What's Lurking Below with @southforksalt, aka Tim Regan, The Saltwater License - Can it be defeated?
October 2, 2023 • 56 mins
Ready to embark on a captivating journey through the dynamic world of New York's fishing community? Join me, George Scocca, as we navigate through hot topics that are making waves, from the controversial proposal of a fishing license to the exhilarating realm of surf fishing. Our journey is enriched by the expertise of seasoned angler, Tim Riegan, also known as South Fork Salt on Instagram. His intimate understanding of Long Island’s aquatic life, coupled with his professional fishing experiences, adds a layer of depth to our exploration.
Ever wondered about the potential of a fishing license for New York's fisheries? Discover the pros and cons of this proposed revenue source, the role of enforcement officers, and the essential resources anglers need to stay informed. Tim Riegan, a true fishing enthusiast, then transports us to the heart of Long Island. Exploring everything from sharks to commercial and sport fishing, Tim deciphers the nuances of each species and the potential impact of Gillnets on fish populations.
We then plunge into the thrilling domain of surf fishing, where Tim imparts wisdom on effective bait and lures, and understanding environmental conditions for a successful catch. Uncover the implications of commercial fishing practices like gill netting and potential regulatory measures. Finally, we explore an intriguing intersection of technology and tradition - the role of drones in fishing. Tim offers insights into their potential uses, adding a futuristic twist to our angling adventure. This episode is a treasure trove of information, insights, and engaging discussions - a true angler's paradise.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
George Scocca (00:01):
Hello Anglers, this is George Schocker and
you're listening to the New YorkFishing Podcast brought to you
by your friends.
Basically, that's me and ourgreat crew over at nyanglercom,
your secret spot online.
(00:22):
Now listen, that's one secretspot that I want everybody to
give up nyanglercom.
If you're not visiting us andseeing all the great content
that's there without the FBBS,please stop by nyanglercom.
Remember one thing everythingthere is free.
(00:46):
We don't charge for anything.
We have how-to articles.
We have all the updated news.
We have people posted on itevery single day of the week.
Again, we don't allow theFacebook BS with all the sarcasm
and everything else.
Look, I'm the guy who had thefirst bulletin board form there
(01:11):
ever was, so in fishing, so Iknow what I'm doing.
You folks really need to stopby nyanglercom or nyanglercom
one or the other.
Spend a few minutes there andyou will see what I'm talking
about.
We are all New York all thetime, so I have a great, great
(01:37):
episode here today.
We have Tim Regan, who he's theguy who's bringing you many of
the unbelievable videos andphotos of what we all know have
been there all along, but wekind of never got to see them
(01:58):
the sharks chasing a bunker andthe whales and dolphin and
things.
Most people outside of those ofus that are educating fisheries
understand that this is such awonderful thing that's happening
here and please don't thinkthis is like it.
(02:18):
You know, everybody's like whoa.
There's whales in shore.
Yes, it is amazing, but let'snot forget it.
Really, in the overall schemeof the world, it wasn't that
long ago that we would takeboats out and kill those whales
and we would also kill swordfish, which were everywhere within
(02:38):
five miles of the coast.
So we're trying to bring thingsback to normal here in the
state.
I don't know that it'll everhappen, probably won't.
So I just want to jump inbecause I want to get to Tim.
It's a great, great interview.
If you care about fisheries anddrones, he's very well informed
(03:01):
.
He's a fishing reporter for Onthe Water my good friend Chris
Meagan over there at On theWater.
Shout out to you.
want to talk about thisfishing license Now.
Anyone that knows meunderstands that this is
something I'm pretty welleducated on and I'm on top of
this thing.
(03:21):
There are things going onbehind the scenes right now, so,
but I do want to just talkabout really quickly the article
that was a news day about it.
So, again, I've been sayingfrom the start that this thing
has kind of been hush-hush andit kind of keeping quiet and
(03:43):
it's going under the radar.
Well, thanks to yours truly andI'm taking this one on my own
because I have no organization,I have no one behind me, I have
no one supporting me and I tookit upon myself to reach out to a
couple legislators.
You know the people that reallymake the decision, not the
(04:04):
people that are bullshitting onFacebook, that are giving you 42
paragraphs of nothing.
Okay, I'm bringing you to realthings.
So I went out and I spoke to acouple of legislators and I can
tell you right now they don'thave the taste for a saltwater a
(04:25):
license.
I mean, who wants to tax NewYorkers?
Well, long Islanders you knowthe city yeah, taxes they don't
pay in there really most of them, unless you're.
You know you got big bucks.
So you know they.
They don't care.
But Long Island legislatorscare.
(04:45):
They always have, and in thiscase we happen to have two very
powerful legislators that happento be on both sides of the
aisle that are not.
They're not crazy about theidea, they're opposed to it.
So what better could you?
I mean, both of them areheading up the NCon committees.
(05:06):
You know, one in the Senate,one in the Assembly, one's a
Republican, one's a Democrat.
So we can beat this thing.
I'm telling you, we could beatit If you want to beat it, if
you want to get beat, you couldalways do this.
But I want to talk about thisNewsday article and, like I
(05:28):
don't know, look, they spokewith a spokesman, john Salka,
and if you look at what he'ssaying I don't know if he's
ill-informed or if he's kind oftiptoeing, but you read, I mean
I'm gonna quote him here and hesays any potential license
(05:52):
revenue would be in addition toNew York State's existing and
robust support of the fishingindustry and the potential to
help supplement it.
So is there anyone listening tothis in the industry that
believes this saltwater licenseis gonna help the industry?
(06:12):
I don't think so.
Yeah, if you have a charterboat, you might say oh, you know
, this is good for me.
People can't go to.
You know, they won't need alicense to come fish with me.
They'll just call up and I'llhave a blanket license and I'll
say why buy a license?
Get on my boat.
But where do you see that beingguaranteed anywhere, or even
(06:36):
suggested?
I don't see it.
So it's early, I get it, buthow do you know you're not going
to end up like California,where every party boat and
charter boat has to make surethey're responsible for
everything, from the license tothe fish to everything else.
So you guys better get in linehere, I believe, when we get
(06:59):
this motion, this movement,going and it's going to happen
quick.
So the next thing is he claimsand again, I'm not saying the
guy's lying, he may just beill-informed and he's claiming
that we have 10 officers thatare covering 2,700 miles of
(07:21):
coastline.
So I don't know.
So I thought it was 40.
I've heard 46, 47, never heard10.
Maybe it is 10.
Then he goes on to say thatit's going to generate between 5
and 20 million Againill-informed.
I'm not saying he's lying.
It does sound like he's tryingto sell it though.
(07:42):
But I'm not saying he's lying.
But that's totally inaccurate.
We've had a license ready.
We already know what thelicense is going to do.
Top she's going to get 5million.
It's going to cost you morethan that in participation laws.
It's already been proven.
So now they're talking.
(08:05):
Also, they're talking about$150 for non-resident licenses.
So we have representative feel,representative Palumbo.
They're both on the East end.
Can you imagine all of thepeople that are coming out there
from all over the place?
They got to buy a non-residentlicense for $150.
(08:25):
Maybe they'll have 10 days,whatever.
I'm sure they're working allout.
But the people that rent there,they go there to bring their
fishing rods, they get the kids,they get everything.
They run out to the beach.
You all know what they do.
They throw out a freaking pieceof bait.
Half of them don't know whatthey're doing.
Anyway, they're not going tocatch anything and they're not
going to hurt anything.
But they have that freedom.
(08:47):
So they want to take that away.
And I don't know how anylegislator on the East end
that's representing these hotelsand these lodges and charter
boats and party boats andresidents that could go for
something like this.
And I'm telling you, I think wecould stop it.
I'm going to keep saying that.
So, again, there's a lot ofthings that they say that truly
(09:17):
are not correct and when Ilooked through this article, I
also see a few organizationswhich represent, or claim to
represent, recreational anglers.
Again, I don't s whole thing,but I'm going to leave you with
(09:37):
this.
I'm coming up with a specialjust on the sole or the license.
I'm going to make this aYouTube presentation laying it
all out, laying out the factthat I don't want to get into it
.
I don't want to talk about whatwe're getting into, but I am
going to tell you that we canbeat this license as much, as
(10:03):
this governor has shown to usthat she really doesn't care
about us.
We're like we don't exist.
We have fishermen.
She probably doesn't even knowwhat the water is.
This is a woman who's pushingthese windmills that are
destroying our oceans, which isa whole other story on its own.
But again, I'm going to closewith this and because I want to
(10:30):
get to the interview.
I really enjoy this guy and heknows a lot more than really I
get out of him.
I can tell that.
But he does understand what'sgoing on out here and where the
bullshit is and where the rubberhits the road.
(10:53):
So the bottom line is thelicense is going to help no one.
It's not going to give us a lotof money and it is going to be
very burdensome If that's theword.
It's going to be a burden onNew York anglers.
(11:13):
We don't need it.
We don't want it.
Okay, so we're going to move onfrom there.
So I'm going to jump right to myguest.
This was a real again.
You've got to listen.
Read between the lines.
Also.
You know I have this podcast inmany places and it's like
freaking everywhere.
But if you go to myanglercom,there's a full description of
(11:40):
the entire episode.
There's full you know the fulltranscript and there's
everything is there.
So you might want to go thereand check it out.
And also there is somediscussion.
I'd like to hear some feedbackfrom you guys Again.
There are people in groups outthere that claim you want this
license.
At the same time, they claimthey represent you.
(12:03):
So I'd like to hear from anyonethat can tell me that supports
the license and explain to mewhy.
That's all I'm asking for.
I've yet to get a singleexplanation.
I hear a lot about my positionon bass and all these other
things, but yeah, so pleasereach out to me Again.
(12:24):
I'm going to Tim Riegan.
I'd like to get right into thisand, oh, before I go, I want to
say, oh, before I go, new Yorkfans.
I'm not sure how much he couldtake with the New York Jets.
I'm a die hard Japan Sorry tothrow that in, but wow man,
(12:45):
again last night killer.
So here we are, tim Riegan.
He is an angler and he is aphotographer and he is a
videographer and he is an author.
When I say author, he's afishing writer.
(13:08):
So here we go, tim Riegan, aguy who I really enjoyed
speaking with on this interview.
Well, I want to welcome TimRiegan here to the show.
I'm a huge fan.
This guy has produced someamazing footage and I know he's
(13:31):
writing over there at the On theWater magazine with my good
friends over there.
So, hey, tim, why don't youintroduce yourself and tell us a
little bit about yourself?
Tim Regan (13:44):
All right.
Well, thanks for having me on,George.
Appreciate the opportunity totalk to you.
Yeah, my name is Tim Riegan.
