The way I see that hybridization could have easily produced like a small math that didn't really fight, or like a large mouth that wouldn't eat pretty much anything you dropped in front of it. Question number one, do you self, No, we did not. We did not sell launches either. Guess who does Walmark, but he's got it all tied together with a giant Colt forty five belt buckle. I am not talking about the Billy D. Williams could forty five
malt liquor. We were talking about the pistol, though I often opt for white sweatpants when I fish drive unless it's after Labor Day. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Ben to the Fishing podcast. That's better than Netscape, but not quite as good as asked Jeeves. When it comes to answering Huormo's burning fishing questions, I'm Joe sph Millie Miles Nulty. I was more. I was more web
crawler and Legos WebCrawler. Web Crawler. Those are that my go to source for for cliffs notes and uh leisure suit Larry game hacks back in the nineties. Where as fun as this is that to drop stupid reverences where we're going. Dude, is this like the are were theming this show doom and slow download speeds or something. Oh no, but that would be a fun challenge. I would take that on. I don't want to do a doom show. Doom and Doom and dogpile. The sound effects alone, that grunting.
It was just constantly grunting and gunfire. Um no, but I'm actually what I'm doing here is I'm ripping off something we dabbled with a while back. Remember that we did a one off segment with Tom Rosenbauer called the Right Question. Remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I like that one. I thought that was good. We told was actually making that a segment where we we asked people
about dumb we were gonna like. The whole idea was that we would take smart people who get lots of questions that are not so smart and and asked them to explain how to formulate better or smarter questions. The idea being if you ask better questions, you get better answers. But we never really like, we were never able to make it into a full set. If I remember correctly, We thought it was a great idea, but we didn't have that many opportunities to pull it right, and I
still think it's a really good idea. It has merits. So just just for some fun today, I wanted to reframe it a bit and make it kind of personal because, as many of you guys know, I hope most of you know, Miles and I are very much open doors right like you d m U s a question or email a question to the Bent email account, we answer right. We love entertaining and telling good stories, but our job, you know, has for a long time also been helping
people catch more fish and have fun doing so. And uh, I mean we also just love to talk fishing, Like punk music and fishing are really the only things I'm qualified to talk about. If we're not talking about one of those two things. I just kind of turned into a vegetable. Um. So, like we genuinely enjoy answering phishing questions. Yeah, yeah, I'll say Joe's better on the d M S. I'm better on the email. Fan which route you want to
take it? But uh, you're setting up a theme for the show, dude, and you're just telling people about this now, like right now, who are listening into the show at this moment, So I don't exactly know how we're gonna, like, I don't know how are we going to make an episode based around questions that we we haven't yet received.
I'm struggling. Now that's a valid point. But see, I thought i'd use this opportunity to address the two most common questions I get and I'm sure if you get them or similar questions, and I want to talk about them and how you should rework them a little so we can help you. Okay, okay, help mat, help me, help me, help you, all right, this is this is fun. This is fun. Thank you, Jerry. And uh, I'm I'm curious to see. I'm guessing our questions will overlap, but
let's see. Let's me too. Okay, So most common question number one, could you recommend a good fly outfit? And Lord knows I can recommend a good outfit for everything from bull reds to blue girls, right, it does. I will say it's trickier when dude says, where I'm fishing the mostly stocked trout, but there's also some huge car. Occasionally we get some giant pike in there are loads of perch. But those details I can work around, like
I can. We'll figure that out. But the basic question, the initial question is always answered with another question every single time. And you know what it is? How much? What's the budget? What do you guys? You can't just ask an open questions like that without any expanding parameters
there it is. I think that's a good tip kind of when you're asking anyone to recommend anything about gear like a recliner of walkman, that's that phone and fishing around whatever budget is critical and and you know you you have both. We know about gear, like we know about lots of fishing gear. We've had to be up on it as a lot of our jobs for a while.
So like it doesn't matter the price range. We fished the snazzy stuff, we fished cheap stuff, and we can we can tell you which one you should get, Like doesn't matter. I don't care if you're trolling your cast or whatever. We probably have some some opinions, but damn it, we got what do you what do you? What do you got? How much can you spend? Like if I needed, say a good cranking rod, I would write, dear Joe, can you recommend a crank bait rod that could pull
double duties? Say as a late swim bait rod and that we'll I'm gonna catch everything from big large mouth to SCHOOLI stripers. I'm looking to spend around two bucks because that's what I got see and i'd write back, dear Miles, first, excellent question, thank you for including your budget. I'd go with the thirteen Fishing Envy black two krunkenstein. Matter of fact, I recently use mine to put the screws to a bunch of ten and twelve pound stripers
on the Delaware River and it was fantastic. He texted me photos the same day, just just to everybody knows, because I wasn't. Yeah. Yeah, you'd also say that because bent is officially brought to you by thirteen Fishing, a fact about which we were very very proud, and like, Okay, I know that's this all sounds like a cheesy plug, but it's actually valid. Joe's Joe's not making that up about the stripers and and the crunk and steam earning his keith. This season, he's been using that thing a lot.
I even used it a few times when I was out there with him. Anyway, we love rods and reels. Please check them out at thirteen Fishing dot com And now that we've covered that, what's question number two? What's your what's your second most fielded question that you wish we're I get this a ton? Okay, get this a ton. Me and my buds have two weeks off in September. We're planning a fishing trip. Where should we go? Or sometimes this ends with if you could pick one place
to go, where would it be? And of course my answer is vana watt to for giant travallis, which isn't It's like, it's not really a good answer for these questions most of the time. But like once again, okay, budget is really important here too, but it goes, it goes far beyond that, like for starters, where where do you live? Where are you from? Not only yeah, because before you figure out what's gonna cost, you gotta know how far you're going where? Yeah? Yeah, No, I I
get this one. I get this one all the time to like, help help us out, help us out, a little, help me, help me, help me help you. Are you driving? Are you flying? Are you like do you want to stay in a swank lodge? Are you car camping? Are you backpacking? Are you like? We're cool with gem and the whole crew of eight dudes into a Super eight motel.
Do you do you want to get a guy? Do you want to get a guy the whole time, just the first day or you just straight d I Y like there there are so many elements of like pieces of information you could provide that would get you a better answer. Yeah, and quite often, I mean with stuff like this, the first round of answers dictates the second. It's like if you answered, ay, we're driving, then the next part of the choose your own adventure is, well, how far do you want to drive? You know, I
always asked do you want? How many days off do you have? Exactly? Do you want quantity or quality? Is this a trophy hunt? Are you trying to feel coolers? Like? It's like, okay, you know, well I want to catch stripers, but I'm gonna recommend a different place if you want them on fly than if you just want to soak bait and drink beer and wait for a cow. So this is what I'm again. I'm always happy to help with this, but you can't just say I have two
weeks off, man, send me somewhere. Can't. It's not can't. I'm worried. I feel like I feel like we're going to come off as sounding snarky right now, and we all know, but we're being We're being snarky for the sake of entertainment, because that's why people partially listen to this, just to be entertained. But this really is all about asking good questions like, yes, don't ask what setup should I buy? Or where should I go fish? Be specific, like if you want a good answer, ask a good question.
