I bought him a couple of tubes at Dill Pickle Pringles and wish them the best. This looked like a chicken exploded and someone glued it to a hook. Remember, if they don't come to you a stroke a check while winding and dining you on a corporate card at the Sizzler, you're not actually on the pro staff. If you guys know anybody that will trade some rolland Martin D b D s first from repair work, you better
hit me up. Good good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Benton where we dropped to know how to get you on a hot bite faster than you can eat a bag of white Castle burgers. I'm Joe Surmellie Miles Nulty, and this week we've got a real buffet for you guys. Except it's not like the expensive buffet at the MGM Grand or you get them crampled legs. It's more like the buffet at the Flying j the restaurant connected to
a truckster and you're mostly schemed out. They have good showers, yeah they Yeah, you can rent them by the by the minute. You're mostly schemed out that the choices biffe. But there are still a few things. You know, you just can't help A pile on your plate. You're like, that's gonna make me vomit. But them chicken feet look real good. I'm gonna I'm gonna feel terrible later. But uh, you know, we've got We've got supy bread pudding, We've got shoe leather, prime rib and potatoes salad for days.
But before we hit our main courses, we need to, uh, we need to help get you guys dialed in with a regional fishing report. So we know there's a lot of tournament bass fans out there, and Miles and I aren't two of them. I know, not at all. I mean, but to be fair, I have a lot of respect for those folks. I know that they are incredibly talented anglers. But it's kind of like how I know that Dave Matthews is an incredibly talented musician, but I'm still I'm
still not listening to Crash into You anytime soon. Like I'm not going to play that at my house. It's actually crash into me. And I hate that. I know that because I don't like I don't like to whatever. You know what I'm saying, It's terrible so, but but I respect the grind completely with these guys. And while I enjoy bass fishing myself, um, I never wanted to be the thing that helped me pay my mortgage or
put more frozen chicken nuggets on my kids plates. But as you guys know, we welcome all anglers here at BAT and we certainly want to cater to the once and needs of you bass addicts. And I personally just love fishing for large mouth bass. That was probably one of the first fish that I just got totally sucked into and couldn't get enough of. I mean, to this day, one of my favorite things in the world is to fish a frog through heavy cover and watch a bass blow up on it. I think that is one of
life's great joys, and you know it is. I don't care I'm a brown bass guy. I'm a brown bass guy, but if I'm in the mood, I'll go for the green ones whatever. I despite your you're throwing shade. Those those big mouth bass guys, they know a lot, and I respect their hustle, but I've always been more interested in that tournament scene from like a like a sociological respect. It's it's interesting seed weird ship that goes on in there that I genuinely don't understand, right, So we want
to do a segment about it. But since we don't know what we're talking about, we figured we needed to bring in an actual expert. Yeah, I mean, the original plan was to get an occasional weekly tournament report from one of the top tier pros, but it turns out they all require money that we don't have. I don't don't have any of that. So this week's tournament report comes from a man on the ground, self described pro
Rant Stimpkins. An interesting story with this kid, which I believe I've told you, but I met him at a Dollar General in Stucky, South Carolina a few years back, and I just I just popped in looking for a bottle of tile and all PM, and this Rants kid comes up to me, totally invades my personal space and he's trying to sell me a radar detector and used radar used radar detector right, and spouting off some ship about needing a hundred more bucks to get into a
tournament on Lake Murray, which is bizarre. But he was so nice, right like us Northeastern as were all jerks and like everybody in the South of so nights. He was so nice that I actually felt bad for him, and I didn't I didn't buy the radar detector because I don't need a radar detector, but I bought him a couple of tubes of dill pickle pringles and wished him the best. And the funny thing is like years later he had no idea that was his big break.
Because now we need a legit bass pro to give us occasional bass reports, so we give you Rants Stimpkins, Hey, Professional Bicycle or Ranch Stimpkins. Here. Before we get into the meat of this report, I've got to thank Evan Rude out Boards for always getting me up and down, like I mean, except for that one time I knocked my lower unit off at say Te and had to spend the night roped up to some ripper out Other than that, though, it's got me back to the ramp
every time. As I'd like to say, without a Rude you'd be screwed. Look, I know y'all are dying for this inside scoop on this recent little goat rodeo we had at lake Fort Van Dam and Ike and then may have had thirty pounds a day, but all rants here. I was watching them online on Saturday while eating off the waffle House Kids menu and home by the time they got their checks on Sunday, shame of it is, I was this damn close again. All right, guys, here's
what happened. I only had three of my very special beat diving crank baits. I'm not gonna tell you which ones though, mostly because the company doesn't cut me a check yet, but also because I buy the good ones on eBay, not those shifty Maiden China ones that don't hunt where the ship. I set them on the dashboard of my truck until the sharp trouse and blue back are perfectly faded and that paints bubbling just a little bit. It's a deal I learned about from an old timer
down there on Seminole. Bitch of it is. I gave one to my roommate Travis, because he hasn't cut a check all year and I need him to stay on the road with me. I mean, I gotta split expensive with somebody, and I figure it. I guess I can beat them semi consistently. So that left me with two cranks, and I mean I was just apps of lutely smoking them on it. In practice. I was feeling myself so much that I took the last day of practice off while Travis was still pre fishing, hoping he'd left that
crank I gave him out. I was gonna grab it and blame meth heads hanging around the trailer we'd rented, but he was smart enough to lock it away. And then it's a tournament time and I lose one of them cranks the first day in morning, and now I'm down to my last one. So I start throwing some other patterns, figuring that I go back to that crank on championship Sunday, get myself a comeback win and basking the glory all them people, finally getting to know the
name Rants Stampkins. Well, I only ended up with one two pounder all day, but that didn't give me down. I mean, this is lake freaking fork, ten pounders growing trees around here, and I knew where they lived. But see, I was boat sixty seven, and by the time I got to my spot, there's four dudes already fighting over it. So I did the sportsman like thing and left. Well, also, one guy won't name here threatened to have my eighty eight Rangers sunk if I didn't get the hell out them.
