Rick Clunn and Jake's Take on MERCER-218

4-time Bassmaster Classic Champion, the legendary Rick Clunn​⁠ returns to the show. But this time it’s with a very different outlook and approach than before. He has been following and studying the sport this year and he shares just a few of his many Clunn-Clusions from Lake Tenkiller.But that’s not all! We are then joined by Bassmaster videographer, Jake Latendresse with the ultimate Bassmaster behind-the-scenes show, Jake’s Take.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It is officially summer and we got a hot show for you this
week. Once again a double dose of
goodness. We kick things off with 32 time
Classic qualifier, 16 time Bass Master winner, four time Classic
Champion Rick Klun with his conclusion from Lake 10 Killer.
But that's not all. Then we are joined by Jake
Latondres with the ultimate behind the scenes Bassmaster

(00:23):
show with Bassmaster videographer Jake Latondres.
I already said his name, but youknow what is Jake's take both of
them join me this week on. I'm Bob Cobb for the Bassmaster.

(00:45):
Welcome to Mercer. Welcome one.
Welcome all friends, family, freeloaders, fishing freaks, and
of course you, my humpers. Happy hump day to all of you and
welcome into the awkwardly honest fishing podcast.
Think goes by my last name, which is Mercer.
This is the 218th edition of theMercer Podcast and I hope

(01:07):
wherever you're watching or listening from that life is
treating you fine. It is officially summer and it
is spectacular. I have been spending a
ridiculous amount of time under the water just swimming with the
fishes. And you know, things are good,
things are good, and I hope things are good in your world

(01:32):
and a great show for you here this week.
But before we talk about this week's show, let me remind you
that I host another podcast. If you like this podcast, well,
maybe you'll like another podcast with a very similar
voice while the exact same voiceas well as some others.
It's called officially unofficial do that podcast for
bass master. It's available on the bass
Master channel will be up on thebass master YouTube at some

(01:54):
point here this week. And this week's show was is
fishing actually better in the rain?
We talked to four different elite series pros get their
opinion. We talked to Mark Menendez, Ben
Milliken, Logan Parks and Emil Wagner and get their opinion on
how you should fish in the rain.Does it affect things and kind

(02:15):
of the whole skinny on that. So make sure you check that out.
But before you do that, you're here for this.
So what is this this week? Well, we will kick things off
with our conclusion with Rick Clown of course, and he'll give
us his opinion on everything that happened in 10 Killer.
But that is not all. Then we will jump into things

(02:36):
with Jake Latondras and Jake's take and we will continue to
break down everything that happened in 10 Killer and all
sorts of other stuff in the fishing world.
I hope you enjoy it. Without further ado, let's kick
things off with a bang with the legendary Mr. Rick Clung and his
conclusion. Welcome back another tournament.

(03:04):
So another conclusion of what happened at Lake 10 Killer.
No, I, I, it brought back a lot of memories.
All tournaments do the obvious ones were a lot of the
techniques were they were using or some of my favorite
techniques, the conditions therewas one of my favorite

(03:24):
conditions. Yeah, the storms there, there's
we're very I, I fished tournaments in Missouri early in
my career and some of the worst storms in the Ozarks, and I
include ten killer in the Ozarks.
The most passionate storms were in that area.
And I mean, I've been around a lot of storms, but for some

(03:46):
reason these were different and and they and they have all that
wind and lightning, lightning mainly, and tons of rain coming
down on you. But it as you saw, you know, it
had a good effect. And thank goodness nobody was,
you know, caught and hit by lightning or anything, because

(04:10):
that's always a possibility since golfers and fishermen are
the highest recreational people that get hit by lightning.
But so in the fishing, it just hasn't usually an amazing effect
on. But it was just a really, really
neat tournament from that standpoint.
And you know, I, the high water dealer is really kind of what I

(04:33):
kind of want to talk about firstbecause, you know, the, the lake
was up and down, but it was always what I call extreme high.
You know how we have high water,sometimes people say the lake's
coming up when it came up 4 inches.
This lake was coming up in the feet, you know, measurements and

(04:54):
what does that do to the fish? You know the and you have two
types of high water, you have vertical and horizontal and, and
the horizontal when it's coming up, it's going to flood the
forest. It's going to put thousands of
bushes in the water and essentially it's going to make

(05:16):
the fish harder to find because they're spread out in there.
And, but the thing that really helped in this term, and I know
it happened the same same type of situation at Lake Texoma that
it came up high, it keeps it, itcauses the shed to go into a
shed, spawn in those green bushes and shed don't like to

(05:37):
penetrate into the bushes. They want to be on the outer
edges of them. And so that keeps the bass on
the outer edges of them. You don't have to penetrate way
into the bushes to catch them. And that really helped.
Even if you were fishing that forest of trees like some of the
guys were, they stayed on the edges because the shad were
keeping the fish on the edges. And but it also don't that high

(06:02):
water always fascinated me because all the years I've seen
it, you you develop and then thevertical water coming up,
vertical, it's coming up. You saw a lot of guys fishing
the steeper banks. Well, you're not it's not going
to. It doesn't appear to be flooding
like it would horizontally a lotof cover and and so it you can

(06:23):
reach the fish you where in the horizontal high water.
A lot of it you couldn't reach afish.
If they decide to penetrate in there where the brim are, the
brim are going to go up in theirfurther, but the shed's going to
keep them the matter. It's just shattering out there
and they're going to follow the brim up into it where it gets
real hard for you to get a lure to them.
So a lot of the guys were like, say that, you know, fishing the

(06:46):
the more vertical edges and which again, you, you you could
still reach the bridge. You know, they were fishing the
RIP rap on the bridges and the water's coming up.
It's not flooding horizontally alot.
And you could fit this, the steeper bluff banks.
They were doing the same thing. And there was other patterns.
I didn't really see guys fishingthat we always look for on that

(07:08):
kind of deal. That's what I called.
Did we lose each other? Do are you still there?
I'm still here. The other patterns there were
some. The runoff pattern is a fun
pattern that's all welcome fishing.
And that's just such unlike the vertical pattern where the fish
tend to be scattered along therewherever the sheds are, that

(07:31):
runoff pattern because of the current will actually put a
group of fish. You can hit a groups of fish
along any current break like yousaw Welker fishing way back in
the Creek and there. But the other patterns I didn't
see was what I called the picnictable pattern.
The high water, especially if it's flooding horizontally, you

(07:51):
can still go up into the parks around the homes where they
cleared all that brush, but there's picnic tables and trees
left up there and you go up there and and isolate these fish
again, they can't get away from you.
And that used to be definitely one of the, my favorite
patterns. The, the baits didn't surprise

(08:15):
me. You know, flipping buzz baits,
chatter baits. One thing that did kind of
surprise me, I didn't see a lot of spinner baits the final day.
Now I, I, I understand there wasprobably guys throwing spinner
baits. That's one bait I would have
loved in these conditions, but Ididn't see a lot of it.
But so the, the, the techniques were pretty traditional.

(08:35):
What you saw how they were catching the fish, you know, but
and you know, again, I think Trey McKinney was fishing, Kyle
Welcher was fishing the big run insurance.
And the key there is is and that's just such a timing deal
is you have the initial run in is muddy, muddy, muddy, muddy.

(08:56):
But after it quits for a while, it didn't take long in these
Ozark lakes for the run in to start to clear behind the mud.
And that's kind of what Kyle Welcher was doing and he was in
heavy recurrent. Trey McKinney was fishing
running, but smaller ones. And and again, but that that
that's a super pattern, but it'skind of a real timing key to

(09:20):
those, those particular type of patterns.
But now that was that was kind of neat.
Yeah, it was very much an old school tournament that I mean,
as a fan of the sport, I like tosee you guys react and how you
react in situations. And that was perpetual reaction.
The beginning of the tournament,they were reacting to dropping

(09:40):
water. And then, you know, when you
thought that they'd figured thatout, it was like, OK, well,
here's the next level of the game.
The water's going to rise again.And and you mentioned the the
storms, the electricity. I would say one thing that I
thought was really good from this event, of course, everybody
was safe. But we saw a lot of that on live

(10:03):
where anglers would be like, OK,I'm going to shore like
rightfully or wrongfully. So over the years some of that
stuff has been dramatized about staying out in it.
And pro anglers can be smart tooand and remove themselves from
the situation. And we saw some of that this
week, which I thought was very good.
I was very envious because that reminded me a long days when you

(10:26):
always went and, and those kind of conditions and the other kind
of really rough conditions eliminated 80% of the field.
Now it doesn't eliminate 80% anymore.
These young kids are that they think they're bulletproof, so
they're going to stay out there and fight it.
In the old days, I'd say if you had to be 80 guys, when those

(10:49):
days hit, you had to be 10. And because of that kind of
weather, and I missed that, I missed that.
I was really surprised to see what the amount of electricity
was there that they, they let them go.
And I, I wish I'd been there because I would love to fish in
those those kind of conditions. But I also know I've used up all

(11:10):
my thunderstorm electrical passes.
So I don't have many of those that I can use, you know, put
your card out, you know, Thunderbeings don't, don't, don't wipe
me out here today. So I'm being, I would probably
be one of the guys to salt coveron your dock or something like
that. There's nothing wrong with that.
What's the closest in your career?
Do you remember lightning ever getting to you?

(11:33):
We had a terminal of Paducah where I think it did get David
Fritz. That's right.
And, and I was very close to that.
I mean, it was that simultaneousflashing sound at the same time
that whether it hits you or not,it knocks you on the floor, you
know, of your boat. And so that's the probably the

(11:56):
closest I've ever had one in a, in a tournament.
I've had a few in practice because you tend to stay out a
little more in practice than youwould in a national tournament.
So now it's, it's I, I hosted paraplegic tournaments in
Louisiana where half of the people in that tournament were

(12:17):
hit by lost arms and legs due tolightning.
And then the one thing you got to remember, and the one thing I
learned there from a conservation guy that was
talking about lightning was thatthe golfers and fishermen are
the most hit, but it's more often not.
What you didn't realize is they're not hit when the storm's
coming. They're hit when the storm's

(12:38):
over. They think they think, so they
go out on behind it. They can't.
They want to get out and finish the round of golf.
We know the Fisher Biden's goingto get out and fish for the fish
off the backside is seems to be when most of these guys have
been hit. Well, thankfully nobody was hit
it. It was a great event, one of my

(12:59):
favorite events in a long time just because it was so
versatile. Like technique wise, we saw a
bunch of different things play. We got to see guys adapt to it
and then at the end of it, it came down to 1 oz.
Wes Logan won the tournament andthat one ounce.
What a lot of people didn't get to see is he caught a fish right

(13:20):
at the very end. That was the difference.
I mean it. I think he said he had a 211 in
the boat and he caught a 213 andwithout that, we're in a sudden
death. Fish off.
Right, right. No.
And that's, you know, you can talk about when you lose a
tournament, when you win a tournament in every way you want

(13:41):
to talk about it. But I've always felt that that
final two hours is when most tournaments will be won or lost
because guys get comfortable when they have a limit in the
vote and they may not push as hard, especially if it's a good
limit. They don't try to to gain
another four or five oz. And that goes on the whole

(14:03):
tournament. You should try that tournament.
They could have been lost the day before, they could have been
lost the second day when he pushed and caught a fish.
They gave him that 2 oz that he.A lot of times when we have a
good limit, we let up, we get off our fish, we want to save
them, which is managing your fish correctly.
But at the same time, I know when I wanted to St.

