Ep 42: Crabbin' & Fishin' with Benji

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Benji Crabbing and Fishing joins us to share his journey from passionate angler to charter captain, offering a wealth of knowledge about backwater fishing opportunities in coastal New Jersey waters.

• Benji recently became a licensed charter captain after years of preparation and learning from fellow anglers
• Late summer flounder fishing has tapered off earlier than expected this year
• Blackfish (tautog) fishing around bridges provides exciting action even in backwaters
• Sheepshead fishing requires patience but can be rewarding when combined with targeting other species
• Crabbing remains productive using chicken necks as bait in topless traps
• New Jersey regulations require hard shell crabs to measure at least 4.5 inches
• Building relationships with other anglers is crucial for expanding fishing knowledge
• Equipment for fishing and content creation doesn't need to be expensive to be effective
• Water safety should always be a priority following recent boating accidents

To book a charter with Benji, visit crabbinfishing.com or find him on Facebook and other social media platforms. Whether you're interested in catching fish or harvesting crabs, Benji promises a fun and educational experience.

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Episode Transcript

Benji (00:00):
It's just an exciting fishery, even in the back.
You don't have to go out to thewrecks to have fun with fish.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishi (00:11):
Hey everyone and welcome back to
the Fat Dad Fishing Show.
I'm your host, rich Natoli, andtonight we're going to be
joined by Benji Crabbing andfishing.
You see him all over socialmedia, a guy that I am very
happy to be able to call afriend, somebody that I've been
out fishing with not enoughtimes, but been out fishing with
, and the first time I will tellyou that I went out on the

(00:35):
water with him.
He outfished me and I don'tknow if he remembers it, but I
sure as hell remember it.
All right, so let's roll withthis.
Before we get started, I amgoing to hit the sponsors A
couple of changes.
The first one actually GreatBay Outfitters.
For anyone interested in kayakfishing, you definitely want to
be checking out Great BayOutfitters, 955 Radio Road in

(00:58):
Tuckerton.
Paul, who is in the chat rightnow, is having a Labor Day sale.
So the 28th through the 31stit's not only the Labor Day sale
, but he also has the on thewater demos.
So look, we've talked about iton this channel a couple of
years ago, when we did theepisode with how to choose a

(01:18):
kayak, and the number onerecommendation is always get on
the water and test it.
You may think you're a Hobieguy.
Until you get in a Hobie.
You may think you're a Hobieguy.
Until you get in a Hobie youmay think you're an old town guy
.
Until you get in an old townyou have to get on the water.
Try it out.
You have the opportunity atGreat Bay to get on the water.
And he also has the new GarminForce motors that you can demo,

(01:41):
which are pretty badass.
So if you're thinking aboutpowering a kayak head down there
as well, he's going to haveeverything.
Paul's going to have everythingset up and ready to go 28th
through the 31st.
Make sure you get down there.
It's a great way to spend yourholiday weekend.
Next sponsor Quad State Tune andKevin Driscoll.

(02:02):
You can contact him484-633-5975.
And we're talking about Toyotatrucks, especially like the
third gen Tacomas.
You also got the 4Runner, theTundra, even the Lexus 460 and
470.
It's a tune for the engine.
So you're going to get bettermileage, you're going to get
better performance, you're goingto get better torque.

(02:23):
You're going to get bettertorque, horsepower, especially
for towing.
So if you have any questionsabout how that package, that
tune, can help you, make surethat you reach out to Kevin.
And then the last one is me, forreal estate, and there is a
change, and I want to make sureI say it out loud because I do
get calls from people thatlisten to the podcast and watch
the live stream and I appreciatethat.

(02:44):
I'm actually working with twoclients right now directly
through this.
I have switched over fromKeller Williams to Weikert
Cornerstone.
My phone number is still mycell number.
It's still the same267-270-1145.
Richardnatolicom is the same,but the email address is
NatoliRealEstate at Gmail.
So anything you needSoutheastern Pennsylvania I've

(03:07):
got team members that work inNew Jersey and Delaware, all up
and down the coast actually, andI even have somebody in Maine
now.
So if you need any help, justlet me know.
Happy to help you out.
So, with all that said, benji,it's great to have you on Rich,
it's a pleasure to be here.

Benji (03:23):
I'm excited.
Thanks for having me on.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (03:27):
Yeah , it's been a long time that
we've known each other and Icouldn't come and believe you
until I swiped out of here overto Salt Lake and then everything
kind of went on hold.
But now I'm back and Ed and Ihad that start.
I ended up getting cancer andnot doing the show for a year

(03:47):
and one of the things I wantedto do is make sure I reach out
to the people that have beenpretty important to me, whether
it's being on the water withthem, learning from them or just
, you know, knowing them.
I just want everybody to seethe people that have had an
impact on me, and you're one ofthem, and we've been fishing,
but not often, not often enoughbut I learned from you and I got

(04:10):
to tell you you are the hardestworking content creator in
fishing for this region thatI've seen.
So all you know I I have to tipmy cap to you on that.

Benji (04:21):
Well, thank you, I appreciate it.
I'm going to tell you a lot of,a lot of my recent education
came from you.
You know, in that short periodof time and and yeah, you went
silent, you had to go silent fora little bit, which was
perfectly fine.
You know, I kind of was readingthrough the lines of some
things that, uh, you know.
So I had some seriousseriousness going on and I was
patient.
Yeah, I reached out and, youknow, I kind of got the sense of

(04:44):
things.
And then, when you, when youbroke the news to everyone, I,
you know, I turned to my wifeimmediately and I said I knew
Rich had something heavy goingon, but yeah, you beat that and
and you became a grandpa.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishin (04:57):
So yeah, and I actually get to
spend the whole day babysittingon Saturday, so I'm looking
forward to it, and she is just alittle over a year and she can
already say fish, so I'm workingon it.

Benji (05:11):
That's awesome.
That's awesome All right.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishi (05:15):
One thing I want to start with.
We have to start here, becausethis is a big change from when
we first met each other.
You are now a charter captainofficially the crab and fish and
charter.
And why don't you just bringpeople up to date on that?
Because I got to tell you whatI was thinking about doing a
whole episode on crabbingbecause I couldn't get away from

(05:36):
catching crab a few weeks ago,and yeah.
So why don't you fill everyonein on what the business is, how
to get a hold of you and allthat stuff?

Benji (05:45):
Yeah, absolutely, thank you.
Yeah, back in April.
I mean, obviously this has beena long journey.
I'm not one of those pop-upcaptains, charter captains.
I've been doing my education,I've been studying, I've learned
from Rich.
I've been fishing since I waseight years old Believe it or's
keeping me young.
And you know, last april, orthis past april, I went ahead, I

(06:09):
finally took the examination,even though I was paralyzed, uh,
and petrified of going throughthe, the, uh, piloting part of
the, the examination.
You know, for those of you whoknow, what it is.
I actually I bought an onlinecourse for this.
This November would have beenfour years that it's just been
sitting in wait for me to goahead and take this examination.

(06:30):
But in all the time that haspassed and talking myself out of
taking this exam, I've beenlearning.
I've been going on chartertrips, I've been hanging out
with kayak guys like Rich, I'vebeen hanging out with kayak guys
like Joe Phillips, who's in theaudience tonight, and some
other folks who are in here withus.
I've been fishing my literaltail off, as you can see, just

(06:54):
learning it, learning theindustry, learning where to fish
, learning where not to wastetime.
And I started in a differentdirection, like most of us.
I started building a little bitof a following on Facebook and
on YouTube this platform,instagram and TikTok, you know
but I started buildingrelationships.

(07:16):
First, I started buildingresources, folks that I could
lean on, folks that I could talkto and learn things from, share
information with.
And then, yeah, so this pastApril it came to fruition.
I went through the number ofsteps, a couple of return
messages from the United StatesCoast Guard, because you know I
wasn't dotted or T wasn'tcrossed, which you know it

(07:36):
should be that way.
You need to have all your P'sand T's in order.
So it went pretty quickly.
After that, once I got thatthick package put together and
sent everything over, I got thatMMC credential in the mail.
I happily shared it witheveryone just to let you know.
But even at that point in timeI hadn't quite kicked off the
advertisement of promoting thecharter business.

(07:57):
But that's where we are today.
This is August.
I've been getting some trips.
They're starting to drip anddribble in, which is fine.
It was a soft opening andthat's what I'm expecting for
this first year here.
The name is Crabbing andFishing.
I do both.
We do both.
My wife keeps me supported andI'm going to tell you what.

