars to the
winning community and that can be used for anything fishing
related that they want. So um. The locations were also
very much tied to community needs. That money can be
used for conservation right or to promote fishing in the area.
So um, it's all for killer calls a matter of fact.
(37:06):
On the website, they explained that these specific organizations that
would benefit in each location, and here's what it said.
For Long Beach, a vote for Long Beach, California will
help El Dorado Regional Park purchase specific items related to
fishing and conservation education about the lake and wilderness. Additionally,
prize money will be used to help purchase items to
help preserve wildlife throughout the park. So that's pretty damn cool.
(37:30):
Man Like, that's just all around cool um cool contest.
Sana is also showing up with mountains and mountains of
tackle in gear Um and Berkeley. If he's late or something,
obviously we have a direct line to him as well,
So we'll we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll give him a kick
in the rs if need be. But I thought that
was great. That's a really cool contest. Yeah, man, I
(37:51):
mean so many of these events are not only do
they they kind of like highlight you know, certain fisheries
and like are they're sure they're good for content, right,
like you know you're gonna go out there and you're
you know you're gonna have a good time fishing or whatever.
But I really love it when they tie in like
all that conservation and bring attention to like a region
that you might not think of as as somewhere that
(38:13):
there is like some significant like fishing to be you know,
either improved from a public image standpoint or from a
constitution standpoint exactly exactly. And I think that's what's so
so cool about what they've done here. Initially you look
at that list and you're like, oh, I understand this spot,
understand this spot. Wait why here? But then if you
really read further into the specific reason that those five
(38:35):
were chosen, they're all very good reasons that would have
benefited um a lot of local anglers. So props for that.
And now I guess we'll we'll kick it over to
Phil for his Christmas Eve judgment. Hey Phil, what's what's
Santa bringing you? We'd love to know. And then as
soon as Phil finishes explaining it to all of us
non gamers, we've got a lovely, heartwarming Hallmark Channel ready
(38:57):
Christmas message from our dear friend river Horse. So for
Christmas this year, I asked Santa for an uplifting and
topical fish news story, and only one of you brought
that to me this week. Joseph Mellie, you're the winner.
And Hayden, I'm not too upset with you for trading
(39:18):
your holographic chancy for those two common Pikachu cards. You
know why because I was the guy that made that
trade with you all those years ago. Great a sucker,
Thanks for patting my kids college savings account. Merry Christmas. Hey, Now,
(39:44):
this is river Horse with some sagely wisdom coming to
you from the far North Arctic Circle in Swedish lap Plan,
where all of the reindeer on this earth originated from.
I'm on a little winter adventure with this mid try.
Is it cold, you ask, my lord, Let's just say
(40:05):
this place is set to chill. Speaking of all things chill,
perhaps this holiday season finds you cut up in this
sometimes bizarre Gonzo and beautiful hurricane of extended family hooplah
with all the loosens of making a living to navigate,
which for something can be a wee bit overwhelming. Oh
(40:30):
you just be it, no mine, Just calm your soul.
Late at night, after everyone else falls asleep, you just
quietly slip on out the back door, take a deep breath,
look up at the shimmering stars, and remember how lucky
we are to be here. There are millions of miles
(40:52):
of rivers, lakes and oceans with fish out there waiting
for you. As for me, I'm about to put a
kettle of snow water over this birch wood fire and
brew up some hot chocolate. Always say yes to whip
cream on top. Baby. Then I'll curl up on this
(41:14):
forest floor of pine needles in a sub zero down
sleeping bag and dream away of ten pound bass, all
lips and hips. Here's to you, my brothers and sisters.
I will see you along the path in I believe
(41:34):
in you. You got this, And remember you don't always
have to find the catch up a lifetime. Just find
someone and get on under the mistletoe, and oh, my lordy,
make it happen. River Hoards is genuinely the only dude
(41:57):
I know who can go from like an uplifting holiday
message to like straight up sensual in the span of
three words. No, dude, I know, and that's that's why
we love the guy. Like you come away from that
like did I even hang mistiletoe? Because I need to
get on that ship right now. Anyway, before we sign off,
We've got an end of the line that I'm particularly
(42:18):
excited about. Okay, So last Christmas, I did one on
the Panther Martin spinner and talked about how I used
to get them every Christmas from my uncle. And I
ended that by saying the story I was telling about
the panther and how near and dear it was to
my heart could easily be told similarly by someone else
that grew up throwing an entirely different brand of spinner,
(42:38):
And wouldn't you know it, our own Hayden Samak is
that different someone? Well, that's not loud enough. My earliest
memories are mostly fishing small streams with my dad and
my brother and my grandpa. We might have been fishing
for you know, Sonny's stockers or small news, but one
(43:01):
thing remained constant at the end of our lines always
a Swiss swing. Now, a Swiss swing is an inline
spinner with a brass bead body in silver, gold or
copper color, blade and bossed with scales and the words
Swiss swing. My brother and I grew up fishing them
almost exclusively. I assumed everyone knew what a Swiss swing was,
(43:22):
and I carry that assumption with me right up to
the point that I sat down to write this long
story short. I couldn't find any information on the spinner.
I couldn't find out who manufactured him, let alone how
they were developed. It became clear that if I wanted
to know more about this spinner, I was going to
have to look somewhere else. So I started researching a
(43:42):
similar but apparently more well known spinner called the Cpie
Swing in the Pantheon of great spinners, the Cpece Swing
is a cult classic, but oddly not much information exists
on the history of this spinner either. So I went
down yet another rabbit hole, which took me all the
way to the advent of inline spinner itself. It was
French engineer Andre Milnar who developed and patented the first
(44:06):
in line spinners. Eventually, a guy named Todd Sheldon started
selling them in the US, and in ye bought Millner's
company outright. That company was and is still known as Maps.
Now this is not a story about maps, but Maps specifically.
The Maps Shimmy might have played an important role in
(44:26):
the development of the CP Swing. If we look at
Milnar's original patent for the Maps Shimmy next to an
image of the Cpiece Swing, you will notice that the
Cpece Swing bears a striking resemblance to Milnar's drawings. As
I've said before, a history of the Cpece Swing is
hard to come by, and this might be the reason
for that. Comparing the two, I think it would be
(44:46):
fair to assume that the Cpece Swing was in fact
a knockoff of Milnar's original design for the METS Shimmy.
