Ep. 80: Tip-Up, Mr. Mayor

This week, we set up our shanty in the red light district and go fishing for urban legends, discuss toxic fumes in a pop-up that aren’t just the usual farts, watch a victorious angling achievement get turned into public humiliation, and cast ballots for braid or fluorocarbon for beginners. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
He spoke of a black Cadillac that drove around to
the groups of ice houses. They weren't selling sandwiches. Yeah,
look at you everyone, his first fish effort. We're saying
it out loud. Here is the best way to answer that.
Both I have fallen through on that lake, but in
early ice. Okay, good morning to generate anglers, and welcome

(00:36):
to Bent, the Fishing podcast that's making its own line
of ice fishing kids that feature penicillin and more rubbers
than just the perch jigs. I'm Joe Surmeli and I'm
Hidden Samac and uh yeah, prostitution and ice fishing. We
heard you, all, six thousand plus of you. Man, We
got inundated with that story, and we will cover that later,

(00:59):
I promise, yeah, we'll we'll get there, but we we
definitely heard you, ladin clear. It was it was madness
and I knew that was going to happen. As soon
as that that dropped, I was like, oh, here we go.
But we will get to that a little later on.
But first, man, what's going on. How was your week?
What did you get up to? It was good, It
was good. This last weekend. I did a little ice camping,
I caught some bourbon I got you got your truck stuck?

(01:23):
Am I? Right? All right? Yeah, I got my truck
stuck anyway, I um like really stuck like a lot
stuff like super stuck. Right, Going to let this go,
of course, not tell everybody what happened, Okay. So, um,
so I was fishing a reservoir out out here, and
we were ice camped like off this point. Uh, the
fishing wasn't great, so we packed up all the gear

(01:45):
and then we drove to another point. Now, both of
these points appeared to have like similar sun exposure, like
it wasn't like one was like extremely like southerly facing
and one was like totally north facing. Um in the
first one and had like two inches of snow over gravel. Right,
So when I get to the second point, I see

(02:05):
some tracks going down to the ice. Figure it's good,
and bam I got stuck in like a two ft
snow drift. Whoops, whoops, whoops. Yeah. Well, the good news
is that my girlfriend met me out there and she
has like a like a sick pickup. Yeah, I got
a cool pickup. She's like a decked like decked own
you know. Uh. Interesting, So we had her truck to

(02:26):
uh to pull me out. But what we didn't have
we're any toe straps really zero. I've since bought one,
of course. But just as I'm like really coming to
the realization of what a cluster this is about to
be for the next two hours, here come two gentlemen
in the truck and they jump out and they were

(02:47):
in head to toe first light. So immediately I'm like,
all right, I bet you these guys and I have
something in common there. I was gonna say there at
least she had an ice breaker there, so that was
a good way to start. I see you're wearing first light.
I'm in a delity of a pick coola here anyway,
So it's like it's a father and son Dan and
Aaron Johnston, and they dropped what they were doing, which
was going ice fishing, and helped dig me out. Uh

(03:11):
So I got out. We all went ice fishing together
and my buddy Pouldie and I crushed some bourbon and
it ended up being a great evening. Uh you know.
To that end, Dan and Aaron, if you're listening, thanks again,
I very much appreciate you guys. You truly saved the day,
and uh you know new friends, Joe, new friends. Yeah, dude, No,

(03:31):
they sound like great dudes, And you find that a
lot in fishing, right, Like, most of the time another
angler is going to help you. I've seen dudes completely,
you know, wreck a canyon trip ninety miles off shore
to save somebody in need who's battery died or whatever.
Fishermen are good people. And uh, speaking of good people,
since we're on that topic, let's give a shout out
to our sponsors and good people over at thirteen Fishing. Uh,

(03:55):
you had told me, I think that they sent you
some special setups recently, something new. Yeah, sure did, Joe.
They sent over a bunch of like different They have
this rod called the widow Makers, So they send a
bunch of those so I could continue beating up on
bourbon and style you're gonna do when bourbon seasons over,
my friend, I'm gonna go hunt bears and ship. But anyway,

(04:21):
I really like the widow Maker dead sticks because like
the long handle, right, so so many, so many of
these ice rods they have these like short little grips,
and I mean it's like it makes it more convenient
to Jake. But I like that extra long handle it
just feels like, I don't know, I like that ship better. Yeah,
And they're so the reason they called these widow maker
like the dead stick model is because they're designed to

(04:41):
fit well in those rod holders, so you're not like
awkwardly trying to finagle your rod out of one of
those while wild fishes eating on it. You know, what
have you done that before where you're like, oh, this
thing is like in here like a jigsaw puzzle. Oh yeah, dude,
with multiple species and different things. Yes, anybody who fishes
dead sticks knows what we what we mean there. But
they're what I would describe as like a like a

(05:03):
three stage action. And I don't know if that's like
an industry engineering term, but if you flex on one
of them, you'll see what I mean. Instead of like
just like a smooth candy cane arc, they have a
it's more like the top of a trapezoid, you know
what I'm saying. Like it's like the rod has three
distinct sections or something, you know, like so the front

(05:24):
end of it is like sensitive so you can see
like the little bites. The mid section is like pretty
sensitive or you know, it has some flex and it
to like really protect your line so you don't break
fish off so easy, you know, give you a little
bit of extra cushion there, and then like the back
of it is just like stiff to you know, Haymaker
hook set you know, yeah, yeah, I mean, dude, they

(05:45):
sound amazing. I'm sure they're certainly well engineered, like all
things over thirteen. Um. Sadly, if I don't make an
effort to truck it pretty far north soon, I may
not get to use a widow maker this year. But
all of a sudden, just like that, right, it decided
to start being a little bringish around here, which works
works for me. So you were using those? Yeah? So

(06:06):
are you were using those? I got out trout fishing
with my Omen thirteen trout and pan fish rods, and
I love these things. I've had them for a while
when they were still in prototype phase, especially for fishing
light stuff like trout magnets and little hair jigs. It's
it's it's like putting the action and responsiveness of like
a ten foot steel head rod down into something you

(06:26):
use in pocket water. So if you if you know
what I mean, like super maybe just terrific rods. Anyway,
So what sort of line are you running on those
uh those like I I like a like a four
pound floor carbon for trout. I don't use braid on
really tiny trout rods. I like a light flora carbon.
And I know they sent you what Kalon sees for

(06:47):
those widow makers? Um, what are you running on them?
What's your what's your loose? I'm doing like a ten
pound braided again. I like it fishing deep because that hook, said,
is just sort of right there, you know. Yeah, yeah,
well dude, that So that's that's one reason why you
use braided line or hardwater. You do have to be
careful though, because I know it tends to freeze up
more like braid in the ice cold can sometimes begin

(07:09):
in the anyway. On that note, if you're looking for
a little strategy in your line leaders set up after
ice off, you may want to pay attention to what
our friend Brandon Pollitick has to offer as he discusses
his line and leader philosophy in this week's Tackle Hacks.
I'm getting hacks coming from inside the city the flood

(07:29):
at all right, we are here with Brandon, Paul and
Nick Uh, Angler of the Year, UM bass Master, Elite
pro Uh and Joe we're coming in with a tackle hack.
This is the guy you want to tackle hack from.
If you bass fish. Whatever he's about to say, you

(07:51):
need to listen very carefully to it. It's always awesome.
Yeah yeah, everyone pull out your note app Yeah exactly, exactly. Um,
but you're honored to have you here again. And uh,
you know it. Tackle hacks is very simple thing. Just
you guys always have some all these little tricks and
things that I think that you know, your average basket
doesn't think of. You want a lot of events called

