Ep. 75: My Crappie Swing Has Mad FG-Force

This week on “Frayed Family Ties,” we: teach your child how to earn an iPod with a knife and a thirst for cod blood, go float-n-fly dunking for suspended fishing licenses, make a case for a knot that apparently only dorks use, and grab a drink at a trouty bar with its own theme song.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
For the kid. It's like, I don't feel like walking
the dogs today. It's like, yeah, let me see you
stand outside until two o'clock in the morning and subarctic
conditions cutting out cod tongues, you know. For that's such
a punk. Pulled the lever for the parliament, went outside,
smoked one dude. That thing must have been in there
for twenty years. I took like one drag and I
think the whole cigarettes just went up in that place.
Oh yeah, come up to the Pilaski. Man, everybody's just

(00:27):
got motto on their fly reel. I always feel like
it's too difficult of a not it's actually pretty easy.
Oh well, all right, and good morning to gendered anglers,
and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that prefers to
wet its knots with someone else's saliva before sinching them tight.
I'm Joe Surmelli. That's how you get the COVID and

(00:50):
I'm hating salmac. Yes you are? You are still hating?
Uh yeah? And yeah today, how are you feeling better?
By the way you're all over your you know? Oh yeah, yeah, well,
you know, like I said, I didn't really end up
again like that. Stick to begin with, you don't have
the long COVID very thankfully, No, I do not. It
appears away. It might drop dead in ten years, but

(01:12):
you know I don't. Yeah, well, yeah, so so might
we all? Who knows? Anyway, Uh, today on the show,
let's see what we got. We're gonna talk about get this.
We got a bar today with its own theme song.
Excited about that, And we're gonna talk about knots and
everybody loves to talk knots, right, um, And by the
end of this you you might finally get off And

(01:34):
by you, I mean you hate and finally get off
the clinch knot I think you use for everything. Isn't
that what you do? It's so easy? I mean, I
mean sort of sort of it is. But life, you know,
sometimes life is hard anyhow? Um you know? So hey, look,
you did finally make it back to Montana. Did Phil's
announcement last week spark spark a little more enthusiasm to

(01:56):
get back? Did it once again? Early again? Joe? And
then listeners, here's a weekly reminder that I am, in
fact not high. Yeah. I don't know why people won't
let this go. Have you guys ever considered like I
might just be kind of dumb. No no, no, no, no,
I don't say that You're not dumb. You're just You're

(02:17):
just special and that's why we love you. And I
hope it never dies. I think we should just keep
that one going, you know. Thanks anyway, Yes, I did
in fact make it back to Montana. Yeah. Well, you know,
with all those delays and and rescheduling, you know, I
got to thinking about it, and I'm like, you were
here for so much extra time. We probably still could
have gotten a fishing trip in. We didn't know that

(02:39):
you were going to get stuck. But in hindsight, I'm like, damn,
you actually were here with a negative COVID result for like,
you know, three or four more days and you should
have been Yeah. Um, and the weather was nice, I
mean relatively speaking, so uh yeah, we we probably could have.
But I did get to hit the I did get
to hit the ice. I was gonna say, you did.
You did one wish did come true for you? You You

(03:00):
got you finally got back out there and back out
on the ice this weekend. How was that? It was good?
I got to break out all that ship that thirteen
sent me and everything that i'd hoped for and more.
There you go. So now having actually finally gotten to
use it, um any any favorite piece of of thirteen
fishing gear emerge out of the glorious pile you were sent. Yeah,

(03:24):
I'm gonna get into it, like you know, I think
we'll talk about a little more in this episode later on.
But uh, what we ended up fishing for was mostly like,
there was this farm pond that we ended up fishing,
and so I bought a lot of the lighter stuff.
You know, there aren't any like Walleye or like anything
super big in it. But I was fishing one of

(03:44):
those little ultra light omens with like the split grip.
I love that thing, man, It's it's unbelievably sensitive and
so like the blank starts around right and then the
tapers into like a flat like ribbon of metal. So
it's the tip of supersensitive. So you don't have to
use one of those what do you call like those
like spring dipper things. Oh god, yeah, I know you

(04:07):
know what I'm talking about. I I do. I don't,
I don't, I don't know the lingo, but I know
exactly what you mean. But yeah, those rods are pretty
slick like the tip of those rods. It's like it's
like a noodle, but it works somehow, especially light for
smaller light biting fish. Yeah totally. I mean, like you know,
it's it's good for two things, right, You can really
see anytime something interacts with your bait. And then also

(04:30):
if you just like move your wrist to touch, it
kind of works as like a spring to amplify that.
So it gives you like a really nice action. And
that rod, because of how it's designed, has some really
like it has some surprising backbone to it too. I
actually hooked into like a fairly sizeable brook trout, like
you know, fifteen inches, which you know for a brook trod,

(04:51):
was like a great brookie And man, I licked that
thing before it knew it was hooked, you know. So anyhow,
the split grip Ultra light omen is a new favorite,
and I'm a big fan of that. Yeah. Yeah, I
lick a lot of brookies before they know they're hooked.
When you do that, you would end up over your shoulder,
you know what I mean, on those little streamers like
to fish just like, oh he's behind me, Tony. Anyway,

(05:13):
that's that's actually not where I thought go with that.
But but yeah, no, I could have gone in several directions,
but I chose that one. Um, since you we choose
to wed our brookies with other people saliva too, Yeah right,
exactly exactly. Um. But well, looks since you've left, it
has gotten colder here, um, but still not cold enough

(05:33):
for local safe ice. So I'm not using any of
my thirteen nice fishing gear, at least not around the way.
You know what I'm saying, Maybe a little bit of
skim ice that's gonna go away when it gets back
to forty five this week. Um. Anyhow, moving on to
those knots. Did you know I'm actually fascinated by fishing knots.
And here's why. I think that anglers obsess over them

(05:55):
too much. Right, Like, in my opinion, there are four
maybe five knots every angler should know and that's it. Yeah, yeah,
I you know, we were joking about me using a
clinch knot for everything. That's not exactly true, but uh,
you know, I think they're like people are like, oh,
you gotta use this for this, and this for that

(06:16):
and this for there are a whole bunch of knots
that have like different applications, right, But you know, I
don't think that you know, if you're a saltwater fisherman,
you use a series of knots if you're yeah, as
I was gonna say, right, so it's situational. And now,
in my opinion, every anglersh should know the clinch, palamar,
non slip, mono loop and a unique union splice. And

(06:38):
then like you say, there, there's there's outliers like if
you fly fish for trout, you gotta add a blood
not today have to know how to tie that. Um.
If you saltwater fish, you should probably be able to
tie a spider hitch. Maybe not the Bamni twist, but
the spider hitch. Um. But what I see happening, uh,
is these new knots get popularized by the internet right
on like TikTok and reels. There's always these little tutorials

(06:59):
on tie these crazy knots, which is fine and new
is good, there's nothing wrong with that. But then what happens,
I feel like other knots apparently become weaker. It's like, oh,
you're still tying the palamar. That's so two thousand five dude,
you know what I mean? Only only not I'll use
these days to San Diego jam, Like, come on, man,
and not that was good ten years ago. It's still
for the most part of good. Knot Yeah, people are

