Ep. 43: Prawn of the Dead

you tell me the stream name? The stream? Good morning, degenerate anglers, Welcome to Bend, the podcast that thinks your ability to make interesting conversation in the boat and always show up on time matters more than your proficiency with a rod or the size of your tackle box. I'm Joe Surmelli A Miles nultyon. Amen to that man. I will I'll take an interesting fishing buddy over and experienced one. Every single right, to be clear, To be clear, I'm

not advocating ignorance. Right. If we've been fishing together for like five years and you haven't bothered to learn how to tie on a leader or back up a trailer, then you're just lazy or not. Actually that interested in fishing, in which case that strong chance I wouldn't, I wouldn't be fishing with you for five years, like I would have given up on you a lot sooner than five years. But the argument I'm a big sake of the argument

guy exactly. So I gotta say that part of what I love about my job I always have is that I've gotten fish with many different people and get exposed to just tons of different approaches in different places, different rigs and techniques. Um. But the flip side of that diverse fishing experience is that I'm constantly shown how little

I actually know. You know what I mean, Like, I'm I've never been afraid to suck at a particular kind of fishing, so long as at the end of the day, I've learned something, whether I could be a new nod or new rig or even just the habits of fish that maybe I don't target very often. So I feel like very well versed in a broad sense. But you get away from what you do and it's it's very

shocking how little you actually know. Oh yeah, and you only figure that out by going and doing new things, right, Like the most recent example I have is fishing with you for shad. I've never seen a shad before in my life, and trying to figure out how to work those shad darts and like figure out the current and all the different things that you showed me was was a nice moment of realization, like I can figure all

this stuff out. I can do it, but I don't know it, And had I been dropped there on my own, I wouldn't have been able to Like I I I think one of the things that I have learned the more fishing I've done in the more places I've learned that I just I suck at a lot of kinds of fishing. I'm I'm I'm a pretty good learner, but there are only certain things that I'm truly good at.

And I'm hoping that with this particular episode that we've laid out that we maybe I don't know, I hope we encourage a few folks to feel comfortable sucking a little bit, like I hope by us stepping out and saying like, hey, we suck at a lot of stuff when it comes to fishing, and that's okay. I hope other people will take a q and be willing to do that. But I am I'm slightly hesitant about this week's theme. I gotta say, are you really a little like I'm not losing sleep? This isn't It's not the

main thing that's keeping me up. But I'm just truly and I think you get this. I'm not sure how this one's gonna land, right, because we're this fair. You say this episode is gonna focus on fly fishing, all right, And we talk about fly fishing on this show all the time, but in the past, Joe and I we've always made a concerted effort to make sure that we talk about something else too. We get some conventional stuff in there, we got some ice, we get we've never

gone straight fly before. No, No, that's true. And I think what Miles is getting at is that we have a we have a pretty broad mix of anglers right who listened to this show. And we say all the time that we welcome everyone here at bent who likes to fish long as you're you're thoughtful and ethical about it. You're not like a dirt bag out there. Um, But we don't we we certainly don't want to alienate anybody, but the fly thing it can be kind of polarizing.

We know that some of you are are dedicated fly folks. Some of you dabble with flag gear or at least you know, you're a little bit interested in it. And some of you are either completely unfamiliar or just outright like anti fly. And that's okay. We still we like all of you, that's you know, yeah, And and we hope that at least a couple of people will hear this and and maybe feel a little differently if perhaps

you're on the anti side. But the thing is, it's June, and it is and June where I live, Like, all I think about when it comes to June is is rivers just boiling with hatching insects and every fish and every one of those rivers is chowing on those insects. And I have been, you know, when I've been out on the rivers, I have fish dry flies off and on for a few months. But right now, this particularly this week, is like the beginning of the prime time.

So in the spirit of that, we were thinking we might spread a little unapologetic love for floating flies and surface feeding trout because it's fun. Yeah. And the thing is, we know there's there's gonna be some of you who are understandably skeptical about this, right. I mean, we look, we work at meat Eater, right, Steve Ronnella didn't build his fan base advocating for dainty dry flies and precious trout.

But even even Steve will pick up the long rod from time to time and admit how much goddamn fun it is, right or can be? Um, You know, even if he's not a huge fan of fly fishing culture, that you've seen this, right, I have seen him do it with my own two eyes. That is all true. But I think before we we continue with our attempt at a full throated appeal for wy fly fishing is fun and not necessarily annoying or obnoxious, we do want to remind all of you out there that this show

is brought to you by thirteen Fishing. It is, and that's that's a little awkward, for thirteen thirteen doesn't actually make any fly rods, at least not yet. It's not that uh, they don't yet. But even in in the heaviest insect hatch and dry fly fun, I still have an omen black casting rod at the ready in my boat, rigged up with the swim bait or a jerk bait, because here's here's a little tip. Here's a little tip

for everybody out there. While the small and medium sized fish in the river are are distracted because they're stuff in their faces on teeny tiny bugs, sometimes like the really big fish take advantage of the smaller fish being distracted. So after I've cast some flies through a pool for a while and and have my fun, I'll usually pick up the short stick and huck some kind of a big bait in there a few times, just to see if if Walter p brown shout or maybe an opportunistic

small mouth or pike is feeling a little frisky. I've had that work out well in the past. Absolutely, that's it's it's a great tip. Man and I may not agree about which hand we reel um on a bait caster right, because I'm a I'm a right I'm a right hand retrieved guy all the way, which I and I've been called out for it recently. People are like, why is your your handle on the wrong side. I'm like, I didn't switch hands yet when the photo was taken, Damn you, I cast right and real right, I do

the switch. But anyway, we do both agree that there's nothing wrong with bringing a a conventional rod on a fly fishing trip. Lord knows I do it all the time, me too, or go you go the other way too. There's another wrong with bringing a fly rod on a conventional trip. That's fine too. And for those of you out there feeling unsure, we're just trying to give you license to go for it. Give it a shot, go

for it, just try it out. Getting in the long rud doesn't have to be intimidating, even though some people make it out that way. It's it's not that hard. And going fly fishing it doesn't mean that you like gott to wear a tweed jacket with elbow patches or whatever, like a felt hat, which I think is stupid. And you don't have to extend your ky while drinking a beverage. You don't have to do any of those things. One last point, fishing and fly rod does not make you

any less of a degenerate. It's true I do wear the tweet and it felt I choose to do so, But that doesn't mean that that you have to My tweets actually getting tight. I need bigger tweet anyway, that was all true, and it's okay to bring a fly rod and not use it or only use it if the situation is right, right, And I think when I fish saltwater, I rarely go inshore saltwater fishing without a fly rod, but I never go with only fly rods.

I just don't do that. And if the situation presents itself to get some miuse or stripers on the fly, it's like a total bonus and I might fly fish all day, but I'm never going out there with just that stuff. Right. So, anyway, today we we've kind of assembled a cast of Motley characters, all of whom are both professional fly angers and exactly the kinds of people you just want to sit around a fire and drink whiskey with. They're all they're all legitimately interesting, good folks.

We're gonna start things off with our friend Alvin Adot, who we've had on the show many times before, but in case you forgot. Alvin is a former frontman for the Austin based funk band Bad Mother Goose and the Brothers Grimm, who started working in a fly shop during the day to help pay for his rock star lifestyle, and that led him down the guiding path, which is

what he's been doing full time now for decades. Alvin's homewater is the Lower Colorado River around Austin, where he just puts a hurting on the large mouth and guadeloup by bass and the white bass and all kinds of other stuff. I've done it with him. It's super fun. But he also guides for red fish down on the coast, and he's spent many many years chasing trout in the Rockies.