And that goes for phishing questions. You could ask any word to anyone through your local Chackel shop, or you're with a guide or a fishing body who knows more than you. Don't shortcut it with some kind of broad generalization because you're too lazy to figure out the details of what you need to know. Think about it, Ask a detailed question. That's it. That's if you want to get a lot out of it, you have to put
something into the crafting of the question. More specific you are about what you want or what you want to do, the faster and easier that anybody can help you, whether it's us or someone else. And and we do want to help, like we enjoy that, we love being helpful when we can be. We really do. And I'll say that like, we really try to stay on top of answering everything and if you give me the information I need to help you. People have written me back and be like, oh my god, dude, you just wrote me
a novel. Like yeah, because if I'm if I'm into your question, I'm a detail oriented person, so like I will go all in, I'm more likely to avoid it when I have to do too much work to get to what you're really asking first. But we really do love helping everybody. Um and um, you know who else loves to help you. Our friends Sammy Gerardo, owner of and Sun's Fly Shop and Franklin Lakes, New Jersey trout seas.
It is in full swing. Hatches are popping off. You have questions, He's got answers, some of which he graciously supplied for this week's Regional Fishing Report. Hey, everybody, how he's doing. Sammy Jnado Jennado and Son's Fly Shop, Jesus christ as Spring. Anything you want to be hatching is hatching right now, so stop calling me. Just go fish size sixteen. I don't care what it is, just put it out there. That's all you need to do. I've been getting a crapload of calls this week. I hung
up on most of them. So instead of a report, he's the five questions I'm just sick of hearing. Question number one, do you sell big No? We do not. We do not sell lawn chairs either. Guess who does Walmart post up title line to your toe? Take a nap call today? I don't care, see you later. Question number two? What color are they hitting on? Let me ask you a question? What call you sweatpants? Great? Question number three? What's the best time to go fishing? I
couldn't tell you. I closed in ten minutes. Question number four, where should I go fishing? Answer? Under the power lines? You know you're there when your cell phone don't work. Question number five, Last and most least, I went what you just told me to go? How come I didn't catch nothing? Maybe because you bought your flies off some toddler on Instagram was turning them out like Slurper's at seven eleven. Maybe next time, assole support your local fly shop.
I E. Gennado and Sons fly Shop, Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. Asked the right questions, you get the right answers. Spend the right amount of money, you might get a little bit more. The sweatpants thing was on point, man, I just I gotta say totally, totally, that's accurate. Went in down, you tie on a gray body, dry and call it done. Adams, you covered them. I live and die. I live and die by them, though I often off for white sweatpants when I fish dries. Unless it's after labor day. Then
you can't wear them anymore. Hard hard to get the fish slam off sweatpants, especially the white ones. Yeah, think about thinking about your wordrop choice anyway. Speaking of sweatpants, uh, which I don't fish in. They've been worn a time or two by people who wound up featured on our Awkward Moments and Angling segment. We've seen some sweaty sweatpants, some soiled sweatpants. We've seen a lot, but not this week. No, no, no,
very different. The dude in this photo that we're roasting or perhaps exalting, went head to toe crisp Denim Chris Dude. This dude is either awkward or just straight baller. And we're gonna let you decide for yourself. But I know which way I'm leaning back a picture. This week's Awkward Moments and Angling submission comes to us from listener Raise Abrawski. However, it is not It is not Raise Abrowski in the photo.
In this photo is his Bud Skyler Hagen, And just very quickly this leads to it's too good of a spot to not drop an obligatory p s A. Remember, we can't use photos of your friends and relatives unless they give you permission to send them to us, and in this case, Skyler gave Ray his blessing, and thank goodness, thank you. This photo is both rad and like a total mind bender, and we love it. It took us. It took us some time to figure this one out.
Which our favorite ones, right, the ones that you get right off the bat, they're just not as interesting. When we first saw it, Joe and I both assumed it was an old photo, like something taken in the mid eighties range. And I'll say if it had been, it would still qualify, because it's great, totally, totally, but the like, the more you look at it, the photo quality just didn't seem right. It didn't seem like an eighties era printed photograph that had been digitized. It just seemed a
little too good. It looks like an eighties era image judging by like everything that's in it, like all the subject matter. But but if you really dig in, it's clearly a newer digital photo. And and then we eventually figured out that it was taken in and so we just we had to go with it. We had to get a full story. Yep, yep. So we're gonna dive right in here. Okay, and maybe listen, maybe grabbing notepads, you can keep track of all the elements were about
to rattle off. That makes Skyler awesome. Okay, it's a lot of elements. So this this shot was taken in the dark. It's taken at night lit by a flash, which again at a quick glance, somehow managed to like nearly replicate that eighties photo graininess. Okays off, Yeah, exactly. So he's showing off a large mouth bass which maybe weighs two pounds, and that's enough. That's it about the fish. We need not say anything else about the fish, Okay.
But he's got his spinning rod in his left hand and the bass is angling from the line that he's holding up in his right hand, and it's got a big old black jitterbug hanging out of its mouth, old school and right there nighttime jitterbugging Skyler is my people. Not many of us out there doing that. And it's not just that I gotta I gotta say, it's not just any jitterbug, but a jointed jitterbug dude goes what's up? Like extra extra points for the old school joint at jitterbug.
He's also wearing a full Canadian tuxedo. The whole deal. Has got he's got. He's got the like the Wrangler style jeans, you know, the ones. They're snug, but they're broken in cowboys snug, not like hipster sky jean snug. That there's a there's a definite difference between those two fits. Yep. And he's up top when you move up from the jeans up top, he's got a much letter stonewashed jean jacket that there's also clearly been well worn and and
just fits him right. It's just it's there. It's a thing. Yeah, it's an extension of his body. But what ties this look together? What sets this apart? Because you know, Kenyan tuxed is good, some people wear it better than others. This dude wears it exceptionally well. But he's got it all tied together with a giant colt belt buckle. And so we are all on the same page. I am not talking about the Billy D Williams Cold forty five
malt liquor. No, we're talking about the pistol, the cold forty Yeah, just big old pistol right there, it's it's it's great. Okay. Now moving moving up the tour, So look closely at the front pocket of that badass Jeane jacket and you'll see a freaking box of black and miles protruding out ever so slightly. And I've just gotta throw a shout real quick. My father's favorite fishing smokes for the record, black and that's cool. That's cool. I was more of a backwoods guy, but he liked those two.