(07:21):
too obsessed with knots, man, And like, here's the thing.
If I wanted to spend all my free time tying knots,
I'd get into crocheting and not like five fishing. The
my like kid basically is like five turned clinch kids,
the improved clinches in garbage. Don't use it, um oh,
explain yourself so you don't go back through the loop

(07:42):
to make it improve. Because here's like the thing that
to me, because of how that not tightens when you
pull it back through, sometimes that loop will close on
your tag end, and before the the turns around, your
main line have like seated themselves. So you're saying a
lot of times and this is just for me, you know,

(08:03):
I shouldn't say it's garbage for everyone. Man, If you're
better at that, I just find that they don't sit
as well. And I find that I guess it kind
of I guess an opening that loop a little bit
by bringing your tag end back through, you kind of
take some pressure off of it. And I guess it's
not cutting in so much. But no, no, I wasn't
trying to give you a hard time. It's actually I'm

(08:23):
I was intrigued that you said that because there have
been articles written right and and some other like really
hardcore anglers that say the same thing. You don't need
to go back through the loop. I don't think you
need to do that, man. I think it's like a
I think it depends. Yeah, I think it depends on
what you're tying it with. But my point I was

(08:44):
gonna say was, even though I've read them and I
probably think that's right, I can't not do it. I can't.
But I can't not go back through the loop. And
I know other fishermen who read the same thing. They're like, yeah,
but I can't do it. I can't not. It just
doesn't feel right. I will say before we move off
of this um. The only time that I tie it
is if I'm using a clinch shot for some reason

(09:07):
on like a bigger hook that for some like I
don't want to smell or something like that. Like so
if if I'm like bait fishing or whatever. But I'm
trying to think of like a good way to wrap
this up. If I'm using like, if I'm using a
hook with like a heavy gauge wire and I'm trying
a clinch shot on it for some reason, I will
use the improved clinch because the diameter of like the
hook I sometimes your regular clinch will slip a little bit. Well,

(09:30):
that's that's what it all boils down to, is diameter.
In a matter of fact. You know, if if you're
doing twenty pound tests or heavier, you don't need five
turns three, I'll do it and we turn clinch on
a heavy saltwater leader. No problems there, No problems there anyway.
We'll get off of that now. And I just want
to reiterate that new you know, it's not that new
knots aren't cool or good. It's just that I think

(09:51):
we get obsessed with them. And there's one not in
particular that has really blown up and let's say the
last five six years or so. So we're gonna move
been to actually a very special tackle hacks for a change,
UM with Elite series bass pro Carl Jakobsen, who was
here a while ago, UM to discuss this not and
let's see if he sells you on the merits of

(10:13):
what I'd considered the second most pain in the ass,
not next to the Biminy twist. I'm getting hacks coming
from inside the City the Blood at joining us today
for tackle hacks. Carl Jocobson is here, uh bass Master
Elite Series angler. You've been on before for smooth moves,

(10:36):
reminding everybody you were the first Australian angler to qualify
for the bass Master Elite Series. Um. Yeah, Man, whenever
we have a chance to get like a really high
caliber bass pro on like yourself, we'd be remiss not
to get a tackle hack, because, i mean, bass is
America's fish. We have a lot of anglers that chase bass.
So I'm always so curious to hear uh tips from

(10:56):
from guys like yourself to do this for a living
with everything on the line, with all the pressure, something
that that you have in your repertoire, you lean on
a lot that can just make Joe Weekend Angler a
better bass fisherman. Man. The floor is yours, Coral, Yeah,
no doubt. Um, thanks having us on. I think the
best one for me is we talked about it before,

(11:17):
is the f G knot And that's a question that
we get asked a lot is braid to leader, what
not to tie? How do you tie it? Should you
use straight through fluora carbon, when do you use braid um?
But the FG not sort of eliminates a lot where
you can get the best of both worlds. And it's
a difficult not to tie, but if you learn it,
it's sort of worth it. And the reason is it's
a platt so a lot of braid leader knots um

(11:40):
that will be the weakest point in your line and
a lot of people lose. You know, you go out there,
you spend all that money and and to go out
and fish, and then you lose that trophy fish of
that fish that you've been chasing for the whole time
because of a failed knot is not a good feeling,
and it happens all the time to so many So um,
learning a good braid lee to n is key and

(12:01):
being able to use big long leaders. When you do so,
you kind of get the best of both worlds. You
get that stretch um and the allow on their bait
to to move naturally with a big long fluori carbon leader.
But then getting the feel and the hook set and
everything of having braid and the and the lightness of braid.
You know, the castability and everything that comes along with trade.

(12:22):
So the f G knot is a platid knot that
is very thin and long. The break the fluora carbon
does not turn. It stays straight, so it flies through
your guides super smooth. It doesn't catch and break your
lure off or just have a one of those ones
where you cast in your bait just slams the water,
which happens a lot with the leader. It just eliminates that.

(12:44):
Then it's a hundred percent not strength UM, so you
get um, that's not the weakest point in your line anymore.
It's actually the strongest point. It's going to break everywhere else.
And generally what I found when I started tying it
is I like to improve my not to my lure then,
but because that was where the point was breaking. And
so I've done it now to where I don't know
where it's gonna break. When I get snagged, usually straighten

(13:07):
as the hook or break somewhere on the loudest part
of the later um. Although you know, usually dawn need
the bite where it's like being roughed up or something
like that. So for me it would be learned that
f J not in a good not to your bite,
and uh, you'd be enjoying fishing bride later a little better.
I'm actually really pumped you you brought up this not
because it's an interesting topic. First of all, if I'm

(13:28):
not mistaken, it was the Australian anglers that popularized that not.
I mean I remember, like five six years ago in
the saltwater scene, nobody was talking about the f G
and all of a sudden, I do a lot of
saltwater fishing. You see like that is everybody will tell
you that is now the only not worth using. Um.
I use it a ton to saltwater fish, like tune
in stuff. But here's my issue with it, And maybe

(13:49):
you have a quick add on to fix this. I
love it, but I need to set up all my
rods tonight before to be out there doing all that
plating and crossing over. But and if something does break,
or if I have to do one on the water
while we're rocking around in six foot seas, I always
feel like it's too difficult of a not to do
properly in those conditions. But I know some guys are

(14:10):
very good at tying them faster. Like, is there people
people listening. It's one you've got to look up on
YouTube because it's very hard to explain how to tie it.
But once they understand that, is there anything that comes
to mind that like makes you tie that knot quicker
and smoother on the water, it's actually pretty easy. People
get too caught up making it look with making it

(14:30):
look they not easy to explain why. Sorry, it's easy
to um, but people try and get caught up with
making it look pretty, and that's what happens. They want
it to look perfect and they want all the plats.
But the truth is the second that you've done five

(14:52):
uh plats, that's the knot it's done. Like all the
rest of it is just is nothing. The not, the
strength of the not is in those first five to
ten plats. And so you guys gonna have a laugh
at my expense, but I'm going to take that to
the bank because when these things first came out, it's
like you have to do cross and you're our mouth
there with the thing in my mouth for five minutes

(15:13):
trying on one leader. You don't have to have a
certain amount, but the not strength is in those first
few plats. So you get them correct, then just plat
it and then half hitch it to finish it off
and just do don't get crazy. They want to do
all the different types of ones to make it like
looks like it's a needle point. And that's the way

