Ep. 717: Is Live Scope The Death of Fishing?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless,
severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwear.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Listening to podcast, you can't predict anything.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.
Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting
for el, First Light has performance apparel to support every
hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light
dot com. F I R S T L I T
E dot com. All right, Phil, you ready, we're rolling?

(00:42):
We started.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Thank you. I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
We're just having a little chit chat. Prior in the subject,
did you bring it up? Seth? Yeah, Seth brought up
how we have the shirt that that that fisher was
wearing on the on when he found the weights in
the walleye. And then I was need to point out
to our guests here, who are fishermen that we actually
hold in our possession the knife that was used to

(01:08):
disembowel the walle eyes. It's a it's a piece of
history to find the weights. And he and then it
was an interesting little detail is he was a little
bit embarrassed about his knife work in the video. He's
he's cutting open the walllle Eyes, and he was a polo.
He was embarrassed about that it looked like his knife
work was inexpert knife work. And he pointed out that

(01:29):
his leather man, the leather man someone handed him, had
a broken tip, and that's why he wasn't able to
more expertly extricate the lesson.

Speaker 4 (01:40):
When I was watching that video, the last thing I
was worrying about was his knife work, I thought.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
So this morning I was reading at Harvard University. They've
been in the news a bunch for getting their balls
busted about anti semitism on campus. But uh uh, they
bought a different news story about Harvard. They bought a
man a copy of the Magna Carta. Did you see
this for twenty seven dollars and fifty cents long, long,

(02:11):
long ago, And these scholars just realized it's the original copy.
Oh God, someday they're gonna be arguing about this knife.
And I wonder if there's maybe hopefully like Walleye DNA, you.

Speaker 5 (02:28):
Mean, arguing about the provenance.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
They'll be like Dad, can't be the actual night despite.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
The label on this side, is that there's like a
little russ is that rusters like some dried drugs, dry blood.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I just hol't. No one washed it. So when there
is like a big thing and like a big scandal
and like it sells on sotherbs for millions of dollars
and shit, you know.

Speaker 5 (02:50):
It's like owning the gun that shot Lincoln or something
like that.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Exactly. Yeah, well I traded that for this. Yeah. Yeah,
it's the actual knife. It's impressive here in our private
collection that might be our only No, I don't think
we have a lot of artifacts like the culturally significant
artifacts like that.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Start collecting more.

Speaker 6 (03:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Today we're joined by two enthusiastic anglers who happened to
be not friends with each other. I hope you come
out of this friends. We built a good friends with
Chester who's not here, Jeremy Smith and Danny Thompson. And
what we're here to talk about was we're here to
have a friendly discussion, a friendly discussion about what's the

(03:39):
slang term for it, live scope.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
Forward facing sevenar Yeah, well no, live scope, live scope,
live scope.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
There day I was sitting at I was stuck at
a boat launch for hours because the wheel fell off.
My trailer made a lot of friends, especially when it
was it fell off the trailer blocking the boat launch,
you know, Ashole, Yeah, it was funny. There's two kinds
of people in this world. There's people that will do
anything to try to back a trailer around you in
a moment of distress, and there's people who will come

(04:07):
up to help.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Right, you know, there's a funny joke. There's two kinds
of people in this world. There's people that think you
can bucket everybody into two brackets. It's a joke. Anyway,
while I'm sitting there in my moment of no my
moment of distress is over because thanks to the help

(04:28):
of a fellow angler, we got the boat out of
the way, and then we were just people sitting there
with nothing to do, waiting for a flatbed trailer. And
a guy bragged to another guy. He bragged to another guy,
He's like, just got forward facing sonar boom. So I thought, man,
you should come into the studios. We're gonna be talking

(04:48):
about this in a couple of days. We're gonna be
we're gonna have a friendly discussion about the future of
forward facing sonar. Is it the end of fishing or
just the beginning? And we have a sonar enthusiast Danny
Thompson works for garment, but is not here representing garment.
Can I even say that you worked there, you got
a garment T shirt.

Speaker 6 (05:08):
I mean people are gonna.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Works for garment, but it's not here as a rep
of garment. But he's a sonar enthusiast. And we're also
joined by Jeremy Smith, who is from Lindner Media Productions
and angling Edge dot com. Who is is it fair
to say suspicious of nervous about?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
I think there's reasons for concern, with reasons with the
technology in certain cases.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah. I don't want to lead. We're gonna we're gonna
do the news first. I don't want to lead the thing.
But we've been here before. Uh, for hunters out there
that don't care about fishing, we've been here before with
drone technology, smart rifles, you know, yeah, remote control hunting
with remote control rifle. Yeah, like this comes up, this

(06:02):
comes up. Sure, How do we fit new How do
we fit emerging technologies into our regulatory structures?

Speaker 5 (06:08):
Wireless cell cameras, yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Wireless cell cameras, two way communications, Like, throughout the history
of wildlife management, we've done two things. We've gone back
and reconsidered old technologies like dynamite. Right right, they're like,
you know what, I know, y'all benfishing with dynamite, but

(06:31):
we're gonna stop. So we've done that, and then we've
engaged around emerging technologies and I have a couple of
thoughts about how that goes. And uh, we're gonna hear.
We're gonna hear from the fellas here about their thoughts.
But can I throw out one till later? Just tilate
everybody to keep them hanging around. The minute, there was

(06:52):
like a whisper of using drones for hunting. They went
after drones before there was a user group. Smart and
I started to think to myself, like you have to
if you are if you look at an emerging technology,
you cannot wait for a user group, and you cannot
wait for an industry to build around it. Once you
wait for an industry to build around it and an

(07:15):
enthusiastic user group. Right, you missed your chance. You missed
your chance. Like had someone a long time ago said,
you know what, these gas powered boat motors are going
to kill fishing. Now you got dudes everywhere, Yeah, you
could fish five miles from your house.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
You're not shutting that down now.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
You would have been like people. You could have gotten
some old timers be like, yeah, what's wrong with rowan
and you would have gotten you could have banned boat
motors for fishing. But you missed your chance. It's too
late now if you bring it up. I remember my
dad in the lake I grew up on, trying to
get a no wake zone in the evening and jeesuz
about burned our house down. But first the news. I

(07:57):
got two news pieces that aren't really what one's the
newspece see our day. You know that there's a dude
that one of the guys that works at the med
Eater store on Main Street, the odd calls my kid
to ask me they're headed to the emergency room because
he had stepped out a lionfish man, which is painful.
And I got zapped by a lionfish and I thought

(08:21):
I was gonna die because I didn't know about it.
It's like I remember getting bit by a bullet ant
and I knew it was bad, but I didn't know
what happened. And when I got hit by a lionfish
in the hand real hard, like someone swung it on
the end of a pole spear into my hand. I
was with Rannie Bain. I remember Rannie Bain yelled at

(08:42):
me put it in cold water, like and like you
look online, don't put it in cold water. What you do?
And I haven't talked to these guys since, but it
was extremely painful but very short lived. Like your hand,
like my hand, his foot, whatever, just blows up and

(09:03):
it's excruciating pain. Like I was just laying in the
bottom of the boat writhing in pain. Two hours later,
I couldn't even remember where the hell it happened. You
get hot water is hot, like get it so it's
too hot to put your hand in. And then the
minute you can put your wound in that hot water,

(09:24):
somehow it dissolves that toxin and alleviates it. So yeah,
they had been wading through the mangroves and one of
them stepped on it. But I haven't heard any news
from them since then. Another personal news bit is this morning,
I was trying to remember if the invasive dove is
called a ring neck dove or a collar dove. It's

(09:45):
a collar dove. But everywhere now, oh yeah, in this
state recording Southwest Montana today for the first I'd always
see him around town. I saw the first three in
my yard today.

Speaker 5 (09:57):
Oh really, first and first three? Seen where?

Speaker 1 (10:01):
The first three I ever see? I've seen them from.
Actually I need to go into my bird list and
put them down. We keep a bird list for the yard. Uh,
the first three I've ever seen, like touch foot in
my yard.

Speaker 5 (10:12):
Yeah, We've got tons of them.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
So I'm debating, like my kid will get them now
and then elsewhere. I'm debating is it ethical or not
ethical to start a little feed station.

Speaker 5 (10:25):
I go for it because on.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
One hand you're supporting them, but on the other hand,
you're whiting. You're trying to whittle it down. It's an
ethical conundrum with probably legal with probably legal components. But
you're allowed to feed birds and they're not a game bird.

Speaker 5 (10:41):
And they're in invasive, so I don't know about it.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (10:44):
They're bigger than mourning doves.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
I think, yeah, I can tell them just if you
get like because I mean, mourning doves are a little
bit you know, it's like the mona Zuma's dove. It's
like a real small little shit in the mourning dove.
And you got like a mourning dove and you kind
of get used to that size. It's just a plumper.
It's a plumper bird. The other day we were at
the other night, we were at my neighbors. We're shooting

(11:05):
bows at my neighbors because he's got a great shooting setup.
And I look out in his front yard and there's
a collar dove getting a drink of water out of
a mud puddle. And I told my kid try to
get him. And then we questioned it. My neighbor's wife
pointed out that that might not be the most popular

(11:26):
move with a neighbor, so we did not do it.
And then I told him I was like, confirm the
collar or else she might be in big trouble with
the law. Yep, she don't want to be a mourning dove.
A dude wrote in we had had a big discussion
about Doug Durren's emphasis on always backing in and how

(11:51):
he credits backing in with saving his father's life, which
I think is a is an overstatement. I think I
think Vince Derham would have survived getting attacked by his
own chainsaw whether he had backed in or not. But
there's a term for it that I didn't know. In
the mining industry. What's what's the OENNG industry? He says.

(12:16):
In the mining industry. Oh okay, this guy says, in
the mining and oil and gas industries, it is called
the move. It's called first move forward, like backing in.
You can call it backing in and everybody's like, yeah,
I know what that means. Or you can call it

(12:37):
first move forward and people will be that they don't
know what that means.