Those were the two options. Yeah, it's been a while, but both good. Anyway, Moving up to Skyler's face, Okay, you just can't miss how it's framed by what appeared
to be a pair of vintage eighties glasses. Okay, and the best way I can describe them, you know what I mean, It's like their aviator shaped but they have really thick frames, and these are are glasses glasses, not sunglasses, right, And like Mike, I swear my grandpap had those glasses glasses just like that when I was a little kid, and he'd keep them in one of those glasses protectors
that you'd stick in your front pocket. Right. Um, they're like a much more like masculine version of glasses Dustin Hoffman worn in Tutsie. Um. And also when I look at at Skyler's face, Um, a particular actor comes to mind, and I want to see how good you are, okay, because we're gonna we're gonna dig deep here. To me, what I see right away is Billy's abka. Do you
know who Billy's abka is? No, I have no idea, so you don't know him by name, right, But Billy's a is the actor that played Johnny in The Karate Kid. I when you said that, I was like, I was thinking, it looks like Cobra Kai Johnny. I don't know the actor's name, but that's exactly you didn't know. You didn't know his name, But Cobra Kai Johnny also in not just one of the guys, one of my favorite eighties actors,
A great movie just one of the guys good. So yeah, when I was like, oh, it looks like Johnny, it does it does? Uh? That paints it. I mean you can see. I think you guys are getting getting a pretty good image of what we're talking about. But best of all, on top of Skyler's uh shaggy blonde mop, He's got this trucker hat. But I've definitely never seen before and it's hard to make out in the photo, but it was. It was in the email, and it says I'd rather be a roper than a doper. I
went the hat. I don't know where that. We didn't We couldn't figure out where the phrase originated, but it is included in the lyrics of Ray Willie Hubbard's up against the Wall redneck mother, Damn the mother. I'm gonna say, for the record, I have plenty of friends who can prove that the two are not mutually exclusive. But that's another story. Anyway, what's going on here? What is going on with Skyler? Is this? Is this a costume? Is this like or is this dude just that unique? Is
he that much himself? Well, according to Ray, this is just Skyler. Ray rode to us and said Skylar works for John Dear, drives classic cars, and listens to hair metal loud. He gave me permission to send this photo. I asked if there were any notable points of interest from the night it was taken. He said, quote, we just listened to a bunch of rat and kicks and drank a lot of old style, caught a couple of fish. End quote. It's fascinating, isn't It's like a fascinating guy. Yes,
he belongs in the outsiders or something. I can't. I can't quite place it. But you dug even deeper on the day. Of course I did, Of course I did. I just just for ships. I googled Skylar and found a little bit of info about him on the website
of the University of Wisconsin Madison's College of Engineering. Apparently he want to fairly prestigious ward in grad school here if you d major award he Skyler completed his master's degree in mechanical engineering sixte His research was aimed at developing a compact system that can transfer electrical energy wirelessly across a rotating air gap between a stationary power source and a rotating electrical load. Totally got that. I'm sure
he did too. He's a volunteer firefighter with two departments. He's the president of the u W Madison's Ham Radio Hub, and his hobbies include restoring antique electronics and ice fishing. Oh my god, he's he's just so American. I hate I hate to even call this photo awkward anymore, Dude, Like, just for this movie, I want to change the name of the segment to Photos of our Heroes because it's it's like, it's very perplexing. But I love it. I love Skyl, I love all the things. Ray. Thank you
for sending this. Skyler. Don't ever change. Okay, you just keep cranking the rat and chugging old style and designing technology that will better our society. Okay, if you guys, God bless you. Guys have God bless you. If you guys have any awkward fishing photos to share that maybe you'd like for us to consider roasting or celebrating. I feel like we've opened a new chapter here. We we've celebrated more than roast of this time. Please send them to Bent at the meat eater dot com. I want
a party with Tyler. Dude. The fact that he is, that he is rocking this look that he has this stease to use one of your favorite words. But it's like a super smart dude, not some country bumpkin. It just it just it makes him such a badass. He's a badass. You. I'm the guy he's gonna put a boot up your ass if you don't tell me where Shelley is he? Tyler, you need this guy. He's my boyfriend. Yeah. Yeah.
There's there's a huge difference between hipsters that like paid top dollar for attire that in soho that like so it fuels shabby chic, and and the dude who wears a cult forty five belt buckle that he got from his grandfather. We didn't cover that, but it's a hand me down from his grandfather and smokes black and yeah. Yeah, actually hand me down from his grandfather and smokes black and miles while redesigning electronics for his tractor. Get out
of here, yep, different world, just do it. Just get out of here, Yeah, get out of here. I may not know shit about tractors or any other motorized vehicles or devices, I admit that, but I am a force to reckon with when it comes to winning the championship belt buckle in the weekly fish competition we call fish news. Fish News. That escalated quickly, So here's a super fun
shout out to kick things off. A lot of you have been reaching out asking us who the hell one the big b Side fishing giveaway, you know, the one where you got every single thirteen rod and really used in season one of the show. And we apologize for that announcement taking so long, but please understand that Miles and I are not the ones that like stick our hands in the baseball cap and and pull out the
name on a tiny folded piece of paper. It's not our job, and honestly, at least I assume that's how it's done by whoever does. I'm certain that it's not like computer generator algorithmic. I'm certain there's a hat and folded paper. For sure, you got an intern writing all the names that thing exactly. The truth is all that stuff the contest have a ways that that's way above our heads. That's that's handled elsewhere other departments. I think,
I don't know. So it's the truth is it takes a while for us to find out who wins these things. But just like we were all hoping, like we said, we were hoping a bed listener brought home the sweet, sweet taste of victory. So huge congratulations go out to
Dylan Antillus antilus something like that. And and not only am I happy that this dude one because he's a listener, his backstory and the way that this has all coming together, it could not be more timely or appropriate considering what we were talking about in in last week's episode of the show. Yeah right, So last week's show was fly focused, but Miles and I both made the point that it's okay to take spinning gear when you fly fish. That's okay. You're not going to get in trouble. We do it
all the time. But the real theme of that episode was to assuage any trepidation conventional anglers might have about getting in fly fishing right. And then along comes Dylan. And when Dylan hit me up upon hearing the news that he wont he was like, yeah, I'm a hardcore flag guy, but wouldn't you know it, I was recently thinking about buying some conventional gear, so the timing couldn't be which he should do because it's all about being
a well rounded angler. And and Dilan Dillon was saying that he hasn't owned a spinning rod or a convention rod of any kind of like ten years some of his backstock, but he's already gotten his hands on some of that thirteen gear. And so just the other day he was out fishing on Buddy's canoe and he wanted to throw google bugs with his fly rod, but it was blowing I don't know, thirty or something. It was too windy. So he just happened to have all this
new conventional gear. He busted that out through on a hula popper and started trashing large mouse, which is exactly what we're talking about. And there you go. That's the that's the real life, live version of our p s A right there, that story defined bent right like, that's our whole our whole stick. It's just fishing, man, It's all good no matter how you catch them. So that's perfect. Yes, and and congratulations again, Dylan, send us some photos. Uh,
we want to see what you're getting. And now I think it's time we should we should move on with with our contest, Our own contest, Our weekly contest. Remember, Joe and I do not know which news stories the other guys bringing to the table. And at the end of all of this, our audio engineer, Phil, the Deacon of our digital water world, will pass judgment upon both of us. He will, he will. I believe it's my lead off this week or you're you're up, buddy, and
what do you got? Okay, alright, so here we go. I first caught win this story on Wire to Fish, but uh, it's made the round since, including right over there to for the wind dot Com, which we all know is one of my favorite news sources. Because that I hope this is the story that I think it is. It is because we can't not write um, so that's where I'm pulling from. For the wind dot Com, headline of this one is Texas Fisherman's mean mouth bass is
a world record meanmouth bass. You say, what is that? Well, here's how undialed I am in the bass world. I'd never heard the term before this, but it is a true hybrid between a small mouth bass and a large mouth bass. I don't know about you, I never knew such a thing existed, Like I'd never heard the term um, and I certainly didn't know that this occurred enough to have a name like meanmouth. But more on that later. We'll do some mean mouth. I'm sorry, you've already obviously
researched this. I thought it was a hybrid with a spot and a small mouth, but I could be wrong about that. Apparently this is your story, so I'm not trying to I'm not trying to mess you up. So I think a mean mouth. It works both ways. You can't have a hybrid between a small mouth and a spot. But there's no spot in the lake where the gent and this story is fishing. There's small amounts in large mouths.