(15:36):
I do it the night before. But during the tournament,
I can tie it as quicker than anyone can tie
night Like. I sit on the leader, I pull it up,
it's around my fingers. I'm like platting it and half
hitching it and I'm winding it up and I tie
it all the time. But the thing that most people
don't get is if you tie it the night before
with a leader and bass fishing, you won't have to
retie the next day because it won't break. It'll break

(15:58):
down near the knot and you'll be able to read
tay and you can retail. I dropped shots and as
many as a lot because you can fish a huge
long laid on not run adelaida to where you're having
to ry toy like during a tournament. It's rare that
I have to toy and fj during the tournament. That
is a fantastic tip from Carl. He knows more about
f gns than I do. So listen to him learned

(16:20):
the knot and then practice tieing it quick because you
since that one upright, it is pretty strong. I definitely
didn't spend an hour trying to learn that not at
my desk. Right after we recorded that. I actually know
you didn't, because right after that we were online together
and you fired up a tutorial video on the f

(16:43):
G on your phone, and as I recall, you watched
it for thirty five seconds and said, you guys are
such dorks. And by you guys, you must have meant
serious anglers that care to know more than your favorite
clinch knot. That's the way I interpreted that response. I
did say that it was too many steps. Man. It's
like again, if I wanted to spend all my time

(17:05):
tying knots crochet. Yeah, see I I waver right, Like
when it first got popular. I tried it and I
liked it, and I actually got made fun of for it,
like guys on the boat like give me a hard time,
like you know, insisting that the unit to UNI or
Alberta not we're you know, we're better braid to leader connections.
I wouldn't know, I know, but that's okay, um, But

(17:26):
I will say that after that chat with Carl, I'm
starting to lean back into it a tiny bit for
things I normally wouldn't write, like I only used it
um in offshore salt water. But after that talk, I
went on that brown trout trip that you missed that
we talked about last week, and I got to think
it about it, and I'm like, why not? You know
what I mean, it's not gonna hurt. It can't hurt.
I did. I did because I'm using stick baits and

(17:49):
and fifteen pound leader because we're angling for big fish.
Did you notice, like, was it smoother? Well, it's always
that was the whole thing. It is smoother to cash
to right, it slides through your guides. Nice. There was
nothing to notice because I didn't break off. But I
didn't break off the last time I did it with
a different knot. So it's it's not really something that's

(18:11):
like that's tangible, but it's just, um, I don't know,
maybe that little bit more confidence that like if a
you knowty Brown comes out and tanks that it's not
going to snap it off with a connection. It is
a very very solid knot, you know, right right, and regardless.
You know tying most of the time, if you know
how to do it, Tying a more complicated knot is
not going to hurt. It couldn't possibly hurt unless you

(18:35):
were to tie wrong right, I probably would. But what
is going to hurt is me crushing you Joe. In
this week's installment of fish News, Fish News that escalated quickly.
So before we kick in the news, I just want
to say that we got some some really nice notes

(18:57):
about the bent helpline, and um, I just wanted to
thank you guys again for so many great questions, and
I did you know we mentioned when we kicked it
off that we've gotten a ton right, and we're not
going to get to all of them, but I did.
I did just want to read a few very quickly
from Neil angling. Okay. He he wrote in with like
a laundry list of questions. And the only reason I'm

(19:20):
doing this is because these are ones that will absolutely
not make a bent Helpline segment, like there's not a chance,
but there's still fun and I appreciate them. So, um,
Neil asks who's more punk, g g Allen or Lemmy? Now? Why? Well, okay,
did you really want my like longhand answer on this

(19:42):
or you wanted like short and sweet, short and sweet please? Well, uh,
g Allen did what iggy pop meant to do with
the peanut butter. Right. If you guys know G. G Allen,
you'll know what I mean there. Yeah. G g Allen
was famous for like taking a poop on stage and

(20:03):
throwing it at the audience and like smearing himself with it.
Yeah yeah, Now. Let Me, on the other hand, was
initially in a band called Hawkwind, and Hawkwind was like
more like of a psychedelic sort of bent. Yeah, let
me decided that he didn't fit in with like a
lot of those philosophies, famously saying that he had some

(20:27):
proclivities that we're not in line with the exact proclivities
or habits of Hawkwind, and so he left and made
motor Head punking two ways, Punking two ways. But I
still have to go with G. G Allen, although for
all you G. G Allen fans, he was a terrible

(20:47):
trash human being and it is very hard to say
anything good about him other than perhaps he embodied a
certain ethos I was not expecting this to to generate
this much conversation. I'm very surprised. Is it's great though,
So my answer would be in terms of like who
is more punk? Yes, it's G. G Allen, Like he
sort of lived the punk lifestyle more, but his music

(21:08):
was terrible. Like you're not you're not singing G. G
Allen in the shower? You know? Yeah you know? But yeah,
you're right, you're right. Let's move on. Next question from you,
did Myles ever purchase a record player? How the should
I know? I have no idea if Myles ever bought
a record player, you'd have to ask Miles and his

(21:28):
final one here, Bob the garbage man owes me some sticks?
Can I send you some smokes so you can trade him?
He hasn't picked up the pay phone number he gave me.
That's between you and Bob in the Better Business Bureau,
my friend, I'm trying to get burner number. Um. But yeah,
so it just goes to kind of show you the

(21:49):
range of questions we've been getting. They're all super fun,
but um, I don't think we could do a full
segment on G. G Allen. I actually think we already
kind of did too much. You know what I'm saying? Uh,
the point is where really haven't fine with this. Also,
I just want to say sorry to all the people
that wrote in and said I didn't notice the best
pro trucker hat thing and now I noticed them everywhere.
Thanks for officially ruining those. Yeah, well it wasn't us,

(22:14):
it was it wasn't us. Man. What we can officially ruin, however,
is Phil's day by making him listen to our ship
and judge our news stories. Remember, uh, this is fish news.
It's a competition. Joe and I do not know which
news story the other guy has grabbed, and our beloved,
loved audio engineer Phil Taylor will declare a winner at

(22:34):
the end. And Joe, I believe it's your lead this week.
I believe it is too. So I'm gonna open with
a question before I get into this news story. What
was your very first job as a kid, like you know,
like like kid kid like paperboy era that type of thing.
What was your first game? I was. I was a
paper boy in a slightly different bent. My dad had

(22:58):
a printing business. It's since like change into something else,
But I used to work in the bindery department of
that business, meaning I would like shrink wrap in spiral
bind things, and I still have nightmares about it to
this day. I remember one time, one time I did this,
I shrink grabbed this huge stack of hospital like forms, right,

(23:21):
and after doing that all day, Uh, this dude Ryan
came in with a stack of yellow papers and he said,
I forgot to put these on top of each one
of these things that you just did. You need to
unwrap all of them, put this paper on top and
then rewrap all of them again. So that punched him
in the face and got fired. No, no, I I

(23:44):
kind of just did as I was told, uh, like
a good little drawer. And yeah, so that was my
first step. Okay, all right, there you go. So I
walked dogs. That was my first job. There was a
lady across the street that would pay me twenty bucks
a week to walk her dogs when I got home
from school. Uh, and it took me about a week
of doing it to not feel like doing it anymore. Like,
in hindsight, how lazy, Like it's a walk around the block,

(24:07):
but I didn't feel like it anyway. You could have
gone a little bit more than twenty bucks. But this
was in like the forties, so that was actually yeah, right,
exactly it was. I was like a millionaire kid. So anyway, look,
so now that everyone listening is reminiscing about their first
kiddie job, um, I bet that none of them can
top tongue cutter. Okay. So Smithsnyan recently published a terrific

(24:31):
piece about child tongue cutters in Norway, and the tongues
they are cutting are cod tongues. But as I explained this,
I want all of you that have children and like
the six to thirteen year old range to decide, yes,
my kid could hack it or hell no. Okay. So
you recently covered, um, the reassessment of the cod stocks

(24:52):
in the US, right, but over in Norway there seems
to be a lot more of them. Those are some
of the breeding grounds for the stocks of there, and
the commercial cod fishing is still major business. So this
story is setting. It's either Ryan or Rhiny, probably Rhyney,
which is a town in Norway's uh Lafoten Islands, Lofton Islands.