(08:17):
Rhonda, who's in the chat rightnow.
Fellas, ladies out there, ifyou don't have a partner that
supports you in your endeavor,you're in trouble.
But my wife, she encourages meto do this fishing.
All those clips that you seeout there, it's because she
tells me to get it done, andthat's what we're doing.
So now we're building thebusiness.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing (08:37):
I got to tell you you and I have
that in common, because I alwaysI'm amazed when people say my
wife wouldn't let me go fishing.
I'm like my wife told me to go.
She's like get on the water,you need to get out there, you
need to do your thing.
And you're in the samesituation, and I'll tell you
what.
It's also difficult because youwere like me.

(08:57):
You weren't self-employed yourentire life, so you came off of
a salary job and you'reself-employed, and that is a
drastic change and that is notsomething you can do without the
support all the way around.
And yeah, we're both fortunate.
We're both fortunate.
Now you did a little better.
Mine's real estate and yours isfishing.

(09:21):
So I'm going to be jealous, I'mgoing to be jealous, I'm going
to be jealous of that.

Benji (09:27):
Don't be jealous.
I mean, coincidentally, I meanwe're going back many moons ago.
I sat in a course with the oldWhiteford Real Estate Agency.
But kind of like my collegedays I was real keen of the
professor, if you will.
So I kind of withdrew out ofthat.
So I had aspirations of doingreal estate too.
So we are very similar.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fis (09:45):
There you go here.
This is a funny comment.
So both of you guys are scoringsome major brownie points with
the wives from Paul.
Now, paul, my wife is notwatching and she does not watch.
I'm scoring zero.
It was funny, I said when I wasrunning down looking for those
other headphones.
I said to my wife she'swatching the Phillies.

(10:06):
I said you want me to just putthe, you know, on the big screen
.
I'll put on the live stream.
And she looked at me like Ijust kicked the dog, like what,
why would?
And then she goes oh, do youwant me to?
I'm like no, I just mess withyou.

Benji (10:20):
She did more than that.
I heard her giving the businessdown there everyone.
She did more than that I heardher giving the business down
there.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad (10:26):
everyone , yeah, yeah, yeah.
And she didn't want me tointerfere because Trey Turner
was just hitting a triple.
So, yeah, I needed to leave heralone to focus.
So, all right.
So let's get back to yourchartering, and I do want to
talk specifically about crabbingat some point, but let's start
on the fish side.
Crabbing at some point, butlet's start on the fish side.

(10:46):
What is it that you're mostoften targeting at this time of
the year, late summer into earlyfall?

Benji (10:52):
Right now I'm still getting folks who are inquiring
about the bag bait flounder andI'm happy to take folks out.
But I also do things a littlebit differently, rich.
I'll let folks know.
Listen, you may not takeanything home for dinner, but I
can certainly show you and findsome fish for you to catch,
especially particularly ifthey're bringing little children
with them, you know, youngstersto get into the game of fishing
that we all love so much.

(11:13):
I'm getting folks on the fishin the backwaters here, just
like you have taught me, I'musing all the techniques and
tactics and the fish are stillin that area even today.
I think some of you, if youfollow me on facebook, you see I
even find these fish in my crabtraps.
So they're where Rich taught methey were and sometimes they're

(11:33):
where they're not supposed tobe.
But right now, yeah, focusing,still focusing on flounder in
the back bay side of things anddoing a little bit of mixed
trips, because Toto came back inwith blackfish.
So you hit the bridge inbetween.
You know when you have thatslack tide period, so you really
have to make it enjoyable foryour patrons, if you will, your

(11:54):
customers.
I call them friends becauseeverybody that I've taken out
thus far.
You know we're now texting,we're buddies and get next trips
lined up and that's how.
That's the type of operation Iwant to run.
But yeah, it's usually a mixedtrip right now, rich.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fi (12:09):
Gotcha , gotcha.
How are you seeing the flukeNow?
Let's pretend that a hurricanedidn't just go off the coast
last week.
Up until that, I don't evenknow if you've been able to hit
the water again, since Mostboats just started up this
morning with a let's go out andpray approach to fishing.
What were you seeing with thefluke in August?
Or is it still one of thosebanner years?

(12:31):
Or have you seen it tailing offearly?

Benji (12:34):
I saw a tail off very early, quite frankly, right
after May.
I started struggling findingdeeper fish on the beginning of
May, right after the opener.
I don't know what the reasonfor that was.
I mean, we had, in my opinion,perfect water temperatures in
the back bay.
It warmed up gradually, notthat the fish stopped biting at
any point in time, but I washaving a difficult time finding

(12:57):
fish to bring home, which for me, it's okay.
I like catching fish.
If I go out and catch fish,that day was a win for me, but I
haven't been out fishing sincethe storm blew through.
I have been out crabbing, ofcourse, but I haven't been out
fishing yet.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (13:13):
Okay , all right.
Yeah, and have you spent anytime on some of the secondary
species, like weak fish orsheep's head?

Benji (13:22):
You know I got a couple.
You saw there was folks outthere.
You know Facebook, I posted acouple sheep's head.
You know I got a couple.
You saw there's folks out there.
You know Facebook, I posted acouple sheep's head that I
caught this year.
I've already what doubled ortripled my intake over the past
two, three years with thesheep's head.
So I found some new locationswith that and again building
resources, connecting with otherfolks where to target them.
I've been out with Joe B onkayaks.

(13:42):
I haven't forgotten the kayak soI still pedal around on those
because it's easier to find thesheets that are tucked into a
place to get to those so I dohave a couple additional sheets,
as this year as well, not froma charter perspective, but from
a personal perspective, so we'llbe able to add those to the
repertoire as well as well.
Now you mentioned weak fish,and then I told my wife earlier
she's like he's going to ask youwhat fish haven't you caught on

(14:04):
on at some point in time and Isaid, well, I have the perfect
fish and that's the weak fish.
I haven't targeted right but Ilove it.
In my opinion, out of all thefish that I've caught, all the
fish I've cooked and tasted,weak fish is the best tasting
fish that's out there, great.
But I haven't targeted and Isaid, I told my wife, I said the
reason for that is you got toget up too early to catch them,

(14:26):
you know, and the guys who areout there who are catching them
in numbers, you know you got tobe up at the butt crack at dawn,
as we say.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (14:33):
Yeah , I mean, it's definitely a
morning bite and evening bite,but if you get the right spot
you're going to be able to catcha midday and it's it's.
You know.
I mean, just for anyone who'swondering, the spots that really
work well for me are going tobe in the backwaters, at least
the outgoing section of a creekinto a main current, and they're

(14:57):
going to sit just inside thatpocket where the currents has a
little bit of relief and if youfind a weak fish there has a
little bit of relief.
And if you find a weak fishthere, take a note of where it
is in the tide and theconditions, because they will
most likely be there at the sametime with the same condition.
So the same tide the next day.
It may be an hour later or ahalf an hour later, but they'll

(15:18):
be there and they'll continue togo back over an extended period
of time and there are just somespots that will always hold
them.
There's a spot between StoneHarbor and Wildwood that still
has them today and it's where Iused to go as a kid on the boat.
It's the same spot and everyyear that I've tried it, even

(15:39):
when they weren't biting,they're just there.
And I just described what thespot is.
So it's a good way to do it.
But you're right, it's theearly morning and the late
afternoon, early evening that'sreally going to produce, in my
experience.

Benji (15:56):
You're absolutely right.
Now, as far as the tide in here, I'm going to turn it on you.
You're the host, but what partof that tide are you fishing for
, rich?
I know the area and thelocation vary intimately that
you're speaking of, but what arewe talking about?
Tides and currents, with these?

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (16:09):
fish .
So it's not.
Let me clarify.
It is not a specific tide.
It is when you try that spot.
If they bite let's say twohours after high they're they'll
bite for like a half an hour,an hour maybe, and then they cut
off and I think they leave andthen it's the same amount.

(16:34):
So if it was two hours afterhigh, it's the next day two
hours after high, so it canchange.
It can change.
It's just once you get a goodbite on that, like a consistent
bite, not just a onesie, twosieI just happened to catch one
take a note of when it is andthe next day you can try and
it'll.
It'll happen for weeks and ifpeople aren't aware, it's the
same for specs.