The fact that genuine CP swings are advertised as made
in France also points to this as a possibility. Perhaps
this is why a detailed history of the popular lure
is so hard to come by. The CP Swing is
(45:07):
probably a knockoff of an early map, and to that end,
we're nearly done unpacking a very unofficial and speculative history
of the Swiss Swing. Now I want to add one
thing in here. I noticed that in the forums and
online classifieds I was researching, many folks discussing and advertising
Swiss swings are based in the Northeast, and the majority
(45:29):
are located in my home state of Pennsylvania. This could
be the final piece of the puzzle. Listeners, together we
may have solved the mystery of why I know these
inline spinners as Swiss Swings. It seems one of the
talismans of my childhood is in fact a regional knockoff
of a knockoff made in some factory somewhere by someone,
(45:49):
though no one can tell you exactly who. Again, I
amt all of this is wildly speculative. If you know
something I don't write me. I'd be glad to hear
from someone who knows better than I. But to be
honest with you, the lack of definitive origin has quickly
become one of my favorite things about this familiar little spinner,
because in trying to uncover that origin, I've found the
(46:10):
story of the Swiss swing is written entirely by those
who use it. I want to end with something else
I discovered in my research a surprising and shared sentimentality
of the Swiss Swing. Folks wrote, oh Man that spinner
caught an absolute ton of Smalley's for Dad and I
in Cayuga, that back in the day, it's the only
spinner we used on trout, and they killed him. There
(46:32):
were dozens of anecdotes just like this, penned by all
sorts of fishermen, and most of them framed a little
spinner as a treasured part of their past. It seems
that I'm not alone in my fondness and nostalgia for
the Swiss Swing, and that speaks to a paradox I've
noticed within these more sentimental aspects of fishing, there are
certain things that fishermen will experience that are at once
deeply personal and somehow ubiquitous. Perhaps that's why, as fisherman,
(46:57):
we're able to meet a stranger on a river bank
and within minutes know them. Did you grow up fishing
a lure no one else seems to know about? Shoot
us a note at Bent at the Meat eater dot
com and tell us what personal favorite was at the
end of your line. So that's it for the Christmas
(47:18):
Eve version of Bent. We hope all of you have
a wonderful time with your friends and family, full of
holiday cheer, copious amounts of eggnog, and plenty of glazed
ham My friends. You know I got hammered once on eggnog,
and I really really don't recommend it. If you thought
a white Russian hangover is grossy, the whole a mother thing.
(47:39):
Yeahs are slightly thicker than the Russian. Slightly, it's heavy.
It's more of a simping drink, I've come to learn.
But what I do recommend is sending a bar nomination,
awkward photo, sale, bin item, newspiece, or question to Bent
at the meat eat dot com. You know I can
speak for Joe I say this we love hearing from
(48:01):
you guys. Yeah, I can also speak for myself to
and say we sure we surely do. Also keep using
those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on the gram
perhaps tag a fishy something Santa left you, and from
the bottom of our degenerate hearts, wells books, books, Merry Christmas.
You know here it Bent. We love the children. I
just really hope none we're listening to that because I
brought it. You you could have a goddamn monthly stick
on the shower. You make point first, Apple went in,
bought all the flies, bought a fly box to put
him in, went out to the river. Immediately lost the
fly box and it was one of the cool ones
(00:27):
with like it was like the aluminum and glass with
like the windows and ship. Just find someone to get
out on the mistletoe. Oh my, lady, make it happen.
Good morning to januarate anglers, and welcome to Bent the
Fishing Podcast that Jess wants to say. She falls in
a well as go cross, she gets kicked by the
mule and go back to normal. I don't know. I'm
(00:52):
Joe Surmelli and I'm hating Samac and I have no
idea what that was. Okay, you have to at least
know what it's from. I saw the title of it,
Like I know it's from that, But like I've adding
to the pantheon of movies that Hayden has not seen.
That is, uh, you've never seen The Christmas Vacation. To
(01:14):
have seen the Oh my God, I've never seen any
of like, I've never I know, there's like family vacation
and I've never I've never seen him. All right, all right,
you might hear something about that anyway, What that was
I opted out of Clark gris On saying folks, folks,
marry Christmas at the last second while putting this together.
And I opted into that because I felt like it,
(01:35):
because it's a better line, that's all. Is it the
anals or the animals? I think it's either way. It's
like tomato tomato. I'm sure. I'm sure listeners are gonna
let me know. Um, I mean, like you know, and
that's even if they're listening today anyway, because it's Christmas Eve.
So I guess it kind of gives us a license
(01:56):
to sort of say whatever we want without a bunch
of constants. Yeah, I think we can be a little
weirder than normal. Um. And you know what, since Ben started,
I swear to God, every major holiday has fallen on
a Friday, like without fail, Like join us next week
for the Yeah, join us next week for the New
Year's Eve show, like give me a break, you know. Uh,
(02:17):
But you know, despite that, we always have a good
time with holidays. I mean, if nothing else, it makes
coming up with a theme incredibly easy. So that's always
kind of nice. It is kind of nice. Like the
obvious thing for me to do right now is to
ask you, uh, these hotday scripts do right themselves? What
what would be leaving on your tree this year? Joe
(02:41):
I asked for a new set of drift boat oars,
which Santa set. He said, that's no problem, but the
LVC has working at cataract Ores, like I guess we'll
say embedded at cataract Ores. They're a little backed up,
So strong chance my oars won't end up under the
tree tomorrow morning. Like more like Santa might have to
swing by with other just before springs shadd season kicks in.
(03:02):
But how about you, what are you getting this year? Um?
I asked Santa Claus for a used truck topper. Um, well,
you know, I'm not gonna make like Santa source materials
and like the Times of COVID because like that's not cool.