(25:14):
I'm doing the thing that you do where I can't
say stuff. Um. And this is this is of course
well north of the Arctic circle, right, So there's several
cod processing plants there and at the processors, the cod
bodies are dried, frozen, or salted, and then exported for food. Now,
according to this story, a cod tongue is squishy, gelatinous

(25:35):
and buttery smooth and likened to the filet mignon of
the cod, which I've never heard before. If that's the
thing that we do here, I've never heard of it.
It's like when somebody tells me about, like I don't know, cooking,
like perch cheeks or something ship and I'm like, how
how much of meat is there? How big is a
cod tongue? I think cod tongues are pretty large. But

(25:57):
all I can think of is those stories that are
floating around down that nobody grabbed for news about those
parasites that just replace the fish's tongue. That's all I
could think about, Like we should I know, the idea
of of of eating a fish tongue not super appealing.
Um anyway, So the thing about this is removing them
is tedious, and the processing plants just can't make quite

(26:19):
enough money off of them to to make the tongue
removal worth their time, So instead they set aside all
the cod heads for the local kids, many of which
show up after school routinely to remove tongues and sell
them on their own. Now, the processors know that they
are leaving some money on the table, But um these

(26:39):
kids known as I'm gonna try really hard here, and
I'm only gonna do it once. Tongueus yarn, in tongues
yarning tong tonguas yarn and that's fine, which translates to
tongue cutters. And that's what we're gonna say for the
rest of the time. This is not something new. The
people growing up in this region, kids have been doing

(27:01):
this for generations. Um. And the processors gladly donate the
heads because it quote introduces young people to the fishing
industry and teaches them the value of entrepreneurship and hard work.
And hard work it is per the story, right. I
love this quote. H This job makes selling girl Scout
cookies or running a lemonade stand look like child's play.

(27:23):
Right now, goes on. I want to I want to
read from the story. It's very well written. Um Uh
that children as young as six goes straight from school
to the docks, where they spend hours in the numbing cold,
coated in fish guts, sharp knives in hand may seem
bizarre when viewed from the perspective of today's developed economies
and increasingly virtual workplaces, but the rarefied nature of this work,

(27:47):
proudly undertaken by kids who feel a connection to the tradition,
is part of what makes the practice so fascinating. So
it says the task itself involves spearing the head onto
a giant metal spike and then slicing out the tongue.
UH and the tongues pile up on the spike until
they reached the top, where they're then tossed into a bucket. Right,
and the author says the kid's handywork was so quick

(28:09):
it was difficult to make out the distinct steps heads
where grab spikes, slice tossed, grab spike, slice tossed until
the large bin was empty and a new batch of
codheads arrived. Despite harsh winds and below freezing temperatures. A
few of the older tongue cutters who worked fast, we're
sweating piles of snow were pink with blood, but they
didn't seem to mind. Right, So there's more to it

(28:30):
than that, though. So they interviewed Um, a local fish
exporter UH and he was like, yeah, like back in
the day, I let my six year old stay out
there till midnight sometimes cutting these tongues. But then after
these kids are done, then they have to go home,
wash their own tongues, weigh them out right, separate them,

(28:51):
package them, and freeze them. Um. And and these don't
get exported. These are mostly sold locally. So they interviewed
several generations of cutters. Is now a mother of kids
who cut. She says when she was young, when she
was a young girl, she made thirty two thousand dollars
over the course of six seasons and and used that
to buy her first car. Now, yeah, nowadays, some of

(29:12):
these kids are earning more than ten thousand in a
single season. Right, good, yeah, right, And they talked to
a fourteen year old girl who basically said, I don't
want to talk about how much I make because it's
a lot. I just don't want gangster four year old
girl old business. Yeah, exactly right. So it says, you know,

(29:34):
she used her earnings most recently to buy a new
iPhone and Apple AirPod so she could listen to music
while she cut. And apparently these kids all use a
mobile app called Marine traffic to see when the boats
are headed back to the dock. And then they sell
their tongues now on like Facebook, marketplace and stuff, which
some of the older people kind of said, you know,
they say, like that sort of takes away the charm

(29:55):
of what it used to be, like, you know, the
little kids selling tongues now it's like it's a business now. Look,
there's there's a lot of crafty, hard working kids out
there in all countries, no doubt. It's not the racket
and the hustle that that I find so special interesting,
but it's the conditions. Like some of these kids will
stay out there until two o'clock in the morning cutting

(30:17):
tongues in just brutal, brutal conditions. And I fully understand
that these kids are used to those conditions, right that's
where they grew up. But still, like we had, you know,
three inches of snow here the other day, and my
little guy, who's like the hardcore fisherman, he's outside for
ten minutes, was like, yeah, I'm cold, and then declined
participation in all outdoor activities for the remainder of the day.
So good on these kids. That is impressive, And like

(30:40):
for the kid that's like I don't feel like walking
the dogs today. It's like, yeah, let me see you
stand outside until two o'clock in the morning and subarctic
conditions cutting out cod tongues. You know, such a punk. Yeah, well,
I'll tell you what, man, it's a different breed up there. Man,
those fishing cultures. Um. I mean you see this in
a lot of like, uh, cultures that rely on like

(31:02):
fishing or like a grarian or just what have you.
It kind of like just breeds this certain type of
person that is just impervious to a lot of the
stuff that like us soft Yeah, sure, no, and and
that's exactly right. And I mean that's what I mean.
I don't want to make it sound like, you know,
kids in the US don't know how to work hard.
You have kids who whose parents own ranches and grow

(31:24):
up in you know, working farms and everything. I'm saying that,
like the impression I get is that none of these
kids need to do this to survive. It's not like
they're like they're feeding their families. This is basically for
walking around money and rather than do what normal six
to thirteen or fourteen year olds would do after school,
like they're opting into this and that is badass, Like

(31:47):
those are some tough ass kids, you know what I mean.
Please enter your password. You have one unheard message, Mr Smack,
I have the mean calling getting ship like you really
do you need to like do some basic research when

(32:08):
you're doing a news story on I don't know Turkish names,
maybe on pronunciation and bridget time air dewan. Dude, it's
that is the president of Turkey. It's not like an
obscure name. That is actually the current president Turkey. You
should have got that own, buddy. Anyhow, we'll gets up.