I run up my Instagram page asSouth Fork Salt.
I put a lot of fishing contentand fish-related content, A lot
of drone videos that I take ofthe Menhaden along our coast and
(14:08):
just all sorts of stuffwater-related.
George Scocca (14:13):
Yeah, you got some great videos.
I tell you what I look forwardto them all the time.
Tim Regan (14:18):
Oh, awesome, thanks, man, I can't hear it.
George Scocca (14:21):
Yeah, they're great Educational.
Tim Regan (14:24):
It's fun for me to film and fun for me to educate
people talk about it.
So yeah, it's cool.
It's developed a pretty decentfollowing and I love telling
people about what I love.
George Scocca (14:39):
So let me ask you , tim so obviously we have a ton
of bunker here, which is,without a doubt, contributing to
what we're saying, right?
But this whole shark maniathing that somehow it always
happens during Shark Week, likeI really think those producers
(15:01):
like put out stuff up in thatcoast right before Shark Week.
My theory is those sharks havealways been there, yet we never
had the drones that say them.
So what's your take on it?
Tim Regan (15:18):
Yes, so I partially agree with you.
I think we've always had sharkshere.
I don't think there's anyquestion about that.
We probably used to have a lotmore sharks here until our three
primary species were protected.
That would be the sandbar shark, the sand tiger shark and the
dusky shark.
But ever since the bunkerpopulation recovered, we have
(15:43):
had a huge influx of spinnersharks, which, to my knowledge,
they didn't used to be veryabundant in our waters.
George Scocca (15:51):
No way.
Tim Regan (15:52):
Yeah, I know that people would catch them.
You know like a handful of themevery year, especially to the
on the western half of theisland.
But now with all the bunkerthere are, there could be
thousands of them that come up,migrate northwards into Long
Island waters with the bunkerevery single year.
(16:12):
So for the past, let's say forthe past four years, maybe five
years there, I would say thatspinner sharks might be the most
populous shark in our LongIsland waters on the South Shore
.
Wow, it's insane how many I see.
George Scocca (16:31):
Now, just for the record, listeners, we hear
estimates all the time oh, we'vegot this many fish, you know
from all different types ofcouncils and commissions, and
they, they're basing everythingon numbers.
We talked to a guy who isshowing us in real time, really,
(16:53):
what's happening, right?
So, and the truth is, I mean,the spinner is the spinner shark
is not protected, is it?
I mean, I don't know if it is,it might be.
No, it isn't.
Tim Regan (17:06):
So okay, you could actually harvest spinner sharks,
and I just want to throw caveatout there.
I'm not like a scientist.
I don't know the, I know that.
I know that I don't know howmany you know, sand, tigers or
brown sharks.
We've got how many you know sandtigers or brown sharks we have
in our waters.
But because I don't reallysometimes I see brown sharks I
(17:30):
don't think I've ever filmed asand tiger and I see dusky
sharks as well but for the mostpart I just see spinner sharks.
There could be way more sandtigers on the bottom than there
are spinners on top, but withthe way I see it, just the
amount of spinner sharks is wild.
George Scocca (17:48):
So there's.
I'm wondering why there's alack of blue sharks that are in
shore.
Is it that they just don't comein shore?
But I mean, I don't.
I don't see many blue sharksbeing caught from the beach.
Tim Regan (18:02):
Yeah, my guess is that they're not really a like
an inshore species.
So one of the species that I'llfilm on occasion is hammerheads
oh those are great videos.
Yeah, they're really cool andman, they're hardcore to watch.
It's really sick watching them.
George Scocca (18:22):
I could watch that stuff all day.
It really is amazing, amazing.
Tim Regan (18:25):
Yeah, what do we got?
We have, I think, scallopedhammerheads and smooth
hammerheads.
I don't know if we have thosegiant crate hammerheads that you
see hunting black tips down inFlorida.
George Scocca (18:36):
Oh, I've seen them yeah.
Tim Regan (18:38):
But yeah, we've got a few of those species that I see
, you know, once in a blue moonup here, and but like I've never
seen a blue shark, I've neverseen a Mako, and I've only seen
three great white sharks and alljuvenile, so I would imagine
that those sharks, plus the bluesharks, are more of an offshore
(19:01):
species.
That's just my read on it.
George Scocca (19:04):
Okay.
So when you're, you know, likea look at your videos and you
just learn so much just bywatching them, you know.
I really hope that ourfisheries managers and
scientists and everybody elseare looking at these videos that
they could never afford toproduce.
There's so much information inthere rather than rather than
(19:29):
guessing.
So I'm curious have you evercome across something like I
know?
I know there are Gilnets comingup and down the coast and I,
you know, along the South Shore,which I got to tell you right
now.
I cannot believe in the yearahead of a 2024 that was still
(19:52):
targeting fish with Gilnets,when we can easily fill these
quotas with hook and line wherea fish can decide whether or not
to bite.
But have you come across anytype of situations where because
I've heard a bluefin tunaactually getting caught in
(20:12):
Gilnets running up the coasthave you ever seen anything like
?
Tim Regan (20:17):
that.
So I've never seen a bluefintuna inside of a Gilnet.
So I used to film the Gilnetskind of religiously.
I had this one experience whenI was starting out surf casting
within like the first threeyears, where a Gilnet had
encircled this big school ofgator bluefish 15 to 20 pounds
(20:40):
and caught the whole school ofthem.
It had to be a thousand fishand I was just catching those
fish on shore and so I just kindof watched in disbelief as they
corralled this school, and thenI was watching them through my
binoculars as they brought inthe net.
It looked like, I'm guessing,that the reel, the giant reel
(21:07):
that they bring the net onto onthe boat must have burned out.
They must have burnt out theengine or something.
So they had one boat workingone end of the net and then one
boat working the other end ofthe net, and as they brought in
all these bluefish it took themforever to do it.
George Scocca (21:23):
So that was a whole scene.
That was a whole scene.
Tim Regan (21:25):
No, no, it wasn't, it was a Gilnet.
George Scocca (21:28):
It wasn't a Gilnet okay.
Tim Regan (21:30):
Yes.
So I was watching them throughmy binoculars and it's appeared
to me that they didn't want anyof those bluefish.
So I saw all the bluefish, withrigor mortis, getting tossed
back dead into the ocean andthen for the next month and a
half we had just rottingbluefish carcasses littering the
(21:52):
beach for like probably 15miles.
It was a, it was sad and itmessed with me, so I I was like
I need to film this and showpeople how bad this is.
George Scocca (22:03):
Yeah, well, you're taking a chance with that
and I can tell you in that youbetter be ready for retaliation.
When I went after theGilnetters, I actually got a
call in my office and my wifewas my secretary at the time.
So I went to her and whoever itwas literally sent to her, tell
(22:25):
your husband to drop the Gilnetissue or he's going to find
himself in one.
So my wife was like she doesn'teven know what to do to her.
It's like a regular net to netthe fish.
It's like I think we have a manadvertiser who advertises nets.
(22:46):
Oh jeez, and now I got a guystrutting my life.
You know so but anyhow, I don'tknow if you had anything even
close to that, but you've got towatch yourself.
Tim Regan (22:58):
Yeah, yeah.
So there was some blowback.
I had a bunch of differenttypes of commercial fishermen
reach out to me, angry with metelling my story and you know I
wasn't really.
I wasn't like trying to talkbad about commercial things.
George Scocca (23:13):
I get that.
Tim Regan (23:14):
Yeah, like I hugely respect the profession, I think
it would be an awesome thing todo for a living.
I know those guys work reallyhard.
It's just I had this experiencewhere I saw this gill net like
commit in atrocity and like inmy mind and I was, I was like I
hate, I hate this and so, and soI film them like constantly for
(23:34):
years and Wow, can I get someof that stuff?
Well, I like my point of mypoint of me saying that is that
you know I watched some badstuff happen and a lot of the
stuff I watched happen was justfishing as usual, where you know
they reel in the net, they take, they take the fish that they
(23:54):
don't want, they throw themoverboard and the fish swim,
swim off.
George Scocca (23:58):
So Well you hope they swim, yeah, so.
So let me give you a couplestats on that, just so you know.
Sure, in my opinion, why are weeven still using gill nets when
we can easily fill all of them,strike bass tags with hook and
(24:18):
line, but 48 percent of the fishthat get released out of a gill
net are dead.
So they have a 48 percentmortality rate.
And they yell at us because wehave a 9 percent mortality rate,
(24:40):
which we really don't, but theysay we do, yet they turn a
blind eye.
I mean, how many fish between31 and 34?
Oh, then again, they could keepthose.
How many fish over 34 inchesDied in those nets that can't
even be brought to market?
I mean, you know as well as Ido it's got to be a huge number,
(25:04):
but you don't have to agree.
So, even though I know you doso, so, so, so, so the
commercial, so the commercialfishermen kind of push back on
you delivering the truth.
Tim Regan (25:21):
Yeah, and so I'm a friendly guy.
I'm not looking forconfrontation or anything.
So you know, I hadconversations with these, with
these guys, and just told themwhere I was coming from and I
think I prevented myself frombecoming like an enemy to the
commercial fishermen and well,that's good.
George Scocca (25:41):
I mean, you know, look, I don't want to be their
enemy, right?
But the truth is sadly the waywe've set up this system.
You know, there's a pie andthey make us fight over who's
getting how much of that pie.
Yeah, we didn't do that, they,you know the regulators did that
(26:02):
.
The commercial fishermen didn'tdo that either.
But if we're truly trying toprotect a fishery, in this case,
and strike bad fishery, youknow why not just take those
freaking nets out of the water?
Tim Regan (26:19):
I don't know, but anyway hold on George real quick
.
I just wanted to just say aquick you get ahead.
That's pretty much related tothis.
So a few weeks back I wastalking to a former commercial
bluefin tuna fishermen and I'mnot sure if you is around for
like the long line days or what,but I kind of got that vibe.
(26:42):
So he was talking about how heused to love it, you know.
But he ended up quitting becausebasically because of the
regulations, because the waythat the fishery the bluefin
fishery was being regulated itwas causing way more waste.
(27:04):
Because in his mind, there werebetter ways that the fishery
could have been regulated where,like you could say only fish on
Tuesdays and Thursdays and keepeverything you catch.
But they made it based on liketonnage, your numbers of fish,
and so what ended up happeningis like you would catch X amount
(27:27):
of fish until you got yourlimit and then you would have to
throw all the other fish youcaught back and basically all
those fish would be dead.
So you're just wasting a ton,rather than in the past when
they could keep and selleverything they catch.
So he was saying he might stillbe a tuna fisherman if the
regulation had been moresensible.