(14:24):
John's River in 2016, I almost lost the tournament the first
day because I, I, I, I got 17 lbs real quick.
And the bite had been tough in practice.
So I thought I'm, I got to save my fish.
Well, that, that's what made it hard for me to catch up.
And fortunately I caught 30 pluspounds and it was 2019 that I

(14:50):
did that. But I caught that 30, almost 35
lbs the final day to make up it because everybody else in that
area, that Johnson brothers werein that area and, and most of
the top ten was in that area were catching 2025.
And I, I left with 17. So that that that first day we
often forget about did he win that final day with that final

(15:11):
fish? He might have won it with
several fish throughout those final hours of the terminal
where he gained 3 more oz, four more oz, five more oz.
So you can never always maximizeyour catch.
If you can maximize it by 4 oz, even if you got £25, if you can
maximize about four or five oz, that's going to make a

(15:31):
difference somewhere, especiallyin that closer tournament like
this one was. Wes Logan, who won the event,
obviously talked about a specialtree, actually joked on stage,
said he'd like to take it back to Alabama with him.
But he had one tree that severaltimes throughout the tournament
he knocked on that door and every time he went to it, he

(15:52):
ended up catching a key fish. Was it a live tree or a floating
one I wonder? I think it was a live tree.
I mean I I'll have to find out but I believe it was a live
tree. OK.
How often does that happen? One specific little I mean, when
when you look at the thousands and thousands of trees that we

(16:14):
saw fished here this week, both live and floating, why is there
special trees like that? Well, it's, I'm just going to
throw confusing just the magic of fishing.
And we've all done it. We've all had a special rock or

(16:35):
a special little point or a special dock.
I mean, you go to Lake of the Ozarks and there's 50 docks in
that code. One of them is special, you
know, and that's why it was so hard to get fish against the
Hibdens back then because out ofA50 docks back there today,
every Kobe went in, they knew the special one and for whatever
reason, maybe brush bowels, the location, all that kind of

(16:57):
thing. So I'm not sure you ever fix it.
I immediately my brain kind of went special tree.
I bet it was bigger round than the rest of the trees in the
area, but it might not have been.
But that's just what I would theconclusion.
I would have jumped to a specialtree.
There's something different about it.
It could be the bot underneath the tree on the ground,
something that's holding the fish.
So no, it's it's neat when you find that and that's, but it's

(17:22):
the same time I don't think you can give an absolute answer what
makes it special. Yeah.
What stood out from you in this tournament as a special or
different or just stood out to Rick Klun?
Something he did, Dakota Ebert said.

(17:44):
Just blew me away. He was actually watching the
final top ten and he made this statement that versatility has
cost him a lot of wins and most of people's career.
We think it's the lack of versatility that cost his wins,

(18:07):
but I think he is closer to being right than than in the
because what happens in the union, what it addressed to me
mentally was we see like now especially we see most, so many,
what we call unknowns, Rookies come up and do well and they're
not super versatile. But as time goes by, Dakota's

(18:30):
been fishing for a while. We seek to become more
versatile. And that in the long run, I
agree with him. I mean, give me an example.
Me and Gary Klein used to discuss that in the 80s, our
whole careers, I've talked aboutit before.
And we would decide whether theyhow do we have to become more
versatile? Gary was a flipper and I was a

(18:51):
crank baiter, and all these other techniques went from time
to time. We need to learn them.
We need to become more versatile.
And I've always thought, but I've never realized what Dakota
said, Gary became a lot more versatile than the me.
He picked up, you know, doodlingand drop shooting a lot quicker

(19:11):
than me. He he was a flipper, but he
learned crank baiting. He learned all these other
techniques. Here's the problem with that.
And this is where I think Dakotais absolutely correct is it's I
won't argue that it's good to beversatile, but but when you get
in that tournament, you need to eliminate all those personal

(19:34):
things and pick one or two of them.
Too many times we tried to fish all of them and that takes it
and that kills us. And that killed Gary Klein.
Gary Klein was the one that doeshalf dozen more tournaments, but
he kept trying to be more versatile.
If he would have stuck with flipping, he'd been he would
have been like Danny. He was better than Danny or
Tommy Biffle when it came to flipping by a long shot.

(19:56):
But he he didn't do it. He didn't commit to it.
And so the fact that I think, I think Dakota and I'm just kind
of thinking for him now, I thinkhe's not had a great year.
I think he's realizing his versatility has hurting instead
of committing to one or two things that he's really good at
and committing to it. A lot of the young guys don't

(20:17):
have very much. So they commit to it.
That's why they do so good. They commit to their strengths.
And so now I guess the question ultimately is become more
versatile, but how do you use itcorrectly?
And right now, you need to have practice.
That's what practice is for. You can be versatile in
practice, but once a tournament comes around, you need to

(20:41):
eliminate even a lot of your other techniques.
It's kind of like the local thatyou go to back in the early days
especially and and I've been asked is how do you beat all
these locals? How do you find the best places?
And I went, I don't find the best places.
They know the best places. I just commit to one or two good
places. I find they try, they try to
fish every place they've ever fished in your whole life and

(21:03):
that kills them. And so that is similar to
versatility is a local has so many potential spots that he
tries to run all of them and that don't you that does not
usually work very well. Well, and that played out too in
this event. Andrew Loberg, who very nearly
won the event, came with him oneounce of winning the event let

(21:25):
it wire to wire right till the finish line and W Logan chased
him down and caught him. But on Sunday before take off, I
asked him, you know, how are you?
He doesn't have a lot of he doesn't have any history on 10
killer. How are you doing what you're
doing? Like if Jason Christie went wire
to wire in tough conditions, you're like, well, of course
he's from there. But he said his advantage that

(21:47):
week was his lack of familiaritywith that body of water.
Just because he was able to lookat it with fresh eyes, he said I
knew where I was catching him. And I just kept repeating that
in different areas of the lake. I and I agree with that, but I
think the final day doing that lost determine for him.

(22:09):
Yeah. Because I did not see the whole
final day, but he always looked like he and y'all kept talking.
They was fishing new water. He had to buy the final day 4th
day on the lot. Some of that other water had to
have special stretches in them and I don't I still, you know,

(22:34):
this game we're talking about two Oz, but he just didn't seem
like he had a very good day. That final day.
Even, you know, 11 lbs for him was way short of what he'd been
doing. So I don't know.
And again, this is hindsight, but I if I'm him, I saw Billy
Lowen do it. I even asked Billy a step, but

(22:54):
he ended up winning. He changed water to the final
day when he won it to St. John's, and his water was
getting better every morning andthat area he was fishing, but he
decided to change water. It didn't pan out for him, but
he came back to his old water, which I think Loberg.
Loberg, what's his name? Lo, Andrew.
Loberg, Loberg. Should have gone back to some of

(23:15):
his best water a little bit. Maybe he did not, just maybe did
not see it. Yeah, I feel like we he was very
versatile to the whole tournament.
But I do think like he fished some familiar stretches.
It's hard to tell because everything looked but right.
I mean, it changed every day it seemed.
But it did seem like he was going back to some familiar and

(23:37):
I mean, realistically, I always think the finish line tells the
tale. You know, if he and if he wins
it by 1 oz. If if W doesn't make that last
minute call and Loberg ends up winning this, we're like it.
Look at the masterful job. But the result far too often
judges the The performance gets judged on the result, obviously.

(24:00):
Yeah, of course, of course it does.
And so it's, but it's just, you know, I when I judge somebody
like that, I, I'm judging myselfand my historical self where I
made mistakes, where I, you know, where I, where I did the
right thing at the same time. But he had a pretty good lead.

(24:23):
And I think going at the final day, yeah, which was a pretty
good lead there. And so, so anyway, no, but he
again, he's going back to what he was said about not knowing
the lake was his friend is so, so true because it forced him to
fish current conditions, not past history.

(24:46):
And and the worst, worst mistakemost anglers make is fishing
past history. That's where the intellect gets
in the way. The intellect, yes, it's a can
be a faithful servant, but at the same time it you got to
realize it's always in the past.All intellect is in the past.

(25:09):
So how do you fish when we've heard over and over from the
fishing community, you got to stay in the moment?
Well, that means you got to fishcurrent conditions and the
intellect tries to prevent you from doing that.
So it's a battle to combine the two together.
You know, fish with gut, gut instincts and then use the
intellect once your gut really starts to put you in the right

(25:30):
water. So but we're kind of reversing
that now so much in our society and in fishing, we're we're
letting the intellect. That's again where that what he
said about not knowing the lake kept him in the current present
moment. How to you know how to fish it?
He hadn't fished that area in the past.
And then he would say, well, I know how to fish this area.

(25:52):
This is where you're going to fish it.
But that's past. That's his intellect telling him
something that worked in the past.
And all too often, that'll bite you in the butt.
Yeah. Another thing, you know,
Gerald's penalty is we've all done that and it's all happens

(26:13):
for different reasons. And I, I love forget who was
with you or Bowman who explainedwhy Trip Rolton changed that
rule because a lot of people were evidently saying that's
kind of a horse penalty to, you know, 2 lbs.
But Davy Hyde wanted to turn on Neely Henry on me because I had,

(26:34):
I had to call A5 pounder back then.
The rural was she called your biggest one.
And and so that was really severe.
So no, I can appreciate trip changing it to, you know, you
call your big, your smallest fish and then your chart, then
you're penalized 2 lbs. So, but just, but we've all done

(26:54):
that for differing reasons. It's it's our culling system.
And none of us have the exact same culling system, even
ourselves. Something will change it.
And I think he he just stood up and made one cast.
And I guess he caught himself. Yeah.
And I've almost stood up and I've caught myself.

(27:14):
Actually, one time I remember standing up and my my Marshall
said you didn't call the fish. I didn't ask him to say that,
but he just said you didn't callthe fish, you know.
Oh, shoot, Because you know, it's usually when you're in them
and Cali, you want to give because that's the one thing
that still drives me absolutely nuts.
And I'm not saying I'm saying itright.