It's like it's it's a little greedy. Um. And I'll
(03:24):
tell you what, Santa, I'm formerly offering to go have
these with you if you could find a used one
in like the two grand range. Um, I'll tell you
what one better. I'll go look on craigslist and save
the always the trouble and uh yeah, very low, very
(03:46):
low lift gift this year. That is so nice, man,
what a guy helping sand out like that? You know,
thinking about it, I I bet out there somewhere is
a Jerry the canoe salesman for truck toppers. I'll bet
you he exists. Yeah, probably, but instead of like a
cup of tea, you know, like pound natty ice and
a shot of yeager and uh and hang out with
(04:09):
them around like the burn barrel. You know, that could
be more interesting than the real Jerry. But dude, at
least doing that it would add an element of excitement
to receiving you know that gift. Um, I always felt
kind of sad, you know, like as you get older,
it's it's a little bit said. Yes, it's a little said,
because you know what you're getting, right, Like, you get
what you need, you get less junk, and you get
(04:31):
what you need. But the magic of sort of losing
sleep over whether or not something you ask for will
or will not be under the tree is gone. Um, Like,
oh man, so many specific presents come to mind for me.
But a big one was the micro machines race in
a case. The micro machine man here with the perfect crue.
Micro man want to come in first place? Got the
electric micro machines racing a case. Open the case to
(04:52):
start the race, clucking into play. It set up that way.
He great, your micro machines road great and stick the
track of both the world race past the barking like
Superstar Jerry at the point you're talking to carry away
the fun. Check out the carazing example, screw cars on
the micro machines around micro Machines racing the case and
bower Row competition race sts. He sold separately with two
road race and vehicles, power packs and controllers from Galube.
And I got it, but it kind of sucked, like
(05:15):
the cars didn't really stay on the track. It was
not that easy to pack back up into the case.
But I was still thrilled to have it, you know,
it was like it was a big one. Yeah. See,
Like I don't remember specific toys like that. It was
more whatever like I was obsessed with at the time,
like fishing or you know, hunting or where have you. Um,
(05:35):
But I was like when I was a kid, kid
I was really into Pokemon cards. Like um you were.
You may have been as enthralled by the micro machine commercials,
is I was about these kinds of commercials to be
the old man Pokemon master draggy. I think I am
(05:58):
the Bookemon game. You'll do awesome activities, wipes and meet
new friends. A speak in your journey could become a
Pokemon methods right there. See wow, Mancie, I had no idea, like,
have you and Phil bonded over this? Because I don't
(06:18):
think he could ever fire you. Isn't that some kind
of Pokemon warrior code? I I this is all news
to me. I think, other than working in Meteor, this
might be the only thing that Phil and I have
ever had in common. Um, although you know, and my
my Pokemon days are a little bit behind me. But
I remember being a kid and they were like ten
(06:41):
packs of Pokemon cards in my stocking one year, and
I went just like ape shit because it was never
like that. I wasn't from Like, it wasn't like when
I wanted something as a kid, I just got it
in spades, you know, if I if I begged enough
for it, like he got one pack of Pokemon cards. Yeah, yeah,
but you know, and every now and again it was
(07:01):
a special thing. Um, but he on Pokemon cards. Here's
something that's gonna dry Phil just in nuts when I
when Phil, this is for you man. When I was
in first grade, so I traded a holographic first edition
Chancey for two just regular as Pika Choose because the
(07:23):
show had led me to believe that Pikachu was the
best thing that there could possibly be. So you know
what that means. And I'm sure you're greating your teeth
right now. Um, he's gonna call you into his office
like with a little like buzz, like, Hayden can kind
of my office? Please? Thanks? He was like, what the um?
But thinking back on like a president, that really blew
(07:46):
my mind was I got a Crossman pellet gun. There
was a full on campaign involved. Did I snuck bb
gun onto my list every year? And I never actually
got one from Santa But my my grandfather used to
snap up everyone he saw at flea market, so I
had a whole arsenal at his place. Anyway, we certainly
(08:08):
hope you find what you want under the tree tomorrow.
Perhaps there will even be a few goodies from our sponsors.
Thirteen fishing. Um, if you were really good, like really
really good, maybe you'll even find the Black Betty Freefall
Carbon tenth Anniversary Trick Shop Edition ice reel. Have you
seen that one? I know you have, Dude, I ache
for one of those, Man, I ache for one of those.
(08:29):
It's like this, like brilliant gold. It shines like a
thousand sons. It's like the Excalibur of the ice fishing world.
That exactly. It kicks so much, ass man. Yeah, it's yeah,
it's very bold. It's either excalibur like the real O
d B would use. Um, but despite it being a
bold statement piece, it's also highly functional. I probably should
(08:51):
have asked Santa for one. You know, it's never too late,
man Um. You might get a chance in a very
special edition of our Upid Fire Q and a segment
covering water. I'm going in. I can hold it all right.
(09:17):
So now, Joe, a couple of weeks ago, I set
up kind of a cool interview about the issues on
the Madison River and we both thought it went like
we both thought it went really well. Death I mean
kind of cool. I'm just kidding. It was great. It
was great. Okay, Well for this installment of covering water.
I've kind of set up something a little extra special,
(09:38):
and I'm oh, I'm really excited. Today we're joined by
a very remote guest all the way from the North Pole.
That's right, boys and girls, we're here with the one
and only Santa Claus. What's you're okay? Man? I'm fine.
Merry Christmas? Oh right? Um? Like I said, we're here
(10:01):
with Santa and Joe. You said a certain someone might
want to say hi. Yeah, I was gonna. I was
gonna ask can my three year old say hi? Real quick?
Is that? Okay? That perfect? His name is? I know
what his name is? Right? Okay? Great? Hey, but come
(10:21):
me here for one second. If somebody I want you
to meet. Look who it is, Jamie? Who's that? Santa
rights so sleepy, he's real tired for making all the toys.
But kids know Santa's got a buzz on erge, what
a buzz? Actually? But what can you go downstairs? Why
(10:42):
don't you go downstairs for a little while? Okay, thanks buddy?
Come on, man, really, you guys just want to take
it from the top real quick. Yeah. I don't know
if you guys noticed, but it's Christmas Eve. Let's just
do the interview. Okay, so Hayden brought you in because
it turns out you're you're quite the avid angler. Now.
I know you're normally the one who asks this, but Santa,
(11:04):
what do you want for Christmas? Man? Well, Nick wants
is a trip to St. Bart's and some time off.
As a matter of fact, as soon as I get
done dropping off all this ship tonight, old Sandy Claus
is going to take a well deserved trip for some
billfits just me and Brandy. I mean, this is Claus.