(27:49):
So it's not like these guys aregoing out there and like and
just looking to kill and theylike without any remorse or
anything.
It's like guys actually quitbecause they were regulated into
becoming a wasteful industry.
George Scocca (28:10):
So I get listen.
I totally agree, and so I couldbe clear.
I am not anti commercialfisherman.
I'm not.
I know I sound it and there arecases where I, you know, like,
look, I have a problem.
You talked about the bluefishbefore.
We've been cut to two bluefish,three bluefish, and I'm working
(28:34):
on numbers now and, being thatwe didn't catch anywhere near
our quota, we are transferringquota to the commercial fishery.
I we moved 90,000 pounds fromus that we didn't catch because
of regulations and we gave thatto the commercial fishery.
So there's, I am not anticommercial fisherman, I am anti
(29:01):
commercial fishing tactics.
I don't like potting forblackfish.
That'll never stop now.
It's way too profitable.
I don't like gill netting forstriped bass because of the
bycatch issue, and and and again, I'm not talking these same
guys.
I mean they get X amount oftags, I don't know how many they
(29:23):
are, but these same guys couldgo catch them, hook and line.
They don't need to gill netting.
So I'm not anti commercial, Idon't want to put that forward,
but I am anti certain fisheries.
Yeah.
Tim Regan (29:38):
I go ahead, I hear you, and the reason I brought up
that story is to just show howcomplex this issue is, because I
think a lot of people thinkit's black and white.
I certainly did.
When I saw this I was like gillnetting is terrible and like I
didn't know about any other.
I didn't know about any othertypes of commercial fishing, but
(29:58):
I was like this is just such anawful thing, Like and you know
over the years, what, what,watching it more and more and
then also learning about theevolution of local commercial
fishing and netting and whatnot,I've just become more informed
and just say, able to see that,see that the complexity in the
(30:21):
issue and it is much morecomplex, right, and most people
think but let's get back tofishing for a minute.
George Scocca (30:30):
So how, how often do you fish and where are you
fishing?
Tim Regan (30:36):
So I started fishing after college.
I graduated in 2013 and let'ssee the end of that summer, my
buddy, who was a lifeguard withme, took me fishing and he had
been asking me all summer and Inever would go because I just
had this vision of us likesitting on a dock just waiting
(30:56):
and I was like hyperactive, likeenergetic dude, and I didn't
want to just sit around and waitfor a fish to bite.
But then my boss came out oneday and he was a surfcaster and
I watched him catch a couplebluefish which, like not being a
fisherman at the time, I knewthat I loved bluefish the taste
of it and just the power andtheir, their character, you know
(31:20):
.
So watch.
I watched him one day pull acouple bluefish out of just
right out of the surf and I waslike that was really cool,
because at the time I reallydidn't know what I wanted to do
with my life.
I just knew that I was like Ithink it would be awesome to
become self-sufficient, so I gotinto gardening and nice, and
then next I got into fishing andso, you know, with those two
(31:42):
things I could, I could feedmyself, and so seeing him do
that, I was like.
That's something that I need tolearn how to do.
So my buddy took me fishing.
We caught a striped bass andthen I've been fishing pretty
much every every day of the yearafter that because then for the
winter time I discovered whiteperch and so that kept me on the
(32:02):
water all winter and, yeah,really just after college all I
knew is that I wanted to be onthe water, so fishing was a way
to stay on the water all yearround, so I probably fish on.
In the past 10 years I probablyfished on an on average like
350 to 360 days a year.
Wow, that's crazy Kind of apsycho.
George Scocca (32:24):
So are you all surf, and whereabouts?
We'll talk about the perch in aminute.
Whereabouts are you fishing?
Tim Regan (32:35):
Pretty much all surf and shore based fishing.
You know I have a kayak that Iused to use when, you know,
before before we had this likehuge rebound of bunker.
We would get to see some bunkerfor a few weeks during the fall
runs and typically what wouldoccur is the small fish would be
(32:55):
blitzing on peanut bunker upfront and then you'd have the
adult bunker like 100 yards offthe beach.
You know, just a little bit farfor a cast, like you couldn't
cast to them, so I'd go outthere and fish those bunker
schools and get into like 30-40pound fish.
Wow, yeah, so I have a kayak.
And then you know I've beenworking at this beach club for
(33:15):
the past.
They've been living at thisbeach club for like 10 years now
and wait, hold on.
George Scocca (33:22):
You live at a beach club.
Tim Regan (33:25):
Yeah, yes, I've been working here since I was 16, and
then, after college, I didn'thave a place to live, and so the
manager at the time wanted meto come back, and I was, like I
don't have a place to stay, likeif you put me up at the beach
club, then I'll come back andwork and so what a gig.
Yeah, yeah, it's been a goodride.
Wow, it's been so easy for meto fish every day.
George Scocca (33:48):
Yeah, really that absolutely helps.
Tim Regan (33:52):
Yeah, big time.
George Scocca (33:54):
So all right.
So now.
So you're a surf fisherman, I'mgonna pink your brain a little
bit about fishing.
You're not being specific aboutspots, that's okay, it doesn't
matter.
I can remember when I had theother website, noriestcom, I was
blamed spot burning, spotburning, montauk, point.
(34:17):
Okay, there are pictures fromthe 50s elbow to elbow people
fishing in Montauk.
But because of Noriest, webrought too many people out east
, so I know what that's about.
So we're not gonna even talkabout where you are.
But so this time of year, whatare you looking for?
(34:38):
As far as I mean, a lot ofpeople don't get into the
important things like tide andmoon stage and all that stuff,
but what are you looking for?
You got this blow.
Finishing next week is gonna besupposedly wide open, so you
know they should be a couple ofreally good days in there.
(34:59):
So what are you doing now?
Tim Regan (35:05):
So right now, with the East blow, I haven't fished
too much this past week.
I've been going through somestuff so I just haven't been
able to find time to get on thewater.
But I do know that there's beena good surf bite and right
before the blow I was seeingmullet right along the beach lip
.
So I would imagine that hassomething to do with this bite.
(35:27):
As well as you know theconditions themselves.
Like we all know, striped basslove big water and east blows.
So after this blow I would saythat again.
George Scocca (35:41):
So striped bass like an east blow, so east is
least.
Does not apply to striped bass.
Tim Regan (35:55):
Well, honestly, I would take any saying with a
grain of salt.
So that was like one of my maingoals when I was like
completely dedicated to surfcasting in the early years.
I couldn't really hold down agirlfriend because I was, you
(36:15):
know, going fishing every singlenight.
You better off.
George Scocca (36:17):
You better forget that, girlfriend.
We're talking about fish.
Forget that girlfriend.
I mean what's important?
I'm holding good.
Tim Regan (36:25):
And I got a darn good life now, so life's good.
You know, what happened was Iwanted to get fishing down to a
science so that I can gowhenever I had time and catch a
fish.
So that was my goal startinglike year three.
I was like, all right, if I'mever going to like be able to
hold down a girl, then I'm goingto need to be able to catch a
(36:47):
fish whenever I want.
So that was kind of my goal andI put all my effort into that
and met some good guys along theway.
There's, you know, probablyfive guys that I talk with daily
and have talked with daily forthe past five or six years, and
(37:08):
we're able to like help, keepeach other on the bite and just
be informed on what's going on,what's showing up, what we're
seeing and even stuff like whereare the gill nets, like what
beaches should we avoid, yada,yada.
George Scocca (37:22):
So see that now.
Now that's sad and it's notright.
You know, right, there is aperfect example why those nets
should be out of the water.
I'm sorry, look, and I'm notanti-commercial.
Catch them some other way is agazillion ways to catch fish,
but we can't go fishing becauseyour nets are killing a fish.
(37:44):
I'm sticking up for the wreckhere and I'm sticking up for the
fish here.
So, anyway, I'm sorry.
Tim Regan (37:53):
No worries, I kind of lost my train of thought.
Anyway, I don't know where Iwas going with that.
George Scocca (37:58):
Well, you were just talking about fishing,
which is cool, all right.
So you, so you target.
Now, don't talk about theseperch.
Now, aren't those perchspawning that time of year, or
are they not Like?
I don't know a lot about them,but I know that there are big
perch that get caught in certainplaces that we're not going to
talk about.
Yeah, so how do you talk atthem?
(38:21):
What bait and stuff like that?
I'm so curious.
Tim Regan (38:25):
So I mainly use artificial like jigs, marabou
jigs or killer.
You can use little curly tails,but mainly like you're going to
go up to probably an eighthounce tops.
You could go bigger.
The biggest one I ever caughtwas on a half ounce cast master
(38:48):
and that was a.
I caught and released that oneand if I kept that one I'm
positive it would have been thenew world record.
But I was.
I was like really, really greenat the time.
I didn't know.
I knew that I was holding likea mythical looking fish but I
didn't realize that this waslike.
This was bigger than the worldrecord.
So world records 18 inches,three and a half pounds.
(39:10):
This fish was 20 inches fullyloaded with eggs and, yeah, it
would have been four pounds.
George Scocca (39:18):
Well, hey look, you caught it and you released
it.
You did the right that.
Tim Regan (39:23):
Yeah, I've been hunting for it ever since and
you know I've caught a bunch ofthree pounders over the years,
but never anything, you'll neverget one again.
George Scocca (39:31):
You deserve one and you'll get one.
And you know what?
You'll probably let it go again.
Tim Regan (39:37):
Yeah, it's still.
It's still on my mind.
So, yeah, I'm still still after, but so I mean so.
George Scocca (39:46):
So like, look again.
I don't want to know the spot,but like, what are you looking
for to find these?
For I know some people thatthat fish them and catch, like
you say, three pounders, and Ithink it's like during the
colder time.
Yeah, I'm curious, like whenyou go and what you're looking
(40:09):
for, stuff like that.
Tim Regan (40:11):
Yeah, so I'm a fishing guide and so during the
summer I teach kids how to fish,mainly, oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah and so yeah, at this beachclub I'll take them taking
fishing, so we actually caught.
George Scocca (40:24):
Oh yeah, that's right.
The club the tough job.
Tim Regan (40:27):
Yeah, so we, one of the kids.
It was literally the last dropof the summer.
It was a piece of bait that Ihad, so we were using shrimp,
and typically what I'll do is,if I have the time, I will
collect a bunch of sand crabs,crush them up, turn them into
(40:48):
like a sand flee soup and usethat as chum, and so I had been
doing that for like a week.
George Scocca (40:53):
Sand flee soup Doesn't sound like something I
wanna eat, but go ahead.
Tim Regan (40:58):
Delicious, yeah.
So yeah, the water was wellchummed for like a week and we
were mostly catching perch tolike, let's say, eight inches or
so.