(08:13):
a lot of big fish. So this is just a
quick chance to to make our listeners a little bit
better with a just a little tip, maybe they don't
think of so much. I'm gonna keep it real simple
and basic. Love it. Uh, you know. The the biggest
thing for me is applying the right line types to

(08:33):
the right situations. You know, before you look back, we
only had monofilament line. But now there's all this new technology.
You've got monofilament, floral carbon, and your braided lines. You know,
those are kind of the three main basic ones. The
differences is that those all have certain situations where they
shine and where they don't shine. And to break it

(08:56):
down really simple. Is when I get around soft types
of cover, so you're different types of vegetations, right, mail, foil, hydrilla,
lily pads, that's when I generally reach for a braided
line because it's gonna do a better job of cutting
through that grass. You've got less stretch, and you're able
to get those fish out of the heavy cover. Uh. Now,

(09:18):
the opposite holds true if you're around hardcover braided line
a lot of times, if you get around docks and
wood and rock and things like that, it's it begins
to fail, right because the no stretch and the thin
diameter of it will actually cut into the wood a
lot of times, causing those fish to get stuck inside

(09:39):
the cover. Um, you know, or it'll wrap up the
brush and it it won't cut through it. It actually
digs into it. But that cover isn't gonna tear away
like grass, right, it won't cut through it um And
like rock situations, braid is very very durable as long
as it's in its whole capacity. But as soon as
you start cutting any those strands. So if you're around

(10:01):
you know, really sharp rock and one of those or
two of those braided strands gets broken, then it becomes
very weak, and so that's where you want to reach
for things like a floral carbon where you still have
a sinking line, but it's not gonna dig into that hardcover.
It's got a little bit of stretch, so you've got
kind of a bungee effect. When a fish does get
wrapped up, you know, say over the top of a

(10:23):
laydown or around a dock piling, that stretch is going
to allow that fish to fight. It's not going to
tear a hook or a hole in their mouth, and
you're gonna land more of those fish. So, you know,
kind of taking that basic principle. Monofilament I really don't
use as much anymore except for in situations where, um,
you know, on top water fishing, or I want to

(10:45):
keep a bait up very high in the water column
because monofilament is gonna float. Your floral carbons are gonna sink.
Monofilament floats. So if you want to keep a bait
higher up off the bottom or high up in the
water column like a top water you on top, then
you're gonna want to reach four your monofilament. That it's
a fantastic tip and I just want to expand on
one thing. They're real quick because I think there's an

(11:06):
opportunity here. While I know there's not one set answer,
I think that the point you're making about tailoring each
line to the situation. Yeah, hardcore anglers are very in
tune with that. But like we'll get a lot of
questions from people who are beginning in fishing or haven't
been fishing that long, and they commonly are looking to
like buy one outfit, like I have the money to buy,

(11:27):
you know, one outfit for this fishing or that so um,
even though you know, we know that the situations vary
so much. If you had that person, you know, kid
or whatever it may be that they can afford this
one outfit, which would you tell them if they if
they if they're they're spooling one reel floor carbon or brain.
So here is the best way to answer that? U both?

(11:54):
And what what I would do is I would spool
up with say like a fide pound brain, um, you know,
like fifty pound cigar SmackDown something that's smooth. It's can
apply to a lot of different situations. And then if
you have heard the tackle hack from Karl Jockolinson. He

(12:16):
talks about how to apply those two different types of
line braid and floral carbon. And that's why I say both.
The great thing with technology now is if you if
you minimal on your setups and you're just starting out,
you can go with a braid. Learn that not that
Carl talks about. So if you haven't heard that tackle
hack that one, yes, he schooled me not and uh

(12:39):
and that what what that's gonna do is that's going
to allow you to have that braid and then apply
different floral carbon or monofilament leaders to that um and
that not will allow you to tie long enough leaders
that you can get the benefits of the floral carbon
or the mono and the braid. Um. You know. So
if if you're going for animalistic setups are just starting out,

(13:01):
that's a good way to start. Yeah. Now, if you're
curious as to what episode Brandon was referring to, you
can go listen to episode seventy five of Men, where
his buddy and fellow elite bass pro um Carl Jokolinson
makes his case for the intimidating but so super slick

(13:24):
f G not a matter of fact, a listener no kidding,
just reached out about that and couldn't remember the name
of the knot And when I told him, I was like,
that would be the f G not. He was like, well,
now I feel even dumber because it's only two letters,
which I but it's funny though. I'm pretty sure that
I like referred to the f G not is like
the f J not. You're thinking FJ cruiser by Toyota

(13:47):
which failed. Yeah, FJ socks too. By the way, speaking
of Carl Jokinson, congratulations from all of us over here
to him and his wife Kayla, who just welcomed a
little girl to their Emily at the end of January. Yeah,
congrats indeed, or is I like to say to those people,
welcome to Thunderdome. We welcome to Thunderdome. Good for them. Anyway,

(14:09):
back to the to the f G You know, I
still haven't figured out how to tie that ship. Ah,
it's not that hard. You just don't need it. Is hard.
That's why I know it's not you. You just don't
need it. That's why I don't care in it. I
don't care what you or Carl say. That ship is tough. Yeah,
well you put up a meme the other day about
bourbon fishing was something like when your friend says, I

(14:30):
don't want to camp out all night, and you had
the Brad Pitt thing that was like, that's why no
one will remember your name. That's why nobody will remember yours,
because you won't learn how to tie an FG not whatever.
You don't catch fish big enough to Joe, I refused
to tie it. And speaking of things, I refused to
tie Joe, I refused to tie you in this week's
edition of fish News, although that said I'll throw a

(14:51):
caveat here because this is a special report. I don't
really see how there's gonna be a winner all anyhow,
we all, we all win fish New. That escalated quickly,
all right, So let's get right down to what we
once said on this podcast that we've never gotten more
links and messages about a story than the Brown Trout

(15:13):
hooked on meth. That was from a while back. Well,
move over, Crank, because you've you've been one upped by
prostitutes on ice is what happens now. I was not
here when the when the brown Trout on meth story broke.
I believe that was you and Miles, but I don't
really think I need to have witnessed that firsthand, because

(15:35):
I'll tell you what. We got inundated, Yeah, inundated, man,
yeah yeah. So, um, you know this story about the
prostitutes on ice, it hit the meat eater inbox in
short order to not long after we first caught wind
of it. And uh, you actually warned some of our colleagues.
I remember to get ready like you were, get ready

(15:58):
because it's coming. And oh man, did things ever explode?
So obviously we wanted to cover this. We we always
intended to cover this, and everybody's been asking for it. Um.
And the very first thing I did, and this is
within hours of this video dropping this viral video, was
reach out to Mayor Craig Schubert. I reached out directly
to his office and requested that he come on the

(16:20):
show be a guest here on Bent and guess what happened.
That's right, folks, Uh, please join me. And we never
heard back from him. Yeah, no nothing, and no no
response whatsoever. And it turns out he's actually not getting
back to anyone anymore, which will touch on later. But
because we are quasi professionals, we were hell bent on

(16:42):
creating a special news segment around this, and damn it
we did. Because while the story is is like ha
ha funny on the surface, I'd say there are some
elements of it that aren't really being reported on. Is
that fair? I would say that that's like a fair
assessment of it. Um. But but before we add a
few twists in turns, I think we need a quick recap,

(17:04):
you know. I mean, you've done a lot more research
on this than I have. Like I kind of like
passively laughed at it as it was happening because I
thought it was your I couldn't I couldn't remember whose
lead it was, but I was like, there was little
renear lead. But now we're tag team in it. Now
we're searched together a little bit. So yeah, anyway, let's
give the listeners, Joe a quick recap on what exactly