(27:36):
It's these guys weighing their fish.
I can't stand that in the boat. Now, I can understand it when
you're calling, but then they'reweighing their first fish or
second fish or third fish. You guys know what those fish
are OK, but cost I'm I'm counting 1 he picks it up 1000
one 1002 and it's taking 10 to 15 seconds every time they do

(27:59):
that. OK, if you do that 20 times
during the day, it adds up to minutes and and how many casts
can are you losing a minute? More important than that, when
you fire fish up, we all know from our experience when you
fire them up, get back on them as quick as you can OK, because
you keep them fired up, you don't let them move away.
But when you're sitting there wasting 1520 seconds weighing

(28:22):
these fish, then it's kill. It can be a killer.
You can let them swim off cool off, but but that's also when
you own them like that hard thatyou can forget.
You know how that you got too many fish and well and get back
up and want to make a quick castagain.
So I fell, I fell for Gerald. But I know we've all done it.

(28:45):
I've done it probably more than once.
So, you know, I one of the one of the most embarrassing times
since my son river had Lake Darnell in Arkansas.
I I came in and the river went down there to help me call it
and I'm going. OK, Hold the bag there. 123, 450

(29:09):
crap. 6 And I, I had 6 and whatever and the river go river
and said, Dad, aren't you only supposed to have 5?
And I said, yeah. So I went up, you know, and
talked to to I guess it was Dewey back then, but and I had
to take that penalty, I'd call it, and then the 2 LB penalty.

(29:30):
So that was kind of, you know, it's just part of the sport
making, but he is still it's a controlled variable and you
should never allow a controlled variable to beat you, you know
when and that is definitely a controlled 1.
And of course I came in, lost the Texoma tournament.
BASS would have won it by 7 lbs and came in 14 minutes late.

(29:54):
But I lost 14 lbs of that 16 LB day and lost the tournament by 7
lbs. That's a controlled variable.
And I mean it's just just those,those you don't and then you,
you, those are the ones you never forget.
You know the uncontrolled variables, sometimes you can
forget. Today's high tech fishing world

(30:14):
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Check out Beat Down Outdoors. Now back to the show.
Yeah, I imagine those ones burn harder, being late, having a
short fish. The Cullen violation, like

(30:38):
Gerald had that, I mean, a fish care penalty that you can't
control that in some situations that that, you know, that just
kind of happens or doesn't happen.
But those other ones, I mean, just the simple fact that you
remember them as well as they dois it proves that they're
harder. You remember things that are
harder on you. No.

(30:59):
And you know mine, you're bringing up the Texoma
tournament again, which was verysimilar to this one.
Very, very high water, a shad spawn early in the morning out
on the edges of the of the bushes, the green bushes
especially. And that morning I called a
little bitty spotted bass, a 12 incher, OK.
And I pitched him in the boat and he fell off in the air and

(31:22):
hit the boat the way he was not look at him, he measured.
I put him in a live well and I knew you was going to call him,
but when I went to call him, he was dead.
OK. So I gave up probably 2 1/2 lbs
three or four times that day because I could not call that
dead fish. So again, that one.
Yeah, I don't have to Controlledvariable.

(31:43):
Yeah. I mean, I later when I looked at
him and I looked at him, why is he dead?
He had a big bruise on his side when he hit the ground.
He must have ruptured something.But.
But that was also Bryant. Brandon Card and I were racing
the final day to this one shad point.
And it was a fun. I mean, it was a fun race.
There was no OK. We said, OK, who gets there gets

(32:04):
to stay on it first, right? And I said, yeah, I said I
thought I could outrun him, but I didn't.
And he got there first. And he also caught that same
walking bait. He caught this big fish on the
final day at 10. Killer that was he caught the
his biggest fish there. He didn't win it, but I think he
was second by Hackney yeah and but that was my favorite thing

(32:27):
of this whole 10 killer tournament when Brandon Card
caught that fish it mean it's just the excitement in him how
he literally became more alive as his how much fun he had
catching that fish and he reminded me of statement that
Joseph Campbell makes made Joseph Campbell was wrote the

(32:49):
power of the myth and one of themost incredible books I ever
read. And then the whole book is about
humans throughout life is searchfor the meaning of life.
And finally Joseph Campbell saidI don't think we're searching
for the meaning of life. We're searching for how to be
more intensely alive. And when Brandon caught that

(33:11):
fish, he became more intensely alive.
And I, I loved it fishing grillson my back.
Just how excited it was. It wasn't even really about any.
It was somewhere back in his mind about how important that
big fish was in this particular event, but how much it brought
back his love for doing what he was doing.

(33:31):
And it's, you know, it's almost like then I don't know if he, he
had an epiphany and I had an epiphany that similar to that.
I, I felt it identically similarto that.
The one of the beauties of fishing is in fishing
tournaments, we get caught up inthe honors and awards.

(33:51):
OK, so much and the trophy and the check and people.
Hey, you did good. You, you know, you did well.
But really, I went to Redmond all American Lake Havasu in the
80s some, so I don't know the exact year now, but I had an
epiphany in my fishing. I realized that when I won that

(34:12):
event that I totally misunderstand the real honors
and awards of what I did. And, and I felt that with
Brandon, I just I have watched that.
I love that moment that he had in that boat that day when he
caught that how he talked about working that spook and not it
was just walking, but it wasn't a spook.

(34:33):
But anyway, and and I realized whether he consciously knew this
or not, he had that same epiphany that I had that honors
and words. There's only one true honor and
that's being true to yourself. And the only award is being
intensely alive. And it makes you more alive.

(34:55):
And fishing has that ability, you know, to get out there.
And you know, even this deal I did, it's close savant with
some, some anglers that fish with me.
I mean, I had two of the guys said, golly, this is the
greatest day of my life. And I can tell they say that,

(35:16):
but it, it, it gives them again,that intense way of being alive.
And fishing has, has been an incredible vehicle for all these
anglers, whether you, whether they're omitted or not, it, it
brings you alive to expanding your senses, your feel, your
taste, your smell, everything about fishing makes you use the

(35:40):
senses at a higher level. And that's life.
If you don't use your senses, you're a zombie.
You know, you see all the zombies movies, they don't have
any sensory abilities left except maybe 1 sound or
something. But fishing makes us, you know,
become much more aware of what life is.
And so I love that deal with thewith the random.

(36:04):
Yeah, yeah. I think that there's certain
things that happen and you have to talk about them or whatever,
but that every angler watching you just understood what was and
it's intensified because it's a big fish in a tournament.
It's going to help them. But ultimately the reason that
we all got excited is you're seeing a top water eat.

(36:24):
It's a beautiful shot, but it's just, it's, it's why we all
fish. Yeah, it's the energy level it
took Brandon to was beyond it being a tournament.
OK, It it no matter how many upsand downs you had in this sport,
you realize This is why I do it,this feeling I'm having right

(36:48):
now. Can you identify it?
Can you over analyze it like I do?
Doesn't matter. You know, This is why I do this.
And so I I love that part. Do you still get that same
feeling like when you were GrossSavon last week taking people
fishing? Do you still get that same
feeling? I did after the whole event.

(37:09):
I felt 20 years younger after that event was over.
Really. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I can't I can't totally explain why every day I got
younger, my body felt better, mymind was happy.
There was the any any like and the effects that it had on these

(37:31):
people that fish with me. I mean, it's so yeah, it
couldn't have been better turnedout better than it did.
It just there was not a negativemoment that I can remember in
five days. And that's rare.
I mean, that's really rare. You know, they, they were, they

(37:54):
were, they were all walks of life too.
You know, a lawyer, a tugboat driver, actually some fishing
croppie fishing guides, some retired guides, some guys from
Rogersville, Arkansas, that all they do is, is security stuff
from all the Walmart stores. And, and but this you could tell

(38:16):
each one of them came from for more than just to catch fish
that, you know, yeah, we had some great talk.
And mostly it was so positive. That's what I appreciated about
it because they didn't talk religion, they didn't talk
politics. And there's a lot of politics
going on, but there's never a word mentioned about it.

(38:39):
And, you know, that's there's somuch going on in the world to
pull you down. And I think this this really was
elevating. Everybody was there.
Yeah. Is that something you're going
to do more of in the future? I didn't know, but now yes,
because I wanted to see how thisfirst one went and we have one

(39:02):
scheduled in October on Grand Lake in Oklahoma and I have may
schedule one more actually in a place like Gross Savant.
I called them and said they would like to do 1 and we I
might, I haven't talked to them completely yet and I might do
another one. The one in Grand Lake is in

(39:22):
October. And because I always have a
reluctancy time frame to schedule these for Grosservon,
you know, you don't want to schedule it too much from now
when the Hurricanes are hitting.And then, you know, Grand Lake,
the coldest tournament ever fished was on Grand Lake in
Oklahoma in my whole career. And so and that was in October.

(39:44):
And this is when I want to do this when it's October because
it's such a great buzz bait timeof the year and a great square
belt time of the year. And that's I try to schedule
them according to that. You know what, what kind of you
know, it's just not catching thefish.
A lot of people, it's just they want to learn how to do fish
baits. Maybe they don't fish.

(40:04):
And that was the other thing that this one we did last week
is. They, they would say I hadn't
caught them on this kind of bait.
Can you show me how to fish thiskind of bait?
And so we would because they're,you can catch them on about
anything through that. So it's not like it's, and
that's, I guess it's the beauty of it guiding.
I got it for 15 years from my early career.

(40:26):
But the beauty of this trip, which I don't even want to call
guiding, was all guiding and allfishing tournaments.
The first step is finding the fish, and then you got to figure
out how to catch them. Here.
When you launched the boat, you'd found the fish, so it was
just figuring out the best way to catch them, and that was kind
of neat. So how does somebody get

(40:48):
involved with that if they wanted to do a trip with you?
Well, they'd have to just go online to, you know, Rick
calling professional angler and we have the dates already set up
for the one at Grand Lake and and then they can get more
information that way. OK, I, Melissa works her butt
off doing it. I I just get to go have fun.

(41:11):
OK, well I'll I'll put a link down below in the description.
How about that? OK.
I don't know if you've any otherpoints that stood out from you
from the tournament. I'll let you look over your list
there and make sure you got everything well I.
Pretty did get everything again.Probably what stood out was the
E bear statement and then Brandon Cards reaction.