(16:54):
This is one you know.
Everyone you know that doesn'treally know fish.
They confuse the two specs andweak fish.
They're totally differentspecies.
But this is in one regard wherethey actually behave in a very
similar fashion, especially inNew Jersey.
If you find the specs in NewJersey, write down what I just
told you and do it, because youwill nail those every day for

(17:16):
two or three weeks until theyjust disappear, that's great
information.

Benji (17:23):
That's my favorite fish that I just can't.
I don't know.
Like I said, I haven't focusedon it right.
You taught us, you taught me.
You got to go out.
You can't just target onespecies when you're going out,
especially particularly on akayak.
You got to have a game plan.
It's got to be one fish, twofish, three fish, you know.
But in order to make a day outof it in the backwaters, you're

(17:51):
going to want to put together amenu of what you're going to
target and obviously make sureyou have the right materials,
whether it's grass, shrimp, as Isee in the comment section
there, or or maybe it's a pinkplastic that you want to use,
and then obviously, ultimately,you got to find the right spot
in the location where the fishare at.
You know.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (17:59):
Yeah , yeah, definitely.
And I just miss weak fish.
You know there were.
There was well over a decadewhere I wouldn't even try, just
because not only were there sofew of them, but I didn't want
to catch one because I didn'twant to kill one.
You know, accidentally it's nothard to kill a weak fish when
you catch it, even if yourelease it, and but now they're

(18:21):
all over the place until thosedolphins come through and
destroy the entire school.
I mean you can, you can catch,you can find millions of them in
one spot and not just thelittle spikes.
I mean some decent.
You know 18 to 23, 24 inchers,not, you know, the huge ones
aren't necessarily.
You know the big tide runnersat 30 plus.
They're not around as much, butthey are there, they're,

(18:43):
they're around, you know, justnot in the numbers.

Benji (18:46):
Yeah, there's absolutely enough reports that I've seen to
to make me believe that there'sfish around if you actually
want to go out and target them.
So, but that's the key folks.
You got to go out and targetthe species that you're looking
for, particularly the weak fishor or whatever the species is
that you're you're heading outfor that.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fis (19:02):
Right , right, all right.
So let's, let's again, let'spretend that the hurricane
didn't come through.
It's the 25th of August andyou're just going for a fun day
of fishing.
Let's say, you and I decide hey, we're just going to hit the
water tomorrow.
Where in the perfect world,where are you going?
What are you?
Are you taking a boat, a kayak,from shore?
Cause a lot of people may notknow this you do a lot of shore

(19:29):
based fishing too.
You, you are literally you.
You cover the full spectrum ofsaltwater fishing.
What are you doing?
What are you targeting?
What are you taking?
What time are you going?

Benji (19:36):
yeah, I'm still right now .
I'm taking the boat mostlybecause I love my skiff.
I can actually take my skiffand all the practice with the
kayak, again hanging out withyou, joe billups, and some of
the other fellas prior co-hostsyou had going fishing.
I can take that skiff.
In places we've gone withkayaks with no problem, no
worries, you know none of that,so I'll take the boat.

(19:56):
If you and I were going fishingtomorrow, we're going to hit a
bridge, we're going to hitmultiple bridges and even though
there's only a one fish keeplimit with the tow tog or the
blackfish, we're going to try tocatch some blackfish and then
we're going to poke around, seeif there's some sheepshead in
the same areas and then fromthere, you know, we'll figure
out what we're going to do.
We're going to take the popperfor bait and we're going to have
to fiddle the crabs.

(20:17):
We're going to have the sandfleas and we're going to have
everything we need for those.
But if we were going outtomorrow, we're going to hit a
bridge and see if we can findsome blackfish, because that's
my second favorite fish to eat.
There's no more hardy fish forme, even at one fish.
That's funny because they're sothick, they're so hardy,
they're so heavy, there's somany ways you can cook them.
It's just a great fishery forme.

(20:38):
I even like that fishery.
If someone tells me they want totake their kid out fishing and
they're saying, well, we want togo find their fish, I'm gonna
do my best to try and turn themand say, let's go try this
fishery.
Just because it's such a gameand that's what hooked me on it.
I haven't been fishing forblackfish all that long and I
was hooked instantly.

(20:58):
You know, no pun intended, Iwas hooked instantly.
It's the thrill of that fishand getting it to hook.
You know, getting that hook inthat lip.
Oh, my thrill of that fish andgetting it the hook.
You know, getting that hook inthat lip.
Oh, my goodness.
And then they're so aggressivewhen you get a fight.
It could be quick, it could belong, it's it's just an exciting
fishery, even in the back.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishi (21:16):
You don't have to go out to the
wrecks to have fun with fishright, I'll tell you a little
story about tall talk fishing,and it actually involves my
brother, who actually looks likehe's in the chat.
So so when we were little, wewould always go fishing with my
grandfather and my father, andit was always saltwater.
That's all we did, and I don'tknow how this happened, but

(21:38):
somehow my brother, my littlebrother, met.
I think the guy was a cameramanfor the Eagles and he had a
house down there and he had thislittle skiff and he would
always go out to a bridge and hewould always tie up and just
fish all day.
And he came, this guy came overwith my brother back to our
house and he talked to my dadand he said look, I'd like to
take your son out.
This is what we're going to do.

(21:59):
My dad's like what, okay?
He said okay.
So, uh, yes, they go out to thebridge and wouldn't you know it
was tog fishing.
And this is when tog fishing wasnot popular.
I mean, this is what, 45 yearsago maybe, and yeah, they were
just slaying tog all day, andthat I don't know if my brother

(22:21):
would agree, but to me there wasa change in my brother with
fishing at that point and he gotinto it.
Change in my brother withfishing at that point and he got
into it Like, tog is definitelyan underrated fishery,
especially for kids, because youget the rapid bites when you're
on them, you're on them, andeven the small fish, it's like a
small mouth.
Even the small fish have areally good fight to them.

(22:43):
And I, I wouldn't, I won't turndown a tog fishing trip at all.
You know, even the one, the onefish limit, I don't care, I'll
definitely go do it.
And even if I decide I'm notgoing to keep anything, it's
just so much fun.
I, I just can't get it.
And everyone likes to do thesheep's head.
Now, okay, I I can't, it's just, it's too annoying to me.

Benji (23:04):
but the tog, I'll do the tog definitely, as she said it's
it's, it's still a diamond inthe rough for me.
Like I said, I only have threecareers, so I I'm not ready to
turn that one loose yet.
I just haven't had the time toget back out there.
I've missed a couple ofopportunities and invitations.
But you know, I think I canconvince you to try and try and

(23:28):
hook up with one, unless you youknow, unless you have enough
under your belt I mean I, I have, I have caught a lot of sheep's
head.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishin (23:37):
Uh , I've caught double digits,
some really nice ones.
My problem is I just can'tstand the process of just I.
I get it's an unpopular opinion, paul's in the chat.
I'm sorry, paul, I know youlove Sheep's Head.
You can keep them, man.
I went out with Creely a coupleof weeks ago and a couple of

(23:57):
other guys and they're sittingon this bridge for like four
hours.
I'm like what the hell is wrong?
I just I picked up and me andPerry we took off.
We're like let's go for fluke.
It's not even a good area to gofor fluke.
We're like we're not going tocatch anything.
But we went, we're justwatching them, just hug in the
bridge for hours.
I was like I can't.

(24:19):
I'm sorry, I can't do it.
It's a fun fight but it's notworth the wait for me.

Benji (24:23):
No, you're absolutely right.
And again, that's like you'vetold me, you've got to go
multi-species.
A couple of trips that I'vebeen on and I call my
professional net man because,like you, I stink at it, I can't
even get the net in front ofthe seat.
Who brought them in in the netfor me?
Thankfully he was there with me.
He got to share thoseexperiences with me with the

(24:44):
sheep's head.
I call him the sheep's headking.
He's like no, I'm just gettingbetter at it.
I said, no, you're more togetting better at it.
My friend, if I want to give upone, we would move.
I wouldn't stay there all dayor four or five hours because

(25:05):
once the current starts movingday or four or five hours, you
know what?
Because once the current startsmoving, like you said, like you
know, like I just said, you'velearned and you've taught us we
got to go find something else.
Let's see what else is out.
There's nothing wrong with thatyeah, I'm, I'm.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing (25:16):
I will tell you that my entire
attitude changes if it is amulti-species day, you know, if
it's fluke and then it, orstriped bass and then it's
sheep's head, you know's head,at a certain point in the tide
absolutely Tog.
If I'm doing tog at the sametime, it's even better.
Then I can actually stand it.
I'll just fish the bottom andhope that I get either of the

(25:37):
two and then I can move back onto another species.
It's just the hours and hours.
It was driving me bananas.
I just wanted to jump in thewater.
I was like this is justterrible.
This is just terrible.