(32:29):
Will end of message Delete Priss seven save deleted Phil.
If I were you, I would pick Joe as the
winner here. That's never good when you when you when
you cross over like that. Yeah, well, anyway, I do
think that I have a at least a contender here. Um,

(32:53):
I wanted to talk to you, Joe about a Joe,
we need to talk about it. I wanted to I
wanted to uh talk about a poaching incident that's getting
a lot of coverage and in fact, this comes from
USA Today, which is an interesting stories to like cover
like an outdoor story, right, Um, well, they only tend

(33:14):
to do it when it's pretty big and powerful to
get to get there. They also they also have that
that's a side site called for the wind and um,
I mean I've had a lot of good things off
there anyway, God, anyway, good for you USA today. Uh.
This December, Corporal Brian Talent of Mississippi Department of Wildlife
Fishing Parks busted two folks who were caught with a

(33:38):
hundred and fifty two croppy over their legal limit while
fishing in Mississippi's Eden Reservoir or the Spillway I guess
to Mississippi's Eden Reservoir. The limit would have been thirty
between the two of them. So for those of you
who can't do math, that's one hundred and eighty two croppy,

(33:58):
which is a crap ton of cross. You like that?
I did like that? Oh man. I mean, you know,
these things pop up every once in a while. It's
it's not the first time, and I'm never less uh
flabbergasted over just how how far you know, some people
are willing to go over the limit. This is. That's

(34:21):
a big one though. That's a big one for for
a couple of guys. Yeah, Yeah, that's basically a truck
bed full of full of croppy. Now the story is
pretty like lacking in details. I tried doing more research
online and I was just like looking and looking. It's
basically the same story, copied and pasteed, just over and
over again. And that's really all the information that was there.

(34:42):
This person busted these people, and these people had this
many fish, and now these people are in trouble. Um
doesn't name the anglers, doesn't talk about the method to take,
doesn't talk about penalties, nothing that's interesting. Okay, that's that's
fairly rare. They don't get in a little bit with
detail there for sure. So I put on my investigative

(35:02):
journalist hat and got on the horn with M D.
F W p oh phoning it in. All right, I'm impressed. Yeah, well,
you know, you know, I like to do that every
now and again. Keep the people in form, should factor
that kind of stuff in, By the way, I hope
he does, Phil, No matter what you're about to say
or where this goes like extra more more effort tonight,

(35:25):
and everybody hung up on me the end. Uh. Anyway,
it turned out there was um a lot I didn't
know about the fishery itself, and I think that information
really clears up a lot of the questions surrounding the story.
So first, let's talk a little bit about crappy fishing
in Mississippi. Uh, Joe, we both know that when you

(35:45):
get into croppy, uh, you like really get into him. Yeah.
Well yeah, I mean it's fair it's fairly rare to
catch one croppy. If you catch one, you've typically found
them all, or at least a handful more So yeah, yeah,
and that's just up north. Uh, Southern croppy is a
whole different ball game. It's also big business. I think

(36:08):
it's worth pointing out that, Like, yeah, Mississippi, Alabama, Northern
Alabama in particular. Um, I fished in in Center Alabama,
which claims to be the croppy capital of the US. Um. Yeah,
I feel like, by and large, in especially in the northeast,
it's something that's there that you get into on occasion,
but there's not the same kind of culture around it

(36:28):
that there is in this area. Yeah. So again, it's
a whole different ball game. Um. And it's a whole
different ball game in like more ways than one. For instance, Joe,
did you know that you could snag croppy in Mississippi legally. No, no,
I did not. So there are there are spill ways
across the state where the croppy congregate is like temperatures

(36:51):
drop in the winter, and it is perfectly legal to
snag those fish. In fact, one person I talked to
UH mentioned that there are even like plaques and these
spill ways detailing exactly how one can legally go about it.
It's one pulper angler, a maximum of two hooks, no
bigger than a number two and no less than an

(37:12):
inch apart, and no trouble hooks at all. Wow, man,
I mean, yeah, that's that's totally news to me. I
had I had no idea. Um usually with any kind
of game fish, I thought there was there was, there
was no snagging of it, right right, Yeah? So, I mean,
you know, we know when you get onto them, it's
easy fishing. But like, even then, a hundred and fifty
two over the limit, UH seems like gill net numbers.

(37:34):
And the first thing I thought of was, how the
hell did they do that? Well, there's your answer. They
were snagging, which is legal. Although I wouldn't be surprised
if they weren't, you know, abiding by that rule. Why
they were completely ignoring you know, ignoring their limit. I
wouldn't be surprised if they were like, oh, is are
these hooks more than an inch? You know what I mean? Like, well, yeah,

(37:56):
I mean I also wouldn't be surprised if they overlook
the two hook um limit you know on the lines there.
But what's what's interesting to me, I don't know. It
seems like if if there's a rule in place like
this right where this is legal at a certain time
a year when the croppy you're doing this typically, I
feel like states would put those rules into play because

(38:17):
a fair amount of people, um actually want to take
them that way, you know what I'm saying. So without
I mean, I don't know all the details, but it
would seem to me like if that's a thing that
people do so much so that there's rules in play.
Nobody else was down at this particular spot seeing this happen.
I mean, they couldn't have called. They couldn't have snagged

(38:38):
that many fish in ten minutes, or maybe they could.
Maybe there's so many in there and they put nine
hooks on their line. Who knows, But I just I
wonder about that. Yeah, well, you know that is part
of the story that I couldn't find out is exactly
how this got reported, but it did get reported by
by the public, like somebody said, suspicious activities going on here,

(38:59):
got it, you might want check it out. So I
don't know exactly what that entailed, but that's what happened.
So Yeah, the guys got busted, which begs the question, um,
what does the fine for being a hundred and fifty
two fish over your legal limit look like? According to
the MWFPS Law Enforcement Office, the fine for the infraction

(39:19):
is five hundred to a thousand dollars, Like that's your
base fine, with an additional fine of twenty to a
hundred dollars per fish over the limit. That means, as
I understand that the poachers are facing like the potential
for a combined sixteen thousand, two hundred dollars approximately half
of the fourteen year old girls tongue cutter money in
fines for being like that, for being croppy hogging dumbasses. Yeah, well,

(39:47):
you know, and I applaud the state for for thes
per fish over I mean, they're not going to get that.
Well that's the thing, man, Like you see a lot
of states really go for the throat and try and
set an example here, um that might do something to
scare off the next group of guys. We we've discussed
that here before. Where just because that's the penalty, it

(40:08):
doesn't mean they're going to pay it. And you know,
in my opinion, if you're that much of a of
a jerkass to do something like this in the first place,
somebody could take your license away or whatever. You're you're
gonna do it if this is what you do, if
you if you have it and you once, chances are
you're gonna do it again no matter what gets imposed
on you. Just my my opinion. Yeah, yeah, well, you know,

(40:29):
I hope they throw the book at him. Anyway. The
next thing I wanted to know is what the hell
happens to all of these fish? So uh an employee
for mdf WPS Northern Regional Office. And you'll notice that,
like I've left this particular person's name out of this
new story. Yeah, I was wondering if you're gonna name drop.