So as I understand it, it it works both ways. Right If I'm wrong about that some of you out there, I know there's a bassett out there who's like tearing his or her hair out until let us know, right, okay, because I'm just look, all I have to go on here is what's on for the wind, which is not much fair enough. Don't ask me questions that the Smithsonian should answer or something. Okay, it's just on the right anyway. So here's what happened. Whyatt Franken's was fishing the o
h Ivy Reservoir in Texas. This is way back in March when he hooked this seven pounds nine ounce fish, and for those of you curious, all your bass heads that ate a mega bass swim bait. And upon landing the fish, Franken's was certain that what he had was a new lake record small mouth and that's what prompted him to have the fish weighed. And according to the story, um, while it was being weighed, some onlookers at wherever this was tackle shop or I who knows uh, suggested that
it might be a hybrid. So Franken's sent scale samples into Texas parks and wildlife and wouldn't you know it, it's a hybrid. Now this is making bigger news recently because Franken's just got final certification from the i g f A that it is, in fact the world record mean mouth bass. So it's state record, lake record and world record right now now looking at right, yeah, it's pretty. It's cool. So now looking at the photo, if I caught that, I'd have called it a pure small mouth
all day. I'm sure a lot of people are wondering what these things look like and other than to my at least like some slight large amount style patterning on the flanks, if I caught that, it probably wouldn't have crossed my mind. It looks way more small mouth to me. But interestingly so, here's a little history at the term
mean mouth. It's been around. It was coined in the nineteen sixties when Dr William Childer's his colleagues at the Illinois Natural History Survey began studies on sunfish family hybrids. And listen to this right for the wind pulled a quote from in Fisherman from an old story, and here's what it says. The researchers noted that different black bass species didn't hybridize when stockton ponds with members of another species.
I eat all males of one species with all females of another, but fertilizing large mouth eggs with small mouth sperm produced viable offspring that reproduced among themselves and with both parental species. Right gets better. The term mean mouth bass was born when Childers observed a school of large mouth small mouths attacking a female swimmer. There's a quote says the bass leap from the water and struck her on the head and chest and drove her from the pond.
On another occasion, he watched mean mouths attack a dog that ventured in his shallow water. Yeah, this is from an old in Fisherman story. This is what they're saying about the mean mouths so exactly. Man Like, I've never heard of any of this, right, So just based on that, I'm very in on mean mouth bass And I was trying to find info on whether there's a place where they occur, you know, more frequently, but I kind of
drew a blank there. It seems like the south and southeast might have more, but it's it's still pretty rare. And again, frankly, all the pictures I've seen, you know, I did the Google image church, they all look like a smalley to me, you know, like I may have caught twenty already, who knows. I think the variance is so subtle in most cases that it would slip by most people. Um. I did see a few that had like a belly so huge, they just looked more in
large mouth shape. But for the most part, I think it's a it's a very tricky I d um. But hey, like, look they sound vicious. I have one quick I d question that you may or it may not know. Um. One of the ways to tell difference between those two is the dorsal fin right, and and whether they have a shallow or a deep notch in that dorsal fin Where's where's the mean mouth in in the dorsal notching? I don't know, Myles, I'll have to get back to you.
I'm sorry, why are you doing this to me? It is a valid question, But why are you doing this to me? Because I'm curious you think you think for the wind went into that much detail. Okay, I I don't know. I will follow up on that. I feel I feel small right now, do your research, I know. Do you like, all of a sudden, I'm in, like you know, freshman bio in college again, like did you read the thing? And I'm like, no, I didn't actually, Okay,
I was playing guitars and drinking slurpees. Sound of a bit, uh, But anyway, Look, they sound vicious and they sound cool, which is great because that, by the way, I see that hybridization could have easily produced like a small mouth that didn't really fight, or like a large mouth wouldn't eat pretty much anything you dropped in front of it. So it just it sounds like a win all around. Yeah,
I'm all in. I want to know more about the mean mouth, so I have burning questions that the joke clearly can't answer it, so hopefully hopefully someone out there, hopefully someone out there will follow up. Uh I this this, There is no clear connection between meanmouth and what I want to talk about. First, I gotta say I'm I will say that my stories are thematic in that. Here's what I'll say. I'm going very different from you, because I can hardly think of anything more American than a
mean mouth bass like that. That just feels so American. That should be our national fish. Not yeah, it absolutely should. And and the transition I have into what I'm gonna talk about is that I'm going to the opposite direction. I'm not going American at all in any of the stories I'm covering. I'm going I'm going far afield. So if you know anything about the Netherlands, you probably know or you hopefully know, that their geniuses when it comes
to managing water. A full third of that country's land mass sits below sea level and and two thirds of it is floodplain. So the Dutch have been actively working on ways to reclaim land and mitigate floods since the century. Part of that part of that water management strategy is the use and maintenance of canals and dams and locks, right, because Amsterdam is super famous for all of its canals, but it's not the only city in the country that's
got water running all through it. That's that's kind of everywhere, and nearby Utrics canals are just as impressive. And and though man made, have served to connect multiple river systems for thousands of years, and generally all these canals are thought of in pretty anthropocentric ways. They're like tools that people use keep water and checked and and and facilitate boat passage. But though they're man made in urban they
are functioning aquatic ecosystems. Right. So during the summer months the locks get and regularly because of all the boat traffic, and when they do, it's not just boats, but they're also fish that are taking advantage of passing through. But during the winter, with a few boats moving, the locks
can stay closed for extended periods of time. The last year, a Dutch ecologist was working on a project on the Utrich Canals and and noticed high concentrations of fish stacking up at one particular lock, and the fish were like waiting there, like okay, when we when this is gonna open?
When we could pass through, not knowing that it wasn't gonna happen like they're gonna be there for a while, and as a result, the fish were getting exhausted and then they were getting easily picked off by birds who were figuring out easy meals. Right, So this ecologist explained the situation to the lock manager who was responsible for that lock, and the guy said, well, I want to open the door for the fish. For me, it's no problem.
I lived nearby, but I have to know when exactly those fish are there, so I know when I have to open the door. So the ecologist partnered with the local water board to come up with a solution. They installed an underwater camera at the lock and set up a website to live stream the camera feed. They're hope.