You're gonna chase some bone fish while you're down there,
(11:26):
you know, I I hear it right there. I tried
the whole fly fishing for bone fish thing. That one
of those snot nosed twenty year old Instagram influencers womby
guys completely turned me off to that ship. Yeah well yeah,
that can that could be tough, um, but I guess
it's a good reminder for our listeners. Always make sure
(11:48):
you're booking it a really reputable guy, you know what
I mean? You know, their kids had the audacity to
tell me that if I had a Helios three like him,
maybe I'd be able to get out ten more feet
of line and actually make a shot. Mother. The only
reason you have a human three is because I brought
it to you. You couldn't afford a gut damn monthly
stick on the shower you make pulling tourists around the apicle. Yeah,
(12:09):
I can see how that that might be. Um. And
you know what else, all of you stop asking for
fancy ass setups for Christmas? Do you know how many
cease of assist orders I get from Saint Croix? Do
you know how many elves I've lost a graphite dustin
resent fumes? Do you know how many times I had
to take comfinitely time slay ride to avoid osha a lot? Okay,
(12:32):
stop it, Um, Maybe maybe we should just move on here. Okay,
let's just let's just all take a breath while I
explain exactly how covering water works. So this is our
rapid fire Q and a segment of ben. Okay, And
what Hayden and I are gonna do is gonna put
two minutes on the clock and we are just gonna
pepper you with questions. And the whole idea here is
(12:53):
that you don't really have any time to answer. You
can't think too hard. You just have to kind of
answer as quickly as you can. And what we'll do
at the end of this we promise um is to
give you one minute to expand or explain more about
whatever you think was the most damning answer. And and
based on how this has gone so far, I I
would I would expect that there's going to be some
(13:15):
damning answers. So does that all sound good? Sannah? I'm okay, perfectly.
We put two minutes on the clock here, Heyden, you're
gonna ask first, right, all right, let's see how this
goes and begin milk or cookies? What species of fish
is on your bucket list? How is that? How's that possible? Look?
(13:39):
I live in a magic group where all things are possible,
you idiot. But the permit is in all your years
of doing this, which lure has ended up in stockings
more than any other? I mean, it was a dirty
devil spoon for almost eighty years until some beside make
(14:00):
a crank bait that looks like a Budweiser kid. All right, uh,
favorite reindeer. I don't know yet. What what do you
mean you don't know yet? CWD man. We got a
new crew this year. They all got in c W.
D and died. No, it turns out was just blitz
(14:20):
and I had to test them all though. Whatever freezer
spul Holy shit, everyone is so consumed with clean energy,
yet you still rely heavily on cole Can you tell
us why you're kidding? Right? Really, that's your ethics question,
not the hundreds of years of forced the elephant labor. Look,
I got an endless supply of call up there. Okay,
(14:41):
you switch and putting hyper allergenic crystals or some ship
in the stockings of the kids that were asking Paul,
you're the cost of goods grows up? All right? Uh,
where's the one place you've always wanted to visit? Are
you fighting with me? I am literally going everywhere tonight.
What what your favorite fish eat? That's easy. I'm also
(15:03):
a big fan of Mah Dolphin like Flipper Dolphin. Yes,
Santa hates dolphins. Everybody, My man, who's the naughtiest angler
on your list this year? Ginger kids? You pay all
around with Ross robertson. What's your favorite lure of all time? Cricket?
(15:25):
Oh my god, we're running out of time here, best
gift you've ever got? Well, there's one of your Jack
Frost and the heat and miser got together and got
me this huge cake. Right they lift in the middle
of the workshop. Now I'm about to cut into it
and boom, Candy pops out. And I'm not talking about
Jolly Ranchers. I'm talking about Candy, one of the North
(15:48):
Pole dancers. Off alright, everyone, Uh, Santa Claus, Joe, you
want to wrap this up? And yeah, Santa, I, I I
know you're busy and I think you have to get going.
But fair is fair. You are supposed to have one
minute to expand on on any one of your answers.
Maybe you want to tell us a little bit more. Well,
(16:09):
let me just tell you a little bit more about Candy.
You know here it bent. We love the children. I
just really hope none we're listening to that, because you'll, dude,
you'll have three hundred kids at the mall next Christmas
(16:29):
asking Santa for Budweiser, crank baits and Michigan crickets. You
know what I mean. We might have We might have
done a disservice to the youth there. Yeah, in case. Uh.
You know, some listeners are extraordinarily ethical folks and have
never surrounded themselves with this type of company. A Michigan
cricket is a gigantic like weighted treble hook. It's like
(16:51):
an egg sink refused onto a treble hook, and it's
used to uh to snag fish. Now you can do
that like legally for like paddlefish, but most us of
the time you hear it talked about. It's in the
Great Lake salmon scene. Yeah, that's right, no offense Michigan.
But I did once I did want to see a
Pennsylvania conservation officer pull about fifteen of those out of
(17:13):
his glove box and he'd collected them along Elk and
Walnut Creek in just a couple of days, you know
what I mean. Like, I was like, I can't believe
it's that many. Pretty crazy, um, But you know what,
Speaking of snagging, let's see who snagged the better fishing
related story in this week's fish News. Fish News that
(17:35):
escalated quickly. Alright, so real quick question for you, have
you ever gotten allure or some flies for Christmas? Right?
And then you stare at them all winter because you
know it's winter so you can't run out to use
the new hula popper. And then the first time you
ever get them out of the water, you lose them, Well,
let me tell you a story. Man. I know you
(17:56):
love my long winded stories. Uh. I do something more uh.
Kind of analogous to that is the Edison Show. You
know you can go there and you get a whole
bunch of flies for like show. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. Man.
Well I just got sick of being burned on not
having super small flies. So I went there one time
with like two bucks in my pocket. I was like, look,
I'm gonna get all the midges. I'm gonna get all
(18:18):
like the little tiny baits. I'm gonna get all that
ship just taking care of right now. Went in, but
all the flies. Bought a fly box to put him in,
went out to the river, immediately lost the fly box.
Oh my god, you lost the entire bod, entire thing.
It was one of the cool ones with like it
was like the aluminum and glass with like the windows
and ship the little flip the switch English switch stream
(18:41):
style stuff jacket ye switchblade and stream same thing. I
don't have a specific lore or fly story, but it
happened to me um in another in another capacity with
a remote control boat, like I got one of those
for Christmas. Neither of these are actually related to the question. No,
I started with the question They're not really it at all.