(41:32):
But yeah. One last thing I want to tee you
up on because I'd love to hear your opinion on it.
And I look at our last two events, the Sabine River and now
10 Killer 2. Pretty compelling tournaments,
fun to follow. But one thing that stood out to
me is the need to be positive going into them because both of

(41:57):
fisheries, I mean, if you look at some of the stuff that
happens to be in the river, I mean, it's tough.
You're fishing for much smaller fish.
You just left Lake Fork. It's hard to make that
adjustment. So there was many anglers that
went into that kind of doomin and Gloomin and it showed in the
standings. And I think we had the same
thing happen in this event where, you know, the conditions

(42:20):
continually changed. There was a lot of people that
were like, why are we having a tournament here?
But did you find that through your career how important it was
to go into an event with the right mindset?
Absolutely. It's it's just like really all

(42:41):
sports. The mental part of the game is
by far the most challenging. And in this one, I mean
everybody. I mean, I really trained myself
to overcome negative thoughts and I had different methods to

(43:01):
do it because everybody has them.
I don't care who you are, you'llhave some negative thoughts and
you had and like a like a tournament, like it's being
let's use, for example, I alwaysfollowing the bottom line.
I go, somebody's is going to winthis tournament.
Why can't it be me? And it's probably an easier

(43:23):
tournament to win than than Lakeport.
And so that was always what I kind of fed off from was that
somebody's got to win this eventAnd, and the, you know, perfect
conditions, best conditions, youpeople, you have a lot more

(43:44):
people fishing at a high minimallevel.
That's why I hated the the no gorule through the weather,
because I knew that was going towould be going to be going more
now in perfect conditions. And that used to be a huge
advantage with that for me because I, I mean, I remember

(44:05):
there was term inside practice and then Rue Dave finally even
made this statement. He said there were states that
he'd go to the ramp and there would only be four or five boats
at the ramp And it was terrible condition.
And I'd always be one of those there because I knew what if I
had these conditions in the tournament, I had to know how to
fish. And but now there's the rules

(44:29):
of, you know, we don't go in badweather, then, you know,
everybody is it's going to be more positive.
But no, ultimately, and that's also just an evolution of
anglers. Some anglers start out positive
and then they the older they get, they turn negative.

(44:52):
And it's, it's a majority of them really.
It's not a, it's not a minority.And it is when you start out,
it's kind of like low burger. He, he, he only thinks about
reasons to succeed. OK.
And he doesn't have a whole lot of reasons to fail.
Knowledge gives you 2 types of information.

(45:13):
It gives you ways to catch the fish, but it gives you a lot of
ways not to catch the fish. Which one are you going to
emphasize as you evolve into being an angler, especially a
competitive angler? You know, used to, you know, you
like if the wind's blowing in anarea, you should think that
wind's going to blow right into where I'm at.

(45:33):
OK, cover that negative thought up with four or five positive
thoughts. Yeah, that's true.
But there probably won't be any other boats in there.
It's going to keep that water messed up a little bit.
So it's kind of like an early morning bike that's going to be
prolonged due to the cloud coverand the wind.
It's going to move the bait fishand you can predict into certain
areas. So I was always trying to look

(45:54):
at the, the, you know, the positive reasons, not just the
-1 you know, so it's no, it's a battle.
And there's, I don't know, I don't believe there's an angler.
This has not ever gone through that battle.
Yeah, yeah. Well, here's my conclusion.

(46:16):
You, you make this show better. You make the world a better
place. And I thank you for sharing some
of your inclusions with me, RickClen.
Well, my pleasure. I actually enjoy this.
And like you said it never, I never, I never know what's going
to pop out at me like a bearish statement, like Brandon cards
reaction. That's I've been doing it, you

(46:39):
know, for 51 years now. And I never, I never realized I
always looked at versatility as a positive thing, but I was, I
heard just over the weekend, it's not necessarily a positive
thing if not used correctly and most of us don't use it
correctly. So that was that was amazing,

(47:01):
amazing statement. Thank you very much, Rick Klenn.
Thank you, See you later. Get some rest.
Oh yeah, I'm all rest now. We got 7 weeks before the next
event. I will either be swimming with a
fish or casting to a fish every day until then.
They're good, Yeah. Good for you.
Always a good day when Jake's Take is back in your life.

(47:24):
And where will Jake's Take take us today?
I missed you man. I mean this is like 2 weeks.
I was jonesing last last Tuesdayfor recording but.
Whatever you were busy in the inthe in the Olympics, junior.
Olympics. I was, I was very busy.
I was don't. Make it sound like you missed

(47:46):
us, but we missed you. Yeah, well man, what has
happened since the 10 killer storms?
Yeah, a lot, a lot of storms. They still get a big tornado the
day after we left I heard hit right where our venue was.

(48:08):
So I think everybody. 'S OK, but if you ask me, the
way they take tornadoes in Oklahoma is not OK.
I mean, the fact that they're just like.
Ah, right. Yeah, that's what I get.
That's what I get. When I posted stories and and
posts about the weather and getting under, you know, under
rain cover with Andrew Loberg, it was like, oh man, you guys

(48:31):
this just normal Oklahoma weather.
They're like, they're like Dorothy and Toto.
Yeah, not me, not me. I did not.
I don't know what's more terrifying, the fact that you
have a storm that will potentially make you go hide in
a bunker or the fact that you have to hide in a bunker.
Like did you see on the way to take off each day on the left

(48:55):
hand side after you pass? Like I think it's their fire
department, but they have the community shelter and it is
literally 2 shipping containers.Like I think it's concrete and
it's, there's a lot more in it, but it looks like side by side 2
shipping containers. And I looked at that and I'm
like, could you imagine just being in there with everybody?
Just be like. And it says storm shelter.

(49:16):
There's a sign down there that says storm shelter.
Yeah, I passed that. I was like huh, Wonder if it's
bomb proof. I don't know.
No, no, that's a whole other story nowadays.
No, that's why I kind of hinted at that.
But the, you know, when I was a kid, I don't know how you guys
were. We, I lived in Tennessee and we

(49:38):
had tornadoes and pretty bad storms fairly regularly.
And our, our process was always a systematic approach.
And that was, you know, during hailstorms and, and a bad, bad
storms, we had to get under doorways and under tornado
conditions, we had to either go out in the hallway and tuck, get

(50:00):
up against the wall on our kneesand tuck our hands under our
heads, or we had to get under our desks.
And in no way, shape or form didanyone, No one, no adults, no
kids, cousins, uncles, ants, grandmas, grandpas ever, ever
encourage you to stay on the lake when there was lightning.
No, it was. It was always get away.

(50:24):
If you can hear it, fear it. If you can see it, flee it,
right? I think that was a pretty cool
thing that happened at 10 killeractually, because over the
years, and I mean everybody's kind of guilty of it, but things
like that have been kind of dramatized.
You know what I mean? It's storm coming, big waves,
things like that. I mean, it's it's TV that all
that stuff is dramatic. But I think to a negative where

(50:47):
people are like, yeah, you got to stay out in it.
I love the fact that we saw of the percentage of people that
had cameras, a huge percentage of them at some point said,
screw this, I'm going in becausethat is the wise thing to do.
I mean you. You really should.
I mean, even with Andrew, you know, we'd be out there and I

(51:08):
was watching radar. I was getting text messages.
I think I got one from you. I got one from lots from, you
know, Wes Miller telling us to be careful, look at the radar.
And then you'd see one and, and,and play the radar back and
forward and it would show you like, you know, it's going to be
here in 20 minutes. And it would be sunny where you

(51:28):
were at that point. And then literally, I'd be like,
hey, Andrew, I think, you know, for safety purposes, I can tell
you that I just got a text message from Dave Mercer.
And he said the tent has blown over and everyone's running to
their cars. And I'm like, it's still your
decision. And I'm here with you whatever
decision that you decide to make.

(51:50):
But I'm just telling you what's going on.
About about 10 miles away. Yeah.
Yeah, no, it was brutal. I mean, we were doing live at
the casino, like in a tent and this storm is kind of like you
can see it and normally it's frustrating because cameras it
looks the opposite, you know what I mean?
It never looks as menacingly as bad.

(52:10):
So I'm like looking back and I'mlike, we we're need to stop like
because when we can't do it, it goes off to the studio, right.
You know, so we don't just leavethe air and Zac Brown's like I
think we can get one more segment and I'm like, I
disagree. And right before the segment
started, he's like, we'll just stay until you're comfortable.

(52:32):
I opened the segment and looked behind me and said they said to
stay till I'm comfortable. Goodbye.
Set the phone down and walked off the set, which then Kyle
Jesse followed Jay. Security followed the only guy
standing there Shocker, Luke Palmer from Oklahoma.
From Oklahoma. Yeah, He's been through that

(52:54):
number of times. But yeah, that was actually, I
mean, there were times where it was, it was a little scary.
It's not wasn't about the rain or the waves.
It was about the Thunder, the lightning, and on the front end
of those storms that just look like a mushroom cloud, like a
nuclear bomb went off. Yeah.
And and you know, when that happens, you're just like, dude,

(53:15):
this one looks pretty serious. And the Tornadoes always occur
on the front end of the of the storms, you know, where they're,
where the cold air and the hot air meet.
And then all of a sudden it turns into this this massive
clap, this anvil cloud in the sky.
And it's like, OK, well, huh. As a camera guy, I'm going,
well, he's got a graphite rod. He's actually about 6 inches

(53:39):
taller than me, which is a really good thing right now.
But I am holding this electricaldevice camera with a battery
pack on it. I wonder who's going to get hit
first. So he all, but he was, he was
very, he always put safety 1st. And he just said, you know what?
We'll just fish until we think we're close enough.

(53:59):
It'll take us forget, I think. I think it was, I can't remember
the name of the dock we went to both times that we got out of
the storm. There's the same spot.
It's where Jason Christie keeps his pontoon boat.
And, and, and then the people were really nice.
We got to hang out with the owner of the dock and his family
and some other fishermen that came in to hang out.

(54:22):
So, you know, it was kind of a break actually.
And knowing the fact that that Andrew was thinking about, you
know, he was in the lead, you know, for three days.
So he's sitting there thinking, man, I hope everyone else is,
you know, undercover and no one else is still fishing.
Or if they are, I hope they're not getting bit.
So there was a lot going throughhis head, too.

(54:44):
And you could tell because the head was always on a swivel,
just kind of thinking about what, you know, what to do next
and where he was going to go after the storm cleared.
And to his credit, man, I think both times we came out of that
Marina, we ran around the went under the bridge and around the
corner and he actually caught, he upgraded like 3 fish that

(55:06):
that kept him in the lead because it was towards the end
of the day, like 1:00 in the afternoon when that really bad
storm came through. And he went around the corner
and literally called 3 fish in about 30 minutes right after the
storm. So it was, it was a it was a
pretty cool experience. He had an incredible tournament.
I mean, Loberg's a great angler.He had an incredible tournament.

(55:31):
But the thrill of victory in theagony of angling, as the great
Bob Cobb says, and that's exactly what it was.
He probably lost a tournament astough a way as you can lose it.
I mean, he, if you take the tournament and put it into a
sprinter's, he led the 100 meterdash for 99 1/2 meters and got

(55:56):
beat by, you know, literally 1 oz.
I mean lost one ounce, one ounceaway from a fish off.
Like I said, 2 oz on on stage. But he needed 2 ounces to win
one ounce. We would have had a fish off.
You would have been right back out there, which would have been
incredible. But I mean, you got to give the

(56:18):
kid respect. What a what a what an event.
I mean almost from wire to wire.Yeah.
And the interesting thing reallythat this is a nugget that most
people probably don't know is that where W Logan, the winner
of the tournament, was fishing. He stayed on that stretch all
day, literally going back and forth on this, on this long

(56:39):
stretch between points and Andrew passed by it like 3
times. And every time he went by he
said an expletive and said, man,that's where I want, I've been
wanting to go there. I like he was waiting to let
that stretch sort of settle in in the middle of the day or mid
morning, go in there and start because he knew those fish were
there and Wes never left it. So the irony on top of the irony

(57:03):
is that that's where he really want he thought he was going to
win the tournament. And Wes, you know, he got there
first and never left. And that's where he caught all
of his fish and caught up. And man, did he did he sack him
up that day? Holy cow.
What was it, 16? He had 16 something.
Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, 16.
Five. I'm just guessing to be honest,

(57:24):
right? I've been swimming for a week.
I've been, well, it's been away from it, so been.
Chasing smallies underwater. A large mouth.
Both, a little bit of both. I don't judge, but I've been.
They're all bass. It's.
Almost to the point where I'm wondering if it's a sickness.
I mean, we have bass opener, which seems strange to a lot of
the South that there's a bass closer.