Veterans are like that, though, but I think they'll come around as soon as I get that big win. It's coming. I can feel it, man. I don't know what happened. They just quit and I'm a sacred crank. I mean, I hit all spots where I was wearing them out in practice, but I just barely managed a twelve pound limit. That was the end of it for old rants. I reckon. But hey, don't worry about me none. I'm keeping my head up. I just need a good breaker three and
a six figure title sponsor. Oh ship. I also need to replace the rear suspension in my Dodge. So if you guys know anybody that will trade some Rolling Martin DVDs for some repair work, you better hit me up now. Listen here, folks. If y'all want to know how a real pro attacks the country's best lakes for absolute fence pandas, check out my YouTube channel. I mean, I haven't created it yet, but I've got tons of footage that will
blow you all away. Also, a damn Instagram account got hacked after I bought a bunch of knockoff Sanko's from Holly Express, but I'll have that back up shortly. You know him, man, I actually believe in rants. I think he's rape. I feel good about that, dude. I mean, I know he's not really pulling it off, but I think he's just like one good break away from making it and then he can he can retire all those second hand jerseys We've been seeing him dumpster dive out
of the back of sports authorities. It's like the crystal clear PEPSI jersey. I like that, dude. I think we should keep him around. He'll get there, and we should keep him around. I'd like to hear from him again, trying to track his progress, you know what I mean, supposed to do that. You know what else I think we should keep around. The Weekly Words segment, let's do that.
Webster's Dictionary defines fish as This week, we're taking a look at adipose, as in adipose fin, as in that fleshy little nub that sticks up between the tail and the dorsal fin of trout, salmon, catfish, in about six thousand other less popular fishes. The word comes from the Latin root at a pimp, which means soft fat of animals. See.
Up until the last twenty years or so, fish reason biologists thought that the adipose fin was just a leftover fat deposit the natural selection hadn't gotten around to scraping off yet like a rubbery little appendix. Turns out that's not correct. Recent research has shown that one the adipose fin isn't actually made of fat, and two it seems to serve some kind of purpose. We're just not entirely
sure what that purpose is yet. Since at least two separate lineages of fish catfishes, and salmon, it's evolved at a post fins, it's likely that these warty looking bulbs serve some function. Recent findings show that adipose fins are connected to the nervous system, and they're mostly found in fish that live in moving water. The hypothesis goes that they might act as flow sensors, helping fish feel and
navigate current. And that's all well and good for scientists, but for trout, steelhead and salmon fisherman, the adipose means one thing, and one thing only wild fish Because for generations, hatcheries have been cutting the adipose off pen based fish so that anglers can tell them apart from the wild ones, and since wild salmon and steelhad are protected in most places these days, the presence are absence of an adipose fin determines if you're allowed to keep that fish. It
literally dictates the fate and identity of a fish. West Coast steelhead Paris will cradle unclipped wildfish with awe and reverence, then chuck aside a mildly mutilated cousin muttering goddamn hatchery rats. Consequently, those weird little skin tags have become symbols for wildness, healthy fisheries, and the cultural divide between anglers who fish
for meat and those who fish for sport. Macro photos of adipose fins have become one of the new stand ins for grip and grains, especially among the fly fish and catch and release crowd. In fact, there's even a popular driftboat manufacturer out here in Montana called Adipose Boat Works. We may all have trouble agreeing on the function, importance, and significance of that little fin, but just about everyone agrees,
myself included, Those are some badass boats. I suspect we only care about the adipose fin because we're so obsessed with trout and salmon. If that spinal bump only protruded off the backs of candle fish and whiskery bottom feeders, I kind of doubt any of us would even know what it's called. As an experiment, I think I'm gonna start doing like artsy photos of great catfish nubs glistening in the sunlight and see if that catches on. Joe,
what do you think? Um? What I think is that they have to refill the catfish nubs tray at the truck stop Biffe pretty much every time I'm there, because those are delicious. You slap a little Texas pizza and a dash and lemon pepper. Hell, you know, I just cut those off like shark fins and let and let the fish go when I'm catfishing. That's what I think about those catfish nubs. Also, uh, you use the term rubbery little appendix. I'm claiming that is the name of
my next commercial dry fly for the Unquick catalog. So please back off, sir, Melie. You know I trademarked anything halfway clever that I ever come up with. You know, how do that? Moving on, let's get the trivia. Uh and if I'm not mistaken, we've got one of your very best friends playing today, right we do, yes, sir, Captain Eric kerber Of on a mission fishing adventures here in Jersey, from Striper's to Tuna to Flounder to Fluke.
He's your man, one of my oldest pals, and we'll be hearing from from him more in the future, rest assured. But for now, I'm just gonna try and throw old curbs off with a little trash talking slang. You gotta be highly skilled for these shows. You understand that if I do on there, you're well versed. They are. You're very smart man. All right? Playing today, we have one of my oldest and dearest friends, Captain Eric kerber Of,
on a mission fishing adventures. Jersey Boy, Like me, what's up? Brokayre? You ready to play? Guess I'm excited about this trivia question because it's like Taylor made for you. As soon as I came up with it, I was like, this is a question for Eric, all right. So I don't know, I don't know whether you're gonna get it or not, but you're gonna like it. You're gonna you're gonna use it when you're done. All right, So here's here's your triviuta question. All right. Hollywood is a slang term for
which of the following. A guy that insists every fish he swings on is a giant, only to typically backpedal and say, man, it's not as big as I thought it was. A guy that owns a boat costing more than two hundred thousand dollars but has no idea how to run it. A guy that insists on keeping the clicker on so everyone can hear his fish run. A guy who shoots hours of headcam footage while fishing, but then never edits or posts the video anywhere. Which one
of those is a Hollywood? Let's say all except d No, it's not like that. It's on. It's one answer. There's no nope, there's no all the above. It's it's a specific answer. I'd go with the so be a guy that owns a boat costing more than two hundred thousand dollars but has no idea how to run it. That is incorrect, A Hollywood. Now here's why I thought of you. Hollywood is a West Coast term, and you spent some time in California. Living in California, in Hollywood, actually so
on the West coast. Hollywood is the douchir that insists on keeping his clicker on so everybody knows that he's got a fish running on the other end. That was gonna be my second choice, or or the first one. But I thought of you because I don't know how many times you've been out. You're like, turn that goddamn clicker off. Clicker off, turn that clicker off. Clicker can get it can get a little bit annoying. So now this season you can start throwing out Hollywood when all
your people do that. All right, good attempt, though, thanks for playing. I like the Hollywood Hollywood. I like that. I like that. I'm pretty sure I would have gotten wrong though, but yeah, I know, but I would have gone with the first one. I would have gone with the guy who's like every single fish he swings like like he's a monster. I got a big one, but I mean probably that's that's because I don't actually use clickers ever, so I'm kind of out of my element
on that one. Yeah, dude, I can't tell you how often I've thrown clickers off on my boat, Like when you're fishing like a big live bait, like live bunker for stripers. You know, if you know what you're doing, if you've been doing that a long time, you don't even need the clicker. You just feel it. You feel it with your thumb. But when you have nubs on the boat the clicker, it's less for them and more
for me. Right, I want to be able to hear the tone of the runoff because all I need is the audio to know if a striper picked up the bait or it's just the bait pulling, Because I mean, even with the clicker on, it's like that him, is that him? At him? I'm like, no, you'll know it's gonna it's gonna it's gonna be a lot higher pitched and faster, like that's no, no. And as soon as I'm finally like yeah that is him, now set the hook and they come tight, I just walk over and
I'm like, good job. Let me just switch that clicker off for your room. Yeah, but then we're gonna you do that, But then how how's that news supposed to let everyone else know around what a badass she is on her first time out. You gotta let him know. And you're a badass when you get it to the net. You know what I'm saying. Like that, then you're the badass when you put it on the Graham. Anyway, get ready, because we're about to let all of you know we're
not just talking about clickers. We are talking about news. Put on your thinking caps and grab a turkey leg while Joe and I joust medieval time style to see who brought the best newsy bits to the table this week.