Benji (25:52):
Well, I mean, in addition to just sitting there trying to
get that bike at that touch, Imean that was in between my
rudder issues.
The current starts moving.
You get a weight comes through,pushes off your spot.
So I'm out there.
I'm out there again with Joe Band I'm spinning around in
circles because my rudder getsstuck on me.
So, but I think we got thatironed out finally.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (26:12):
Well , that would be good.
Get Joe rescuing you.
Actually, knowing Joe, he wasprobably just laughing at you.
That's my experience.
He likes to have fun and I lovewhen he starts singing now.

Benji (26:23):
I think he told me get off the hamster wheel.
I said all right, little Bill.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad F (26:30):
That'll do it.
That'll do it all.
Right, let's talk a littlecrabbing, because that is
something that, like I said, Iwas out fluke fishing a few
weeks ago and it was just crabsand I was, like you know, benji
would probably set me right onthis and tell me why the crabs
are in this spot, where I didn'tthink they'd be, and and then
you tell me what I could keepand what I couldn't.

Benji (26:50):
What were you catching?
Were they males or females?
Let's start there.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishin (26:54):
So it was actually both.
It was mainly pregnant females.

Benji (26:59):
So I'm saying I'm trying to, I'm trying to.
What I'm trying to do, folks isextract where he was.
So I know he was closer to someinlet water.
He was in a saltier area.
That's where I'm going withthat.
That's when you start runninginto a lot of female crabs,
particularly the egg-infestedones, if you will.
But yeah, crabbing is a passionof mine since a young kid.

(27:21):
My wife and I, when we firstgot married 15, 14, 15 years ago
that was one of our bondingexperiences.
Again, my wife loves theoutdoor.
I can't get her to go fishingwith me, with this person
Perfectly fine.
But she won't hesitate to gocrabbing.
She's been asking me to getthis prop on this boat for
several days now.
Are we going to go test theboat?
Are we going to test the boatso we can go crabbing?
She will pull traps.

(27:42):
It doesn't matter if there's 10traps or 30, but it is.
It's.
It's kind of like flounderfishing with uh, crabs.
Salinity again, not so much ifyou're looking for the male
crabs.
If you're looking for the malecrabs, you want to get a little
lighter salinity on it and thenyou want to set your, your line,
your traps.
If you want to do it theold-fashioned way, drop some

(28:04):
hand lines.
It still works.
But just keep in mind you'reout there to have fun if you're
hand lining or doing it theold-fashioned way.
But yeah, I grew up crabbing inin cumberland county, new jersey
.
I'm talking about down by thedairy farms.
So dividing creek when, when,when beaver dan boat rentals was
out there, and dividing creekboat rentals, which are both

(28:25):
closed now.
That's the area I was reared in, delaware Bay.
I grew up down in far southJersey getting eaten up by
greenheads and you know, whenthe greenheads aren't there you
got horseshoe crabs and viceversa.
So a lot of obstacles andchallenges with crabs.
But you know we had one seasonmy wife, my son, you know, in
combination.

(28:45):
It was one season Again.
This was way before any thoughtof doing the charter thing.
We had a season where we caughtover 1100 crabs.
Now, no, we didn't eat over1100 crabs.
We would catch so many crabs.
I'm being I'd bring them home.
She and I bring them home,we're cleaning them up and then
I'm walking down the street, thecoldest sack knocking on the

(29:05):
door hey, you like blue crabsgiving them, never let them go
to waste.
But that's how many crabs youwould catch.
And we just enjoyed thatbonding time together.
And you know we still do.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (29:16):
Yeah , it's funny Paul saying that
he's about excited aboutcrabbing as I am about sheep's
head.
So I I love crabs and one thingthat I thought about doing with
the kayak is dropping sometraps and then fishing and then
picking up the traps later.
And I was going to do that andI was actually scouting some

(29:36):
places two years ago and aprofessional crabber got mad at
me.
I was apparently in his areaand I didn't even I had a little
hand line.
I was just seeing what was downthere.
As I'm sitting there eatinglunch, I literally just hand
lining a dead fish on the bottomwith some weights and he's like
this is my area.
I was like I literally have onehand line, dude.

(29:58):
He got so mad at me I was likeall right, all right, I'm out of
here.
I took off.
You got to be careful withthose crabbers.
Creeley and I got swamped bysome some crabbers a few years
ago behind stone Harbor, of allplaces, because we were.
I don't know what we were doing, we were just fishing, but they
didn't like us.

Benji (30:16):
That's unfortunate.
I mean in my, in my area, inthese areas where I crab.
Matter of fact, we were in avery tight uh Creek off of a
river down here in nag harbortownship and the commercial
crabber was, once he got done hewas up in his crab.
We're running my trap line backand forth.
He's like hey, you want thisextra bunker?

(30:37):
I said absolutely so.
Fortunately I haven't run intoany experiences.
I guess you know.
As you can see, I probably knowmost of the commercial crabbers
, at least down in this area.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (30:47):
Yeah .

Benji (30:48):
So I haven't had that experience, my bad experience,
and again it's unfortunatebecause I'm a kayaker, I'm a
boater, I'm a land fisherman, soI'm in all the groups right.
So I get negative stuff fromthe voters.
You know my fellow voters andthat's you know.
It goes with the territory.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (31:14):
Yeah , I mean, it is what it is and I
actually, you know, as I thinkabout it, I think the one guy
was mad because creely parkedhis truck where this guy wanted
to park his trailer.
Yeah, that was the guy behindstone harbor.
So this guy couldn't just likedrop the boat and then just pull
forward.
He had to pull out and down theroad a little.
That's right, that was that guy.
The guy when I was handling.

(31:34):
I don't know what his problemwas, he was just.
I think I was just too close towhere he was and he was.
He was definitely crabbing thatCreek.
I mean, there were buoys allover.
I'm just sitting there with ahand line.
I guess he thought I wasstealing.
I don't know.
He thought I was stealing.
I don't know, I don't know.
I don't even know what sizeyou're allowed to keep.

Benji (31:50):
Like I couldn't even keep anything.
Well, new Jersey has size limiton it.
They're always messing with ourfish sizes, you know it is what
it is.
But crabs, four and a halfinches on a hard shell crab is
all you need for New Jersey.
That's one thing I wish theywould expand the range on.
If they bumped that up to fiveinches, I wouldn't be mad,
because and the reason behindthat is we'd have much larger

(32:12):
crabs here.
You know, after the molt seasonand the average lifespan here,
because of the four and a halfinch requirement, I mean, a crab
lives three, maybe four yearsif they're lucky.
It's fortunate, we're fortunatethat in egg-laden female crabs
they drop, you know, drop700,000 to a million and a half
eggs every time.
They do that, and they do thatmultiple times during a summer

(32:36):
and based on the watertemperature etc.
So they're dropping those eggs.
It's certainly important to putfemales back.
But listen, I follow the stateregulations.
If they don't have eggs laterin the season, I'm certainly not
going to tell a client, hey,you should put that female crab
back.
It's a legal crab, it's overfour and a half inches and,

(32:57):
quite frankly, they're usuallybigger than the males that we
have here in New Jersey.
But I'm not mad because someonewants to keep a female crab
Four and a half inches.
It's a lot of work after you'vesteamed it up, you know.
So again, that's something thatyou know.
I'm not going to go out and andraise a flag on it, but if they
change that to five inches, Imean, I'm all for it.

(33:18):
You know, sure you can do, yeah, you can self-police, but at
the same time there's a lot offolks out there.
One thing, other thing about thesize of crabs, there's this
misnomer and we we tend to dothis as people also over the
fish.
Right, we see people, or we saypeople, whoever it is, oh,
you're keeping undersized fish,you keep an undersized crab.