But I was told by my dad not to touch
(19:02):
it until spring, and he would take me out and
show me how to use it. Did I listen? No?
And I sunk it. No. It was a really sweet
like chriscraft sport fisher and it went around you hit
an iceberg. No, it literally, I ship you not. It
just went around in one circle. The bow dipped and
it literally just drove itself underwater. And then I watched
(19:24):
it underwater, still driving, spiraled down. It was a bad
deal anyway. Here's why I started. What is why I
brought up lost lures because if you happen to need
a break from your family over the holidays, just quick
note that the final episode of the Canadian Angle with
j Siemens drops today on meat Eater's YouTube channel. And
here's what he does. He don's full Scooba gear, He
(19:44):
goes diving on Lake of the Woods for lost lures,
refurbishes them, and then uses your misfortune to score himself
an epic muskie to close it, like you you gotta
see it right, And I thought the whole premise was
extremely clever the way he did that. Yeah, man, that
that's a that's badass, man. I grew up fishing lake
wall in paw Pack a bunch. And let's say it's
(20:07):
a hydroelectric dam. Is like, you know the reason for
this lake being here, so the water level changes like constantly.
And where I lived, there was this shoal that went
straight out along this weed bed, and every summer around,
like you know, August is when they would drop the
lake the lowest you could go out on that shoal.
In addition to picking up like pretty fresh props, I
(20:29):
mean some of them were dinged up. Occasionally you can
find like a nice clean prop. You would find all
sorts of lures and cool crank baits and ship just
going all the way. People that's their hobby, man, Like
that's just what they barely fish to just pick up lures.
But anyway, I thought that was really neat. You should
watch that. Let's get on with the news here. We're
(20:49):
gonna try and keep it light and perhaps Festivus. I
don't know I've gone Festivus, but I don't know where
you've gone. Because this is a competition and we don't
know which story the other dude grabbed and at the end,
jolly old sat Philip of the audious Engineericus Mountains will
declare a winner and it is your lead this week,
my man, So have at it. Oh right, man. So
(21:14):
you know it's not super festive. It's not festive. It's
not festivus, is it? No? No, unless you can consider,
like you know, the destruction of one of the most
important fisheries in the world a festive occasion. That what
fishery are we talking about? All right? So, so recently
(21:34):
it was recommended that there be a four fifth reduction
on the cod catch in one of the two primary
New England cod fisheries. Can you can blame the Italians
seven fishes back a lot, man, it's pretty much all
the Italian's fault. Yeah, man, so uh, darn Italians. I'm
very Italian. Please don't at me. On on December tenth,
(21:58):
the New England Fishery Management Council decided on a quota
of five hundred and forty thousand pounds um. And this
is of you know, Atlantic cod, down from a previous
quota of two point four million pounds. So again, yeah, yeah,
four fifth reduction. The reduction would be for the George's Bank,
(22:21):
Um the other primary Atlantic cod fishery that way, the
Gulf of Maine will see the quota, Uh, stay you
know stable from last year. I believe it's five hundred
and ninety thousand pounds. Now. Look, reductions like this in
the economic short term suck. But this kind of management
(22:42):
really is essential for long term conservation goals. Uh. And
to contextualize that, we can look back on a little
history of New England's cod fishery to understand why. And Joe,
I'm gonna pass this to you in a second. It's
quite a history. Like yeah, it's yeah, so everybody likes cod.
You know, it's a white, firm, flaky fish. It's good
(23:04):
to eat, it's not fishing. Everybody likes it, man, the
same reason everybody likes Yeah, the same reason everybody likes
you know. But which is like always been kind of
like a funny thing to me. It's like upper echelon
of edible fishes. They're defining like characteristic people be like,
it's not fishy at all. Man, you're right. But see,
(23:25):
I can't I can't rip on that too much because
we've said, I've said a bunch of times on the show.
I think you have to like you and I are
not fans of overly fishy fish. No man, no man.
There's a reason that when I get like sushi and
it's like a sushi like chef's assortment or like you know,
dinner where it's like, you know, ten pieces or whatever,
I'm always like, hey, can you substitute the mackerel for like, yeah,
I need to say anything else, please assort the mackerel
(23:47):
off of the sushi platter than yah. Yeah. Um so.
But this was a resource that was hugely important. I mean,
it's been important in the context of history. In fact,
the dude who wrote the book Salt has that book cod.
I mean, like, there's a lot of meat on that bone. Um.
But it was. It was a hugely valuable resource for
not only in the indigenous folks of America, but for
(24:09):
early settlers as well. Now fast forward to the twenty
century and super efficient commercial processing, you know, on boats,
coupled with more efficient fishing techniques, the fishery became over fished.
And I mean, you know a lot more about that
particular history than I do. Yeah, I mean I've I've
(24:30):
done some cod fishing out of Montauk back in the day. Um,
and Barber just caught a surprise cod. Well, I was
gonna say, so, yeah, Eric, what would you say? His
last name was Garber, Curber, leave it in, leave it
in Curber. I'm gonna go, is this erring after we
go fishing with him? I don't know, Maybe so bad?
(24:51):
It's okay? Uh yeah, man, Eric Cerber, my boy Eric,
he recently it was it was a very big cod
for Jersey and it was very close in shore. Because
he was talking, he wasn't like way off shore. But
I've done some of this out of mom talk. Um.
There was a time when the Jersey boats were advertising
cod trips again, but it was kind of bullshit. Like
(25:12):
basically what that meant was, we'll take you out to
the lying grounds and probably two or three codd will
end up on somebody's line, you know, but to say
we're going out to target them and we could spend
hours on this. But the bottom line is, like cod
was such an important fish throughout the Northeast recreationally for
so many years. I mean, the party boats made their money,
the recreational captains. I remember reading articles in the archives
(25:33):
the field and stream like in the dead of winter
when the stripers were all gone. Dudes on cape cod
to go out there and surf fish for pound cod
like in the waves on cape cod. Um. And I've
had some good cod fishing. But the consensus that you
talked to any old heads, it's like this is nothing
crap like this. You know. It's like if you want
(25:53):
to if your dream was to catch a forty pound cod,
that is extremely hard to do anymore, you know, right right.