Fish That escalated quickly, So here we are. We've landed at fish News, which, for those of you have been following along, is not only designed to keep you informed about all things fishing and fishy going on, but I also let you in on this little news competition that Miles and I have going because we do not know which news stories the other is bringing to the table, which makes this fun. However, before we get into news, UM, just a quick quick note here that um, we are
listening to you guys. Okay, since the show has started, we've been getting a ton of amazing feedback. So I just wanted to say, because I don't know if it will ever be an actual weekly word, but for the like dozens of people from Wisconsin who wrote in to say, please use the acronym FIBs f I b S as one of your weekly words. I'm not sure I'll do that, but I do appreciate it. Um and and that's what I guess Wisconsin people refer to Illinois people as, and
that would be effing Illinois bastards. So apparently you guys are really digging the derogatory terms for out of staters a feedback tidal wave of FIBs from throwing into the inbox, and we do appreciate it, so we are listening to you. I just want to give a little bit more context on the Pebble Mind permitting situation that I talked about
last week. A number of you have written to me about that one, so just so we're all clear, the mining permit was not accepted as written by the Core of Engineers, but Northern Dynasty minerals can still change their application and resubmit. Point being, this isn't over and we'll probably be covering it again. But despite all that, the decision last week was still a huge success because you know, digging was about to start happening imminently, and at least
we got that stayed. And uh, you know it's just another move towards what our ultimate goal is, which again we're not finished with, but kind of keeping that mind from ever happening at all. Yes, it's a battle one within a big war, and it was definitely worthy of an extra white claw or two last weekend, So we hope you did at and hopefully I won't need a few white claws after this because it is your week to lead off, and you always want to be the
leadoff man in this news competition. I give you the floor, my friend. I appreciate. And just so you guys know, we're making a slight change to this segment because you know, like up until now, we've each just sort of like independently claimed victory without any fair judgment and just assumed that we both won, but who knows who won right and and I don't know about human, but it's starting to wear on me, Joe, because I'm competitive and I
want an actual winner. So that's that's fine, you feel better? Well, Just so I know, the only solution that we can come up with is to bring our very own filled engineer as judge, jury and executioner moving forward, Phil will be the decider and one of us will emerge victorious, namely me. All Right, I'm gonna start out this week with something that's a big problem for many fisheries and uh and some new research that just came out that
might help mitigate that problem. I'm talking about algae, all right. Algal blooms pose a significant threat to many of our lakes and estuaries, which are some of the most fertile fish habitat in the world. Big blooms can cause big problems. They can choke out other aquatic plants, produced nasty neurotoxins, and when they inevitably die off, the surrounding water can
be completely depleted of oxygen. Red tides are often exacerbated by algal blooms, and the growing marine dead zones that you may have read about are usually the result of those blooms. Between warming water temps and increased fertilizer runoff, algae blooms have been growing in scope and frequency all over the world, a trend that researchers referred to as you trophication. If you pay attention to fisheries news at all,
you know what I'm talking about, right. Just two weeks ago, there's a massive fish kill reported in Biscayne Bay, Florida. So far, water quality managers have been the only ones working to find solutions for this problem, but a recent study out of Sweden suggests that fisheries managers may have a role to play in controlling alga blooms as well. And that's good news because the more tools that we can find to combat these blooms, the better equipped we
might be to combat them. So this research team, they're studying the relationship between large predators, small predators, grazers and algae. In this case, the large predators were pike and perch. They eat the small predators, in this case sticklebacks, which eat the grazers, and the grazers feed on algae. That part is key. The team found that when large predator populations started to decline, algal blooms increased. Fewer pike and
perch meant more stickleback. All those sticklebacks eight the grazers that would have otherwise eaten the algae. Okay, so this might seem like esoteric science nerd stuff, but it really matters for us anglers because it suggests that fisheries management might help us deal with increasing algae. I mean, yeah, we still got to mitigate the floods of nutrients that
weren't pumping into our waters. But this study suggests that maintaining strong populations of top predators might also knock back algae. Extra bonus, those top predators, those are the fish that we target. So another way to look at this is that the lakes and estuaries with more of the fish that you and I want to catch are also more resistant to large algae booms. Right, so this is a win win if we can figure out how to do this right. Wow, Okay, so I'm there was about to
take it. No, you didn't lose me at all, But that was a lot to take in um, because I absolutely understand what you're saying, like it's all like sort of it's all food chain related obviously, But I think I'm missing the part about how fisheries biologists can help
this or what we can do with predator fish. When you're dealing with situations in Florida where those algae blooms are completely out of control because outside factors like how do we not have them kill the predator fish in the ecosystem they're affecting, They're still going to do that, right, That's that's not This isn't a panacea or like a
fix all. What it's saying is that if we can maintain high populations those predatory fish, that we can help keep the grazers around that can feed on the algae. It's not a one size fits all kind of solution. We still have to deal with these massive nutrient influxes that are happening, but it's one more tool that might we might be able to put in the toolbox for management. So it's not all on water quality engineers. The fisheries managers might have a role to play that we might
be able to help this whole thing out. I'm not trying to suggest, and none of the researchers have said, hey, we got this figured out, But even a slight possible wind in that direction, I'm calling that fantastic news, particularly in this case when it says, hey, if we can keep the populations of fish that you guys like, hi, it might help knock back some of these algae blooms. No, no,
I get it. And it is really interesting because we have a lot of us have heard about these blooms over the last few years, and a lot of it's associated with Florida. Like you hear about it in Florida so much, but it is happening in other places. In fact, just last summer, um to local lakes that I've been fishing since I was a kid, had some sort of bloom that that all of a sudden calls signage all around. It was like, don't swim in here, don't fish in here,
don't eat anything in here. This is really bad. That has never happened here in my entire life. So I do I do think this is important science now because this is happening more in places at it didn't before, and it's it's it's all over the country, and it's all over the world. It's not just in those estuaries that like we hear about it a lot in Florida and Louisiana and some places like that. But it's also like you're saying, happened in freshwater lakes. More nutrients are
coming into those lakes. It's the same, the same situation. You get big algae blooms, particularly blue green algae, which produces those cyanobacteria neurotoxins, and then you can't swim there, you can't eat the fish. It's bad for everything. So the short version is that we can use we can use pike and walleyes and predators as a tool to fight the algae. Right, Yes, that's the gist. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use that to jump over it to to my story, um, where high powered rifles are
used to fight something else. Yes, this is fantastic. This is the one that I thought you were going to grab. And uh so I was actually first alerted to this story by listener Mike Gillen, and I thought at the time it was just sort of a weird one off, like something dredged up from somewhere, you know. Um, And within a very short time this was blowing up on
several news outlets. But I will start with the version that Mike sent, which was on Task and Purpose dot com headline, we salute the badass coast these who opened fire on a freaking shark that crashed his crew's swim call headline of the century right there. It's a really
good headline, right Okay. So, um, this happened essentially in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is and one quote in one of the stories puts it a zillion miles from land and um the story says, as a way to but right zillion, you know it's whatever, as a way to break up the daily monotony of life at sea. The crew of the U. S. Coast Guard cutter Kimball was recently rewarded with a swim call, meaning everyone kicks off their flippy floppy's parenthesies or combat boots and leaps
into the wide open ocean. However, they had an unexpected and entirely unwanted guest, an eight foot echo shark. Now, other reports have it as either a mako or a pelagic thresher, but to my eye looking at the photos, that head is way too pointing to be a thresher. So I'm going I'm going with mako. So the crew of the Kimball is swimming, and I need to add they also had an inflatable unicorn, which is great. Cheers guys, You guys are so awesome in American badasses out there.