They were hoping that a few locals would check the live stream from time to time and if they saw fish waiting at the lock, they'd click a button, which they called a doorbell that would alert the lock manager so you could go and open it up. So that's they're hoping. Within two weeks, seven hundred and thirty five thousand people from all over the world had visited the
live stream and the door was upset. The doorbell had been rung thirty two thousand times, and I'm just that dude had to immediately regret his decision to participate in this right, like, yeah, all of a sudden, he's this whole monitor, He's the sole monitor of the live stream. Can He's like, I got it, I got it, I got it. I'll look, I'll look. Okay, I get annoyed when my phone dings at me more than like four
times a day. This guy was getting pained over two thousand times a day from strangers all over the world, like, hey, dude, some fish want to get in here. Dude, he dude, go open That would be so awful, um and so pretty quickly, like they just switched over to a system where he would open the locks at regular intervals every
day and got rid of the doorbell bugging him. And you could look at the story and think, what a bunch of idiots, right, Like they could have just they could have just done that in the first places, had the guy opened up the locks three times a day and and problem solved. Instead, they wasted all this time and then annoyed the hell out of him for no good reason. But I'm guessing that this worked out far
better than the ecologist could have ever hoped. Right, if he had just quietly struck a deal with the lock manager to open the gates a few times a day and let the fish through, the problem would be solved for those fish at that spot in that one canal. But that's it, And instead he created a system that allowed people from all over the world to interact with
the fish that he cares about in these Dutch canals. Right, all these people are now feeling like they're personally helping these fish get past a barrier, and in doing that, he's he's raised a bunch of awareness not just about the aquatic ecology of urban Dutch waterways, but urban waterways everywhere, and that's a huge wind. Right. Additionally, the camera allowed him to collect data on the specific fish species moving
through the canal and confirmed that it's an important migration route. Right. The cameras captured various different species, including endangered European eels that we're using the canals as part of their catagermus spotting. So with with with the summer boating season full swing, the locks are now opening regularly and the doorbell has been shut down. But there municipality has confirmed that it will be back in operation next winner, but hopefully not
actually painting that poor poor luck manage anymore. I'll tell you what that man. I am not at all surprised by those numbers, um because like just as one example, and you know this happens all over the country, but like the Fairmount Damn in Philadelphia on the school gool, they had a fish cam in their fish ladder and I would look at it every day and not for a minute, like nine nine point nine percent of the
time there would be nothing. You'd just be looking at water and bubbles, and I would sit there for twenty minutes and stare at it like waiting for what. I don't know. They had all their archive greatest moments, Like you go to the archives still it's like, oh a carp and it's like, oh my god, strip but like I never saw any of that ship, but I would still watch it. There's what there's nest cams like so
he's doing nothing. And then um, like the one thing that we used to use a lot still do back in my surf fishing days, they had all the surf cams set up, which were more for surfers. I mean they were in surfing websites, but I mean came in really handy when you're that far away and you want to look at the at the surf, but like you don't watch it for thirty seconds and know, okay, like you sit there and you're just watching waves break on the computer for thirty minutes, Like what am I looking for?
So I'm really not at all surprised by those numbers. People just love that, like live, live, love it stuff. I should just like set one up in my yard. I'd get a million hits. It's like, look at Joe's yard. You could be anything people, somebody will watch it. But this takes it to another level because they had a chance to actually engage. They could they could push a button and make something happen with those fish on the other side of the world, Like you want to talk
about people. People are not that different from rats pushing the button for the cheese, Like they want that immediate feedback and when you get it, like, I totally understand why it blew up. The only thing, the only thing that would have been better and funnier is imagine if they hardwired it so when you hit it, the lock just opened, like all day long, and I'll just be like it would have been broken, Yeah, you would just you would have just killed the entire lock. Really struggling
on a transition here, I don't have one. Uh. I was stretching there to try. But that's okay. I'm gonna go back domestic. We're gonna go to Florida for what I'm gonna say is some fairly significant news out of Florida. It appears that the three decade ban on harvesting Goliath grouper is closer than it's ever been to being lifted. That's that's actually it's fairly significant, right. So this story comes from Florida Phoenix dot com and was written by
Craig Pittman. And for those unaware, right to kill or not kill Goliath Grouper is a huge debate in Florida. It's been a flashpoint for many, many years, and and and to fully understand what's happening, you just need like a wee hint of backstory. And I'm sure most of you know what a Goliath grouper is. You've seen the TikTok videos of people catching eight pounders off the dock at the public ramp with a fifty wide, or hand
lining them with ropes offshore and so forth. Um, And presently I believe you are free and clear to target Goliath's no problem there. But they cannot be brought into the boat, so they're they're still pretty protected now. Pittman accurately notes that goliaths tend to post up in an area and call at home, and that could be a wreck off shore or a bridge, whatever. But his point is that their home bodies so like they're kind of
easy to find because they don't really leave. Like, once you know that goliaths are here, they're they're they're pretty much gonna be there all the time, and divers will tell you so a fisherman, I guess that they're also pretty curious. That they're just genuinely curious fish. Some people say they're they're gentle giants. They're not these like big
aggressive monsters, but they check stuff out. Um. And all of that contributes to why they were nearly decimated by the mid nineteen eighties, right because they were easy to catch um and even easier to shoot underwater. Guys would use powerhead on a spear gun, and for for many decades people sold them to fish markets and restaurants and such, so in the ban on killing them went into effect.
The thing is, according to Pittman, right, there was really no accurate count of how many goliaths remained when that band went into effect, nor is there really a solid account of how many there are now. So the notion that they they've rebounded substantially enough to allow harvest is really based, you know, basically on what anglers and and
divers are sitting. It's just like, yeah, there's a lot more of them out there, but nobody's really out there counting or studying those numbers specifically, um, but generally speaking, wildlife officials are saying they comeback is a huge win. Populations are thriving and all as well. So what's happening is you've got environmentalists and and folks tied to like the echo tour diving industry that need goliaths for clients to look at when they're down there diving. They're saying, hey,
you know, these fish are doing really really good. Let's keep it up. And then you have a large amount of Florida anglers saying, hey, there's too many of these things. Can we please start killing them again? Right? So, here's a here's a quote from the story that sort of
gives you a little bit more detail. Pittman writes, there were calls to end the goliath grouper fishing ban in two thousand one, two thousand eleven, and again that's because some people don't appreciate goliath groupers the way those echo tour divers do. Instead of cute, they use words like lazy and irritating angler. This is a quote that he
used here. Anglers fishing for snook, snappers, koba and other species routinely tell of how they were reeling in their catch to the surface when a Volkswagen sized goliath grouper grabbed their fish and snapped their line, The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported in two thousand one. Pittman says the hardest push to lift the band came three years ago, and it produced the biggest push back. When we're it spread that the Wildlife Agency was considering letting anglers catch
and keep one hundred goliath groupers. Some fifty six thousand people signed petitions against it. But now it appears Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Chairman Rodney Burretto is giving the angling groups what they want, and he says in the story, I think the time has come and I think we should look at where we've come in thirty years with this fishery. Believe it or not, it's another great conservation story.