So yep, he's well rounded. Yep. Bottom line, Yeah, Alvin knows his ship, okay, And today he's here for a Smooth Move segment where we let guides, outfitters, shop workers, and anyone else who makes a living in the fishing industry tell stories about stupid or hilarious things that clients do. But this one is more instructive than most. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean a lot of times we're just making fun of people, but Alvin actually came with a useful, functional suggestion.

Anytime you find yourself fishing out of a small boat, particularly someone else's boat, this is this is going to help you. And I really enjoyed recording this one. I had a good time. I kind of forgot the mic was even on. We were just bullshitting. If you've ever wondered what fishing guides talk about after everyone leaves, it kind of sounds like this, why why This move doesn't

really have a name, but it has a solution. It has a you know, there's there's a cure for this move, and the cure is center up, get in the middle of the boat. This is one that just anybody that rows the boat boat pushes the boat. You got to stay in the middle of the boat. I mean, it's it's it's so awesome when one or both of your clients is leaning so far to one side of the boat that one of your oars will not touch the water.

You know, you got that one. It's like digging in and the other ones like catching air because the boat's like on its gunnal. Yeah, So that's a that's a that's a that's that's a constant one. You know, like come on, man in in a In my my jet boat, there's a little logo that's on the on the bench that I have people stand on, and I've been tempted to actually put some rails or something on either side of the logo and be like, if you feel that rail under your foot, you need to take a step

in the opposite direction. But it's it's a problem. You could just put down gaffer's tape and like a little like like create a little box, like do not step outside of the tape. I have seriously serious considered that. I just tell him, looks, stay on the logo, look down, and every once in a while, make sure you're on the logo. But see, I can take this a step further, right, because I don't know how many people I've rowed. It

just happened not too long ago. The dude was perfectly centered because he had no choice because he was in the leg braces on the boat. But then we'd set up on a dry fly fish and he would cast with so much oomph that like the entire drift boat would be rocking like we were twenty miles off shore. And it's like, dude, I don't understand why you must put so much body energy into laying how to dry fly like there's no need for that. You guys have you have to dealt with that too, Like I don't

understand it. Just stay the cat why why It's like, dude, I gotta get that fly out of there. And if I don't put somebody english into it. That thing is not gonna make it that thirty feet to the bank. I know, I'm not gonna do with my arms. I gotta do with my legs rattling around. Drinks are coming out of cup holders. Lay down the atoms, all right, dude. I used to have I used to have this really skinny one of those uh one of those Arkansas trout boats.

It was like twenty ft long, but it was super skinny, and that thing would rock from side to side. You know. I had this one guy in particular. You know, it was it was like five to six false cast per presentation, and each one was just like you know, it was like he was trying to knock somebody out with these swings, and the boat would the boat would just rock from side to side so violently that my back would hurt at the end of the day from like me just

trying to overcorrect to keep myself upright. Well, I had a client for many, many years. He was a really good client and good guy. But I won't use his real name because I don't have to. I just nicknamed

him Captain Morgan. If he would ride in the back of my boat with his foot perched up on the gunnal the entire time, just completely throwing that thing off kilter, so that I was almost at a forty five degree angle rowing down the river all day and I would literally have to say, captain, bring it back to center for me, buddy, at least ten times a day. He always felt sorry, I'm so sorry, but within ten minutes and be right back on the gun. Dude, I've seen it.

It's the creep. They can't help it. It's like, you know, guys who know, Like you said, the captain knew he was supposed to stay in the center, but it's just like this weird creep thing. It's magnetic. You gotta put that foot as far away from the other foot as you can. So there you have it, everybody. Hot tip from Alvin to do if you really, really really want to piss off your guide, just keep rocking your body weight from one side to the other all day long. Alvin,

thanks so much, man, really appreciate it. Hey, thanks for having me. Man. See now, I really think that something most casual anglers just don't know about or think about. I think the centering your weight in small boats makes such a huge difference, and as we've discussed I have. I owned the mini Cooper of drift boats, as you called it. So having the dude upfront centered in in

my boat in particular is extremely important to me. It's like, it's very important because we might all go in okay, it's not just a matter of being tilted, like we might dump the thing. You know. It's one of those things you're right, casual anglers don't think about because they don't have to. I had no idea about any of that until I was the one driving and rowing boats all the time, and because other people's sense of where they're standing has impacted my life so much right like now,

it's just habit. I always keep an eye on weight and balance when I'm in someone else's boat. Especially. Yeah, it's like one of those unwritten rules of courtesy that that people no notice. It's just not enough people, unfortunately. And we're gonna keep rolling with this. We're gonna we're gonna keep the theme here and bring you a fly fishing tackle tip that we also think will be equally helpful. Be forewarned, this this one gets a little technical. It's

not difficult. This isn't a hard thing to do. It's just kind of specific, so you gotta pay attention. I'm getting hacks coming from inside the city. Hi the flood. So welcome back to tackle hacks. Joining us today our friend and uh Montana slash Washington State guide Kinsley, Scott Kinsley. How are you today? I am doing well. How are

you guys? We are We are great. We're gonna be better after this because you are going to uh pull from from your many years of experience guiding, um, and you're gonna give us a tackle hack today, a little tip something, just a little little nugget for anglers to put in their pockets that will make them better on

the water. At least that's the plan. Yes, and this one may not be applicable to all trout anglers, but for us here in western Montana, our bread and butter are foam dry flies with droppers the majority of our fishing through the entire season. Really, so my hack today to improve your dry dropper fishing, to make life a lot easier is using a shorter leader. So I run a seven and a half foot leader to my dry fly, and right out of the package, I actually chop off

about a foot off the butt section of it. Yes, and I'll explain why. So I cut about a foot off of the butt section so that well di loop that comes on a leader out of the factory, I retire a perfection loop. So now we'll say my leader is down to about six and a half feet, so it's a pretty chunky taper. What that allows to do?

Our fish here in Montana Western Montana specifically aren't very line shy spooky, especially if you're fishing a bigger bug, right we'll say, like salmon fly golden stone fly season. So with that six and a half foot dry fly leader, that allows me to then throw a much longer dropper. So say I throw a four ft dropper to you know, I have a salmon fly dry and I want to fish up pats below and I want four ft in total. That would cut my entire leader system down to about

ten and a half feet, which is pretty manageable. Whereas if you were to keep that seven and a half foot leader right out of the package with then a four ft leader, you're pushing about twelve ft of leader in your cast. So if you can shorten that leader section up, it's still going to overturn your fly, but it's going to really compact things and make it a lot more manageable when casting. I love that. Yeah, that's

a great tip. That makes a lot of sense. My only my only critique of that is a lot of the dudes I fly fish with couldn't do that because if they cut the perfection loop off, they wouldn't know how to tie a new one. YouTube your phone will teach you about seconds exactly. Yes, No, that's a that's a great tip. I wish that I had done that when I was when I was guiding, because it would have probably saved me a lot of tangles that I had to pick apart for the next oh forty five

minutes or so. So next time you're you're out there throwing big dry droppers, chop off the back end of that leader. See how it works. Let us know how you do. Kinsley, Thanks so much, and uh we'll we look forward to another tackle hack from you soon. Thank you. Guys. See I told you in a podcast many moons ago. I've been saying all along that all you need to catch fish in Montana is a big gass check and that was just confessed Western Montana. She clearly what it is.