When someone on the bridge of the cutter said shark over the radio, and UH Maritime Enforcement Specialist first Class Samuel Cintron was the dude on the flight deck tasked with shark overwatch during this swim and when the mako appeared near the ship's rescue door, Cintron got locked on target. So this Task and Purpose article quote it also quotes the Facebook post from crew members on the boat, and my favorite line is our animal lover chief who wants
to save every animal she finds, yelled shoot ite. As the mako moved towards the swimmers still in the water, Cintron fired off a quote well aimed burst right over top of the shark. And he says the shark would wave off with each burst because they were multiple bursts, but kept coming back towards the shipmates. And um, you know, several of these stories, including the Task and Purpose story, made a point of pointing out that the shark was
not injured. Okay. And there's a quote in there from a crew member that says, our goal was to keep it away from ship mates mates, not harm it if possible. Um, But like I said, he did shoot at it more than once, and everyone got out of the water safely. There was no injury. Even the inflatable unicorn lived to tell the tale. But here's the thing, all right, I watched the video of this because there is very good,
very clear video, Okay, from the flight deck. And I gotta say, if Cintron was purposely trying to just scare the shark away, he might be the greatest marksman ever, because to my eye, he wasn't shooting near the shark or next to the shark like. It looks like he was going for center mass man like. And and this shark, you gotta remember, it's right into the surface. You can you can see it very clearly, and you also clearly see it doesn't go belly up and there was no blood.
But if you watch how he placed those bursts, I do not understand how that was not a dead shark. They both looked dead onto me. And uh, you know, to be clear, right, I'm all about shark conservation. I've done some shark fish and it's been a long time, but they've been hit hard, and I believe we should leave the sharks alone. And many rules have changed. I mean, even out here on the East Coast, you can still kill a mako, but it's got to be pretty big.
They've changed the rules. They've made it harder. But anyway, this crew, per the story, had been trapped on the cutter for four weeks straight, and God bless him, again, you guys are badasses, and this swim was the first time they got off of this boat in four weeks, So would it have been so terrible given that the shark was posing the threat to end this story with? And then the crew feasted on delicious grilled mako and
enjoyed Mako sandwiches for the next three days. You know, instead of the standard chef ward he Ravioli's or whatever you eat for a month on a Coastguard cutter, Like, come on, we give him one. We could have given our boys one shark would have been I would have been fine with that end. Yeah, that would that would not have made me sad, And I'm with you. I'm pro pro sharks as as I think I talked about in the last episode, like sharks generally don't want to
attack us. We don't need to attack the sharks. But in a situation like this, you know, sharks sharks out a line. Yeah, he was an hornery shark. He kept coming I mean the video he keeps coming back. Um, Like, dude, if if if he was shooting in such a way that like he knew he was going to get that close. But miss he's the man, right, I mean, let's just call it that. He's the man and and you know, a much better trained marksman than either of us, and my hat goes off to him. Yeah. Uh, you know,
and I think this was pretty justified me. It It was an absolute safety issue with a lot of people in the water in the open ocean. Um. But like you know, there's some offshore dudes in Louisiana, Texas do this stuff every other Sunday, you know what I mean. Yeah, And I can't I can't actually support that, but this, I think this would be a case of justified shark aside. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna transition us to a much smaller
predator and one that didn't win the battle. Uh. And I gotta say, this is very different from the stuff I've been reporting on recently. But this is just a cool story and it comes from your side of the country. Joe, I'm sure you remember the somewhat awkwardly named tropical storm you say us, Oh, dude, the I literally came over my home. Yeah, we know each other. Well, yeah, yeah. A lot of people out here, by the way, are
calling it Hurricane easy Es. That is fantastic. That was not mentioned in the coverage, and I know, I know, it knocked out a lot of power in a lot of communities like over by you um. And one of those communities that lost power was Barkhamstead, Connecticut. And that's where our stories protagonist, Leslie Slater, just happens to live. So Leslie and her family were having a tough day. It was brutally hot. The power was out, so there's
no air conditioning. There's still a global pandemic going on, so they have a lot of options on what they could do. But Leslie and her family, they did not wallow in their misfortune. Uh No, they did what all of us should do in a situation like that. Leslie, her husband and kids packed up their kayaks and fishing
gear and they headed out to the local river. All right, So Leslie's her kayak, she's got her kids, she's got her husband, she's got her light spinning rod, and she's just fishing and floating and relaxing and making the best of a tough situation. Now, according to the story she told the Department of Energy and environ Mental Protection, she was quote jigging a rooster tail for trout, which I don't know that I've ever jigged tail, but I'm gonna
let that one go. When when she got bit and no surprise, it didn't turn out to be some dinky, little finless Toby Stock tank rainbow. After a very long and apparently very exciting fight, Leslie brought in a forty six in twenty nine pound pike. You know what I did see that I did not? Yes, yes, months and fish. You guys, this thing is a beast like it really is. Do a little googling and you can find it for yourselves.