Speaker 5 (12:41):
That's like the tactical name for it.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah. It's like your wallet used to be your wallet,
now it's your E d C. Your pocket knife was
always a pocket knife, it's your EDC. Guy wrote it
a big thing about Red Don, which I don't know.
Why did we talk about Red Don. It's a great movie.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
You've brought it up a lot and whatnot.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Well, I brought it up because I am now like
I now have my boy being My boy is at
the age where, you know, fourteen fifteen years old, he's
at the age where I can now go show him
all the movies I liked when I was fourteen fifteen
years old. So we recently watched Red Dawn, and the

(13:27):
guy wrote in and I'm not totally sure why I
like it enough to talk about it, but I don't
know what he's getting at. He says. Red Dawn nineteen
eighty four is a masterpiece of modern cinema. Makes you
think about all kinds of cool stuff like government authority,
history as written by the victors, and of course dirty comies.

(13:56):
But I'm puzzled by history as written by the victors
because in the end of Red Dawn they go to
the the monument, and you gather from the monument that
we beat the Commies. We beat back the Commies. As
a boy eating pop tarts and watching TNT, the film
made me think about words quite a bit, like definitions

(14:17):
of vigilante, freedom, fired, fighter, terrorist, and the like. Also,
how all my boy Scout ranks and commendations would crush
in a post invasion America. That's another good thing he
brings up because in Red Dawn, the guy that has
an Eagle Scout is being targeted by the Rooskies. Remember

(14:42):
they think it's a paramilitary organization. He says, superheroes are
kind of vigilantes. America is at war with.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
The tear Really, I wish I'd better understood where.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
He's going with this. What it boils down doing the
end he's.

Speaker 5 (14:57):
Trying to ask, what are what are those kids in
Red Dawn?

Speaker 1 (15:00):
No, that's what, that's what. Yeah, it's I love it. Yeah,
Alex love everything about it. Love your letter. I think
he's saying like that from it depends on whose perspective, right,
because here you have they're violating, they're they're poaching deer
to eat. But they're the heroes. So are they poachers?

Speaker 5 (15:23):
Well, I mean are they poaching? Like, are you still
a poacher? If you're being occupied by some.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
It would have been good if they had showed him
tagged that bar. He like validates his tag, take it
to the registration.

Speaker 5 (15:39):
I think they get a pass.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
They're really nervous about going back into town. But I
need to register. Got twenty four hours.

Speaker 5 (15:45):
Yeah, like you go up to the rush in general
with your tag.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
It's legal. It's a great question. And then he gets
into of course, uh the Mary the robin Hood's people. Okay,
you know Robin Hood's people are poachers because they steal
the king's game and and and share it with the

(16:09):
poor folk. Uh. This would have been better directed to Clay,
who does a lot of his bear grease is about uh, violators, poachers,
But in Clay's formula. He won't do a poacher unless
the poacher is dead. He won't profile a poet. He'll

(16:30):
profile famous dead poachers. Or he'll profile poachers who reformed, reformed,
who saw the light.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah, he's not talking to active poachers.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, he doesn't, he doesn't. I think that's it. That's
it for the news, right. Oh No, there are a couple.

Speaker 7 (16:49):
Of things in there, but they're not all amazing and Choose.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Well, we got that, and then we got a guy
writing in that just is an interesting thing for people
to follow. He puts thing in quotes. There's the thing
in quotes happening in my little hometown of Elkins, West
Virginia that I find incredibly entertaining. He says he has
no affiliation with anyone related to this, and he's been
moved out of there for fifteen years, but he still

(17:18):
likes to follow the local hunting and fishen scene on Facebook.
He says, there's a young man named Trent Mullanu Mullanax
maybe Mullenu probably who's been catching an absurd number of
absolutely gigantic rainbow trout and he's been putting his photos
up at Middle Mountain Sporting Goods, the local hunting bait shop,

(17:42):
and he keeps hammering giant trout, and everyone in the
town is in an absolute uproar, accusing Trent of all
kinds of nasties, like unable to explain this streak of success,
saying he's following the stock truck. Other guys are defending

(18:06):
his honor and saying these are huge fish no matter
how he caught him. People have begun writing poems to
explain his like it's inspired poetry trying to explain his
incredible streak. He says, it's worth least to mention, and

(18:30):
then he gives the Facebook page or search Middle Mountain
Sporting Goods on Facebook and you'll find their page and
you can follow his trout fishing exploits, you can follow
the arguments of his critics and defenders. That seems well worthwhile.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Must not be a lot going on in town, but.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
It reminds it a little bit reminds me of another
famous another uh reminds me a little bit of the
round Paula Buck in Mitch Ron Paula's legacy of giant Bucks,
in that it like, here's this guy, like well giant
buck and then buck after buck after buck, right, and
people are like, why I don't get bucks like that?

(19:15):
How could he be getting these bucks? There must be
something going on. He posts another bock, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 8 (19:23):
Yeah, there's a level of success where you just go,
uh really, you know, Yeah, that's exactly what I thought
when you were talking about that. I'm like, in the
hunting industry, every once in a while, somebody will all
of a sudden be just you know, one eighties two
hundred's in a situation just on fire, yeah, where you're
like really like four of them in a season kind

(19:43):
of thing. And sometimes when that happens, eventually you find
out that it's just there's some shenanigans going on.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Yeah, you know, I'm not saying that Trent here.

Speaker 8 (19:52):
Is right now, no accusations. There's just a level of success.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
This reminds me of my high school days because we
used to go help stock the rivers around my area
and then we kind of knew what holds the fish.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yeah, but that was not but this would be brood stock.

Speaker 5 (20:09):
Yeah, exactly right.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
He's fishing stockers, he's fishing eight inches. He's fishing eight
inch rainbow.

Speaker 5 (20:15):
They always dump in double worn out.

Speaker 8 (20:20):
Ones, dirty dog, Trent, but who cares dirty identifiable though.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
It doesn't mean they got warm by midsummer anyway.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
They don't live the broodstock when you don't mean if
they because they're not naturally reproduced.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
So they can find a spot where there's some cold water.
But at least around Pennsylvania. In some areas, some some streams,
it just gets too warm.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, let's have a quick poetry contest. If people go,
and if people don't mind, like go type in what
are you supposed to type.

Speaker 7 (20:56):
In Middle Mountains sporting goods.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Yep, so middle Mountain sporting goods. If you want to
write a.

Speaker 7 (21:05):
Poem, this is in Elkins, West Virginia.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, write a poem about Trent. Send it in. We'll
judge the best poem. We'll send him a present. And
then and then if Trent, if you want to call in,
I'd love to have you call in and talk about
your experience. Is that all fair? All right, let's go
around the room and introduce everybody.

Speaker 9 (21:26):
Danny Well, Danny Thompson obviously you know, work for a
Garma Marine from andover Minnesota and fishing enthusiasts, been in
the industry now for like ten years, I guess in
the fishing business.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
So do they know what you're here?

Speaker 5 (21:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Okay, you told them, Oh yeah. Did they express any
kind of reticence that you would come on and express opinions?

Speaker 2 (21:46):
No?

Speaker 1 (21:46):
No, okay, supportive? Yeah, good deal. Sweet Well.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
I'm Jeremy Smith. I work for Lender Media Productions. We
make fishing content, so we specialize in making sport fishing
content in the Upper Midwest and Canada and avidat so
I also would be representing a technology company in many
regards with Johnson Outdoors there a customer of ours.

Speaker 3 (22:07):
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
So Danny and I both have that connection to technology.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
And Linda is the Lindy Rig.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah yeah, like Ellander yep.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
Can you explain that the owners of it, because I
think people will know maybe people would well when I
say people like me, for instance, I grew up knowing
the Lindy Rig, sure, and then only later it was
like oh oh Linder.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Linder yeah ye. So yeah. The Linner family founded they
made the Lindy Rig famously and then in Fishermen magazine,
which turned into in Fisherman Television, and then in the
late nineties they sold that company and then started another
company called Linder Media, and so they've had that business
for about twenty two years. I've been there for almost
twenty of it.

Speaker 1 (22:47):
So it's fun. Yeah, Yeah, it's good.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
I get to fish all over, so it's like fishing.
It's a good job.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Seth.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:54):
If now I gotta say this here, Seth is a
I wouldn't even I've fished this this emerging technology with Seth. Mhm, Seth,
would you regard yourself as an enthusiast or suspicious?

Speaker 4 (23:12):
I like using it, but I think there's because it works.
I have I have mixed opinions. Yeah, I think there's
there's at times you gotta be real careful certain things,
and then other times it's real fun.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
Yeah. The first thing, if you're listening at home, the
first thing we're gonna do after these intros is someone
is gonna explain what we're talking about. Yeah, someone's gonna
explain like like a sort of an impartial explanation of
what is live scope. And I have gone with Seth
live scoping walleyes and you're able to sharpshoot specific individual

(23:52):
fish Yep, you're able to be like, no, he's like
ten feet to the right, no.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Little little cast a little further.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Oh oh yeah, he's face and left Yep, yeah, grin.

Speaker 7 (24:09):
I've used it once. Ice fishing I did. It was
it was cool to be able to look in the
hole as one window and then look on the screen
as another window for you know, information as to what
was going on.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Did you catch fishy? Otherwise wouldn't have caught uh?

Speaker 7 (24:31):
I don't think so, because you know, like in a
small hole in the ice, there's I mean, we weren't
spearing for anything. It was just our line was down there.
So not really.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
I'll tell you technology that lets you catch fishy otherwise
wouldn't have caught ice fishing is underwater camera. When they
go to mouth, it like sometimes their mouth something that
you would have never even registered to hit, and like
one you're like, nowh.

Speaker 5 (25:00):
Ford facing sonar isn't that far off from an underwater
camp really.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Right, I'll tell you real quick.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
I'll tell you fishing canyon Ferry through the ice for
perch that some days I wish I didn't have ford
facing sonar because you see those fish come right up
to your.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Bait and then just swim away, and you're.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
Like, I would rather not just assume that there's nothing
going on down there.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
You'd get home a lot of earlier. What You're like, dude,
they're down there, yeah.

Speaker 8 (25:33):
Tony, Tony Peterson. I have actually have a weird connection
to both of these fellows. Danny and I live in
the same town. So every once in a while, be
at like a dance class with my daughters, there's something
to look over, and he'll be standing there because his
daughter's in the same class, which is weird. And then
I used to work in the in Fisherman office. Oh
so I started out as a fishing writer. My first gig,

(25:54):
like real full time gig was as an editor for
Peterson's Bow Hunting magazine, and we were in the in
Fisherman office.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
So cool. Which which one of them is smarter? Well,
we'll find out find out.

Speaker 8 (26:10):
But I'm this is a topic that I'm like crazy
interested in.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Are you using the technology?