(33:39):
But you gotta understand thatsome of those crabs could
potentially I don't knowanybody's heart.
I know what they're keeping thecrab for.
But I can't just automaticallysay you keep undersized crab
because you can keep a peelercrab at.
I think it's three inches.
You can keep a three inch craband a peeler crab.
The only way that you can tellthat that's a peeler crab or not

(34:00):
a peeler crab there's on theirflipper paddles how they swim.
They have three differentcolors.
You have to look for it's.
It's white, pink and red, andwhat those colors tell you?
It tells you how soon they'reactually getting ready to molt
that shell that they're in.
But really that's still a freegame crab.
If you're going to use it forbait stripers, love them.
Joe b knows, uh that you know aparticular fish likes uh those

(34:25):
small crabs, those peeler crabs,a shutter crab, peeler crab.
They're different than a softshell crab and even a soft shell
crab doesn't have to be fourand a half inches.
A soft shell crab if you youhappen to scoop it up because
it's unlikely you're going toget one in a crab pot or on a,
certainly not on a hand line.
They don't have to be fourinches for a soft shell crab,

(34:45):
but if you're able, if you getto scoop one up, it only has to
be four inches.
You know a lot of folks playingpolicemen and they're not
really 100% on the regulationsthat they're trying to enforce.
It's great that we do that.
But let's have our P's and Q'sright while we're doing that.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishi (35:00):
You know it's funny.
I could certainly make anestimation of whether or not
something's four and a halfinches, you know, or a four inch
crab, or it's undersized, butyou just blew my mind.
There's pink, white and redflipper.
Okay, I'll take your word forit.
It's a good thing.
I'm not keeping anything as faras crabs, and I'll go out with
you and I'll let you show mewhat I can keep.

Benji (35:23):
It's kind of like a you know, I know this is a family
show, but it's kind of like apregnancy test.
When you look at it, you'relooking for a line on that small
crab.
It's only a line, and it tellsyou one color or the other.
Again, it just says well, thereare three weeks.
It gives you an estimate thatthey might be three weeks away
from shedding that shell, orthey might even only be four

(35:44):
days away from shedding theshell, depending on what color
that line is.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing (35:48):
I never knew that.
Never knew that.
Well, here's a question for you.
It's a good one.
I was going to ask it's fromJoseph Kiley what's your go-to
bait for crabs?
And they're saying you have toknow all the secrets.

Benji (36:00):
Well and I'm happy to share them because you still got
to be able to get out there andget them.
Same thing with the fish.
I'm happy to share anyinformation that I learned.
It's not mine, I don't ownthese crabs.
There's plenty that go around.
I fish, there's plenty that goaround.
But anyway, the way that I'vecrabbed and I use these open top
traps, I use a chicken neckmostly, as long as I can get

(36:20):
them in bulk supply from a localbutcher shop, you know, at a
decent price.
I've even used drumsticks forcrab.
In my own opinion and in myexperience, you can use native
fish If you're in an area that'sheavily populated, it would say
white perch even some flukeracks.
I mean you got to be carefulwith that.

(36:41):
But any fish racks that youwant to tie into a net or a trap
you can use those.
But my go-to is a chicken.
Net is chicken for catchingcrabs.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (36:51):
Yeah , that's what they use down in
Maryland.

Benji (36:54):
There's a place for bunker, but I believe that's for
your hotel style Like we canget a $2 crab pot license and we
can put two pots out per person.
That's where I think you'regoing to mostly benefit, using
bunker or an oily, oily typefish, maybe a blue fish,
something that you got left over.
You throw those in there whereit's on a stick overnight.

(37:15):
You got to check that withinthree days, by the way.
That's where you're getting thebenefit of that oily scent,
putting that slick out so youcan go and catch your crabs.
But to put those on a hand lineput balker on a hand line or a
perch rack on a hand line or atrap I won't do it.
I just haven't had success withit and I've caught a lot of
crabs.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishin (37:35):
So how long are you leaving those
traps out, the traps?

Benji (37:38):
that I'm working like these topless traps.
We literally drop anywhere from20, sometimes 40 traps in a
line.
Sometimes I've got a half mileline that we're running and by
the time we get to the end, rich, we turn right around, we race
back, depending on which way thecurrent's moving and or the
wind, wherever that wind and thecurrent's putting my float.
That dictates what side I needto pull traps from A little bit

(38:00):
of science.
It's not rocket science, butthere's a little bit to know
about it.
So you're not pulling a trapfrom underneath the boat but, to
answer your question, by thetime we get done, drop that last
trap.
We're flying back to thebeginning and starting over and
if the current's moving, we gotwater flow, crabs are going to
be in your trap.
So it's immediate as soon asyou turn around and you run that

(38:22):
as many times as you got Mostcrabbing charters, even a couple
of competitors down here in thearea, three-hour trip, you know
, and catching hundreds of crabsin those three-hour period.
You know time, you don't need alot of time to catch crabs.
Now again, if you want to crab,yeah, you can spend all day and

(38:42):
catch yourself a dozen and ahalf, but the people I know want
to catch crabs and then theywant to go home and eat, have a
feast.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fis (38:49):
Right , yeah, I'm in that group.
Why not?
Why not?
So let me ask you this what'sthe weirdest thing you ever
caught in the trap?

Benji (38:57):
I've caught everything from eels Again.
I had that little baby flounderyesterday or day before
yesterday, last season, a fewseasons ago I think Facebook
followers they saw that post.
My son pulled up a 19-inchkeeper in a crab trap and yeah,
he went home.
Like you catch some oystercrackers, you catch any fish out
there.
You would on the hook A lot oftimes.

(39:18):
You get some of them.
Real micro black sea bass willbe in there, but everything out
there you're fishing for theylike chicken yeah yeah, yeah so
much, much so I'll tell you what.
So much so I've caught so manyflounder in the crab traps.
I'm one of these times you knowpeople use bacon to catch

(39:41):
flounders.
And the other thing, because ofthe action on it, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna slide achicken breast, a brown,
boneless breast, out of therefrigerator on my way to make
sure it's not paying attention,and I'm going to slice some
slivers off and I'm going totake that and try that for
flounder or fluke fish.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishin (39:57):
So I'll tell you I think I've told
this story before and anyonethat's fished Delaware Bay back
in, I guess, the 80s it was big,it was raw chicken Was a big
fluke bait and very successful.
But every year there would beissues because of multiple

(40:18):
people being hospitalized forsalmonella poisoning because
they were baiting the hooks,they were catching plenty of
fluke on them and they weren'twashing their hands.
They're just rinsing theirhands in the salt water and then
eating their lunches right, orthey're touching their mouth or
they're having a cigarette orthey're putting in a chew and
all of a sudden they got the rawchicken in their mouth.

(40:39):
And yeah, so I actually talkedabout that on here.
It's a great, great bait forfluke, as long as you keep in
mind that you are literallyhandling raw chicken throughout
the day and by the end of theday it's usually hot raw chicken
.
So, yeah, I would absolutelyrecommend using it.

Benji (40:59):
Yeah, yeah, hand sanitizer that's what you call a
staple on the boat.
Got a nice big jug of handsanitizer.
Yeah, gotta rinse it off.
I got some crap going on withmy hands.
Talking about blackfish earlier, I, I, I got I got that, uh,
green crab issue.
This started back in april.
I'm still dealing with it.
Whatever that excretion is thatthey, if you don't wash them

(41:21):
off and rinse them when you tryto save them for the next day,
I'm still dealing with it.
So, yeah, you got to be carefulwith that stuff.
So I'm wearing plastic glovesor latex gloves and everything
right now these days trying toget this thing cleared up yeah,
it's like an acid from them.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (41:35):
Yeah , I know I've had them dead in
my car.
Yeah, it can really ruin a carand it can ruin your hands.
I, I really don't like greencrabs at all.
They're like, they're terrible.
I, I mean, I use them.
I use them all the time for dog, but they're one of the least
favorite things to handle thegreen crabs.

(41:57):
And, uh, eels.

Benji (41:59):
I hate eels yeah, that's, they're tough.
I use the eels for striper, youknow, yeah, whenever it's.
You know you're supposed to usethem, but man, I hate trying to
get them things on the hook.
And and even if you get them onthe hook and you're using the
swivels like you're supposed to,oh my gosh, you spend more time
, you know, unraveling your linewith these eels and you know

(42:19):
they're just tough.
I I've yet to figure out.
Maybe somebody in the chat cantell us how do you grip up us
eel?
Good enough to get him on thehook quick.
I only got to move fast.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishi (42:29):
But Well, so I'll tell you how I do
it and hopefully we don't getpeople mad at me.
First of all, you keep them onice.
So you dunk obviouslydisposable towels, old rags, you
dump them in the salt water,you throw the rag on top of the
ice and then you throw the eelson top of that.
You throw another one on top tokind of sandwich them in.