And somehow Leslie managed to bring this thing in on like spinning tackle without breaking the rod, without breaking the line, and then she wrestled it into this teeny little like tippy kayak. This wasn't a fishing kayak at all. This is not This is just like a regular kayak that she didn't even have a skirt on. She wrestled this thing into the kayak without capsizing. Somehow she didn't get any of her digits bitten off, which I also don't understand.
Then the whole family paddles overshore takes pictures with the fish, which they exactly should have done. I mean, things amazing. They tried to release it, but between the long fight on the light tackle and the warm water, I mean, that fish was just done. So their next mission was to try and get it weighed at a certified scale and see if it was a state record. But you know that that also proved to be quite the challenge because again you're in the middle of a total power
outage everywhere and and and all the COVID shutdowns. So the first place they took it to was a local Delhi as she like carries this giant fish in and sets it on the local deli counter. But the fish is too big for the scale. The ham scale, like the lunch meat scale, can't possibly be certain. Mean, look, you know what, in a in a tough situation, I give him credit for that move, right, but like that scale, but I mean least the exactly and and this is
my favorite image. They like slap it down to the Delhi County. They put on the scale, and you know, the head and the tail just fall down onto the counter. Right, So that's not gonna work, and later described the reactions from other Delhi customers as quote priceless and I can only imagine like you're standing a line to get your lunch meat and there's this giants a pike hanging off
either end of the scale. So anyway, finally they did get the fish to a certified scale at the local county store and it officially tied the state record pike. And I gotta say, man, I love everything about this story. It's just like a positive attitude pays dividends. And we've said this before. If you're having a terrible day, just take it from Leslie, go fishing better. It's just gonna say, man,
I have lived through. I got spared by easy s. I didn't lose my power, but I've been there for five days and no power or and like on day four it's like, Okay, the family is somewhere else and I'm just manning this, you know, shut down home, you go fishing. So she's right on the money, and um man, this this news post, however, might and my follow up might upset our friends in Connecticut because as a man who loves pike I am. I am a pike junkie.
I am long overdue for some pike missions in Connecticut. And there is some seriously good pike water in that tiny state, clearly, and and now the world knows where one of them is so well. I mean, I think it's probably gonna end up either in in her family's belly or on her wall. But uh yeah, I mean that was you guys. That was a huge pike, twenty nine pound pike. That thing's a monster. That must have been a lot of fun. Good on you, Leslie. Yeah,
that's that's like Saskatchewan numbers, right, I mean, that's that's incredible. Um. Okay, so we'll go from We'll go from big predators okay to teeny tiny worms. How does that sound like it? This story comes to us from the environmental section of Buffalo Rising dot com, based out of Buffalo, New York, and it reads as if we didn't have enough to worry about, now we've got jumping earthworms on our hands. Yep,
you heard it right. A new invasive species has reared its eyelis and squirming head in these parts, causing another concerning echo stir and similar to the actions of Asian carp another invasive species that is on our doorstep. When these suckers are disturbed, they thrash about, hence they're jumping moniker.
It is also significant to note that these unwelcome critters are also slightly iridescent and leave behind granular castings that resemble ground beef, according to earthworm scientists Nick Henshew Right now, so apparently these more aggressive jumping earthworms are cropping up in significant numbers in western New York and the article says that they've actually been down in the south for a number of years now and have really only been noticed widely in places like New England in the past
fifteen to twenty years. UM. And it says it is thought that the earthworms arrived in a shipment of mulch, similar to how invasive species arrive in the hands of humans. The kicker here is that these destructive worms live close to the earth's surface, where they can scavenge for fallen leaves, and typically these leaves are left to decompose and then get recycled back into the soil, thus providing the trees
with the nutrients that they need to thrive. Um. And then we're gonna get to the fishy part, because it does connect to fishing directly. It goes on to say the ability of these worms to reduce the leaf litter, to mix up soil horizons, and to add a whole lot of bacteria to the soil is very disruptive to plants, to animals, and to organisms that live in that soil. And the fear right is that the jumping earthworm could actually displace the beneficial regular old earthworm that already exists
in an area. Um. But this is where it gets really funky. Right, According to the story, regular old earthworms, which I did not know, are technically not native to Western New York either. Earthworm scientist this Nick Henshu dude who's like the worm you know, savant right, says it's light right, worm guy, I got worms. He says it's likely that the glaciers moved earthworms well south of the area.
In other words, they were there, and then when the glaciers came through, the glaciers should have pushed them well out of Western New York. And the reason that they exist in Western New York and other northern areas is that boats bait potted plant soil being moved easily transports teeny tiny earthworm egg cases. And hence you says, people go to these pristine areas on fishing trips, and we
see this as an invasion front. They dumped their bait overboard because they think it will kill the earthworms or the fish will have a good meal. And what they don't realize, and I didn't know this, is that earthworms can live quite happily underwater for about three weeks or more if the water is oxygen eated enough. Really, I didn't I did not know that three weeks. Yeah, so at the end of the day, you know, you take your container and nightcrawlers and just go off and dump them.