Speaker 8 (26:17):
I don't have it on my boat, but I've used
my tournament partner has it, I've used it. I'm I don't.
I literally am kind of agnostic on it. I have
one foot in each camp because I can see. I
can see where I think it's going, and I feel
like when it comes down in price and the average
walleye guy gets it where I live, it could be
a could impact the resource. But I'm also like real,

(26:39):
I don't like taking stuff away without a really good reason.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Tell your story. Yeah, you know how drones and hunting,
and now guys are putting thermal on drones supposedly for recovery.
Who is telling us recently? Some guy they know already.

(27:04):
It's like, if you know where a white tail buckets,
it's not you're gonna sneak in and kill it out
of its bed right, Just that doesn't really You're not
gonna crawl up on a bedded whitetail and kill it.
I mean maybe once in a lifetime. But when he's
setting up, he flies his area to see where deer bedded,
and that influences where he sets up to pick them

(27:27):
off coming out of their beds. So already, yeah, yeah,
I don't like that. When you like, you know what
I mean, it's like it's like, oh, no, my buddy
lost the buck I'm just trying to find it.

Speaker 8 (27:38):
Well, I mean you think about that and say it.
Say the difference between a big woods hunt, you know,
low deer density or whatever, or fly you know, fly drone,
there would be a different thing. Think about like a
cattail slew or a western like western Minnesota, where you
could be like that dude's betted in that little willow
patch there. We're gonna go push him out, or I'm
gonna go sit up over him.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
You know.

Speaker 8 (27:59):
So it's the wind doing this right there, right, yeah?
So I yeah, there are ways you could put that
to you. I mean we were talking about turkeys earlier.
I mean you could probably find a roost. I've never
used a drone with the infrared on it. Oh, but god,
you could probably find a roost and be like, we
got birds right there, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Sure, browdy, Brody is brody?

Speaker 5 (28:25):
Yep, I'm brody.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
You're probably torn.

Speaker 5 (28:28):
I'm torn. I don't have it on my boat, Like
I fish a lot for while. I perch around here
all summer long with my boys, and I've been tempted,
but I haven't. I haven't gotten it because mostly because
I don't want to be staring at that screen all
day long. And it's not like this like war against

(28:50):
screens necessarily, but it's like you go out fishing and
the whole day goes by and you haven't like, yeah,
it's just and we do alright with that? You know
what I mean?

Speaker 1 (29:01):
You don't find Uh, Okay, this is the last thing
I can say before we explain what it is we're
talking about. This is interesting bass. So professional bass Circuit
they've limited competitors to one LS transducer in fifty five
inches of screen space. Te does that mean let's explain

(29:27):
what it is first? That's too complicated. Who's gonna explain
what the hell it is? Danny.

Speaker 6 (29:30):
I'll give it a shot, but don't get.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Into whether it's gonna end the world or not.

Speaker 6 (29:35):
Yeah, yeah, no.

Speaker 9 (29:36):
So basically, if we look back at sonar and what
we're running in our boats and whatnot, you know, traditionally
we'd have traditional sonar, like two D sonar. We're kind
of sending a ping down to the bottom. It's coming back.
If it comes back with something like a fish, it
might look like an arc, or we might get bottom
something like that. But it was all basically history, right,
So we'd market whatever sort On the right hand side

(29:58):
of our screen there would be most recent and then
it kind of scroll across the screen. Oh okay, look
we went over a rock pile, maybe went over what
we thought was.

Speaker 6 (30:05):
A big walleye.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
What was the delay?

Speaker 9 (30:07):
I mean it you know, it depends on how fast
you're going and all that kind of stuff. But let's say,
you know, get to the middle of the screen. It
might have been you know, five to fifteen seconds ago.
Depending on how fast we're going, it could have been
second ago. If we're going fast, right. But now with
live sonar, what we're doing is we're basically taking like
scanning sonar, so it's almost gonna be more of like
a side imaging image or a down imaging image. We're

(30:30):
speeding it up really fast, and then on top of it,
what you're able to do is get a really wide
cone angle. So with traditional sonar were maybe seven to
sixteen degrees, so the coverage of the bottom not only
was it like historical, we might only be covering anywhere
from five to you know, ten feet to the bottom.
Maybe that's all we're seeing now with a live scope transducer.

(30:53):
Let's just say in this case, I have it mounted
on my trolling motor. I have one hundred and thirty
five degree cone angle by twenty degrees, So if I'm
sitting on a lake like Malas on the mudflats. I
can look backwards let's say twenty five feet, and I
can look forward up to two hundred feet, you know,
And and obviously you know it's stepth dependance. So the

(31:14):
shallower we go, the less distance that we can see,
the deeper we are kind of the better the image
really gets.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
And what is tell folks about at what depths does
it become irrelevant? Like what are the technology now allows
you to fish? Not one hundred feet? Right?

Speaker 9 (31:29):
Yeah, I mean we could go you know, I was
trout fishing up in Canada, and we can see down
past one hundred feet of water, really, you know. And
then there's there's other transducers now, like we've got an
XR that will work like saltwater, you know, so you
can get down to like five hundred feet fresh water
and three hundred feet saltwater.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
I was on the fence, but now I'm like firmly
in the podcast over as soon as you said three
hundred feet of salt water. But because that's like mystery
land down there.

Speaker 9 (32:06):
Yeah yeah, but and it's live, you know. And then
as we go shallow, we actually have what we call
like a perspective mode, so we can kind of take
that cone angle and turn it on its side, so
to speak.

Speaker 6 (32:16):
So we're gonna be twenty degrees up and down.

Speaker 9 (32:19):
We're gonna be one hundred and thirty five or technically
one hundred and fifty kind of that left and right.
So now when we get in that under ten feet
of water, we can still get our distance, but it's
not like you don't you can't see your bait dropping
as well, you know, the fish, the image isn't quite
as good as it is like in the forward mode.

Speaker 5 (32:37):
And for people that aren't familiar, like you can point
that thing too where you want it.

Speaker 9 (32:42):
Yeah, So like like in this example, I'm in a
bass boat, right and I have it on my trolling motor.
Wherever my trolling motor is pointed is where that image
is looking, you know. And then that's why we picked
that twenty degree cone angle. So if we're flipping docks
or I'm you know, throwing a bait into some millfoil,
or I'm scoping wall with slip bobbers, when I see
that fish seventy five feet out and I make that cast,

(33:05):
if we were to go wider, we're not able to
be accurate, so we keep it twenty degrees, so that
when we throw that bait, the bait's gonna land relatively
close to that fish if I can land in a
twenty degree cone angle.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
Yeah, all right, Jeremy. Okay, here's what here. You're gonna
get a lot more chance to talk. But the what's
good about it is pretty obvious helps you catch fish.
All right, Jeremy, if you wouldn't mind, Now that he's

(33:38):
explained what the technology is, can you articulate some like
what is this? What are the concerns the anglers should
be considering as we as we make up our minds
about this technology. And I just want to remind people,
and before you go, I want to preface this by
saying just just to just to give the historical context

(34:01):
and fisheries, wildlife management, fisheries management, there is since the
beginning of fisheries management, and since the beginning of wildlife management,
we have regulated technologies net size, mesh size, use of explosives,

(34:22):
use of poisons, use of electronics. We make it that
sometimes a year you can't fish. We tell people how
many fish they can have, how big a fish they
can have. We distinguish between whether you're a resident or
non resident, like we regulate the piss out of hunt
and fishing. Just to set the this is not like

(34:43):
you know this, This can be a lot of things,
but this can't be a issue of is it fair
to regulate fisheries? Yeah, because we regulate the hell out
of fish. Okay, So I just wanted that's I'm just
telling for the audience, like any question I think is
fair by Mike, but it should start with the knowledge
that we always are weighing impacts on impacts on resource.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah, and you hit on a topic right away that
I think was good. So in terms of technology, like phishing,
hasn't really looked at tech and said, you know, like
this this tech is out of bounds. I mean we
have with dynamite for example, but electronics technology for example.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
So like you can't think of an example.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
I can't. So nobody said like you can't have side
imaging or down imaging or mapping is out of bounds.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
Right.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
So, but with hunting, you had a good point earlier
on Steve that like you've got this adoption rate when
this technology comes on board, where you get a big
user group that loves it, right, and then others are
concerned about it. So in terms of regulating something beyond that,
that becomes really difficult. So to me, one of the
biggest places of concern. And I know you love these critters, Steve,

(35:51):
with Larry ramsel On here is muskies.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah right.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
I also want to ask if you got Larry's girlfriend
with your bluegill bobber Biteley.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
You know what, though, I think I need I realize
he invited me to go musky fishing. Yeah yeah, but
I don't think I've ever legitimately caught a musky. Yeah,
even yeah, even after talking to him. Okayer, muskies which
don't count.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Well, they're cool, they're super cool fish. But yeah, so
muskies in my opinion, like they're they have low reproductive rates,
they get really big, they tend to suspend an open water,
so they're really easy to see with this technology. So
muskies aren't in my opinion, awesome, right, they've been a fish.
It's really hard to catch. You gotta bust your ass
to catch them. They live in cool places. There's all
this cool culture around musky fishing, making lures and you know,

(36:36):
just the mystique of it. And so now with the
technology like this, you know, to encounter one has been
historically really cool. Now you talk to a dude like,
how'd you do today, It's like, oh, we got ten
any big ones? Oh yeah, we got you know, four
over fifty Like what?

Speaker 1 (36:52):
No way?

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Like you can put this tech down and drive, you know,
cross sections of a lake and be like, we're not
fishing until we see one. You don't even bother with
troll Like that's completely a waste of time now because
you just use this tech to find the fish cast
at them boom.

Speaker 5 (37:07):
Right.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
So muskie anglers like have a huge problem with this, right,
And so.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
The traditional musky anglers you bet yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
And I would say, you know, not all of course,
but a large percentage of them are saying, hey, man, like,
you know, we've had I'm sorry to go to Minnesota
here for this example, but it's what I know is
like we've had a history of what I would say
poor management of muskies since early two thousands, where we've
lost a number of our stock fisheries, the numbers of
fish that we have, which has forced a lot of
pressure on our native fisheries. Because the stock fisheries that

(37:37):
they built, they built this big group of anglers who
love participating in the sport. The fish aren't necessarily there anymore,
so we're putting all this pressure on our native fisheries.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Can I ask what's happened to those fish?