(40:51):
Yeah yeah, Well, I'm honestly pretty sure I was annoying
that guy. So I didn't like ask for a lot
of follow up, and in fact, I didn't even like
get I didn't even want to ask him for his
name again, because I was getting pretty curt answers at
this point. You're just saying, yeah, man a lot, is
that what the so that guy? Uh, he intimated to

(41:12):
me that it was up to the officer's discretion, like
what happened to these fish, meaning that the officer could
basically transfer the fish wherever he wanted to. Um. I
used the example of a food bank, which he said
would have been possible if the officer had deemed it appropriate.
So he saw, like these fish were all good, they
were in good condition. Sure, let's get him to the

(41:33):
food bank, right, Um, so you know, let's hope that
that's where they ended up and not in like the landfill.
I would also accept that officer hosting a badass fish,
right though. Yeah, if it's at his discretion, man party
at his joint, you know what I mean. That's not
a terrible idea. That's not a terrible idea. No. So finally, um,
you know, I was interested in like the frequency of

(41:58):
which things like this happened. The aforementioned guy, I'm pretty
sure I was annoying, said that it happens all the time.
But he he didn't in a shocking turn events. He
didn't voluntarily like start listing off some specifics, so I
followed up with with Major Chris reid Uh in the

(42:18):
MDFWPS Central Region Office. Um, while snagging over their limit
does happen occasionally, he said. Um. He also noted that
this event was particularly egregious. He said that in sixteen years,
I haven't checked anyone that's been that brazenly over the limit.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but that's why we're

(42:39):
out here checking to make sure the resources don't get
depleted in this way. I've never seen a hundred and
fifty is fish over the limit. Yeah, and some of
that stuff is going to sneak by. I think, Um,
you know, it's not easy being a being a conservation
officer in any sting, you know what I mean, there's
only so many of you. You you you can't be anywhere.

(43:02):
So I mean, even this bust, I think, you know,
it should at least help to alleviate some of this
and at least, you know, scare some people. I would
hope that's kind of what all you can hope for
with a lot of these outcomes. Yeah, yeah, is to
you know, be taking a portion of these incidents, making
them an example and trying to dissuade others from participating

(43:26):
and just bullshit like this themselves. So anyhow, guys, don't
be a croppy catching ship head. I'd also like to
thank Corporal Brian Talent for protecting the resource, and everybody
at m d w FP who took the time to
talk to me, even the guy who was very obviously
annoyed with my line of questioning. Well, I still applaud

(43:47):
you for calling UM. And let's see who feels going
to applaud is it croppy catching ship heads or UM?
The lovely, the lovely, you know, beautiful children of Norway
who are up there cutting cod tongues while we um,
you know, live live the lavish life down here. We're
gonna find out who wins. We're gonna hear from Phil
and then we're gonna go have a drink in a

(44:11):
Yanzer establishment, if you know what that means. I don't
really open up about my process very often on this podcast,
but I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm kind of
tired of poaching stories and unless it involves someone named
the Breeze, I'm also getting a little sick of record stories,

(44:33):
So Hayden, I commend you hitting the pavement for this story,
but I gotta give it to Joe this week. I
wonder if G. G Allen knew about these Norwegian kids,
he could have invited them up to cut cod tongues
out on stage as as opener. That would have been
punk as hell best God damn bar tender from tim

(44:55):
Buck to to Portland, Maine the Portland argument for that matter.
So where are we going for some SuDS this week?
Yinser country? How about that Western p a You ever
spend any time out there? I went to visit Carnegie
Mellon one time, and that is the extent of my
travels to Pittsburgh. My my wife actually applied there and

(45:17):
when UH check that out too, ended up not going
passed on that I'm not getting. I wasn't even gonna
do it. You did it to yourself. Uh So anyway,
So I've done some catfishing in the Burg, literally right
in front of the stadium, and that was cool, and
that was with my old buddy Joe Gordon of the
Three Rivers Catfish Club. I've also done some muskie fishing

(45:40):
on the Allegheny, but I've never been out there for trout,
and there is some damn fine trout water out that way.
In fact, some of it runs directly behind this week's
drinking establishment, which was submitted by listener Matt Wagner. Right. So,
the the official name of this place is the Halton
Sportsman's Lodge, but according to Matt, everybody knows it as

(46:01):
the Halton Hilton. Here's how Matt opens up this fantastic nomination.
As a young man, I dreamed of having a beer
in the famed Halton Hilton. This bar has a storied
past and is really a cultural staple in the Allegheny
National Forest. My family has had a camp in Halton
since the mid nineteen fifties, and the Halton Hilton was

(46:23):
established in the late fifties. It's located in Elk County, Pennsylvania,
south of Ridgeway on the banks of the Clarion River.
My father and I caught some beautiful trout from the
hole directly across the bar, and at the end of
the day enjoyed plenty of straw beers before heading back
to camp. According to relatives, people just started calling it

(46:44):
the Halton Hilton and the names stuck. People come from
miles around to check this place out, and it has
almost become a right of passage to have a straw
and a quote belly buster bellybuster. Right, So let's get
into that. So Matt continues, Right, this place is famous
for it belly buster burger. The burgers were rumored to
be part venison and are actually quite delicious. I mean,

(47:06):
where else can you go and get a lukewarm straw
and pickled turkey gizzards. The restrooms were an adventure in themselves,
and at one point the men's room was just a
hole in the floor. He says, the st poly girl
cardboard cut out, and the old school cigarette machine, and
then parentheses says, you know the style that had the
knob you pulled and and the smokes came out, asked Joe,

(47:29):
he has definitely bought SIGs from one of these. I'll
comment on that in a minute. Gave this place its
own kind of nostalgia. Then when you looked up, you
knew you were in an awesome place. Painted on the
ceiling is a giant black silhouette of a flying goose,
and velvet wall paper covered the walls. So, yes, I
do know those sig machines, and I think I bought

(47:51):
a pack from one in college exactly once. Because I
kid you not, I turned twenty one and within two
months you couldn't smoke in bars anymore around here, and
those cigarette machines just totally disappeared. Yeah. Well, and dear listener,
I have also bought SIGs from one of those machines. Really. Yeah.
There used to be this spot in a man Junk

(48:12):
that I played called the Grape Room. I used to
like play music. They're a bunch and they had one
of those old school sig machines, foodsball table man. Then
one day I was like, I need some SIGs. I
don't feel like walking into the convenience store. I'm here
right now. Let's see if it has anything in it.
So I put my money in, pull the lever for

(48:33):
the parliaments and out came a nice little pack of parliaments,
went outside, smoked one. Dude, that thing must have been
in there for twenty years. Do you know what to like?
I remember it was. I took it one drag and
I think the whole cigarettes just went up in flame.
As I recalled to they only really could could could

(48:56):
give you soft packs which like sucked, like off pack suck.
You know, to break all your SIGs at once, man,
put us off back in your pocket and go do
anything anything, Right, kids, don't smoke. Stop listening to us.
If you're listening right now, I don't either. Anyway, regarding
the belly buster, I gotta say now that sounds epic

(49:18):
and I'm gonna prime the pump here for hate mail,
but I don't care because I've had this debate privately
with with many YenS and buddies, and it's time to
take it public. So I'm a Philly guy, right, and
I will put my Tony Luke, Steve's Prince of Steaks,
and Geno's against that Permantis nonsense that you guys eat
out there. Okay, the first time I was in Pittsburgh,
I couldn't get to the famous Permanni brothers fast enough,