You think, well, they're gonna drown, right, Like, I know they live in the dirt, but there's like a little air channels and stuff. I thought in the in the dirt, like they have to have air. But no, according to the worm guy, three weeks or more underwater. Okay, lots of layers to this first that that last pieces fascinating and will forever change the way I think about disposing a worm bait. But what about the new worms? Like
they sound like they might be dynamite bait. So there's a there was a little video embedded in this, and if you didn't know what you're looking at, you really wouldn't know. It wasn't your your straight up nightcrawler. They have like a little bit more milkiness like some milky bands. I guess that's the iridescence they're talking about. But I mean, you know they have the big worm in someone's hand close up, and it is it's wriggland and and and
twitching all over the place. But I mean, in the right circumstances, I've pulled regular nightcrawlers out of the dirt in my yard and they do that too, so it's not super noticeable side by side. However, the end of this article, it does say, although these pests have now made their way into western New York, it's important that
we do our part to slow the spread. God that sounds familiar of the worms by practicing the following don't use jumping worms as bait, be vigilant when taking part in plant swaps, obtain clean mulch, and compost from reliable sources. Al Right, well, it doesn't sound like feeding him to fish is going to be the solution to this problem. I mean, chances are, if if there's as many as people are saying, people are feeding in the fish all
the time. If you're digging your own worms, I swear man like, if you if you didn't hear this like, chances are you wouldn't even be paying enough attention. UM, but I do think it just it brings up sort of a more interesting point in um bait transport overall. You know, like a lot of people just go catch crayfish in this creek and go fishing in this river. You know, things like that. There are laws state by state that you really need to check before you do
anything like that. You think it would be so benign to you know, even with shiners, there's there's so many lakes that say do not dump your unused bait, and this sort of ties back to that. I just think it's one of those things that a lot of people don't think about. And what the effects of dumping a few shiners are bringing a few crayfish from here to there, you know, can do you no huge problem. Bucket biology extends beyond just the fishing live well, and that's I
think that's a really good thing for people to remember. Alright, So Phil, you have a lot to digest. You've got gunning down sharks, algae, jumping worms, do record pike the record pike, Phil, I don't know how you're gonna pick, but I know you're gonna pick the shooting of a shark anyway, So we're gonna find out who won. And then, right after Phil has declared a victor, if you are not already full on jumping earthworms, we're gonna kick it
over to our own. Jannis patelis for this week's Yanni's Desk, and he's gonna tell you why cash darn it, you should be eating some small mouth bass. Here ye, here ye, all rise for the honorable judge filled the engineer who can count the number of fish he has caught in his lifetime. On one hand, Myles Nulte came in hot this week, spending the gamut from the scientific to the sensational. But the allure of guns, sharks, jumping worms, it was all too much for me to deny him. Therefore, I
declare Joe Surmeli the winner of Week one. Thank you too. Whoever will be keeping track of this on the Bend wiki page, please find something better to do with your life, all right, Welcome back to Yannie's Desk today. Small mouth is on the menu. That's right, you heard it on
the menu, because it is good to eat. I don't care who you are, how many small mouths you've caught, what body of water you're catching them out of If you think otherwise, you are simply a bad cook, or whoever is cooking the fish for you doesn't know what they're doing. I would put it right up there with a red fish. Very similar actually in flesh, the texture and the density, very similar to a red fish. The flavor might be a little bit different, definitely a little
bit more freshy water tasting, but awesome. I recently caught a couple decided to grill them up. You can definitely fry them. You can fry any fish and make it taste good, but it tastes like corn meal and oil and whatever seasonings you put on there. If you want to taste what a fish really taste like, it's good to keep it simple, throw it on the grill. And now, my buddy Ryan Callahan told me about this method of preparation for Smalley's, so we decided to try it and
it worked out slick. I simply filate them and I did not scale them. Steve has talked about this before, and I noticed this. I really dolled up my knife fileting these fish and working through those scales, so we had some good sized one sees. Some people will scale fish just for that reason, so that their knife will work better when they're fileting the fish. Then. But I just filate them, left the scales on, and then we did them a couple of different ways as far as
seasonings go. We had olive oil and salt and pepper on a couple. We had olive oil and Cajun seasoning spices on a couple. And I also, this is a trick I learned from our friend Jesse Griffiths down in Texas is we caramelized a whole bunch of onions and it took those caramelized onions and put them right on top of the raw filet. And then we took all those filets and just sent them on a hot grill, put the lid on. It definitely didn't take more than
ten minutes, and those filets were cooked. Didn't cook them too long. I don't want to dry them out, but they were ready to roll. Let me tell you, they were delicious. Everybody thought they were delicious. You should go try it out. You need to be careful though. Small mouth, unlike their large mouth cousins, are slow to grow and long lived. They often take five years just to reach twelve inches, which is the legal harvest size in many states. The oldest records small mouth lived to a right bold
age of twenty six years. That is an old fish. You kind of feel bad about killing them on that old but you're not gonna be able to know when you catch them, so they don't spawn every year. Only about the males make nests in a given year. Small Mouth also produced far fewer eggs, and large mouth about half as many per fish. Now, this all isn't to say that you shouldn't harvest and eat Smalley's, but just
be thoughtful about it. Only harvest from healthy stocks, avoid harvesting the large females, and only keep what you need for a meal. It's not like a giant salmon run where you're gonna, you know, fill your freezer for the next year. But it's definitely worth eating fresh. I've never frow and once. I can't tell you what it tastes like after it's been frozen for a while. I'm sure
it's still good. But uh, I think just to keep your local fishery or wherever you're at healthy, take what you need for a meal, enjoy it, fry it up, grill it, do whatever you want to do there you go small, he's on the menu. Well, if that wasn't controversial enough, here comes our boy Lance V in this
week's Trolling with Lance. Uh. He's gonna teach you how to get on a pro staff, and some of what he's going to explain will undoubtedly be hard from any of you to hear, and I apologize, But sometimes the only way to make it as a successful Internet angler is through the school of hard knocks, the land to the boats, to the lake to the sea, getting up then on net. But the boy Lance, what up? Ask clowns.
Welcome to another installment of Trolling with Lance. I'm Lance V and I just racked up more Instagram followers in the time it took to introduce myself than you could in ten years hashtag Triflin. But I'm not here to be discouraging. That's what mirrors and selfies are for. I'm here to keep it real and help you on the path to Internet fishing greatness. I haven't read any of my d m since like, but I know a ship ton of them goes something like this, Your Lance, I
just hit two five followers on Instagram. How do I get on a pro staff? Great question? After all, being a legit internet fisherman has nothing to do with enjoyment of the sport. Sharing useful phishing info, or creating a community is about free gear, mother or at least the appearance of free gear. It's about making people think your ship is so tight that companies throw endorsement deals that
you like your dart board. Now, this is kind of a complex topic because there are two kinds of pro staffs, real ones and imaginary ones. When you see me drop hashtag Gucci, hashtag Nitro, hashtag monster energy, hashtag hook, hashtag Applebe's hashtag Netflix, hashtag benn against, hashtag thirteen fishing, hashtag def jam, hashtag Spencer gifts, and hashtag Mega bass. It's
mad real. It's so real that if I backed out of those deals, there's social media presence would drop harder than a scrillics breakdown hashtag truth hurts, Oh my god. In this segment, I'm gonna give you some tips for getting on an imaginary pro staff, because let's face it, you ain't getting on any real ones. That would be like telling a blind kid he could drive like they do in Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift if he works really, really hard. I mean, I ain't fronted with false hopes
that just ain't right. So here are the four levels of imaginary pro staff status hashtag dream big level. You know, tag you're in. Choose anywhere from fifteen to forty seven fishing gear brands you like. Actually using any of their products is not required. Tag all of them, and every single post you drop you're now on all of their pro staffs. I mean, it's total bullshit, but you're the only one that knows that, right dog, every other poser
will tremble with reverence and respect. It's simple psychology. Most people naturally assume that if you tag a brand, you were affiliated with it. If you aren't, why the hell would you give the company free promotion? For no reason, nobody would ever do that. Hash technologist power level two.