Speaker 2 (37:47):
It's been a stocking issue and we've had issues with
the politics around it. We had a bunch of people
back maybe ten years ago that just hated muskies and
so got to be this political climate where it just
became difficult to get fish. We've had problems raising.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Because they were mowing on.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
They eat everything, which.

Speaker 8 (38:06):
Obviously is not true when you get that that was
the thought that was like the narrative used against muskies.
Was it that that they're eating the walleyes and the
walleyes are more valuable.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, But the bottom line is when you've got these
big predators and systems like, you've got a really quality fishery.
Like we know that right prices are muskies have big
pike live. There's just good fishing if you want a
quality fishery.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
So so there aren't many bad fishing lakes that just
have giant muskies everywhere. No, they're all amazing, Yeah, big
muskies in them, so they go hand in hand with
good fish.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
They do, They definitely do so leech, like, for example,
which is one of our native fisheries. It's a place
where we get all the broodstock for muskies. I was
on this like crusade throughout the winter having done this,
like just to give you an example of how powerful
this technology is. It's like, oh, you know, we know
that these fish are out in these open water basins,
and it's like these big, huge, expansive areas that essentially,

(39:02):
like from a wildlife side, you would look at, this
area is basically functionally remote, just because the technology would
allow us to access these fish or these fisheries with
any you know, precision, any efficiency, really inefficient, inefficient means
of targeting fish. So now you go out there. I'm like,
I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna take my ten year
old kid out there. Half hour boom, two fifty inch muskies.

(39:23):
You know, Like what, no, man, Like I've done this
for thirty years, Like this doesn't happen. Talk to my buddy,
you know, Oh yeah, we got thirty one in the
last four days, Like what any one? Yeah, the smallest
was forty seven. You're going, dude, this is nuts. Now
there's thirty boats out here and this has never been fished,
like what does this mean? And there's dead fish floating right,

(39:45):
So that okay.

Speaker 8 (39:46):
That's the concern. It's not that it's easy, and not
that it became much easier than it traditionally was to
catch a muskie. It's that now that it's so efficient
to catch them, the mortality rate is going to go
way up and the resource is going to be in
real trouble if it goes the way it looks.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
So, yeah, it could be mortality rate, but you also
have to look at this as like the opportunities, So
it is going to it is going to condense opportunities
right to those who have the technology versus so because
you're trying to recycle these opportunities. Right with muskies, you're
not looking for a harvest component of this. You want
you want to fish to stay in the system. So
all of a sudden, let's just just make up a number,

(40:23):
Say there's one hundred opportunities for muskie. If you're condensing
all those to June at the beginning of the season.
With people using this technology, the outcome for the angler
who wants to go throw it a weed better rock
pile is now different, right, that opportunity has gone to this,
you know, driving around not fishing until you see a fish.
So there's a group of anglers that are like, hey man,

(40:45):
not only could this be killing a lot of big
fish that are hard to replace in our native fisheries,
we also like to go just cast and suffer, you know,
do all this hard work, Like we really appreciate the
suffering of this or the reward is big and that's
changing the outcome for us, and we want to do
something about it.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
No, I'm back to being against it, Dan And I
think here's one in my shopping cart at the end
of the episode. I'm gonna hit by or not.

Speaker 9 (41:18):
And me and Jeremy got to talk about this a lot,
and we're actually both on a panel with the Minnesota
DNR where we actually do get to somewhat discussed this
a little bit, you know, which is a new thing.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
I'm sorry, what's the panel so.

Speaker 9 (41:32):
And and Jeremy's probably better on explaining that I've only
made it to the one summit that we just had
recently got like appointed to it.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
But so the Minnesota DANARE are has these like species
or interest work groups or they've got stakeholders that meet
with the agency and you come up with some ideas
of you know, what do we want to do for
better management for panfish or wall eye or musky. In
this case, they've got one technology, so.

Speaker 9 (41:56):
They do they do recently, and they have one I
must too, so you know, they kind of go hand
in hand there. Obviously in Minnesota, is.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
The technology one focused on a broad spectrum of technologies
or is it basically they're talking.

Speaker 9 (42:10):
About live It felt like we're basically talking live scope
at this point. I mean that that is the most
pressing issue when when you're talking technology and fishing right now.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Can I throw there's one that I know is Ryland.
Folks up, I'm not We're not going to get it.
We don't need to like debate this because this is
I don't know anything about it. But dropping baits the drones, yeah,
is becoming relevant in a couple pursuits dropping baits into
bait balls where you can instead of getting a boat

(42:43):
real close where you got to start spooking fishing bait balls,
you have a drone fly out and can drop a
live bait onto a bait ball. And then you used
to be a thing like surf casting. You'd keep a
boat and then you'd run out and drop where you
want and now guys just sticking them where they want them.

(43:05):
So maybe you guys can argue about that new little
thing but go back down.

Speaker 5 (43:11):
No.

Speaker 9 (43:11):
But basically, I mean, I feel like, you know, and
to kind of touch on the first point we've talked about.
Me and Jeremy got to talk a lot, obviously, at
the end of the day, like nobody wants to do
what's wrong for the fisheries, right, and I feel like
everybody's opinion and this is this is the point that
you know, we always talk about, and like me and
him talked about yesterday is you know, a lot of

(43:33):
it is coming down to ethics, right, But everybody's ethics
can be a little bit different on what we want
to do. And at the end of the day, I
don't think any outdoor industry company wants to do what's
wrong for any other species. Like we want people to
catch fish. We want to make superior products that help
people catch more fish and you know, have more opportunity.

(43:54):
So if we go in and we're devastating a fishery
like a muskie, that's very easy with this technology. I
don't think anybody necessarily wants to do that. But I
think what's important is we want to make decisions sort
of based on science, sort of based on you know,
facts and that sort of stuff, and not necessarily on
a motion, right, because everybody in this room, right might

(44:17):
have a different opinion on what is good and what isn't.
And some people might like traditional fishing versus some people,
like you know, we in this room were all around
the same age. I'd say, we grew up in an
age where like fishing meant and we're talking yesterday, Like
I got a handheld GPS that I'd navigate out on
the lake with. Well, my dad would mark a tree

(44:38):
and a cabin and that was his method of mapping
the lake right, right, and then ice fishing. You know,
I was in college during the crappy boom on Red
Lake and like I got a flasher and thought that
this was you know, that was the end. I was
gonna catch a limit every single time. But you know
that isn't always the case either, right, And you know
I always talk about like bast Master Classic this year

(44:58):
got the best of the best. They got the best
of the best equipment when it comes to electronics and
all that stuff, and some of these guys still can't
catch a limit of fish. They're the best anglers out there,
you know, So like there's certain use cases, yeah where
like I think it might be smart to maybe look
towards some stuff, but also like just being careful that
in the overall broader picture, fishing is huge, right, and

(45:21):
just making sure we're making the right decisions because at
the end of the day too, and this is the
case I think for everything from white tail deer to
wolves to fish, it's not one thing that's killing these
fish or ruining a fishery. It's always kind of that
death of a thousand cuts. Yeah, right, So like, not
only do we have really good technology, we have really
good boats now and really fast motors and you know

(45:43):
good the two D sonar is better than it's ever been.
Side imaging is like, you know, there's a lot of
you know, things that can lead to you know, the
detriment of a fishery.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
I want to hit you guys with a couple of
clarifying questions then we'll get into more opinion. Uh, none
of us is probably none of us is old enough
to remember, and it was pre internet. Was I was
gonna ask about the advent of just fish finders sonar.
None of us is old enough to remember, and it

(46:16):
was pre internet, so there wasn't like a place for
people just to like regurgitate opinions. So you don't really know.
But I remember being a kid out on We used
to troll out of salmon in Lake Michigan, and I
remember the graph paper. Sure, yeah, you had that pencil
and you can go home with a big role. It
was like the day of fishing captured on a roll.

(46:39):
I wish, I wish I could recall what if that
was pointed out as was that argued about.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
It was actually legislation in the seventies regarding that. Yeah,
so I thought that was going to be a big,
big problem in crash fisheries for sure.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
That was debated. It was yeah, okay. The other clarifying
question is, how have just just to help further set
the situation up, how have the governing bodies of competitive fishing,
what has been their attitude about it?

Speaker 9 (47:18):
Yeah, I mean, obviously bass fishing is the big umbrella, right,
So in walleye fishing, it's kind of business as usual
at this point, right, But in bass fishing, you know,
there's a few different main you know leagues, I guess
that people fish, and it's almost like all three of
them sort of went went a different route. And so

(47:38):
you've got one that said okay, no forward facing sonar.
Who is doing it would be NPFL. And then we've
got the Major League Fishing Series where they're going to
allow it for like one of their periods. They'll split
up the tournament into different periods, and so okay, one
of them.

Speaker 1 (47:54):
That's a great little test right there. Yeah, that's almost
like research. Yeah right, that's like ab.

Speaker 9 (48:01):
And then bass Master actually is allowing like one one
live scope on the boat, you know.

Speaker 6 (48:07):
And that's sort of new this year.

Speaker 9 (48:08):
So last year was was in the years prior was
sort of free for all. So that's why they're limiting
the number of screens and the number of live scopes,
because what people were doing is putting live scopes, say
on the back of the boat and using it for
side imaging. And now you're getting live side imaging, and
you had guys that were running you know, four graphs
on the dash five upfront, and so they just said, okay,
we're gonna bring this down a little bit and we'll

(48:30):
see what happened after this year, right, this will be
a good learning year to see what happens. But as
they go nothing, yeah, okay, And as you go around
the country, you know, like he's speaking with the muskies
and speaking with different fish, like different fisheries and different
fish are more susceptible to it. So like when we
go up north, when we're doing a small mall tournament,

(48:52):
a lot of times it turns into a scoping tournament, right,
But like when we're down south and the guys are
learning how to use four facing son or even in
the south, like just left Lake Fork and a lot
of guys are scoping there, but a lot of guys
are fishing traditionally as well.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Man, I want to applaud whoever came up with the
idea of doing some days with and some days without
to be so fascinating just to compare the aggregate the
aggregate poundages taken on those days, that's an interesting little test, man.