Do not listen specified Western Montana, and she did that on purpose because she grew up on the Missouri where that's not true. And I don't know why, but the trout and western Montana are dumber. I don't know why that is, but I I am going to try this trick out because I haven't had a chance to do it yet, and we're coming to salmon fly in Golden Stone season for any any day now, really, so I'm

gonna I'm gonna try this one. But I was thinking about it and this rigging, this tip that she gave, I think it's more broadly applicable than than Kingsley realized. I would suggest that this one's useful for people who are curious about fly fishing but don't live in a place with trout streams. So right the rig she was talking about, the big dry fly with the dropper set up, that is sort of a classic out West Rocky Mountain trout set up, But I actually use something very similar

for panfish and bass on lakes. I've adapted that rig for warm water species, and I think that her leader had would be perfect for that situation. So here's here's my version that i'd suggest you guys trying to likea do exactly what Kinsley suggests. Chop that leader to make

it a more magable length. Then to the end of it ties something big and buoyant, a small popper fly or a diver, maybe a cicada, hey maybe, and then tie a three to four foot section of a leader off the bend of the hook, you know, like four six pound tests something like that, and then put any kind of weighted fly that you like on that. I personally I'm a big fan of prince nymps or hair's ears because they just look a little bit like everything,

and they'll work really well on panfish. Or I'll throw on like a wooly bugger if I'm after bass. You pitch that thing up toward a weed line in the lake, You let it settle, and then give it short strips with long pauses in between. You'll either get to watch that floating fly get inhaled, or more likely, the floating fly will just disappear when a fish eats the bottom fly. So seriously try out the next time your your lake fishing in shallow water along weedlines. I think you'll be

impressed with how well it works. Solid tip man and like a blind side for me has always been stillwater trout on the fly, and I've I've done very little of that, but I actually got to do it many years ago in Montana on a small lake and it was the first time I ever threw drys on stillwater for trout, and dude, it was a blast. I must say, Like, it's a totally different game. You you've done it, so

you know what I'm saying. It's like these fish are cruising, so you're just kind of letting your stuff bob around out there and like ride the wake and ride the ripple and they just come out of nowhere and slurp it. You can't really target him like a head in the river. So much fun, so much fun. But it's it's a lot of useful information today. I don't know, I don't

know what's wrong with us. So I know we're actually we're actually we're actually having we have value today, um, and we're gonna keep that going right now, We're gonna keep our value up as we head into fish News. Fish new sescalated quickly, so I have one shout out this week before we get going on news, going out to listener Eric Haffman, and this is a response to our last That's My Bar segment where we wax nostalgic about ketchup in glass bottles, and Eric totally validated me

on this one. Thank you, Eric. Yeah, okay, but I

have more to say about it, okay. So we talked about how you don't see that anymore, and and in that, in that That's My Bar, I brought up the butter knife trick where sometimes you start the ketchup in the glass bottle with a butter knife to stick it in there and get it going, which you said was a childish maneuver, a rookie move, and that's fair anyway, Eric rode in to say you should never use a butter knife to start catch up in a glass bottle because,

according to the servers in a bar near him that also uses glass catchup bottles, if someone sticks a butter knife in the bottle, the bottle is now deemed unsanitary and tainted and must be thrown away. Now, I I I will admit that I, like many of you, probably never considered this. Okay, I didn't, and I get I admit I didn't. I didn't consider that like that is a much stronger argument than my stupid like Oh that's for kids. That that was his is like a legitimate reason.

Yeah yeah, but I still take issue right now. It makes now I do, and I'll tell you why. It makes perfect sense. I get it. But this also feels to me like one of those things people in the eighties and nineties like gave zero shits about. Like they were smoking sections on airplanes. Children were shooting each other with BB guns instead of nerve guns. And your dad would help you build the ramp that would allow you to jump the creek on a bike sand's helmet, so

nobody was worried about a butter knife tainting ketchup. And my point is, while the knife and the catchup thing isn't wrong, this I don't know. It just feels like a very millennial observation to me, you know what I'm saying, Like there's there's there's more important ship to worry about. So really, I guess er, thanks thanks for ruining catch up in glass bottles the last bastion of Americana, Because now it's not slight. It's like going to the doctor.

I don't have cancer if you don't tell me I do, you know what I mean? So now I will never be able to look at a glass catchup bottle and go oh man, like, what nasty ass stuck their butternuts? I think, thanks, I think you're Your anger here is misplaced. I don't think it's Eric fault. I don't think it's a service fault, at least restaurant fault. If you want to blame someone, you can blame like the health department for trying to keep you safe. It's not really Eric's fault.

It's just like I didn't need to know that. And I'm gonna excuse me, do you have a single serf packets? I'm gonna create more trash. I'm gonna create more waste because I'm worried some yucko stuck is butter knife in the ketchup before I got there to order my pork royal sandwich. Damn it. Anyway, That's that's my shout out of the week. You haven't this week? We I think we got to talk about I think I think we

have to talk about the elephant in the playlist. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, well okay, well we're gonna get to that because, as reminded, us is a competition. Miles and I do not know which news stories, the other dude is bringing to the table and at the end, judgment shall be passed by the mighty Phil our audio engineering. What Miles is referring to UM is that Phil has officially contributed now to the Bent Spotify playlists, which many of you guys seem to be enjoyed. We can be getting a lot of

great notes on that. The numbers are ticking up, you're you're listening, um, and if you're not rocking out with this, you can find the link to the playlist in my Instagram. Mile. But Miles and I were thinking right that down the line, maybe we'd start asking show guests time to time to recommend a few tracks that will add here and there. But it seemed only right that since we we've already discussed Phil's musical taste, we let him throw down some choices.

And man, can you learn a lot from from having somebody create a Spotify playlist for you at Phil. Phil was all over the place, right from Wilco to Kanye West to Steely Dan. Don't forget heart. There was some heart in it. It was really it was eclectic and I like that, and uh, Miles, so we we whittled it down to three selections of pills that are now officially in the Bent playlist, the first one being The White Stripes Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine. We

both agreed on that one. I'm actually a White Stripes fan. I always liked the White Stripes, and kudos to fill He didn't. He didn't select really one hit. They were all B sides, you know what I mean. And I appreciate that. I like that. Now you chose this was your pick. Run the Jewels, Goonies, verse et. I don't know anything about Run the Jewels. Oh come on, killer Mike, Now you gotta love it anyway. Yes, that's some classic,

classic conscious Atlanta hip hop right there. So okay. So finally we went with um, Mexican Wine by Fountains of Wayne. That was that was my choice, And I said that because I don't I don't know, but I mean, you're not a Fountains of Wayne guy. But I was a fan of their first album. Um. They had a song called Sink to the Bottom. I Want to Sing to the Bottom, and I rocked out to that right when I was a wee lad. And the first time I ever heard it was when they played it live. On

the Jenny McCarthy show. Do you remember the Jenny McCarthy show, sadly I do, yes, it was awful, but that is where I I discovered Fountains of Wayne. So anyway, if you hear those tracks pop up, you now know they are from Phil, who, upon being asked to contribute, said, and this is a direct fail quote. This is probably the least consequential thing I've done at meat Eater, and I've never felt more pressure. So pressure, the pressure is now, Phil,

You've done good. Your songs are in. The pressure is now on, Miles as it is your leadoff for news this week. Hit me alright, Okay, pressure is on. See how I do? Uh, my first one is gonna come. This comes from my original home state, where the Board of Land and Natural Resources is clearly not messing around. All right, do not mess around in Hawaii, and you'll you'll hear about this will make sense in a second. So last month they issued the largest fine in state

history for an aquatic resource violation. A six hundred and thirty three thousand, eight hundred and forty dollar fine was issued to a Heilo man who dumped and poison into Pa stream in order to kill and collect huge quantities of Tahitian prawns for illegal sale. I didn't get the stream name. Can you tell me? The stream name is the stream? There you go? You got it? Yes, I did. Tahitian prows are not native to Hawaii, despite their misleading name.