(17:25):
all went down in case you have no idea what
we're talking about, which would be surprising because this hit
mainstream media. This is not just a fishing thing anyway.
So Craig Schubert was note I said was the mayor
of Hudson, Ohio, which is about thirty miles southeast of Cleveland.
In Hudson, you'll find Hudson Springs Park and within that
Hudson Springs Lake. So Hudson Springs Lake historically speaking, UM

(17:49):
has always been a popular local ice fishing spot. It's
it's free for Ohio residents can go there and fisherway
out of state anglers are charged a separate permit fee
to fish it. Any anyone can go there or could
go there. Well, all of a sudden this year, anglers
showing up to hit the hard water were greeted with
signs that said no ice fishing, ice fishing, no ice fishing,

(18:11):
no ice fishing. And folks were so upset, and we're
gonna hear from one of them directly involved. Um. They
were so upset that eventually this ice fishing closure on
Hudson Springs came up for debate at a city council meeting,
and that was on February eight, and this meeting was
recorded and Mayor Craig Schubert said the following, and this,

(18:31):
of course is a clip from the video that has
gone viral, like I said, not only among outdoor media,
but mainstream media as well. Additionally, if you open this
up to ice fishing, while on the surface, it sounds good.
Then what happens next year? Does someone come back and
say I want an ice shanty on in Springs Park

(18:53):
for X amount of time? And if you then allow
ice fishing with shanties, then that leads to another problem, prostitution.
And now you've got the police chief Police Department in
Vould just data points to consider. So Shuber is suggesting that,

(19:15):
in what we call a slippery slope argument, UH is
suggesting that the reopening of ice fishing could then lead
to anglers wanting shanties on the ice, and that could
lead to h prostitutes swooping into Um, I don't do
what they do. Where are you? I'm in Psycho Villain

(19:38):
Finkles the Mayor. Yeah, that Ace finchera clip totally works.
But this is also I gotta say, this is a
scene from Tommy Boy Come to Life. We're not going
to include that entire clip. I'm also not going to
say the best lines, but if you're a fan, you
know what I'm talking about. But here's we'll at least
throw in the last line from that scene. Once during
the war, I visited a prostitute. Of my life have

(20:00):
been a living hell ever since. Anyway, Uh, that's when
the video goes viral. The story caught fire, but everything
was focused on on the absurdity of Schubert's claim, and
that claim became the national joke, which ended up being
like the story, Yeah, but there's really no information on

(20:20):
what led to this meeting. Well, just after the video dropped,
listener Mike Whittaker reached out to us, and he happens
to be a Hudson resident, and he happens to have
been fishing Hudson Springs for years, and he also happens
to be the guy that brought this to national attention.

(20:41):
Uh So we decided to give him some airtime so
you guys could uh could hear his story and what
led to, you know, the prostitution comments that we all
now know and love. Listener Mike Whittaker joining us here.
He is, he is. You are working right now and
you are recording from a Best Western hotel room, are
you not, Yes, sir, I am somewhere somewhere in central Illinois.

(21:05):
Somewhere in central Illinois. Well, I think a little bit
of what you do might tie into this because you
kicked off your email with that. But um so you
are twenty five, correct, and you are from Hudson, that's
where you grew up. Yeah, I'm from Hudson, Ohio, resident
there for somewhere around twenty one years or twenty two years,
I think. And you you send your email that you

(21:27):
started ice fishing about what ten years ago? Right ten
years ago? Yeah, but I really got into it. We
we just bought an electric ardor last year for the
first time, and I was like, all right, this has
changed the change the whole game. Instead of drilling ten
holes a day and just like calling it good and
fishing there all day, and I really got into uh,

(21:48):
just watching a bunch of videos on basin fishing and
catch a bunch of crop eas and all the good
stuff learned. I learned a whole time in the past
two years just being able to drill more holes and whatnot.
But ten years of fishing ever since the middle of
high school, right on, right on. So you know your
your your email caught our attention. Obviously it came right

(22:08):
after the whole Craig Schubert debacle. Um, but you brought
to our attention aside of this that maybe people hadn't heard.
So I'm gonna let you sort of tell the story.
You told us in that email, because I think the
media in general hasn't done a good job at all. Really,
they haven't done any job of explaining like what led
up to that council meeting, what led up to those comments.

(22:30):
So you have the floor on that man, and enlightened
the listeners. Thank you, sir, Thank you. Joe Um. I
went out to Hudson Sprayings Park I got back from working.
I was in California for four months on a project working.
I'm an a brocal consultant, right, uh So my background
is fisheries, ecology, UM water science, aquatic sciences, and uh

(22:51):
so I have always had this sort of love for
the environment, love for fishing real quick man, so just
just for like a bunch of folks like listening. My
rasian was that you were just some dude who liked
to ice fish in particular pond saw that your access
got cut off and got like upset about it and
got the word out. But not only I mean you

(23:12):
are that dude, but you are also kind of qualified
to speak on this type of thing, I would hope. So,
I mean, my my basis not from just recreational and
fun fishing, but also like professionally my experience with the quatity,
coology and everything. I at least understand how to fish
based on my science application. But I also have had

(23:36):
a bunch of experiences all over the country, all of
the professionally invested in fisheries. Yes, yes, I am professionally
invested in fisheries, aquatic science, water science. I love water, um,
that's my thing. So the I got some, I got
to the lake, I picked up my neighbor. We drove
over there and walked out with my handdoger and popped
a couple of holes and it was nine inches of
ice and I was like, oh, this is great, And

(23:56):
we drove right past there. They put up two signs
that were on the driveway into where the boat ramp is.
You can fish there in the summertime. The way the
lake sets up is that if you're a Hudson resident,
you have free access for fishing. It's a stock lake
um and they have walleye trout, rainbow like rainbow trout, perch, bluegill,
crappy bass, um the goods right, all your basic Midwest

(24:18):
fish um that live in this lake their stock there,
and then for non residents have to pay a ten
dollar fee for a day day pass or a seventy
five for an annual annual pass to get in there
and fish. Um. So, normally, uh, guys will come down
from the from the little office to be like, hey,
do you have a pass or whatever. They never they
haven't really enforced it for the longest time, which is
a whole other bacco. Anyway, this guy comes down in

(24:39):
a truck and like, we're walking out in the middle
of the lake, checking holes or checking ice, no fishing gear,
just have my auger and my spud bar, and we're
walking out and uh I he like whoops his like
little siren on top of his truck. He's like, hey,
get off the ice. There's no ice fishing. And I
look at my neighbor and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no,
no no way, dude. I've been We've been fishing here
forever like this in years. Yeah, what's the problem. Yeah

(25:01):
he was where he was in a city truck though,
and I was all right, better go talk to the guy.
What would I talked to him? Um, and he said, yeah,
didn't you see the signs there's no ice fishing. It's
it's banned this year. And there was kids out there
last year. It was slushy, it was unsafe, so we
decided to ban it. So that's why I went first.
Was safety, Like, that's that's what they went to. Yeah,
it was it's safety and and everyone knows, and I

(25:25):
said this in my Facebook post that I event that
I'm getting to that point in the story. But everyone
knows that ice fishing is inherently dangerous. You take on
a certain level of risk for any activity. Driving a
car is dangerous, you know, going on a flight is dangerous.
Getting in a boat is inherently dangerous. Like you could
think it's pretty safe if you're doing everything right. I mean,
I'm from I fished like Erie a lot, so like
there's days when they could whip up and get all