Stick them up. There's no way you get enough money in that birthday card from your Graham Graham to buy that Shimano stella you've been tagging, but you do earn enough in one shift at Chick fil A to purchase copious amounts of Shimano stickers. Your sticker portfolio is more important than your stock portfolio. For real, every time you take a picture of one of your cheapass tackle trays. Because you ain't catching ship, there needs to be a
different sticker on the lid. Nobody will ever assume you paid your harder and money for a sticker er. Go. When they see that jack All sticker on your home depot bucket, they'll assume jack All hunted your grass down to represent hashtag jacket level. Trace the friend zone. I know you don't have many friends, but you know that one guy with a hook up. Maybe your cousin gets an employee discount of Walmart, or your uncle in Florida knows someone who makes soft plastics and you get a
free bag for Christmas. It really doesn't matter. You just have to be able to flaunt that you don't pay full price for ship. More importantly, once you've establish a line to some level of discounts for freebees, you have to tell your three friends you can hook them up, but then never follow through. Hashtag suckers level areno quatrou big. Let's assume you have an insignificant number of Insta followers,
like less than three hundred thousand. If you got the time to send hundreds of d m s and emails, eventually you get on the pro staff of some half ass company. You might be saying, lance, isn't that like being on a real pro staff. No, it's still imaginary. You'll have to commit to buying a certain amount of their ship off, rest assured giving you that fake discount will not hurt their bottom line. You'll then spend the rest of your life over tagging out of them and
smile ever your time you do it. By the time you finally realize that they'll sign anyone with a pulse, it's too late. You'll have to eat to keep fishing with their garbage that you're actually paying for, or revert back to complete loser status online because you're not on a pro staff hashtag choose wisely. Remember if they don't come to you and stroke a check while winding and dining you on a corporate card at the Sizzler, you're
not actually on the pro staff. But don't sweat it, because for nine of Internet fisherman, being on an imaginary pro staff is just as good, maybe even better. Real pro staffs come with real responsibilities. Yo, you gotta produce pressures on sun. You gotta catch fish, and I mean somewhere other than the pond and your friends, gated golf course, neighborhood, hashtag bow money, more problems. So that's it for this week.
I know Miles and Joe would love me to drop hashtag bent all over my post, but meet Beater ain't got that kind of scrilla. I'll catch you next time if you're lucky and I'm not a full fledged member of a Google squad by then hashtag John b is. But Jesus, every time I hear Lence talk, every time his mouth is moving, I just missed the days before
social media. Remember those days like when when being a fishing celebrity just meant you had multiple pictures of yourself tacked up on the brag board at the local tackle shop. Oh yeah, I mean bragboard is the thing in the past.
But you know what outside this man, remember I had the good old tackle shops would have like a bulletin board, like a communal bulletin board somewhere, and they would just be like classified like tacked up like free dog missing one leg, deer corn handmade crab nets, and they would just eat cut the bottom and they'd just be the little you'd rip off. No one cut it, you just ripped it. You just ripped it and then everybody you like, you stick those in your wallet and prank call those
people later. And I missed that too. I community the community forum in thumbtack forms. I remember there were always those three by five note cards. They probably had like a like a jello mold recipe on the back of the or something, and you know, just said in like chicken scrawl, like ninety six London for sale, minor damage called Billy at five five five six two five seven, and then you have to waste half a Saturday and actually drive out to Billy's overgrown back loop figure out
how minor the damage actually was. Well, nowadays you can just see the photos online, right, but they're usually very strategically taken, which is the other thing. So now it's like, oh, minor damage, but the only thing you can see is like a tight close up of the Mako logo, so you at least know that it is a Mako boat and it does exist somewhere. But like that's all you see. I mean, it's it's it's it's still a gamble, you know. But the online junk shopping it's a trip, man, So
let's let's take our trip. This week to the sale bin. Why did you put the hand to pay? You don't know what I'm going man, What you didn't have to be so hurtful with me so angry? All right? Man? So Miles, you are going to take the reins on this one because you've managed to pull yourself away from the casual encounter section on Craig's list long enough to look for some good Bozeman junk this week. You've got a ringer here. We gotta we gotta have some some
regional diversity in these. Like you got the East lockdown, I'm looking out for the West. Absolutely. Uh. I was digging through the old Bozeman Craigslist, and not in the way that you guys are gonna accuse me of later, but I found this post for wedding special occasion fly
fishing boot near with feathers only twenty five dollars. And uh, I mean the thing about these is I have actually had to wear fly fishing bootneers, and and and seem nicely tied beautiful flies that went for bootineers is kind of a thing out here. And and what I'm looking at our not those this looked like a chicken exploded, and and someone glued it to a hook. These are these are craft store feathers. Okay, for one thing, Like, these are not even nice fly shop feathers. These were
purchased at a chain craft store. I know this because I buy this ship from my kid to tie her flies with, like she likes to do that, so like she's not using all daddy stuff. Um. And they are just the most hideous drab colors right, like they're not oh god, it's just shades of browns and grays. But dude, I've I've actually so I've I've I've been in a wedding with a fly boot near two and I was the guy tax with tying the theme colored deceivers for
the boutineers. Okay, black and sharp truths from my buddy Eric Kerber, who will be and has been on this show. Um. And it's funny because it's like dudes don't do weddings right, like we don't get as crazy as ladies about wedding things. But I was like spray painting patterns on the tail feathers and things, and I do want to be like, this is not perfect. This one is I just this one is not perfect. This is for a wedding. It's
not perfect, dude. I had to tie seven of them and it took me like six months to make them to make them perfect. So knowing the pain that actually goes into crafting this for somebody's special day, these are horrendous. And I like the rite up uh it says in huge caps, never used dollars each or on for all five there's about three dollars worth of material and all of them and either the way I see it right bullshit,
they were never used. You're just trying to make a quick buck off something you have laying around from your old wedding. Or dude, what what if what if dude got stood up? Like what if he's were ready for the big day and he just you know, fly fish too long, one too many times and this whole thing, wake up put. I think the third option that I came up with is that they ordered these because they say they ordered him from a Colorado artisan in the
right up. I think the god them they realized how hideous they were, they claimed they I should also say this that says the last sense. Unfortunately, we forgot to pack them to our wedding location, so they have never been used. I'm calling bullshit. I think you intentionally forgot these because you bought them and you had the buyers or moors. You're like, I'm not wearing that ship on my wedding day. That's not coming with us, And now you're trying to recoup some of your your sunk money
