Ep. 78: The First Mate Of Irish Spring

Today on “Lifestyles of the Sad and Fishless” we: Get airborne with Mike Iaconelli and land in the drama pool, say goodbye to the ugliest jerkbait ever made, discuss the verbal abuse-to-tip ratio on charter trips, and help you make a living worm dunking in Washington.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
But then I remembered I was walleye fishing and had
it in a walleye, I'd have felt nothing, just sudden
dead weight on the end of the line, and when
I hit it, before I knew it, the boat was
being thrown onto the embankment. It happened at a second,
but it felt like an eternity. The first man who
was yelling at them, swearing, slapping the rod out of

(00:26):
their hands. Uh, frankly, he was just a dick. Put
it together, idiots, I'm broke. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and
welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that spot burned its
own streaming services by stupidly giving its Netflix password to
that one broke friend it thought it could trust. I'm

(00:46):
Joe Surmeli and I made in Samac And you have
other broke friends, man, because I asked multiple times for
the Netflix pass, where you just straight out refused to
give it to me. Ob yeah, I must have other
broke friends because I did not give it to you.
Um No, if I was gonna send you something to
thwart your poorness, it would be a better cordless drill perhaps,

(01:08):
or I knew this was gonna come up for anyone
who doesn't know what we're talking about. I posted like
an i G story where I shared a tackle hack
about using a drill to spool tip up lines fast.
You're just connected to the top of like the spinner
that holds your flag and you can just with that
ship around instead of using like a one to one

(01:29):
gear ratio, like you know whatever. And uh. Instead of
people saying, wow, thank you for the tip, that's like
really helpful, all I got was, why are you using
that shitty Walmart house brand drill? Put it together? Idiots,
I'm broke, dude, Like, oh he's broke. Oh he doesn't
have an expensive drill. Yeah. Man, I couldn't believe it.
People were hitting me up about it. Like one guy

(01:51):
was like he said he copied the picture, was like, yo,
come get your boy. Um. But there is a lesson
there that that I've learned, that being you have to
give thought to everything in the periphery of your social
media post because that's what people see. Dude, Like I
posted a picture of me and my garage not long
ago to promo UM. Some some of the new mediator
fish wet shirts and dudes are like looking at the

(02:13):
rack of jackets way behind me, like you can't even
make them all out, And they're like, is that one
with the yellow and gray sleeve of Cabella's wind dropper
from two thousand nine? And I'm just I'm like, but
also I'm like, yeah it is damn you know, so
people do people look at everything? Yeah, well, I think
I'm gonna make smarter decisions about that going forward. And

(02:36):
the guy who the guy who ripped on me hardest
about the drill, was like, Bro, I mean, I'll send
you a good power drill. Okay, bro, send me one
d me. I'll give you my ship, send me like
a three drill. Man, I'm about it. You should send
him your ship. I would take him up on it.
But actually, the tip you gave was a great tip.
So I hope some people also appreciate the tip you provided.

(02:57):
Since it is ice fishing season and I'm I'm I'm
just kidding, just kidding, that's what we do. But it
is ice season, and you know, I was thinking we
talked plenty about ice last week. I thought I'd changed
things up a bit, because even if you're doing a
ton of ice fishing, winner I think is still kind
of couch trip in season right, um, And I believe
I've mentioned on the show before that you know, I'm

(03:17):
not much of a TV viewer, but if I am
watching TV, it tends to be a documentary or a
documentary series. So U you know, I'm curious, right, do
you have a favorite fishing related documentary? And I'm not
talking about a movie like A River runs through it,
I'm talking you know docs. Yeah, it would be live
this stream the story of Joe Humphreys. Great choice that

(03:41):
that is a fantastic documentary. Well, I'll tell you what
when when I uh, when I initially decided to watch
it was actually right when the pandemic was going down.
I think it had just was it like just released
then or was that just when I got to it.
I don't remember exactly, but I feel like that timing
is probably accurate. It was something like that. Yeah, you know,
I wanted to watch it, and I was worried that

(04:02):
it was going to be like a super low budget
like you know sort of thing, and it's not. Man,
it is just a good no matter what your taste,
it is a good documentary fisherman or not. Um. And
for anybody who doesn't know who Joe Humphreys is one
shame on you but too. He was the fly fishing
instructor at Penn State for a bunch of years. He

(04:22):
developed a whole bunch of techniques, particularly like tightline nymphing techniques,
and he's written tons of books to that end. And
he's just an all around, like really good guys a
lot of folks role model. And that documentary is so
much more than like the profile of an angler because
his life story is super interesting as well. H Yeah,
did I teared up watching it? Like I got a

(04:44):
little emotion, And that's saying a lot considering I've watched
hundreds of fishing documentaries, right, and none of them have
ever made me tear up, But that documentary, Um, it's
also cool for me because it was Joe that, in
a roundabout way, got me to explore were the Limestone
Spring creeks in Central pre A. I saw him in
a VHS video in high school fishing on Penn's Creek

(05:06):
and my buddy and I went like, holy sh it,
that's not that far away. So in a way, Joe
Humphries was sort of the reason I took my first
ever fishing road trip. Um, you had mentioned this before. Yeah,
like I said, I idolized the guy. You said he
was a role model. He he was one of mine
early on learning to fly fish. Um, it's funny because
you know he's he's pretty old dude now, but he's
still like super super with it and walking around the

(05:29):
fly shows. And and just two years ago at the
fly show in Jersey, I bumped into him and he
certainly doesn't know who I am, but I told him
that story. Like he was sitting in a chair and
I was just like waiting in line for something. I
was like, hey, Joe, you know you're the reason and
and like doesn't know me from Adam. He was so tickled,
stood up, shook hands, put a hand on my shoulder,
and he's just like so nice. You just want to

(05:50):
hang out with that guy all day. Like he's got
to be amazing to fish with him. You know. Yeah,
I I've met I've met Joe Humphries a handful of times,
mostly at Edison. And the first time I ever met him,
I was like it was like fourteen or fifteen or
something like that. And one of my dad's friends who
was more into fly fishing than my dad. Uh, my

(06:11):
father set me up with this dude, Wally, and he
was like, hey, let's go, uh, let's go to this
Edison show. So me and while he went to the show,
and I wanted to get something for my dad, and
so I picked a really nice net and I sought
out Joe Humphries because I had seen like a bunch
of people kind of congregating around him, and I was like,

(06:31):
you know, like I said, I was fourteen fifteen, I
didn't exactly know who he was, but I knew that
he meant a lot to a lot of people. So
I went and I spoke with him and I said, hey,
you know, I got this net for my dad, would
you mind signing the handle of it? And you know,
Joe Humphries obviously like super gracious and he was like, yeah,
of course, Like I'll sign it for you. He ended
up talking to me a bunch and uh and I

(06:52):
gave that net to my dad and I think he
lost it, like immediately, that dude, that's a bummer. That's
a bummer. Yeah. I actually wrote Joe a letter years
before that, that last encounter, and he sent me a fly.
It's a long story, but like I took it out
on the stream and like lost it immediately. I'm like,
why did I fish that? Joe Humphreys tied that. Anyway,

(07:14):
this I'd be interested to know. Now, what is your
favorite fishing documentary? Yeah, so Live the Stream fantastic, like
top three for me. But my my all time favorite
fishing documentary is called Gotham fish Tails and it was
made by Robert Moss, who, as far as I know,
has has never really done anything else. He's not like
some big fishing filmmaker. Um. And it was released all

(07:37):
the way back in two thousand three. And what he
does is he just follows recreational and commercial fishermen from
all walks of life around New York City. Like there's
no narration, he's not he doesn't really play a host.
There aren't any really, there aren't really any like traditional interviews.
The whole thing just moves on unscripted audio from each character.