It really is. We should be applauding ourselves. So the commissioners voted six to one to tell their staff to come back in October. This October with a formal proposal for what they called a limited harvest, And what I gather is that if it passes, you'd have to enter a lottery and essentially draw a Goliath tag, and there would only be one hundred tags given out. The one hundred is still what's on the table. So I don't know. I kind of have mixed feeling about it because for starters,
I don't know. I'm not convinced killing one goliaths would do that much damage. Again, nobody really knows the numbers, but based on anecdotal evidence and videos alone, it seems like there are a lot of goliaths. And if you were to go full on open season or something right like one fish per day or whatever it may be, then I get it, but I really don't think this will be that impactful but second, I don't know unless you're selling the meat. I also can't really understand why
you want a three plus pound grouper like that much meat. Personally, I would much rather catch smaller group of species or snappers down there than uh, you know, take a five hundred pound goliath, especially considering I mean it is how easy they can be to find in hook. You know, that's true, Like I would I would almost feel guilty.
And and final thought, uh, you know about people being upset about a goliath occasionally taking your yellow tail snapper off, I don't know, like like like deal with it like it's it's to me, It's like that's nature, man, Like I've had it happened. It's a bummer, right, but they lived down there. Sorry, Like that's just I don't I've had it happened. Doesn't mean I want to go shoot the goliath with a three fifty seven over it. You know, I'd argued that sharks take just as much, if not more,
fish off the line and then then goliath. So I sort of see both sides here. But it's interesting on the last because this this band is held for so long, and again this is not the first time it's come real close, you know, I mean, And the reason that ban has held along and why is this is such a deal is mega fauna, right like big things. People like big things and we care about big things, and
and not that I don't. I think Glad Cooper super interesting and I agree with just about everything you said. The the other piece though, that I feel like it's missing from this is it has to be studied. Like if we're gonna, if we're gonna make a management decision, I don't think it should be based on anecdotal evidence of divers and fishing and be like, now there's a lot more that that. To me, I think it's probably accurate, But I feel like this should be based on some
kind of actual evidence and data. That's that's the piece for me that's missing here. I don't think a hundred like if if it's really just a hundred tags, that's to me that that's not gonna And these things are are are almost everywhere, you know what I mean, Like if you think about it, that's not that many fish. That's not gonna be a boon for the fishing industry, right like a hundred people going out and that doesn't matter.
The was gonna make way more money. Like that tag is not going to help the guy who's piste off that like five out of ten fish he hooks on his favorite wreck it's taken by a glient, right, that's not gonna help him. It's gonna be like, yeah, and it's it's a it's it's you're gonna have charter captains
in specific places that really want that tag. They may never use it, but it's like, I'm going to have this in case I have that client that like insists on taking this fish, because it's also not gonna do anything to revive, you know, commercial sale. It's a hundred fish now, right, I mean yeah, I think to me it smacks of a symbolic move that that it's really what it is. I think that if they can get this through, then it opens up the door to have
more wild, widespread harvest down the line. That's my guess is that that's where this is going. And I don't I don't know enough to have an opinion on whether or not that's a responsible decision because again we don't have any data. So yeah, well, I mean that's I don't know. It's it's still gonna be a long way out because he just they want the proposals by October.
Then that's got to all pass. So we'll see. I mean this like like Pittman wrote, Man, this has been knocked down with almost an identical proposal three times, so I'm curious. See, I'm sure we'll follow up on that one absolutely. Uh. This one. The only connection I've got between that one and this one is it's also about a fish that folks have been really trying to recover. It is also about a fish. It's about a fish and fish to people care about. That's that's about all
I got. I'm sticking international, but for this one, I'm gonna report on a mouse play. And actually I want to want I want to do this right, So Phil, Phil, can I get a little ominous music the Great Australian mouse Plague of Thank you? Phil? Okay. So, Australia has been dealing with horrible drought the past few years, which has led to massive bush fires and all kinds of other issues, anemic rivers and reservoirs, low oxygen levels, massive
algal blooms. But last year the weather turned. They got plenty of rain, plenty of moisture, very few fires. Uh, and and vastly improved water quality that also led to a banner year for farmers and for mice. And when I when I said mouse plague, I wasn't being hyperbolic. That's the technical term used when mouse populations hit a threshold of eight hundred to one thousand individuals per hector, which equals about two point five acres if you speak American,
a lot of mice. A researcher for the National Science Agencies said that trying to count the mice in Australia right now would be like trying to count the stars in the sky. For months might have been ravaging fields and causing all kinds of problems across the Eastern Australia. The industry group New South Wales Farmers estimate agricultural losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The mice are a huge problem for people, but there kind of turned
into a huge boon for the fish. According to numerous Australian news outlets, murray Cott anglers are reporting that the fish are taking advantage of the abundant supply of mice falling into the water, which makes sense because murray cott eat everything right, They eat everything. The fish this year
are an excellent condition. If you if you look at the photos, you just see these these huge giant standard bellies on fish of all different sizes, not just the big mature ones, but even the smaller ones are fat. The only complaint that local anglers have is that most every fish they catch regurgitates half digested mice, sometimes ten or more, and the smell is quote not the prettiest. This is this is all very welcome news from mary God which have been struggling in the past few years.
The droughts took up a massive toll on the fish, and then when the rains finally did come in early, they watched so much sentiment of the rivers and dropped temperatures so rapidly that some, like the Fame mccruary, experienced severe fish kills. So anglers are rejoicing about finally getting some favorable conditions. Murray cod have plenty water, oxygen, and food, and this all sounds like a happy ending, except you know that that whole mouse plague is still an issue.
As the weather cools into winter, all those mice are looking for shelter and homes and buildings. They're they're invading houses, they're invading neighborhoods. They're like lay waste to hay and straw and crop stores. The government is under serious pressure to do something about all these mice. Researchers are working on genetic bio control solutions, like releasing modified mice in the wild that could theoretically lead to rendering female mice infertile,
but that technology isn't ready. It might help control future outbreaks, but not this one. That's like a heavy. That's a heavy solution, had some futuristic ship right there, setic warfare. The solution proposed to deal with the immediate problem is a poison called Broma di alone, which is currently banned. The state has applied for a permit to use the poison along the perimeter of crop fields in order to
get the mouse plague under control. The problem is that this poison breaks down very slowly, and lots of different animals eat mice, dogs, pigs, poultry, owls, hawks, eagles, and murray cod are all chowing down on the plentiful road and lie. If the mice are laced with this poison, which the Minister of Agriculture referred to as napalm for mice, then it will likely end up in the fish as well. Local fisheries groups and anglers are coming out against the
decision and even threatening potential lawsuits. Since murray coott are listed as a vulnerable species and subject to federal protections, there may be another option. The New South Wales Farmers Group has requested the government provides zinc phosphate instead, which also kills mice and breaks down within twenty four hours of consumption. It would be less effective at getting rid of the mice, but also pose less of a threat to the food chain. I don't actually have a clear
takeaway on this one. Like a mouse playing sounds awful, like as you saying it, as as a man who's I've dealt with some mice. I eventually had to call in professionals because I would get him in my basement, like they'd run around the drop ceiling in my finished basement, and like one or two mice is fun, like you like you set the peanut butter and you sit down there and like hear him to and I'm like, yeah, gosh, yeah, like you know what I mean. But I hate I
hate mice in the home. So this if you look at the back Dude, you look at some of the video, like, well, I saw something on TikTok and there was like some kind of farm conveyor just like it was like a waterfall of mice coming off the top of a conveyor directly into a burning barrel. Like they like it was it was crazy. It's like, it's not funny, but it is like it's literally like one of those farms that like moves fruit and grain, and it was just like dumping like a niagara falls of mice in the in
the like burning napalm. It all looks awful like I would I would absolutely hate to be living in the midst of that. But I'm also I'm rooting for the Murray God, like they're finally and they're finally catching a break. You know, dude, I hear you, Like you know what.