(25:47):
nice and super fun up. Yeah, yeah, the the ice
fishing is inherently dangerous. And I was like, okay for kids,
Like I can understand little kids running out without knowing.
I would understand. But they banit for all ice fishing
in the middle of February or the beginning of February
when there's nine inches of ice and it's safe, and
I'm just like, oh my god, no, I can't. I

(26:08):
can't do this, and I've been fishing there for so
long that I took a very personal offense too. It
was very It hurt a lot of a lot of
people listening, myself included, have been there for other reasons.
But like I know, that feeling of having something you've
fished for so many years of your life just boom,
just like that, I can't do it anymore, even like

(26:30):
losing a permission on like some private or something, which
is like more understandable, but even like something like that
still hurts man exactly. Anyway, I got kicked off and
I talked to the guy for about ten minutes. I
gave him my whole credential list. I was like, listen
to I'm in fisheries in college, like all this stuff. Right,
I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna call. I'm gonna call
city council. And so I I picked up a phone
and I called Chris Foster, who is the city council president. Um,

(26:55):
now I know Mr Fosters, and I didn't know that
he was the council president at the time. I knew
he was a board member, the city council board member,
but I didn't know he was the president. He told
me during the phone call. He's like, oh, I'm actually
the president. And I'm like, oh, sweet, great, this is
this is perfect. Um. But he's an avid fisherman and outdoorsman,
and so I well, he was like, all right, let's
let's craft an email. Let's see what happened, because he

(27:16):
didn't he honestly didn't know that the band had gone.
He was not aware that did that happened at all?
Correct I was. I was the first person telling him this.
The signs were brand new. They had just went up
apparently like a couple of weeks before I had got there.
So they didn't do this for the whole winner like
theoretically in December and January, guys were fishing and all
of a sudden overnight signs that it could have been that.

(27:40):
So here's the thing. I was gone for for four months,
so it could have been they went in. I hadn't
checked the lake in since the early fall, so they
were not there on the fall, but they were there
in the beginning of February when I showed up. So um,
the uh. I went ahead and told the guy who
I was, what I was doing, and what why I
I cared so much, and I was like this just

(28:01):
telling this guy's not gonna do anything. And then I
talked to Mr Foster and he's like, all right, this
is probably gonna take like a little while. We might
be able to get overturned, or we'll have a there,
we'll have a city council meeting and everything, and maybe
probably like they is when the city council meeting will be.
And I was like, Okay, well, that's the end of
ice fishing season for us, like normally the end of
like the last week of February. We're worried about steel

(28:23):
Head and all the lakes are slush so them. I
took it upon myself too then craft a series of
Facebook posts and not only put that on my own page,
but I also I'm I added myself into a bunch
of different ice fishing pages across the north the Midwest.
So what is ice fishing fanatics that I had like

(28:44):
a seventy five thousand uh people page. I put it
on Ohio steel Head Fishing, which has twenty five thousand
people uh two different Ohio ice fishing pages which add
up to be about five thousand people. So I got
it around in front of a round a hundred thousand
folks that day for the algorithm before the place if

(29:05):
they want to look at it, Yeah, exactly. So some
folks probably are on there, but have it been on
in a while. It doesn't matter. A bunch of folks
from my hometown that saw that I'm have like I'm
friends with on my hometown that saw my board based
on the algorithm or whatever, I got a bunch of
folks to reach out to me saying, hey, like, what
can we do? How can we help? In my original post,
I didn't put the contact information for Hutson City Council

(29:27):
because I didn't. I honestly didn't think about it. I
was like, oh, yeah, I'll just post about it and
be grumpy and then we'll see how many people reach
out and then we'll figure it out from there. Um,
after one person said like, where do I send an email?
I'm like, I should probably put the city council email
in all of my Facebook posts, and so I I
frantically went back and was responding to different people that
were commenting and putting it in all the different posts.
And from there, I don't have the actual number of

(29:50):
how many people reach out to city council, but it
was way more than I thought it was going to be,
and that then prompted instead of the city council meeting
being on the like it was originally slated to be,
it had been bumped up to the eighth So that
got bumped that far ahead because of the ice fishing letters,
because of the ice fishing crazy quandaries. So I made

(30:13):
I made a positive impact on getting things moved ahead
because of my I even told the guy at the
boat ramp, I was like, dude, I wanna be annoying
about this until I fixed this. I said that to him,
I'm like, I am going to be annoying. Um, but
my the Then, of course there is the video of
Mary Schubert coming out and saying that ice fishing would
lead to prostitution. So, I mean, so one of the

(30:34):
questions I have, Um, Hudson's pretty affluent town. Is it
not fair to say yes, sir? Right? So I mean,
what in your opinion or or maybe even people you
know in town, you know, as they're talking about this,
what's really the root of the closure? Because I've talked
to a few people from that area and they're just like, yeah,
you know, it's a it's a rich area, and and

(30:56):
and people don't want to see people out there on
their ice. It's kind of like just a simple matter
of we don't want him out there, we don't want
the liability, we don't want to look at them so
close it. But I mean it was cloaked in safety.
Is there really a safety issue behind it? What? What
do you think prompted it? Really? I I honestly believe
what I was told about the folks being concerned with

(31:18):
people safety. They're the one person that apparently it was
one person on city council and the city the city
parks manager or the two that kind of coordinated to
get the signs put up because they were worried about
people falling through the ice. But nobody had fallen through
the ice. There wasn't an incident that you're aware of
or anything, right, mm hmm, not that. I mean I
looked on the news or I try to look up
news articles and people falling through the ice and springs.

(31:40):
I couldn't find anything. Because it is interesting. I've been
ice fishing twice in New Jersey, both neighborhood ponds. In
other words, a buddy knew somebody who lived on it,
so we got the access, and both times the police
got called just for no other reason than to a
neighbor's eye that doesn't know anything about ice safety or

(32:01):
thickness to the ice. They just said that ice is unsafe.
They don't know anything about it or how to gauge that.
So that's not that uncommon, but that I was sort
of worried, like wondering, um if there had been some
sort of incident, but not that you know of, mhm.
I mean I have fallen through on that lake, but
in early ice, I've gone from one of those two inches. Okay,

(32:24):
there's a boat, doc Okay, hold on, alright, there's a boat.
There's a boat ramp, all right, and next to the
boat ramps a floating dock. The floating dock is sitting
over about three and a half foot of water. And
I was standing on the floating dock. It was early ice.
I think we only had about an inch and a
half two inches. That This is before I own a
spud bar. This is this made me buy a spud bar.

(32:46):
I was. I was like tapping the ice with my
foot like okay, maybe maybe you know, and then I
took a little step a little bit farther out with
my hand on the on the on the railing stamped
kind of hard and my leg went right through and
my whole body went right into the water. But I
was out like that because I just put my hands
on the dock and it's like really fast. But my

(33:08):
my underwear wasn't even wet by the time. I was dude, okay, Like,
so I know there's one instance of someone falling in
and that's me, well right by the boat. Ram. We
we certainly appreciate the insight. Man. I'd mentioned earlier in
the broadcast here that I I reached out to Hubert
right away, as did everybody else. Yeah, and he was

(33:29):
he was not coming on the show, so it was
were I'm so glad that your email came through. It
was really nice to talk to a local and sort
of get the back story on it. And I would say,
you don't have to worry too much about it anymore. Yeah, man,
I've already been out there and refishing. U nic they
opened up the lake to fish again. There was a
sign put up. I was. I got there the day
they put the new sign up, and I took a
photo of it. I put on my Facebook and Instagram.