So yeah, nothing really big.
Biggest ones would have beenlike 10 inches.
But our last piece of bait forthe summer, this kid dropped it
(41:18):
down and picked like probably a17 inch perch.
That was frigging huge man.
This is biggest one I've seenin a while.
George Scocca (41:29):
That's a big fish .
Tim Regan (41:31):
Yeah, since like last winter at least.
So the thing is that it hadlike nothing in its belly.
It didn't have any eggs, didn'thave any food and stuff, so
that one it probably could havebeen another extra pound if it
was filled with eggs and food.
So in the winter time that'sthe best time to target them,
(41:51):
because you're gonna get theheaviest fish, because I'm not
sure how long they could holdtheir eggs exactly.
It might be a couple of years,it might be they spawn once a
year.
If they spawn a couple of timesa year, I really don't know
that.
But in the winter time you'remore likely to find fish holding
eggs, which is if you wannacatch a world record, you're
(42:14):
gonna go in like the winter orthe spring pretty much.
George Scocca (42:18):
Right, right.
So I wanna get back to for onesecond, one more minute the gill
net situation.
Right, so you never saw anybluefin or anything like that.
They got stuck in a net runningup the shore Sharks or anything
(42:39):
like that.
I'm just curious.
Tim Regan (42:41):
The only big thing that I've ever seen in a gill
net was a whale the biggestthing you could see in a gill
net.
George Scocca (42:49):
That's scary.
Tim Regan (42:50):
Yeah, I got a call from a friend who is a writer
for a paper and I had a drone atthat point.
So he was like, can you go flyyour drone and get a shot of
this whale in a gill net?
And at that time I was stilllike vehemently anti-gill net.
So I was like, yeah, man, I'mthere.
So I just dipped out of work,ran over there, flew the drone
(43:13):
and it was a heart-wrenchingsight.
It sucked.
So this whale would come up.
You could check out the footage.
It's on YouTube.
George Scocca (43:22):
I'm going to be linking that up to my website.
Tim Regan (43:24):
I got to check this out.
Yeah, it's not great footage,but you could see the gill net
wrapped around its tail, Ibelieve it was.
And so I got there and while Iwas there, these stand-up paddle
borders were just coming in andthey had gone out with knives
(43:49):
to carve up the gill net to helpget the whale out, because it
was just surfacing every let'ssay, it could have been like 40
seconds, could have been aminute to take a breath, and it
was just being held down likeanchored down to the bottom.
So it was just like using a lotof effort to try to survive.
And, yeah, thank god, thosestand-up paddle borders were
(44:12):
there to help it out andeventually I wasn't there when
it broke free, but eventuallythe whale was able to get itself
untangled Thanks to thosepaddle borders cutting up the
net.
George Scocca (44:29):
That really is.
I mean, look, I'm sure there'sso much happening that we don't
see.
And again, I don't expect Idon't want you to be against
gill netters I could do that,but the fact is that that's
pretty amazing.
So you have footage of this onYouTube.
(44:51):
I'm going to link that up toour podcast page so the folks
can see what you're talkingabout.
And the other thing is thislook, you're not confrontational
either, or am I?
But at the same time and I'mnot telling you what to do, but
(45:13):
I cannot sit back and watchthese things happening without
saying something about it.
And again, the whale.
Ok, I guess that's like once ina blue moon, and I'm not the
whales are being killed by thedozens, with this whole windmill
(45:36):
thing going on.
So I'm not that I'm thatconcerned with whales getting
caught in a gill net, butalthough I am but I'm not like
that crazy, but the gill netsthemselves need to come out of
the water.
I'm not saying I don't care.
Let somebody pay these guys notto fish, whatever it takes.
(45:59):
I don't want people not to makemoney and I get it.
It's probably not easy being acommercial fisherman In fact it
isn't and I don't want them tostruggle.
But at the same time we have tobe fair.
We just do Anyhow, so yeah, hey, George.
Tim Regan (46:21):
on that note, if you're invested in seeing the
evil in gill nets, you'll findsome other footage on my YouTube
.
George Scocca (46:27):
OK great.
Tim Regan (46:28):
But, of like, there's this video of these, this one
boat, emptying their nets ofdogfish, because that's pretty
much all they were catching, and, rather than be gentle, they
were ripping them out of thenets if they could, and if they
(46:49):
couldn't, then they were justsawing the dogfish and s and so
that was messed up, and sothat's something that I tried to
bring to the attention of theDEC.
And there was this one guy atthe DEC at the time who he was
pretty high up, I believe, andhe basically told me that it
(47:10):
doesn't matter that this ishappening to dogfish.
If you really want to effectchange, then you're going to
have to film that happening toStripe Bass.
And I'll just say that I neverhave seen anything like that
happening to Stripe Bass, and,like in any industry, there's
going to be some bad actors, andI think I just you know.
George Scocca (47:32):
Well, you know what?
I don't really even considerthem bad actors.
I really don't.
Tim Regan (47:39):
Those guys cutting up the dogfish were definitely bad
actors.
But yeah, it's just my twocents.
George Scocca (47:46):
Look again, I agree with you there.
So there are bad actors and asbad actors everywhere, right
yeah.
And commercials unfortunately,they're driven by profit and
recreation.
Well, then again, you can'tcall them recs.
So many people have caughtselling fish illegally.
(48:10):
But my point is that theGillnet itself, its day has come
and gone.
It's kill every think abouteverything it's taking and it's,
in my opinion, it's time topull them out of the water.
(48:31):
But keep these guys fishingsomehow, just without gill nets.
We got enough stride bassaround.
You go catch them, hook a line.
Yet they only get X a man offish a year anyhow.
But look I, I don't view themas evil, I do view the fishery
is indiscriminative and, yeah,it will kill anything they can
(48:53):
stuck in that freakin net.
So, alright, so now let's stop.
Wow, man, you are like a longinterview, because I love it.
So let's talk about somethingthat that really interests me at
this point.
As a lifelong geek, I Want toget myself a drone.
(49:15):
Now Let me tell you what it'sfor.
I know people are gonna go oh,my god, george, no.
So I fish this lake now inFlorida.
It's a big, huge quarry, andwhat I want to do, I mean, I
guess I'll apply it here, butfor some reason I'm thinking it
down there because the weatheris always so good.
I'm looking just for a dronethat I could send up and Video
(49:41):
me you know, video the boatWhile we're fishing and kind of
follow us around.
Because, without me needing toknow that much, having to fly a
drone because I'm just a spaz, Idon't understand why.
Tim Regan (50:00):
Okay.
So First thing I would say is,once you do get a drone, do a
lot Especially if you're gonnafly it from a boat is practice
Launching the drone from yourhand and then catching it in
your hand instead of landing iton the ground, because that's
what you're gonna need to do ona boat.
Also, just practice flying andget used to looking at the GPS,
(50:25):
just Just if you like lose trackof your drone, you can.
You can look on your map andfind and use your remote, your
remote's GPS to Direct yourdrone back to you.
So that's just the first littletip I'd say.
(50:47):
And then, in terms of like,what drone to buy, the one that
I always recommend to people isthe DJI.
I use DJI drones.
George Scocca (50:56):
That's the company DJI, and I'm actually
writing that down, even though Icould probably hear it whenever
I want, but I'm gonna google itsoon.
Tim Regan (51:07):
It's on.
So check out the DJI mini 3 pro.
It's uh, it's probably gonnacost you overall if you get a
couple batteries, and you knowwhat I couldn't tell you the
exact price it's gonna be over athousand and you can get the
cheaper version that's not thepro, for uh, under a thousand I
(51:29):
believe, but it's um, the.
The non pro version doesn'thave obstacle avoidance system,
so if you like, fly around atree like you might crash into
the tree, whereas with the proversion, um, yeah, I need pro if
you get, if you get, if you getexactly better, better safe
than sorry.
George Scocca (51:49):
So, um, Does it have like an automatic way just
to follow you around, or no?
Tim Regan (51:55):
Yeah, uh, yes, it does.
So the cool thing about themini 3 pro and they're about,
they're about to launch a mini 4pro, like really soon.
I don't know what the price isgonna be Um, sure, it's gonna be
a really awesome machine,because every machine they make
is pretty freaking awesome, but,um, the mini 3 pro it probably
(52:15):
has you can get these extendedlife batteries that allow you to
fly for, like they say, 45minutes.
In reality it's probably morelike 35, right, right, um, so
you could get a long flight timewhere you could, like, get some
fishing in, and then, you know,it'll start beeping once the
battery gets low and then youcould, you know, pick the remote
(52:37):
back up and, you know, fly itback to your hand.
George Scocca (52:41):
but, um, yeah, that's what I need.
Yeah, it's kind of come home todaddy what happened and do it
also there's, uh, there'ssettings, or what do you call
them.
Tim Regan (52:57):
There's ways to film yourself without actually, uh
like manually controlling thedrone.
So, um, I can't remember whatthe setting is called, but
there's, there's one where itactive track, I think you know
what when I buy the drone?
George Scocca (53:12):
I'm calling you.
That's all I gotta say.
Tim Regan (53:14):
Yeah, I got this underwater drone.
George Scocca (53:16):
I can't use it.
It spins and circle and it's areally good one.
So yeah, maybe one day we'llget together You'll teach me how
to use that thing too.
Tim Regan (53:26):
Absolutely I'd love to.
George Scocca (53:28):
All right, look, I gotta tell you it's been a
great, great interview.
Um, I really appreciate yourinput on everything and be sure
to say hello to the boys downhere at On the Water and let's
get in touch again soon, okay.
Tim Regan (53:46):
Well, dude, sounds good.
George, it's a pleasure talkingto you.
George Scocca (53:48):
All right, all right, okay, there you have it,
folks.
Another great episode of theNew York fishing podcast.
Again, or for the first time,because I always forget
subscribe to this thing so youget that message every time it
comes up.
There's nothing that you'resitting in traffic or you're on
the train and there's all thisBS.
(54:09):
Nothing better than listeningto me.
Imagine that now my wife she'dprobably disagree with that 100%
.
She'd be like, okay, I hadenough to listen to imagine what
she goes through.
Okay, but it's a good, it'sreally.
I mean, I know that I enjoylistening to other podcasts when
(54:30):
I'm kind of stuck in traffic orwhatever.
And you need to understandthere's so easy to play.
I mean, if you haven't enjoyed,hey, google played a new york
fishing podcast.
If you haven't, alexa, hey,alexa played a new york fishing
podcast.
If you have an iphone, hey,siri, play the fishing podcast.
(54:50):
If you haven't enjoyed form,hey, play the fishing podcast.
That's new york fishing podcast.
That's all you got to do.