The species is found throughout East Africa, the Indian Ocean, and Indonesia, and then over into the Marqueses Islands. Hawaii state workers introduced to Hitian browns into two streams on two separate islands, Moluchai and Oahu in nineteen fifty six.

Fifteen years later, the prawns were found in forty two different streams on every single Hawaiian island, and though humans are responsible for the original introduction, the spread and proliferation occurred without any help because after hatching, Tahitian prawn larva wash out to see where they spend a month growing and molting, and just before reaching maturity, the young prawns seek out whatever fresh water source they can find and make their way upstream, where they spend the remainder of

their lives. And this life cycle makes them exceptional colonizers and that's how they got everywhere. Fascinating so it's not like steel had to go to the same stream. They'll

just find the closest fresh water. They just spread out, got you, got you right, and so so they've been common residents of most freshwater systems in Hawaii since the seventies, and they're they're considered in vase have as they may compete with native shrimp and prons, but their impacts have not been closely studied, so no one's sure how bad of a deal they are. And since they've been around for fifty years and everything hasn't collapsed, they kind of

sort of like they're not that bad. But harvest is allowed, and the Department of Land Natural Resources has no bag limits onto hitian prons. You can take as many as you want. Common and legal methods of take include nets, spears, and spotlights, but dumping a bottle of poison into the water and then scooping up all the dead prons as

they float downstream is both illegal and incredibly destructive. Unfortunately, this practice seems like it's starting to become common, or at least common enough to draw significant attention and resources from the White Deal at all. Because people like prons right like prawns are good exactly, and and you know, the legal methods of pron hunting can yield seems like from what I can tell, can yield like a big

meal in a few hours of collection. You can get a company dozen't But poachers can just dump a bottle of ant poison the stream and and get like fifty to a hundred pounds or more in minutes. And then they take those fresh prawns and they sell them on the roadside, and they make quick cash. Poisons like that

kill indiscriminately, and they have long lasting negative impacts. According to state biologist Troy Sakihara, the illegal and unethical use of these pesticides in streams have shown to cause extremely damaging and long lasting effects into all aquatic stream animals, native and non native. These pesticides are highly toxic to all aquatic animals and result in extensive recovery time, particularly for native and endemic stream life. Typically, non native and

invasive species are the first to repopulate these impacted areas. Therefore, these types of activities can severely alter the natural biological conditions and overall health of the stream ecosystem. So real bad, that's what he's saying. Yeah, and beyond decimated the stream life. This practice is also dangerous for the people who consume the poison shellfish. Right like the side of the road,

it's full of a poison you don't know. So all this is to say that cracking down on this practice has become a high priority for for the Hawaii deal in r last July, enforcement officer Edwin Shoshido got an anonymous tip about one such incident. Shashido knew that he had an opportunity to make an impact, and so he

spent the next two months building this case. He partnered with the Division of Aquatic Resources and the Department Agriculture to collect water, soil, and prawn samples, all of which tested positive for benethren, a toxin commonly found in commercial insect poisons. He tracked down eye witnesses, and like you,

just spent a ton of time on this. He was ultimately successful in prosecuting the offender, whose actions resulted in the death of approximately six thousand, two hundred and fifty Tahesian prawns, in addition to who knows how much other aquatic wildlife. The guy got find a thousand dollars per dead prawn, two dollars for unlawful use of poisonous substances, plus another eight thousand sixty bucks to pay for the overtime the officers Shushido and the other staff put into

the case. The chair of the Hawaii Board of Natural Resources set it's sentencing this very significant fine. Let's illegal fishers know that we take these matters very very seriously. Responsible citizens acting as witnesses and our officers are watching streams closely, and if you're engaged to these types of activities,

eventually the law will catch up with you. This kind of illegal and extremely horrible fishing behavior collecting prawns and streams using poison is unacceptable, and we will enforce it

at every turn. And I just I wish all poaching and wildlife cases were prosecuted this way, right, because so often the story ends with the offender like there's this whole thing, and then the offender gets a nominal sanction or like a little fine, and I think that ends up doing far more harm than good because the message from those cases it's not that big a deal. Breaking fish and wildlife laws is really not that big a deal,

so people keep doing it. If if, on the other hand, conservation officers are allowed and encouraged to prioritize catching offenders and hit them with big fines like this that also include the cost of overtime that all the people who caught them put into it. I think that might actually make people think twice. So I'm I'm shouting out. I'm applauding Hawaii deal in our and especially officers Shashido for for this one. I think I think there's a job

really well done, dude. I think I think it's amazing. And man, there's there's gonna be a lot of connections between stories today. We've done some some some things in similar veins, and I completely agree. The thing is like, the fine is what it is. Dude's got to pay it. And I mean, you know, as fin as you deal with people in these cases that don't have a ton of money, and it's like, well, you can you can

lay that fine on a guy. That doesn't mean that the state's canna get all that money out of it. That's Neil, and you know, and there's actually similarities here

on the mainland. I feel like we've talked about it in this show at one point, but I had a good buddy who is a veteran guide on the Salmon river out here, and back in the Wild West days of poaching, that wasn't uncommon to have these salmon run up these little side trips and dude would dump a ten gallon bucket of bleach in and the other dude would stand at the bottom with a pitchfork. That happened like in New York State. Yeah, yeah, like that was

a thing that people used to do. So the idea of poisoning a run like that to get what you need is it happens elsewhere and that's the same deal. So then you're selling these salmon that like smell like bleach and their gills are white, and it's like, who wants to freaking eat that? I will say, though I know, I know those prawns are are invasive, but I've seen stuff on TV, like the legit guys that do it with the flashlights and the real small spear guns like

a little like needle Dart. I think it's cool as hell, Like I would like I would like to try that. The only reason I haven't done it is because I grew up on a wah who and I know that there are clean streams on a wall who where you can do this and feel comfortable about it. I don't know which ones they are, like like the streams I grew up, and you don't want to eat out of those, right right? And that's the other thing with all this poisoning.

It's like, now, if you want to do it on the up and up, how do you know which one hasn't been ant poisoned to death? You know, well, if there are bronze living in it, you're probably pretty safe. From what I like. Everything I read, it just wipes them out. Yeah. Well, you know the other thing too. I appreciate ingenuity in terms of like getting legal meals or harvesting more crabs or whatever it may be. But is this the only way you would think? Like it

wasn't something? Why isn't one of the old timers like hooked up a car battery and shocked him or something like? Can't we figure something out like that? We have to poison the entire stream, Like my grandpa used to dig worms with a car battery and two electrodes, stick them in the ground, buzz them up. Upcome the worms. I'm like, that's ingenuity, you know what I mean. We're not harming anything. Yeah, anyway, it's I'm with you. I think it's a really cool

way of vesting food. And uh, next time I on the neighbor island with cleaner water, I'm definitely gonna do this because I think that'd be a lot of fun. I think, I think it looks awesome. And you've given me the simplest transition because we're going from invasives too invasives. This is a cool story, though though it's a bit it's a bit complex. I'm gonna do my best to break it down in orderly fashion here. But it comes from Hakai magazine, which is great. That's a really good magazine.