So so back in the day, like in ninth We're
gonna go to nineteen seventy six real quick. In nineteen
seventies six, the Magnuson Act, And this is what contributed
to a lot of like the pressure and a lot
of like the commercial over fishing. In nineteen seventy six,
the Magnuson Act. UH. It prohibited foreign operations from fishing
(26:17):
within the Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States. UH
the easy right, and the easy includes all fisheries within
two hundred miles of the U. S. Coast. Now you
would think that that would do you know, that would
alleviate the pressure. Well, yes, and no, I mean sure
from like foreign commercial fleets eliminated all that pressure unilaterally. UM.
(26:39):
But because folks got so excited about like the lack
of you know, international competition, the U S Fleet expanded
in the pressure on the resource within that two hundred
mile like buffer zone intensified. Yeah, it's it's a it's
a very like you're it's so back in the day.
I mean, there's a thing called the cod or has
(27:00):
been raging forever. But yeah, back in the day, like
you'd have Russian boats on Georgia's bank, like from you know,
it was insane, but you're right, that's exactly what happened.
They got all them out, and everybody's like, well now,
my mid my, my mind, my mind. And it was
such an economic driver that that's exactly what happened. We
we overfished them, We got them out and overfished in ourselves,
you know. Right. So since then, or maybe not since then,
(27:20):
but you know, within the wake of that act um
in the last forty years or so, the decline UH
intake has been sort of like precipitous. To contextualize that,
in the nineteen eighties, right, annual catches typically topped a
hundred million pounds of common and then after a crashing,
you know, the nineties, not not so much. Um. Now,
(27:45):
there is a lot of these conservation stories. Man, they're
like so doom and gloom that I feel like it
gets people unenthusiastic about good changes that are being made,
even if they're difficult changes. Right. Some people like the
react and is oh, well, like I'll never go do
that because it's just so messed up. Some people throw
their hands up and say, well, if it's this messed
(28:06):
up already, why not make hay and while the sun
shines yaum. But there is good news uh per noah um.
In the Gulf of Maine fishery, a tenuere rebuilding plan
has been implemented for this stock and the stock is
targeted to rebuild by twenty four golf main, as I
(28:29):
understand it, they have the best thing going, Like, that's
the best cod fishery in the Northeast right now is
in the Gulf Main. Yeah, and this has been the
second you know, this is the second rebuilding plan for
this stock. So, I mean it's something that you know,
folks have had their eye on and they've been trying
to you know, perpetuate the resource now with continued careful management.
Back to what we're talking about, which is this you
(28:50):
know four five quota slash on George's bank. The George's
bank stock is scheduled to rebuild by So a lot
of these like management programs people have like the idea
of like, okay, we'll implement these cuts that like is
no there are no fun for anybody, and then we'll
see what happens. You know, it's important to remember that,
(29:12):
you know, similar to like, uh, you know, the other
week we covered you know, the macinaw in the Flathead Lake. YEP.
There are defined conservation goals attached to these plans, and
when these plans are successful and that goal is met,
you got something a lot better than that resource that
(29:33):
wasn't doing so well before these plans were implemented. So,
you know, take your medicine and weal come out with
a better thing. Um. You know. Another interesting like kind
of thing to note is kind of how we consume
fish in the effect that it has on fisheries. UM.
For instance, speaking of like you know, to keep it
(29:55):
on cod, a shift to the more stable and economical
polock has taken a lot of pressure off the cod fisheries. Uh.
To contextualize that McDonald's fish filet was cod now pollock.
That's interesting. Well, maybe I was not aware that McDonald's
filet of fish was ever truly caught. I thought it
(30:16):
was cod from Alaska, but that's neither here nor there. Um.
You know. The funny thing is I haven't had a
piece of cod in probably ten years, and the last
time I ate it, I caught it. Because if I
see it in a fish market, it's usually too expensive,
and if I see it on a menu, I just
don't ever believe that it's cod because I know so
(30:38):
much about the cod fishery. I'm like, really, this is
twenty bucks a pound in the fish market, but I
can have the all I can eat cod fish and chips.
I doubt it. But the truth is there's nothing wrong
with pollock. It always gets downplayed like that's not as good.
Pollock is delicious, and there's a lot more of them,
you know. Do you know what the fish filet was
(30:58):
even before cod? This is the second switch? Do you
know what the fish filet was made with? Originally? I don't,
but I'm gonna take a wild stab dog fish. No. No,
The first thing that the McDonald's fish filet was made
of was actually hell of it. Oh oh, and then
they got Yeah, that makes a lot of Well, here's
(31:21):
one final note on on cod. You know, everybody's like,
oh my god, fresh cod. There's nothing like fresh cod.
You ask anybody who's ever caught a cod. Ever, it
is extremely rare to catch one that is not riddled
with worms. Almost every cod is full of worms. Now
they're big worms, and you can there's a method to
get them out. They'll crawl right out. But still, I'll
(31:42):
never forget the first time I ever went cod fish
and put them in a brine. I actually wrap them
in a paper towel, and a lot of times they'll
just come out on their own in the fridge. Yeah,
there's there's a there's a few different ways. But I
remember I caught a pile of it off Mont Talk.
My my wife, who was just my girlfriend at the time,
was living in New York City, and I brought all
this cod to her apartment and the girl should live
with I was like, I am making you ladies fresh CODs.
(32:04):
Tonight busted out the flats and it was just like
freaking orange worms everywhere, and it was a total turn off.
It doesn't bother me, but a lot of people, if
they knew like even if you buy fancy cod, that
ship had worms in it before it got to you, guarantee.
Speaking of unexpected and surprisingly brightly colored, man, I know
(32:24):
you've seen this a bunch of I'm sort of familiar
with it, but I don't understand the nuances of it.
Every now and again you will see an electric blue
cod down to the color of the filet. Do you
know what? But you know I've seen that. I don't
know what causes it though, I don't know if it's
if it's diet or what. But I mean, I imagine
(32:45):
that pigmentation has to be somewhat similar to like how
don't ling mouths on the West Coast like during certain phases.
I don't, I don't. I'm I'm making ship up. I
don't know why that happens. But I have seen that before.
There's also bright blue lobsters. That's a real prize thing
up there, See, listeners, we don't know everything. We don't.