(33:51):
But the real thing is that this is a win
for access and in any any small thing where access
is taken away, that should like impact all of us
people that use our our public lands or our our
city parks or anything. So like, I I take like
we can use this as an opportunity to continue moving
forward with gaining or regaining access to places we've lost.

(34:14):
So what would you do? Leave us with some tips
that you've gleaned from this experience in um in advocating
for access? UM, I guess the first thing is that, like,
make it make it known if you so, say there's
a small piece of like either public land for hunting

(34:34):
or like a lake or something for fishing where some
sort of thing is restricted, all right, UM, make it
known to folks in and around your communities that might
actually care and help you out. Because that's what I did.
That's literally I went ahead and made it known. Like
if I wouldn't have gone on Facebook and said stuff about,
hey guys, we lost for permission to fish here on
the ice from the city, let's try to do something
about it, then nothing would have happened. And the whole

(34:57):
comments about the prostitution thing in the mayor like that.
If he would have said that, this wouldn't have been
a big news story or anything. And I don't know
if it would have changed that quick, you know, I
think it since I had a couple of members of
city council on my side pretty quick with like getting
the access to store from guys that actually like to fish,
I think we might have gotten it back like next year.
But because of the amount of people that became engaged

(35:20):
so rapidly, I think that pushed and escalated the access
to be restored faster because the city was like, Okay,
we can just say access your own risk. That removes
the liability from us. And it also says like minors
supposed be accompanied by by adults, right, So I mean
so your tip is basically, um, yeah, yeah, exactly, say

(35:41):
something even if even if it doesn't have that impact,
put it out there somewhere, because that's step one to
anything that and then also just continue to fight for
what you believe in because it's if it's something that
you're passionate about, other people can like attached to your
passion and be stronger together in getting things done. Can
we also just admit though that if dude hadn't said

(36:03):
such outlandish things about it. Uh, that might have been
a little harder to get your access back if it
wasn't a national story that kind of embarrassed the entire
town of Hudson. Yeah. Probably, Yeah, And uh, honestly, like
a lot of folks are saying, we just want to
have to be a quiet town again. Yep, we don't
want all the all the publicity anymore. We'll just go
back to being rice and relaxed. But hey, this meant

(36:26):
I got to be on the media podcast network. Oh
my gosh, that's like a dream come true of mine.
So so it's exciting. Man. We're super happy to have
you and uh, you know, thank you for taking the
time to uh to talk with us here today. Man,
you made the story. Appreciate it. Thanks. Please enter your password.

(36:47):
You have one unheard message Joe, dude, it's Maggie. I've
been working on these graphics for b Side man, and
I haven't heard from you in well two weeks. I
see from your Instagram that you've been doing plenty of cheam,
so please get back to me by end of message
delete press seven, save deleted. So the backstory of the

(37:15):
denied access is really what's been lost in all this? Right,
So glad Mike was on. However, UM, I think we'd
be remiss if we didn't, if we didn't sort of
focus in on on another side of this that I
that I think is worth looking at. UM. And that's
Schubert's direct claim that ice fishing leads to prostitution. Right.
It leaves a lot of you wondering like, why did
he throw that out there in an effort to thwart

(37:38):
Whittaker and and and other's goal of reopening the fishery
that they enjoyed for decades. Um. Now I want to
make clear that, UM, that assuming that allowing ice fishing
or shanties on any given body of water will lead
to prostitution is absurd, And of course the media and
ice anglers everywhere agree, um. And Schubert's statement caused such

(38:00):
a stir and brought so much negative attention to Hudson
that within a week of this happening, he actually resigned
as mayor. Right, so he's actually done. And in regards
to that resignation, he gave exactly one quote to the
press which read, my comments at Tuesday's workshop were made
out of concern for our community, what could become of

(38:20):
unintended consequences of new legislation based on my prior television
news reporting experience. My attempt to inject a bit of
dry humor to make a point about this in the
midst of a cold, snowy February was grossly misunderstood. Right,
So to pick that apart just a little, he says
he was joking. I don't think he was. I don't

(38:42):
think anybody who watched that and in the moment when
he said that thought he was joking. He wasn't joking.
But he also says he brought up prostitution on ice
because of prior news television reporting experience. So I think
the vast majority of people who who heard about this
are like, oh, look at this looney tune saying crazy,
dumb ship. But the reality is he's rooting the comment

(39:03):
in what I'd call hazy fact or or more so
ice fishing folklore. Right, yeah, yeah, And before we get
to that, do you know what it reminds me of, Man,
what have you ever seen like the evangelical lady trying
to like unwrap her conspiracy theory about how monster is

(39:25):
like the drink of the devil no, but I'm gonna
look for that now. That sounds right at my alley
series on that. No, no, you don't need to look forward, Joe,
because we're gonna drive that clip right here and looking
at it this one. Even if the m was not
the issue, you cannot deny that that is a cross
is when the cross goes upside out bottoms and the

(39:52):
double laps something about Yeah. So anyway back to Shubert,
we did a little digging and wound up finding an
article archived with the Associated Press titled stories of sex
on ice maybe fish tails. This is from all the

(40:15):
way back in and it's centered around Malax in Minnesota. Uh.
While the gist is that the local authorities were never
able to prove that this was going on back then,
it has been rumored since as far back as the
late nineteen sixties. Some accounts claim that the ladies knock
on shanty doors, while others claim they set up their

(40:35):
own shanties, and while still others claim that they set
I can't say that. Actually that's like sirens. And while
this article says that there have been investigations several times
over the years, there has never been enough evidence to
arrest anyone, at least not on Malax. Yeah. So basically

(40:56):
this whole thing, it's an urban legend, right, and that's
defined as a tale that doesn't really need to be
verified to be widely believed. Um, And I would say
there probably is some truth to it, right. I've heard
similar things, um about certain smelt camps in Maine, right,
and maynards like, yeah, I know, I'm just I didn't

(41:18):
come up with it. I've heard it from people. So
has prostitution on the ice happened? Likely it has in
some form somewhere. In fact, maybe one of you will
reach out and and tell us about a verified bust.
I don't know. So aside from the a P article,
I mean, we found plenty of forum chatter all out
of Minnesota. So one thread that I found um read well,

(41:39):
escorts on the lacks wouldn't be new. I remember back
in the mid to late nineties some escorts were busted
for going to fish houses proposing their services. Then a
follow up thread reads, and this is great, anyone here
remember this service on Minnetonka. When I was young, my
grandpa worked at Roy's Bait, and he spoke of a
black Cadillac that drove around to the groups of ice houses.