(07:58):
And frankly, um, you were you were saying you were?
Would be your favorite documentary. It's so insane, very like
d A. Pen and Baker. You know, Yeah, I don't know,
I have no idea, but I'll take the word Bob
Dylan documentary the same type of thing. Yeah, it's it's
just very it's like frankly, it's cheaply made right, it's
not flashy, but it just does such an incredible job

(08:18):
of capturing who these people are and what it means
to be an angler in and around New York City,
and how the fishing community, both recreational and commercial, has changed.
And I have just always loved it. It's basically an
hour plus of of Bob the garbage Men, like multiple
bomb the garbage Man's and one thing here, I will
do one clip. Listen to this. This bridge is real

(08:39):
productive late in the fall. I mean, you could call
me it's still flu you're going out of side. You
get some nice big sea bass. You got you flowers
and you went to time. And that guy, that guy
up there, it takes some nice keep up bass in
the full. He's always up here. He gets at least
one a week. Tuesday, I had over, I'm serious, but
I only kept that seven. You only allowed to keep six.
You know, I've been fishing for about twenty years in

(09:02):
New York and we generally have a good time. You know,
we have a better time of course if you catch fish,
but even if it don't, we still have managed to
have a good time for me. It's like psychological therapy
for me to be out here next to the sea.
All right, Well, I was skeptical at first, but this
sounds kind of right up my alley. Uh two questions.

(09:24):
Is it on Netflix? And if so, may I have
your password? No? And no, it is not on Netflix.
A matter of fact, it's not on any streaming service
i'm aware of. You can you can still buy it
from Amazon on DVD. I don't know if anyone does
that anymore. And I still have my DVD because that's
how I found it. It It ended up on my desk
when I was at Saltwater Sportsman, like my my very

(09:46):
first year in the industry, and I reviewed it. But
I can tell you it is currently on YouTube in
full now you know how it goes with stuff like that. Right.
How long it will be there, I don't know because
I always assume it's pirated, you know, somebody ripped the
d and threw it up there. But as of this recording, um,
it's there, so you can go check it out. Okay, So,
folks listening, there's two for you to watch this winner,

(10:09):
But we're about to clue you into something else. You
might want to watch, and we're going to learn all
about it in this week's installment of Smooth Moves. Now,
usually we we have like captains and guides come on
to provide reality checks about their clients. But this week
we've got none other than the Mike I Canelli dropping
in to provide a little reality check on himself. Why

(10:34):
why did joining us for Smooth Moves. We've got our
old buddy Mike, Ike and Nelly here this week. It's
been a while. What's going on? Mike? How are you guys?
Good man? How's how's Winner treating you? Why do's treating me? Good?
Our legs froze up right after Christmas, so I've been

(10:57):
sort of locked up for a little bit. But here's
the good news. The season starting in a few weeks.
I'm head at the Florida. It's gonna be warm, I'm
gonna catch It's gonna be great. Good for you man,
So we don't live too far apart. Do you have
good ice? Like could you walk on it? Or is
that like the crap ice we have up here? Crap ice?
So it's just enough to stop you from doing anything

(11:18):
like really fun? Yeah, we have an amazing dog his
name is Quincy, and his my ice hester and the
dog has been cracking under his feet. So it's that
kind of ice that you just can't get out on yet.
So it's kind of depressing. It's it's it's like a
purgatory time of year here. It's like there's not good
ice on the lakes, but then there's tons of ice

(11:39):
coming down the river here on the Delaware, so there's
like not much to do there either. I tried to
fish a few days ago and all the eddies that
are worth fishing were frozen over. The rest was wide open,
but like all the zones were just completely frozen over. Um. Anyway,
you're traveling, man, So you're going to Florida. That's cool.
You've got some other stuff going on, one of those things,
you know, we wanted to talk about a little bit.
You have a thing dropping neck week February eight on YouTube.

(12:02):
What is going on? Man? What do you got cooking? Yes?
So I'm real excited about this one. It's um called
a docuseries. I don't even know what a hell a
docuseries is. But the team here that we work with,
they convinced me to sit down. Over the course of
like two weeks and just lay it all out, my

(12:23):
life and my career, the state of the sport, the
battling leagues, all of it. And Wow, the last time
I did it was when I wrote the book, and
I forgot how freeing talking about something like that is.
So I'm excited about it because this isn't a normal
you know, we're not out catching blue gil or catching sharks,

(12:46):
and this is just a story about the sport, my
life where we're at now versus back in the nineties. Um,
I'm excited about it. The interesting thing is one of
the league's which is s Angler Sportsman Society, the a
S s UH, really supported us on this project and
we've got some great original footage, some great original photos

(13:10):
in with this docuseries. And I'm excited something different. Yeah. Man,
I was gonna say, I feel like this is something
that's sort of long overdue, and I'm glad to see
that that you're doing it. Like um, you know, like
any sport, there's a lot of of of behind the
scenes stuff that I think the fans don't really understand. Um,
but I guess you also sort of have to be
careful a little bit making a documentary like this, so

(13:32):
I feel like it could be a little bit edgy
and kind of kind of what the sport has been
been waiting for a little bit. I hope people like it.
I mean, here's the deal. I I didn't throw anyone
under the bus, but I told the truth and I
think that's real and I think that's important. And you
hit it on the head. Um, when people look at
the sport from Afar, they're like, oh my god, they

(13:54):
put got these guys on a platform. They think they're magical.
Here's the reality it for this. We're regular dudes like
everybody else. We got the same same problems, same issues. Um,
so you're gonna hear on this. You're gonna I'm gonna
talk about depression. I'm gonna talk about addiction. I'm gonna
talk about divorce. Um, you're gonna hear what happened why

(14:19):
eighty of the best pros left bass? The real reason
you're gonna hear about it. Um, why I left Major
league fishing to come back to bass. You're gonna hear
about it. It's all true. That's exciting, man, I'm really
pumped for that. Now that's gonna be on your YouTube channel.
But you say you don't know what a docuseries is.
It's kind of what Netflix has been built on. That
to me sounds very like mainstream Netflix worthy. Man, you

(14:41):
know it might be. I hope people look at it
and they appreciate it. I did pour my heart out
on this one. It was interesting because, you know, Joe,
like you, I'm I'm a Jersey guy, and I grew
up in an error when you're not supposed to have feelings,
You're not supposed to cry, you're not supposed to tell
the truth all the time. And this was one where

(15:03):
I sat down and I mean I got I got emotional.
I teared up at points, I I got chills at points,
remember and stuff. So it was a neat project. I
hope people like it. What's it called, Mike, It's called
Never Give Up. That was a stretch, right coming up
with that title. But I think everyone's life and everyone's

(15:25):
career you go through a bit of a roller coaster,
and and when you're at the bottom, sometimes you don't
want to wait or you don't want to work to
get back up to the top. So, like I said,
it's it's just it's a great story of the sport.
More than anything and I hope people appreciate it. I'm
sure they will. Man, that's gonna be awesome. And it
sort of plays right into you the segment we're having

(15:45):
you on for here, so you're talking about this, this
this docuseries sort of showing you the reality and you
know how real you guys are so smooth moves, you know, normally,
before we do that, Joe, before we do that, I'm
gonna start my own docuseries and it's going to be
called utting in a word edgewise with Joe Sph Mellie.
One thing I wanted to say be a long documentary talk. Man.

(16:08):
What I was gonna say is, you know, I've grown
up very much as like a recreational uh fisher, and
a document is that ILK even though like the pro
circuit in the tournament circuit has never really been something.
It's been on like the periphery of a lot of
stuff that I've done, but it's never been anything that
I focused on personally. I think the way that you're
like approaching that is going to be super interesting not

(16:30):
only for people who are interested in the tournament scene,
but just for people who wanted to know more about
the internal workings of an organization like that, and how
it relates to the people that you know, you end
up seeing on television. Yeah, I hope it does that. Um. Like,
like I said, I'm here to tell you that pro
fishing is no different than any other profession or sport

(16:54):
or occupation. There's politics, there's drama, there's heart, there's success,
there's all that stuff. And you know, I'll even mentioned
other names. You know, guy, some of the best in
the world, right Rick Klein, Kevin Van Damn, Rowland Martin.
These guys all dealt with the same stuff too, right there.