This harkens me back to remember that that story many moons ago about how they realized like shark fins or sharks could like make COVID vaccine faster, and there was like there's organizations that were like, play don't hurt the sharks, but everybody is so over the COVID that it's like I don't care about the sharks right now, make the vaccine. That's what's gonna that could easily happen here because I
get it. On the Murray Cod, that's great, But in the overall scheme, that's like two guys fighting against neighborhood after neighborhood going just God, please get rid of these mice somehow, because that's brutal, man. And then even still, no matter how you kill them, then you still a whole bunch of dead mice. They don't just like blow away. So it's just it's like a bad it's just a bad, bad scenario, man. Yeah. Yeah, the whole thing is is
pretty nasty. And and yeah, like I said, there's that little glimmer in the middle, like the Murray Card are doing great, but we're overrun with a vermin. Yeah, I'll root, I'll root for the Cod with you. But if any we have we don't, we have some. We have some fans down under those that do. And like I'm, I'm wouldn't surprise if I hear someone that are just like f the Murray Cod. Right now, dude, I can't have I can't have food in my home. Okay, They're in everything,
So we feel for you. Guys. Uh, Phil, you can go down and do a mice crusade, kill some mice. Um. You can shoot a grouper in the head, maybe in the farta pretty soon catch a mean mouth ring the doorbell. We'll we'll hear from Phil see who won this week, and then right after that we'll talk about another bass that's kind of an oddball in finn clips. Miles. If you feel your phone blowing up right now, it's because I just sent you two thousand push notifications letting you
know that you're the winner this week. Whether it's not letting a disheveled doc managers sleep for days on end, or deciding that the name of a state of the art research boat should be Boatie mcboat face. It's truly incredible what can be accomplished when a bunch of random strangers come together on the Internet with a common goal in mind. The Internet What a magical place where I go to have only positive experiences with absolutely no detrimental
effects on mental health or social skills. Did you know that there are claw game machines in Japan that you can control from anywhere in the world. You just you pay money and you can control the claw that's in Japan and I'm in Montana. And then after you win the stuff, they send it to you and I never have to leave my house. I can do this forever, forever, forever. Today we're talking bass, not America's bug eyed obsession, the large mouth or the less appreciated but far more interesting cousin,
the small mouth either. No, we're going to talk about a different type of black bass, one that's a hot topic these days if you pay attention to fisheries management circles. Spotted bass or spots range from East Texas across the Golf Coast to the Florida Panhandle. They're also native throughout the Ohio River basin and the central and lower Mississippi
River basin. The colloquial term spotted bass actually refers to two separate but nearly indistinguishable species, one of which is causing a whole lot of problems for their more popular relatives, but we'll get to that in a minute. In eighteen hundred, the French naturalist Bernard Germaine la Sepede described and named
both large mouth and smallmouth bass. Though he'd never actually seen a live specimen, he did get a skin mount of a smallmouth and the mail with the dorsal fin partially broken off, though, which is how smallmouth bass became known as Micropterus dolomu. Micropterus means small fin, and if you remember episode twenty seven where we asked Mandy Yurick about smallmouth history, you already know about the dolomu part.
Dolo might give my name and mother my name. A couple of decades later, another Frenchman, Constantine rough Nesque, was the first scientist who recognize spotted bass as a separate species, but he was kind of an eccentric outcast, so his theory, though correct, was ignored for another hundred years or so. If you're wondering why French naturalists played such a big role in identifying North American fish, you gotta remember the
time period. The US had recently parted ways with the British, so the French were our closest allies, mainly because the French can't resist any opportunity to irritate the Brits. The spotted bass was officially recognized in n when Michigan theologist Dr. Carl Hubbs definitively proved them to be a distinct population and not just a subspecies of small mouth. He originally named them Kentucky bass, mistakenly believing that they only existed in that state. Spotted bass kind of looked like a
cross between a large mouth and a small mouth. They're colored like a large mouth, but their jaws don't extend behind their eyes like small mouth. Spots have a shallow notch in their dorsal fins, where as large mouth have a deeper, more pronounced notch. Spots also have rows of relatively distinct horizontal spots below their lateral line, hence the name spotted bass. From the time of their official discovery, up till the mid nineteen eighties or so, spots weren't
much of a topic of conversation. They were around, and people caught plenty of them, but they weren't all that exciting. Spots generally don't get as big as either large mouth or small mouth, so there was something of an afterthought. But in California fisheries, biologists were experimenting with planting different strains of bass in their relatively new reservoir systems to feed on all the other fish they had introduced there.
Spotted bass were transported from Louis Lake in Alabama and put in Paris Lake, California Department of Fishing Games specifically chose individuals from Louis Lake because the spotted bass there had a tendency to grow larger than other populations. Less than a decade later, Paris Lake was pumping out record spots nearly every season. That population was used to stock other California lakes, where the fish continued to grow to impressive proportions big enough to get bass anglers fired up.