I thought you were gonna I thought I was gonna
tee you up and you're gonna hit it out of
(33:06):
the park, man, I was, I thought, I don't. I
don't know anything about a blue cod. Man, I don't
know that's what that ship is whacked. How about let's
you know, let's let's say I'm gonna get a little
more festive and I'm I'm gonna, I'm gonna this is
a little more uplifting, I guess, um, and just just
(33:28):
a little more festive in general. And um, I'm gonna
have to uh kick it back to Santa Claus here.
So I know, we just talked to Santa and he
had told us he wanted to go bill fishing somewhere.
But but he must not have gotten the memo yet
because it's apparently already been determined where he'll be fishing
on December. And here's how it was determined. Berkeley Fishing
(33:49):
teamed up with Santa for quite the contest, and here's
the gist in Santa's own voice, via Berkeley's website. I
love to fish. I've been fishing all around the world,
and this year I thought I'd try to find someplace
new and exciting. So I asked my friends at Berkeley
Fishing if they could help me find the location that
(34:13):
is the best fishing spot, and they said that they
would love to do that. Santa sounds different in that
it doesn't sound like he's like kindler, gentler, more cohering,
you know. Anyway, Yeah, let you let you exactly um anyway. Naturally,
I'm always intrigued when like the best fishing towns or
(34:35):
trout towns or striper towns or whatever are ranked, right,
and this style of clickbait journalism is it's like rampant.
Now you can find a list of the of the
five best cities for anything these days, like five best
cities for people who love socks, best places to later
if you hate pet stores, you know whatever. Anyways, what
Berkeley did was that they put out a call for
town submissions. That was step one, and they told me
(34:56):
they received more than forty town nominations from they whittled yeah, yeah, yes,
but still forty okay um. From those, they whittled down
the list to the following five locations where Santa could
end up. So these were the choices. Heartwell, Georgia, which
is home of Heartwell Lake and that's a pretty epic
(35:16):
bass fishery Huntsville, Alabama. That's also some killer bass fishing
and crappy fishing down there. Springfield, Illinois and which honestly,
nothing is jumping out at me regarding famed fisheries in Springfield.
But that's okay because, as we'll learn, um, these towns
weren't just chosen based on having a big time local fishery.
There were other reasons for the decision. Other choices last
(35:40):
to Long Beach, California, which is on the coast just
south of l A. And finally Panama City Beach, Florida.
So the next phase of the contest was that they
asked people to vote on one of those five location
(36:00):
on Santa Arsanta definitely would have gone to Panama City. Yeah,
I mean that's a that's a party town, right, it's
party town. Um. And and so you vote and Santa
will will roll into whichever town wins on December. Um.
And it turns out here is where Santa is actually going.
(36:22):
Long Beach, California scored the most votes, which doesn't totally
rule out bill Fish for old st Nick Like it's
it's a long run, but Swordfish qualifies, right, he can
fly can fly his slay over to Catalina with the
eight wide and dance with a broad bill. Um. Anyway, there,
there's there's more to the picture than just Santa showing
up to Fish. As I mentioned, there's um more than
(36:45):
than just the fishery involved in these locations. So Berkeley
is donating up to twenty five thousand dollars to the
winning community and that can be used for anything fishing
related that they want. So um. The locations were also
very much tied to community needs. That money can be
used for conservation right or to promote fishing in the area.
So um, it's all for killer calls a matter of fact.
(37:06):
On the website, they explained that these specific organizations that
would benefit in each location, and here's what it said.
For Long Beach, a vote for Long Beach, California will
help El Dorado Regional Park purchase specific items related to
fishing and conservation education about the lake and wilderness. Additionally,
prize money will be used to help purchase items to
help preserve wildlife throughout the park. So that's pretty damn cool.
(37:30):
Man Like, that's just all around cool um cool contest.
Sana is also showing up with mountains and mountains of
tackle in gear Um and Berkeley. If he's late or something,
obviously we have a direct line to him as well,
So we'll we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll give him a kick
in the rs if need be. But I thought that
was great. That's a really cool contest. Yeah, man, I
(37:51):
mean so many of these events are not only do
they they kind of like highlight you know, certain fisheries
and like are they're sure they're good for content, right,
like you know you're gonna go out there and you're
you know you're gonna have a good time fishing or whatever.
But I really love it when they tie in like
all that conservation and bring attention to like a region
that you might not think of as as somewhere that
(38:13):
there is like some significant like fishing to be you know,
either improved from a public image standpoint or from a
constitution standpoint exactly exactly. And I think that's what's so
so cool about what they've done here. Initially you look
at that list and you're like, oh, I understand this spot,
understand this spot. Wait why here? But then if you
really read further into the specific reason that those five
(38:35):
were chosen, they're all very good reasons that would have
benefited um a lot of local anglers. So props for that.
And now I guess we'll we'll kick it over to
Phil for his Christmas Eve judgment. Hey Phil, what's what's
Santa bringing you? We'd love to know. And then as
soon as Phil finishes explaining it to all of us
non gamers, we've got a lovely, heartwarming Hallmark Channel ready
(38:57):
Christmas message from our dear friend river Horse. So for
Christmas this year, I asked Santa for an uplifting and
topical fish news story, and only one of you brought
that to me this week. Joseph Mellie, you're the winner.
And Hayden, I'm not too upset with you for trading
(39:18):
your holographic chancy for those two common Pikachu cards. You
know why because I was the guy that made that
trade with you all those years ago. Great a sucker,
Thanks for patting my kids college savings account. Merry Christmas. Hey, Now,
(39:44):
this is river Horse with some sagely wisdom coming to
you from the far North Arctic Circle in Swedish lap Plan,
where all of the reindeer on this earth originated from.
I'm on a little winter adventure with this mid try.
Is it cold, you ask, my lord, Let's just say
(40:05):
this place is set to chill. Speaking of all things chill,
perhaps this holiday season finds you cut up in this
sometimes bizarre Gonzo and beautiful hurricane of extended family hooplah
with all the loosens of making a living to navigate,
which for something can be a wee bit overwhelming. Oh
(40:30):
you just be it, no mine, Just calm your soul.