(17:15):
They're not super humans. I mean, this is life and
it's it's an interesting look I think. Um, at this
stage in my career, even though I'm still tour fishing,
even though I still have sponsors, I still have to
maintain that line. It was nice opening up and being honest,

(17:35):
you know, again, without throwing anybody under the bus from
a name standpoint, It's felt very good to just say
this is how it happened. Yeah. Well, we we had
we had our buddies Carl and Brandon on the other day,
and one of the things that Joe really kind of
brought up was the fact that everybody wants to thinks

(17:56):
they want to do this for a living, and and
and things, these certain things is about it. But one
thing that they don't consider is like the pressure and
and all that stuff that comes with it. And I
think it sounds like your doc series is like really
going to cover that. I'm super excited. Yeah, it's definitely.
You look at both those guys, uh. You know, carl
And and Brandon are both probably the hardest working guys

(18:20):
out there. And I'm saying that for real. They're dark
to dark. They worked really hard. Their success shows. But
the interesting thing is carl and Brandon, we're always have
been branded as the nice guys. Very very early on,
I got thrown under the bus is Bend the jerk
off of professional fishing, uh And, And I was okay

(18:43):
with that. I accepted that, right you know. ESPN did
an article and said I was the bad boy of
g Q did an article said I was the bad
boy of fishing. I'm not bad. I've already I've already
been in a street fight like once. I like any
but I accepted it, and I you know, I I
focused on what I thought was important and tried to

(19:05):
grow my fan base, and uh, I'm passionate about fishing, right,
so in hindsight, all that stuff to help me. But
I really think they have it easier than I had it.
Oh there you go, all right, all right, all right,
well so we'll we'll we'll get into this story here again.
This is perfect because we're talking about the behind the
scenes reality and if the street fight happen to have

(19:27):
anything to do with fishing, maybe that's your story today.
Normally we have guides and captains on smooth moves to
you know, bitch about crazy things their clients have done.
But um, you know, we want one from your personal history,
just sort of one of those Holy sh it, I
can't believe I did that. Moments that that that makes
what you do real to the weekend Angler, and I
know you said you have tons of these, it's gonna

(19:48):
be hard to pick. Oh my god. If you guys
ever get bored and need material, please call me, because
I really did. We can do this every Tuesday. Money.
I've got a little pile of thoughts over in the thousands. Uh,
that would fit this. But on the mike with Mike,
I could by Uh, there's definitely been altercations and all

(20:11):
that stuff, and I got some of those stories, but
I sort of want to dip into the reality that, um,
professional bass fishing is a very dangerous sport, right. You know,
you look at like NASCAR, and it's very obvious, so
the dangers there. You look at football, you look at
those athletes, say, yes, I get it's very obvious. But man,
fishing is you know, it's one of those sports where

(20:33):
you don't know. And I'm gonna recall an incident that
happened about ten years ago, uh down on in Orange,
Texas on the Sabine River, and I was making a
long run trying to get to fish that nobody else
got to. And I found this one little bayou and
it was about a five mile run through this real

(20:54):
windy little slew and I I've always considered myself a
not so great boat driver, and I'm being honest about it, right,
I usually don't know too many speeds except forward and
reverse and that's it, nothing in between. And I'm going
up this slough and I remember at the last second,

(21:16):
as I turned the slow corner, I see a slick
on the surface of the water. And so I've stream
fished enough to know that that means there's something underneath
the water. And I remember hitting the throttle, you know,
trying to pull the throttle back, and this stream is

(21:36):
only about the width of three bass boats wide. Yeah,
when I pulled back, I instantly hit something. And when
I hit it, before I knew it, I was being thrown.
The boat was being thrown onto the embankment, and it
was like it happened in a second, but it felt

(21:59):
like in a turn. And this boat, I mean was
just riding, riding up this embankment. There are branches and trees.
I can hear the noise, and so one thing I
remembers the noise of the branches breaking pure and and
the boat went up, went up, and it just about
got to the top and it and I mean it
literally stopped. And in my partner and I we felt

(22:22):
ourselves dult forward that it was the scariest besides the
car accident. It was the scariest thing I've ever been
involved in. And once we looked at my partner said,
are you okay? We're both okay? All right, If we're okay,
everything else's secondary. And I got out and started looking
at what's going on here, and I climbed to the

(22:43):
nose of the boat and look down, and that embankment
on the other sound went down a couple hundred feet
almost straight. Now, I mean we we came within twenty
ft of We came within a bass boat length of
going over that bank. It totally. So this was the
craziest thing. So the tournament's still gone on. I'm only

(23:05):
about halfway through the day. I'm looking around. I'm just
it's there's trees this wide, you know, to the left
and right of a giant, full size streets. And so
I've actually been up that river gar fishing. I can
picture it. It's it's windy and crazy and there's yeah, windy,
crazy cypress trees. Just it's a zoo and we're up
there and and and just by happenstance, this local comes

(23:28):
idle the pass and he's like, we're like hey, hey,
and and once we're no, we're safe. Right, my competitive
mode still goes on. So I'm looking at my watch,
I'm like, ship, i still got like three hours. I
gotta catch a lima. So I'm like, hey, he's got
toe straps. And the craziest thing. So we toe hooked

(23:51):
the toe straps on the back of the eye and
he's pushing, pushing, can't get it out, keeps trying, keeps trying.
Finally the back of the boat comes off of that
wedge of that stump and it comes down the embankment,
just like a slipping slide, right in the water. And
I'm like, my god, we're out, We're out. I hopped

(24:11):
back in the boat. My partner has back in the boat,
and I just know, I just know something's messed up.
And I start the outboard and it cranks over Yamaha,
sounds good. Idle back out to the main river, put
it on pad and I'm gone, And I got the
fish the rest of the day. Now, I didn't catch
my limit I wanted. I caught a few, but uh

(24:34):
as the reality right of of tournament fishing or those
those scenarios. And I've been in twelve foot waves in
a bass boat. I've had lightning crack around me. But
it is. It is a dangerous sport for all everybody
Washington listen and thinks it's not a dangerous sport. You're wrong.
We're gonna hear some more stories like that, and they
never give up docuseries. There's a lot of good ones.

(24:56):
In there. There's a lot of good ones. There's definitely
some of those altercations we talked about in there. Uh,
there's some really strange, bizarre stuff that's happened with fans
over the years. You're going to hear it all. It's
all true. So what was the takeaway from that from
that accident? Man? Like, did you tone it down after that?
You know, I toned it down a little bit that

(25:16):
next year, right, Like something like that happens, it's pretty
present in your mind, but I think the competitor in
me forced it out of my mind. And and and
you know now I'm still driving like a maniac like
I did then too. You know. Well, so you got
never give up even when you tell your little straight

(25:37):
up into the woods if you have to. As always, man,
we appreciate you stopping by, Mike Stoked for this. Everybody
listening in February eight next week check it out and
I'm sure we'll talk to you again down the road. Man.
Thanks guys, And if you ever need any a v
audio technical difficulty troubleshooting, call will So that last part

(25:59):
that that Mike close was with there where we was
talking about if we ever need him for a v
trouble shooting. He said that because it took him a
little while to get online with us, right, He's like,
I'm not tech savvy. My wife, my wife Becky is
like his I T person and she was not home
and it was hysterical because he was getting frustrated, but
we weren't. I just I I enjoyed it very much.