In Bullard's Bar Reservoir kicked out the current world record, which weighed in at eleven pounds four ounces. Fisheries and bucket biologists to like thought they were onto something. Spots have a reputation as pretty indiscriminate feeders, making them willing
targets even when other bassar locked up. When introduced into new systems out west, the first few generations got massive fast, so soon anglers started bringing spots from places that were known to produce larger specimens, primarily in Alabama and northern Georgia, to their home waters. These anglers thought they were doing their lakes and themselves a favor, bringing in larger versions
of the stunted spots to beef up their bycatch. Ironically, those imports are now decimating the most hallowed sport fish in some places. In two thousand eight, searchers discovered that Alabama spotted bass are actually a completely different fish from the originally described Kentucky spotted bass. Though the two are identical to the naked eye, the only way to tell them apart is to count the poured scales in a fish's ladder line with a magnifying glass. If it has
seventy or fewer, it's a Kentucky spot. If it has seventy one or more, it's an Alabama bass. Alabama bass create problems for both smallmouth and large mouth, which Kentucky spotted bass generally don't. Steve Salmons, an Auburn Fisheries scientists who specializes in black back species, describes them this way. Alabama bass are an extremely adaptable, aggressive fish that tend to be able to outcompete or hybridize with almost any
other bass species they come in contact with. Georgia, East Tennessee, and North Carolina bass fisheries have been hit particularly hard in the past decade, where some world class smalmouth and large mouth fisheries have seen signal eificant declients. In some North Carolina bass lakes, anglers now report catching three Alabama
bass for every one large mouth or small mouth Bill. Frasier, conservation director for the North Carolina b Ass Nation, was quoted as saying we had national class fisheries rivaled only by Texas and Florida. Now they are ruined to make things worse. While the Alabama bass and California reservoirs grew to trophy size, it appears that in many systems where other bass are already present, introduced Alabama spots don't get much larger than Kentucky spots. This is yet another reminder
that bucket biology is a bad idea. Moving fish between waters is illegal, but more importantly, it can backfire. I realize anglers who do this usually think they're doing themselves and other people of favor, but most North Carolina bass
anglers aren't feeling too appreciative. The good news, however, is it spotted bass are both plentiful and tasty, and if anglers in the nose you cutting up a limit of spots at the boat ram, they'll probably give you a nod of approval, Whereas if you do the same thing with a pile of large mouth or Smalley's, you might get your trailer tires slashed. So I'll tell you what, man, many people over the years have tried to lure me into the spotted bass game. And it's not that I
don't want to do it. I just haven't gotten around to it. But I've been tipped off to these as like seasonal river runs for them in the South and mid Atlantic that sound really awesome, really amazing. I also get photos from people now and again and they're like, did I just catch a large mouth croppy hybrid? And I asked where they live, and one hundred percent of the time it's in spotted bass territory. And I'm like, nope,
that is just the spotted bass. Yeah, And that's applicable because we actually get a fair number of fish I D requests and I like those. I think those, Yeah, I'll. I have been known to go all in and like call in my friends if I don't instantly recognize them, which I don't, and I will. I don't know always figured out, but I will do the research and see what I can find out, because now I'm just invested. Yeah, me too. I had a listener dm me a fish
he caught in California, in San Francisco Delta. No clue what it was, but I spent almost forty minutes trying to figure it out. I took a guess. I said, I think it's this, but if I'm wrong, you know, let me know. And he actually he eventually followed up and I would dude, I was way off, and it was so it was so long ago, this is months ago. I don't even remember what it was. But it was like the blue line, swamp, Gobi loach sucker or something. I I know, I know what you're talking about, cause
he sent that to me too. It was a long time ago because I also I did it incorrectly and he followed up It's like, nope, it's this. So both of us lost some credibility with with whoever that was. But more recently I got one from uh Nick squeally I think, let's how he says his name, squalia And it turned out to be a blue head chub with these badass spikes coming up. Yeah, also known as tubercles uh And you can see that photo on my Instagram.
But the point it is, we really do like to help out and and We're like, well, no, we can't always help, but when we can, and then when we have time, and Joe is going to close out the show with our end of line center this week by schooling it's up on a fly that's not only falling off of many radars, but often gets misidentified when radars do pick it back up. Well, that's not loud enough.
The crease fly was invented by Long Island, New York based captain Joe Blattos in the late nine nineties to imitate peanut bunker, a primary food source of the local stripe, bass and blue fish. And the quote I read online Blados once described the crease fly as a round popper that got run over by a truck, and that's actually
a spot on description. Crease flies have a short, sparse tail, usually made of a pinch of synthetic flash material or bucktail, and the body is simply a piece of craft foam that starts out sort of bullet shaped, but as then folded over around the hook shank and glued together to create the profile of a bait fish. Add some eyes, maybe get creative with some magic markers, Slather the foam
in apoxy, and you've got a crease fly. But the thing is, you probably don't got a crease fly, because this pattern manages to be both a staple or completely absent in fly boxes depending on who you talk to. If you're a guide in the wool salty fly guy that fishes the northeast, strong chance you've got a crease
flyer too. In fact, it might even be as essential to you as a cloudser Minnow outside of this area, however, I feel like the issue is that people just aren't sure what to do with one, why they need it, or what it does exactly. A matter of fact, the proper method of fishing a crease fly is often debated in fly forums, and in my opinion, there really is no right or wrong answer most people, except that the crease fly is designed primarily to be fished on the surface.
What I think throws people off, however, is that they expected to fish like a popper. They try to fish it like a popper, and when it doesn't work like a popper, they cut it off and tie on a popper. Because of the crease flies lightweight, slim profile, and thin head, it doesn't throw a ton of water, and if you try to overstrip it to make it chill, you'll often find that you just pull it right out of the water.
The crease fly is about creating a subtler commotion. It gurgles a bit, darts a bit, and if you finesse it, it'll even die of a bit. I've found that to make it work effectively, it's more about wrist twitching than using your whole forearm to work that sucker like a muskie fly. In essence, when fish correctly, the crease fly is what i'd call a near surface fly, constantly causing a general rucus on and just below that salty film.
But other keyboard commandos insist that the crease fly was always intended to be a completely subsurface pattern, and they say that what Blottos wanted was for it to be fished on an intermediate sinking line that would form a belly and pull the fly under during the retrieve. Now, without asking Blottos, the truth may never be found. But the real truth is the crease fly catches fish with
both presentations, making very very versatile. It's a favorite of mine from mahi mahi as well as stripers, particularly in wide open water with no current and in those scenarios I actually favor the intermediate sinc tip line method, and find that if you can get a crease fly under just a few inches, man, when you hit it, that thing's got a little wiggle, little shimmy, little wobble that
those fish just cannot resist. Now, as a river fly, it's not as effective because it takes very little water flow to override the action you're trying to achieve with the rotten line. But I have caught a mess of large mouths on creased flies over the years, barely twitching one across the surface of a flat com pond on a muggy summer evening. Now, perhaps even better than the creased flies ability to catch fish is how simple it is to tie. Furthermore, it gives you a nice, roomy
canvas to flex your artistic abilities on. I actually tie them with my kids, often letting them add rainbow colors and scribbles and whatever else they want before sealing them up with a POxy. I've been known to add bluegill patterns, frog colors for bass, fire, tiger patterns for pike, and subtle pinks and purples to mimic salty bait fish. If, however, you just totally suck acid coloring, leave him white, don't get trash just as hard. So that's it for this week.
Hopefully we've not left you with questions like should I really be fishing under the power lens? Which you should? And our spotted best actually cooler than small mouths, which they might be? Or can you be metal and be into him radio? Yes you can. Finally, should I buy flies from a local shop instead of off Instagram? Yes you should, man, But while you're on Instagram not looking for cheap flies, tag stuff to generate Angler and Bent podcast.
We see all of it. We see it all, and if we grab something you tag for a repost, you get stickers. Also, please please do keep all your questions, comments and concerns coming to Bent at the metator dot com. We love hearing from you, and I was serious about sending us questions. Right. If we get enough good ones, maybe we'll build a whole show around them around your questions, or maybe we'll make them a regular segment like we
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tracks playing around. The children's kind of picked, kind of picked the raunchiest and most emotionally scarring ones. Speaking of Rogie, don't forget to erase your ask Jeeves search history before donating your old computer to the local Catholic school. The Woman the Best My Life