on that. Also, these awful feathers are just placed in like a little little black like super sharp pointy parking cones, and all I can think is that if you drilled through, you can make a line through, you know what I mean, fly out of these and like you get something to eat it. Or I can make a sweet daisy chain control for tuna as is, although I could make these for a fraction of a hundred bucks, so um, they can have them. But maybe where the jerk stude, maybe
somebody out there but their special day. This is exactly what they want. Hideous draft store is craft store. Definitely the jerks. But if if you want to help us continue being in net jerks and making fun of things that people are selling that have something vaguely to do with fishing, please let us know we need your input to continue making this segment amazing. Send us an email at bent at the meat eater dot com and let us know what kind of weird crap you found on
the internet for sale. You know, man, I'll pass on the bootineers. But one thing, one thing I I do buy on occasion online via eBay or Craigslist. I do buy old lures, especially like hard to find stuff, you know what I mean? Like, you do you do? Do you not do that? Do you not root around like and and and buy things you just can't grab in the shop anymore. I I always threatened to, like I do look through the things for sale and regularly go, oh, I would love to get that, but I never I
never follow through. I'm just I'm I think I'm just weird about buying used ship off the internet from people that I don't know, because I feel like those transactions are always so awkward. Oh they are. They are, And it's weird because people put stuff up for sale and it's like they're excited about selling their things until you actually start inquiring, and then they get all like, well,
who the hell are you? And it's like, well, dude, you put this up for sale, man, And then it gets all weird, like no one trust each other because there's so many scams out there, a real person text me when you get to this seven eleven and I'll send you a pass code. I'm like Jesus, all right, whatever, but yeah, no, I'll particularly buy discontinued stuff that I can't find. And uh, this is great because we're coming to the end of the line. We're just about out
of time. And in our end of the line segment today, we're gonna be talking about a a very old lore, been around a long time, and it is not discontinued, though it is not popular in all regions of this country. However, let me tell you, if you want to up your big brown trout game, pay attention to this one. Well it's not loud enough. Today I am paying of you to the Smithwick Ratlin rogue stick bait. Now, the Smithwick
has been around man. What started as a hobby for Jack K. Smithwick in nineteen seven blossomed into a monster Laura business based in Shreveport, Louisiana. And I kind of find that interesting because hard stick baits are so much more associated with northern fisheries like Walleye and pike and small amounts. Right, and if you've ever been to the Louisiana low country dude. There are so many stumps and
so much vegetation in that water. I feel like the three troubles on a rogue would not stay unstuck for two shakes of a rod tip. Right. Uh. It almost would feel more appropriate for the arbor gast hoola popper or a jitterbug to have been the hometown lawer of Shreveport. But ironically those baits were all made further north in Ohio. Weird right Anyway, Smithwick's southern roots might explain why the rogue became the number one go to big trout slayer
in Arkansas, Louisiana's neighbor to the north. Now as the now world renowned trophy brown trout fisheries developed in Ozark rivers like the White and the Little Red, them good old boys wasn't out there trying to get a dainty sip on a comparer done, you know what I'm saying. They wasn't flicking up panther Martin around on two pound test. Those guys fish just like they did for everything else, simply yet aggressively in a manner that would produce the meat.
So if you think back to the earliest days of those fisheries, options were limited. There were no uh Raplea slash baits or Kai Tech swing impacts on the shelf at the general store in Arkansas, but there were ratlin rogues. So despite a wide variety of lower options today, tell you the truth, you will still have a hell of a hard time finding a shop in ozark trout country that doesn't have rogues, if for no other reason than to cater to the older crowd that just will not
waver from their utter devotion to that bait. And I'm a believer in the power of the rogue thanks to Pete the jig man Cob, who happens to be one of those old stages on the White River. You know, Pete had been guiding the White for many, many years, and I think he was pretty used to catering to clients that Jess wanted to catch lots and lots of trout right, And when I was fishing with them all those years ago, I think at outset, he assumed that
I was one of those people. And we had caught so many smaller fish on tiny jigs Day one, I lost count and by the end of it I kind of lost interest too, and so had he, but he wasn't gonna say that. I didn't know that until I suggested that tomorrow we throw no thing but big stick baits all day, regardless of outcome, and Pete lit up. Man. He was happier than a pig and ship here in that. It turned out that Pete was all about swinging for
the fences. And that next day I learned that fishing a rogue properly was just as taxing on the arms as stripping giant streamers for hours and hours on a fly rod. And the sharp angle and width of that lure's lip it's pretty unique, and it creates a lot more water resistance, I think, than similar baits, and it makes it necessary to whip that rod extra hard to get a rogue to depth fast, and you know, no joke,
when you're doing it right, it burns, man. But that steep lip is also what makes a rogue kick to the side more violently, flash more radically than a lot of other stick baits. And of course nowadays Smithwick makes suspending models, but even the original old school floaters rise very slowly, so when you pause they suspend beautifully, and
that's often when the fatal blow is delivered. Now, I can't say that Pete and I destroyed that day, but the shoulder workout was worth it because we did not catch a brown under twenty and a couple of the fish we did catch could be measured in pounds right, And you know, thinking back, honestly, the rogue was not exactly a staple um in shops where I grew up in the Northeast. Nobody used them or even talked about
them that I recall. But because of what I learned from Pete and fishing them in the Ozarks, the rogue is a staple for me now. In fact, the biggest brown trout I've caught to date on the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania, which is pretty close to where I live, fell to a ratling rogue. And I've mowed down some big local small amounts and pickerel on them too. So it just goes to show you that despite the constant push to rope anglers with new technology, there's a reason
why classic ship doesn't change or go away. So that's it for this week. We hope you learned, laughed, felt slightly uncomfortable, and then came to the realization that laughter is always the best medicine. We also seriously hope you like Bent so much that you're telling all your best fishing buds about it. Please take a minute, leave us a review, and and don't forget. Genuinely we'd love to
hear from you. Please please please direct all comments, rave reviews, or concerns to Bent at the meat eater dot com or you know, you can just write it in. Tell us what you're catching, absolutely, tell us a crazy ass story, send us an awkward photo. We might use it, just so you know. And drunk emailing is always welcomed and appreciated, unless you used to date either of us, in which case I don't know. I'm sorry about everything. I really
hope that doesn't happen until next week. Remember to wet those knots with your own saliva, not someone else's, so you don't get COVID. And remember, fishing isn't about catching, It's about creating Instagram stories that are longer than the Godfather