(26:20):
Mike is always a good time And after we finished
recording with him, we talked a little bit about sports
docks uh in general, and how something like what he's
doing might just have the sort of the tow appeal
to folks outside of the fishing world, because I'm not
much of a sports guy really, like I really don't
care about about sports, but I still get sucked right

(26:43):
into a good sports dock. Um. Matter of fact, one
of our listeners pardon me for not remember exactly who
recommended one called Untold Crime and Penalties, which is about
the Dan Barry trash Ers hockey team, and holy sh it,
was it wild. Like you, you don't need to care
about hockey at all to get lost in that one.
So I appreciate a good sports stock. Yeah, yeah, man,

(27:05):
uh drink um. I really liked the last dance documentary
about Michael Jordan's The Bulls, and uh, I don't really
give a shit about basketball. Yeah, exactly, and that's why
something's transcend Yeah, that's that's what I hate to say.
I have not seen, but it's uh, it's in my
queue anyway. Maintaining my title as news dominator is also

(27:27):
in my queue. Your quiz was cute and all, but
Phil clearly values proper journalism over gimmickry. So let's see
what kind of consolation prize Phil has for you this
week in fish News. Fish News. That escalated quickly, So man,
tell you what I am the still getting feedback from

(27:47):
listeners regarding the kids fishing limit that question we had
and how limits separation varies state by state. Um, those
are still rolling in. That is apparently touched a nerve.
People are sharing all so sick you're taking this. I'm
done talking too. But I I that's too bad, because
I got a note from a listener via d M

(28:09):
and I'm not gonna say his name, but I just
thought I would share this and then we'll stop talking
about this. But I thought I would share this for
some perspective on a rule that, as we said, many
people might overlook. He says, about fifteen years ago, he
was fishing with his stepson in Virginia and at the time,
the smallmouth limit was five per person. They had kept
seven total between them, but put them on the same stringer,

(28:29):
and then at the ramp awarden checked them and asked
who's fish these were, and of course they were like, well,
these are ours, me and my stepsons. And he says, well,
they're on the same stringer, so you're over the limit.
Who's taking the ticket? Naturally, this guy didn't want his
steps on to get in trouble, so he took it.
And it was a hundred bucks for being over the
limit and twenty dollars for each fish over the limit.
And I'll say, all in all right, that's not the

(28:51):
worst fine I've ever heard of. But he says to
this day that violation is still on his record and
comes up like every time he applies for a job.
It has been a thing ever since. So it's just
something to think about there when you're talking about a
rule that's like, oh God, get real. Well yeah, got
real for him, you know, yeah, yeah, I mean that's um, yeah,

(29:14):
I don't know. That sounds like something that happened. Man,
I believe him. I'm sorry. Yeah, okay, well you don't care,
but I know that's that's fine. But it intrigued me
enough that I I I felt like, after this whole thing,
I had to know that the local rules UM, and
I started, I will say I started. I tried to

(29:35):
search it out on both in New Jersey and p
A Fish and Game websites, and I couldn't find anything.
So like, the answer online is not jumping out at you. UM.
I called p A. They were mega awesome and helpful,
and the lieutenant I spoke to you said, you know
you're actually you're not gonna find you know. Wording verbiage
to that explicitly says phish limits must be kept separate

(29:56):
or anything like that. UM, and everything would be case
by case, and these says, obviously, if you've got three
guys on a boat and they're filling a single cooler,
you know, fishing game knows what's up, barring any funny
business like you know, one guy not having a license
for them being over a combined limit, you know they're
they're they're not gonna they're not gonna be hard line
about that. He says, where people get in trouble is

(30:16):
you catch your limit, your buddy catches his, you put
him on the same stringer, and your buddy runs out
to get a sandwich, you know. He says like, that's
when they get suspicious obviously, when it's just one guy
over the limit. So if you're not with the group
or with that buddy, then they're gonna ask you more questions.
So it sounds to me like, um, I don't know, man,
maybe that officer of Virginia, he might have been having
a bad day because I don't know. I I think

(30:38):
the listener that wrote in it he made an honest mistake,
you know. Yeah, man, I'm really trying to stop saying yeah, man,
I know I've had multiple listeners suggest yeah man, t shirts. Okay,
you ask Garrett about that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so often
in you know, conservation offenses or like whatever you want

(30:59):
to call it, it really does seem like there is
a fair like margin of that law that's up to
the interpretation of the officer who's like potentially issuing like
the ticket or whatever. Yeah. Um, you know, I've personally
been out and my dad, you know, when I was
a kid, forgot his license and officer came out and
was like, do you have your license? And my dad

(31:20):
was like, shoot, I don't have my license, and the
officer was like, all right, well, your kid can stay
here and keep fishing while you go run back to
the house and grab your license and come back right
and the end of it. Other times, like people can
be like super super hard line on stuff that might
that might surprise you, but I would be inclined to

(31:41):
agree that the dude was just having a bad day,
you know, yeah, And I mean rules are rules, not
condoning it, but just saying like that seemed like one
where if both people were there, it's like, come on now.
I also wanted to see what the scoop was in Jersey,
but unlike the fine folks in p A that loved
meat eater, I said who I was to the very nice,
monotone lady that answered the phone at the d P

(32:01):
office in Trenton, and she was like, yeah, okay, hold
for transfer, and then I just ended up in a voicemail.
So I don't I don't know about New Jersey. You
guys are on your own out there anyway. Whoever wins
news today will be eligible to have Phil Taylor record.
Um his voicemail message on one of our phones. How
about this up for grabs? Phil will do one of
our voicemails. UM, yeah, yeah, I'm in for that. I'm kidding,

(32:27):
although I'm sure we could arrange you. Remember this is
a competition, Hayden and I do not know which news
story the other Chap is bringing to the table at
the end. There it is, there it is. Wait, hold on,
hold up. I mentioned in a listener email we were
talking about our our vocal ticks, like, for instance, I
say like and yeah man, and sometimes can't put a
thought together. And you, Joe you every now and again, man,

(32:51):
you fall into this like British uh, like you'll say, like,
for instance, you just said, Chap, I've heard you describe
things as not like, oh, that's brilliant, like in an
American way, like brilliant, like like that sort of accent.
I know, but the flourishes applied, man, or good on

(33:11):
you do that order bunch. Sorry, I just listener who
wrote in this is what I was talking about. Continue
listening that road in. I am more worldly and that's
all it is. I have friends all over the world,
and I enjoy international dialects. Damn it anyway, at the end,

(33:32):
our audio engineered the Mighty Phil will declare a winner.
And uh, it's it's your it's your lead this week,
old boy, what do you got for us there? So
thank you, Joe. So this story comes to us from
the Washington Post. It seems that Russia has underestimated a
bunch of Irish fishermen who don't want war games going

(33:53):
down and their fishing grounds. Boy, oh, man's got to
drag the Russians into this. So so, Russia had planned
on doing some naval exercises some a hundred and fifty
miles off Ireland's southern coast, which international law permits. There's
no like, it's not like any sort of like stepping

(34:14):
over a boundary. However, that would have put the Russian
war games inside of Ireland's exclusive economic zone. Joe, do
you know what exclusive economic zone is? Man? It's the
easy Yeah you know me so, Yeah, we've touched on
this before. An exclusive economic zone or easy is the

(34:38):
stretch of ocean that in general extends like two miles
off the coast of a nation to which that nation
has exclusive economic rights. Uh. The context in which we
touched on. It was the New England cod Fisheries, where
in the mid seventies the Magnussen Stevens Act claimed the
stretch of ocean extending two miles from the coast has
sovereign territorial waters, in order to decurb various forms of

(35:01):
overfishing by international vessels. Ye informations. Yes, um, so you're
you know some fun facts are coming up. Though nations
had been laying claims of varying dimensions to what they
considered their territorial waters. In two the u unformally adopted
two nautical miles as a standard. So interesting facts, Joe.

(35:25):
Prior to this, sovereign territorial waters were considered everything was
silvereign or sovereign. Are they different? Sovereign? Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign.
There I can go back and edit all the ups
if it is in fact sovereign. There's a good lad.
I hate you so interesting facts. Prior to this, these

(35:47):
territorial waters were considered everything within twelve nautical miles of
the coast, and prior to that everything within three miles
from the coast. The estimated maximum range of cannon fire.
How do you like that? That's pretty I didn't know
that because there's three mile rules for all sorts of things.
I didn't know there was anything tied to cannon fire there.