(49:28):
All right, let me heet you with an opinion one
A way, I've always looked at things that the influence
efficacy is that we have a our resources occurr in
a limited pool, okay, and the way we allocate resources

(49:50):
is dependent on success rates, meaning just to put in
the simplest terms. Let's say you have I'm gonna put
in a I'm gonna put it in a big game term,
and I'm someone at the table hopefully can come up
with a fishing analogy and big game. Let's say you
have a unit of space. Okay, you have a However

(50:12):
you divide it up. You have a region or a
unit or a mountain range. Let's say you have a
mountain range and on this mountain range you have one
hundred elk. You've determined that you're gonna pursue a ten
percent harvest rate on those elk. So you're saying, we're
going to kill ten of those elk. We know that

(50:32):
our hunters traditionally have a ten percent success rate. Therefore,
we're gonna give one hundred individuals a hunting opportunity in
those mountains because we're going to wind up hitting our
harvest objective. If we look at this historic efficacy, then
let's say you were to go to that mountain range

(50:54):
and you say, we're gonna try something new this year. Boys,
we're going to give out one hundred tags. You can
hunt at night, you can spotlight, you can drone you
can thermal hunt, you can mount a firearm to a drone. Okay, unlimited.
We're going to make the season three hundred and sixty
five days long. Now you turn out that you have

(51:17):
a ninety success rate, ten percent of dudes don't show
up ninety percent success rate. The next year when you
issue tags, you're like, you know what, I think that
we're going to have to do this. We're going to
have to issue eleven tags, not one hundred, because efficacy
has shot through the roof. So now eleven people will

(51:38):
have an opportunity to participate as opposed to one hundred
people having an opportunity to participate. The question to each
of you is do you feel in fishing there could
be a similar situation at play where you're going to
feel you used to be able to keep five, but

(52:00):
no one really caught five. Now you can keep two
or whatever the hell do you picture? Or to put
it to an ethical question, it's two parts. Will this
could this become a thing in fishing? And would you
regard that as an acceptable cost of the of using
the technology? So will it happen? And would you support

(52:23):
it happening.

Speaker 6 (52:24):
I'll let Jeremy go first.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
Well, I think you hit on just a great point here.
So you know this is where in hunting, I mean,
you guys know the efficacy of a spear, of a
long bow, of a compound bowl, of a cross bowl,
of an open site rifle. So all these technologies obviously
can add to the efficiency of a harvest or you know,
a harvest opportunity or a catch in the case of fishing.

(52:50):
So we're asking the question right now in fishing that
kind of drives me nuts a little bit, like does
forward facing sonar impact catch traits? Like we have no
idea what the answer is, And of course the answer
is yes. But it's variable, right, It doesn't it doesn't
happen every time, but it can obviously, and it can
make a make a big impact. So we're gonna address this.

(53:11):
Sorry to get off track here, We're gonna address this
a little bit like we want to we want to
look at data, We want to look at science to
answer please answer this question right. So, and I'm not
at all against science, but I'm gonna just say that
the means in which technology is improving and the adoption
rate with anglers is happening is massively outpacing any regulatory

(53:33):
processes that can happen, the way we collect data, the
way we analyze data, the way we implement what we
learn from that data. So, like a good example in Minnesota,
I've got a buddy who's on this bluegill committee. Right,
So for like ten years, they're even longer than they've
met saying they're like, hey, you know, we're losing the
big bluegills in Minnesota. This is far before forward facing

(53:54):
so or even side imaging, right, just the big blue
gills are disappearing, they're being harvested. We want to tech
the big blue gills. We want to have a quality
bluegill fishery in this state. So they talk about it
for ten years. Clearly the best solution is to not
harvest the big bluegills, just keep the big ones in
the system, keeps recruitment low, all these great benefits to it.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
So which would which is complicated because you're introducing the
idea of a bluegill slot limit?

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Okay, right, yes exactly. Let me let me get to
why this is so complicated. So this is clearly the
you know, that's that's the answer. So they talk about
it for years. Eventually they come up with the idea
that you know what we're gonna do. We're gonna take
some likes and we're just gonna keep less. Well that's
not the answer. The answer is don't keep the big ones. Right,
So now in five years now, and they're gonna take

(54:41):
ten years to assess that to see what the impact
was and a reduce bag. And now they're talking about
once that's up, we're gonna look at doing like a
nine inch you know, maximum size harvest. So this is
going to be like a twenty five year process to
use this science to identify, like look back twenty five
years where we're at. So I'm not saying that science
isn't wrong, we shouldn't look at it, we shouldn't use it.

(55:02):
I'm just saying we also need to look at how
this is a social science issue as well. But like
there's just some places or people who don't maybe want
this type of technology or as much advanced technology coming
into certain areas of the sport. So it's a it's
not a you can't have live scope, no more live
scope for anybody you know, or you can't have it,
But like we've got a lot of opportunities to experience,

(55:25):
experiment with different resources where we could use it, when
we could use it special regulate. We've got all these
opportunities that I think we really need to be looking
at more, starting with a social component, you know, saying, Okay,
we know we've got groups of anglers. Let's listen to anglers.
Let's try to manage for what the user's expectations are
and want as we work on the science in the background.

Speaker 5 (55:46):
So, has there been any like knee jerk regulatory actions
taken like anywhere yet?

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Well?

Speaker 2 (55:54):
Montana said no, rattlefish naggling, right, yeah, and.

Speaker 9 (55:57):
A few states have lowered you know, catch limits, but
that's really harvest limits.

Speaker 6 (56:03):
Yeah, yeah, that's really about it.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Could you got to answer my question?

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Okay, what was the question?

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Now?

Speaker 2 (56:08):
I went in a tangent.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Uh, do you feel or whatever you have for any
kind of survey data or anything like that, do you
feel that in some fisheries live scope could lead to
could lead to adjustments in the regulatory structure. The second

(56:32):
part of the question is would you feel that that
would uh is that acceptable? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (56:37):
And it already has right, like an harvest species like
Mississippi lowered croppy rates on their Big four down there
and they attributed that to live scoping, so it's.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Already articulated that that was a response to that. Yes,
the dudes are tearing it up on croppies.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Yes, so that is already already happening. And then paddlefish, Yep, yep, paddlefish,
that's happened.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
Well, that was different. Like for Montana to say you
can't use it to snag paddlefish is the opposite, not
the opposite. It's like, Okay, the technology is coming. We
either limit the technology or we say it's coming. Everybody's
a better fisherman now. You can't keep as many fish, right,
You're all better now. So now we're going to lower

(57:23):
the potential impact by going after bag limits, going after
seasons in order to accommodate the technology. So that'd be
another way of putting the question, is you feel that
it could lead to a reduction in the resource. And
when you look at a state agency coming in and saying, Okay,
it's here, we're going to lower bag limits, do you

(57:46):
like that's an approach orders the approach of it's here,
we don't want to lower bag limits, so we need
to make it not be here.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
Yeah, And I think it can be you can look
at it different ways. It can still be here but
maybe used during certain timeframes.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Right.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
So I mean it's back to this whole how efficient
is your effort?

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Right?

Speaker 2 (58:06):
How efficient is the angling effort? So I think it's
I think we should ask users what they want they
how much do they value the technology over the experience
of catching fish. Would you rather be able to use
this technology and be able to catch whatever you can
catch in a certain window of time, right, or would
you just say, you know what, we want this experience
to last longer, and therefore we want to limit technology.

(58:29):
So I think that's that social component that I think
we need to understand as much as as much as anything,
because to say that this technology won't impact opportunity or
catch rates just you know, to try to understand what
that is. I think we already know what the answer us.

Speaker 5 (58:45):
From an enforcement perspective, the reduced bag limit approach seems
a lot easier than have an award going around checking
every boat. See if they got a live scope transducer. Yeah,
that seems like a nightmare.

Speaker 4 (59:03):
Yeah if they if they did. Instead of getting rid
of like basically saying you can't you can only keep
two wall eyes and use live scope year round or
whatever rather than like just getting rid of it all
together and keeping that bag limit bigger.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Well, and we've got plenty of people in here who
don't have the technology, So is that fair to you?
You don't have the technology, so now you could keep six.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
But now because it get you want to give Danny
a turn to respond.

Speaker 5 (59:35):
That's a good question.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
No, I'd like everyone around the table like, Okay, I
had a meandery. I wanted to give Danny a chance
to respond to the question, which is being is the
answer to regulate around it? Will that even be necessary?
Or is the answer to uh, stop the technology? I mean?

Speaker 9 (59:58):
And this this is like I said, this is or
it's difficult, right, So everybody's idea on what to do
with it is going to be so different. And the
hard part, and we talk about this quite a bit,
is a lot of times it's that top ten percent
of the anglers that are doing all the catching, all
the keeping a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Of time things.

Speaker 9 (01:00:18):
Yeah, and so it's it's hard because you know, we're
making all we want to make all the regulation on that.
And then also, like I said earlier, we don't want
to make regulation based on an emotion and so like
in the panel, for example, we had a lot of
guys that were very anti you know, against live scope
and whatnot. But they've never used it and they don't

(01:00:40):
really know, you know, the implements of it other than
what they've maybe heard, you know. And then there's some
media out there that's kind of like, you know, just
putting taglines out there, headlines out there to get clicks.
But then it's not necessarily like they're almost pitying it
as the bad guy. Well you know, like I say,
if if you're gonna go out and catch you know,

(01:01:02):
ten muskies in a day, like you're the bad guy.
Not necessarily the technology, right, So why why do we
need to limit a great resource where I can learn
about the fish, I can learn about the fishery, I
can see what's on the bottom and and use it
you know, respectfully or ethically whatever that means, versus a
guy who's going out there and he's not you know.

(01:01:24):
So And in a lot of times, especially in muskie fishing,
a lot of a lot of it's like the guides,
Like there's some guides so State of Minnesota prime example,
Like you can go out put an ad on Facebook
marketplace and say hey, I'm a musky guide and no license,
no training, no nothing, and go out and target ten
muskies every single day to make your money.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
There's no resource, no licensing or process on that unregulated,
not even like insurance requirements.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
I'm sure there is that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Yeah, but any any any you could become I could
go there tomorrow. Yeah, got it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
But you only need like captain's licenses or anything.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
Too great length.