(49:39):
and I'm sorry, I didn't think it was that good. Right.
Their whole stick is loading the sandwich with French fries,
so to me, I just tasted like white bread and
French fries. I didn't understand. So next time I'm out
that way, belly buster all day. That sounds amazing, now,
real quick. I did say trash, and I wasn't talking
about Permantes, was talking about Geno's. And what do you say,

(50:03):
Tony Luke, Steve's Princess Dakes. I'm disappointed in you, bro.
What's your spot? No, you gotta go to Chubbies, man,
I think I've ever been a chubby, has never been
heard of chubby Chubbies. That's in like East Falls, man,
That's like, that's where it's really at. You go go
to some catfish in this summer. Then go up by
the Philly you campus or I guess its Jefferson now,

(50:24):
and and go and go get one of those chubbies. Man,
you'll be you'll be happy you did so. Anyway, on
for me ragging on you for your cheese steak choice.
So Matt moves into the history and the characters you
might find at the Halton Hilton Um. All great bars
have a character too, he says. John Hanley bought the
bar from his parents in nineteen sixty four and was

(50:46):
the proprietor there until his death in He was always
there to talk to people and provide some of his perspective,
at least when he wasn't in his pickup park. Next
to the building. I like this guy. John was a
local legend and folk in his own special dialect. He
held the history of the Halton close to his heart
and would willingly produce some of the old photos from

(51:07):
the area and had stories to tell about every one
of them. Some of his most loyal customers, the folks
that he served for years, described him as quiet, honest
and honorable. Yeah, quiet, honest and honorable. I fit that
bill except for quiet um. So to bring it home
and to get to the best part, right, Matt says
that upon John's death, his niece took the place over

(51:30):
and updated it a bit um And as as he
put it, he'd actually bring his wife there now. And
that's cool. But that's also like a slippery slope because
I know a few good bars that lost their magic
after renovation. You know what I'm saying. The hole in
the floor in the bat and the pissar kind of
made it, you know what it was, um, And I
hope that's not the case at the Hilton. But here's

(51:51):
what really sealed the deal on including the Halton Hilton.
With this nomination, Matt sent along a link to the
official Halton Hilton saw Yes, the place has its own song.
And while I wish we had time to play the
whole thing, we don't. But really you'll get it with
just the first thirty seconds way up and oh they'll

(52:11):
carry either's a tome by the name of or the
Criptian Clear and the claring flows on bone. There's a
place where to do their meeting, have a drink and
do some eating where the gossips saying, then you'll never here.
Lie it was hotten. I was a Wilton, so I
hit it for the Hilton to have a beer and

(52:32):
I'll bared around some prize. They've been built in the
days of Custer, and it's a home of the belly buster,
and I'll visit it again before I die. You know,
I've never visited a bar that had its own either,
And man, I thought that was like reserved for cheers.

(52:53):
I don't know who's singing that, but I want to
hang out with that dude. I want to sell shiner
with him. Do you know who it might be? It
might be the Breeze, the guy that caught the p
a state record Walleye. Like, dude, how much you want
to bet the Breeze has like swigs some bourbon at
the Halt and Hilton. He's from those parts anyway, Matt,
thank you so much for a great nomination. This was

(53:15):
this was a lot of fun. The theme song was amazing.
Um And if you've got a fishy bar with or
without a theme song that you'd like us to consider
for a shout out here, send the deeds to Bent
at the meat eater dot com. So, since we just
got done talking drinking, I gotta ask, right, you posted
some ice fishing videos on the ground from that little

(53:36):
sare and I couldn't help but notice that a sketchy
brown like like an old school bootlegger flip cap bottle
kept making an appearance. Was that homemade hooch? Because that's
what it looked like. In fact, some homemade hooch had
a boy, you know. That was That was my very

(53:58):
last bottle of a run of dandelion wine I made
right around when the pandemic first hit, so like April
or May, and you know I was I was out
with I was out with Miles. Actually he came with me.
It was me, Miles, my girlfriend, Miles, Miles Um, Miles kid,

(54:20):
and Christine my buddy from the office here and we all,
uh caught a couple of perch and a nice buzz
because of it, except for Miles. Miles was he's doing
one of those dry January things, so I couldn't. I
couldn't get him to try it. Okay, well you know
what didn't? Did you write a story about that about

(54:41):
dandelion wine? Now I'm thinking about it. Wasn't there something
on the meat eat site that you put together about
how you made that? I did? Um, Yeah, I'll put
the link in my i G bio for anyone that's interested.
It's a fun little project I do like every year
or two. It's I will say it is a royal
pain in the ass because in order to make it like,
the first thing you have to do is I'm gonna

(55:03):
go through like a real quick explanation of the tediousness
of this process is that you go to a field, right,
make sure like it's not a dog park because they
piss on the dandelions or like you don't get them
from a bank where they're like spraying with like you know,
round up. But you pick like buckets, like a ten
gallon bucket full of dandelions or like halfway full, and

(55:25):
then you take them home and you pull the pedals
off of the little green cup that holds them all together.
It's called the spel. So you pull all the pedals
and you put them in a pot until you have
like a full pot full of dandelion petals, because if
you put the green ship in, it's gonna make them
real bitter. That sounds excruciating. It's something you do when

(55:47):
you have some time, like in the middle of a
pandemic um. But you know, I love it when when
when you have that, when you get everything all said
and done and it's aged, and it's like if you
like drinking like springtime or some ship. You know that's
that's like such an It's like an Andrew zimmer And
thing to say, like it tastes like grass coated and

(56:08):
rain water on it. It's more boordine esque. But you
know whatever, I'm not it's not. In fact, I tend
not to like wine. I just happened to like this. Yeah,
you would like bizarre foods anyhow, I don't know. It's
a dead of winner and you have this thing you
made a couple of springs ago. It's like, I don't know,
I like that. Yeah, well you can you can explain
it more. Later people can read the piece, but right now, um,

(56:31):
we we have some other more pressing things to explain.
Let's wrap things up with our news segment, the bent Helpline,
where we answer your questions, and this week we even
have a special guest. What do you laughing at, Martini?
You're not an idiot, you're not a gambloony hell boy,
You're a fisherman. So we've got a very special edition

(56:58):
of the bent Helpline today. You've actually called in reinforcements
to answer one of your question. We're joined today by
my good friend Jim Fieva on The Water magazine, who
was a co host here before before Hayden signed on
full time. Jim how Art thou good, good? Great? How's
it feel? How's it feel to be here as an
expert in a specific, specific faction of fishing. We don't

(57:20):
people don't even know what we're talking about. Yeah, but
you're the man, you're the guy. Oh yeah, I feel
like I've earned it. So okay, so you know now
that you mentioned it. Um So anyway, because here's what
we're talking about. This this question comes to us from
listen to Ryan Foster and he says, I am curious
about float and fly technique. Have you guys used it

(57:42):
and how did it work out? What's the setup you used?
Is it a Bent approved technique? And he says, I
feel dirty watching these videos on it being a fly angler,
but I am not a complete fly guy, Okay, So
he dabbles in other arenas. Um, I like to fish
and catch fish. I think we all can agree on that. Ryan,