(36:07):
That's yeah. So the twelve of the you know, the
twelve nautical miles was like modern times and like, you know,
the three nautical miles was when they were still firing
cannons at each other. Anyhow, well, I gotta say I'll
just add real quick, like I've been offshore in Jersey,
like way way out when the coast Guard is out
there drilling and dude, like they don't mess it, like
you're literally tunaficient and it's like, holy sh it, what

(36:29):
was that and they like detonate something in your life
damn sound wave just like it takes you off the deck.
But they're totally allowed to do that. It's very cool.
It's eerie, but it's cool. And we're gonna get to
that in a minute. Um. Anyhow, the War Games, a
hundred and fifty miles off ireland southern coast would have
put the Russians fifty miles inside of Ireland's easy. Yeah,
you know me. Yeah. Uh. There are two primary concerns

(36:52):
with this. One is the short term obvious. It's awfully
hard to fish with warships and artillery crowding up the
fishing grounds. There's nothing like by catching the form of
a Russian nuclear submarine. Not that commercial fishing off shore
it's particularly safe in the first place. Um. The second
concern is long term and slightly less obvious, human disruption

(37:13):
and impact on future quotas. Human disturbance can have negative
impacts on wildlife. Du right. But one thing biologists were
particularly concerned with in this case was noise pollution generated
by what are presumably not very quiet war games. Um.
There's another So this is another thing that we've touched
on in a previous fish News story when we discussed

(37:35):
shark nets and their alternatives a couple of months ago,
specifically drum lines, which, in case listeners don't remember, I
know you do, Joe, are strings of devices that produce
loud noises to deter sharks from frequenting an area. While
drum lines can alter the behaviors of sharks, that they
can also alter the behaviors of what I guess you'd
call non target species. Um. So bring it back to

(37:58):
war games in Ireland's e Z. Biologists are concerned that
the noise generated could alter the behaviors of marine life.
In turn, fishermen are concerned that once this unforeseen environmental
factor is taken into account by fisheries biologists, uh, the
war games will translate into reduced quotas for commercially sought
after fish down the line. So like, theoretically, I mean

(38:20):
like the impact could extend into next season. Now, if
you're worthy, you don't understand the entirety of that long
and confusing explanation of ease s and marine noise pollutions
impact on commercial fish quotas. Fear not, because it is
no longer a relevant piece of information going forward. Over
the weekend, Russia decided to relocate naval exercises to areas
presumably outside the easy as a gesture of goodwill. The

(38:44):
news was received with elation by all, including the very
predictably named Patrick Murphy, chief executive of the Irish South
and West Fish Producers Organization, who of the victory said
to the equally predictably named Irish CNN correspondent Donnie O'Sullivan,
it's fantastic. Seriously, though, if you're interested, go check out

(39:05):
the interview. If you YouTube, Russia blinks CNN Irish fisherman.
That's what I did. You'll find it um is information
dence and explains more than just the essential details as
I've done here. They take you more through the how
than the why. Uh, you know, basically how. These fishermen
recognize that this was an issue, banded together and asked

(39:25):
Russia please don't blow shut up in our easy um
and and it and it goes to show what can
happen when folks who care about a resource get together
and you know, make an effort to protect it. Yeah. Yeah,
it's it's very interesting couple of thoughts on it, right. One,
Like Russia, if I'm not mistaken, owns pretty much the
biggest land mass in the entire world. Like y'all ain't

(39:49):
got enough ocean that you can just do this ship
in your part of the ocean. I don't. I don't
understand why we need to be all the way down
off Ireland unless it's just too cold. But it's also
funny because like here's a here's a group of commercial fishermen.
This is their livelihood, and they're complaining that Russian warships
might be too noisy for their fish. Meanwhile over here,

(40:12):
like our guys are complaining that wind farms might be
too noisy for their fish. And it's just a very
stark difference in problems there when you think about it.
You know, so good on the Irish boys for to
disrupting or threatening to disrupt this, But good on you

(40:32):
because yeah, these guys are I know, these guys are
out there like fishing for whiting and stuff, and like
you've got your little Irish commercial boat and they got
a nuclear warship. So you know that's a that's that
takes some brass to just try to We're talking about
the Russians, not the wind farmers. Again, it's very stark
what we're trying to disrupt here. Um. But anyway, I'm

(40:55):
glad that works out. That's one less Russian thing to
worry about. As of eight, at least the fishermen are okay.
Please enter your password. You have one unheard message your dog.
You borrowed my augar for that ice fishing article. Never
held the article you still I'm giving me back the

(41:18):
aug trying to get ahold answer your damn clone calling back.
End of message, delete press seven save deleted. So you
talked about commercial fishermen in Ireland. They're out there making
their living from the sea. Let's talk about how you

(41:39):
can make your money's right here in the good old
us of A by catching fish. So a bunch of
folks sent me this story, and I thank you all.
And they did it because it ties back to a
piece we covered many moons ago about a bounty that
was placed on the heads of brown trout in Arizona's
Glen Canyon stretch of the Colorado River. Now, when that

(42:00):
story first dropped, the going rate was twenty five bones
for any brown trout over six inches, and we joked
at the time that all you meet chucker should just
quit your jobs and head out, since you know you're
all just brown trout slayers anyway, right, it seems perfect
quick update on that As of December, the pay has
been increased to thirty three dollars per brown trout and

(42:24):
an additional fifty dollars for each three brown trout, three
hundred bucks for each harvested brown UH containing a pit tag,
fived bonus for the largest brown at the end of
each month, five bonus for the most brown trout harvested
at the end of each month. So you can you
can uh or those pit tags are those the ones

(42:45):
that a um CAW did a video of a similar
bounty on rainbow trout, and I forget where it was,
but it's Snake River, I believe. Yeah, But it's a
it's a it's a tag. It's not like one of
the like the transduce through tags or whatever you'd call them,
with the that are actually like outside the fish, like

(43:05):
the ones with like you know, about an inch long
with like a number on them. They're invisible and they're
put into the heads of the trout. And the reason
that they do that is so you must kill one
um to to find out whether or not that the
trout that you submitted has been tagged, because otherwise, like

(43:25):
you could catch a trout look at it, so, oh
this doesn't have the tag, and drop it back in
and let it go. Yeah. To be honest with you,
I'm not sure. I'm not that familiar enough with the
program out there. I know they want the brown trout out.
So it seemed to me like, if you were collecting
brown trout to put pit tags in them, why wouldn't
you just not put those back either? Because it decentivises

(43:47):
more people to go try and find Yeah, it may
be as simple as that, and it sort of ties
to the main story here. Um. So look, here's what
I'm thinking. You pummel that scene off fall and winter,
and then right around May you head up to the
Umbia River and complete your annual earnings chasing northern pike minnows. Now,
according to this story, this is the one you guys
sent from the Tri City Herald. One Washington angler earned

(44:09):
himself sixty one thousand dollars catching pike minnows in te
Um And now a portion of the annual pay out
for for Washington's pike minnah sport reward program is actually
furnished by the Bonneville Power Administration and in nearly seven
hundred thousand dollars was paid out in total right for

(44:31):
this program. According to the story, that's actually down from
eight hundred and forty thousand and twenty. And what they
say is that's that's because, um, there were condition issues.
There was a lot of grass and debris in h
in the rivers during peak fishing times last year, which
slowed down catch rates and productivity. UM. Now, to keep
people out there fishing, Washington is offering a raise here

(44:53):
to last season, they paid five bucks for every dead
pike minnah. Uh, this season, it's gonna be six bucks
each for the first twenty five pike minnows, eight bucks
each for two hundred fish, and ten bucks a pop
after two hundred. In addition, similar to the pit Tag deal,
especially tag pike minnow are worth five bucks a piece.
N I gotta make a confession. Yeah, um, this is