(57:46):
We have bass opener. It happened this past weekend.
I didn't physically fish till Monday.
Saturday and Sunday I spent swimming with fish.
I'm like, what has happened to me?
I'm like, no, I don't know. I don't know if it's a good
thing or a bad thing, but I loveit.
Well, it's, it's got to be like when, when, when you want to pet
your friend's dog and you just meet him for the first time and

(58:07):
he won't come to you because you're a stranger.
So you do everything you can to try to coax this dog in.
You put your knuckle out. You, you get, I mean, do all
these kissy things and he still won't.
And then you go get a dog treat and he kind of comes to you and
you toss him a little bit of it and then he figures out you're a

(58:27):
nice guy and he comes over and let you pet him.
Is that what diving with fish and trying to get him on film is
like? It's nothing like that.
No, here's here's the best way Ican equate it to, because when I
hear people like you or swindle or Zona or whoever.
They're swindler. Zona no no, keep that love.

(58:50):
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, you're nothing like those
guys. No.
They're much more talented. They are.
That is a fact. That is a fact.
And much more talented than that.
But when I hear you guys talk about tree stand therapy and
stuff, like where you just absorb yourself in nature.

(59:10):
Oh, I see. And I've done that.
You know, I don't hunt, but I'vegone out with buddies and just
sat in tree stands. And that feeling when, you know,
when you first go in the forest,you get there and you know the
forest is feeling you there likeeverything's quiet all of a
sudden. But as you sit and you slowly
but surely the forest comes to life.

(59:31):
You know, first it's, you know, you start to see the chickadees
or a chickadee or a squirrel or whatever.
But then and then it then all ofa sudden you're in somewhere
that most people never get to see.
And that's a natural forest, youknow?
That's the real, you know. It all right.
That's exactly what I feel like when I'm swimming, because

(59:52):
you're down there, you know, when you first get in and that's
going to happen. But as you get down there, you
know, fish get used to you. You know, they're not afraid of
you. It's, I don't know, it's just a
weird do. You go back to the same fish a
lot or. Sometimes, yeah, yeah, depend,
depend on the situation. I mean, I have certain fish that
I've gone now multiple years. Like it's wild to me.

(01:00:15):
That's the one thing that reallystands out to me, just how
precise that is. Like there is fish and some of
them have a certain mark on them, you know what I mean?
Like so you know, that's the exact same fish.
And there is, there's one particular largemouth that I
have gone to a spot on a Reed bed, on a weed bed, and it's

(01:00:38):
been there three years in a row now.
Wow. I haven't been there yet this
year, but I'm interested. But every single year I'm there
and it gets a little bigger and you're like, oh, there he is.
And it's the same, same fish. So yeah, no, I'll go back to
fish. I mean, dude, I had walleye last
year that I would go to and it would.
And we talked about, you know, how fish move into areas at

(01:01:00):
certain time stuff. I had a walleye last year that
every single time I went to thisliterally 1 rock, I mean it's
kind of a stair step of rocks that goes down, but it would sit
on the 4th step down basically. And I would know and I would,
you know, I've got shots of tracking up the steps basically.
And I mean they're not real steps, but you know what I mean?

(01:01:22):
Like as it comes to shore dude, this walleye and you could check
it all day long. It would never be there.
But if you went there in the evening, you know, by 5:00 it
was locked on that rock and not another rock, not in the area,
not on the point, like on that freaking rock.

(01:01:45):
So yeah, no, it's. Just like the analogy used a
minute ago, you could be in a tree bow hunting for whitetails
and you could be 15 yards off inthe wrong tree.
You have to be in the right treeto hunt that trail or that
environment the right way. Whether it's a a bench that they

(01:02:08):
they walk along or whatever it is the path of least resistance
you can be off. And my guess is I would think
that that Walleye is there because that's the perfect spot
for him to feed in. And has to be and doesn't want
to be anywhere else because, youknow, I literally, you know, I
shoot it. And then, you know, as anybody
shoots, I mean, anytime you spook the fish, like if you get

(01:02:30):
a little too close or whatever. So the walleye would swim off
and I would have to swim away from the area, like not far,
just two boat lengths. And by the time I swam back,
guess what? It was right back on that
freaking rock. It is.
It's pretty wild. So it's interesting what you
learn underwater. I mean, I say two things about

(01:02:52):
long time ago, I used to live onLake McConaughey in Nebraska.
I lived there for 10. Years, right?
All right. Yeah, that's right.
And a friend of mine who was a scuba diver there, he was a
spear fisherman. He'd always go out and get his
walleyes with a spear gun and I went with him a few times and
one particular experience I had on the dam and that's probably

(01:03:13):
130 feet at the dam, maybe it isdeepest point and we were at
that at the at the sun line. It was about 15 feet down where
the visibility turned dark and that's where all the ale wives
were swimming was right on that visibility line.
And, and, and you could see these huge like the, the, the,

(01:03:34):
it would get dark over your headwhen the big ball of bait fish
would swim over 'cause we'd go down to about 2025 and just lay
in the rocks like you're saying,like a big lizard and just sit
there and let the environment come back to life and do its
natural thing. And So what I observed was this
lake is full of giant walleyes and giant hybrid wipers.

(01:03:57):
They would get up to 1516 lbs and so I'd watch these big balls
of bait fish swim over and the walleyes would literally be just
just swimming right behind and almost like pilots or, or whale
sharks or something swim behind the bait fish.
And then, and then a, a giant wiper would come out of freaking

(01:04:17):
nowhere and just go in and just start smacking, you know, bait
fish around. They'd run into the rocks and
then you'd see 3 or 4 ale wash flopping around because they,
you know, in the, in the chaos, they, they got injured and they
were going to die. And that's when the walleyes
would start feeding on them. And they always fed up.
The walleyes would always feed up.
So my point is, is that your experiences, I mean, I watch, if

(01:04:42):
not all, most of all your underwater clips on YouTube and
on social media. And I always think about what
you'd learn about the fish, how they eat, how they hide, how
they interact with each other. You know, sometimes they
probably let bait fish swim right by their nose and they
don't do anything. Aveco not only makes incredible

(01:05:05):
outdoor clothing, but they care about anglers.
With their 10% pledge, Aveco andthe Shed family donate at least
10% of the company's profits to conservation and making fishing
better. Now back to the show all the
time. That like that is the fallacy
that we all think like we all think oh, like if you put a bait
fish in front of a fish, dude, bait fish, crawfish, crawfish

(01:05:32):
crawl right past them all the time and they just sit there
like it's. They're high I.
Used to think like I used to know what I used to think.
Maybe I used to. Maybe that's what he's getting
from that rock. What are you blowing out rolling
on that rock? But I used to think like Pike or

(01:05:57):
Muskie and stuff like that, likethat gets anywhere near a bass.
A bass will take off, dude. I got footage of them swimming
right beside each other. They don't give it.
And I'm talking big Pike with a little bass.
They don't care. They don't.
I equated to this like I used tothink, like they always snap.
I think it's like humans really.I mean, we all walk amongst each

(01:06:20):
other, but every once in a whilethere's a psychopath that does
bad things. That's that's what it's like to
be like the only thing, and here's that.
Here's something that'll blow you away.
The only thing I've ever seen a fish immediately spooked from is
a cormorant. I was shooting underwater and
I'm following this bass. So I'm following the bass as

(01:06:41):
this bass is swimming along and it's chill.
Like there's no reason for this bass to spook at all.
And literally the bass goes, it takes off.
Like, I mean, there's times where you'll bang a rock, you do
something and you spook them or something happens.
But as that thing took along a cormorant, came down and right.

(01:07:01):
And this bass is too big to everbe eaten by a cormorant.
But but it spent its whole life.Running.
From I mean, it's the Big Brother theory, right?
I mean, you know, you might be able to beat your brother, but
he you don't know that yet and you're still scared of it.
So if if you don't think cormorant affect fishing, I got
footage that freaking proves it.No doubt.

(01:07:24):
And they can freaking jet underwater too, man.
Yeah, sometimes you catch, sometimes you catch a bass and
he has like a a cut right down inside and you go, what is that?
That's from a cormorant bill where it had it and the fish got
away. They found out on a walleye and
and crappie and stuff around here dead and they've got a hole
in their head because you know, they got hammered by that.

(01:07:47):
Like it's wild. It's wild.
But I think when I'm filming on shallow, on shallow bites or
shallow patterns, one of my favorite things to watch are the
birds. You know, the herons though,
either the white, the great white herons or the great blue
herons. They're always like, and when
they go down, I mean, it's just it's really cool to watch them.

(01:08:08):
I know they're killing your fish.
Most of them are feeding on baitfish, but it's pretty it's
pretty fun to watch. Yeah, Ospreys too.
They're super cool. I mean, they can't let anything
go. Like we have them all around the
house here and they can't let anything go until they land.
So you see them, they'll get like too big a fish and they
will like I've watched an ospreyliterally on the water.

(01:08:30):
Just have to do this the whole way back.
Sure. Wow.
It's wow. Yeah, it's wow.
And here's the crazy thing aboutOspreys and everything.
We've had bald eagle right here near my house, which is super
cool that I mean, you can see the point from our kitchen table
where he lives and and it's beenthere for years.

(01:08:51):
But dude, the only time that here's how we know the eagles in
the sky, every other bird, like right, Like nothing stops the
birds. The birds keep working, but all
of a sudden, if you're like, whyis there no birds all of a
sudden and you look up in the eagles in the sky, so.
They are the truly The Lion Kingof the sky.

(01:09:12):
Yeah, especially around lakes. Yeah, you know what we're not
good at what? Typing a plan, keeping a plan.
We had a conversation. We're shooting this late, we
need to get it quickly done. Not it'll mean it.
You can be quick and good, but. And I said, let's try and make
this 30 minutes, Jake. We are 22 minutes into this

(01:09:32):
Jake's take and we still haven'ttalked about anything.
Let's talk about let's talk about Andrew Loberg, his
experience on 10 killer. My experience with him.
I was actually with Jason Christie day one.
Uh huh. And dude, this is something else
I wanted to talk about. I'll make it quick.
So now you won't. Jason was like 83rd boat.