We highly recommend it. Excellent writing. Uh. And it centers around the blood worm trade. And I realized that blood worms are not exactly a ubiquitous bait. They're actually a very niche bait used in salt water. But if you're a Northeasterner like me from the mid Atlantic, you probably understand their importance. Um. So blood worms are these big, ugly meannass seaworms. They can be really long, they can be a foot long. They have legs that run down

the side. It looks like like like a blood red fringe. Um. And while you can use them for a wide variety of saltwater species. They are most commonly used at least where I live, for stripers and white perch, particularly in the early season when the resident massard just waking up because it's we have these fish in the back bays. They're not chasing bait all over. The water is cold, so they feed on the sand flats and the mud flats, and blood worms are a choice bait, very important. Now.

These worms are primarily harvested in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes, and believe it or not, they are one of Maine's most valuable commercial fisheries. And according to this story, yes, in twenty nineteen, the worm trade in Maine was valued at north of six million dollars total um. And what's so cool about it is the deep tradition tied to this worm harvest. They have to be dug by hand. You cannot use automated machinery. Right. Um, you still can't

dig for these worms on Sundays in Maine. And while this number has shrunk, it's estimated that there's still about seven and fifty miners that dig worms at least part time for supplemental income and nowadays, the going rate for like a really choice worm is about sixty cents per worm. Um Now, because these live worms, you know, don't live super long, this trade is all based around speed to market.

Worms are dug, packed and overnighted in most cases to bait shops across the country, which is why a dozen of the damn things is so expensive. They are an insanely expensive bait. Especially, Oh man, you're gonna put me on the spot. It's been so long since i've it's it's more than ten bucks a dozen, maybe even up around fifteen bucks a dozen. I mean, it would have to be if if the diggers are getting sixty cents, and then they've got to get overnighted, and their story

exactly right if you put all those factors together. Plus now the story is saying supply and demand because of of you know, the pandemic, pushing more people to fish, they can't keep up. And I know there was a blood worm shortage around here this past spring. Um. You know, you can only dig so many by hand. And Tricky told I only ever used them when I knew they'd be critical, right, like, we're doing this, we need to have blood worms or we're not going to be successful.

It's not something I've I've used much. You can catch fluke on them sea bass, but they're just so damn expensive that um, I've rarely ever done that. Now, when you buy these worms, they come packed in seaweed and it's a relatively common brown algae simply called wormweed. And to cut to the chase here, right, Amy Fowler, a marine biologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, has been studying this worm weed for for years. This started in

two thousand eleven. She's taken samples from bait shops, from suppliers, and it turns out that it's a major contributor to introducing invasive species to other bodies of water. And this worm weed that these worms come packed and is filled with micro organisms, and the most critical are periwinkle snails and green crabs um and she believes those particular species ended up in several places that they should not be

as a direct result of the bait trade. Furthermore, the worm weed itself can take hold and has done so in areas of both chest Peak and San Francisco Bay because these main worms are shipped all the way across the country. Right, Because what happens. Right, you finished with your worms. It's seaweed you're throwing in the water. Right. You don't think you don't think anything of it. Um. Now, I could go on and on about the invasives within the worm weed, but that's really not the most interesting

part of the story. What's fascinating is that it's been proven that shipping blood worms in worm weed provides no benefit. It doesn't make them live longer. They don't eat it, right, it just acts like this natural moist packing peanut material. Um. But distributors have skipped the weed in overnight shipments to Europe just to reduce weight and just letting the worms roll around and styre from containers, and they survived just fine. Though it's kind of a daylight and a buck short.

California outlawed the importation of worm weed, and guess what the worms headed. They are now packed in wet cardboard strips or newspaper and they do just fine. So it seems the simple solution is just stop packing the worms in worm weed, Except the harvesting of the weed goes hand in hand with the traditional style of blood worm harvesting in Maine. Like one guy who just harvest worm weed in this story says he gets about seven bucks a bag and can make eight bucks on a good

low tide. Just collecting the weed for the worms to be packed in right, doesn't actually serve any benefit. It serves no benefit, it doesn't keep it, it serves really no benefit. So, um, a lot of the bait distributors in Maine are basically saying like that, Like Fowler is

passing on this information. She's talking to these guys, and a lot of them are just basically saying like, yeah, sorry, this is how we've been doing it for decades, and UM, I'm not gonna risk putting anyone out of work, meaning

the weed harvesters, by changing my ways. So even though Fowler suggests that while it may hurt the finances of a select group of manners, these weed collectors, the bait distributors, would actually save money in the long run by switching to a different packing material or skipping it all together. She also says if you simply rinsed all the worm weed in fresh water before packing, it would get rid

of a lot of these Cleinger honors. But there's there's one distributor interview in the piece that says, yeah, rinsing all the weed that's just too onerous, time consuming, and contends and contends that the solution is educating anglers that buy worms not to discard the worm weed in the water, so to put the full responsibility on the buyer of the blood worm. Oh, I could not disagree with that more. Yeah. To me, it's it's plans and and and like I said,

I've used blood worms. It's not something I buy a ton of. But as far as long as I can remember, you buy blood worms. They come in seaweed. Never thought anything of it. I threw that seaweed in the water,

never gave it a thought. It's it's organic. Um. So you know, Fowler was even saying in this piece, like a lot of times when you're trying to pinpoint where certain invases are coming from, it takes so long to find the source, Like there's so much work put into the exact way that this thing got from here to here. And she's like this one's playing his day, like we could track it, Like these are all places that have this high use of blood worms, and the blood worms

are packed in this seaweed that gets discarded. But it just sounds like tradition is too strong. Nobody, nobody wants to listen. It's just like now we're just gonna We're gonna do that. That's what we do. Oh that is that is maddening. I wish that everyone could see my face right now because it's just like scrunched up frustration.

Because this is not a hard but as you were saying, this is not a hard problems, it's not it's not and and there is there is one, Like, you know, I sort of see a parallel, believe it or not. You know, you have these these old timy worm harvesting operations that have worked with you know, this guy and that guy to collect all their weed for so long.

I sort of see a parallel. I think New Jersey and Oregon in the last two states where it's um illegal to pump your own gas, an attendant has to do that for you, and like for many many years, it's like, can we just like save money and like we are happy to pump our own gas. But it's like, yeah, but just simply killing that would put so many people out of work. So I sort of see the loyalty in the tradition there and not wanting their buddies and the people they've worked with forever to be out of

a weed harvesting job to come. Yeah, dude, I don't. I don't that that analogy doesn't work for me because there is no downside other than a slightly higher cost per gallant fuel. This one you're talking about. We're transporting and basis species all over the country in the world, and all we have to do is stop doing this. It confers zero benefit other than a job like that. To me is the definition of of having of creating

a job that is detrimental and has no value. And I'm not trying to hate on the weed harvesters out there. This is not a personal attack at any of you. But I think maybe you want to start getting into digging worms. Perhaps that might be the way that you could transition. Uh. Still still similar, similar activity, it seems. And it's did I tell you what? It is a nasty job, man. This is like a low tide window. You are, you know, balls deep and muck like. It

is hard work. I believe it's it's it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Here here's the other thing I'm gonna say, what by by putting this on let's say that the the onus is on anglers, right, Well, that's not actually gonna fall on anglers because the way, the only way this really works is if now every other state where blood worms are used for fishing has to create a regulation whereby if you have blood worm weed, you cannot

dispose of it. And that's just another thing that wardens have to now use their time looking out for which they don't have the time of the resources do and they don't want to do. And that that to me is obnoxious when it could have been handled at the source.