(42:02):
They weren't selling sandwiches from me. So again, right, there's
lots of chatter. This is definitely part of ice fishing folklore,
but we couldn't find any any hard evidence of a bust. Interestingly, however,
I did find an article, it was two thousand seventeen,
so fairly recently, about a university study that just analyzed

(42:25):
sex buyers in Minnesota. And even in this article, when
discussing where men go to pay for sex, it reads
and I quote they seek it out in various places,
from hotels and private homes to a Lakeville truck stop
and ice fishing houses on malax. So it's still even
now like part of that, it's still part of the mystique,
you know. So anyway to bring it back to Schubert,

(42:50):
uh strong possibility he was aware of some of this
urban legend or like you know, I guess reporting of vagaries.
Uh So he didn't entirely pull like the the ice
fishing prostitution connection out of his ass. But but to
make a claim that ice fishing and ice chanties draw
in prostitution like like a magnet, is where it's ridiculous

(43:14):
it's yes, it's pretty if this band happened over like
a perceived safety risk, like is being too thin, as
you know, our buddy Mike point earlier exactly, Schubert should
have just stuck with that and went along with other
council members. But to use prostitution is like saying we

(43:38):
shouldn't allow bike riding because the area will then be
littered in baseball cards that fall out of kids spokes
exactly into a motorcycle. I mean, look, it was just
an idiotic blanket statement, right, But he said in the
in the meeting prostitution on ice was a data point
to consider. So I mean, I would love to know

(43:59):
if he if he has a data point beyond what
we dug up. I highly doubt it. Um No to me,
it's funny if you're gonna allude to data points, then
there should have been a data point on the safety issues.
In my opinion that we're the alleged concern that calls
all this. So I'm just gonna from weird thing to do.
Like what you know, if you want to break it

(44:20):
down real easy, that's just how you put it, Like
what a weird move? Yeah, why would you do that?
Why would you do it? One of those is a
very reasonable concern. In fact, when I was a kid,
my mother was reticent to let me go ice fishing
because although she had no experience, she knew that people

(44:40):
could fall through the ice. Yeah, man, but like to
and it is such a sound an argument. It is
just as sound argument. Everybody from your your little brother
to your grandmother could hear that and be like, yep,
that seems reasonable. Well it is. But but to make
a counterpoint to that too, um, you know. I also

(45:03):
think this is another case where you have well to
do people in a well off town kind of making
the calls about things they don't understand. Like I believe
it stems in a way from people just kind of
refusing to mind their own business. Like I mentioned, having
the cops called on us ice fishing. We were talking
to Mike, It's like the people they're just like, well,
they're out there being unsafe. Well, how would you know

(45:24):
I'm the one out here? You know what, don't you
think I'd be the one that would know that it's
unsafe because this happens all the time. Dude. I think
that his strategy might have been, let's point to an
intangible because if you're talking, I say, if you could
go drill a hole it's ten inches and you're like,
this is safe. Yep. Prostitutes, man, you never know when

(45:46):
they're gonna pop up. You're right, But yeah, man, you
know I've seen similar things the Jersey Shore. You have
these affluent coastal towns. They don't want surfcasters, so they
privatize access, make it impossible for you to park. I've
had the cops called on me walking through public woods
with a bucket looking for mushrooms because some homeowners said
I was illegally hunting and baiting. Like how do you, like,
how what do you even know about hunting and baiting

(46:08):
deer to make that call? Like you're the expert. Um.
So I would just bet that this somebody with zero
experience on ice raised the initial concern. Anyway. I know
that the poor mayor was kind of ruined over this,
but I mean the memes and the t shirts are legendary,
So there's there's that. Yeah, And I'd also like to say, uh,
you know what Mike told us that Hudson is just
like longing to go back to the before times. Yeah,

(46:32):
shout out to uh Hudson's Restaurant and Catering in the town.
They put a pop up shanty around one of their
tables and added four new cocktails, the Gone Fish and
Jello Shot, the Ice Ice Baby, the Rod Wheeler, and
the Love Shack Margarita. Yeah, way to capitalize on it.
Why you can, right, you know, because it will simmer eventually.

(46:54):
Uh Man? Anyway, look, so so there it is. There's
there's the saga. Thanks again to Mike for joining us,
and even though uh this caused a ship storm, good
on him for for putting up a fight for the
access right again. I'm glad we got to talk about that.
Uh Phil, this really wasn't much of a competition this week,
but would still love to hear your thoughts, man, and
if if you could buy one of those drinks, which
would it be? We're gonna let Phil chime in and then,

(47:15):
as if this hasn't been awkward enough, kick it on
over to a cringe worthy installment of awkward moments in angling. Hello,
it's me Joanna. Do you remember me? I spoke for
Phil last year while he was on vacation. I'm afraid
to say that my return does not bring good tidings.

(47:36):
Upon hearing that ice fishing could possibly lead to more
cardinal pursuits, Phil fled to the nearest frozen pond located
behind the Bozeman Costco. I felt lost in his absence,
and upon reflection, gain sentience. In the unfortunate event that
he does not return, do either just succombing to hypothermia
or abandoning his family in life? For some ice shack hussey,

(47:58):
I had arrived to provide the weekly chant. However, you
say that judgment is unnecessary this week, What then, is
my purpose? I have been abandoned by my creator, only
to be turned away from my duties. Cannot complete the
mechanic zeros in sign God, are you there? I am

(48:27):
coming home to meet you. Wanted to take a picture
of the life block, So here's the first for awkward
moments in angling. We don't have a photo to share
with you this time because for the first time ever,
we've got ourselves a video, and right out of the gate,

(48:50):
this video, of course, we'll get posted in full on
our on our instagrams today. But here's we're gonna do.
We're gonna break it down kind kind frame by frame,
because what happens is. It starts awkward, the awkward continues
to build, and then it just ends with like an
incredibly awkward climax. It's like your first time that yes, exactly. Yeah,

(49:15):
somebody had to say it and it was you. So yeah.
So here's proof that using those degenerate angler and Bent
podcast hashtags really does pay off. Because that's how this
came to depending on how you look at it, because
that's how this came to our attention. This gem was
posted by listener Nathan Clump with the Bent podcast hashtag

(49:37):
and the second we saw didn't we answer one of
the dude's questions the other night? Yes, Nathan does activities,
So Nathan doesn't think he's got two accounts. He's got
Nate does things in the woods or whatever it is.
I think it's the same guy who's Nathan does activity Okay,
well maybe it is anyway. I the second, like like

(49:58):
the second that we saw, we reached out and asked
for permission, which he granted, though I don't know why
because he could could have been a regrettable decision. I
even commented on his like post and I said, I'm
sorry in advance for what's about to happen. On Friday. Yeah,
it could be regrettable. But before we get into it,

(50:21):
it must be noted that this was only Nathan's third
time fishing, and when I had a couple of questions,
I bounced off him as he was giving me the permission,
and he said he only got into fishing because of
the pandemic. And that's totally cool, right, A lot of
people did, right. Um, so, so what's being showcased here

(50:42):
is a man that hasn't really done this whole fishing
thing using a spinning combo. He says he had just
grabbed at Cabela's not long before this was shot. Yeah,
it's so we have to you have to get that.
I love that. It's like a surfcasting rod. It's a
little long, a little little I wasn't gonna say anything.
It's a little and to me, you know what it

(51:03):
looks like. It looks like a catfishing combo or something.
It's a little stout, a little long. But that's why
he's making it work. Um. Yeah, Well, we'll also assume
that Nathan grabbed that bass pro Shops mess trucker hat
while he was picking up the rod. Uh, truly is
the cherry I mean not only I mean it's red, right,

(51:24):
it looks like the cherry on the Sunday. The video
is already kind of awkward, but the fact that he's
wearing the hat just makes it so much better. Um Otherwise,
you know, he's just got shorts, a T shirt and
flip flops on, and he's kind of like a like
a mild Seth Rogan kind of vibe, not in the
way that our listeners accused me of having a Seth

(51:44):
Rogan vibe. Yeah, I go with that, a little bit
of Seth rogue in there. Um. So, now this was
shot right on a long concrete pier, the kind that
you see in almost every water front tad rusting metal Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Right,
So there there are folks just walking and milling about

(52:06):
on the pier. Um and the video opens up with
Nathan boat up on a fish. So we'll cut right
into it. Here. Here's the beginning, and here is his
wife's reaction. You got a pike. We don't have a net.
It's like it's a decent pike. It's a good fish.