(01:09:56):
His boat number on day one was like 83.
Yeah, you're going blurry. That's fine, I'm lazy.
We're having troubles with the camera.
And, and he, you know, he was like, where am I going to go?
I don't even know where I'm going to go because I know
there's 80 some odd other boats out in front of me and I don't
want to get caught out there running around looking for a

(01:10:18):
spot to fish. So he comes out of the dock,
literally goes around the first corner and starts throwing a
spinner bait in a swim jig into these bushes and Wham, Wham,
Wham. Within like 15 or 20 minutes, he
had like 9 lbs in the boat. You know, he caught like 3-3
pounders. I don't remember exactly how

(01:10:39):
much they weighed, but he had three good fish.
And I was like, oh man, this is gonna be fun.
And finally, you know, aside from Lee on Lake Fork that one
year or two years, you know, youalways wonder how the home field
advantage is going to work for aguy.
And so knowing he ended up not doing well at all on 10 Killer

(01:11:01):
and he was looking forward to that.
He talked about it before we took off.
You know, it was literally when we got out there, he, he goes,
he said this, he goes, this is just feels so weird to be
fishing spots where I fished with my uncles and my dad when I
was a kid, where they taught me how to fish.

(01:11:21):
And here I am fishing in the bass master elite series with
100 other boats out here on the lake that I grew up on as a kid.
And I felt that when he said that I felt it.
That's how I feel about Kentuckylake.
And, and I, I, I don't think I used to think it was the
pressure because they felt like they had to do really well.

(01:11:41):
But I've gotten to the point nowto where, and I think that's
even what some of the anglers think, but it grows on
Chickamauga. If Lee doesn't do well on Lake
Fork, wherever you're talking about on their home lake where
they grew up, I honestly believethe reason they normally don't
do well is because there are so many people.

(01:12:01):
You can't hide spots anymore. And there are so many people on
a lake that when you go to your best spots, if you don't get a
high boat draw number then or even if you do, you can't get
into the you can't get into the rotation that you want to.
And you know, those fish are there, but by the time you get

(01:12:22):
there, but they've been beat up and it's just not what it was.
And you end up, you end up, you know, overthinking it or you,
you, you let it get to your headat that point and it just goes
down the drain. And I truly believe it's really
the, it's the tournament and it's not the person it they're
they're not, they don't choke. They just have nowhere to go

(01:12:43):
because they're used to fish in a lake on their own and and not
having all that pressure. Yeah, and, and, and it's a
wealth of stuff they have that it's so hard to balance that,
you know, if you have 4 areas, it's not hard to balance.
I mean, you're going to run those four areas.
One thing we had Christie on Saton Saturday in the teeming rain

(01:13:04):
and he's like the whole time I'mhe's like, man, these run offs,
these run offs are going to be key.
These run offs need to be on therun offs right now.
And I'm like into me. That's the injustice of kind of
like if he was in it, that's when the local knowledge comes
because you know where every runoff is.
And we saw anglers catch them onrun offs and we heard anglers
multiple times say, I wish I knew where more of these were.

(01:13:26):
Christie knew where all of them are.
And in that situation, you can take advantage of it quickly to
balance. You know, you heard him talking
about shallow, deep and and I mean, he lost a couple of key
fish on day one that, you know, would have changed his entire
tournament. But I was at his place on
Saturday and it just proved to me why he's the lethal

(01:13:52):
competitor that he is like, you know what I mean?
Like I expected, will he be likedown in the dumps?
But he was cool. He was like, man, I just it
happens like it's part of tournament fishing and been here
before. You know, this one hurts.
But he was very, you know, he was very cool about it, actually

(01:14:12):
was more impressed with what Loberg was doing.
Like, he's like, what Loberg's doing is amazing, the way he's
work in different areas. And so, yeah.
I mean, he was. Tournament fishing.
It's an evil sport. You hardly ever win.
Right, exactly. It's even lower percentage than
baseball. Oh yeah, dude, the greatest to

(01:14:32):
ever do it did it for 32 years. Kevin Van Damme won 25 events.
Mm. Hmm.
In 32 years, that's not even onea year and he's the best ever.
Right, Paul Wood Pollinic said it best.
He said a few years ago I remember him saying if I could
win one every other year, then that's Hall of Fame level bass

(01:14:55):
fishing like that is, you know, that's how low percentage it is.
And Jay, I wish I could have spent more time with Jason in,
in the boat because he talked a lot about his uncles.
Like I, I, I would imagine what was going through his head was,
you know, what would this uncle do?
Because he said he has, there was five brothers and his dad's

(01:15:18):
family and they were all fishermen and they all had a
specialty. They one was a spinnerbait guy,
one was a top water guy, one wasa chatterbait guy, one was a jig
guy. You know, they had all these
different specialties and he, I remember him telling me, he said
I had, I had some, I had a lot of good teachers.
It wasn't just one had all theseuncles that love to hunt and

(01:15:39):
fish and that's all they did. And that's where he spent all of
his time. And he knew every Bush on that
lake and every point and every rock and every runoff.
And those runoffs were really interesting because they were
running off on solid rock. So they were running off into
the lake very clear. So wherever that runoff was,
there was Clearwater, which you can only imagine the amount of,

(01:16:03):
you know, biomass that would gather in those runoffs.
And some people caught them there and some people didn't.
But you, you just know they werethere.
They just didn't figure. The ones that didn't couldn't
figure out how to catch them. But I'm sure Jason could have.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, and the other thing to
keep in mind is what we talked about to start.
This is the weather. Those fish are used to it.

(01:16:24):
It's not like this was just a torrential rain that happens
once a month. I mean, they've been having that
for the last two months there, basically.
And Chrissy talked about how important it is to be there
right as soon as it starts happening.
And, you know, yeah, similar to the forest and everything, you
see everything come to life and how everything starts to feed
off each other and. Yeah, so.

(01:16:48):
It's symbiotic and, and, you know, moving along to Loburg,
I'd never been in this boat and really hadn't thought much about
him. I know he's, you know, his
roommates are younger. He's actually 31 years old, for
those of you that don't know of that group.
Yeah. And, And so this is something

(01:17:11):
that was kind of eating at me after I got to know his little
group of, you know, his his roommates.
Essentially, he's traveling roommates.
The third squad I call him. Let's see.
It's Paul Marx, Tucker Smith, Emil Wagner and Andrew Loeber,

(01:17:32):
right? And, and they're the reason it
became the surge squad because they're always like, I got to
surge up the leaderboard. I got to So they were the
they're the surge squad which. They're they're you know,
they're not they're they're no joke.
First of all, fishing. They can catch them however they
want to catch them. And the more I got to hang out
with them, having been in Andrew's boat for three days, I

(01:17:54):
got to hang out with all of themeven before takeoff, sometimes
after takeoff at weigh insurance, and then at the on
the last day at the at the finalweigh in between, you know, Wes
Logan and Andrew Loberg, I was standing back, back by the media
trailer with Andrew's 3 roommates and I was getting to

(01:18:19):
know them. And the more I got to know them,
the more they opened up and I think they thought, I don't know
why I have this feeling, but I think they thought that I might
not be on their side. And I found it to be very it ate
at me because I like everybody, or at least most people.

(01:18:41):
And, and I, I didn't want, I gotto know them a little bit and I
opened myself up to them becauseI wanted to get to know them
better. And the more I got to know them,
the more fond I became of all ofthem.
They're all really good guys. They all were rooting for, you
know, they weren't rooting against W Logan.
They're rooting for their roommate, Andrew Loberg.

(01:19:03):
And that's a natural part of, ofbeing friends and comrades and,
and all that bonding and all that stuff.
And I just, I, I, I told them all, every single one of them, I
told them, I said, you know, I know you guys are under a lot of
pressure. You guys are feeling the young
gun experience. You know, at times I'm sure you
feel like outcasts. And Logan Parks, he's, you know,

(01:19:25):
he's part of that little group too.
And no. Room together, but I mean him
and Tucker, obviously college teammates and.
Right, right. And, and I mean they want
$1,000,000 together. Yeah, yeah, there's that.
That'll borrow that. Yeah, yeah.
And if I want $1,000,000 with somebody, I'd probably be tight

(01:19:45):
with them for a while too. Well, we started talking about
the negativity and the criticismthat they felt like they were
under and they didn't deserve. And I agreed with them.
I said I, I agree with you guys.I'm on your side.
I'm on everybody's side. But as far as this particular
issue goes, I'm on your side because all they've ever done

(01:20:06):
is. Is fish they grew up fishing and
they, they, they, they used whatever tools they had in front
of them. And it wasn't like they ever set
out, you know, to be cheaters orcut corners or any of that
stuff. And I found the longer the
conversation went, the more openthey became with me and the more
comfortable they became with me.And Logan Parks, he's, I think

(01:20:29):
he said it best. He called his his, his HDMI cord
between his or I'm sorry, his transmitter cord to his Garmin,
his live scope cord to his Garmin monitor on the front.
He called that his umbilical cord because that's kind of the

(01:20:50):
inside joke for them that everybody thinks that all they
can do is live scope so that that cable is their umbilical
cord to fishing. And so we all had a big laugh
with that. And, you know, I just want to
make it known, you know, the to their critics out there, you,
you don't have to like it. And and you know, you've always
said that and and so have I, youdon't have to like it, But these

(01:21:13):
are nice. They're good kids.
They're and they work their asses off and they try really
hard and they just want to be a part.
This was a dream of theirs to fish at this level.
And I think sometimes they feel like some of that, some of that
enthusiasm and, and camaraderie that fishing is supposed to be,
has been stolen away from them because of all the critics out

(01:21:36):
there. And they don't deserve it at
all. They're, they're really, really
good guys. And I'm rooting for them even
more so now that I've gotten to know them a little bit better.
I've known Tucker and Logan and Hayden Marbut on the other side.
I've, I've known them for, sincethey were in high school.
I covered them in their high school championships and I've
got to know them and their families very well over the past

(01:21:58):
six or seven years. And I've, I've, I've always felt
like they were good people. They have good support systems
behind them from their families.And, and even I want to add this
to the, to the group too. Easton Fothergill.
He messaged me the day before yesterday on Instagram because
he's he keeps up with my son Walker, mostly his fishing and

(01:22:21):
boxing stuff, but he he sent me a private message and he goes,
you know, it wasn't that long ago that I was fishing out of a
10 foot kayak, just like your son is doing the same exact
thing. And dude, I almost teared up.
You know, I'm a softy as it is anyway.
And I, you know, because I've been thinking about that my son
is in love with bass fishing. He's he, his 10 foot kayak with

(01:22:46):
his little 33 thrust Mincoda might as well be in $100,000
bass boat. And he's not using live scope.
He's figuring these fish out. He's starting to understand
patterns where they like to sit on the shady side of boulders
and under, you know, tree umbrellas and all that stuff.
And, and when when Easton said that to me, it hit me and it hit

(01:23:09):
my heart and it hit my soul. And, and you know, someone like
Easton Fothergill would, would message me because that took him
back in his time. And it really wasn't that long
ago that he was doing the same thing.
So shout out to the young guys. I love y'all.
You guys are great guys and I will always defend you in any

(01:23:31):
capacity knowing that you guys are doing the right thing.
You're doing what you love and keep doing it man.
Just keep doing it. Says a lot about Easton to even
realize that like let's be honest, I mean at 30 years old,
at whatever, but at 22 to like look at that.
And with everything he's got going on in his world, let's be

(01:23:52):
honest, I mean a 22 year old version of me, I ain't looking
at anybody's son. I'm that disconnected to reality
if I'm experiencing what he is. So it says I.
Was in bars, getting at fight, getting in fights at night.
Oh, I heard Easton loves to throw him.
I mean, he no, he doesn't. He doesn't.