And and that that helps me kind of like continue my theme of the week, which is which is calling out game and wildlife enforcement officers in a positive light, because you know, these these are men and women who take a lot of ship, oftentimes unfairly, and they rarely get credit for all the good work that they do. Right, Like, they don't want to police your worm weed. They don't want to do that, but they'll have to, perhaps even though it could have been solved elsewhere in the supply chain.

Right And and I'm gonna start this one. This is the actual story here is short and kind of dumb, but I like it anyway. But I'm gonna start it off with with the story of my own. Uh So, the first time my wife and I took our son out on our boat, it was a beautiful June weekend a couple of years ago. The kid was seven months old.

We met up with some friends and their kids. We all launch our boat is at at this busy river access point in the Madison and our friends were out of head just a little bit and I just eased our sixteen foot drift boat out of the current when I saw Warden waving me back over to the bank, and you know, complied immediately as I always do, and I was not concerned, right, I've I've talked lots of words. I've been checked many times. I pulled up next to guy like I got all my paperwork, I got all

my safety equipment. I'm I'm legit, no problem. What do you what do you need to see? But then he looks at me and he says, uh, sir, do you have a life jacket for that child? And I was just totally thrown because I didn't the kids. I mean, the kid wasn't even crawling yet, so the idea of him needing a life jacket, it simply hadn't crossed my mind, which is stupid, because I knew the law, right, Like I knew that all kids twelve and under half to

wear a PFD at all times. I had to do that when I was guiding, but I just I never thought about it with an infant who couldn't get away. I just didn't thy right. So, like I mean, blame it. Put him on the bat he's not going anywhere. Fine, I blame it on a year and a half of

sleep deparation, whatever. But I was utterly unprepared. And and it be in this beautiful weekend day, right, the ramp is super crowded, there are people everywhere, and the officer was understanding, but like he kind of just he's like he was explained, my god, I'm sorry, man, but like I have to. I have to pay attention to this. I am. It's something that we're focusing on this year, particularly this river, is making sure kids are safe because we've had some issues and which I can't right. So

he's like I said, I can't. I can't just look the other way on this. And what he could have done was he could have told us, all right, I'm sorry, but you gotta you're you guys are out of here. You don't have a life jack for that kid, pull the boat jack up, put it on the trailer, which would have been a really, really lame way to end my son's first ever float trip. It would have been a real disappointing day and I would have been upset, my wife would have everybody was upset. But the guy

he didn't gotten over right though. If nothing else, he would have moved right on to other things. But but that's not what he did, and that's where I your son. He wouldn't have remembered. No, he wouldn't have cared at all. It would have been like feed me and let me sleep and scream at you. Um. But the the officer didn't do that right. So instead he went back to his truck and he pulled out an infant life jacket of his own and loaned it to my son so

that we could legally complete our float. I'll say he did. He did also issue me a citation, but I chalk that up to the price of stupidity on my part,

like I deserved that. The point is that like these aren't the stories that usually get told, right, the ones where wildlife officers go out of their way to help people are it's usually hear the other ones, And in this case, I was breaking the law, and that dude had every right to just pull us off the river and go about his day, but he chose to loan some of his personal property so that we could we could have fun and we could do what we're doing.

And that's exactly what he did. And so that I thought of that because I just read this other story from the local news on Lake Tuscaloosa in Alabama from last weekend. Tyler Cunningham took his girlfriend Mackenzie Boyd out on his bass boat and he told her that he wanted to sneak in a little bit of fishing before they had to head out to a friend's house for a dinner party. So they hit the water dress in

their Sunday bass like fully ducked out to go bass fishing. Okay, all of a sudden Mill Lake, Cunningham cuts the outboard, gets down on one knee, pulls out a rigg and proposes to Boyd, who's like totally surprised. I love I love your response. There. I give the dude credit because I actually pulled off the surprise part and and you know she accepts everybody's happy blah blah blah. It's a

touching moment, Sir Mellie. But then on the way back to the ramp, the couple gets detained by State Wildlife officers because they don't have life jackets or a fire stigmature on board. Now, similarly, by law, the off could have issued a couple of citations and that would have been the end of this story. But they didn't. They did it differently. They they let the couple off of the warning, which I think is a nice thing to do for a young couple of probably broke I know

I was a young couple. But then they also used this event as an opportunity to do a little pr work, and this is what I think was pretty smart. The officers took photos with the couple and then they put up a Facebook post that I gotta say it's kind of clever. And so here here's how it read. Quote quite an eventful boat ride on Lake Tuscaloosa from Mackenzie L. Boyd, who was first detained with a request for her hand in marriage, and then once again with requests for licenses

and registration. Officers Stanley and Halloway congratulated Mackenzie and her bow Tyler Cunningham, and remind them that the secret to a long and successful life together includes life jackets and accessible fire extinguishers. Okay, I I know this is this is kind of a cheesy story, and I get now.

I have something to say. If you don't say that, I want to give both the officers involved and the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division a lot of credit for how they handled this, because, as we've already said, as I've mentioned, wardens generally have difficult, thankless jobs, and while they are always exceptions, the vast majority of the wardens that I've ever dealt with have been courteous and

polite and professional. And you you may get it. Yes, you may get annoyed at getting checked or or getting a citation for doing something accidental or stupid. I get that, But you gotta remember that these are men and women their primary responsibilities to protect the fish and wildlife that we all really care about. And think about the sum total, think about the good versus harm, and think about how often like they have to deal with people being jerks

to them. Yes, and and and then take a step back and recognize that when they have these moments to like throw some levity in the situation, I think that it is incredibly valuable and I love when they do it, and and I thought that was very well handled. Here's what I will say, which which just really goes back to the to the couple, right. I don't know, dude, I've had a lot of boats. I have boats now. The life jackets are always in the boat, like, they

don't ever come out of the boat. The fire extinguisher doesn't come out of the everything is always in the boat. Like. That's like common sense to me. So when I hear people on larger boats that get hit for having no life jacket, like you, what do you take your life jackets on and off the boat? Everything? Even if you wear right, Like, even if you wear the suspenders type, the comfortable ones, I still have the shitty orange ones jammed in there to be up to code in case

I forget the suspenders. So you're like, you're always legal. I don't understand that. I don't understand that either, the same on my boat. I'm with you. Well, so I'm gonna close here with one that um no no levity from fish and game officials was warranted for this one because it's it's pretty ugly and there's really not a great punchline other than like we're gonna crunch some numbers

here and you're gonna be like what right. So this one comes from Michigan's m live dot com headline two Michigan men find eight point five thousand dollars for poaching hundreds of walleye, pan fish and perch. Right now, it's it's not that difficult to dig up approaching story. We are I mean, like, we're all connected here, we are run, we are locked in. Um. I was gonna say, it's not really that hard to find a poaching story on the local outdoor police blotterer somewhere, you know what I mean,

Like there's always somebody doing something. But this one's pretty over the top. So this is from the story in a single day in March, Stanley garb As Jr. Sixty eight years old of Caseville and Bruce Warren, fifty three, of Pigeon. We're allegedly over the perch daily catch limit by sixty Fish. Authorities also found hundreds more walleye, pan

fish and perch in garbage is freezer. The case began in March from the Department of Natural Resources received a tip on its report all poaching hotlines, So there you go. If you ever scoffed at those and like, don't think you should call call okay, because here's here's an example of where that worked. UM Advising that Garbas was at his residence in possession of a few hundred perch, dn R Conservation Officer josh Wright proceeded to the home and

called the Huron County Sheriff's office for assistance. Deputy Joshua Loss arrived first and confirmed that there was quote a lot end quote of perch being fall When Right arrived, he received permission to count the fish that had been caught that day, and we're being processed by Garbage and Warren. He counted one and seventy. They were each over the day by sixty perch. Right then found an additional eighty five bags of frozen fish in four freezers at Garbage's residents.