So please tune in um to the nextepisode, as I will be featuring
John McMurray.
John, as many of you know, is agreat tuna fisherman here in
(55:11):
new york.
He's a great, great fishermanall around.
He's controversial in some ways.
Him and I have been on the samepage in many cases and in other
cases we haven't.
John and I have a very longrelationship.
I was part of a team that hiredhim when he came out Of the
(55:34):
coast guard and he's stillinvolved in this fishery, but
now he's a charter boat captainand I.
I kind of feel some folks Aregoing to be a bit surprised on
his take about what's being, uh,bandied about for best for next
year.
So until next time, folks.
(55:55):
Once again, thanks for tuningin, please subscribe so you
don't miss an episode, and thankyou all for the support that I
continue to get.
And once again, god blessamerica.
Hello Anglers, this is George Schocker and
you're listening to the New YorkFishing Podcast brought to you
by your friends.
Basically, that's me and ourgreat crew over at nyanglercom,
your secret spot online.
(00:22):
Now listen, that's one secretspot that I want everybody to
give up nyanglercom.
If you're not visiting us andseeing all the great content
that's there without the FBBS,please stop by nyanglercom.
Remember one thing everythingthere is free.
(00:46):
We don't charge for anything.
We have how-to articles.
We have all the updated news.
We have people posted on itevery single day of the week.
Again, we don't allow theFacebook BS with all the sarcasm
and everything else.
Look, I'm the guy who had thefirst bulletin board form there
(01:11):
ever was, so in fishing, so Iknow what I'm doing.
You folks really need to stopby nyanglercom or nyanglercom
one or the other.
Spend a few minutes there andyou will see what I'm talking
about.
We are all New York all thetime, so I have a great, great
(01:37):
episode here today.
We have Tim Regan, who he's theguy who's bringing you many of
the unbelievable videos andphotos of what we all know have
been there all along, but wekind of never got to see them
(01:58):
the sharks chasing a bunker andthe whales and dolphin and
things.
Most people outside of those ofus that are educating fisheries
understand that this is such awonderful thing that's happening
here and please don't thinkthis is like it.
(02:18):
You know, everybody's like whoa.
There's whales in shore.
Yes, it is amazing, but let'snot forget it.
Really, in the overall schemeof the world, it wasn't that
long ago that we would takeboats out and kill those whales
and we would also kill swordfish, which were everywhere within
(02:38):
five miles of the coast.
So we're trying to bring thingsback to normal here in the
state.
I don't know that it'll everhappen, probably won't.
So I just want to jump inbecause I want to get to Tim.
It's a great, great interview.
If you care about fisheries anddrones, he's very well informed
(03:01):
.
He's a fishing reporter for Onthe Water my good friend Chris
Meagan over there at On theWater.
Shout out to you.
want to talk about thisfishing license Now.
Anyone that knows meunderstands that this is
something I'm pretty welleducated on and I'm on top of
this thing.
(03:21):
There are things going onbehind the scenes right now, so,
but I do want to just talkabout really quickly the article
that was a news day about it.
So, again, I've been sayingfrom the start that this thing
has kind of been hush-hush andit kind of keeping quiet and
(03:43):
it's going under the radar.
Well, thanks to yours truly andI'm taking this one on my own
because I have no organization,I have no one behind me, I have
no one supporting me and I tookit upon myself to reach out to a
couple legislators.
You know the people that reallymake the decision, not the
(04:04):
people that are bullshitting onFacebook, that are giving you 42
paragraphs of nothing.
Okay, I'm bringing you to realthings.
So I went out and I spoke to acouple of legislators and I can
tell you right now they don'thave the taste for a saltwater a
(04:25):
license.
I mean, who wants to tax NewYorkers?
Well, long Islanders you knowthe city yeah, taxes they don't
pay in there really most of them, unless you're.
You know you got big bucks.
So you know they.
They don't care.
But Long Island legislatorscare.
(04:45):
They always have, and in thiscase we happen to have two very
powerful legislators that happento be on both sides of the
aisle that are not.
They're not crazy about theidea, they're opposed to it.
So what better could you?
I mean, both of them areheading up the NCon committees.
(05:06):
You know, one in the Senate,one in the Assembly, one's a
Republican, one's a Democrat.
So we can beat this thing.
I'm telling you, we could beatit If you want to beat it, if
you want to get beat, you couldalways do this.
But I want to talk about thisNewsday article and, like I
(05:28):
don't know, look, they spokewith a spokesman, john Salka,
and if you look at what he'ssaying I don't know if he's
ill-informed or if he's kind oftiptoeing, but you read, I mean
I'm gonna quote him here and hesays any potential license
(05:52):
revenue would be in addition toNew York State's existing and
robust support of the fishingindustry and the potential to
help supplement it.
So is there anyone listening tothis in the industry that
believes this saltwater licenseis gonna help the industry?
(06:12):
I don't think so.
Yeah, if you have a charterboat, you might say oh, you know
, this is good for me.
People can't go to.
You know, they won't need alicense to come fish with me.
They'll just call up and I'llhave a blanket license and I'll
say why buy a license?
Get on my boat.
But where do you see that beingguaranteed anywhere, or even
(06:36):
suggested?
I don't see it.
So it's early, I get it, buthow do you know you're not going
to end up like California,where every party boat and
charter boat has to make surethey're responsible for
everything, from the license tothe fish to everything else.
So you guys better get in linehere, I believe, when we get
(06:59):
this motion, this movement,going and it's going to happen
quick.
So the next thing is he claimsand again, I'm not saying the
guy's lying, he may just beill-informed and he's claiming
that we have 10 officers thatare covering 2,700 miles of
(07:21):
coastline.
So I don't know.
So I thought it was 40.
I've heard 46, 47, never heard10.
Maybe it is 10.
Then he goes on to say thatit's going to generate between 5
and 20 million Againill-informed.
I'm not saying he's lying.
It does sound like he's tryingto sell it though.
(07:42):
But I'm not saying he's lying.
But that's totally inaccurate.
We've had a license ready.
We already know what thelicense is going to do.
Top she's going to get 5million.
It's going to cost you morethan that in participation laws.
It's already been proven.
So now they're talking.
(08:05):
Also, they're talking about$150 for non-resident licenses.
So we have representative feel,representative Palumbo.
They're both on the East end.
Can you imagine all of thepeople that are coming out there
from all over the place?
They got to buy a non-residentlicense for $150.
(08:25):
Maybe they'll have 10 days,whatever.
I'm sure they're working allout.
But the people that rent there,they go there to bring their
fishing rods, they get the kids,they get everything.
They run out to the beach.
You all know what they do.
They throw out a freaking pieceof bait.
Half of them don't know whatthey're doing.
Anyway, they're not going tocatch anything and they're not
going to hurt anything.
But they have that freedom.
(08:47):
So they want to take that away.
And I don't know how anylegislator on the East end
that's representing these hotelsand these lodges and charter
boats and party boats andresidents that could go for
something like this.
And I'm telling you, I think wecould stop it.
I'm going to keep saying that.
So, again, there's a lot ofthings that they say that truly
(09:17):
are not correct and when Ilooked through this article, I
also see a few organizationswhich represent, or claim to
represent, recreational anglers.
Again, I don't s whole thing,but I'm going to leave you with
(09:37):
this.
I'm coming up with a specialjust on the sole or the license.
I'm going to make this aYouTube presentation laying it
all out, laying out the factthat I don't want to get into it
.
I don't want to talk about whatwe're getting into, but I am
going to tell you that we canbeat this license as much, as
(10:03):
this governor has shown to usthat she really doesn't care
about us.
We're like we don't exist.
We have fishermen.
She probably doesn't even knowwhat the water is.
This is a woman who's pushingthese windmills that are
destroying our oceans, which isa whole other story on its own.
But again, I'm going to closewith this and because I want to
(10:30):
get to the interview.
I really enjoy this guy and heknows a lot more than really I
get out of him.
I can tell that.
But he does understand what'sgoing on out here and where the
bullshit is and where the rubberhits the road.
(10:53):
So the bottom line is thelicense is going to help no one.
It's not going to give us a lotof money and it is going to be
very burdensome If that's theword.
It's going to be a burden onNew York anglers.
(11:13):
We don't need it.
We don't want it.
Okay, so we're going to move onfrom there.
So I'm going to jump right to myguest.
This was a real again.
You've got to listen.
Read between the lines.
Also.
You know I have this podcast inmany places and it's like
freaking everywhere.
But if you go to myanglercom,there's a full description of
(11:40):
the entire episode.
There's full you know the fulltranscript and there's
everything is there.
So you might want to go thereand check it out.
And also there is somediscussion.
I'd like to hear some feedbackfrom you guys Again.
There are people in groups outthere that claim you want this
license.
At the same time, they claimthey represent you.
(12:03):
So I'd like to hear from anyonethat can tell me that supports
the license and explain to mewhy.
That's all I'm asking for.
I've yet to get a singleexplanation.
I hear a lot about my positionon bass and all these other
things, but yeah, so pleasereach out to me Again.
(12:24):
I'm going to Tim Riegan.
I'd like to get right into thisand, oh, before I go, I want to
say, oh, before I go, new Yorkfans.
I'm not sure how much he couldtake with the New York Jets.
I'm a die hard Japan Sorry tothrow that in, but wow man,
(12:45):
again last night killer.
So here we are, tim Riegan.
He is an angler and he is aphotographer and he is a
videographer and he is an author.
When I say author, he's afishing writer.
(13:08):
So here we go, tim Riegan, aguy who I really enjoyed
speaking with on this interview.
Well, I want to welcome TimRiegan here to the show.
I'm a huge fan.
This guy has produced someamazing footage and I know he's
(13:31):
writing over there at the On theWater magazine with my good
friends over there.
So, hey, tim, why don't youintroduce yourself and tell us a
little bit about yourself?
Tim Regan (13:44):
All right.
Well, thanks for having me on,George.
Appreciate the opportunity totalk to you.
Yeah, my name is Tim Riegan.
I run up my Instagram page asSouth Fork Salt.
I put a lot of fishing contentand fish-related content, A lot
of drone videos that I take ofthe Menhaden along our coast and
(14:08):
just all sorts of stuffwater-related.
George Scocca (14:13):
Yeah, you got some great videos.
I tell you what I look forwardto them all the time.
Tim Regan (14:18):
Oh, awesome, thanks, man, I can't hear it.
George Scocca (14:21):
Yeah, they're great Educational.
Tim Regan (14:24):
It's fun for me to film and fun for me to educate
people talk about it.
So yeah, it's cool.
It's developed a pretty decentfollowing and I love telling
people about what I love.