Speaker 9 (01:02:06):
So like you know, you know what I mean, Like
there's a lot, there's a lot to this. It's it's
it's the death of a thousand cuts. Again, it's not
like every single person going out there is catching all
these fish and causing the problem. It's kind of that
top tier. It's certain small groups, you know, that's all
sort of leading to something, and that's where like if

(01:02:26):
regulation is needed, then then that's the avenue. Maybe we
go down, but we want to do that with like
a good science based or some actual factual information versus
going on in motion or going on what small select
groups are doing. We want to make sure we're making
these decisions, we're actually making a smart decision.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
You know, it's pretty funny. Our colleague Ryan Callahan. We
were one day talking about technology and specific we were
talking about putting the camera down through the ice to
watch fish, and he was talk about the emotional side
of how you perceive it. Like you're saying, like guys
that are against it, they don't really know what it is,

(01:03:08):
they've never seen it, they haven't seen any data, but
they're just against it. Cal was talking about this feeling
of like, if you're ice fishing, you could be catching
fish and having a good time. A guy comes and
drills a hole near you and lowers a camera down
and cows as you get this feeling like we're fuck
now ye all of a sudden, it's like less fun.

(01:03:29):
You know, you you thought you were having a great time,
but now you're not.

Speaker 6 (01:03:33):
But that feeds in exactly to what I'm saying.

Speaker 9 (01:03:35):
Right, So I might sell live scopes to one hundred
people at a sports show one weekend, right, but ten
of them are going to know how to use it,
you know, Like you can have all the technology, you
can have the greatest rifle and hunting gear, but you're
not always going to shoot that deer, right, Like, So
obviously it's a tool that helps, but it's not the
end all be all like people like it's made out.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
To be all right. People wanted a chance to weigh
in on it. So I just want to clarify a
question because it's a complicated question. Well we could, we
could forfeit the idea that it's going to impact harvest.
I think everybody here is acknowledged it's very effective for fishing.
So let's just accept that it's going to impact harvest,

(01:04:18):
if you will clarify this and put it. Everybody needs
to imagine a lake they.

Speaker 5 (01:04:26):
Like to fish.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Okay, there's a lake you like to fish, your favorite
fishing spot, and they come to you and say, okay,
we can do two things. We're either going to lower
bag limits and shorten the season and keep live scope,
or we're going to ditch live scope and keep the
regulatory structure the same. So it's come down to you.
Don't you Danny doesn't like this? Go ahead?

Speaker 9 (01:04:48):
No, No, I like the question, but like once again,
it just it feeds into like, no two people are
the same, right, Like I like to hunt white tails
on private land out of a deer stand that I
already hung. Tony likes to go to public land, and
you know, hope something's there?

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Do you feel the question is not a good no?

Speaker 4 (01:05:10):
I could give an example on the fishing side of things,
like I like to go to four peck and target
big walleye and I'm never going.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
To keep them.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
Okay, I would love to use live scope doing that. Okay, exactly,
I love but that's not answer my question. But what's
I don't like to go to for peck and keep
a limit of walleyes. You know he's not targeting big fish.
He just wants to.

Speaker 5 (01:05:34):
Yeah, Like in my case, I'm looking for a limit,
so like i'd be like, we're out the lake I'm
thinking of I don't need the forward facing keep the
limits the same.

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
That's where you were you were putting this. What's a
Faulstian decision? I don't know. Isn't that a thing?

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
All right?

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
Okay, so you don't have to answer. You could do
like Seth and have some like some kind of waffle
he doesn't like, Like Danny like the question, sat there
and answer the question, Tony, do you what do you
think about the question? Do you know this?

Speaker 8 (01:06:10):
This has almost given me PTSD because this feels just
like the crossbow debate in the White Tail world. Okay,
and I actually I mean I look at forward facing
so and are kind of like we're almost going from
traditional bows to crossbows.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
People are scared of it.

Speaker 8 (01:06:25):
People don't know, you know. To Jeremy's point, you're like, okay,
well we're gonna we have a social aspect where a
lot of people are like, I do not want this
because this is going to change the game and on
on a broad level with the average user, which is
kind of undeniable, right, But you also have what actually
is the impact on the resource, and so what you're

(01:06:46):
talking about is like the science. To get the science,
we always have to go retro right, Like either that
or you just ban it and go we're just gonna
be proactive and it's gone. But we don't live in
that world right now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Well, now, the drone situation was that world. There was
the minute there was like a whisper of private jont
drone use. I always remember it was kind of one
of the more interesting wildlife management moments of my lifetime.
Thirteen states, I mean, in one year, thirteen states banned
drones for hunting use. Western states and also some states

(01:07:22):
that are not hippie dippy anti hunting states.

Speaker 5 (01:07:25):
Like some hard hitting Wyoming was one of the some hard.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Hitting conservative pro consumptive use states Alaska right like pro
not just like looking for any reason to screw with hunters.
Some some like heavy forward thinking game management consumptive use
states right wing leadership right out of the gate right,

(01:07:54):
and that's no one had. No one waited to be like, well,
let's wait and see for ten years if efficas rates changed.
They just knew they.

Speaker 3 (01:08:02):
Did it well.

Speaker 8 (01:08:03):
And I mean, I think the only Devil's advocate I'd
play there is it's like a it's a different beast
managing elk versus how many croppies are in Minnesota. Right,
So I mean it's a fair point. But I look
at it and go, maybe this is a weird perspective,
but everything that makes it easier. A lot of these

(01:08:23):
guys who are like, no way, I don't want that.
I don't want crossbows. I don't want a bait deer.
I take it right down the line. I don't want
to sell cameras. The adoption rate when that stuff becomes
a little more affordable, a little more ubiquitous across the
hunting population. These people who are against this stuff, they
don't understand often end up on the side of using it.

(01:08:45):
Because so if live scope was one hundred and fifty
bucks and it took you five minutes to mount on
your boat, all these guys would have it, right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
I think those are haves and have nots components. Well,
there isn't.

Speaker 8 (01:08:58):
There's just a component of not people not being familiar
with it and like hearing about you know, and so
that I think you have to play in the world
of going, Okay, this stuff exists, it's legal right now,
and it will be adopted by people who are against
it if it comes to that. So kind of to
your drone point, like if you believe that, and I do,

(01:09:21):
then you would have to make that decision. Do we
proactively go no? And I'm not on that side yet.
I just I feel like it's coming and it's going
to be it's going to change regulations.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
I think that I've mentioned this drone thing a couple times,
but out of fairness, I need to acknowledge that these
are not analogous, right, Like, like you could look at
sonar as being an evolution of sonar. We agreed what
it was in the seventies and somehow we were on
a trajectory of not regulating sonar and then sonar. This

(01:09:55):
isn't the answer. I'm saying, like sonar advanced. What made
the drone thing? What makes it imperfect as an analogy,
is it really was sort of this brand new, all
together new concept. Right. It was like if there had
been some other like the drones at first had extremely

(01:10:19):
limited capabilities and you couldn't really picture where it would lead, right, Right,
it might have had a different path, but it was
sort of like it emerged as an altogether new thing
and was sort of you had an opportunity to like
say yes or no, right in a way that perhaps
even like cameras, the gradual increase and efficacy of cameras,

(01:10:45):
and then they kind of became that it was cellular cameras.

Speaker 5 (01:10:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
There was never a real clear inflection point, right, I
would say.

Speaker 8 (01:10:53):
That was a big lead. Yeah, And the closest thing
would be scouting from an airplane.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Which they had already haggled about, right, right, that's a
good point. They had haggled about airplane use, and it
already said if you fly, you can't hunt that day.
Let me hit Can I hit you? Guys? Another question
I want to set up with an observation of my
own very similar bit of technology. When I started fishing

(01:11:18):
in Southeast Alaska, we would fish off charts like as
close as you can get to no detail. Just it's
like it's like an open ocean portrayed on the chart,
and then you have some soundings printed in a sort
of equal spacing, so you could tell twenty fathoms, six fathoms,

(01:11:41):
forty fathoms whatever, no detail. It made fishing very challenging
because there was always this feeling of a kind of randomness. Okay,
I've now gotten to the point where use navionics data.

(01:12:05):
My catch rate one went up. My understanding of the
ocean and what's going on, and my enjoyment of the
experience went up hand in hand where it was like,
oh wow, I didn't know that that was like a
really sharp hog back ridge. It would be like in

(01:12:27):
the old days to be like now, and then you'll
catch a blank like over in that kind of area.
Now I'm like, oh wow, they like to lay on
the drop off point of a hog back ridge. And
when you get there, get ready it like uh, efficacy up,

(01:12:49):
understanding up sort of like inspiration about the landscape up.
You could it was just like it was better, more fun,
more education. Taking that and looking at it with live scope.
Do you feel that it's uh, do you feel there's

(01:13:10):
something similar at play? Is it like ultimately taking from
the experience or is it adding to the experience. We'll
start with Danny.

Speaker 9 (01:13:18):
So I'm gonna give two things here, Okay, Right, So
I obviously you know, like I love live scope. I
love to fish with it. I like how I can
be selective in which fish I catch, you know, if
I'm targeting eater fish, for example, I can target eater fish.
I don't catch big fish, I don't catch small fish.
I don't catch, you know, accidentally catch muskies. Back in

(01:13:40):
the day when we'd you know, rig leeches and creek chubs,
we'd catch whatever would bite it, yep, and it would
swallow the hook every time. Like, I feel like I
can actually fish more efficiently but also more you know, ethically,
so to speak with the fish. Fishing with that technology,
I can learn about what's on the bottom, I've said,
on a lax lake in the winter time and watch

(01:14:01):
the migration of walleyes as they come and go off
those flats morning and night, and it's like I've just
learned so much about fish behavior and what they do.
And that's where like if you know, like using it
in that matter or matter, it is so beneficial to
an angler, you learn so much. I enjoyed the experience more.
I'm able to bring my daughters. They're able to see

(01:14:21):
the fish moving around and if anything gives you hope.
You don't always catch them, but at least you can
see them down there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
Right.

Speaker 9 (01:14:27):
But then also from like an industry standpoint, right, and
the cross both thing here is a prime example and
hits me. Hits me because I'm a white tail guy, right,
and you know with ford facing sonar, I mean the
one great benefit it also brings not only understanding fisheries,
but look at what it brings to the industry as
far as dollars go.

Speaker 3 (01:14:47):
Right.