The filets were fought and counted. Once everything was falled and counted, it turned out dude was over his possession limit by thirty five walleye two under and forty pan fish and three hundred and ninete perch, right, God do I mean? So this is my assessment short story again, Like there's there's no quotes from these guys or anything. Um. But on top of their fine, the combined fine of eight point five k um, naturally, these men also face

the loss of their licenses you know, forever. Um. But I'm I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that, you know, similar to my worry about the prawn deal, the loss of a fishing license will will not necessarily stop these guys from fishing, because like, these violations to me are so egregious. I'm guessing that these two old timers basically give zero ships. Like if you're if you're one or two over the limit and try to be sneaky and you got caught, that's one thing.

But if you're willing to go three perch over the limit, I'm I'm betting you don't actually care about the rules. You have not read the annual compendium, you probably never will, And I don't really think if like you can't get a license, you're not going to go out on the lake at night or or do what you're gonna do. Just my assessment, great bust like, good on them for for busting this one. Um and again similar to the Hawaii story. I mean, that's a hefty fine. They're they're

really trying to get after these dudes. But I always question will it really matter in the end. I mean it is. It is a hefty fine, but not compared to the six and thirty thousand dollars. But if if Phil is gauging just on fines, you have wanted to clearly I'm gonna I'm gonna be quick here. I don't understand why anybody like I get eating fish, I get harvesting fish. Having that many fish, particularly freshwater fish, and

freezer doesn't make that much sense to me. I don't There's something going on there that I can't wrap my head around. I try to be I try to be compassionate about like these people whose stories come up, but this one really I just struggle with. And to your other point, yeah, these all the fines here may not ever get paid, these people who may not be able to. But I do think that having a story that puts the word out there that can dissuade other people totally

making similar choices. And that's where particularly the prawns story, like oh ship, they can come after me for a half million dollars. Probably not worth it to poison some some prawns tonight. Um, but that you're you're probably right. These individuals likely can't pay these fines and likely won't change their behavior, but hopefully it changes the behavior of many others who might otherwise make similar stupid choices. That's

my hope. Yeah, well, I mean, unfortunately, it's it's always hard to get to uh you never really can see them. Then to find the follow up to these kinds of stories, Like I always you read them and you read, you know, the fines, but then there's never anything about whether dude actually ended up paying them. So we may never know. I don't know. We'll keep an eye out. Um, Phil has got a lot to ponder here. I think we did a good job, like instead of staying just very

on man, just totally connective. So difficult job for Phil, our guest DJ of the week. We're gonna hear from him, and then we're gonna do a little covering water with a tarpin. Legend will go full salty miles. I do not judge based on which one of your subjects procured the largest fine. I rate under three categories spunk, sizzle, and SPF, and I think within those parameters, the winner

is obvious. Joe Surmelli, congratulations. Just for a glimpse behind the scenes, I sent Joe and Miles big list of songs to choose from, and I did not hear a single word back. So I just assumed that they probably saw the Buddy Rich Big Band on there and regretted asking me to contribute. And we're just gonna pretend that it never happened. But no, thanks for including my songs. Guys, appreciate it. I can't wait to see what selections river Horse makes. I'm going in I can hold it wasting

his valuable time with us. Today we have infamous tarping guide and photographer David Mangum. What's going on, man, Hey, how you doing infamous? Infamous? Ye? We'll see well so so so. I I was intentional, man, I used infamous to describe you because you've I don't know if you've earned or cultivated this this this this kind of reputation right like Bill the rumor mill has it that you can be abrasive maybe on the water? Is that is that legit? Did you like really deserve that, or is

just really good brand marketing. I don't know. I mean, I guess it depends whether you mean to the boats that are near me or to the people on my boat. So h the answers would be different. But no, uh, you know, I think when I was younger, I was a little more abrasive, But in my old age, I've I've soppened up. Let's say, how's that? How's that? I like that? I think we all mellow with age, and I know I do, yeah a little bit. We've asked you here to to do this. I guess you'd call

it our version of an interview. But you know, instead of like conducting a well thought out, proper interview, we just blurred out a bunch of ships and see what you come back with. So here's how it's gonna work. Joe's gonna put two minutes on the clock, and then he and I are gonna we're gonna like pepper you with rapid fire questions. The goal is to get through as many of these as we can in two minutes, which means you can't really think about it. You just you just got to react. It's a I think I

describe it as like a verbal roar shock test. First thing that comes to your head just say, but in the spirit of fairness, we will give you one minute at the end to to like, expand and elaborate on whichever answer you think is is most interesting or stupid. Sound good? Okay? Sure, all right, Joe, you're ready and Clark is starting now. Roughly how many clients have you made cry in your career? Zero? Worst place you've ever been hooked? Uh? Eyelid. One sentence that describes how you

feel about boon flies. Uh god, I don't even know it since his garbage finish the sentence. I cringe whenever a client tells me they've um got high expectations. Yes, there go the words that come out of your mouth when you see someone trout set on a tarpin blate blip blie, believe. What's the greatest tarpin destination outside of the US? I'm gonna have to go Guinea Bissau? Oh okay, alright, far flow Florida man stories funny or annoying? Oh god,

both pivotal point in a tarpin fight. People screw up most often both side um just too much bend in the rod. Okay, greatest angler of all time Zane Gray. Oh, saved by the bell or fresh Prince of bel Air Fresh Prince? Yeah? Nice? Black flag no effects or blink one two black flag? Oh excellent? Name a bucket list species you haven't checked off your list yet? Oh, I'm gonna have to go with black marline. Okay, Yeah, greatest fly ever invented? Spoon fly? No kidding? Um? Oh maybe

the maybe the toad, Gary Mer's toad. Okay, and we have we have time for one last question here. Chasing line class records cool or lame? Somewhere in between depends. There's a lot to do, There's a lot you have to answer with that question, but somewhere in between. It all depends on the person chasing. Fair enough, fair enough, I mean, now you've got you got your one minute to elaborate. If that's the one you want to go on again. Yeah, well, I you know, I think a

lot of the difference between folks that chase line class records. Um. You know, some folks that have been angling their whole life and have caught everything and they're trying to make it more challenging. You know, they don't care if they catch that fishes and they've already caught tons of them, so they challenge themselves by trying to do some line

class records. If you're doing line class records to try to make a big name for yourself and you're starting out angling, and you start out doing it scarbage were We recently reviewed the Monty Burke Lords of the Fly book that kind of goes through that that that whole culture. I don't know if you've read it, man, but it's it's a really good one. I have, I figured since you were in there. So to each his own, I

think is the is my feeling on it. I think in some ways it's great chase the line class records. In some ways, I don't know. I'm hot and cold on it, but I think I'm warming up to it a little more after you know the the book and kind of looking into the hearts of some of those people to do it. So then we appreciate you. You're taking the time to talk with this man and coming on here. We hope to talk to again soon. So I've never actually hung out with Dave, but we we have.