(01:24:14):
I'm throwing. Flipping jigs maybe?
No, no, they're good. And hey, there's part of it that
I think is part of being a youngperson in a sport is part of it
being a young person in a job isyou're gonna like, it's not
always gonna be warm and fuzzy. I mean, there's so there's part

(01:24:39):
of it that's that. And part of it is just here's my
growing problem with the whole forward facing sonar debate.
Nothing is a fact. No, but nothing's a fact.
Like, you know, if you watch a video for somebody that is
against it, they will tell you that you know it's bad because

(01:25:01):
it's boring to watch. You're right in some situations.
They hate it because it's not the fishing they grew up loving.
They're right in some situations.
They they dislike it because they're not good at that.
They're right in some situations.
Remove the other one the the other, the young guys who think

(01:25:22):
that well, you shouldn't just, you know, like you shouldn't
hate on something. They're like, no, you should
there you. I can understand why people
don't like it. I can understand why people say
it's boring. I can understand some of this,
but but what I'm saying is I understand both sides like the
world is doesn't have to be because I love bass fishing and

(01:25:46):
when I learned something cool from something, I love that
right or wrong, you know what I mean?
Like so just because there's certain ways of fishing that
that don't relate to me, you know what I mean?
And it doesn't have to be bass fishing, but fly fishing.
I mean, I don't watch that and be like, I want to do that.
I really I need to be a river run certainly.

(01:26:11):
But for other people it's different.
So what I'm saying is the world just needs to chill.
It's not a US against them. It's not, you know, there's
different circuits doing different things.
Great enjoy it all because we'reall watching live bass fishing
like the US against them thing that is just constant.

(01:26:32):
I don't understand and I get it sells points better like if I if
I made a stronger statement and went one way or another, it
would get a lot more clicks. But the truth is I love all the
veterans. I loved watching swindle fish
the way he fished. There's nothing that excites me

(01:26:52):
more than watching Hackney, but I also love the young guys and
their excitement. I love, like if you think of the
Surge squad and those four guys,what they're going through, what
they are having right now this year, in the next few years,
Easton, those are the good old days for them.
Those are the days that they're going to look back and love.

(01:27:15):
And miss and miss when when the limelight and the spotlights
completely shining on them, they're the old guys in the
circuit and they're looking at what the new guys are doing.
There's always a rookie initiation and every
professional league, football, hockey, basketball, baseball,
all of them. There's always that, you know,
flamboyancy that gets gets criticized.

(01:27:37):
And and then the guys that are quietly good, like you're
Mahomes guy, you know, they're the hate.
The hate comes with success and it's part of it.
And they, you know, they're going to have, they have to
learn to deal with it as much asyou know, everyone else has to
learn to deal with them. It's part of their process.
And the reason I brought it up, it's, it's really not to me a

(01:28:00):
front facing sonar issue anymorebecause you can either love it
or hate it. I could care less, but I don't
think they deserve to be deemed bad people or or criminals in a
sport that that they love as much as they they love it just
as much as KVD or swindle or whoever it is out there.

(01:28:24):
They love it as as much if not more.
And they're getting criticized by people that were their heroes
when they were little bitty kids, kids, people that looked
up who I don't know specifically.
I just know that, you know, as the, as the word travels through
the circuit on the professional level, you know, it's a 5050
division oftentimes and, and youjust look at it and it changes

(01:28:47):
your attitude. And, and again, the reason I
brought it up is because I don'tbelieve that those young men
deserve that. But listening to what I just
said 30 seconds ago, you know, being successful in a
professional world like this where there's millions and
millions and millions of people that fish and they want to be at

(01:29:09):
that level and they watch it on TV or they keep up with it, or
they just read magazines or watch YouTube on tutorials and
how to be better at it. All the people with all the the
eyes on, on on bass fishing as it is, I just feel like they
deserve to be known as good, good kids and they can fish
however they want to. And you can hate them for that,

(01:29:31):
that's fine. But they're not bad people,
period, Period. Great people.
Great people. Yeah.
So what? How did Loberg do what he did on
the water? Like, it did seem like if Jason
Christie was doing what he did, he is in different areas and
stuff, it would seem like, oh, well, of course Christie's doing
that, but but you have very little knowledge of the fishery.

(01:29:54):
Like what? What?
What stood out to you, angling wise from Loberg?
He he moved around a lot and he would find a positive bite even
if they were little ones. And then he would narrow that
down into he really the last twodays he really, really day 2 and
day three he caught most of his bigger fish on the bushes that

(01:30:20):
were either isolated or at the end, at the ends of the points.
And almost all of the fish, the falling water had pulled the
fish out to the edges. And and not to be critical of
Jason, what he was doing at all,because, you know, everyone
knows that we're friends And I love Jason.

(01:30:40):
I, I, I, he, I look up to him and he's, he's always going to
be one of the greatest anglers, you know, that I've ever covered
in my career. And and yet at the same time,
Andrew Loberg was fishing some of the same exact spots.
And I think he had just, either he came through at a different

(01:31:02):
time when the fish had moved up,or it was reloading when he got
there. You mean everybody knows there's
a little bit of luck in some of it too, right?
But at the end of the day, he was, he started focusing in
they, they at the end of day 2, day three and day four, he, he
struggled a bit, but he still had that same pattern.

(01:31:26):
And he was flipping, I mean, hisbugs, I think he was, he was
flipping or was he flipping a rage bug and on a Texas rig.
And it was no different than anything else anyone was doing.
He wasn't further away from the bushes or using live scope or
any of they never even turned his live scope on until the end

(01:31:46):
of day 4 when he had to go catchhis limit like he ran out of
fish and he was starting to panic.
And he went out and live scoped like 2 upgrades within an within
45 minutes of check in on day 4,which made which actually made
it that much closer than it would have been at the end.
But you know that that was it. He just, he just hit the right

(01:32:09):
spots at the right time and, andhe kept, if they didn't bite, he
would, he would hit the outside perimeter bushes first and then
hit the the isolated either treelimbs or bushes out in the open
water off the points and then even in back in the coves.
And that's really where he caught most of his his big coal

(01:32:32):
fish. I've run a Yamaha outboard for
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every time. If you enjoy this podcast,
remember Yamaha supports it and they care enough about you to
make this ad read very short. Now back to the show.
Did he? Now we're just doing coverage

(01:32:53):
and we can't see exactly where he is, but it definitely felt
like he was going to different areas.
So at the tournament, bought on Day 4, maybe recycled had
narrowed stuff down. That's what it looked like
through coverage. Was it like that?
The bridge. So at the end of day three, he
caught, he had like 3 or 4 big, big upgrades.

(01:33:14):
I mean, like significant, you know, he was, he was calling,
you know, a 14 oz fish and A, and a pound two and a pound
eight with, you know, threes andthree and three and 1/4 and 3
1/2 LB fish, maybe even a four here and there.
And he, he back, he went back inthis really shallow Cove where
it looked like a gar hole. There was tons of cart back

(01:33:37):
there spawning. And it was, it was where I told
you when we came out of the Marina and went left where he
caught, he made some upgrades this time he went to the other
side of the bridge and went downinto that pocket.
He said, I've never even fished in here before.
But there was like 4 or five dead bushes that were isolated
out in the shallow water that hewanted to hit and he freaking

(01:34:00):
caught one. And in every one of them, even
if they weren't an upgrade, he caught a fish in every one of
them. So he started settling in to
that pattern. He fished, you know, both sides
and in between and in the middle.
And then he would pick up a, a chatter bait and throw it, you
know, between bushes and all that stuff.
And he, he seemed like he alwayscaught him on a, on a, on a

(01:34:23):
crawfish plastic, whether it wasa jig or a, a Texas rig in those
isolated bushes. And so on day four, he thought,
OK, well, I'm going to go fish my normal morning pattern.
And then which were docks, He was flipping docks back in that
one Cove. And, and he had been successful

(01:34:45):
for three days doing that, caught some really nice fish
back there. But on day four, that morning
that it really didn't produce, oh, I know what I want to talk
about too. That fish that he missed that.
He lost that. Yeah, he he lost that Chris.
Johnston went back in there and caught it.

(01:35:07):
That was absolutely the same fish and I knew that Chris had
caught it and I couldn't tell. Andrew obviously couldn't tell
him that he was wasting his timebecause he went back to he's
like, I'm going to go catch thatfish again.
And so for two, two days. After that you knew and he kept
going back to him, but he never knew.
He never knew. He never knew it was so pain.

(01:35:30):
It was painful because he, he, he would comb that location of
he would, he would comb it with,with a frog, a jig, A chatter
bait, a spinner bait. I mean, he literally was like,
God, God, man, I must have really stung that fish.
So that was interesting. But but yeah, he was, he was fun

(01:35:53):
to cover. I I, I love being in the bow
with him. We talked a lot about California
and his family and, and, you know, growing up on Clear Lake
and catching big fish. And as I posted pictures and
video clips of him on my social media, I was getting lots of
feedback from the California bass anglers that were his

(01:36:14):
friends that knew about him growing up.
And they all have nothing but great things to say about Andrew
and all the all the damage he did in tournaments.
And even as a kid, they knew he was going to be a great angler
one day because of his passion for fishing in California.
So and now he lives on Guntersville.
I mean, it's it, it was, it was a, it was a great, I had a great

(01:36:38):
time hanging out with him and I hope to be in his boat again
soon enough. I feel you will.
I feel you will. That's so painful.
You never think about that. Like the camera guy knows and
you can't say anything. You're just like.
He caught it 2 hours and 23 minutes after Loberg missed it.
And so Loberg, you know, I mean,we've all caught or missed a

(01:37:03):
fish and then casted back in there, caught another one the
same size, wondering if it was the same fish or if there was
just multiple fish in there, whatever.
I guarantee you that was the same, that was the same bass
that he missed. And it was it was hard biting my
tongue watching him waste all that time in there, knowing that

(01:37:24):
Chris had already plucked it outand and and again, you know, the
critics out there and what they were saying about Chris was just
beyond me. I'm like, are you?
I can't actually tell me. What?
If I say anything because I'm from the same country as Chris.
People are like, oh, he's. Defending Chris, and I mean, I

(01:37:45):
like Chris, he's fine, but he's not the first guy defend on the
Elite series. But everybody was following
everybody. It was a 13,000 square foot like
one of the smaller lakes we've had an elite on.
It was a merry go round. That's what it was all about.
But that fish because troubles for many people, it proved to me

(01:38:05):
the internet's absolutely insane.
Because they're insane. It's insane, dude.
I was hosted live and I mean, Davey just made a comment.
I think that's the same vision. It became a thing.
I mean, just something to talk about and then the next thing I
know, my phone's blowing up because somebody's saying that
I've called while I was hosting live.
I picked up I. Tasted Chris and.