(45:17):
gonna surprise no one. But I'm an idiot. And when
I first heard about this, particularly how you call them
northern pike minnows. But I thought like it was it
was like a bounty on uh, like the minnows of
the northern pike. You mean like pike fry, you mean
like juvenile pike. No, incorrect, It's a whole other species. No,

(45:41):
I know. And I cleared this up with Miles when
he like dropped his story like last year or whenever
it was. But yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. I don't
know your honesty. I appreciate your honesty. No, but no,
it's a it's a whole separate deal. And what's funny again,
is there there there are are pike minnows. I don't

(46:02):
know if it's the northern or a different one, like
where they're protected. I believe in parts of the Colorado
River where there's giant ones that like those are protected.
Yet up there, we we want these to go away.
And for anybody who doesn't get that, what's wrong with
pike minnose, Well, they're pretty voracious, right, and they gobble
up young salmon and steelhead, and as we know, as
we've talked about, those two fish kind of take top
honors out there in those systems um as well as

(46:25):
in the Snake River, and this reward program is also
in play there. So it's the Columbia and the Snake River,
Washington and Oregon. So this is from the story kind
of fascinating. Biologists estimate that the reward program has reduced
predation on young salmon and steelhead by up to fort
from levels before the program began. The program's annual goal

(46:45):
is to remove ten percent to of pike minnows that
are nine inches or longer in the two rivers in
Washington and Oregon, and estimated at eleven point three percent
of pike minnows were removed, So I mean, that's that's
pretty significant. It's working. So this past year's top earner,
the guy that ended up with sixty one k personally

(47:06):
checked in seven thousand five pike minnows, seven of which
were tagged, therefore worth a lot more coin. I don't
think I've caught seven thousand life, right boy. So I'll
get to that for all you, like, for everybody out
there is like listening, like I need to go do this.
Just hang on. Understand some things. His wife, this guy's wife.

(47:28):
She also contributed one thousand, seven hundred pike minnows, thus
boosting the final cash payout even further. And the story
seems to suggest that they may in fact just kind
of do this for money, like that just might be
what these two folks do. This is their income, and hey,
I mean that ain't bad, right um. The next three
top earners in the program during the past season each

(47:49):
had payouts between thirty thousand and forty thousand dollars. So
this is the tricky part, right um. To get back
to those brown trout for a second. You know, a
lot of people wrote in after and said, yeah, but
you gotta understand, it's not like Glen Canyon is rife
with them, Like there's not that many, you know what
I mean, and they want them gone, So it's not

(48:10):
like a brown trout sligh fest. When you go down there,
you kind of work for browns in that system. A
little bit of the same deal here as I understand it,
pike minnows are not super hard to catch. They can
be really tricky to find. And having visited the Columbia,
I mean, this is a huge river system. Um you know,
it's super wide, super deep. So from what I've read

(48:31):
and see it on YouTube, they'll eat almost anything, right,
They'll eat a spinner, they'll eat a spoon, simple piece
of cut bait, worm, whatever. But one angler in the
story was quoted as saying, like you can go to
a spot one day and you'll catch a pile, like
I'll just you'll put up just a shipload of these
fish and the next day they're just gone and they
may never be in that spot again. So like this

(48:53):
guy who earned all this money, you said, you haven't
caught seven thousand fish in your life. For all of
you hopefuls out there current drafting letters of resignation to
your employer, keep in mind that like these top earners,
the time they put in is ridiculous, Like this is
not like blue gill fishing, like these dudes basically devote
every waking minute. You know what does sound a lot

(49:14):
like it sounds a lot like crappie fishing. Yeah, yeah,
exactly exactly. Now, I don't know enough about the science
or the behavior of pike minnows. It's something I've never targeted,
but it almost seems to me like they just are
always on the move, you know what I mean, Like
they're just piled in here and then they're gone. But um, yeah, man,
I mean you could you can make some coin, that'd

(49:35):
be it would be hard for me. Me drink um.
The guy who sent in the story about getting getting
pinched on the stringer put yeah, man in his own
d M parentheses arrow, pointing to it drink. So that
is infecting people. I just wanted to say. So there
you go, go out and make some money catching pike minnows. Um,
we're gonna we're gonna catch some heat from Phil here.

(49:56):
We've got pike minnows today or the Irish whatever you're
more into Phil, I don't know if you're Irish. Phil
is probably very Irish. You're right, okay, yeah yeah, And
as soon as we're done being judged by Phil, we're
gonna do an end of the line. That sort of
keeps up the theme of of drama. This week. We've
talked about a lot of dramatic documentaries. Were like, we'll

(50:18):
keep the drama going with a special story, a ballad line,
a ballad an ode an homage, end of the line homage,
Hayden Samic quit playing war games with my heart. You
are the winner this week. As a matter of fact,
I do have a bit of Irish in me. When

(50:39):
I'm not editing podcasts, you can find me out in
the woods looking for hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers and blue moons,
pots of gold, rainbows and the red balloons. Also, my
ass is so pale that it kind of looks like
the stay puffed marshmallow man, all kind of scrunched up
and piste off, you know, after they shoot him with
the proton pack. Yeah, well that's not loud enough. This

(51:13):
story begins in Port Clinton, Ohio, in July, where I
was hanging out with my bud, Ross Robertson while filming
the Walleye episode of dost Boat season three. Now, during
that trip, we had a little downtime, and I'm always
interested in visiting tackle shops when I'm on the road,
especially in places like Port Clinton, as they cater too
vastly different angling needs than the shops back east. So

(51:34):
there we were in Fisherman Central, which is a badass shop,
and there I was staring down an entire wall of
smith Bick rogue jerk baits. I've already covered the rogue
on end of the line and told you about its
roots and how I've come to love this low, especially
for trout, but it doesn't have a cultural stronghold in
the far Northeast where I live like it does elsewhere.

(51:55):
In fact, I'm lucky to find simple silver and gold
rogues back home, and if I do, they're generally the
deep diving models, not the smaller, suspending super rogue Junior.
Because that, my friends, is my money maker, and Fisherman's
Central had it in colors I didn't even know existed,
one of which, and admittedly the one that was least
appealing at the time, was a bloody crawfish red. Now

(52:17):
I bought two of every color that day, but only
one in that red. Those lawyers just sat in my
garage until November, when me and somebodies get more serious
about floating for big browns on a local river that
just tends to fish better in the colder months. Now,
for no particular reason, I tied on that red robe
during our first float of the season, and in a

(52:39):
few short miles it was smashed by three nice small
amounts three browns between seventeen and twenty two inches, and
it moved several more fish that day. Maybe there is
something to the red, I thought. But then in the
last run a whopper trout hit it so hard that
it snapped my leader. Knowing I'd be going back soon,

(53:00):
I decided, rather than hurry up and order more lures,
I just make one. So I took an old silver
suspending super Rogue Junior that was missing an eye, broke
out the airbrush, compressor and the copic markers, and spruced
it up with new eyes, a fresh black back, blood
red sides, and a brighter orange belly. And I gotta
tell you, it looked really great. I was really proud
of myself. And then like an idiot, I sealed it

(53:24):
with clear enamel spray and all the marker ran and
then it just looked like total shit, or so I thought.
Next round on the river, I had my bud and
frequent vent guest, Jim Fee chuck that lure that looked
like it was painted by a preschooler, and we had
some pretty terrible conditions that day, But wouldn't you know it,
a tiger trout, a small brown, and a fatty over

(53:45):
twenty inches a k a. The nicest wild stream brown
Jim had caught in years, piled on to that rogue.
A couple of weeks later, that ugly rogue jacked another
twenty two for me and moved a few more and
scored a giant pickerel, And just like that, my halfass
custom lure kind of became the one. In fact, it
closed out the season on that river with a twenty