(58:03):
Thanks and keep up the good work guys. So this
is the thing. I know what flow and fly is.
I get the premise, but I don't do it yet.
Jim Jim here on a weekly basis in the winter
months is just like you are the float and fly
guy on Instagram. You do this a lot. So I'm like,
we just gotta call Jim because he does this all

(58:24):
the time. So rather than me like make ship up
about what I think I know right, which might not
be anything, can you explain to us what float and
fly technique is. Yeah. So I first read about it
man probably in the late nineties and an in Fisherman
magazine article, and it was real big for smallmouth bass
in some in moving water. It was really big for

(58:47):
them in the springtime. Also, it's what I use it
for is in the cold water months. So that's one
of the things I think. I know it is a
cold like it shines in the off season in cold
cold water. So all you're doing is suspending a hair
jig under a float and it's they're usually tied with
kind of synthetic materials that are gonna have a lot

(59:07):
of kind of breathing and action as that jake just
suspends under the float, and it's it's kind of fallen
out of favor, Like I don't think it's a modern
technique that guys are really into. Maybe it's coming back
around again. Seems like all those things come back around,
but ned riggs now or like that's that's all I
hear about, is guys using in the winter in the
wintertime ned rigging in the wintertime. So yeah, so that's

(59:28):
again not the expert here, but that was the impression
I got, Like it's it's specifically for suspended fish in
cold water, and it's not super aggressive, right, Like you're
kind of just like letting the fly breathe and it's
just hanging in their face or the jig. That's the
other misconception. It's called float and fly. You just said,
though it's a jig, you're not actually hanging a fly

(59:50):
under the bomber. Yeah, it's just it's a hair jig
on either a one eighth or one sixteenth pounce jake had.
Those are the most popular sizes, so it's a pretty
small presentation. But even though it's small, I mean people
have called seven eight pound large mouth bass on it.
It's really good for you know, small mouth bass four
five pounds. I haven't caught a seven or eight pound
large mouth on it, but I've gotten the excess of
five pounds on it. Right. But it was sort of

(01:00:10):
developed from moving water, But yet you're using it in
still water right up in Massachusetts. Yeah, I'm using it
in the ponds here. Um. You know, I live on
the coast on Cape con so we don't get ice
every year, but those ponds are still full of fish
and there's great large mouth bass fishing there. You can
fish to spending jerk baits or I like this technique
because one, it works really well in cold water. And

(01:00:31):
I'm using a real long like ultra light noodle rod
to throw it because you need a little extra length
to one not only cast like the you know long leader,
but Also you're fishing it still, so you're gonna have
a lot of slack on the water, so you want
to be able to have a lot of room to
lift to set the when that goes down at the
end of your cast. So is there like a specialized

(01:00:52):
float or something, or it's just like your running the
mill slip bobber. So serious bass guys that are on
bass boats and have a lot of back cast room
are using fixed loats so they know they're sending it
to the same depth, you know, nine ft rods. I'm
doing it from shore for my kayak mostly, so I
use a little slip float and that one's called the
phil wobble bobber. The whole the whole idea is it's

(01:01:15):
a tear drop shaped float and it has written on
it you know this one will this one will work
best with a one eighthounds jake. So it's like you're
setting up for center pit fishing where the floats to
spend a certain amount of weight and the wobble bobber
the idea behind it. No, it's not just fun to say,
but it uh when you have wind or waves, it

(01:01:36):
throws some action. It really does wobble all over the
surface gives a little bit more very subtle action to
the jig. That's what I's gonna ask. Like, I imagine
at some point you have to work it, and at
some point if you have a chop, like especially when
it's cold, you probably get smashed just letting that thing
bob around out there. Right if you cast it near fish,
you can't pause it for long enough. The problem is
it's you. It's long pausitive. You have to know where

(01:01:57):
the fish are, and it's not a search presentation, right,
got you. Well, I mean, without even knowing all that,
I already knew it was a ben approved technique because
to me, there's no unapproved technique here barring I don't know,
throwing a spear at him or something. Hey hey, no, no, no, no,
no, no no, no. We have we have listeners who are
spear fishing. In fact, if you look, I'm wearing a

(01:02:18):
spear fishing hoodie right now from my buddy Ryan Ebert.
So well, that's a specialized thing to the guys. That's
cool and if I can, okay, fine, whatever whatever. So
I hope that answers Ryan's questions. I assume that that
is the that's the floating fly he's talking about the
only other thing that comes to mind, or like those
casting bubbles you can put on your spinning rod to

(01:02:40):
dry fly. Jim's like, I am about that too. I
never pick up a fly rod. I want to get
into that. That is another that's also big up here,
where it's the clear casting bubbles and you filled them
up with a little bit of water and then the
guy's up here all fish like wooly buggers. I've seen
guys used the floating up Berkeley power worms behind them,
and that is really good for trout. But I I

(01:03:03):
I haven't dabbled in that yet, But that's like a
trout technique. That's that kind of casting bubble and fly,
like you said, if you're just determined not to use
a fly rod, and then that's also like kind of
similar to like Joe, you and I talked a little
bit about, like you know, people fishing with flies using
noodle rods on like the Great Lakes steelhead scene. Yeah,
I mean I've thrown a lot of flies for steelhead

(01:03:25):
on on long conventional noodle spinning rods with and without floats.
Um for steelhead, I don't know, I don't find any
of that dirty. It's all just it just works. It's
just a different kind of prison. And then the and
the other good thing is like your guides don't ice
up is bad and like the in the middle of
winter because you're not like sending that big thick fly

(01:03:45):
line through them and get them all way right, just
come up to the Pulaski. Man, everybody's just got motto
on their fly reels. Do you tell me about it?
Tell me about it. Yeah, it's not there's not even
fly line. Well, I am so glad that I had
a float and Fly expert to call for this. Um,
I'm a floating fly enthusiast editor in chief of Float

(01:04:08):
and Fly Monthly. Um. But I mean I can, I can.
I can tell you Ryan that even though I haven't
done it, I'd like to. But it absolutely does work because,
like you know, I'm I'm sitting here staring at the
computer and Jim's posting his morning floating fly session photos
and catching a lot of fish. So Jim, thank you
for that. Um, Ryan, thank you for the question. If
you've got a question you'd like us to maybe answer

(01:04:29):
here on the show, you can d m them to
me on the Instagram. Or Hayden, or just go ahead
and fire those off too. Bent at the meat eater
dot com. All right, well that's it for this week, degenerates.
If you're presently tying up f G nots for your
floating fly session tomorrow, I say a little drip of

(01:04:51):
superglue on the finishing raps never hurt anyone. That's what
I would say. I would also say, please keep sending
in your questions, bar nominations, awkward photos, sale but items
and what every else um you think up to Bent
at the meat eater dot com um, and don't forget
use those degenerate angler hashtags. Uh you know we see
all those posts them, you know, I don't know. We

(01:05:13):
like checking up on what you're into. So you know
it's good when I'm at the office and I want
to slack a little bit. There you go, Yeah, seeing that.
And finally, hey, keep in mind that not tying tools
are for the week, and God gave you teeth so
you wouldn't have to buy two tungsten carbide now clippers.

(01:05:50):
M