Speaker 9 (01:14:47):
So now we've got all these baits aimed at ford
facing sonar. You can go buy you know, a new
Berkeley power switch and it's got the FFS ford facing
sonar logo right on that bait, letting you know the
angler know it's for facing zonar. So it's created new
industries within fishing. There's a new fishing line called Forward

(01:15:08):
Diowa makes live scope rods that are you know, twelve
hundred dollars odds you can use four livescoping. So, like
you bring all this new money to the industry like
Crossbows did, and you know a lot of times if
that money can go back into the industry or keep
the industry going, especially coming right out of COVID with
all the new anglers we have. I mean there is
a lot of like fringe benefits you don't necessarily speak

(01:15:32):
of that not only add benefits to when you're out
on the water, but benefits to the fishing industry in general.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
They're subject to what's the fishing Dingle Johnson L Johnson?
Is that technology hit by Dingle Johnson tech?

Speaker 6 (01:15:47):
The technology wouldn't be, but a lot of the other.

Speaker 5 (01:15:49):
Stuff would be.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
The hardware is not hit by Dingle Johnson.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
Reno electronics are exempt.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
What yeah, man? Yeah, why is that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:58):
Dude?

Speaker 1 (01:15:58):
Boat gas is an exempt right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
So it was a navigational tool when when dj was
getting started. So it hasn't been modified.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
Oh they need to get in there and hit that.
How much is a how much is a what are
we talking about? We never established how much does it
cost to get your boat set?

Speaker 9 (01:16:14):
Up. I mean, a live scope system is going to
be sixteen ninety nine retail, and then you know a
screen that you'd use with it, you're looking at anywhere
from let's just say eight hundred bucks on up, depending
on what size you had, you know, like when I
first started, it's a lot of seven inch units. Now
we're sending selling a lot of ten inch screens, so
you're going to be you know, about three grand. I'll

(01:16:35):
say it to be all in.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
Okay, does it improve or detract from the experience?

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
Yeah, So I don't want to come off as like
I just hate this technology because as a student of
angling fishing my whole life, this is the most insane
coolest thing ever to happen in fishing, right yoh, all
the like if fundamentally changes it, like what's out there? Oh,
I know what's out there? There's a big wall, you

(01:17:04):
see it, right, Like, so it just changes things.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
So it is really cool. So that you brought up
the great.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
Point, Steve of the GPS technology, like all of the
other tech is really and that's really the foundation of
a lot of it. Right, So if I can't easily
navigate to these locations, it will likely be spots to
hold fish right, like forward facing sownar. Isn't that great
if you've got, you know, just a paper map that

(01:17:30):
doesn't show you much like if you're not going to
go to habitat fishing right, So so the map is huge.
And talking to you know, I was talking to al
Linda about some of the big moments in his career
and fishing, and one that I thought was most interesting
is he was like big outboards, man, like bigger.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
Boats, bigger outboards.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
When we could go out on Lake Erie and we
could go out in the middle of Molax Lake, He's like,
that changed fishing, you know, like that was a big
moment in changing fishing. And that's marine electronics often get
picked on, but that that was a huge deal. You
brought up out wards earlier and this and then the other,
you know, fundamental shift was mapping and being able to navigate,
especially big bodies of water, find spots in the middle

(01:18:12):
of the Lake Traverse Canadian Shield Waters. Now that you know,
spinning the map around everything looks to say, you know,
like it's pretty cool. So technology absolutely adds to the
it can add to the experience. Yeah, absolutely, So I
guess how much how easy you want to be and
how much do you value some of those intangibles that

(01:18:33):
are the mystery the difficulty in fishing, And that's kind
of I think what we want to measure to some
degree is how much value is there in the mystery
those intangibles, and those are some of the things I
think we need to consider.

Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
Uh, let's say this isn't a question, it's just something
to respond to, just a thing to muse on. Let's
say I developed some crazy technology where I could I
all of a sudden had some technolog where I had
I could put a map in front of you, and
I could be like, every elk at all times is
on this map. And I went to a body mine,

(01:19:12):
I'm like, check this out, right, most dudes, let me
look at that map.

Speaker 5 (01:19:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:19:18):
But then I come and be like, I'm going to
sell this map anyone that wants it. Then people are
gonna be like, I don't think you should do that. Yeah,
but I think a lot of guys would want to
peek at the map if they could peek at it secretly. Right,
So there is a point at which like we go
to that extreme, and I some people don't like extremes
when debating, But I'm a big fan of extremes when debating.

(01:19:44):
Most people would agree that if we could do that,
if I could show you a map and every elk
in existence on that mountain is on that map, or just.

Speaker 5 (01:19:53):
The three hundred and sixty bull is.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
On that he's always on there, no right where he
is at all times, I think that you'd have ninety
whatever the hell eighty ninety percent of people would be like,
that's just going too far, and I would go like,
but think of how educational it would be to understand
how elk use the mountain. That's all the big bulls.
Isn't it cool? You can see exactly where they like

(01:20:18):
to lay, when they move, when they spook, where they go,
what they eat. How educational? And people would say yeah,
but yeah, but yeah, so there's like there is an extreme.
I don't know how to put that into a question.
But this can't be this can't be that. It's not like,

(01:20:41):
it can't be that all mysteries are revealed.

Speaker 9 (01:20:44):
Right, and you know, like it's not obviously, And I
know one thing people like to say is using life
scope is like spotlight and white tails or scot light
and deer. Okay, and although you can find the fish quicker,
they still have to react, right, And if anybody's tried
to catch a walleye on Leech Lake as of recent
you'll know real quick that the fish start to learn

(01:21:06):
about live scope and boats following them around. And where
before you used to be able to maybe make a
forty or forty foot cast at a walleye, you now
have to try to make an eighty one hundred foot cast,
like you know what I mean. And so like the
fish still has to react and bite that bait. I've
thrown my ned rig at a walleye one hundreds of
times where they don't bite, and you just got to

(01:21:26):
keep moving on. So even if sometimes you know where
the fish are doesn't necessarily you know, mean you're gonna
catch them all the time, you know. And obviously muskies
are going to be a little bit different. I feel
like there always going to be maybe an exception. There's
other species that are too, but like you know, knowing
exactly where that bowl is and then you know, going
with a long range rifle or something like, it's it's

(01:21:49):
similar but different. I guess, just like spotlighting a deer,
like once you spotlight the deer, Like the deer doesn't
have any choice there, like the fish is making the
choice to still react bite bait. You still gotta make
your cast within that twenty foot color, twenty degree cone angle,
you know.

Speaker 5 (01:22:05):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:22:07):
I got kind of an example up Chester and I
fished a tournament on Fresno here in Montana a few
years ago, and everyone was kind of in this one
part of the lake and we we motored up in
this part of the lake that was super stained, like
two three inches of viz. And we started marking a

(01:22:27):
bunch of fish, but there was no one fishing there.
So we dropped dropped down to megalive and we figured
out if we if you drop we were drop shot
in these walleyes, and if you put it five inches
from him, you weren't catching them, but if you were
to place it right on their nose, you could catch
them pretty much every time. And that's like an example

(01:22:49):
where if if we didn't have that, we end up
taking like seventh in that tournament and every like a
lot of people struggled, but we just figured out this
one little thing and a super stained water where if
we didn't have live imaging, like you would never have.

Speaker 3 (01:23:05):
Caught those fish.

Speaker 4 (01:23:07):
But we were just able to like really sharp shoot
and like pinpoint these fish using that technology, and we
like ended up catching a bunch. But I was pretty
confident where if we tried to do that, like you
just had to put it right on their nose.

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):
It was getting you fishy. Otherwise would have never would have.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
Never have caught those fish.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
Yeah, well, Le's you want to address that one. Well, nothing,
I don't know what you want to comment on that one.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
I mean, yeah, I mean you just get this precision
accuracy to your point, that just wasn't It wasn't possible.
And you know, like back to the muskie thing, I mean,
that's not like the spotlight in common or whatever. That's
what that's what musky guys call it. They call it
road hunting, spotlight and sharp shooting like.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
Guys, yeah, yeah, right.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
And so this is if you guys are familiar with
the concept of the tragedy of the commons as well,
like this really applies in many of these cases where
and it's quite interesting, like ge back to the muskie world,
like on Leech Lake. This has gotten to be a
hot topic. So all these guides are out there, they
know like this is bad. Like what we're doing out

(01:24:15):
here like bad. We should not be catching this many fish.
But if I don't do this, I'm not going to
catch nearly as many. So if I decide, you know what,
I'm gonna take the high road, I'm gonna just go
fish traditionally and not do this. But you know what,
the guy who's twenty years old, really good with tech,
just buys this stuff, he can start guiding tomorrow and
he's gonna kick his ass the guy who's been doing

(01:24:37):
it for thirty years. So they're just caught in this
rut and saying, hey, we need help. We need help
stopping ourselves from doing this. So it's a really interesting
situation that we're in with that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:48):
There was a famous buffalo hide hunter and he observed
when he was down in the I think he was
in the Texas Panhandle. He knew what they were doing,
that they were pushing the animals to extinction. And he
would say, sometimes they get so disgusted and I'd be like,

(01:25:10):
I can't do it anymore. But he said, you'd wake
up and off in the distance, he's like, someone's doing it.
It's gonna happen no matter what you know, yeah, that's
it all right, the last question, and we would go
around and remembering and have you can have two things.
You have a final thought if you want, but you
also got a crystal ballet. What's the fair number? Ten years,

(01:25:35):
twenty years, ten years, ten years where we sitting just
kind of like you know, where were sitting on the
debate in ten years what happened? And ten years what
will have happened? As we weigh this all out. So
a final thought, if you got one and then crystal
ballet ten years down the road, I would expect to
see blank.

Speaker 6 (01:25:55):
Yeah, So I guess final thought.

Speaker 9 (01:25:58):
I'll start with that obviously, you know, obviously I think
my big perspective on it is is, you know, there
there's always going to be the two groups, the people
that like it, people that don't, people kind of fall
in the middle. Doesn't necessarily matter what we decide as
far as regulation or whatever else, like, it's still going
to there's still gonna be that that those groups, you know.