(54:06):
five in brown, the biggest I'd taken there to date,
and the lure, which by then I had quietly dubbed
Sweet Rusty, had become my most trusted jerk bait in
a matter of about a month and a half. On
January PM, Sweet Rusty died tragically, and I do mean tragically,
because Rusty's final swim was while targeting, of all things, walleyes. Now,

(54:31):
if you've been listening to Ben for a while, you
know walleyes are not really my jam, but inevitably, come midwinter,
my cabin fever gets so excruciating that I talked myself
into visiting one of several known walleye wintering holes on
the Delaware River. And these are all places that just
get pounded, and my success at any of them over
the years has been nominal, mostly because if it's freezing

(54:52):
cold and I'm walleye fishing and I don't get bit
in like fifteen minutes, I completely lose interest. But on
the January twenty five visit, I had something I didn't
have before, sweet Rusty. I thought maybe this Jackson Pollock
theme bait would be as much of a ringer in
walter World as it had been in Browntown. It was
on the second retrieve that I got thumped, or at

(55:13):
least that's what I thought at first, But then I
remembered I was walleye fishing, and hadn't been a walleye,
i'd have felt nothing, just sudden dead weight on the
end of the line. No, my friends, it was a
rock that Rusty had connected with, and the poor fellow
came back in twirling just under the surface, only half
a lip remaining on his face, and I was heartbroken

(55:34):
for Rusty who would survived miles of river, thousands of casts,
repeated knocks off bank, would crushing blows from big browns
and pickerel. This was an embarrassing demise. It was like
a valiant soldier surviving many heated firefights only to be
killed later by a nerf bow and arrow. Now, at
the end of the day, and kidding aside, Rusty is
nothing but a suspending super rogue Jr. And I own

(55:55):
a bunch of those, So what's the big deal? Right?
He didn't swim any differently than the rest of them.
So was my botched paint job really the magic? I
mean maybe, But my guess is had I been fishing
factory red or silver instead, all the eats and moves
would have happened anyway. The fish were just on they
were chewing. The only reason I stuck with Russ was

(56:16):
because I had confidence in them, even if deep down
I knew that was an unfounded confidence, because I mean,
it's not like other people on the boat weren't moving
or catching trout on other ship. I think most anglers
have owned similar lures, and in some cases they may
be legitimately tweaked to perform differently than they would right
out of the package. But most of the time that's

(56:37):
not really the case. Most of the time nothing's been tweaked.
It's just that this black jitter bug or whatever just
has the it that the rest of them don't. It's
got the mojo, the juju, the juice, and they are
all different ways A lure fly can attain this mojo.
But while you can replace and replicate pretty much any
lure or fly, you can't easily build in the confidence

(56:59):
that you add in the original. I'm sure some of
you have lures like sweet Rusty, and whether they're living
or they've passed on, we'd love to hear about them,
So send your homage to Bent at the meat eater
dot com. You know that was that was kind of
a sad story, Joe. I did I not say it

(57:20):
would be dramatic? Dramatic? I can. I can sympathize with this, though,
because you know that when I'm conventional fishing, I'm doing
like a lot of like chunking and soft plastic ship
like I don't really mess around with like stick baits
too much. Um. And then I, you know, I fly
fish a bunch and that's typically like a pretty transient

(57:44):
um like like flies are transy, man, you never really
hang onto them too long unless you're not using them.
It's not but everything else. Yeah, you can hold onto
like a bugger or some ship. But like anyhow, um,
my favorite lie like ever is this one I tie.
It's like a it's a copper tongue head, so copper

(58:07):
colored tongue head with an orange hot spot. Uh CDC
soft tackle, a pheasant tail body with like a little
ostri turtle is like the thorn, not ostri turle up
peacock curl is the thorax. And then I I tail
it with CDL which if if you guys aren't as
hip as I am, that's a cock de leone, which
is just like it's basically a spate tackle fiber kind

(58:30):
of you know, but it's like barred and it's it's
a really good tailing material. Anyhow, I love that fly.
I hate tying that fly. So when I would like,
I I tie him in like you know, sets of
three and four, and when I would get to that
fourth one. This happened this past winter. Man, I just
did not feel like tying more of those, so I

(58:51):
just remember seeing this beat up crusty one in my box.
That was just I mean, it had like pheasant tail
fibers like popping out of the middle, like the the
hotspot was coming undone. And I just prayed to the
fishing gods, please please let this last throw a handful
more trout and and I'll be happy. And I kept
repeating that prayer and on on some Hanukah sh it.

(59:14):
You know. It was like the oil just kept lasting
and then I lost it, and then I I was
equally heartbroken. Yeah yeah, Well what's funny about this is
I posted this really goofy Instagram video about losing about
the destruction of rusty, and I said it to candle
in the wind. And maybe I made it too sad
because people from all over were hitting me up, like

(59:35):
send me that Lord, and I will fix it. Like
people are likes, he's not gonna die on my watch,
you know, people like get a guitar pick in retro fit.
I'll drop everything and and triage just for you. And
I appreciate that so much from the bottom of my heart.
But while sad like I was, I was also mostly
joking like I wasn't. I wasn't like losing sleep over
did call me in tears that one night. But I

(59:57):
think you'd like drank a little bit too much or
something that was something else that we won't know. I'm kidding, um,
but yeah, like it was a great lure. I might
actually fix it. I've been given some great suggestions, but
still like, like it wasn't like it didn't crush my soul,
especially since I have more of those, and I have
piles of Loco special jerk baits from our sponsors thirteen Fishing,
some of which I've already added similar red accents to um.

(01:00:20):
They make a three to five foot diver, a six
to nine ft diver, and the three to five is
my jam. They actually have, unlike many stick baits, jerk baits,
a weight transfer systems, so they bomb. And also the
hooks that come on them are scary sharp, way sharper
than Smithwick Rogue factory hooks, so that is something to
keep in mind. That they are not that I have

(01:00:41):
used mind yet because everything here is I don't know,
frozen solid, but they but they do catch shirt sleeves
quite effectively. Hey, you know you know what else is sharp?
The question we got from one of you out there
for this week's bent Helpline. What do you laugh without Martin?
You're not an idiot, You're not Jam Looney, how boy,
You're a fisherman. What's your emergency? So, for the first

(01:01:10):
time in bent Helpline history, we have our our first
audio question this week. Correct me if I'm wrong, and
this is an audio question this week, right, sure? Yeah,
And this one comes from Jim Morrison. Um, not of
the doors, although it's a great Jim has actually been
following me and my stuff for a long time, so
it's cool that that Jim has worked his way into

(01:01:33):
bent here and um, it's nice because we have to
do a little bit less reading this week, Jim. So
here's Jim's question, directly from Jim himself and John Hayden.
I love the show, got a good one for you guys.
So let's talk first mate, some tips. What is the
driver of a tip for first mate? Is it the

(01:01:53):
catching of the fish or the overall experience? This past
summer I had a first um, which was a bad
first mate. We had charter five guys went five a
guy um two. Two of my buddies have never really
fished before offshore. So the first mate was yelling at them, swearing,

(01:02:14):
slapping the rout out of their hands. Uh, Frankly, it
was just a dick um. When it was time to
leave at the end of the day, the three of
us tipped him a hundred bucks each who've all fished before,
and the two guys who frankly had a bad time
stiff him. I want to get your thoughts on that, um,
what distinguishes how you should tip a first mate. It

(01:02:35):
always creeps me out to get those voice members from
beyond the grave, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah,
the number was from France. Uh yeah, exactly. Um. So
I'll tell you what I think this is. This is
a terrific question, and this pops up for me at least,
I don't know, six seven times a year from people

(01:02:56):
who are traveling to book charters who just don't have
a lot of experience iNTS with this um. And I
really wish that there was an easy, definitive answer, but
there is not. Although I will say this tipping in general,
I think, in my opinion, it's ultimately about service. Like