We have quite a few mutual friends. But I've never liked, never had a beer with the guy. He's as you know, he's an icon in the saltwater fly fishing world. But he definitely has that reputation, like a long standing reputation of being a hardass, right. Oh yeah, yeah, dude. I know people who fished them back in the day. They were like scared, they were a little bit scared. And I don't I don't personally know him either, but supposedly, supposedly he's this super amped up hothead, but that that

was not the guy who showed up for interview. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what it is. I don't know if he's just mellowed out because he's gotten a little older, he was just in a like a chill mode because we caught him, you know, in the off season, not between crazy Tarp and Trip, or if he's just trying to like soften his public image, which is also a possibility. But he was not um at all like the intimidating, aggro dude that he's been made out to be. I feel like I feel like

he's hired a PR consultant or something. Someone you got, you got an interview, come up, Okay, here's what you gotta do. Take three volume wash it down with this. I don't know. He wasn't He wasn't the he didn't show up anyway as as the image that he's been built up to be. And I don't know if I disappointed or if I was relieved about that. I was kind of ready for this edgy interview that was that was combative, and it just wasn't like that at all.

It was he was kind of tame. Actually, yeah, yeah, I mean maybe he's different when he hits the water, which would mean that he has something in common with a classic fly you're gonna tell us about in this week's end of the line, which also happens to be my favorite dry fly. Well that's not loud enough. One mid March years ago, a former fishing buddy and I skipped down for a few rain soaked days. The trip turned into an exercise and cognitive dissonance misery amid euphoria.

Three days of steady downpour with tempts that never crept above the low forties. The air and water were nearly indistinguishable, being about the same temperature and saturation level. We set up camp in the rain, rendering our shelters wet from the start. And leaving us no escape, no warm, cozy respite. So we just stayed on the river from daylight to dusk, because though our bodies may have been damp and cold, we experienced three days of the most spectacular trout fishing

either of us had ever seen before or since. Insects emerged from the water in sheets, creating a near mirror image of the falling rain, and just about every trout settled at the surface with their mouths wide. The gray light and steady drizzle made them far less spooky than usual on this particular tail water, and since the weather was more Southeast Alaska than Fort Lauderdale, the spring break

crowds were absent. We didn't quite have the place to ourselves, but with hoods up and eyes focused, we hardly saw another soul. The first morning we set up in a long, slick covered and feeding fish. Two different insects were hatching tiny midges and just slightly larger slate colored mayflies called batas. The fish seemed to be alternating between bugs, so I kept switching flies. One fish would be focused on midges,

while the fish just below it only wanted mayflies. Meanwhile, my buddy standing just downstream remained consistently hooked up without ever retiring. I finally broke down, while shivering and trying to thread hair thin mono into a miniscule hook eye again, Dude, what are you using? And atoms size twenty, he replied, Rod still bent. Kind of look like a midge cluster,

kind of looks like a batis. I dug into my box, tied on a size twenty Adams, and didn't change flies again for the rest of the trip, except when one got chewed beyond recognition or broken off by a big fish. If I could, I would rename the Atoms the gray area with a gray dubbed body and some buggy hackle. It's the prototypical anything fly. You can find it in sizes that range from damn near invisible like what we were fishing in that rainstorm hatch, to holy sh it

is that hummingbird. Depending on how it's tied, it can imitate midges, mayflies, catas, even ants, and fool everything from the most naive backcountry opportunists to the most selective tailwater scrutinizers. The Atoms was invented in Michigan in two The story goes like this, Charles Adams, an attorney and avid fly angler who regularly traveled to Michigan to fish the famous Boardman River, found him self in a position familiar to

almost anyone who trout fishes. He was on the Mayfield pond one summer evening and found fish rising to some kind of insect that he could not identify or imitate. Now Adams couldn't tie flies. He was your standard relatively clueless, wealthy sport. So the next day he went to local fly tire Leonard Halliday, and described in broad and general

terms the confounding bug. Holliday lashed golden pheasant feathers to a size fourteen hook to create the tail, coarsely dubbed the body with gray wool yarn, and then made oversized wings and hackle from rooster neck feathers. Halliday handed the creation to Adams, who fished at the following day and

reported incredible success. Being a humble Midwestern fellow, Holliday decided to name the fly not after himself, but the man who commissioned it, telling Lee Adam's initial success on the new fly didn't come on the pond where the mystery hatch actually went down. Instead, he proved its effectiveness on the nearby Boardman River, where the insects would almost certainly have been different, which makes the perfect origin story for

this fly that can imitate just about anything. Also, fittingly, the modern Atoms in your fly box or local fly binds doesn't include a single one of those original materials from Holiday's invention. Over the past ninety years, the fly is transformed. What was once a bushy, oversized, and frankly kind of sloppy looking fly morphed into a relatively sleek

and sparse profile as American fly tying evolved. Unlike modern fly marketing, where a tire swaps out a single material and then claims to have invented a whole new pattern, the Atoms evolved steadily but completely, without ever losing its name. It became a collaborative pastiche of American fly tying tradition as a whole, with dozens of different innovators adding their

own flare to it over the decades without demanding any credit. First, the golden pheasant tail changed to brown or grizzly hackle fibers sometime in the mid nineties. Next to go was the wooly yarn body, which has a tendency to absorb water and cause the fly to sink, replaced by much more buoyant muskrat fur. Then the wings and hackle shifted to an upright cat skill style. Eventually the fly lost

most of its original form. Today's Atoms sports a calf tail or poly yarn parachute instead of hackle tip wings, and a synthetic dubbed body. The only attribute it shares with the original is the color gray, a generic stand in that can pass for just about anything. The Atoms is a perfect reminder the profile and presentation matter more than exact representation when it comes to fly fishing. Cut off the tail, pick out the dubbing a little, and

it looks like a cat as. Keep it sleek and it can imitate just about, and you may fly on the planet as long as you get the size right. Most of all, it's the perfect fly to use when you encounter a situation like the fly's namesake Charles Adams did on that Michigan pond in the early twenties, when fish are feeding on some kind of bug that you can't seem to identify. You don't need a text photos to some aquatic entomologist friend. Just grabbing atoms of appropriate size,

and make a good cast. So that is all we have in the fly bin for you guys this week. We hope that we didn't piss off any of our fly furious listeners or our glorious sponsors thirteen Fishing, who doesn't make fly rods but does make badass rods of many other kinds. But if we did, anger you, take a deep breath, find your center, get a grip on that tapered leader, and cut about a foot off the

butt end. Seek inner clarity on the reasons why you are chasing those line class records in the first place, and reconnect with the whole family of flies named Adams. Nice mouthful. It was a lot, but I liked I liked puns in that. And if you're struggling with your feelings about fly fishing or this episode, or have any questions that we might be able to help with, drop us a line. Email us at bent at the meat

eater dot com. Also, I just gotta say, all of you out there, you've been kind of slacking on the awkward photos and the bar nominations lately. Between we love those segments and they don't exist without your help. So send us what you got, help us out keep them going, please please, please do, and don't forget to drop the Degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on the Gram for

additional chances to win stickers from us. And finally, keep in mind that most of us learned to fly fish on a neighborhood pond with a shitty, second or third hand set up we bought cheaper stole from a family member. You don't need a trust fund and a frequent flyer account to have fun with a long rock. Give a shot, h