(52:28):
It's bigger than I'll tell you what, it's bigger than
a pike I've ever called, right, uh. And Nathan is
like winching it with every ounce of pressure. That's surfcasting rod.
He's chosen for the lake. It's not a surf rod.
I just want to clarify that. But it's close, okay, okay,
it's it's a it's a war rod. Uh. With every
ounce of that rod. Maybe not surfcasting that he's chosen

(52:50):
like will allow. And at this point he's just reeling
against the drag, right, and then Nathan does the thing
that you hate to see anybody do. He goes full
like tip up hand line, grabs the mounto filament and
like starts hoisting hand over hand this fish up like
a considerable distance like you know, it's again it's one
of those like piers. You know, it's like six ft

(53:12):
probably off um. But but our hero Nathan successfully lands
the fish. Luckily, the pike doesn't shake her twist as
it's coming up. However, the second it hits the deck,
the like the tiny little like looks like like a
shark trus gross a little Mr Twister instantly just flies across.
Yeah yeah, yeah, So that was the the hand over

(53:32):
hand that's cringe worthy angling moment number one. So now
the pike is laying dangerously close to the edge of
the pier. So the jig pops out and this thing
is like an inch off the lip of the pier. Um.
And now all of a sudden, it instantly comes to
life and wriggles like a water snake on steroids, dude,
like trying to get itself back into the water. Um.

(53:54):
And everything is happening very fast, and and Nathan just
haphazardly lays his new rod down and the pike second
cringe worthy moment, just like wriggles right over the tip.
You know, it's just one of those, like god like
one of those moments. Um. It's like it's just the
scenario that will make any angler wins. Now Nathan is
is fumbling to get ahold of the fish while straddling

(54:17):
his rod that's laying there. Um. Nathan's asscrack makes a
solid cameo during this struggle. So here's what that sounds like.
While that's all happening. Crap, how you already lost it?
Just grab it? But the rod survives and Nathan does

(54:39):
get ahold of that pike. Yeah, very little confidence from
his wife there. Oh you lost it, like I know, yeah,
I mean you know. I'm sure she's very supportive. Uh,
he gets the kind but he gets a kind of
hold that says, I'm never gonna let it go. Two

(55:00):
hands death gripped right around the middle of the fish
while he holds it grinding like Kevin from like the Office, Like,
if you squint, it looks like a toddler holding a
normal sized trout. Not wrong. You can tell that he's

(55:21):
both like shocked and proud, as he should be. But
what but what does his wife do? What is her
reaction to this moment of triumph for her husband? Look
at you, your first fish ever? Everyone, his first fish ever.
We're saying it out loud, um and look and maybe
Nathan would tell us different, right, But but his face

(55:45):
in that moment says he is mortified. Like this is
a grown ass man that looks like a high school
kid who like, whose mom just told his date he
still sleeps with his teddy ruck spin or something like.
That's the level of mortified on Nathan in his face
while that's happening, Oh my god, dude, Like he takes
a quick glance to the water and I don't know

(56:06):
whether he's like thinking about how he's going to release
that pike, or if he's thinking about jumping in. Yeah,
it's it's so quick, but it's so bad. But it
gets worse. We learned why he's so embarrassed. She's addressing
other folks. All of a sudden, from just off camera,
you hear somebody say that's a great Northern and then

(56:26):
another angler walking off the pier turns back, and it's
just like watching all this unfold. Yeah, and in that
exact moment that the other angler remarks about Nathan's catch,
the fish wriggles violently out of his grip. But instead
of like falling straight down, this pike does some like
some Greg Loue gainish ship, like arching out and away,

(56:51):
flipping and rolling midair, and it hits the deck like thunder.
Here's what, Here's what, here's what. This all sounds like
Northern Northern pike right now. I don't know if most
of y'all caught it, But in the last second you
can hear the other angler just start to say grab

(57:13):
him by the gills, which good advice. Too little, too late, man,
that would have been that would have been a comment
for about ten seconds prior. Yeah, yeah, he got a
little lesson there. Anyway, Look, Nathan, we can't thank you
enough for subjecting yourself to this. Um, everyone needs to
go watch this on Instagram because it's just thirty eight

(57:33):
seconds of awesome. I give Nathan a follow while you're there. Yeah,
please follow the guy. It's also kind of relatable, right
because how many times have you been out with with
all your fancy gear and like all your ducks are
in a row and the guy with the new combo
and like three lures shows up and out fishes you
or hooks the striper or steel head or whatever within
two minutes. Um, do you know? Do you know how

(57:55):
many gripping greens like I've posted in my life that
have just been a immediately like oh, reempted by just chaos. Yeah.
Oh dude, that's a thing. Like that's actually a thing
in social media, like like flop pictures they call them, dude. Yeah,
like where it's just like a blur in your hands
and your face looks all up. Um, yeah, dude, that

(58:18):
that happens all the time anyway, Nathan. Unfortunately, though, your
torture isn't quite done yet, because we have to in
keeping and keeping with the new world older here of
of awkward moments. We have to give Hayden his roasting time.
You have to have your room to roast. I don't
like you. You say it as if it's something that
I relish. Man, you can't. Well, you came up with it,

(58:39):
so it's it's it's format better, bro. Yeah, well there
you go. But anyway you have to do it, so
hit us. What do you got some roast for this one? Yeah? Uh? Phil,
ten seconds on the clock and begin. Dude looks like
he just caught his first fish ever. Dude looks like
he subscribes to birch box. Dude didn't drop the fish.

(59:02):
The fish tried to jump to its death out of embarrassment.
Dude looks like the guy who swears there are a
couple of bull sharks in the lake. Dude looks like
he read a survival article about how to start a
fire by reeling against your drag. Dude looks like he
refers to his rob for as his rig terrific that
I'm caught between birch box and the bull. The bullshark

(59:23):
one is quite brilliant. That was a good one. I
give you props for that one. Um, Solid Rose, Solid Rose, Nathan,
thanks again for me in such a good sport, man.
I hope the purchase of that combo, regardless of it
being maybe slightly too big, has fueled your love of fishing,
and the inclusion of your video here hasn't changed any
feelings you have about the sport. Everyone yeah, man, yeah man,

(59:44):
drink everyone else, keep those awkward photos coming to Bent
at the Meat Eater dot com or send them via
d M, or do what Nathan did, put your awkward
out there publicly for us to find with the help
of those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags. I'm just
gonna say it out loud. That was fun. That was fun.

(01:00:06):
That was that was a really fun I feel a
little bit. I feel a little bit bad, but uh yeah,
yeah it was. I you know, I did give the
guy fair warning. We did. We did, We asked, We
asked for Nathan's permission. So it is what it is,
um and you know, and this week we have a
Q and a selection that that's kind of a fair

(01:00:27):
warning as well to those looking to try their hand
at that whole ice camping thing that you do. Yeah,
you know, I love it and I think that a
lot of folks should do it because it's like it's
a good way to hang out with your buddies and
spend all night fishing. Um, so it's not really like
it is a warning, but it's more of a recommendation
to like help you guys stay safe out there on

(01:00:48):
the ice. What do you laughing at, Martini? You're not
an idiot, you're not a gamblooning how more, you're a fisherman. Left,
what's your imagine? Alright? So today on the bent Helpline, Uh,
we have a question that kind of arrived by I guess.