(01:03:16):
you can put percentages on it and say like, oh,
well that you know it's customary to tip. Yeah, it
might be customary if you're pleased with your service to
give somebody twenty percent of whatever it may be. But
like if it's shitty service, basically people want to know, well,
how do I figure out how much to give a
first mate? How do I figure out how much to
give a captain? It's ultimately stemming from how good of

(01:03:39):
a time you had and how hard they worked, so
to jump right in, you know, with with Jim scenario
here where you had two guys that knew what they
were doing and the first mate was awesome with them,
and two guys that kind of didn't and the first
mate treated him like shit. Assuming that those two guys
who got treated like ship were good friends of mine,

(01:03:59):
I not have tipped the mate anything because, like, to me,
it's like you're there for the whole experience, you're all
on the boat together, and if you're being an ass
to my boy like that would have factored into me
tipping the guy. Yeah, I think like this is a
particular um. This is like kind of a conundrum that
you run into on chartered boats. Sometimes it's it's it's

(01:04:23):
not like it's not like shitty service at a restaurant,
because anybody whets shitty service at a restaurant is going
to be like, well that was shitty service. Um, if
you're on like a fishing charter and you're coming from
the position where like you don't know anything about fishing,
So yeah, dude, I mean if this happens, man pay
the charter blank the mate. Yeah, I mean, and that's

(01:04:45):
at the end of the day, Like that's you. You
reserve the right to do that. And how you determine
what that tip is worth, I mean, in very simple terms.
I always just look at it like kind of like
the cost of goods. So just hypothetically, if you're if
you're paying for a charter, like an in short charter,
whatever it may be. Um, we'll say an in short
charter on averages six d bucks seven bucks. I mean,

(01:05:07):
just in this day and age, like I think of
that scene not to bring up the Christmas vacation where
the grandmother's like if you rub, I have a painful burrow.
I here, and if you rub it for me, I'll
give you a whole quarter. Well, like, dude, in this
day and age, like if if a mate was good,
I always look at it like the kids should be
at least getting you know, a hundred bucks total, like
chip in from all the guys or whatever it is.

(01:05:29):
And if he was a rock star, you can go
from there, right, Um, I mean you could call it.
I mean that's sort of you know, in the ballpark.
But how you determine what was good? I think he's
on case by case. It's certainly wouldn't be for me
how many fish we caught. As an example, we go
out dog fishing. We might have a horrible day. They

(01:05:49):
might not be biting. It might totally suck. But if
that dude's constantly cutting crabs, making sure your bait bucket
is full, helping you get unstuck running up on the bow,
you know, to put two anchors out, set two anchors
in rough ass ice, cold season, the wind, Like he's
working his ass off to to to make your trip
as successful as possible. For me, it's always more determined

(01:06:12):
by that how hard did he work? It's not what
you caught, that's how hard did he work? Yeah, to
come back to like the waiter, you know, uh analogy right,
Like you wouldn't poorly tip a waiter who gave you
excellent service because the food sucked, you know what I mean?
Like that's not on the waiter. The waiter did everything

(01:06:32):
that they could that said, man, um, you know you're
gonna tip a guy like this in one of two ways.
You know, You're either gonna tip them by like letting
him stroke his own ego and be like, look, I'm
the man, I know how to catch fish. These guys
are idiots, you know, great, that's his tip, man that
that dude got to like feed his ego for the trip,
and you know whatever. But if you have another dude

(01:06:55):
who's like trying his hardest man and isn't trying to
feed his ego, that's when you tip that guy. Yeah, exactly,
And another way to look at it too, in certain scenarios.
I think more so that you'll see this more in
fly fishing, because there's no first mate in fly fishing.
But you know, you you book a fly guide, you
float the river, you wade, whatever it is. I know
a ton of fly guys, and there are some guys

(01:07:16):
who like your tip is directly tied to how many
fish they caught that day. They You know, these people
don't think about the fact that the guide can't catch
them for you. He can put you on them. He
could take you to where they're rising. He can give
you the bug and he can coach you through that,
but he can't. He can't execute the cast unless you
want him to, and then he hands you the rod.

(01:07:37):
But I think, um, for the good guys in that scenario,
they also have the respect to tip based on what
did I learn? Okay, well maybe we didn't have a
great day of fishing, but like, did this guy improve
my cast? Did he teach me something about entomology I
didn't know before. That's another way to look at it. Yeah,
And I think the final thing that um, you know,
I want to kind of touch on is like the

(01:07:59):
general DeMier of the guide. There are a couple of
different types of guys you'll run into. There's like the
guy who wants everybody to go out and have a
good time and isn't really taken it that serious. You know,
you're at a bachelor party, you're with a couple of
your buddies, and like you're trolling for Mahi in some
like tropical like destination and you don't really care too
much about like the fishing. You care more about like

(01:08:20):
the fun and the experience. Like that's one kind of
guy to run into. The opposite of that maybe in
the same general area is if you go on the
bone fish flats with like a hard and salt water guide,
that experience is like more serious because you're really trying
to pursue something. And a lot of times those kind
of guides they'll give you like tough love on stuff. Man,

(01:08:43):
they'll because they want to function as a team and
they want to be successful too. But there is a
fine line between giving you a little bit of tough
love and like, you know, seeing how good of an
angler you are and like trying to help you live
up to that and being a dickhead and you know,
and like that's something you gotta have the confidence to

(01:09:04):
recognize and be like, I didn't like that, and this
is not the way that this should have gone. Yeah,
you know, people ask me for guide and captain recommendations
all the time, and if there's one piece of advice
I can give you with it and this ties to
tipping talk to basically exactly. In my opinion, your experience
starts a long time before you ever end up on
the boat or wherever. And you know, people hit me

(01:09:25):
up and they're like, well, I have my son is
five and we're going here and I'd like to do this,
and who do you recommend? I'm you gotta pick up
the phone and I'm like, give every detail, be super explicit.
I'm bringing my son. All he wants to catch is
a barracuda. It doesn't have to be a big one.
We don't have to be out all like, don't just
jump on a boat blind because in his resume he

(01:09:48):
says he targets the thing you want to target, Like,
ask a million questions and if the guy or or
or girl kind of blows you off and act like
they don't have time to answer all your questions, wrong, wrong,
wrong guide, wrong guy. They're there there to make your
experience exactly what you wanted to be. And assuming they
do that, then they deserve as much tip as you
want to give them. Tip, tip them out. Same time,

(01:10:10):
if you get on a boat and the mates and
asshole and you're not going to tip him, I would
go right to the captain be like, sorry, dude, your
maid's an asshole. You know, like he needs to know
that if if that's really affecting your experience. So no,
no hard and fast rule there, but it is at
your discretion and the best thing you can do is
ask a million questions before booking any any charter guided trip.

(01:10:32):
Um Jim, thank you for that. Thank you for the
voice memo too. That was a nice change. Good to
hear from you. We we accept voice memoss Yeah, we
love them emails. You can hit us up on d
m um Bent at the Meteor dot com if you
want to go that route. Please keep those questions coming.
We are really enjoying this. A lot of them have
been super awesome and um you might get years answered

(01:10:55):
right here on the Bent helpline. So that's it for
this week. Thanks again to Micha Conelly for dropping by
when in doubt, whether you're watching a fish documentary or
running a jet boat or or or screaming at a
shitty first mate like you stole it all of Micai
Canelly go all in on that. You know what I'm saying. Also,

(01:11:18):
never give up on sending those awkward photos, sale bin items,
bar nominations, and helpline questions to Bent at the Meat
Eater dot com and keep using those degenerate Angler and
Bent podcast hashtags and go ahead and follow them yourself.
It will give you something to scrutinize other than my
shitty power tools because that's what we all want to see.
Hayden's power tools. I don't forget. If we re share

(01:11:40):
anything that you tag, you get some sweet vent stickers,
and if you want to up your chances of us resharing,
we accept tips in the form of bitcoin, homemade Lure's
hand tie flies, and Walmart gift cards. Send the drill,

(01:12:02):
be right. View videos,