(42:51):
They won't stay necessarilyvery long, but if it's really
cold in there they get reallyslow.
Then when you want one, youjust reach in and you just grab
around that top one until youhave one smack its head.
You don't have to smack it hardand it'll just kind of be real
slow and lethargic.
Just bait that up, you put it inthe water and it is up, it is
awake and it is just going crazywithin like 15, 20 seconds.

(43:15):
So like an instant revival onthem.
Just put them right throughthat bottom lip and that.
So that's how I do it.
A lot of people may not I meannot, probably not with this
channel, but you know, peta,people won't like the smack its
head part, but it is what it is.

Benji (43:31):
I didn't think about that .
I mean the same thing with thecrabs put on ice before you.
You know, do what you got to doto get them prepared, but yeah,
I didn't think about that.
Put them on ice, chill themdown, slow them down.
I do use a rag and I'm tellingyou, maybe my rags have a satin
in them or something, because Istill can't hold on to them no
it.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing (43:45):
I mean there's nothing you can do
with an eel.
I mean there's nothing.
The only thing that can evenget the slime off of you is sand
.
As far as I'm concerned, likeyou got to just put sand all
over your hand and just scrubsand in the salt water.
That's, I mean, that's how Iused to wash it off.
But, yeah, the rags and therags get slimy and then it's
done.
But that's what I do.

(44:05):
And and look, say whatever youwant about me, I, I, I'm going
to use a rag because I don'twant the slime all over me.
Call me whatever you want, Ijust I'm beyond that now, man, I
just don't want it.
And then, and then, when yougrab them by the head, and
sometimes they wrap around yourarm and they back up, oh my God
Then you have one going up yourshirt, around your neck and you

(44:27):
can't stop it.
It'll just keep going backwards.
I can't stand eels.

Benji (44:35):
I.
I can't stand eels.
I'm not a fan of any type ofreptile.
I don't like frogs, Idefinitely don't like snakes,
and an eel fits right in there.
I know it's out to salt water,I can't do it.
It's a necessary evil to catcha striped bass, so it's just you
can make them cold.
I like folks all the timegetting mad at me because I
don't put the fish on ice rightaway.
I put my fish on ice right away.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing (44:57):
I put my bait on ice.
Yeah, you put the importantstuff.
I don't put fish on ice rightaway, I'll actually bleed them
for a really long time.
I'll let them stay alive in thewater for as long as possible,
then I'll bleed them Hopefully ashark doesn't come get them and
then I'll throw them in on theice.

Benji (45:12):
It's just the way I do it I've had, uh, I got one of
those big I don't know, one ofthose big cooler sack bags.
If you want it, I've had.
I put water in there.
It's cool water.
I've had tog last me fromabseeking all the way back to my
home base up near depra, newjersey, so almost back to
philadelphia, and they're stillalive and kicking Like they were

(45:34):
never, you know, hooked andpulled out the water.
I'm like, yeah, I know that youlike to bleed your fish.
I'm like, but you can't get afresher fish than this one right
here, like that's what.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fi (45:44):
That's the way I look at it.
Keep it alive, unless it's ashark.
I want to keep it alive as longas possible.
Shark yeah, I'm going to gutthat thing as fast as possible,
but no, no, like a fluke.
That's why I always have fluke.
To get attacked by sharks isbecause I try to keep them alive
on the stringer as long aspossible.
You know, I'm not jamming itthrough the gills and hurting

(46:05):
them.
Sometimes I'm just putting itthrough the bottom of their lip,
like in the in between the jawbones, and just piercing it
through there so that they canswim and stay alive.

Benji (46:14):
It's really fresh you've had four too many shark
encounters with those, uh,sometimes hard to find fluke.
I tell you that goodness I.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing (46:22):
I thought maybe I would put a
camera underwater on one of themand on the stringer someday,
just to see you know how manycome by and don't actually grab
it, and you'll appreciate thisbecause of all the content
creation you did.
The frigging camera leaked, sothis underwater camera one of my
DJIs is dead, so there's a $400mistake.

(46:49):
So I'm down one good camera.

Benji (46:54):
Listen, losing cameras, I mean mean again.
I've lost the equipment on thekayak.
You know, hard lesson learned.
I've lost a gopro.
With that, I lost the three outof four fishing poles that were
with me uh I even then I went to, uh, these video sunglasses and
went to set the hook on astriped bass and knock the

(47:15):
glasses off and down there atthe bottom somewhere like it's
just the amount of videoequipment you know for all the
videos that you see goingthrough some video equipment to
get that stuff together.
And a lot of times you don'teven see a lot of the stuff
because I'm like I'm afraid totake.
I have it, I'm afraid to takeit back out there.
I'm like I don't want't want tolose it but I'm not using it.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fi (47:36):
That's like me and my drone.
I got a drone and I rarelybring it on the water because
it's such a pain in the neck toland it, because you have to
land it in your hand when you'reon a kayak and it's really hard
to land a drone in your handwhen you're moving Because once
you say land, it's going to land.
So if you miss it it's in thewater and those things you know

(47:59):
they're not waterproof.
The mine is not waterproof atall.
So, yeah, I know the wholething.
I don't, I don't like bringingout all my cameras, so I very
rarely post videos anymore.
I I'm more just video formyself at this point and I just
focus more on this show.
But yeah, that was an expensivemistake.
I was really disappointed.

(48:20):
I'll tell you what scared thehell out of me, because I didn't
even notice until I got homeafter a two hour drive and I had
just thrown the camera in theback of the truck and it's
laying across the back seat andthe lithium battery starts
smoking right when, right when Iget in the driveway.
I was like, oh my god, and so,yeah, so I had to take it out.
I I was lucky I could pop thebattery out and I just let it

(48:42):
sit in the middle of thedriveway.
And you know it didn't.
It didn't ignite or anything,but it was.
It was damn near close.

Benji (48:49):
But the the camera's dead , totally dead I would tell you
what listen for, for contentcreation and just sharing the
experience of these differentfish.
You know, I've had the $300GoPro and I've got a $20 chest
cam camera and the pictures thatI've posted, the video that
I've posted.
You can't tell the differencein quality from those videos at

(49:12):
this point, you know, based onthe technology and things.
So anybody who's looking to tovideo your, your catch, or video
your outings, you don't have tospend a ton of money to be able
to capture your, your, yourmoments, especially when you're
taking your kids out, things youwant to remember.
You don't have to spend a lotof money on the video equipment.
You just you get something, uh,clip it on yourself when you're
on your neck tie or or whatever.

(49:33):
You know where your necktiewould be and you can rock and
roll with it, put it on, loopy,loop and you have yourself some
some memories, you know, untilyou erase them or get rid of
them.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (49:42):
Yeah , that's a good idea.
Well, you know, we should do ashow just on how to create on
the water content, whetherpeople want to start a YouTube
channel or just do, you know, doFacebook or any social media
thing, or just do Facebook orany social media thing or just
collect the things, becausethere are a lot of things that
are overblown, that people thinkyou have to do, that you just
don't have to do.
It's a lot easier to get thingswrong.

(50:03):
Now, if you're gonna do a fullYouTube channel, that's
different.
There's a lot ofYouTube-specific stuff that you
have to do if you really wannagrow a channel and grow your
social media presence throughYouTube.
But if you just want to be ableto get some decent videos and
grab some cool pictures fromthose videos which, by the way,
is how most people do it theyjust video and then they screen,

(50:24):
grab something out of there weshould probably we should sit
down sometime and just kind ofgo through that so that people
can see the best way to do it.