George Scocca (14:39):
So let me ask you , tim so obviously we have a ton
of bunker here, which is,without a doubt, contributing to
what we're saying, right?
But this whole shark maniathing that somehow it always
happens during Shark Week, likeI really think those producers
(15:01):
like put out stuff up in thatcoast right before Shark Week.
My theory is those sharks havealways been there, yet we never
had the drones that say them.
So what's your take on it?
Tim Regan (15:18):
Yes, so I partially agree with you.
I think we've always had sharkshere.
I don't think there's anyquestion about that.
We probably used to have a lotmore sharks here until our three
primary species were protected.
That would be the sandbar shark, the sand tiger shark and the
dusky shark.
But ever since the bunkerpopulation recovered, we have
(15:43):
had a huge influx of spinnersharks, which, to my knowledge,
they didn't used to be veryabundant in our waters.
George Scocca (15:51):
No way.
Tim Regan (15:52):
Yeah, I know that people would catch them.
You know like a handful of themevery year, especially to the
on the western half of theisland.
But now with all the bunkerthere are, there could be
thousands of them that come up,migrate northwards into Long
Island waters with the bunkerevery single year.
(16:12):
So for the past, let's say forthe past four years, maybe five
years there, I would say thatspinner sharks might be the most
populous shark in our LongIsland waters on the South Shore
.
Wow, it's insane how many I see.
George Scocca (16:31):
Now, just for the record, listeners, we hear
estimates all the time oh, we'vegot this many fish, you know
from all different types ofcouncils and commissions, and
they, they're basing everythingon numbers.
We talked to a guy who isshowing us in real time, really,
(16:53):
what's happening, right?
So, and the truth is, I mean,the spinner is the spinner shark
is not protected, is it?
I mean, I don't know if it is,it might be.
No, it isn't.
Tim Regan (17:06):
So okay, you could actually harvest spinner sharks,
and I just want to throw caveatout there.
I'm not like a scientist.
I don't know the, I know that.
I know that I don't know howmany you know, sand, tigers or
brown sharks.
We've got how many you know sandtigers or brown sharks we have
in our waters.
But because I don't reallysometimes I see brown sharks I
(17:30):
don't think I've ever filmed asand tiger and I see dusky
sharks as well but for the mostpart I just see spinner sharks.
There could be way more sandtigers on the bottom than there
are spinners on top, but withthe way I see it, just the
amount of spinner sharks is wild.
George Scocca (17:48):
So there's.
I'm wondering why there's alack of blue sharks that are in
shore.
Is it that they just don't comein shore?
But I mean, I don't.
I don't see many blue sharksbeing caught from the beach.
Tim Regan (18:02):
Yeah, my guess is that they're not really a like
an inshore species.
So one of the species that I'llfilm on occasion is hammerheads
oh those are great videos.
Yeah, they're really cool andman, they're hardcore to watch.
It's really sick watching them.
George Scocca (18:22):
I could watch that stuff all day.
It really is amazing, amazing.
Tim Regan (18:25):
Yeah, what do we got?
We have, I think, scallopedhammerheads and smooth
hammerheads.
I don't know if we have thosegiant crate hammerheads that you
see hunting black tips down inFlorida.
George Scocca (18:36):
Oh, I've seen them yeah.
Tim Regan (18:38):
But yeah, we've got a few of those species that I see
, you know, once in a blue moonup here, and but like I've never
seen a blue shark, I've neverseen a Mako, and I've only seen
three great white sharks and alljuvenile, so I would imagine
that those sharks, plus the bluesharks, are more of an offshore
(19:01):
species.
That's just my read on it.
George Scocca (19:04):
Okay.
So when you're, you know, likea look at your videos and you
just learn so much just bywatching them, you know.
I really hope that ourfisheries managers and
scientists and everybody elseare looking at these videos that
they could never afford toproduce.
There's so much information inthere rather than rather than
(19:29):
guessing.
So I'm curious have you evercome across something like I
know?
I know there are Gilnets comingup and down the coast and I,
you know, along the South Shore,which I got to tell you right
now.
I cannot believe in the yearahead of a 2024 that was still
(19:52):
targeting fish with Gilnets,when we can easily fill these
quotas with hook and line wherea fish can decide whether or not
to bite.
But have you come across anytype of situations where because
I've heard a bluefin tunaactually getting caught in
(20:12):
Gilnets running up the coasthave you ever seen anything like
?
Tim Regan (20:17):
that.
So I've never seen a bluefintuna inside of a Gilnet.
So I used to film the Gilnetskind of religiously.
I had this one experience whenI was starting out surf casting
within like the first threeyears, where a Gilnet had
encircled this big school ofgator bluefish 15 to 20 pounds
(20:40):
and caught the whole school ofthem.
It had to be a thousand fishand I was just catching those
fish on shore and so I just kindof watched in disbelief as they
corralled this school, and thenI was watching them through my
binoculars as they brought inthe net.
It looked like, I'm guessing,that the reel, the giant reel
(21:07):
that they bring the net onto onthe boat must have burned out.
They must have burnt out theengine or something.
So they had one boat workingone end of the net and then one
boat working the other end ofthe net, and as they brought in
all these bluefish it took themforever to do it.
George Scocca (21:23):
So that was a whole scene.
That was a whole scene.
Tim Regan (21:25):
No, no, it wasn't, it was a Gilnet.
George Scocca (21:28):
It wasn't a Gilnet okay.
Tim Regan (21:30):
Yes.
So I was watching them throughmy binoculars and it's appeared
to me that they didn't want anyof those bluefish.
So I saw all the bluefish, withrigor mortis, getting tossed
back dead into the ocean andthen for the next month and a
half we had just rottingbluefish carcasses littering the
(21:52):
beach for like probably 15miles.
It was a, it was sad and itmessed with me, so I I was like
I need to film this and showpeople how bad this is.
George Scocca (22:03):
Yeah, well, you're taking a chance with that
and I can tell you in that youbetter be ready for retaliation.
When I went after theGilnetters, I actually got a
call in my office and my wifewas my secretary at the time.
So I went to her and whoever itwas literally sent to her, tell
(22:25):
your husband to drop the Gilnetissue or he's going to find
himself in one.
So my wife was like she doesn'teven know what to do to her.
It's like a regular net to netthe fish.
It's like I think we have a manadvertiser who advertises nets.
(22:46):
Oh jeez, and now I got a guystrutting my life.
You know so but anyhow, I don'tknow if you had anything even
close to that, but you've got towatch yourself.
Tim Regan (22:58):
Yeah, yeah.
So there was some blowback.
I had a bunch of differenttypes of commercial fishermen
reach out to me, angry with metelling my story and you know I
wasn't really.
I wasn't like trying to talkbad about commercial things.
George Scocca (23:13):
I get that.
Tim Regan (23:14):
Yeah, like I hugely respect the profession, I think
it would be an awesome thing todo for a living.
I know those guys work reallyhard.
It's just I had this experiencewhere I saw this gill net like
commit in atrocity and like inmy mind and I was, I was like I
hate, I hate this and so, and soI film them like constantly for
(23:34):
years and Wow, can I get someof that stuff?
Well, I like my point of mypoint of me saying that is that
you know I watched some badstuff happen and a lot of the
stuff I watched happen was justfishing as usual, where you know
they reel in the net, they take, they take the fish that they
(23:54):
don't want, they throw themoverboard and the fish swim,
swim off.
George Scocca (23:58):
So Well you hope they swim, yeah, so.
So let me give you a couplestats on that, just so you know.
Sure, in my opinion, why are weeven still using gill nets when
we can easily fill all of them,strike bass tags with hook and
(24:18):
line, but 48 percent of the fishthat get released out of a gill
net are dead.
So they have a 48 percentmortality rate.
And they yell at us because wehave a 9 percent mortality rate,
(24:40):
which we really don't, but theysay we do, yet they turn a
blind eye.
I mean, how many fish between31 and 34?
Oh, then again, they could keepthose.
How many fish over 34 inchesDied in those nets that can't
even be brought to market?
I mean, you know as well as Ido it's got to be a huge number,
(25:04):
but you don't have to agree.
So, even though I know you doso, so, so, so, so the
commercial, so the commercialfishermen kind of push back on
you delivering the truth.
Tim Regan (25:21):
Yeah, and so I'm a friendly guy.
I'm not looking forconfrontation or anything.
So you know, I hadconversations with these, with
these guys, and just told themwhere I was coming from and I
think I prevented myself frombecoming like an enemy to the
commercial fishermen and well,that's good.
George Scocca (25:41):
I mean, you know, look, I don't want to be their
enemy, right?
But the truth is sadly the waywe've set up this system.
You know, there's a pie andthey make us fight over who's
getting how much of that pie.
Yeah, we didn't do that, they,you know the regulators did that
(26:02):
.
The commercial fishermen didn'tdo that either.
But if we're truly trying toprotect a fishery, in this case,
and strike bad fishery, youknow why not just take those
freaking nets out of the water?
Tim Regan (26:19):
I don't know, but anyway hold on George real quick
.
I just wanted to just say aquick you get ahead.
That's pretty much related tothis.
So a few weeks back I wastalking to a former commercial
bluefin tuna fishermen and I'mnot sure if you is around for
like the long line days or what,but I kind of got that vibe.
(26:42):
So he was talking about how heused to love it, you know.
But he ended up quitting becausebasically because of the
regulations, because the waythat the fishery the bluefin
fishery was being regulated itwas causing way more waste.
(27:04):
Because in his mind, there werebetter ways that the fishery
could have been regulated where,like you could say only fish on
Tuesdays and Thursdays and keepeverything you catch.
But they made it based on liketonnage, your numbers of fish,
and so what ended up happeningis like you would catch X amount
(27:27):
of fish until you got yourlimit and then you would have to
throw all the other fish youcaught back and basically all
those fish would be dead.
So you're just wasting a ton,rather than in the past when
they could keep and selleverything they catch.
So he was saying he might stillbe a tuna fisherman if the
regulation had been moresensible.
(27:49):
So it's not like these guys aregoing out there and like and
just looking to kill and theylike without any remorse or
anything.
It's like guys actually quitbecause they were regulated into
becoming a wasteful industry.
George Scocca (28:10):
So I get listen.
I totally agree, and so I couldbe clear.
I am not anti commercialfisherman.
I'm not.
I know I sound it and there arecases where I, you know, like,
look, I have a problem.
You talked about the bluefishbefore.
We've been cut to two bluefish,three bluefish, and I'm working
(28:34):
on numbers now and, being thatwe didn't catch anywhere near
our quota, we are transferringquota to the commercial fishery.
I we moved 90,000 pounds fromus that we didn't catch because
of regulations and we gave thatto the commercial fishery.