(01:38:27):
Contacted Chris and they're likequick Loberg lost one.
Go get it on this. Telepathic.
Telepathic communication first. Of all, did you imagine like if
a buddy of mine called me and said Jake just lost a fish on
this point, go fish. I'd be like, well, screw you, I

(01:38:48):
don't want to go fish and fish. That was like the internets,
insane, but it is. And I will tell you right now, I
knew that damn fish. I knew it was caught 2 hours and
23 minutes later. And for two days he went and
tried to catch that fish. And I just, I, I had to bite my
tongue. You know, rules are rules and
you can't get involved in that stuff.

(01:39:10):
And for people, I mean, no one ever said anything about me, but
God, they're ridiculous. You should have told them.
They might now if. You'd have told me.
I would have told Loberg throughmy telepathic You know, do not.
Go there. Well, they, Yeah, well, they
know for sure. I didn't say anything now
because you kept going back to the same spot.
And Wes Miller, you know, he told he was flying the drone.

(01:39:32):
He told me he goes. He called me and said, do you
know how many people have fishedthat same exact point before
Andrew Loberg even hooked up on that fish?
And how many people came in there fishing after Chris
Johnston caught that fish? I mean, it was just that was the
that was a very communal spot for a lot of people to fish.

(01:39:54):
And it just Chris Johnson, just he's the one that caught it.
Which also I mean when you coverthe elites not on a boat.
Like if you're just randomly covering it gives you a real
glimpse of how freaking often that happened.
Like. I remember tournaments where me
and Overstreet would sit on a point and we count like we got

(01:40:17):
42 of the 100 anglers have fished this point today.
Like we're going to move to another point, but we're like,
let's just stay here because they keep coming.
And it's so funny because you see a boat come ripping around
the corner, and if there's a boat on it, that guy goes.
But that boat can just just havejust left.
I mean, the bubbles are still inthe water.

(01:40:38):
That guy comes around the corner, there's no boat on it.
Yes, I got it to myself. But meanwhile, the thing's only
been free for 30 seconds. Like it?
That's the timing efficient. Easton talked about on Ray
Roberts at the Classic when Lee and I took off, you know, Easton
and Lee were and, and Corey and Milliken were all kind of

(01:41:00):
fishing in that same area. And when Lee took off, he's
like, man, we got it. We got a scoot.
So we come around this little island and we take off and
Easton caught like a six or seven pounder in his freaking in
his motor in his prop wash. Oh yeah.
Yeah, there's lakes where that'sthe play.

(01:41:21):
The way to do it? If you have a bull pass, you
cast at their prop wash and there's lakes where again, I
mean it's like run offs, like fish.
Get used to what? So yeah, there's like where that
is the play. I filmed Takahiro Omori when
Wheeler one time, he was, he wasthrowing top water in the, in

(01:41:44):
the prop wash of those barges that were in neutral, but they
were still spinning and they were parked at those giant
pillars. Every time a, a, a tugboat or a
barge would pull up there and park, that's when we went over
there to that big flat and he was throwing that giant swim
bait catch and, and, and the spook on top water and he won
that tournament. People didn't realize he was

(01:42:05):
actually catching them in the current from the prop wash off
those barges. Yeah, it's a thing.
It's a cool sport, yeah. Why is there?
Why is there any hate involved in it at all?
There's none, There's none. I've decided to.
I think there's hate in everything nowadays, though.
Like truly, truly. Somebody's pissed off by the

(01:42:26):
color. I hate me right now.
Somebody. Somebody hates me right now,
baby. USA Boxing.
There's somebody in some other country right now that hates me
because I'm wearing this hoodie.I could not think of anybody.
Not in Canada. I'm not saying Canada.

(01:42:46):
You're putting me in an uncomfortable situation.
I live and work in the 2 greatest countries in the world.
If you ask me, I'm very lucky. Absolutely.
And yeah, yeah, so great tournament.
Loberg's got a great future. And, and I'm happy for Logan.

(01:43:07):
Happy. It was hard.
It's hard. It's hard to root for a friend
when he's competing against another one of your friends.
And Wes, Logan's a great kid. You know, he's he's, we've seen
him have his ups and his downs and, and it was really nice to

(01:43:29):
see him win. He he, he deserved that.
And and he freaking crushed it, dude.
I mean he freaking crushed it onday four at 10.
Killer. Yeah, he sure did, and he does
deserve it. And he's overcome a lot.
I think it's wild that he won one on Mother's Day and one on
Father's. Day.
No. How cool is that?

(01:43:49):
Cool. Little caveats to it, but
that's. Got to be a.
That's got to be a first time ever.
Yeah, I would assume, I would assume, but yeah, no, a a great
tournament real quick. I like tank killer.
Yeah, I loved it. I I think we'll probably be back

(01:44:09):
and I hey, all the negative everybody talked about the high
water. I think that made the tournament
even more compelling. It continued to change.
Everyday it changed. Yeah, it was very.
It wasn't always going down, sometimes it was coming up.
It changed a lot and there's a lot more big bass in there than
even the locals realized. One guy told one local guy who

(01:44:35):
one of Jason's friends told me that they at the dock when we
were hiding out from the storm. Sorry I keep turning.
Left or not, I've got a really bad cramp in my calf right now.
Oh God, yeah. Wow, it's been a long segment.
It has. One of the guys at the dock told
me that their nickname for that lake is Time Killer.

(01:44:56):
I've heard that. I've heard that.
No, it's special place. It is special place.
There's a special person behind me right now.
Hi, Scarlett. Hey, Scarlett, she can't hear
me, but oh, she's sneaking up. Dave says hi, Can you wave hi

(01:45:17):
cutie Pie? This is my little This is my
little sweetheart, Scarlett. She can't hear me so I'm just
waving. This is not great for the audio
podcast, but there's a very cutechild running around in the
background, digs daughter Scarlett.
Well, we said we were going to try to keep this around 30 to 40
minutes and we're now 58 minutesinto it.

(01:45:39):
No, we're not good at time. Not good at time.
Real quick. Yep.
Give me a quick update on USA Boxing.
You showed the shirt. How did you find your world?
How did the Junior Olympics goal?
It went really well. He did not middle, he made it to
the quarterfinals and that's where he ran into the reigning

(01:46:00):
five time national champion Antonio Johnson in his weight
class. He's actually that the he won
the gold medal this year, so he is now the six time national
champion. And while he did lose the fight,
I would there was no debate on that at all.
Walker looked really good and he's he's there.

(01:46:22):
He's at that level at the national boxing level for his
age class and his weight class. And I think it inspired him.
We actually stayed after the quarterfinals were over.
We stayed for two more days to help.
I help coach some of the other teammates and we were we hung
around to spar because as as fighters lose out of their

(01:46:45):
brackets, they have two rings inthe back warm up area for
everyone to go and and match up weights and ages to where they
could spar. So in two days, Walker, we
brought all of his equipment back down, his practice stuff
and he sparred 14 different opponents in those.

(01:47:05):
Yeah, it was it was a really, really great experience.
No one was there to kill each other.
They were sparring, but I think it inspired him because the last
four or five days that we've been back from the Junior
Olympics, his practices have been off the charts.
And I don't know what got into him, but he definitely ate his

(01:47:25):
Wheaties over the last few days.Oh, cool.
So it was fun. It was a great, It's a great
experience for all those guys. There were 18.
It's the largest amateur boxing event in the world.
Now there were over 1800 competing boxers in the entire
tournament. So they literally went from 6:00

(01:47:47):
in the morning until 10 or 11 atnight.
The tournament was was that crowded?
Yeah, well go Walker. It was, it's always great to
see. I, I one of the things I think
is cool about that sport is justseeing the sportsmanship like,
you know what I mean? The fighters go over to the the

(01:48:08):
opposing corner immediately after, no matter what happens.
Corner waters them, takes their headgear off.
It's very, very friendly and very respectful and it's it's
it. That's what teach that's what
teaches those young men how to respect the game and how to
respect the sport. There's, there's some bad apples
too, but 99% of all your encounters in that sport are

(01:48:33):
positive. And it's all, they're people
from all over the world, you know, that live here now and
there's, there's, there of people of all colors, shapes,
sizes, all that stuff. And everyone gets along because
we all live in the same culture and we all love the same sport.
And that's what I love about it.We could learn a lesson from

(01:48:57):
that. Well, I didn't say that.
Hey, we didn't plan it, but thatis great and all rolled up into.
So maybe if we allowed them to punch each other in the face,
everybody will get along better.Sometimes that helps.
Jake, I'm going swimming. I got to go.

(01:49:20):
I got to go do something. I know I do.
Yeah, well, probably chase a child somewhere, but thank you
dude. Thank you, Dave.
Well. That was a fun show, but how
could it not be with two incredible guests like Rick Klun
and Jake Latondras? And specifically, I want to
thank them for the amount of time and effort they've put into

(01:49:42):
this show. I truly appreciate it and I
thank you and I know our viewersthank you.
And specifically actually come to think of a thank you to
anybody who's ever been a part of this show.
Thank you very much, but especially thank you to you
guys, the fine viewers that enjoy this particular brand of
tomfoolery and TuneIn here each and every Wednesday.

(01:50:06):
I thank you for that. I hope you all have Speaking of
which, a very special shout out to JBT Fishing TV.
Super thanks is a thing that YouTube does.
He gave this show $100 super thanks last week, which is the
biggest ever unfathomable unthinkable and just did it

(01:50:28):
because he says he enjoys this show every week.
Thank you. That truly is amazing and all of
you tuning in each and every week is amazing.
I thank you for that. Actually, let's crash the
comments this week. Let's everybody, if you've
enjoyed this episode, if you enjoyed this show, whether you

(01:50:49):
want to leave a comment or a thumbs up, let's blow up the
comments so the algorithm can feel you stroking it and this
show can continue to grow. Whether you're watching on
YouTube, you're watching on Spotify, wherever you're
watching, leave a comment, leavea rating.
Let's crash the comments. And like I said, a simple thumbs
up. It does the same because I don't

(01:51:10):
believe the algorithm can read. It just reacts to interactions.
So let's crash the comments. I hope you all have a wonderful
week. Enjoy being and until next time,
Bob Cobb, take it away. Thanks for watching.
Please like, comment and subscribe because Bob Cobb of

(01:51:35):
the Bass Masters told you to youhere.