Benji (50:33):
I'm chuckling.
I said that between you andPaul up there at Great Bay
Outfitters and I'm about to falloff my seat.
He's helping us out with hisown personal reefs for us, so I
appreciate that.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (50:47):
Yeah , I've dumped stuff.
I talk about all the time.
I went over in the Raritan.
That was bad.
I lost almost everything, and Ion purpose too, because I the
fishing lines were all caughtalong along my, around my legs
and I couldn't break the thebraid, so I ended up cutting
loose two rods.
Another one was just gone, losta camera, lost an underwater

(51:10):
camera that was just sitting inthe cockpit.
It wasn't attached to anything,so when it was and I was
totally upside down, so that'sgone.
And then the worst one wasBenji.
I launched in a sound and it wasmaybe two feet deep, three feet
max, where I was when I turnedor when I reached behind me to
put the rod in the rod holderand I missed and I was like oh

(51:34):
shit.
And I missed.
And I was like oh shit.
And I saw it.
I was like, oh, all right, I'llgo get it and I'm looking at it
.
And all I did is glance to myright to grab my net.
And I looked back and Icouldn't find it again.
I searched, I searched forever.
I could not find it.
I mean, it's literally 10 feetfrom where I launched.
It's like knee deep and somekid is watching me and I looked

(51:57):
at him.
I said he's got this big surfrod.
I don't know what the heck hewas going to do with it.
And I said are you going to behere for a while?
And he's like, yeah, he's likeI dropped my fishing rod.
He's like I saw, I saw.
I was like why don't you justcast over here and drag the
bottom and catch it and keep it?
I was like, and just so youknow, it's a $200 reel on there,

(52:18):
it's all yours.
I don't want it back, but ifyou're here when I get back,
just let me know if you got itor not.
And he's, and wouldn't you know?
He's he.
I got back at the end of theday he was over there crabbing

(52:42):
folks.

Benji (52:43):
There's a lot of places that you can.
That's why I get people wow,you know, people laugh at me.
I mean, but again, you see allthat content.
I mean, I, you know, I catchfish on four dollar reels and 26
fishing poles and I have a lotof fun doing it.
So I can, you know, and I'm notknocking If maybe one day when
I graduate I can, I'll spend alot of money on the equipment,

(53:05):
but right now what I have worksfor me.
I, you know, everybody hastheir own personal feel, right,
every rod's not the same.
You know, I got a rod that'sheavy, power, fast action, tip.
I love it for what I'm fishingfor.
I got another one, medium,medium, heavy, just fast action.
Again, I catch the same exactfish on it.
You know I'm talking 19 inchtogs, 19 inch blackfish from

(53:26):
land.
That's a big fish in the back.
You know, it's just sure it's.
No, it's not a double bit.
Yeah, that's a big fish on thatpole.
That that pole handled itperfect.
A lot of the poles, when I findthem I'll go out and I'll buy a
second one if I like it, justto have up on the rack, because
if and when that one goes, I gotit, most of my poles.
By the way, I know you've seena couple of my post poles have

(53:47):
just completely exploded on me.
Some of those it's not becauseit's cheap, it's actually had
some stress on it that itshouldn't have had and it
finally just gave way and that'swhy I have those backups for
those particular poles.
But I was about to say about thecrabbing, stone Harbor, avalon,
seattle City, any of thoseplaces where you can find a

(54:10):
municipal boat ramp.
You can launch from there.
If you've got a boat, there'sland-based opportunities for you
.
If you want to learn some ofthose areas, come, hang out with
me.
Crabbin Fishing, it'scrabbinfishingcom.
You can book a trip there.
Check me out on Facebook andagain, I'd be happy to come out
with you.
We're going to have fun.
First and foremost.
You want to come out and begrumpy.

(54:38):
I don't know, you know.
I don't know if we're good topair up for that.
So, but we're definitely havingfun and getting out there.
We're going to catch crabs,we're not just going to go
crabbing at least I'm going totry to talk you out of that.
And if you want to go fishing,I'll take you fishing that
sounds good.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishi (54:45):
You busy on friday I may be.

Benji (54:47):
Are you available?

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing (54:51):
I might be.
I'm meeting a client down innew jersey, but after that I
don't know what I'm doing.
I'm tempted to bring somefishing stuff down.

Benji (54:59):
Well, I'll put some fishing stuff in there.
I will block off my Friday datebecause I've got a couple trips
scheduled, but Friday's open atthe moment.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishi (55:11):
All right, I'll text you when we
get closer.
I don't know what time I'msupposed to meet him.

Benji (55:17):
Yet I don't know if billy ackerman's still in there.
Billy ackerman still owes me afishing trip.
I don't think we need to go upto uh, montauk or where.
I mean not that you owe me afishing trip, but we, we owe
each other an outing.
You know this is this is goingback four or five years now rich
.
So billy and season, we'll saywe got to get out and do fishing
.
We haven't done it yet, so wegot to make, we got to get on
point and on purpose and getthat done.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (55:38):
Yeah .
So let me just tell you alittle something about Billy
Ackerman.
Love the man, but he owes me afishing trip as well, and he's
owed me a fishing trip for years.
We need to get him on the water.
Whether he always has an excuse, he sports and all these things
, we don't care, billy, just getout on the water there might be

(56:01):
some folks on here don't knowme as the charter boat captain
or what have you.

Benji (56:06):
But, like I said, I like to have fun when I take folks
out and I don't mind sharinginformation.
When I post a picture, I'lltell you what will irritate me.
If I don't know you, if youdon't take the time to get to
know me, I do have a difficulttime sharing.
So if you're going to asksomeone, you know where that
location is.
Where did you get this, this,that and the other thing?

(56:27):
At least introduce yourself.
Try to build a relationship ora rapport with folks you know
before you start askinginformation.
That's any relationship youknow.
And fishermen, you know we'reprotective but we will share.
But you got to go about it theright way.
That's my PSA on how to findfishing information.
Otherwise you got to pay for it.

(56:47):
You know I don't know Richnever talks about it, but Rich
invited me out on that kayaktrip and rich, he had a series
out there, a couple hours worthof his time, that he put
together fat dad fishing I.
I bought the.
I bought it.
I'm not afraid to buy educationstuff to learn how to fish.

(57:08):
I go.
That's why I go out on thesecharter boats and part of party
boats.
You know six packs to learnthese things.
I'm not afraid to pay for thateducation.
That's sometimes what you needto do, folks.
You go out and do that, buythat, buy your education, get
the folks build relationships.
You learn more than just how tocatch fish.
You know where to go if you gota boat or if you're going to
get a boat in the future.

(57:28):
But you know you got to makethe investment is what I'm
saying.
You know Dad Fishing.
He's got that out there.
I was looking at it earlier.
I look at it every year whenflounder season is coming around
to see what I missed, what Imay have forgotten, and I put
those techniques and tacticstogether.
I learned a lot of stuff fromRich.
He had a guest on a couple ofweeks ago, john Skinner.

(57:50):
I ordered and watched JohnSkinner's video series on
catching fluke.
I bought his book God.
I had an opportunity to meethim up at a, up at a, a fishing
show, and then I you know I gotto mention my friend.
You know, nick Haneshevsky.
Nick Haneshevsky, you know salt, listen, he knows and has seen

(58:12):
thousands of people.
Right, he's on TV and whenevershows are there 4 or 5 o'clock
in the morning, whenever it is,but it doesn't matter the venue
or where we are.
When I walk in a room, nickknows me.
He shouts out my name hey Benji.
So I don't care what otherpeople think about him.
He'll always be a friend to mebecause he knows me.
When I walk in the doorsomewhere and I've learned a lot

(58:37):
from him Frank Mihalik, one ofmy neighbors he lives in the
same neighborhood teaching methings about blackfishing.
You know equipment.
You know fishing rods, hooks,things of that nature.
Building relationships,building resources, not just
asking people questions.
You know where'd you get thefish?
How do you get the fish?
You got to build a relationship, build your network and my
network is pretty tight.

(58:57):
You know rich.
Rich is in that, that circle ofmine, which is very, very small
.
So build yourself your lowerdecks and resource.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (59:05):
Yeah , I'm going to agree and I'll
tell you, nick Honoshevsky iswe're talking right now about
him coming on sometime in thenext next few weeks, hopefully
talking right now about himcoming on sometime in the next
few weeks, hopefully, especiallybefore the tournament the beach
bash kicks off.
I have to agree, you invest insome knowledge and if that means
going on a charter withsomebody, do it, pay that

(59:28):
captain and learn from them.
The best captains are the onesthat will talk to you and will
teach you.
They're not necessarily theones that are teaching you the
second that come on, but they'rethe ones that if you show an
interest and start askingquestions, they'll share
information.
They're not going to tell you,you know, hey, take my numbers,
you know, just come right backto this spot, but they'll

(59:48):
explain why they're fishingcertain bottoms, what they're
looking for at that time of theyear.
You know, skinner was awesomeSkinner.
He shares everything.
He was awesome.
Nick shares a ton ofinformation and he's got just
this wide expanse of informationthat he knows about every
freaking speed.
You want to talk weak fish?
We could do an episode just onweak fish with him.