So there's, I am not anticommercial fisherman, I am anti
(29:01):
commercial fishing tactics.
I don't like potting forblackfish.
That'll never stop now.
It's way too profitable.
I don't like gill netting forstriped bass because of the
bycatch issue, and and and again, I'm not talking these same
guys.
I mean they get X amount oftags, I don't know how many they
(29:23):
are, but these same guys couldgo catch them, hook and line.
They don't need to gill netting.
So I'm not anti commercial, Idon't want to put that forward,
but I am anti certain fisheries.
Yeah.
Tim Regan (29:38):
I go ahead, I hear you, and the reason I brought up
that story is to just show howcomplex this issue is, because I
think a lot of people thinkit's black and white.
I certainly did.
When I saw this I was like gillnetting is terrible and like I
didn't know about any other.
I didn't know about any othertypes of commercial fishing, but
(29:58):
I was like this is just such anawful thing, Like and you know
over the years, what, what,watching it more and more and
then also learning about theevolution of local commercial
fishing and netting and whatnot,I've just become more informed
and just say, able to see that,see that the complexity in the
(30:21):
issue and it is much morecomplex, right, and most people
think but let's get back tofishing for a minute.
George Scocca (30:30):
So how, how often do you fish and where are you
fishing?
Tim Regan (30:36):
So I started fishing after college.
I graduated in 2013 and let'ssee the end of that summer, my
buddy, who was a lifeguard withme, took me fishing and he had
been asking me all summer and Inever would go because I just
had this vision of us likesitting on a dock just waiting
(30:56):
and I was like hyperactive, likeenergetic dude, and I didn't
want to just sit around and waitfor a fish to bite.
But then my boss came out oneday and he was a surfcaster and
I watched him catch a couplebluefish which, like not being a
fisherman at the time, I knewthat I loved bluefish the taste
of it and just the power andtheir, their character, you know
(31:20):
.
So watch.
I watched him one day pull acouple bluefish out of just
right out of the surf and I waslike that was really cool,
because at the time I reallydidn't know what I wanted to do
with my life.
I just knew that I was like Ithink it would be awesome to
become self-sufficient, so I gotinto gardening and nice, and
then next I got into fishing andso, you know, with those two
(31:42):
things I could, I could feedmyself, and so seeing him do
that, I was like.
That's something that I need tolearn how to do.
So my buddy took me fishing.
We caught a striped bass andthen I've been fishing pretty
much every every day of the yearafter that because then for the
winter time I discovered whiteperch and so that kept me on the
(32:02):
water all winter and, yeah,really just after college all I
knew is that I wanted to be onthe water, so fishing was a way
to stay on the water all yearround, so I probably fish on.
In the past 10 years I probablyfished on an on average like
350 to 360 days a year.
Wow, that's crazy Kind of apsycho.
George Scocca (32:24):
So are you all surf, and whereabouts?
We'll talk about the perch in aminute.
Whereabouts are you fishing?
Tim Regan (32:35):
Pretty much all surf and shore based fishing.
You know I have a kayak that Iused to use when, you know,
before before we had this likehuge rebound of bunker.
We would get to see some bunkerfor a few weeks during the fall
runs and typically what wouldoccur is the small fish would be
(32:55):
blitzing on peanut bunker upfront and then you'd have the
adult bunker like 100 yards offthe beach.
You know, just a little bit farfor a cast, like you couldn't
cast to them, so I'd go outthere and fish those bunker
schools and get into like 30-40pound fish.
Wow, yeah, so I have a kayak.
And then you know I've beenworking at this beach club for
(33:15):
the past.
They've been living at thisbeach club for like 10 years now
and wait, hold on.
George Scocca (33:22):
You live at a beach club.
Tim Regan (33:25):
Yeah, yes, I've been working here since I was 16, and
then, after college, I didn'thave a place to live, and so the
manager at the time wanted meto come back, and I was, like I
don't have a place to stay, likeif you put me up at the beach
club, then I'll come back andwork and so what a gig.
Yeah, yeah, it's been a goodride.
Wow, it's been so easy for meto fish every day.
George Scocca (33:48):
Yeah, really that absolutely helps.
Tim Regan (33:52):
Yeah, big time.
George Scocca (33:54):
So all right.
So now.
So you're a surf fisherman, I'mgonna pink your brain a little
bit about fishing.
You're not being specific aboutspots, that's okay, it doesn't
matter.
I can remember when I had theother website, noriestcom, I was
blamed spot burning, spotburning, montauk, point.
(34:17):
Okay, there are pictures fromthe 50s elbow to elbow people
fishing in Montauk.
But because of Noriest, webrought too many people out east
, so I know what that's about.
So we're not gonna even talkabout where you are.
But so this time of year, whatare you looking for?
(34:38):
As far as I mean, a lot ofpeople don't get into the
important things like tide andmoon stage and all that stuff,
but what are you looking for?
You got this blow.
Finishing next week is gonna besupposedly wide open, so you
know they should be a couple ofreally good days in there.
(34:59):
So what are you doing now?
Tim Regan (35:05):
So right now, with the East blow, I haven't fished
too much this past week.
I've been going through somestuff so I just haven't been
able to find time to get on thewater.
But I do know that there's beena good surf bite and right
before the blow I was seeingmullet right along the beach lip
.
So I would imagine that hassomething to do with this bite.
(35:27):
As well as you know theconditions themselves.
Like we all know, striped basslove big water and east blows.
So after this blow I would saythat again.
George Scocca (35:41):
So striped bass like an east blow, so east is
least.
Does not apply to striped bass.
Tim Regan (35:55):
Well, honestly, I would take any saying with a
grain of salt.
So that was like one of my maingoals when I was like
completely dedicated to surfcasting in the early years.
I couldn't really hold down agirlfriend because I was, you
(36:15):
know, going fishing every singlenight.
You better off.
George Scocca (36:17):
You better forget that, girlfriend.
We're talking about fish.
Forget that girlfriend.
I mean what's important?
I'm holding good.
Tim Regan (36:25):
And I got a darn good life now, so life's good.
You know, what happened was Iwanted to get fishing down to a
science so that I can gowhenever I had time and catch a
fish.
So that was my goal startinglike year three.
I was like, all right, if I'mever going to like be able to
hold down a girl, then I'm goingto need to be able to catch a
(36:47):
fish whenever I want.
So that was kind of my goal andI put all my effort into that
and met some good guys along theway.
There's, you know, probablyfive guys that I talk with daily
and have talked with daily forthe past five or six years, and
(37:08):
we're able to like help, keepeach other on the bite and just
be informed on what's going on,what's showing up, what we're
seeing and even stuff like whereare the gill nets, like what
beaches should we avoid, yada,yada.
George Scocca (37:22):
So see that now.
Now that's sad and it's notright.
You know, right, there is aperfect example why those nets
should be out of the water.
I'm sorry, look, and I'm notanti-commercial.
Catch them some other way is agazillion ways to catch fish,
but we can't go fishing becauseyour nets are killing a fish.
(37:44):
I'm sticking up for the wreckhere and I'm sticking up for the
fish here.
So, anyway, I'm sorry.
Tim Regan (37:53):
No worries, I kind of lost my train of thought.
Anyway, I don't know where Iwas going with that.
George Scocca (37:58):
Well, you were just talking about fishing,
which is cool, all right.
So you, so you target.
Now, don't talk about theseperch.
Now, aren't those perchspawning that time of year, or
are they not Like?
I don't know a lot about them,but I know that there are big
perch that get caught in certainplaces that we're not going to
talk about.
Yeah, so how do you talk atthem?
(38:21):
What bait and stuff like that?
I'm so curious.
Tim Regan (38:25):
So I mainly use artificial like jigs, marabou
jigs or killer.
You can use little curly tails,but mainly like you're going to
go up to probably an eighthounce tops.
You could go bigger.
The biggest one I ever caughtwas on a half ounce cast master
(38:48):
and that was a.
I caught and released that oneand if I kept that one I'm
positive it would have been thenew world record.
But I was.
I was like really, really greenat the time.
I didn't know.
I knew that I was holding likea mythical looking fish but I
didn't realize that this waslike.
This was bigger than the worldrecord.
So world records 18 inches,three and a half pounds.
(39:10):
This fish was 20 inches fullyloaded with eggs and, yeah, it
would have been four pounds.
George Scocca (39:18):
Well, hey look, you caught it and you released
it.
You did the right that.
Tim Regan (39:23):
Yeah, I've been hunting for it ever since and
you know I've caught a bunch ofthree pounders over the years,
but never anything, you'll neverget one again.
George Scocca (39:31):
You deserve one and you'll get one.
And you know what?
You'll probably let it go again.
Tim Regan (39:37):
Yeah, it's still.
It's still on my mind.
So, yeah, I'm still still after, but so I mean so.
George Scocca (39:46):
So like, look again.
I don't want to know the spot,but like, what are you looking
for to find these?
For I know some people thatthat fish them and catch, like
you say, three pounders, and Ithink it's like during the
colder time.
Yeah, I'm curious, like whenyou go and what you're looking
(40:09):
for, stuff like that.
Tim Regan (40:11):
Yeah, so I'm a fishing guide and so during the
summer I teach kids how to fish,mainly, oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah and so yeah, at this beachclub I'll take them taking
fishing, so we actually caught.
George Scocca (40:24):
Oh yeah, that's right.
The club the tough job.
Tim Regan (40:27):
Yeah, so we, one of the kids.
It was literally the last dropof the summer.
It was a piece of bait that Ihad, so we were using shrimp,
and typically what I'll do is,if I have the time, I will
collect a bunch of sand crabs,crush them up, turn them into
(40:48):
like a sand flee soup and usethat as chum, and so I had been
doing that for like a week.
George Scocca (40:53):
Sand flee soup Doesn't sound like something I
wanna eat, but go ahead.
Tim Regan (40:58):
Delicious, yeah.
So yeah, the water was wellchummed for like a week and we
were mostly catching perch tolike, let's say, eight inches or
so.
So yeah, nothing really big.
Biggest ones would have beenlike 10 inches.
But our last piece of bait forthe summer, this kid dropped it
(41:18):
down and picked like probably a17 inch perch.
That was frigging huge man.
This is biggest one I've seenin a while.
George Scocca (41:29):
That's a big fish .
Tim Regan (41:31):
Yeah, since like last winter at least.
So the thing is that it hadlike nothing in its belly.
It didn't have any eggs, didn'thave any food and stuff, so
that one it probably could havebeen another extra pound if it
was filled with eggs and food.
So in the winter time that'sthe best time to target them,
(41:51):
because you're gonna get theheaviest fish, because I'm not
sure how long they could holdtheir eggs exactly.
It might be a couple of years,it might be they spawn once a
year.