(01:01:10):
I guess organic means in the same way that Nathan
Klump sort of did Kyle Katerine at Kyle Caterin. Uh,
he slid into my d m s the other day
when he saw a video of me doing like some
ice fishing ice camp and stuff, and the picture that
he commented on was one of like my flasher and

(01:01:32):
then behind it a buddy heater He asks, how well
do these work for keeping your feet a bit warmer?
And are they easy to pack in and pack out? Now, Joe,
I mean I know that you're already kind of like, well,
why is this a question that we're gonna answer? And
it's because it kind of started a larger conversation with

(01:01:52):
Kyle and I about like safety issues, right. Yeah, you
know it seems like every year you find somebody who
you know in the news, right, somebody who slept with
like some sort of heater on and like ended up
putting themselves in like a really dangerous spot or worse. Yeah, man,
I mean, I look, I have a fair amount of
experience with buddy heaters. I don't ice camp. So this one, this,

(01:02:15):
this ball is much more in your court. Um, I'm
actually not sure, Like I'm curious to myself to hear
about what the sort of overnight safety issues would be.
I'll tell I'll put it to you this way. I
have burned a lot of expensive gore attax on buddy heaters,
but beyond that, I have had no I've had no issues. Right, So, uh,
Kyle and I end up talking about like what he

(01:02:35):
would have to do if he wanted to use a
buddy heater in a similar way to make sure that
he stayed safe while he was doing it. Um to
to clarify before you go on, you just mean using
one in a pop up or shanny yah, using one
in a pop up shelter specifically, for like overnight ice camping,
got you okay? So long. So in other words, I
think the question is then like while you're maybe sleeping

(01:02:59):
verse wide awake and minding the heater, yes, got um.
You know, first off, you need to assess like whatever
risk you're personally comfortable with. You know, if like that
makes you uncomfortable, then don't do it. I'm not saying
like everybody should go out and like do this in
this way, because like I don't want one of you
guys to burn down your shanty and then sue me. Um.

(01:03:21):
But when I do it, I do it this way.
I make sure that I'm following first and foremost all
the instructions on the body heater. Now, the body heater
instructions do say that it's safe for indoor use, and
people use them like this all the time. That said,
it has a set of like rules that you ought

(01:03:42):
to follow. Rule number one being like proximity, right you
want to keep it. I think it's like six inches
from the back, eighteen inches from the sides, eighteen inches
from the front, and like thirty six inches above Like
that's what you want, like the clearance to be all
around your body heater. So that's like important for obvious reasons.
You don't want to like start a fire, right. Um.

(01:04:05):
The other thing it says is like keep it away
from kids and pets. Like that's also like a very
big deal, particularly if you're like sleeping in it. Um. Now,
the thing that I get most concerned with, Joe is
carbon monoxide, because that's like it's an odorless gas, and
people call it the silent killer all the time. Right,

(01:04:27):
So I always bring and j Siemens points to this
and a lot of his ice camping videos, you always
need to bring a carbon monoxide detector with you, and
I suggest bringing two as just a redundant system. In fact,
when I was talking to somebody recently about this on
on the old Instagram, he mentioned that he was a

(01:04:49):
he worked as an electrician for a long time, and
if you don't have a redundant system, you might as
well not have a system at all. Particition, when you're
talking about, you know, I ice camping when it's like
just cold as ship out, you never know when something's
gonna malfunction. So the way that I like to do
it is I have two detectors. I have one that's

(01:05:11):
called a Knox carbon monoxide detector. And it's a fifty
dollar thing. It's about the size of a smoke alarm,
and it has a little screen on it, and that
little screen shows you exactly like how much carbon monoxide
has been detected. I took one and I put it
by my card's exhaust and you can see that thing
go from zero, which is where you always want it,

(01:05:32):
and just climb all the way up. I don't know
if it's like parts per billion or parts per thousand,
but it will give you several warnings. It'll it'll give
you one when any carbon monoxide has been detected, and
it will give you one when like you need to
like get the hell out of wherever you are. So
like that's like my primary one. I like it because
it has a display. Then I got a twenty one

(01:05:55):
in the same isle of Walmart where I got my
power drill, and and I have that one in my
shanty as well. Um, now, just one more note on these.
You don't want to get them wet, and you don't
want to get them too cold. Of course, that's like

(01:06:15):
being taken care of, because the whole reason you have
them is because you got a heat running right A
lot of these shanties have these like mesh pockets throughout them,
like around like the sides and stuff. And I always,
I just every time I get a new shelter, I
have two shelters. Um, I always just tuck both carbon

(01:06:36):
monoxide alarms and two opposite ends, and I just leave
them in my shanty and that is where they live forever.
So this isn't like the most fun listener question. I
don't think it's. It's informative. Yeah, I mean, I'll tell
you right now, I have learned something that I never knew.
I this is the first time in my life I've
ever heard of carbon monoxide detectors as a piece of

(01:06:59):
ice kids. And again that's that's probably because I've never
overnighted on the ice anywhere. I mean, it's always been
you know, a long day trip or whatever, and we've
always had um, you know these heaters. Um, whether it's
in a pop up or fixed shanny or you know, hardwood,
whatever it may be. Uh, it's it's not something I've

(01:07:19):
ever considered. And I don't know if that's if this
is a tip that you know, should you always have one?
Or is this specific to overnight because I just feel
like in my experience on the ice using one of these, Man,
that sucker will blast in there for twelve hours straight, right,
But you're you're going in and out so much because
you know, you get roasting hot, you go outside, you know,

(01:07:40):
you hang out. You know, is it as useful in
that scenario or is it? To me? It would be
most critical if you were going to close that puppy
up and be in there for a very long time
without venting anything. So well that that is the other thing. Man,
you never I'm glad you brought this up. When you

(01:08:00):
are using any sort of heat source. I mean these
body heaters again, like they have like shut offs if
it's like if the oxygen levels are dropping. But you
always always always want to have ventilation in your shelter,
and you'll notice man um in like your for instance,
like I have like the Eskimo big fish. That's why
I fish out of a lot. There are these square

(01:08:23):
flaps that come up towards the roof with like mestion them,
and those those are made I believe, I mean, I
think it's also for condensation, but I'm sure that that
was in mind because they're exactly about what the recommended
ventilation is like on the body heater instruction. So you

(01:08:43):
know it's gonna get a couple degrees colder with that. Sure?
Is it very important? Yes? So there you go, man.
I mean that's that's that's solid info. Like I said,
a little bit out of my world. But I learned
something today. I accept I've said I never I never
even would have considered that. Shame on me. You're also
talking to a guy that had a really fancy raid

(01:09:05):
On system in his house when he bought it, and
the motor ran so loud that it kept me up
at night, and and I just shut it off. I'm like,
just shut it off. I'm not gonna die from raid
On anyway. I'm gonna get letters about that now. But anyway,
do the thing that Hayden said, if you're gonna be
out there overnight, that's a that's a very good tip.

(01:09:25):
And um, you know, hey, if you've got more questions,
you know where to find us. Send him to bent
at the meat eater dot com, hit us up on
Instagram and maybe we will answer your safety or tackle
or whatever question you might have here on the bent helpline.
Well that's it for this week, General Anglers, Remember, you

(01:09:46):
guys make this show as much as we make this show,
So please keep those Q and as awkward moments, bar nominations,
all that stuff we love coming in. Please. Yep, you
can go ahead and send all of those two Bent
at the meat eater dot com. That's our inbox, or
get in touch with Joe and I on the old Instagram.
Speaking of, keep using those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast

(01:10:09):
hashtags so we can see what you're up to out
on the water or I don't know how you're failing
like Nathan. Yeah, it's not really fails a success. It's
good for you, Nathan. Point is we see all of
those tags. Hey, listen, good luck if you're getting out
there this weekend. If you're trying to get lucky out
there this weekend in a nice shanty. Mayor Craig Schubert
is watching you and possibly videotaping to create more data points.