(01:26:19):
And that's where I say, like, as long as we're
making decisions based on the science, based on you know,
actual facts and what's going on versus just on emotion
and whatnot, I think we'll be will be in a
good spot, you know. The one bad thing and Jeremy
alluded to this a little bit, is like, right now,
how we're getting those facts isn't necessarily like the most

(01:26:43):
effective way, right So, right now we're getting a lot
of those facts through creole surveys, you know, and to
some degree there's probably some truth to them. And it's
pointing out that that top group is the group that's
catching the fish, doing most of the harvest that kind
of stuff, and everybody else is still kind of the same,
right We're not really showing that much or if any

(01:27:04):
increase in catch of fish or any of that kind
of stuff. You So right now we're showing like really
it's not having an effect, is basically it. But you know,
how are we getting these creole surveys? Are they doing
them at the correct times? Are the muskie guys really
coming off the boat access at noon now they're coming
off in the middle of the night or you know

(01:27:25):
what I mean, before the sun comes up, whatever else?
And are we actually hitting those guys that are harvesting
a lot of the fish? Right So, I think there's
a little bit of a flaw in how we're getting
that data, but just making sure that we are using
good data and good information we make those decisions. I
think that's the most important because it does have a
big impact on the industry and we are bringing a
lot to the industry and a lot to the upcoming

(01:27:47):
generation because of the technology. So ten years down the road,
where are we going to be? Well, I mean, I've
been in this business now for ten years, been with
Garment for ten years, and when I started, we were
using two D sonar. Right now we're using live scope.
I can see fish two hundred feet away in livetime.
So I mean, who knows what's coming right And we're
sitting here and we're debating what's happening right now. But

(01:28:11):
like you know, we're all middle aged guys, right, and
we grew up in a time where there was no
cell phones, there wasn't really internet and all that kind
of stuff. And now look what we have, right, And
so this generation of Anglers that's coming up right now,
like with the new bass Master Classic Angler being young
and a lot of young guns kind of in this
tournament series in the content game, right, like, they're going

(01:28:35):
to drive that technology, I think further and further and further.
And so what we should be looking at, maybe concerned
about talking about, is what's coming more so too, versus
what we got going on right now. So in ten years, no,
I mean, who knows?

Speaker 3 (01:28:49):
And good point.

Speaker 6 (01:28:49):
And that's where like I think Jeremy has a great point.

Speaker 9 (01:28:52):
And hey, we like we can't wait for twenty five
years to figure out if we have an effect on bluegills,
right we need to figure out that right now. So
let's figure it out. Let's make good decisions, let's work together,
Let's drive the industry. Let's continue to get these anglers.
You know, we added almost a million youth anglers to
the to the industry last year. Let's let's keep doing that.

(01:29:14):
Let's use the technology with them, but use it in
the correct ways. Train ethics, you know, like a lot
of it really comes down to the anglers, like deer hunting,
Like you can do a lot of things that you
maybe shouldn't, you know, But where does that start. That
starts with like the values and the ethics that we
have as fishermen an outdoorsman.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
So Jeremy, well, I guess that to Crystal Ballad, I
think there's going to have to be some examples of
a fishery crashing or really you know, showing like, oh boy,
there's a strong correlation between this use before we decide
that we're going to be proactive on managing technology for

(01:29:54):
the most part, and it'll be a reactive management strategy
going forward, would be my guest, at least in the
state Minnesota where I can speak to. But I think
technology is not going to slow down. I think we're
going to pursue this idea that we want to make
the fishing experience easier or comfortable. We want to improve
cat trades, we want to make you know. I mean,
that's just that's just where it's going. That's that's where

(01:30:18):
it's headed. So I'm not saying that's bad, but I'm
just saying that trend will continue. Yeah, that trend will continue.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:30:26):
I'd use live imaging, and I like using it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:30):
It's fun.

Speaker 4 (01:30:33):
Some fisheries I don't use it because it just like
you guys were talking, like, there's there's times when it's
helpful and other times it doesn't matter. And I'm the
type of guy who maybe keeps a limit of.

Speaker 3 (01:30:46):
Walleye a year.

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
I don't keep a lot of fish.

Speaker 4 (01:30:51):
If it went away tomorrow, I'd still be out there fishing,
and I don't think it'd make a big difference in
my life, got.

Speaker 1 (01:30:59):
It, fish you wouldn't change, You wouldn't fish less days? Nope, No, no, grint.

Speaker 7 (01:31:06):
Well, I don't really have enough experience with any of this,
But one thing stuck in my head from talking to
you guys before the show, before you came out here,
which was really again focusing on and this is what
I can't not think about the generation that's coming up

(01:31:28):
with tech, and uh, if that's just going to be
if we won't get ahead of that. So I know
we touched on that a bit today, but that you know,
in five ten plus years the generation now your kids age,

(01:31:50):
you know what they're used to and what they're going
to be clamoring for. And if we're really going to
set regulations in advance of that, and potentially with technology
even developing faster better, that's just the one thing that's
in my mind. So not sure if we'll react fast enough, Tony.

Speaker 8 (01:32:16):
I feel like when Jeremy's talking about the Musky guide
thing and feeling the pressure to compete against the twenty
year old who's going to use it without any no
compunction at all. He's just like, I'm going to go.
This feels just like how deer baiting is sort of
a social contagion where you're like, I don't want to
do it, but now my neighbor's doing it, and all
my deer disappeared on opener, and I want my kids

(01:32:38):
to get one, And so I just think we have
to look at this and go, it's gonna be pretty
widespread adoption, I think. And what kind of just occurred
to me while you guys were talking is so we
live We're all kind of Minnesota boys. We live in
this world, know these lakes, and kind of that's the
filter which we kind of view it through. But I
was like, in my head, I'm I imagine if you

(01:33:00):
like a selfie stick kind of thing with a little
portable version of this, and these fly fishermen out here
walk up to a hole, stick it in there, look
at their phone, and go do your baby doing it right?
But people will do it, But that would be a
catalyst for like work, Like I think that people would

(01:33:20):
go this is a use case like it that's too
far for me. So like we if you're really close
to the muskie issue, this is like if you really
appreciate that opportunity, like this is a hot button thing
right now because you can see that that specific use
case is probably going to be trouble at some point
or or already is. It's like a lot muddier when

(01:33:41):
you're talking like grand scheme of things pan fish populations, walleyes, whatever.
But I tend to err on the side like Danny,
You're you have like a pretty charitable, charitable view of
the average fishermen, like, well, we got to train them
in ethics and this, and I'm I think about a
lot of the old timey walleye guys and I know,
I'm like, you give them a chance to put more
fish in the boat, they're gonna do it. Like they're
not gonna They're not gonna think about that for a second.

(01:34:03):
And so I think we have to operate in that world.
So ten years down the road, Crystal ball in it,
I feel like we'll probably see some level of reduction
and opportunities. If that's just limits or if it's shortened
season or something like that. I think we have to
consider that because I could see that, like I believe
that's probably coming.

Speaker 5 (01:34:23):
Brody, I'm still on the fence. I'm nowhere, like I'm
in the same place I was when I walked in
the room. There, Well, crystal Ball, I mean the cats
out of the bag. It ain't going anywhere, you know
what I mean. Like, I don't think I think you're
gonna have a real hard time disallowing the technology, other

(01:34:46):
than in very specific cases like Montana paddlefish, where it's
like a set number of anglers on a short stretch
of river that can be monitored. I just I don't
think anybody's gonna be like no, you like it can
never I don't know. I mean, it's there. I'm I'm leary.

(01:35:08):
But the reason I'm leery of putting it on my
boat now because you'll watch it, is because my boys
will pay attention to that to the exclusion of everything else, like,
which is annoying.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
That's true. When I introduced ice fishing with a camera
my older boy, if you don't got the camera, he's
less interested in going, right. He loves it, uh and
he'll he would sit there for three hours intent watching
that screen glued. But that's different. That's parenting. That's not right.

Speaker 5 (01:35:44):
That's that's parenting.

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):
That's not regulation. When I crystal ball, just to take
to the pure crystal ball. If I crystal Ball and
I really had like bat money on it, I would
bet that you will see a noticeable You would see
a noticeable increase in restrictions, maaning just as we can

(01:36:09):
point to, just as we can point to like paddlefish
snagging whatever. I think that you'll have in ten years.
I think you'll have more examples of a fishery for
perhaps an imperiled, low fecundity fish whatever. I think that

(01:36:30):
you'll have some instances where people find that a resource
is pretty limited, it's really reliant on low efficacy, and
it might be that rather than shutting off the fishery,
you'd have select instances where you decided to control the technology.
I think that, like I would bet on seeing a
handful of more examples in a.

Speaker 5 (01:36:51):
Place like Minnesota, where there's so many lakes, you could
have like forward basing free lakes.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
Just like Yeah, I don't know, I don't know what
form it'll take when I crystal ball, but I think
that we'll have instead of us keep saying paddlefish, paddlefish, paddlefish,
I think we'll be able to go paddlefish whatever or whatever, whatever, whatever,
and we'll have more examples with all that set it
has to be totally fair. With all that said, if
you showed up in my fish shack.

Speaker 5 (01:37:18):
And you could go find and you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:19):
Said, dude, here it all is, let's hook it up,
I would yeah, I would say, let's go now to
continue that thought at the end of the day. At
the Depending on what happened at the end of the day,
I might I might have. I might also say that
was amazing. You shouldn't be allowed to do that. I had.

(01:37:41):
Let me give you this just a like a sort
of closing thought from Phills. Wave me up, I'll keep
it quick. You can hunt coyotes with thermals, and in
the state of Living hut coyotes with thermals. We were
out thermal hunting during deer season one time. Okay, it's
deer season, but we're out at night thermal hunting kyotes,

(01:38:03):
and it occurred to me, I'm like, dude, we ain't
breaking the law, but there's some hot intel.

Speaker 5 (01:38:11):
There's some hot into up against that line, especially if
you were coyote hunting at five o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
We weren't, we were at the tail end, but I'll
just say it just occurred to me, like, dude, I
could be like I'm kyo hunting bro, and could have
had a feeling like, yeah, I could see someone saying
that you can't deer hunt after you kyote hunt a thermal. Right,
all right, thanks guys for coming out, man, I really
appreciate it and coming out and and uh and kicking.

Speaker 5 (01:38:38):
This all around.

Speaker 3 (01:38:42):
It's a good conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:38:43):
It's great conversation. It's interesting. It's one of those things
that makes everybody a little smarter you think about.

Speaker 5 (01:38:48):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
Thanks, thanks again to our guests, Danny Jeremy, Thanks, Man,
appreciate it.

Speaker 9 (01:38:52):
Thank you,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Steven Rinella

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

The Breakfast Club

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 717: Is Live Scope The Death of Fishing?