If they spawn a couple of timesa year, I really don't know
that.
But in the winter time you'remore likely to find fish holding
eggs, which is if you wannacatch a world record, you're
(42:14):
gonna go in like the winter orthe spring pretty much.
George Scocca (42:18):
Right, right.
So I wanna get back to for onesecond, one more minute the gill
net situation.
Right, so you never saw anybluefin or anything like that.
They got stuck in a net runningup the shore Sharks or anything
(42:39):
like that.
I'm just curious.
Tim Regan (42:41):
The only big thing that I've ever seen in a gill
net was a whale the biggestthing you could see in a gill
net.
George Scocca (42:49):
That's scary.
Tim Regan (42:50):
Yeah, I got a call from a friend who is a writer
for a paper and I had a drone atthat point.
So he was like, can you go flyyour drone and get a shot of
this whale in a gill net?
And at that time I was stilllike vehemently anti-gill net.
So I was like, yeah, man, I'mthere.
So I just dipped out of work,ran over there, flew the drone
(43:13):
and it was a heart-wrenchingsight.
It sucked.
So this whale would come up.
You could check out the footage.
It's on YouTube.
George Scocca (43:22):
I'm going to be linking that up to my website.
Tim Regan (43:24):
I got to check this out.
Yeah, it's not great footage,but you could see the gill net
wrapped around its tail, Ibelieve it was.
And so I got there and while Iwas there, these stand-up paddle
borders were just coming in andthey had gone out with knives
(43:49):
to carve up the gill net to helpget the whale out, because it
was just surfacing every let'ssay, it could have been like 40
seconds, could have been aminute to take a breath, and it
was just being held down likeanchored down to the bottom.
So it was just like using a lotof effort to try to survive.
And, yeah, thank god, thosestand-up paddle borders were
(44:12):
there to help it out andeventually I wasn't there when
it broke free, but eventuallythe whale was able to get itself
untangled Thanks to thosepaddle borders cutting up the
net.
George Scocca (44:29):
That really is.
I mean, look, I'm sure there'sso much happening that we don't
see.
And again, I don't expect Idon't want you to be against
gill netters I could do that,but the fact is that that's
pretty amazing.
So you have footage of this onYouTube.
(44:51):
I'm going to link that up toour podcast page so the folks
can see what you're talkingabout.
And the other thing is thislook, you're not confrontational
either, or am I?
But at the same time and I'mnot telling you what to do, but
(45:13):
I cannot sit back and watchthese things happening without
saying something about it.
And again, the whale.
Ok, I guess that's like once ina blue moon, and I'm not the
whales are being killed by thedozens, with this whole windmill
(45:36):
thing going on.
So I'm not that I'm thatconcerned with whales getting
caught in a gill net, butalthough I am but I'm not like
that crazy, but the gill netsthemselves need to come out of
the water.
I'm not saying I don't care.
Let somebody pay these guys notto fish, whatever it takes.
(45:59):
I don't want people not to makemoney and I get it.
It's probably not easy being acommercial fisherman In fact it
isn't and I don't want them tostruggle.
But at the same time we have tobe fair.
We just do Anyhow, so yeah, hey, George.
Tim Regan (46:21):
on that note, if you're invested in seeing the
evil in gill nets, you'll findsome other footage on my YouTube
.
George Scocca (46:27):
OK great.
Tim Regan (46:28):
But, of like, there's this video of these, this one
boat, emptying their nets ofdogfish, because that's pretty
much all they were catching, and, rather than be gentle, they
were ripping them out of thenets if they could, and if they
(46:49):
couldn't, then they were justsawing the dogfish and s and so
that was messed up, and sothat's something that I tried to
bring to the attention of theDEC.
And there was this one guy atthe DEC at the time who he was
pretty high up, I believe, andhe basically told me that it
(47:10):
doesn't matter that this ishappening to dogfish.
If you really want to effectchange, then you're going to
have to film that happening toStripe Bass.
And I'll just say that I neverhave seen anything like that
happening to Stripe Bass, and,like in any industry, there's
going to be some bad actors, andI think I just you know.
George Scocca (47:32):
Well, you know what?
I don't really even considerthem bad actors.
I really don't.
Tim Regan (47:39):
Those guys cutting up the dogfish were definitely bad
actors.
But yeah, it's just my twocents.
George Scocca (47:46):
Look again, I agree with you there.
So there are bad actors and asbad actors everywhere, right
yeah.
And commercials unfortunately,they're driven by profit and
recreation.
Well, then again, you can'tcall them recs.
So many people have caughtselling fish illegally.
(48:10):
But my point is that theGillnet itself, its day has come
and gone.
It's kill every think abouteverything it's taking and it's,
in my opinion, it's time topull them out of the water.
(48:31):
But keep these guys fishingsomehow, just without gill nets.
We got enough stride bassaround.
You go catch them, hook a line.
Yet they only get X a man offish a year anyhow.
But look I, I don't view themas evil, I do view the fishery
is indiscriminative and, yeah,it will kill anything they can
(48:53):
stuck in that freakin net.
So, alright, so now let's stop.
Wow, man, you are like a longinterview, because I love it.
So let's talk about somethingthat that really interests me at
this point.
As a lifelong geek, I Want toget myself a drone.
(49:15):
Now Let me tell you what it'sfor.
I know people are gonna go oh,my god, george, no.
So I fish this lake now inFlorida.
It's a big, huge quarry, andwhat I want to do, I mean, I
guess I'll apply it here, butfor some reason I'm thinking it
down there because the weatheris always so good.
I'm looking just for a dronethat I could send up and Video
(49:41):
me you know, video the boatWhile we're fishing and kind of
follow us around.
Because, without me needing toknow that much, having to fly a
drone because I'm just a spaz, Idon't understand why.
Tim Regan (50:00):
Okay.
So First thing I would say is,once you do get a drone, do a
lot Especially if you're gonnafly it from a boat is practice
Launching the drone from yourhand and then catching it in
your hand instead of landing iton the ground, because that's
what you're gonna need to do ona boat.
Also, just practice flying andget used to looking at the GPS,
(50:25):
just Just if you like lose trackof your drone, you can.
You can look on your map andfind and use your remote, your
remote's GPS to Direct yourdrone back to you.
So that's just the first littletip I'd say.
(50:47):
And then, in terms of like,what drone to buy, the one that
I always recommend to people isthe DJI.
I use DJI drones.
George Scocca (50:56):
That's the company DJI, and I'm actually
writing that down, even though Icould probably hear it whenever
I want, but I'm gonna google itsoon.
Tim Regan (51:07):
It's on.
So check out the DJI mini 3 pro.
It's uh, it's probably gonnacost you overall if you get a
couple batteries, and you knowwhat I couldn't tell you the
exact price it's gonna be over athousand and you can get the
cheaper version that's not thepro, for uh, under a thousand I
(51:29):
believe, but it's um, the.
The non pro version doesn'thave obstacle avoidance system,
so if you like, fly around atree like you might crash into
the tree, whereas with the proversion, um, yeah, I need pro if
you get, if you get, if you getexactly better, better safe
than sorry.
George Scocca (51:49):
So, um, Does it have like an automatic way just
to follow you around, or no?
Tim Regan (51:55):
Yeah, uh, yes, it does.
So the cool thing about themini 3 pro and they're about,
they're about to launch a mini 4pro, like really soon.
I don't know what the price isgonna be Um, sure, it's gonna be
a really awesome machine,because every machine they make
is pretty freaking awesome, but,um, the mini 3 pro it probably
(52:15):
has you can get these extendedlife batteries that allow you to
fly for, like they say, 45minutes.
In reality it's probably morelike 35, right, right, um, so
you could get a long flight timewhere you could, like, get some
fishing in, and then, you know,it'll start beeping once the
battery gets low and then youcould, you know, pick the remote
(52:37):
back up and, you know, fly itback to your hand.
George Scocca (52:41):
but, um, yeah, that's what I need.
Yeah, it's kind of come home todaddy what happened and do it
also there's, uh, there'ssettings, or what do you call
them.
Tim Regan (52:57):
There's ways to film yourself without actually, uh
like manually controlling thedrone.
So, um, I can't remember whatthe setting is called, but
there's, there's one where itactive track, I think you know
what when I buy the drone?
George Scocca (53:12):
I'm calling you.
That's all I gotta say.
Tim Regan (53:14):
Yeah, I got this underwater drone.
George Scocca (53:16):
I can't use it.
It spins and circle and it's areally good one.
So yeah, maybe one day we'llget together You'll teach me how
to use that thing too.
Tim Regan (53:26):
Absolutely I'd love to.
George Scocca (53:28):
All right, look, I gotta tell you it's been a
great, great interview.
Um, I really appreciate yourinput on everything and be sure
to say hello to the boys downhere at On the Water and let's
get in touch again soon, okay.
Tim Regan (53:46):
Well, dude, sounds good.
George, it's a pleasure talkingto you.
George Scocca (53:48):
All right, all right, okay, there you have it,
folks.
Another great episode of theNew York fishing podcast.
Again, or for the first time,because I always forget
subscribe to this thing so youget that message every time it
comes up.
There's nothing that you'resitting in traffic or you're on
the train and there's all thisBS.
(54:09):
Nothing better than listeningto me.
Imagine that now my wife she'dprobably disagree with that 100%
.
She'd be like, okay, I hadenough to listen to imagine what
she goes through.
Okay, but it's a good, it'sreally.
I mean, I know that I enjoylistening to other podcasts when
(54:30):
I'm kind of stuck in traffic orwhatever.
And you need to understandthere's so easy to play.
I mean, if you haven't enjoyed,hey, google played a new york
fishing podcast.
If you haven't, alexa, hey,alexa played a new york fishing
podcast.
If you have an iphone, hey,siri, play the fishing podcast.
(54:50):
If you haven't enjoyed form,hey, play the fishing podcast.
That's new york fishing podcast.
That's all you got to do.
So please tune in um to the nextepisode, as I will be featuring
John McMurray.
John, as many of you know, is agreat tuna fisherman here in
(55:11):
new york.
He's a great, great fishermanall around.
He's controversial in some ways.
Him and I have been on the samepage in many cases and in other
cases we haven't.
John and I have a very longrelationship.
I was part of a team that hiredhim when he came out Of the
(55:34):
coast guard and he's stillinvolved in this fishery, but
now he's a charter boat captainand I.
I kind of feel some folks Aregoing to be a bit surprised on
his take about what's being, uh,bandied about for best for next
year.
So until next time, folks.
(55:55):
Once again, thanks for tuningin, please subscribe so you
don't miss an episode, and thankyou all for the support that I
continue to get.
And once again, god blessamerica.
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