(01:00:09):
We could do it just on bonito.
We could do it on any fish withhim.
So that'll be interesting tofigure out what we're going to
talk about when he comes on.
But I agree, it does come downto the network.
You need to be able to reachout to people.
One of the reasons I didn'tfish this past weekend I thought
it was going to be bad, butbecause I reached out to two

(01:00:31):
people in different areas of thestate of New Jersey and I said
is it worth it for me and theseother guys to come down?
And they said no, not for this.
And the one said only if youcome at this time and it's going
to be a crapshoot.
So we stayed at home.
I saved the four hours in thecar two down, two back for that.

(01:00:51):
But I'll often get a text fromthose guys and they'll say look,
this just changed.
So next time you hit the water,try this and it helps.
Time on the water is important,but your network helps cut down
the amount of time that youhave to be out there with trial
and error.

Benji (01:01:09):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Like I said, rich was.
I called him sensei and mentorfor a long time.
I don't know if it made himsmile or got on his nerves, but
that's the relationship thatRich and I have.
Over the years thatrelationship has grown.
I could ask him a question.
He'd respond because we built arelationship.
He's not doing that justbecause I bought his course.
It's because I invested thattime.

(01:01:30):
We went fishing in a group of uson uh, what was it?
The osprey or what have you?
They put the invite out from uhone of the fishers from the
shows here and you know, again,just like-minded guys getting
out together, sharing stories,sharing techniques and tactics.
You know there's, there's acouple other tight resources
that I have, as far as you know.
That that's concerned that I'dlike to mention.

(01:01:50):
You know, over in Atlantic Cityside of things, you're out
seeking Captain Josh is fishingin charters.
Yeah, I'm doing the same thing,right, but they're not my
competitors, they're my friends.
We help each other out.
If he's full, he's sending mepeople.
If I'm full, I'm sending himpeople.
And then down here in SummersPoint, where I'm pretty much
base, I've got, I got D&Dfishing and charters over there.

(01:02:12):
You know, these guys aren'tcompetition to me and that's
what how our fishing should be.
Our groups, we need to helpeach other out and stop yelling
and screaming at each other allthe time and racing past each
other in boats and kayaks andthings like that.
Take care of each other, andthat's how I feel about it.
It's nothing for me to sharesome information.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (01:02:31):
I've seen more drama in fishing.
It is embarrassing to watchsome of these clowns when they
just start bitching and whiningabout the dumbest thing.
That's my spot.
Come on, man.
First of all, it's not yourspot.
Second of all, I'm older thanyou.
I've been fishing it since Iwas a little kid.
So if anybody's spot, it's myspot, but you can't have it

(01:02:54):
because it's a public area.
Like all of that and the dramaonline.
It's like just get overyourselves.
Yes, you catch this fish.
Congrats.
I'm really happy for you.
So did the 17 other people nextto you.
Like, just get over yourselves.
Create a network of people thatenjoy each other.
Enjoying, helping each otherthat's what I like about it.

(01:03:15):
I don't get involved in allthat stuff.
You know we get people thattroll this channel and I really
don't get upset.
It's like, okay, I know youjust watched and, by the way, I
just got that ad revenue.
So keep bitching, keep keepengaging, because YouTube sees
your engagement.
It just elevates the contentfor the next guy.
So, all right, you don't likeme.
You don't like my guest?

(01:03:35):
Great, tell me about it.
Please tell me about it.
And tell me about it again.
And when I say somethingdefending myself or somebody
else.
So you'll comment again.
So the algorithm loves me evenmore.
So I don't know, man, it's just, it's just crazy.

Benji (01:03:51):
You understand it, and that's why I just simply say
thank you.
I mean, you know, some of theseguys are like oh my goodness, I
don't know how you handled it,I would have lost my mind.
I'm like what?
I can't get mad.
I mean the moment you get madat a negative comment.
And this is in life too, folks.
Here's my life lesson for you.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (01:04:16):
Look the moment you accept it.
It stays with them.
They got to keep it.
Yeah yeah, fish is too much funfor to have drama in it.

Benji (01:04:19):
I, I just, I just won't do it, won't do it.
But that one you just said,though, about that oh, this is
my spot.
Why you're fishing here?
La la la.
I'm like well, you're fishingbecause it's a challenge, right?
Well, if I'm in your spot, gofind another spot so you can now
be challenged.
You know, those are the typesof things that I think so.
But, rich, thanks so much forhaving me on.
I really truly appreciate it,and everybody who who joined you

(01:04:40):
know this evening.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fish (01:04:42):
Yeah , thank you for coming on.
By the way, I plan on doingtrying to get together another
trip on the Osprey or anotherboat this fall for TOG.
I had a lot of fun.
I'll be honest, the last timethat we did it for TOG, I had a
lot of fun.
I'll be honest, the last timethat we did it I wasn't feeling
well that whole day.
So I tried my best but I wasjust.
I was really off my game andI'm looking for I feel great now

(01:05:03):
and I have no reason to think Iwon't feel great moving forward
.
So you know, that's whathappens when you lose 70 pounds
you feel, you feel a littlebetter.
So I'm looking forward to doinga trip this fall, early winter,
and I think the Osprey was agreat boat, great captain and
crew.
Yeah, I, I, I think, I think wegot to get that together and

(01:05:23):
you got to be on that again andwe'll get what's Paul saying in
there oh yeah, you won there.
You did win, didn't you?
That's right, you won the rod.

Benji (01:05:33):
Paul took care of me on that one.
I got that tsunami rod.
I appreciate that very much.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fis (01:05:39):
We're going to have to do it.
We'll do another one this yearand maybe you and I can team up
on it and we'll try to get asmany.
Let's try to fill the entireboat.
That would be a lot of fun.

Benji (01:05:49):
Let's do it Awesome.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fis (01:05:50):
Let's do it.

Benji (01:05:50):
Awesome, let's talk soon.
And if you're available Friday,you know, let's catch up later
this week, or what have you?
But go ahead and do your thing.
Yeah, I'll shoot you a textthis week.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fis (01:05:59):
We'll figure out if we can get out on
Friday, yeah.
So thanks again for coming on.
I'm going to be announcingguests coming up shortly.
I will mention that we're goingto have Kayla Hale in a couple
of weeks of hail.
In a couple of weeks we'regoing to have some of the larger
, some, a couple of other largenamed YouTube fishermen.
Um, that has some reallyinteresting things.

(01:06:20):
I haven't reached out to himyet just because of what
recently happened to him, but Ido want to see if we can get
captain uh, joey Leggio back on.
Um, for those that aren't aware, uh and I a link in here for a
GoFundMe.
Captain Leggio, he's been on theshow before a couple of times.

(01:06:43):
We've talked striped bass,we've talked about cobia fishing
and he had a boating accidentabout a week and a half ago I
think it was.
They hit a wake.
They were sheep's head fishing.
They hit a wake in thebackwaters.
He went overboard.
I believe it was a prop strikeacross his arm almost lost the
lower part of his arm.

(01:07:03):
Luckily, they were able to rushhim to a close restaurant that
was on the water and there werethree emergency nurses there
that were able to applytourniquets and keep the arm
that was dangling alive andthrough surgery he's going to
keep his hand, it looks like.
But he's a captain.
He is not fishing, he is notable to take people out.

(01:07:25):
Great guy, wonderful, lovelyfamily.
So he has zero income coming infor him right now.
So if you can throw any supporthis way, please do so.
There are links already on theFat Dad Fishing Facebook page.
The last podcast episode.
I'll get one into this latertoo.
But even just a couple of bucksI'm sure will mean a lot to him

(01:07:45):
.
But I wanted to have him comeon anyway.
But I'm wondering if I can getsome of these guys together.
Let's talk about the crap thathappens when you're on the water
, because way too many crazythings happen.
We had a tragedy in BarnegatInlet just yesterday with with a
death of a fisherman fromPrinceton and pretty bad injury

(01:08:07):
to his son, but it looks likehis son's going to be okay.
So I think maybe some watersafety stuff might be something
good to talk about coming up.
So we'll see about that.
Everyone, thanks for tuning in.
Benji, thanks again, man.
Um, I'll, I'll be texting yousoon and everybody, until next
week.
Everyone, post hurricane, getout there, get on the water, get
some tight lines.