Late at night, after everyone else falls asleep, you just
quietly slip on out the back door, take a deep breath,
look up at the shimmering stars, and remember how lucky
we are to be here. There are millions of miles
(40:52):
of rivers, lakes and oceans with fish out there waiting
for you. As for me, I'm about to put a
kettle of snow water over this birch wood fire and
brew up some hot chocolate. Always say yes to whip
cream on top. Baby. Then I'll curl up on this
(41:14):
forest floor of pine needles in a sub zero down
sleeping bag and dream away of ten pound bass, all
lips and hips. Here's to you, my brothers and sisters.
I will see you along the path in I believe
(41:34):
in you. You got this, And remember you don't always
have to find the catch up a lifetime. Just find
someone and get on under the mistletoe, and oh, my lordy,
make it happen. River Hoards is genuinely the only dude
(41:57):
I know who can go from like an uplifting holiday
message to like straight up sensual in the span of
three words. No, dude, I know, and that's that's why
we love the guy. Like you come away from that
like did I even hang mistiletoe? Because I need to
get on that ship right now. Anyway, before we sign off,
We've got an end of the line that I'm particularly
(42:18):
excited about. Okay, So last Christmas, I did one on
the Panther Martin spinner and talked about how I used
to get them every Christmas from my uncle. And I
ended that by saying the story I was telling about
the panther and how near and dear it was to
my heart could easily be told similarly by someone else
that grew up throwing an entirely different brand of spinner,
(42:38):
And wouldn't you know it, our own Hayden Samak is
that different someone? Well, that's not loud enough. My earliest
memories are mostly fishing small streams with my dad and
my brother and my grandpa. We might have been fishing
for you know, Sonny's stockers or small news, but one
(43:01):
thing remained constant at the end of our lines always
a Swiss swing. Now, a Swiss swing is an inline
spinner with a brass bead body in silver, gold or
copper color, blade and bossed with scales and the words
Swiss swing. My brother and I grew up fishing them
almost exclusively. I assumed everyone knew what a Swiss swing was,
(43:22):
and I carry that assumption with me right up to
the point that I sat down to write this long
story short. I couldn't find any information on the spinner.
I couldn't find out who manufactured him, let alone how
they were developed. It became clear that if I wanted
to know more about this spinner, I was going to
have to look somewhere else. So I started researching a
(43:42):
similar but apparently more well known spinner called the Cpie
Swing in the Pantheon of great spinners, the Cpece Swing
is a cult classic, but oddly not much information exists
on the history of this spinner either. So I went
down yet another rabbit hole, which took me all the
way to the advent of inline spinner itself. It was
French engineer Andre Milnar who developed and patented the first
(44:06):
in line spinners. Eventually, a guy named Todd Sheldon started
selling them in the US, and in ye bought Millner's
company outright. That company was and is still known as Maps.
Now this is not a story about maps, but Maps specifically.
The Maps Shimmy might have played an important role in
(44:26):
the development of the CP Swing. If we look at
Milnar's original patent for the Maps Shimmy next to an
image of the Cpiece Swing, you will notice that the
Cpece Swing bears a striking resemblance to Milnar's drawings. As
I've said before, a history of the Cpece Swing is
hard to come by, and this might be the reason
for that. Comparing the two, I think it would be
(44:46):
fair to assume that the Cpece Swing was in fact
a knockoff of Milnar's original design for the METS Shimmy.
The fact that genuine CP swings are advertised as made
in France also points to this as a possibility. Perhaps
this is why a detailed history of the popular lure
is so hard to come by. The CP Swing is
(45:07):
probably a knockoff of an early map, and to that end,
we're nearly done unpacking a very unofficial and speculative history
of the Swiss Swing. Now I want to add one
thing in here. I noticed that in the forums and
online classifieds I was researching, many folks discussing and advertising
Swiss swings are based in the Northeast, and the majority
(45:29):
are located in my home state of Pennsylvania. This could
be the final piece of the puzzle. Listeners, together we
may have solved the mystery of why I know these
inline spinners as Swiss Swings. It seems one of the
talismans of my childhood is in fact a regional knockoff
of a knockoff made in some factory somewhere by someone,
(45:49):
though no one can tell you exactly who. Again, I
amt all of this is wildly speculative. If you know
something I don't write me. I'd be glad to hear
from someone who knows better than I. But to be
honest with you, the lack of definitive origin has quickly
become one of my favorite things about this familiar little spinner,
because in trying to uncover that origin, I've found the
(46:10):
story of the Swiss swing is written entirely by those
who use it. I want to end with something else
I discovered in my research a surprising and shared sentimentality
of the Swiss Swing. Folks wrote, oh Man that spinner
caught an absolute ton of Smalley's for Dad and I
in Cayuga, that back in the day, it's the only
spinner we used on trout, and they killed him. There
(46:32):
were dozens of anecdotes just like this, penned by all
sorts of fishermen, and most of them framed a little
spinner as a treasured part of their past. It seems
that I'm not alone in my fondness and nostalgia for
the Swiss Swing, and that speaks to a paradox I've
noticed within these more sentimental aspects of fishing, there are
certain things that fishermen will experience that are at once
deeply personal and somehow ubiquitous. Perhaps that's why, as fisherman,
(46:57):
we're able to meet a stranger on a river bank
and within minutes know them. Did you grow up fishing
a lure no one else seems to know about? Shoot
us a note at Bent at the Meat eater dot
com and tell us what personal favorite was at the
end of your line. So that's it for the Christmas
(47:18):
Eve version of Bent. We hope all of you have
a wonderful time with your friends and family, full of
holiday cheer, copious amounts of eggnog, and plenty of glazed
ham My friends. You know I got hammered once on eggnog,
and I really really don't recommend it. If you thought
a white Russian hangover is grossy, the whole a mother thing.
(47:39):
Yeahs are slightly thicker than the Russian. Slightly, it's heavy.
It's more of a simping drink, I've come to learn.
But what I do recommend is sending a bar nomination,
awkward photo, sale, bin item, newspiece, or question to Bent
at the meat eat dot com. You know I can
speak for Joe I say this we love hearing from
(48:01):
you guys. Yeah, I can also speak for myself to
and say we sure we surely do. Also keep using
those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on the gram
perhaps tag a fishy something Santa left you, and from
the bottom of our degenerate hearts, wells books, books, Merry Christmas.
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